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Flame » in reply to re: Survivor of the tornado

Death to God
azstrummer — (archived)

Your logic that death means nothing to God makes perfect sense if that death invokes no suffering in the victim. Unfortunately REB, very rarely is death instant. Often it involves tremendous pain and horror. We're also completely ignoring people that are grievously injured and go on with long painful and/or disabled lives afterwards. So applying your logic to God being benevolent because life goes on after death implies he has a callous lack of caring for human suffering during life. You can have it one way or the other not both.

For you to invoke the concept of free will and then attempt to somehow excuse God because death means nothing to him clearly illustrates the dichotomy of religious thought about a higher power. It's simply too convenient to grant him the ability to answer prayers and save someone in one instant and then go on to assume things are just set into motion and allowed to evolve naturally. It smacks of philosophy by the seat of the pants.

I do have empathy for the people that somehow find solace in their beliefs during times of tragedy and would never get in their faces about their pronouncements during their time of stress. The time for debate about this is when we're removed from the conflict as I would assume we are in these forums. That's why Tom's reply irked me so much because he implied that, for me to debate this issue with any credibility, I should've disrupted the memorial service I was in or called the woman who thanked God for her safety and took her to the carpet for her idiocy. How absolutely absurd. It's the way a cruel mind works and as always shows this black and white thinking that has so polarized all our debates.

The issue is one that will never be resolved in our lifetimes but debate is good for all of us and I think it will eventually lead to a slow evolution away from organized religion and into some hybrid of basic spirituality. I appreciate your calm and respectful viewpoint. Others on the other side of the issue could learn from your technique.

Art

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