Seven wrote:This question has been weighing on my mind after reading a horrific story of the torture and murder of a 2 year old boy Jamie Bulger. You can read the story here if you can stomach it:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/bulger.aspWe see so many disturbing stories in the news everyday of innocent little children or good men and women who are kidnapped and tortured. Some are murdered and some are tortured slaves. After watching the movies "Hotel Ruwanda" and "Blood Diamond" I began to feel very insignificant to God. Why doesn't He care about these people? There is a documentary I want to see called "God grew tired of us" (appropriatly titled), about the African boys who escaped after watching their families murdered by Muslims for their belief in Christ.
Why do I think God would care about what I need if He allows all of these atrocities to happen?
My needs seem pretty shallow in comparison to the people and children crying out to God for help while He ignores their pleas. The innocent Jamie Bulger who was crying for his Mom while she is praying to God for help in finding her son, but He allowed these 10 year old boys to commit the most heinous crime on her little boy.
Why do we even bother asking God to help us? Why should we believe our prayers our so special that He would help us in whatever needs we have?
I know the TBM response would be that God can't interfere with our free agency.
If that is true, there would be no miracles in the scriptures and no stories of God saving anybody.
If we believe the scriptures are true, then
God does intervene with our agnecy. He picks and chooses who He will intervene with. When I hear stories from LDS who believe God intervened with Priesthood blessings, or saved them in a car accident, I want to ask them:
"what makes you think you are so special that God saved you, yet He allows all of these innocent children or families to be victims of the most horrific crimes imaginable?" I believe in God and Jesus Christ, but I don't understand why we should pray for their blessings or help anymore. I have an easier time believing God never intervenes, and allows nature to take its course. What are your beliefs?
If your prayers have been answered, why do you believe they were?
--------------------
Your first assumption:
God is not warranted. There is no evidence for
God. Hence, your
belief in is irrelevant. Attempting to construct a rationale for particulars of the
God invention is, therefore also irrelevant.
Second,
dead people don’t have a story. Only people who survive a seemingly unsurvivable catastrophe
tell stories. The dead tell no stories. So we never have their version of
failed intervention by God.
You
believe whatever religious mythology into which you were indoctrinated. If you were Muslim, you would believe some version of
that mythology. Thus,
what you
believe is irrelevant to the extent that such belief is lacking in genuine evidence and factual support.
People
believe their “prayers” were answered who are
alive and have a story to tell. For example: if they prayed for recovery from a catastrophe which was theirs to endure (illness, accident, etc.) AND if they lived to tell a story, they may well
believe their prayers were answered.
Dead people don’t tell stories. So people who died yet
offered the same kind of
prayer, have
no story.
Only the friends and relatives can make up stories about the death.
There is no evidence for
God, hence no evidence for
God’s intervention as many wish and believe.
Your disbelief in
God’s intervention is more rational. However, belief in
God in the sense of any current religious mythology remains irrational.
JAK