What is the worst thing for apologists to defend?

[_barrelomonkeys]

Hi Barrelomonkeys,

I feel the same as you. A while back on this board I had started a thread on this very topic because there are so many people, especially children, who have real needs. Children who are orphaned, tortured, sex slaves, witness the massacre of their familes........ I want God to intervene with them, not spoiled Americans who actually believe God helped save them from illness, car accidents, where they should move, finding their car keys. etc. . I don't believe God is answering the prayers of Americans anymore than others. How sad that so many believers attribute their luxeries and "blessings" to a God that favors them over another.

I had a conversation a while back with my ultra TBM SIL on some charity work I wanted to start for children. I told her of the atrocities in Africa, and other places around the world that I felt God has ignored. I shared my thoughts on prayer and that I do not ask God to bless me with anything except the ability/inspiration to help those who are suffering. We talked for a while about Darfur, Iraq, Thailand, and other places of crisis. About 10 minutes after I finished pouring out my heart, she told me how blessed her family was to be moving out of state. God had answered their prayers on where to move and selling their home because they were faithful tithe payers. Their tithing was paid each month with debt and they were moving because they were in too deep! She really wanted a home they couldn't afford and told me how hard she had been praying that somehow they could get this house. Turns out they did get the house when the other one sold for more than planned, so she believes her prayers were answered. So God cares that she gets this beautiful home while He ignores the pleas and cries for help when children are having their limbs hacked off in Africa.

In LDS chapels each month (testimony meeting) you get to hear story after story of Mormons that believe God has blessed them and answered their prayers. Some of this stems from the belief many LDS have about the pre existence. There are many Mormons that believe people are placed in their circumstances because of how faithful they were in the pre existence. So an innocent child suffering at the hands of a pedophile/murderer must have been naughty in heaven. They believe millions of Africans are starving and suffering because of the pre existence. I brought this up with a bunch of women from Relief Society when I was struggling to understand suffering in the world that God seems to ignore. Almost every one of them believes we were born in America because of how faithful we were before we came! It's sickening & disturbing to me that people buy into this belief that they were so much better than another before we came to earth.

I get e-mails all the time from TBMs that share a story of how God helped them win a prize for being faithful, saved someones house in the church from burning down in a fire, protected the missionaries etc. If the story has a good ending, then God answered their prayers. If it has a bad ending, then it was His will and a blessing for them to have this challenge that brings them closer to God. It's a win win for believers.

I do believe if God exists, He expects me to help others in need because I have been given so much and that is why He doesn't intervene. If there is a test, I believe He wants us to sacrifice for another so we can grow and progress. That's the only way I can make sense of a world where God has allowed so much evil and suffering to exist.

Seven, I usually ignore it when people talk about God and healing or blessings. A month ago I had a health scare. My mother was frantic and called her preacher and my name (to my utter horror) was put on a prayer list. It ended up that it was nothing and I was fine. My mother attributed that I was fine to God interceding on my behalf. That was so ridiculous to me! I was actually offended by the thought that God would DARE to bother with me and my health when there were others more worthy and needy.

I know if He has tested me I have failed repeatedly.

[_Tarski]

You explain to me why I should thank God for my home and children when I see that. I really want to know! I don't know how others do it. I can't see suffering without feeling it myself. I can't see suffering and believe in God.

Why is that child in the photo suffering? What conditions led to his/her suffering?

Well, it all started a long time ago with a big bang and then some evolution. . Did God start it? Did he set this in motion knowing what would happen?
Why??

[_mentalgymnast]

If God allows his creatures to "choose you this day whom you will serve", how would this work if it became obvious to all that he had intervened in the world...even just once. He wouldn't be allowing people to be jackasses at this point without, well, looking like jackasses. The way it is, people can be jackasses and get away with it...for now. Simply put, in a world where it is obvious to all that God intervenes when humans are acting like jackasses then the choice to be one becomes somewhat more complicated and convoluted. If someone is going to be a jackass, then don't you think they ought to prove themselves as being one rather than limiting their opportunities to do so through direct intervention by God himself...in every instance?

You do realize that you are proving my point - the world with God looks exactly like the world without God, and believers explain this away just as you have done in this paragraph. Believers say it has to be that way to preserve the ability to have faith and the ability to choose. Of course, the right to the ability to choose doesn't hold up in LDSism because people chose in the pre-existence when the existence of God was plainly manifest. So all you are left with is the ability to have faith. Believers have difficulty explaining just why faith is an appropriate ultimate goal for the godbeing.

Anyway, I think you misunderstand human nature. Human beings are put into jail every day for violating the law - that's your "just once" - and yet many still violate the law. And the pre-existence proves that people would do the same thing even with God plainly manifest and his "law" plainly manifest. According to LDSism, Satan even willingly began playing his role when the plan of salvation was known due to haven been utilized in other worlds, so the outcome was already cast.

But, aside from all that, my point was that the world with God looks exactly like the world without God (and believers concede this when they construct arguments such as you have), and that is why, to me, adding a God is unnecessary, complicated, extraneous, and thereby highly unlikely.

I read through your comments multiple times and am not able to see anything that I disagree with, except for pushing God out of the picture.

I maintain that if God exists, it is fairly obvious that he takes a hands off position in regards to events in which people are going about exercising their free will/conscience. Why God would take the time to manifest an answer to a child's prayer to find his lost puppy, shoe, or whatever, and at the same time for no apparent rhyme or reason let/watch a child in Darfur suffer to the extreme is unanswerable. The fact is, however, that if God exists there is some way/mechanism by which all will be right. If not in this world, then in the next. If God is love, how could this not be so? We see through a glass darkly. I'm not at all convinced that I should discontinue belief in a loving, personal God simply because I can't wrap my mind around some of the significant...but unanswerable...questions dealing with the reality of a terribly fallen world of evil and destructive mayhem caused by people and natural events.

I prefer to have hope that all will be made right rather than caving in to Nihilism.

When all is said and done, believer or non-believer, we can only do the good that we can do to alleviate suffering, ignorance, and pain within our own sphere of influence.

That I think we could each agree on.

Regards,
MG

[_mentalgymnast]

You explain to me why I should thank God for my home and children when I see that. I really want to know! I don't know how others do it. I can't see suffering without feeling it myself. I can't see suffering and believe in God.

Why is that child in the photo suffering? What conditions led to his/her suffering?

Well, it all started a long time ago with a big bang and then some evolution. . Did God start it? Did he set this in motion knowing what would happen?
Why??

Did God start it? Well, if there is a God...then yes. Did he set this in motion knowing what would happen? Well, if there is a God...then yes.

Why?

Moral agency taken to the next level. With the result/knowledge that murder, mayhem. and suffering would in many cases be the result.

Does God support/condone wanton (malicious or unjustifiable) murder, mayhem, and suffering?

No.

Can we ALL agree on that? At least based on the assumption that God exists?

Someone's gonna bring up the Old Testament.

Regards,
MG

[_beastie]

I read through your comments multiple times and am not able to see anything that I disagree with, except for pushing God out of the picture.

I figured you were really agreeing with me because your comments seemed to prove my point. That is why I stated, as a given, that the world with God looks exactly like the world without God. Believers know this. This is why they create explanations for it.

As far as I understand, logic pretty much requires to NOT add an extraneous complication - ie, God. So the addition of God is an act that is contrary to logic and science. I'm not saying that critically, human beings act outside of logic and science quite frequently. I'm just stating it as fact.

When all is said and done, believer or non-believer, we can only do the good that we can do to alleviate suffering, ignorance, and pain within our own sphere of influence.

That I think we could each agree on.

Absolutely.

[_barrelomonkeys]

Edit: Post removed- it was dumb.

sailgirl! Your post wasn't dumb! I read all of it and appreciated what you said. You had some really well thought out points. I'm sorry you deleted it.

[_Some Schmo]

Humbling yourself before a deity has no inherent survival value so I can't see an evolutionary reason for it. I also imagine we'd have less of a sense of awe and a diminished appreciation of beauty. They also seems to serve no real purpose. Many of the things attached to sentience serve no real survival purpose. They do make sense if a God wants the people of Earth to be running all over creation in a physical and mental sense looking for him.

You don't think that agreeing with people has a survival advantage? If someone with power tells you to perform certain rituals, it may be in your best interests to do what you're told. I'm pretty sure more people have been killed over disagreements (philosophical or otherwise) than for any other reason. People are blowing up buildings due to not worshipping the same way others do.

The evolution of our brains has everything to do with enhancing our survival. And you need to remember that not all features of our biology are directly for survival, but are often byproducts of other features that enhance our survival.

[_The Nehor]

You explain to me why I should thank God for my home and children when I see that. I really want to know! I don't know how others do it. I can't see suffering without feeling it myself. I can't see suffering and believe in God.

Why is that child in the photo suffering? What conditions led to his/her suffering?

Well, it all started a long time ago with a big bang and then some evolution. . Did God start it? Did he set this in motion knowing what would happen?
Why??

If an omniscient being considers it worth it then it is.

[_The Nehor]

You don't think that agreeing with people has a survival advantage? If someone with power tells you to perform certain rituals, it may be in your best interests to do what you're told. I'm pretty sure more people have been killed over disagreements (philosophical or otherwise) than for any other reason. People are blowing up buildings due to not worshipping the same way others do.

The evolution of our brains has everything to do with enhancing our survival. And you need to remember that not all features of our biology are directly for survival, but are often byproducts of other features that enhance our survival.

Obeying a person out of fear is not new I admit. To add to that philosophy and religion then seem to have no survival value. We'd be a less violent species if we just killed to secure food and mates like every other species.

[_Some Schmo]

You don't think that agreeing with people has a survival advantage? If someone with power tells you to perform certain rituals, it may be in your best interests to do what you're told. I'm pretty sure more people have been killed over disagreements (philosophical or otherwise) than for any other reason. People are blowing up buildings due to not worshipping the same way others do.

The evolution of our brains has everything to do with enhancing our survival. And you need to remember that not all features of our biology are directly for survival, but are often byproducts of other features that enhance our survival.

Obeying a person out of fear is not new I admit. To add to that philosophy and religion then seem to have no survival value. We'd be a less violent species if we just killed to secure food and mates like every other species.

I highly recommend The God Delusion for some excellent explanations of the evolutionary justification for religion.

The fact that religion is culturally ubiquitous does not speak to its validity or truthfulness. It does, however, speak to the nature of humankind's mental architecture.