Does God Have Favorites?
Offline First of all I want to give my condolonces to anyone here who knew any of the victims at Virginia Tech. This was a horrible tragedy that played itself out in a manner that teaches us that none of us are really safe anywhere. Please, always be careful.
I do find extremely disturbing the following passage taken from today's NY Times:
“One of our really good friends was there,” said Ms. Payne, who had spoken to the student’s roommates. She said that the gunman came in and shot others in the classroom, but that her friend, who pretended to be dead, “by God’s grace, was salvaged.” (This was taken at a prayer service).
I guess God has favorites. It is sad that God would have to pick and choose which innocent victims and families to destroy, for apparently no reason at all. I find it disturbing that people would dare call anything that happened yesterday "God's Grace".
I guess christians need to hide behind a false sense of motive from an all loving god who picks and chooses which lives and families to destroy. It's all part of the god's plan. A plan which is undoubtedly sadistic (and which no christian can ever explain, no matter how positive they are there is a plan). What god would find pleasure in the fact that no matter what tragedies he throws at people, he knows that they will still be loyal to him? It's like a sick game.
But we all know the truth that these people are disillusioned. God's Grace did not touch the other 50 or so dead or injured. I guess they just didn't pray hard enough, they were probably gay, liberals or communists that didn't vote for George Bush, apparently, according to Ms. Payne deserved to die for they did not recieve God's Grace.
It just really bothers me that whenever a tragedy like this occurs. Those who came out of it alive, were chosen by god as if god has favorites. It's as if they are better than anyone else and it indirectly gives fault to those who did not make it as not being prefered by a god. It really irks me that people are so arrogant.
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I agree. remember reading in Losing faith in faith a letter Dan Barker sent to a paper regarding an article about about a massive car accident where they made similar comments - I'll comment on this incident in the same way:
Did God say..."Hmm... I'll save this Christian, but let the 2 atheists get shot. This Christian forgot to pray and said 'goddamn' last night, but is still a Christian so I'll just let him get paralyzed from the waist down...That young woman slept with her boyfriend last night - they aren't married, so she dies....", etc, etc, etc...
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There is another side to this, but usually only expressed more quietly and at funerals ... something along the lines of "god decided to reward *person* by bringing them in to heaven early".
I hope one day a journalist gets the balls to say some lunatic shot someone by god's grace or something like that.
Organised religion is the ultimate form of blasphemy.
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Excuse me, but don't dead believers go immediately to eternal bliss? Why be 'thankful' for living if the alternative is infinite bliss?
Reminds me of a story Freud used to tell, about a woman he met at a party, who had a sick relative. When he inquired about this person's health, he was told "Well, she's gone on to her great reward, but we prefer not to dwell on such horrible things"
Freud, an atheist, just smiled to himself.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
That is funny! What a deluded mindset.
It is funny, and delusional. Theists claim to believe in an afterlife, but you'll never find people who fear death more than theists fear it.... What intrigues me most is how theists view, death, and not hellfire, as the real threat. What are Adam and Eve threatened with? Hellfire? No, death. What does Cain fear as his retribution? Death. Or his son (old Mr. 7 times 7>
death. What befalls Onan? Death. On and on, the big threat in the bible is death.... it's not really until the sermon on the mount that we hear hellfire threats to any real detail.
Kent Hovind was once asked how he felt about death... he conceded that he didn't want to die. When asked why, he said "I believe I still have the Lord's work to do." Why an omnipotent, omniscient creator would 'need' him was not made clear.... but it was interesting that given the choice between eternal bliss, and trudging through this 'miserable life' Hovind chose to cling to his life....
Very, very, very telling... of what he really thinks, deep down. In fact, theism comes crashing down when death appears... theists learn to doubt their god when someone they care for dies, theists see death as the worst possible thing, not hellfire....
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
They also use the tired statement, "there are no atheists in foxholes", when in fact we know there are. But are there any TRUE christians at the time of death? If they followed scripture and desired to be with the lord like they claim, they would welcome death and anticipate it as a reward.
Does death point out a hypocracy in Christianity? Why would any Christian fear death, if he or she truly believed there was a magical heaven land to go to?
I see that as more of an embarrassing confession than something to crow about.... it's a concession that theism wins people over through fear.
And it does. I'm my least 'atheistic' at around 4 a.m., particularly if the power goes out.
Yes, in the sense that they are more than willing to believe.
No, in the sense that their fear of death usuall prevails...
Up until the point of death, that is. In that case, most people, atheist, theist, whatever-ist, tend to calm down a bit... acceptance....
Yes. Oddly enough, Jack Chick is the only christian who seems to get this right. I recall a Chick tract where a robber threatens a houseowner with death, and the homeowner smiles and basically says "hurray, I'm going to paradise!"
That's the proper reaction, if you actually believe... you're about to be put first in line in the ultimate Disneyland! Be happy!
But real people tend to fear death as if it's the end. And, as I said before, theists tend to hold that death, not hell, is the ultimate punishment.
"Hitler burned people like Anne Frank, for that we call him evil.
"God" burns Anne Frank eternally. For that, theists call him 'good.'
I would dare anyone to be able to say what you wrote after hearing something like the above quote.
Actually, if it were said by someone not close to a victim of this tragedy, I probably would.
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