God's Tests (?)

[kurious_kathy]

Commentary here: http://www.zimbio.com/Autism/articles/14/Autism+and+Denial

And here: http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=68006

Seizures certainly are treatable... but not to a family who thinks mental problems are caused by a "reactive mind".

This is tragic beyond belief.

But are we supposed to pretend that their faith was not implicated in any way? If Scientologists will not take anti-seizure medicines due to their fear of psychiatry, then religious convictions may well have played a role in yet another child's death.

I don't blame the parents. But how many of these are there going to be before we dismantle this notion that "faith" is a means to truth? How can you blame parents for doing what they truly believe is best when we live in a society where faith is considered the highest of virtues-- and there is no way to tell a "good" faith or a "true" faith from a false one, is there?

I do not buy the scientology crud but I do not buy this either, faith is important. Only God knows our hearts and tests our thoughts/actions so he is the only one that can truly test our faith to be true or not! It's not up to anyone of us to judge eachother, let God do his job.

I have always liked John Travolta and feel bad for his family. Death is a hard thing to handle for everyone, but the loss of a child is heartbreaking.

[bokonon]

Only God knows our hearts and tests our thoughts/actions so he is the only one that can truly test our faith to be true or not!It is pointless to test that which is already known. Your belief is irrational.

[Monketey Ghost]

It is pointless to test that which is already known. Your belief is irrational.

Welcome to the annual meeting of the Flat Earth Society. Here in the Grand Ballroom of the JREF forums... (mic check, squeal) does everyone have their brochures?

[kurious_kathy]

Yes we like our gods to be invisible and our saints safely dead. That way they can fulfill every fantasy we have.

Heaven is not a fantasy, and hell is surely no place anyone wants to end up in! If I were you I would try to avoid the second death my friends for it will surely be more painful than the first if your deny your maker!! Jesus Lives!!!

[kurious_kathy]

It is pointless to test that which is already known. Your belief is irrational.

Can absolute truth be irrational?? I do NOT think truth can be irrational but life changing!!

[Roadtoad]

I do not buy the scientology crud but I do not buy this either, faith is important. Only God knows our hearts and tests our thoughts/actions so he is the only one that can truly test our faith to be true or not! It's not up to anyone of us to judge eachother, let God do his job.

I have always liked John Travolta and feel bad for his family. Death is a hard thing to handle for everyone, but the loss of a child is heartbreaking.

Heaven is not a fantasy, and hell is surely no place anyone wants to end up in! If I were you I would try to avoid the second death my friends for it will surely be more painful than the first if your deny your maker!! Jesus Lives!!!

Can absolute truth be irrational?? I do NOT think truth can be irrational but life changing!!

First, Kathy, I would ask you to start here. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=132452) If you're going to jump into this, expect this kind of response.

Second, we're talking about a young man's possible medical condition. This functions on scientific FACTS. At present, we have none.

Your posts have accomplished nothing in regards to this. If you want to state your beliefs, fine. You have every right to do so. But leaping into a thread, taking it off topic, and spamming the board with your religious zeal accomplishes nothing.

You have shown nothing in the way of a comparison between what you believe, Scientology, and why your way is superior, or how it might have helped Jett Travolta. You have, in fact, added to a hostile environment here, and made a rational response to this situation more difficult. Had you bothered to read what anyone else had to say, instead of seeing this as another opportunity to "witness" witlessly, you might have been able to provide a well considered response to this tragedy.

If it's your goal to insult and degrade those who post here, you're doing a bang-up job. Instead of winning anyone to your view and to Christ, you're showing a great many of us why we left the Church, and people like you. Frankly, when someone asks you for a loaf of bread, telling how to change the oil in their car makes as much sense as what you're doing here.

At this point, I'm being pretty respectful of you. I'm about to lose it, though. You might want to reconsider your activities on this board, and likely on others. There are people who might actually have a degree of respect for you if you didn't insult their intelligence.

If you want me or others to believe there's a God, a heaven, a hell, or even hope, you might want to take a long, hard look at your actions, and consider what you're showing us of any of that. It isn't much. In fact, if you were the only witness I had to the Eternal, I'd be damned thankful if you were wrong.

[MattusMaximus]

Heaven is not a fantasy, and hell is surely no place anyone wants to end up in! If I were you I would try to avoid the second death my friends for it will surely be more painful than the first if your deny your maker!! Jesus Lives!!!

He does. He and some other hard-working guys came by my house last summer and trimmed the trees. Nice guy, that Jesus. :)

[Lonewulf]

Heaven is not a fantasy,

False.

[Moochie]

<snip>

You have shown nothing in the way of a comparison between what you believe, Scientology, and why your way is superior, or how it might have helped Jett Travolta. You have, in fact, added to a hostile environment here, and made a rational response to this situation more difficult. Had you bothered to read what anyone else had to say, instead of seeing this as another opportunity to "witness" witlessly, you might have been able to provide a well considered response to this tragedy.

<snip>



The highlighted phrase describes what KK is doing perfectly.

And that's a great post, RT.


M.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Heaven is not a fantasy, and hell is surely no place anyone wants to end up in! If I were you I would try to avoid the second death my friends for it will surely be more painful than the first if your deny your maker!! Jesus Lives!!!

No. Everyone knows it's "Flick Lives".

[truethat]

Heaven is not a fantasy, and hell is surely no place anyone wants to end up in! If I were you I would try to avoid the second death my friends for it will surely be more painful than the first if your deny your maker!! Jesus Lives!!!


I'm curious about you kathy, do you mind answering a few questions?

I'm assuming that you are Christian? Are you? What are your religious beliefs and do you consider them the way? Do you accept the bible is God's message to mankind?

[Tiktaalik]

...It's not up to anyone of us to judge eachother, let God do his job.

It is exactly up to us to judge, and refusing to do so is chickening out. It is up to us to make life-or-death decisions; it is up to us to decide what effect actions we take now will have on life on earth in the future; it is our express responsibility.

Just because these decisions are hard does not mean it's okay to abdicate them.

[Beerina]

Heaven is not a fantasy, and hell is surely no place anyone wants to end up in! If I were you I would try to avoid the second death my friends for it will surely be more painful than the first if your deny your maker!! Jesus Lives!!!

What if everything were exactly the same, but instead of Hell, there was Amusement Park, where the people who couldn't get into Heaven went instead, where they could ride rides and eat corn dogs and stuff?


That reality would be superior to this one, wouldn't it?

[Mister Agenda]

Hi, Kathy! I can empathize with where you're coming from. I was raised Pentecostal, and there was a time when the idea that there might be a good reason not to believe in the existence of God and the divinity of Jesus was literally unthinkable for me. When I was praying, I could feel Him. When I listened I could hear Him. I spoke in tongues, trusting I was a vessel for God's words. I read the KJV from cover to cover, and then read the New English version cover to cover, plus I must have read the KJV New Testament three or four times. I went to church camp. I fasted. I witnessed. I imagined myself a soldier for Christ, and that I would spend my life in the church.

But...I noticed some discrepancies in the Bible, which I had been told MUST be inerrant because it is the word of God. I noticed God ordered some horrible things in the Old Testament, things I couldn't see reconciling with an all-good deity that loves us all. I noticed as the Hebrews changed, God changed, from a mountain god, to a war god, to a supreme god; and from one of many gods to the only god. I started to think the unthinkable. I started to think maybe this is the work of ancient people who attributed things they didn't understand and things lost to history and rules they wanted their tribe to obey to a supernatural being. I started to think the same thing about the Hebrews that I already thought about the ancient Greeks and Norse and their relationship to the supernatural. I started to think that maybe the Bible was partly history and partly myth and legend. I started to think it might not be the best source of information about God.

Once I started thinking, it was hard to stop. Many religions seem capable of producing the religious feelings I had. I can still have them now if I want. When I listened for God, was it God answering me or were the answers coming from within me? When God answered my prayers, the answer was always yes, no, or later. You can pray to anything at all and get your prayers answered in similar fashion. If Adam and Eve didn't know good from evil until after they tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, how could they have sinned by eating it, when by definition they didn't know it was wrong to disobey God? Why did God lie about them dying the same day they ate of the fruit, why did God pretend he didn't know what was going on, why was the serpent the only one speaking the truth to Eve? Why did God have a problem defeating a tribe because of their iron chariots? Why did he drown the world instead of just striking the evil people dead? Why did he harden Pharoah's heart? Why did he have to sacrifice himself/his son to himself to justify forgiving humanity's sins, and then said no more sacrifices were required...he could have said that in the first place if he's God! Why did Jesus say he was coming back while some of his followers were still alive if it was going to be over 2,000 years? Why should people who never heard of Jesus go to hell? If they didn't go to hell, why tell them when it could only hurt their chances?

The whole thing was very shaky, and hard to reconcile with a competent God, let alone a perfect, just, and merciful one who loves us. I started doubting other things I had believed, like psychic phenomena and alien visitation. I found out things I thought were proven, like ESP, were unreliable because it was demonstrable how easily hoaxed the scientists studying it were. I tried to keep room for God, after all there's no way to know for sure there isn't one, and I didn't have a better explanation for things. But science kept making the origins of things more explainable and understandable.

I went to college eventually, and took logic, and started to see how bad every argument I knew for the existence of God was, and more importantly I learned how burden of proof is assigned, and why. With the aid of a religion professor who tried very hard to prove God logically, I came to realize that I hadn't really believed in God for a long time, and because the burden of proof is on the person who makes the positive claim, I didn't have to try to keep a spot open for God. I can change my mind if any convincing evidence of his existence comes up, in the mean time, since the answer to the question 'Do you believe in God?' in my case is 'no', I am happily an atheist, and no longer carrying a bad case of cognitive dissonance trying to believe what I know ain't true, to paraphrase an old saying.

The journey from devout Pentecostal to acknowledged atheist was about 20 years. Maybe God tested me and I failed. Exposed to new ideas I could no longer believe as a child does. Kathy, you're subjecting yourself to the same test. Can you read the responses to your posts here and keep your faith? Can you be sure you're not starting a process that will lead you years from now to where I am today? I feel like I was sleepwalking and brainwashed then. I hope someday you can know what it's like to be responsible to yourself, your loved ones, and your fellow human beings instead of to an invisible power.