Checkmite
27th October 2004, 09:52 PM
I find it very funny that whenever a hurricane does not hit Florida (for example), resident loudmouthed evengelists like Pat Robertson like to take credit, insisting that, without doubt, the hurricane's course was altered because God answered their all-powerful prayers. Of course, when a hurricane does hit Florida, it's not because their prayers didn't work; it's because God answered "no" because he had some gay people or abortion doctors to kill or otherwise punish as part of His Great Plan, and to hell (more or less) with the good peoples' prayers. (As an aside, it seems to me that God needs a new gay-killing method. In this day and age, hurricane deaths rarely enter the double digits, and the chances that any of them were gay are, like, negligible.) Interestingly, it never occurs to these people that there's an alternative - that the hurricanes that didn't hit Florida were not answered prayers, but merely also part of God's Great Plan; in other words, they would've missed Florida whether everyone prayed or nobody prayed.
Hurricanes are horribly devastating. Not many people die anymore, but property is damaged and lives are destroyed. Yet, we're told that this terrible tragedy is actually a Good Thing - because it was part of God's Great Plan, and nothing God would do can be Bad, even if it otherwise seems Bad. God works in mysterious ways, after all.
Therefore, I demand that this self-reinforcing delusive logic be applied to us as well. By "us", I mean atheists, agnostics, fellow deists, non-Christian theists, and non-fundamentalist Christians. God caused us to be exposed to evidence that could only lead us to the conclusions we now stand by. The only reason we are not fundamentalist Christians is because God, through various means, planted the seeds of heresy in our brains, and nurtured those seeds, allowing them to blossom. And "exposure to the message" does not matter, because God has known ever since we were born that such exposure would simply not work on us. Think about it: if God really wanted us to believe what fundamentalists like 1inChrist want us to believe, then he could surely provide us with much better evidence - something more compelling than a (very nice) stranger who insists that we should believe what he tells us simply because he "knows he's right". After all, when God created us in the womb, he gifted us all with particular talents and tendencies. One of the tendencies he has seen fit to bestow upon us is to value empiricism, and - being God - he must've known what these tendencies would bring us, and he must know what it will take for us to change our minds.
Knowing this, God has decided not to change our minds. This is obviously because he does not want us to be fundamentalist Christians. There can be no other explanation.
Attention, 1inChrist and others of like mind: Our not being fundamentalist Christians is part of God's Great Plan. You must learn to deal with it, the way you deal with the occasional hurricane that hits despite your prayers. You may pray that one day you will be able to convert us "heathens", but God has answered those prayers, and the answer is "no".
Oh, by the way - I win this debate. (argument from preemptive declaration of victory)
Hurricanes are horribly devastating. Not many people die anymore, but property is damaged and lives are destroyed. Yet, we're told that this terrible tragedy is actually a Good Thing - because it was part of God's Great Plan, and nothing God would do can be Bad, even if it otherwise seems Bad. God works in mysterious ways, after all.
Therefore, I demand that this self-reinforcing delusive logic be applied to us as well. By "us", I mean atheists, agnostics, fellow deists, non-Christian theists, and non-fundamentalist Christians. God caused us to be exposed to evidence that could only lead us to the conclusions we now stand by. The only reason we are not fundamentalist Christians is because God, through various means, planted the seeds of heresy in our brains, and nurtured those seeds, allowing them to blossom. And "exposure to the message" does not matter, because God has known ever since we were born that such exposure would simply not work on us. Think about it: if God really wanted us to believe what fundamentalists like 1inChrist want us to believe, then he could surely provide us with much better evidence - something more compelling than a (very nice) stranger who insists that we should believe what he tells us simply because he "knows he's right". After all, when God created us in the womb, he gifted us all with particular talents and tendencies. One of the tendencies he has seen fit to bestow upon us is to value empiricism, and - being God - he must've known what these tendencies would bring us, and he must know what it will take for us to change our minds.
Knowing this, God has decided not to change our minds. This is obviously because he does not want us to be fundamentalist Christians. There can be no other explanation.
Attention, 1inChrist and others of like mind: Our not being fundamentalist Christians is part of God's Great Plan. You must learn to deal with it, the way you deal with the occasional hurricane that hits despite your prayers. You may pray that one day you will be able to convert us "heathens", but God has answered those prayers, and the answer is "no".
Oh, by the way - I win this debate. (argument from preemptive declaration of victory)