Jump to content
Goodbye Jesus

When Cancer Strikes, Where The Hell Is God?


Brother Jeff

Recommended Posts

This is from a personal discussion I had with a good friend on this glorious site tonight. I don't think she would mind me sharing it. Got off on a bit of a rant. But it seems worth sharing.

 

We lost a relative to the disease (breast cancer) when she was only 34 a few year ago. She suffered and died horribly... she was eaten up with cancer all over her body, and both of her lungs collapsed and she suffocated to death in the hospital... Where the hell was God when all this shit was happening? Makes me so angry to hear about how God heals and answers prayer when I've seen how horribly he fails at both constantly, but of course that's because he doesn't exist...

 

 

I posted this to Facebook too, so who knows what the backlash might be from my Christian friends? But I'm really past caring who I offend with my opinions on the subject of religion...

 

Glory!

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

This is from a personal discussion I had with a good friend on this glorious site tonight. I don't think she would mind me sharing it. Got off on a bit of a rant. But it seems worth sharing.
 
We lost a relative to the disease (breast cancer) when she was only 34 a few year ago. She suffered and died horribly... she was eaten up with cancer all over her body, and both of her lungs collapsed and she suffocated to death in the hospital... Where the hell was God when all this shit was happening? Makes me so angry to hear about how God heals and answers prayer when I've seen how horribly he fails at both constantly, but of course that's because he doesn't exist...
 
 
I posted this to Facebook too, so who knows what the backlash might be from my Christian friends? But I'm really past caring who I offend with my opinions on the subject of religion...
 
Glory!

 

 

Why do you seem to worry so much about backlash on FB or from people who you don't even agree with in the first place. Maybe you did in the past but you don't know. Stop giving them any "face" time by even talkinb about what they like and don't. Chistians like their own opinion and little else. At least most I have met in America.

 

most of those so called christians should to working in an oncology ward before then say anything about cancer. Not a fun way to go out of this world but so many people do. Maybe their money and time would be better spent to cure this shit rather than pay more to pray more.

 

 

By the way who exactly are you angry with? or is it just anger in general of the stupidity of weak people blinded by the hope of something better as they die?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Super Moderator

Nobody should expect much from an imaginary being. I suspect on some deep level even the most faithful realize this and that's why they feel obliged to cut their god so much slack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Super Moderator
Nobody should expect much from an imaginary being. I suspect on some deep level even the most faithful realize this and that's why they feel obliged to cut their god so much slack.

 

 

And seek medical attention.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My boss has multiple myeloma and was on his death bed before being diagnosed. They then gave him only a few years to live. He went through a new treatment that involved stem cells and is now in great shape. He said about 50% of the people going through the treatment didn't make it. He was a bible thumper before and still is. He likes to say "The Lord isn't done with me yet. He's still got plans for me." I just want to ask him, what about all of those people that were going through the treatment that didn't survive? What about the doctors, nurses and advances in modern medicine? Science saved his life, not some imaginary being.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My mum died of cancer and believed until the very end, she did her Bible study every morning despite the pain she was in and the distress she felt. Certainly she expressed not understanding why this was happening to her and to us despite having been in the church her entire life.

 

Up until her death she was believing, hoping, and praying for a miracle as were the rest of us, our family and friends, and their congregations. God did nothing, said nothing. He did not cure her, he did not heal her. He did nothing for her.

 

After she passed away I had Christians coming up to me and telling me that it was God's will, that in His 'mercy' he had taken her to be with him in heaven.

 

Bullshit I say. She didn't want to die, she wanted to be with her family, she was 49 and still had so many memories to make with the family she loved.

 

Of course I'm grateful for the time we had, she went through breast cancer in 2000 and made it out the other side. I'm thankful for that but slowly I'm beginning to realise that God had nothing to do with either circumstance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nobody should expect much from an imaginary being. I suspect on some deep level even the most faithful realize this and that's why they feel obliged to cut their god so much slack.

 

I remember this. It was around the time I'd been introduced to skepticism, and I noticed that over the years there had been zero correlation between my prayers and my health. I resolved the cognitive dissonance by entering my NOMA phase.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My boss has multiple myeloma and was on his death bed before being diagnosed. They then gave him only a few years to live. He went through a new treatment that involved stem cells and is now in great shape. He said about 50% of the people going through the treatment didn't make it. He was a bible thumper before and still is. He likes to say "The Lord isn't done with me yet. He's still got plans for me." I just want to ask him, what about all of those people that were going through the treatment that didn't survive? What about the doctors, nurses and advances in modern medicine? Science saved his life, not some imaginary being.

 

But the Lord used those humans as tools by manipulating their minds with god magic and all of those that didn't survive were needed in Heaven (or if any of those that did not survive were unrepentant sinners, then they deserved to die and go to the lake of fire). You should know that.

 

GONZ9729CustomImage1539775.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From following the faith, I recall thinking when faced with the deaths of loved ones that "God had a plan." And it wasn't for me to question. That God's plan was best and that suffering wasn't a part of his plan, but he is there is our suffering.

 

I remember losing a friend to cancer last year and by that point, I was an atheist. Grieving without "God" was hard, but possible. You have to find new ways of viewing pain, suffering and loss. We are all in this together and no one suffers alone. I find that more soothing than pretending there's a cosmic after life where my loved one drifted off to.

 

God was never a solution for grief to me. Where was God is definitely a question that sprung to mind a lot when watching people suffer.

 

A great topic to discuss Brother Jeff...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

This is from a personal discussion I had with a good friend on this glorious site tonight. I don't think she would mind me sharing it. Got off on a bit of a rant. But it seems worth sharing.
 
We lost a relative to the disease (breast cancer) when she was only 34 a few year ago. She suffered and died horribly... she was eaten up with cancer all over her body, and both of her lungs collapsed and she suffocated to death in the hospital... Where the hell was God when all this shit was happening? Makes me so angry to hear about how God heals and answers prayer when I've seen how horribly he fails at both constantly, but of course that's because he doesn't exist...
 
 
I posted this to Facebook too, so who knows what the backlash might be from my Christian friends? But I'm really past caring who I offend with my opinions on the subject of religion...
 
Glory!

 

I can relate to this. My own ex-timony came at the hands of my best friend who passed from bone marrow cancer at age 22. His passing, along with me looking toward the sky and asking why, led me down my path of disbelief and once I came home that evening to see a news story of another man in his middle 40s getting jailed for life on the rape and murder of a little girl - I returned my gaze to that same sky and said: "Really? You'll take my best friend, a man who was devout in your word and wouldn't hurt anyone, but this scum of the earth not only lived longer than my friend, but will spend the rest of his days in jail. This is your answer? Screw you."

 

My best friend died despite the multitude of prayers, pleas, cries, begs (I even offered to take the cancer from my best friend, take it from him and give it to me - because he was, and still is, even in death, a better man that I ever could hope to be.) That silence, plus everything else coming together - all of it makes me ask the same question to anyone who has a close person to them spared death's scythe and yell: "Praise the Lord!!!!!!!" What about my friend, the one that the scythe didn't miss?

 

Oh, I forgot - there is god's will for that. F*ck that...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Super Moderator

My mum died of cancer and believed until the very end, she did her Bible study every morning despite the pain she was in and the distress she felt. Certainly she expressed not understanding why this was happening to her and to us despite having been in the church her entire life.

 

Up until her death she was believing, hoping, and praying for a miracle as were the rest of us, our family and friends, and their congregations. God did nothing, said nothing. He did not cure her, he did not heal her. He did nothing for her.

 

After she passed away I had Christians coming up to me and telling me that it was God's will, that in His 'mercy' he had taken her to be with him in heaven.

 

Bullshit I say. She didn't want to die, she wanted to be with her family, she was 49 and still had so many memories to make with the family she loved.

 

Of course I'm grateful for the time we had, she went through breast cancer in 2000 and made it out the other side. I'm thankful for that but slowly I'm beginning to realise that God had nothing to do with either circumstance.

A woman I knew in Northern Ireland went through the same thing.  She had leukemia, if memory serves.  She didn't want to die because she wanted her daughter to have a mother and her husband to have a wife.  The elders anointed her with oil and laid hands on her in the hospital.  She died anyway.  Bless her heart.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

This is from a personal discussion I had with a good friend on this glorious site tonight. I don't think she would mind me sharing it. Got off on a bit of a rant. But it seems worth sharing.
 
We lost a relative to the disease (breast cancer) when she was only 34 a few year ago. She suffered and died horribly... she was eaten up with cancer all over her body, and both of her lungs collapsed and she suffocated to death in the hospital... Where the hell was God when all this shit was happening? Makes me so angry to hear about how God heals and answers prayer when I've seen how horribly he fails at both constantly, but of course that's because he doesn't exist...
 
 
I posted this to Facebook too, so who knows what the backlash might be from my Christian friends? But I'm really past caring who I offend with my opinions on the subject of religion...
 
Glory!

 

Well, the rational explanation is that this particular sky fairy ("God") does not exist in the first place, so any appeal to it, or questions directed to it, or about it, are worthless.

 

Generally, cancer is the unregulated and repeated reproduction of the victim's own cells due to one or more mutations in the DNA of those cells.  It is a biological phenomenon.  That is the reality.  Medical science is attempting to address this.  It is proceeding towards the goal of mitigating or eliminating cancer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm watching this right now with a relative who is suffering neurological problems. Hundreds praying, and the best Jesus The King Of The Universe can muster is an earlier appointment with her doctor. Glory! Some even said that was exactly what they were praying for... What an intense personal relationship they have to God Almighty to get such amazing results.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Back in 2008 my wife had breast cancer.

 

I'm glad to say she survived and has been clear since.

 

The fact is that, had we relied on prayers rather than medical science, she would be dead now.  And that death would not have been pretty.

 

After she was diagnosed she was (understandably) very upset and feeling rather vulnerable.  To be honest, both of us were.  Anyhow, I took on the job of informing the family of the diagnosis.  That involved, amongst other things, walking down the road to her uncle's house.  There, after a short conversation, he announced that "the only thing we can do is pray" and he promptly stood up and held forth for some minutes.  I have no doubt that he sees her recovery as "god's goodness".

 

I have no idea how he rationalizes the many he has known who have died from cancer (or any other disease for that matter).  Where Christians are concerned, he often quotes that they are "with Christ, which is far better".  That logic demands the conclusion that recovery is not down to god's goodness, as it implies that to be the worse end of the deal.  Indeed, when taken into hospital himself a couple of years back, he refused surgical intervention on the basis he was "ready to meet god".  I can only presume that his continued survival is a disappointment to him.  I also wonder if this is why he seems to revel in death and disaster and seemed puzzled almost to the point of incredulity when he learned some time later that my wife was likely to be O.K..  Where unbelievers are concerned, he can only think that they are under god's righteous judgement.  I'm not going to try to explain how he would square that with "god's goodness".

 

The bottom line in all this, however, seems to me to be as follows:

  1. Christians pray for the result they want.
  2. That result, if it transpires,is evidence of god's goodness.
  3. The alternative result, if it transpires, is evidence of god's wisdom and controlling hand in this world.
  4. A result that is not desirable to the Christian is nevertheless based in god's goodness - it's human weakness that prevents that being understood.

 

So, to answer the question "where is god in all this?" - to the Christian, everywhere;  That, after all, is precisely where he wants his god to be.  Sense has nothing to do with it.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And on top of it all, Fundies are opposed to stem cell research, something that might help find treatments or cures. What if their God provided us with the knowledge of stem cells so we could find a cure?

 

We have a friend who had cancer. She's now OK, but she recently said she can hardly wait to get to heaven to be with Jesus. Hm. Why, then, did she bother to undergo treatment? WendyDoh.gif

 

There is no doubt that religion is a mental illness, a separation from reality that is completely delusional.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was with my Grandma when she passed away; I was sitting just a couple of feet away in the living room. Her death was expected. She had been very ill for some months.

 

She died as calmly as a river rejoins the sea. She simply powered down. Her breath got slower and slighter and then she breathed out and she passed away.

 

God was no where to been seen.

 

She and I had been very close, she remains in my thoughts, and her memory is scared still.

 

I know I will always miss her. I could always make her laugh and she was a wonderful cook. My life has been quite hard at times, (in part to my OCD and having lived under a violent and drunken Catholic step-father) she softened the blows it dealt me and helped me to carry them.

 

When I was desperately ill in my early 20’s, she would catch two buses to come and visit me in the hospital. I shall never forget her kindness.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

He's right there inside the cancer cells!  Growing and multiplying and spreading to torture your innards in a test to see if you will still love him thus.  A-mum's got a packet out on the table today called "Job's Suffering".  In all those evil events that happened to Job we are to see the hand of god. 

 

Because I can never be sure if my sister, my best friend, my lover, my parents, my dog really love me or if they're just pretending.  Maybe it's all an act.  Therefore I've no choice but to afflict my sister with boils, my best friend with hemorrhoids, I'll send a homicidal maniac after my lover that will really test him out see if he's marriage material, I'll send a tornado to my parents house- kill one of them because it's no fun if they both die: you've got to have a griever left behind in sackcloth and ashes, and my dog, she sure seems happy to see me when I get home but maybe she's just putting on an act.  I'll abandon her in the woods all alone and see if she ever makes her way back to me.  If not, I'll know she never loved me.  Right.  Now I just sit back in my easy chair with my coffee, design some arbitrary grading system to see if these guys pass their tests or not, and tada Wendymagic.gif  a foolfproof test to see if their love for me is genuine.  Right then to pass the test, they have to come back to me and love me and worship me and they can never get angry with me for the shit I just pulled.  They have to admit I was right all along, in fact, I'm always right.  Oh, and if they fail the test, I can just stick them in the oven.  It's genius. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Super Moderator

He's right there inside the cancer cells!  Growing and multiplying and spreading to torture your innards in a test to see if you will still love him thus.  A-mum's got a packet out on the table today called "Job's Suffering".  In all those evil events that happened to Job we are to see the hand of god. 

 

Because I can never be sure if my sister, my best friend, my lover, my parents, my dog really love me or if they're just pretending.  Maybe it's all an act.  Therefore I've no choice but to afflict my sister with boils, my best friend with hemorrhoids, I'll send a homicidal maniac after my lover that will really test him out see if he's marriage material, I'll send a tornado to my parents house- kill one of them because it's no fun if they both die: you've got to have a griever left behind in sackcloth and ashes, and my dog, she sure seems happy to see me when I get home but maybe she's just putting on an act.  I'll abandon her in the woods all alone and see if she ever makes her way back to me.  If not, I'll know she never loved me.  Right.  Now I just sit back in my easy chair with my coffee, design some arbitrary grading system to see if these guys pass their tests or not, and tada Wendymagic.gif  a foolfproof test to see if their love for me is genuine.  Right then to pass the test, they have to come back to me and love me and worship me and they can never get angry with me for the shit I just pulled.  They have to admit I was right all along, in fact, I'm always right.  Oh, and if they fail the test, I can just stick them in the oven.  It's genius. 

 

Excellent summation of buybull god. Rach!  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have lots of catching up to do responding to posts in this glorious thread but... I just posted yet another anti-religious rant to Facebook and thought I'd share it here before I go to bed. It's late here in Alaska and we are going to the State Fair tomorrow. Can't wait for the unhealthy Fair food and the very loud tie-dye shirts I always like to buy! Anyway, here's the rant...

 

I posted yesterday about God's complete and utter failure to help a relative of ours as she was suffering and dying a horrible death from breast cancer -- because he doesn't exist. Recently, there has been a campaign to raise awareness of ALS, a currently incurable disease that deprives those afflicted of the use of their bodies and almost all of their quality of life. I have an online acquaintance who has the disease, and it is so sad to hear of her deterioration. She once enjoyed a healthy and very active lifestyle. Now she can no longer speak or eat solid foods, and of course her quality of life will continue to decline until the illness likely robs her of her life. Stephen Hawking has had ALS for decades and has managed to do amazing things. An incredible mind trapped in a body that no longer works. But most people who have ALS are not so lucky. They decline rapidly and die quickly. They don't get to live for decades most of the time. I already know why God does not intervene and help or heal people with serious or incurable diseases. But I have to wonder if my religious friends ever question God's total and complete inaction in our world in any discernible way, and perhaps the reason for it. God does not cure people with cancer. He does not cure people with ALS. He does not grow new limbs for amputees. He does nothing about AIDS or Ebola or any other disease that is wreaking havoc in our world. If faith healing really works, why are people such as Benny Hinn and so many other Christians who claim to have divine healing powers not flooding our hospitals offering their miraculous services? People could be healed by the millions, if faith healing really works! Why are they not visiting places like Africa offering their services to miraculously cure AIDS and Ebola? I already know why, of course. There is no God, no such thing as divine healing, and faith healers are con artist scammers who offer empty promises and false hope while bilking the gullible out of a hell of a lot of money... and yes, that makes me angry! It would be awesome if there actually was a loving God who miraculously cured serious and incurable illnesses, but there simply is NOT! 
 
I have a very religious relative who lost her husband to cancer several years ago, and I'm quite sure that they prayed hard for his healing and survival, but he died anyway. If I remember correctly, he was 27 years old. You would think that such a tragedy and the total and complete failure of their prayers to accomplish anything at all and the total and complete failure of their God to intervene and do anything at all might have been a WAKE UP call for them, but no, it was "God's will" for this man to suffer much and die young at the age of 27. Ugh and Grrr....

 

 

 
I have many Christian friends on Facebook, and I value them as the good people that they are, beliefs aside. But I've pretty much stopped caring who I offend there. I will have my say and anybody who doesn't like it can fuck off...
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Back in 2008 my wife had breast cancer.

 

I'm glad to say she survived and has been clear since.

 

The fact is that, had we relied on prayers rather than medical science, she would be dead now.  And that death would not have been pretty.

 

After she was diagnosed she was (understandably) very upset and feeling rather vulnerable.  To be honest, both of us were.  Anyhow, I took on the job of informing the family of the diagnosis.  That involved, amongst other things, walking down the road to her uncle's house.  There, after a short conversation, he announced that "the only thing we can do is pray" and he promptly stood up and held forth for some minutes.  I have no doubt that he sees her recovery as "god's goodness".

 

I have no idea how he rationalizes the many he has known who have died from cancer (or any other disease for that matter).  Where Christians are concerned, he often quotes that they are "with Christ, which is far better".  That logic demands the conclusion that recovery is not down to god's goodness, as it implies that to be the worse end of the deal.  Indeed, when taken into hospital himself a couple of years back, he refused surgical intervention on the basis he was "ready to meet god".  I can only presume that his continued survival is a disappointment to him.  I also wonder if this is why he seems to revel in death and disaster and seemed puzzled almost to the point of incredulity when he learned some time later that my wife was likely to be O.K..  Where unbelievers are concerned, he can only think that they are under god's righteous judgement.  I'm not going to try to explain how he would square that with "god's goodness".

 

The bottom line in all this, however, seems to me to be as follows:

  1. Christians pray for the result they want.
  2. That result, if it transpires,is evidence of god's goodness.
  3. The alternative result, if it transpires, is evidence of god's wisdom and controlling hand in this world.
  4. A result that is not desirable to the Christian is nevertheless based in god's goodness - it's human weakness that prevents that being understood.

 

So, to answer the question "where is god in all this?" - to the Christian, everywhere;  That, after all, is precisely where he wants his god to be.  Sense has nothing to do with it.

 

Your post reminded me of Christopher Hitchens saying that xianity is a death cult.  He was right, of course.

 

I was with my Grandma when she passed away; I was sitting just a couple of feet away in the living room. Her death was expected. She had been very ill for some months.

 

She died as calmly as a river rejoins the sea. She simply powered down. Her breath got slower and slighter and then she breathed out and she passed away.

 

God was no where to been seen.

 

She and I had been very close, she remains in my thoughts, and her memory is scared still.

 

I know I will always miss her. I could always make her laugh and she was a wonderful cook. My life has been quite hard at times, (in part to my OCD and having lived under a violent and drunken Catholic step-father) she softened the blows it dealt me and helped me to carry them.

 

When I was desperately ill in my early 20’s, she would catch two buses to come and visit me in the hospital. I shall never forget her kindness.

 

Sorry for your loss.  Your post is a lovely memorial to her.  She meant a lot to you.  ((hug))

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When people treat their children the way this alleged God treats his, they get sent to jail.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am so glad that when my mother died in 1983 from breast cancer, that nobody in my family was praying for her and she had no delusions about what was happening at the end.  She and I were very close and we had a lot of alone time together at the end because of my dad's and sister's work hours.  During that time, before the last month when she was too ill to talk and in too much pain, she told me all about her life -- funny stories from her years of work before marriage, a former boyfriend that had died in WWII, and other things -- and they were all REAL, not delusional religion and god will save me.

 

The night she died, my dad, sister, and I met at the hospital where she had been taken a few hours before her death and we sat quietly together and talked a little about my mom, and my sister said, "Life is made of memories."  That's always stuck with me.

 

A bit after she died, my dad in a rare show of anger (he was the ultimate laid-back person!) said to me, "Those people that pray and think positively, that's bullshit.  If prayer worked, NOBODY would die."

 

When my dad was diagnosed with advanced cancer (too far gone to treat) five years ago, he looked at my sister who was the one that relayed what the doctor had told her, and said, "That's cancer, right?"  When she said, "Yes," he replied, "Well, that's that then," and laid back down in his bed.  We all began taking turns to care for him, talk to him, and listen.  He died about a month later in his own home, as he wanted.

 

I have nothing but respect and love for my parents and how they both dealt with the reality of cancer.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, haven't you heard? God DOES heal cancer. Unlike in the Bible though, where he healed people instantly, it takes him 3 weeks, and he doesn't provide any verification at all of his healing or initial diagnosis. But still..praise Jesus!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxYz5elkpKA

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.