Trust Yourself

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

So, Ironhorse, here's an interesting question for you to ignore:  Should the child in the photo have trusted himself, or the lord?

A favorite picture used here repeatedly. Long story short, WE are responsible at this time.

 

Good effort, End3.  Unfortunately, your comment fails to properly address the question.  The question concerns trust, not responsibility.  However, now that the issue of responsibility has been put forth...

 

Why should we trust god, if ultimately we are responsible?

[duderonomy]

 

So, Ironhorse, here's an interesting question for you to ignore:  Should the child in the photo have trusted himself, or the lord?

A favorite picture used here repeatedly. Long story short, WE are responsible at this time.

 

 

Just because a picture is a favorite or is used here repeatedly (although I think it's the first time I've ever seen it here or anywhere), does that make it any less disturbing End?  

I'll grant you that we don't know the particulars of this photo, or how it all turns out in the end, but since the scenario depicted plays out many multiplied thousands of times a day in a world where your father owns the cattle on a thousand hills and is in complete control of everything, and everything is proceeding according to his plan, you might want to take a closer look before you dismiss it like that.

 

Are we still responsible if Biblegod says he'll take care of the feeding problem? Shouldn't we trust him? 

 

"Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?" Matt. 6:26

 

So there you go End. Happy graceandrelationship thoughts and crushing reality that the Bible is stupid all in one verse.

I don't know how the fowl of the air and the little child in the picture turned out, but I'm sure Biblegod took care of it.  It looks like the bird is about to have a good meal, but the child is way better than the bird, right? 

[midniterider]

Jesus? Any comments?

[Guest end3]

Not sure how many times this needs to be explained. We remember the part where Jesus says "feed my sheep" and I will be back. You act like God has not already done His part to have trust with humanity. Here folks, let me give you my son that you beat to death.....only to be answered with vile pictures like this one asking God to do something else.

[florduh]

You act like God has not already done His part to have trust with humanity.

 

You're joking, right?

[Jeff]

Thor has done everything your god has to earn trust.

Do you trust him too?

[rjn]

End, is Jesus (the Son) fully God?

[Guest end3]

 

You act like God has not already done His part to have trust with humanity.

You're joking, right?

 

The line that is ask before you're baptized...."do you believe". Guessing you have changed your mind...

[Guest end3]

It's analogous to Dad saying feed your fish while I am gone.....here's the food, the instructions. Problem is Dad left 2K years ago and we don't want to rely on stories about Dad. "I've never seen Dad, you?", "Heck no, Dad's stupid. Hey, why is that kid starving......hahahaha...it's Dad's fault"....."Idiot Dad".

[dangitbobby83]

So you're admitting dad is gone? I guess this means dad doesn't answer prayers and all the hoopla when someone gets a better job or someone's cancer is cured isn't god either, right? 

 

Because you can't have it both ways.

 

Either god is answering those prayers - and if he is - he's then ignoring the starving children. Or he isn't answering those prayers and it's all chance and skill. If it's all chance and skill, all our responsibility, then it's almost like it's irrelevant if god exists!

[dangitbobby83]

It's analogous to Dad saying feed your fish while I am gone.....here's the food, the instructions. Problem is Dad left 2K years ago and we don't want to rely on stories about Dad. "I've never seen Dad, you?", "Heck no, Dad's stupid. Hey, why is that kid starving......hahahaha...it's Dad's fault"....."Idiot Dad".

 

Why should we?

 

Stories can be bullshit. Anyone can tell a story. Anyone can make up a story about anything. 

 

What about the other stories of other gods? The vedas tells us of Vishnu. What if he's our dad? Or how about Coyote? Or how about Ahura Mazda? The bible certainly isn't the only story. 

 

If your god acts as functionally nonexistence, and the only "evidence" of his participation is the same sort of "evidence" as the gods of Vishnu or Zeus, stories, then how can he possibly condemn us? How can he expect us to guess the right story? 

 

Let me say this again:

 

- If god answers zero prayers

- If he left zero evidence

- If we can only know he exists by believing a single story over thousands of other competing stories, all carrying the same weight of evidence

 

Then there is no good reason to believe in him or that anything the bible says is true. He is functionally nonexistent. If he does exist, then we are not at fault for not believing, he is. He's left us with nothing.

 

You're certainly not making a strong defense of your faith at all. 

[florduh]

It's analogous to Dad saying feed your fish while I am gone.....here's the food, the instructions. Problem is Dad left 2K years ago and we don't want to rely on stories about Dad. "I've never seen Dad, you?", "Heck no, Dad's stupid. Hey, why is that kid starving......hahahaha...it's Dad's fault"....."Idiot Dad".

It's not analogous in the least. You can't compare a human father to the omniscient creator of the universe.

 

As I said earlier, God, knowing all things, created people to fail. He punished his very first human creation and has left us to our own devices ever since. He does not answer prayers, verses to the contrary notwithstanding.

 

Human dad and his kids are imperfect, but God should know better than to create children, drop them in a lake, and chastise them for not knowing how to swim while he watches them drown.

[dangitbobby83]

Next, lets destroy your dad analogy. 

 

What a shitty father! 

 

He supposedly (stories...) showed up 2000 years ago and then vanished, like a dead-beat dad. Do we commend actual, real fathers here on earth for ditching his kids while they were too young to even know he exists? 

 

Do we go around saying..."You're a GREAT father because you left your kid some instructions to read when he was two and then ditched out!" 

 

Great dad!

 

And your analogy is even worse - see, when a father ditches, at least here in the US, most likely he'll pay child support. At least a father in the US does that, most likely! 

 

Of course, we KNOW dad is real because we have corroborated witnesses. Mom had to bang someone to make me, and she says he's real. And we do see the paycheck coming in every month. 

 

You're sky daddy doesn't even have that.

 

What kind of dick father leaves their kids with instructions and then zero help? And then expects his kids to love him when he finally decides to show back up, if ever?

 

You've made the absolute poorest defense for christianity I've ever seen and if any guests or lurkers are watching, this is about the best christian apologists can do. 

 

 

What's funny is what happens behind closed doors of the church. See, apologists do a whole lot of doublespeak when it comes to their sky-daddy. When talking with ex-christians or skeptics, suddenly their sky-daddy is nowhere to be found. He isn't responsible for answering any prayers or providing any help. Bible verses which explicitly say he'll help out doesn't actually mean that anymore. 

 

Check this out:

http://www.christianpost.com/buzzvine/7-bible-verses-that-speak-about-gods-provision-for-us-124907/

 

Job 38:41 - Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food?

 

Pslam 34:10 - The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

 

I've had christians argue that those verses don't mean what they mean. They mean simple to trust god. Okay? Trust god to do what? As you see in End's post - obviously not to feed even the most desperate and innocent and helpless of us. God doesn't do that shit! Why trust him to help? Not his responsibility. Because when faced with legit criticism, christians have to resort to making god an uninterested, uninteracting deist-like god. Because they know they have nothing. They have to admit god is allowing innocent kids to starve. They have to not only admit it, but they have to find ways to excuse the behavior, just like a poor child excusing his dad's non-existence, because it's better for their own mental health to not challenge their worldview, risk an existential crisis and the breakdown of their self image, rather than being intellectually honest.

 

But boy will shit change when back at church sunday morning. Suddenly god is everywhere! Prayers answered! Bible verses meaning exactly what they mean! Faithful Sue was cured of cancer! Joe Blow Christian got a raise! Prayers answered! Praise Jesus for saving you from the car wreck! 

 

Doublespeak.

[Jeff]

It's analogous to Dad saying feed your fish while I am gone.....here's the food, the instructions. Problem is Dad left 2K years ago and we don't want to rely on stories about Dad. "I've never seen Dad, you?", "Heck no, Dad's stupid. Hey, why is that kid starving......hahahaha...it's Dad's fault"....."Idiot Dad".

Dad can't leave... he's everywhere

Dad sees the suffering because he's everywhere and all powerful

Dad does nothing because he's too busy winning sports matches and finding parking spots or possibly he's just a fairy tale like all others before and since

[Guest end3]

 

It's analogous to Dad saying feed your fish while I am gone.....here's the food, the instructions. Problem is Dad left 2K years ago and we don't want to rely on stories about Dad. "I've never seen Dad, you?", "Heck no, Dad's stupid. Hey, why is that kid starving......hahahaha...it's Dad's fault"....."Idiot Dad".

Dad can't leave... he's everywhere

Dad sees the suffering because he's everywhere and all powerful

Dad does nothing because he's too busy winning sports matches and finding parking spots or possibly he's just a fairy tale like all others before and since

 

Let me rephrase to be more succinct.....Dad puts the responsibility in our hands for a time.

[dangitbobby83]

 

 

It's analogous to Dad saying feed your fish while I am gone.....here's the food, the instructions. Problem is Dad left 2K years ago and we don't want to rely on stories about Dad. "I've never seen Dad, you?", "Heck no, Dad's stupid. Hey, why is that kid starving......hahahaha...it's Dad's fault"....."Idiot Dad".

Dad can't leave... he's everywhere

Dad sees the suffering because he's everywhere and all powerful

Dad does nothing because he's too busy winning sports matches and finding parking spots or possibly he's just a fairy tale like all others before and since

 

Let me rephrase to be more succinct.....Dad puts the responsibility in our hands for a time.

 

 

How about you answer my question?

 

Does dad answer prayers? Does he cure cancer, save people from car wrecks, help give raises at work? 

 

Yes or no. Not a difficult question to answer.

[miamia]

a child being entrusted with a fish, hmm, here's a more accurate analog http://www.cbsnews.com/news/houston-toddler-killed-after-sibling-put-her-in-oven-court-docs/

And that actually happened. SO, if you are going to defend your god, why not use a real situation. do you think the child was to blame? or the negligent parents.  Lets not sugarcoat it, using an unrealistic narrative about a relatively disposable fish. 

 

If the father cared about the fish would he have left it utterly helpless and confined, to fend for itself at the mercy of an ignorant child, just to teach the child a lesson in responsibility? Yeah. dad is an idiot... if his intention was for the fish to survive in the first place. What if it wasn't? then he does not love each and every one of us? Or is it ok because the fish will go to heaven, as long as it says it trusts the man, who it has no capacity to comprehend or even know about, to save it from the ignorant child who has been presented with a useless exercise in responsibility by a father that refuses to be responsible for his own fish.

 

I like the analog of a self sustaining terrarium better. If I fill a jar with a bunch of organisms and seal it to see how long this system can perpetuate itself, I do not condemn the protozoa to fiery torment for feasting upon the algae and bacteria, I don't condemn the plants for withering under the suns glare if I don't start it with enough moisture.

 

Do I blame the insects I may have put in there for fighting among themselves when resources become scarce, for destroying the plants I incorporated until there is nothing left? 

 

No I do not. even less so do I blame them if I am responsible for every minute aspect about them down to the atom. If it fails, it is because I am either ignorant, or because I have set it to fail. testing organisms that I know everything about against odds I have created must necessarily produce an outcome I can predict with utmost exactness, if I am indeed omnipotent. There is no relevant or measurable amount of free will to be found in insects I have stuffed into a jar, who will behave in a way their biology dictates.

 

If there were a god capable of creating everything, you would be the insect in the equation. He would not care what you did, who you raped, who you killed, what you ate, what you grew, what you destroyed,or how many you proselytized to about your god among insects. You would die in the jar for your gods amusement. It would not necessarily be a malevolent being, just a curious one, so far advanced in comparison to our tree of life that it is unable to empathize with a bug.

 

There is a jar, and we are all bugs. we don't know anything else.When all a bug knows is the jar, and it can't cope with the fact that it's likely never getting out, it start to make up stories about getting out of the jar, that there is a being who made the jar, and that the being that made the jar is it's friend. The bug starts making irrational decisions based on those imaginary scenarios, making life much more miserable for all the other bugs. Don't be that bug. If we all work together and think rationally there is a much better chance of getting out, or just preserving what we have here and enjoying it.

[midniterider]

 

 

It's analogous to Dad saying feed your fish while I am gone.....here's the food, the instructions. Problem is Dad left 2K years ago and we don't want to rely on stories about Dad. "I've never seen Dad, you?", "Heck no, Dad's stupid. Hey, why is that kid starving......hahahaha...it's Dad's fault"....."Idiot Dad".

Dad can't leave... he's everywhere

Dad sees the suffering because he's everywhere and all powerful

Dad does nothing because he's too busy winning sports matches and finding parking spots or possibly he's just a fairy tale like all others before and since

 

Let me rephrase to be more succinct.....Dad puts the responsibility in our hands for a time.

 

 

Guess we don't need Dad then. We'll handle it. We're grown ups.

[bornagainathiest]

 

 

It's analogous to Dad saying feed your fish while I am gone.....here's the food, the instructions. Problem is Dad left 2K years ago and we don't want to rely on stories about Dad. "I've never seen Dad, you?", "Heck no, Dad's stupid. Hey, why is that kid starving......hahahaha...it's Dad's fault"....."Idiot Dad".

Dad can't leave... he's everywhere

Dad sees the suffering because he's everywhere and all powerful

Dad does nothing because he's too busy winning sports matches and finding parking spots or possibly he's just a fairy tale like all others before and since

 

Let me rephrase to be more succinct.....Dad puts the responsibility in our hands for a time.

 

 

Dad put the responsibility for the fate of the entire universe in the hands of two innocents whom he specially prepared to fail his impossible test.

 

Their responsibility for everything was one of the secrets he kept from them about his test.

 

Nice person, this Dad!

[dangitbobby83]

 

Guess we don't need Dad then. We'll handle it. We're grown ups.

 

 

It's absolutely hilarious that christians are totally fine with placing the blame on humans when other humans suffer - but when humans DON'T suffer, are HEALED, or given more comfort, then it's TOTALLY god. He saved you from that wreck, he cured your cancer, he gave you that job promotion...etc

 

God is TOTALLY responsible, except when he isn't. They want it both ways - they want to give praise to god for everything good but excuse him for everything bad. He fully interferes with free will to bless us. He fully interferes with our lives to make sure some good shit happens.

 

Notice that neither End nor IH are in here claiming god is blessing people.  But watch their church on sunday and it's a different story. 

 

As I said, when faced with skeptical analysis, god morphs into something they don't believe really, but can't admit (either he isn't real or he's a dick) because their worldview would fall apart. 

[dangitbobby83]

 

 

 

It's analogous to Dad saying feed your fish while I am gone.....here's the food, the instructions. Problem is Dad left 2K years ago and we don't want to rely on stories about Dad. "I've never seen Dad, you?", "Heck no, Dad's stupid. Hey, why is that kid starving......hahahaha...it's Dad's fault"....."Idiot Dad".

Dad can't leave... he's everywhere

Dad sees the suffering because he's everywhere and all powerful

Dad does nothing because he's too busy winning sports matches and finding parking spots or possibly he's just a fairy tale like all others before and since

 

Let me rephrase to be more succinct.....Dad puts the responsibility in our hands for a time.

 

 

Dad put the responsibility for the fate of the entire universe in the hands of two innocents whom he specially prepared to fail his impossible test.

 

Their responsibility for everything was one of the secrets he kept from them about his test.

 

Nice person, this Dad!

 

 

And then supposedly shows up 2000 years ago to drop some instructions on our lap that may or may not be true (because he refuses to be involved in our lives, we have no idea) - just like a typical deadbeat dad. He then expects us to believe he exists AND cares and if we don't...when he finally decides to show up, it's our fault for failing to believing the one story amongst all the fake, devil planted stories that all have the same weight and evidence and then sends us to hell for failing to believe the right one...because we guessed incorrectly.

[florduh]

a child being entrusted with a fish, hmm, here's a more accurate analog http://www.cbsnews.com/news/houston-toddler-killed-after-sibling-put-her-in-oven-court-docs/

And that actually happened. SO, if you are going to defend your god, why not use a real situation. do you think the child was to blame? or the negligent parents.  Lets not sugarcoat it, using an unrealistic narrative about a relatively disposable fish. 

 

If the father cared about the fish would he have left it utterly helpless and confined, to fend for itself at the mercy of an ignorant child, just to teach the child a lesson in responsibility? Yeah. dad is an idiot... if his intention was for the fish to survive in the first place. What if it wasn't? then he does not love each and every one of us? Or is it ok because the fish will go to heaven, as long as it says it trusts the man, who it has no capacity to comprehend or even know about, to save it from the ignorant child who has been presented with a useless exercise in responsibility by a father that refuses to be responsible for his own fish.

 

I like the analog of a self sustaining terrarium better. If I fill a jar with a bunch of organisms and seal it to see how long this system can perpetuate itself, I do not condemn the protozoa to fiery torment for feasting upon the algae and bacteria, I don't condemn the plants for withering under the suns glare if I don't start it with enough moisture.

 

Do I blame the insects I may have put in there for fighting among themselves when resources become scarce, for destroying the plants I incorporated until there is nothing left? 

 

No I do not. even less so do I blame them if I am responsible for every minute aspect about them down to the atom. If it fails, it is because I am either ignorant, or because I have set it to fail. testing organisms that I know everything about against odds I have created must necessarily produce an outcome I can predict with utmost exactness, if I am indeed omnipotent. There is no relevant or measurable amount of free will to be found in insects I have stuffed into a jar, who will behave in a way their biology dictates.

 

If there were a god capable of creating everything, you would be the insect in the equation. He would not care what you did, who you raped, who you killed, what you ate, what you grew, what you destroyed,or how many you proselytized to about your god among insects. You would die in the jar for your gods amusement. It would not necessarily be a malevolent being, just a curious one, so far advanced in comparison to our tree of life that it is unable to empathize with a bug.

 

There is a jar, and we are all bugs. we don't know anything else.When all a bug knows is the jar, and it can't cope with the fact that it's likely never getting out, it start to make up stories about getting out of the jar, that there is a being who made the jar, and that the being that made the jar is it's friend. The bug starts making irrational decisions based on those imaginary scenarios, making life much more miserable for all the other bugs. Don't be that bug. If we all work together and think rationally there is a much better chance of getting out, or just preserving what we have here and enjoying it.

Now, THIS is an analogy!

[Jeff]

 

 

It's analogous to Dad saying feed your fish while I am gone.....here's the food, the instructions. Problem is Dad left 2K years ago and we don't want to rely on stories about Dad. "I've never seen Dad, you?", "Heck no, Dad's stupid. Hey, why is that kid starving......hahahaha...it's Dad's fault"....."Idiot Dad".

Dad can't leave... he's everywhere

Dad sees the suffering because he's everywhere and all powerful

Dad does nothing because he's too busy winning sports matches and finding parking spots or possibly he's just a fairy tale like all others before and since

Let me rephrase to be more succinct.....Dad puts the responsibility in our hands for a time.

Let me rephrase. He's sitting right there watching the kid starve. He can feed the birds but let's lil kid starve slowly and painfully while crying out. Sorry. My people didn't come through for you kid. If only you'd prayed to get into a good college I could have helped.

 

But then again it makes so much more sense when you just quit with the make beleive.

[Guest end3]

Does anyone remember that the Bible mentions "test". Been a long time for me, but thinking it does. Y'all can twist this all over the place..."but it's the a poor child that doesn't know better"...ha. Y'all know better and you still choose to blame God for the starving child....and Christians.

 

Kudos to Midniterider for taking responsibility.

 

a child being entrusted with a fish, hmm, here's a more accurate analog http://www.cbsnews.com/news/houston-toddler-killed-after-sibling-put-her-in-oven-court-docs/

And that actually happened. SO, if you are going to defend your god, why not use a real situation. do you think the child was to blame? or the negligent parents.  Lets not sugarcoat it, using an unrealistic narrative about a relatively disposable fish. 

 

If the father cared about the fish would he have left it utterly helpless and confined, to fend for itself at the mercy of an ignorant child, just to teach the child a lesson in responsibility? Yeah. dad is an idiot... if his intention was for the fish to survive in the first place. What if it wasn't? then he does not love each and every one of us? Or is it ok because the fish will go to heaven, as long as it says it trusts the man, who it has no capacity to comprehend or even know about, to save it from the ignorant child who has been presented with a useless exercise in responsibility by a father that refuses to be responsible for his own fish.

 

I like the analog of a self sustaining terrarium better. If I fill a jar with a bunch of organisms and seal it to see how long this system can perpetuate itself, I do not condemn the protozoa to fiery torment for feasting upon the algae and bacteria, I don't condemn the plants for withering under the suns glare if I don't start it with enough moisture.

 

Do I blame the insects I may have put in there for fighting among themselves when resources become scarce, for destroying the plants I incorporated until there is nothing left? 

 

No I do not. even less so do I blame them if I am responsible for every minute aspect about them down to the atom. If it fails, it is because I am either ignorant, or because I have set it to fail. testing organisms that I know everything about against odds I have created must necessarily produce an outcome I can predict with utmost exactness, if I am indeed omnipotent. There is no relevant or measurable amount of free will to be found in insects I have stuffed into a jar, who will behave in a way their biology dictates.

 

If there were a god capable of creating everything, you would be the insect in the equation. He would not care what you did, who you raped, who you killed, what you ate, what you grew, what you destroyed,or how many you proselytized to about your god among insects. You would die in the jar for your gods amusement. It would not necessarily be a malevolent being, just a curious one, so far advanced in comparison to our tree of life that it is unable to empathize with a bug.

 

There is a jar, and we are all bugs. we don't know anything else.When all a bug knows is the jar, and it can't cope with the fact that it's likely never getting out, it start to make up stories about getting out of the jar, that there is a being who made the jar, and that the being that made the jar is it's friend. The bug starts making irrational decisions based on those imaginary scenarios, making life much more miserable for all the other bugs. Don't be that bug. If we all work together and think rationally there is a much better chance of getting out, or just preserving what we have here and enjoying it.

Now, THIS is an analogy!

 

always goes back to the same stuff....we assume we know the meaning of it all and choose our knowledge over faith. Reasonably sure that's one of the "biggie" points of the Bible.

[florduh]

Y'all know better and you still choose to blame God

 

It's YOUR fairy tale. You need to twist it into something real yet still palatable, I just take the story at face value.