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Goodbye Jesus

Giving God The Glory...


Brother Jeff

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I find it both amazing and annoying when Christians give their god the credit for something that they obviously either did for themselves or that somebody else did for them.

 

For example, a friend of mine recently praised god on Facebook for the strong brakes on her vehicle that enabled her to avoid hitting a deer. No offense intended toward my friend, but God obviously had NOTHING to do with it! God obviously did not magically cause the brakes on my friend’s car to be strong any more than the devil had it in for that deer and magically caused it to run out onto the road at that particular moment. I’m all for praising the vehicle manufacturer or even the last mechanic to do a brake job on the car, but god? I don’t think so…

 

I feel the exact same way when I hear a believer praise god that they got a job. They will gush with joy about how “The Lord gave me a wonderful new job!”, or something similar. And I’ll be thinking to myself what total bullshit that is. God has absolutely NOTHING to do with gaining employment. I would say to the believer, “YOU went out and pounded the pavement. YOU interviewed well. YOU worked hard to gain the qualifications you have that enabled you to land the job. YOU worked hard to get an education in your chosen field. YOU worked hard to build a stable job history.” Where does “god” enter into the equation? NOWHERE!!

 

The same thing applies when a believer has surgery of some kind. Why pray that god magically guides the hand of the surgeon so he or she won’t fuck up? Why pray at all, given the fact that prayer (obviously) doesn’t work? Instead of wasting time and energy praying, spend that time and energy much more productively making sure that you have chosen a qualified surgeon who knows what he or she is doing, as evidenced by a strong record of successful procedures.

 

I could go on for hours with endless examples, but I think I’ve made my point. I get tired of hearing absurd claims from believers about “God did this…” or “God did that…”. BULLSHIT!

 

It is a plainly obvious fact that the ONLY place that god ever thinks, says, or does anything at all is in the minds of believers! If god ever actually did anything in the REAL WORLD (besides allegedly causing earthquakes or other natural disasters because he’s pissed off), I might have reason to believe he exists… ya think?

 

 

 

 

LINK: http://refutingchristianity.net/2010/02/28/giving-god-the-glory/

 

 

 

 

 

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I feel the exact same way when I hear a believer praise god that they got a job. They will gush with joy about how “The Lord gave me a wonderful new job!”, or something similar. And I’ll be thinking to myself what total bullshit that is. God has absolutely NOTHING to do with gaining employment. I would say to the believer, “YOU went out and pounded the pavement. YOU interviewed well. YOU worked hard to gain the qualifications you have that enabled you to land the job. YOU worked hard to get an education in your chosen field. YOU worked hard to build a stable job history.” Where does “god” enter into the equation? NOWHERE!!

 

You are, of course, absolutely correct that God had nothing to do with anything. He doesn't exist, so he can't really do anything.

 

BUT, I would answer (were I a Christian and believed in God),

 

Assume your future employer is a Christian, and a friend of your pastor. You go to the interview and are the only one wearing a giant Cross around your neck and saying, "Praise Jesus!" The employer, knowing that True Christians can be recognized by their actions, sees that you are indeed a True Christian and hires you over the Harvard graduates, the MIT brains and everyone else that was more qualified, smarter and better than you. He believes you can trust True Christians, and he thinks that True Christians will have God help them with their work. God as an added hiring benefit! Who else could he possibly hire?

 

It may not be God, but you can't deny the power of religion...

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Reminds me of the scene in the film Shenandoah where the family that is the center of the story is gathered around the dinner table. James Stewart is saying grace. He says:

 

“Lord, we stop to pray for this food. We cleared the land. We planted the crop and harvested it. We cooked it. If it hadn’t been for us it wouldn’t be here. But we thank you for it anyway. Amen.”

 

It's a great movie, by the way.

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Man, I feel like you just spoke what has been on my brain. I'm about to have to deactivate my account or delete friends because I get so tired of seeing these kinds of things. It's just plain ridiculous to give gawd props for anything you or someone else did. If he existed, it'd be more a sign or miracle if one day you got a random call from some job you'd never heard of before that offered you a great job. Or if even while your foot was on the accelerator the car automatically stopped and avoided the deer without you doing anything.

But he's not a personal god nor is he an existent one. So I try not to let stupid stuff like this grind my gears too much. But man if I don't want to smack some sense of self recognition and rewarding into them!

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For example, a friend of mine recently praised god on Facebook for the strong brakes on her vehicle that enabled her to avoid hitting a deer. No offense intended toward my friend, but God obviously had NOTHING to do with it! God obviously did not magically cause the brakes on my friend’s car to be strong any more than the devil had it in for that deer and magically caused it to run out onto the road at that particular moment. I’m all for praising the vehicle manufacturer or even the last mechanic to do a brake job on the car, but god? I don’t think so…

 

Must not have been a Toyota! ;)

 

I feel the exact same way when I hear a believer praise god that they got a job. They will gush with joy about how “The Lord gave me a wonderful new job!”, or something similar. And I’ll be thinking to myself what total bullshit that is. God has absolutely NOTHING to do with gaining employment. I would say to the believer, “YOU went out and pounded the pavement. YOU interviewed well. YOU worked hard to gain the qualifications you have that enabled you to land the job. YOU worked hard to get an education in your chosen field. YOU worked hard to build a stable job history.” Where does “god” enter into the equation? NOWHERE!!

 

Along those same lines, if god got you the job, then that would mean that the HR person (or whoever does the hiring) didn't have freewill in the matter.

 

The same thing applies when a believer has surgery of some kind. Why pray that god magically guides the hand of the surgeon so he or she won’t fuck up? Why pray at all, given the fact that prayer (obviously) doesn’t work? Instead of wasting time and energy praying, spend that time and energy much more productively making sure that you have chosen a qualified surgeon who knows what he or she is doing, as evidenced by a strong record of successful procedures.

 

If god was so involved, why use a surgeon anyway? Why not just pray for it to be cured by god alone?

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The same thing applies when a believer has surgery of some kind. Why pray that god magically guides the hand of the surgeon so he or she won’t fuck up? Why pray at all, given the fact that prayer (obviously) doesn’t work? Instead of wasting time and energy praying, spend that time and energy much more productively making sure that you have chosen a qualified surgeon who knows what he or she is doing, as evidenced by a strong record of successful procedures.

 

If god was so involved, why use a surgeon anyway? Why not just pray for it to be cured by god alone?

 

They do...they die.

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If you think there is an invisible entity called God, which is very much like a human, running the universe, then you would naturally give him credit for what happens. Unfortunately he is also supposed to be good, so then there is the problem of why bad stuff happens. The answer? Bad stuff - our fault or the devil did it. Good stuff - God. Simple isn't it?

 

Only problem, of course, is that God is not then running the universe.

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An aspect of this which became a deal-breaker for me as a Christian was the additional stance we were taught to take as Christians that we were to view this omnipotent sky-being as our loving father. This was one of the things which bothered me more and more as time went on when I was a Christian. Very clearly, the analog between god and an earthly father was meant to help us understand how god feels about us, what motivates his actions toward us and so forth. For a long time, I found comfort and security as well as a sense of understanding from the Heavenly Father/earthly father corollary.

 

But when I encountered (Or did it myself.) this fawning, sycophantic attitude among believers, along with the very ubiquitous and relentless teaching that this father wanted all the credit for the successes of his children in every possible little regard to the extremity that it was not just rude or ungrateful, but actually a punishable sin to not give him such ass-kissing credit, it forced me into a position where I had no choice but to question what kind of a father would behave in such a way.

 

I couldn't help it but to visualize earthly fathers who would act that way. Isn't a father supposed to be proud of their kids' accomplishments? If a kid manages through hard work and skill to land a position as quarterback on the high-school football team, does dad take every last little bit of credit for every pass thrown, every touchdown run and so forth? And does he force that kid to give him public credit every time, or face dire consequences?

 

It wasn't that I was trying to see things which were bad in the doctrine, or even simply wanting to gain a better theological understanding by doing Christian thought experiments; rather it was just that this imagery was so in-my-face that I couldn't help but to see, for instance, my own father behaving in such a way and thinking, "I could never respect that kind of man."

 

It got to the point where every single time I saw this sycophancy, I couldn't help but to have this, "extremely bad father," image pop into my head. And this was as a Christian.

 

And of course, as has been mentioned in this thread by others, that then catapulted me into having to face the questions of god's facing of his own responsibilities when bad things happen as well as good, and again, having no choice but to see him not just as an extremely bad father, but a pretty twisted person as well. The kind of person who should never be allowed to be in charge of children, his own or anyone else's.

 

The Heavenly Father/earthly father imagery was something which served to keep me in Christianity for a long time, but eventually, the addition of it to the horrible sycophancy created an alchemy between them which formed an inescapable understanding which was one of the real deal-breakers for my belief.

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Atheletes bother me. The lifelong practice and training are secondary, gawd did it. Would a divinity have time for watching and getting involved in sports? If so, he wasn't watching the Carolina Panthers very close last season.

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This is a pet peeve of mine, especially with the extremists in that category. In addition to "gawd did it" there is also the "what does gawd want me to do about this" or the "gawd must be teaching me something" or...well, the list goes on.

 

But it really does annoy me when I see far too many of my old friends who are too damn lazy to get off their butts and do anything because "gawd will provide" but then on the rare occasion they DO manage to get off their ass and accomplish something, it's all because "gawd is special, loving, kind, providing, etc." No wonder they lack motivation to actually change their circumstances - the few times they do manage something, they can only thank gawd for it, never giving themselves any credit. Makes it hard to want to go do things if you don't feel you deserve any of the credit.

 

Really annoys me as well when they will sit there looking at the motivated (non-christians) out in the world and wonder why god "blesses" them when they are sitting there striving to serve him....hmmm, maybe because gawd doesn't exist, so serving a non-existent being is why you aren't getting "blessed." But, oh, ya, their boss actually gave them their paycheck this week, so "praise gawd - all the glory - we got paid!"

 

 

Yup, this is a pet peeve of mine....

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Atheletes bother me. The lifelong practice and training are secondary, gawd did it. Would a divinity have time for watching and getting involved in sports? If so, he wasn't watching the Carolina Panthers very close last season.

And every time they, "give God the glory," for the win, they obviously haven't expended enough give-a-shit about other people to think about what they're saying about how God feels about the team that lost. How nice.

 

Assholes.

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If god was so involved, why use a surgeon anyway? Why not just pray for it to be cured by god alone?

 

They do...they die.

 

Yep, unfortunately that does happen.

 

And I believe that these preachers promoting the "faith healing" bs should be held accountable when people die or reach critical conditions because of their lies.

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