God And The Asian Tsunamis

[Morgan_Freeman]

Here's my question: If you pass by the kiddies' swimming pool and witness an infant drowning in 3 feet of water, would you interfere and save the infant? If you don't have you committed a sin?

I'll assume you are appealing to the Christian faith.
(Its funny how so so many posters here refer to a specific god or set of beliefs without making any attempt to clarify which one)

You have illustrated the perversity that lies at the heart of this religion.
God is not held to the same set of standards that the humans he created are held to.
For most Christians, this is obvious and unproblematic. They don't mind seeing themselves as a dependent, lower class of being.

If the person passing by that swimming pool were to "stay out of mortal affairs" and "preserve free will" by not saving the infant, most people would see them as psychotic, not a diety to be worshipped.

[Morgan_Freeman]

If God made those tsunamis happen, that's inteference. If He did but passively stood by and did nothing, how's that non-interference with free will? Who freely willed the tsunamis? Who freely willed the destruction of of homes and families? How was morality and salvation enhanced by not stopping destruction and death resulting in grief and sorrow?

I don't see why you would say that God made the tsunamis. Based on what I know about Christianity, God is not personally responsible for every natural event that happens.

But as I indicated before, God supposedly created the universe and therefore set the stage for this kind of thing to happen.

[orgaelin]

I'm sorry you hear you feel no particular affinity (let alone loyalty) to your country, but you owe allegiance to it. That's the law.

THE law?

Whose law?

My law?

Only I don't remember passing it.

I owe allegiance to mankind, to the earth, to all the creatures thereupon and all the mysteries among the universe in which it floats.

My allegiance to my neighbour is no greater than my allegiance to you. Patriotism is just another form of racism.

[tinybear]

The laws of your country of course. If you owe allegiance to the UK, then her enemies are your enemis and if you do business with or reveal information which could threaten the national security of the UK to those enemies, you would've committed a crime.

[tinybear]

I'll assume you are appealing to the Christian faith.
(Its funny how so so many posters here refer to a specific god or set of beliefs without making any attempt to clarify which one)

You have illustrated the perversity that lies at the heart of this religion.
God is not held to the same set of standards that the humans he created are held to.
For most Christians, this is obvious and unproblematic. They don't mind seeing themselves as a dependent, lower class of being.

If the person passing by that swimming pool were to "stay out of mortal affairs" and "preserve free will" by not saving the infant, most people would see them as psychotic, not a diety to be worshipped.

Whoa! You mean God has double standards?

[Gorgo]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/st...380697,00.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Science saves


Thursday December 30, 2004
The Guardian

The Bishop of Lincoln (Letters, December 29) asks to be preserved from religious people who try to explain the tsunami disaster. As well he might. Religious explanations for such tragedies range from loopy (it's payback for original sin) through vicious (disasters are sent to try our faith) to violent (after the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, heretics were hanged for provoking God's wrath). But I'd rather be preserved from religious people who give up on trying to explain, yet remain religious.
In the same batch of letters, Dan Rickman says "science provides an explanation of the mechanism of the tsunami but it cannot say why this occurred any more than religion can". There, in one sentence, we have the religious mind displayed before us in all its absurdity. In what sense of the word "why", does plate tectonics not provide the answer?

Not only does science know why the tsunami happened, it can give precious hours of warning. If a small fraction of the tax breaks handed out to churches, mosques and synagogues had been diverted into an early warning system, tens of thousands of people, now dead, would have been moved to safety.

Let's get up off our knees, stop cringing before bogeymen and virtual fathers, face reality, and help science to do something constructive about human suffering.
Richard Dawkins
Oxford

[tinybear]

Dawkins is a zoologist. A scientist. Of course he would say Science is stronger than God.

[Gorgo]

I don't think he said that science was stronger than god. But, of course it would follow that science would be stronger than make believe tribal war gods.

[tinybear]

This is what he said:"Not only does science know why the tsunami happened, it can give precious hours of warning. If a small fraction of the tax breaks handed out to churches, mosques and synagogues had been diverted into an early warning system, tens of thousands of people, now dead, would have been moved to safety."

Isn't he saying that instead of relying on religion, we should've devoted our time and money towards science? After all who do we worship in churches, mosques and synagogues ? God. That's who.

[Gorgo]

Right. If that's what you meant then you're right. The way you said it implied that he thought that tribal war gods existed and they were in some kind of competition with science. Saying science is "stronger" than god implies that tribal war god(s) have some strength. Things that don't exist have no strength.

[tinybear]

Well, at least one person here has said that God exercises double standards. Science, on the other hand, exercises very exact standards.

[BloodEagle]

I think the root problem is that god exhibits absolutely nothing. No interference, no signs, no morning coffe waiting for me before i go to work. He does not show up in any way. If he exists he hides because he knows we have outgrown him.

An idea i once found fascinating isthat For a God to truly exist he must be truly believed infor that is the source from which it strength is formed. In our modern society it is feasable that no one now believes in God at all. Instead they beleive in the idea of god, or the bible, or the church to which they subscribe. They worship a cross... of all the absurd things to worship it is the thing there idol was killed upon. I donththink any of John Lennons worshippers have a gun hanging on the wall in memory of him do they?