Seeing as it's a new year...

[Snagg]

..Perhaps a reminder to keep the BS detectors cranked to max is in order.

On the subject:

“Take the Holocaust for example: Why did God allow Hitler to kill millions of innocent Jews? Because God didn't want to step on Hitler's toes and interfere with his free will? That's a pretty lame excuse. What about the free will of all those Jews who died? I'm pretty sure that getting gassed to death was obviously not their choice.

So, was the Holocaust part of God's great plan? Is that why he allowed it to happen? Is that why God didn't answer the prayers of all those Jews who begged him to make Hitler drop dead?

Why didn't God just make Hitler have a heart attack before he could start World War 2? Why didn't he simply prevent Hitler from being born? How could a God who is supposed to be all good all the time allow something like the Holocaust?

Or did God not just LET it happen? Maybe God MADE the Holocaust happen, because everything that happens, happens for a good reason? Are our minds simply too tiny, too inferior, to understand God's divine plan? Are we just too stupid to see the greater good that came out of the Holocaust?

If that were true, and everything that happens, including the Holocaust, is part of God's perfect plan, then that means that Hitler really wasn't a bad man at all. He was actually doing God's work. And if Hitler did exactly what he was supposed to do in God's great plan, then Hitler obviously didn't have free will, but was just God's puppet. So that means Hitler was a good guy. A man of God.

Sorry, but there is no religion in the world that could sell me on believing THAT bullshit.”

― Oliver Markus, Sex and Crime: Oliver's Strange Journey

[crestofwaves]

In a story, a man asked God why he allowed hunger and pain and suffering on earth.  He responded, "I'm glad you brought that up.  I was just about to ask you the same thing."

Think of it this way:  Have your children ever disobeyed you and caused problems?  We have free choice.  Man screws things up.  As Thomas Jefferson believed, I think God set this whole thing in motion and sits back and watches what man does with it.

The plan is perfect.  When I eat a ripe  sweet plum, I realize it every time.  Man is the problem.

As to the Holocaust, how many of those people, in the midst of their suffering, still prayed to God for strength?  One either has faith or one doesn't.  Neither state is better than the other, they are just psychologically different. Man let the holocaust happen.  Many knew but were afraid or kept silent.  America knew.  We knew about Rwanda as well. 

[Snagg]

Here is the reason that "the plan" is not only NOT perfect - It doesn't even exist:

The plum would taste the same "perfect" way that it does even if there were no humans around to eat it, nor admire and comment upon it's "perfection".

This world, this reality was not created FOR us - WE are a casual, barely important accident, a side-result of it's natural processes, not really all that different - morally - from a fruit fly. Where people screw everything up is in the insistence that we are far more important and vital for said reality to continue than we actually are.

Here's something that might temporarily restore a sense of scale to the "importance" of the human race:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140105-timeline-of-the-far-future

[crestofwaves]

Exactly!  We are nothing. Our problems amount to a hill of beans in the grand scheme. Are you surprised that I agree?  I don't think God is involved in our tales told by idiots signifying nothing.  He's just there to be there for those of us who need him. And so we beat on, boats against the current....  Can you tell I was an English teacher, lol?  That rose will still smell as sweet without man...  OK. I'm done now ;).

[dwalt]

Thank you crest.  You always explain so well the thing I want to.

[Shadowman]

Any question that starts out with, "Why did God allow..." of course assumes the existence of a god. But if one assumes that, then what type of god, what would be the definition? Maybe it is a deist sort of god that was smart enough to create a world but that is all and has no power to do much after that, sort of like a microbiologist that creates a malicious virus in a laboratory but when it escapes does not know how to stop it.

In the context of evil it is often asked, if god is all powerful why is there evil in the world? And the common religious answer is that it is necessary to accomodate freewill.  But if the god is really omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, etc. then it should be smart enough to figure out how to do both, suppress evil and allow freewill.

The harder question for people that want to believe in both a god with the aforementioned theistic characteristics and freewill is in that such a god has foreknowledge of all things, so how can one have freewill? Afterall, the god knows every single thought and action that you are going to have.

[Snagg]

Which was the point of my original post. The human concept of "god" cannot logically exist - And one would hope than an omnipotent, unstoppable, omniscient force would be supremely logical.

[officerripley]

Hitler ultimately  didn't win the war but he bailed out by committing suicide when he decided he wanted to die, so some  would consider that in a way winning out over over all the people he killed who didn't want to die.  And there are neo-nazis & facsists aplenty still today.  So his version of truth goes marching on.  

And right this very minute (as always), there's someone somewhere in the world being beaten to a pulp (or to death!), a woman being raped, a child being molested (which in my opinion is a fate worse than death), etc. who at least a few of whom I suspect are calling out to god who is supposedly there for when we need him/her/it; but, no response, just as there was no response for those that died in the Holocaust & in every other ethnic "cleansing" since the beginning of time.  

And Alzheimer's, for crying out loud, Alzheimers.  It says somewhere in the christian bible I think something about after Jesus comes back, for those that get into heaven, "He will dry every tear" so that you won't suffer any sadness in heaven.  I asked somebody, "how's he gonna dry every tear" & the response was "He'll wipe out all your bad memories."  But our memories are 100 percent of what makes us us.  So if he wipes out your bad memories, you won't be you anymore.  That therefore is what to me is so (at the risk of using a religious word) hellish about Alzheimer's; even "moderate" cases of it rob people of themselves.  And unfortunately, the poor people know it sometimes; I remember my poor stepmother, in her dwindling lucid moments, crying & saying "My mind, my mind, what's happening to my mind?!  Why can't I remember things anymore?!  What's happening to me?!"  And I know she believed in & prayed to god but no help for her except death.

So life is what it is:  a bitch and then you die.  All we can do is try to help others whenever possible & make the best of things.

And:

[frenchy]

jesus probably doesn't love everyone, especially assholes. He probably wants to punch them but He won't. That's what makes him Jesus.

ok thats a very sarcastic statement .. but in the bible cain killed abel .. god banished him but didn't kill him .. jesus himself was crucified and he didn't stop it .. a lot of bad things do happen in this world .. i can't profess to say i know why .. but it does say that sin is something the father can't look upon .. all sin is bad to him .. so if he was to deal with hitler why wouldn't he deal with jeffrey dahmer ?? or the fucktard who lives around the corner from you molestin little kids ?? god would be so busy that nobody would be left cause we're all sinners ..so we'd all have somethin to answer for if he did .. 

as far as the jews goes god sent a messiah and they rejected him . says in the bible that they knew him not and that was predicted to happen . it was also predicted that the jews would be scattered to the 4 corners of the world because of it .. and they would find no place where they could have peace .. but the prediction was that someday they would reestablish their homeland .. do you know any nation thats been scattered like the jews have and came back to set up their homeland again 2000 years later ? and in some weird way hitler was the one who made it all possible .. because no hitler .. no jewish homeland .. they'd still be spread throughout  europe .. and the way they did it .. a few years before they were in concentration camps and here they were in palestine against all odds settin up a homeland that they were led to by moses and promised by god .. the whole arab world said no we don't want a jewish state here .. yet they won .. that in itself was a miracle ..they were just a ragtag bunch of guys who were at deaths door not long before .. not trained soldiers .. and then again in 1967 when they recaptured jeruselem .. enemies on all sides .. outnumbered 10 to 1 and they won .. yeah you could say god might have blinked for a second when hitler was alive ..i wouldn't agree with that but you could say it ..but you can't say he turned his back on the jews .. if he had there would be no jews alive today ..they would have never made it 1900 years livin all over the world bein persecuted wherever they went if that was true .. god has a plan for this world .. its just that the picture he's lookin at is far bigger than the one you or i can see .. i'm not smart enough to second guess him .. i do wonder sometimes like everyone else does but in the end its gods world and i just live in it .. i can't change it .. i can only change the little bit thats around me .. and i'm not all that good at that .. but i do try ..   

[officerripley]

It also said somewhere in the bible that the Jews were warned of false messiahs--yeah yeah I know Jesus or 1 of apostles said that too but it's also somewhere in the old testament, just can't remember where right now--and due to the fact that the  2 or more Jewish guys running around preaching/lecturing that Jesus is probably based on were radicals either trying to get folks to rebel against Rome and/or to look at their religion in a fresh way, no wonder they rejected him/them.  People with a new way of looking at things are just about always considered to be boat-rockers and rejected, it seems.  Go figure homosapiens.

[frenchy]

yeah you're right officer .. jesus was a boat rocker for sure .. the day he turned the tables of the money changers over in the temple pretty much sealed his fate .. they said this guys gotta go .. the saduces and pharasies were used to havin their way and jesus was contestin that .. and there were other messiahs or false messiahs at the same time as jesus .. and there will be more .. and many will be fooled ..its a crazy sick world out there ..