God is Great?

[Dave the OAP]

Let's look at his 2005 track record: --

Asian Tsunami -- 300,000 dead
Hurricane Katrina -- 900 dead
Pakistan earthquake - 40,000 dead

According to insurance companies, these are all classed as Acts of God...

After the Hurricane Katrina disaster, many survivors in New Orleans were praising the Lord for having saved them.
Villagers triumphantly rescuing a child from the Pakistani earthquake could be heard chanting "God is great".

If these poor, deluded people believe that God saved them, you wonder who they believe was responsible for killing all their friends and relations.

God is great? God is cruel? God is incompetent?
Or God is non-existent?

You decide.

Or is the Earth still forming and moving and have we as humans built our settlements on places we shouldn't have, ie San Andreas fault line, New Orleans below sea level, cities in areas that are receptive to Hurricanes, ie Central and Southern United States?

I am not sure God said to anyone where we should build our houses.

Great catastrophies have happened throughout the whole of our stay on this earth, from the great floods in biblical times, plagues, volcanic eruptions and even metorites hitting the earth causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. Ice ages, the spread of deserts due to soil erosion., World wars...are you suggesting that this is all God's fault?

 

[Yorkie]

Richer countries can also afford to build quake proof buildings.
The Pacific has several tsunamis a year (although not all as big as Boxing Day) but have an early warning system in place so that there is hardly any loss of life.

 

[lost in london]

The trouble is that some of these religious types see the bad things like earthquakes as being some kind of punishment. When they find one survivor, they praise God, thanking him for letting this one person live.

In reality it's just God showing off, letting them know who's in control. Even if he did exist I think God sounds a touch arrogant for a self appointed leader. I never voted for him.

 

[larus]

Maybe. Some scientists say it has, some say it hasn't.

I have neither the wit or wherewithall to dispute either theory convincingly.

But there is so much evidence pointing towards the climate changing. My great fear is that scientists have modelled what they think may happen. However, they can't even predict the weather for the next month accurately.

How can they then try to predict twhat the effects may be of climate change.

Historical evidence has proved that sometimes climate changes can happen dramatically over a short period of time. For example, the melting of the polar ice-caps will release a huge amount of fresh water into the north atlantic. When the salinity of the water drops below a certain level, the convector effect of the gulf-stream will be cut-off and we could be plunged inot a new ice-age (a-la The Day After Tomorrow, without all the american heroes). Perverse isn't it, the global warming can cause an ice-age.

The simple fact is, would you want to trust the climate to people like Dubya, Phoney Bliar, etc. who only think out the short term effects of power and the economy, wealth creation.

 

[eastlondonseagull]

In reality it's just God showing off, letting them know who's in control.

No, it's just life happening.

 

[Gilliver's Travels]

Why do you automatically think a heart attack happens to an old man?
Richard Beckinsale was 31 when he died. My friend was 37 last year. He never had a days illness in his life before that.

My own sister only lived a few hours after her birth and my half brother died of a brain inflammation aged 21.

All death is painful for those families involved. Just because thousands die at once rather than one at a time doesn't make it any better.

I'm not 'automatically thinking' anything. That kind of thing is for Christians. Medical statistics speak for themselves concerning victims' age distribution.

Instead of trotting out atypical personal anecdotes, why not answer the original question? Is God there, and maybe just cruel or incompetent... or is he just man-made?

 

[Pavilionaire]

It sounds as though a number of people on here are content to put all natural disasters down to the idea that "shit happens".

If this thinking was adopted worldwide there would be Kyoto Agreement, no restriction on the emission of greenhouse gasses.

There seems to be enough evidence to strongly suggest man is having a significant effect on the world's ecosystem and that weather patterns may be changing as a result.

 

[Dave the OAP]

The trouble is that some of these religious types see the bad things like earthquakes as being some kind of punishment. When they find one survivor, they praise God, thanking him for letting this one person live.

In reality it's just God showing off, letting them know who's in control. Even if he did exist I think God sounds a touch arrogant for a self appointed leader. I never voted for him.

I tend to take the view that there are 100 billion suns in the Universe ( probably more), all with planets orbitting them. we are a very small planet in comparison to our own planets, therefore there must be some bloody big planets with a damn sight more life on them that here....therefore logically, God may have something a bit more pressing to do than interfere with our insignificant little world.

man is very arrogant to believe that God is watching over all of us all of the time.

 

[Yorkie]

I'm not 'automatically thinking' anything. That kind of thing is for Christians. Medical statistics speak for themselves concerning victims' age distribution.

Instead of trotting out atypical personal anecdotes, why not answer the original question? Is God there, and maybe just cruel or incompetent... or is he just man-made?

Why is death cruel? It is part of life.
What makes one death worse than another is my point.

 

[Biscuit]

What makes one death better?

 

[Gilliver's Travels]

I hope he's like Matthew Corbett. I didn't always approve of his silent manipulation of Sweep, but his heart was in the right place

And so was his hand.

 

[Dave the OAP]

its all about perception and personal involvement.

the death of a child who has not had the time to experience life is percieved as more tragic that an aged person who has lived life's experiences.

Someone who dies at 31 from cancer is percieved as tragic, whereas when someone like Sutcliffe the Yorkshire ripper lives to a ripe old age and dies naturally will be viewed by some people as not fair

 

[lost in london]

I tend to take the view that there are 100 billion suns in the Universe ( probably more), all with planets orbitting them. we are a very small planet in comparison to our own planets, therefore there must be some bloody big planets with a damn sight more life on them that here....therefore logically, God may have something a bit more pressing to do than interfere with our insignificant little world.

man is very arrogant to believe that God is watching over all of us all of the time.

I like the idea of that. Even though I don't believe in a God, it's nice to think that if he did exist he had an in-tray and to-do list. Can just picture him sitting at his desk up in heaven, seeing the earthquake, thumping the table and saying 'bollocks, i meant to sort that out on Friday before I left work, they are going to be PISSED at me.'

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Can I just say that in my experience all Christians are kiddyfiddlers?

What, I can't? Oh well I won't bother then, carry on as you are people.

 

[Dave the OAP]

Can I just say that in my experience all Christians are kiddyfiddlers?

Thankyou for that.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Thankyou for that.

My pleasure. Just thought I should keep up the standard of debate of the previous posters.

 

[Dave the OAP]

My pleasure. Just thought I should keep up the standard of debate of the previous posters.

...and you did.

 

[Uncle Spielberg]

Hopefully Binner Ladens cave fell in on him somewhere
in Pakistan.

 

[eastlondonseagull]

It sounds as though a number of people on here are content to put all natural disasters down to the idea that "shit happens".

No, not all natural disasters, no. Mainly just ones that come from plate tectonics and all that stuff, something that does happen naturally.

I agree with you about hurricanes etc probably being affected by man's own environmental lunacy.

 

[eastlondonseagull]

Hopefully Binner Ladens cave fell in on him somewhere
in Pakistan.

Nah, Bush's boys airlifted him to safety b4 it happened.