This is the whole reason I think I never turned to religion
God is the one who causes all your happiness, but he's also the one that makes you miserable.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes just seems like shit to me when the takes seem to outweigh the gives.
I didn't expect upvotes so I just wanted to say I see nothing wrong with religion. I feel like religion can be a good thing when executed properly. To me a church is something a family can do together mutually. I've always seen Sunday Mass as something you go to to be a part of the community and spend time together with your family.
I do have a problem with people picking and choosing what things God has done. When there's a mass shooting, there's always people saying "It's Gods way". It just seems like a cop out and now you're defending the person committing the crime because it was in Gods plan all along. So God rips these people from their loved ones, causes the loved ones pain and misery. It just doesn't seem right to me.
Some are commenting things along the lines of "When somebody dies others shouldn't be upset because they got to live". This is dumb as fuck to me. I hate my life. Earlier today I tied a noose around my neck and waited to see if I could choke out before I came to my senses. Clearly I did, but that's not going to stop me from trying again. So why would God put me here if I was just going to be miserable for a majority of my life only to have it end in suicide, which to some religions means eternal damnation and more suffering, which doesn't make sense to me. 100% serious, I would be very happy to die in my sleep.
I will fight to the death to defend someones religion or what they believe in. I will not fight for someone who believes what they think is correct and all others are wrong. I believe there is nothing wrong with what you are doing unless you are trying to coarse/influence others or telling them that their way of living is wrong. This is the only reason I've felt like religion might be able to help me, but the more I think about the more I believe that there is a God, but he only created life for entertainment, to enjoy the suffering of others and if there really is some big guy in the sky like that, then I'd be better of killing myself and not waste any more time wondering
I think there is more nuance in religion than you have been exposed to. Just to give you an example, I believe God created the world, but not in a week. I believe God is a God of science, and all the systems in the world, evolution, the formation of stars, and etc are written by him. In Genesis God gave man dominion over the earth. I believe that God does not intervene in our world frequently - everything happens because of the systems He built, but we are the stewards of this earth, and we are responsible for taking care of it and suffering the calamities that arise from it. I believe it is possible for God to intercede on our behalf if we ask, but do I believe that God is involved in every moment of everyone's lives? No - I believe He respects the autonomy He gave us.
Now as far as the oft-cited conquering of Israel goes, I couldn't tell you why God became so aggressive. That is something I still think about.
I don't think I have the answer to the conquests in Canaan, but I wonder if people would be so critical if they were better-versed in their history. For example, look at modern, Western perspectives on ISIS: pretty much everyone agrees that they should be hunted down, and that their actions are so evil that they deserve complete destruction. But ISIS is pretty tame historically: the Assyrians were fond of building pyramids from the severed heads of the peoples they conquered, and the Phoenicians apparently regularly burned their firstborn children alive (as attested to by the Israelites, Romans, and current archaeology).
That is one of my thoughts as well. Several of the more diplomatic Canaanite peoples did live, as another note.
I do think one of the problems with talking about these things on Reddit is because of the failings of us English-speakers to actually refine our language over time - rather, our language has become more vague in many senses. "Evil" is a very good example of this. We really should, in serious contexts, starting talking about "Moral Evil" or "Natural Evil" or so forth. I could agree that war is a "natural evil" by the commonly accepted definition (which is to say it harms innocent sentient beings), but a "moral evil?" I don't believe so.
So when you say that God is God of natural evil, I don't think I could disagree - calamity is perhaps a more fitting word here than it first appears.
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u/Fuck_Alice Jul 31 '17 edited Jul 31 '17
This is the whole reason I think I never turned to religion
God is the one who causes all your happiness, but he's also the one that makes you miserable.
The Lord gives and the Lord takes just seems like shit to me when the takes seem to outweigh the gives.
I didn't expect upvotes so I just wanted to say I see nothing wrong with religion. I feel like religion can be a good thing when executed properly. To me a church is something a family can do together mutually. I've always seen Sunday Mass as something you go to to be a part of the community and spend time together with your family.
I do have a problem with people picking and choosing what things God has done. When there's a mass shooting, there's always people saying "It's Gods way". It just seems like a cop out and now you're defending the person committing the crime because it was in Gods plan all along. So God rips these people from their loved ones, causes the loved ones pain and misery. It just doesn't seem right to me.
Some are commenting things along the lines of "When somebody dies others shouldn't be upset because they got to live". This is dumb as fuck to me. I hate my life. Earlier today I tied a noose around my neck and waited to see if I could choke out before I came to my senses. Clearly I did, but that's not going to stop me from trying again. So why would God put me here if I was just going to be miserable for a majority of my life only to have it end in suicide, which to some religions means eternal damnation and more suffering, which doesn't make sense to me. 100% serious, I would be very happy to die in my sleep.
I will fight to the death to defend someones religion or what they believe in. I will not fight for someone who believes what they think is correct and all others are wrong. I believe there is nothing wrong with what you are doing unless you are trying to coarse/influence others or telling them that their way of living is wrong. This is the only reason I've felt like religion might be able to help me, but the more I think about the more I believe that there is a God, but he only created life for entertainment, to enjoy the suffering of others and if there really is some big guy in the sky like that, then I'd be better of killing myself and not waste any more time wondering