This "God in a box" philosophy is very popular. The idea is that God is your little servant, an all-powerful Santa who can be summoned by this magic thing called "faith." If you have enough "faith" then Santa will bring you nice toys, long life, happiness, bowls of cherries, and fields of wildflowers. Despite the fact that no serious theologian can actually defend this obviously non-Biblical philosophy, it still pervades much of modern Christianity. I suspect the reason is that most modern Christians don't bother to read their Bibles...

Because they've never bothered to read Ecclesiastes. It's only 12 chapters long, and it hugely entertaining. I don't know why nobody else has ever read the thing. Anyway, check out 7:14 -- "When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other."

Speaking of Ecclesiastes, there's a lot of good stuff in here. Like 5:2 -- "God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few." Direct cross-reference over to Job 38 -- he's just finished asking God "I've been so good.... why?" God's reply is interesting: "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?" The God goes off and basically says "I'm God, I don't have to answer 'Why.'"

That sounds a lot like the "god works in mysterious ways" logic that Mike mentioned above.

You're right, it does.

But this doesn't SmileWavy

It all sounds like “mysterious ways” to me. There is no explanation given, just that god knows more than you and that he doesn’t have to answer why.

Believing that an all-powerful God should answer my silly questions is arrogance beyond megalomania. Believing that a finite human mind could make any sense of the eternal plan of a God who is outside of time and space absurdly places limits on an unlimited God. Maybe it's just "mysterious ways" phrased differently, but it's pretty rational.*

If you really want a good discussion on this topic, Dobson has a great book called "When God doesn't make sense." Amazon has it used from $2.99. Easy read -- worth about one solid afternoon, and very well-researched discussion of "mysterious ways."

Dan







*Yes, Stu, I mean "rational" assuming you believe in God. If you don't believe in God, then asking any question at all of a non-existent deity is irrational. Heck, if you don't believe in God, even believing in God is irrational.

It may seem rational to you, but to me, saying god works in mysterious ways whenever you can’t explain something seems like a huge cop-out.

I wish I could say I work in mysterious ways when the cop asked my why I was speeding.

Or perhaps science could say electricity works in mysterious ways.

Or I could tell my boss I haven’t gotten that job done yet because I work in mysterious ways.

But because of your "rational" description, you get to say “god works in mysterious ways.” Lucky you.

Before man understood electricity, did that mean it did not exist?

Lightning was the work of the gods. THunder was an angry god. Volcanos were the work of the gods. Ships would sail off the edge of the earth. The sun revolved around the earth. The world was created in 6 days.

All these were fact at some point.

I line I heard in a movie once just popped into my head:

“God is an imaginary friend for grown-ups.”

It doesn't work for _everything_, silly. Only questions that start with "Why did God do ..." Those are the unanswerable ones. :)

LOL. Thats right on the money.

Ok, this is late now. But I just read this thread, and Stuart!!!! Your post on page 1 cracked me up!!!

Couldn't resist Photoshopping this:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1111624626.jpg

Oh cheesus christ - if he is up there even he would biatch slap your arse into next easter for using that lame line to "prove" your point.

When two opposing sports teams both pray for victory, how does one explain that one has to lose?

Was this a serious question? Surely not.

There are many things we do not yet understand. My philosophy is simply to not ascribe a supernatural explanation to these things. Example: we have a pretty good understanding as to the mechanisms that lead to the diversity of life on this planet (evolution), what we don't know is how life originated. Just because we don't know doesn't mean that some supernatural being must have created it.

My clutch cable broke a couple of months ago. I have no idea how it happened, but I don't think that god did it.

Mike

One of the “hooks” religion uses is the ability to explain the unexplainable. Humans are very curious and we seek knowledge whenever we can. Heck, why are we here on this board? We seek knowledge about our cars, and on the off-topic board, we seek knowledge about a lot of things.

This need for knowledge has served us well over the eons. Learning about our environment when we still lived in caves helped us thrive and get where we are today, where we explore space to satisfy our thirst for knowledge.

There will always be things we can’t explain. We’re constantly learning, of course. Science has figured out a lot of things that used to be attributed to god. Things we take for granted today used to be unexplained scientifically. Some people explain the unexplainable with god, and some just say science hasn’t figured it out yet. For those who use god, god satisfies this need for knowledge. My opinion is this is one of the reasons they believe in god. It satisfies this need (and many other needs as well). Since god meets so many needs, he must exist.



As for your clutch cable, I think it is god’s way of saying you need to switch to a car with an automatic. Remember, he works in mysterious ways… ;)

The movie "Gods and Generals" addressed this topic. In this case it was a war and not a sporting event.

It's his car, his sticker, his right to display it, and none of your darned business!

I know lots of people don't believe in the teachings of the bible and thats their business, not mine. Shouldn't a person who does believe get the same respect?

Oh, I get it. That person doesn't believe in the same thing as you, so he is wrong and must be punished!

I wish alot of the well meaning Christians where I live would have shown me the same consideration when I had one of those "Darwin" fish on the back of my car. Many of them felt it was their business to "witness" to me about the errors in my beliefs...

Mike

It would be none of our business if he didn't put it on the bumper of his car for everyone to see, discuss and/or think about.