posted
I'm having a hard time not responding to an email my cousin sent me this morning. It containsa this link.
The link is to the website for American Family Radio, and the page features a short Youtube clip which shows a map of the US with the locations of school shootings and a crosshair naming all the locations. It follows that with a "letter" from someone asking God why he could allow this to happen and God answering back "Dear Concerned Student, I am not allowed in schools. Sincerely, God."
Now my cousin, who sent me this email, is a parent, and a stalwart Christian, but she isn't a blithering idiot, so I have to wonder how she could send this type of message out to people as if she is endorsing it.
The video goes on from there with condoms in the classroom, abortion, blaming Clinton for child pornography on the internet, etc.
It just boggles the mind. And above all I have to ask: WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?! The types of things the video blames on society are the types of things that parents are supposed to be there to protect against. So we're supposed to live in a whitewashed society just because parents aren't willing to properly raise their kids? I realize parents aren't magic shields, but the video seems to assume that parents wouldn't even need to tell their kids about sex, or about the risks that exist out there in the world.
If I were a serious Christian, I would be seriously angry at this video for portraying Christian parents as lazy and unable to teach their children right from wrong, as apparently in the Christian view of how the world should be, parents don't teach their children, society does, so we should try and fix society so parents won't be responsible.
I'm disgusted, and sorely tempted to send my cousin back an email expressing my feelings on the matter, though I know that it wouldn't be the wisest thing to do. Am I totally off base here in my reaction?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Not off base, but sending her something won't do much good... as it is what she believes. I wonder the same thing, what does that sort of thing have to do with anything? They do tend to have a point about society's structures, but I doubt that the American Family association helps when it comes to things like that. It is up to the parents to provide a good example and to not bother even getting MTV if they hate it so much. It is their job to counter those values they dislike...
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I have seen something similar -- a poster modeled after the famous "footprints" poem with dates and locations of various shooting and "where were you when . . . " and ending with the "I am not allowed in the schools" line. I first heard about it after Columbine.
I think it's vicious and vile.
It's crappy theology as well, which is the angle I start with when talking to people who've seen it and think it's great. Generally, I think they haven't thought it through.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Oh, and as a "serious Christian" I'm much less bothered by how the idea portrays parents than by how it portrays God.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:If I were a serious Christian, I would be seriously angry at this video for portraying Christian parents as lazy and unable to teach their children right from wrong, as apparently in the Christian view of how the world should be, parents don't teach their children, society does, so we should try and fix society so parents won't be responsible.
Please understand that I'm in no way endorsing or approving or in any way positive about what your cousin sent you. I want that really clear, okay? I don't like those sorts of things either.
However.
I'm a 'serious Christian' and I still think it's worth being concerned about what is and isn't allowed in our schools. Once we send our kids off to public school, honestly, the teachers get the best hours of our kids. By the time they get home, they've had their fill of listening. Of course we educate in the best way possible: we live what we believe. However, it is still difficult to work out the more subtle contradictions to our faith. We frequently don't even hear about them until our child mentions it, if they do.
Understand, again, that I think it's stupid to say that God's not in the schools. I suspect there is often more prayer there than in some churches, especially around test time. Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
You know, with the logic of "the bad stuff is happening because God's not at those places" perhaps a good counter is that bad things happen everywhere, ergo, God's not anywhere on Earth.
And why should we worship such a neglectful bastard as that?
Then again, I don't believe that. I'm just taking the original arguements logic to what I see as the logical conclusion.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I've had a couple of religious friends send me tripe like that.
I respond back to them. Gently, but firmly. Sometimes a little snarkily, but that's just me.
If you don't respond, then you are telling them that it's OK to put that crap out there in the world. You are condoning it. You are leading to just the sort of world you fear and despise, and you are becoming just the sort of person you really can't stand, or revealing yourself as being that sort of person.
posted
I didn't realize that God only answers formal, organized prayers. I pray constantly at work (I'm a teacher) and I'm sure there are some of my students do to. There is just no way to satisfy the needs of all the different religious ideologies in a formal prayer.
I have many of the concerns that that video addresses. But whoever mentioned "Where are the parents?" hit the nail on the head. While I am concerned for the general direction of society in general I can't control what others do. I can only save myself and teach my children (when I have my own)the principles I believe are correct and true. If that means we don't watch TV and monitor internet usage and teaching sex ed at home then that is what I do. Hey! That's what I'm doing right now with my step-daughters. (One of them is a frequent lurker here...you can't get much better than that, right?)
I am conservative. I am Christian. I don't like this video. It suggests corrolations that aren't necessarily cause and effects. I don't approve President Clinton's behavior in the White House bathroom, but I don't think he's the cause of child porn.
On the other hand, if people don't take a stand for what they believe, what will our society become? But, misleading propaganda may not be the right vehicle.
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
The problem, to my mind, is the suggestion that God is somehow punishing people- innocent people- with death for the misdeeds of society in neglecting Him. It troubled me after Columbine, it troubled me after 9/11, it troubled me with Phelps and his ilk, and it troubles me with this kind of thing as well.
I suppose I would be tempted to ask, earnestly, two questions:
Do you believe that God uses people like Cho-Seung Hui to exact punishment on innocents in His name?
Do you believe that secular law has the power to keep God out of anywhere?
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Those types of propogandist videos are incredibly insensitive to the victims' families, as well.
Good questions, Sterling. My own personal beliefs strongly contradict the answers presumed or at least suggested by the video.
Were students praying when they heard their classmates being murdered? Did God ignore them because that prayer wasn't institutionalized? Insensitive and disgusting.
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
You can't draw black and white correlations like this video did. The thing that bothers me most is what Sterling said (meaning I agree with Sterling and I don't like what the video says), namely that God let those specific individuals die because prayer was not allowed in school. I have prayed silently many times in school and it would hurt me to think that God is ignoring me because public prayer is not allowed.
Parents are ultimately responsible and community is secondary. This means that I don't hold society guiltless. I'm a family therapist, and one of the things that you are constantly taught is that cause-and-effect is never cut-and-dry. Problems within a family can never be pinned on solely one person. Family and individual problems are complex to sort out. The same is true of societal problems. I do think that pushing God out of our mainstream lives on a political level, and a personal level, bodes ill for all of society. Parents are mainly responsible, but society plays a part, too.
And I don't think that pushing specific things out of the public scene, like prayer and saying "Merry Christmas", are so much of a problem as a general decline in decent moral standards (which are often associated with religion or spirituality, but I have also known very many good, moral people who did not believe in God).
For example, as a counselor, I am astounded at the sheer numbers of adults and kids who have been sexually or physically abused, or neglected. It's hard to find clients who have not been affected by these things. These problems of abuse are becoming widespread, and these are not problems that can simply be tacked onto "God isn't allowed in school" or condoms being handed out. There are a number of reasons these problems are happening. Many abusers have been abused, so family patterns play a part. Our media is saturated with sex, making sexual addictions so much more accessible. The pursuit of personal pleasure seems paramount in so many parts of society. Each of us could make our own list of why some of these problems are getting worse (and some of you would probably argue that religion is the cause of many problems. I would only agree with you if you changed "religion" to "bad religion." Poorly practiced religion can be devastating, because it gives you an excuse to do immoral things by claiming God endorses you).
I don't want to go into a lot of issues, I guess the point I am making is that all of these problems are complex. As a Christian, I do believe that if every home taught Christian morals (and I don't mean the propagandized ones), the world would be a better place. If things start right in the home, the general effect would be that society would improve. This is not to say that everyone would turn out okay, since everyone has free choice. I am also not saying that Christians have a monopoly on good morals, since they don't. I just say Christian because the morals I believe in are in a Christian context.
But it is my belief (and you don't have to agree with me) that if the entire world were to stop worshiping a higher power and sought to live only by the ideals established by mankind (which if you don't believe in God, then I suppose spiritual ideals are also manmade), the world would start to decline in overall civility and goodness.
I guess if I didn't believe this, then I wouldn't have much reason to believe in my faith, since the whole idea behind spirituality is that living it makes you and the world around you a better place.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
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posted
Interesting, you make good points. I am techincally not Christian, but I believe that the best thing is to act by examime. To make treating people with respect and compassion a priority. It's not worth it to abuse and hurt other people because by doing that, it effects the whole fabric of the world. You make great points about the effect of abuse on children today, it annoys me how a lot of Christian leaders spend their time ranting and raving about homosexuality or the so-called decline of morals and not enough energy on what really negatively effects people. Right now I'm reading a book called The Limits of Hope. It's about a couple with three children who adopted two troubled children who were bounced from one foster home to the next and abused by their biological parents. As a result they couldn't attach to their adoptive parents, the social workers did not help as they did poorly in school, stole from their family, and by the time they were 18 one was a prostitute on drugs and the other had a baby that was developmentally disabled before she was ready to be responsible for children. If they really want to improve the world, they reall should *highjacks another thread* spend time and energy on improving and reforming the foster care system. They should be lobbying senators to do this. They have the power. If they can get Republican congressman to try to ban gay marriage, surely they can get them to reform the system on the state and a federal level? They could even rally Democrats to do the same, who act as if they have a monopoly on issues like this. Most of the time politicians are only interested in these sorts of reforms during an election season or when more children have become grim statistics. i think the churches need to get involved and connect with people they do not agree with. The professionals and social workers must also do the same and it must not be limited JUST to America either. What sort of world will we live in when millions of children are languishing in orphanages, sold to brothels and otherwise doomed to a life of misery and despair? Who even knew what this young man went through to turn him into a killer? The only time a person takes enough notice of these issues is if it were a person who was a victim of the system who then becomes a criminal? I've gone off topic, but to me, this is the most important issue there is. There's nothing in the world more important, more essential than making things better for children in this entire world. Who knows if this man was abused? He did have that play on that subject that I haven't read yet. This sort of thing must not be allowed to continue. It's not an issue of pray in schools and their version of god, it's something else and it really needs to be addressed.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
If someone invented a time machine, I'd consider chipping in for a one-way ticket to 17th century Europe for the author of that video. Seems to be the kind of place s/he would enjoy.
Adam, I think it would be possible to word an email expressing strong disapproval without being insulting. That's what I'd try to do.
posted
The 1700s? Really? Weren't the 1700s actually the first flower of secular philosophy in Europe, when the Enlightenment began turning theologians into scientists?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
1) Just because organized prayer is not allowed in public schools does not mean that God is not allowed in.
2) There is nothing any government could do to keep God out.
3) God does not allow violence in places where he is allowed to enter? How about the pedophile cases in some Catholic and other churches? How about the burnings of Churches by radicals and racists? How about the destruction of Churches by natural disasters from Hurricane Katrina to your average Blizzard or Tornado? If this violence could happen where God is most often invited in, how would it be stopped at the school door?
And this won't count the Tennessee shooting of a few years ago, where the Prayer Group was attacked.
4) But just suppose we agree that God won't allow violence into places that allow him in, please tell me which God, or which aspect, version, or flavor of faith we should endorse in our schools? Do we allow Christian but not Islam? Baptist but not Catholic? Methodist but not LDS, or do we invite them all in.
Yeah, lets be safe.
Lets invite them all in, with mandatory sacrifices and prayers to all denomination of all sects of all beliefs.
Then, when that is done, who knows. Maybe we could get some learning in too.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
"Dear Concerned Student, I am not allowed in schools. Sincerely, God."
"You know, with the logic of "the bad stuff is happening because God's not at those places" perhaps a good counter is that bad things happen everywhere, ergo, God's not anywhere on Earth."
Actually, the logic would be ". . . ergo God's not ALLOWED anywhere on Earth." I can buy both arguments. The less society both believes in and follows God, the more wicked it is, therefore the more damaging society becomes. The innocent (if there is such a thing) get in the crossfire and the wicked are eventually punished for those acts with the innocent as witnesses. There are many parents that believe this is what is happening and are doing something about it by homeschooling.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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The 1700s? Really? Weren't the 1700s actually the first flower of secular philosophy in Europe, when the Enlightenment began turning theologians into scientists?
Yeah, began to.
Point taken. I've fixed the post. Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
Actually, I'm not sure why I had to edit that post. I could have just written 'Point taken' and left it alone. *shrug*
Posts: 1762 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
First off I would like to say that organized prayer is allowed in school. Absolutely no problem at all- in fact- if someone tried to stop it- they would be in trouble.
The thing is- the teacher/administrator/staff worker can't be the organizer. There is absolutely nothing a school worker can do if several students decide to organize a prayer meeting- without disrupting the school of course.
So to say that since you can't pray in school- that's a straight up lie. So when praying isn't done at school- wouldn't it be the students fault? And therefore the children of these 'Christians' aren't doing what they are supposed to be doing.
I'm a Christian. I pray in school. I don't want a teacher to become a preacher and start praying as a class activity. It's not right- and I believe in the end- sinful.
The other thing too- is God allows people to suffer even when he is around. Now maybe I have a different view on the spiritual significance of suffering because of many experiences I've gone through (and because when I was like 7 or 8 the first book of the bible I ever tried to read was Job ) but look at the story of Job. He was allowed to suffer- God ordained it.
If there's anything I dislike more than stupid and/or hypocritical people it's stupid and/or hypocritical Christians.
Posts: 980 | Registered: Aug 2005
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"Actually, the logic would be ". . . ergo God's not ALLOWED anywhere on Earth." I can buy both arguments"
Right, good point, minor mistake on my part.
However... the only problem is, the Earth isn't any more violent than it used to be.
The only difference is that our tools are more efficient. Pompeii happened a very long time ago, and natural disasters today are killing more people because there are a lot more people.
The only reason we hear of so many crimes is because the means for reporting them have become much more efficient than in centuries past.
In the days of old, when entire cities were burned and entire peoples put to death, was God there any more than now, by the logic given that he's not allowed?
It seems as though he's never been allowed on earth if that view is correct. (if I'm getting the logic right, and my assumptions about violence, death and pain are right.)
So why, exactly, praise a God that is not allowed on our world and does not, and has never, been there to help us?
An impotent God... what's the point of that?
Again, I'm trying to bring the logic to it's farthest point. I don't believe the logic at all, I think it's rediculous.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
OOOOHH! What about the poor Amish school that was all shot up by the milkman. You can't tell me that God wasn't allowed in that school!
What impressed me most was the reaction of these people after this tragedy...talk about living up to you religious convictions!
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Mar 2001
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posted
First of all, there is evil in this world. That doesn't mean that there is no G'd in this world.
The sentiment expressed, that G'd permits evil to flourish out of spite, is an example of evil. I've gotten other nasty emails that I also see as evil disguised as piety.
A particularly horrible one was in response to innocent children being killed. G'd supposedly felt that His heavenly garden needed a little sprucing up, so He gathered some beautiful souls to beautify heaven, where he could look on and admire them always. Evil, I say! Rather than causing people to embrace and obey G'd, this sort of schlock drives good people away. It is evil work, done by either those people who are genuinely evil, or are too dopey to recognize it when it comes their way.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
0Megabyte, your logic is not consistent with what religious people (particularly Conservative Christians) believe. So far all of your responses start with assumptions that they do not hold. For instance:
"It seems as though he's never been allowed on earth if that view is correct. (if I'm getting the logic right, and my assumptions about violence, death and pain are right.)"
shows a lack of understanding of the Christian idea of the Fall and history. For them, this is absolutely true and the very reason sin, violence, and (not to conflate this in with the rest too closely)natural disasters have always been with us. [personal note: my own religious ideas of this are both the same and different. I do not believe in the utter depravity of humanity because of the Fall. I do, however, share in the idea that humanity has always been making the wrong and even evil choices.]
"Pompeii happened a very long time ago, and natural disasters today are killing more people because there are a lot more people," proves their beliefs more than you think. Many Christians (at least that I know) use Pompeii as an example of God's wrath toward a Heathen and wicked city. It would be better if you used an example of a natural disaster that destroyed a Christian city. On top of that, the second idea of more people dying because there are more people is not very good analysis. It implies statistics that you don't provide. There would be more proof of your assumption if you showed there are more people and an equal or lesser amount of disasters today than before.
However, statistics that I have seen actually show the opposite. Natural disasters are increasing in size and frequency. The same studies have left open that this might be because of the availability of modern record keeping. Agreed (before someone steps in) I have not provided information on this. Someone would have to do better than the both of us. I am lazy and don't have the time.
"So why, exactly, praise a God that is not allowed on our world and does not, and has never, been there to help us?"
Again, your assumptions are getting in the way of what Christians really believe. God is not allowed in this world, not because He can't, but because we won't let Him and often actively work against Him. Of course, this gets into the ideas of free will vs. predestination that has been argued back and forth for Centuries.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
I see the message as a passive aggressive attack against anyone who doesn't actively support school prayer, abstinence only sex education, etc. The message is, "YOU people keep God from saving people with your sinful ways."
It's almost a Sodom and Gomorrah idea, that these un-Godly schools deserve death. Religion can make some seriously twisted and heartless followers.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Not really. But some seriously twisted and heartless people certainly do use religion as an excuse for their behavior. Others find other excuses.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
That's bad, Lyrhawn, but the link below is worse. Warning: It's from the Phelps' church o' hate."God Hates The World" Music Video
It's their title, BTW. I stumbled onto this the other day. The weirdest part is watching smiling grandmothers sing the most hateful lyrics.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: Not really. But some seriously twisted and heartless people certainly do use religion as an excuse for their behavior. Others find other excuses.
posted
Occasional, what might the meaning and intent of the following be, from a (sympathetic) Conservative Christian viewpoint?
quote:It follows that with a "letter" from someone asking God why he could allow this to happen and God answering back "Dear Concerned Student, I am not allowed in schools. Sincerely, God."
(I'm not trying to pick a fight -- I'm really interested in your answer. I have trouble making sense of it in a sympathetic way.)
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Occasional: Again, your assumptions are getting in the way of what Christians really believe. God is not allowed in this world, not because He can't, but because we won't let Him and often actively work against Him. Of course, this gets into the ideas of free will vs. predestination that has been argued back and forth for Centuries.
Christians believe God is not allowed in this world?
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Morbo: Christians believe God is not allowed in this world?
Logically, that statement doesn't even make sense. Christian theology is clear that God decides what happens, people don't boss God around. See Garden of Eden, Job, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Flood, etc. Secondly, how would people know about God, if God were not allowed in the world? Thirdly, wouldn't True Christians, who feel God constantly as a happy presence of love in their hearts, be in agony, as they felt God's love ripped from their eternal souls?
I miss the days of strong Christian rhetoricians. The internet is a great media for people who want to yell about something that they haven't even thought about for a minute (not directed at anyone here, but at people who start mean-spirited chain emails and so forth).
Lyrhawn: Maybe send your cousin the quote from the Bible which goes something like, "Whenever two or more are gathered in my name, I am there."
Certainly any given non-religious school in America has at least two Christians.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Morbo: That's bad, Lyrhawn, but the link below is worse. Warning: It's from the Phelps' church o' hate."God Hates The World" Music Video
It's their title, BTW. I stumbled onto this the other day. The weirdest part is watching smiling grandmothers sing the most hateful lyrics.
I can't remember ever seeing anything as horrible as that, on so many levels. I was not able to finish watching it, but I'm assuming that it was more of the same.
There is evil abroad in the world, and this video is part of it.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Occasional, I'm a Roman Catholic, dude, and I know that what I said is not what they believe.
It's using the logic of the rediculous statements to the effect of "God is not at those locations because God is not allowed there" to the stupid, logical extreme, that nobody, myself included, believes.
My statements were an attempt to disprove said logic by taking them to their (in my opinion) absurd limits.
However:
"Again, your assumptions are getting in the way of what Christians really believe. God is not allowed in this world, not because He can't, but because we won't let Him and often actively work against Him. Of course, this gets into the ideas of free will vs. predestination that has been argued back and forth for Centuries. "
God is not gone from this world. That is totally separate from my beliefs. God is not the cause of natural disasters, God does not permit them for the purpose of punishment, nor does he "not intervene" because we don't want him, nor does he intervene when we DO want him, necessarily. Plenty of the faithful have died while praying to God to save them. God does not act that way, coming and going because we want Him or not. Either way, He's still there, but at the same time, He's not the one causing any of those things.
To be clear, in my beliefs, God won't leave a place because we want Him to leave. If He did, that place would cease to exist entirely, or be utterly annihilated. The actions of human beings like this shooter have nothing to do with God, but solely with the persons themselves. If I went and shot some people up, it wouldn't be because of God, and God wouldn't have been able to stop me, regardless of whether the place was "welcoming God" or not, because God doesn't interfere with human free will.
As for natural disasters, I don't have my Bible with me, and yes, both of us are being lazy (me more than you, probably) but I recall Jesus saying once, about an accident when building a building that killed several of the workers, that it wasn't because of God, that God wasn't involved with those sorts of things, accidents and disasters. But maybe, maybe I'm mistaken. I figure, though, Christ is at least someone to listen to as to the source of such things, if you're Christian.
---
Yes, some of my examples are flawed, sure. Pompeii was not a Christian city, but plenty of Christian cities filled with the faithful have been destroyed. And there are definitely more people today than a thousand years ago. Far more. Wasn't it something like a billion people little more than a century ago, compared to more than billion now? Certainly less than a billion a thousand years ago. The same scale natural disaster then as now would have the potential to kill fewer people, because fewer people lived there, and more today because there are more people today.
And perhaps there are more natural disasters, or perhaps not. I don't know, we haven't been tracking them accurately long enough to know for certain. We'd need a good thousand years of accurate records at least before we could decide something like that.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Tante Shvester: First of all, there is evil in this world. That doesn't mean that there is no G'd in this world.
The sentiment expressed, that G'd permits evil to flourish out of spite, is an example of evil. I've gotten other nasty emails that I also see as evil disguised as piety.
...It is evil work, done by either those people who are genuinely evil, or are too dopey to recognize it when it comes their way.
I've never been able to articulate why I hated the horrid religious emails I got from my relatives but I think this is pretty much it.
I wouldn't have a problem if my relatives just sent emails where they're discussing religion or something like that. But all I seem to get are these emails with a hateful, blaming undertone and the implication that if I don't pass it on to 17 friends, I'm denying God. Posts: 36 | Registered: Oct 2006
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Thanks for the enlightening email. I do believe that you are almost right. I've spoken to many friends who are followers of the "Flying Spaghetti Monster". (Link to appropriate Flying Spaghetti Monster web site here.)
While God is all powerful and all loving, which is why God could be kicked out of schools and take bloody vengeance on innocent kids around the country, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is believed to be the creator of the Universe and has a right to really be upset.
Not only is his gospel not allowed to be taught in public schools, prayers to his carb-ness not allowed to be uttered, but the schools sacrifice his children in their common lunch rooms. Since Spaghetti, in some form, has been served as part of school lunches more horrible and vengeful things have happened in our schools than even I can count.
I mean we even give his children away cheap, or free, to be devoured by those kids who were unwise enough, or just to lazy to pick parents with good paying jobs. How degrading could being reduced-cost-to-the-poor be for such a massive pasta-based deity.
Yes, until we organize and take Spaghetti out of the lunch room and put it into the classroom, we are destined for more tragedies around the world.
Remember, The Flying Spaghetti Monster--put Diet in the Deity.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:1) Just because organized prayer is not allowed in public schools does not mean that God is not allowed in.
And just because some judge somewhere wasn't allowed to park his washing machine sized stone idolization of the ten commandments in the lobby of a federal building doesn't mean that God isn't allowed in the courts, but don't try to tell him that!
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Well, I admit as a Mormon that my beliefs about God and human agency as interconnected are probably more pronounced than even these Christians. Whole societies (ala Book of Mormon) can be destroyed by rejecting God, usually by evil against evil, but sometimes by the will of God. That includes, as I said before, the righteous by the wicked as a witness against them. Mostly its not so much a direct "not allow God," but it is about Him leaving the humans to their own devices when they have rejected Him.
I don't know how much that has to do with this situation, but its not illogical from my own Mormon point of view. Personally, I think too many here are stuck on the "not allowed" when many of them mean God is angry and is punishing the Godless who have rejected Him. I know most here don't see it that way, but those who send these e-mailes do see it that way. To be honest, those you call innocent victims are not seen that way by the Christians who send these messages. At best these victims are simply caught in the crossfire of religious war.
Its more than that. By refusing to openly and without reserve acknowledge God, then to these Christians it is as if God is not getting taught. As such, the morality that goes along with teaching about God is creating situations like VT where evil can flourish. I don't think I can explain this anymore for you to understand, but you aren't living in the same worldview as these people.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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) but look at the story of Job. He was allowed to suffer- God ordained it.
