Three-year-old boy missing in woods for two days says bear kept him safe
82 replies, posted
Christian mentions god, this angers non Christians.
This pretty much ignores the "do as I say, not as I do" history of many organized religions.
I think it's pretty disingenuous to ignore the harm that belief in God can cause.
For example, being convinced that your God will heal your child (because of the things you've been told about your religion).
God sent my son a bear and thankfully it didn't maul him to death.
as with all things, the harm in religion comes from people, not the faith in god itself. people can and have done wicked things in the name of more secular matters, like profit, power, and sociopathic scientific endeavors. religions have brought many wonderful things to this world; great works of art and science have been created and sought from religious inspiration. many people have found comfort and fulfillment through religion, a quieting of the turmoil within. when you only choose to see the bad, you're blinding yourself to the whole picture, and when you blast someone for thanking god after their own personal miracle, it just looks unempathetic.
having your child returned to you after they were lost is emotionally powerful, and in many ways thanking god is an expression of this emotion, an intense expression of gratitude, of thankfulness that things turned out okay.
If he's so good why did it happen in the first place?
Probably. There was still a lady that was eaten by one near Gatlinburg some years back. And to think those parks have a sign that say NO GUNS. Yeah right
Plus, if you think that God is good and all-powerful, then you'll start believing that people deserve the horrible shit that may happen to them. To conclude otherwise would need some impressive mental gymnastics.
But thats not just belief, is it?
The example you posted happened moreso due to a rejection of science and medicine. The antivax community shows you don't need religion to do stupid things.
Thank god for this thread
Thank God I'm an atheist
Pushing away the religious stuff, isnt anyone skeptical of the story? It be amazing if a bear did take care of the kid but then again, bear.
What if God is a bear?
people are easy to believe a bear to shelter a small child but a simple resurrection after crifixion is a nono.
I love how you're conflating LDS with literally all religion. Spoilers, there are plenty of inclusive and tolerant faiths out there.
You may not be a bigot, but you're ignorant as shit.
I'd argue it is just belief.
If you actually, truly believe that your god exists and is omnipotent and omniscient -- and you've been told constantly that god loves you and that he listens to your prayers -- why wouldn't you put things in his hands?
The issue is that they believe this god exists. I would argue that more people don't subscribe to faith healing because they don't truly believe, deep down, subconsciously, that their god exists.
If you truly believe that this all-powerful being exists, it'd make sense to hand things off to it.
Im arguing from a sense of practicality. While I get your logic, we gotta keep things like vaccination rates high, and if you go around shouting "believe science OR go to your damn God!" you may not like the result
I'm having a really hard time understanding your post.
It kind of sounds like you're saying we shouldn't argue in favor of things we believe to be true, because... vaccinations...?
No.
First off, I'm pretty much an athiest, I don't see any evidence of some higher being.
However, I have found that when dealing with thiests (a majority of people), its better to let them believing in god or whatever, as long as they don't reject the products of science.
I made an example of this with vaccines and orthodox communities. We can all agree we need to get vaccination rates up. In a lot of orthodox communities, vaccines are seen as "against the will of God" and are refused.
So how would we approach this?
Now you could go in full athiesm mode; explaining how God can't possibly be real, there is no higher power telling you to refuse your kids medical treatment, that their entire lives are in worship of a sham. Except now the whole community hates you and will refuse to cooperate.
Or,
You (or someone more "religously" minded) could argue from their scripture that they should be helping each other, that sitting around waiting for a miracle is not what you are supposed to be doing (frankly religious texts have so many contradictions you can argue whatever you want). Like this, you may find that the religiously conservative might be more willing to cooperate with you.
I actually see with you with the irony of "God loves you but will let your children die from illness without magically curing them." It doesn't make sense. But to any religious zealot, there is always some reason why God did what they did. You cannot argue with these people. Even if they notice a lapse in their logic, they think its God testing them or something.
Again, I argue from a position of practicality. In the end of the day, I don't care if someone is an Atheist or Christan or Pastafarian. It doesn't impact me. What I do care is that they help society. I want people to be vaccinated, taking care of their kids, being kind, etc.
I'm not talking to anti-vaxxers or Christians, though, I'm talking to other people on this forum about Christians.
How does anything you said apply to this conversation?
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