If you believe in the miracles described in the Bible, such as the parting of the Red Sea, then how

[raccoon]

come things like that don't happen any more? I am particularly thinking of the Holocaust.

[Tien1985]

1. Wow, skipped

Right to Hitler?

This should go well.

[rug]

2. Yeah, I'll just sit this one out after I get some marsnmallows.

[cbayer]

3. I'll get the graham crackers and chocolate.

[kentauros]

8. You'll need BIG marshmallows for this one

[okasha]

4. Another "concern" question.

[mindwalker_i]

5. You lost me at "described in the Bible"

Not a credible source.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. A fair question - I recommend 'God on Trial'

Based on a real event, in which Jews in Auschwitz put God on trial for breaking his covenant with them. Theodicy (the problem of a powerful god allowing evil to happen) is a constant problem for religions.

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/wiesel-yes-we-really-did-put-god-trial

[trotsky]

7. I heard about that movie.

Looks like I should really see it. Hopefully it's on Netflix.

Yeah, you know even theists realize how significant theodicy is given the volumes they've devoted to trying to solve it. (Key word: trying.)

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. The entire movie is on that YouTube clip

Low-res, of course, but it's not the kind of film that needs high-res (the more you can see, the more you'll be wondering if they really look like starving men).

FWIW, it was written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, a practising Catholic.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. Note that only the nontheists are discussing

this issue.

[rug]

11. This "issue" is flamebait.

Following in the proud tradition of flamebait.

[Warren Stupidity]

13. Yes of course you would find it to be flamebait.

However other people, many of them religious, do not.

[rug]

16. Yes, of course you would find it to be an "issue".

[el_bryanto]

68. It is a serious issue

But will discussion here lead anywhere positive? There's a calculation to be made; if people really want to grapple with this issue than a discussion would be worth the effort. If people want to make cheap shots at believers than it is a less productive discussion.

Because it is a key problem with believing; if you believe in a God who is all powerful and all good why do things suck so regularly? Why did the Holocaust happen? Or, to cite another example, why did the Tsunami from a few years back happen? You can argue that the Holocaust was allowed to happen because people have free will and God couldn't interfere because to do so would interfere with the free will of the Nazis. But the Tsunami was a natural phenomonem that killed many and caused immense suffering. If God could stop it (which Omnipotence implies that he could) and if he wanted to stop it (which a loving God would want to) why didn't he?

There's not a completely satisfactory answer and I suspect there can't be (speaking only for my own tradition here); we are here to live by faith. If everything worked out right, there would be no need for faith.

But I realize that isn't a very satisfying answer.

Bryant

[mr blur]

40. *Yawn* Wind him up and off he goes.

[rug]

44. By all means, expand on that thought.

[cbayer]

12. You mean the one person who posted a link to a movie? That discussion?

[Warren Stupidity]

14. You think the issue of the holocaust and belief is trite?

Really? That is what you honestly think?

[cbayer]

15. The issue of the holocaust and religion? No, I don't think that is trite at all.

How did you get that idea?

[Warren Stupidity]

19. why from your usual mocking snark. nt.

[cbayer]

23. Lol. Irony.

[Warren Stupidity]

26. Yes it is ironic that generally only nontheists (exception noted below)

are willing to actually discuss belief here.

[cbayer]

28. And tell me, Warren Stupidity, how do you classify me?

[Warren Stupidity]

37. I classify you as a person here who consistently sides with theists

But who, when asked claims to be a non theist.

[cbayer]

38. And do you never see me side with atheists?

Do you never see me criticize theists?

Is there something wrong with siding with or supporting theists when they are doing the right thing?

Finally, when you say "claim", are you intimating that I am not being honest?

[okasha]

17. I guess only the nontheists

believe in biblical miracles such as parting of the Red Sea, since those who so believe are the ones addressed in the OP.

[Warren Stupidity]

18. I guess you would be wrong.

Almost all christians believe, for example, that a dead person became undead. That is a belief in an extraordinary event and is a belief in miracles. It qualifies as an event requiring a deity that can intercede in the world, and that raises the issue of why this deity does not intercede to prevent great evil, or even not great evil.

However, when the question of which miracles in the bible are believed in is examined, the theists here suddenly get reticent about owning up to a belief in any of them, except of course the aforementioned undead Jesus.

[okasha]

25. Sorry,

forgot to add this to my previous post.

I suspect that most theists are avoiding the question because the OP is obvious flamebait.

[Act_of_Reparation]

39. The only reason you would think the question is flamebait..

... is because you know you lack a reasoned answer.

Epicurius nailed it some three hundred years before Christ supposedly walked the Earth.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

If the OP is guilty of anything, it is asking a question that has already been asked of believers again and again and again for over two thousand years and expecting an original answer.

[cbayer]

41. Flamebait, as in "When did you stop beating your wife?"

Do you really think believers should have an answer to this question?

While worth a serious discussion, as is done in the excellent and highly complex movie that murielvolestrangler links too, this OP was not put up for that purpose.

It was put up to ask a question that can't be answered, push believers in a corner and score points.

It's flame bait. The OP doesn't expect an original answer. He knows he has asked the same question that has been asked for over 2000 years that no one can answer.

And you know it too, I imagine.

[AtheistCrusader]

72. Why do you think no one can answer that question?

If we can't know the answer, surely we can be educated on WHY there can be no answer, and yet, people still believe.

[cbayer]

75. What would you imagine is the why?

Since no one can prove or disprove god, let alone accurately describe what that god is like, does or does not do, etc., etc., how could anyone possibly even pretend to know the answer to that question?

Some people believe god has intervened at times, so don't. Some believe that those interventions are rare and done for very specific reasons. Others see it as random. Others think it happens all the time.

It has nothing to do with believing in a god, unless an individual considered this question, couldn't reconcile it and incorporated into part of their decision making in regards to non-belief.

And why should anyone have to answer it? Seems to me it would be pretty arrogant to assume that one could understand what a god does or doesn't do, no matter what one believes.

[AtheistCrusader]

78. Oh good grief.

"Some people believe god has intervened at times, so don't. Some believe that those interventions are rare and done for very specific reasons. Others see it as random. Others think it happens all the time. "

Then the question is an opportunity to raise awareness of faiths that do not believe in, or rely upon intercessory supernatural actions, by the people who believe in them. Or an opportunity to share some particular reason past actions by an intercessory supernatural being is no guarantee or promise, or expectation of future intercession.

I know that, but not all outsiders to formal/institutional faiths know that not all faiths rely upon or believe in an intercessory being. (Spinoza's god, for instance) An opportunity to spread information.

"It has nothing to do with believing in a god, unless an individual considered this question, couldn't reconcile it and incorporated into part of their decision making in regards to non-belief."

Entire religions are predicated upon claims of former direct intervention. It is entirely reasonable for outsiders to ask of them why they accept that, if there are no apparent direct intervention's in the modern world. Some people asking that question might even be trying to reconcile their own understanding of faith with people who can explain it.

"And why should anyone have to answer it? Seems to me it would be pretty arrogant to assume that one could understand what a god does or doesn't do, no matter what one believes."


A two-parter. First up, no one HAS to. This is a discussion forum. If anyone wants to take a stab at it, they can. If they don't want to, they don't have to. If NO ONE wants to, it can remain unanswered. The latter part is predicated upon your individual understanding of an individual alleged god. The allegedly unfathomable mind of god is actually a valid answer to the question. If that is the answer, one can offer it and need not go any further, for instance, accusing the asker of 'arrogance'. There are certainly those among the believers side of the coin, that believe god can, does, and has not only intervened in the past, but promised future intercession. If that's not your hill to defend, fine, but to call the asker arrogant, when someone might well take up their flag and plant it on that hill, is fairly arrogant of YOU to assume.

[cbayer]

79. I didn't call the asker arrogant. I said that it would be arrogant to think one knew the answer

to this question in any definitive way.

Calm down. It's not that big a deal and not worth it.

[AtheistCrusader]

80. To some believers of some faiths it is most certainly not arrogant to believe in knowing the

answer to that question, or knowing what a various alleged god thinks. That is your own baggage you are bringing to the table, not every believer of every faith.

If I had to put a label on it, I would guess it to be a Judeo-Christian/western bit of baggage, but it probably goes beyond that. However it is most certainly not universal.

[cbayer]

81. You are making this increasingly personal and hostile.

I wasn't really interested in trying to discuss it before, and I'm definitely less interested now.

[AtheistCrusader]

82. Before waving around the 'arrogance' flag, one should check their own premise.

Quite possible it is predicated on arrogance itself.

There are, to put it very succinctly, people who claim, as part and parcel of their faith, to understand the mind of the god they claim to believe in. It's that simple.

Your 'observation' about arrogance in assuming such knowledge IS arrogant itself. Who are you to assume that the mind of a god cannot be known by a person? To do so, you would have to pre-select which alleged god is real, per it's associate dogma of knowability/unknowability.

[okasha]

42. One of the more cogent "tells" that this is flamebait

is that the OP dropped his little gift in the middle of the carpet and scarpered off, not to be seen again on the thread. People who want discussion stay around and discuss.

Check out Booster's far more honest posts. They're commendable.

[AtheistCrusader]

71. So, how WOULD one craft that question in a non bait-y type way?

The bible is rife with direct intervention claims on behalf of a supernatural being.

Now that everyone has an HD camera on their cell phone, it is interesting that such events seem to have dried up.
I would like to know the general consensus on why.

[trotsky]

74. Your post reminded me of this recent XKCD comic.

Edited to add link to site: http://xkcd.com/1235/

[dimbear]

76. Miracles aren't happening anymore, or.....any less. n/t

[hrmjustin]

21. I answered to the best of my ability.

[Warren Stupidity]

22. yes you did.

You generally do. My post was in reference to the mindless mocking snark that poured out in response to a question that, for many holocaust survivors, for example, was an incredibly serious issue.

[hrmjustin]

24. .

[LostOne4Ever]

50. Theodicy

Theodicy is the issue that finally caused me to stop believing all together.

I could not accept that even an indifferent god of my former Deistic views would allow things like this to happen:

EDIT: This is a very graphic image. Please be advised before clicking.

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/awards/2013/observed-portraits/ebrahim-noroozi/05

Much less the Holocaust.

Reminds me of a quote carved into the walls of a german concentration camp by a former prisoner. I'll defer posting it here as some may find it offensive.

[hrmjustin]

20. Good question. Many Christians believe that since the biblical era is ended that miracles just don't

happen anymore. The RCC still believes in miracles. I tend to think miracles don't happen anymore. Why Does not God intervene when there is evil? As a believer I have asked the same question of God many times.

[Evoman]

85. see, this is why I respect you.

You answer questions posed with what you really believe instead of snarking, questioning motives, or being an asshole. I respect honesty above all else, and you are an honest person.

Don't get me wrong, I still think most of your religious beliefs are bs, and I won't hesitate to say so. But among all the fucking games people play in this forum to avoid provide honest answers, its refreshing to meet someone like you.

Mad respect, bro.

[hrmjustin]

86. Thank you for your kind words my friend!

[hrmjustin]

27. I thought I remember learning that at times the Red Sea becomes crossable.

[darkangel218]

29. I have a theory.

Either whatever god ( or gods ) doesn't care about us, or he/she is a freaking sadist.

Or god doesn't exist, and we were created in a lab by aliens, which they would be our " gods " technically speaking.

[Booster]

30. I'll take some of the flaming with you. I've asked a lot of Christians that I know "Don't you think

God would have seen the need to update the Bible a little". All I ever get is blank stares cause they don't know what to say.

[cbayer]

31. Maybe you get blank stares because it's such a weird question?

[Booster]

32. Why is it weird? Everything else is updated from time to time.

[cbayer]

33. First, not everything else is updated from time to time.

Interpretations may be updated. Scholars and others may re-interpret some things. But not everything is updated.

It just seems like a question meant to trap and maybe they see that and that is why they stare at you blankly.

[Booster]

34. I prefer to believe it makes them think "Yeah, why is that" but I respect your opinion cause it's

meant to be a "gotcha" question because there is no answer.

[cbayer]

35. I find your honesty really engaging (seriously, not sarcastically)

It's like the "When did you stop beating your wife" question.

[Booster]

36. lol Exactly. And thank you for the compliment.

[okasha]

43. Obviously you've never put this question

to a Mormon. Or a Muslim. They'd know what to say.

Perhaps the blank stare is not so much indicative that the don't know what to say, but that they don't know how to reply politely to someone who apparently thinks that God personally wrote and/or edited the Bible.

[Booster]

45. That makes the question even more pertinent. God hasn't seen the need to ask someone

in thousands of years to add something that he may have forgotten? That just says to a lot of us that people who did write the Bible all those many, many years ago had their own agenda, kind of like Joseph Smith. By the way, my entire family, with the exception of me, is Mormon and some of their beliefs are beyond belief, and I'm pretty sure God didn't have anything to do with writing the Bible. Just because some guy says "God told me to write this" doesn't make it true.

[okasha]

46. I'm not sure I understand your response.

A Mormon or Muslim would answer your question with "But God has updated the Bible. There's the Book of Mormon/Qu'ran."

Of course the people who wrote the Bible had their own agendas, often conflicting ones. But the phrasing of your question about "God updating the Bible" assumes that God either wrote or edited it. This will make sense to a fundamentalist. It won't make sense to any other variety of believer, who might wonder if ol' Booster is a bit off his game this afteroon.

[hrmjustin]

51. God did not write the bible.

[edhopper]

47. Actuially

this very question was integral to my becoming an atheist, or at least an agnostic.
As a young Jewish m,an questioning my faith I thought about this exact thing.
How could the God that I had been taught looked over my people for 5000 years, his "chosen" people, allow nearly half of them be exterminated?
I never got a decent answer. Free will might explained how Germany became so evil, but I am very sure none of the 6 million Jews marched into gas chambers had any free will to exercise.
I really had to doubt a God that would allow this to happen, and that set me on a path to keep questioning.
So no, for me this is not a bullshit, gotcha or flamebait question. But a pertinent question to the veracity of the Judea-Christian God.

[cbayer]

70. I agree that it can be a very important personal question when

one is figuring out where they land on the believer/non-believer spectrum, and don't mean to dismiss it as important.

But I also think the answers are highly individualized, imperfect and variable.

To post it as if there is a definitive answer is my objection. There is not.

There is nothing wrong about what you concluded and it was the right answer for you. But it's not the right answer for others.

That's my point.

[MrModerate]

48. There is a distinct theme to many of the responses in this thread. . .

And it's a theme played by posters that I've come to recognize as "the usual suspects."

And that theme is: any provocative question is by definition flamebait, and consequently doesn't deserve an answer.

I'm not sure what psychic power the usual suspects possess that makes them able to unerringly detect an insincere question, but challenging their omnipotence on this reliably brings down a hail of scorn.

I'm also not sure why provocative questions — flamebait or not — don't deserve to be answered, or at least deconstructed to reveal their flaws.

I have a theory, though: The usual suspects are either insufficiently secure in their faith or insufficiently knowledgeable of theology to competently address provocative questions, and so retreat into carping and snarking as extremely weak substitutes for thought.

Myself, I would have thought the question "why are there no credible modern miracles" (my rewording of the OP) would be a rich topic for discussion. I guess I'm wrong.

[cbayer]

49. Yeah, you are right. It's not flame bait, it's a question

asked in all sincerity. That's why the OP has been so active in the thread.



Recognizing flamebait is something one learns with experience. It's not that hard to recognize and those that you label as "the usual suspects" get it.

I'll give you a few hints, then you can join the "usual suspects" who frequently do it in this group!

Post a question for which there is no answer or which scholars have been debating without conclusion for millennia and act like some should be able to answer it to your satisfaction.

When they can't, which you already knew, call them names. Use terms like "intellectual dishonesty", "cognitive dissonance", "childhood indoctrination" and "delusional". Extra points if you can get "sky fairy" in there somewhere.

Or just throw it out there, don't participate at all and watch the fun begin.

When you are called on your flamebait, start a thread in the clubhouse so that others can join in in attacking believers in general and DU believers specifically. Make sure to moan about how badly you have been treated.

See, it's easy!

[MrModerate]

62. Thanks for proving my theory. It saves me a lot of typing.

Although you have highlighted something I didn't bring up originally, which is the snotty arrogance of the usual suspects.

[cbayer]

63. Yes, you are right. There is nothing snotty or arrogant about writing

a diatribe about "the usual suspects".



How ironic.

[MrModerate]

64. Those shoes fit you quite well . . .

They just don't look very good.

[cbayer]

65. Oh, my. Looks like we are getting off to a bad start here.

I found your post about "the usual suspects" offensive because it made assumptions about individuals, with whom you apparently disagree, that were broad brush and inaccurate.

Since I was pretty sure you included me in the category you were describing, I decided to reply to you.

I admit that my response was snarky and I could have done better in explaining why I felt this was flamebait and how I felt your post was offensive, but your post felt like a personal attack.

At any rate, I'm not interested in the least in exchanging personal insults with you, but I would value the opportunity to get to know you better and to have you possibly see where I am coming from in this group.

I will leave that up to you.

[MrModerate]

66. I welcome your open hand, and take it willingly.

I should tell you that I'm not a regular habitué of the Religion group, so perhaps it's easier for me to look at a question such as that posed by the OP and say "That's interesting, I wonder what the posters around here have to say about that."

I'm also not a Christian — although, since I've spent more than half my life in the US, I've certainly been surrounded by Christians a fair amount (and have witnessed services in numerous churches, synagogues, and a mosque or two) — and so, what Christians (and religionists generally) have to say about such questions is of interest to me. This is especially true since I'm not steeped in any theology, and so the conventional arguments or responses to such questions are not necessarily known to me. This notwithstanding the fact that I'm married to a Christian.

But more to the point, I don't understand why such a question, sincere or not, doesn't deserve an answer. Flamebait doesn't need to be flamebait, IMO, unless you set a match to it.

And you're right — I did identify you as one of the 'usual suspects,' based on at least two previous threads that both you and I participated in. Perhaps my 'theory' does qualify as a 'broad brush,' but my experience with most people who refuse to answer questions on technical grounds is that they generally can't answer (or are uncomfortable doing so).

Your insistence that the OP's remark must be flamebait and so can be dismissed with contempt did get my hackles up. My point being, not only can you not know such a thing with certainty, but even if you're right, it doesn't necessarily follow that the question itself should be dismissed. In my experience, teachable moments can emerge from anywhere.

And that's where I'm coming from.

[cbayer]

67. I am pleased.

I know that you are fairly new to the group and I am glad that we are not going to become instant adversaries. There is a longstanding "team sport" aspect to this group which has become less and less prominent over time, and I regret that I may have reinforced it in my initial interactions with you.

There are a lot of great conversations that happen here and some really interesting back and forth between some of the members, both believers and non-believers.

There is also some significant taunting from both sides. I think what you observed was some members reacting to what they identified as taunting.

It's not that questions don't "deserve" an answer. It is that some members are sensitive to this particular trap. As I snarkily described it before, there is a pattern of asking a question which can't be reasonably answered for the sole purpose of mocking those that can't answer it or attacking them for refusing to answer it.

The question was "If God could part the Red Sea, why didn't he stop the Holocaust". There is no one on earth that could answer that reasonably and many have tried and failed. It's a "When did you stop beating your wife" type of question.

To me, this is flame bait - meant to incite, set people up for attack and ridicule, and, worst of all, deepen already existing divisions.

BTW, I am kind of a religionist in the way a man can be a feminist. I am not a theist. I also do not call myself an atheist. My position is basically that I don't know if there is a god and I don't care.

What I care about is getting believers and non-believers to work together for common goals with respect and increased understanding.

But anti-theists and anti-atheists who have no interest in working together and no respect for the other do not interest me at all. And that's who posts flame bait.

Anyway, sorry about being so long winded and thank you for taking the time to respond.

I hope we have the opportunity to talk more and hope we mended this fence before it was too late.

[edhopper]

69. Please read my response

#47

To some the question is not unanswerable flamebait, but a pertinent part of our thinking about God and religion.

[aquart]

52. "Miracles are ceased" is part of Protestant theology.

Catholicism is big on miracles and would not have prayed for the Holocaust to go bye bye.

Jews believe in miracles but we also understand what "chosen" actually means.

[ShawnRIN]

53. The Bible is full of violence...

Death, genocide, slavery, plague, really awful things all occurred in the Bible. WWII, Darfur, Cambodia, etc. are consistent with the concept of a fallen world.

[cbayer]

55. History is full of violence so it if one sees the bible as

a historical document, it should come as no surprise that violence is recorded there.

[exboyfil]

54. Why weren't the Christians

in Nagasaki spared the atomic bomb?

[bravenak]

56. I just got atheist bashed today.

Don't feel like Christian bashing.
I don't blame nonexistent entities for the horrors of man.

[cbayer]

57. Sorry to hear that, but glad that retaliation is not your response.

"When you seek revenge, dig two graves", as a dear friend used to say.

[bravenak]

58. Most Christians are reasonable and normal.

I usually don't meet the ones with psychological problems. So I get by.

[cbayer]

59. Thats been my experience as well, but it does happen.

I was recently accosted by a fundamentalist on the Blue Ridge Parkway, of all places.

Her persistence is what annoyed me the most.

I told her right away that I was not interested in discussing religion with her, but she just wouldn't stop.

I finally had to just rudely walk to another area.

I don't really understand why these people think their technique wins them any converts.

[bravenak]

60. I have noticed it more from fundamentalists and evangelicals.

If you have to badger people into your way of thinking, you have issues.
I can handle the women since I'm a woman, but I think the men scare me.

[cbayer]

61. I think you are right about the badgerers.

Now that I think of it, other than Mormons, it seems it is mostly women that I have seen do this.

[AtheistCrusader]

73. As long as there is a scapegoat, humanity will never own up to its own horrors.

'Just following orders'.

[bravenak]

83. That is our sad reality.

We follow the in crowd.

[orpupilofnature57]

84. A false bill of sales , an airbrushed model .

[orpupilofnature57]

77. I Believe it was the devotion to physical fascination and $$$$$, Why do we revere

Scumbags of means more than saints, why is faith so ridiculed? when logic and science has brought where ?