God works in mysterious ways

religion is bad for your health

That goes for repairmen, too, as one can see.

9-12-2009 10:33 AM

Whenever someone on the news says, "God saved me from this natural disaster or that one" I always wonder why they don't give God responsibility for the occurrence? Maybe, they should be saying instead, "God tried to kill me with that disaster, but once again I beat him and lived."

9-12-2009 12:39 PM

carrerinyes

9-12-2009 5:09 PM

9-13-2009 11:01 AM

jay8h

(Dan 4:35) All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven And among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand Or say to Him, "What have You done?"

9-13-2009 11:55 AM

What have You done?

Made you up.

9-13-2009 8:40 PM

@jay8h

And Superman flying contrary to the earth rotation turns back time, Santa Claus delivers presents to every child in the world in one night and if you put a tooth under your pillow, the tooth fairy leaves you a quarter. These all stories for children, as is the one you quoted jay8h!

9-14-2009 3:11 AM

Uh ... my kid's toothfairy left a wopping $5 for the first tooth and a buck for each tooth thereafter. I got .50 cents once, but usually it was a quarter.

9-14-2009 5:05 AM

Ah, the antireligious zealots are raising their hand.
Whatever.

@jay8h
The biblical story of Job shows us the protagonist in the bottomless despair of the dark night, where God is experienced not as a loving being, but as a defying, completely veiled one. At the height of the disaster, the biblical Job did not appease himself, nor did he take comfort by his friends' pious thoughts, but moaning, he cried out to God, and God appreciated that and condemned the theodicy attempts of Job's friends.

9-14-2009 11:38 AM

You mean god is experienced as a cold a sadistic bastard. Just to prove his superiority to the devil he tortures Job, kills his family, and takes away all that he owns.

This is height of the bible's sickness. It is also the only time that Satan ever kills in the bible, at the behest of god to test Job. God, on the other hand, has quite bloody hands through the entire book as he murders them singly or by the multitude.

9-14-2009 5:52 PM

Oortcloud, I know nothing about the divine, and I mistrust those who comport themselves as if they knew anything on this issue (be they religious or antireligious).
But I know quite a few things about human distresses and about the possibly cathartic and/or illuminating virtue of literature. The author(s) of the book of Job expressed a deep insight into the dignity of man facing the strokes of fate (whether willed and permitted, respectively, by God/a god or not). Methinks in that story, the man Job comes off better than his divine counterpart. But, as I told you, I know nothing about the divine, and even the book of Job, which is a marvellous fiction on the topic [i]human's grievance / God...

9-14-2009 11:13 PM

"I know nothing about the divine, and I mistrust those who comport
themselves as if they knew anything on this issue (be they religious or
antireligious)."

This is just an observation, but I find this statement very strange. When you think about what is being said, it can be restate in this manner, "I don't know anything about the divine and I mistrust anyone not as ignorant as I am." Maybe that's not what you meant to say, but that what it means.

I don't care what the subject is, there will always be those more and less knowledgeable than me. I accept that at whatever level of understanding I currently am.

9-15-2009 2:30 AM

"I don't know anything about the divine and I mistrust anyone not as ignorant as I am." Maybe that's not what you meant to say, but that what it means.

No. Your sophistry-like interpretation of my words is nothing but misrepresentation and distortion of words.
Please, consider the semantic difference between being ignorant and comporting oneself as if knowing. Setting these attributions interchangeable is, excuse me, linguistically ignorant.

Johanna (English as a foreign language)

9-15-2009 3:11 AM

No, it comes down to interpretation. The book of Job openly describes the torture that god puts him through simply to show off to Satan. You choose to find a more enlightened explanation based on your need to validate your belief.

Finding virtue or comfort in human spirit in the book of Job is akin to admiring the economic solutions enacted by Hitler or the artistry of carving by Jack the Ripper.

I'll settle for just accepting the words as they read out - an author's poor attempt at ascribing unwavering faith as a virtue even as he poses his god as a an uncaring sadist.

9-15-2009 12:08 PM

@johanna

Is English a foreign language to you? If it is, I'll just leave this alone.

9-16-2009 7:08 AM

Oortcloud said:

your need to validate your belief

Do I have a need to validate my belief? Not at all. A validated belief is an oxymoron; it is inept to stamp a letter with a stamped stamp.
The author's

attempt at ascribing unwavering faith as a virtue even as he poses his god as a an uncaring sadist

Yeah! Methinks that's the very quintessence of the story of Job: He, the proposing believer, summons the disposing Deity down from the cloud-shrouded throne, and his God wins the dispute by paltrily making reference to his almightiness, but Job, that literary personification of human afflictions, comes off as the moral winner, and the divine p...

9-16-2009 3:33 PM

Job didn't summon anyone. He was just minding his own business when Satan challenged god that Job's belief would fail if he was tested. God apparently wanted to show off to Satan so allowed him to really screw with Job.

Job is not a winner. Oh, he got all the smiles from god, but he lost his family. Sure, god gave him a new one, but it really speaks to the inhumanity of the story that lives and family are discarded so easily. How can one make the claim of a 'caring' or 'loving' god with stories like this?

9-16-2009 7:18 PM