Jar's belief statement- Part 2

The problem with your religion, Jar, is that it's too sentimental to be taken seriously. You have no explanation for the intense human suffering down through history.

You don't believe in the Fall.

There's no explanation for human suffering in your system. You just conveniently ignore that problem.

Calling it a "natural process" doesn't explain anything. God made the process, so God is responsible. Your system has no explanation for this apparent cruelty of God.

There are many examples: birth defects, diseases, etc.

It doesn't matter which we discuss. Any natural process that causes human suffering would need to be explained by any religion worth its salt. It's a classic problem. You can't just ignore it.

It's up to you to explain it. It's your religion, not mine. How do you justify birth defects?

Your God appears to be very limited in ability. I would have thought God would have been able to figure out a way to develop life that was less mistake-prone. He appears to be incompetent.

Why should there be any birth defects in the first place? These constant accusations of my changing the topic or something is nonsense. You betray the sentimentality of your beleif in this latest post. It takes 3 billion years for this God to make a start on fixing the situation of human suffering? And you call this "near-perfect"? That's sentimentality.

No, there have been many disasters. Birth defects, diseases, etc. It has not been "jess fine." I granted that. One can always say that humans screw up a lot and cause their own suffering, although modern science has been eating away at that a bit. Sometimes we can't help what we do. It's genetics. I'm not sure that that is accurate theology. According to traditional theology, we are individually responsible. As Paul says, "We sinned in Adam." This makes no sense to me, being a nihilist, but let's get our theology right. I'm not sure what theology of the Christian variety would claim that. I don't think I would call that SENTIMENTAL. The opposite really. True, but that doesn't say much for your God, who would allow such events to occur. Well, I'm always trying to change people's beliefs. It's one of my hobbies.This "New Age" Christianity, Jar, will not do. Instead of talking about the central issue--the fact of human suffering--you try to slur it over by proclaiming how beautiful and awesome everything is and how wonderful the "system" of evolution is. The atheists like this sort of talk because at least these NewAgers accept scientific data and are willing to allow evolution to be taught in the schools. They are willing to put up with the illogicality of what you are proclaiming, because it is NICE and POLITICALLY CORRECT.God's in his heaven and all's right with the world. Let's not try to
"change people's beliefs." That would not be NICE.

Now, from my own point of view, I really don't give a damn if evolution is taught in the schools or not. It might be kind of fun if the Congress passed an amendment banning teaching of evolution in any school. Then we could get together for secret "evolution parties" and whisper scandalous evolutionary thoughts to each other while sipping our whiskey sours. We could be part of the "underground movement."Sounds exciting.

I'm not a "so-called" college instructor. I am an actual college instructor. Moreover, I was rated one of the best teachers on campus by the students. I got this plaque to prove it.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

I can tell you something that happened to me that is totally unexplainable. About a dozen years ago or so, we had this tree out front that died. I cut it down but left the stump. I was planning on getting rid of it later.One day I came home and the stump was gone. This was a pretty big stump. If you've ever tried to dig up a tree stump, you'll know that it's a big job. It just so happened that we had some roofers out that day putting on a new roof, so I thought maybe they did it(which makes no sense, of course). They didn't know anything about it. I went around to the neighbors. None of them knew anything about it. I called relatives, who knew nothing. I called the home-owner's association. I thought maybe they thought it was an eyesore and decided to get rid of it themselves. They told me they didn't operate that way (I knew they didn't, but I couldn't think of anything else).To this day, we do not know what happened to the stump.ABE: Would this qualify as a religious experience?Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.Edited by robinrohan, : changed subtitle

Well, yes. I said "unexplainable" because I can't imagine any plausible explanation, unless there's some good Samaritan who goes around secretly removing stumps for people--the Batman of lawncare. Good questions. Whoever did this did it very neatly. You could tell where the stump had been but the hole had been filled some with dirt. The lawn around it was undisturbed. When we talked to the neighbors, we asked them not only if they did it, but if they saw anyone over there doing something. All answers were negative.I can't imagine anyone doing this without letting us know.Maybe an alien took it out to space to study.

Never heard of it.This is the only experience I have ever had that could be called "uncanny."Some people seem to have a lot of them.