Where is God during the coronavirus pandemic?
Found this near the top of Fox News page
Many people want to know why God wont stop it. Where is He in the middle of this global pandemic?
To be clear, no evil comes from God but nor can any evil happen without His permission.
Despite all the strife and suffering, God is there because He is everywhere.
God is currently in every hospital, strengthening doctors, nurses and medical personnel as they treat the sick and comfort the dying.
God is working through the governments response to this crisis, providing President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and the Coronavirus Task Force wisdom and guidance as they plot and plan their attack on this lethal pathogen.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jim-daly-where-is-god-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic
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jimfields33
(15,793 posts)It happened in the Old Testament as well. God never said life would be easy.
Ferrets are Cool
(21,106 posts)Was he testing the 5 yr old child that died from cancer? Or was he testing his parents and using their child to do so?
jimfields33
(15,793 posts)walkingman
(7,610 posts)jimfields33
(15,793 posts)jrthin
(4,835 posts)I hear arguments suggesting that god is testing the innocents. The cruelty in that is unfathomable.
Response to jrthin (Reply #16)
3Hotdogs This message was self-deleted by its author.
Ferrets are Cool
(21,106 posts)![](/emoticons/rofl.gif)
jimfields33
(15,793 posts)I just dont have the energy for it. I know that some think its a hoax that God is a fairy tale. I just dont. But I dont begrudge anybody having their opinion.
walkingman
(7,610 posts)anyone would think that a "God" would use death and suffering for any reason. Not the kind of GOD that I can embrace.
jimfields33
(15,793 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,844 posts)King James Version (KJV)
7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
stopbush
(24,396 posts)Fucking fantasies being used to justify bad stuff.
Its hate speech.
Igel
(35,300 posts)Nor a difficult argument. It is difficult to understand, depending on where you're coming from.
There's more than one basis for morality. It's a bit of hubris to think there is only one and we have it. Downright WEIRD, but you see it all the time if you're WEIRD. (And, to be honest, the non-WEIRD are no better at being tribal and judgmental. At least they haven't typically said, "We must be tolerant and understanding, even as we ourselves show intolerance and blindness." They're usually flat out, "We're right; you're wrong." It's good to see the left finally chucking that bit of hypocrisy after 30 years, even if it now comes off as duplicity, "You only wanted tolerance when you benefited from it, now that you're getting power you insist on everybody falling in line behind the righteous."
Problem is, much of Xianity thinking has been caught up in a shifting basis for morality, so some of the old sayings make less sense. And no sense to those outside that moral system entirely. Because it's hard to see outside the wall the tribe erects.
The traditional Xian view had 3 options for theodicy.
1. Punishment. You do something bad, you get spanked and told, "Stop it." Seldom does a note arrive telling you what you did wrong, we're not issued weekly progress reports with divine comments specific to each of us, so this can be a bit confusing.
Then there's collective punishment. It's an OT thing, but when there's an unrighteous people even the righteous among them suffer. There are no especially protected classes in many cases, and there's no reason to exempt certain groups as being out of bounds. Specific individuals might be spared in some contexts, or removed from the battlefield, but maybe not. "Come out from among the unrighteous, my people, before I smite them." Think Lot, think Rachab, think Revelation. Don't be part of the evil group.
Problem is the angst when you or your tribe gets smacked, usually you're thinking, "Huh? Wait! We're the good guys!" Not all those who call themselves good are, in Xian thinking.
2. Personal testing. If your god is a parent figure, well, good parents test their kids or let their kids get tested. There are claims that if you're one of God's select that nothing will happen without a purpose, but since we're not issued little "God's select" cards there's nothing keeping a lot of people from saying, "Yup, that's me. Huh? Wait! Why am I being tested like this, I'm a good guy!" Or even worse, "See, God loves me because he's testing me. The more you hurt the more it shows you really care!" (Oops, starting channeling The Offspring there.)
3. Random shit. Apparently at some point a tower in Jerusalem collapsed and killed some folk. Now, random instant death makes for a pretty bad kind of test--it doesn't really show your persistence, nor does it give you much of a chance to fix a mistake. In that 1/10 of a second between the time you see the big block o' rock a few feet away from your head and when the back of your head meets the front of your head as the rock crushes it there's not a lot of time for soul searching and way-changing. That leaves option 1, "They're being punished because they're bad, bad people" as the only option so far.
Jesus' question was, "Were they any more sinners than anybody else?" Now, these days a lot of people would say, "Absolutely, we're no sinners, nope, not us. We're GOOD!" But humility was a bit more common before social media and they didn't want to answer. The lesson was, "Shit happens." When a person's god says, "Shit happens!" (or words to that effect) it's hard to accuse that person of having a god that specifically punishes the good (even if there's no real basis for assuming that a little kid is intrinsically good).
By that token, having a 5 year old die from cancer is not much different from having a 5 year old die in a car crash. Just more painful and emotion-producing for those who watch.
The traditionally correct formulation was that "if you sin, you get punished." That was popularly turned around to "if you're punished, you sinned." But if A --> B it is not true that B --> A. This only holds if you start with "only A" --> B. So "if you erred --> you get punished" the correct flipping is "if you get punished --> maybe you erred".
There's a whole chunk of Bible written about theodicy. Job. Job suffered. His friends said "you erred." He said, "Show me how." And in the end God said Job could use a bit of humility, but otherwise said Job was right. However, until God issued Job his report card, the jury had to be out: Was he being tested or was this just random shit?
It pays to remember that for some folk, this life is to be taken as prelude. If you take that seriously, then you get an entirely different set of parameters for your argument. Somebody I knew died long ago, and I found out only when I arrived at a church retreat. (He died on Tuesday, retreat began Wednesday night, not a lot of turnaround time there with an 8-hour flight.) Somebody older responded to the sad by pointing out that we don't mourn the dead, we mourn ourselves. If we really believe the dead will live and were "saved," then why are we sad? We're sad because we'll miss them; because we think of all the things the person could have done and never will; because we think about how much we'd like doing them ourselves and can't think of any alternative being better. (I'd add that part of it is also because we know others will mourn them, and pose that as a weak counterexample to Bud's response.)
That's pretty much going to be any deist's or theist's set of choices. Bad puppy! Let's see what he does. Oops! And then, "Oh, well, it was nice while it lasted" or "He's in a better place" or "Maybe he'll do better next time 'round".
So the 5-year-old who died from cancer? Maybe it was punishment (but on what basis? and why are we sitting there judging?). Maybe it was testing? (Who the hell can say?) Maybe it was a random genetic coding error or something the parents did by accident. (And maybe it'll turn out okay after death.)
I flip between mourning the parents' loss and thinking, "Eh, in 5000 years nobody'll remember any of us were alive, and in 100,000 it's unlikely that this'll be any more important to the fate of the universe than the death of my pet fish back in 1968, so get over it and push on. There's entropy to be resisted."
Ferrets are Cool
(21,106 posts)![](/emoticons/clap.gif)
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Take Job.
God made a bet with Satan, who was allowed to kill off Jobs wife and kids.
Since God only views women as possessions, it was okay, and God won the bet.
atreides1
(16,078 posts)Never said anything...those words were written by men, who had an agenda!!!
belief Ive had as an adult. The words are written by men with there own beliefs and as you say agendas.
Skittles
(153,160 posts)always a convenient excuse
Ferrets are Cool
(21,106 posts)![](/emoticons/puke.gif)
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underpants
(182,792 posts)Right there at the top of the page
Notice Fox News showing their class with the Kenny Rogers story
malchickiwick
(1,474 posts)![](/emoticons/shrug.gif)
walkingman
(7,610 posts)And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)Blues Heron
(5,932 posts)etc. etc. etc. The planet we're on is a biological planet. Magic simply doesn't exist. It never has, and it never will. The folklore is a different story, the ethics in the bible, the philosophical teachings of Jesus, the Koran, the Torah, the scriptures of Buddah etc, all good stuff. No gods though, that's just silly.
Ferrets are Cool
(21,106 posts)Much more unethical stuff in the Bible than ethical. The only ethical stuff I ever read was the parts in red.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Like where Jesus strolls into town, tells a woman to get him water, and calls her a slut?
Ferrets are Cool
(21,106 posts)![](/emoticons/hattip.gif)
Doreen
(11,686 posts)Buddha is not a god nor ever has been. Buddha was a simple man who taught logic. He was an enlightened person who saw how things are supposed to be and should be and tried to teach how to accomplish that.
Technically Buddhism is not a religion. A religion has a god Buddhism does not have a god. Buddha actually told his students that he is not a god or part of any god.
The other differences is that Buddhists are taught to be responsible for everything they say or don't say or everything they do or don't do. No god to blame or fix it for them or to forgive them. They have to do that all on their own. Buddhists also believe very much in science which religions tend to not believe when it questions the reality of their god.
Ferrets are Cool
(21,106 posts)Doreen
(11,686 posts)Nay
(12,051 posts)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? Epicurus
The Magistrate
(95,247 posts)Nay
(12,051 posts)You would have no way of knowing that.
Glad to see you back, The Magistrate!
Ferrets are Cool
(21,106 posts)Response to underpants (Original post)
democratisphere This message was self-deleted by its author.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)And doesnt care whether the humans punished are the ones who committed the crime.
Response to jberryhill (Reply #35)
democratisphere This message was self-deleted by its author.
The Blue Flower
(5,442 posts)After all, the next election is at stake. It's beyond me why the CO doesn't use his heavenly powers.
RussBLib
(9,008 posts)in your mind
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)( God is working through the governments response to this crisis, providing President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and the Coronavirus Task Force wisdom and guidance as they plot and plan their attack on this lethal pathogen.)
These frauds are dangerous.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,683 posts)Girard442
(6,070 posts)In the past few years Ive become loud and proud. If God leads people to support Donald Trump then the kindest thing we could say about Him is He doesnt exist.
The River
(2,615 posts)of fearful people.
Turbineguy
(37,324 posts)during the Holocaust.
LakeArenal
(28,817 posts)Because someone ate apiece of fruit.
The god that did not smite trump the first time he caged a child (who remain caged incidentally)
What about those 10 Commandments? How many has trump broken to become the chosen one.
When asked I said, I believe in science.
I got a huge lecture on faith vs belief.
It was ridiculous. I have faith in my doctor because I believe in science.
ahoysrcsm
(787 posts)War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death. With DJT as the AC...
Karadeniz
(22,513 posts)Notice that when the son/soul leaves its place of origin, it's on its own. When the soul has to live amid unclean flesh, the father/soul creator does nothing to help the miserable, starving soul. The soul's purpose was to take its divine nature to the world of swine in order to be led by divine standards in decision-making and behavior, not to be bailed out by daddy. It's up to us, not God.
hatrack
(59,585 posts).
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Response to underpants (Original post)
geralmar This message was self-deleted by its author.
TygrBright
(20,759 posts)Lunabell
(6,080 posts)Allah? Jehovah? Zeus?
keithbvadu2
(36,793 posts)Why aren't the faithhealers visiting hospitals?
emmaverybo
(8,144 posts)our better angels,
raccoon
(31,110 posts)BigDemVoter
(4,150 posts)![](/emoticons/wink.gif)
Admittedly, I am no Christian. Nonetheless I have pretty high tolerance for religious people as long as they don't try to force anything down my throat and are not too judgmental.
If there IS a god, I simply cannot imagine he/she (?) would want to soil herself by having ANYTHING to do with those two swine: Pussy-Grabber and Pence. . . Furthermore, the repig party is the one that does all the moaning and panting about Jesus. . . They sure like to imagine what Jesus might say, but they NEVER manage to actually model what Jesus would DO. . .