God doesn't punish you with what she denies you. She punishes you with

[NNadir]

what she takes away.

I don't believe in God, but if I did, that is how I think it might work.

[ThomCat]

1. But if you have nothing

how do you know for sure if it's because you simply have nothing, or because she took it all away?

[NNadir]

2. Having nothing after having something is different than only having

nothing.

When one hears of people who have been blind since birth, they don't feel that they are missing something.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. My dear NNadir........

The saying I like about this topic:

When the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers!

And I have actually found that this is often the case.......:cry:

[NNadir]

4. The children's writer Jean Ingelow said, "I have lived to thank God...

that all my prayers have not been answered."

I think many of us can relate to that.

[SmileyBoy]

5. In Islam, we believe God has no gender.

We don't refer to God as "him" or "her". We just refer to God as God.

Lisa: "Why does God have to be a man??"

Marge: "AAAAHHH!!! Don't say that!! (prays) Please forgive her, Mr. Lord..."

[NNadir]

6. Well, I'm just being contrarian.

I really have no opinion of God, except as a philosophical metaphor. I wouldn't attach a gender. Still, my impression was that Allah was an extension of the Hebrew God, the God of Abraham, and was thus male. But that was maybe an uninformed impression.

My statement had to do with how much loss hurts, and not God per se.