• elbucho@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    One thing I will never understand is how people can believe that there is an all-knowing, all-powerful being who created the universe, and wields supreme authority over everything the universe encompasses, and yet simultaneously believe that he’ll take the time to listen to your petty bullshit and wiggle his fingers to get you a new car, or make sure your favorite team wins the superbowl. Surely, if he’s so overwhelmingly powerful, the pleas and devotion of us mere mortals would be completely inconsequential to him. So do Christians believe he’s omniscient and omnipotent, but also incredibly insecure?

    • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      They hear their ego telling them they’re the best and deserve everything they want and conflate it with the voice of God.

    • MuchPineapples@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Not only that, but he also created them as poor and killed their baby cousin with cancer and tortures all the exploited people and animals in the world.

    • MxM111@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      He is also omni-benevolent. So, if you are a good Christian, making good thing for a good person is an act of goodness, so He will do it. That’s not a contradiction, but logical consequence of His omni-benevolence.

      The true paradox is in so called problem of evil. How come, for example, that small innocent children can horribly suffer in this world, with Omni-benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god?

        • MxM111@kbin.social
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          8 months ago

          Even if it is true, it is still a contradiction. It is like when someone noticed that a circle can not be a square at the same time, saying that it is yellow does not help.

      • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        The true paradox is in so called problem of evil. How come, for example, that small innocent children can horribly suffer in this world, with Omni-benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god?

        Exactly. Take the example of a child suffering from cancer. Are they suffering because God cannot stop it? Then he is not omnipotent.

        Are they suffering because God doesn’t know about it? Then he’s not omniscient.

        Are they suffering because God just doesn’t care? Then he’s not omni-benevolent.

        A god as described by most religious people, especially Christians, cannot exist while at the same time suffering exists. And don’t give me the “free will” or “challenge” bull crap because a 5 year old with cancer cannot exercise their free will because of the cancer and they do not deserve that kind of pain. It’s cruel to “challenge” a parents faith by making an innocent child suffer.

        • elbucho@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Yeah - Christians don’t even have resurrection to fall back on here. At least Hindus can cite karmic debt - the idea that little Timmy, who is suffering from leukemia, is just reaping the reward of being an absolute bastard in a former life.

          • MxM111@kbin.social
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            8 months ago

            Hindu do not have this Omni-omni-omni god. But Christian do. One excuse could be that if child suffers and die then it gets to heaven. But then, why would Omni-benevolent god would put chile through that?

    • exocrinous@startrek.website
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      8 months ago

      I don’t believe in omnipotent or omniscient gods, only normal ones, but I’ll bite your hypothetical.

      An omniscient god would necessarily have a perfect sense of empathy. They would know what everyone is feeling. And to know a feeling is to feel it, so they would feel every feeling in the world, at full intensity. Obviously such a being would need to be all emotionally resilient as well as all knowing. But they would care for the problems of mortals, because they would feel what mortals do. Perhaps in such a hypothetical, prayers are simply a person attaching a feeling of urgency to their needs, in hope that their god will feel this urgency too and respond.

      But of course, I believe in normal gods, so this is all just an intellectual exercise to me.

  • yokonzo@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    So wait what is her plan here? To just be like, I believe in good, can I have a car?

  • DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    How about just getting a job and saving up for one?

    How about buying a beater until you can afford something better?

    Sounds like she needs to go somewhere and pray to God for a better brain. (As if any kind of praying helps…)

    • exocrinous@startrek.website
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      8 months ago

      Praying helps. Praying is a mediaeval, prescientific form of therapy. Talking out your day, and your feelings, to someone who will listen. That works just as well with a family member, a supposed god, or my imaginary friend Bill.

      And given that therapy costs money and many people are poor, prayer is an appropriate self-medication option for many people who need to talk to someone about their feelings. It’s even an appropriate option for people who see a therapist but not as often as they’d like.

      Now this is all beside the benefits prayer has if you’re trying to create or empower an egregore, of course.

  • RGB3x3@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    It’s not unlike me walking around hoping someone walks up to me and throws me the keys for an Aston Martin or wants to be charitable and gives me a hundred million dollars.

    Except I know that’s not going to happen. And I’m not praying to some sky daddy for it.

    • Clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Looked it up for my fellow heathens:

      NIV

      MATTHEW 6 Giving to the Needy 1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

      2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

      3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,

      4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

      5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

      6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

      7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

      8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.