Will Bill O’Reilly or anyone else who saw the hand of God in the safe landing of US Airways Flight 1549 this January please explain why God chose not to save Continental Connection Flight 3407, which plunged into a house outside of Buffalo last night, killing all 49 people on board and a resident on the ground?
Among the explanations which will not be accepted: “humans cannot possibly fathom God’s mysterious ways.” Oh yes they can, apparently—when something good happens. Having found proof of God’s love in the safe conclusion of US Airways Flight 1549, believers cannot now turn around and claim that God’s ways are veiled just because something disastrous happens. If it’s legitimate to infer beneficence from a happy outcome, it is equally plausible to infer malice or at least indifference from a negative outcome. You can’t pick and choose the actions in which you find God’s will transparent.
Could an answer possibly be that some good things are readily evident, while others take time to reveal themselves? I’m sure to hundreds of thousands of American families, World War II didn’t provide instant gratification or answered prayers of any kind. Yet future generations (and other people’s children) may have been the beneficiary of someone at the time praying for peace through the results of said war. On the other hand, a person can readily see the benefits or positives of a plane full of people NOT crashing. Or are you implying that serious Christians anywhere are stating that only good things happen? Or that God promised that to anyone?
Atheists asked similar questions two hundred years ago. Theists have responded with the same answer for two hundred years: read the book of Job. Apparently, though, this response doesn’t satisfy the atheist. Recently, someone has framed the issue in a rather pursasive manner. But again, atheists aren’t satisfied. Clearly there’s more at play than intellect, no? SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id2Ik4whVr8
Explaining the logic behind random tragedy is like explaining to the dog why the objects in the TV aren’t real.
Bad things happen. Like that time those people were threatened within an inch of their life when they were subjected to freezing water and drowning because the leader thought it would save lives. Waterboarding in Gitmo? Nope. Flight 1549. Only difference is one captain is being heralded as a hero, the other captains are treated like nazis. (Always the nazis, I hate these guys.)
The question is how do you react, and ma’am, you’ve chosen poorly.
Terry wrote:
Now it’s time for the compassionate Arminian to balance the mean spirited Calvinist.
Actually, Jon Rowe, I agree with you that we all deserve to die for our sinful nature. However, we don’t know that God intervened in Flight 1549, but He certainly can intervene as he deems appropirate in His own wisdom and we can never expect it. That is why we must be ready to be judged by Him every day that we live.
Jon, do you ever read the works of Dr. John MacArthur, probably the most articulate Calvinist and a brilliant Bible scholar? We are blessed to live about an hour’s drive away and try to get to his Grace Community Church at least once a month.
Terry,
Small world. Yes I do know of John MacArthur and have read his work and even defended it against his fellow evangelicals, though I’m not a Christian. And this is because I know — through the online world — Dr. Gregg Frazer, his key man at his College & Church on historical and political philosophical matters. If you run into Dr. Frazer at Grace Community Church please say hi for me.
While I do not accept their Calvinism (because I do not accept the Bible as an infallible book), I do note that their understanding of Romans 13 (that many evangelicals reject) is quite authentically orthodox & biblical. And that’s what I have defended.
Its nice to know that there are still people out there who are wholly ignorant of 2000 years of Christian theology and philosophy. Maybe next you can ask “If God created the universe then who created God?” How does this shallow nonsense pass for reason and rationality? The writer sounds like an angry teenager who hasn’t grown out of arguing for its own sake. The worst thing about this post and most of the comments below it is that they refuse to take seriously the idea of anything metaphysical. Being an atheist does not necessarily mean you are able to use reason rightly or more perfectly than a theist. But, since no one will probably ever pay any attention to this, I insist that you all keep pretending that you are the first people in existence to notice that there is evil in the world. Aren’t you deep and philosophical.
Listen, gang: Good men have been shaking their fist at the sky shouting ‘show yourself!’ for 10,000 years. It’s just not that easy. I think it has something to do with faith and the gift of choice…
.
Your silly argument was anticipated and dealt with a month ago here:
http://www.instapunk.com/archives/InstaPunkArchiveV2.php3?a=1622
Do you have any idea just how predictable and boring your philosophical presumptions are? Of course not.
@Regular Joe
I call him evil god Yahweh/Jahovah, mostly because of his actions were evil. Oh, he talked a good game, at times, but then there was the nutty stuff like ordering the genocide of all the Caananites who were just minding their own business, ordering the stoning of disobediant children, killing countless innocents in Egypt just because they were first born, casting people into burning hell forever for “sins” and the whole “Abraham, murder your son!!! HA, just kidding…” thing. What a prick!! (And Abraham going along with it showed that, if he existed, probably had some serious mental illness.)
@Dave Thompson
Yes, like adults, we have to make our own moral choices. No objective good, no silly ideas about lawgivers. We have to be grownups. (oh, and Hitler was a Catholic Christian, not an atheist.)
It is kind of funny that atheists (and most atheists are culturally Christian) deny the Judeo-Christian God but believe implicitly in the morality of the religion. Immanuel Kant was a hypocrite.
God as law giver. If God does not exist then the law does not exist. Nothing is unlawful. And if God is defined further as the giver of all values then Evil doesn’t exist.
And when you take the Atheist position to its fullest conclusion. People do not have rights since they are supposedly God Given. Load people up in cattle cars and transport them to the ovens because all they are are so many pounds of meat and bone covered in so many yards of skin.
That Bill O’Reilly exists is proof that God loves you. LMAO
@Kevin – love the Darwin Day comment – LOL
@Jane – love your Epicurus quote – I use it all the time
“Caananites who were just minding their own business” That’s funny. There god was Baalim. Here is a little of them minding there own business. Jeremiah 19:5.
5 And they have built the high places of Baalim, to burn their children with fire for a holocaust to Baalim: which I did not command, nor speak of, neither did it once come into my mind.
I mean if God was going to wipe anyone out these people deserved it. Or is burning kids on the alter just a Sunday after noon BBQ.
Ray:
All the Caananite were doing was abortion, perfectly legal… /sarc
Someone asked me to defend the idea that Calvinist notions of God are meanspirited. Why yes,I think they are. Note, I don’t defend John Adams’ theology outright — Adams was a theological unitarian who was explicitly anti-Calvinist in his theology just like Jefferson. But I think he gets it right in this respect:
God has infinite Wisdom, goodness and power. He created the Universe. His Duration is eternal, a parte ante, and a parte post. His presence is as extensive as Space. What is Space? an infinite, spherical Vaccuum [sic]. He created this Speck of Dirt and the human Species for his glory: and with the deliberate to design of making, nine tenths of our Species miserable forever, file his glory. This is the doctrine of Christian Theologians in general: ten to one.
Now, my Friend, can Prophecies, or miracles convince You, or Me, that infinite Benevolence, Wisdom and Power, created and preserves, for a time, innumerable millions to make them miserable, forever; for his own Glory? Wretch! What is his Glory? Is he ambitious? does he want promotion? Is he vain? tickled with Adulation, Exulting and try triumphing [sic] in his Power and the Sweetness of his Vengeance! Pardon me, my Maker, for these Aweful [sic] Questions. My Answer to them is always ready: I believe no such Things. My Adoration of the author of the Universe is too profound and too sincere The Love of God and his Creation; delight, joy, Tryumph [sic], Exultation in my own existence, ‘tho but an atom, a Molecule Organique [sic], in the Universe; are my religion. Howl, Snarl, bite, Ye Calvinistick! Ye Athanasian Divines, if you will. Ye will say, I am no Christian: I say Ye are no Christians: and there the Account is balanced [sic]. Yet I believe all the honest men among you, are Christians in my Sense of the Word . . . .
Yea well i’m a proud atheist and doesnt really seem to make adifference how much I go to church good actions are good, bad is bad. This is the REAL world, not a fairy tale. Shit happens, planes crash, sometimes in areas that makes it even worse. EVERYTHING can be explained with science, NOTHING can be explained with any religion.
If interested here is how John Adams viewed the afterlife (he denied eternal damnation):
“I believe too in a future state of rewards and punishments too; but not eternal.”
– To Francis van der Kemp, July 13, 1815.
Grant Canyon,
Teenagers are notorious for thinking their parents are the stupidest people on earth, yet by the time they are 25 they can’t believe how smart their parents have become.
What’s the difference between that teenager and a finite human being who — not understanding the actions of an all-wise, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-loving God — declares him to be evil?
That’s funny. There god was Baalim. Here is a little of them minding there own business.
LOL… Just like the Huns killing Belgian babies in WWI. Do you really believe all the propaganda you read??
What of the Amorites and Midianites? Did they burn kids too?
Of course when Moses tried showing a little humanity and spared the Midianite women and children. Surely “good” god, the fount of morality, the root from whom goodness grows would approve, right?
“Screw that,” said evil god Yahweh/Jehovah/Jesus/Holy Spirit-Ghost, “Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
So, evil god Yahweh/Jehovah/Jesus/Holy Spirit-Ghost said murder all the little boys and their mothers (mother killers!!) but keep the virgins. So not only is evil god Yahweh/Jehovah/Jesus/Holy Spirit-Ghost a psycho mass murder, but he’s a pimp, too.
And you actually worship evil pimp Yahweh/Jehovah/Jesus/Holy Spirit-Ghost??
MarkB,
If John Wayne Gacy had a teenage son and thought his dad was evil, he would have been right.
it has nothing to do with god. it’s location, location, location. even that hudson river miracle man couldn’t have landed safely if a house had been underneath him and not the river
Watch Donnie Darko for some random thoughts on these eternal questions…
Grant Canyon,
True, but are you right in think God is evil?
*thinking*
Pretty much asked the same thing on my own blog, only I asked why this one wasn’t a miracle. Surely it’s a ‘miracle’ that more people weren’t killed.
No? Oh…
I wish someone would show me a picture of this supreme being or god or is he the devil or whatever…lets see it!!!
@Ray
Facepalm: Because there are no words to express your stupidity.
Although I’m sure that you won’t see this, Ray, you should really learn to recognize a joke.
When Christians and other religious people stop using god as a crutch to push their political views upon people I will stop debating the existence/non-existence of god.
Morality exists without any god. Does the belief in god help some people become better people? No. (see: Dumbo’s feather). People choose to be good or bad. Both are present in all of us. But what is good and what is bad? There is no one true answer. For those of you who site the bible, I laugh in your general direction.
@JWSmith
If any site moderators are watching this thread, I’m going to ask that JWSmith get some sort of warning for language. Since this thread was linked from HotAir, I see a fair amount of their readership popping over. (More exposure is always nice.) Most of them have come over in seemingly good faith, some have even stuck around to engage in some debate, conversation, but sadly I see a few trolls came over for some hit & run posts. Let’s at least try to keep the vulgar language to ourselves.
I guess God was fresh out of Miracle Whip® last night.
The Christian god was on duty for 1549 … guess which god was on duty when the 3407 was in trouble?
Yup, you got it.
Terrorist bastards!
How about this for some theology:
Those folks on the plane that crashed did NOT deserve what they got. God exists. God is just. And therefore God repaid them with rewards in Heaven that He OWED them in a cosmic justice sense.
I think we could read the book of Job the same way. Job was a good person. Job did NOT deserve the mistreatmen he got. Hence God, the ultimate overseer of cosmic justice OWED Job. And as a just God, He repaid Job was He OWED him.
I find it mind boggling how anyone can believe in a god.
Any real-world observable evidence you find relevant to your beliefs gets bent, abused or ignored entirely to prevent your delusion being broken. You put a filter over reality to distort your perception of the real world to fit a story your parents told you as a child. You have NEVER heard from god and if you think you genuinely heard words that made your eardrums vibrate, you’re no saner than any other schizophrenic.
I can only imagine it’s like being trapped in a dream for your entire lifetime. You never realise you can’t actually fly, the walls aren’t really made of chocolate, and Santa doesn’t exist.
Confront your mortality and stop wasting your life in churches full of hypocrites, saying prayers instead of proactively changing what’s wrong with the world. Forget your impotent, useless god and go do something good by yourself. Volunteer at a shelter and help the people you’ve ignored in favour of imaginary friends in the sky.
To David Heddle:
http://secularright.org/wordpress/?p=1523#comment-5692
To be more precise, what Mac Donald demands is perfect justice, perfect equality of outcome for people in similar situations, as seen from our human point of view. The absence of such perfect equality of outcome is, to Mac donald, proof either that God is evil or that he doesn’t exist. Look up my exchange with her that I linked, it’s all there.
Also, as I explain at my site, she was identified as a “correspondent” in that exchange. But when, about a year after our exchange, she went public with her atheism and began making exactly the same arguments under her byline that she had made to me anonymously at my blog, I felt at liberty to reveal that my correspondent was she.
“The absence of such perfect equality of outcome is, to Mac donald, proof either that God is evil or that he doesn’t exist.”
I don’t think the absence of such a perfect outcome is PROOF God doesn’t exist. The problem is the explanation given by traditional orthodox Christianity is lame, unsatisfying and often as self evidently unbelievable as the radical Muslim claim that Allah sent those 19 highjackers into the WTC and rewarded them with virgins.
Plain and simple: BAD things happen to folks who DON’T deserve it. Those 50 people DIDN’T deserve to die the way they did and folks die all the time in ways they don’t morally deserve. And that means either 1) God doesn’t exist, hence there is no cosmic justice, or 2) if God DOES exist and there IS cosmic justice, then souls MUST be justly compensated for the unjust suffering they experience on earth or perhaps they did something in a past life to warrant such harm (i.e., karma). It would be MORE believable to argue those 50 folks who died were the reincarnated souls of Nazi Concentration Camp officials, than to accept the standard orthodox rationale that, for instance, because you stole a box of candy when you were younger or lied to your parents about where you were on Saturday night, you deserve everything bad that comes to you.
I am guessing that nobody will read this comment, since there are so many of them (I sure didn’t bother to read them all) but I still feel the need to reply to something I saw a lot of people say.
Joe Dirt and others say things like “Uh, why does it matter? If you seriously don’t believe in God, why do you get into the argument of getting people to try to explain how God works?”
I’d say that that is certainly not what it is about. It is about people like O’Reilly and many, many others who use things like flight 1549 as an argument against atheism. They often pose very loaded and pointed question of the type “When you look at this wonderful event – these people being saved so miraculously – HOW can you be so very STUPID that you can’t see that God exists and God is good?”
I’ve heard that kind of argument so many times, being called stupid, arrogant and blind because I don’t see God’s goodness in things like that.
But when I then pose the _counterpoint_ (note that it is always a counterpoint to their argument, just like this blogpost is a counterpoint to such an argument; I don’t instigate the discussion) of horrible things; asking things like “How does things like plane crashes with a lot of dead people fit in with what you just said? How can what you just said be an argument for God, when just as much awful stuff as wonderful stuff happens?”, well then people get angry.
They again call me arrogant, for daring to question God’s motives. They say that God is obviously good, it’s just that when things seem horrible we don’t understand WHY it is good, with our puny, human intellects.
But they never see themselves as arrogant for assuming that they know that God saved some people and ignored others, or for assuming that they DO know something about God’s motivations.
The hypocrisy of that makes us ask these questions from time to time, hoping that the people who always try to convert us stop using the stupid “Oh look at this wonderful thing that happened; surely it’s an act of a loving God”-argument.
I don’t care what you believe. But people always try to convert me and it irritates me that they always use the same arguments. It’s boring.
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I just watched video of a press conference where Michael Bloomberg said something to the tune of “it is regretable that God wasn’t with this plane like he was with the US Airways flight the other week.”
All these long winded arguments. Non believers ask for believers to prove God existence. I always ask for them to prove he doesn’t. As of now there is only one way to find out for sure and I am in no hurry to see if I’m right.
WOW. This thread got long. How about this…the plane crashing was not the hand of God. Neither was the other plane not crashing. Both were the results of the various physical circumstances the planes were in as well as the actions of the people on board.
I don’t really see why people feel the need to see God in everything, or really anything. Why is it so hard to accept that we live in a lawful, causal universe where things occur on their own trajectories? What mandates that for life to be beautiful and meaningful beauty and meaning have to be “put there” from the outside?
An unlikely event does not a miracle make. Probability is just that…probability. If I have 1,000,000 marbles in a sack and 1 is black and 999,999 are white, does that mean I can’t possibly grab the black one without looking? What if I do? Is that then a miracle?
I find it somewhat sad that people see nothing wonderful and worthwhile in a naturalistic world, just as it is. Are we not still living, rational creatures that can value just as well on our own?
@MarkB,
“True, but are you right in think[ing] God is evil?”
Sure. I read the book they wrote about him. Pretty twisted character, he is.
I confess I’m at a bit of a loss here. The existence of suffering is not exactly a brand new trump card that no believer has considered before.
But if you’d like I can try my own answer to your question: because we all die eventually. If the plane hadn’t crashed, their deaths would have been merely postponed. I didn’t die in that plane crash, but it’s a certainty that I will join them in a number of decades – if not sooner. I would think that an omniscient God would take the long view of things. If he exists, life’s just an infinitesimally short staging ground for eternity anyway.
@AngryHank
As of now there is only one way to find out for sure and I am in no hurry to see if I’m right.
What a pity you’re living in the wrong era, in earlier times your doubts would have been promptly cleared by some caring figures like the Papal legate Arnaud-Amaury:
… Arnaud’s love of terror and killing was perhaps above average, even for a senior churchman. It was he who was responsible for the mass burning alive of “many heretics and many fair women” at Casseneuil”, for the massacre at Béziers, where some 20,000 men, women and children were killed in an “exercise of Christian charity”, and for the immortal words “Kill them all. God will know his own”. He was also responsible for the siege of Carcassonne, and for the seizure of Raymond-Roger Trencavel, Viscount of Carcassonne, Béziers, Albi and the Razès during a truce – leading to the fall of Carcassonne. He arrived at Minerve just in time to engineer the deaths of 140 people whose lives would otherwise have been spared.
Why do you have to worry when “God will know his own”?
@Garrett
And we know this — how?
If God had meant man to fly, he’d have given us feathers.
If you were to drive by my house today you could very well see me on my tractor pulling box springs around in the field. You would justified in thinking, what is this hick doing? The only way to find out would be to take some time from your busy life, stop, strike up a conversation, and get to know me a little so that you might understand why I would be doing such a goofy-looking thing.
I am not going to say that God will explain everything to you, but to try and find out why some things happen the way they do, we need to take some time, stop, strike up a conversation, and get to know God a little.
Why do some “miraculous” events happen and others end in tragedy? I do not know. I am only sure that we are all going to die some day and at that point, it will be good if we had taken some time along the way to get to know the One that created us.
I am sorry that you are angry with someone that called themself Christian and acted like a beast. Please do not judge God by the errors of those that claim to know Him. Get to know Him yourself.
@cuffy meigs
And your imaginary friend did not create the planet with the atmosphere that created the storm that caused the ice to form on the plane? Or perhaps he merely failed to pay attention at the critical moment?
@Machine Gun
Is this an argument against atheism, or an argument against foxholes?
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@JWSmith
How very Christian of you. Pardon me if I decline your, er, invitation.
I like to think that the zombie horde that’s invaded here from some nether region is same the one that swarms in at any mention of Her Hallowed Name (Ayn R0nd) or of pure allegiance to the sacred Gospel that she taught. I know that they aren’t but I find it an amusing diversion to imagine.
As for the excellent and sophisticated arguments presented here… well, I obviously have no response and am currently convinced that
a) Heather is an ignorant imbecile who was unaware of the fact that resolutions have already been found for the “problem of evil”. Furthermore, her rationalization for her innate atheism came to her only today, upon news of the downed aircraft and her childlike wonder as to “why?”
b) Satan rules “this” world, which explains bad things
c) Nature rules this world, which ” ” ”
d) God rules this world but the downed plane was Man’s fault while the Saved plane is His credit
e) God rules this world and neither planes received any special assist from him
f) God rules this world and carefully chose for both events to occur, the downed plane being a Good thing on account of some inscrutable ways of His while the Saved plain being… Also a Good thing because how inscrutable does a thing have to be? Saved planes are obviously Good Things.
g) Many Christians commentors really, truly and seriously are Very Very stupid and are somehow unable to understand this exceedingly clear and simple post.
Yeah that’s about it for them. But as regular readers of these threads know, I’m actually a fan of these guys. My “Conservatism” in fact is largely an appreciation of what we call Christian Values and of the Christians who practice them. Their silliness and occasional downright stupidness don’t lessen my appreciation for many of the values that they cherish, attempt to uphold and… every so often actually do uphold.
My only beef here then is with the fellow (supposed) atheists who attack Heather for what they regard as a post that’s nothing other than cruel goading and intolerance. I’ll do the christian thing here and assume that these folk really do believe that Heather is doing nothing other than picking on the stupid kid for some sadistic kicks. And of course, if that were in fact what Heather were doing, criticism would be in order.
As an appreciator of this post and of the posts similar to this one that Heather has contributed in the past (and which I hope to GOD she’ll continue to contribute in the future and not be intimidated by the threat of scrutiny that this current swarm implicitly implies) I can’t tell you why HEATHER writes this kind of post but I can tell you why I do and can guess that Heather may feel similarly:
Because I’m angry as fuck at God. And at the people who dress up like him and claim to speak His truths and to speak in His name. I was raised with beliefs that were believed by everyone in my tribe and which turned out to almost certainly be false. I grew up with a very close “relationship” with this benevolent, beneficent, omniscient and omnipotent God and I found out that He didn’t keep His part of the bargain. He’s full of Shit. If He’s omnipotent then it’s obvious that He’s a truly fucking asshole who has set Himself up as Humankind’s fiercest enemy… and there’s nothing that we can do to fight back – except to cease loving Big Brother. That’s the only rebellious choice He’s allowed you.
But of course all of this is silly. A God who hates you is just as unlikely as a God who loves you. There’s no reason to believe in either. so how can you hate this supposed Father in Heaven/Best Friend/Loving…whatever when in fact He’s nothing but a myth! Well, you can take it out on the Myth Makers. Not because their myths or “harmful” to, well, let’s just say “the children” (once we’re going O’Reilly let’s go all the way) – indeed, the myth of Christianity may (but just “may”) be more helpful and happiness-inducing than harmful in today’s America – but because you’re angry at the Father who never was and therefore come to associate your lying aunts and uncles and neighbors and parents and sisters with the visage of the perfidious Him who never was. And you lash.
@Kevin
I would burn in hell before praying to that God.