Nonsense!!!! My Reply

Okay, first of all this 'lovely' little email implies that people who suffer do so because they do not believe in God or do not ask for God to help.

In other words, this is just another take on the 'blame the victim' attitude. Actually, it is highly likely that the 'blame the victim' attitude is biblical.

It is also a blatant lie which stands out a mile to anyone who bothers to think. Duh!

If it were true, then no one who professes to believe in God and who prays to her, would suffer. They wouldn't get sick, no one would ever hurt them, they'd never be poor. I think you get the picture.

I know of a 3 year old who just died of cancer. They suffered. What sort of evil belief system suggests this child suffered because they did not pray or believe? Or worse because their parents didn't?

Now to the last bit of the offending email: no one KNOWS there is a God! You can believe there is, you can feel sure there is, you can be fervent in your belief. But you cannot KNOW.

No human being has access to ABSOLUTE TRUTH. We only have our ideas and the meanings we create. That is it. We do not live our lives based on absolute truth, because we cannot know TRUTH. We live our lives based on our ideas and on the meanings we have created from our experience.

Even though not mentioned in the email, I will also add that the the idea that some people have that their 'sins' are 'paid' for by someone else, that we each have our personal whipping boy, is also clearly not true, no matter how much we may wish to be absolved of out personal responsibility.

How can I feel sure of this?

Simply because we suffer and we die!

IF someone else had paid for our sins, then we would not suffer the consequences of our errors(sins). We also would not die, because the wages of (punishment for) sin is death. Even the Holier Than Thou brigade die.

I have not written about belief in a god or supreme being or divine force or whatever. I see nothing wrong in such a belief. In fact it can neither be proven nor disproved. I also find a definite atheistic point of view to be as silly as a definite religious one.

None of us knows if there is a creator or not. No matter how much we fancy we do.

My objection is to the damaging stories people have made up about God. The damage they do to children by teaching it as TRUTH. I object strongly to evil portrayed in these stories and the inability of many people to see how these stories severely damage the human race.

Also, it disturbs me greatly that people believe them.

Just as an example, there are those that believe that the story of Noah is true. Forget for a moment the Ark and the cute animals walking in 2 by 2 and how lovely Noah and his family were.

WHAT SORT OF MONSTER DROWNS MEN , WOMEN AND CHILDREN AND ANIMALS BECAUSE HE IS PISSED OFF?

More to the point, what sort of person believes in such a monster? Could it be a person who harbours such foul feelings of revenge and destruction? Is this why they are able to accept such a God? Because their God thinks and feels the way they do?

All god's I have so far come across are made in man's image, not the other way around, and as such they very clearly display the worst components of man-the desire for worship and praise, the desire to control, the desire to destroy.

Finally, I often here people say 'if it brings them comfort to believe what's the harm? '

It harms because their comfort is at the expense of others!

It is these 'comforting' beliefs that allowed the Holocaust to happen for one, that allowed Matthew Shepherd to die the awful death he died, that allowed the 11th September attacks and countless other acts of evil.

It is this 'comfort' that allowed slavery, for women to be treated as chattels, for children to be abused(and still so). I could go on.

WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE MATTERS. Beliefs based on error and evil , no matter how comforting to the holder, costs lives.

Just a cursory look at our world will show this is so.