Happy Atheist Forum

Something really got me thinking about this today.

I was taking a driving safety class (required in our state before you get your full license), and this father was talking about how his daughter survived in a car accident because she wore her seat belt, and she had just started wearing it when before she didn't. And he was like, I guess it was a little bit of faith, and the man up there, ... (Not important after)

That really got me thinking on something I've thought of before. How God is given credit for man's achievements. And how when something goes bad, it's either NOT God, there's a "perfectly good explanation", or there's a reason for it (reason as in God).

Like how, for instance, that high school girl surviving that crash and her father saying "the man up there" had something to do with it. First of all, she was wearing a seat belt, kay? Second, it's luck that she lived through it. "The man up there" had absolutely nothing to do with it. Like Kathy Griffin's award acceptance speech, "I think Jesus had the least to do with me winning this award..."

Then again, like if something amazing happens, like lets just say the landing of the plane on the Hudson. It's a "miracle", God did it. No... It was the work of a veteran pilot who knew what was going on and could work it out well.

It's just stuff that like that shows how much America is "Jesusland". Christians give credit to God for things that they just think is proof of his existence, when it is just plain luck and man preparing for what was to come. God had the least of anything to do with it.

Whom gets credit for woman's achievements?... The devil I suppose.

So...does God get credit in those very rare cases where not wearing a seat belt would have saved the person's life?

I've found if you push them hard enough Christians will give God credit for the bad stuff too under the "it was part of God's plan" cop out. I like to give the argument of a drunk driver killing a kid to argue this. They will start out with the plan arguement untill I start giving the hypothetical drunk with an abusive father who beat and raped his son. Which was part of god's plan to make the man have a horrible life and drive him to drinking as an escape just so god's plan could be complete with a previously inocent mans life ruined and an inoccent childs taken for some unfathomable reason. At that point they usually fall back on the whole "unkowable" aspect of god.

Who would willing follow and even defend such a God seriously?

Being a big-time sports fan, this issue really does bother me.  I mean, I know that it is just the cliche thing to do up to a certain point, but I just wince when I hear Jesus/God getting more credit than the people who deserve it (as in the families, the rest of the team, and the athlete themselves).

And what makes them think they're so special that they think God chose them of all people to have the talent to be a famous rich sport star or famous rich musician? while the other 99.9% of the world continues on in their monotonous 9 to 5 lives or dies.

Quote from: "Tanker"I've found if you push them hard enough Christians will give God credit for the bad stuff too under the "it was part of God's plan" cop out. I like to give the argument of a drunk driver killing a kid to argue this. They will start out with the plan arguement untill I start giving the hypothetical drunk with an abusive father who beat and raped his son. Which was part of god's plan to make the man have a horrible life and drive him to drinking as an escape just so god's plan could be complete with a previously inocent mans life ruined and an inoccent childs taken for some unfathomable reason. At that point they usually fall back on the whole "unkowable" aspect of god.

Who would willing follow and even defend such a God seriously?

I have no idea. It is pretty messed up though.

I dislike it very much when my religion teacher says ,"A gift from god." or "God must have saved him/her." It seems to me that God granting gifts, saving people, and blessing humans, or in other words intervening, violates the free will idea. Whenever something good happens God did it, whenever something bad happenes free will is the culprit.

Then if that idea is to be believed..."God saved this person from that fate..."......it would mean that God did not save someone else from a same sort of fate, as dieing in an auto accident....so we get into....God is showing favoritism..... to some and not others.......so why?

and if I were to follow this line of thought, for just a second, for the sake of entertaining myself here.....If god created all of us and we are all of his children, so to speak.....would you love one of your own children any less than the others, if he acted up and was not behaving as the other model children you have for you and believing in the same exact things you did?

I had this discussion with my wife recently.  She's still a Christian.  She's currently getting her Masters on a full scholarship, which she attributes to God.  She recently had a setback (her study proposal was rejected by a school board's ethics committee) and she said she was trying to trust God to help her through it, as it was clearly God who opened the door for her to get her Masters in the first place.

I told her that she is where she is because she's smart, she worked hard, and she graduated at the top of her class.  That's why she got the funding, not because of God.  I pointed out that every year a certain number of students get this scholarship and it has nothing to do with their religion.

Suffice to say we still don't see eye-to-eye on that.  

It seems to me the most honest retort to someone giving glory to God for whatever, is this:

If you want all the glory, you take all the blame. If God only gets glory and we take the blame or the devil takes the blame, then that can only mean God is selfish, flawed and very ungodly or is powerless against bad things happening and therefore unworthy of glory at all. This destroys the weak shield of free will and human corruption by evil so often thrown in our faces.

In short, atheists are realists, stuff happens.

You can also less good-naturedly mock: What a great God you've got there! What a fine sense of timing for intervention, helped that guy make a free throw to win the game, let the kids burn to death on the bus. Awesome God!

Glory my butt and get a new God, it's called personal responsibility.

Jim

I think that these athletes should be disqualified for rigging the game.  It must be illegal, that another person (or being) helps you to win a game by temporary changing the natural law of physics  .