Xians “testing their faith”
31 July 2009 by Stardust
Cody, our most recent Xian visitor proudly claims that he loves debate because it provides opportunity to “test his faith”. What is it with Christians having to “test their faith” repeatedly? Could it possibly have something to do with their fantasy god belief being difficult for even themselves to believe? They must force themselves to believe things that they know deep down is absurd and illogical, blind “faith.”
Of course, some Christians of the fundamentalist variety will say that it’s the “devil” testing them, while God stands by and watches as a voyeur to see the outcome (when he supposedly already knows how things will turn out).
Tom Brown of Tom Brown Ministries writes:
Trials come to test your faith. This means that trials BATTLE your faith. And if your faith is not fighting back, you are not winning.
If your not winning, you’re not becoming stronger. God wants us to become stronger by resisting the devil who sent the trial.
Now why would a loving God want to put his special creations through such ordeals? This is a weird and sadistic god to force his beloved followers to keep in line and follow the straight and narrow.
I do not need to test my husband’s, children’s, parents’, grandparent’s and friends’ love for me, nor do I need to test my love for them. I don’t need to put them through terrible trials and tribulations in order that they believe that I exist, and vice-versa. I would not want to cause them any sort of suffering, and they would not want me to have to endure suffering just to prove that I love and care about them. I do not need to be made more faithful to my husband or loyal to my friends via resisting temptations and “battling my faith” in them.
We do become stronger because of the experiences we have gone through, the difficulties and hard times that living brings to most people at one time or another. But it’s not some sort of “trial”, no sort of “test” that intentionally is some sort of “battle” to win. It’s just life, it’s how things are. Good things happen, bad things happen and how we deal with these things shows our character, our will, our determination, our desire to survive sometimes against all odds.
31 July 2009, on 1:42 pm
Where is everyone?
31 July 2009, on 3:06 pm
The first fallacy is thinking that there’s anything virtuous about faith to begin with. Faith is believing in something for which there is no proof. Then someone comes along and proves the opposite, or points out irreconcilable conflicts in your system of belief, and you keep on believing anyway? That’s not virtuous, it’s just stupid.
31 July 2009, on 4:58 pm
Faith is believing in something for which there is no proof.
I’m fine with this, in certain situations. For example, I have never been to Antarctica. I have no clue what it looks like down there. I’m left to believe it exists. But, and this is big, believing that there is a frozen continent at the bottom of the world doesn’t challenge a logical worldview. It doesn’t require me to canibalistically partake of a cosmic Jewish zombie’s body in the form of a tasteless wafer each week, to believe the world was once cataclysmically submerged in some great deluge in which all the animals were loaded into the biggest naval vessel ever constructed, or that taking 200 steps on “the lord’s day” mandates a stoning (not the herbal kind), or that somehow my “soul” is inherently “lost” and that said cosmic zombie can automatically remedy my perdition by the simple act of confessing his lordliness by way of writing his “representative” a large check, etc. etc. So there are things I take on “faith,” but that faith doesn’t challenge a logical worldview.
I know I’m nitpicking, but a believer recently challenged me on this very thing and my response here was the response I gave to him. Interestingly, he understood my point.
31 July 2009, on 10:43 pm
See, this is the key to why most religious won’t listen. They ‘rationalize’ that it’s ol’ Scratch hisself whispering in YOUR ear, making YOU throw down w/THEIR faith.
Violence runs in our veins, & those who haven’t learned the act of self-control, need to blame someone else.
1 August 2009, on 10:31 am
Stardust:
It’s always the same old, same old with the “turd believers”. There is, currently, adiscussion going on at sciblogs about the attempts by the Texas BOE (staffed with and “advised” by a bunch of fucktard reichwing religidiots) to insert biblical teaching into social studies AND science classes. It is impossible to have a debate, of any kind, with people who are dishonest. At some point I always ask them to prove the existence of their GOD, from whence flows all of their assumed authority, morality and truth. It is a challenge that is not and cannot be answered. What they all are is a bunch of lying fucks for JESUS.
1 August 2009, on 11:10 am
Where, exactly?
1 August 2009, on 1:03 pm
Stardust,
“Where is everyone?”
I have been busy with my 6 yr. old grandson, who staying w/me a few days and he is doing a really great job of keeping me away from the computer!
1 August 2009, on 1:28 pm
Glad to see you here, Karen. I wrote that because after I posted there was a long while before anyone commented. Comments are slow lately, probably because most people are outside actually enjoying summer! Have fun with your grandson!
1 August 2009, on 2:03 pm
Stardust: “Where is everyone?”
Or maybe, “Where GifSters? (wolves)”
(ala Igor in “Young Frankenstein”?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvSPBu7ajuA
Or, in this case…”THERE, Gifsters!”
Regarding the Post’s subject…
Yeah…always with the “testing of the victims” by the totally made-up, imaginary deity who never had to pass any test, whatsoever; and who also keeps sustaining the arch-evil scapegoat (His favorite buddy) in existence to bug everyone (and every thing?).
And remember Jeebus supposedly said;
“Be ye PERFECT, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
“HUH?…WTF!!!…THAT’S FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE!…you totally selfish, sado-masochistic asshole!”
And, by the way, speaking of the ‘notion’ of “Perfection”…IMO, that’s a made-up word by humans; having no real ‘content’. There is nothing in our experience ; no data, or any kind of Scientific evidence…nothing in ‘reality’ that fits that notion. Even the abstract mathematical ideas (ala Socrates/Plato?) are never fully imagined. They’re always a vague…erm…”potential?”.
Sooooo…”Nothing is perfect!” Nothing being that which doesn’t actually exist, of course. In other words…”Non-existence is the only “thing” that CAN be perfect?”
Conclusion? (humor me?)…
“God” can ONLY be Perfect, if He DOESN’T exist!
What’s that, Stardust (and KA)?…”Where are you going with this shtick, Chuck?”
Ummm…I’m heading, as we ALL are, towards “perfection”…that’d be…
NON-existence? And…
We’ll ALL be like our ‘Father’, in (the totally non-existent) “Heaven”.
“POIFECT!”
“OK, Now my brain hurts!”…and that’s OK…(’cause I’m smart enough…etc.)…
Actually, I’ll blame it, totally, on my lousy “Evolutionary Logic”.
Which, of course, the Universe pays absolutely no attention to; “it” has nothing to do with human, brain created, “logic”.
[Sorry...it's ca. 1PM (Chicago time), on Sat., Aug. 1st, 2009...time for some lunch; and I have to go pay my rent!]
1 August 2009, on 2:11 pm
Da Bastid, checking in! Hi Star!
What this test is, is very simple. It’s a mechanism to keep the “faithful” in line, so the power and authority of the church is not challenged. the politics of fear of a simpler age.
Or simple-minded age….
1 August 2009, on 2:18 pm
In my youth it was explained to me that being a xian was a battle for survival against all of the evil in the world, that being a xian was a difficult thing fraught with all sorts of unimaginable dangers and tests of will and loyalty – all of which assailed the xian in an attempt by satan and his evil minions to tempt each fragile sin-infested human into further sin and, therefore, greater forgiveness.
I started to wonder – in my youth – why this god of love and kindness who hovered over all children with protective omniscience could – at a point corresponding roughly with the onset of puberty – turn against the innocent and start poking us with the sharp barbs of “I love you, do you love me?” This too was explained to me as a test of faith. Any inkling of doubt about the love of god – even in the face of his most cruel punishments and recriminations – was a failure of faith and a sin which required more suffering and, again, illogically, more forgiveness.
Later on I came to realize that tests of faith are those struggles by which xians repel logic, resist incursions of reality and repel suspicions of implausibility.
I cannot now view these explications of sinister god-sent suffering as anything less than a too often successful mechanism whereby ministers and priests and god’s purported officials impose yet another layer of control on the writhing mass of unwashed sinners.
“God sends suffering to prove our faith” is a prime example of the twisted logic endemic to the xian world view – implausible, destructive, and asinine. In this context, “perverted” is the word that comes most often to my mind.
Xianity is a horror, an evil, a blight on the planet and a danger to humanity itself.
1 August 2009, on 2:21 pm
@ChuckA
“God can only be perfect if he doesn’t exist.”
Sweet.
1 August 2009, on 2:55 pm
Well said fester. I applaud you.
I’m here Star, it’s just that I really didn’t have anything to add.
1 August 2009, on 3:58 pm
Comments are slow lately, probably because most people are outside actually enjoying summer!
That’s what I’ve been doing. We’ve had a very, very mild summer here. It’s great! Usually the temp doesn’t go much above 80, and nights are even better- 65 degrees.
1 August 2009, on 4:55 pm
Glad to know our regulars are still hanging around.
When I was in the hospital so often this one relatives says to me, “God never gives us more than we can handle” and to that I replied “so this god is giving some people a kind of endurance test to see how much shit we can deal with?” That idea is so asinine. This is another clue that surprisingly so many people don’t catch about god being made from human imagination. To imagine a god watching people suffer to see how much shit they can take is pretty much like the whole gladiator thing. Spectator god and all his “sheeple” watching mortal men, women and children suffer through various kinds of illnesses, injuries, deformities, ailments, mental torments just to see how we cope with it all. I can’t understand why more Christians and other god believers don’t see a problem with that.
1 August 2009, on 5:24 pm
Here’s a case in point: He believed god was testing his faith – and it cost him the death of his daughter.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090801/ap_on_re_us/us_prayer_death
1 August 2009, on 5:48 pm
So, the pedophile priests are merely tests of faith? I can see forced sodomy as testing…
Bless the sphincter!
1 August 2009, on 5:52 pm
Oh yeah, we had another pedo eruption in St. Louis:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/laworder/story/FD2751E302FB38858625760300668424?OpenDocument
And if you like, you can go to the church’s website! Particularly funny, since they have a “Protecting God’s Children” section:
http://www.straphaelarchangel.org/
1 August 2009, on 10:13 pm
DRB and none of these people who participate in the “Protecting God’s Children” program and watch the videos about how child predators select their victims even stop to ask why doesn’t this God of theirs that they worship and pray to week after week to keep their kids safe never show up to take care of “his children”…this god is an “absentee father”…doesn’t ever show up. It is up to the loved ones and friends of the children to protect them because no god will…because there is no god. Most of them know this deep down, but still cling to the fairy tale anyway.
1 August 2009, on 10:33 pm
Here’s a story to go along with this post:
Wis. father saw sickness as ‘test of his faith’
1 August 2009, on 11:03 pm
^^ DRB?…In checking that Church Site, and the (totally insane) on Site Adobe pdf bulletins, I was reminded of my “Yute” spent as a ‘Roaming Cat-lick’…and my stint as an altar boy shtick.
By the way, the Church’s name, “St. Raphael the Archangel”, got me thinking…
“St. Who(m)?…the (fucking) What?”…
“Oh THAT St. Raphael (God-privileged-retard)…the…ummm…(fucking) ARCHANGEL?…
ROIT”! And, of course…what else?…Why…
Wikipedia, tsk, tsk!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_(archangel)
1 August 2009, on 11:09 pm
OOPS! Stardust?…Let’s try that link again.
Raphael (the artist) is NOT the intended link target.
It should be all in one link.
[copy/paste, I guess, if this doesn't work.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_(archangel)
2 August 2009, on 4:42 am
I always wondered why an all knowing God would feel the need to test the faith of a person since the outcome would already be known, so therefore why do it?
Unless God doesn’t have free will, what with him being all knowing, and therefore just kind of goes along for the ride.
2 August 2009, on 11:06 am
I was reading some Christian sites and what they had to say about their god “testing their faith” and here are what a couple of them say:
Onna says:
Why doesn’t this God do this uniformly then, instead of giving a person a load of shit to bear in their lives and others, many of whom are not even god believers seem to skate through life like a breeze with all the luxury and easiness most of us can only imagine. “Take us down a notch”…why would a kind and loving person who does nothing but help others need to have her husband, mother, father, children and friends all taken from her like a friend of mine has? God is “taking her down a notch” ? That is stupid, stupid reasoning.
Stinky says:
So Stinky is saying that this god is a vindictive asshole who throws a fit and hurts people because they aren’t paying attention to him? And yes, Stinky…people who idolize an imaginary being ARE fantatics. People who go overboard idolizing politicians and sports figures are also fanatics, though most people admire politicians, sports figures, movie stars and singers…admiration is a lot different than idolizing. And at least politicians, sports figures, movie stars, etc are real and not figments of people’s imaginations. Many of these famous people who are quite wealthy do a lot more to help the people on this planet than your imaginary friend does, Stinky.
2 August 2009, on 2:11 pm
“I’m going to keep testing you to make sure you love me. And if you don’t love me, I’ll make you regret it.” It kills me that counselors, including xtain therapist, would advise someone in a real world relationship such as this to consider leaving. “Discunctional” seems too mild a term for such an abusive relationship.
Stardust;
It’s enough to be sick in the hospital w/out b-leevers subjecting you to their ill-reasoned non-sense. Sorry you had to endure that.
The Gospel according to Stinky:
“God doesn’t make bad things happen to test ones faith. He allows bad things to happen because most people choose to ignore Him.”–Stinky 3:16
Besides the facts that this is imaginitive speculation at best, Stinky, and there is plenty of scripture to back up whatever claim you want to make about gawd, the reasoning of why bad things happen to us gets so much easier when you take the imaginary “friends” out of the equation. Try it; you might like it.
And really which would you rather have; an Hebrew testament vindictive gawd, or a Xtain testament passive-aggressive gawd. I can see why believers think atheists “hate” their particular brand of gawd–he is quite frankly, a total asshole.
2 August 2009, on 4:22 pm
Just keep repeating ‘God beats me because he loves me. God beats me because he loves me.’
Because that phrase has never been uttered an any situation that wasn’t awesome. How I wish we had an eye rolling emoticon.
2 August 2009, on 4:39 pm
AUM, we do
3 August 2009, on 4:09 pm
Here’s another story for you…the Pope who this month fell and broke his wrist doesn’t just say it’s just one of those things that happen. Old people fall down. The story:
And once again who are the real “angels”? HUMAN BEINGS…the law enforcement officials who came to his aid while he thinks nothing of how sadistic it sounds for a god to give superior orders to let him injure himself and suffer.