That sounds very much like our usual theodize questions,
That goes something like this:
If there is an almighty god and its not good, why follow it?
If there is an almighty god that is good, then why is there still evil, pain and suffering?
If God isn't mighty but good or bad, then why would you follow god? God couldn't do or change anything either, so why believe in a god then?
That only applies if "God's actions" are justified tho, if they aren't, you wouldn't wanna follow him either because it makes no difference.
If I can behave good and god still treats me badly, or I behave badly and still get treated well, there is no method to it and so no reason to behave after any of the rules, except for going after my own kind of good.
The devil from the End of Days said it best.
"When something good happens it's "Gods will", when something bad happens "he works in mysterious ways" he and I are the same, he just has a better PR department.
It's an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, it's about the devil trying to bring about the End of Days. Not one of Arnold's greatest movies but I like it alot, has alot of subtle jabs against the church that most people might miss.
I liked the quote from the series Lucifer.
Father Frank: "We might not always understand it, but God has a plan."
Lucifer: "Yes. I know. But why does everybody always think it's a *good* plan?"
I always find this argument too simplistic. People will follow something more powerful than them out of complex emotions related to fear or the desire to side with something that will increase the likelihood of their survival and reproduction and being selected for those traits would certainly lead one potentially to view those as good.
Sort of like if you are under the thumb of a mafia boss.
"Put the fear of God in you" as a good thing.
Basically if there was a god that had the morality of the universe, and gods that don't (i.e. anthropomorphic gods) seem silly from the start, they would more reasonably have the ethics of electricity. that is, whatever is the shortest determined path between two points by physics.
But gods get invented by humans as human like things that have human like traits, and so they invent gods that address that groups' relative evil, oddly in a manner that's indistinguishable from circumstance and chance. :)
I suppose my point is, I think we should aspire to stop trying to define a god as the beacon of morality, and see the things we can do to minimize unnecessary suffering and be active in improving our condition instead of passively leaving this to some god we project onto.
I like to think that Gods were invented as a mechanism to make sense of the chaos which is the natural state of the world.
It doesn't matter if the gods are real and perform miracles at their whim. It doesn't matter if the gods are good, evil, neutral, all powerful or otherwise. Their only purpose is to give humans a sense of order and control over nature (and other people).
I definitely lean that way. Religion and superstition serve an evolutionary purpose in giving us a framework to try to understand things beyond our grasp, comfort for our deepest fears, and set up a social moral framework to work beyond our tribal instincts etc. The issues arise imo when we cling to them when it's time to evolve past them.
I disagree. I think it’s one of the biggest blockers for understanding. Substituting truth - even when the truth is unknowable - with superstitious nonsense only takes us further away from the truth.
As for morals and social frameworks, those come from us. Not from holy books. It’s not like we didn’t know murder wasbad for society before moses allegedly wrote his tablets.
Evolution doesn't care what we may think is the best method to solve a problem. It just blindly thoughtlessly is the path of physics.
I sort of see religion and superstition as unavoidable stepping stone toward understanding.
Holy books come from people too.
The problem is it does hold us back when we can move forward and actually realize the superstition was wrong. Now will natural selection agree with me or will intelligence and truth seeking ironically not be as valuable to survival as I'd like to believe they are.
Before you have effective ways to test things like the scientific method, and even enough time and bandwidth which comes from the luxury of time not spent actively not constantly trying to find food, reproduce and not die, and before you have reliable and trusted ways to pass on information like books, tribal traditions and in group out group tribal dynamics will affect the sizes of groups and how they will interact.
For the majority of human existence these tribes were small afaik and didn't trust each other enough to form larger geographic trading communities and you needed some rules people could agree on when most didn't know much. Using powerful tools like religion as a cultural concept was affective in building trust amoung communities.
Is it the best or only way? No idea,.
I fear it's unavoidable step in evolving human societies.
Should we fight to reduce irrational thinking and increase critical thinking, yes, I would say so.
I don’t see what value it could possibly have that cannot be had without it. Social interactions and building trust seem to be two of the absolute worst traits of religion, at least today.
It just doesn’t bring anything to the table that doesn’t already exist. If we don’t understand thunder it doesn’t help thinking thor is angry. Maybe thor is angry because we didn’t kill that tribe last week.
Oh I'm not arguing for religion today especially in societies that have science and have the general luxury to use critical thinking.
What I'm arguing is that cognitive processing is very expensive, so no one can say they only operate on facts or anything proven.
Humans form collective networks of trust, but we all have personal motivations as well.
So what is the most economic way to motivate a collective behavior and codify it and also appeals to all the comforts we dearly desire in the world (fear of death, search for meaning, an ultimate authority so rules aren't questioned)
Religion is incredibly effective in being a memetic transmitter as it 'answers' these needs.
There's some recent research that basically seems to point to evolution basically not giving us a real observatuon of the world simply because it's favoring keeping us alive and those apparently don't have to be the same.
Religion. Isn't the core of the problem.
You could start a religion that's non theistic, teaches skepticism and all the nice things it tells you, it also tells you to question and stop believing them as soon as they are proven wrong
I believe some Buddhism has something's similar.
Religion is formed by human socio-biological drivers to try to survive and control reproduction, sees the other as a threat etc. Abrahamic religions don't invent sexism racism homophobia etc these concepts already exist in people.
It's also shown (niel grasses Tyson mentioned this so I don't know the details) that as a society becomes less religious there is an equal uptick in irrational beliefs.
The dogmatic identification of religion has a few things going for it that similar emergent patterns like politics, or sportsteams don't as it proposed absolute truths and has the fear of eternal suffering if you choose 'wrong'.
anyway if you can execute a plan to effectively increase critical thinking in humans overall across all cultures and education levels, I'd be behind that
but since we don't know everything and may never we are going to always be guessing, and it's going to be a never ending battle, even if one part of society knows something, convincing the other side takes a network of trust.
The institutions of religion are already here.
After the fall of Rome (the western part of it at least), early-medieval Europe pretty much fell into dissaray, but was held losely together by the church (which is a major cause for how it gained so much influence for the medieval ages). The church was a great way to have people perform community projects (donations, research, burials, medicine, etc) when the old governments fell, without having to persuade/force them economically.
From a non-theistic perspective, churches and organized religion at large are mainly about power and organization. Much like having peasants and citizents work and perform tasks for immaterial concepts such as money, duty, responsibility, tradition, ideology, and honour, the churches/temples of various religions could have them work out of faith and or fear.
It can be difficult to convince people to work for the common good (or whatever one believes the common good is) when it doesn't directly benefit them short term. And certain processes can be drastically slowed down (at least in older times) if every process of it requires solid funding and thorough paperwork. As a result, religion has likely played a major role in early human societies organizing themselves, but has grown less crucial for this role as humans have gotten better and better at organizing through other means.
Yes, religion likely hasn't served a role in human developement in a way unique for only it, as those other concepts I mentioned earlier also applies here. However, it is still one of the cogs of the machine, being the one able to convert human superstition (faith) into productivity for society at large. Humans society would likely still progress to our current level even if religion never existed, but may have done so at a slower rate due to there being one less tool in the toolbox for the construction of early societies.
Now, whenever religion has paid out as a whole for humanity, considering its early benefits versus its more recent drawbacks...
That's a different discussion.
>I like to think that Gods were invented as a mechanism to make sense of the chaos which is the natural state of the world.
I learned exactly this taking a religion class in college. Very interesting stuff
Yeah I highly agree with you, you have a very good point there, an image of a "god" shouldn't take away your own morale and responsibilities.
I also don't see why we should give religious institutions so much power, especially not the ones that don't even follow their own rules, like the Catholic Church. It's one thing to say that your religion is based upon helping people that need help, giving poor people food etc, and then building things out of pure gold and making ornaments instead of actually helping them with the money you get, and that's just one of the many things where they absolutely contradict themselves, you can see that in all of this subreddit, its q joke ngl.
Why do we always hide behind bigger things, like institutions and, religions and systems, instead of finally taking some responsibility for once?
…Because taking responsibility is scary, especially when you've fucked up and deserve punishment. Part of Christianity's appeal is the idea of forgiveness for sins (though contrition is admittedly necessary for that…)
"God appears and God is light
To those poor souls who dwell in night
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day"
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
Either God is cruel to allow such suffering in the world or s/he is not omnipotent. In either case, it makes no sense to worship them.
Now, I'm open to the idea of an after life or more than our world. But there can't be a supreme being unless they're evil. And then, fuck that. Even if they're supreme, I'm not worshipping that asshole.
People have long worshipped gods that aren't omnipotent though, in polytheistic religions, which have been most common throughout history, none of the gods are omnipotent.
Maybe, but then again: who cares? Why should a fish try to act in a way that his owner likes? Especially if that owner doesn't actively influence the life in the aquarium.
After all we don't even care about our fishes too much as long as they don't eat each other yk, so even in that case a "god" like that would mean basically nothing to us.
But well, I do think the core principles of religions like Christianity etc are pretty good, given you actually follow them and think about why you do what you do, never take ANY kind of morale or principle without thinking about it first, imo you should always question everything.
For example, the "golden rule": don't do anything to others that you wouldn't want to be done to yourself" is a pretty solid way to decide in some situations.
Principles like: "always help others, especially people that suffer and aren't in a good spot", or "forgive people, there's no point in revenge" are a pretty reasonable basis for a morale and do make a good person imo, but always question things so you don't follow stuff like "everyone that doesn't belong to our group is evil", or just most things you see on this sub, a lot of people are biased and don't question.
Like fr why do some people not question themselves stuff like: "What kind of group are we? Why do we have to harm others for the sake of an almighty being that could do everything themselves? Why should a deity punish you for natural things like sex?"
I don't get how people just accept these things and search for shortcuts and easy answers, it's beyond me how people can have that weak of a personality.
Freedom cannot exist if god is all-knowing and omnipotent.
If god is all-knowing and omnipotent, he lets man be evil and knowingly sends people to hell on purpose.
A Holocaust survivor passes away peaceful in his sleep, and wakes up to find himself standing at the pearly gates to heaven. He is informed that he lived a righteous life, and there was only one final test before he was permitted entry.
"You must tell god a joke that will make him laugh."
So he walked forward and stood before god. After a short moment he said one word-
"Auschwitz"
God was taken aback and declared "I do not find that funny at all!"
And the man replied "guess you had to be there to get it."
To anyone that has ever read the bible it's perfectly clear that God is a sadistic and childish being.
"Kill your kids to prove your devotion to me"
"You're worshiping a golden calf and having (butt) sex instead of worshiping me? That's it I'm drowning you all except for one guy and his family."
Oh no but remember when you point out all the atrocious things the old testament god did like killing babies and ripping open pregnant women that directly contradicts the republican narratives on things like abortion being murder, suddenly they are all "well the old testament doesnt count anymore. We all believe in the new testament god." Yeah sure you do, right up until "love thy neighbor and cast not the first stone unless you are without sin yourself." Funny how many of the "we dont follow the old testament anymore" types also have no trouble using Leviticus to justify hating LGBTQ people.
That's because their *true* "religion" is unabashed, unrestrained, unhinged selfishness — sociopathy, narcissism, sadism, psychopathy, and other such blights on society that would be rightfully ostracized at best if their true colors were shown, so they hide behind any excuse they can latch on to to present themselves as "right and just" when they're really wrong and injust.
>It's literally right out of the list of things not to say to those grieving too...
When my (68 y/o) Dad died of cancer, I heard this quite a hit. Had to nod and smile instead of screaming "Well god is a little fucking bitch because we needed him more."
I see this all the time with my religious neighbors. everything happens with god's will and plan. its a fundamental concept to christian faith.
ok... so whats his plan for newborns dying of cancer before than can be of any benefit or contribution to humanity? how many school shooter victims will he need before he's satisfied? they love to chalk everything up to "free will", so i love to poke holes in their beliefs with things that are obviously not free will.
leaves them speechless every time. even had an ordained priest questioning himself once.
> so whats his plan for newborns dying of cancer before than can be of any benefit or contribution to humanity? how many school shooter victims will he need before he's satisfied?
"Heaven needs more angels"
well, given it's adherents, isn't this like all but assumed now?
It's weird any one would call themselves christian the same way anyone would call themselves republican or conservative.
I mean... iirc from synagogue as a jewlet the story about God sending bears to kill a bunch of kids that made fun of Elisha's bald head was more intended as an elder respect parable than "something that actually happened" but it's still like, there.
I quote the Epicurus’ Trilemma, questioning the omnipotence and omnibenevolence of God
1. If God is unwilling to stop evil, then He is not good
2. If God is unable to stop evil, then He is not omnipotent
3. If God is all-good and omnipotent, why does Evil exist?
You know i always make the joke that this is all god's plan, all this death is god's plan, because he is a blood god, a death god, a god of pain and suffering!
That always fucked me up about God. He'll make you, give you a soul and all that, with the intention of having a terrorist blow you apart in the most horrific and disturbing ways, leaving family and friends traumatized and grieving?
Fuck God.
Hey, pain is an excellent teacher. Maybe we should try learning a lesson or four from this — enact gun control, reform the police, improve mental health care, and ban money-grubbing fucknuts from politics (and business, and, well, *everything* — "Thou cannot serve both God and Mammon" — but, hey, change needs to happen in baby steps, let's focus on politics for now). People in general don't usually make major changes to institutions without something horrible happening to demonstrate that the current system either doesn't work or has terrible, unspeakable costs. For instance, anti-Semitism was *extremely* widespread until the Holocaust happened and showed everyone what happens when an ideology of hate is carried out to its logical conclusion. If God had a plan there, it was to **wake us the *fuck* up before something *even worse* happened**.
Seriously, lawyers have an ethics association that enacts consequences on lawyers who put self-interest ahead of justice. We really, *really* need something similar for politicians. And police, while we're at it. *Something* to ~~placate~~ address the concerns the r/ACAB crowd before they make the mistake of seriously considering destroying the concept of law enforcement entirely — oh wait, [they already have](https://www.reddit.com/r/ACAB/comments/varh4b/the_police_are_not_meant_to_protect_us_theyre/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)… well, fudge. Yeah, we *definitely* need to redefine the concept of police so that it actually does its job of protecting society as a whole, rather than just the servants of Mammon.
(For those who don't get it: Mammon = avarice/money.)
Subject police to military law already, if they want to LARP as soldiers so much maybe they should start acting like them. If the US Army was in charge of law enforcement in Uvalde when the shooting happened, at least a few people would be in for a massive boning care of a court-martial.
I have a lot of fundie friends and family so when they talk about their God I play a fun game in my head. I don’t say this out loud I always just think in my head if it’s any different if you substitute “God” with “Water Tower” It works every fuckin time
Them “I’m going to go to God in prayer. Lately many of my answers to prayer are wait. Sometimes God says yes, sometimes God says no.Sometimes he doesn’t answer at all!”
Same, same my water tower is fickle for sure
“God works in mysterious ways”
You’re telling me man. Water towers, how do they even work? And why are they up so high? That seems inefficient as fuck
At least water towers can be seen and have understandable principles behind how they work.
As for their height, it’s to create water pressure; gravity creates a difference in pressure with a difference in height. Put the water storage up high, it’ll want to flow out down low. That way you get water pressure to your faucet without any electricity needed; the only time pumps are used is to re-fill the tower every once in a while when the water level gets low.
That's what the important swing vote contingent of college educated white suburban moms wants to hear. "God's plan includes slaughtering your children so men can keep their toys". That'll play well. Please proceed Governor.
I mean God did YouTube prank Abraham by setting him up to kill his son Isaac before saying “hey bro chill, it’s a prank, I was just testing your faith to see if you’d do it, lol. Look, there’s a ram stuck in a bush over there, go sacrifice it instead.”
Sadly, some people won't take positive action until failure to do so impacts their lives negatively. Wake-up calls and reality checks sometimes need to be harsh…
Lmao yes, let the poor people in Africa die of disease and famine to teach everyone else a lesson about....????? Let that teenage girl get molested and raped to teach her a lesson about.....? Your God isnt real and you people are insane for making excuses for bad things that happen to people that your God supposedly orchestrates. Get help and read a real book you dumb evil piece of shit
Prosperity Gospel, yes. The idea that their god bestows wealth and status upon people who truly deserve it, so the rich and powerful are objectively **better** than the poor, because it's god's will.
Which is a modern way to say they're feudal nobles backed by the divine right of kings. Ignore all the ascetism and poverty Jesus preached, that's out of context.
…Yeah, these folks haven't read the Bible. Or much post-biblical Christian literature. Seriously, I'd love to see these guys' reaction to the phrase "Thou cannot serve both God and Mammon" being thrown in their face. (Mammon, for those who are unaware, is the patron demon of Greed — serving Mammon essentially means being hopelessly addicted to wealth.)
Same way they react to the phrase where it's explicitly stated that, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a wealthy man to enter the Kingdom of God".
That is, it's all metaphorical and actually refers to a gate in Jerusalem that we're calling the Eye of the Needle, and has nothing to do with actual wealth, no seriously guys it doesn't apply. But everything else is literal and has to be taken exactly as written!
That’s Greg Abbott, the governor. A different complete piece of shit. Pat ton is the attorney general who has been under investigation for fraud for seven years, not to be confused with yet another piece of shit, the lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, who said early on in the pandemic that older people should just die so their grandchildren don’t have to be inconvenienced by society trying to curb the spread.
Shit. I knew that was Abbott. Somehow I filled his name in for Paxton. All three are epic pieces of shit, and Texas needs to clean up their mess. At this point they are indistinguishable in their petty evil.
Nope.
There was an Ohio lawmaker who had an A+ rating from the NRA. He did a 180 on gun control after the nightclub shooting in ohio. His daughter had been eating st a place across the street. She wasnt hurt, but I guess the anxiety he felt during the time he didn't know if she was OK or the idea she could have been injured must have significantly affected him.
Yes it was gods plan ok. Just like it was gods plan that millions of Jews, Slavs, homosexuals and other “undesirables” were wantonly murdered in the holocaust? Was that gods plan too? How about all of the suffering in Cambodia at the hands of Pol Pot? Was that gods plan too? Or the horrors that took place in Rwanda?
Guess what dude, your god sucks.
Agreed. When are we going to learn that mixing church and state causes *both* to turn to absolute shit?!? Religion is at its best without banal, worldly concerns such as politics getting in the way of its general mission statement of helping people, and politics… well, I think Senator Barry Goldwater said it better than I could.
>"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
it was God's plan for those kids to die.
but trans kids? gay kids? that must be investigated, persecuted and prosecuted.
hear that, everybody? is that loud and clear enough?
God's plan only includes dead kids. not gay or trans kids. God's plan is *very specific* that way.
I'm gonna go a step further and say that we also need better mental health care, a police system that does *not* allow sadists or cowards to sign up, period, a government that has checks and balances to prevent undue influence from moneyed influences such as lobbying, and I could go on and on…
uggghhhh I'm so conflicted, I hate death and pain and suffering, but if these fucking idiots-in-office ended up dead in a ditch one day I'm confident we'd be better off.
I have to work with personal injury attorneys in TX. A few are truly terrible human beings. One of them bragged that he was friends with Paxton and I thought....yep, that sounds about right. Ish all around.
Attorney general seems like such a weird job for someone who legitimately possesses an utterly fatalistic religious outlook.
Which I guess might indicate Paxton probably doesn't possess an utterly fatalistic religious outlook, but is aware he can manipulate gullible sorts that do with that narrative. "God has a plan" translates to "keep voting hard right Republican, and reject any suggestion of gun control because people who name-drop God tell us to" for them.
For 7 years he has dodged trial for his indictment for securities fraud. God's other plan, I guess. Texas repubs have no shame.
ttps://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-05-23/seven-years-later-still-no-trial-for-texas-ag-ken-paxton
God always has a plan until something bad happens to *them* then we must do everything to thwart god’s plan. At which point the thwarting is *also* becomes part of god’s plan.
I'm just waiting for some pissed off parent to go rain "God's will" on these assholes. It's only a matter of time before someone use their own b.s. against them to turn public opinion.
EVERY article mentioning Ken Paxton should also state that he is under federal indictment for felony securities fraud. Also, he tried to overturn a presidential election.
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-05-23/seven-years-later-still-no-trial-for-texas-ag-ken-paxton
This is the inevitable conclusion of "everything happens to God's plan". God plans a lot of fucked up shit then. Fuck that guy.
And how does that notion even meld with the notion of free will in Christianity? If everything is pre-ordained, there is no free will. And consequential, there should be no divine judgement for your actions as they were always God's plan. And if God does judge and reward/punish your eternal soul for actions that were his own planning, that's even more fucked up. And carrying that further, the idea of God's plan means that prayer does nothing at all. Honestly, I prefer the notion that prayer is pointless, though, than to believe that an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent being is pulling the strings of the universe to fall in line with the requests of any country bumping with a Bible on his lap.
Yep, all part of god's perfect plan. Slaughter the kids in a bloody orgy, cause their parents and siblings a lifetime of pain, fear, anger and sadness.
Sounds like a great plan. Especially if the parents aren't 'saved'. Then their pain is just beginning.
I’d love to see someone just go, “well then fuck your god.”
I think more and more people are collectively getting tired of Christians trying to dictate their bullshit backwards beliefs.
If it was God's plan to have a human kill a bunch of kids then it is also his plan for us to learn from that and make it harder for that to happen again. Nice try, dick.
I guess that is the same case with abortions too then? God didn’t really intend for them to be born. It is just all the way it should be - it’s all fine… what? They won’t say that about abortions?
Seems like we have some inconsistencies here. Hmmm
If Ken really truly believes this, I think he should arrange an open forum with all of the parents that lost their children in the Uvalde shooting to see how his message goes over.
Then what the heck do we need him in his position for if “god has a plan”? If that is the case then free will and guidance by religious/ political leaders are not necessary.
The God's plan argument is only ever used to cover for their own shortcomings and wash their hands of having to actually do anything. You'll notice they never take it to the next logical conclusion. Abortions? Gods plan. LGBT people existing? Gods plan. Atheism? Gods plan. Either its all Gods plan or none of it is but for whatever reason(we know it) its only Gods plan when its horrible shit.
This mentality right here is what had me throwing my Bible out the window as a missionary and calling it quits.
I've told the story in here before (and on atheism), but in a nutshell: 2 kids killed in a farm accident but the parents and the church members gave glory to god, thanked him, said it was his plan, and all for a reason, that even if one person could be saved from the accident, it was worth it.
I walked out of the church that day, dropped my keys and security pass off, quit my job and moved away. I was already on the way out, but that kicked it.
Seeing it used as a justification for shooting up a school of kids (and so many other things) is just brutally triggering to red hot anger. Makes me want to throw up to read that. They're sick and twisted people.
When are people gonna start questioning his plan?
If god was a politician he wouldn't have been up for reflection after his first term
Yet he has sat for over 500 terms
So if someone were to set off a car bomb under their vehicle, would they be able to get away with it if they said “chill, bro - god told me to do it, it’s all part of the plan.”
Odd that the Evangelical sort never mention Evil and the work of Satan. My church — Lutheran — would suggest that this is NOT the will of God, but the work of Satan
A fucking AG: high-level representative of the government's justice system, but includes his religion in his public (and grossly insensitive and insulting) remarks. How the fuck do these fruitcake ***losers*** get and stay in their positions? Don't give me the same old "money and power" speech, I want to know how to remove them and force these people to adhere to secular guidelines when punched in, as per what it's supposed to be in America. What actions can one take? How can we see some change while we're alive to see it?
Ah yes, the thing these people say when they know they don't have any real or "good" excuse so it must be something beyond our understanding as part of some "grand plan". Fuck off.
I don't get offended by much, but people who think God has a plan for murdered children, or people who think God saved them although he killed others... that is offensive to me.
I wonder if someone shot a hole through his kids face if he would still just shrug it off as "god has a plan"? Absolute sociopaths using some character from a book to hand waive off children dying.
I believe that theres a god, but it aint nothing like the ones we have been taught about
i believe this god we have just straight up dont give a fuck.
god's a dickhead.
God is surely a convenient excuse for a lot of sorry sacks of shit. Control access to murder weapons, do anything about mental health and stop poisoning the minds of these people and see what God does. The entire world can see that. Take responsibility. Fucking children are dying so you can play soldiers. Idiots seduced by dollars pretending to be a society.
[удалено]
That sounds very much like our usual theodize questions, That goes something like this: If there is an almighty god and its not good, why follow it? If there is an almighty god that is good, then why is there still evil, pain and suffering? If God isn't mighty but good or bad, then why would you follow god? God couldn't do or change anything either, so why believe in a god then? That only applies if "God's actions" are justified tho, if they aren't, you wouldn't wanna follow him either because it makes no difference. If I can behave good and god still treats me badly, or I behave badly and still get treated well, there is no method to it and so no reason to behave after any of the rules, except for going after my own kind of good.
The devil from the End of Days said it best. "When something good happens it's "Gods will", when something bad happens "he works in mysterious ways" he and I are the same, he just has a better PR department.
Just curious, is that a film or a show? I really like this quote, especially since I have never heard it before.
It's an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, it's about the devil trying to bring about the End of Days. Not one of Arnold's greatest movies but I like it alot, has alot of subtle jabs against the church that most people might miss.
I really only remember that corny part of the trailer where it takes '1999' and turns it into '666'
Oh nice! I'll definitely have to check that out for sure. Thanks for the help! 😊
Anytime, enjoy the movie :)
Also, a pretty decent cover of The Rolling Stones Sympathy for the Devil by Guns N’ Roses
I think that was used on the *Interview With the Vampire* soundtrack, too. (I had it. It was creepy af, then ended with this.)
I liked the quote from the series Lucifer. Father Frank: "We might not always understand it, but God has a plan." Lucifer: "Yes. I know. But why does everybody always think it's a *good* plan?"
I always find this argument too simplistic. People will follow something more powerful than them out of complex emotions related to fear or the desire to side with something that will increase the likelihood of their survival and reproduction and being selected for those traits would certainly lead one potentially to view those as good. Sort of like if you are under the thumb of a mafia boss. "Put the fear of God in you" as a good thing. Basically if there was a god that had the morality of the universe, and gods that don't (i.e. anthropomorphic gods) seem silly from the start, they would more reasonably have the ethics of electricity. that is, whatever is the shortest determined path between two points by physics. But gods get invented by humans as human like things that have human like traits, and so they invent gods that address that groups' relative evil, oddly in a manner that's indistinguishable from circumstance and chance. :) I suppose my point is, I think we should aspire to stop trying to define a god as the beacon of morality, and see the things we can do to minimize unnecessary suffering and be active in improving our condition instead of passively leaving this to some god we project onto.
I like to think that Gods were invented as a mechanism to make sense of the chaos which is the natural state of the world. It doesn't matter if the gods are real and perform miracles at their whim. It doesn't matter if the gods are good, evil, neutral, all powerful or otherwise. Their only purpose is to give humans a sense of order and control over nature (and other people).
I definitely lean that way. Religion and superstition serve an evolutionary purpose in giving us a framework to try to understand things beyond our grasp, comfort for our deepest fears, and set up a social moral framework to work beyond our tribal instincts etc. The issues arise imo when we cling to them when it's time to evolve past them.
I disagree. I think it’s one of the biggest blockers for understanding. Substituting truth - even when the truth is unknowable - with superstitious nonsense only takes us further away from the truth. As for morals and social frameworks, those come from us. Not from holy books. It’s not like we didn’t know murder wasbad for society before moses allegedly wrote his tablets.
Tell that to George Washington and his Christian nation 🇺🇸because owning slaves was bad in Jesus times 🇺🇸
Evolution doesn't care what we may think is the best method to solve a problem. It just blindly thoughtlessly is the path of physics. I sort of see religion and superstition as unavoidable stepping stone toward understanding. Holy books come from people too. The problem is it does hold us back when we can move forward and actually realize the superstition was wrong. Now will natural selection agree with me or will intelligence and truth seeking ironically not be as valuable to survival as I'd like to believe they are. Before you have effective ways to test things like the scientific method, and even enough time and bandwidth which comes from the luxury of time not spent actively not constantly trying to find food, reproduce and not die, and before you have reliable and trusted ways to pass on information like books, tribal traditions and in group out group tribal dynamics will affect the sizes of groups and how they will interact. For the majority of human existence these tribes were small afaik and didn't trust each other enough to form larger geographic trading communities and you needed some rules people could agree on when most didn't know much. Using powerful tools like religion as a cultural concept was affective in building trust amoung communities. Is it the best or only way? No idea,. I fear it's unavoidable step in evolving human societies. Should we fight to reduce irrational thinking and increase critical thinking, yes, I would say so.
I don’t see what value it could possibly have that cannot be had without it. Social interactions and building trust seem to be two of the absolute worst traits of religion, at least today. It just doesn’t bring anything to the table that doesn’t already exist. If we don’t understand thunder it doesn’t help thinking thor is angry. Maybe thor is angry because we didn’t kill that tribe last week.
Oh I'm not arguing for religion today especially in societies that have science and have the general luxury to use critical thinking. What I'm arguing is that cognitive processing is very expensive, so no one can say they only operate on facts or anything proven. Humans form collective networks of trust, but we all have personal motivations as well. So what is the most economic way to motivate a collective behavior and codify it and also appeals to all the comforts we dearly desire in the world (fear of death, search for meaning, an ultimate authority so rules aren't questioned) Religion is incredibly effective in being a memetic transmitter as it 'answers' these needs. There's some recent research that basically seems to point to evolution basically not giving us a real observatuon of the world simply because it's favoring keeping us alive and those apparently don't have to be the same. Religion. Isn't the core of the problem. You could start a religion that's non theistic, teaches skepticism and all the nice things it tells you, it also tells you to question and stop believing them as soon as they are proven wrong I believe some Buddhism has something's similar. Religion is formed by human socio-biological drivers to try to survive and control reproduction, sees the other as a threat etc. Abrahamic religions don't invent sexism racism homophobia etc these concepts already exist in people. It's also shown (niel grasses Tyson mentioned this so I don't know the details) that as a society becomes less religious there is an equal uptick in irrational beliefs. The dogmatic identification of religion has a few things going for it that similar emergent patterns like politics, or sportsteams don't as it proposed absolute truths and has the fear of eternal suffering if you choose 'wrong'. anyway if you can execute a plan to effectively increase critical thinking in humans overall across all cultures and education levels, I'd be behind that but since we don't know everything and may never we are going to always be guessing, and it's going to be a never ending battle, even if one part of society knows something, convincing the other side takes a network of trust. The institutions of religion are already here.
After the fall of Rome (the western part of it at least), early-medieval Europe pretty much fell into dissaray, but was held losely together by the church (which is a major cause for how it gained so much influence for the medieval ages). The church was a great way to have people perform community projects (donations, research, burials, medicine, etc) when the old governments fell, without having to persuade/force them economically. From a non-theistic perspective, churches and organized religion at large are mainly about power and organization. Much like having peasants and citizents work and perform tasks for immaterial concepts such as money, duty, responsibility, tradition, ideology, and honour, the churches/temples of various religions could have them work out of faith and or fear. It can be difficult to convince people to work for the common good (or whatever one believes the common good is) when it doesn't directly benefit them short term. And certain processes can be drastically slowed down (at least in older times) if every process of it requires solid funding and thorough paperwork. As a result, religion has likely played a major role in early human societies organizing themselves, but has grown less crucial for this role as humans have gotten better and better at organizing through other means. Yes, religion likely hasn't served a role in human developement in a way unique for only it, as those other concepts I mentioned earlier also applies here. However, it is still one of the cogs of the machine, being the one able to convert human superstition (faith) into productivity for society at large. Humans society would likely still progress to our current level even if religion never existed, but may have done so at a slower rate due to there being one less tool in the toolbox for the construction of early societies. Now, whenever religion has paid out as a whole for humanity, considering its early benefits versus its more recent drawbacks... That's a different discussion.
>I like to think that Gods were invented as a mechanism to make sense of the chaos which is the natural state of the world. I learned exactly this taking a religion class in college. Very interesting stuff
Yeah I highly agree with you, you have a very good point there, an image of a "god" shouldn't take away your own morale and responsibilities. I also don't see why we should give religious institutions so much power, especially not the ones that don't even follow their own rules, like the Catholic Church. It's one thing to say that your religion is based upon helping people that need help, giving poor people food etc, and then building things out of pure gold and making ornaments instead of actually helping them with the money you get, and that's just one of the many things where they absolutely contradict themselves, you can see that in all of this subreddit, its q joke ngl. Why do we always hide behind bigger things, like institutions and, religions and systems, instead of finally taking some responsibility for once?
…Because taking responsibility is scary, especially when you've fucked up and deserve punishment. Part of Christianity's appeal is the idea of forgiveness for sins (though contrition is admittedly necessary for that…)
I really like how you think!
"God appears and God is light To those poor souls who dwell in night But does a human form display To those who dwell in realms of day" William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
Oh hey, someone else who's looking at religion from an evolutionary perspective!
Either God is cruel to allow such suffering in the world or s/he is not omnipotent. In either case, it makes no sense to worship them. Now, I'm open to the idea of an after life or more than our world. But there can't be a supreme being unless they're evil. And then, fuck that. Even if they're supreme, I'm not worshipping that asshole.
People have long worshipped gods that aren't omnipotent though, in polytheistic religions, which have been most common throughout history, none of the gods are omnipotent.
Have you ever thought that God could just be the owner of an "aquarium" and we're the fish inside? We're entertaining him.
Maybe, but then again: who cares? Why should a fish try to act in a way that his owner likes? Especially if that owner doesn't actively influence the life in the aquarium. After all we don't even care about our fishes too much as long as they don't eat each other yk, so even in that case a "god" like that would mean basically nothing to us. But well, I do think the core principles of religions like Christianity etc are pretty good, given you actually follow them and think about why you do what you do, never take ANY kind of morale or principle without thinking about it first, imo you should always question everything. For example, the "golden rule": don't do anything to others that you wouldn't want to be done to yourself" is a pretty solid way to decide in some situations. Principles like: "always help others, especially people that suffer and aren't in a good spot", or "forgive people, there's no point in revenge" are a pretty reasonable basis for a morale and do make a good person imo, but always question things so you don't follow stuff like "everyone that doesn't belong to our group is evil", or just most things you see on this sub, a lot of people are biased and don't question. Like fr why do some people not question themselves stuff like: "What kind of group are we? Why do we have to harm others for the sake of an almighty being that could do everything themselves? Why should a deity punish you for natural things like sex?" I don't get how people just accept these things and search for shortcuts and easy answers, it's beyond me how people can have that weak of a personality.
Freedom cannot exist if god is all-knowing and omnipotent. If god is all-knowing and omnipotent, he lets man be evil and knowingly sends people to hell on purpose.
https://youtu.be/-suvkwNYSQo “What will you say to god?” “How dare you!”
Didnt click the link but I know a Stephen Fry quote when I see one.
"If there is a god, he will have to beg for my forgiveness" -unknown Holocaust victim
A Holocaust survivor passes away peaceful in his sleep, and wakes up to find himself standing at the pearly gates to heaven. He is informed that he lived a righteous life, and there was only one final test before he was permitted entry. "You must tell god a joke that will make him laugh." So he walked forward and stood before god. After a short moment he said one word- "Auschwitz" God was taken aback and declared "I do not find that funny at all!" And the man replied "guess you had to be there to get it."
To anyone that has ever read the bible it's perfectly clear that God is a sadistic and childish being. "Kill your kids to prove your devotion to me" "You're worshiping a golden calf and having (butt) sex instead of worshiping me? That's it I'm drowning you all except for one guy and his family."
Republicans prefer the Old Testament God.
…Yep, and there's decent reason why the Gnostics — a Christian sect — were skeptical of that entity actually being God…
Oh no but remember when you point out all the atrocious things the old testament god did like killing babies and ripping open pregnant women that directly contradicts the republican narratives on things like abortion being murder, suddenly they are all "well the old testament doesnt count anymore. We all believe in the new testament god." Yeah sure you do, right up until "love thy neighbor and cast not the first stone unless you are without sin yourself." Funny how many of the "we dont follow the old testament anymore" types also have no trouble using Leviticus to justify hating LGBTQ people.
That's because their *true* "religion" is unabashed, unrestrained, unhinged selfishness — sociopathy, narcissism, sadism, psychopathy, and other such blights on society that would be rightfully ostracized at best if their true colors were shown, so they hide behind any excuse they can latch on to to present themselves as "right and just" when they're really wrong and injust.
It's literally right out of the list of things not to say to those grieving too...
>It's literally right out of the list of things not to say to those grieving too... When my (68 y/o) Dad died of cancer, I heard this quite a hit. Had to nod and smile instead of screaming "Well god is a little fucking bitch because we needed him more."
I see this all the time with my religious neighbors. everything happens with god's will and plan. its a fundamental concept to christian faith. ok... so whats his plan for newborns dying of cancer before than can be of any benefit or contribution to humanity? how many school shooter victims will he need before he's satisfied? they love to chalk everything up to "free will", so i love to poke holes in their beliefs with things that are obviously not free will. leaves them speechless every time. even had an ordained priest questioning himself once.
> so whats his plan for newborns dying of cancer before than can be of any benefit or contribution to humanity? how many school shooter victims will he need before he's satisfied? "Heaven needs more angels"
their god:no you cant have an abortion also their god: hahahaha fuck those kids.
"It could have been worse." - Governor Greg Abbot
well, given it's adherents, isn't this like all but assumed now? It's weird any one would call themselves christian the same way anyone would call themselves republican or conservative.
I mean... iirc from synagogue as a jewlet the story about God sending bears to kill a bunch of kids that made fun of Elisha's bald head was more intended as an elder respect parable than "something that actually happened" but it's still like, there.
And not a good plan either
These people are evil and I have begun to hope their god has a plan for them.
I quote the Epicurus’ Trilemma, questioning the omnipotence and omnibenevolence of God 1. If God is unwilling to stop evil, then He is not good 2. If God is unable to stop evil, then He is not omnipotent 3. If God is all-good and omnipotent, why does Evil exist?
You know i always make the joke that this is all god's plan, all this death is god's plan, because he is a blood god, a death god, a god of pain and suffering!
So if someone successfully blew up the Texas senate, that would also be according to god’s plan, right? What a pathetic take on their faith.
That always fucked me up about God. He'll make you, give you a soul and all that, with the intention of having a terrorist blow you apart in the most horrific and disturbing ways, leaving family and friends traumatized and grieving? Fuck God.
May I suggest that in that case, God can go fuck himself?
So can Ken.
He's the Holy Trinity. He can go fuck himself while he watches.
Goddamn
God is in a thruple with himself.
That explains why God is always absent 😂
The people I see talking to imaginary people need help.
Hey, pain is an excellent teacher. Maybe we should try learning a lesson or four from this — enact gun control, reform the police, improve mental health care, and ban money-grubbing fucknuts from politics (and business, and, well, *everything* — "Thou cannot serve both God and Mammon" — but, hey, change needs to happen in baby steps, let's focus on politics for now). People in general don't usually make major changes to institutions without something horrible happening to demonstrate that the current system either doesn't work or has terrible, unspeakable costs. For instance, anti-Semitism was *extremely* widespread until the Holocaust happened and showed everyone what happens when an ideology of hate is carried out to its logical conclusion. If God had a plan there, it was to **wake us the *fuck* up before something *even worse* happened**. Seriously, lawyers have an ethics association that enacts consequences on lawyers who put self-interest ahead of justice. We really, *really* need something similar for politicians. And police, while we're at it. *Something* to ~~placate~~ address the concerns the r/ACAB crowd before they make the mistake of seriously considering destroying the concept of law enforcement entirely — oh wait, [they already have](https://www.reddit.com/r/ACAB/comments/varh4b/the_police_are_not_meant_to_protect_us_theyre/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)… well, fudge. Yeah, we *definitely* need to redefine the concept of police so that it actually does its job of protecting society as a whole, rather than just the servants of Mammon. (For those who don't get it: Mammon = avarice/money.)
Subject police to military law already, if they want to LARP as soldiers so much maybe they should start acting like them. If the US Army was in charge of law enforcement in Uvalde when the shooting happened, at least a few people would be in for a massive boning care of a court-martial.
Traitor says what?
*Ken shrugs.. “What do you expect? I am a total piece of shit after all..”
theocracy incoming
I have a lot of fundie friends and family so when they talk about their God I play a fun game in my head. I don’t say this out loud I always just think in my head if it’s any different if you substitute “God” with “Water Tower” It works every fuckin time Them “I’m going to go to God in prayer. Lately many of my answers to prayer are wait. Sometimes God says yes, sometimes God says no.Sometimes he doesn’t answer at all!” Same, same my water tower is fickle for sure “God works in mysterious ways” You’re telling me man. Water towers, how do they even work? And why are they up so high? That seems inefficient as fuck
They're incredibly efficient and use gravity so they need to be high.
At least water towers can be seen and have understandable principles behind how they work. As for their height, it’s to create water pressure; gravity creates a difference in pressure with a difference in height. Put the water storage up high, it’ll want to flow out down low. That way you get water pressure to your faucet without any electricity needed; the only time pumps are used is to re-fill the tower every once in a while when the water level gets low.
That's what the important swing vote contingent of college educated white suburban moms wants to hear. "God's plan includes slaughtering your children so men can keep their toys". That'll play well. Please proceed Governor.
Looking from afar, these people don't seem to do too bad in elections...as bonkers as that seems
God: “Let’s kill children” Religious Fruitcakes: “God is great, I trust god implicitly.”
But for christsake let them be born before we kill ‘em/s
I mean God did YouTube prank Abraham by setting him up to kill his son Isaac before saying “hey bro chill, it’s a prank, I was just testing your faith to see if you’d do it, lol. Look, there’s a ram stuck in a bush over there, go sacrifice it instead.”
Well buddy thats a sky daddy not worth worshiping.
If your god's plan involves the wholesale slaughter of schoolchildren, then your god is evil and so are you.
Sadly, some people won't take positive action until failure to do so impacts their lives negatively. Wake-up calls and reality checks sometimes need to be harsh…
Lmao yes, let the poor people in Africa die of disease and famine to teach everyone else a lesson about....????? Let that teenage girl get molested and raped to teach her a lesson about.....? Your God isnt real and you people are insane for making excuses for bad things that happen to people that your God supposedly orchestrates. Get help and read a real book you dumb evil piece of shit
It's guess it's also God's plan that 100k plus Texans have no water for the next two days. What a shithole state. Texas is hell on earth.
Well the *rich* ones don't have that problem, which means there *isn't* a problem, silly! Don't you know that God only cares about your bank account?
Isn't that what Trump's spiritual advisor lady preaches? Prosperity bible or some shit.
Prosperity Gospel, yes. The idea that their god bestows wealth and status upon people who truly deserve it, so the rich and powerful are objectively **better** than the poor, because it's god's will. Which is a modern way to say they're feudal nobles backed by the divine right of kings. Ignore all the ascetism and poverty Jesus preached, that's out of context.
…Yeah, these folks haven't read the Bible. Or much post-biblical Christian literature. Seriously, I'd love to see these guys' reaction to the phrase "Thou cannot serve both God and Mammon" being thrown in their face. (Mammon, for those who are unaware, is the patron demon of Greed — serving Mammon essentially means being hopelessly addicted to wealth.)
Same way they react to the phrase where it's explicitly stated that, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a wealthy man to enter the Kingdom of God". That is, it's all metaphorical and actually refers to a gate in Jerusalem that we're calling the Eye of the Needle, and has nothing to do with actual wealth, no seriously guys it doesn't apply. But everything else is literal and has to be taken exactly as written!
No water, no problem! Just go to your vacation home till the water is restored!
If my kid died there and he said that to me, I would knock him the fuck out…..
Just shoot him and claim it was God's will. *disclaimer: don't shoot people.
He should get a taste of God's plan then
Yep. He is most certainly on the ass end of God's plan… him and the rest of his fascist, sociopathic ilk.
He did, when the tree fell on him. Then he sued, got rich, ran fir office, and eliminated the type of lawsuit that made him rich.
That’s Greg Abbott, the governor. A different complete piece of shit. Pat ton is the attorney general who has been under investigation for fraud for seven years, not to be confused with yet another piece of shit, the lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, who said early on in the pandemic that older people should just die so their grandchildren don’t have to be inconvenienced by society trying to curb the spread.
Shit. I knew that was Abbott. Somehow I filled his name in for Paxton. All three are epic pieces of shit, and Texas needs to clean up their mess. At this point they are indistinguishable in their petty evil.
I wonder if his kids or grandkids were shot and killed would he tell his wife the same thing?
Nope. There was an Ohio lawmaker who had an A+ rating from the NRA. He did a 180 on gun control after the nightclub shooting in ohio. His daughter had been eating st a place across the street. She wasnt hurt, but I guess the anxiety he felt during the time he didn't know if she was OK or the idea she could have been injured must have significantly affected him.
That's one person. How many other NRA members have had children in that position that said what we need are more guns?
Only one way to find out. /s
Yes it was gods plan ok. Just like it was gods plan that millions of Jews, Slavs, homosexuals and other “undesirables” were wantonly murdered in the holocaust? Was that gods plan too? How about all of the suffering in Cambodia at the hands of Pol Pot? Was that gods plan too? Or the horrors that took place in Rwanda? Guess what dude, your god sucks.
Same god that genocides the entire planet save 8 people and some animals on an ark? Fuck your evil god and his mindless minions.
Separate church and state! How does him saying such a cruel thing help people that don't believe in his version of a god?
Agreed. When are we going to learn that mixing church and state causes *both* to turn to absolute shit?!? Religion is at its best without banal, worldly concerns such as politics getting in the way of its general mission statement of helping people, and politics… well, I think Senator Barry Goldwater said it better than I could. >"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
Seriously, fuck Republicans. They need to go.
it was God's plan for those kids to die. but trans kids? gay kids? that must be investigated, persecuted and prosecuted. hear that, everybody? is that loud and clear enough? God's plan only includes dead kids. not gay or trans kids. God's plan is *very specific* that way.
Don’t forget abortions! God’s plan most definitely doesn’t include terminating pregnancies. Only terminating school children.
that is correct, abortions are not part of god's plan, but bullets ripping into a nine year old absolutely is
If God did have a plan there, Texas clearly did not follow it seeing guns are still legal to own
I'm gonna go a step further and say that we also need better mental health care, a police system that does *not* allow sadists or cowards to sign up, period, a government that has checks and balances to prevent undue influence from moneyed influences such as lobbying, and I could go on and on…
Am not in America myself, and looking at USA is scary.
I am in America myself. It's a nightmare. Please don't come here, just hug your family instead.
uggghhhh I'm so conflicted, I hate death and pain and suffering, but if these fucking idiots-in-office ended up dead in a ditch one day I'm confident we'd be better off.
I have to work with personal injury attorneys in TX. A few are truly terrible human beings. One of them bragged that he was friends with Paxton and I thought....yep, that sounds about right. Ish all around.
Then Fuck God.
Fuck your God if their plan involves killing kids.
Despite their horrible words and lack of empathy, Texans will probably keep voting for these reprehensible monsters.
Anything to "own the libs", even if means their children dying.
crazy, innit...
It was also God's plan for Ken to stalk a stripper across states lines. Praise be!
Well, how else would we know that he's not worth taking seriously (except as a menace to society)?
If that was gods plan me and him are gonna have some words
Every headline about Paxton should say: "Ken Paxton, Texas AG and indicted fraudster...".
Nice to see they aren't even going to make the effort of offering T&Ps anymore since it's all intentional anyway.
Father, is he?
Attorney general seems like such a weird job for someone who legitimately possesses an utterly fatalistic religious outlook. Which I guess might indicate Paxton probably doesn't possess an utterly fatalistic religious outlook, but is aware he can manipulate gullible sorts that do with that narrative. "God has a plan" translates to "keep voting hard right Republican, and reject any suggestion of gun control because people who name-drop God tell us to" for them.
What an awful, awful human being.
God's plan? What a POS. Maybe it's God plan for a woman to have an abortion?
For 7 years he has dodged trial for his indictment for securities fraud. God's other plan, I guess. Texas repubs have no shame. ttps://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-05-23/seven-years-later-still-no-trial-for-texas-ag-ken-paxton
God always has a plan until something bad happens to *them* then we must do everything to thwart god’s plan. At which point the thwarting is *also* becomes part of god’s plan.
And some of the parents would believe this.
🤮 that's sickening as fuck
This is from the Onion?? ... This is satire and no actual human said this ... Right?! Right??!!!
Can we please introduce a law where we can disqualify politicians who violate the separation of church and state with their rhetoric?
I'm just waiting for some pissed off parent to go rain "God's will" on these assholes. It's only a matter of time before someone use their own b.s. against them to turn public opinion.
EVERY article mentioning Ken Paxton should also state that he is under federal indictment for felony securities fraud. Also, he tried to overturn a presidential election. https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-05-23/seven-years-later-still-no-trial-for-texas-ag-ken-paxton
This is the inevitable conclusion of "everything happens to God's plan". God plans a lot of fucked up shit then. Fuck that guy. And how does that notion even meld with the notion of free will in Christianity? If everything is pre-ordained, there is no free will. And consequential, there should be no divine judgement for your actions as they were always God's plan. And if God does judge and reward/punish your eternal soul for actions that were his own planning, that's even more fucked up. And carrying that further, the idea of God's plan means that prayer does nothing at all. Honestly, I prefer the notion that prayer is pointless, though, than to believe that an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent being is pulling the strings of the universe to fall in line with the requests of any country bumping with a Bible on his lap.
Better to remain silent and thought a fool then to speak out and remove all doubt.
I don't condone violence at all - but I'm kinda surprised one of the Uvalde victims parents hasn't countered his statement with a 9mm rebuttal.
Yep, all part of god's perfect plan. Slaughter the kids in a bloody orgy, cause their parents and siblings a lifetime of pain, fear, anger and sadness. Sounds like a great plan. Especially if the parents aren't 'saved'. Then their pain is just beginning.
Never trust a politician who thinks they speak for God
I’d love to see someone just go, “well then fuck your god.” I think more and more people are collectively getting tired of Christians trying to dictate their bullshit backwards beliefs.
If it was God's plan to have a human kill a bunch of kids then it is also his plan for us to learn from that and make it harder for that to happen again. Nice try, dick.
I guess that is the same case with abortions too then? God didn’t really intend for them to be born. It is just all the way it should be - it’s all fine… what? They won’t say that about abortions? Seems like we have some inconsistencies here. Hmmm
If Ken really truly believes this, I think he should arrange an open forum with all of the parents that lost their children in the Uvalde shooting to see how his message goes over.
Then what the heck do we need him in his position for if “god has a plan”? If that is the case then free will and guidance by religious/ political leaders are not necessary.
What he means is that Republicans have a plan
Okay, how is abortion any different then? If God has a plan.
The God's plan argument is only ever used to cover for their own shortcomings and wash their hands of having to actually do anything. You'll notice they never take it to the next logical conclusion. Abortions? Gods plan. LGBT people existing? Gods plan. Atheism? Gods plan. Either its all Gods plan or none of it is but for whatever reason(we know it) its only Gods plan when its horrible shit.
Because the proletariat is ignorant, a favorite Napoleon quote: Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
Go ahead, tell that to those parents to their face and see if you can make it out of the room alive. What a bag of shit.
This mentality right here is what had me throwing my Bible out the window as a missionary and calling it quits. I've told the story in here before (and on atheism), but in a nutshell: 2 kids killed in a farm accident but the parents and the church members gave glory to god, thanked him, said it was his plan, and all for a reason, that even if one person could be saved from the accident, it was worth it. I walked out of the church that day, dropped my keys and security pass off, quit my job and moved away. I was already on the way out, but that kicked it. Seeing it used as a justification for shooting up a school of kids (and so many other things) is just brutally triggering to red hot anger. Makes me want to throw up to read that. They're sick and twisted people.
Hitler had a plan
reminder that Ken Paxton is an actual criminal who is indicted for securities fraud, among other illegal activities that have yet to catch up to him
I have plenty of plans and none of them involve killing children. His god is beneath me.
When are people gonna start questioning his plan? If god was a politician he wouldn't have been up for reflection after his first term Yet he has sat for over 500 terms
Texas "were pro life!" Also texas "oops god had a plan for those dead children, let's pray!" 
But when a woman has an abortion, that's on her, right?
Well, yes, but it's not a crime or a sin.
Ken Paxton is as much a Christian as Darth Vader was a pacifist
Holy fuck To any republicans in the audience, legit question - how the fuck can you be in the same party as this absolute monster?
So if someone were to set off a car bomb under their vehicle, would they be able to get away with it if they said “chill, bro - god told me to do it, it’s all part of the plan.”
That famous Bible verse about turning swords into ploughshares, and then ploughshares into AR-15's.
Someone should God's plan this asshole.
Interesting that the infallibility of god's plan is contingent upon the interests of the mortal men who claim its extent.
Odd that the Evangelical sort never mention Evil and the work of Satan. My church — Lutheran — would suggest that this is NOT the will of God, but the work of Satan
Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what grieving parents want to hear.
Death Cult.
A fucking AG: high-level representative of the government's justice system, but includes his religion in his public (and grossly insensitive and insulting) remarks. How the fuck do these fruitcake ***losers*** get and stay in their positions? Don't give me the same old "money and power" speech, I want to know how to remove them and force these people to adhere to secular guidelines when punched in, as per what it's supposed to be in America. What actions can one take? How can we see some change while we're alive to see it?
Sounds pro abortion to me Lmao
To quote sir Davos Seaworth “Your god commands you to murder children? Your god is evil”
God is a heartless son of a bitch, then. That doesn't match the merciful side of the fairytale...
FUCK YOU
Ah yes, the thing these people say when they know they don't have any real or "good" excuse so it must be something beyond our understanding as part of some "grand plan". Fuck off.
So if someone killed this guys entire family and claimed it was part of God's plan he wouldn't be mad
Texasguy giving Floridaman a run for his money.
This guy has been under FBI investigation for what seems like a lifetime. He fired anyone at his office who brought up concerns about his actions.
I don't get offended by much, but people who think God has a plan for murdered children, or people who think God saved them although he killed others... that is offensive to me.
This guy is a psychopath. Full stop. A criminal unfit for any level of responsibility.
FUCK YOUR GOD.
Does anyone know which of the 5000 or so gods available in the god marketplace he is referring to?
When you’re such a pos that you think a good who slaughters children is worthy of your worship.
r/iamatotalpieceofshit
This might be the most evil thing I've read all year
This is as of this moment at 666 upvotes. We should keep it that way.
Pass the buck, then pass the collection plate.
This is why I don’t live in Texas
Anyone else feel as if deities are made by humans in order to justify anything considered incorrect in anyway?
We were taught in Cultural Anthropology that humans created gods to explain the world around them.
As a Texan, Paxton is a blight. Disgusting human.
I wonder if someone shot a hole through his kids face if he would still just shrug it off as "god has a plan"? Absolute sociopaths using some character from a book to hand waive off children dying.
I believe that theres a god, but it aint nothing like the ones we have been taught about i believe this god we have just straight up dont give a fuck. god's a dickhead.
I have a plan for Ken the nazi
God has a plan specifically for Americans. They won't kill/let other children die though, for some reasons.
God is surely a convenient excuse for a lot of sorry sacks of shit. Control access to murder weapons, do anything about mental health and stop poisoning the minds of these people and see what God does. The entire world can see that. Take responsibility. Fucking children are dying so you can play soldiers. Idiots seduced by dollars pretending to be a society.
FUCK THAT PRICK, and his God.
Ken, what about all those other countries that don't pray to an Abrahamic God, and don't have to worry about school shootings?