Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for May 09, 2009

That’s right. Tough times teach us to depend on God.

Yes, God will pull us through. Everybody KNOWS that religious believers are immune from economic troubles, and are the first in line when recovery comes. When they are hungry, God sends them manna through the mails, to a secret Post Office box, the location of which is kept secret from non-believers. Your prayers will fill your stomach and pay your mortgage.

Disappointment issues, Fritzoid?

It’s not that faith in God keeps bad things from happening…it just helps you believe that this current bad thing is not the sum total of your existence–this is not all there is. But feel free to mock if that makes you feel better.

I’m not Christian, but if faith in God helps people through tough times in their lives, well there are FAR worse things than that!! It isn’t superstitions, it is faith - whatever name you want to call it by, we all have it (even if only in times of need).

doctortoon says:

Macushlalondra says:

That’s right. Tough times teach us to depend on God.

The other side of that coin. Good times should teach us to thank God.

~~~

Thank you for the reminder doctortoon, you’re so right.

So God is to receive the credit when things go well, but none of the blame when things go badly? What a cushy gig. “I suffer because God is testing me.” “I thrive because God has blessed me.” Do your own actions, choices and attitudes have NOTHING to do with your circumstances? Be happy when things are good, and work to maintain that happiness. When things go badly, don’t let it crush you, and work to improve them. In either case, bear in mind that things WILL change, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. There are things which it is beyond your control to change, and things which are responsive to your will and choices. Keeping a positive outlook is important. In the words of Lincoln, “It has been my experience that the great majority of men are about as happy as they’ve made up their minds to be.” You don’t need to practice a particular religion, or ANY RELIGION AT ALL, to choose happiness in adversity.

But to affix credit OR blame to magical forces is irrational superstition, and praying for improvement of a bad situation is useless, and believing “the Lord will provide” is extremely damaging, if it means that you opt out of taking your own initiative.

Speaking of disappointment issues:

When I was 14, my father was diagnosed with cancer. He was a believing Christian, and was very active in his Church, and really was the sort of caring, non-judgmental Christian that I would be happier if other self-professed Christians of my acquaintance were. Prayer circles were organized, but neither did he refuse medical treatment. Unfortunately, neither worked. But my father had Faith in God that he would be healed, even as the cancer and chemo destroyed his body from within. By that time I was already an atheist, and from the first time I heard the diagnosis in mid-1979 I figured I’d have to get used to the idea of my father dying. In May of 1980, he died. My mother said that of the family (both my parents, my older brother, and my older sister), I was the only one who was PREPARED for his death, because I was the only one who didn’t believe that he was going to be miraculously healed.

I will give this much to the strength of my father’s faith: Up until the very last day, he was in remarkably good spirits, and his doctors were frankly amazed that, given his physical condition, he wasn’t screaming out for morphine at the end. Again, I attribute his attitude to his beliefs, but rather than demonstrating God’s mercy towards his servants I think it’s demonstrative of the power of positive thinking. I reject that all of the prayer in the world could have reversed the progress of his disease, but his OWN beliefs greatly eased his physical circumstances. Cold comfort, but there it is.

The down side is that, since nobody believed he was going to die, nobody was at all prepared for it. My father owned a small business (a small advertising concern; although he employed a small staff, he WAS the prime asset of the company), and financial issues had lain fallow for a year because he figured he could straighten them out when he got better. His life insurance was eaten up in straigthtening out business debts (his major client had declared bankruptcy, leaving my dad not only with an unpaid account, but with debts owed to various media (magazines, etc.) that my father had incurred in the name of his client).

Certain elements at his Church (not all of them, but enough) believed that, since he HADN’T been healed, he must not have been a good enough Christian. That is hogwash.

Other Christians of my acquaintance rejoice in the prospects of war in the Middle East, because it means Jesus will be coming back all the sooner. James Watt (Secretary of the Interior under Reagan) believed that we should strip the forests and drain the oilfields and tear up the mountains looking for coal because God had GIVEN us Americans these resources, and when Jesus comes back (which will surely be soon) he will expect us to have made full use of them.

When your religion stops being simple rephrasings of “God will fix things when it suits him, so it’s either futile or even counterproductive to try to fix things ourselves”, come talk to me again.

“full use”??!! means complete destruction??!!

there’s a difference between using and using up!

That was Watt’s point; why should we worry about whether there are enough fossil fuels to last 30 years if Jesus is coming back in 10? If we were going to NEED more, God would have MADE more…

RE Fritzoid: Funny that you should bring that up because my family went through the same thing in 2007…

My Father owned a business that filed taxes electronically 5 years before his death me and him had a major blowup because what was percieved to be nothing more than political & religious differences…

The business had to fold because of a debt of $500,000 due to his mis management….

We had to start the business over as an LLC [which basically I advised him to do 10 years before his death]

2010 will be our 3rd year and we’re poised for growth assuming the American Economy does not tank