In the spirit of forgiveness, let me start with a few compliments for Religulous.
It was funnier than I expected. To be sure, some of it was shooting fish in a barrel. Run a clip of Muslim describing Islam as religion of peace. Cut to buildings blowing up. Still, they had good comic timing and good use of ironic music. I laughed pretty hard when I heard Wooly Bully as the soundtrack during the visit to the Creationism museum.
He didn't only use inarticulate or buffoonish religious leaders (though there's plenty of that). He also challenged Francis Collins, the head of the human genome project who's a brilliant believer. When he was treated nicely by some prayerful truckers, he sweetly thanked them for being Christ-like, not just Christian. Most important, he posed some questions that every believer and skeptic alike should grapple with:
Instead of God creating people with serious problems that would then be cured by God, why didn't He just make them without problems in the first place?Why is God in a struggle with the Devil? If he's all powerful, why doesn't he obliterate him?
Why does God only speak to prophets in private so we can never hear with our own ears his instructions?
Btw, how would youm dear readers, answer these questions?
Stay tuned for my critiques of the movie in separate posts.
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The existence of evil, pain and suffering is not contradictory to a benevolent God. It is only contradictory if you insist on assuming that a benevolent God MUST eradicate such things RIGHT THIS VERY MOMEMT.
Why are we born imperfect?
IMO, life is about learning. In every major event in our life there is a gift of learning. You want God to take away all the pain? No way. That would be totally disrespectful on God's part. Enlightenment, true wisdom, comes from learning to deal the cards we are dealt in the best way we can. No pain, no gain sounds a bit harsh to me but there's a nugget of truth there. Stop denying the pain, learn the gift it has for you, and get on with your life.
"The Devil" as you say is the dispensor of the challenges to learn. Looked upon this way "The Devil" is really a teacher. "Good" and "evil" are but two sides of the same coin. As an electric motor can not turn with out both positive and negative energy, so our lives cannot turn without positive and negative energies. It's up to us how we use those energies for our benefit.
Why does God speaks to prophets in private? Well if you heard the words publically you'd think the "prophet" was making it all up. Faking it, trying to "con" us.
God speaks to us in private, so that we may hear them over the noisy din of life, and so that once we do hear the words we have time to quietly determine what they mean for us, gives us time to digest what's being said, to determine what we are going to do with the wisdom dispensed. Make sense?
Wow, Rich, You certainly are deluded. I think Maher would have loved to have you in the movie because you have definately gone to great lenths to rationalize some strange stuff. "That would be totally disrespectful on God's part." ????? The Devil is our teacher? Our lives cannot turn without equal postitive and negative? Tell that to someone born fatherless, legless and starving in a 30-year war-zone. Tell me if his life and Joe Six Pack are recieving equal blessings of God's love.
Your explaination for God speaking in private to us as well as to 'prophets' -- justifies Bill Maher's point exactly. Do you know how many people are in assylums with Christ Complexes? Today and throughout the ages? People who hear the voice of God speaking directly to them? When ANYONE takes their message public, it looks like they are "trying to con us".
pain is a gift? Tell that to someone born legless, starving,and fatherless in a 30-year war-zone. Is he recieving equal blessings of God's love as America's Joe Six Pack? I would argue that pain is not a gift.
Do you know how many people there are in assylums with Christ Complexes? Today and throughout the ages? People who swear they hear God speaking directly to them? So when ANYONE take their message publicly, we it appears that they are "trying to con us". It is impossible to tell who has a more trustworthy voice talking to them secretly inside their head.
This I think was Bill Maher's point. We can rationalize things away to a ridiculous point. But that doesn't make it true.
I agree. Sometimes I think that people who are filled with religion have a mild case of insanity (a literal break with reality).
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