1. Joined
    21 Oct '04
    Moves
    17038
    27 Nov '05 23:02
    Here is an interesting story, It has greatly helped me understand life somewhat

    The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a

    small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God

    to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon

    for help, but none seemed forthcoming.




    Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut

    out of driftwood to protect himself from the elements,

    and to store his few possessions.

    One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home

    to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to

    the sky. The worst had happened, and everything was

    lost. He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger.

    "God, how could you do this to me?" he cried.

    Early the next day he was awakened by the sound of a

    ship that was approaching the island.

    It had come to rescue him. "How did you know I was here?"

    Asked the weary man of his rescuers.

    "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.

    It's easy to get discouraged when things are going bad,

    but we shouldn't lose heart, because God is at work in

    our lives, even in the midst of pain, and suffering.

    Remember that, the next time your little hut seems to

    be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal

    that summons the grace of God.
  2. R
    Standard memberRemoved
    Joined
    08 Dec '04
    Moves
    100919
    27 Nov '05 23:111 edit
    Originally posted by flyUnity
    Here is an interesting story, It has greatly helped me understand life somewhat

    The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a

    small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God

    to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon

    for help, but none seemed forthcoming.




    Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little h ...[text shortened]... o

    be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal

    that summons the grace of God.
    How true it is that God works in ways we do not know...rec'd you for the story.🙂

    Edit...said it in English.😉
  3. Standard memberXanthosNZ
    Cancerous Bus Crash
    p^2.sin(phi)
    Joined
    06 Sep '04
    Moves
    25076
    27 Nov '05 23:24
    Originally posted by flyUnity
    Here is an interesting story, It has greatly helped me understand life somewhat

    The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a

    small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God

    to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon

    for help, but none seemed forthcoming.




    Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little h ...[text shortened]... o

    be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal

    that summons the grace of God.
    Thanks

    for

    the

    double

    spacing

    and

    extra

    linebreaks.
  4. Joined
    24 Apr '05
    Moves
    3061
    27 Nov '05 23:43
    Originally posted by flyUnity
    Here is an interesting story, It has greatly helped me understand life somewhat

    The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a

    small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God

    to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon

    for help, but none seemed forthcoming.




    Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little h ...[text shortened]... o

    be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal

    that summons the grace of God.
    Praise be to signal fires and natural beings in sufficiently close proximity who possess eyes for seeing!!!!!!!
  5. Donationrwingett
    Ming the Merciless
    Royal Oak, MI
    Joined
    09 Sep '01
    Moves
    27626
    28 Nov '05 00:48
    Originally posted by flyUnity
    Here is an interesting story, It has greatly helped me understand life somewhat

    The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a

    small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God

    to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon

    for help, but none seemed forthcoming.




    Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little h ...[text shortened]... o

    be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal

    that summons the grace of God.
    How is it that god gets credit for the man's rescue, but manages to avoid blame for the shipwreck which drowned everyone else on board and stranded the man in the first place? If the man is in the habit of questioning god's motives, he would do so with the shipwreck and not wait until his pathetic hovel burned down.

    What purpose was served by god either actively causing, or passively allowing, all the crew but one to drown? Could not the message that "god works in mysterious ways" have been conveyed to the man at a lesser cost in human lives?

    Your story is a maudlin piece of apologetic claptrap.
  6. Joined
    21 Oct '04
    Moves
    17038
    28 Nov '05 04:48
    Originally posted by rwingett
    How is it that god gets credit for the man's rescue, but manages to avoid blame for the shipwreck which drowned everyone else on board and stranded the man in the first place? If the man is in the habit of questioning god's motives, he would do so with the shipwreck and not wait until his pathetic hovel burned down.

    What purpose was served by god eith ...[text shortened]... he man at a lesser cost in human lives?

    Your story is a maudlin piece of apologetic claptrap.
    Well you dont see the point in the story, I dont think its a true story btw. My point is to show that God allows stuff to happen when we dont know why, sometimes we find out later why, sometimes we dont (as in the case with the Shipwreck). I told the story so we can look at the trials of life and KNOW that there is a purpose to everything

    Somone who is mentally ill whot has an IQ of 30 will think that everyone else is goofy, he wont think himself as "off", they never do. Now consider it on a much bigger scale, Think of God as having an IQ of 1,000,000. he sees the much bigger picture Hes probaly thinking how dum humans are with their Low IQ, and how we think how smart we are . We dont know why the ship wrecked, And I never said that the surviver never questioned God about that.

    but knowing that your an atheist, I understand your post. My post has no value to atheists because you dont believe in a God, so to you, my post is complete nonsence
  7. Standard memberNemesio
    Ursulakantor
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Joined
    05 Mar '02
    Moves
    34824
    28 Nov '05 05:01
    Originally posted by flyUnity
    Well you dont see the point in the story, I dont think its a true story btw. My point is to show that God allows stuff to happen when we dont know why, sometimes we find out later why, sometimes we dont (as in the case with the Shipwreck). I told the story so we can look at the trials of life and KNOW that there is a purpose to everything

    Somone who is m ...[text shortened]... no value to atheists because you dont believe in a God, so to you, my post is complete nonsence
    So you think everything happens for a greater good?
  8. Joined
    21 Oct '04
    Moves
    17038
    28 Nov '05 05:50
    Originally posted by Nemesio
    So you think everything happens for a greater good?
    To those that love God, even though we may not understand why. But remember, Satan is also prowling around
  9. Standard memberno1marauder
    Naturally Right
    Somewhere Else
    Joined
    22 Jun '04
    Moves
    42677
    28 Nov '05 05:56
    Originally posted by flyUnity
    To those that love God, even though we may not understand why. But remember, Satan is also prowling around
    If God's IQ is 1,000,000 and Wingett's is 30, what's Satan's?
  10. Standard memberNemesio
    Ursulakantor
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Joined
    05 Mar '02
    Moves
    34824
    28 Nov '05 06:09
    Originally posted by flyUnity
    To those that love God, even though we may not understand why. But remember, Satan is also prowling around
    But, if Satan tempts someone, it must be for a greater good.

    Right?

    Otherwise, things happen that God doesn't want to happen.

    Nemesio
  11. Colorado
    Joined
    11 May '04
    Moves
    11981
    28 Nov '05 06:12
    Originally posted by flyUnity
    Here is an interesting story, It has greatly helped me understand life somewhat

    The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a

    small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God

    to rescue him, and every day he scanned the horizon

    for help, but none seemed forthcoming.




    Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little h ...[text shortened]... o

    be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal

    that summons the grace of God.
    Thanks for the story. I enjoyed reading it.
  12. Donationrwingett
    Ming the Merciless
    Royal Oak, MI
    Joined
    09 Sep '01
    Moves
    27626
    28 Nov '05 13:431 edit
    Originally posted by flyUnity
    Well you dont see the point in the story, I dont think its a true story btw. My point is to show that God allows stuff to happen when we dont know why, sometimes we find out later why, sometimes we dont (as in the case with the Shipwreck). I told the story so we can look at the trials of life and KNOW that there is a purpose to everything

    Somone who is m ...[text shortened]... no value to atheists because you dont believe in a God, so to you, my post is complete nonsence
    How can you possibly deduce that there is a purpose to everything based on one unextraordinary coincidence? Or are you claiming that every fortunate turn of events, no matter how minor, is the hand of god at work? If so then you must also give him the blame for every tragedy that occurs that has no silver lining. Many people have their houses burn down where nothing good happens afterward at all. If you are going to give god credit for all the good things that happen, no matter how minor, then you MUST give him the blame for all the bad things too. God cannot get credit for one and avoid blame for the other. So let's take a tally from your story, shall we?

    1. X number of passengers and crew from the ship were drowned. God either sank the ship with his own hand, or he gave his tacit approval by not intervening to keep it afloat. What purpose was served by this action? Could that same purpose have been accomplished with a lesser cost in life?

    2. God burned down the man's wretched hovel, ostensibly for the purpose of re-directing a ship to the island. Could not god have influenced the ship to change course without such theatrics?

    3. The man gets rescued. A whole litany of evil is being overlooked or condoned as being necessary to bring about one small fortunate turn of events. For an omnipotent god, this is an extraordinarily poor conversion ratio, with 10 parts evil being required to cause 1 part good. In no way am I an omnipotent god, but I think even I could come up with a scenario that would invert that evil to good proportion. Here is my version of the story:

    A ship runs aground on a remote and unihabited island. All the crew and passengers make it ashore. They prayed feverishly for God to rescue them, and every day they scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. They finally decided that their only hope was to try to repair and refloat the ship. During their repairs a fire breaks out onboard and the ship is consumed by fire. The repair crew narrowly avoids being burned alive and make it back to the island. With smoke rolling up to the sky the worst had happened, and everything was lost. They were stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. "God, how could you do this to us?" they cried. Early the next day they were awakened by the sound of a ship that was approaching the island. It had come to rescue them. "How did you know we were here?" Asked the weary crew of their rescuers. "We saw your smoke signal," they replied.

    In my version of the story, the same message is delivered to more people at a much smaller cost. 1 part evil was required to cause 10 parts good. If god were truly all powerful and all loving, and if evil is really necessary to bring about a greater good, then god would necessarily want to cause the maximum amount of good while resorting to the minimum amount of evil. Your god could have easily constructed the scenario as I described above, instead of bungling through your version of the story.

    The whole point of all this is that your story tries to justify evil as being a necessary component in god's greater plan. But if you look at the vast amount of evil plaguing man throughout the entire world, you are invariably forced to ask how much evil is necessary to bring about this supposedly great plan of his? Certianly an omnipotent god could bring his plan to fruition without quite so much evil. And an omnibenevolent god would necessarily want to do so. The inevitable conclusion is that god is either not all powerful or he is not all loving (or both). As god is defined as being omnipotent and omnibenevolent (as well as being omniscient) the state of affairs in the world would indicate that it is not being run by such a god. You are left with (A) a weak or malevolent god who actively manages the world. (B) a deist god who has no input into the world anymore. (C) no god at all. A 3 "O" christian god is incompatible with the presence of evil in the world.

    Attempting to demonstrate that we cannot know god's "bigger picture" solves nothing. All this argument succeeds in accomplishing is demonstrating that we can know absolutely nothing about god at all. Also, trying to foist the blame for evil off on Satan is a very weak argument. The counter argument then substitutes "Satan" for "evil". Instead of saying why does god cause or tolerate the presence of evil? the argument becomes why did god cause Satan, and why does he continue to tolerate his presence?
  13. Joined
    21 Oct '04
    Moves
    17038
    28 Nov '05 14:34
    Originally posted by Nemesio
    But, if Satan tempts someone, it must be for a greater good.

    Right?

    Otherwise, things happen that God doesn't want to happen.

    Nemesio
    You are incorrect, God DONT want us to sin, but he gave us free choice, we are free to do what we want. Things happen that God dont want to happen, were in a battle zone, and gonna win!
  14. Joined
    21 Oct '04
    Moves
    17038
    28 Nov '05 14:37
    Originally posted by no1marauder
    If God's IQ is 1,000,000 and Wingett's is 30, what's Satan's?
    Allot higher then human for sure. BTW RWingetts is allot higher then 30, I wasnt talking about him, Hes a smart guy 😛
  15. Donationrwingett
    Ming the Merciless
    Royal Oak, MI
    Joined
    09 Sep '01
    Moves
    27626
    28 Nov '05 14:44
    Originally posted by flyUnity
    You are incorrect, God DONT want us to sin, but he gave us free choice, we are free to do what we want. Things happen that God dont want to happen, were in a battle zone, and gonna win!
    Things happen that god doesn't want to happen? So what you are saying is that god is not omnipotent. He is not all-powerful. In other words, if he exists, he isn't much of a god at all.
Back to Top

Cookies help us deliver our Services. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. Learn More.I Agree