But I think it’s OK to gloat about some really fine, distilled, coronavirus irony. I guess I’m just a nasty person; well, that’s who’s running the world today so I’d better jump on the bandwagon.
he already sent help, named “Doctor Fauci”
Reported in the Lexington, KY, Herald Leader: [hl]
An evangelical pastor and founder of The New Deliverance Evangelistic Church in Virginia died of the coronavirus after he held a church service in defiance of safety protocols in late March, the church announced Sunday.
Bishop Gerald O. Glenn told his congregation he would hold service “unless I’m in jail or the hospital,” the New York Post reported. His last in-person service was held on March 22, in defiance of official warnings to practice social distancing as schools were closing, the New York Daily News reported.
“I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus. You can quote me on that,” the Bishop said, according to the New York Post. “I am essential. I’m a preacher, I talk to God!”
And now you can talk to him face to face, gomer.
It really annoys me that people don’t directly call this stuff out for the obvious money-grabbing that it is. If you’re a mega-church pastor with 2,000 sheep coming to a shearing session, and each donates $10 on average, that’s a pretty big payday. But at Easter season and during a crisis, the pastor can squeeze them for lots more because money=prayer and some tiny percentage of it will maybe go to good works. These phonies are scammers, pure and simple. They want to keep the churches open because it’s their revenue-stream.
I’m sorry that Glenn had to die to prove that point; his congregation ought to have realized he’s a scammer without god having to send them such a clear and unambigous message. If this keeps up, god’s going to have to go back to writing on walls in words of flame and shit.
Now, I am sitting here thinking how “words of fire on a wall” could be done with practical FX. It might get someone hurt but it sure would be funny to sneak into a church and set the FX up so that during the middle of the sermon, the words, “he is scamming you – god” appeared in words of flame, written across the wall behind him.
Mean spirited person that I am, that last idea sounds amazing! There is a particularly crazy giga-church around where I live that would be perfect for it.
I have never understood religion. My mother dragged me to a small Methodist church when I was younger, up ~13 years old. Even that small and, seemingly, sincere congregation seemed like silliness to me. I went to Sunday school (i.e. indoctrination) in the earlier bit of the morning, before the main service.
They wanted the kids to tithe to the Sunday school and then in the main service they wanted the adults to tithe. Talk about double dipping since a lot of parents specifically gave their children money to tithe at the Sunday school. And when my allowance was $5 a week I got dirty looks from the Sunday school teacher for tithing $0.50. Thinking about it now really pisses me off, like: its 10% how much money do you expect an 8 year old to have? And she must have said something to my mother because there after I was always given at least a dollar before going in to church to put in the Sunday school collection plate.
If I am honest though it wasn’t the idiotic money b.s. that drove me away from religion, it was that it was boring and I, even as a child / early teenager was catching logical inconsistencies in the “teachings” of the bible and in the sermons of the pastor. How does one build up a blind spot of such size?
You know that firelighting gel you can get? Might be sticky enough to do the job, provided you don’t have to set it up too far ahead of time…
According to some bloke, seeking help from Dog is best done when you’re quietly at home, alone. I can see Her getting quite pissed off at the racket from all those jam packed smugatoria and sending plagues instead.
It is UNSEEMLY indeed, and you, Marcus, would do well to take your own advice. I sat at home last Sunday cringing as I heard how in various areas all over the country there were some churches remaining open for Easter service. As I spent the day celebrating the resurrection of my Savior by watching The Passion and my pastor’s own cyber sermon, I occasionally developed a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach regarding pastors who were not following federal mandate on this.
So, yes, I am a Christian, and, no, I very often do not agree with what Christians as a whole decide to do. However, Bishop Glenn’s church stayed open for ONE Sunday after the lockdown was firmly in place. Americans at this time were still trying desperately to figure out their new normal, and they made some downright stupid mistakes. College kids still went to beaches, social media idiots licked toilet seats, and certainly some usually well-intentioned clergy kept their churches open. Nobody had perfect rules for this strange new normal, and in the midst of confusion, some people stayed open a week too long. Some people gathered together with others when they shouldn’t have.
But Bishop Glenn was not partying it up on spring break or kissing a toilet seat. He was providing a service to people that many would indeed call essential especially in times like these. His method on that one Sunday was not optimal, but to accuse him of only staying open so that he could “scam his followers” and “make money” is asinine. What proof do you have that Bishop Glenn was only in it for the money? Where is there proof of a scam? You also imply that there is a correlation between Glenn dying from the Coronavirus and him keeping his church open on March 22. The two events may be unrelated. He could’ve picked this bug up going to Wal-Mart to pick up toilet paper. It seems to me that you are dehumanizing a dead man by projecting into his story your own pithy views about Christianity and perhaps religion in general. It makes you come off small.
Bishop Glenn’s church is absolutely correct. We need God’s help in the midst of this. And you, Marcus, are correct that Doctor Fauci may be such a source of help. But Doctor Fauci is not God. He cannot save us and protect us when the shit really hits the fan. When families lose multiple members, children are orphaned, and doctors and nurses lay down their lives on the front line, people need God. People like Bishop Glenn need God, people who lick toilet seats need God, Democrats need God, Republicans need God, Doctor Fauci needs God, YOU need God, and this whole hurting, enormously reeling country needs God. Bishop Glenn died trying his imperfect best to give that to them. And now he is at peace. Perhaps he is even praying for you, Marcus. And I’m sure he forgives you for this article that was in immensely poor taste. After all, as I’m sure Glenn can attest, we all make mistakes from time to time. But thankfully God’s Grace is greater than our mistakes. Which is good because we don’t find much of that grace in this world.
Marcus:
Sadly, no gods are listening to you. Valerie Tarico points to some super spreaders in her article:
Why Conservative Religion Has Become a Disease Vector
kylodustin@#4:
Doctor Fauci needs God, YOU need God, and this whole hurting, enormously reeling country needs God
If you believe in such things, then it’s an unavoidable conclusion that god either caused the coronavirus, or is standing by with his arms crossed, watching. Insisting that we should pray, on top of it, seems a bit much.
I’m aware that Glenn is not a mega-church pastor, and I’m glad of that, because he was only putting at risk a smaller number of attendees in the name of his egotism. A 2000 person congregation sharing the virus would be far worse than the much smaller one that he led. But, ultimately, his decision was about “me! me! me!” – when I hypothesized earlier that it was about the money, I was actually being nice by insinuating that he had an actual motive that made sense, because otherwise we’d be left with him being sincere and deluded – and still putting people at risk over his sincere delusion.
As far as whether or not I can prove that he was scamming – first all, “proof” is a ridiculous standard and it’s one that reason and theology seldom meet. But if we analyze the situation as: he was either sincere or he was just doing it for the money, then you’ve got the unavoidable fact that anyone who has an education about the bible knows that it’s a human-created assembly of documents, lacking any evidence of divine inspiration and containing a great deal of basic politics and dubious political (damn little moral) advice. It’s impossible for a sane person to be so confident in their beliefs that they’d find it reasonable to risk others’ lives in order to tell them about it – especially given that, in principle, they already knew. In other words, he was preaching to the already converted; that makes it particularly unimportant. So, I’m confident with assuming he was either venal or an egotist – I’m not willing to assume he was a psychopath who wanted to see his ‘flock’ suffer.
That’s god’s role in all this.
Claiming “I am essential, I talk to god!” sure sounds like a suitable epitaph for an egomaniac.
The tradition of speaking well of the dead has not made any sense to me for decades. It strikes me as a sort of desperate quid pro quo — I’ll be nice about you and pretend you weren’t a shit if you do the same for me. Sure, it’s for the family or whatever? I expect remaining members of my family to miss me and be sad, but I don’t see how they’re served by smarmy people telling obvious lies about their feelings.
I would rather people were honest about me after I die, to the extent that I care at all. Hoist a glass and tell anyone who will listen that you never liked the bastard.
Orson Scott Card is not my favorite human, or author, but his invention of the Speaker for the Dead has always struck me as a marvelous idea, and I wouldn’t mind at all having someone perform that service for me.
Andrew Molitor@#7:
I would rather people were honest about me after I die, to the extent that I care at all. Hoist a glass and tell anyone who will listen that you never liked the bastard.
Joking aside, I have been asked a couple times if I’d say something about someone at a service. My usual approach has been to tell a story about them, that probably only I knew (i.e.: some interaction we had) – maybe revealing something about the decedent’s character, or maybe just a blank mirror for the listeners to project whatever they want into. I’ve always liked that approach and (if there were to be a memorial for me, which I have expressly asked there not to be) I wouldn’t mind if people told stories about the time I put a jellybean up my nose, or whatever.
If you can’t speak ill of people after they’re dead, when can you? I think that if there’s any value in expressing disapproval at all, it should be done where all can hear. It might allow someone to get a clue about their actions before it’s too late.
I suspect that the “don’t speak ill of the dead” doctrine was invented by tyrants.
Kylodusin.
This pastor’s wife is also sereiously ill.
And this is the third pastor to die that I’ve heard of.
I help run a dance group. We were talking since early March about the whether we needed to close our dance. Some churches are still insisting on holding in person services.
This may be unpopular, but I hope all the christians, republicans, and any other variety of fools ignore the order to social distance. Then they will all get the virus and die off and maybe this country can start to get on with life without all the hypocrisy and stupidity that is associated with them. Can we start with the big orange dummy who is supposed to be running things? Honestly, if you are dumb enough to believe in the sky fairy in the 21st century then you deserve what you get. Why do we need gods help? Didnt he start this virus in the first place? Trust in your god and keep dying like the fools you are. If I was god, I wouldnt have started a virus that kills indiscriminately. I would not stand idly by while thousands are dying. What kind of monster is your god and why do you think we need it? Please continue to go to church and infect those around you. Thats a great way to show your or your gods love isnt it? Stop believing in things that have no proof. Science will save you, your god wont. He will stand around watching you suffering and dying.
kylodustin @4,
We need God’s help? Thought your God was omnipotent and stuff. So, why doesn’t he wave his metaphorical Hand and help? Perhaps He is in his Senescence, which perhaps explains why He is only capable of manifesting His Face in a Tortilla these days.
Unfortunately the church goers will infect other people, just not themselves.
@Marcus:
I think this may well be a false dichotomy: People are complex, and can have mixtures of motivations and beliefs, and cognitive dissonance can just exacerbate the complexity.
He may well have sincerely believed that God wanted him to preach to the congregation and tithe the congregation (to do the Lord’s work!), and pwn the libs by demonstrating defiance.
“unless I’m in jail or the hospital,” Fallacy of the excluded
middleendpoint.Owlmirror@#13:
He may well have sincerely believed that God wanted him to preach to the congregation and tithe the congregation (to do the Lord’s work!), and pwn the libs by demonstrating defiance.
True enough. And he may have had motivations that he didn’t even come to grips with. It could be a lot of things.
I guess I should clarify that it’s my perception. All we can ever do about other people’s motives is speak from our own perspective. Maybe I’m even projecting – if I exposed a bunch of people I supposedly care about to a pathogen, I’d need a good reason like money or that I genuinely hated them and wanted them to suffer.
Marcus,
I’m not going to imitate the plot of “God’s Not Dead” here. I’m not on here to prove that God exists or to adequately explain the intersection of free will, a fallen world, and a God of love at work in the middle of it all. I will say that I sincerely believe that the presence of pain and suffering in the world does not mean that God causes it. Human beings are the stewards of this world, and their mishandling of the natural ecosystems is how these type of viruses can gain traction in the first place. We live in a very imperfect world, but I believe that we have a loving, perfect God in the midst of it who is with us in the suffering and imperfection. Nobody on here has to agree with me on that point, but I also am far from alone in that view.
Marcus, we are in agreement fully that Bishop Glenn was misguided for being open that Sunday. But he was closed every Sunday after that. So he recognized the error and did the right thing afterwards. I do not support in any way the pastors across the nation who are still even now having in-person services. But to label Glenn as either a scam artist or delusional is simply not fair or rational.
As for the scam artist accusation, there’s simply no proof. And I know you scoff at the word “proof,” which I find a bit bizarre and convenient. It’s easy to call someone a scam artist or delusional if no one can question those claims. But I’m not buying that rhetoric. Proof of intent is important, and you quite frankly have no way of knowing what was going through Glenn’s mind when he held services that Sunday (or any other Sunday he preached for that matter). Maybe he was thinking, “Ha! These suckers. I’m gonna get rich off them today” (insert villainous laugh here). But MAYBE NOT. Maybe he wanted to be open that Sunday because he wanted to worship with his congregation. Maybe he wanted to provide a message of hope and comfort to them. Maybe he was misguided for being open that Sunday, but being misguided does not make one a villain. It just makes one human.
Now on to the delusional accusation. You imply that either Glenn was a scam artist or he was delusional. Since the scam artist argument has as much teeth as a plant, let’s examine why you claim he’s delusional. You claim he’s delusional because he is a Christian and you are not. You disagree with his belief system, and therefore he must be delusional. You’re right, and therefore anyone who differs in their opinion from yours is simply delusional. Life is not that simple, and you delude yourself if you think it is.
Bishop Glenn died. Like many people are tragically dying right now. We need to mourn and respect and move on. We really are better than this. And you don’t need to believe in God to understand that.
Respect is earned. Bishop Glenn endangered people’s lives.
I really miss the dance groups that, being on the board, I helped shut down, but it was the responsible thing to do. I didn’t want to risk my friends dying.
Robert,
To a believer, a dance group is far different than a church service. They’re not even on the same level. It’s not the same thing. I agree respect is earned, and Bishop Glenn served his community and congregation for decades. Not all of his worth comes down to one Sunday out of thousands that he made the wrong call. A person is worth more than one mistake. And thank God for that!
@kylodustin:
It bothers my desire for consistency to see someone claim (implicitly or explicitly) that there is a God that can do anything and knows everything; that has no limits on its actions, and yet turn around and immediately absolve that God of the responsibility for what occurs in its creation.
This isn’t something about God, if God there be. This is something about religious believers; about the way their minds work.
I’ve read fiction about universes where some sort of God or Gods exists, but the only ones that made sense to me were those which posited limits on the Gods’ knowledge or power or benevolence, or on two or more of those.
Theists often offer scenarios where the rare, infrequent, improbable events that bring benefit are the actions of a benevolent God, yet when a rare, infrequent, improbable event occurs — like a virus transferring from a bat and/or pangolin (or both; a sequence of transference) to a human, to many humans — God suddenly isn’t responsible and couldn’t have prevented it.
What does “perfect” even mean? One definition is that something perfect cannot be made better, but it seems to me that a loving God that aided people directly and prevented harm from occurring is better that a (purportedly) loving God who does not. Is this wrong? Does perfect have another meaning here?
The god that most people worship is a dangerous psychopath, turning believers minds into incoherent babble. Seeking a god’s help is like trying to build a house out of custard.
@StonedRanger:
This really isn’t something that anyone should hope for. robertbaden responded more succinctly, but I want to emphasize, here, that what you express is based on the same kind of wishful thinking that religious people use: that a disease can somehow “know” to only infect those who violate the social norms that we have invoked to prevent its spread, and will somehow only infect those of the “wrong” politico-religious faction.
The virus doesn’t know anything. It doesn’t care about what we do or what our motives are. It spreads, if it reaches more hosts. Or it doesn’t spread, if spreading is prevented by immunity and/or a lack of further hosts to spread to.
It doesn’t even “want” to cause severe symptoms — some people have no or mild symptoms, and the disease spreads anyway.
Well, to me, my dancing is more important than any church service. I still won’t jeopardize others safety because of it.
Owlmirror,
These questions you ask about God are not easily answered, and unlike a lot of well-meaning Christians I know, I do not claim to have it all figured out. Part of my journey with God has been about learning to ask the tough questions, and most of those tough questions do not have easy answers. But I have found that my faith has deepened between the tension of what I think I know and what I am honestly stumped about. But I do know one thing for sure. Amidst the pain and the questions and the contradictions, I know Jesus is enough. He’s there, and I understand that I cannot prove that to you.
But what you said about suffering and how God could stop it all but seemingly does nothing. I think a change of perspective may help. You are a creature limited to the bounds of space and time. You can only see things in a linear fashion. You look back and are limited by memory. You look ahead and see only a future riddled with shadows. You see pain right now all around you (and perhaps in your own life) and can see no evidence or promise of divine intervention or healing. But God is beyond and above the limits of time and space. All of history to Him is a marvelous tapestry of his work and grace. You ask why God doesn’t do anything to improve the situation? The answer is that He did. Jesus is how God steps down in the muck of this world and rescues it from itself. But that resurrection has not fully manifested to all of creation yet. At least we cannot see it from our limited place in time. We see someone good die, and we think some terrible thing has happened. But you don’t get to see the other side of that loss. There’s more to the picture, more to the story.
Evil and suffering was not God’s original plan for creation, but the existence of free will made those realities possible. While God prefers to live in harmony and relationship with his children, he could not force it. If God is Love, then Love cannot force. People have to have the option of walking away from perfect love and ideal beauty. And over the sad course of history up to this very moment, the human race has consistently chosen that very course. And the world fell with us. Disease entered into the equation. War did too. So did evil and all the bitter consequences that sin yields. God cannot just snap his fingers and make all suffering go away because to do so would mean to take away our capacity for free will. If free will is to exist, then the consequences of our free will must be allowed to play out. You mentioned that a God should have limitations in order to be believable. In a sense, God DOES limit himself. He holds back and allows free will to play out. He allows us to receive his love and restoration or reject it in favor of the same old status quo.
But God steps down into this broken world in the form of Jesus, takes on Suffering and Sin and Death itself, and rises again to conquer it. That’s the message of Easter that so many missed out on last week. The victory and healing and restoration of this world is complete from God’s infinite perspective. But we cannot see it all because of the limitations of space and time and mortality. Good wins. There is a happily ever after, and I need to believe that. I need to believe that there is a purpose to the tears and plan beyond the pain.
I cannot prove this and I really wasn’t going to go there, but this is what I (and many others) believe. It’s likely some version of what Bishop Glenn believed. It’s why he died with hope. You do not have to accept this, and like I said, I’m just trying to figure all this out too. I do not have all the answers, but I do have all the questions. And I won’t stop asking them. I won’t give up on God because the answers aren’t easy. I won’t do that because this world needs a hope that extends beyond the present pain. You can call that a pipe dream if you want. You can call it crazy (sanity is often overrated anyway). But you asked the questions, and here is what imperfect me believes. Just so you understand where I am coming from. I absolutely respect your right to disagree with me, but there is no need for hostility towards one another.
There’s nothing inconsistent about a reality in which (1) people have what you call “free will” and also (2) lacks all kinds of suffering which don’t depend on the exercise of any person’s will.
There are a vast array of diseases, famines, droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, asteroid strikes, animals hunting each other just for basic sustenance, and on and on and on. In many places, we cannot even go a year without experiencing both extreme heat and extreme cold, which can be just painful and deadly as any of the others.
You say this “God” fellow is not limited by space or time? Well, we are. We’re the ones living in this world, in the tiny piece of it where we have any hope of surviving and in the short amount time that we have. It’s our suffering that matters, and we had no choice in it. The moral choice for us, in response to our condition, is simply to help one another through it as best we can, since nobody else is doing that on our behalf.
Plenty have made empty promises about it, sometimes thousands of years ago. Nobody has that kind of time. Maybe pick a different religion, which doesn’t have thousands of years of failure to offer as part of its marketing strategy. So you say the deity you believe in doesn’t have time either? Say whatever you want. I just don’t care how much time an imaginary being is claimed to have.
@23: I don’t know where to start. How can you not see the contradictions in your own argument and in Christian dogma? If God is omnipotent, he can do anything, including revoking free will to save his “children”. You’re using free will as a limiting factor on his omnipotence, thereby saying he is, in fact, not omnipotent. He could have created us to be perfect humans to live perfectly blissful lives in a perfect world–he CHOSE not to. If God is omniscient, knowing everything past, present and future, then before he created a single atom he knew that he would create man and give him flaws, (human weaknesses coupled with ‘free will”), which would ensure man’s failure in Eden; knew that he would punish all mankind for all its existence for a mistake that he created them to make; saw the horrible suffering that would result; yet, he still CHOSE to go ahead. How do you explain this, and don’t give us the “God works in mysterious ways” line– that’s nothing but a copout, an excuse for intellectual laziness and willful ignorance. There are only two logical answers to this: either your god is not what you say he is; or he doesn’t exist. Your God also gave you a mind and an ability to use it to understand the world around you, yet you willfully refuse to use it. I could give many more examples, but it would most likely be a waste of time. I don’t wish to destroy anyone’s faith, and I believe you are sincere in yours.
But sometimes such willful ignorance is so stunning that I am compelled to speak out. Ultimately, I may be wrong, but that will require proof of your beliefs, and there is none. Leonard Cohen once wrote, “He was starving in some deep mystery/ Like a man who is sure what is true.” This is how I see you. Still, I wish you well.
We have it in our power to prevent a great deal of suffering by rats, bugs, and so on, and usually we choose not to. Sometimes we exacerbate that suffering for our own benefit. Sometimes I don’t feed my dog for a few minutes because I enjoy they brief interlude of her pleasant attentiveness, in contrast to her usual disdain.
Are we dangerous psychopaths? Am I?
kylodustin, you are a good speaker for the goddist perspective.
A palpably false claim, much like the claims of the self-styled Bishop who is the subject of this post.
Suffering and Death certainly do exist, and to religious people such as you, so does Sin.
(Whence this purported conquering?)
So do suicide bombers; hardly admirable, that.
Andrew,
Nah. Just self-interested and self-indulgent.
@Kylodustin
I’m gonna hit your entire post with a biiiiig fat [citation needed]. And if you want to get down and dirty I will happily shred your apologetics like cheap toilet paper.
Here’s a little clue: praying to the guy who invented the coronavirus to stop the coronavirus is like praying to Al Capone to end the Mafia.
Furthermore, your God is said to be omniscient, omnipotent, and absolutely sovereign, and to have a Divine Plan (TM). This means that praying for things to be other than they are is telling God that you know better than him and that his Divine Plan (TM) sucks. I hear that’s called “blasphemy” and you can get sent to Hell for all eternity for it, where you will scream and writhe and howl and thrash as your skin crisps and your flesh broils and your bones crack and your marrow bubbles like magma and your eyeballs burst in their sockets, world without end, amen.
You came to the wrong neighborhood, and you brought a spitball straw to a railgun fight.
Honestly, anyone who can’t invent a cosmology with a more or less benign god with infinite power who nevertheless allows us to suffer, is simply suffering from a lack of imagination. Or, if we are honest with ourselves, an excess of zealotry.
Publicola, I believe God is both omnipotent AND limits himself for love’s sake. The whole point of the story of Jesus is that God stepped down out of Heaven itself to become a lowly carpenter’s son who died and suffered unimaginably on our behalf. Love—if it is truly love and not some pale imitation—has one indispensable quality. It STOOPS. It condescends. It has all the power and all the reason in the world to cling to that power, but it chooses to become less for the sake of others. We demonstrate this love all the time in our own interactions with those we love. Parents, for example, if they were operating at their full potential have no desire to read fairy tales. But they condescend—they stoop down—for the sake of their beloved children. Why? Because they love those children and know that they must come down to their level at times. A daddy who gets down on the floor to wrestle with his toddler son is not utilizing even a fraction of his full strength. He may even let the little one “win.” He limits himself and stoops out of the reality of a loving relationship. Likewise, an omnipotent God condescends and pays an inestimable cost because He loves us. He enters into suffering WITH us even though he is fully empowered to give up on us and stay in his lofty throne unscathed. But love scathed has a name, and love scathed also has a cross.
You also ask why God could not have just dispensed with free will altogether. He could’ve just made us perfect with the inability to resist his will. He could have created us to be robotic drones who had no element of choice but to bow like slaves at his feet. We would be perfect, and we would be empty. We would be imitations of life—puppets that God plays with when he’s bored and pretending to have loving children. But he didn’t want puppets. He longed for children. And that meant He had to take the long way around. He had to make the hard call and allow for the possibility of imperfect and rebellious children. In order to craft his children in love, that meant there had to be the capacity for the opposite of love. Yes, he knew what would happen. He knew his decision to forge us in love and not merely in perfection would cost him greatly. In fact, the worse of all the suffering would by far fall squarely on himself. For love’s sake, He would have to become poor. And He did that for us.
God does not promise a life devoid of suffering, but he’s with us in the fire and the flood. And even what is meant for evil is ultimately turned for good. He is Love, and He is sovereign over us. In times like this when darkness seems so prevalent, I’m grateful for the Light that shines in that darkness and is not overcome by it. I’m grateful for Love that stoops.
I wish you well too!
“For love’s sake, He would have to become poor. And He did that for us.”
God is poor. And has a penis. And stoops.
(The things one learns from goddists!)
John:
Technically, the condescending, stooping penis-haver became poor. That’ll show us, eh?
This way, when he triumphantly proclaimed “sucks to be you” (Ecclesiastes 7:5), he might have some idea of what the fuck he was talking about. Or so the thinking goes.
But he still didn’t know, of course. Because we’re not just slumming it here, temporarily, in order to claim it means we can scold the people we’ve hurt.
Kylodustin: Explain to me how God became less. Did he lose/sacrifice any of his omniscience? His omnipotence? Was he not still the most powerful being in creation? Even in the form of a man did he not perform “miracles” which were beyond the power of humans? Even if Jesus was channeling the power of his father, could he have not just asked his father to fix it all? God the creator did not limit himself, nor did he suffer with us– he chose a surrogate to do that. Either Jesus was God and thus did not permanently sacrifice anything, or he was human, and suffered everything in God’s place. You say God had to take the long way around–why? He’s God. He can do anything. You continue to put limits on his power while still calling him omnipotent.. When I said he could have made us perfect, I meant PERFECT. A perfect being has, by definition, no wants or needs. A want or need reveals a lack of something. If you lack something, by definition, you are imperfect. If he “longed” for children, that is a need, thereby rendering him imperfect. No matter how you twist logic to rationalize his actions, you simply can’t make a prima facie case for what you claim. Again, he is either not what you think he is, or he does not exist. Sorry.
@kylodustin
Why should I worship something that’s just a bigger, invisible version of my Evil Ex?
(source)
@Andrew Molitor:
What are you trying to argue, here? That some sort of God that could exist would consider us to be vermin?
Wait, now we’re pets, and God wants us to fawn and grovel before he gives us treats? God is needy for attention from his property?
Can you decide on whether we’re pets that must grovel, or vermin to be ignored at best, or tormented and eliminated at worst?
Your relationship with your dog sounds problematic. Maybe you both need therapy.
We can imagine all sorts of hopelessly confused and internally inconsistent things.
see kylodustin @16:
How can god not cause it? In 10-words-or-less:
Absolute knowledge plus absolute power equals absolute responsibility.
Does this god person you worship have absolute knowledge? Yes, according to you Believers. Does It have absolute power? Also yes, according to you lot. How, exactly, can your god not bear absolute, total, complete, 100% responsibility for everyfuckingthing that happens? As best I can tell, from my years of exposure to theodicies, the best you Believers can do in the way of answering that question is to redefine at least one of the three standard “omni”s your god is supposed to have—”Well, sure, God is omnipotent, but He’s not, you know, omnipotent omnipotent.”
Not real impressed with the “evil exists cuz free will” not-a-defense. iIf you really want to go there, I got two questions for you.
One: Do the inmates of heaven have free will?
Two: Is there evil in heaven?
Owlmirror, I do not believe for a second that you do not grasp the thrust of my remarks. You are merely being pedantic for show.
Okay, I get I’m the minority opinion here, and that’s fine. Honestly, I really did not get on here to concert everyone to Christianity or tackle all of the most complex theological questions in existence. My initial goal was to simply speak up in defense of a man who cannot speak up for himself. I agree wholeheartedly with the title of this blog, and I was then perplexed to see that it was all the complete opposite of the blog’s content.
Anyway, about God and blaming him for everything . . . That’s fine. You can do that if you want to. Or you can trust Him. Someone went on a huge spiel about abuse, and I really don’t get that. God is not abusive. Not by a long shot. Sin is what causes the heartache and abuse in this life, and God is there to show us a better way.
There is also a persistent claim that God could just magically create us in the image of his love while also dispensing with freedom of choice. I don’t know who would want that type of existence, as it would really be no existence at all. I’m sorry, but I adamantly am against the notion that love is possible in the absence of free will. Free will is an absolutely intrinsic and indispensable quality of love. Take away free will, and love is not love. Saying that it was possible for God to create mankind by making them pure beings of love with no free will needed is like saying that an artist can paint a picture without using paint. It just doesn’t follow logically. If a human being falls in love with someone and wants to marry that person, he or she proposes. He or she asks for the other person to voluntarily enter into marriage, and the person being proposed to—the person being showered with desperate love—has the power to reject or embrace that proposal. If we found out that someone forced their spouse into a marriage, it would be reprehensible. It would be rape. Love must be voluntary by its very nature. Or it is simply not love.
Cubist, you asked two questions.
1: Do the inmates of Heaven have free will?
Answer: There are no inmates in Heaven. There is a family there that has been restored and made whole in God’s redeeming love. Those who choose Heaven say yes to God’s love. They enter into it willingly, and through what Jesus accomplished on the cross, it changes them. Free will blends perfectly with freedom, and we have the mind of Christ. We are whole, complete, and the best version of ourselves. Heaven is no prison. It is a family reunion. It is a celebration, and the party echoes into eternity.
2: Is there evil in Heaven?
Answer: No, if there was evil in Heaven, it would not be Heaven. Evil would yield sin, death, and destruction. Heaven is the opposite of all that. Heaven is this world restored as it was always meant to be.
kylodustin @39: “There are no inmates in Heaven.”
Ah–a purely semantic quibble about what to name the dudes what live in heaven. Fine. Do the inhabitants of heaven have free will?
“No, if there was evil in Heaven, it would not be Heaven.”
Okay. Cool. So depending on whether the inhabitants of heaven have free will or not, you may have a big, gapin’ contradiction in your Belief system.
Cubist, those who are in Heaven are transformed. They are perfected in God’s love and have willingly chosen to be imparted with a mind like Christ’s. Free will played its part, and they exerted it to choose love, grace, God, and ultimately Heaven. Since they chose to enter into that restorative process, the end result is that they become free from the burdens of a compromised, rebellious, and sinful mind. Heaven is not the absence of free will at all. It is free will at its most fulfilled level. It is freedom and choice carried all the way through to the perfect conclusion. And that whole process begins and finds it resolution in God’s love.
Kylodustin @ #10
I’m not on here to prove that God exists or to adequately explain the intersection of free will, a fallen world, and a God of love at work in the middle of it all. I will say that I sincerely believe that the presence of pain and suffering in the world does not mean that God causes it.
I briefly admired the lampshade approach to theodicy.
Too bad you did not stop there and made the usual hash of it in later posts. (To be fair, there’s no way not to make a hash of it.)
It’s like watching an Italian and a Vietnamese, each somehow having formed the impression that they share a language, arguing about something nobody can quite make out.
What is so special about in person services that they are worth parishoners dying? Personal contact? I get that from my dance groups, which we shut down
I’ve been getting regular invites from a friend on the other side of the country to their internet services. I may take them up on it. Likely to be different since the family is Armenian-American.
@kylodustin:
Jews and Muslims would agree with you that God exists, but would disagree about Jesus. What makes them wrong?
How can you make this claim? Are you able to read God’s mind?
Possible, or necessary?
I don’t see how “not forcing love” leads to our universe, where God does not give any sign of existing. God saying: “Hi, this is God, putting pangolins near bats is a bad idea because viruses can jump species” or “Oops, you’ve contracted a virus that came from a bat via a pangolin [or vice versa], stay home and don’t infect other people” doesn’t force anyone to do anything.
Can love not give good advice that everyone can hear and follow?
I don’t see how this has anything to do with our universe, where no-one is given a hint that this purported “perfect love” and “ideal beauty” exists to be walked towards or away from, or how one “approaches” or “recedes from” it.
How?
Imagine a scenario where you have the power to teleport any mass up to the size of a small mountain, easily and without cost to yourself. You see a small child run in front of an oncoming car. You can easily teleport the child back to the sidewalk, or teleport the car past the child without it impacting.
How would using your power of teleportation “take away the capacity for free will” of the driver or the child?
That makes no sense.
Should parents not childproof their homes, because the consequences of sticking forks into electical sockets, or drinking poisons, or putting clothed arms into fire “must be allowed to play out”?
God is completely incapable of provinding a free will where consequences are mitigated, if not nullified?
So would you agree, then, that God holds responsibility for the consequences that do play out?
In the scenario I offered above, if you had the power to easily teleport the kid or the car, but chose not to do so because you wanted that the kid should have the consequences of free will play out, would you agree that your deliberate negligence means that you would have some responsibility for the kid’s broken and crushed body after the impact?
Your argument means that God would have no benevolence at all. Love does not stand aside when it can easily act to reduce or nullify harm. Indifference is not love.
Why should anyone believe this? It’s literally “pie in the sky, by and by”. God offers nothing to show that he exists, let alone cares about us, here and now.
The arguments you present are so confused that I cannot possibly believe them. Indeed, I admit that I have to wonder if you believe them yourself, or if rather you believe that you should believe them, even though they make no sense.
@Andrew Molitor: I really. honestly, have no idea what the thrust of your arguments might have been.
When I have been badly misunderstood or unclear, I usually try to use different words to clarify.
Oh my, I see that the arguments used for a loving god are just as illogical, self-contradicting and downright inane as I remember them being from decades ago when I still thought that arguing with people who believe daft things might make them reconsider said daft things.
They are wholly unconvincing to anyone who is not brainwashed into the religion in the first place. I was born and raised an atheist and the more I learned about various religions during those four decades, the more I became convinced that it is the right position.
I disagree with the title but not with the gist of the OP. It is entirely appropriate to gloat, sneer and even rejoice at the death of a parasitic ghoul who was not only peddling nonsense his whole life and whose brainwashing and bigotry has probably changed hundreds of human lives for the worse, but whose last act was to actively promote dangerous behavior that can cost lives other than his own in the very near future. The blood of any member of his cult, and of any acquaintance of any .member of his cult who dies of Covid-19 is on this shithead’s hands.
Owlmirror, I presented two options, which, as you noted, were distinctly different. The point was to observe that a whole world of possibility exists.
If someone proposed that all numbers are even, and I said “well, what about 25? Have you considered prime numbers?” you could, if you tried very very hard, imagine that I was proposing that all numbers are 25, or that all numbers are prime. Or, you could deduce that perhaps I was pointing out a larger world that includes odd numbers of infinitely many shapes and sizes.
@kylodustin:
Love does not limit itself to the point of negligence.
God does not condescend to help anyone here on Earth. Either God does not love us, or God does not have the power to help us (a God that isn’t real wouldn’t love or have power).
And that is how I can be confident that God does not exist in a loving relationship to us: no such demonstrations from God occur at all, let alone all the time.
Huh. Maybe a digression into literature would make for an interesting break from the theolology.
What does “operating at their full potential” mean?
What exactly is wrong with fairy tales such that adults would have no desire to read any, ever?
@Andrew Molitor: So maybe a God exists that views us as vermin (has no benevolence) OR maybe a God exists that is needy for our attention and will give us treats only if we give lots and lots of attention, and only after we die, and in the meantime, lets us suffer (still no benevolence)?
Your math analogy is still confused. I’m saying “There are no even prime numbers greater than 2”, and you’re saying “What about 3-1?”, “What about 3.9̅-2?”, “What about 𝑖×𝑖+3+𝜺?”.
“The point was to observe that a whole world of possibility exists.”
I don’t honestly know how the hell I can make it clearer.
Also, you don’t get to make up a different math analogy, confuse yourself with it, and claim that my (different) one is confused. No. Stop it.
kylodustin:
Um, non-goddists (aka atheists) don’t believe in god, so that imaginary construct can’t actually have any blame; point is, by imputing omni3 to it, it ineluctably follows that whatever happens is what it wanted to happen.
Clearly, you adopt the Panglossian view: “You ask why God doesn’t do anything to improve the situation? The answer is that He did.”, which means that what is is what it wanted.
Yes. I like that you are genuine and forthright.
Still, your defense boiled down to “He died happy”, which is fine for him, but he died happy putting others at risk in this real world.
In passing, this business of calling religious privileges (such as exemptions from the law) religious freedoms is a weak rhetorical move, but it sure convinces the religious.
Anyway.
Me, I don’t gloat, but I do see the irony of the poetic justice in the situation.
How did it go again? “I am essential. I’m a preacher, I talk to God!” … <croak>
@Andrew Molitor:
. . . and nothing else? Possibilities exist, and no further argument?
I can’t stop you from making up a confused strawman false analogy, but you can’t stop me from calling it out as a confused strawman false analogy.
If you think that your strawman false analogy isn’t a strawman or false, you’re confused about what a strawman false analogy isn’t.
@kylodustin:
Hm. It’s interesting to me that you phrase it that way.
To an atheist, Gerald Glenn cannot speak up for himself because he is dead. He no longer exists as a person who can speak.
Yet you, a theist, argue that those in heaven have free will. Surely, if what you believe were true, Mr. Glenn could speak up for himself, if he were in heaven, and had the power to speak. Do you believe those in heaven to be powerless to speak, or do you believe that Mr. Glenn is not in heaven?
Owlmirror, any person of normal intelligence should be able to take my remarks in #26 and fill in as much detail of the argument as suits them. I did not see any need to expand further, and your responses to my elucidations in #48 and #51 illustrate clearly that you’re not much interested.
The fact that you continue to want to debate whether my throwaway analogy in #48 accurately reflects… um, something or other, rather than working away on anything that was actually in play indicates to me that your interest is merely to drag me off into irrelevant ratholes where you can nitpick away until I die of exhaustion. You want to discuss whether the thing I said in one comment is consistent with something else I said, and you simply don’t care what the original point was. Quick now, try to remember where we started?
(Yes yes, I know, you are unable to recall because I was SO VERY UNCLEAR AND WE NEED TO SORT OUT WHAT MY WORDS MEAN BEFORE WE CAN PROCEED)
I’ve been on the internet for 30 years. You have no tricks I have not seen before, and I am not interested in playing any of these tedious games.
In fact, I wrote a think about it for Brony once upon a time. You might find it interesting. You certainly, definitely, will not recognize yourself in it. But you’re in there.
https://medium.com/@amolitor/the-method-bffc608b661
Actually, now that I think about it, I wonder if we weren’t negligent in not canceling our dances until around March 14th. South By Southwest was canceled March 6. And major participants had been canceling before then.
How about giving a possibility that’s also compatible with your god concept? Because the examples you mentioned aren’t, as demonstrated by your irritation when Owlmirror applied those very examples to your god.
Human beings are limited in power, knowledge, and ability to love. This often leads us to do things that are not ideal. But god isn’t supposed to be limited, so what’s his excuse? You need to give an explanation that would apply to god or you’re simply dodging the issue.
LykeX, Andrew isn’t the goddist here; he’s just saying that “invent[ing] a cosmology with a more or less benign god with infinite power who nevertheless allows us to suffer” is possible with some imagination. A claim that Owlmirror criticised perhaps a bit too obliquely, and which Andrew can’t be bothered to try to sustain.
But that’s not the omnibenevolent deity of Christendom, which is the one our visiting goddist has in mind, it’s a general claim about possible god-constructs.
@John Morales
Fair enough. I think I might have gotten some wires crossed.
I guess “more or less benign” is vague enough to keep a lot of doors open, but it also makes it completely irrelevant for any discussion of theism, as normally espoused by actual theists. But, sure, it’s possible to invent a theology where god is less than perfectly benevolent and therefore allows some degree of suffering that he could otherwise have prevented. If the suffering is limited, you can even argue that god still counts as overall benevolent, even if not perfectly so.
Oh, I’m pretty sure I can invent a cosmology that fits with Christian theology pretty well, but it’s not going to sit well with many of the followers who are pretty fixated on green pastures and lambs. And I’m certainly not going to give you lot several thousand words of discussion to nitpick and demand clarification on.
I merely took exception to the notion that any god with properties X and Y was necessarily a psychopath, which is a) a very popular logical leap for movement atheists to make and b) wrong.
Andrew:
A stupid objection, duly called out.
a) It’s popular because it’s a logical consequence of the premises;
b) Logical entailment cannot be wrong, your surety notwithstanding;
c) You are engaging in theodicy;
d) You cannot sustain that claim, so instead you use the “sour grapes” excuse.
(cf. Publicola @25: “”If God is omniscient, knowing everything past, present and future, then before he created a single atom he knew that he would create man and give him flaws, (human weaknesses coupled with ‘free will”), which would ensure man’s failure in Eden; knew that he would punish all mankind for all its existence for a mistake that he created them to make; saw the horrible suffering that would result; yet, he still CHOSE to go ahead.)
Well, John, given that I provided an entire space of counterexamples in #26, d) and a) are wrong. You can claim that #26 fails some test or another and demand clarification, but given that my 10 year old daughter is capable of connecting the relevant dots: No. If you cannot keep up with the adults and reasonably intelligent 10 year olds, that’s a shame, but not my problem.
b), being a restatement of a) for no purpose except to show off your turgid vocabulary, also bites the dust.
On c), if you want to claim that stating “God is not necessarily a psychopath” is theodicy, well, OK, but it doesn’t seem relevant. I also think chickens are assholes and goats are basically decent, what does this have to do with anything? (oh, right, c) is just John and his vocabulary doing a little TikTok dance again). I am prepared to grant you a 1/2 point here.
So, that’s 0.5 out of a possible 4.0. You’re improving! Congratulations, John.
So now we’re in a situation. I have plenty of evidence that I can and frequently do construct valid arguments. Based on that, I have high confidence in the validity of my remarks, You, however, have no access to that evidence, and justly suspect that I don’t have any such evidence either and that therefore you are free to dismiss my remarks largely unconsidered because they conflict with your, obviously correct, remarks. The same situation obtains in reverse, which fact you will likely have difficulty with, but I urge you to give it your best shot, and have confidence that you can manage it if only you apply yourself.
Now, I know perfectly well that your interest is to draw me in to endless pointless side debates to waste my time, even if you’re not fully aware of the fact. Why? Because: Internet, FtB comments, John M.
As we have established in the past: No.
I directly addressed your #26, Andrew, and your “entire space of counterexamples in #26” are of humans doing human things.
God is not a human being, is it?
And in the Christian mythos, that god is omnibenevolent.
Actually, a shitload of stuff is known about their god:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attributes_of_God_in_Christianity#Enumeration
So any purported counter-examples to the problem of evil that don’t include them aren’t counter-examples to the claim that god can be any two of the three main omnis, but not all three.
Nah. You’re plain wrong. If you weren’t, there’d be no need for theodicy.
Nothing pointless about noting you’re making a claim that is wrong, and which you can’t sustain.
If anything, it’s SIWOTI.
(Which is perfectly congruent with {Internet, FtB comments, John M.}, unlike your own counter-example)
—
re your infamous #26, I got the impression that you were trying to suggest our visitor’s cosmology (to use your own term) was wron but not irrational.
(It’s both)
[just for fun]
I have it in My power to prevent a great deal of suffering by rats, bugs, and so on, and usually I choose not to. Sometimes I exacerbate that suffering for My own benefit.
I am the Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent God.
Am I a dangerous psychopath?
I have not been reading anything from kylodustin (no offense meant, it’s simply that I’m not terribly interested.)
At this point, John, you’re basically just mumblng like a tweaker hoping that I will bite on something so you can waste a great deal of my time and respond cheaply with vague, flippant, sneering. You know the answer by now, though, so I can’t imagine you’re holding out much hope.
Anyone interested in non-performative clarifications or whatever may, as usual, contact me by email at amolitor@gmail.com
No worries, Andrew “I’m pretty sure I can invent a cosmology that fits with Christian theology pretty well” Molitor.
[Sometimes, I feel like overanalyzing. Skip if you wish.]
[Also, sometimes I’m slow]
The original post (Lofty@#20) stated “The god that most people worship is a dangerous psychopath, turning believers minds into incoherent babble.”
Now, I have to admit, I did have a problem with this, but didn’t feel like writing it all up at the time.
First of all, it’s implied that the imagined god has causal powers. Obvously, this is backwards: The fallible and confused minds of believers are what come up with gods in the first place. The lack of coherence arising from flawed reasoning, confused epistomology, mental compartmentalization, emotional attachment (to the idea of a powerful person that cares about them), and so on, is the pre-existing condition.
Another problem, one I think is lesser, is the use of “is” rather than the explicit statement “would be [a dangerous psychopath], if it/he were real”. However, I don’t think most people would misunderstand if someone wrote, for example, “Voldemort is a dangerous bigoted murderous cult leader” without such qualifications; fictional or counterfactual context can be inferred. Still, it’s probably better to be clear.
While we cannot read the minds of most believers, we can make some inferences about what they worship. I suspect that most imagine some sort of invisible intangible powerful bodiless person listening to the petitions, praise, and thanks that worshipers offer as being its due. It weighs their requests, and grants them sometimes — and when denying them, the worshipers would not usually imagine that to be out of spite or selfishness or whim or indifference, but because of some sort of greater plan that only God knows.
I am fairly confident that believers would not articulate their god as being a dangerous psychopath, but I think we can make inferences from what they claim about their god. For example, believers often claim that their God sent some natural disaster as a punishment. Given that disasters cause harm, therefore, clearly god would be dangerous if he really existed and were sending disasters. What about “psychopath”? This is problematic in that using such a diagnosis is often used glibly. Are such terms meaningful when used by anyone other than mental health experts with deep familiarity with the DSM-5?
Yet “psychopath” seems to appear here in a colloquial sense, similar to “monster” or “villain” or “nutcase”; a label applied to a person whose deliberate actions are of disproportionate damage without benefit to themselves. Any person or persons who caused excessive harm that didn’t benefit them — like people who massacre students in schools or concert-goers — could be labeled as a psychopath by people describing them. It may be glib, but it is an understandable result of most peoples’ minds being unable to even begin to approach an understanding of what might cause such actions. But perhaps “nutcase” would better emphasize that the colloquial rather than the clinical diagnostic sense is intended.
I think that describing god as a “nutcase”, in this sense, is understandable, especially in light of the bible/quran: both in the pages of those books and in the disasters claimed to be punishments, God is seen indulging in massive and disproportionate collective punishment and other cruel whims. The punishments make no sense as any sort of defensive act; those who offend God cannot harm him by their offence. God is literally far above it all. In addition, God demands sacrifices; that his worshippers give up a portion of their goods for him. These sacrifices cannot benefit God; he may enjoy their smell, but that is minor. Also, there are laws that are taboos that make little or no sense, like keeping the Sabbath, which have the death penalty for their violation. Even the laws about not worshipping other Gods makes little sense: If other Gods are weaker or nonexistent, then worshipping them is useless; the failure to achieve results would be its own punishment, if only the God of the bible were real or had ultimate power. Finally, there are examples of God acting on basically cruel whims, such as acquiescing to the torments of Job (and Job’s family, and employees, and livestock), or on vainglorious whims, such as Exodus 10 & 11, where God explicitly says that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart so that he, God, can show off with more plagues on Egypt.
So a more qualified version of the original statement could be phrased as:
Believers are so confused that they refuse to recognize that God would be a dangerous nutcase, if he were real, when they imagine and worship that god.
=======
All that having been said, Andrew Molitor’s suggestions were confused and irrelevant non-sequiturs.
1) “We have it in our power to prevent a great deal of suffering by rats, bugs, and so on, and usually we choose not to. Sometimes we exacerbate that suffering for our own benefit.”
This makes no sense, and doesn’t work as an argument against the claim of God being a “psychopath”. Humans don’t generally see other humans/agents as being mere rats or bugs, deserving of indifference and occasional cruelty. A human — or God — who actually felt and acted like that would indeed be considered a dangerous psychopath/nutcase! How is this even a defense?
2) “Sometimes I don’t feed my dog for a few minutes because I enjoy they brief interlude of her pleasant attentiveness, in contrast to her usual disdain.”
Again, a strange non-sequitur. God’s actions in the bible would not be considered to be equivalent to “not feeding his dog” (not responding to believers) for a few minutes, but rather, they would be considered deliberate, excessive, and unjustly destructive cruelties.
3) “I have not been reading anything from kylodustin (no offense meant, it’s simply that I’m not terribly interested.)”
Your responses are confused nonsense regardless of whether you are trying to take theists seriously (which I see you now confess that you are not interested in doing), or are trying to respond seriously to atheists criticizing the God of most theists.
4) “Anyone interested in non-performative clarifications or whatever may, as usual, contact me by email”
I have no idea why you imagine any discussion will be better clarified in e-mail rather than here.