"Prayer" vs medicine

[CornishChris 5]

I have had a slightly odd situation that I can't stop thinking about recently. Background:

My wife has a large extended family, through her mothers side, half of whom are very religious and half of whom who are not. This stems from an 'epiphany' that her grandmother had upon the death of her husband 40 years ago. The younger of my mother in laws siblings were swept up in this as they were still at home and are hugely religious and my mother in law and her older sister had left home and remained pretty much heathen, as did their offspring (and me!).

The religious side of the family and the non-religious have always got on, generally by avoiding discussion of religion, other than the Grandmother who is continually trying to convert the non-religious side but who is tolerated as she's 98! I have no problem with people being religious although personally I find it increasingly bizarre as I get older - I just don't understand how someone can give their whole, single, life to what i believe to be a fictitious, controlling pursuit. When we see people who are obsessed with, for example (and I saw this recently) Superman and spend every penny collecting memorabilia, pretending to be that person and it taking over their lives we think them odd, but apparently this is ok if it's 'God', for whom there is about the same amount of evidence.

Anyway, that aside it is recent events that have made me even more pensive and frustrated. One of my wife's cousins children collapsed at school recently. He is 5 and was rushed to hospital where he had a clot removed from his lung. The clot was cancerous. He has subsequently been diagnosed with a 'mystery' (at this stage) cancer and yesterday underwent a long procedure to remove a major adrenal tumour. This is horrific. I have two kids and one is the same age and I just don't know what I would have done in their situation. Obviously they have the crutch of religion to lean on and it clearly gives them support and I see no bad thing in that per se.

Anyway the operation was a success and the tumour was removed - he had been given a 50:50 of merely surviving the operation - although now they have secondaries to deal with and the medium-long term prognosis is still very poor.

On Facebook the amount of religious rhetoric surrounding the child's survival of the operation is incredible - lot's of "praise god", "Thank you Jesus", "Our prayers have been answered" etc. I was the first person to mention the hospital staff. Obviously I would not belittle their faith to them in such a public forum as Facebook (and I guarantee they aren't on here), especially in this difficult time but I don't understand how they can believe that any god is good for giving a child cancer, not thank the hospital staff and doctors, just some mystery being. What would have happened if he had died - was that god's plan? Why did this so-called god give a small child of incredibly religious parents this horrific disease, not some non-believer?! What if I had thanked FSM for reaching out and cradling the boy in his noodley appendages and rescuing him - would that be in any way different?

I'm not sure what I expect to achieve from this post. I'm not even sure why this makes me so angry but I find the thanking of some imaginary friend for the incredible work done by skilled doctors and nurses after hundreds of years of accumulated medical learning, years of training and amazing technology crass in the extreme.

Rant over.

CJP

Gods don't kill people. People with Gods kill people

[shropshire 0]

Great post CC - I'm with you on this ..... I hope the kid gets better with the help of science. I just plain do not understand these folks believing and relying on mythical stuff. It makes zero sense to me.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[RonD1120 58]

First I hope the lad continues on the path to full recovery.

In the Christian world of faith we pray for favor through Jesus Christ. It is a crutch because we need to have a crutch when nothing else is going to give us peace. It is what we do when there is nothing else we can do.

God does not give disease He allows it. The Bible states that every good and perfect thing comes from God. All the bad and evil comes from Satan. The book of Job is usually the reference to this understanding.

In my church we have two people that I know claiming healing from cancer through Jesus Christ when the odds were not in their favor. We also have a man who has been an active evangelist for the gospel of Jesus Christ and he has cancer. He is not doing well but he and his wife, as well as many in the church, are believing for full recovery.

Disease is a product of sin.

The Bible instructs that death is certain once. How we die is of no consequence in the over all plan. It is only important to the individual. Where we go after death is the most important consequence of human life.

The gospel of truth is, Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It is on a case by case basis depending on the will of the individual.

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[shropshire 0]

Quote

Disease is a product of sin.

Is it fuck

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[ibx 2]

Quote

God does not give disease He allows it. T

And again you apparently don't know the Bible half as well as the atheists on this forum.

If god doesn't give disease, please explain: Ex. 9:8–12.

Quote

he Bible states that every good and perfect thing comes from God. All the bad and evil comes from Satan. The book of Job is usually the reference to this understanding.

Lots salt wife was good and perfect as well?

There are countless examples of a cruel God in the old testament, but you know that better than I do I bet...

I think you will find a way to wiesel God out of this by theological apologism or some other semantic trick. Looking forward to that.

[RonD1120 58]

ibx

I think you will find a way to wiesel God out of this by theological apologism or some other semantic trick. Looking forward to that.

Not worth my time and energy.

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[lurch 0]

Normally I only lurk here... but... every once in awhile I see something so wrong I have to speak up and call bullshit.

"Disease is a product of sin. "

This is SICK.

And by that I mean in the sense of actual evil... psychologically diseased thinking that believes itself good and righteous. Beliefs like these are where religion crosses the border from harmlessly irrational comfort to downright destructive, full-on psycho, disconnected-from-reality mental illness. It is the worst possible manifestation of religion's habit of trying to induce guilt and shame in its' adherents/victims.

Go ahead and tell a 5 year old child "You were born with Cystic Fibrosis as punishment from god for something you did... its a product of your sins."

Do that in front of the kid's parents and you're likely to find yourself bleeding on the floor. Most parents recognize a threat to their child's health and well-being when they see it and will act, violently if necessary, to defend their offspring from it. If I saw a parent punch out somebody who said that to their kid, I wouldn't stop them, I'd applaud. There are some beliefs that qualify as infectious diseases in and of themselves and should be quarantined to prevent their willful spread to the helpless. This belief is one of them.

Disease is a product of a wide variety of causes from viruses, bacteria and fungi, to various built-in failure modes of cellular life such as errors in replication (cancer) due to random environmental toxin exposure, or just the random roll of the dice that occurs every time a cell reproduces itself. Every once in awhile that cell will happen to have taken a hit from a charged particle... cosmic microwave background radiation...most of the time the damage to the genetic code triggers apoptosis... cellular self-destruct sequence due to nonviable corrupted code... but every once in awhile the cell's error-checking code is itself damaged and the cell successfully replicates, including the damaged regulatory code... replicates out of control with increasing disorder, no longer serving the purpose of the organism's survival... eventually a significant portion of the individual's cells are descended from these... the accumulation of nonfunctioning wild cells with out of control reproduction rates forms masses of useless tissues which begin to interfere with life functions...and bit by bit the organism dies...

It is a natural, if unfortunate, process. And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the delusion you call your god, or anything the unfortunate individual experiencing it may have done or not-done in their lives with the exception of the obvious well-known and documented factual lifestyle risks... smoke too much you may induce a lung cell mal... drink too much, and you may cause yourself a case of liver cancer or just plain old cirrhosis... all well known cause-and-effect. And nowhere in that sequence is the supernatural involved.

Or how about the Bangladeshis? As a people they suffer from high rates of arsenic poisoning... and a wide variety of diseases caused by it... because they happen to live in a place where there is a lot of it in the ground, and their groundwater is contaminated with it... and they have no choice but to drink it... what was THEIR "sin"? "Being a Bangladeshi"?

Again, nowhere in objective reality is the supernatural, or being judged and punished by it, involved.

Believing it is, and trying to guilt the victim to serve the interests of that belief system, is the most disgusting, disturbing, delusional, self-righteous and revolting lack of mental hygiene human beings ever have on display. It is a disease process in itself and should be kept away from children lest they be exposed to it and infected with it.

Ech. Nuff said.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[turtlespeed 212]

lurch

Normally I only lurk here... but... every once in awhile I see something so wrong I have to speak up and call bullshit.

"Disease is a product of sin. "

This is SICK.

And by that I mean in the sense of actual evil... psychologically diseased thinking that believes itself good and righteous. Beliefs like these are where religion crosses the border from harmlessly irrational comfort to downright destructive, full-on psycho, disconnected-from-reality mental illness. It is the worst possible manifestation of religion's habit of trying to induce guilt and shame in its' adherents/victims.

Go ahead and tell a 5 year old child "You were born with Cystic Fibrosis as punishment from god for something you did... its a product of your sins."

Do that in front of the kid's parents and you're likely to find yourself bleeding on the floor. Most parents recognize a threat to their child's health and well-being when they see it and will act, violently if necessary, to defend their offspring from it. If I saw a parent punch out somebody who said that to their kid, I wouldn't stop them, I'd applaud. There are some beliefs that qualify as infectious diseases in and of themselves and should be quarantined to prevent their willful spread to the helpless. This belief is one of them.

Disease is a product of a wide variety of causes from viruses, bacteria and fungi, to various built-in failure modes of cellular life such as errors in replication (cancer) due to random environmental toxin exposure, or just the random roll of the dice that occurs every time a cell reproduces itself. Every once in awhile that cell will happen to have taken a hit from a charged particle... cosmic microwave background radiation...most of the time the damage to the genetic code triggers apoptosis... cellular self-destruct sequence due to nonviable corrupted code... but every once in awhile the cell's error-checking code is itself damaged and the cell successfully replicates, including the damaged regulatory code... replicates out of control with increasing disorder, no longer serving the purpose of the organism's survival... eventually a significant portion of the individual's cells are descended from these... the accumulation of nonfunctioning wild cells with out of control reproduction rates forms masses of useless tissues which begin to interfere with life functions...and bit by bit the organism dies...

It is a natural, if unfortunate, process. And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the delusion you call your god, or anything the unfortunate individual experiencing it may have done or not-done in their lives with the exception of the obvious well-known and documented factual lifestyle risks... smoke too much you may induce a lung cell mal... drink too much, and you may cause yourself a case of liver cancer or just plain old cirrhosis... all well known cause-and-effect. And nowhere in that sequence is the supernatural involved.

Or how about the Bangladeshis? As a people they suffer from high rates of arsenic poisoning... and a wide variety of diseases caused by it... because they happen to live in a place where there is a lot of it in the ground, and their groundwater is contaminated with it... and they have no choice but to drink it... what was THEIR "sin"? "Being a Bangladeshi"?

Again, nowhere in objective reality is the supernatural, or being judged and punished by it, involved.

Believing it is, and trying to guilt the victim to serve the interests of that belief system, is the most disgusting, disturbing, delusional, self-righteous and revolting lack of mental hygiene human beings ever have on display. It is a disease process in itself and should be kept away from children lest they be exposed to it and infected with it.

Ech. Nuff said.
-B

I guess you would have to prove that the first person that had a disease, or that the mutations of the body that are, or cause disease, or the pathogens and their mutations, etc. are NOT the derivation of sin, then I can could believe you. Other than that, you are acting on faith, and your beliefs . . . . Just like everyone else.

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[SkyDekker 1,144]

Quote

I guess you would have to prove that the first person that had a disease, or that the mutations of the body that are, or cause disease, or the pathogens and their mutations, etc. are NOT the derivation of sin, then I can could believe you.

Uhmm, no. It usually works the other way around.

See, if I claim that unicorns that piss champagne live in the centre of the earth, that doesn't become fact until you prove that they don't.

[rifleman 61]

lurch

Normally I only lurk here... but... every once in awhile I see something so wrong I have to speak up and call bullshit.

"Disease is a product of sin. "

This is SICK.

And by that I mean in the sense of actual evil... psychologically diseased thinking that believes itself good and righteous. Beliefs like these are where religion crosses the border from harmlessly irrational comfort to downright destructive, full-on psycho, disconnected-from-reality mental illness. It is the worst possible manifestation of religion's habit of trying to induce guilt and shame in its' adherents/victims.

Go ahead and tell a 5 year old child "You were born with Cystic Fibrosis as punishment from god for something you did... its a product of your sins."

Do that in front of the kid's parents and you're likely to find yourself bleeding on the floor. Most parents recognize a threat to their child's health and well-being when they see it and will act, violently if necessary, to defend their offspring from it. If I saw a parent punch out somebody who said that to their kid, I wouldn't stop them, I'd applaud. There are some beliefs that qualify as infectious diseases in and of themselves and should be quarantined to prevent their willful spread to the helpless. This belief is one of them.

Disease is a product of a wide variety of causes from viruses, bacteria and fungi, to various built-in failure modes of cellular life such as errors in replication (cancer) due to random environmental toxin exposure, or just the random roll of the dice that occurs every time a cell reproduces itself. Every once in awhile that cell will happen to have taken a hit from a charged particle... cosmic microwave background radiation...most of the time the damage to the genetic code triggers apoptosis... cellular self-destruct sequence due to nonviable corrupted code... but every once in awhile the cell's error-checking code is itself damaged and the cell successfully replicates, including the damaged regulatory code... replicates out of control with increasing disorder, no longer serving the purpose of the organism's survival... eventually a significant portion of the individual's cells are descended from these... the accumulation of nonfunctioning wild cells with out of control reproduction rates forms masses of useless tissues which begin to interfere with life functions...and bit by bit the organism dies...

It is a natural, if unfortunate, process. And it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the delusion you call your god, or anything the unfortunate individual experiencing it may have done or not-done in their lives with the exception of the obvious well-known and documented factual lifestyle risks... smoke too much you may induce a lung cell mal... drink too much, and you may cause yourself a case of liver cancer or just plain old cirrhosis... all well known cause-and-effect. And nowhere in that sequence is the supernatural involved.

Or how about the Bangladeshis? As a people they suffer from high rates of arsenic poisoning... and a wide variety of diseases caused by it... because they happen to live in a place where there is a lot of it in the ground, and their groundwater is contaminated with it... and they have no choice but to drink it... what was THEIR "sin"? "Being a Bangladeshi"?

Again, nowhere in objective reality is the supernatural, or being judged and punished by it, involved.

Believing it is, and trying to guilt the victim to serve the interests of that belief system, is the most disgusting, disturbing, delusional, self-righteous and revolting lack of mental hygiene human beings ever have on display. It is a disease process in itself and should be kept away from children lest they be exposed to it and infected with it.

Ech. Nuff said.
-B

+1000

Atheism is a Non-Prophet Organisation

[jclalor 12]

Quote

Disease is a product of sin

As you know, I watch sick children suffer and die on a daily basis, to even suggest that this is due to their being sinful, or for the sins of another makes my head explode. How you manage to be an intelligent person and manage to still believe this I will never know.

The day an Iraqi war veteran has their traumatically amputated legs grow back , due to the prayers of believers, is the day I'll become a believer.

But we both know that's never going to happen.

[shropshire 0]

This Dark Age nonsense has just got to stop. People are suffering and, apparently, it's the will of some mythical, unproven unprovable 'thing' ... how anyone can justify this is completely beyond me and all reason.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[lurch 0]

No.
Wrong.
Discussing actual causes of diseases is discussion of -facts- and requires no belief. That is how you tell the difference between belief or faith, and reality. Reality is real whether you believe in it, or not.
There WAS no "first person to have a disease" as if there were once a form of humans that had none... disease processes existed before there even -were- humans to have them. This is why that is such an astonishingly insane belief... completely disregarding all evidence to the contrary... animals and all other forms of natural life are also subject to diseases and have been since life first emerged and began competing with itself for resources. Viruses hijacking cells to make more of themselves... bacteria finding living tissue to be a good source of habitat and nutrition, and immune systems keeping them in check lest they come to dominate and consume the lifeform they inhabit.

Claiming you'd have to prove disease isn't a product of sin is as nonsensical an assertion as claiming we must prove gravity is not caused by invisible blue unicorns under the earth before we will consider things like mass and spacetime and subatomic physics and forces from which effects like gravity emerge on a macroscopic scale we can see. Understanding and knowledge come from facts, not fantasies.

Reality is what it is regardless of what you believe about it and often in direct defiance of and contradiction to, those beliefs. These things existed since before there were creatures like us with minds capable of inventing ideas like this in an attempt to explain that which they do not understand.

And since, "sin" is supposed to be an act of willful disobedience to this nonexistent supernatural entity, and disease processes existed long before there were minds capable of such, the idea is so utterly laughable as to not even be worth considering. Unless somebody is ready to make the claim that, for instance, the poor tobacco plants suffering tobacco mosaic disease, or the trees suffering fungal disease, or the polar bear dying of bacterial sepsis from a cut 56 million years ago long before sentient life emerged, or any of the trillions of lifeforms that suffered diseases before we came along were all somehow committing "sins" against some creator, (how exactly does a plant "sin" anyway? All it does is sit in the sunlight and grow) then the logical conclusion is that disease processes are and always have been inherent to living things, whether those living things had minds capable of "sin" or not.

This entire discussion reminds me of various people I've known who were into paganism and witchcraft and would assert that they knew magic words that could cast "spells"... and do things. Cause things. If and when any of em got in my face about it I'd invite them to go ahead, prove it, cast a spell on me, please... chant magic gibberish, wave sage at me, curse me, command the elements to strike me down... nothing will happen no matter how badly they believe and want it to, just to spite my lack of belief.
Because there isn't the faintest breath of reality or fact behind it. Behaviors based on belief rather than knowledge are as absolutely guaranteed NOT to work as a child trying to build a TV, knowing nothing of electricity, by randomly twisting electronic parts together in total ignorance of the mechanisms behind their function. Only when that child understands the actual facts of reality and builds something that manipulates actual physics, will they succeed in building a TV. Only when an individual lets go of their "beliefs" and educates themselves about reality, will they understand disease processes and how to beat them.

Human beings used to go about tackling disease the same way the child tries to build a TV... random flailings... chanting... praying... sticking pins in themselves, acupuncture, traditional chinese medicine, codified nonsense... Humours, fluxes, "chi", bear gallbladder, tiger penis and eye of newt... making random mixtures of substances... with about the same level of success, barring the occasional serendipitous discovery such as the greeks noticing chewing willow bark relieves pain, I.E. discovery of aspirin... then we as a species figured out evidence-based medicine. And started rapidly developing actual treatments for disease... treatments that WORK... because it was understanding of FACTS, not belief...

Why, oh why, does this species have such a hard time accepting facts and reality? I'd MUCH rather go for a course of antibiotics than try prayer, or witchcraft, or rubbing holy mud on it, or whatever...

The president of Gambia believes he can cure AIDS by rubbing herbal slime on people's heads... he has an unsurprising zero percent cure rate... there's a reason he is a laughingstock among world leaders... The mind of a child... and this man is in charge of a country...

I can't believe I'm even having this discussion, in the 21'st century... I'm out.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[CornishChris 5]

Quote

Disease is a product of sin.

What sin did this 5 year old child of devout Christians perform exactly?

If he dies, which is a distinct possibility, then what has your god possibly achieved.

The word delusion was used earlier and that is exactly what this is. Two guys came to my door the other day wanting to talk to me about religion. My wife was gobsmacked when I stood there and discussed it for 10 minutes. I told them I agreed with many of the religious principals in the bible, not least 'treat your neighbour as you wish to be treated' (paraphrased obviously) and told them I didn't need a 2000 year old book to tell me that it was wrong to kill or steal, it should be fucking obvious! I also spoke to them because to slam the door in their face would just have been downright rude and in no small way I wanted them to see that non religious people can be decent.

I truly believe that religion is brainwashing. It may have started with the best of intentions but now it is just pure brainwashing and in some ways I pity some of my wife's relatives - one is currently being ordained as a vicar and as far as I can tell dedicating your life to teaching people about god and Jesus is about as much use to modern day society as dedicating your life to collecting models of Homer Simpson.

Having a strong moral compass, being generous, kind, charitable and generally being a good egg doesn't need a mandate from some god, especially one that on the flip side espouses the killing of homosexuals, the cutting off of people who work on the sabbath and all the other crap.

CJP

Gods don't kill people. People with Gods kill people

[shropshire 0]

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[kallend 1,647]

RonD1120

First I hope the lad continues on the path to full recovery.

In the Christian world of faith we pray for favor through Jesus Christ. It is a crutch because we need to have a crutch when nothing else is going to give us peace. It is what we do when there is nothing else we can do.

God does not give disease He allows it. The Bible states that every good and perfect thing comes from God. All the bad and evil comes from Satan. The book of Job is usually the reference to this understanding.

...

Disease is a product of sin.

...

The Bible instructs that death is certain once. How we die is of no consequence in the over all plan. It is only important to the individual. Where we go after death is the most important consequence of human life.

I believe there is such a thing as EVIL, and I have just read it here.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[RonD1120 58]

When sin entered the world sickness entered the world. We also know that a father's sin can transferred on his offspring.

Exodus 20:5
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Exodus 34:7
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

Numbers 14:18
The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

Deuteronomy 5:9
Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,

Sickness, Disease, Healing
http://www.acts17-11.com/dialogs_sickness.html

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[Remster 24]

Quote

We also know that...

yeah. sure. what we know is what are delusions.

Remster

[RonD1120 58]

Isaiah 5:19-21
King James Version (KJV)
19 That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!

20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

Emphasis mine

Look for the shiny things of God revealed by the Holy Spirit. They only last for an instant but it is a Holy Instant. Let your soul absorb them.

[christelsabine 1]

RonD1120, as promise5, your're much more funny - you should stick with it.

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[jclalor 12]

Quote

RonD1120

When sin entered the world sickness entered the world. We also know that a father's sin can transferred on his offspring.

Exodus 20:5
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Exodus 34:7
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

Numbers 14:18
The Lord is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

Deuteronomy 5:9
Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,

Sickness, Disease, Healing
http://www.acts17-11.com/dialogs_sickness.html

One of my favorite parts of "Brothers Karamazov"

Quote

"This poor child of five was subjected to every possible torture by those cultivated parents. They beat her, thrashed her, kicked her for no reason till her body was one bruise. Then, they went to greater refinements of cruelty—shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn't ask to be taken up at night (as though a child of five sleeping its angelic, sound sleep could be trained to wake and ask), they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child's groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even understand what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice? Do you understand why this infamy must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to dear, kind God! I say nothing of the sufferings of grown-up people, they have eaten the apple, damn them, and the devil take them all! But these little ones! I am making you suffer, Alyosha, you are not yourself. I'll leave off if you like."

"Nevermind. I want to suffer too," muttered Alyosha.

[kallend 1,647]

RonD1120

Isaiah 5:19-21
King James Version (KJV)
19 That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!

20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

Emphasis mine

Your myths, emphasized or not, have no relevance.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Stumpy 256]

Its this sort of thinking that gives us the WBC

Never try to eat more than you can lift

[Bignugget 0]

jclalor

Quote

Disease is a product of sin

As you know, I watch sick children suffer and die on a daily basis, to even suggest that this is due to their being sinful, or for the sins of another makes my head explode. How you manage to be an intelligent person and manage to still believe this I will never know.

The day an Iraqi war veteran has their traumatically amputated legs grow back , due to the prayers of believers, is the day I'll become a believer.

But we both know that's never going to happen.

"How you manage to be an intelligent person and manage to still believe this I will never know."

The 2 are not complementary, they are substitutes.

[Bignugget 0]

Stumpy

Its this sort of thinking that gives us the WBC

I am pretty sure they actually used that same line, or some derivation of it, on that recent Russel Brand clip that got posted.

Ironic and sad all at once.