I was just laying in my bed and this thought popped into my head so I decided to write it down...totally and completely my opinion and I respect 100% anyone that disagrees! But anyways, like I said, just a thought.

Whenever something good happens, people thank God. Whenever something bad happens, people blame the devil. Why? They are both the easy reactions. They both close the case. If a good person gets murdered, it’s easy to say it’s the work of the devil. The grieving process occurs, and the case is closed. Sure the offender gets blamed but ultimately the bad in the world is so often pinned on the devil, so although the murderer may get arrested and blamed, people still see his actions as the work of the dark one. When someone good miraculously survives a car accident, you always hear “God saved her, she’s obviously not done her work here.” Or in the opposite scenario, a really good person dies in a car accident and so often the reaction is “Well, it looks like God needed her more in heaven.” So when a drunk driver gets in a car accident and kills an innocent family but he himself is saved, is that a miracle of God that his life was spared or the work of Satan that the family was killed? If either God or Satan had any real sort of power, wouldn’t they save/destroy everyone? If God is responsible for all the miracles that happen, why wouldn’t he use that power to help all the oppressed people in Africa, or save all the innocent girls in the sex trade industry, or help all the kids who have been abducted? Alternately, why wouldn’t Satan wreak even more havoc and cause more wars and disasters? It’s so easy to blame Satan for all the bad and give credit to God for all the miracles that happen. Has anyone ever considered the human mind could be responsible for all of it? Humans are just that- human. We all have a mind, a conscience, a soul if you will. We all make good or bad decisions and deal with the consequences. When someone murders another person, they are responsible. Not the devil. The devil didn’t persuade them into doing it, their mind did. They formulated the idea, and physically carried out the action. When a miracle happens, isn’t it fair to say that it could be nothing more than a coincidence? Or the law of attraction? I believe that the mind is incredibly strong- positive thinking is like a placebo. Whenever I start to feel ill, I literally tell myself over and over that I’m healthy. I say in my head and out loud “I feel fine.” It’s proven to be extremely effective in my life and I feel like your own mind can explain a lot, if not all of the scenarios and outcomes that exist in the world. Sure, you can’t use your mind to prevent bad things from happening or to win the lottery, but you can’t use God or Satan for those things either. So why do so many people attribute situations like that to them? The more I think about it, the more the credibility of those two decline...it just doesn’t seem reasonable in my opinion that they exist. It's just easy for us to blame everything on anyone else when really, we should be looking at ourselves as an explanation for the good and the bad.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2011 12:13AM by ajhart.

It makes family functions extra spicy.

What I learned in church does pretty much point to this. The only difference is if individuals who believe in God want to allow him to direct things in their lives.
That's kind of a moment to moment thing.
But to blame Stan is pretty unreasonable, I think, because I think people are really good at coming up with really horrible ideas all on their own.
I can't buy into humanistic ideals.
Mebbe that's too negative but I haven't seen much of people across the globe acting in any sort of common good for the sake of mankind.
Sure some individuals may be more focused in that department.
But it's not global.
On 9/11 I had a family member in China. I learned that Chinese students were cheering in the streets when the towers were hit, and came down.
That's certainly not the only thing that would turn me off, but that did contribute.

Say a tornado destroys a gay bar, there are many Christians that would say that god was punishing gays.

Say a tornado destroys an evangelical church, there are many Christians that would say that God was testing their faith.

In both cases a tornado destroys a building, but there are very different interpretations of god's reasons for doing so.

People interpret events in ways that fit with their beliefs. Many people that believe god is active in their lives need to do this sort of reinterpreting the same sorts of events to mean different things in order to maintain their beliefs.

And in both cases, it's just a tornado destroying a building.

and just remember that god caused a tornado to destroy a gay bar in Salt Lake.

I have lost count of the number of Mormon's that have claimed the help of the Holy Ghost in finding their car keys, yet are at a loss to explain where the Holy Ghost was when Mormon leaders were abusing people in their care - presumably too busy finding keys...

Most people raised religiously have been conditioned to view their world in a polar reality. The lessons they have learned over the years have crept into their psyches and their souls and work as a dangerous undercurrent when they process their own opinions about world affairs, politics, culture, morality and current events. Some religions don't require too much introspection and leave spiritual thinking and/or critical analysis to the authority or leader figures who just assume to do the thinking for everyone in their congregations. Claiming to have selective modern day revelation in your church is the "get out of jail free" card when the thinking of those leaders contradicts morality and popular thinking. Individuals have to realize that they can be taught truth. However, they also have the obligation to question truth especially when it infringes upon their personal liberty to think and ask questions.

Blaming Beelzebub or praising Elohim are often "knee jerk" spiritual commentaries which are easier to cognitively process than the alternative of actually thinking for yourself. Religion thrives on this codependent state of mind where an individual would rather be part of a greater collective than actually forming their own relationship and affirmations with regard to deity. When religion realizes that the ones who truly analyze situations are forming opinions of their own, the established dogma becomes more rigidly reinforced and the extremes of good versus bad are more widely illustrated through the media or general gatherings (i.e. General Conference). The soulful "thinkers" eventually wise up to the theocratic leanings of absolute leaders, and move on from that episode in their life. I believe this has been happening with the LDS church for a long time now.

Good things happen. Bad things happen. There's not necessarily a cosmic or religious reason for any of them. We do more damage to ourself if we try to define the "eternal" reasons for all the random things that have and will happen in our lives. I believe that living a "good" life will lead to good things. The same can be said about living a "bad" life.
A church cannot define everything good about your own individual behavior. It can give suggestions, but absolute and authoritative rule will backfire. It always has.

Since Adam, politicians using fear to rule people. They always tell us what to fear and why that what they tell us really helps us.
Moses used God and the Serpent.
Later in the newer days it was God and Stan.
This is the salvation model.

Today is it environmental, CO2 and paying more and more Tax and give up human rights to save the environment. This is quiet a bribe the environmental God system.
Somewhere else, they are constantly fighting against terrorism and are constantly in war somewhere to support the industry.

Salvation and the paradise on earth model have a problem.
Paradise on earth is not now. It comes later, we have first to destroy the non believers but than we have the paradise on earth.
The salvation model. The Paradise comes after life but first we have to pay and pbay the religion leaders.


But in religious societies like Moslemland where Churches still rule is it still God and Satan.

And than there are people around the world, they do not pay enough taxes or don’t have enough enemies. They need an additional taxation and an extra load of fear.
They have all the stuff above plus God and Satan.

A good angel on one of his shoulders, a bad one on the other.

This "good god - bad god" thing has been in humanity's mythology for a long time (as Stray Mutt said above).

Is the interpretations of different churches make the Bible wrong. We see now, each church have its own belief, according to its own interpretation.

People are brain washed to believe that.

It's convenient for them to assign blame for the bad

that happens. It explains things for them. They feel

comfortable if they can understand the reason for the good

or bad things that happen. They feel comfortable if

they feel they have a bit of control over their lives

like praying for things, yadda yadda yadda.... sort of

like Pavlov's dog. They are trained by their belief's.

When you stop to think about the whole scenario, it quickly makes less and less sense. And begins to fall apart. The more you think about it, the less sense it makes. People believe it, I suspect, because it is easy and somehow reassuring. Without any need for analysis.

All of the associated things are equally hard to accept --- if truly, totally loving god really *needs* someone in his world, why couldn't he at least transfer the person lovingly and painlessly? And if god is all powerful and so on, why would he *need* someone to come from earth to some spiritual realm to help him out?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2015 12:34AM by peculiargifts.

I've been asking myself the same question for millennia. Apparently I missed a meeting in the pre-existence.

My TBM SIL shared one of those silly aphorisms:

"God always has good purposes for our trials"

He and my daughter are always sharing such lovely TBM sayings, and I never say 'boo.' But this time I felt the spirit, and commented:

"It sounds nice, and I get the point that is trying to be made, but you're not going to get many concentration camp survivors to wholeheartedly agree."

I thought it fairly innocuous. Here's his response:

"That was man's evil doing, not Gods. But God can definitely heal the deeply wounded. There are some survivors whose relationship with their God was strengthened."

I figuratively bit my tongue and said no more. But how can he not see that the question could easily arise, "Did I get hit by a guy fleeing from the police because ghawd wants me to have this trial, or was that just an evil guy?"

Today's aphorism from TBM land: "Don't be afraid to try. Remember, amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic."

Oh, gosh. It must be torture to listen to that stuff. But, on the bright side, at least you now know that god has a good purpose for your trials.

I don't think that I would be able to be as gentle with them as you are. But, then, other old dogs whom I know are also pretty tolerant.