Occasionally a theist makes an argument so amusingly stupid that it would be a shame not to share it with a larger audience. This is one of those occasions.
On another thread, we’ve been discussing the unloving way in which God — supposing that he exists at all — is treating the victims of Hurricane Harvey (and the soon-to-be victims of Hurricane Irma, unfortunately). In the course of that discussion, fifthmonarchyman — a Christian — made the following, er, memorable argument:
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.
– Isaiah 45:7
keiths:
Yes, and creating disaster for his children is exactly what every loving father sets out to do. Right, Mung?
Nothing says “I love you” like drowning someone or wiping out their possessions.
At that point fifthmonarchyman got the bright idea that he could defend God by arguing that God is not our father. He wrote:
quote:
the Originator of the heavens and the earth! How could it be that He should have a child without there ever having been a mate for Him – since it is He who has created everything, and He alone knows everything? – Sura 6:101
and
and say: “All praise is due to God, who begets no offspring, and has no partner in His dominion, and has no weakness, and therefore no need of any aid” -and [thus] extol His limitless greatness. – Sura 17:111
end quote:
That’s right, folks. Fifthmonarchyman quoted the Quran to argue against the idea that God is our father — forgetting that the latter idea comes straight from Jesus. What are the first two words of the Lord’s Prayer? Our Father.
Seeing fifth — a Christian — use the Quran to argue (unwittingly) against Jesus is one of the stupidest moves I’ve seen in a long while. I therefore renominate fifth for the title of World’s Worst Apologist.
After posting his comment, fifth belatedly realized that he had just thrown Jesus under the bus. He tried to undo the damage:
Get it keiths ?
A loving father is not the default understanding of God. Not by a long shot.
To know him as Father you need to have met his Son. Once you have met his Son you are simply not dissuaded when bad things happen.
peace
It’s a bit too late to backpedal, fifth.
This is a good time to quote Augustine again, on the topic of Christians who make fools of themselves:
…we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.
The inanity goes even deeper. I’ll elaborate in the comments.
More questions for proponents of the “choice” defense:
1. If choice is so important, why does God deprive children of a lifetime of future choices when he kills them with childhood cancer or in a natural disaster such as a tsunami?
2. How did God decide that six million Jews needed to die in the Holocaust? Wouldn’t, say, three million have been a sufficient amount of “choice” to grant to Hitler?
3. Why do leaders like Hitler get so much “choice” when the rest of us are so limited? Why did Stephen Paddock get the short end of the stick? He clearly wanted to kill more, but God deprived him of that choice.
We’re more than 1200 comments into this thread, and still none of the believers can explain why their “loving” God shits all over people, day after day.
Yet another hurricane. Wind gusts of over 120 mph forecast for Biloxi:
Thanks for the “love”, God.
Mung is clearly afraid of my questions (and of OMagain’s ‘evil babies’ thread), but now that phoodoo’s back, let’s see if he’s ready to tackle Timothy’s question.
Timothy asked him this:
It’s not a difficult question. Timothy answered “no”, and so would I. How about you, phoodoo?
Phoodoo? Mung?
Any other believers?
Lee Strobel’s lame response to the theological problems presented by disasters.
William Lane Craig’s response is also lame. Embarrassingly so for someone who considers himself to be a philosopher.