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God is very angry with El Salvador
buddhafoot
Veteran
God is very angry with El Salvador
Earthquake rocks flooded El Salvador Days after hurricane dumped rain, 5.5 magnitude quake shakes region
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9621666/
See, this is the kind of stuff that I have a hard time with.
If God loves us so very much, why does stuff like this happen?
And you can't make me believe that our blonde haired, blue eyed Christ just isn't digging El Salvador. Why does this stuff happen to God fearing people? I haven't checked statistics lately, but I'm assuming that El Salvador is pretty much a Roman Catholic country. Is there a God? Or does this stuff happen because there is no God, we are meant to suffer - and this is just one of the things the Earth does in her life cycle?
-bf
Earthquake rocks flooded El Salvador Days after hurricane dumped rain, 5.5 magnitude quake shakes region
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9621666/
See, this is the kind of stuff that I have a hard time with.
If God loves us so very much, why does stuff like this happen?
And you can't make me believe that our blonde haired, blue eyed Christ just isn't digging El Salvador. Why does this stuff happen to God fearing people? I haven't checked statistics lately, but I'm assuming that El Salvador is pretty much a Roman Catholic country. Is there a God? Or does this stuff happen because there is no God, we are meant to suffer - and this is just one of the things the Earth does in her life cycle?
-bf
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Comments
At last...someone that sees it the way me and my husband see it. I don't understand it either. I know that Christians, Catholics, etc all have their explanation of why there is suffering in this world, but none of it makes sense to me. Especially when it comes to children. Look how many children are born into this world with illnesses, diseases, you name it. You can't tell me those children have done something to deserve that. Or look at how many children come into this world and have abusive parents. What did they do to deserve that?
Because they were "born in sin, shapen in iniquity" - if you're a Christian.
If you're not - then that's just how Nature works - whether we like it or not.
-bf
I can agree with that. But I don't agree with "children being born in sin".
'Cause nature has no conscience - it just is.
No, no, it was my fault. I'll admit it. I just never did like El Salvador. I love everyone else though, just not them...
Oh come on, I was only kidding! I'm not really God. I just play Him on Buddhist forums.
Sincerely,
Jehovah, Jahovah, Jasovah, er Jason
P.S. I, in reality, love El Salvador.
I believe that if here was a God, he should reveal himself to us PHYSICALLY not in the form of disasters and very funny Signs very here and then, even set up an office here... He should revelead himself, like he done it to the earliest prophets...
And if God loves us, he should not be giving us hardships AND not giving us the strength to face them. People die from His command, they are His Creation, they are Resurrected, said to be given a fair trial, but yet, were their destinies not already willed from the start? Where is free will?
I came across an article on the Net yesterday somewhere I forgot the link... It says we do not have free will as everything we do is influenced by genetic factors. Our genes affect, but not decide, I'd say, just as karma affects, but not decides.
That is why, I don't believe in fate, luck or any variants of the kind. I believe in free will. With my own will I can destroy what was willed for me by my genes.
To an extent! Will, however, will always lose in any battle with imagination. And do not dismiss the effects of environment and cultural context.
In my experience, human will is a pretty weak instrument.
'Always'...? Could you illustrate what you mean? I don't think I necessarily agree, but I'm unclear....
My English Tutuor at Beckenham Convent, the redoubtable and unforgettable Mrs. Nobbs, once gave us homework in which we were to write a short piece ofn the use of the words 'Always' and 'never'.
I wrote:
"Always take care when using the word 'always' and never abuse 'never' - especially in arguments!"
That was the sum of my essay.
I got A+ - !!
From my observations, visualization is a very powerful thing. My teacher used visualizationsas the object of meditation pretty much exclusivly (note the refrain from the term always!). I never became very skilled at it, and still use the breath as my object. Though very effective, that focus of meditation seems to take a great amount of skill and practice. I suppose the trick is to align imagination and will toward the same end. I never really considered it that way until I read your post.
Thanks for the lesson!
You're acting like too much of a Buddhist my friend...
Buddha taught life contains suffering.
But then you also mention that what might have happened is that God punished those El Salvadorians that went astray...
I wonder why God (who or whatever he/she/it is) doesn't just kill all the bad people right now. Just get it over with... ?
Uh oh... did I just hear thunder?
-bf
http://www.msnbc.com/comics/daily.asp?sFile=td051001
I love this comic :-P
Really serious, but points out the absurdity in thinking there is a god beind natural disasters.
But if God were to get rid of all the bad people,wouldnt we be left with only good people.
And how can you classify good people.There are only a few.And if what you say happens,then i think the world will only be left with about a few people leaving on this planet.
Furthermore,our world require a good balnce of good and bad.For one to be good,He has to know bad.He have to know how the bad behave so as to maintain good.
And no matter how good the person is in ones eyes,inside him/her,i am sure that there is one dark past.
Tell me,how many of us here can really boast of not doing even a single bad deed in our life?
Everyone has a dark past, yet how many of us can get over it?
If God wanted to give us hardships, he could just have "willed" for pain isn't it? Again it brings us back to point number one, God should have STOPPED us right from the start from going into sin. I don't appreciate free will if all I get is an eternity in hell.
Does doing a few bad deeds in one's past make one a bad person? Or does it just mean that one is imperfect even though there is a potential for good inside them?
I tend to think that good and bad are really not very useful concepts. A lot of the time whether you consider something good or bad depends mostly on your unique perspective. And there is no strict line between good and bad--just about everything contains some degree of good and some degree of bad. It's like preditory animals in the wild, I guess. It's is not good for the prey to be killed, but it's not good for the preditor to starve and for the population of prey to explode either. I guess it's all a matter of trade-offs . . .:scratch:
I believe it is taught that karma is basically action and reaction. I'm currently in the middle of reading a book by the Ven. Thubten Chodren who talks about this issue.
For everything done, there is a reaction. Karma is like seeds that are planted. If apple seeds are planted - apples will be the fruit. If mustard seeds are planted - mustard will be the fruit.
There also comes into play the intention in which these "seeds" were planted.
If planted an anger and maliciousness - these traits will also play into the growth of the "fruit".
Same thing for "good or right" intention.
-bf
To this person, today's weather may be good, to another bad. Neither is right or wrong: weather is weather.
All this "good person"/"bad person" stuff is deeply dualistic and unhelpful. There are only skillful and less skillful actions/words/etc.
Oooh, Simon has just buzzed in and...
Yes, I believe the judges will accept !!!!!!!
That brings Simon's total winning up to $0.02!:bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap: :bigclap:
Now.... time for the SPEED ROUND!
-bf
:rockon: :bowdown:
LOL BF :-p
Wrong? Right? Only insofar as actions, thoughts, attitudes lead us towards liberation or away from it.
Is this duality an inherant concept intrinsically linked with the theory of a this universe/parralell universe.
Welcome to the site, spike!
I'm sure I wont be here long as I do have an uncanny knack for getting myself banned from forums.
Why is it do you think, that we feel we have to subscribe to any one path ? do we need the justification of a pioneers work ? just because i agree and accept buddhism and the teachings, does that make me a buddhist ?
Can you have an understanding of evolution or superstrings and religion or philosophy ?
My personal perception is that there's safety in numbers, and people subscribe to something in order to create a sense of belonging and security. Ask a dozen Christians what their perception of God is, and chances are you'll receive a dozen slightly varying answers....
Buddhism does not either require or encourage labels, necessarily... Buddha wasn't Buddhist, and so I guess anyone "following" him needn't be either.
You can have an 'understanding' of anything. Whether it matches anyone else's, is debatable. And every point of view is valid and everyone is entitled to their own point of view. This is what makes philosophical, religious or evolutionary discussions so interesting, so persistent and so unending.....:)
"HUH? What's quantum physics?"
Hmph... Sounds useless all of a sudden...
Ajani,I am afraid I may have to repeat that question lots of time.
Don't think just because you study quantum physics means that you can shoot down the rest of us.
:mean: ..
k..kidding.
But really,What has quantum physics gotta do with luck and fate?
Prior to the first discoveries in quantum physics, the whole Universe model as we known was based on the so-called Newtonian model, which was well, created by Newton.
He believed that if we knew the exact position of each and every single atom in the Universe in its beginning position, then we could predict everything that followed, the past, the present, the future, everything, accurately. This model has served as a basis for a philosophy that still is embraced by some of our society today, called determinism, which is like, you believe the entire "fate", so as to speak, of the Universe is based on a few fixed variables, like position of the atoms and stuff like that... Liken it to our programming languages variables' before run-time, which affect how our program will run... In this case, the Universe is set by a few variables, which then, well, like you believe, run according to what it has been set to run for, meaning that there is such a stuff called "FATE"
But the greatest physicist till now Albert Einsten, with his research, proved an amazing discovery... Let me tell you how it's like...
We learn in Chemistry that the smallest of all matter are atoms, inside the atoms, protons, electrons and neutrons... But using sub-atomic particle smashers, we can actually spilt these particles EVEN SMALLER. However, each and everytime you smash the electron, it does not spilt into a fixed ratio of stuff... I forgot the exact names for these sub-atomic particles but I will draw another analogy...
You smash D up... D spilts into A,B,C... But today you smash C into 1 A, 2 B, 1 C... Tomorrow you smash the EXACT, SAME C in a "fair test", and with all the variables of the experiment the same... Or you travel through a time machine to whack C again, C will not smash into 1 A, 2 B, 1C again! It might have become 2 A, 1B, no C... Or 900000 As, Bs, Cs each, or even 1Z and 2Ys!
This thus proves that, we have no idea where each atom will go, how each atom will be like at all, from the beginning till a second later, till the end. Everything is random, UNFATED, contrasting the Newtonian model of the world... Mind you, there are still skeptics against this theory, you can join them if you like, but it's a proven theory... And I said THEORY.
So how should we predict the future then, to create something called FATE? Well I believed you did watch Hitchhiker's Guide before... The whole show was actually based on Quantum Physics! The Infinite Improbability Drive is one great example.
Say, you say "I CANNOT FLY!". In Newtonian Physics, it is considered a FACT. In Einstenian Physics (Quantum Physics), EVERYTHING IS CONSIDERED POSSIBLE. It's simply the odds of it happening, like well, you say you can't fly? You can! But the odds are like 1 in 99*(99E(99E(99E(99E(99E(99E(99E(99E99)))))))) or even much more!~ This is why the hitchhikers' can do seemingly impossible stuff, like travelling through hyperspace, becoming puppets and crap like that... Thus there is NO FATE as you can ALWAYS change stuff.
Need more? Ask me in school, or ask Mrs Peh... Who knows she'd know more than me? Mayo la esté con tú, mi amigo...
After reading that extremely long and fantastic :crazy: explanation.I still don't feel that they is no such thing as fate.I am sure that there are more than me here who supports this view.
if there is no such thing as fate,or luck,Then tell me how did you meet your..ehm..Good friend..Its of course by a chance meeting.You were offered a choice to go into this class.
Its the same for me.If we did not meet those gangsters on the bus(if you recall) then she would have never notice me.And thats just because she missed her stop.
You see that everything in life occurs because of fate or luck.
Anyway,I doubt you will believe in this.Just my personal opinions.
Good luck in your quatum physics theory.
And I doubt mrs peh no more than you..haha..:smilec:
But, as to whether there is "fate" or not - well, I believe the answer lies somewhere in the middle. The way I see, there is a conditioned probability, but there is no absolute "fate", nor completely free "free will" as they are commonly understood. Everything is conditioned, but everything is not static. It is a very complex idea that cannot be easily understood, if at all, but this is basically just the Buddha's teaching on Dependent co-arising. This teaching can be applied to the grossest of phenomena as well as the subtlest of phenomena. Adding new definitions and equations to prove it just makes it even more complicated.
But, that doesn't mean I don't find it absolutely fascinating!
Jason
As to me and my good friend, I opted for this class because you did, she opted for this class because her ex-friends did. She and me knew each another simply because we and Norman were doing the duty roster up. If that is not enough, I assure you you can trace this till our past lives and finally to our first-ever life and still have a reason for all this... Fate is non-existent... Does the thought that go through your mind not cme from your own thoughts? Were we not Created by Allah with free will?
As to free will's influence, there is always DNA that will affect our thinking, but affect is not control, my dear friend. If one event does not happen, the other will not have a chance to be affected.
I proposed this theory to some friends before to know if there is Fate:
"Travel back in time, then see if events change."
This is of course, impossible, because according to Quantum Theory again, it will all change and spark off an alternate universe...
There is only one thing for certain in this world, that is Cause and Effect, not Fate.
Fate is I born, I grow, I study, I work, I die.
Karma is I born BECAUSE I died, I grow BECAUSE I born, I study BECAUSE the government makes it compulsory, I work BECAUSE I need money, I die BECAUSE I lived, and it carries on... Fate is an excuse for those who find no one to blame but themselves when in deep shit...
einstein.jpg
It is the blackboard that Einstein used - and his equations - on the occasion of his 1931 lecture at Oxford.
Is that the reason he viewed things differently ? do we all have potential ?
We"re kinda getting off-topic here.... and isn't your question a bit of a re-hash of the one you asked in the thread, 'Dualistic thinking' In Buddhism in the Modern World.' ?
.....And I quote, for reference:
"so can you learn to be religious ? is our binary brain willing to accept easily the middle ground or way or is it just a way of giving up as no positive affirmations are readily available to us.
If we are limited by our senses are we limited by the actual shape of our brains too?"
I really must learn to keep my investigations in the correct partitions.
It's in The Thich Nhat Hanh Collection.
When God went to spank the town
For being too frisky
Why did he burn the churches down
And save Harlem's whiskey?