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is God sadistic??? Or is it just me?

targobelle

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So I have been lost to say the least. Lost in life at the moment, there was a time when I thought that I knew where I was going and what the path before me held. A time when my faith was strong and my belief cemented. But over the course of the last year I have had some questions and some doubts and there is so much that I don't understand that I feel I should understand.

I mean is God sadistic? I'm serious.


I look at various quotes in the Bible.

You did not chose me I have chosen you

I will not give you more than you can handle

I knew you before you were born, planned you and i know your life.

(adlibed I know)


As I apply these to my life I feel betrayed by God. Seriously hurt and bitter and I don't trust him. Because while I have the right to choose and I chose, I chose wrong and I failed and um God knew it too yet he still allowed for me to fail. And apparently his reasoning in this is to bring us closer to him.

Wait back um I think in my mind, you want me closer to you so you set me up for failure and you know what I am gonna do and it's not working. This baffles me, he is supposedly my heavenly father who loves me more than anything and more than I love my children, but I wouldn't set them up to fail just so they would need me more.

Do I set a candy bar on the coffee table and tell them not to eat it and then condemn them when they eat it, No I don't set them up to fail.

To me this theory isn't simple it's sadistic

Am I missing something here? Apparently my life was to set me up to need God more and it's done the opposite b/c I don't trust him at all..... yet he knew this and still he allowed it......
 

Usehername

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C.S. Lewis said this: "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods"

God is not sadistic. I assure you of this; I can do this because a) I've had similar thoughts to yours before and b) my faith is currently in the "mood" where my heart fully understands the love behind Letting Us Live Our Lives.

Analogy:
*If you were a child (who was old enough to know better and not simply an infant), would you rather your parent
a) step-by-step planned out your life, told you what to do, eat, think, how to behave, when to do x, y and z... what to decide was important, how to invest your time, who to love, when to love them, when to work and when to decide to go to sleep. and when you as a child are supposed to say "i love you" to your parent, and how to say it

or would you

b) step back and have faith that their teachings hold deep enough into your soul that even when you do make mistakes, they let you make them because your life ultimately is yours. That this parent would have faith to know that when you make mistakes, you'll clean up your own messes and do the best with your choices you have.

God is not sadistic. He's just the parent making the (harder, but more worthwhile) best choice for the children he loves so much. It hurts God a lot to see us mess up, but God works with us on whatever path we're on. He's talented like that, making something amazing out of something so crappy like the terrible choices we've made that leave us with (what looks like to us) not many good options.

have a little faith in the "mood" you state that you've had before. you'll come around to it again.
 

cafe

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I do not think God is sadistic, but neither is he particularly tame or gentle with our feelings. The God of the Bible is pretty extreme. I think there is textual evidence that he feels our suffering along with us, but very little evidence that he protects his people from suffering if you look at the big picture. There is vast amounts of extreme suffering in the Bible and it isn't unusual for his prophets to experience episodes of suicidal depression, to which he generally responds with something like "suck it up."
 

Recoleta

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I can definitely see where you're coming from...I have thought those same things before in my life. The way I have to look at it is that God is strong in our weaknesses. Sometimes you have to keep the big picture in mind...God knows what's going on, but we as humans are very short-sighted and limited in what we know. I mean look at the life of Joseph in the Bible:

Life was good for Joseph, I mean he had the coat of many colors and everything. His dad favored him above all his other brothers. However, then jealousy kicked in and his very brothers sold him into slavery, however through his diligence and dedication to serving the Lord regardless of his circumstances he was promoted to be 2nd in command in the house of his master, Potifer (sp?). However, Potifer's wife lusted after Joseph, and when Joseph tried to be loyal to his master by refusing to sleep with her, the wife lied saying he tried to sleep with/rape her and he was thrown into jail!! Even in jail God was still at work in his life. To make a long story short, God used Joseph to interpret the dreams of the pharoah and save the country (and other surrounding countries) from a famine that lasted 7 years...and he was eventually reunited with his family.

Do you think Joseph doubted God when he was sold into slavery or when he was in jail? I would certainly say so. Joseph had no idea how it would all work out, but the thing I see with Joseph is that he made himself available for God to use even in his tough times.
 

Totenkindly

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Sigh. This question was ironic.

Rose and I were talking about it on Sunday briefly, and I decided that God cannot be truly sadistic... because if he is, he is extremely incompetent.

Because if He were omnipotent and truly sadistic, we would be in a great deal more pain that some of us actually are right this moment. :(

targo said:
I look at various quotes in the Bible:
You did not chose me I have chosen you
I will not give you more than you can handle
I knew you before you were born, planned you and i know your life.

No one is going to quibble over a fumbled participle, hon. :hug:

Wait back um I think in my mind, you want me closer to you so you set me up for failure and you know what I am gonna do and it's not working. This baffles me, he is supposedly my heavenly father who loves me more than anything and more than I love my children, but I wouldn't set them up to fail just so they would need me more.

That is an interesting way to put things. The only logical response is something like, "Well, God knows that without Him we are all going to be unhappy, so He wants us to come back to Him" .. but you are so right:

Human parents, GOOD human parents, make it their goal to equip their children to act independently. They make themselves expendable, so that the child can become fully adult and autonomous.

And yet inside the child, there is an image of the parent, burning brightly. All healthy children seem to have this sense of the "parent" inside the child, even when the parent is dead and gone. The child knows she is not alone. No matter where they go, the parent is there:

Billy Joel said:
...Goodnight, my angel
Now it's time to dream
And dream how wonderful your life will be
Someday your child may cry
And if you sing this lullabye
Then in your heart
There will always be a part of me

Someday we'll all be gone
But lullabyes go on and on...
They never die
That's how you
And I
Will be

Sigh. Anyway.

Am I missing something here? Apparently my life was to set me up to need God more and it's done the opposite b/c I don't trust him at all..... yet he knew this and still he allowed it......

It is not even a given in Christian circles that God knows everything, Targ. People are still debating it. (I think it's called "Open Theology" -- on the premise that if we truly have free will, then God cannot know what we might do. I don't know about that. I'm just saying, nothing is ever really that clear-cut.)

When you say things like this, it makes me wonder how much my beliefs have changed. I seem to have gotten this idea that God wants to make me more like Jesus... and part of that is me acting like Jesus even when I have no proof that God is real.

In other words, God is making me independent and autonomous so that regardless of whether or not I can be sure Jesus and God are "true," I still reflect Him. I am to be a mini-Jesus, no matter where I go or what I do. Isn't that funny? That I can't even be sure God is there, because he isn't actually trying to be codependent and force me to come crawling home...? [Back to the Patient Father AKA Prodigal Son parable...]

And yet in the end, we are still reflections of him... and the sort of people who he would want to spend eternity with if he had the choice.

I think that is more the shaping of life, if you believe in the Christian God: That we are being shaped into people who can spent eternity with God and each other. Community. And if we truly love God, we won't need to have him beat us over the head and make us "dependent" on him in a codependent way, we would just rely on him and love him like a daddy... someone beyond us, who we somehow trust loves us and strengthens us and would give himself for us, so we don't have to fear him. And that leads us to give back.

(I'm sorry, I'm thinking out loud as I go. I do not mean to gloss over what you are going through right now. I know how hard it is. Sometimes life seems like one big joke, to be honest... and yet...?)

...Do you think Joseph doubted God when he was sold into slavery or when he was in jail? I would certainly say so. Joseph had no idea how it would all work out, but the thing I see with Joseph is that he made himself available for God to use even in his tough times.

I'm not sure. Realistically he should have doubted. I do know the Bible never really goes deeply into Joseph's fears. He usually seems to be as cool as a cucumber. The only time we see him really get emotional and break down is when he purposefully torments his brothers and threatens to imprison Benjamin, partly because I think he is angry and partly because he is testing them... and when he sees they have changed, his heart melts and he can't keep up the charade any longer.
 

targobelle

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I have glanced through the responses but in my numbness I am not ready to respond to it all.

Jen, pablo (aka pabs) and I were having this conversation last night. He and I are at a cross roads with our walk with God. And while we cannot completely turn our back on him b/c well we know what we know, it's just hard in this moment to even remotely comprehend all that is happening.
 

runvardh

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Our Lord is like a silversmith holding us to the purifying fire, but just long enough to see us reflect his image. I have felt the flame and still do; it hurts like a bitch, but I have to trust that the pain makes me stronger. I believe I am being prepared for something; what I don't know, but I feel it deep within.
 

swordpath

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How people can claim God isn't sadistic (if he does exist) is what's beyond me.
 

sassafrassquatch

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God is not sadistic. He's just the parent making the (harder, but more worthwhile) best choice for the children he loves so much. It hurts God a lot to see us mess up, but God works with us on whatever path we're on. He's talented like that, making something amazing out of something so crappy like the terrible choices we've made that leave us with (what looks like to us) not many good options.

Christianity's infantilization of humanity is disgusting. If god is a parent then he has allowed his children to stick knives in the electric outlet numerous times. I don't see that humanity has learned anything from it's unmitigated suffering.

I do not think God is sadistic, but neither is he particularly tame or gentle with our feelings. The God of the Bible is pretty extreme. I think there is textual evidence that he feels our suffering along with us, but very little evidence that he protects his people from suffering if you look at the big picture. There is vast amounts of extreme suffering in the Bible and it isn't unusual for his prophets to experience episodes of suicidal depression, to which he generally responds with something like "suck it up."

Your god is a sadist, a rapist and a mass murderer who sent a flood to kill all life save one tiny boat and ordered the ethnic cleansing of Canaan.

Am I missing something here? Apparently my life was to set me up to need God more and it's done the opposite b/c I don't trust him at all..... yet he knew this and still he allowed it......

redpillhandsmps8.jpg


Take your life back.​
 

sassafrassquatch

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You don't believe in the mentality that "that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger"?

What lesson is god trying to teach us with AIDS, cancer, starvation, rape, murder, abuse, genocide, etc? What is the point of it all? What are we supposed to learn? Why do we have to learn through suffering?
 

Usehername

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What lesson is god trying to teach us with AIDS, cancer, starvation, rape, murder, abuse, genocide, etc? What is the point of it all? What are we supposed to learn? Why do we have to learn through suffering?

oh, i see your point now.


i have no idea; that's one of my deep questions, too.
 

sassafrassquatch

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oh, i see your point now.


i have no idea; that's one of my deep questions, too.

Exactly. You don't know. I don't know. No one knows what the real point of christianity is or any other religion. There are as many versions of a religion as there are adherents. If your god was the least bit competent he should have known better than to write his commandments to humanity in two dead languages. It doesn't matter anyway because it isn't real. People made it all up a long time ago. These superstitions should be left to die and be forgotten, they have caused enough needless suffering.
 

Usehername

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Exactly. You don't know. I don't know. No one knows what the real point of christianity is or any other religion. There are as many versions of a religion as there are adherents. If your god was the least bit competent he should have known better than to write his commandments to humanity in two dead languages. It doesn't matter anyway because it isn't real. People made it all up a long time ago. These superstitions should be left to die and be forgotten, they have caused enough needless suffering.

but you're implying that without any religions there would be no suffering--i think it's fair to say that's clearly not true.

maybe theologically it's fair to say i have no clue as to the true point of my religion (although i'm sure there's "correct christian answers")... but you have to recall that Christianity is relational at core. human relationships beyond working together for a common goal (food, shelter, etc.) don't make sense either. but yet it's integral to us, and there would be no point to life if we didn't have relationships. similarly, i can't make sense of my relationship with Christ, but without it I see no point to life.
 

miss fortune

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yeah- I kind of have felt some form of identification with the old religions that used to sacrifice people to the angry god in order to attempt to save their own asses! :) I'm still trying to figure out what I did wrong to have some things happen to me that have, and I attempt to build up good person points in hopes that my luck will change at some point (give money to bums, hold the door open for people, give strangers directions and etc.). I kind of blame it on being raised in an area where the only sermons you hear are that God only punishes the wicked (usually followed by a long list of every enjoyable activity available to humankind and why we shouldn't do it and then a list of anyone who the religious right wouldn't approve of and why they're going to hell as well). Really the only reassuring services I've ever been to were Catholic services in Latin America where they still preached love and liberation theology, but then again I was happier there anyways...

I guess the message is I feel the hate with you! :D
 

Totenkindly

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How people can claim God isn't sadistic (if he does exist) is what's beyond me.

I think I already answered part of that as the first thing I said. :)

(Ever read "I have no mouth and I must scream?")
 

Totenkindly

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Exactly. You don't know. I don't know. No one knows what the real point of christianity is or any other religion. There are as many versions of a religion as there are adherents. If your god was the least bit competent he should have known better than to write his commandments to humanity in two dead languages. It doesn't matter anyway because it isn't real. People made it all up a long time ago. These superstitions should be left to die and be forgotten, they have caused enough needless suffering.

Just curious; but if you had to, are you capable of actually arguing alternate viewpoints / adequately representing someone else's argument to another person? Even if you didn't believe it yourself?

Your views consistently seem about as one-sided and dogmatic as those of the Christian fundamentalists I disagree with.
 

swordpath

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Religion has been the root of an appalling amount of suffering in the world. There is no question about that.
 
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