God and Distaster

[OnlyNatural]

OnlyNatural, have you ever be in a church setting? It does not sound like it from your response.

Many, many times. I was a Christian for years. Churches, spiritual retreats, religious summer camps, you name it.

If you were rescued from a life threatening event would you thank the person who saved you even though others may have died, I think you would and I know I would. So why is thanking God any different?

Of course I would thank the people who saved me. I would be eternally gratefully to whoever pulled me out of the rubble, to the doctors who treated my injuries, to the caring people who supported me through the ordeal. Thanking God IS different, because there's no evidence that God DID anything. There's lots of evidence of people's altruistic actions, but assuming that God is behind it is just an unfounded inference based on your current belief system.

Christians...are praying for the families and friends who have lost loved ones and are praying for those who need to be rescued. I would say that the christian churches in Japan are already giving aide to those in need and helping in any way possible, I know that the churches from my area sent volunteers to the victims of Katrina and they where some of the first to arrive to that disaster. Please don't think of christians as selfish just because we are grateful that God spared lives, I would say that a number of christians died in the disaster also, for all you know God may have spared the lives of many nonbelievers and I personally believe He did. Many christians in America and around the world are giving of their time to pray for the victims of this disaster and the amount of money and goods donated to the relief effort will be awesome and all this is a good thing and guess what no strings will be attached. So you see God is working to help the people of Japan, christian and nonchristian alike, He is doing this through the hearts of His people.

First of all, praying for the victims does absolutely nothing, except make you Christians feel better, as if you're doing something constructive.

If your church (and other churches) sent volunteers to help the victims, bring water, donate money, etc. then that's great, good for you. That can be done just as well without prayer. In fact, in an emergency, prayer probably just wastes valuable time.

And are there really no strings attached? I find it hard to believe that the victims won't be required to listen to a sermon, or hear about how Jesus can save their soul. Or that God is merciful and that's why they were rescued. Unsolicited and just plain cruel, since they probably have loved ones who died horribly (where was God's mercy then?)