(May 6, 2013 at 10:08 am)Gabriel Syme Wrote: Hi Stimbo
I dont see that this is ironic.
Since when has faith ever meant a person is invulnerable to theft?
It doesnt mean that, and nor has anyone ever claimed it did. A religious person can be robbed just the same as anyone.
The common one you hear is criticism of the bullet-proof Pope Mobile, which was brought in after Pope John Paul II was shot 3 times in St Peters Square, by a KGB agent (early 1980s. He didnt die and later visited his attacker in prison, in order to talk with him and forgive him for what he did).
Taking steps to prevent a Pope from assisination is not ironic or hypocritical either: believing in God doesnt make you bullet-proof, or somehow invulnerable to conventional weaponry.
When Christians say "Trust in God" they do not mean "Trust God to look after your stuff, so it doesnt get nicked", but rather "trust that everything is happening for a reason / has some meaning".
While being a victim of a robbery is a bad thing, our personalities are the sum of all our experiences, good and bad. While no-one would disagree that good experiences are the best, its a fact that bad experiences have just as much to teach us and are just as important in forming our characters and making us who we are.
I think the difference, when all's said and done, is that I am rather more free to appreciate what I see as irony in all this since I'm essentially viewing it from the outside and thus not obliged, if I may use the word, to come up with rationalisations as to the meaning and application of platitudes of this nature.
I'm in no way suggesting that being part of the god squad in-crowd makes you immune to "the slings and arrowes of outrageous fortune" because that would make me both intolerant and stupid (though I certainly wouldn't be the first to do so if I did). However, even if the words are intended to be interpreted the way you suggest, and who am I to say ye nay, all you've done is to reach the same ironic conclusion from a different angle. Namely, that the fatalist approach of everything happening for a reason rather renders the reliance on items such as burglar alarms, bulletproof glass and lightning conductors by churches and churchfolk not only faintly ridiculous in context but tantamount to defiance of the will of the very god they worship. It's almost the very definition of doublethink in the true Orwellian sense.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
