(June 3, 2014 at 10:02 pm)Stimbo Wrote: I wasn't saying that at all. I'm commenting on the theist views expressed in this thread, in that the children who were murdered/attempted murdered were somehow little more than pawns in the decisions of the woman who made the attempts on their lives. There's a parallel in your big book of multiple choice actually, when all the firstborn of Egypt were of no more consequence than collateral in the pissing contest between the Pharoah and the god-powered Moses. So I ask again, what price the free will of the children in the OP's article? What lesson could that little girl possibly learn? In other words, was their sole purpose in being born and living as they did nothing more than to exist as extras in some moral lesson for the woman who tried to kill them? Because if that is so, and this god of yours (or any god) truly is standing in the wings watching and allowing it all, then fuck your god, fuck its sick lessons and - if you consider it good and worthy of worship - fuck you too.
Isn't that one one the purposes of religion, to put a positive spin on bad stuff? It helps people to cope when they experience severe mental pain. If everyone flew off the handle when such things happen chances are humans would have killed themselves off a long time ago. So when people say that it was some god's will that a bad thing happened it acts as a calming influence and absolves them from the need to go ape shit crazy on the actual perp.
