Anonymous wrote:God isn't teaching us a lesson. However, life, with its many peaks and valleys, always affords us an opportunity to find God in the midst of joy, sorrow, happiness, and sadness.

Can I be your friend?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God isn't teaching us a lesson. However, life, with its many peaks and valleys, always affords us an opportunity to find God in the midst of joy, sorrow, happiness, and sadness.

Now you're just making stuff up.

Top pp actually makes great sense.

Pray tell how you are finding God in these moments?

I think God (or nature) is teaching us a lesson about how we should not be eating animals or animal products.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The world is playing out according how we have manipulated it since the dawn of time. God does not interfere or manipulate us. What He does is reach out His hand to us to carry us through it with faith. These are scary and uncertain times but I feel a level of peace that God has given me the strength and patience to cope.

Yours is the most GOD logical explanation. Freedom of choice results in some of the most catastrophic events in history. I tend to believe God (if you're a believer) is sending the message in your last sentence. We are now looking to Him for solace, love, understanding and realization that regardless God is still in control. If God were to totally release the reins, we would dissolve in seconds.

I note there are a lot of none-believers and atheists in this forum which absolutely is their right. However, and I anticipate the usual negative response, my comments and the PP's are directed at believers and not to proselytize. It is a message for us to remember where we go for strength in this terrible time as we try and rationalize this painful ongoing tragedy.

A bit off topic, I used to be an overnight home hospice nurse. During my tenure in hospice, I noted that while the pain of loss was very difficult, the majority of immediate family I encountered who had a belief system in place communicated to me their grief differently. Though very few, my heartbroken people who had no belief system were totally discouraged, fully overwhelmed at the finality of their loss.

Recently, I lost a dear first cousin, a lifelong Buddhist along with other Buddhist and Christian family, who was in home hospice. My family asked me to maintain contact with the hospice nurse. I sat by her bedside while she was comatose and read to her Buddhist teachings for many days and hours.. That was her belief system. No proselytizing on either side, only mutual respect.

That is what I would ask non-believers and believers. Mutual respect.

Understandable, since they do not think they would see their loved one again. It would be easier to think your loved one is looking down at you from heaven and that you will meet them again someday.

Any God who chooses to teach humankind a lesson by killing its most vulnerable isn’t a god deserving of worship.

Anonymous wrote:The world is playing out according how we have manipulated it since the dawn of time. God does not interfere or manipulate us. What He does is reach out His hand to us to carry us through it with faith. These are scary and uncertain times but I feel a level of peace that God has given me the strength and patience to cope.

Yours is the most GOD logical explanation. Freedom of choice results in some of the most catastrophic events in history. I tend to believe God (if you're a believer) is sending the message in your last sentence. We are now looking to Him for solace, love, understanding and realization that regardless God is still in control. If God were to totally release the reins, we would dissolve in seconds.

I note there are a lot of none-believers and atheists in this forum which absolutely is their right. However, and I anticipate the usual negative response, my comments and the PP's are directed at believers and not to proselytize. It is a message for us to remember where we go for strength in this terrible time as we try and rationalize this painful ongoing tragedy.

A bit off topic, I used to be an overnight home hospice nurse. During my tenure in hospice, I noted that while the pain of loss was very difficult, the majority of immediate family I encountered who had a belief system in place communicated to me their grief differently. Though very few, my heartbroken people who had no belief system were totally discouraged, fully overwhelmed at the finality of their loss.

Recently, I lost a dear first cousin, a lifelong Buddhist along with other Buddhist and Christian family, who was in home hospice. My family asked me to maintain contact with the hospice nurse. I sat by her bedside while she was comatose and read to her Buddhist teachings for many days and hours.. That was her belief system. No proselytizing on either side, only mutual respect.

That is what I would ask non-believers and believers. Mutual respect.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mother Earth is mad.

Disrupting clogged urban centers, killing off the excess elderly, forcing humans to curb carbon emissions, and demanding that we cut unnecessary consumerist, greedy ways. She will win. She always does.

You’re putting “killing off the excess elderly” in the same category as “curbing carbon emissions”? I’m with you on the second, but not on the first!

Seriously. What a chilling statement. My parents are not “excess elderly” - they’re human beings, you Malthusian creep.

Anonymous wrote:God is teaching us a lesson by killing people. Nice...

Hey it's not like the Bible isn't full of those stories

Anonymous wrote:Don't you think this whole virus thing is God teaching us a lesson about being so greedy and narcissistic? The effects of the virus have wiped out all the stock market gains since Trump was elected (the stock market being one of reasons republicans used to justify Trump as president). It is primarily affecting old people (most likely to vote Trump). The virus is forcing us all to stay home and reunite with our families, reexamine our priorities, and find ways to re-connect that truly meaningful (that is turning our backs on division). And the young people have to step and self-isolate in order to sav the old and sick (that is, teaching us selflessness). Is God teaching us a lesson?

Yes. The Bible tells us: Thou Shalt Not Lie.

One whole political party decided to break that rule intentionally to enrich their donors, the moneychangers of the Bible.

Together, the lying and the worshipping of the moneychangers angered God.

I don’t believe in god, but yes, I believe this is a lesson for us humans.

We reap what we sow. Spanish flu, bird flu, swine flu, MERS, SARS, and now COVID--all viruses passed from animals to humans. We will get past this and in a few years there will be a different one. Will we take a serious look at overpopulation, wildlife trade, and animal agriculture? I'm not optimistic.

The world is playing out according how we have manipulated it since the dawn of time. God does not interfere or manipulate us. What He does is reach out His hand to us to carry us through it with faith. These are scary and uncertain times but I feel a level of peace that God has given me the strength and patience to cope.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God isn't teaching us a lesson. However, life, with its many peaks and valleys, always affords us an opportunity to find God in the midst of joy, sorrow, happiness, and sadness.

Now you're just making stuff up.

Top pp actually makes great sense.

Anonymous wrote:Mother Earth is mad.

Disrupting clogged urban centers, killing off the excess elderly, forcing humans to curb carbon emissions, and demanding that we cut unnecessary consumerist, greedy ways. She will win. She always does.

You’re putting “killing off the excess elderly” in the same category as “curbing carbon emissions”? I’m with you on the second, but not on the first!

Anonymous wrote:God isn't teaching us a lesson. However, life, with its many peaks and valleys, always affords us an opportunity to find God in the midst of joy, sorrow, happiness, and sadness.

Now you're just making stuff up.