Man tests God but gets eaten by lions

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The only thing this proves is the existance of stupidity.

And maybe lions. Maybe.

 

God is not commanded by us mere mortals. Anyone who tries that soon earns a Darwin award...

 

Obviously God wanted this thread to be here since it is no longer in Whatnots.

Beren is an agent of The Lord!

All bow down and worship him and give him... cheese! Lots of cheese! And beer! And beer with cheese in it!

[ *holds up his staff of moderator power and basks in the power and worship accorded to him* Anyway, I recognize this thread invites both religious/serious discussions as well as more light-hearted commentary. Straddling the line as it does, I may as well bring it here. ] - Beren

[ August 23, 2006, 12:45: Message edited by: Beren ]

 

MoN - if this man had not have been killed by the lions, what would your reaction to this story be?

 

And what about those who have second helpings?

 

To me, too, actually. When I think to long while translating my answer, some of the points get lost.

It all started with me saying that "to me it's just proof that gods (was he praying to God or Allah?) don't let it happen that people make stooges of them." Like Gnarf said, you can't command God.

What did the man want from God? What did he want at all? Did he want to proof God? You don't need to do that. It's a "believe", you can't proove anything. You just have to trust Him. Did he want to be invincible? You can't demand that from God. There is no reason at all to act agressive to lions. And no reason at all to demand that God will help you in a case like this stupidity. God gives us enough warnings. I'd like to tell a 'joke' here but that would turn into an other long post. It's fits the 'Lionheart' nicely, I guess.

I have a hard times explaining the stuff in the alinea with the conclusions...
Lots of people die. War, hunger, disease, 'too old', accidents, stupidity, laws of nature etc. God indeed does as He likes, but He doesn't act just because He feels like doing so. He has a plan and we don't understand that yet.

I see God as Someone who's good for us. That's where I start my reason. But hardly ever people try to see it from my eyes when they're talking about my thoughts or opinions. They see God as a cynical bully, and they start to reason from that point. That way they will never understand what I mean.

To us, God doesn't seem that constant. I have lot of questions myself, but I'll get my answers and I'm sure it's better than just "Because I felt like it, son"

That's what I had thought, yes. There might be other reasons for his death, though.

I think we have a miscommunication here. I think it has something to do with this: "Cows are animals, but not all animals are cows." Yeah, that is a weird comparison But I have the idea that we are not on the same frequency...

I'd be surprised, I guess. Wondering what there was in the lion's food. Did it make them fat and lazy?
I'd be wondering what reasons God had to save this man. I won't say: "See? God helps every fool who asks for it."

/me wonders what kind of cheese Beren wants. He didn't state his preferences in the 'cheese' thread.
/me offers a piece of Old Amsterdam. Hope you like it, Beren.

 

Only if you want me to be ignorant. The latter half of the sentence wasn't the purpose of the phrase nor the action. The quote above is... like they say...

It's a fully correct interpretion and makes sense. But that isn't the point here, as usual. The real point is that you do not want to doubt your faith. The same as with abortion, draft, euthanasia, and prostitution. Like in the previously mentioned cases, it's better to use your breath where it counts. So I hope that those who read this will mark my words better than our priest here.

[ August 24, 2006, 03:04: Message edited by: Wordplay ]

 

"Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

All this incident proves to me is that the man was really unbelievably stupid or maybe just insane.

 

Great, so it turns out the BoM is full of Atheists.

As for the man, he obviously:

Had different beliefs,
Believes in a different God,
Didn't read the bible to the full/correctly understood it,
Was high,
Or had mental disabilities.

 

What do you mean by that exactly, Eldular?

 

I can't believe that this has become a serious debate. The guy was a nut and now he's dead. What else is there to say?

 

Well, I'm trying to puzzle out MoN's belief here - it seems like prayer is an absolutely worthless exercise because you get the exact same results after having prayed as if you'd never prayed at all. So what exactly is the good of prayer?

 

It's not my place to judge anyone, but I think this man was just a bit hypocrite. The Bible speaks against going in front of a crowd, like "Look how much I believe in you, God!"

I doubt God wanted him to feed himself to the lions. The rope was still there where he left it. He could have turned back anytime, but decided to go on against the will of God.

 

Thank you Larry!

I didn't want this thread to end up this serious, actually. I'm not much of a debater, as you can see; Thanks to my english and the medium I'm using. I'd rather speak with people than type things out. (this is why I most often don't take part in the AoDA). Some people interpret my words incorrect, because of this, and yet they claim it's a fully correct interpretation (You simply can't say of yourself that you interpret someone's words correct, and surely not when someone is trying to explain himself after he thinks his words are misinterpret. Looks like (and I'm am too judgemental right now, I fear) Wordplay just wanted to get his right, while I thought he just had questions for me, which I try to explain. A pity, if my judgement is true.

Aik: The main goal of prayers is to give God my thanks and praise. Then, to tell Him what bothers me and that I trust His wise rule, which I often don't understand. Then, I pray for others, asking Him to help the ill, stop wars, help the poor. After that I pray for myself, for all kind of matters that I would like to see fixed.
Here comes the part that you would be interested in, I guess:
The good of prayer is not that I can ask anything and expect that to happen. Prayer is not a controlling device to let God do what I ask Him. Some things are just not good for me, eventhough they may seem that way.
For instance: If someone is unemployed, it seems logical to us that the thing to ask for is "Please, help me find a job". God, though, might have other plans for him. For example (just a possibility) that He wants to show the world that he doesn't need a job to stay alive. That this whole system of jobs and taxes is just 1 of a 100 possibilities that humans thought up. Who knows?
In fact, to me (to me!) prayer is the a way to tell God that you trust He is the one who will give you the things you ask Him for, and that it's not by our own prestige. That is why you can often see the latin words "Deo Volente" if christians hope to achieve something.

Back to the initial perpose of the thread:
I wonder if the lions had his brains as a light dessert.

 

This thread only shows us one thing: god either exist or it doesn't. Note that I'm using "it", since I highly doubt allmighty, eternal being would be male in the first place, or female to that matter.
So, we could twist this into hundred directions, either claim that God din't exist, or it did but didn't help, or perhaps even helped the lions, seeing that this was a direct insult to him, a verbal middle finger.

Then again, I could walk across a highway, pointing my "international finger" to the sky, screaming "GOD DOESN'T EXIST, OR IF HE DOES HE'S A MORON WITHOUT REAL POWERS!!!" and still get home in one piece.

Anyways, as one wise man once said, "There's only two things infinite in this world: the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe."
If I put it there incorrectly, feel free to tell it to me, just prepare to notice I don't care

 

I see we are finally getting to a conclusion.

 

Actually... no. Wordplay is nice and all, but there is only one truth: the man died. He jumped into a pit full of lions. The end. No miracles. If another man jumped into the pit, he would die too. If a woman, child, and a man named Jesus jumped into the pit, the same would happen to them. Conclusion: there are no divinely-guided miracles. That does not take faith to understand.

 

/sigh/ This incident doesn't prove that God exists or doesn't exist, neither does it prove that miracles do not exist. All it proves is that the man was either very, very stupid or mentally unbalanced.

 

Just because anyone jumping into a pit of lions will end up eaten, or at least dead should the lions be full, doesn't invalidate the existance of God or anybody else up there. There is a point to the idea of free will, if God stepped in everytime someone jumped into a pit full of lions how would anyone ever learn it was a bad idea? You can't prove or disprove religious belief and faith with science, doing so defeats the purpose.