I just want to know why there is a problem for thanking God for all the gifts we've been given in this life. We thank people when they give us good things.The scientific origins of our world are still mysterious but the best things about life are ours and they aren't man-made. The emotions that we experience can be explained scientifically but they are personal to individuals and give us more than simple survival to look forward to.
The way our spirits are moved by displays of great love and/or compassion let's us know that we have purposes that we are called to pursue. However we are programmed though (DNA) our greatest gift is the power of choice over our lives. We are free to explore this world and influence it with an awareness of the intent behind our actions.We then carry the results of our experiences as a personal reference for future actions. We can acheive a feeling of spiritual fulfillment when we strive to what we feel is positive and succeed against much adversity. Just thinking about the role that fireman play in life can cause the spirit of love to rise an any man.
We've been blessed with an amazing life and the unique ability to be responsible for it beyond simple survival. We usually appreciate what loving parents did for us as infants even though we don't remember it. Likewise we were'nt aware when life for the world was made and molded. We didn't give ourselves anything we simply recieved all that is good in life. There is so much to be grateful for.
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
I think most people who (truly) believe in him thank him in one way or another, at least if they are grateful for what they got, a lot of people have pretty bad lifes and should perhaps rather blame him.
Others (the vast majority actually) of course do not believe in God (at least not the Christian one), so thanking him would be a silly thing to do.
Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
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Re: Why not thank God?
Which god? There seems to be a lot of them in the world. However, most of them, if not all of them, are the product of the human imagination.
It’s like when someone hears me play guitar, they will likely say “you have been given a gift”. The thing they do not take into account is all the years I worked playing in bands and working on my craft. So, if I was given a gift, then it is not the gift of guitar playing, but the gift of perseverance. That gift was given to me by my mother, and I thank her all the time.
Sure, that is true, but connecting this sentence to the one before would mean we should randomly thank people who we do not know have done anything. It is an interesting possibility, but you will probably get put in jail.
This presents of self is neutral in nature. You are emphasizing the positive side, but the ego and selfishness is the other side of this coin.
The choices over our lives are limited. Consider what a child dreams of being when they grow up. Most of us do not become superman, rock stars, or ballerinas.
This emotional ebb and flow is a product of emotional centers that we move in and out of. We attribute the trigger for these emotions to an outside source. We might say, deep inside, I will be happy when I find someone to love, for example. However, this attachment is outside of our control, so we strive to find a mate, or other things that will allow us to decide to be happy.
This is a good argument for being thankful to nature, but if you are talking about a god that is detached from nature, then this argument fails.
If there is a maker, then I would surmise that this maker would not need thanks.
1. some people dont believe in one particular God, so who do you think ppl should thank? YHVH, Brahma, Ra, Ahura Mazda, Quetzacoatl?
anyways.. when i was a teenager my mom would make us pray b4 a meal and give thanks. i started to think, why? i would see the other end of the table and it would be my mom who was tired who worked hours who had worries, she should be the one thanked, people who make something of their lives or are happy for it should thank those people responsible who helped them not ignore them and push them aside as if their part was not of any import and was not the largest influence.
also not every one feels they should feel thankful for their life. you dont thank the executioner for cutting off your head, you dont thank your boss who fires you, you dont thank the criminal who stole your purse and left you no money to buy your kids food.
thanking Gawd is one of the most disingenuous things ppl can do b/c it ignores those who truly are responsible for ones life.
its like when i would thank santa clause and find out later that it was my mom who worked extra hours just to make me happy like the other kids who got gifts. thank your parents, friends and family 1st.
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
Perhaps someone's terminally ill and constantly in pain, lives on the street and all of their family are dead, killed in front of their eyes by a madman. Should they thank God then or perhaps blame him for creating them just to bring so much pain to them?
The term christian is probably not even known by the majority of the worlds people. Giving thanks to God really shouldn't be viewed as a mainly christian idea. Just giving recognition to a maker requires a measure of faith no matter what a persons background may be.
Blaming God for death and evil is something that we can do but if our gift is a perfect free will then evil is a choice that must be allowed. The bad things that come to us are usually by the choice of other humans. A person who is suffering seems to be forgotten by God to some but can one day know joy BECAUSE they knew sorrow.
For myself, it's simple: anything can happen to anyone at anytime. So when another day ends with me and my loved ones in sound mind and body, yes, I "Thank 'God'." It costs me nothing and helps me to keep perspective on life.
And when Bad has happened...as far as I'm concerned, that's part of life. 'God' is not my personal bodyguard, and I see no reason nor benefit to becoming a failed-expectation atheist (for those that do, perhaps they should've examined their concept of 'God' in the first place). If anything, when bad happens, I would say that's when you first need to "keep the faith," because that's when you need all the support you can get.
Again, this is what works for me.
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2. You could thank God for your mother, your hands, your hearing, your years, and the inginuity that it took to fashion the instrument if you wanted to. Nobody is forced to be appreciative of anything however.
3.I'm not saying that we should thank people for things that we are unaware they did. However we can choose to believe that are if our parents are good to us now then they were good to us as infants. The only proof some people have of this is the fact that they are alive, but they thank their parents anyway because they believe that they made a conscoius effort to give them good things, and that it was appreciated.
4.Selfishness and pride are the sources of the evils that men commit against each other. We are aware of selflessness as well because the choice to not commit evil acts is always ours.
5. We are limited but the choices that we have access to are like no other animals. We have dominion over all other animals and our imaginations are endless. We will be forces of good or evil in every moral decision that we make. Dreams and imaginings may not manifest for every individual but only humans are known for accomplishing things that were before deemed impossible by simply CHOOSING not to give up. No other creature can make as many choices as men.
6. Emotions can be analyzed but they are still personal to individuals and unique as the individual. Without them life could exist but humans as we know them could not. Truly life for us would be pointless without them so they are a great gift indeed.
7.Why would the maker of nature be detached from it?
8.Thanks is something wanted never needed.
I'm not trying to convert anyone with these things I've come up with it's just that it seems to me that there is more effort put into not thanking God than thanking him, and I don't understand why.
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
Well, like I said I think most people who believe in a maker and are mostly happy do thank that maker.
I think blaming the God you believe in for suffering is perfectly reasonable. You may say most of the suffering is caused by other people (though I'd greatly deny that, for example just cause there's free will why does there need to be cancer?) but those people were also created by God so he's again responsible for that.
Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
Looking at you.
Re: Re: Re: Why not thank God?
Only I can hear me when I pray.
I can appetite all the people in my life, but that is different then thanking a god.
That is different then thanking a god.
I think it is the other way around: selfishness and pride are the result of the evil path that humans take.
There is no way to know if this is true, or just an assumption. Humans always think we are the best, the brightest, most superior beings in the universe. We even used to believe we were the center, and reason for the universe. I believe this is just a product of our short sidedness and ego.
Emotions are a product of evolution, and were not created at some arbitrary point in time.
That is a question I usually ask Christians. They believe their god existed before the universe came into being.
Why would a creator god want?
Thanking God or not thanking God is not important.
But there seems to be a whole lot of effort put in disproving God with science as if that could ever be done. Why is it considered proof against God when we make new discoveries about the world we live in? Evolution/Adaptation is something that we can actually see within our lifespans. How it's considered proof against God surprises me. As if creation makes more sense when it's simple and as soon as it shows a complexity that we can only theorize on God has been disproven.
I respect my fellow posters beliefs whether I share them or not. Whether or not we have a maker to give thanks to is a belief that will be based in faith even if scientific theories is all a person believes. Existence still has an endless number of mysteries for us to explore and we will never know everything....Thanks for responding all of you.
It's not. But when a religion says "god says the world works this way" and we prove it wrong then we've disproven that particular god. Repeat a few hundred times and one starts to think of gods as rather unreliable.
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Oct 14th, 2010 03:19 PM
