http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/08/...peru/index.html

Isnt it Ironic they where praying and they die, while on the other side of town some prostitute and drugy were perfectly alright.

Why not show some compassion for the people who died and their families instead of trying to use an unfortunate event to attack "religion"?

This question perplexes people everywhere and I have yet to hear a satisfactory answer



fullywired

I am asking for an explanation I am not attacking any body, unless you feel insecure in your beliefs?

It is indeed a tragedy to hear that

As Job said, "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, but blessed be the name of the lord"

The news story for the link you posted has an explanation of what happened.

From a religious perspective, I feel our life is mapped out before we're even born. If someone died in a church during an earthquake, then it was God's will. From our point of view, it is tragic that God would 'let' his followers die while there is a floozy walking the streets around the corner unharmed. Noone wants to see death from unnatural causes. There is a time for everything, even in death.

tHAN following that logic Life is really nothing why live at all, if god has a plan why not just put people in heaven and hell right away.

I would imagine that it's possible that God has life changing plans for the prostitute and the druggy, whereas the people in the church were likely taken to heaven.

because christianity is wrong religion so god killed them.

Because He gives us a choice. The purpose of Him creating us was to have fellowship with him. This is my beliefs so dont blow it out of proportions if you believe otherwise

None of us can really even begin to speculate why God does what he does. We do not 'know' God personally (don't take that the wrong way, believers) other than from what our holy books tell us. I am strictly speaking from a humanly point of view that could never speak for Gods actions, this is just by opinion.

So with that being said, it is in my logic that humans have life as a middle ground for choosing whether we worship God or not. In an over-simplistic way of looking at it, with your question, at is like saying "My neighbour gave me $50 dollars to mow his lawn, but I'm not going to do it since I already have the money."

You have to earn your ticket to Heaven or Hell. Life is where we make that choice it. There is no reward in being rewarded for 'nothing'. God knows whether we are going to be born believing in him or not, but he is giving us a chance at life for all of us to earn our reward.

If that makes sense.

edit: misspelling

No what I am saying is this if god gives us free choice and we choos to follow his way why would, you let them die in a house of worship whil letting a criminal live, it is just mean.

So what do you think God should do? Kill all the criminals? God isn't mean. God is actually very fair.

There was an earthquake in Peru, a strong one 7.9 ... buildings collapse, people die. Is it ironic that people in a church were attending a funeral when it happened? Not really, funerals happen every day in churches all over the city.

Do you think God created teh earthquake and killed people?
Do you think God was suppose to save them because .... why?

It was simply an unfortunate tragedy. These things happen. I don't believe God dips his divine hand down and saves specific people... we're all God's children and sometimes buildings fall down when the earths crust does the Hula.

how is he fair? and why isnt he mean?
assuming he did create this earth, and he can control it. with things like weather, which have killed thousands.

Just because God can control something doesn't mean He's going to.

He's not attacking your religion. Since when is asking a valid question an attack?


Anywho, here's what I say. Christians will scrammble to find an explaination for ANYTHING, even if they themselves know deep down inside that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Nor do they even know if it's correct. But it works, so they use it. Kind of like the "God works in mysterious ways". It's a way to brush some things off, leaving it to the unknown(To them) hence they can attribute it to God still.

Yep, imagine things being unknown. You must know everything.

I just love the human assumption that God reports to us and His actions must be cleared through us for our OK. It is preposterously arrogant on our part. Why would anyone assume that God answers to us? It is irrelevant whether we approve of or even whether we have the ability to understand every little thing that happens. We are faulty creatures, we make faulty judgements, we have no idea of the details of His purpose. We know what is relevant to us. I see pride like this everywhere I go. In the employee that demands that the boss justify his decisions or the employee won't do their job. In the kid that thinks that just because they don't understand the purpose of the parent's action, then there is no good reason for it. It's one of two things; either there was a distinct plan for that event to occur and God has His reasons why; OR it's the work of the earth's doing and it was simply time for those tectonic plates to let off their steam and do their thing.

We are living in an imperfect world. There is no guarantee for any of us, that we are exempt from the conditions we live in just because we are aware of His presence. He set in motion a plan; we can be saved but we can not be promised to not have to live this life. His plan does not fix the world. While we are in it we can know Him, but the earth is still set on a path of motions that He is not going to stop just to appease our meager understanding. God offers us the chance to know Him while we live our imperfect lives on this doomed planet. We are promised eternal life but we are not promised that He will change the path he has set this world on just to make it easier.

how do religious folks explain this tragedy?

What's to explain? Tragedies happen, and they happen to people of different races, religions, sexual preferences. It's a sad part of life, but it IS life. I don't know what kind of answer you were expecting to receive, but I don't see this as some form of proof that God isn't there. Indeed, it is often through tragedies that Faith grows the strongest - the article you linked shows that. Whatever will be will be

If I thought I knew everything, I wouldn't call it the unknown. However, just because it is unknown, I won't attribute it to a God. If you look at it that way, you can obviously see who thinks they have all the answers. Those attributing the unknown to God. Why not leave it as the unknown untill proven otherwise?

No, I don't have all the answers but I know a lot of things are not the "unknown". You may just not know them yet.

Hence the reason he said "Unknown". 'Kind of remark is that?

I'm surprised none of the christians have used the old line; "They were worthy enough to join god in his kingdom".

You obviously weren't able to follow the conversation. Things don't simply not exist because they are unknown to someone.

Of course. But, that's not what unknown means. Unknown is when you don't know what something is or how it works.

Think of... -facepalm- startrek... They traveled in their spaceship into the unknown. You can only discover the unknown, ya know~

I always figured you for a Trekkie

Can't stand startrek. Just seemed a good example with their "Where no man has gone before"~

Hmmmm, you even know the logo.

Do you go to conventions too?

It's not a logo, it's a quote referred to by many programs - Stargate, DIY disaster, eastenders, quite a few hollywood films, the simpsons, family guy, futurama.

And no, I'm not a fan of startrek. So going to their conventions wouldn't be on my to-do-list.

Anyway, back to the topic~

Whatever you say Captain *salutes*

WalkingWithFire, your last few posts seem to be attempts at a childish personal attack. Just a tad, but I see it there. You may want to rethink your style of posting on these forums before you get into trouble.

Well it helps to know you're living on a fault line. Yes I must know everything, it is part of my religion. Peru is an active part of the Earth. You build on a fault line, the Earth moves, your house falls on you. It is not rocket science. The laws of physics supersede the laws and ideas of man. Maybe the Gods have a....

...prime directive like in Star Trek. How can you not love Star Trek what a great morality series.

They are, don't worry about it. A child does as a child thinks.

Still, I'm surprised not many hardcore christians have attributed this to a will of god.

Not enough explosions. Imo, it was like... They weren't human, but more of a... Brainwashed people - the way they acted - like a utopian people. So not really human .

Not really ironic just a fact. Earthquakes happen, buildings crumble sometimes its a church with people sometimes it's a brothel full of druggies.

What I find ironic if anything about this story is that for some reason many people find this so disturbing and see the occurance as proof of something. (Let's face it people old buildings weren't built for earthquakes of that size that's all there is to it) Those with a faith I would think would believe that if you die while in prayer it might be looked on positively by the divine. This is not to say that it isn't sad for those who knew and loved these people.

I was just having fun. That guy makes silly remarks at me all the time so I was messing with him a bit.

exactly.

Heres a later more informed view of the incident.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/16/world/am...&ei=5087%0A


Earthquakes will destroy buildings and people will die as a result. The only question you can really ask is who decided to build what seems to be a large non-earthquake proofed building in an earthquake zone?

exactly.


Hey, I live in Seattle. The liklihood that we're going to have a massive earthquake is a very real reality... we've been waiting for the "Big One" for quite some time. We also face exploding volcano's, Tsunami's and we regularly experience hurricane force winds (although not hurricanes this far north).

Do I expect God to save me? even if I'm in Chruch? No. Never. But God does expect me to be prepared for whatever happens.

Wait until the "Big One" hits Seattle... if we experience an 8.0+ earthquake here... it's going to be world news and TONS of people will be killed. We have freeways that will collapse, buildings that will come crumbling down, homes that collape... it's going to be devistating. The last one we had was a 6.7 magnitude, it severly damaged a good part of the historic downtown and Sodo district. Truly, the death and destruction could rival Katrina.

Seattle is a fairly young city... roughly a 150 years old. Lima Peru however is an old old city and much of it's old historic building can't be retrofitted at all, or it would be so cost prohibiitive that it makes it nearly impossible. We have that problem here and we're a relatively new and wealthy city.

There's nothing like being in a concrete buidling during a quake and SMELLING the dusty, grinding concrete emminating from the structural supports of the building. It's terrifying.

They were roman catholic. What is the irony?
You must be one of those people that think that roman catholicism is a real Christian church. There are many that don't think that.
Idol worship of a piece of bread is just as bad a sin as prostitution. You can go to hell for either offence.

What makes you think that catholic nuns are different from prostitutes??? You must be ignorant of what is happening in roman catholicism.

"Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?"
Gal. 4:16


Nuns In 23 Countries Report Sexual Abuse by Priests


Issue Date: May/June 2001


Recent news reports in Roman Catholic and secular newspapers have supported ex-Jesuit Alberto Rivera's claim that sodomy, promiscuity and illegitimacy are wide spread problems among Roman priests, monks and nuns.

The cover story in the March 16, 2001 issue of the National Catholic Reporter described reports of nuns from 23 countries who have been pressured for sexual favors or outright raped by priests and bishops. When they became pregnant, they were sometimes sent for abortions or turned out of their convents to live in disgrace in society or turn to prostitution to survive. In most cases the priests involved were only mildly reprimanded if at all.

The majority of the cases were from Africa, but the U.S., Brazil, the Philippines, India, Ireland and Italy also reported such abuse. Vatican officials are blaming cultural factors such as the fact that some societies teach their young girls to strictly obey male authority figures.

The AIDS epidemic is also supposedly responsible. Priests, who used to seek out local prostitutes, now fear they will catch AIDS and are turning to "safer" sex with nuns.

Vatican officials claim that they are working on the problem but local mother superiors and abbots feel that the problem is not receiving adequate attention. Some Catholic leaders are focusing on the heart of the problem by advocating that priests be allowed to marry.

This, of course, threatens a major structure of bondage that holds the world-wide hierarchy together. Through the vow of celibacy, Roman Catholicism elevates the "clergy" to a position above the "laity."

If they were allowed to marry, the uniqueness of their position would be reduced in the eyes of the laity. This is what Christ was getting at in Matthew 23 when He forbid us to call any man "Father" or "Master" (Rabbi). He said that only God was our spiritual Father and Christ was our Master. In other words, we were not to put any man as a go-between. The human priesthood was abolished by Jesus who became our only High Priest and now we are to have a direct relationship only with Him.

The Roman Catholic requirement of celibacy is just one part of the priestcraft system which separates man from direct relationship with God.

Other evidence in Roman Catholicism that the requirement of celibacy encourages perversion, is the hundreds of millions of dollars which have been paid to victims of pedophile priests. In recent years, numerous dioceses have been successfully sued by former altar boys and others who were sexually violated by priests.

In some isolated cases, irate husbands have attacked priests who were abusing their wives. Converted priest Charles Chiniquy wrote in his book, 50 Years In The Church of Rome, how the confessional becomes a temptation trap for priests who must ask wives and daughters detailed questions about their sex lives. (See also The Priest, The Woman and the Confessional by Charles Chiniquy.)

On another front, Kansas City Star reporters have uncovered information that Catholic priests in the U.S. are four times as likely to die of AIDS as the general population. This supports other reports that the celibate priesthood contains a high percentage of homosexuals.

The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy (1 Tim. 4) that in the last days some would "depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils." One of the doctrines he lists is "forbidding to marry."

For more information, see Crusaders Comics, Alberto Series available from Chick Publications.


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Celibacy is a hoax.

Many Protestants don't understand the Catholic priest's vow of celibacy. Those whose lives are destroyed by it are silent, unable to speak of their suffering, former priest L.H. Lehmann reveals. In these excerpts from OUT OF THE LABYRINTH, Lehmann shows the diabolical purpose of this, as well as other pagan doctrines of Catholicism. The following is from the chapter titled, The Tyranny of Priestly Celibacy.

Hitler, in his MEIN KAMPF, (ghost-written by a Roman Catholic priest), was uncannily accurate. "This particular significance of celibacy," he says, "is not recognized by most people." Holding up the Roman Catholic Church as a model example for his Nazi followers, he goes on to say:

"Here the Catholic Church can be looked upon as a model example. In the celibacy of its priests roots the compulsion to draw the future generations of the clergy, instead of from its own ranks, again and again from the broad masses of the people...

"It is the origin of the incredibly vigorous power that inhabits this age-old institution...From this results the astounding youthfulness of this giant organism, its spiritual pliability and its steel-like will power."

The real shame and tyranny of priestly celibacy, as Pere Hyacinthe (converted priest) rightly remarks, is the necessity to which its victims are forced of hiding the real facts of it from the public. It is unnecessary for me to say many priests fail to live up to the harsh requirements of the unnatural law.

Similar to so many other man-made regulations of the Roman Catholic Church, priestly celibacy entails many contradictions, much deceit, and often leads to complete spiritual shipwreck of its victims.

In the first place, there is the convenient confusion between the words celibacy and chastity. To the ordinary people these are made to appear identical, and both Catholics and Protestants are led to believe that every Roman Catholic priest must take "vows of chastity" before ordination.

This is pure fiction. Only the very small percentage of priests who belong to the religious orders take an explicit vow of chastity...80% are "secular" priests who serve in parishes and who do not take any vow of chastity at ordination.

At ordination these secular priests merely signify that they...will not get legally married. They take no vow of chastity, that is, they make no explicit promise to refrain from sexual relations.

In other words, one can continue to be celibate without necessarily being chaste. A Roman Catholic priest ceases to be celibate in the eyes of his Church only by contracting marriage by permission of the Church. No amount of sexual relations will affect his celibacy...

Pardon for sexual irregularities of priests outside marriage, whether adultery or fornication, can easily be had at any time by confession to any ordinary fellow-priest.

I have told of the sad spectacles I met, in all parts of the world in which I traveled as a priest, of the ruined lives of so many fine young priests who though no fault of their own were unable to bear up against this harsh law of celibacy.

It has been well said that marriage cleanses a man, and these young priests would have been cleansed of the annoyance and flustration of sex by normal marriage relations. A loving wife and the joy of legitimate children in a happy home life would have filled them with vigor and spiritual zeal.

Even more important, this would have saved them from the inevitable indulgence in alcoholic liquor to which many priests are driven as a poor substitute for their God-given, natural rights in marriage.

The bishops know this well. So does the pope and his Roman counselors. But they prefer to wreck the souls and bodies of the priests in order to sustain the "giant organism"and "steel-like will power" of its organization that Hitler so greatly admired and imitated.

They take the fresh young man, the rough, uncut diamond, use him for the ends of their organization and then cast him aside when his usefulness is gone, and then begin again on others.

The "particular significance of celibacy" in their regimented, Nazi-like organization, which Hitler discovered as "not recognized by most people," lies in the fact that the second and third generation of priests' children would threaten its totalitarian structure, as well as its enormous wealth and secrets. To preserve these the individual souls of its priests are cruelly sacrificed.


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That was a really cruel low blow. To compare women of God to prostitutes. Just because there are bad apples in a certain religion in no way reflects the ENTIRE religion or its followers.

So you are saying God is Hitler and we are his loyal Storm troopers? Since any thing he does is ok and we can never question. Its like a parent beating a child since he was the childs creator its perfectly alright, or if a boss forces his employee to work 18 hour shifts 7 days a week no problem their.

I see so the original Christain religion is not the real christian religion so Basically all Christians before the 15th century are in HEll?

Oh so you are saying God is punishing the people of Peru for being Catholic and taking bread as a sacrament. That is like the people of New Orleans were punished by God for being what Voodoo. Then why would your God not kill just the people who are guilty of the sin. You know Antiaging everyone dies sooner or later and how you die has nothing to do with your religion, lucky you.

I just can't believe how hateful people can be.

I am seeing a need to defame God's character in your thread. I think it is too easy to get into an argument over whether God is mean to let His people die tragically when in reality God allows lots of people to die that way. If life were what it was all about, and death were the end it probably would be mean to cause death early, but there is eternity which Christians look forward to after death. The hope of Eternity does not take away the pain of separation and dying here and now, but it gives peace and assurance at times like this when there are no answers. God does not answer to us, and we fool ourselves if we try to demand He answer to us.
Was this tragic? Yes. Was it useless? No. God causes all things to work for the good of those who love Him...

[quote name='antiaging' date='Aug 18 2007, 07:10 AM' post='1836226']
They were roman catholic. What is the irony?
You must be one of those people that think that roman catholicism is a real Christian church. There are many that don't think that.
Idol worship of a piece of bread is just as bad a sin as prostitution. You can go to hell for either offence.

What makes you think that catholic nuns are different from prostitutes??? You must be ignorant of what is happening in roman catholicism.

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That is a horrible thing to say... how dare you attack a specific group of believers in such a ridiculous way! This forum has rules that maybe you need to go back and reread. And furthermore, it is a bad example of Christianity to bash anyone who claims faith in Christ. Catholics are just as much a group of honest believers as any Protestant. Going to Hell is not defined by you or anyone else wearing skin - it is God alone who decides and I recommend you leave it that way. Going to Hell IS NOT based on what you do - it is based on your heart. If anyone thinks for one moment that they can determine the heart of another, they are foolish and self-righteous and useless to the work of Christ.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
NB's please disregard this blatant attack on the Catholic faith, and remember that not all christians believe this way.

PS - if you get all your info from Chick Publications, I would be in serious doubt as to the level of compassion and love you are learning to live.

If Christians look forward to after death what is the point of life.god does not answer to us. really? so you are saying Go can do any thing he wants kill us, torture us just because he created us is that your point of view as to parent child relationship? SO a child has to love an abusive father? LEts go over the Bible: Killed millions of people including kids and new borns, including billions of animals (did the animals also sin?)and vegetation in Flood, He destroyed Sodom and Gommoro also killing children who never sinned, He made Abraham kill his son and only the Angels saved this son but also caused him to be blind, He made a wager with the devil and utterly destroyed Jobs (who was a fervent believer)life, he took away his loving family, destroyed his way of life, made him sick etc (I thought gambling is a sin), Though shall make no Idol (isnt that Pride), Though shall not eat from the tree of life (Greed), What about the Egypt he killed first born sons, turned rivers into blood causing famine, he caused locust invasion, why? What did those children have to do with enslaving the Jews? I believe in a higher power dont get me wrong, but to believe in the god depicted in the Bible is insanity, why unconditional love for an abusive creator?

Very low and very wrong of you thats why its reported