Climate Change and Divine Intervention

[Maeght]

I am not denying the immense human effort and bravery involved in Dunkirk.
But it would all have been in vain if -

*  Hitler had not diverted the bulk of his ground troops south
*  A freak storm had not prevented many German fighter planes from taking off
*  A once in a generation calm had not allowed many small vessels to cross the English channel
*  A thick fog had not formed to protect the vessels from air attack
*  Millions of people had not answered the call from King George VI to pray for God's help.

You may try to write it all off as coincidence, but it has happened before -

https://www.churchpop.com/2016/10/06/rosary-saved-christendom-extraordinary-miracle-lepanto/

It's very easy to look for and find such links if you have a belief in such things. It's possible to find supporting evidence for virtually any belief I would say.

I ask again though, why should it need people to pray for God to intervene in this way?

[Alan Burns]

I ask again though, why should it need people to pray for God to intervene in this way?

It is a sad fact that many people of the current generation are drifting away from any form of religious belief, with dreadful consequences.
Our need to pray is what keeps us close to God and awareness of what is most important in our earthly lives.

https://www.trumpetsounds.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Wartime-Miracles-Leaflet.pdf

[Alan Burns]

It's very easy to look for and find such links if you have a belief in such things. It's possible to find supporting evidence for virtually any belief I would say.

The two links I quoted were profound examples of answers to a call for prayer for God's help in what seemed to be hopeless situations.
The answers to these two calls for prayer were world changing events.
Had the British army been annihilated at Dunkirk, Nazi occupation of Britain would have been inevitable.
Had the battle of Lepanto been lost to the Ottoman fleet, the whole of western Europe would have fallen under Islamic rule.

[Stranger]

The two links I quoted were profound examples of answers to a call for prayer for God's help in what seemed to be hopeless situations.
The answers to these two calls for prayer were world changing events.
Had the British army been annihilated at Dunkirk, Nazi occupation of Britain would have been inevitable.
Had the battle of Lepanto been lost to the Ottoman fleet, the whole of western Europe would have fallen under Islamic rule.

Not only is this an example of people crediting god for all the fortuitous events, while overlooking all the terrible things that happen despite prayers, it would also be an utterly pathetic response from an omnipotent god. Just look at all the suffering that such a god could have prevented, if it could be bothered to get off its lazy, omnipotent arse, and make more of an effort.

[Gordon]

It is a sad fact that many people of the current generation are drifting away from any form of religious belief, with dreadful consequences.
Our need to pray is what keeps us close to God and awareness of what is most important in our earthly lives.

https://www.trumpetsounds.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Wartime-Miracles-Leaflet.pdf

You seem very inclined towards confirmation bias and pish-poor websites peddling infantile nonsense.

If 'God' was active during WW2 how come it could intervene in the case of Dunkirk but not in the case of Belsen?

[Outrider]

It is a sad fact that many people of the current generation are drifting away from any form of religious belief, with dreadful consequences.

Dreadful consequences like marriage equality, social acceptance of variant behaviour, multicultural societies... terrible, terrible things. 

Our need to pray is what keeps us close to God and awareness of what is most important in our earthly lives.

And where it's most prevalent we get homophobia, misogyny, genocide, poor health care, infant mortality and corruption at higher rates. I'm not suggesting religion causes it, but it's certainly proving to be ineffective at fixing it.

https://www.trumpetsounds.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Wartime-Miracles-Leaflet.pdf

Go explain to Jewish diaspora where God was in the autumn of 1940. Go explain to the survivors of the Indian famine where God was when people were praying in 1943. Go explain to the families of those lost in predominantly Eastern Orthodox Leningrad in autumn of 1941 where God was. Go explain to the predominantly Catholic German peoples were God was during the summer of 1945. Go explain to the Japanese where God was on August 6th 1945.

'We' won (or, at least, we lost less than others did). Equally religious people, fighting with equal faith and religious justification lost (or, at least, lost more than we did).

O.

[jeremyp]

Exactly. Praying instead of driving around in gas guzzling pick ups would certainly help. We could go back to a middle ages level of consumption.

More meditating, fasting and stationary lives in monasteries or nunneries might help too.

Yes, but I like living in the 21st century.

[jeremyp]

It is a sad fact that many people of the current generation are drifting away from any form of religious belief,

That's not a sad fact.

with dreadful consequences.

What? You mean the fact that, in the 1980's, I decided Christianity was a load of nonsense and that I wasn't going to believe in God anymore means that now we have global warming.

Sorry everybody. I guess God should have done better at convincing me he exists.

[jeremyp]

Had the British army been annihilated at Dunkirk, Nazi occupation of Britain would have been inevitable.

That's highly insulting to all the people in the Royal Navy and the "Little Ships" who were the ones that actually rescued the British Army at Dunkirk.

Had the battle of Lepanto been lost to the Ottoman fleet, the whole of western Europe would have fallen under Islamic rule.

Again, attributing that victory to God instead of the men who risked their lives to fight the Turkish fleet is highly insulting to their memory.

[jeremyp]

Not only is this an example of people crediting god for all the fortuitous events, while overlooking all the terrible things that happen despite prayers, it would also be an utterly pathetic response from an omnipotent god. Just look at all the suffering that such a god could have prevented, if it could be bothered to get off its lazy, omnipotent arse, and make more of an effort.

If God had made Hitler a talented painter, the Second World War would never have happened and Dunkirk would not have been necessary.

[Enki]

The two links I quoted were profound examples of answers to a call for prayer for God's help in what seemed to be hopeless situations.
The answers to these two calls for prayer were world changing events.
Had the British army been annihilated at Dunkirk, Nazi occupation of Britain would have been inevitable.
Had the battle of Lepanto been lost to the Ottoman fleet, the whole of western Europe would have fallen under Islamic rule.

'Profound examples of answers to a call for prayer for God's help'? You either have to be joking or your mind has been corrupted so much by your faith that anything goes, no matter how ridiculously unlikely it is. As you like pushing your own links, try casting your peepers over this one.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/freethoughtnow/hurricanes-expose-the-futility-of-prayer/

I personally wouldn't want to worship such a god who, if it existed, shows such a lack of compassion and concern for suffering. You're welcome to it/him/her.

[Maeght]

It is a sad fact that many people of the current generation are drifting away from any form of religious belief, with dreadful consequences.
Our need to pray is what keeps us close to God and awareness of what is most important in our earthly lives.

https://www.trumpetsounds.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Wartime-Miracles-Leaflet.pdf

What does God need to have people praying before intervening?

[Maeght]

The two links I quoted were profound examples of answers to a call for prayer for God's help in what seemed to be hopeless situations.
The answers to these two calls for prayer were world changing events.
Had the British army been annihilated at Dunkirk, Nazi occupation of Britain would have been inevitable.
Had the battle of Lepanto been lost to the Ottoman fleet, the whole of western Europe would have fallen under Islamic rule.

As I say, that's what you believe because that's what you want to believe. No reason to think prayer had anything to do with them as far as I can see.

[torridon]

It is a sad fact that many people of the current generation are drifting away from any form of religious belief, with dreadful consequences.
Our need to pray is what keeps us close to God and awareness of what is most important in our earthly lives.

https://www.trumpetsounds.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Wartime-Miracles-Leaflet.pdf

The people of Afghanistan are facing a growing humanitarian crisis, the women and children in particular.  No sign of any divine intervention for them, despite Afghanistan being one of the most religious countries in the world where daily prayer remains very much part of life.  So God intervenes on the side of the Allied forces in WWII but the plight of Afghans remains ignored.  Is it because they are praying in the wrong direction ?

[Alan Burns]

That's not a sad fact.

What? You mean the fact that, in the 1980's, I decided Christianity was a load of nonsense and that I wasn't going to believe in God anymore means that now we have global warming.

Sorry everybody. I guess God should have done better at convincing me he exists.

The evidence for God's existence is truly overwhelming.  As is the evidence for the existence of evil.
Sadly many people have convinced themselves that neither God nor evil exists.
If you search for reasons not to believe, the Devil will provide them in abundance.

[Stranger]

The evidence for God's existence is truly overwhelming.

Why have you never, ever managed to produce even the slightest hint of the smallest morsel of that evidence, then?

As is the evidence for the existence of evil.

Which, of course, would contradict the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god.

If you search for reasons not to believe, the Devil will provide them in abundance.

As has been pointed out to you, many, many times, this is just plain idiocy. Nobody needs a reason not to accept the existence of something, if there is no reason to take it seriously in the first place.

[Maeght]

The evidence for God's existence is truly overwhelming.  As is the evidence for the existence of evil.
Sadly many people have convinced themselves that neither God nor evil exists.
If you search for reasons not to believe, the Devil will provide them in abundance.

It's certainly not unless you are searching for reasons to believe.

[Outrider]

The evidence for God's existence is truly overwhelming.

I don't think that word means what you think it means - maybe you're autocorrect didn't understand 'underwhelming'?

As is the evidence for the existence of evil.

The presence of evil is one of the most compelling arguments against the sort of omnibenevolent deity Christianity alleges.

Sadly many people have convinced themselves that neither God nor evil exists.

No, although there a number of people that realise the two are incompatible.

If you search for reasons not to believe, the Devil will provide them in abundance.

That would be the devil that we also don't believe in, right? The devil that is, according to canon, not a God, and as susceptible to the omnipotent God's power and authority as the rest of us?

O.

[torridon]

The evidence for God's existence is truly overwhelming.  As is the evidence for the existence of evil.
Sadly many people have convinced themselves that neither God nor evil exists.
If you search for reasons not to believe, the Devil will provide them in abundance.

You provide people with sufficient reason to not believe with pretty much every posting.  If the christian god exists, as in being both being almighty and benign, then evil cannot also exist because an omnipotent and benevolent god would not tolerate that.  The two concepts are mutually contradictory.  Posting up obviously irrational ideas is the way to go if you want to put people off religious faith.

[jeremyp]

The evidence for God's existence is truly overwhelming.

Overwhelmingly absent is what you mean.

As is the evidence for the existence of evil.

How do you define "evil"?

Sadly many people have convinced themselves that neither God nor evil exists.
If you search for reasons not to believe, the Devil will provide them in abundance.

I used to be a Christian. I'm not one now because all the evidence that was revealed to me as I learned more about the world was that God is not necessary. If God had just once revealed his existence to me, I'd still be a Christian.

[Alan Burns]

It would appear that divine intervention will be the only feasible option to save the civilised world

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/warning-that-thawing-permafrost-poses-triple-threat-to-planet-170647274.html

[Outrider]

It would appear that divine intervention will be the only feasible option to save the civilised world

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/warning-that-thawing-permafrost-poses-triple-threat-to-planet-170647274.html

One could argue that a culture that can't cooperate to counter an existential threat isn't that civilised, in the literal sense, at all. Certainly I'd question the commitment to civilisation anyone who wanted to let the salvation of their culture rest upon the questionable intentions of an unevidenced supernatural 'benefactor'. They'd be so uncivilised they'd be eligible to site as a Republican Senator https://time.com/4800000/tim-walberg-god-climate-change/.

Only collective action by humanity, for our mutual benefit, offers a realistic hope of preventing further lasting damage; only collective action can hope to mitigate the damage already done and try to spread the pain widely but thinly. I fear the first of those is significantly more likely than the second.

Sitting around waiting for Allah, Zeus, Buddah, Odin, Yahweh, Zoroaster or Tiamat to suddenly take an interest is abrogating our collective responsibility, and there are enough people doing that already.

O.

[Sebastian Toe]

It would appear that divine intervention will be the only feasible option to save the civilised world

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/warning-that-thawing-permafrost-poses-triple-threat-to-planet-170647274.html

.  Any evidence that the issue is not actually itself a result of divine intervention?

[Dicky Underpants]

.  Any evidence that the issue is not actually itself a result of divine intervention?

God surely must have intervened to cause the great Permian Extinction millions of years ago. He obviously thought evolution wasn't going quite according to plan in order eventually to produce his most treasured species - humankind. A massive re-write was needed.

Sarcasm aside, it may seem to some that by drawing attention to the Permian Extinction, I am suggesting that all climate change is always down to the whims of nature, and that we are powerless to modify anything ourselves. Not at all; I think the present climate conditions are predominantly human-caused, and their modification is our responsibility.

[Dicky Underpants]

On what? I thought you agreed that actions were more important than prayer.
Thanks for telling us about your personal approach. A few points.

First, why is it necessary for you to spend a bunch of time in prayer in order to motivate you to action. If that is the case, what does that say about you. If not then the prayer is irrelevant to the action.

Secondly - how much time is spent on this - time which you could use in action.

Thirdly - It's the doing in conjunction with the praying that matters - what, at the same time. If someone was helping me - for example if I'd been injured and they were conducting first aid, I'd hope that they were entirely focussed on the job in hand, not being distracted by prayer.

But the broader point is that regardless of your own personal routine there are plenty of people for whom prayer, and being seen to pray, seems to be as far as they go in terms of engaging with issues. So they feel that it is 'job done, prayed for the planet, makes me feel a whole lot better' - pure lip service and ineffectual virtual signalling.

In fairness to Anchorman, who in many ways is a very wise soul, it seems to me that a lot of his 'prayer' is akin to eastern meditation, or the Quaker practice of simply sitting in stillness and silence. I don't go along with any concept of intercessionary prayer, but this latter practice I'm sure is beneficial. You rightly say that sometimes immediate action and focus on the job in hand is essential, but being 'geared for action' all the time is a recipe for making catastrophic mistakes.
A lot of this is common sense, since we all know that time for relaxation and mental stillness is beneficial to the whole organism, whether that involve some form of meditation, listening to music, fishing or bagging Munroes.