As tornado bears down on school bus, driver prays, receiving divine direction that saves lives of everyone on board.(Henryville, IN)—It's the stuff of nightmares; caught in a life-or-death situation with two choices available, how is one to know which to choose?
For bus driver Angel Perry—driving a school bus loaded with 11 students a short distance from school as a tornado touched down nearby—she prayed.
Said Perry, "I stopped the bus for a second, put my hands down and said, 'Dear Lord, what do I do?"
Her choices were to keep everyone on the bus and try to outrun the tornado bearing down on them, or return to the school to take cover. Neither decision could guarantee their survival. But, after praying, she chose to head back to the school.
In doing so, she saved everyone's lives.
A chilling video taken from inside the empty school bus as the tornado subsequently lifts it in the air and crashes it into a diner, serves as a sobering reminder that the driver and children would have perished had they stayed on the bus.
Click on the link below to watch this harrowing video, as well as listen to the recording of the driver directing the children throughout the ordeal.
Full story and video at original source, Indiana News RTV6. Story sourced from BCN.
Tags: Uplifting Christian news, positive Christian news, encouraging news story, story showing how God answers prayer, testimony of answered prayer, tornado survival story, tornado video
And who do you think created that tornado in the first place? :)
ReplyDeleteCrediting God for every good thing while refusing to credit him for every bad thing as well is hardly logical, now, is it?
When you understand the scriptures, you understand that death and destruction are the result of sinful choices by mankind. The first sin was the sin of rebellion against a good and loving Creator. Because love cannot exist without choice, choice is allowed. We are left with the aftermath.
ReplyDeleteIn your case, you've claimed (if you are the Anonymous I think you are) that sin does not exist, but you still have not answered my direct question. I had noted Mark Twain's quote:
"Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody."
And I had asked if you believe you have no dark side. But you did not answer me. Any time you are ready to answer my question, you are welcome to. Thanks.
No, I'm not THE Anonymous. I'm just some other guy - but I did claim that "sin" is a artificial human construct.
ReplyDeleteAnyway. God - all powerful, all knowing. Mankind - not so much. Everything is happening because God has allowed it to happen. And it's God who banished Adam and Eve from Eden. It's God who flooded entire Earth. And so on, and so on.
This should be blindingly obvious - your so-called "good and loving" God is the one who made it happen. Instead of just saying "Okay, I forgive you" to Adam and Eve (and, I don't know, not lying to them about the tree in the first place), he threw a gigantic temper tantrum and banished them out. Forever! Oh, wait, not forever - until he sacrificed Himself to Himself for breaking his own rules.
Why was Jesus even necessary? I mean, in Old Testament God forgives Israelites plenty of times.
Other gods at least don't claim to pretend to be all good and moral - it's your God that does his best to ruin his own creation, while still claiming to be loving and good Creator.
In the end, I can't help but wonder - perhaps Satan's greatest trick was convincing the world that his name is God?..
You've gone from "Everything is happening because God has allowed it to happen." to: "...God is the one who made it happen."
ReplyDelete- Again, you've missed it. We have free choice. Free choice has consequences - Yes, even from day one.
You should probably be aware that your criticisms on free will, pain and suffering are a bit outdated.
Theist Alvin Plantinga has put the question of free choice into a logical format and a logical argument, which a majority of secular philosophers don't content with.
"According to Chad Meister, professor of philosophy at Bethel College, most philosophers accept Plantinga's free will defense and thus see the logical problem of evil as having been sufficiently rebutted."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga%27s_free_will_defense
His argument is as follows:
1. There are possible worlds that even an omnipotent being can not actualize.
2. A world with morally free creatures producing only moral good is such a world.
Plantinga's "Free Will defense" is not particularly good, and at best only shows that it might possibly be the case, not that this is probably the case.
DeleteYour 1 might be true, but 2 is obviously false, since it is commonly asserted that the world is contingent, so God could not have created it. If God had not created the world, then only God would exist, and therefore a world would exist in which there are only persons who have "free will" and yet only choose the morally good.
Plantinga's free will defense, like his ontological argument and his "Evolutionary Argumenht Against Naturalism" does not live up to the hype that theists like yourself attribute to it.
Oh, even though I seemed to accept 1 above, it was merely to point out the problem with 2.
Delete1 would need to actually demonstrated to be the case, and I don't think Plantinga shows that omnipotence is compatible with 1 above. Since omnipotence is usually stated as "the power to do everything which is logically possible" (though there are often more caveats attached), and 1 is not obviously logically impossible, then there is a lot more work do to on the part of the theist to show that the problem of evil has been overcome ;-)
>Plantinga's "Free Will defense" is not particularly good, and at best only shows that it might possibly be the case, not that this is probably the case.
DeleteAs usual, you make a general statement but do not show one example of how it may not be a good or true argument:
1. There are possible worlds that even an omnipotent being can not actualize.
2- A world with morally free creatures producing only moral good is such a world.
Show an exception, Havok, or admit with most secular philosophers that Plantinga has closed the book on this subject.
As usual Rick you didn't actually read for understanding.
DeleteI wrote:
"Your 1 might be true, but 2 is obviously false, since it is commonly asserted that the world is contingent, so God could not have created it. If God had not created the world, then only God would exist, and therefore a world would exist in which there are only persons who have "free will" and yet only choose the morally good."
Which undermines P2, since God is morally free and yet only chooses the good.
I also wrote:
"1 would need to actually demonstrated to be the case, and I don't think Plantinga shows that omnipotence is compatible with 1 above. Since omnipotence is usually stated as "the power to do everything which is logically possible" (though there are often more caveats attached)"
Which undermines P2, since a world with morally free persons who only choose the good is not obviously logically impossible or incoherent, and in fact the Christian Heaven, as often conceived, would constitute such a state, as would a possible world consisting only of an omnibenevolent being.
Once again you've simply asserted something to be the case and are asking others to do your homework for you.
[b]You've gone from "Everything is happening because God has allowed it to happen." to: "...God is the one who made it happen."[/b]
ReplyDeleteNo, Rick. My first post was: [i]"And who do you think created that tornado in the first place?"[/i]
It's "creating" AND "allowing it to happen". Not OR.
[b]You should probably be aware that your criticisms on free will, pain and suffering are a bit outdated.[/b]
Plantinga's defense only addresses moral evil, not natural evil. Last time I checked, tornados weren't manmade :P
[b]His argument is as follows:[/b]
So...
1. Even though God is all-powerful, he's not actually all-powerful.
2. Heaven is logically impossible :D
It looks like I'm not needed here - you disprove Christianity on your own, Rick :)
Anonymous 1,
Delete>>Plantinga's defense only addresses moral evil, not natural evil. Last time I checked, tornados weren't manmade :P
- It seems you may not be very familiar with the Genesis account. According to scripture, death, disease and even tornadoes are a result of man's sin.
>It looks like I'm not needed here - you disprove Christianity on your own, Rick :)
- Whatever you say, Chief. If you'd like to try and disprove one of my arguments, try disproving one of the premises.
Hey! The Russian gentleman is Anonymous 1. I'm Anonymous 2. So there :)
DeleteAccording to scripture, death, disease and even tornadoes are a result of man's sin.
Sin is the breaking of God's law. Eve and Adam broke the God's law and He was the one that punished them. "I will put enmity between you and the woman", "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe", etc.
"I". As in, "Me, God". Not sin. It's all God's doing. He's the one that created everything and is allowing everything to happen. He's the one that punished Adam and Eve.
Why is it so hard to... well, sorry. I guess it's a rhetorical question - you can't accept that because that would mean admitting that Christianity isn't actually true.
And I can tell you're not ready for that, emotionally - whenever someone disproves your points, you either move the goalposts, or simply stop responding altogether.
Tell you what - next time it happens, like, I don't know, now, stop and tell yourself: "Wait a second. If the things I'm saying to bolster my argument are wrong, again, then maybe my argument is also wrong."
If you'd like to try and disprove one of my arguments, try disproving one of the premises.
I already did :)
But, to be fair, let me clarify my previous post - it's not that Heaven's logically impossible per se, according to Plantiga, but the existence of Heaven, where people have free will but there's no sin means that world with free will and no sin is possible.
And Rick, Anonymous 1 did answer your question.
Is he a good person? "I'm not perfect", says he.
Does he have a dark side? "Human beings are not perfect, hence they have a dark side", he clarifies one sentence later.
Seems like perfectly reasonable response to your question(s). And what did you do with that? You quickly switched mental gears to convince yourself that "I'm not perfect" doesn't answer the "Do you have the dark side?" question.
But don't worry - you can overcome this habit. Millions of people did it, you can do it too. You'll become a better person after that, I promise :)
>So...
Delete1. Even though God is all-powerful, he's not actually all-powerful.
- Only foolish people bring up illogical arguments as though they have merit.
God cannot sin, either, as it is opposed to his nature. That does not logically imply God is not omnipotent.
Anon2.
Delete- Only foolish people bring up illogical arguments as though they have merit.
Hey, don't look at me - I'm just pointing out the flaws in Plantiga's argument :)
God cannot sin, either, as it is opposed to his nature.
Really? He seems to have no problem whatsoever sinning in the Bible.
That does not logically imply God is not omnipotent.
No, but being unable to do the same trick twice is :)
And now you can, like, think about how things you're saying to bolster your arguments are false and what does it mean for your arguments :)
:facepalm: Rick, I am that Russian anon. The only reason I am posting this message is to expose your lie. I answered your question on the 6.03.12 at 12:52 am
ReplyDelete"R:Would you deny that you have a dark side? Do you really believe you are a good person through and through?
I know I am not perfect. But I certainly do not deserve eternal damnation and I doubt that anyone close to me would disagree."
Human beings are not perfect, hence they have a dark side. And still they do not deserve eternal torment. You ignore my questions, you censor my responses, you do not bother generally to clear up misunderstandings... there is no way I can hold a debate in such an environment. I will still be reading your blog for the laughs, though
Russian Anon,
DeleteI asked if you have a dark side and you wrote "I'm not perfect."
I didn't ask if you were perfect.
What do you think Mark Twain was implying when he wrote his famous quote?
Do you really believe that moral darkness is equal to not being perfect? This would be equating, "I accidentally tripped and fell" with "So I embezzled 2 million dollars over a course of 20 years..."
I don't see how you can equate moral darkness with accidental behavior. Your statement presumes that humans do not willingly sin, that it is always some kind of unexpected accident:
"Human beings are not perfect, hence they have a dark side."
Wrong, mein freund, or, moi drug, as they say out east.
>You ignore my questions, you censor my responses, you do not bother generally to clear up misunderstandings... there is no way I can hold a debate in such an environment. I will still be reading your blog for the laughs, though
- And I'll try to continue to respond to your comments as long as they rise above a level of mere personal insults and ridicule. If they don't, I won't bother.
Rus Anon posting...
DeleteR:I don't see how you can equate moral darkness with accidental behavior.
Nitpicking with words again? "Moral darkness" does not equate with "dark side" for most people. And even if your point was true, that does not change the fact that I do not think I deserve hell. You failed at logic again. I am not such a bad person as to deserve to be punished for eternity even if you believe I am consumed by "moral darkness".
Hack, I am not even sure that Hitler deserves such a fate. Hell is a useless vengeful concept, that does not serve any purpose whatsoever if you think about it rationally.
However, you are ok with the idea of billions of people (including your loved ones) being tormented in hell. It does not matter if the "crime" was to reject faith or to commit genocide. It does not matter if the person was loved by everyone and was helping others, making this world a better place. In the end they should be tortured forever just because they had no faith.
Such rules are profoundly immoral. You cannot claim that these are only consequences of our actions. Your god programmed these consequences from the start and allowed them to happen. It is like a lifeguard warning a little child not to go swimming in the pool, because he put a shark in there, and watching the kid disobey him and be eaten.
>"Moral darkness" does not equate with "dark side" for most people. And even if your point was true, that does not change the fact that I do not think I deserve hell.
Delete- First you stated that all moral failures are likened to unintentional mistakes. But I pointed out that conscious sin exists in willful and prolonged immoral behavior.
You seem to believe that your own willful immoral behavior is not so bad. But according to what standard? Your sins are ultimately against God as the creator and ultimate reference point of moral righteousness. Because God is eternally holy, any sin against God has eternal significance. It's not as though God has not provided a way for you to be justified in Christ, the main problem is that you don't recognize or acknowledge your immoral condition.
R:First you stated that all moral failures are likened to unintentional mistakes. But I pointed out that conscious sin exists in willful and prolonged immoral behavior.
DeleteI do not consider myself immoral. Yes, I did some things in the past that I regret. However, I nor any other person certainly do not deserve hell for that.
And I never claimed that all moral failures are unintentional. That is a straw-man. Furthermore, it is also a red herring. You would need to show why humanity deserves eternal torture and pointing out that some men are immoral is not not proof. A dark side = potential for evil and not evil itself.
R:You seem to believe that your own willful immoral behavior is not so bad. But according to what standard?
By the standard of society, empathy and reason. I already explained to you my moral system, which you never bothered to rebut. I do not care in any way for your mythical God. I care for humans.
Your claim of an ultimate moral reference point is just an assertion like the claim that science will never have all the answers. You need to provide some proof for that.
While I am at it, I am going to throw another quote from Mark Twain:
ReplyDelete"We have to keep our God placated with prayers, and even then we are never sure of him--how much higher and finer is the Indian's God......Our illogical God is all-powerful in name, but impotent in fact; the Great Spirit is not all-powerful, but does the very best he can for his injun and does it free of charge."
>..Our illogical God is all-powerful in name, but impotent in fact; the Great Spirit is not all-powerful, but does the very best he can for his injun and does it free of charge."
Delete- It seems MT had a little bit of bitterness against the church.
The church I'm a part of does not ask for money. Jesus never asked for money. - So sad that people reject Christianity for reasons that are based on mere human corruption that has nothing whatsoever to do with the truth of the scriptures. This is the epitome of an illogical deduction. Sad.
Jesus may not have asked for money, but Acts, if we take it to be historical (which is a stretch) shows the disciples asking for money, and God killing those who did not contribute everything they owned (Annias and Saphira).
DeleteNice God you have there Rick :-)
If there was an emergency need for some people, such as homelessness, they gave Christians some news of the opportunity to help. They did not have a practice of asking for money.
DeleteYou misinterpret Annias and Saphira. They did not die because they did not give money but because they lied to God.
To comment on your actual post - you and the bus driver are more than happy to attribute the saved lives to your God, but what about all of the other people who died? People die in natural disasters all the time, and yet it is only those who survive who God "liked" enough to save.
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn't God get the blame for not saving all the others?
When people are in similar situations, we often risk our own lives, and go to extreme lengths to try to save the lives of others. Your God, if it weren't a fiction, could save everyone without any effort whatsoever, and yet does nothing. This indicates that the people who risk their lives are more morally praiseworthy than your God, which implies a contradiction in the definition of your God (being the being that is more morally praiseworthy than all others is a part and parcel of "omnibenevolence") - yet more evidence that your beliefs are delusional Rick :-)
>To comment on your actual post - you and the bus driver are more than happy to attribute the saved lives to your God, but what about all of the other people who died?
ReplyDelete- As I wrote in an earlier comment, sin, death and disease are all a result of man's sin. There can be no love without free choice. If you believe there can be, you are welcome to explain it for all of us to see. This would also prove Plantinga wrong. So, let's see your answer.
Rick: - As I wrote in an earlier comment, sin, death and disease are all a result of man's sin.
DeleteThe evidence does not back this up Rick. Death, disease, natural disasters such as eathquakes and tornadoes, have been around far longer than mankind has, therefore unless you're putting forward a ridiculous "backwards in time" theodicy like Dembski has in the past, your claim is false.
Rick: There can be no love without free choice. If you believe there can be, you are welcome to explain it for all of us to see.
Being able to choose doesn't necessarily entail being able to choose the bad rather than the good.
God is usually conceived as being unable to do wrong, so God is not morally free in the same manner that we are often claimed to be, and yet God is claimed to love us.
Rick: This would also prove Plantinga wrong. So, let's see your answer.
As I pointed out above, God, if it existed, would be constrained morally (by his nature you've claimed in the past), and yet is claimed to be perfectly free and to be morally perfect. So according to your own claims (and Plantinga's iirc) there is no reason to think that the capacity to choose evil is an important component of free will, or is at all morally valuelable (since if it were morally valuable, then God would have that property as well).
Plantinga is wrong, and so are you ;-)
This is a Havok Spam Reply,
DeleteFor the reasons stated below, I've found it most unprofitable and pointless to attempt to engage in civilized discourse with the commentator named Havok.
Beginning in December 2011, Havok became so frustrated with his lack of answers that all he could do was to post unsubstantiated slander against me. He claimed, for example, that I ignored or did not adequately address critiques of articles, such as, "How Identity, Logic and Physics prove God's Existence". However, Havok has yet to provide one such referenced example.
Instead of apologizing, he continues to post more unsubstantiated lies and slander.
Havok also continues to insist that I am "lying" about Richard Dawkins. I have clearly described why Dawkins is shown to be cautiously open-minded towards the moral viability of eugenics. There are 2 reasons why this is Dawkins' implied position, as noted in my article. First, the parenthetical context of Dawkins' view:(though [I'm still] not [confident about] the moral or political desirability [of eugenics]). Second, the meaning of the word "though" relates to its context in a sentence and not just as a word definition.
"It is understood that the word "though" implies a challenge to overcome while the word "but" implies an obstacle. If Dawkins had wanted to contrast the positive results of scientific eugenics with a negative view of it's moral implications, then he would have used the word "but" at the beginning of the parenthetical phrase, but he did not."
Havok is a good object lesson for 2 reasons. First, his need to resort to unsubstantiated slander and lies, instead of valid points and arguments, represents the frustration of many atheists. Second, his consistent slander and lies demonstrate that the sin nature is alive and well, though atheists such as Havok will continue to deny that it exists.
More like your refusal to deal with Havoc's questions in your various posts is an example of the xian apologists' frustration when they encounter someone they can't brush off
ReplyDeleteNegative Christian News: Arrogant Christian man claims that he's so important that God spared his life while having several others killed.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the actual explanation - that God is non-existent, that the survivors were either lucky or secured their own survival and those killed we're unlucky, doesn't rate a mention in Rick's unreality bubble.
In the unreality bubble, someone surviving is evidence in favour of the Christian God, while someone dying is not evidence against said Christian God. It's the equivalent of trying to have your cake and eat it to, and is simply incoherent as an approach to evidence, explanations and probability.