To the UNBeliever, atheist, agnostic?

Question

my mother was molested by the family preacher one day when given a ride home. Her parents and sister died leaving her to be raised by an abusive aunt and uncle. The last beating they gave her almost killed her and after recovery she left at a young age into the world. She raised 5 children and now has severe Lupus and Fibro. She has lost one kidney and has 30% of the other. She has nerve damage and harding of the heart from the diease. For twenty years she has spend everyday in some form of pain or vomiting from toxic build-up of her kidney or joint and muscle pain. She has always been independant and strong, teaching her children to never wallow in self pity or blame others for problems. If anyone deserves to be angry or not believe in God, it is this woman. Yet, she believes inspite of what life has given her. Why do you think that is?????Perhaps there is something you aren't aware of about God??????

Rev: very brutal...."yawn"

the point of this story is to show that there is a side to God you are unware of. It surpassess all understanding

Andy: you miss the point and you are not seeing beyond one piece of the puzzle

Answer 1

She sounds like a tough cookie!

But personal suffering isn't why I'm an atheist. And while her story may be inspiring to some, to me it just underscores how set in their ways some people can be. I say that as respectfully as possible.

Answer 2

I have sympathy for your mother. Your story shows that faith can serve as a foothold and support for a hard-pressed individual. Even though I am an atheist I would not deny that. But with all due respect, the same can be said for a drug, or other ways to escape reality. It says nothing about the existence or non-existence of god, since god does not appear in your story except in fantasies and dreams.

Answer 3

It is nothing to do with a quality of "God". It is a quality of your mother that she seeks fulfilment in belief. I wish her well in her belief, she sounds like she has gone through a terrible time and she deserves to be happy. But you sound as if you make the common mistake of thinking that atheists don't believe because they have been "let down" by god. It shows how little you know about atheism. We don't believe there is a god because there is no evidence for a god. Your god allowed your mother to suffer and he isn't repaying her for her service. I do not wish to demean the fact that that is not how she sees it. But don't parade her case as some sort of special event that makes belief in a god somehow a better option than not. It's nothing of the kind.

Answer 4

The people that turn "away" from God from anger at their lives aren't true atheists. They are people that are angry at God, and therefore they still believe in God.
Some people who have had very difficult lives find comfort in the idea that there would be more than just this misery, and that something better is waiting for them someday. That sounds like your mother.

Answer 5

Sounds like a strong-minded woman. You seem to labor under the misconception that I am not a believer because I'm angry at God. How can I be angry at something that I believe others have made up? It's like being pissed at professor Severus Snape. What's the point?

Answer 6

It's instances like this that make me an athiest. I don't want to follow a god that allows crap like this to happen. Especially when a "holy man" like your mother's preacher isn't struck down in a pillar of flame the moment he touched your mother. I'll go ahead and raise my daughter to believe in herself and be a good person because it's the right thing to do and not because she should be afraid of being sent to hell by a spiteful malicious "god"

Answer 7

You have my sympathy.

She was raised to believe and still believes. This is not surprising. Christians are taught to accept the bad that happens here and hope for eternal paradise. This is one of the reasons that christianity was popular among the slaves of Rome and one of the reasons that many rulers found the church to be useful.

However, it doesn't prove anything. Others who have suffered as much as you mother still believe in islam, hinduism, taoism, buddhism, and a thousand other religions (not to mention the suffering Atheists).

Answer 8

lack of life is the accurate of existence. you want me to describe it for you? once you die the shortcoming of oxygen motives the cells that link your muscle tissue and ligaments at the same time to split, lowering compounds to mixes of chemical compounds. yet they can reconnect, that's no longer too overdue. Your mind, lacking in blood oxygen yet no longer in kept power feels unusual, woozy, euphoric: that's psychedelia - and that's at the same time as maximum folk journey the "travelling by tunnel with gentle on the accurate" journey. different journey out of body memories: Their mind is suffering the first indicators of falling aside coupled with the bodies inaccurate go back of happiness. Your blood begins to clot. Your mind makes use of up the finest of the emergency grant of oxygen. Cells start up to die. Your mind cells burn, dendrites curling up. Your information dies your mind is a mush of ruptured cells. some cells are nevertheless firing off, some cells are appropriate. Slowly those very last connections are damaged because the carbon dioxide escapes, liberating decreased acids and fat over the position your mind used to operate. lack of life is a favourite ailment. you do not truly ever get to do not ignore that that's happening until eventually too overdue. You lose your options cellular at a time, there is not any line over that you die. in spite of if you're decapitated, or some thing both very last, your mind continues to be functioning - and that's going to function until eventually each cellular has died. cellular by ability of cellular you die, your information will develop into more beneficial are more beneficial at a loss for words until eventually it would not know that's at a loss for words. you do not die unhappy; that's no longer plausible. the most sturdy willed of human beings received't submit a wrestle. that's like fainting, there comes a level once you know that's going to ensue yet there is no longer some thing you may do.

Answer 9

Although it's of course very sad what happens to your mother, I fail to see what this has to do with God.

If it strengthened her faith, or didn't ruin her faith, that's really fine by me. If it helps her, even better.

But I fail to see what it has to do with me being an atheist. Should I type a story now about an abused atheist, and then tell you that is clearly proof that a God doesn't extist. That would be silly, I agree.

Answer 10

Everyone thinks and processes things differently. Personally, I am not an atheist because of any particular personal tragedy. I simply don't believe in God. Your aunt simply does. That's all.

edit: Sorry, your mom...