God and Amputees?

Question

So, I hear this silly classic argument from atheist all the time.

Let's assume that God exist and the amputee truly believes in God. If you have lost a limb, you have most likely been in a terrible accident, or otherwise required the removal of the limb to save your life. If you truly believe in God, would you not think he had a hand in saving your life, even though it cost you a limb? If you truly believe in God, shouldn't you be thanking him for your life rather than praying for more from him?

Let's take this outside of God's realm. You are stuck in a building on fire. A firefighter comes in and rescues you from certain death. But in the process he breaks your arm. Do you thank him for saving you, or do you sue him for breaking your arm? After all, his job is to save you, not hurt you....right?

chieko: Sadly you are right. This question was suppose to show that you should simply be thankful for what you have. It is clear that most of these responders before you have a sense of entitlement. And then you have Cathy that is ready to sue a firefighter if he accidently broke her arm while SAVING her. This just helps confirm what I have thought for awhile about atheist thinking.....If God is not here to serve me, then God does not exist.

ɹɐǝɟsuɐs: So if I am thankful for what I have, I am claiming that God hates people with less than me? That is some logic. Have you ever seen a poor person receive a gift? Who do you think thanks God more...the family that sits down to dinner that may not know when their next meal is, or the family that is sitting in a fine dining restaurant? And would it be wrong for the family at the fine dining restaurant to thank God? With your thinking, a poor family can STILL not thank God, because there is always someone else worse off than they are. Do you think that people who are the most poor in the world have nothing to be thankful for? It is not I who lives a delusion...maybe you should find a mirror. Then go out and tell a poor family that if they thank God they are selfish because someone else has it worse than they do, tell them they have too much pride...see if that makes you feel better.

Answer 1

notice the qualifiers and "non-answers"...

sounds like if you're the firefighter, you are sooo sued....

this is about gratitude...which, as you can see, is in very short supply in the world...

Answer 2

God has a reason for everything, but people seem to forget that there is a devil at work also. Who's to say that the devil didn't cause the accident to begin with, and God saved the person's life? In which case, yes, you thank God for saving your life.
In the case of the firefighter, yes, you thank him for saving you, even though you broke your arm in the process. I personally would rather have a broken bone than die in a fire. Of course, people will sue over anything, even when something much worse would have happened.

EDIT:
Ok, I see that I got 2 thumbs down. What's up with that? Seems like the Christians that have answered this question are getting the thumbs down here. Oh well, opinions are like assholes, right?
I hear the question all the time, "If there was a God, why does he let bad things happen?" The answer to that is that there must be balance in the world, both good and bad. Also, God gave us humans free will, and the individual power to do as we please. God will not control the minds of every living person, and like I said previously, there is also a devil at work.
How people deal with things is again related to free will. In the case of the amputee, the person has 2 choices. They can either mope around and get depressed about it, or they can turn it into a positive and make something of it. Everything happens for a reason, and if someone has to have a limb amputated, only God knows why. It is up to the person to figure out why it happened and make something positive of it.
In the case of the firefighter, I just KNEW someone here would be all for suing him, regardless of the fact that he saved your life. If the situation was one where the only possible way for your life to be saved was to break your arm (say it was pinned in such a way that it had to be broken to free it), would you rather suffer a broken arm or stay pinned to where you were and burn to death? Oh, you will be more than willing to be free and not burn to death, but that poor firefighter who risked his life to save yours, will be thrown into court to answer for breaking your arm in order to save your life.
That's what is wrong with this country. Everyone is so quick to sue someone for every little thing that is done to them, never taking responsibility for anything and just accepting that things just happen sometimes that we have no control over. I'd NEVER sue someone who had saved my life, no matter what injuries I suffered in the process, unless it was just gross negligence. I, unlike most people, appreciate what I have and what I've been given.

Answer 3

Yes, but in this case, the fire fighter has no power to prevent the fire from happening.

I think the main arguement here is that if god is all powerful, why does he let these bad things happen, its essentially the same arguement as if you have the power for good, and are in the situation, and do nothing... well, im sure you get the idea. "What are we to do when good men do nothing?" I believe this would be applicable for a god as well. Lets say for example a man comes in and shoots you in the leg and kills your wife... he claims its just part of his plan for you, would you not hold animosity towards him? Thus I believe the "god's plan" arguement for this case to be invalid. Perhaps if some form of explanation were to be provided my ideas might change, but without it, how can I be expected to understand or even believe that those intentions are in my best interest? I'm not trying to argue with you, just giving you my perspective. I have many other arguements that I prefer over this one (as I've never much cared for it) but I just thought I'd show you how I think it came about.

Answer 4

The fire fighter's job and pledge is to save life and property.

Often, part of the building is damaged to expose a source of the fire within the walls. Opening up the walls gets to the heart of the danger, and enables flames to be extinguished.
Building saved, but not necessarily undamaged.

Extracting a person from a dangerous situation is often similar. Horrible accidents make for impossible and heroic efforts to save a life. And when the person may be combative due to alcohol or drugs, the risk of personal injury increases exponentially, because then the rescuers life is then endangered further. Broken arms mend. Lost lives are lost forever.

My former career was about saving lives, and MINIMIZING further injuries. Eliminating further injury was not always possible.

God promises to be with the Believer regardless of their physical condition, or quality of life. Broken, or whole, He can be with us always. But you have to be a Believer first. Atheists will never "get it."

retired fire fighter.

Answer 5

I'm not an atheist, but I have this problem with the second scenario:

If you're comparing the firefighter to God, then the firefighter (to be fair in the comparison) has the ability to keep your arm from getting broken while rescuing you. Your arm still gets broken. I think that under those circumstances the firefighter was being negligent and should be sued.

Answer 6

Your example is flawed. Continue on..

Assume the firefighter had the ability to quickly and painlessly heal your arm, but chose not to, instead focusing on a fat lady with an ice cream headache.

Asking why God chooses not to heal amputees specifically, highlights that claims of healing are not verifiable. This is just fact, and when religious people claim that someone has been healed of back problems or sore tummies or crossed eyes, they are giving God the glory for something that is not real.

Claiming God doesn't hate amputees is not tenable if you believe that he is healing internal injuries all the time.

Just like claiming God loves the amputee because his life was spared in the train accident, assumes that God hated all the people who didn't make it.

EDIT:

Cheiko its not really about gratitude, that is the point. Claiming that God loves me because I was born in a civilized society with food, might sound like gratitude but in reality it is pride and presupposes that he doesn't love starving kids in Darfur. It is really about pride and predestination disguised as gratitude.

Edit :

Sorry to get you all riled up.

Gratitude is fine, but there is an air of destination that accompanies allot of the claims of blessing that I hear from Christians in the western world. Thanking God for good fortune places responsibility on his shoulders for bad fortune. That logic seems clear to me, but I guess if you can reason your way around it, more power to you.

I don't understand how you can thank God for the good but absolve him from the bad, if he is in control of all things. It is not simply being grateful, if you are talking about a deity who controls all things.

Answer 7

Ok, great....but why does God never heal amputees?

Plus, God can save your life without amputation, but let's assume he did save your life through amputation, does that mean that it would be bad to bring the leg back? Why can't he put it back afterwards?

Answer 8

Uh... if you were thanking god for annulling the laws of physics such that you could survive the accident...
shouldn't you be cursing him for causing you to be in the accident in the first place?

So- your argument defies logical analysis. I would thank the medical procedure and them men who developed it for saving my life. No supernatural intervention required.

Answer 9

The point is - why doesn't god do any real miracles, or do anything beyond what we would expect to happen (yes, statistically speaking... awesome rare events will occur... no surprise there)

Answer 10

Uh, I missed the question here. The Book says "In all things give thanks" not just the good stuff. There is tremendous power in that, if you can get past the irrationality. peace