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Cancer - God testing one's faith...steam coming out of my ears

Arg, uga uha umph (cyber sounds of my frustraton).

Yesterday while drivng I was listening to to a talk show host who I occasionally listen to because I agree with many of his views regarding American economics.

I have never heard him bring religion into anything except I did once see a fundamentalist Christitan give him a (like) sign on my Facebook. Knowing this fundamentalist Christian person pretty well I new this was an indication that this talk show host must have some strong religious affiliation.

Soooo anyway, he was doing a charity event for children with cancer at a local children's hospital (which is WONDERUFL OF COURSE!) He was interviewing the children and I was impressed with the way he related to them and the way he got them to respond so wonderfully to him.

And THEN (uga uga mimeep zorp) he started talking about how that's got to be one of the worse things in the world (your child getting cancer) and he said that's how God chooses to test our faith sometimes. I assume he did not say this in front of the children.

WTF!!!!???

My head exploded, it just exploded all over the car. I have to go and clean it up now.

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Permalink Reply by Grace Fitzpatrick on August 27, 2010 at 1:01pm

I get sick of that bs, too. My uncle is battling cancer right now. If there was a god and he was good, my uncle (and these kids) would never have gotten cancer in the first place.

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Permalink Reply by Dave Rogers on August 27, 2010 at 1:41pm

Faith and Hardship have a direct relationship as shown in this graph I just made up:

The greater the hardship, the bigger test of faith it is.

I hate worthless tests.

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Permalink Reply by dr kellie on August 27, 2010 at 2:17pm

Yeah, it's not so much a test of faith. It's more like god killing your child slowly and painfully. Praise the zombie jesus!

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Permalink Reply by Angela Jean on August 30, 2010 at 11:41pm

Yeah, the whole "God testing us" thing always pisses me off. It seems to be the answer religious people come up with when they can't find a rational explanation for a situation. Instead of "shit happens" which is the truth, they have to try to find some meaning or reason behind it. Why an "all knowing" God would need to "test" anyone's faith is beyond me. If he knows everything, then surely he would know whether a person is truly faithful or not without having to test them, and especially with a test that causes an innocent child or an adult that's been a good person all their life to suffer so horribly!

My grandmother died of colon cancer. Actually, they were able to remove the diseased part of the colon but found that it had already spread into other parts of her body, predominately her lymph system. She was 88 years old and had been pretty healthy up until the diagnosis. She still lived by herself and took care of herself. It had only been in the last 3 years or so she had started to need a little help with some things, but still, not much! She went to church and believed in God, but she was never "in your face" about it and accepted the fact that I didn't with no complaint or effort to change me. I always appreciated that and we had some very good discussions about our different points of view in the years before she died. She was a wonderful person, and I'm not just saying that because she was my grandmother, not perfect of course, but a truly good person. She raised 5 kids, helped care for a disabled husband from the age of 25, ran a farm, and worked full time outside the home. She got cancer because she was old and her body was wearing out, not because some cruel "God" wanted to test her. I never think of her as a person that was good because she was Christian, but a good person that just happened to be a Christian.

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Permalink Reply by Linda on August 31, 2010 at 1:21am

Boy oh boy, I wish all Christians were more like your grandmother. Hell, I wish I was more like her. That was quite a beautiful tribute for her.

If there is one thing that irritates me to no end about a lot of Christians is how they feel like they know the reason for everything that happens. They know the answers to all the questions and everything is so black and white. Oh the stupidity - someone give me a break.

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Permalink Reply by Nic on August 31, 2010 at 7:08am

I can relate. My father and I have very opposite religious views, except he is alot more reasonable then most of the faithful. He does, however believe in "Miracles" not like dumb everyday stuff, just, you know, BIG STUFF. Like, He is a huge fan of some ex-iraq war army chaplain author who was recounting some of the miracles he saw in the war, one of which was being when an RPG blew out the back of a hummer, and noone got killed. Now, I can see where many people can turn to faith when in such situations, but I will still have to say that it wasn't a miracle, but a stunning example of how well manufactured our equipment is on our boys. Now, one thing that REALLY pisses me off, is when people pray for stupid things and call it god's will when it happens. For example: My dad's personal assistant praises jesus every 5 minutes (literally yells: "PRAISE JESUS!") over menial crap like when dinner isn't burnt, or she gets to work on time. When she doesn't, she literally says stuff like: "Well, I guess the good lord didn't want us to have a good supper, and decided to burn it instead." She LITERALLY believes that everything is divine intervention. and I mean EVERYTHING.

People like the latter, annoy me. When people praise they're god when something BIG and unlikely happens, I am a lot less critical.

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Permalink Reply by Linda on September 1, 2010 at 7:56am

Oh I know what you are talking about. Praise God for this and praise God for that.

Okay there are 1.5 million children dying of disease and starvation in the world (I really don't know how many I'm just trying to make a point) but wait, praise the good Lord (even though my steak is over-done).

It's enough to make you question your own sanity sometimes.

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Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on September 1, 2010 at 8:18am

Okay, someone tell me this:

WHY should a test of faith have the potential for being FATAL to the person being tested???

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Permalink Reply by Linda on September 1, 2010 at 11:02am

I don't EVEN want to try to figure that out because it would serve only to leave my brains in a scrambled heap of mis-fired neurons.

Good luck - hopefully someone else is up to the challenge.

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Permalink Reply by Grace Fitzpatrick on September 1, 2010 at 11:38am

I can't find the story now. Yesterday while I was in a waiting room at the VA, I saw a story on the Weather channel about a woman in Maryland whose life was saved by a cat. The woman ignored the news, calls from friends, and the warning whistle and did not go to safety when a tornado hit her town. A cat came to the window of her home, when she opened the window to let in the cat, it looked over it's shoulder. She looked out to see what the cat was looking at when she saw her boat spinning around in a circle. She yelled to her husband and he got to safety, but she did not. She held onto the bathroom doorway while the tornado ripped at her body. Their house was, of course, destroyed and they never saw the cat again. I am guessing it was not her cat, because she never said that it was. Now, the really amazing part of this story was the woman and her husband did not thank god for saving their lives or for sending the cat. They thanked the cat for saving them. Now, that is a miracle!

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Permalink Reply by Zero_6ix on September 3, 2010 at 3:51pm

Big ups to thanking the proper entity (the cat).

It amazes me sometimes, to think that these tests 'o faith happen so often. A close family friend just died, one day after entering hospice services. THis guy knew my family and myself very well. And, despite the fact that I love her with all my heart, my mother chose to disrespect both he and I by trying to shoehorn me into the whole "Pray so he gets better" camp. She knows what I believe, and our friend did as well. He never asked for a worthless gesture from me, he only wanted me to care. Which I did. Now his body can no longer betray him.

Shame that God certainly did. Despite my lack of action, others prayed, prayed until the knees wore out on their pants. It did nothing but keep them away from his bedside.

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Permalink Reply by Angela Jean on September 3, 2010 at 4:02pm

"God" didn't betray him because God doesn't exist, at least not the one that any theist describes and believes in. So technically "God" can't be the bad guy in this because how can something that is not real be the cause of a betrayal? It seems to me that you are right in that his body betrayed him if you want to word it that way, though even then, you could say that the body itself is incapable of "betrayal" as it has no conscience of its own separate from the mind. A natural occurrence happened....cancer.

I love how theists try to justify everything even when it doesn't fit in with what they preach and tell people. If someone is cured after they pray, they say God did it because they prayed. If someone dies anyway, then it's "God's plan." As George Carlin I think put it, why pray if God has a plan? What's the point? He's just going to do what he wants anyway. If God answered prayers, wouldn't that kind of fuck up his plan? I have debated with theists on this point many times that even if their God existed, if it is true that he has "a plan" then prayer would still be a waste of time.