Can you answer John Dietrich's question?

United States
November 22, 2009 6:46pm CST
The President of the United States summons the nation to church on Thanksgiving Day to give thanks to "Almighty God" for the abundant harvest and all other blessings. But what has Almighty God -- I have no desire to appear irreverent -- what has Almighty God as a personal being to do with the harvests? If it is he who produces our crops, then being Almighty there should never be a failure of crops. But since crops frequently fail, it follows that there is no Almighty person in charge of them -- unless he brings failure purposely. Therefore, if God is to be thanked for large crops, he must be blamed when the crops are a failure. . . . If God sends the rain and the sunshine which develops and ripens our wheat, who sends the storms and the insects which destroy much of it? And if he sends both, then why not thank him for one and blame him for the other?
3 people like this
7 responses
• Philippines
23 Nov 09
Hi. Your questions are very challenging. Personally, I could not blame God for the storms, insects, and other negative things/happenings. I believe that God perfectly made/balanced everything on Earth. But because of the irregular/bad activities of human beings, we have damaged/broke the balance causing several catastrophes/ calamities on Earth. By the way, you have cited the questions but forgot to incorporate your thoughts/ opinions/ responses.
• United States
24 Nov 09
What about the infamous flood? Was that caused by the bad activities of humans? I have to think that nature caused the floods because that was what the energy of that time consisted of, rain...
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
23 Nov 09
If life were easy, if there were no obstacles to overcome, what lessons would we learn and how boring would life be? God receives His fair share of blame, believe me, so He should also receive thanks.
• United States
24 Nov 09
How true, life would be quite boring if there were no lessons to be learned. I could not agree more that we need to have obstacles to overcome. I just cannot imagine an almighty creating the opposites to watch us overcome obstacles. I guess I have to say I believe more in "Mother Nature". The natural opposites created and coming through the seasons weather patterns.
@KrauseHome (36449)
• United States
24 Nov 09
Personally I think it all boils down to a person's belief system. Because in reality, God is the ones who made all of the heavens and the earth and everything in between including all the food we could ever want to eat. What tends to happen is those of us loose our Thanks for everything, and tend to just take things as they come never thinking about God so when something happens, especially when there are things we might have been able to do to prevent them, we tend to blame God never taking on any responsibility for anything ourselves. So personally we need to be Thankful for all we have, even when things are not the Best and appreciate life as it comes or learn how to change things for the better when you are unhappy.
• United States
24 Nov 09
Hey Krause! Thanks for responding. I agree very much that people need to take responsibility for their own actions. I also think giving thanks is a very important ritual and that it should be done on a daily basis for all the good that we have. I think good thoughts and grateful attitudes created more good things to happen in turn, giving you more to be thankful for.
@Hatley (163781)
• Garden Grove, California
23 Nov 09
hi jodylee God gave mankind freewill so I sort of imagine man has something to do with the bad things that happen.we upset the balance of nature things will happen, so that is not what God did. anyway we did not just happen here, we were created by the almighty so why not give thanks to him as we are his children.
• United States
24 Nov 09
Hey Hatley, thank you for your response. Yes, the balance of nature, when upset, it gets upset. I think giving thanks is important, I do it in a different way then to the almighty.
@bird123 (10632)
• United States
23 Nov 09
Why is it that everyone has to find someone to blame???? Didn't we create the devil for that???? Blame the devil.OK! OK! God gives the bumper crops and the crop failures. Both are good things. The bumper crops let you store food so when the crop failure hits you will be OK! Now the crop failure is no more than a challenge to you to become a better farmer. You will learn what it takes to grow in the worst weather years therefore you are wise. Don't you want wisdom???? It does take those challenges to get you to learn. We all have the ability to choose what we deem important in this world. You can focus and see everything as bad then be mad and hurt. Or see the good in everything. Face the challenges head on, become wise then change this world as we know it through wisdom. Your choice: Sit and complain or get up and do something about it!!
• United States
24 Nov 09
Bird, Well said. I agree with you very much. I like your take on the "blame" portion of this topic. You are so right that without the challenges wisdom could not be achieved. I choose to focus on the positive as well. I just found this question and thought it would make an interesting discussion. Apparently there is passion on this topic, which I so love about myLot.
@rookie24 (80)
• Philippines
23 Nov 09
have you ever think of the faults of man?given that God gave us the the sunshine and rain,when was the time that we didn't survive it?if it really means havoc...didn't our ancestors,looking back a thousand years ago, survived with merely fire?But look at what we are now?all this technology to make life easier without any purpose but to lighten up the toll of hardwork...we cannot deny the fact that man is selfish,but it's never to late to realize that,since we cannot live without this technology that we have...let's just stop blaming God...;D
• United States
24 Nov 09
I really do not blame God, because I do not believe in God. It would be difficult to blame something that I cannot say actually exists. Thank you for your response, I love the opinions of all myLotters.
@GADHISUNU (2162)
• India
25 Nov 09
The question is, when you Praise the Lord for what he has done or as you say assumed to have done, if He is happy you might have a series of bumper crops. Let's say He lets you have a series of crop failures, go ahead and blame Him, do you think He will appear before you and ask to be forgiven? For that matter, when you praised Him high and low did He appear before you and gloat over His adulation? That is whhy the better way would be either to Praise Him and thank Him for whatever is good or bad so that ona random sample of say a century you may find you are better off than worse.So, when you blame Him, He doesn't lose anything but when you Praise Him you might stand to gain. Thanking Him for the one and blaming Him for another also doesn't for the same reason as above. But by either way being in a Praising Mode you may stand to gain. That is why all religions exhort you to "beear His mild yoke" to quote John Milton!