What do you think of this religious belief ?

Maybe it means that if you get more than you can handle, do not blame “god” because he would never do such a thing.
Blame satan for it instead.

ok So the next time someone tells me they’re not worried since the Lord won’t give them more than they can handle I’ll say, “but Satan might!” No; I’m kidding.

@Aster
It is also nonsense. The goddamned bible even shows that.
Take Job for example. Sure you could make the argument that Job could handle all the stuff that “God” threw at him.
But his family sure did not. They all fucking died. (and got replaced afterwards like some damned broken plates).

People generally have nervous breakdowns because they do not have the ability to accept the things they cannot change. the bible is a systematic process. for instance; one cannot put a box of cake mix in the oven and expect a baked cake to come out. buying the box of cake is a step in the process of making a cake, but there are other steps required for the desired result.

It’s a clichéd soundbite and has no meaning.

I believe it’s simply a made-made “explanation” for what is unexplainable. The Bible, fwritten by man and filled with such nonsense, exists for that reason.

deleted by pachy.

Yes, nonsense.
If I am mauled by a leopard on a fire ant hill, have my eyes gouged out and then drug 50 feet up in a tree and dropped into pirrahana infested waters, well…I’d say “God” kinda overtaxed my resilience. lol

I say it’s no more absurd than the rest of the incongruities that the Abrahamic religions insist that followers accept as reasonable propositions to be held as inviolate and the revealed, absolute wisdom of God.

My mom used to tell me that and she’s an atheist, lol. Well, of course it doesn’t make sense but what does in religious texts?

@ragingloli you said “the goddamned bible” Who/what is god to you.

Just an FYI: If you do not believe the bible, wouldn’t arguing its validity be like arguing if the unnamed character ate green eggs and ham? or did Sam-I-Am rewrite it?

That’s just an excuse because he’s bankrupt & can’t afford to lavish gifts no more.

@jnogood74
I call it “Demonstrating the absurdity of a belief by pointing out its contradiction with core dogma of the underlying belief system.”

It’s the kind of saying that justifies anything that happens, and therefore does not need to define itself in any other way.

God
[god] Show IPA
noun
1.
the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.

damned
[damd] Show IPA adjective, superlative damned·est, damnd·est, noun, adverb
adjective
1.
condemned or doomed, especially to eternal punishment: the wailing of damned souls.

god·damned
[god-damd] Show IPA adjective, superlative god·damned·est or god·damnd·est, adverb Informal: Sometimes Offensive.
adjective
1.
damned ( def 2 ) .
2.
(especially in the superlative) unusually difficult to deal with; extremely complicated or peculiar.

where is god in the definition of goddamned? Nowhere. Why then is the word God in the word goddamned?

“The Lord will never give you more than you can HANDLE.”

That teaching is unbiblical. Complete heresy to Judeo Christian theology. There is nothing to the sort of that suggestion in the bible. No need to chide the bible for such a concept.

In fact, biblical teaching is just the opposite. It’s not what you can handle. It’s what The Lord can handle if you put your trust in him. That’s the teaching anyway.

Therefor, a nervous breakdown would be explained away by Christians as a person suffering the results of trying to handle their issues by themselves, without the assistance of a higher authority who sees the bigger picture beyond the immediate moment. Had they placed their trust in God, then they wouldn’t have to worry so much… as the teaching goes.

“What do you think of this religious belief ?”

It’s not a Christian belief. I don’t know any religion that teaches what this thread suggests. Therefor, it may not be a religious belief at all… but rather, a personal belief.

I hate it when people say that. Tell that to people who have been sexually assaulted by relatives, tell it to someone who has just lost their job and found they have cancer. tell it to the mother of a soldier killed at war, tell it to the wife of veteran who has lost three limbs, or been burned, or become a quadriplegic.

Say it at the funeral of a kid who was bullied for three years and just jumped off a tower to end her misery.

^
Word.

oh, joy. Another chain to dump on my faith.

(draws a deep breath)...

Whatever!

I think @RealEyesRealizeRealLies is right. It’s not actually a religious belief, but a personal belief that some have about their religion.

That being said, I don’t think it’s it is faith-bashing to honestly answer the question “What do you think of belief X?” Jeez, if we can’t answer questions like these, I guess we should just shut up about everything, huh?

Meaninless. Did the person who committed suicide have more than they could handle? Or did they have exactly what they could handle and acted correctly?
Nonsense.
The person obviously does not know what else to say. They are just trying to be nice..
They could say “It sucks to be you.” or “Ain’t life a bitch?” or a thousand other things. Their intent is not to be nasty so I let it pass.

However, if someone said that to me after my child had been diagnosed with cancer they would be walking to the hospital with two black eyes. Let’s see how you handle this! Bapp!

@LuckyGuy
Or without eyes. See how he handles that.

@ragingloli Generally I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I would figure the person meant well. But I might not be so tolerant during time of stress. More than I can handle?

We say that all the time. It’s comforting & a reminder we can handle anything with God on our side.

I would think that it means man the fuck up and take care of your shit. Nobody else is going to.

I hate this saying. It’s so obviously untrue; it’s just something people say to make themselves feel better. People are ‘given’ more than they can handle all the time. I watched my brother give up after he received a diagnosis of cancer the week before his wife died, also of cancer, because it was too much. Other people drink, do drugs, commit suicide, etc because of ‘being given’ too much to handle.

It looks like God has turned @Symbeline into a man. lol

It is a way to coax yourself through the hard times. I personally want to punch people who tell me that in the face, but it is a mindset that works for some people.

@ccrow What works for some of us doesn’t work for others. so it’s really not ‘so obviously untrue’.

My mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer and told she was dying in months, she’s two years in remission now. My husband had two unexplained seizures and almost died. Your brother giving up doesn’t mean God failed him or gave up on him.

Drugs and suicide are crutches people use because they don’t have faith that carries them through the really tough times, but that’s just my pov and my personal experience.

@KNOWITALL Oh please! Did the 9 million Jews Hitler incinerated just lack sufficient faith to calmly breath in the gas chamber atmosphere and weather the crematorium temperatures?

^^ The Jews had faith, just the wrong one.

@ETpro This is where they switch and say , “Satan did that.”

@ETpro I wasn’t there so I wouldn’t know if they were calm or frantic.

@gailcalled It is generally used from one Christian to another, but I’d think anyone who believed in God could take comfort from the saying.

@Aster People who blame God for the bad things and don’t give God the glory for the good things, can’t understand. :)

^^^^^ In my experience people blame Satan for the bad things and give God the credit for the good.

@KNOWITALL The families and friends of the Jews gassed and murdered by other means during the Holocaust took very little comfort from that saying, if their memoires, recollections and writings can be trusted. Of course, they may be all be lying.

@gailcalled See, I try to explain from a Christian perspective on a Christian saying you two have something to say about it that doesn’t even make sense. I didn’t say it brought comfort to everyone and certainly not non-Christians.

I’d think anyone who believed in God could take comfort from the saying.

You did say that, correct? Most of the Jews who were slaughtered did believe in God.

I find your take on this so offensive that I am disengaging.

@gailcalled Okay. I wouldn’t presume to know how anyone felt walking to a certain death in those terrible times, believing or not believing, but I’m sure some were comforted by their faith.

The Jews had faith. Just the wrong one. That’s funny @gailcalled!

I think it’s just a comfort thing, like a “keep your chin up, this too shall pass.” When I was a believer it did help me through, but looking back, it was pretty much every day life stuff. If I had lost a child or something horrible and someone said to me “God never gives us more than we can handle,” I probably would have decked them!

To me, though, I always felt it also implied that God is the one who GAVE me this trial. I didn’t know why he’d do that to me.

I’m reading through this thread….why is @KNOWITALL suddenly getting beaten up over the Jews? She never even mentioned them. She just said the same thing that everyone else has said, that it’s a comfort thing for some, but not others and suddenly all hell is breaking loose on her head. Can some one ‘splain this to me?

@Aster

From which religion did you find this belief expressed? Since your Q is assuming that it is a religious belief, I think it would be helpful to know WHICH religion.

I don’t find that thought expressed anywhere in the Bible or in the theological tenets of any faith that I know of.

So, to answer your question as to what I think of it: I don’t think its a religious belief at all.

It might be some person’s interpretation of whatever their particular religion’s tenets are. But IMHO it’s an inaccurate one.

In addition, it’s a very facile and shallow thing to say to anyone in a time of extraordinary circumstance of suffering as well as trying to explain cases of horrendous suffering in history.

So, to borrow a word from Colbert, this phrase has a sound of “truthiness” to it while, in reality, not being true at all. And it’s helpful for nothing but the most shallow interpretation of God imaginable.

So, obviously I don’t think very highly of that meaningless statement at all.

@Dutchess_III ET threw in the Jewish people for some reason (as if anyone could know if they took comfort from God or not, I’m sure some DID.)

I have absolutely no idea what’s going on but I have nothing against the Jewish people and resent any implications otherwise.

@ Buttonstc Christians, specifically Baptists, say this all the time to each other.

@Buttonstc I’m pretty sure it’s just a catch phrase that popped up in the 80’s.

@Dutchess

I think most people are reacting to her proclaiming that “I’d think anyone who believed in God could take comfort from the saying.”

I think she bit off more than she could chew by trying to defend that statement (especially in light of something as devastating as The Holocaust”)

It’s a shallow statement to begin with and then trying to give it such a broad application as in “anybody who believed in God” is just a bridge too far IMHO.

That’s my guess on why she’s getting negative pushback. I think she simply misspoke without any harmful intent but people are reacting so strongly to the sheer inadequacy of that statement to explain much of anything.

I don’t think she meant any harm by it at all.

But, on the other hand, I don’t think she fully thought out the implications of what she was saying.

But people could cut her a little slack here without losing any of their agnostic/atheistic street cred (if they wanted to be kind instead of cutting that is.)

But everybody makes their own choices.

@Buttonstc I never said Jews didn’t believe in God, that was gails apparent perception of what I said, but it’s incorrect.

I never bite off more than I can chew either, I’m a big girl. :)

And thanks for getting that I didn’t mean any harm, we have to be able to communicate rationally.

Bringing the Holocaust into a conversation and using their suffering to make a point off someone is pretty low life to me, though.

But she wasn’t the one who threw the spotlight on the Jews or the Holocaust. @gailcalled and @ETpro did. I think she would agree that there are times when anyone’s faith can be sorely tested, even rejected due to horrible life experiences.

I’m still waiting the hear if @gailcalled meant the comment that the ‘Jews had faith, just the wrong kind,’ seriously!

@Dutchess_III Every Christian thread is derailed anyway, it was just a matter of time. :)

@KNOWITALL

You’re misinterpreting what I said. I NEVER SAID that you implied that the Jews did not believe in God. That’s not the problem. The problem is that they are included in the “anyone who believes in God” and its clear that you know that the Jewish people DO BELIEVE in God.

It was your over-broad defense of that statement to apply to “anyone who believes in god” and then stating definitively that said “anyone” would be able to take comfort from that statement.

Well, what if they can’t ? Is that their fault? Or God’s fault?

Or is it the FAULT of an extremely SHALLOW SENTIMENT ?

I think that we could all agree with the fact that the problem lies with the statement itself NOT with anyone who doesn’t find it comforting ( including the Jewish people).

But some people prefer to find fault with KNOWITALL for not specifically stating that.

As I said, people have a choice to be harsh or kind in their interpretation of what she said. And it’s clear who chose what (to no one’s great surprise).

You guys…the key word here is “could,” not “would.” She said anyone who believes in God COULD take comfort. Not would.

@Buttonstc Ah, I see. Thanks for explaining, I shouldn’t have said “anyone”, but “some of us”. Better?

By the way, I’m not going to argue with you about a ‘saying’, it’s kind of silly.

I think the sum total of all the problems in this thread is due to the statement itself.

As RealEyes, myself and others have pointed out, it is not a statement affirmed by any known religion or bible. Period.

It’s a shallow pop- culture phrase, plain and simple. That’s all. It’s not a profound truth deserving of this much angst and misunderstanding. Good grief !

Perspective, perspective, perspective.

This is true @Buttonstc. But when I was Born Again it gave me strength and hope anyway.

@Buttonstc Same as Dutches, I have found it useful as well, so that being the case, if it gives someone comfort, it’s served it’s purpose.

Lordy, I hope ya’ll come visit sometime and take in a few old-school churches, I can’t imagine the crazy questions and rants we’d get – lol

Ah, been there, done that. My experience is they get frustrated and shut me down!

BTW, that may not be an actual quote from the Bible, but the book suggests it over and over and over again. The whole book of Job is just that.

If someone is speaking from their own personal experience I don’t have a problem with that (regardless of how inaccurate I might think their interpretation is.)

But I try very hard to steer clear of making overarching statements including the words: always, never, anybody, nobody, all, none etc. etc.

They are largely indefensible when dealing with most subjects and opinions of everyday life and totally indefensible when applied to spiritual matters.

I have absolutely no explanation for how God figures into some of the horrors we’ve seen such as The Holocaust or even the mass shooting in DC yesterday.

And I would regard with skepticism anyone who does claim to “know ” the mind of God regarding that.

Personally I do believe in precision of language and thus my abhorrence of pop culture phraseology assumed to be divine truth or. “In the Bible”.

Another one in a similar vein is the oft- quoted “God helps those who help themselves.” Many assume its from the Bible even tho its nowhere to be found in its pages. It just sorta sounds like it might.

Another example of “truthiness”. I prefer the real deal, truth itself (even while acknowledging the irony that there are differing interpretations of spiritual truth within the various religious groups)

And there’s certainly enough to differ about with official doctrinal positions without muddying the waters with pop culture references :)

Hence my reaction to this entire red herring Q in the first place.

I’ve never viewed it as “divine truth,” @Buttonstc. I always viewed it as a simple paraphrase.

@Dutchess_III & @KNOWITALL I used the most extreme example I could think of to illustrate the falsity of the claim that “The Lord will never give you more than you can HANDLE.” If you’d prefer, make it the earthquake and tsunami that wiped out so many in Japan, or the one that hit the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia and Thailand with so much death and destruction.

Anyone who wants to believe in some talisman, magical charm or mantra that always protects them is welcome to do so. If it makes them feel better, that’s fine with me. Personally, I’d rather look the truth in the eye than go through life wearing blinders because I don’t like the view when I see reality.

Yes, we understand your point of view @ETpro. Clearly. Those comments are but a few of the reasons that I have serious doubts that God even exists. I don’t feel the need to bash people who believe in Him over the head about it though.

@ETpro It’s still a false example because you don’t have any proof or statistics or even personal experience being a believer in any of those situations do you?

Maybe some would be or were comforted by it, maybe they weren’t. I tend to think at least one person in any given crisis across the world, may call on God for comfort.

Remember, your truth is not my truth (as per your Q.)

Dealing with my mom’s breast cancer,watching my gpa die in front of me, and never knowing if my husband will be alive or dead any given morning, who the hell are you to imply I’m wearing blinders? Your arrogance is beyond comprehension.

Some people need to believe there’s something better and perfect, because this world is a pile of crap sometimes.

“The Lord will never give you more than you can HANDLE.”

How does this equate to @ KNOWITALL“s atatement that “Every Christian thread is derailed anyway, it was just a matter of time. :) ”?’

The OP never specified that it was the Christian Lord, did she? Who gets to decide whose Lord?

I think for the purposes of this thread we can assume we’re discussing belief in the Abramic God, the same God that Christians and Jews believe in. Jesus was a Jew, which is why the comment “The Jews had faith, just the wrong one” was a little off the wall.

The phrase is a mainstream Christian comfort saying, no more, no less.

Who decides what to assume? The OT and the services at Synagogue refer to the “Lord” all the time

@Dutchess Thank you. I’m glad you & I can be friends even if we believe differently. You have more patience though lol

They’re referring to the same God @gailcalled. The God that Abraham believed made Himself known to him. Same God that Islam bases their faith in.

What may comfort some won’t comfort others. History has shown that some have been able to face their own early deaths calmly because of their belief in the afterlife.

If someone has to be hospitalized with a nervous breakdown did the Lord give him more than he could handle?
He ended up with a nervous breakdown because he did not have the Lord with him; had he, the Lord would have given him enough grace, strength, peace, etc to withstand what was bugging him.

Well, I don’t know about that @Hypocrisy_Central. My Mom believed in God, but she wound up hospitalized for a “nervous breakdown” a couple of times during my teenaged years in the 70’s (when having “nervous breakdowns” was the “thing”.) It was hell on all of us. But, as it turns out, not more than we could handle…but we didn’t know that at the time.

@Hypocrisy_Central

It’s so nice to know that someone like you has ALL the answers. ~~

How comfortable that must be for you.

Christianity teaches that Jesus died for our sin so that we may enter into heaven through him( Jesus). That is the choice we are given. So while god will not put more on us than we can handle, we will pack it on until our spine collapses. A christian does not foresee death of the flesh as the end of life.

@ETpro

One would do better to look at this statement ” God will not…” through the eyes of a christian in order to argue it. ex.: I could not argue that 1+1 is not 2 if i did not believe in the entire mathematical system….well I could ( lol), but my argument would not be very applicable. ex.: 1+1 does not equal 2 because the Jews were slaughtered in Germany.

@KNOWITAL So what’s your claim now. All those people were perfectly happy with what God gave them? Are you asserting that while I have no personal experience with being in the holocaust, you do?

@jnogood74 I know what christianity teaches. I have read the Bible through numerous times, and studied Christianity as well as comparative religion in college. I’ve even attended a fundamentalist Bible college.

I am well aware of what Christians believe, and also know what other faiths believe and how much of the Abrahamic religions was adopted form what they came to call heathen and pagan religions. After reflecting on it all, it is beyond apparent to me that the Abrahamic religions are scams. That goes for Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Christian Science, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Moonies and the rest of the lot.

As to your math example, I have no earthly idea what you are talking about. Can you explain that thought in more understandable terms?

I don’t see that she’s claiming any such thing @ETpro. She’s saying that no one here can know how the Jews felt. I would imagine they were terrified, but there could have been some that accepted their fate calmly because of their faith in God. Both of those are speculation however. That’s what I see that she is saying.

Could you explain why you think religion is a scam rather than just a false (but comforting) belief?

What is with the ridiculous math examples lately?

@Dutchess_III Why do you feel the need to speak for @KNOWITALL? She’s quite competent at advancing her own thoughts; and when doing so she is much less likely to misinterpret them that are others trying to speak for her.

Religion is a scam for the reasons that Lucretius enumerated over 2000 years ago. He said, “All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher.”

I’m not speaking “for” her @ETpro. She does a fine job of that all by herself. I’m paraphrasing what I think she’s trying to say, putting it from a different perspective (mine,) in an effort to help people understand. This is why I said, ” That’s what I see that she is saying.” in my last comment.

I agree. Religion certainly IS a scam for some. Look at all the rich tele-evangalists. For people like @KNOWITALL, though, it is not a scam. It’s a way of life.

Anything can be abused and turned into a scam, immorally benefiting a few. Anything.

@ETpro Dutchess is just being cool, I don’t mind, she has more patience than me by FAR!

I understand questioning something/ anything, but I will never be okay with people being belittling about my beliefs. If it’s a scam, nobody’s getting anything out of it but me…lol

@ETpro My mathematical analogy refers to your, as well as others, use of the holocaust as an argument point against KNOWITALL:

”@KNOWITALL Oh please! Did the 9 million Jews Hitler incinerated just lack sufficient faith to calmly breath in the gas chamber atmosphere and weather the crematorium temperatures?”-ETpro

My point was that your insertion of the holocaust does not seem very applicable to any statement that KNOWITALL has made. My mathematical analogy was my interpretation of your quoted statement, as in how it applied to the conversation….or subsequently how it did not apply. The UN-understandablity was a desired mirror effect.

On another note I would be very interested in your personal religious views and/ or beliefs. It seems to be something yo have a strong interest in.

He’s an athiest, @jnogood74, or at least a very strong agnostic as many on this site are. Including me.

@Dutchess_III There is such a big difference in the way you comport yourself, I tend to forget that-lol. You classy broad!

@Dutchess_III Thank you. Off topic but what is atheism(belief, religion, group, social status, etc.)?

Atheism means you don’t believe there is a God (it has nothing to do with social status.) There is no omniscient being who created everything or who controls every thing. There is no more afterlife for a human than there is for a fruit fly. We aren’t anything special other than what our evolutionary mutations gave us, that is language and a brain. Atheist believe God is a man made construct.

An agnostic doesn’t completely discount the idea that there could be something akin to a god that we haven’t found yet, but there is absolutely no evidence for it, at least not yet. We don’t live our lives following rituals and rules that someone made up thousands of years ago, trying to please a deity that we believe probably doesn’t exist.

I am an agnostic.

If you want my personal story, I was raised in a casually religious house hold. God was just a given. There was no doubt in Him. I was born again in the 80’s. Then, somewhere in the 90’s I began to have doubts. Then in about 2005 I met this cool dude named Stuart (Rarebear on here) on another website and we had many long, patient, respectful discussions about it. He, more than any other one person, has influenced my current way of thinking.

Rarebear is an atheist Jew, too! :)

@Dutchess_III I didn’t know you and @rarebear were old friends, that’s neat!

From Wis.dm. :) He was Benny Mattson there.

Yes, Dutch and I have known each other for several years. She’s one of the few people here who know my real name :-)

@Rarebear I don’t know much about you, doc, but now I know you have good taste in friends. :)

If you call being friends with Dutch “good taste” then I suppose…

@Rarebear I do, I almost went to see her a few weeks ago, and I rarely like humans, but she’s a human with dogs so it’s different..ha!

Wait…I don’t think I like your uncertain tone there bear….I’m going to tell everyone what you did last summer…

It would certainly be nice if all the atheists on Fluther could be as reasonable and logical and patient as Rarebear.

There would certainly be a lot less acrimony on threads regarding religion or spirituality.

Thanks Button!

There would be a lot more atheists too. Thanks a LOT @Rarebear!