These dismissive and repetitive quotes often used by the religious annoy me for several reasons.. Especially at a tragic time:
"God Will Never Put More On You Than You Can Handle.”
"God gives His hardest battles, to His strongest soldiers."
"Everything happens for a reason"
"Let and let God"
4
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Dismissive is exactly how I feel about them. My favorite is "I will pray for you." I saw a post on FB where the girl lost everything material to a fire right before Christmas and almost all the hundreds of comments said those things. I was pissed and said so. What is it they are praying for? Aren't they his hands and feet? If people won't step up and help then there is no hope for her and her family because "God" does not carry cash.
CreativelyMe
Level 7
May 7, 2018
4
Ha yeah that is super annoying. It is like a Borg drone attack of religious feel good messages. Sure most people are just trying to be supportive in the terrible situation that happened to that person, but If you really want to help just start up a GoFundme campaign so the person can really get some financial support that can truly help out.
@Vintenar I would think that the churches would be teaching people to help others not just to pray they get help. It s so ridiculous. Learned helplessness.
@CreativelyMe Well I'm not a church goer, never have been, so I don't know what they teach, but when you see stories of that megachurch, ran by Joel Olsteen shutting it's doors to flood victims, it doesn't do much for showing off how much churches care about people. I'm sure their are a lot of churches that do a lot of help for their communities, but having stores like these popping up in the news doesn't help win any irreligious people to your cause. I personally am glad they have this stuff happen, and that more people are realizing they are being scammed, out of in the name of .
I was brought up in a moderately church-friendly household in England. My mother was a regular CofE churchgoer and my father had been a student at King's College, London. Part of the entrance criteria to get into Kings was to demonstrate a regular commitment to the CofE and to affirm that the student remained committed to CofE attendance during his stay at the college.
However, during my early years he was less than enthusiastic about church attendance, and when forced to attend a church service such as a family wedding, he would take great delight in rewriting the hymn words and singing bawdy alternative words.
However, my younger brother and attended Sunday School regularly and really enjoyed it.
All that changed when in Nov 1963 my brother was killed in an horrific car accident as we were crossing the road to school, attended by a 'Lollypop Man' as we called them - a retired local pensioner who wore hi-vis clothing, Peaked cap and his round 'School Crossing' roadsign mounted on a pole - the 'Lollypop'. On that particular day, it was foggy, and as far as I recall, the car involved did not have his headlights on, and was evidently in a hurry because I believe he was speeding and the Police evidence bore that out - he was doing 50mph in a 30mph zone.
So consequently our Lollypop man didnt see the car coming, the fog deadened the sound of his engine, and the upshot was that he walked out to the centre of the road to beckon us across, and the car piled into the stream of kids crossing. 3 other children were injured, none fatally. My brother Malcolm who was at the front of the queue with his friends, was apparently hit by the front end of the car, run over, and then freakily his raincoat belt got caught on the back bumper, so that he was dragged for several yards as the car came to a halt. At 50mph the stopping distance would be 125 feet - just over 41 yards. I was towards the rear of the queue, saw the whole thing unfold like a slo-mo movie and promptly went into hysterics on being shepherded across the road.
That killed my belief in God stone dead, and my father had the same reaction. Both my mother and father went into prolonged shock and my both my parents and I were looked after by my mother's elder sister for approx 2 weeks. Eventually we returned to normal life except it would never be normal for any of us ever again. My mother sought solace from the Church and became very supportive of it, and she took on a lot of voluntary work, both for the church and helping in the community as a Meals-on-Wheels driver.
But for Dad and I there was no going back.
eeyorn
Level 4
May 6, 2018
1
I'm soo sorry that happened to your brother. I to live with the loss of my brother, who was younger than me. He was murdered by my sister's boyfriend. I'm trying to "live with it", but who can? I haven't set foot in a church since his funeral.
@Domination101: I'm sorry for your loss. Have you received any counselling/mental health support following your brother's death?
They all indicate 'god' is a mean motherfucker.
TedGresham997
Level 5
May 6, 2018
2
yes and if God is as mean as that he/she is not someone I want in my life, let alone worship
"God never gives anyone more than they can handle" - that's why no one ever commits suicide. "Everything happens for a reason" - but only if you count blind, random chance as a reason. The least helpful bullshit.
schwinnrider
Level 6
May 6, 2018
4
" God never gives anyone more than they can handle".... I'm sure each and every resident of the concentration camps took a great solace in that pearl of wisdom
I totally agree. I did not handle witnessing my brother's death. I attempted to suppress it as best I could. I did not get any professional mental health support until my first mental breakdown at the age of 35, by which time my first marriage was fucked, and then again at the age of 50 just as my 2nd marriage was disintegrating. I attempted to commit suicide about 2 years ago, overwhealmed by my 3rd major life crisis.
I have come to terms with the 'everything happens for a reason' bullshit. I do believe that to a certain extent spiritual growth can be prompted by intense trauma. This is, I believe the reason that Tibetan Buddhists choose their Dalai Lamas the way they do. So if my life has been guided by any external agency, perhaps this is the reason that this happened to me. However, to follow on with such logic is to tread a dangerous path towards full psychosis, it seems to me. There have been times when I've felt that I am the reborn Christ, but I've always been very well aware of my lack of Divine skills as attributed to him or her. Its a real mindfucker 
It's all bollocks but some people don't have the where withall (can't spell!) to deal with it, they use a crutch, the god crutch to explain and justify everything.
ipdg77
Level 8
May 6, 2018
4
Yes the 'God crutch' is a useful way of describing how some adopt religious worship to fulfill their lives
My husband was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma in Sept 2014 and we have heard all of those plus some. It definitely gets old especially when they say, God gave him strength to fight. No God didn't, he found strength within himself, within his family to fight cancer.
CocoCourt43
Level 2
May 6, 2018
3
Don't you just love tell these idiots will endlessly speak about God giving cancer victims strength as they tell you to pray for his help, all the while ignoring the fact that this so-called God must be the one who provided him with the cancer in the first place... That is, if you believe in that nonsense initially, of course
I'm glad that your husband found the strength and support he needed to fight his disease. I agree that God has no part in such recoveries, and always wince when I hear brainless idiots regurgitate this bullshit.
I'm a 2x cancer survivor. I'm so tired of hearing God bless you, and I'm praying for you. What kind of god puts people through this shit? Not one I want to worship.
CopperPenny
Level 5
May 6, 2018
7
I completely understand. The whole, I'm praying for you thing gets under my skin. During my husband's infusions I would see all of these people including him battling cancer, fighting to live, and you know at that point God doesn't exist.
Exactly so, @CopperPenny and @CocoCourt43. When you live without God in your life, others claims of God's help and that whole 'praying for you' shite just leaves me cold. These days I try to see the good in their intentions and accept their prayers as intentional messages of support, but there is always a little voice saying to me 'FFS please learn to see the world for what it is, and stop regurgitating this brainless horseshit' .
The last two might as well just be "let's stop thinking now".
Rufus_Maximus
Level 7
May 6, 2018
4
Being a former and reformed catholic and now agnostic, and if I recall correctly, the bible states that no one knows the mind of dog (dislexic ), so how the fuck would they know what their so called supreme being can and or cannot do....its all crap....who was that once said religion is the opium of the masses?
RonB
Level 5
May 6, 2018
4
From Wiki
"Religion is the opium of the people" is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of German philosopher and economist Karl Marx. It was translated from the German original, "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes" and is often rendered as "religion... is the opiate of the masses."
no one knows the mind of God, yet we are to believe that he dictated a book that we can all supposedly understand... Hey, wait... Maybe the reason that book is such a confusing and contradictory bunch of bullshit is because he does have this mind we can't understand.....hmmmmm...
@karcreat The fact is that the Bible is a cobbling together over several centuries of alleged personal records, anecdotal stories and alleged historical narratives, and the only people involved in this process are the very people that stood to gain from the mythology they created. The Bible is a book that gives justification for a theocracy, no more and no less. Various Gospels were not included, or have been subsequently removed as they didnt fit in with prevailing worldview the theocrats wanted to spin. Of particular interest, but constantly suppressed is the Gospel according to Mary Magdalene. As Christ's alleged number one fan (many believe her to have been his wife and the mother of his children) you have to ask why her story is not included.
Urgh, they annoy me, too, and people automatically lose credibility in my eyes if they use them non-ironically.
memorylikeasieve
Level 7
May 5, 2018
4
I would have to respond with: "Why is god such a sadist?"
Zippypinhead57
Level 5
May 5, 2018
3
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