Rhetorical B S.
Show any case where God has given any one any chance.
Prove your statement without hearsay or Bible say.
Regards
DL
Why Me?
"Why did this have to happen to me?" Gerda exclaimed angrily. "You smoke a pack of cigarettes everyday and you are perfectly healthy! I never smoked a single cigarette my whole life and i get lung cancer. It should have been you! You should have cancer, not me!"
I was angered by what Gerda has said to Ragia. To wish cancer on my wife, the warmest, kindest, and gentlest person i have known, regardless of Gerda's condition, was uncalled for.
"That's a strange statement coming from a rabid atheist," I told Ragia. "To whom is she complaining--nature? You mean to tell me that from her perspective, she can't see how one of the near infinite sequence of causes and effects that have occurred since the big bang has led to her contracting cancer? Why should she have been excluded from one of life's innumerable accidents, if there is no God?"
We receieved a call from Gerda when she was in Germany seeking a cure. I was stunned when she asked me, "Will you pray for me?"
Although i tld Gerda that i would pray for her, i was thinking that it probably would be more effective if she prayed for herself.
"If i ever get over this thing, i'm definitely going to make a serious study of religion, "she swore earnestly, her voice cracking with emotion.
Her doctors in Germany subjected Gerda to a very new treatment. Altough her cancer had advanced quite far and they gave her little hope, the treatment was appearntly successful, and she returned to Lawrence with no detectable traces of the disease. Her battle with the illness definitely brought about a profound change in Gerda, but not in the way one might expect.
As far as i could tell, she never followed up her promise to "make a serious study of religion." She remained a vociferous and aggresive an atheist as ever. That is not surprising, since many an unbeliever has momentary second thoughts in a crisis, but her outlook on life turned dramatically inward. Gerda had always cherished her friends and was very loyal and generous toward them. When this point came up in a conversation she told me, "That was a big mistake of mine. I've learned how precious life is It was foolish of me to have given so much of myself to others. I'll never do that again."
About a year and half after Gerda was given a clean bill of health, her doctors found that her cancer had returned. This time they insisted that there was nothing they could do for her since the disease had progressed too far.
"What kind of God would do this to me?!" She complained to my wife, quite out of the blue.
Ragia usually would not respond to Gerda's antireligious diatribes. If Gerda wanted to discuss religion calmly and respectfully, she was more than willing, but when she would take on a mocking tone, Ragia preferred to ignore her.
"Maybe one who is giving you another chance" Ragia blurted, surprising herself.
It wasn't like Gerda to gibe an opponent the final word, especially when debating religion, but she remained silent and pensive Perhaps it was because of her deteriorated physical condition.
Gerda isolated herself from her friends during the last few months of her disease. She told Ragia on the phone that she did not want anyone to see her "like this." Gerda and her husband had taught in the math department at Kansas University. I found out about her passing from a department memorandum. It stated that her family would not be holding a service for her and that those who wished could donate to a scholarship fund established by her husband in her memory.
Human suffering has always posed an enormous dilemma for religious thought. Is it to entertan bored, capricious, and rival gods? Is it punishment for our sinful natures? Is it something from which we must be saved? Is it necessary aspect of creation to be transcended though spiritual training and mediation? Is it the product of chance accidents that occur in a godless universe?
All of these questions take for granted that human suffering is damaging and undesirable. This is natural, since it reflects the human perspective, the point of view of one who feels victimized.
However, the Quran has a very different view of human eartly suffering. It claims that it is necessary and key element in the human growth process, and that all of us, good and bad, sinful and righteous, believer and unbeliever, will and must experience it.
From
Losing My Religion, a book by Jeffrey Lang. pages 80-83
:thud: 
