Sry, but I already bowed out of this thread last week. I'm going back to the theist default that the Lord works in mysterious ways. If you want to judge God by social ills and issues thats up to you but people aren't free from responsibility for events that happen in this world and I'm also in agreement with Pletho that we can never know how much the devil is responsible for terrible events. I read a blurb somewheres (maybe in this forum) that prior to the earthquake that Haiti had billions of dollars in aid pumped into her (and that's a lot of aid for a small country) and they still didn't progress all that much. Could it be the voodoo? I have no idea but the Christian idea isn't God does everything or that humans do everything. They work together. Money often times isn't enough to get things done. Money's just a sop to convention without personal human motivation and effort.

You did misunderstand something: The man of God would rather wish his death than taking it, cause he did found pleasures that are way above the pleasures of this world, otherwise he would take it. How does someone find those pleasures: He has to give up the pleasures of this world (the story where Jesus turns water into wine: the wine of this world has to come to an end before this happens, he doesn't give us his wine to drink. Somewhere else he says, no one can fill up a full bottle with wine, the bottle must at first become empty.)

Do you mean kenosis?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenosis

If that's what you mean then yes you're right. A man of God would give up all his worldly pleasures to be filled with the spirit of God and death would be preferable than missing out on that experience.

The explanations about Kenosis seem (to me) to be (to some extent) speculative. But it seems to me that you turn it in the right direction.
Let me say it very simple and very basic: What some ppl ignore to realize is that as soon as someone loses something, God gives him something else. For example: Someone loses his eyes, than there will come some ppl who help him.
And this is true for the world inside of a human too. Someone who suffers and learns to focus on surviving and doesn't give up his hope, he will instantly become a very strong human. It would be very interesting to ask a Mandela when he was stronger: before being 40 years long prisoned or afterwards?
And this continues: A man of God has experienced that the more he suffers and the more he gives up to follow the pleasuers of this world, the stronger, the happier, etc. he becomes.
Most ppl think that strong and happy ppl are those who drive a Mercedes. But this is not true, those children in Haiti who did see this and who will learn to survive, they will become much stronger and thus much happier than those children who grow up in a Mercedes.
And than there are some ppl who say, but so many ppl died and lost their parents or children...
Open your eyes, we are the next ones. No one has ever seen this world without losing his parents, children, his life, his health and everything else, no one (not even the prophets) can run away from this. It is only a matter of time when it will be our turn.

Well Saul on the road to Damascus lost his eyesight then was sent help.

But I'm not sure if I agree with your second statement. I think people get too caught up in surviving and it become a distraction to faith. Yes if you try harder you get stronger at everything but the bible isn't about us necessarily getting stronger its about learning to depend on God (see Deuteronomy 6:4...then verse 10 uses "when" several times.) Indulgence leads to independence from God. That's what Deuteronomy 6 is all about.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...+6&version=NIV

Also Christ in the Wilderness. He's led by the Spirit when he isn't filled with indulgences. When he's physically weak he's spiritually strong.

This is the same. You cannot depend on God without becoming stronger. (And using the word stronger was just a necessity for showing that things like haiti are not as superficial as Atheists tend to look at them).

There could be an overlap, verses 7-10:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...12&version=NIV

Brilliant. I think you detected the bonding. God is a potter after all.

Its just Christians have to learn to detect the weak side of the bonding before we detect the strongside.

May you be silver rather than iron or bronze in his hands.

Ezekiel 22:18 (CEV edition): "Ezekiel, son of man, I consider the people of Israel as worthless as the leftover metal in a furnace after silver has been purified."

Did the faithful people in Auschwitz become stronger before they were gassed and lit on fire while their god did nothing?

Why do you think atheists are looking at Haiti as superficial?? I'm looking at it as horrifying and significant, while I'm being told by theists "well, god lets things like Haiti happen to give people a chance to be good people and help out", or that Haiti gives the remaining Haitians a chance to become "stronger".

It is the theists, not the atheists, that are making those hundreds of thousands of deaths in Haiti "superficial".

That some Atheists look at it superficially, this doesn't mean that some theists don't look at it superficially.
The problem is that on both sides are a lot of ppl with a very narrow and limited views how the world and the human nature is, they never came to the point to learn that they actually do not know anything and than start to learn again. And this makes it really hard to discuss with such ppl, they might be atheists or theists.
Now I will give you some explanations that you never heared about it anywhere.
As I have been in a close to Auschuwitz situation for around 50 days (I cannot say anything about the circumstances, cause my trial is still pending), I can tell you that there has been 3 kind of ppl:
1) Those who thought that this is happening to them cause God doesn't love them anymore. They thought they have done something wrong in their lives and now God wants to punish them. They have been very close to go broke: 2 of them tried suicide.
2) Those who only looked for some kind of activity and didn't think too much about what was going on (I will explain activity later on)
3) Those who thought this is their destinity and they are here/there cause they have something to fullfill for example motivating those who have been under horrible inner pressure.
They have been more or less under the same horrible pressure but the second and third group learns to become stronger. The first group might stay under that pressure even years after this happened to them.
Now I tell you the most important part:
The only thing that (outside) we (humankind) are looking for is : "activity"
Someone who is (has?) in a solitary confinement, he choses a point from the wall to his left and a point on the wall to his right and now he moves his finger from this point to the other and he will become happy. After some days some ppl come there and beat him badly. Now he will become kind of drunken, because of more activity. And this is the reason why political prisoners no matter what happens to them in prison as soon as they are free, they don't have any fear and continue with their political activities ( btw. I am not a political activist). And this is why dictators are not successful.
The only thing you need to be successful with your activity (inside) is: Don't doubt, don't despair, don't lose your hope, just believe!
For you (the reader) to understand this (or my whole point), I tell you the story of someone with a death penalty.
At the time he was on the scaffold (in a street fight, he had killed someone) he only needed to say to the parents of the death guy: I am sorry. And they had given their agreement that as soon as he says he is sorry, they will not insist on his death penalty (in my country this is possible). But he said: I didn't do anything wrong, why should I be sorry. Don't get me wrong: I am not defending what he has done, I am only showing you that even on the scaffott, when you don't despair, when you believe (no matter in what), you won't have a hard time, You might have a hard time, but you only become stronger.
So come out of your little world of activities and try to see that the world is much more complex than you know about it. (My English is not so good, so I hope you guys don't mind my mistakes)

Yes I think you are dead on. People often times refuse to learn again. People hate to be wrong plus they're lazy so they hate to relearn again. The ego is a killer.

How did you manage to get access to a computer in your situation?

I am now at home, waiting....

for what? Or am I not suppose to ask?

That my trial begins. Ofc, I hope I will be exonerated without any trial.

Well you have a good attitude.