God helped Jerry Yang win WSOP!

[foal]

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Joyce says. "But more important than that, we learned a priceless lesson: If you do what is right, God takes care of you."

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This really bothers me, because it reflects a bias that is present in our culture: "Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people." This is a real bias and studies have been done showing this. Therefore when bad things happen to other people there is an unfair (unless you agree with Joyce) bias toward thinking that they deserved it.

[tpir]

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Read the bible...you'll see that God tests people all the time and rewards are not always by way of money...That's one of the main themes of Christianity by the way...

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Being tested is a main theme of Christianity? I would reexamine that notion if I were you. If that's the case, how do you know the Bible isn't one big test to discover it's not true? How can you ever be sure you are on the right side of the test? The "rewards" could be temporary red herrings to test you even further!!

[kurto]

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Kurto how do you know the other people didn't win...

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Its cute watching you try to change how one 'wins' the competition so that you can bang the square blocks of reality into the the circular holes of your faith.

We know who won because I saw the programs.

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It seems like you are using some materialistic standard to judge a winner...

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No, I'm using the standard set up by the competition. You're the one looking at a competition and its prize and trying to redefine what constitutes a win.

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Read the bible...

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I have. Its pretty horrible. One need only read the Bible with a clear mind to see its far from the inspiration of a perfect holy creature.

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you'll see that God tests people all the time and rewards are not always by way of money...

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I think though you're missing my point. My point was nothing more then to show how God participates in shows like "The Biggest Loser", "The Amazing Race" and "Survivor." Sure... he may not ever help give an amputee a limb or anything like that, but if a good Christian passes his humility test by shaving her head he will make miracles happen (like helping them catch a flight... something that can only be explained by divine intervention) so that the good Christians will be rewarded with $1,000,000.

God works in mysterious ways.

[Splendour]

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[ QUOTE ]
Joyce says. "But more important than that, we learned a priceless lesson: If you do what is right, God takes care of you."

[/ QUOTE ]
This really bothers me, because it reflects a bias that is present in our culture: "Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people." This is a real bias and studies have been done showing this. Therefore when bad things happen to other people there is an unfair (unless you agree with Joyce) bias toward thinking that they deserved it.

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This may not be a true bias. Good and bad seem to hit everyone. Its just people take comfort in saying this.

[vhawk01]

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Here is my original post:

Maybe Yang's win wasn't about Yang...God does like to display his power through the weak and the humble...Maybe God was just trying to let people know about the power of prayer...Yang just happened to be the man that could humble himself publicly so he was the recipient of the Lord's bounty via the WSOP winnings...hmmmm..very interesting idea

Please note I used the word MAYBE....I just chose to make my own positive speculative interpretation...A lot of people find it easier to make it through this world by believing in a just God.

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Can you answer my questions though? Doesnt it SEEM like God is cursing people a lot, too? Just like it SEEMS like he is blessing some people?

[vhawk01]

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[ QUOTE ]
Joyce says. "But more important than that, we learned a priceless lesson: If you do what is right, God takes care of you."

[/ QUOTE ]
This really bothers me, because it reflects a bias that is present in our culture: "Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people." This is a real bias and studies have been done showing this. Therefore when bad things happen to other people there is an unfair (unless you agree with Joyce) bias toward thinking that they deserved it.

[/ QUOTE ]

This may not be a true bias. Good and bad seem to hit everyone. Its just people take comfort in saying this.

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Its a true bias. It isn't even an incorrect bias, qualitatively speaking. I would be willing to bet that, all else being equal, good people have more success in their lives than bad people (good and bad defined by some consensus survey on what traits each has, I don't really care what the definition is). Where the bias comes in is that most people VASTLY overestimate this correlation. Good things happen to good people more often, but bad things happen to good people A WHOLE LOT. Just slightly less than to bad people. So much so that its nearly useless to try and use one thing (goodness of people or goodness of result) to guess at the other. THAT is where the bias comes in, how strongly people think this correlation is.

[Splendour]

I'm not sure how you can discern the Lord as cursing anyone in the world today vhawk...Because he's not the only force at work in the world and people are going through periods of being tested where they may feel like their cursed but actually aren't ...besides people get themselves into a lot of their own problems that have nothing to do with curses its dependent on their own bad choices.

[vhawk01]

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I'm not sure how you can discern the Lord as cursing anyone in the world today vhawk...Because he's not the only force at work in the world and people are going through periods of being tested where they may feel like their cursed but actually aren't ...besides people get themselves into a lot of their own problems that have nothing to do with curses its dependent on their own bad choices.

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And all of that applies to blessing EQUALLY. Thats exactly my point.

[Splendour]

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[ QUOTE ]
Joyce says. "But more important than that, we learned a priceless lesson: If you do what is right, God takes care of you."

[/ QUOTE ]
This really bothers me, because it reflects a bias that is present in our culture: "Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people." This is a real bias and studies have been done showing this. Therefore when bad things happen to other people there is an unfair (unless you agree with Joyce) bias toward thinking that they deserved it.

[/ QUOTE ]

This may not be a true bias. Good and bad seem to hit everyone. Its just people take comfort in saying this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its a true bias. It isn't even an incorrect bias, qualitatively speaking. I would be willing to bet that, all else being equal, good people have more success in their lives than bad people (good and bad defined by some consensus survey on what traits each has, I don't really care what the definition is). Where the bias comes in is that most people VASTLY overestimate this correlation. Good things happen to good people more often, but bad things happen to good people A WHOLE LOT. Just slightly less than to bad people. So much so that its nearly useless to try and use one thing (goodness of people or goodness of result) to guess at the other. THAT is where the bias comes in, how strongly people think this correlation is.

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Well its pretty hard to quantify this...You do have the peer groups people hang out in and environment playing major roles. Plus everyone's bias/perception will vary and how could you ever measure it unless you conducted some kind of worldwide census...even then regional views are bound to affect the results and who's to say they shouldn't you are trying to determine the scope of the bias and underlying reasons for it. A lot of people do like to use that karma phrase "what goes around comes around" in the West not sure about other parts of the world.

[tpir]

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I'm not sure how you can discern the Lord as cursing anyone in the world today vhawk...Because he's not the only force at work in the world and people are going through periods of being tested where they may feel like their cursed but actually aren't...

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How could you possibly know any of this? Unless you know God personally and exactly how His mind works (which you don't know and could not possibly know), how can you discern a test from a non-test from one of the "other forces" you mentioned?

Seriously man, you should really drop the "tested" stuff pronto. It makes your already mostly ridiculous position totally absurd and untenable. Using your approach, how do we know God isn't a flamboyant gay and he put the homoslaying in the OT as a big test for all of us?