Sussana & Job

Arg there is so much reading in this class T.T

I read susanna, it was shorter than i thought it would be, but a very nice little read. It's certainly different in style from the J and P and so on writers. At least it seemed that way to me.
I liked the story. It seemed to put a lot of emphasis on age however. The evil elders and young susanna and daniel are awesome, and by the by young...yeah, maybe i looked into that too much, I'm not sure.
This little story seemed better in terms of a complete story. The version i read had dialogue, the two elders saying it's dinner, then running into one another, it's almost comical. I can see how this was a story. I'm not entirely sure why Susanna is considered to be so great. She stuck to her morals? okay i must admit that is a very strong characteristic. Still I'm trying to understand what she is meant to represent? When confronted by the men, she decided to not give in even though she knew it would be the death of her or worse. Then at the trial she doesn't really deny it, she just asks god for help.
So Ask god for help? doesn't that go against the, god helps those that help themselves bit?
It did remind me of Narnia though (I am a big dork >.>) in prince caspian Lucy pretty much just waits around until Aslan shows up. Yay faith?

Ah reading Job. I knew this story before, and it has always bothered me, generally the nature of suffering when a deity is involved bothers me. Doestovsky sums up my feelings rather well in his great novel. If there is a God that expects us to accept suffering as a test of faith...I don't want anything to do with it.
There is so much that bothers me in this book. First of all, innocent lives are lost to make a point. His offspring all die...to make him sad. I assume his offspring were mostly innocent. It says Job worked at resolving their sins, and we're not all perfect, that doesn't mean lives ought to be taken just to prove how awesome you are.
Honestly it seems like the Job's trouble starts because God wants to get in a pissing contest. But looking past that, I suppose the core of it makes sense. Faith isn't really faith if it goes untested. Anyone can believe God is awesome if they have a great life.
The reasoning for God's actions at the end bothers me. Claiming that God is never wrong in his decisions (I guess the whole being sorry for the flood thing doesn't mean he was wrong), humans can't fathom everything god can (fair enough) so God is completely free in his actions with his creation, he can do what he wants and we can't question it and should just trust in it. The answer to why there is suffering in the world is "I do what I want, stop asking questions"
I can't stomach it. I try not to be hypercritical of this story, but I just don't understand why this is appealing. Why would you trust in a being that may torture you for unknown reasons,Why would you want that feeling of helplessness.

I've had someone comment to me about this. Asking how I could deal with being Atheist when there's still suffering and you can't do anything about it. Well I see it a bit differently. Shit happens, a simple fact of life, but it's impersonal. There is no one causing me to suffer this way. I am not like a mouse pinned beneathe a cat's paw waiting to see if it will eat me or let me go.

It's just that personal causing or allowing his followers to suffer that bothers me with this God.
Admittedly Jod gets all his stuff back (sort of) and it's better, but I find that to be a very hollow gift for faith. Possesions mean to mask a tear in trust.