Not a Sunday School Teacher

[Wetters]

God hates me way too much for that. Porkchop, I know that you go "off the radar" for a while every now and then, but I hope that you're okay and that you have just been busy with a last blast of summer and getting the kids back to school.

W.

[B Brian]

Well since you mentioned it. God is either NOT all knowing, NOT all powerful, or NOT worth following. This is clearly evident by "god's" work in our current suffering.

IF he is all knowing and not powerful enough to prevent our suffering then he is not not a god. IF god is all powerful but does not know we are suffering, the he again is not a true god. And IF he really is both yet does not care to help us, then that is no god I would ever want to follow. God is simply not kind or caring, he does not intervene or even remotely guide (it's proven the bible was written by man). The more who know this knowledge, the more our "ever decreasing pocket of scientific ignorance" is snuffed out of existence it's self.

Prove me wrong on these simple facts of life....

[MSUSpartan]

Preach it Epicurus ...

[Wetters]

Thank you, Brian - It's gratifying to know that others share my thought.

W.

[MSUSpartan]

Probably a lot more share the sentiment, but don't talk about it.

[eighty5onions]

I suffer with depression and PTSD. Probably some other things too, I'm sure. I'm glad to have had the chance to suffer, tho. I guess I also like having the freedom to do the things that make me suffer. Humanity has made a lot of mistakes, but humanity is worthy of love anyway.

[Patrick]

In seminaries, this question is entitled Theodicy. I'm not a seminary professor, so my solution is unreliable. There is altogether too much suffering in this world. Disease, famine, war, accidents, economic dislocations, crime, racism, you name all of them as well as I do. Too many of these are caused by human misbehavior, such as war, racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic cleansing, etc. We gleefully abuse each other, then blame god. The adoption of a heaven/hell dichotomy is neither Hebrew nor Christian; at its origin it is Zoroastrian. However, it does neatly solve the dilemma of bad folks prospering while good folks suffer; god makes things right in the afterlife. The impulse to work for social and economic justice derives from the search for virtue in the contemporary public square. I hope this contributes to the discussion.

[MSUSpartan]

Theodicy is the apologetic that attempts to answer the counter-apologetic known as "the problem of evil". As you pointed out, it seems to cover the issue of bad folks profiting from good folks by condemning them to hell, but even that fails badly in my opinion. Why should God allow bad things to happen to good people to begin with? Most theologians invoke free will here, but that's really a shitty answer too. My reservations of the true existence of free will aside (neurological determinism and all that), a god that values the free will of a bad man over the well-being of a good man, certainly can't be all loving and all powerful. Look at it this way, if I have two dogs, and one is abusing the other (in a significantly detrimental, not talking about working out pack status here), I can't be called a loving owner if I let it go on saying, "don't worry, later I'll burn that bad dog for all of eternity". That's a totally ludicrous response. This of Kevin Carter's Pulitzer prize winning photo. http://all-that-is-interesting.com/word ... ulture.jpg There is no context under which a loving God could possibly allow this.

Further, theodicy is no answer at all to why God would allow natural "evils" to befall innocents. To quote Steven Fry, "Bone cancer in children, what's that all about"? The reality is, if an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent existed, childhood disease would not. That's the point Epicurus (and Brian) were making:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

[wheels5894]

Sad to say, I do hold an MTheol degree from a Scottish university and have studied some of the matters raised here. The job of Theodicy or even Apologetics, is to make the idea of a loving all-powerful god match the state we find ourselves in and the state of the world. Thus it is often said that the world is a training ground where people 'qualify' for heaven and that suffering is a part of this.

I am personally unconvinced by the Apologists answers to these sorts of questions and, indeed, wonder what sort of god requires people producing excuses for his inaction. I suspect the real reason is that there is not a god to be making excuses for, really.

[B Brian]

Ahh, to err is human and to feel pain is to know you are alive.

This is at least one thing we all share regardless if there is a god or not.