I’m talking exclusively about natural evil, as it pretains to Haiti, and as opposed to evil inflicted or brought about by humanity. I really don’t know what you’re getting at with “poor housing and bad governments.” I’m talking about things external to people.
And the Muslim’s, Pagans, Jews, and Buddhists speak similar accolades about their dieties. You see why, then, such an answer is unsatisfying - because everyone has given a different one for their favorite god.
But you believe that the prince of lies came from the keeper of all truth; evil from good; imperfection from perfection?
False dilemma. Reason could have developed (as matter in general could have developed) of its own volition. Matter organizes itself into higher (thus, more stable) structures and potentially (as has been demonstrated) gives rise to intelligent thought. Each event leading up to the culmination of man is slightly, but not prohibitively, improbable. I can see how reason simply developing as a single event, without any forerunners, would seem completely ludacris, but thankfully that’s not how it happened.
Probability and Chance are not the same thing. I have no time for a Pope who so easily confuses the two.
As i mentioned prior – this is not the space to be able to answer all you decided to assert…that would require a course in theology and philosphy etc
Does not seem you understand what “coherent” means…at least at the moment you were reading the post.
The correct answer: I don’t know. Any other answer is presumptuous.
Not necessarily. God gave both humanity and the angels free will, which entails freedom to act. There is the possibility that the fallen angels caused the disaster. There is the possibility that God failed to intervene as a result of the sins of humanity. What we know for certain is that there would be no evil if there had been no sin. So it is the actions of sinful beings that are the cause of evil.
Wow. These fantastic and imaginative ideas have been around for centuries. Regardless of their currency, they provide an explanation for why there is natural evil, even though they may not tell us exactly why any particular natural disaster occurred.
There is an intellectual irroncilability between the the benevolence and the om(name removed by moderator)otence of God. If God is all-powerful, why does he allow evil things to occur? The Catechism, re-framing this question in terms of why diabolic agency is permitted, simply says it is a "great mystery’’.Well done!You’ve found me out. It was, I’ll admit, a manipulative tactic. I think a lot can be learned from ourselves about the questions that we can’t answer. The fact that something still remains so raw and terrible no matter how we frame it makes the answers to our questions seem incorrigibly inadequate. But there is something more universal to be taken from this: just because other answers to other questions don’t rock our conception of God (the way a God that permits excessive evil does), doesn’t mean that our answers are any more convincing; it means, if we fancy them to be correct at the onset, we won’t suffer any undue comfort, because they align with God’s benevolence.
In a more global sense, I want people to ask questions about everything, never being satisfied with what merely appeals to our fancy. I’ve been there, and it’s intellectually painful. WIthout simply knowing the following, meditate on it also: just because we conceive of possible answers doesn’t make them right.
There are various senses of the word “world” in the Bible.
Voice of Reason, I think you have been taught a very ‘wrong’ version of Christianity- that God sits in Heaven sending disasters to the earth. Remember, Christ came with no force, and no intellectual arguments- just wisdom, kindness and compassion for the suffering. If you believe in these things, then you believe in the essential faith of Christianty.Well done!
In a more global sense, I want people to ask questions about everything, never being satisfied with what merely appeals to our fancy. I’ve been there, and it’s intellectually painful. WIthout simply knowing the following, meditate on it also: just because we conceive of possible answers doesn’t make them right.
If you think that, with some training, you can come up with an answer to the problem of evil, then by all means do so; show a thing or two to all the theologians and philosophers who’ve gone before you and managed very little more than half-baked rationales.
You’d be right.
Oh, I get it. God allows what is inherently good to be perverted by some unthinkable, unjustifiable means.
No, I don’t.
Not at all. If God gave us reason and placed us into the material world, there should never really be any conflict between the two spheres (unless you invent more phantoms like the devil to explain why God’s creation went so terribly awry - to explain how pervesion could ever come from that which is inherently good; to explain natural disaster under the provident hand of an all-loving God). I understand what you’re saying about “you can’t go use the material world as a gauge for what can be known about God,” but the material world is all that we have access to (Unless we invent phantoms like the spirit and the soul which speak in utterances completely unknown to us) - this just leads to more bad answers. One bad answer covers another and unto infinity.
I used to like making this argument too. But there is a very persuasive reason to not buy into such feeble reasoning put forward by Stanislaw Lem:
Well don’t just leave me in the dark; you’d better tell me how, if you think I misunderstood. No, I think that Pope Benedict misunderstood the difference between chance and probability. The chance of reason developing of its own volition is unlikely; the probability, as it pretains to cumulative marginal effects, of reason developing of its own volition is likely, given what we know of the universe and matter.
If it should ever be convincing to me, let it be of its own merits. I have no partiality as to which thing appears to be true about God. Whatever it is I do believe, however, should be judged against the same scrutiny which everything is judged: by science and reason, accordingly.
Oh okay, well when you put it that way.
As with much in religion; this is what I’m getting at.
Not as such. I have the right, by human legislative policies, to continue existing, at least to the point of my eventual expiration.
I can’t see how they possible could, no.
By definition, no.
Does God send an earthquake, only after to send relief? What an odd thing.
In this game of existential blame, somebody has to take the bullet. If it wasn’t God, it was the devil (though we should have no reason to believe the devil has any partial dominion over the laws that God first instituted). If it was God, we should wonder why he did not choose a more civil, less bloodthirsty way of bringing about good. It’s peculiar, if nothing else, I’m sure you’ll admit.
There answer is made of two parts: one part sobriety, one part intoxication. The sobriety of it is that this is the keenest answer you can ever give for natural evil (and of course, you recognize this instead of rationalizing it). Here comes the intoxication: some of the things which really bolster our belief in an omni-benevolent, omnipotent God are simply put: great mysteries, and that’s a problem. If, in any other sphere of your existence, you asked a question and the reply came: it is a great mystery; you could not be satisfied with it. Great mystery translates into “It is unknown.” And at the end of everything that is allegedly known about a benevolent God, is a foundational mystery. Therein lies the intoxication of any religion.
I have the same backing in Christianity as you do, to be sure. I am simply unsatisfied with the rationalizations that go before it. Jesus has said much of what was already said throughout history; many of the things he said were not wise or compassionate. He was extremely influential and had a sense of morality that was never so popularized by anyone else in history, but the things he said were not unique to the world at the time he said them. Christ’s alleged uniqueness is not good reason to believe the things that he’s said.
You are in error. We know the reason why natural evil exists (the actions of sinful beings). What we don’t know is why any particular natural disaster occurred the way that it did. I could claim the same thing about certain phenomena in quantum mechanics as you are claiming here, including the impossibility of accurate measurement of the position of an elementary particle while obtaining accurate measurement of its momentum. I guess it’s just a “Mystery” that we will never know. Shall we call this the intoxication of physics?