Progress

[OaklandA's]

I don't have a very satisfying answer to this question. I can tell you I have seen and read about some amazing things that come out of great suffering.

Thank you for the reply, and for the example.

I guess I have a bigger problem with the "natural disaster" type events. I appreciate that if man has free will, then that can naturally lead to poor choices. But again, I come back to events like we've seen in Japan or Indonesia in the last few years, where thousands and thousands of lives were ruined or taken away, through no action of the people who suffered. And getting to the nuclear reactor example, there is no greedy contractor or selfish politician that could indirectly have caused it. And if you feel that these natural disasters are a consequence of some poor choices (love for oil, deforestation, species extinction, etc.) we have made as a civilization, it seems like history is replete with similar disasters, even at a time when mankind had even very little influence on the earth.

[Gregg]

That story bothers me, too.



Abraham is called righteous because he believed God. One of the other biblical authors (the author of the book of Hebrews? I forget) says that Abraham believed that God could raise his son Isaac back to life.

Still doesn't make the story satisfying for me, though.

This one bothered me for a long time.

I could never do what God asked of Abraham. Then again he didn't ask me to. God picked the right man for the job. God knew what was needed. He didn't make a mistake. The right leader was chosen.

I too find Job a bit distressing. I wonder if the answer isn't much simpler than I make it out to be? Could it be that God knew we needed this type of example to look to? I have said sometimes I feel like Job but without the righteous part. Maybe Job, like Abraham was just the right man for the job that was needed. As a righteous man, maybe Job was happy (after the fact) to be a good servant to the God that he loves. Maybe God wanted Job for The Book.

[Gregg]

Thank you for the reply, and for the example.

I guess I have a bigger problem with the "natural disaster" type events. I appreciate that if man has free will, then that can naturally lead to poor choices. But again, I come back to events like we've seen in Japan or Indonesia in the last few years, where thousands and thousands of lives were ruined or taken away, through no action of the people who suffered. And getting to the nuclear reactor example, there is no greedy contractor or selfish politician that could indirectly have caused it. And if you feel that these natural disasters are a consequence of some poor choices (love for oil, deforestation, species extinction, etc.) we have made as a civilization, it seems like history is replete with similar disasters, even at a time when mankind had even very little influence on the earth.

This actually goes back to my "we don't understand the ramifications of sin." All of creation has been tainted by sin. This is a general condition going back to the first rebelion. This is not so much about an individual sin but sin in general.

In the next world or afterlife, I do not believe we will have to deal with what we call natural disasters. What God has in mind for those that want to live with him is going to be a mind blower.

[Gregg]

This is a part of commonly recited Christian dogma that always rubs me the wrong way. It just seems like the ultimate cop out to attribute all things good to God and fail to attribute anything bad to him. God only helps batters hit home runs but never curses them to strike out? I'm not sure that's in accordance with what's written in the OT (angry and vengeful God). I'm sure I'm not alone among my skeptic brethren in thinking that this is a little ridiculous.

You are not alone in this one. I had a problem with this one for a long time. Then I finally came to a conclusion that was at least somewhat satisfying. Then the doubts creep in.

I think one of the most fantastic, miraculous things that I hope to understand in the after life is how God honored free will, and timed everything and all the outcomes according to his plan. Only God could do that. So even though by brain can't handle it, God is in the details.

[Fresno Bob]

I'd also like to state that while I probably come across as a Christian hating jerk, I do think that Gregg's notion that following the words of Jesus generally makes for a pretty good person. That's what makes it all the more frustrating, though, when the words get twisted to fit a malicious agenda.

I'm here as well, so much so that I think Jesus's teachings become more powerful and insightful if he is just a man, rather than God.

[Kevin Seitzer]

I'd also like to state that while I probably come across as a Christian hating jerk, I do think that Gregg's notion that following the words of Jesus generally makes for a pretty good person. That's what makes it all the more frustrating, though, when the words get twisted to fit a malicious agenda.

I don't think you hate me or come across like you do.

I don't think it does anyone any good to pretend to like ideas that seem repulsive to them. You've got to be honest about things in order to work through them and grow in understanding. (Not saying that growing in understanding means that you will come to think like me, just that dishonesty to oneself or to try to please others does no good, in my experience.) Similarly, the honest dialog among people from different perspectives is one of the things I really appreciate about the Rotojunkie community. Sometimes I find the religion and politics threads to be worthless bickering, but sometimes they are good learning experiences and chances to expand and exercise my thinking.

[onejayhawk]

It's hard for me to think that God's plan does really much more than suck and cause pain and suffering on a massive scale. The fact that I won't understand it until the afterlife is yet another one of those conveniences that all religions build in to their dogma to make their assertions unassailable. Religion is like a collection of all the fallacies known to logic and reason. We've already hit on a few here, including Regular Guy's use of the naturalistic fallacy and circular cause and consequence. I myself am probably responsible for both presentism fallacy and/or historical fallacy.

What makes for a well lived life? Is it the absense of pain, suffering and hardship? I think the universal response would be no. Consider the wisdom of Vince Lombardi:

"I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something good in men that really yearns for discipline."

"The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It's your mind you have to convince."

"Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It's a state of mind-you could call it character in action."

"I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious."

It is easy to consider lack of pain a good thing. However, in a larger sense, a period without pain is a period without growth. Not that such periods are not important. In addition to growth we need time to digest and adjust. However, left to ourselves, we prefer the rest times to the growth times. Certainly we do so, in the abstract, for others. Your comment is a case in point.

God knows the correct balance. The Bible flatly says not to expect easy times. To the contrary, there are a largenumber of passages promising suffering, and encouragement to embrace suffering as a benefit. for example, this famous passage from the NT.

Endure your suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? But if you do not experience discipline, something all sons have shared in, then you are illegitimate and are not sons. Besides, we have experienced discipline from our earthly fathers and we respected them; shall we not submit ourselves all the more to the Father of spirits and receive life? For they disciplined us for a little while as seemed good to them, but he does so for our benefit, that we may share his holiness. Now all discipline seems painful at the time, not joyful. But later it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those trained by it.

Hebrews 12: 7-11

While I sympathize with your position, speaking strictly for the temporal, not the eternal, it seems short sighted. After all, the only things we will take out of this life are our relationships and our experience. God wants us to be loaded when we arrive.

J

[B-Fly]

Then there is a third point which I feel particularly unsuited to try to explain. (Probably this point belongs second in the progression, rhetorically speaking.) However, I believe it's an extremely important point, so I'll include it. God is not primarily presented in either the Jewish or the Christian scriptures as a judge or an omnipotent ruler. He is a first and foremost an intimate lover of the people and creation he has made, and often as such, a wounded, saddened, and rejected lover. Jesus was the personification of this type of god. So when the people hurt and injustice is done or the creation is broken, God too is hurt and broken and saddened and wounded.

This one fascinates me, as the G-d I read about in the Torah does strike me far more as a King or a Father, with very human emotions including great anger, disappointment, jealousy. I can have sympathy for such a G-d. But I can't reconcile that with everything that the Torah also tells me about G-d's nature...that G-d is ominpresent, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, both just and merciful, and holy and perfect. I read the stories and I see a G-d who, while pretty damn impressive, isn't perfect. But yet the Bible also tells me I have to conclude otherwise.

[Gregg]

I'm here as well, so much so that I think Jesus's teachings become more powerful and insightful if he is just a man, rather than God.

He was a perfect man. That is why he was the one chosen for the sacrifice. In his perfection He chose to be that for us. Often times we do not understand justice...or grace for that matter.

[Gregg]

If God thinks the correct balance of pain and suffering involves genocide, torture, and systemic rape then I want nothing to do with him and I most certainly won't worship him. Moreover, if God "wants us to be loaded" (shoulda seen me Saturday night!) when we arrive, he probably should stop killing infants.

Having a tough football practice is one thing but real pain and suffering is quite another.

I'd recommend you read The Brothers Karamazov. Dostoevsky laid this out more eloquently than I ever could.

God hates death too. It is why he has given us eternal life. You say he should do something about it...He has.

If you want an interesting read. Try The Shack.

[Gregg]

This one fascinates me, as the G-d I read about in the Torah does strike me far more as a King or a Father, with very human emotions including great anger, disappointment, jealousy. I can have sympathy for such a G-d. But I can't reconcile that with everything that the Torah also tells me about G-d's nature...that G-d is ominpresent, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, both just and merciful, and holy and perfect. I read the stories and I see a G-d who, while pretty damn impressive, isn't perfect. But yet the Bible also tells me I have to conclude otherwise.

Maybe that persona is so we can somehow relate to him. I suspect our emotions are filtered through our sin nature while His are not.

[B-Fly]

Maybe that persona is so we can somehow relate to him. I suspect our emotions are filtered through our sin nature while His are not.

Okay, well if that persona is so we can somehow relate to Him, it works, because I can see familiar human aspects of a Father or King in the stories. However, I am less forgiving of this character - G-d - when I'm told that he is omnipresent, omnipotent, just and merciful, holy and "perfect". Because the world in which I live doesn't reflect that at all. If G-d is all of those things, then He is aware of the terrible suffering of innocents, capable of eliminating or easing their suffering, and volitionally choosing either to affirmatively visit that suffering upon them or electing not to act to eliminate or ease that suffering. Since the manner in which such suffering is meted out in this world cannot possibly be viewed as both just and merciful, there's a huge disconnect here.

[B-Fly]

What makes for a well lived life? Is it the absense of pain, suffering and hardship? I think the universal response would be no. Consider the wisdom of Vince Lombardi:

"I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something good in men that really yearns for discipline."

"The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It's your mind you have to convince."

"Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial. Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It's a state of mind-you could call it character in action."

"I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious."

It is easy to consider lack of pain a good thing. However, in a larger sense, a period without pain is a period without growth. Not that such periods are not important. In addition to growth we need time to digest and adjust. However, left to ourselves, we prefer the rest times to the growth times. Certainly we do so, in the abstract, for others. Your comment is a case in point.

God knows the correct balance. The Bible flatly says not to expect easy times. To the contrary, there are a largenumber of passages promising suffering, and encouragement to embrace suffering as a benefit. for example, this famous passage from the NT.

Endure your suffering as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? But if you do not experience discipline, something all sons have shared in, then you are illegitimate and are not sons. Besides, we have experienced discipline from our earthly fathers and we respected them; shall we not submit ourselves all the more to the Father of spirits and receive life? For they disciplined us for a little while as seemed good to them, but he does so for our benefit, that we may share his holiness. Now all discipline seems painful at the time, not joyful. But later it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those trained by it.

Hebrews 12: 7-11

While I sympathize with your position, speaking strictly for the temporal, not the eternal, it seems short sighted. After all, the only things we will take out of this life are our relationships and our experience. God wants us to be loaded when we arrive.

J

I agree that pain and suffering can be character building, but your post falls down in the example of a child who is tortured and then killed, either by the hands of another or by an illness. Maybe someone's character has been built by enduring the suffering that was visited upon the innocent child, but it's not the innocent child, who endured great suffering and then died without any opportunity to "grow" from his experience. Is it "short sighted" for me to challenge a supposedly omnipotent, just or merciful G-d who permits such a thing?

[Kevin Seitzer]

I found a link to the book I keep referencing. I'd still encourage all of you to buy it and read it, as it deals with a lot of what we're talking about here. And remember that Dostoevsky himself was a Christian and really wrote this book, in part, to flesh out his own obsession with dealing with the problem of evil, especially evil visited on the innocent.

http://books.google.com/books?id=mMN...page&q&f=false

My wife has read Dostoevsky and we talked quite a bit about it. I agree he's definitely an important voice on this topic. I have a lot of trouble reading the Russian authors, though. Maybe it's the translation, but the prose just seems like wading through hip-deep mud to me.

If God does not set right the suffering of the innocents, that seems terribly unjust. My heart cries out for that to be set right, and I hope and trust that he will, both in this life and in the life to come. I don't think it's enough to simply say that God will set it right in the next life and go merrily whistling on our way. We need to work to set it right in this life and call upon God to multiply our efforts and to do what we cannot. But I do not believe that until the time when God fully and ultimately sets all those things right that the horrific injustices that we see will end. The Jewish and Christian scriptures call us to do both things--to work diligently with God to set things right now, and to hold onto the hope that things will be better in the future when those who have been abused now will be restored and the abusers will receive justice--even though they seem to push in contradictory directions.

[onejayhawk]

I agree that pain and suffering can be character building, but your post falls down in the example of a child who is tortured and then killed, either by the hands of another or by an illness. Maybe someone's character has been built by enduring the suffering that was visited upon the innocent child, but it's not the innocent child, who endured great suffering and then died without any opportunity to "grow" from his experience. Is it "short sighted" for me to challenge a supposedly omnipotent, just or merciful G-d who permits such a thing?

Yes.

Our family lost a 12 year old (favorite cousin's son) to cancer about 6 years ago. It is a topic that has received some consideration.

By definition, you are shortsighted compared to any diety, much less a truly powerful one. For example, how do you know the child did not grow? Is the child innocent? You have a child. How old was she when she first became defiant? Was it months or just weeks? We know that pain and suffering are temporary, yet we consider eliminating it the goal above goals. God takes a longer view.

J