极速赛车168官网 Comments on: A Cinematic Tour of the Problem of Evil

极速赛车168官网 By: Sasha Dence

Sasha Dence — Wed, 22 May 2019 18:25:00 +0000

From a Christian p.o.v. suffering is the result of sin. But I think, I'm coming to believe, sin is almost always misunderstood. I think it is a lot more complicated than most people understand it to be. In reflecting on my own life, I can see in times past where I was actively sinning but I have to say, except in a couple of instances, I didn't realise that what I was doing, or the thoughts that lead to sinful attitudes, could (and did) cause suffering. It is only in retrospect that I can see many sins clearly as sins. I think what is true of me is likely true of a lot of people. We do not really know we are agents of evil when we are. Thinking about it, I think I expected evil to be a lot more obvious - a lot more clear in terms of how I felt at any given time. I thought I would know when I was entering a place called 'evil'. I have to say, I often didn't. I mean, if I was told not to take cookies, and I did, I knew at the time and I'd feel that guilty fear that I was doing something wrong. But some sins, especially sins not considered sinful by a particular culture, are only sins if you deeply think about what you are doing and your motives as well as trying ot imagine the implications. For eg., if you lived at a time when owning slaves was socially permissable, and you treated your slaves well, you could believe yourself to be doing nothing wrong in owning them, that slavery is evil might never enter your head. Similarly, if you lived in Germany in the '30''s and 40's you might have no real idea that your gov't was criminal. I mean, 60 million people weren't all psychopaths. To live as sin-free -- and thus, cause as little suffering as possible -- requires a lot of work. I believe this is because we simply do not literally, as in our own bodies, feel the pain we cause. For eg., I remember a student complaining to me that i brushed her off when she asked me for material from classes she missed. When I thought back to the incident (which I barely remembered) I could see that I did, or likely did, because I routinely said to students that asked for stuff they'd missed, "get notes from another student". The main thing, is I didn't feel what they felt. I had to learn it. For someone else this would be automatic. We're not connected by nerve endings to each other and only become so if we choose to. I suspect (although I don't know) that feeling the effects of what we say and do in someone else *was* automatic before sin severed our connection to God, each other, and the non-human creation. Sin is a rupturing force. After the fall, after the big disconnect, to be sinless and thus not cause suffering requires exercising imagination -- trying to *be* someone other than yourself. It is an ongoing effort of will and imagination; also the willingness to suffer yourself, to repent, when you realise that you've engaged in something you, on reflection, realise causes suffering. It requires knowing that you could have been compliant with nazism or stalinism were you raised under those regimes. I can think of many many examples. Did we know, at the time, that splitting an atom would cause Hiroshima? Did we know that inventing the internal combustion engine could (and did) lead to global ecological collapse, the extinction of 60% of species etc. We could have drawn a straight line at least hypothetically, from those inventions to their mis-use. Did the first settlers in North America fully comprehend that they couldn't steal land that wasn't theirs? Or were all those people intentionally malicious as we think of evil people being? Frequently, I don't think we always know when we're arrogant, cold, stupidly reckless or cruel. A lot of sin that causes suffering -- is a kind of ignorance of the heart -- a kind of lack of imagination, deep feeling or deep reflection. Knowledge isn't really cerebral. I think real knowledge, the kind that activates when we're about to sin, is feeling. We couldn't hurt a child because we ourselves would suffer so much. But we might, I don't know, be willing to put a toddler in daycare.Our culture is perfectly fine with that. I myself was until I once stayed in one all day. What I mean by all of this, is I think we often don't know ourselves as well as we think we do and we don't understand how deep our own capacity to cause suffering is -- how much power we have to make others suffer. Causing suffering is just a whole lot easier than I thought it would be when I was younger and first started wanting to be good. Sin is easy! As the priest says in Les Miserables, famously said, it's gravity. Going down is so much easier than going up. I think, when I was younger, I thought evil would be obviously evil and thus -- rare -- clearly abnormal. I also think we don't really understand Love and what it demands of us or what compassion, co-passion, i.e. co-suffering *with* others and non-human life entails. But Christ did -- hence The Passion.

极速赛车168官网 By: Raisinhead

Raisinhead — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 10:30:00 +0000

In reply to mr. right. Mr Craig fails spectacularly to discuss the nature of evil in the world and instead masturbates over his training in rhetoric. Evasive to the point of duplicity. Atheists need prove nothing about God. It's not that we simply don't 'like a god who would allow suffering'. It's that that understanding of theology is one more reason not to believe in God. Craig is somehow arguing that bone cancer in children is necessary or probably necessary to some degree to bring people to God if he is omniscient and yet doesn't seem to be an interventionist god apart from that one time in Galilee (oh how convenient). Craig tells us that the example of Jesus shows us that we can bear suffering. Well, whoopie-do. What other choice is there? He tells us that enduring suffering is a trade off against the chance for eternal happiness. Let's look at the childhood case again: 1.The child of course would prefer not to be dying of cancer. This is a fearful, and horrible prospect 2. It heaps grief on to parents, grand-parents, siblings, friends and even neighbors. 3. There is no self-selection for this challenge. No family drew straws to see which of their kids would be given cancer so they could try to beat a challenge. How does this bring people to God? If this is god, then god is an evil, capricious tyrant. But luckily there is no such thing as God and we must accept, in the existential sense, that the universe is full of hazards and we have no choice but to bear and endure without reward.

极速赛车168官网 By: mr. right

mr. right — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 02:52:00 +0000

In reply to Raisinhead. Watch william lane craig's video about the problem of evil.

极速赛车168官网 By: mr. right

mr. right — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 02:51:00 +0000

Click (with Adam Sandler) shows how the character's avoidance of suffering by clicking away the hard parts of his life can lead to a worse state of emptyness because he skipped moments of joy intertwined with struggle. The angel of death tells him one moment that the clicker automatically skipped through parts of his life accordingly to his previous living pattern, "you were rushing through life because of work way before I got here, so every time family was in the way of work, the clicker chose work"; simply referring to how we ourselves can be the root of our own evil.

极速赛车168官网 By: Michael Murray

Michael Murray — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 02:49:00 +0000

In reply to Susan. The Nazi's were pretty good at compelling people to say things. The Inquisition was no slouch either by all reports.

极速赛车168官网 By: Doug Shaver

Doug Shaver — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 02:09:00 +0000

In reply to Ce Gzz. Perhaps. I'm not done with it yet.

极速赛车168官网 By: Ce Gzz

Ce Gzz — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 01:26:00 +0000

In reply to Doug Shaver. Pathetic! Sounds like a wasted life there!

极速赛车168官网 By: Doug Shaver

Doug Shaver — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 20:36:00 +0000

In reply to Ce Gzz. If I had not been born, some unknown fraction of the world's history for the past 68 years would have been at least slightly different, but the only difference that matters from a moral perspective is how much more or less suffering has occurred because I was born. I have no idea whether my life has resulted in a net increase or decrease in the world's suffering. But, if you're going to tell me what I should feel glad about, I can tell you that it makes no sense to me to feel anything one way or the other about having merely existed.

极速赛车168官网 By: Ce Gzz

Ce Gzz — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 20:04:00 +0000

In reply to Doug Shaver. If your mother had chose to abort you...HECK! we would not be having this comments from you Doug!

极速赛车168官网 By: Doug Shaver

Doug Shaver — Sun, 20 Jul 2014 01:55:00 +0000

In reply to sleepyhead.

I was just pointing out that in order for the "problem of Evil" to be an effective argument we must assume that we didn't have any choice with regards to our coming to earth in our present circumstances.

I so assume. Why shouldn't I?