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Tim Callahan Profile
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Re: Problem of Evil


The idea that killer tsmnamis and othe natural disasters are caused by man's wickedness is based on Paul's interpretation of the Fall of Man in Genesis 3. Pauls says in Romans 8:20, 21a:

 [F]or the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by him who who subjected it in hope; because the creation will itself be set free from its bondage to decay . . . .

So, according to Paul (but, notably, not according to Jesus) God deliberately subjected his creation to decay, presumably because of man's sin. This, in turn, only rests on a special interpretation of Genesis. In Gen. 3:17 God tells Adam, "Cursed is the ground because of you," and says that he (and the rest of the human race) will eat of it in toil, that it will bring forth thorns and thistles.

While "arar,' the Hebrew word translated as "cursed," means just that and emphatically so, what is cursed is the ground (Heb. adamah = "soil") out of which Adam must eke a living, so he can eat bread in the sweat of his face (Gen. 3;19). So the soil from which Adam must now wrest a living is cursed - not all creation.

Upon this one verse, and Paul's spin on it, hangs the theological intepretation that all creation is cursed. This, in turn, has been used as everything from a prop for creationism to blaming killer tsunamis on human wickedness - even when they kill children.

Even if natural disasters were caused by human wickedness, God must still stand aside and allow these disasters to claim the lives of children, among others. I certainly wouldn't sit by and do nothing to stop children from being killed if I had the power to stop it, and I'm a mere human. Yet, according to this secenario, God is doing just that.

As to the idea that we are put on earth for no other purpose than to glorify God, what exactly does that mean? Are we here just to praise him? Does he really need a cheering section? Perhaps we are to glorify God by leading exemplary lives, or prehaps by living to our fullest potential as creative beings. I could go along with either or both of those. However, I suspect that what it means is adhering to what my witfe calls the "loyalty oath," i.e. being a Christian, and that nobility of character means nothing to God unless you've accepted Christ as your savior, at which point no depravity on your part will condemn you, assuming your confesion of faith in Jesus is sincere. Pleae tell me I'm wrong about this, Melchizedek.
     
12/10/2008, 1:45 am Link to this post Send Email to Tim Callahan   Send PM to Tim Callahan
 
Stormdog Profile
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Other similar views?


Do any other religions hold the view that we're all wretched & foul, by nature, the way Christianity does?

---
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Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
12/12/2008, 10:56 am Link to this post Send Email to Stormdog   Send PM to Stormdog
 
Tim Callahan Profile
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Re: Problem of Evil


Stormdog, bear with me while I smmarize for the sake of background.

We can basically divide religions into those that were with us from Paleolithic or at least Neolithic times and those that werecreated during the period of written history. The latter have explicit codes of ethics and are often based the teaching of one man, although on examination, those teachings are often reworked by later followers.

The first category includes nature religions, fertility cults, animism, animatism, shamanic religions and polytheistic religions of Mesopotamia, Egypt and ancient Greece. The second category includes Taoism, Confucianism, Jainism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Hinduism straddles the two categories, being about the only surviving polytheistic religion among today's major religions. It has, however, developed elaborate and sohisticated relious philosophies and ethical codes.

The second category of religions can be further divided into revealed religions and religions of enlightenment. That is to say that their initial teacher or prophet either meditated on religious concepts over a period of time and became enlightened or claimed to have recieved one or more sudden divine revelations. Religions of enlightenmemnt tend to derive from India and China, such faiths and philosophies as Hindu teachings, Jainism, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. The revealed religions tend to derive from the middle east and include Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

All three of these religions tend to be more agonist and confrontational. They also tend to focus on social interaction far more than do the eastern religions (again, this is a generalization for the sake of summary). Finally, common to all three o these religions, who, after all, share common scriptures, is the concept of the Fall of Man. So all of them view human beings as being, to some degree, in a fallen state and, in our natural state, estranged from God.

While this sets up the concept of humans being depraved, it isn't developed to any great degree in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is merely the reason that evil and death entered the world and the reason God chose a particular people to be his own. The Qur'an depends heavily on the Hebrew Scriptures, Thus, Islam also does not see human beings as inherantly evil.

This is not to say that there aren't verses in the Old Testament that see humans as basically wicked. There certainly are, such as Jeremiah 17:9a (KJV). "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." However, this is part of the agonist nature of revealed religion and the scolding style of the prophets (When you read them, you always get the feeling you're being yelled at.)

It's only in Christianity that this develops into the idea of total human depravity, and even here the concept, while having some basis in the Pauline epistles, is essentially post scriptural. The main author of the concept of Original Sin - the idea that we are all inherantly guilty of a sin we didn't commit and that we inherit our depravity through being engendered by sexual intercourse - was the fourth century theologian Augustine. He was opposed by a Briton Monk named Pelagius, who argued that, though we are estranged from God, we are basically good and do possess the ability to respond to God's offer of salvation. Pelagius reasoned that, as we are God's creations and God is good, we must as well be basically good.

Augustine argued that human beings were so utterly depraved from the Fall that we didn't even have the ability to choose good over evil. Thus, if we respond positively to God's offer of salvation, it is because God has chosen us beforehand. This fits with Paul's nasty little "vessels of wrath" tirade in Romans 9:19 -23, where Paul says that God creates certain people to be saved and creates certain others for the express purpose of damning them to hell for eternity. Thus, the concepts of Original Sin and predestination are entwined.

So, after all of this, Stormdog, the short answer to your question is this: It is only in Christianity that human beings are seen as inherantly evil. I might also add that, while Augustine's views triumphed over those of Pelagius and are offical Christian doctrine, original sin temnds to be soft-pedaled in a lot of churches.

Tim
12/14/2008, 3:33 pm Link to this post Send Email to Tim Callahan   Send PM to Tim Callahan
 
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Re: Problem of Evil


Ultimately, the problem of evil is a monotheistic problem. Pagans simply accept that their gods are less than perfect and that evil, along with good, is part of existence.

As to evil being a consequence of free will, since we are, in this scheme, created by a perfect god, then we, too, should be perfect. Thus, we would, of our own free will, choose good over evil, and there woud have been no Fall of Man.

I would be curious to hear, however, from any Christian apologists who care to join in (alas, "Order of Mechizedek" has left us in a huff) how Adam and Eve could be blamed for eating the forbidden fruit, since it was from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they didn't know good and evil, how coud they make the right choice?

Actually the "knowledge of good and evil" may be a metonymy for universal knowledge, That's one of the problems of interpreting the myth too literally: It becomes a just-so story replete with talking snakes and all sorts of anomalies, such as God planting the tree he didn't want Adam and Eve to eat "in the midst of the garden."

Tim
12/16/2008, 1:31 pm Link to this post Send Email to Tim Callahan   Send PM to Tim Callahan
 
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Re: Problem of Evil


We all know that evil exist, we also know that the existence of evil does not disprove the existence of God. Matter of fact nothing does. (If your honest with yourself)
I would like to change the direction of this thread if I could. Let's assume that the view of the atheist is true. There is no god. In consideration of this view explain the existence of evil.

---


John 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
12/27/2008, 12:02 pm Link to this post Send Email to Free04   Send PM to Free04
 
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Re: Problem of Evil


quote:

Free04 wrote:

We all know that evil exist, we also know that the existence of evil does not disprove the existence of God. Matter of fact nothing does. (If your honest with yourself)
I would like to change the direction of this thread if I could. Let's assume that the view of the atheist is true. There is no god. In consideration of this view explain the existence of evil.



Hello Free. No, "we" don't know that the existence of evil doesn't disprove the existence of God. I'm asserting that the existence of evil, for reasons already stated, disprove the existence of a god, as described to us in the bible. He's supposedly benevolent and all-powerful. For him to co-exist with evil, you'll have to modify one of those traits.

There are natural explanations for disease, famine, floods, war, etc... Nobody was suggesting that god is currently responsible for all these things (though he sometimes is in the bible). However, nobody yet has explained why an all-loving all-powerful god would allow such things to exist.

Last edited by Stormdog, 12/27/2008, 5:26 pm


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12/27/2008, 12:55 pm Link to this post Send Email to Stormdog   Send PM to Stormdog
 
Tim Callahan Profile
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Re: Problem of Evil


Let us consider all posibilities. So far, we've just talked about the monotheistic view, espoused by Judaism, Christianity and Islam, that there is one god who is all-powerful and completely benevolent, and the atheist view, that the First Cause is just the universe itself. Thus, killer tsunamis and the like are just part of nature, along with all its beauty and wonder. To be honest, this is my view, and it seems to me to be the most parsimonious, i.e. the simplest explanation for why things are as they are.

Human evil, like human good, seems to me to be explained by human nature. We evolved to be to some degree selfish, even brutally so, to ensure the continuation of our genetic line. At the same time, we also evolved as social creatures and are thus as naturally inclined toward altruism as we are toward selfishness.

Then there's the Hindu / Buddhist view, that the whole thing is illusory and that evil is the by product of our attachemnt to our illusory desires. While that certainly gets around the problem of evil, I have to confess to finding it vapid and dissatisfying: No, I don't think it's an illusion and, yes, I do think it matters.

I briefly touched on the fact that pagans, whose gods are not always that good or well disposed toward humans, son't have to worry about the conundrum of evil in a universe created by a prefectly benevolent god. However, in times of great stress, one would rather have an all-powerful, benevolent god , than to count on the likes of a philandering Zeus or a duplicitous Enki, hence the appeal of monotheism.

There is yet another possibility, however. Let us suppose there is indeed a god and that there is only one god. However, perhaps he is either less than all-powerful or less than all-loving, or both.

A number of years ago, when the magazine "Gnosis" was still around, a fellow by the name of Tom Shultz wrote a column for them called "Skeptic's Corner," which injected a healthy dose of skepticism into a publication that might otherwise have been in dangerr of becoming too etherial. In one of his columns he talked about nature reflecting its designer, assume there was one. He then detailed the life cycle of many wasps: They paralyze a victim with their sting and lay an egg in its body. The larva hatches out and consumes the living host, taking care not to attack its major nerves, so that it remains alive, and the meat reamins fresh, while being eaten. Once the larva undergoes metamorphosis, it breaks out of the host's body, killing it in the process. You can see here the inspiration for the movie "Alien." After reviewing this life cycle Shultz said, "If this is the design, I'd rather not meet the designer."

Well, maybe that's true. Perhaps there is a god, but God is rather indifferent to human suffering. Perhaps he delight in horror as much as he delights in love and beauty. Perhaps we would indeed rather not meet him.

 Another possibility is that God, wihile being the creator of the cosmos is, in fact, les than perfect and can't make everything come out right. Certainly even a less than perfect deity who was, none the less, the creator of the universe wouldn't owe us, his creations, any explanation or apology for things being far less than perfect. This is, in fact, the attitude of God when he reveals himself to Job. He never explains why he destroyed Job's life and killed all his children just to win a wager with ha satan (Heb. "the adversary" or "the accuser"), a wager whose outcome he would have already known in any case. Instead, God just says, "You don't have the right to question me. Look how great I am."

All that said, I must say that killler tsunami's seem incompatible with an all-powerful, benevolent God.

Tim
 
12/27/2008, 6:15 pm Link to this post Send Email to Tim Callahan   Send PM to Tim Callahan
 
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Re: Problem of Evil


quote:

Tim Callahan wrote:

the atheist view, that the First Cause is just the universe itself. Thus, killer tsunamis and the like are just part of nature, along with all its beauty and wonder. To be honest, this is my view, and it seems to me to be the most parsimonious, i.e. the simplest explanation for why things are as they are.



In other words, Nature is beautiful and wonderful, but is the cause of natural evil.

Ever thought about the good that comes out of what we call natural evil?

What would the earth be without these natural evils, or would it be?

---


John 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
12/28/2008, 9:09 am Link to this post Send Email to Free04   Send PM to Free04
 
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Re: Problem of Evil


quote:

Stormdog wrote:




Hello Free. No, "we" don't know that the existence of evil doesn't disprove the existence of God.



Your not being honest with yourself.



---


John 8:36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
12/28/2008, 9:13 am Link to this post Send Email to Free04   Send PM to Free04
 
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Re: Problem of Evil


quote:

Free04 wrote:

quote:

Stormdog wrote:




Hello Free. No, "we" don't know that the existence of evil doesn't disprove the existence of God.



Your not being honest with yourself.




Oh, but I am. That's why I'm an atheist. Suggesting non-believers are just believers who lie is disingenious, at best. It's also an attempt to avoid having to deal with the issue at hand.

Last edited by Stormdog, 12/28/2008, 12:32 pm


---
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Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
12/28/2008, 12:32 pm Link to this post Send Email to Stormdog   Send PM to Stormdog
 


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