From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!arens@UCBKIM
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: Clarification of intellectual mung
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.164
Posted: Thu Mar 31 15:48:11 1983
Received: Sat Apr  2 04:15:09 1983

From: arens@UCBKIM (Yigal Arens)
Received: from UCBKIM.ARPA by UCBVAX.ARPA (3.332/3.19)
	id AA26037; 31 Mar 83 15:46:28 PST (Thu)
To: net-religion@BERKELEY


pur-ee!ecn-pa:scott writes:

	I realized that God's smarter than I am.  In other words, just
	because I don't currently understand something doesn't mean that
	it can't be true.

That's an interesting thought.  Let's continue with it for a while --

* Many good people suffer in this world, and many bad prosper.
* God must have some purpose in that, which we do not understand.
* This then is the RIGHT way for things to be, again, for reasons we
  just don't understand.
* There is no reason to assume that our understanding of what is right
  in 'the next world' is the same as god's.
* There is, then, no reason to believe that many good people will not suffer
  and many bad will prosper in 'the next world'.
* If I were a pious person I wouldn't be surprised by finding the fires of
  hell waiting for me.  God's a lot smarter than I am, and I don't always
  understand what he/she/it does.

Sleep on that.

Yigal Arens
UC Berkeley