Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site cvl.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!david From: david@cvl.UUCP (David Harwood) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Did Lord Frith make the world? Message-ID: <208@cvl.UUCP> Date: Sun, 24-Mar-85 17:50:45 EST Article-I.D.: cvl.208 Posted: Sun Mar 24 17:50:45 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 30-Mar-85 05:56:18 EST Distribution: net Organization: Computer Vision Lab, U. of Maryland, College Park Lines: 141 In reply to Lord Frith: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: root@trwatf.UUCP (Lord Frith) Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Re: reply to Teitz (Why is there evil in the world) Message-ID: <776@trwatf.UUCP> Date: 23 Mar 85 20:24:56 GMT >> Starving thousands of helpless people in remote third-world countries >> seems to test little. If we are to believe that God is just and >> merciful we should see it in everyday life... yet reality provides >> glaring contradicitions. How can we love a God that allows (or >> according to your reasoning CREATES) such suffering when it seems >> to serve no useful purpose? If anything, reality provides a >> great deal of evidence that God is not merciful or just. > > How can you love any person, who upon hearing of the starving in > Africa does not donate money to help those who are starving... "Are you to accuse man now in order to justify God?" > Just as you don't judge people by these standards, so too, don't judge > G-D by these standards. The question should not be how can G-D let > this happen. What do you mean "Just as you don't judge people by these standards...?" We certainly DO judge each other by these standards, and we judge God by higher standards because he demands so much more of us! Does man claim to be perfect? Does man claim to love his neighbor unconditionally? Does man claim to care for all of his children? Does man claim to protect "his people" forever and ever. Who is it that promises eternal life? Who is it that demands unconditional love and obedience... God or man? God is judged by high standards because of his claims. But who can love a God that does not live up to them? > Rather ask, how can man let it happen. Many of our problems (especially those in East Africa) are, in fact, attributible to human mismanagement, you are right about this. And the more generous of us CAN do something about it. One can easily rationalize the view that man is an extension of God's love. That's one reason why he established the belief in Christ (who advocated "love thy neighbor" etc). To claim, however, that it's ALL man's fault and that a Holy God is somehow aloof and removed from the cause of the suffering does not show balance. It displays the typically exagerated doctrine of a human belief. Man cannot be held responsible for the climate. Similarly, we cannot be held responsible for any natural disaster that brings death and mutilation. Is man responsible for the painful myriad of birth defects that often end in early death? Is it man's fault that desease strikes down those least capable of coping with such misery? Tell me why man should be held responsible for events that are beyond his control? The answer to your question is, "Man can only sit by, watch it happen and try to ease the suffering after the fact." But if God is indeed a loving God, why does he create such torment for these people when there is NOTHING that humanity can do to prevent it? The problem is that man did not create the situation (if we accept Mr. Harwood's premise that GOD CREATED suffering for some positive purpose). If God created this useless suffering then why is it man's responsibility to clean up the mess? But more importantly, what "divine purpose" could possibly justify such deliberate cruelty? -- UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!trwatf!root - Lord Frith ARPA: trwatf!root@SEISMO "And Frith made the world" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ So "Frith made the world". Then it must be you who spreads the clouds with the fingers of his hands like lightning, and commands them to hit the mark? But you stubbornly miss the mark: forget your self-justifying complaints -- the fact remains that even if there is not God, still almost all the suffering in the world is due to the moral failure of mankind; the suffering of warfare, terrorism, disease, starvation, unemployment, homelessness, crime, drug addiction, even most birth defects............ these things are all overwhelmingly due to our failure; we could stop them, but we are too selfish. Even the deaths caused by so-called "natural" events (as if these others were not), for example, earthquakes, hurricanes, ..., are also almost entirely avoidable as well if the politics of the world were not so stupid, and science was freed to deal with them, instead of making false gods out of tyrants commanding horrifying weapons. (60% of all government scientists and engineers are making weapons, and it's not for God's sake.) Wake up! Do not ask for whom the bell tolls -- it tolls for thee! I am deaf (95%), from early infancy, a genetic defect; besides this, but unrelated, I am partly crippled by polio, also from infancy; and I am personally acquainted with many others suffering. Do you think that I blame God for this? Not at all. The real suffering I and others have experienced is almost entirely due to the prejudice and neglect of others. Your notions of responsibility are purely imaginary -- since they will not help anyone -- who cares if you don't believe there is God, except that if you do not, will you also do nothing to help others. Don't you realize, as I've said before, world-maker, that by far the largest charitable force in the world, in the history of the world even, is those who do believe that God wants them to be charitable to others, even to strangers, and enemies. Even liberal atheists are indebted, ideologically, whether they realize it or not, to the Bible, and the examples of those who did believe that charitable love is the will of God. You may say that religious people also believe that God wills that they should conduct holy wars. But this argument is specious, since wars, although they are rationalized by false religion, exist because mankind has a cultural inheritance of violence and prejudice everywhere, regardless of religion; even atheists are as warmongering as others (Afghanistan). But charity in our world is culturally due to religion. Did you happen to hear what the historian Will Durant said before his death, about his religious beliefs? He said that he had lost faith as a young man, one who before would be a Catholic priest, if I recall; nevertheless, it was his conviction, after studying the history of Western civilization for 60 years, that the moral advance of the West from barbarism was almost solely due the influence of Christianity. And that while he did not believe in God, he warned that the belief should not be discouraged. Or, to take another example, did you know that at the end of his life, Lenin repented of the violence of the revolution, saying that he did not realize how bloody it would be, and that what true revolution needed was ten St. Francis of Assisi. Or what the atheist, socialist intellectual G.B. Shaw said, also at the end of his life, about Christianity. Or what the famous science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon said when he converted to Christianity, also at the end of his life.... All of these realized very late something about civilization which you still don't perceive... no matter what they formerly believed about the existence of God, they came to understand that Jesus was right about our moral hypocrisy, and about the way we should live.