John Zande’s post is a brilliant work of satire that shows the problems of trying to match the state of our universe to the existence of an omni-benevolent god. Definitely worth a read.
If we found a bomb concealed in a children’s kindergarten, primed and set to detonate when it would wreak the greatest possible carnage, we would reasonably assume that someone vicious and vile – someone evil – had designed the device and had purposefully put it there maximise suffering. How much more reasonable must it be for the impartial observer to then attribute the world as we know it to a vicious and vile, non-contingent, omnipresent, omnipotent, omnimalevolentdesigner? Is this not, after all, the most likely explanation for the world before us?
Who else but a perfectly malevolent being would arrange for the enormous suffering present and guaranteed in our perilously thin, blisteringly violent biosphere? Think of the pain and destruction wrought by earthquakes, floods, cyclones, tornadoes, droughts, famines and disease. Would a benevolent designer have made provision for…
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Finding Truth 
Eric,
point taken 🙂
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William,
in regards to the points you made on the Bible, you also said that God has yet to clarify for himself. Perhaps God will clarify Himself, I don’t know.
And for me, I can’t prove that God exists. I cannot prove that He interacts in a personal way with people.
Howie and William,
To me, the bottom line is, we are all just trying to do the best with what we have been given in this mysterious thing we call life. We don’t have all the answers, and I definitely lack the life experience to be claiming that I know all the secrets of this strange place we all find ourselves in.
But I do know this, we are all in this together, and the more open and honest we can be about our human state, hopefully the more we can encourage and show kindness to those who need it most.
If a faith encourages people to care about those around them, because they consider others to be a part of the image of God, and not just valuable for what they can do, but who they are.
then I feel that such faith is valuable.
Hope you both have a good week
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Hi Ryan – I read your comment twice and there really isn’t much that I’d speak against. In fact there were some things in there you said that resonated quite a bit with me. I particularly liked this:
I’d say the exact same thing back to you. Have a great week!
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Just one more thing,
In my experience, religion can eat you up inside, bound you up, heap the weight of the world on you and trigger horrible fear.
And couple this fear with guilt, and you can have disorganised cognition, anxiety, anger and also for me apathy, which propagates the guilt. It is a horrible thing.
That is where religion can be toxic, because it leaves no room to breathe,
and the fear can paralyse you. You become your own guard in your own prison. And to a casual observer you may just seem strange and apathetic, which is probably a fair assessment in some ways.
Yet faith is different, faith can exist both within and without a religion framework.
Faith can encourage people to love and learn about the real experiences of others, not what its supposed to be, but what it is. Since Love casts out all fear.
Religion according to James 1:27 is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
I admit I don’t do this first thing, and the second thing to me is more about loving people than shunning them. That is a religion that doesn’t bound you up.
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Thanks Howie, its nice to know you can relate 🙂
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Actually I don’t do the second thing either 🙂
Another last thing 🙂
I think one of the main differences can be between faith and religion is within a toxic religion it is often a torment of your own making, that you place rules on yourself and try to be better.
In my experience, this doesn’t last long, before sliding into apathy and then beating yourself up because you don’t make the cut again and again.
But I think I’ve realised it wasn’t God that was beating me up, it was me.
I was trying to build an empire out of ideals. And like Jesus assessment, it came crashing down consistently, but for some reason I always had this this notion in the back of my mind, that this time it will be different.
Anyway hope that makes some sense. Thanks.
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So there’s the pure and undefiled religion, and then there’s the religion we make for ourselves. And really, if kindness and love isn’t the motivation then what is?
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I guess what I meant before is that along with his other messages Jesus taught that humanity, us, we are not perfect.
I mean, I want to be compassionate and care for people. But my actions don’t always meet my desires. I want to honour those around me, but if I base this on perfection in my own strength, I lose sight of the whole point of this,
that its not about checking boxes, its about encouraging people, and getting alongside them. And that will be messy, because humanity is messy.
I mean, Jesus spoke about freeing people up, and freeing people up so they can love others.
If a religion is not effective in doing this, then what is the point of all the ritual, words and ceremony?
I’ll shut up now 🙂 I know I rant on a bit
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Ryan – I think it’s also good to notice that motivational and humanitarian ideals and sayings are not unique to Jesus. Things like the golden rule (and even the platinum rule) are known to have been around in different cultures even before the time of Jesus. In fact as secular humanists have shown, even people who don’t believe in gods have contributed to humanistic thought (and their explanations for moral ontology varies).
I think it is a common thing for all of us to get caught up in the exceptionalism of our own tribes. I can fall into this as well. But I do make an effort to try and see the beautiful things that come out of many different types of cultures.
And as you have rightly said no tribe seems to be perfect and some worldviews can be more unhealthy than others. You are right – “We don’t have all the answers”.
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Hey Howie,
What is the platinum rule? Just curious 🙂
I agree that we should acknowledge and even celebrate what is considerate and loving in other cultures 🙂 Whether they are shared one way in Iran and another way in China, those teachings that promote genuine charity towards others are something we can all benefit from 🙂 People may express it in different actions, but charity and kindness is a language that goes beyond our cultures.
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Thinking I should cut down on my smiley faces 🙂
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Hi Ryan – Here is a link to an article about the platinum rule. You can find many more online.
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Perhaps this problem is just that God gave free will so that He can sit back and watch the drama.
There He is, sitting on His Throne (where did the Throne come from) and He creates this Word Person. He’s been working on the math for an Eternity and finally has obtained It. He has the plans and has His Word create Heaven and then the Angels. After sitting around for an Eternity listening to the Angels singing His praises, He does some more math as the Supreme Technologist and has the Word create the Universe.
Another 9 Billion years goes by and He’s getting restless. He does some more math and creates biology. He then has the Word create the earth with life on it.
Something’s missing. He figures He needs beings that can sort of think like He does, but not with all the mental power of Lucifer who has rebelled and tried to take over, sort of like with Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. So He has the Word create humans and throws in free will.
Good call: With free will, there’s chaos and the chaos with the irrationality creates great drama.
He’s been watching it for the last 6,000 years and it’s so good, He’s going to renew it for another season. All those 7 billion people with all their decisions and all their personal stories, with interactions, inventions.
Of course there’s pain and challenges. You can’t have good drama without it. So what’s a little pain? If you are watching and are all happy with your life with no pain, someone else’s pain doesn’t mean much. Just to be sure though, He sends the Word to become Jesus for 33.5 years and Jesus has to endure lots of suffering for 36 hours and come back and report it all to explain how it feels.
So there. It’s drama. According to Occam’s Razor the simplest explanation is probably the one that is true. God likes drama. He’s obsessed with it (remember His little thing with Abraham so He could KNOW that Abraham was loyal to Him?). He gets pretty upset when you don’t follow the script. Even the punishment is great drama… for Him.
A minister of my acquaintance once said, “God has a flair for the dramatic”.
Go with it — it’s about the most simple brain-dead explanation ever, so it must be right.
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So, he’s just binge-watching? I like it… 🙂
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The best thing is, he probably doesn’t have to wait to find out what happens after a cliff-hanger; he just uses his omniscience to watch ahead. He’s probably already on like Walking Dead season 8.
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Say if the Bible was written in a way that satisfied the criticisms people claim,
say even if all the gospel accounts were aligned in a way that was in accordance to what a number of people expect in a perfect book.
Wouldn’t the reaction of some still be that the gospels were “too perfect”, that the gospels were too “similar” and then claimed to be forgeries?
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Ryan,
If the bible were completely and utterly perfect, I may never would have left christianity. Now that i have left, because it isnt perfect, I have seen with clearer eyes the other issues that exist.
To answer your question, if the bible was perfect and error free, I would not return to christianity. There are too many other problems I see now; like how can my faith really be in god when man wrote, translated, collected and compiled the bible? This means my faith was always and only in the claims of men – not god.
How can heaven even be a good place if there’s hell? My kids or my wife end up in hell, but i’m supposed to happy that I made it to heaven? Maybe god makes us forget those loved ones – but that doesnt sound good to me. I Miss my dead friends and relatives now and causes me grief; do i want to forget them to make the grief or sense of loss go away? absolutely not! I value my memories of them.
If the devil and his angels were cast out of heaven due to sin, why do we believe that we, imperfect creations with freewill, thing we wont sin in heaven when we cant seem to avoid it now? Wouldnt it just be a matter of time before everyone is cast out of heaven? This discussion has been had before on nate’s blog, i think.
There are of course other issues…
but back to your question regarding a perfect book. If each book looked like it was copied from the other, then that may present questions, but if there were no constrictions or errors? No, I dont think anyone would seriously condemn the book for being too perfect – especially when it supposedly came from a perfect being.
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Sorry, God has to wait to see how The Walking Dead turns out — but He does have the advantage of seeing the script.
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Jesus taught that, Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
How God interacts with each of us personally is something each of us can only know in ourselves. Its between each of us and God.
I hope each of us journey closer to what is real and true
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Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you
What percentage of that actually works that way and how much of the “misses” have to be rationalized and excused.
If God really has a flair for the dramatic, how much can you solidly depend on Intervention or do you just have to go through the experiences and try to figure out what just happened?
If someone is always playing for the sake of drama, how much can you put in that person?
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I think this depends on who you trust God to be. If you believe He is Love, then Love isn’t a mere flair for drama.
I’m in no position to say that I know why bad things happen. There’s countless things I don’t understand.
Its a position of faith, I admit that. To believe in Jesus and His teachings. To believe that God loves the world. To believe that there is something beyond the horizon. It is faith.
But I believe this faith is real, because I’ve seen how it gives people hope. I’ve seen how it has freed people, not in a cheesy, hallmark way, but how people who have been living in fear, been living in abuse, how these people have come to realise that they are valuable, that they deserve to be happy, and that they are worth so much that God died for them. I’ve seen someone who was miserable and angry for so long, have moments of joy and peace.
How her eyes would light up when she would talk about praying to God, to see a peace in them. that she is loved so much and that God cared for them so much. That is beautiful. And that’s the Gospel.
In terms of arguments, at the end of the day, God can defend Himself far better than I could ever.
There are so many hurting people out there. And I’ve seen how powerful this faith can be in healing people. sure the bible can be used and abused, anything powerful can.
sure there’s many questions I have, but the message that Jesus taught, that central message. the Gospel. it changes peoples lives.
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And that probably sounds a bit cliché, but I know of at least one woman who lives by herself, she has had a very hard life. But she doesn’t feel alone any more, and to hear her talk about God, gives me hope. But she’s part of the community now, and she talks to God. And in those moments she gives me a strong impression that she has peace. Does this prove God exists? I don’t know, that depends on each person.
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actually it doesn’t prove that God exists to anyone else apart from those who were present, since it is now secondary information I’m sharing. But I think faith is a culmination of encounters, both primary and secondary. Its not necessarily a single moment alone, but many.
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Hi Ryan,
To me, that shows that different things work for different people. Take Charity, as an example. She comments on my blog from time to time, and she was raised in a very fundamentalist version of Christianity that was oppressive and filled her with fear. For her, true freedom and happiness came when she left Christianity behind. Now maybe her version of Christianity wasn’t “true” Christianity, but it’s still true that salvation for her involved leaving behind a belief in God and Jesus.
Charity, and many like her, have called out for God — they have asked, they have knocked, but no one ever opened the door. It took leaving all of it behind to find peace.
And in every religion or philosophy throughout the world, adherents will say that their lives are so much fuller now that they’ve found “X”. “X” has made them a better person, “X” has given them a sense of purpose, “X” has blessed them with a loving community, etc. Different things work for different people.
To me, this is exactly what I would expect to see if there was no God at all. Otherwise, why wouldn’t these cases of extreme happiness and enlightenment be centered around one particular religion? And why wouldn’t the followers of that religion be very unified in their understanding of said religion?
I’m all for being tolerant of people’s beliefs, but when it comes to asking whether or not they’re true, I just don’t feel that the evidence is in their favor.
As always, thanks for your comments! It’s good to see you posting so much again. 🙂
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If we stick to the premise that human beings are just animals with no inherent purpose
– Then why are we the only animals that put other animals in zoos to observe them?
– Why as animals do we categorise ourselves as somehow outside of the systems we see around us?
– Why do we seem alien from virtually all other animals, to the extent that we feel like our presence imposes on their systems. For example: Industrial developments stripping rainforests ect.
– Why if we were just animals, do we tame other animals to return balls, sit and ride on other animals, while putting yet fish in bowels, not to eat, but just to feed and stare at?
granted these question in themselves don’t necessarily validate that we are more than animals. But we at least very much don’t act like we are just animals.
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