Thank you very much Pompey Bum. He was true to the faith to the end; throughout his suffering (cancer).
:tailor
Thank you very much Pompey Bum. He was true to the faith to the end; throughout his suffering (cancer).
:tailor
Ah yes, been there and done that. I managed to cheat it for now, but we all die eventually. It helped me to appreciate the difference between my body and myself, though. Sorry for the grief you must be feeing for your friend. Perhaps you will laugh about it together someday. Keep the faith.Quote:
Originally Posted by tailor STATELY
I think the way you feel is probably the way God wants you to feel. I don't think God wants us to be ambivalent to suffering. I think maybe when we mourn with those that mourn, and offer support, and shake our heads or shed tears at the tragedies of life we are fulfilling our moral obligations in the face of suffering. I experienced a lot of death in my life when I was still young, (mother, father, sister, 3 close friends) all before I was 24 years old. Some of my worst memories are of people that I didn't know very well "consoling" me by downplaying my sorrow and using my loss as an opportunity to extol the virtues of heaven, and even using the situation to try to "save" me or others in my family. If I hadn't already been a believer to some extent, this probably would have pushed me away from God and/or religion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
For the record, I think that is a great story and I like to think the same. Sometimes enduring laughter is worth it. Lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Regarding your prayer routine, I have strived to meditate more on The Lord's Prayer. I think there is a key in it, or better, I think it is a framework to everything that I need. I have done a fair amount of study on early Christianity and Messianic Judaism and I think in the Sh'ma and in The Lords Prayer there is peace through meditation.
I am sorry to hear of your loss.Quote:
Originally Posted by tailor STATELY
Your quotes from Alma made me realize that it is not just those who are suffering who need to be saved, but also those who are causing the suffering.
I enjoyed the story, Pompey Bum, of the father watching over his son during the night-time wilderness ritual. It reminded me of a story told by a man dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. The story was about a fire in a house and everyone was safe except for a child who was still hanging onto a second-story window afraid to let go. His father was below the window and told the child to let go and his father would catch him, but the child complained saying that he could not see his father. His father said, "But I can see you."
Oh Easy, I'm sorry you had to deal all that, especially when you were so young. I know what you mean about people--religious and otherwise--who try to console you by minimizing the impact. I was talking to my physician about my family health history, and when I got to my Mother's cancer death when I was a young man, I choked up for a moment, then apologized, telling her that although it happened decades ago, I never really got over it. She told me in a very sensitive way, although an ultimately clinical one (in other words, she wasn't just trying to cheer me up) that the cutting edge psychiatry these days is that you never really get over that kind of thing: you just hide it because there is all this social pressure on you to stop grieving and move on. So your own suffering becomes a kind of dirty secret.Quote:
Originally Posted by easy75
You have to forgive people when they do that. They are uncomfortable about death, too, and most of all they don't know what to say (which is why their goal is to get you to move on). Or maybe some are just inept. The doctor I mentioned is awesome, but I've had one or two real nincompoops in terms of the simple human support that you are talking about. I was diagnosed with lymphoma in my 20s, after an exit physical when I got out of the Peace Corps. The idiot doctor had a technician call me at my hotel to tell me the happy news on a Friday, with instructions to drop by and talk to him on Monday. Good news, he told me, the kind of lymphoma I had had a high survival rate--although he couldn't promise anything, and there would be difficult treatments ahead. Apparently he never even considered the lost weekend I had just spent under the impression that I was terminally ill. But it's not like he didn't have bedside manner. He told me that the Peace Corps would be sending me home, and asked me where that was. When I told him Boston, a big smile spread across his face, apparently because of the excellent cancer facilities there. "Boston," I swear he said to me, "is a GREAT town to have cancer in!" Hey, you have to look for the positive! It helps so much to laugh at that kind of cluelessness now. But it's good to forgive, too. (It was a pretty rough weekend, though).
Yes, I believe that we are here to reject nihilism and choose the Good. Perhaps that goes a way toward explaining God's apparent silence in the face of suffering. But why does it happen in the first place? Why couldn't an omnipotent God have found a way that didn't involve suffering in the first place? Those are rhetorical questions at this point. I don't think they have answers that we are going to get--for now.Quote:
Originally Posted by easy75
:)Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
..........
Holy smokes! What an incredible life you have had! You seem to have made the best of some pretty awful circumstances and situations, with every right to feel the opposite of the way you do about a lot of things. Good for you!Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
And yes, I forgive people for their indiscretions and don't hold it against them. I have a friend who suffered a lot of family loss as well and we are both of the opinion that the best thing to say is a simple "condolences", a hand shake or a hug depending on the relationship, and then just move along.
Incidentally your Peace Corps service strikes a personal chord with me. My mother heard JFK speak at the University of Michigan in 1960 and promptly joined the Peace Corps and spent the next 5-6 years in East Africa.
Oh I've got lots of stories (you ain't heard nothin' yet), but the truth is I've lived a very privileged life and can barely list all the things I need to be forgiven for. But thanks. I was in Gabon, near the border with Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. It was quite a life changing experience.
I keep thinking about this passage and the idea that the Lord doesn't prevent us from making mistakes which is what would have to happen if those who suffer from our actions are not to suffer. If I generalize the "wicked" to all of us since we have likely caused others to suffer at some point in our lives, then the suffering we experience now could be viewed as part of the justice given back to us.Quote:
Originally Posted by tailor STATELY
The existence of whatever free will we might have basically says that we are disposed to be fallible.
There is a story from the Bhagavatam that I've read through Amal Bhaktam's Mystical stories from the Bhagavatam : twenty-six timeless lessons in self-discovery. It is about a just king whom everyone loved and who served his community well. He did something to get a djinn angry, and as I recall from some of the Arabian Nights tales it is not hard to tick off one of these guys. The djinn decided to kill the king. The king had no power over such creatures and even though he was innocent of the djinn's current charges he accepted his coming death figuring he probably deserved it in some way that he was unaware of at the moment. At that point, because of his acceptance of his fallibility, some other deity stronger than the djinn stopped the djinn and the story ends.
This is how I view the problem of evil at the moment. There are three components to it: God, the universe and ourselves.
God represents the consciousness that was needed to initiate a universe and to keep it collapsed. This assumes either faith or acceptance of some version of a consciousness causes collapse interpretation of quantum physics. There are other interpretations of quantum physics and other faiths, but this is what makes the most sense to me.
The universe is good because it is consistent and we can find a home in it. It is a gift and from this gift one can derive the loving and personal aspects of God.
We have enough free will to be responsible for what we do and to mess things up. This is the source of suffering.
So, does the existence of evil and suffering imply that a good, loving God does not exist? No. What it implies is that not only did we receive the gift of a universe, we also received the gift of enough free will to be fallible.
I agree that the existence of evil and suffering does not imply that a loving God does not exist (and I have faith that such a God does exist). But for me, "enough free will to be fallible" equals choice; and choice does not eliminate the underlying instinct/impulse one resists or acquiesces to with the choice. (Choosing to abstain from sex, for example, does not eliminate the underlying sex drive). So when you speak of people making mistakes (which technically is all sinning means), my question is what underlying instincts/impulses (rage, envy, jealousy, revenge, etc.) brought them to the mistake, and why those instincts/impulses exist on the first place. Augustine and Luther would have said it was from Original Sin. I agree, though I equate Original Sin with natural selection (which I see as the source of rage, jealousy, et al.).Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
So for me, having "enough free will to be fallible" does not get at the underlying issue of why we want what we want. On the other hand (to exchange our traditional site roles as optimist and pessimist, YesNo :)), having will enough to choose sin implies having will enough to choose the Good over instinct--as for example one might choose to love one who has damaged you despite instincts for rage or revenge.
The second issue your statement doesn't really address is so-called Natural Evil (but since I think we all view this phenomenon as amoral rather than immoral, perhaps we should simply call it Natural Suffering). Having "enough free will to be fallible" does not account for why toddlers suffer and die of a childhood cancer (with all the pain that applies for parents); or why a random twitch of the sea floor can bring horrific death in tsunami waves. It is a mystery to me how an omnipotent god can do nothing while such things happen; nor can I accept your suggestion that because "we have likely caused others to suffer at some point in our lives, then the suffering we experience now could be viewed as part of the justice given back to us." A just and loving God is neither amoral nor an abusive or murderous parent. To me, these things remain a mystery, but they certainly do not suggest an inherently good material universe. Perhaps we are east of Eden after all.
Epicurus got it right thousands of years ago:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
My take on Epi (not so) curus: He didn't ask the right questions :)
Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor STATELY
What's the right question?
Questions abound:
James 1:5,6 https://www.lds.org/scriptures/nt/james/1.5?lang=eng : " 5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed."
There was once a lad in the Spring of 1820 who read the above scripture and asked God what church he should follow. His answer, well, its consequence spans eternity.
Your questions might be different, or even diffident, but ask in the spirit of James and you may be surprised.
Sincerely,
tailor STATELY
If He is able, why does he frequently seem not to? Isn't that the question we have been addressing on this thread? We have not needed to turn God into Yaldabaoth so far. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Indubitably, but I've found the answers from believers who have asked to be quite dubious.Quote:
Originally Posted by tailor STATELY
So what's the best answer?Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
See above.
Pun intended? :D
If you're just referring to above in this thread, there's a lot...
How do you do, Morpheus? I'm Bum. I don't think we've met before. But yes, the pun is always intended. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
As my brother-in-law is fond of saying, you enjoy!Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
I don't have a problem with natural selection. It is a side effect of each species seeking its own ends and thereby providing constraints on the others around it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
I do agree that we can trace to our biology our dispositions to "rage, envy, jealousy, revenge", but think of why those dispositions exist. In a pair-bonding species like ours or prairie voles, the males are defending the young and the females. This allows the females to engage in more babying of the young. The result is that the young are better cared for. See Young, "The Chemistry Between Us", for more details.
I noticed that I had Paul Ricoeur's "Symbolism of Evil" in my library and I will see if I can understand it now better than I did as an undergraduate. I don't know what original sin is, but it suggests to me that there is a communal context in which sin exists. It is not just an individual's mistake.
No doubt there are a lot of constraints upon us, both biological and cultural. They are not ultimately an excuse for our behavior, neither as individuals nor as a group.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
What occurred to me when I wrote that post was only a slight difference to what we have been discussing. The way I originally looked at the problem was how could there be a loving God if I perceived the world as fallible. This assumed I was innocent. But what if there aren't any innocents? Now I see the problem as how could there be a merciful God, if I am the guilty party?
When viewed in that manner there is no longer any problem of evil that I need to complain about. There is only the problem of the existence of mercy in the face of justice. Is the loving God also merciful? As the guilty party, do I really want that God to be just?
I don't know if natural evil is amoral or not. However, I think animals have the ability to make choices and therefore are also fallible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Are toddlers innocent? Perhaps they are as individuals, but not as part of a group or species.
When you complain that "a just and loving God is neither amoral nor an abusive or murderous parent", I assume you are speaking from the perspective of an innocent party who feels misused expecting justice from God rather than from the perspective of a guilty party looking for mercy.
I think you've been hanging around with Protestants too much, YesNo. You are starting to sound like John Calvin on a bad hair day. :) Seriously, when I read your comment I wondered if you were spoofing me (and you still may be). Please don't take offense. But as Gandhi is supposed to have said when told that Indian protesters were offering flowers to British soldiers: "Maybe I have gone too far."
Why should your share in humanity's sin constitute a restriction on God's mercy? That would require a legalistic and mechanical God--in effect a computer program. The notion is easily defeated by God's omnipotence. God gets to be as merciful as He chooses.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
What makes you think justice and mercy are mutually exclusive? Or that mercy would not be a condition of divine justice? Again, unless you are a Newtonian deist (and maybe you are), you are not talking about God the software package. And if you are inherently sinful, it seems to me you want to trust to God's mercy--which for me means turning from one's instinctive nature and "try[ing] to do it God's way" (which Gandhi actually did say, I think), no matter how many times you mess up. That's how it works for me anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
What a question! (This is when I wondered if you were spoofing me). Of course a toddler's participation in our flawed humanity does not make childhood suffering or childhood cancers just! Why would a God capable of forgiving characters like you and me (and much worse) inflict such cruelty on the least guilty among us? That does not come close to solving the problem of natural suffering or evil. It changes nothing.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Actually, I was thinking that you were the closet Newtonian deist. It is interesting that you had the same view of me. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
No, I'm not kidding. So, on what basis do you establish your innocence to make a claim that the universe is guilty?Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Incidentally, I've started reading Ricoeur's "The Symbolism of Evil." There is nothing to report as of yet.
I don't. Our bodies are made of universe, are they not? How should I be innocent? But maybe I don't understand what you mean by guilty. My view is that zoe (life)--or perhaps for a more conventional Christian pseuxn (soul)--is inherently good (and ontologically authentic), but that it is corrupted by the bodies we live in/fell to, whose biochemistry holds us prisoner to their evolutionary instincts. The best we can do is to choose to turn from this "default nature" to the Good, trusting to God's mercy for the forgiveness of our many mistakes.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I haven't read Ricoeur. He thought Augustine technically lost the works debate to Pelagius but was right anyway (or something). I think he's also going to tell you that that we can't speak of Original Sin outside the context of the Eden mythos. I'm not sure if I'm doing that or not; but to anticipate the conversation a little, if I am, I'm just going to shrug and say: Fine, so just it's just evolution doing it, then. It's still an ontological moral predicament. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
And how could you possibly think I was a Deist, YesNo? :)
But if the body isn't good, why would you want to resurrect it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
I see biochemistry in a more positive light. For example, sex gives us a disposition to take care of each other.
Also, don't your sacred texts say, for example in Genesis, that what God made was good?
I'm still going through the introduction. He is defining what he means by a "symbol" and says he is looking to "re-enact" the original experience of "the crisis of the consciousness of fault". Here is a nice line (page 8):Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
Sin makes me incomprehensible to myself: God is hidden; the course of things no longer has meaning.
Deism seems to me to be the default cultural theistic position in the USA. A faith such as Christianity is added on top of it. If a theist is not at heart a deist, the theist must also be counter-cultural. For example, if you believe in the selfish gene, you are not counter-cultural, but very much a part of the culture and Jesus is sugar-coating on top of that. If you believe in determinism, you are not counter-cultural, but very much a part of the culture. I would be in the same situation as you are since I live in the same culture and try to define theism against that culture.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
That is why I like to talk about near and shared death experiences or psi phenomena. They go against the deistic and atheistic assumptions of what is possible. They are counter-cultural. So I don't fall off the deep end, I try to only accept what I think science can justify.
I agree with atheists such as Ecurb and Iain Sparrow: the deistic god does not exist. They would probably say no Gods exist, but I suspect all they can imagine with their atheism is a deistic god. Some, but not all, Christians can't imagine any other God either even though they have a rich tradition to lean on.
I'm pretty sure that quote wasn't actually by Epicurus, and isn't even attributed to him until 1532. Epicurus is more like "Let us sacrifice to the gods... devoutly and fittingly on the proper days, and let us fittingly perform all the acts of worship in accordance with the laws... Moreover, let us sacrifice justly. For in this way, it is possible for mortal nature, by Zeus, to live like Zeus."Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
That would be Theodicy. Usually the answer is that God fails to prevent evil because a)it's not really evil, b)this evil prevents a greater evil, or c)preventing this evil would also prevent an even greater good.Quote:
Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman
Well, it's not a question of what I want. Evolutionary instinct has already ensured that I don't want my body to die in the first place, and that I want to keep spreading the ol' pollen from blossom to blossom instead. If you are talking about the Resurrection of Jesus, nobody asked me what I wanted at the time, and aside from having faith that it happened (which is part of my faith in an omnipotent God who is stronger than death), I don't really know much about the details. It seems to me that several of versions what happened--corporeal (Thomas touching the risen Christ's wounds); ghostly/spiritual (Jesus walking through doors or vanishing on the road to Emmaus), visionary (Paul's experience on the road to Damascus); Pentecostal (the speaking-in-tongues sequence in Acts)--have been stitched together, Frankenstein-like, to create the illusion of a single narrative (or are at least it is thought of in that way by many Christians). Beyond my faith in the Resurrection (and not Bigfoot), though I can't really answer for those witnesses. Personally, I wouldn't have wanted Jesus to get crucified in the first place. I wish it had all happened differently.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
But if you are talking about the Apocalyptic tradition of the Resurrection of the dead, I have already said that you know exactly as much as I do about what happens after you die. I am aware of Scriptural traditions, but I don't know how Paul or John would have known what happens either. I imagine Paul was only speculating; and as for John of Patmos, as I said, it is impossible to say whether he was experiencing o logos tou theou or just unhinged by Christian persecutions under Domitian. In either case, it's not a question of what I want to happen.
Well as you know, I'm not a Biblical literalist. But even if I were, the optimistic view of Creation is very quickly qualified by the Fall and indefinite exile East of Eden, where things are a lot less rosy. For me this is the fall of zoe (which I do believe to be good) into the material. It is Life, God, and the Good, in my opinion, we are here to choose.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Or as Joni Mitchell put it (and if you're reading this, Clopin, GO CANADA!):
We are stardust
Billion-year-old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the Garden.
That's the predicament. :)
For what it's worth, I consider myself a religious radical who goes against the modernist trend of materialist atheism, but who will not yield to conventional religious orthodoxies either. Iain and Ecurb probably see themselves as going against some grain or other, too. Maybe valuing independent thinking is instinctual. It must have impressed some pretty lady Australopithecuses at some point. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I remember the Joni Mitchell song although the lyrics have never been clear to me until I looked it up just now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
That's all one can do. It is also good that there is disagreement so our equilibrium has a chance to get punctuated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pompey Bum
We need a Joni Mitchell thread on this site. Is she still in the coma, I wonder. Here's the song in 1970.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cRjQCvfcXn0
Well we've always known that you are a Berkelian idealist and I'm a Christian dualist. Iain and Ecurb are different kinds of atheists (if Ecurb prefers agnostic, I apologize); Melanie's a Christian literalist, and other people are whatever they are. I guess there are minor flare ups sometimes, but so far we're handling our differences better than Homo antecessor would have done. And as always, YesNo, you have been a great source of learning to me. Thanks. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I liked the way Joni Mitchel sang that better than the way Crosby, Stills and Nash performed it. One of my favorite songs she wrote was "Little Green": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIzJnBWovOs
Thanks for the chance to discuss these issues with you, Pompey Bum.
Yes, Blue is one of the three or four greatest albums of that era--and the first LP I ever owned (I still have it in a closet). Little Green seems to be about Mitchell's early out-of-wedlock child, although maybe she changed the details. It contains the wonderful made-up word "nonconformer," which is presumably how a nonconformist might have said it.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Oh you are welcome. Thanks to Melanie, too, for starting the thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I'd like to thank Pompey for refraining (in this thread, at least) from making the claim that Melanie or I insulted his wife. Well done, Pompey! Keep it up!
http://static2.fjcdn.com/comments/Mf...38521b354e.jpgQuote:
Or as Joni Mitchell put it (and if you're reading this, Clopin, GO CANADA!):
As long as we keep Leonard Cohen off the thread, I don't care how cold it gets. :)
Hey, Joni herself was a big fan of his!
Beaver-huggers stick together.
The only Leonard Cohen song I remember is that one with hallelujah in it.
How can you guys even listen to him?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ttEMYvpoR-k
The first two stanzas seem canonical. After that people add on what they want and try to come to a better resolution. Here's the version Susan Boyle sings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPJFB0nfLAg