The day after Christmas. Good King Wenceslaus. The snow of Stephen, deep and crisp and even. No one sang the carol fifteen years ago in France, and no one, five years later, sang it in Indonesia or Thailand. We have short memories. Some of us may remember the date and what we were doing the day the first Kennedy was shot. But we have forgotten December 26, 1999, and perhaps even December 26, 2004. The families of the victims of the tornado that killed 91 in France just before the Millennium, and the relatives of the 230,000 who died when the tsunami slammed into several coast-lines in South-East Asia, will never forget those devastating “acts of God”.
No one in his right mind, I hope, takes that expression literally. I’ll leave non-atheists the pointless problem they have created for themselves as to why they do not blame their “God of love” for slaughtering the innocents as they believe He did in the Deluge at the time of Noah. The rest of us will always have more serious concerns in dealing with natural disasters than debating the pathetic, mad question of why “God” would let, or make, them happen.
RIDENDA RELIGIO
Blind Faith: Blind Folly 
It is some time in the not foreseeable future. Earth and earthlings have long disappeared almost without trace. Somewhere in the still expanding Universe a new being has evolved with signs of intelligence.
It begins to wonder about itself and its place in the universe. It speculates about a powerful creator, €*#%, which it believes is endowed with infinite malevolence and is responsible for the harsh and cruel world in which it finds itself. Acts of kindness puzzle it and “the problem of good” becomes a hot topic of the day.
And eventually its world disappears without a trace.
THE END
LikeLike
Just in case any of the many readers of the blog might be tempted to think that I was being ironic in my last post, let me add that the scenario I propose fits the facts of the world which we occupy AND the “God” talk which seems to preoccupy so many. If we are created in “His” image we surely are justified in suspecting that “He” is pretty evil. Maybe we might do a quick double shuffle and contemplate that “He” is in fact “She” – after all, hermaphroditic worms don’t need mere males to tango. So “She” is a nasty piece of work which explains the perpetual cycles of death, destruction, suffering and violence which have characterised the universe since time immemorial.
But in reality good “God” and bad “€*#%” are both equally unlikely, notwithstanding that the typing monkeys’ typing descendants type eloquent gibberish.
Fairy tales both.
LikeLike
I will resist the temptation to respond to any of Thom’s provocative fables, in fulfilment of my response to Frank’s previous post, in which I pledged to keep the dialogue sensible and, if reciprocated, to the point.
To Frank;
All monotheists believe that God gives life and takes life. None of us owns the life we have been given.
Evil only entered creation through misuse of free will by created angels and then by created man, bringing sin and suffering into the world.
[Worth noting: The world wide loss of innocent life by abortion each year would make the number of lives lost from natural disasters quite insignificant. These lives, of course, are lost by actions contrary to God’s commandments.]
During the brief episode of our life spent on earth, before entering eternity, apparent injustice may seem to be done. For a theist, we realise that it is only Act one, a short act of a very long play. As in any good play, all is revealed in the last act.
Also, we believe that God brings a greater good from any evil that occurs.
I will leave it at that as my opening remark, which from your background you will find predictable.
However, I will ask one fairly simple question that will determine the course of our discussion. Could you believe in the creation of the universe by a God, who was not loving and merciful? I.e. Is it belief in a God of Christian attributes that you reject, or a God in general?
LikeLike
Hey, lighten up Jim – you believe your “God” is perfect in every way. That must include the capacity for self derision. So rest easy mate – He’s killing Himself laughing.
But you do ask a serious question at the end of your sermon – or should I say your simian typing.
What “God” do I not believe in? You will accept, I think, that you are an apologist for the “God” of Christianity. You haven’t seriously suggested any alternative. So let’s confine the debate to your “God”.
I feel sure that you’re familiar with the plethora of “mystery” religions that were around in the Middle-East circa 4 BC. The cults of Dionysus, Demeter, Orpheus, Adonis, Tammuz, Isis and especially Mithras provide fascinating material for anyone seriously interested in the origins and development of early Christianity. The rituals of death and resurrection and sacrificial meals should cause any impartial student to ask serious questions. The adaptation by early Christianity of many of the rituals of these earlier “mystery” religions is a matter of fact.
Of course many people choose to believe ridiculous things. Take L. Ron Hubbard for example. Scientologists believe that thetan souls migrated to earth from other planets. I imagine most rational people think these beliefs are crazy. And of course there is not one shred of evidence for this nonsense. Christianity at least has a fascinating and more extensive history to its own equally incredible beliefs – virgin births, resurrecting god-men, transsubstantiating wafers, eternal hell fires – just to name a few.
But in my view just as absurd – and equally importantly unsupported by any credible evidence.
So, in answer to your question, I say that your Christian “God” does not exist.
Incidentally, to the extent that Christianity presupposes the “truth” of the Old Testament you might be interested in the archeological research of Israel Finkelstein (I kid you not, that’s his real name), an Israeli archeologist. He’s pretty much debunked most if the folk-lore of the O.T.
And so, for the time being, I rest my own simian finger which, having writ, moves on.
LikeLike
My dear James,
Allow me to add my response to Thom’s.
Many of our readers, including the silent, self-declared Followers, know that you fancy yourself as something of an expert in Metaphysics. My own multiple talents include Metacommunication. You may or may not have actually bothered to read Aristotle’s “Metaphysics”, but at least you know why he chose that title : it’s because it is the book he wrote AFTER (“meta”) “Physics”. As you’re really only an engineer, and no more a biologist than a metaphysician, you may never have heard of “Metagenesis” and the asexual and sexual generation of cnidarians. “Metacommunication” may be even more of a mystery to you, but it is what I was paid to do, among other Management Development functions, in my international seminars for Managers of multinational companies.
I am going to do a little Metacommunication here with our readers, on the stratagems you employ in your communication. You could be the subject of a fascinating case-study for a thesis on the cohabitation of academic science with Green Catechism faith. For the nonce, however, I want simply to point out your too obvious gambit of trying to get me to answer your new questions, rather than answer mine. The question is NOT whether I could “believe in the creation of the universe by a God who was not loving and merciful”, but why, in the context of recent tsunamis, believers “do not blame their ‘God of Love’ for slaughtering the innocents as they believe He did in the Deluge at the time of Noah”. You can get away with this in your Catechism classes and when you are on your soap-box. But not here, Jim. Let’s look at your text :
1. “God … takes life” (and how !!) because He “OWNS” our life and we don’t ? Oh, that’s just great ! Now we know why the Old and the New Testament never condemned slavery, why the Church never objected to it, and why Bishops “owned” slaves.
2. Evil entered creation through our fault. So it’s O.K. for God to cause a tsunami to kill 230,000 “sinners” ? You sound like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson preaching that 9/11 was God’s punishment for the “sin” of homosexual activity.
3. Pro-lifers like you accuse abortionists of murder. Proof, I suppose, that we were indeed created in the divine Mass Murderer’s image.
4. Our experience of “APPARENT injustice” : you are talking about the tsunami, right ? So it just looks unfair, but wait till we all die and understand why it was justified ! Everyone knows about the old Apologetics’ attempt to answer the question of the meaning of suffering : we are looking at the messy side of the tapestry; in Heaven we’ll see the side that makes sense of it all. C’mon Jim ! Can’t you do better than that ?
5. And to cap it all : God can “bring a greater good from any evil that occurs”. Including the evil He Himself makes, or lets, happen in tsunamis ?
Having read such “opening remarks”, readers will agree that you have not only once again refused to answer the question but have shot yourself in your Achilles’ heel. Better, surely, to admit that there IS no answer, that “God” has nothing to do with it, that your “God of Love” is at best an oxymoron for the God of Contradictions Christians have invented. It is hard to believe, Jim, that you really believe that God so loved the world that He demanded the torture and crucifixion of His beloved Son so as to save the rest of His children from the punishment we deserved from Him, the Lord High Executioner, who otherwise would have, as our Loving Father, plunged us into excruciating pain for all eternity because we read Playboy or missed Mass on Sunday. All this, Jim, is, to be polite, outside the realm of common sense and Logic. It must belong to the weird world of Metalogic, a subsection of your meaningless Metaphysics.
Is there any point in pursuing this ? For old times’ sake, I’m going to give you a chance to save face by suggesting we wrap it up there. (You could claim, without proof as usual, that I was cheating, or displaying bad faith – none at all, actually – or breaking your condition that “the dialogue be sensible and … to the point”.) A Dialogue of the Deaf, nipped in the bud : zero for the Christians, zero for the lions. Unless, of course, you have, after those not very helpful Opening Remarks, a direct answer to my question about the tsunami, which I will be happy to post.
LikeLike
I did address the question to you, Frank, But Thom could not resist trying to give you a leg up. That’s beside the point.
I will ignore your habitual tactic of trying to divert me into a slanging match.
My question was to understand if you could believe in a creator of no particular morality, just a clever engineer. I do this to allow a logical exchange to occur. From my perspective, I really do not know, after our hundreds of exchanges and scanning your book for a clue, what your explanation is for the existence of the universe. Was there an intelligent source or was it just some vague, unintelligent happening?
I know that you don’t believe that mindless chance was the source, but is there a source, more intelligent than us humans?
In case you still do not understand; what I seek from you is a simple answer to whether there is an intelligence, greater than human intelligence, in control of the universe.
Whether this intelligent being is cruel or kind or whether we can understand it’s motivations is beside the point of my question.
Please answer by just ticking the box, Y or N, if you wish.
I’m sure the invisible horde of avid readers will be interested.
I may disappoint your invisible readers by admitting that I am not an expert in metaphysics, but have a logical mind that can follow a lucid, logical argument, based on metaphysics for the necessary existence of one God, with the attributes which we Christians ascribe to Him.
.
LikeLike
Frank, following your previous comment, I decoupled my response to your many personal charges in order to allow a dispassionate discussion of the one, central point. Having done that in my previous reply, I now address some of your side issues :
As you have advised your readers of your multi talents and international reputation, and described me, by comparison, as “only an engineer”, I am compelled to reluctantly respond from necessity, in case any should think that either of our modest achievements add weight to our awareness of the ultimate reality.
I note that you only addressed post school comparisons, where a more direct comparison of achievements could have been made in our joint school years.
I must admit to them that my formal training is, indeed, only in science as well in engineering, not meta-communication (a discipline that did not exist in my student days, although I expect it is akin to my work experience, as a manager in a multinational company, of well paid “experts” coming in to present to us,some simple message to inspire us. I admit it was a pleasant diversion from serious work).
I did, however, lead an international major telecommunications development project, implementing my design. I wrote original technical articles, describing my design for wide publication in 4 languages, and participated in international committees and an international “think tank” to initiate a major international design project, anticipating the technology,15 years hence.
My field was tangible telecommunications, not nebulous meta-communications.
My designs involved hundreds of logically connected decisions, failure of any one being fatal. Absolute precision in the flow of logic was essential, no hiding behind nuances of language, or buck passing, as in many professions. Right or wrong, black or white, no buck passing.
I also specialised in probability mathematics and was required to use my physics knowledge frequently, particularly electrical, electronic and optics.
I also taught telecommunications engineering at tertiary level for 8 years.
I was always involved in leading edge projects, being both an innovator and implementer, as noted by peers.
I do retain belief in the truths learned in 3rd class from the green catechism, as did your direct ancestors.
I believe metaphysics is more accurately “beyond” physics, in the sense of being more general and applicable to any universe, not limited to the one which we inherited. Metaphysics embraces natural science, embraces physics.
In the case of Aristotle, as applied to the existence of God, it deals with any universe where anything changes. That and its consequences is all that I have delved into, applying my career skills in following a logical trail where one slip is fatal. I’ve learned, by experience, to be sure of each step.
My training in logical design has helped me appreciate the logic and consistency of my green catechism beliefs.
I do believe, my dear Francis, that your obvious anger at your perceived, unjust, cruel, unmerciful, unloving creator gives a strong clue to your disbeliefs, which I strongly believe to be unrelated to logic or metaphysics.
My answer, again, that you demand from me, is:
1. As a creature of a necessarily more intelligent creator, I don’t expect that I can read His mind, any more than you can.
2. I am assured, through belief in his son, Jesus, and what He revealed and did, of God’s love, mercy and goodness. Metaphysics independently leads to these same attributes of a first cause.
3. As our earthly life is insignificant compared with our eternal life, whether we choose heaven or hell, I can logically accept that apparent injustice or cruelty will be balanced and understood in the context of the whole picture.
4. The whole question , including the promise that God turns every evil to a greater good, depends on trust in Jesus.
5.God can intervene in nature and change its course. We see evidence in genuine miracles. He probably often averts natural disasters in response to prayer and faith. He can equally not intervene, when sinfulness and rejection abound.
5. If you reject, out of hand, the evidence for belief in Jesus, I can’t help you.
6. Most who reject Jesus do so for personal reasons, unrelated to reasoning.
LikeLike
Jim’s achievements in his professional life are no doubt impressive – but I venture to suggest that they are completely immaterial to the issues under discussion.
Jim has, like Luther, nailed his theses to the mast in 7 specific statements of his beliefs. Astute readers will note that Jim has stumbled over 5, inadvertently (one hopes) repeating the numeration. I will refrain from making the obvious comment about Jim’s mastery of numerology.
Back to his “apologia pro vita sua”.
1. Jim really means an infinitely intelligent and powerful being. He rightly acknowledges that he can’t compete here. But, surprisingly, in an earlier post he maintains that Catholic theologists (his word, not mine) and scientists have been trying to read the mind of “God” for the last 2000 years and have made significant progress.
2. Jim here merely asserts. There is no credible evidence that Jesus was/is “God”. A cautious searching analysis of the available does not support the conclusion which Jim merely asserts as fact.
3. Jim appears to accept as “logical” the prospect of eternal suffering in hell-fire of fallible creations at the hands of a supremely powerful and intelligent being. There is clearly a logical inconsistency here.
4. Christianity is obviously premised on the belief that Jesus is “God” incarnate. There is no credible evidence for this belief.
5. Again Jim merely asserts. There is no credible evidence of “God” intervening in nature and the further speculation that “He” has intervened to avert natural disasters is plainly absurd.
6. (Jim’s repeated 5). I can’t speak for Frank but I can say for myself that I am not seeking and have never sought Jim’s help. A certain arrogance underlies his statement here. Those who reject his views are clearly in need of his help and if they reject his offers of help there is no hope for them. Very self serving.
7. This statement says much about Jim’s vulnerabilities and insecurities. They are not supported by any objective studies or hard evidence.
LikeLike
I confess that this post was done as a duty to satisfy Frank’s demand for his pound of flesh in return for his answer to the question of my prior post, which he and, for that matter, yourself keep eluding. It’s not intended to be thorough, just enough to satisfy Frank’s demand in return for a simple yes/no answer from him, which I still await. You are right in pointing out my theologist and #5 repeat errors. You might check your #2 error.
You are right. My career is as immaterial as Frank’s silly raising of the matter in the first place to imply an irrelevant superiority, based on his own career.
You point out my assertions, but are blind to your own multi-assertions.
I agree with your #4 statement, but not your concluding assertion.
Your #6. Of course, if you reject the evidence out of hand, it implies a closed mind on a matter which has huge support. As stated, neither I, nor anyone, can help unless you are open to honest appraisal. No arrogance here!
Thanks for refraining to make the comment you made.
Oui ou non from Frank is now awaited.
I’m sure he appreciates you doing some of his heavy lifting, but please let him answer first.
LikeLike
Reference your point 7 above, Thom:
Objective studies and hard evidence? Just be patient, Bob, while I go back over 2500 years of such.
That reminds me of a misleading comment you made over a week ago. You asserted that Edward Feser did not agree with intelligent design advocates.
I have personally spoken to Edward on this matter, as well as hearing 2 of his related talks on the fallacy of scientism.
On intelligent design, what he actually says is that it is unnecessary to descend to that level, which is subject to ever changing scientific evidence.
He does not disagree with the arguments of intelligent design, but the argument is clear cut at the higher level of metaphysics, and stable.
Why allow the opposition to hide behind so called scientific evidence, like the still unsupported claims of macro evolution.
Just like his mate Pythagoras, Aristotle was on to something durable, at least in his ideas which were later refined by your pen-name sake. If only you had his mental capacity.
LikeLike
One of us has to take the rational step of closing the pointless exchanges between us, Jim – and you appear to be incapable of taking that step.
So this will be my last on this strand, Jim.
I am more than familiar with the “evidence” for the “truth” of his religion which Jim and other like-minded “believers” marshal in support of their “beliefs”.
I and many others find their case unconvincing.
And not just unconvincing but, in so many particulars, ridiculous. This should be obvious from the exchanges and, more to the point, is the rationale for the “Blindfaithblindfolly” blog generally.
Hence I prefer to think for myself. And, whenever the opportunity presents itself, I exhort others to do likewise.
And so Jim, in a spirit of friendly rationality, I bid you farewell.
LikeLike
Hoo Roo, Thom.
LikeLike