Panopticon wrote: I'm saying that a world in which 2,000,000 Chinese people die in a flood is total BS.
Hoops wrote: It is difficult to grasp, I agree.
You forgot to add, "but we simply have to trust in God." I have no reason to believe that God exists. There is zero credible evidence for his existence. Death on a massive scale suggests a random universe in which no one is in control. If there is any purpose to life, it was not served by killing two million people at once.
Hoops wrote:As an aside, is God just as culpable for not saving their house?
You are attempting to divert a serious question by appealing to the relative meaningless of property damage.
Panopticon wrote:God, if he exists, is infinitely callous in his disregard for the suffering of mankind. If you believe in Mormonism,
Hoops wrote:I don't.
But you believe in a God who causes or permits millions of people to die in natural disasters. You admit that you have no way to explain this (or at least you have provided no good reasons).
Absent evidence to the contrary, God's actions (if he exists) are tantamount of terrorism on an unimaginable scale.
Panopticon wrote: you will likely believe that this cycle of suffering will go on forever because it is all part of the heavenly order.
Hoops wrote:I don't and it isn't.
So all suffering will end. This is just temporary. Is that your argument? At least you don't subscribe to the Mormon idea that our spiritual descendants will ultimately have to be tested (tortured) as we are.
Panopticon wrote:Like Ivan Karamazov, I reject God because his world is built upon a foundation of suffering. As in Ursula Le Guin's
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnw ... omelas.pdf), I cannot accept a plan of happiness for a few that is conditioned upon so much misery.
Hoops wrote:I feel sorry for you. There is so much beauty in the world as well. Much more than ungliness, I would contend. Despite the messiness of man.
Perhaps it is simply a matter of being exposed to the real world. I have traveled extensively and seen horrific things in third world countries. Perhaps we have created a place of relative peace and stability in the US (although my friends in South Central LA would disagree), but much of the world is groaning under the torture that god permits/inflicts upon them. If the collective screams could be heard from space, I think they would drown out the laughter. How could a god with any compassion or empathy bear it? Perhaps I am simply scarred by visiting places like Calcutta, but I saw no evidence of God there.
Panopticon wrote:I am deeply troubled by the problem of theodicy. It is one of the reasons I do not believe in God. Many people, such as Bart Ehrman, found atheism for the same reason.
Hoops wrote:Strangely, I found God by looking the other way. But then, I'm a believe, so by default I'm not as smart as you.
Belief or non-belief has nothing to do with intelligence. I know many very intelligent people who believe in God. I think it has to do with the will. If you have read Orson Scott Card's
Xenocide, the character of Qing-jao comes to mind. Qing-jao is incredibly intelligent, but her will (and/or OCD) compelled her to believe in the non-existent Gods of Path, against all evidence, even after they were effectively disproven.
As an aside, I am really sorry that the writer of
Xenocide has descended into the homophobic columnist for Mormon Times. He obviously went through his spiritual crisis when writing the book and went the apologist route. Too bad.
