photohikedive:
a quote from Sam Harris....
Of course, people of faith regularly assure one another that God is not responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent?
He gave people free will
There is no other way, and it is time for sane human beings to own up to this. This is the age-old problem of theodicy, of course, and we should consider it solved. If God exists, either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities, or He does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil.
There is another possibility that Sam is ignoring. That is that God has shown people the way and they refuse to follow His simple instructions.
I remember once, my father came home after work and noticed my car leaning a bit to one side. He looked underneath and saw that a u-bolt was busted. He came into the house and told me not to drive the car and that he could help me fix it on Sat. I told him that I had to drive it because I had someplace important to go. He said "Don't" I did anyway.
About 20 minutes after leaving the house someone pulled out in front of me and when I hit the brakes, the rear axil stopped and the rest of the car kept going. The police told me to move the car but it wouldn't roll and I didn't have money for a tow truck. I called my father and told him that I was stuck and in a real bind. He said "I believe you." and hung up the phone leaving me to figure the rest out on my own. I traded the title of the car for a tow and a ride home and the girl I was with (the important reason that I had to drive the car) didn't enjoy sitting around on the side of the road and found her own ride home leaving me with the broken car.
At the time, I thought my father was pretty cruel. how could a father who loved me, leave me to suffer so when it was completely in his power to make it all better?
Pious readers will now execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by merely human standards of morality. But, of course, human standards of morality are precisely what the faithful use to establish God’s goodness in the first place.
No. God can't be judged at all. Sam isn't judging God. What he is doing is judging and making fun of some one elses idea of God.
He is also wrong about what we use to establish God's goodness in the first place. I don't know where Sam got this idea but the Bible stresses over and over the folly of trusting in our own wisdom. We can't apply our standards to God because our wisdom is flawed. We therefore apply Gods wisdom and standards to us.
As a practical matter if there is a God, good or evil, he will have His way whether Sam likes it or not. I predict that Sam isn't going to take not getting his own way very well.
is And any God who could concern himself with something as trivial as gay marriage, or the name by which he is addressed in prayer, is not as inscrutable as all that. If He exists, the God of Abraham is not merely unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.
Who says gay marriage is trivial? Oh, Sam says that, sorry, it must be true then. Sam says that God is unworthy?
Sam displays a level of pride and arrogance the seems to be beyond description. He is very confident about his opinions concerning something thet he goes way out of his way to demonstrate that he knows absolutely nothing about. I think there is much in the Bible that could help Sam.
But, lets look at "human suffering" some more. First of all, according to the Bible, sin came into the world and then so did death and pain. God said "Don't" but people did anyway (see my car story above).
You don't believe it happened that way in the garden? Fine, look around you and notice how many people are doing the same thing at this very moment right before your eyes.
Next, when a person has everything they want and no trouble, what do you end up with? A spoiled brat that no one could possibly tolerate. Give your children everything they want, shield them from all of lifes problems and don't allow them to suffer any consequences of their own mistakes and see what you end up with.
So, there is learning, and people learn slow and sometimes they must inflict a great deal of pain on themselves before they do. "Doc it hurts when I do that" and the doc says "Well, don't do it" and the patient says "But I want to". Well ok then.
What about the things that we just don't see? A woodsman is walking through the woods (that's what woodsman do) and he sees a bear caught in a trap. He wishes to turn the bear lose but he's afraid the bear will bite him (that's what bears do). He decides to hit the bear with some tranqualizer so he can get close enough to help. The bear thinks "Oh NO! It's not bad enough I'm caught in a trap but now this guy comes along and shoots me!" He's totally convinced that this guy means him no good at all. The woodsman has trouble getting the trap open and realizes that he needs to push the bears leg further into the trap in order to get it open. The bear, imobilized but seeing, thinks "I'll never get out now...this guy has finished me for certain". Pay attention Sam. Before long and without much trouble (by the woodsmans standards) the bear is free, the tranqualizer wears off and all is well. Given his choice, the bear would have resisted the whole process to the death and eaten that woodsman. I think Sam and this bear have a lot in common.
Lets look at one more aspect. What is it that God sees as important? From our perspective this life and our comfort in it is pretty important but that may seem a bit short sighted to God. What causes many people to be drawn closer to God? They turn to God only when they must. People are stuborn that way. So, on one hand we might have a big house 2 cars for everyday of the week, not have to worry about natural disasters or have to drive past the homeless on the way to work and be perfectly content on our own without God and lose eternal life. On the other, we can bite the bullet and learn that we do need God here and now and gain eternal life. God may allow certain things to happen and make use of them in order to prepare us for enternal life with Him.
One might argue that we don't cause natural disasters and that they are just put upon us. What about human suffering like all the starving, homeless and diseased people in the world. There are whole countries full of them but we don't have to go that far to find them do we? We can go into any one of our own cities or the many depressed rural areas and see all manor of suffering. Who is causing all that? Who allows it? Is it God? No. People will NEVER accept responsibility for anything unless they are forced and the process is usually a painful one.
I have an idea, lets critisize God for being against something as trivial (as defined by Sam) as homosexuality, adultry, sex outside of marriage or anything else that we think we should be able to do as we please and then lets blame God for all the suffering from AIDS, the other many diseases and the social ills that we get when we insist on doing everything our own way. Yep, I think Sam knows best.
