Human Suffering as a Challenge for the Meaning of Life
http://www.bu.edu/paideia/existenz/volumes/Vol.4-2Diehl.html
Suffering is essential or inherent to life
TheWonderofYou
JoinedPosts by TheWonderofYou
-
754
Theists, why does God allow suffering..
by The Quiet One in..specifically, the suffering of animals.
you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.
i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.
-
-
-
754
Theists, why does God allow suffering..
by The Quiet One in..specifically, the suffering of animals.
you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.
i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.
-
-
TheWonderofYou
ANIMAL SUFFERING, EVOLUTION, AND THE ORIGINS
OF EVIL: TOWARD A “FREE CREATURES” DEFENSE
by Joshua M. Moritz
Abstract. Does an affirmation of theistic evolution make the task
of theodicy impossible? In this article, I will review a number of an-
cient and contemporary responses to the problem of evil as it concerns
animal suffering and s uggest a possible way forward which employs
the ancient Jewish insight that evil—as resistance to God’s will that
results in suffering and alienation from God’s purposes—precedes the
arrival of human beings and already has a firm foothold in the nonhu-
man animal world long before humans are ever tempted to go astray.
This theological intuition is conferred renewed relevance in light of
the empirical reality of evolutionary gradualism and continuity and
in view of the recent findings of cognitive ethology. Consequently, I
suggest that taking biological evolution seriously entails understand-
ing “moral evil” as a prehuman phenomenon that emerges gradually
through the actions and intentions of “free creatures” which—as evo-
lutionary history unfolded—increasingly possessed greater levels of
freedom and degrees of moral culpability.
Keywords: animal morality; animal suffering; cognitive ethology;
evil; evolution; the Fall; free will; theodicy
-
754
Theists, why does God allow suffering..
by The Quiet One in..specifically, the suffering of animals.
you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.
i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.
-
-
TheWonderofYou
Why So Much Pain And Suffering In The World?
„Einstein said, “Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain.” This is the pleasure/pain principle. It applies to virtually all life, albeit in very rudimentary form in single-celled creatures. It is fundamental. Humans and other creatures born without the functional pain apparatus of their peers, do not live long. Clearly, without the capacity for pain and suffering, the evolution of life would not and could not happen. Certainly all higher life forms including humans would not have had even a remote chance of coming into existence. Suppose there is a God, and s/he created the world pretty much as it is (as per the Christian fundamentalist view), except there was no pain and suffering, and all danger had been removed for all creatures. Wouldn’t it be a dull and boring place? Would there be any reason to strive for anything?
Fred Pauser, http://www.science20.com/what039s_true_reality/why_so_much_pain_and_suffering_world
-
49
What kind of errors in the Bible?
by TheWonderofYou inthe new testament specialist daniel wallace notes that although there are about 300,000 individual variations of the text of the new testament, this number is very misleading.
most of the differences are completely inconsequential--spelling errors, inverted phrases and the like.
a side by side comparison between the two main text families (the majority text and the modern critical text) shows agreement a full 98% of the time.[18].
-
-
TheWonderofYou
The New Testament specialist Daniel Wallace notes that although there are about 300,000 individual variations of the text of the New Testament, this number is very misleading. Most of the differences are completely inconsequential--spelling errors, inverted phrases and the like. A side by side comparison between the two main text families (the Majority Text and the modern critical text) shows agreement a full 98% of the time.[18]
Of the remaining differences, virtually all yield to vigorous textual criticism. This means that our New Testament is 99.5% textually pure. In the entire text of 20,000 lines, only 40 lines are in doubt (about 400 words), and none affects any significant doctrine.[19]
Greek scholar D.A. Carson sums up this way: "The purity of text is of such a substantial nature that nothing we believe to be true, and nothing we are commanded to do, is in any way jeopardized by the variants."[20]
This issue is no longer contested by non-Christian scholars, and for good reason. Simply put, if we reject the authenticity of the New Testament on textual grounds we'd have to reject every ancient work of antiquity and declare null and void every piece of historical information from written sources prior to the beginning of the second millennium A.D.
Has the New Testament been altered? Critical, academic analysis says it has not.
[18] Wallace, Daniel, "The Majority Text and the Original Text: Are They Identical?," Bibliotheca Sacra, April-June, 1991, 157-8.
[19] Geisler and Nix, 475.
[20] Carson, D.A., The King James Version Debate (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 56.
Source: http://www.str.org/articles/is-the-new-testament-text-reliable#ANCHOR19
-
30
What started me on the path to waking up about the lies the WT teaches?
by oppostate init was a simple question: isn't jesus my "mediator" if i put faith in him like the scriptures say?
the research to that answer, from the w79 4/1 p. 31, was mind blowing.
how dare they deny me a belief firmly stated in the scriptures?
-
-
TheWonderofYou
The Blood issue.
How happy i am today when I realised that really each single "dogma"/teaching of JW faith is not the truth.
JW truth looks true and sounds like the "truth", but it is not 100 % Truth, even if it was only 99,9 % true, that is not truth, although there are signs of truth.
Be aware of fake: The greatest lie is the lie that appears most similar to the truth.
-
43
My sister is being harassed by the elders
by opusdei1972 insometime ago i wrote here in this forum about the case of my sister, who decided to stop attending the meetings because she realised that the watchtower society is an evil organization.
this happened more than one year ago.
i am not living in the same country of my sister, so i learn about her case when she calls me or when she write me through whatsapp.
-
-
TheWonderofYou
I propose that it should be a possibilty to stay in a "little sheep -stealth modus" as "inactive little sheep" if you have problems with the herd or with the food supply and looked elsewhere to get fed e.g.
A sheep could have medical attested depression of a veterinarian because of some strange happenings in the field where some abusive wolves are regulary looking after little sheep to misuse silent sheeps.
Could a sheep then become "inactive" speak "non-proclaiming, non publishing sheep, non-screaming sheep, non functionalizable sheep, non productive sheep, how would the shepherd handle the non productive, non developing sheeps?
Upbuilding stroking units of the shepherd for the annual report are not always welcome as veterinarins know. There are other sheeps that can help more than sheperds e.g. assisant sheeps.
In that cirumstances a sheep wants silence more than constant "sheep-congregations with baa.
Should that sheep be expelled to the desert, left alone outside the sheepfold because it is a sheep lost in depression over the preaching baa baa work in the field?
What kind of sheepfold is that sheeplike org with sheperds-king that are running after the little sheeps that have depression because of baaing in the field and missing soul food.
Poor little sheep that are found in depression for doing baa, going to be jugded for things that all sheeps are doing since sheep exists.
-
21
Who were the Sadducees and the Pharisees?? Are there similarities between them and JW's??
by confuzzlediam inlast month, i had the privilege of traveling to jamaica with a study abroad group from my community college.
while there, we went to a place called my father's house in which severely disabled children lived when they had no one else to take care of them.
as part of their day, they hold worship in a small, outdoor meeting place.
-
-
TheWonderofYou
Thanks for the interesting historic backgrounds, which help waking up from a "literal" Bible understanding. Sad history of misunderstanding. -
29
JW's are semi-trinitarians and do not understand the Sacret Secret
by paradisebeauty ini have been searching pro and anti arguments for trinity, and found out there are anti-trinitarians who believe jesus did not preexist before his human life.
and i am thinking, it kind of makes sense.
what if yahweh created a second adam.
-
-
TheWonderofYou
An additional thought:
If God is the only one that can save us...
Why lately the "redeeming deed" or "redeeming act" of Jesus becomes a totally human achievement or human effort; why this human effort ----if salvation is a divine gift at all? Do we understand the "redeeming sacrifice" of Jesus correct if we think of him as an "human" sacrifice, a sacrifice of a perfect human being corresponding as redemption sacrifice for Adams + mankind sins, do we apply it correct, why did the first christians make such confessions? Was the redeeming act in fact?
-
29
JW's are semi-trinitarians and do not understand the Sacret Secret
by paradisebeauty ini have been searching pro and anti arguments for trinity, and found out there are anti-trinitarians who believe jesus did not preexist before his human life.
and i am thinking, it kind of makes sense.
what if yahweh created a second adam.
-
-
TheWonderofYou
Dear paradisebeauty,
i like how fine you emphasize or underline the thought that we as christian belief in "a cooperation between God and man nature", a fine word. That is our belief all about. So i think too. What mankind is longing for: eternal justice, eternal truth, eternal love is thus achievable.
Achievement is possible because, so i think, in this cooperation only God is the donor and men the recipients.
short >>>The divine saves, the human is saved, God is saviour, men are saved.(whatever "saved of").
Now the question comes up, if God is love and wants to save us, why didnt he do it earlier in the history and
why doesnt he save us itself instantly out of love, why would a loving God send a spiritual being/angel called "Michael" send to earch, give him another name, called Jesus, and make him "flesh" solely to let him die, why should his death have any necessity and value, in the framework of the salvation, if only a divine God can bring salvation > and no man can save?
No muslim would understand the necessity that a man has to die for other men. And no Jew believes that, because the Jews taught that no one has to die for another man.
The notion of God that here is constructed through misunderstood biblereading is horrible, it makes of a loving God a monster. Biblicism pur. Then jesus would not have had a free decision at all, he had to die because he had to fulfill the prophesy, he had to loyal in a big issue, in a judicial chimera, that originated in an unkind notion of God of unkind people.
You say that jesus is the door to salvation, but he was not divine, only man, only a human "doorkeeper" who made oral messages "divine" messages and than disappeared from the scene, a good tool, a good prophet that told men that only God is the saviour and that after God would have resurrected after 3 days, him the only-man, he would be what...
- a "perfect" human proof of the fact that only God can save and resurrect and fulfill prophesies an make tests of loyalty,, what was known anyway,
- and that only God would be allowed to decide when and how enough ransom was paid for Adams and mankinds sin, what was a fine demonstration of Gods loving kindness, how it looks like, >> a man died for the sin of others because the laws has to be fulfilled.
P.S. I only want to bring us to think about.. how import a correct understand is of basic christian teachings.
-
17
Plans for huge Jehovah's HQ take shape
by insidetheKH inplans for a huge jehovahs witness commune on the outskirts of chelmsford are gathering pace.. the international bible students association, the charity which manages jehovahs witnesses printing and literature distribution, wants to create a new british headquarters.. the 82-acre site (about 15 football pitches) at temple farm site, off ship road, west hanningfield.. the plans include a printery - producing bible-based literature - admin and language translation of?ces, video and sound production studios, an auditorium, training centre and workshops all on site.. plus there will be one and two bedroom apartments - for up to 1,200 residents and visitors - along with onsite caterers, laundrettes and healthcare facilities.. the site would also have its own energy centre - making it self-sufficient - and a new access road would also be built from temple wood.. a resident from stock, 60, who didnt want to be named, said: its all a bit sci-fi if you ask me.
its a very unusual development, a commune really.
i wouldnt say i was against it as it is all a bit of a mess at that site at the moment.. the land, currently occupied by a car breakers yard, was removed from the green belt by chelmsford city council in 2008 and earmarked for employment use.. ibsa agreed to buy the land from its current owners in december, as long as they get planning permission for the project.
-
-
TheWonderofYou
http://www.chelmsford.gov.uk/temple-farm
Temple farm Update:
Planning permission was granted on 24 April 2015.
Archeological investigation until July.