Comments on A Spiritual Diablog: Gratitude, Legos, and the Divine Plan. Post #2

La Coloratura, sounds like we're coming from very ...

2005-10-07T08:37:00.000-04:00

La Coloratura, sounds like we're coming from very similar places. I very much share your overall perspective.

As far as evil goes, that's the only way I can understand it too - that it's somehow necessary.

I don't know exactly how, however. Whenever people try to detail the reason, I don't find it compelling. For example, yes, we can learn from many negative experiences - so looking back, on balance, they weren't really so evil, or evil at all.

But other adverse events are so destructive that there's no way we can construe them as having been worth it. They simply take away from us more than they give.

I've been through both types of events, and am certain of this. Also, you can see it just looking at people in the world around us.

Although my attempt of trying to explain my though...

2005-10-03T22:11:00.000-04:00

Although my attempt of trying to explain my thoughts earlier was rather rotten, I personally still think that there is something in the concept that evil exists as an opportunity for goodness, and that one without the other is impossible. It's the only way I can make sense of the existence of evil.

In my own life, the evil that I experienced made me who and what I am, and I am not sure I would have it any other way, to tell you the truth.

I like to think that all things are unfolding as they should, but I admit losing faith in that on a daily basis. At times it seems quite possible, but other times... I just don't know.

I also believe there is far less separation between God and Man/Woman/Living Things/Non-living Things than most religions teach there to be. And therefore that we are in far more control of our own destinies than many religions teach us to be. But that still doesn't fully answer the bad things/good people question. I struggle with that one a lot but only the above seems to make any kind of sense. Because evil has always existed, and I believe it always will until there is an evolutionary change in the human species of biblical proportions. I pray for that change, but I believe it is very, very slow coming. My greatest fear is that we will annhilate ourselves before we get to our truest, rightest level of being.

I don't fully have my mind all around these ideas to be able to write very intelligently about them, but instinctually they feel right to me. I have a few more books I need to read and then maybe I can respond in a way that rings truer... not sure, I'll let you know. I am grateful that you are reminding me I need to read those books... :) And for your blog, I enjoy reading/exchanging the ideas you write about here. I look forward to your book and wish you the best of luck in publishing it!

And btw, in my other post, I wrote something about people bringing sickness on themselves... but I don't think that is true in every case. Some do, by choosing unhealthy lifestyles, etc. But clearly many are struck inexplicably. Just so you know where I'm coming from... :)

LIFE OF BRYAN, welcome back! I’ve been checking in...

2005-09-30T08:30:00.000-04:00

LIFE OF BRYAN, welcome back! I’ve been checking in on your blog pretty much every week…

As to a “definitive answer” for why bad things often happen to good people, I actually do have one that, as they say, “works for me,” and which I think would work for some other people as well. It’s developed over the course of a book manuscript which I hope will be published.

As it is, I’m told it’s unwise to put more than brief excerpts from something you want to publish out on the web. And I don’t think I could adequately present thoughts developed over a book as a series of blog posts. So for now I have to speak from out of my faith perspective without actually presenting it – which is frankly somewhat frustrating. I feel like I’m giving less than my best here.

So I’ll just add I think you’re on the right track – that ego’s involved both in how difficult we find it to accept adversities that come our way, and in how, when we are relatively fortunate in life, we may work it around in our minds that those who suffer in some sense deserve it.

LORCAGHOST: Wow... You say,

"I'm beginning to think it's not really about us as *individuals*. {But we can contribute to} the overall "good" that we experience and share…”

I don’t remember lending you my manuscript… Seriously, I’ve very much with you on this…

Also, good point about forgiveness and other growth processes being nonlinear. I’ve had the same experience – thinking I was done with an issue only to have an unexpected aspect of it emerge later.

IRINA: ""Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people"... This is definitely not what we see happening, now is it?"

Exactly. That's why I don't think any version of that works, even when people try to use relatively subtle versions.

For me there is also no contradiction between God and the existence of evil, but not for the reason you give. I've never understood how, in order to have free will, it's supposed to have been logically necessary for God to allow evil to exist.

I realize that this logical necessity for evil argument has been repeated for centuries. But it really isn't logical. Logically, free choice can be exercised between better, and still better, and best. We do it every day.

We go to the grocery store. We see three heads of lettuce. Any one of them is edible and nutritious, none are "evil." But we pick the greenest one.

If I'm making a logical mistake here, please, anybody, feel free to correct it. I've never studied logic, although I feel pretty comfortable with it.

A: Yeah, maybe there are "process blogs" as well as "process theology..."

You are right. There is a lot to process in this o...

2005-09-30T06:46:00.000-04:00

You are right. There is a lot to process in this one. Several points of view. Like you said in the previous post, my head too, is spinning with the possibilities.

:-)

Gratefulness... There are so many things we take f...

2005-09-30T06:23:00.000-04:00

Gratefulness... There are so many things we take for granted.
I don't think life or God is as calculated to work on a "Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people"... This is definitely not what we see happening, now is it?
I truely believe that God can never be the cause of any evil, because he has Created out of Love. He only allows human evil to happen because right from the beginning He created us with free will. Once He was so upset with our evil that He decided to clean the face of the earth (the big flood). But then, if you remember, He feels sorry that He did it, He repents, and makes an agreement that He will never do that again no matter where our free will takes us to. He repented because it was difficult for Him to hurt His creatures...
So in my opinion we are only suffering the consequences of our free will or the one of the others... You may say that there are deseases that no one has heard of, who created them, can't blame anyone but God for them... But actually I do think we do so many things with consequences we don't have a clue about or just don't care (pollution for example).
So yes, life isn't easy. It's not easy to be grateful for the bad things that happen to you, at least maybe not as they go on and on. But I do think we can feel grateful that these things haven't destroyed us, and that we're still out there striving to make the best of it...

Hi Paul,I'm very happy to have stumbled on your bl...

2005-09-29T18:52:00.000-04:00

Hi Paul,

I'm very happy to have stumbled on your blog. You and your readers broach some topics that I've struggled with as well.

As for forgiveness (of self and others, of "God"), I've found that it is both a concept - and thus elusive, not something that can be easily grasped in the palm of your hand - and a process. And like many processes, it is non-linear, takes unexpected twists and turns. I may believe that I am on the road to forgiveness, or that I've completed the journey of forgiveness around a certain event/relationship/feeling, only to have it resurface at a later time as anxiety, anger or grief. ("Not that again! I thought I was done with that!") We put a lot of emphasis on closure, but I believe we are much more fluid, complex and open-ended than that.

I also struggle with the Bad Things/Good People thingie, as there is not enough correlation between good people and good circumstance/outcome as I would wish for. I'm beginning to think it's not really about us as *individuals*. We can choose to contribute "good" to the world, which adds a bit to the overall "good" that we experience and share. We may not individually reap rewards from our well intentioned actions, words and thoughts, but I don't think it's lost or for naught. It'd be nice to see a cleaner cause and effect, wouldn't it? We don't like to see undeserving people suffer, but even when it happens, this does not detract most of us from trying our best to do the "right" thing, even if there is no explicit reward to be had. That is the beauty it, quixotic, and for me the point of it all. This is how we connect with each other, in spite of our limitations. It is this quality that I find so precious and for which I have endless gratitude.

Very provacative box you've opened with the X thin...

2005-09-29T18:08:00.000-04:00

Very provacative box you've opened with the X things happen to X people topic. Like a lot of other applications, I think we struggle with that issue because it involves our ego-centric need for control, ownership, understanding....
The nerve of some "Being" to have me in a situation with an undesireable outcome, without my input, etc.

Now how about some definitive answers?

Nacho: As you say, I think gratitude as a relgious...

2005-09-29T17:45:00.000-04:00

Nacho: As you say, I think gratitude as a relgious attitude has certain implications and assumptions. While I've known a sense of religious gratitude, it has never been central or major for me in my own religious sensibilities - in comparison with, for example, love and faith. But I know that for many people it is.

For me, the problem of going "meta," as you say, is that I've really never found any metaphysical system compelling. Trying to describe all-reality or all-creation from out of our limited perspective to me just seems - well, unrealistic. I don't find purported descriptions of how everything works and fits together very persuasive when we don't even know what the entirety of all-that-is consists of.

As just a small example, cosmologists don't even know if our universe is the one and only universe, or if there are any number of universes.

So metaphysical explanations always strike me as way-premature...

As to process theology, I've really only retained the basic idea, so please feel free to get back to me if you look into it further. I'm sure many believers would find it disageeable because they accept no limits on God's power at all - God, in their view, is capable of absolutely anything, not having to follow laws of physics, logic... He created everything from out of nothing and had the potential to do whatever he wanted at any moment.

Personally, I like the basic process idea for a number of reasons. It helps explain, for example, why we're not already in heaven - say, loving God of our own free will.

That is, if God could have done absolutely anything, he could have cut to the chase immediately, without having had to put us in a world of so much difficulty so that we would be placed in a position where we could freely choose him. (For me, this "choosing" idea creates many more questions than it answers, but many religious people do think in these terms and so I'm using them here.)

In other words, it seems to me that even the popular idea of God having had, out of necessity, to create a world of ambiguity, suffering, and confusion, in order to get us to freely choose him or otherwise we'd be automatons - this already describes a process and a limitation on God's power.

Oh, one more thing. A post on process theology and...

2005-09-29T16:19:00.000-04:00

Oh, one more thing. A post on process theology and the complications it raises for a view of God's omnipotence is truly compelling, so thanks for bringing it up! I look forward to chatting more about that, as I've also in my life being inspired by Harsthone (sp?)..., but perhaps later.

Hmmm, Paul, thanks for the nice post. I am struck ...

2005-09-29T16:06:00.000-04:00

Hmmm, Paul, thanks for the nice post. I am struck by the implications, if not complications, of the metaphor of "gift" for life. To think of life as a gift does open up an interesting conceptual mapping of life, perhaps starting with gratitude, but also taking other tracks like those marked by "gift-giver" (hence alluding to something beyond us), "deserving," "celebration," "expectation," and the plural "gifts." That is an interesting and provocative line of thought. In thinking of gratitude, resilience, our ability to heal ourselves or bring ourselves and others again upright after suffering -- as a gift, something "more than we can account for," do we displace our own responsibility for such acts of compassion and kindness? Do we put them on unknown influences out of our reach? In other words, do we put them in a pedestal, and thus render them sterile except as sources for our worship?

I'm also intrigued by how this transformed into the problem of evil! Now, that is a neat trajectory from gratitude and feeling that life is a "gift," to the problem of evil... : ). You do a good job of making the jump, and questioning how we, given our different life circumstances, encounter that "gift" metaphor. So, how do folks who have had tough times, who suffer consistently with not much resolution in life, or for whom seriously bad things happen, see or experience the "gifts" of our experience? Those explanations you provide that do not satisfy you are indeed problematic in that they seek to move beyond the concrete dilemma and go "meta," that subtle shift is important, one of the most important ways in which we deal with problems is transcendence, but in those explanations presented there is little chance for redemption and catharsis emerging from our experience, grace is not within grasp in the place where we find ourselves, it is found after the mental shift we make to transcend, to go meta.

Some things can do this work of placing us in relation to another dimension, to connect us to another redemptive narrative rather than the one we live (for instance religious icons), and those are powerful. But it strikes me that we also need to find ways to find that redemption, reconciliation with what is, and grace, in less meta ways. Or is this even possible?

Interesting and provocative post Paul, thanks you very much.

Michael: I couldn't agree more. So far, it seems t...

2005-09-29T15:18:00.000-04:00

Michael: I couldn't agree more.

So far, it seems to me a big problem in human history is getting a system that allows the cream to rise to the top in terms of leadership. Our founding fathers were an unusual, forward looking group who did their best to devise a system that would get around the "power corrupts" dimension of the human experience. But they never could have forseen the role money has come to play in our present political life.

I may be wrong, but my subjective feeling is that in general, the citizens of the world take the responsibility to relieve suffering around the world more seriously than the world's leaders.

And at least here in America, I think the reason is that government has come to represent not we the people, but them the corporations. And the root of the evil, imo, is a system of campaign financing that allows corporate interests to predominate over public good. In particular, the Buckley v. Valeo Supreme Court ruling that equates donations of money with "free speech."

there's a lot of human nature surfacing in these c...

2005-09-29T13:41:00.000-04:00

there's a lot of human nature surfacing in these comments. Paul's observation that the atrocities are continually being committed is right- if anything, things are getting worse. you can look at tribes in Africa and the effect that modern warfare (such as guns etc) has had on them for instance. another thing we tend to do as humans is to get caught up in the "why" question a little too much. it's starts young. your parents could probably tell you when you went through your "why" stage. then the "whys" change from "why is this happening?" to "why is this happening to me?" it's a good thing to think and speculate about the world, even though we can't know the totality of it in this life.

but there is a danger there also- we can get too caught up in causes and less worried about effects. what I'm getting at is this, Jesus said the most important commandments are these: love God and love people. instead of trying to figure out why so many people around the world are suffering, we have the greater responsibility to try to relieve that suffering. of course learning some of the "whys" can help you to relieve the pain. I'm only saying that it's essential to get your priorities straight. We may all disagree on the explanation, but surely we can agree on the response.

But we do allow these things to happen, again and ...

2005-09-29T13:18:00.000-04:00

But we do allow these things to happen, again and again! From the killing fields in Cambodia to Rwanda, we say "Never again" after each, wringing our collective hands. Subsequently the world's "leadership," as usual, refuses to take a broad and long term interest in the world.

And the despoilation of the environment today is deliberate and conscious and for the knowing sake of greed, unlike the 19th century when we were innocent about most of the effects.

I'm not saying no one ever learns any lessons, only that we're at a point in human history where we are inclining toward irresponsible stewardship of the earth. And that our learning methodology to date, of allowing horrors to happen followed by lip service, appears seriously flawed.

But human history has been short. And the fact that so far we're still here says we've at least been doing some things right. I'm hopeful that in the long run, a species with as convoluted a cortex as our own, won't prove literally too stupid to live.

I agree Paul. The girl who is raped and killed do...

2005-09-29T12:44:00.000-04:00

I agree Paul. The girl who is raped and killed doesn't learn the lesson, but the society or culture in which she lives can choose to look at it and see if there was anything their culture did to encourage such atrocities happening. For example, the people killed in the Holocaust (people very near to my heart since they are my ancestors and relatives) didn't get to learn anything from it, but by their deaths, we are forced to take stock here and now of our political situation, to make sure that we do not allow something like that to happen again.

KATHY: Me too. I've also had what really turned ou...

2005-09-29T12:25:00.000-04:00

KATHY: Me too. I've also had what really turned out to be the priviledge of being at the bedside of two individuals who died of diseases. At the time, I was healthy. It never even occured to me to judge their physical illnesses as symptomatic of somethng wrong with their inner lives. I mean, illness is so widespread. One of the two was a ten year old boy.

JOLI: Thanks and welcome.

STELLA: Thanks for a great illustration of how small kindnesses can count for a lot.

KEVIN, thanks for such thought-provoking comments. To pick up on just one theme, I share your feeling that truth, ultimate reality, God, is much larger and greater than anything we know. I think it's for essentially this reason that I find the intricate explanations for good and evil, and how and why God does this and that, not at all central to my own religious perspective.

I'm in awe of the whole thing. Counting how many angels can dance on the head of a pin in its contemporary manifestations strikes me as a human game or riddle that takes me further from God.

UARIDI, you say, "Our being alive at this time and age without our planning or consent to be here now - is something beyond our comprehension - and yet we are here. It is a mystery that no-one can account for - not a caveat."

I agree. To me, that's the mystery, the miracle - existence itself.

In terms of wrestling with how God can allow evil, I found "process theology" helpful - I came across it in divinity school. It's been a long time and I may be summing it up inadequately, but here's the basic idea to the best of my recollection:

God is all powerful in the sense that God's will is in process of being accomplished and God's "in charge" of the overall operation, so to speak - of, say, bringing earth to heaven.

But he's not all powerful in the sense of having zero limits on how he can go about things. You might say that the materials he has to work with have their limitations. That makes some sense to me, considering that you and I are among those materials!

So to get from point A to point B, to fully realize his will, God has to work his way through quite a mess. In order to achieve his ultimately good purpose, he has to allow for many painful things to happen along the way.

(Sorry for all the references to God as "he," just didn't want to take forever typing this. I don't think God is any more "he" than "she...")

MIRIAM: Maybe what I said above on "process theology" would be consistent with your view of God not "dictating" events...

But what about a little girl who is raped then murdered? She learns a horrible lesson.

And as I mentioned in the post, the argument that the horrors people commit and allow to be committed throughout history, over and over again - the tortures, murders, oppressions, rapes, genocides, misguided wars, etc. - these things are being so often repeated, and their horror for those who suffer them is so great, that I just can't see that it's worth it in some lesson-giving sense.

Imo, the lesson that humanity needs to learn will have to come about through some means other than continuing to committ/permit appalling atrocities. This does not appear to be teaching us much.

I've gone through the same arguments that you've l...

2005-09-29T12:03:00.000-04:00

I've gone through the same arguments that you've listed and always found them lacking. Only one has ever worked for me. There is no higher purpose, no God dictating events. We're all just progressing as best we can, trying to align our lives and thoughts with Eternal Truth. And with that, we all have free will. Bad things will happen to good people, and no, it's not fair, but it gives the good people the opportunity to learn from it and become stronger people. The little girl who is raped is then given understanding of her situation, and she can help others in the situation to heal. Or she may be lead to study people who commit sexual assault and learn how to help them so that they don't desire to do that sort of thing anymore. Free will is part of eternal truth. We need to have our free will (and the consequences that go along with it) in order to be able to truly progress, but that also means that we have the opportunity to do some pretty horrific things to each other.

I had a lot of problems accepting a loving Father ...

2005-09-29T09:25:00.000-04:00

I had a lot of problems accepting a loving Father and God who sees all, and "allows all".

When God answered Job, He did not explain or apologies or make nice for the things that went wrong. Instead He asked Job a question. There are times this puts me off but then I realise that God is so unknown so much the "Other" that no amount of theories will answer our questions.

Our being alive at this time and age without our planning or consent to be here now - is something beyond our comprehension - and yet we are here. It is a mystery that no-one can account for - not a caveat.

I choose to be grateful that I am alive and that I know God and am known by Him.

Other things like accidents, rapes etc while not God's fault cannot never be explained to my satisfaction. Right our family is coping with a serious illness. While we all see the unfairness of it all and have no possible explaination of how a loving God could allow such a thing to happen, we (the family) choose to be grateful to God the sick person is still alive and shows signs of getting better. That the family grows closer to each other and to God.

I believe that there is a reason for any birth, even the baby who dies immediately when she is born has a reason be being born. What the mother and father learn is beyond me, since some people never recover from things like this.

God weeps with His children. I am not very good at quoting the Bible, but He did say somewhere to His chosen people that even as He punished Egypt He too was hurting because the Egyptians are His children too(paraphrasing.

This topic requires a lot of thought. I hope I have expressed myself clearly. 'M sorry I did not see the gratitude bit.

Didn't Doskeyevski cover this once,? ;)I worry, to...

2005-09-29T08:58:00.000-04:00

Didn't Doskeyevski cover this once,? ;)

I worry, too, when I read such explainations about 'special blessings", as if breathing, sight & mind wasn't special enough! I am with you on that Paul.

I think, sometimes when we talk of Divine Plans & "Good" vs "Evil", we mistake our humaness for something that it is not.

I have a wonderful, beautiful, loving daughter. She is as brite and innocent as a flower in springtime. I can't even begin to express the depths of my love for her.

But, ultimately I am not in control of her well being or saftey. God could decide to take her, in a myriad of ways, ugly or not. She is not my "thing" to have and own, she fully in every sense of the word belongs to God and is under His/Her/Its protection, Alhumduallah, All Praise and Thanks go to Him...

I think we trip over the fact that we, as humans, are really nothing. Natta, zip, zero! We are but 1 page of a book with 10,000 other pages in the life of this planet! We want a humanistic spirituality, and yet existence ~ Truth, is so much unbelievably, unconceivably bigger than that!

It is not okay that some people experience extream hate or violence. Even though we are a beings of limited will and power, we should use the tools we have been granted to further good. That being said, I think it is an intellectual and spiritual trap to try to justify evil or find reasons why or why not a Divine Creator would allow evil to exist. Where does it say that we should not experience evil?

You know, its like the King of planets, stars, galaxy and time sent us into this puny backwater spec of dust of a planet (that we're screwing up...) to scratch out a life and bear witness to this increadibly beautiful creation... why? How can I question that? How, with this created mouth and tongue, can I turn around to God and say, "Hey why did you 'MY' daughter back"?

I suppose this can be filed under "God's Mysterious Ways", but I don't think that file is big enough!

There is a idea that gets tossed around in the group of people I hang with: God created us to know God and we CAN know God, fully in our hearts. How that can occur, God Willing, is with the humility that was granted to us. Gratitude is part humility.

your blog, Paul, is a nice oassis in a sea of arguments! We thank you!

If I may start with gratitude, a story from my own...

2005-09-28T21:50:00.000-04:00

If I may start with gratitude, a story from my own life recently, I had a friend or a few disappoint and hurt me not too long ago. It's effect lasted for many days afterward, so much that I played a negative tape inside my head constantly. Even when strangers or aquaintances did the kindest of acts for me, I couldn't appreciate them or be grateful long enough to enjoy the small, but sincere deeds. I remember the moment when I thought to myself that I needed something, I didn't know what, to make me feel an overall gratefulness again in my life. The next day, while at work, I received flowers that were sent to the office for me from a friend unrelated to what was happening. The suprise of receiving flowers caught me off-guard and immediately changed my negative thinking. Was his act mere coincidence or an answer to my prayer? I'm not sure, but that is the beauty of a miracle, and how I found a feeling of gratitude again. I think no matter how big or small, a spirit of gratfulness comes from being open to it in our lives. Or so I learned.

Now, onto when bad things happend to good people, I believe that the little girl or boy or adult who is injured in any way, is not being punished. We live in a world that has both good and bad. Ultimately, in the end, it is the actions of the person who committed such hard crimes that will be judged. Or you could argue all of our actions will be judged good and bad. In that way, God or a Spirit Conciousness, does have the ultimate say and is all-powerful. I read once, that the earth plane is relatively easy compared to the other levels of existence, such as heaven, hell, and all else that falls in-between.

Just my thoughts. Thanks for letting me comment and for the discussion.

Wow...your blog is so interesting....lots of readi...

2005-09-28T20:24:00.000-04:00

Wow...your blog is so interesting....lots of reading for me ahead. <: -)

In the Bible book of Job.. I remember him sufferin...

2005-09-28T20:15:00.000-04:00

In the Bible book of Job.. I remember him suffering A Lot. His childern Died and he got very ill. but even through all this he didn't blame God. So in my life when bad things happen and illness happens I never think that God is doing it to me.

Bkdivam, thanks. I'll look at your blog sometime i...

2005-09-28T19:10:00.000-04:00

Bkdivam, thanks. I'll look at your blog sometime in the next few days.

Gulnaz: Me too. I like the line from the Book of Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?" (God talking...) In other words, "Job, you don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about."

Generally speaking, the more someone claims great and detailed knowledge of God and the ways of God, the less inclined I am to think they're on to something.

Bonita, just to toss this out: what if God is truly a Creator and not a planner, not a prototype manufacturer. And what if the cookies's still in the oven?

Perhaps it is all a matter of 'framing', that is, ...

2005-09-28T16:47:00.000-04:00

Perhaps it is all a matter of 'framing', that is, how we choose to define our life experiences. When I was young, religious teachings framed everything. Then, later, there was a social context, then a psychological context - all ways of explaining life events.

The religious values became the core values, right and wrong. The social context helped me understand how people interact with one another. And the psychological insights add depth and dimmension. I use it all to understand my world.

My biggest question is whether man will continue to use religion as a guide to life. I want to believe in a Divine Plan, whether there is one or not, because I believe there is a divine presence in the world.

tell you what, i don't understand life and how it ...

2005-09-28T16:00:00.000-04:00

tell you what, i don't understand life and how it works at all! none of my theories stand up to scrutiny....nothing really makes sense in the world. sometimes i believe it really is a play and i have just got to play my role like any other professional actor. i might have asked for another but well i got this part and all i can do is try to do it well...

hello yuor blog is well prepared and very systemat...

2005-09-28T12:48:00.000-04:00

hello yuor blog is well prepared and very systematic. i would like to talk to you u can also visit my blog knowaboutgod.blogspot.com