1. David Kuo on God and suffering:
I was in Uganda last month. While there I saw, if not hell, some of its suburbs. The stories are familiar to us all -- dying children, slums beyond description, systemic brokenness that robs hope. So many of those questions popped into my head -- How could God allow this sort of thing? What kind of god could allow children to live like this.
It isn't a new question for me or for any of us. It is among the world's oldest questions I suspect. But as I thought about it something clicked. God isn't allowing this suffering. I am. You are. We are.I will focus on Africa's suffering. Africa finds itself where it does today because of a billion or more decisions that people made-- individual decisions. A decision not to invest here. A decision to buy a slave there. A decision to drive an unfair trade deal here. A decision to pay diamond miners pennies. Billions and billions of decisions like this have been made over the centuries. The result? Africa today.
Is that God's fault?
I think not. Because at every moment those decisions were made God was whispering for people to do the right thing, the just thing, the merciful thing. But we chose not to listen.
God has done his job. We haven't done ours.
2. Clay Shirky on sitcoms and cognitive surplus:
So how big is that [cognitive] surplus? So if you take Wikipedia as a kind of unit, all of Wikipedia, the whole project--every page, every edit, every talk page, every line of code, in every language that Wikipedia exists in--that represents something like the cumulation of 100 million hours of human thought. I worked this out with Martin Wattenberg at IBM; it's a back-of-the-envelope calculation, but it's the right order of magnitude, about 100 million hours of thought.
And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that's 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television. Or put still another way, in the U.S., we spend 100 million hours every weekend, just watching the ads. This is a pretty big surplus. People asking, "Where do they find the time?" when they're looking at things like Wikipedia don't understand how tiny that entire project is, as a carve-out of this asset that's finally being dragged into what Tim calls an architecture of participation.
3. Adam Sternbergh says that shoes are bad for your feet:
Well, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you: You walk wrong.
Look, it's not your fault. It's your shoes. Shoes are bad. I don't just mean stiletto heels, or cowboy boots, or tottering espadrilles, or any of the other fairly obvious foot-torture devices into which we wincingly jam our feet. I mean all shoes. Shoes hurt your feet. They change how you walk. In fact, your feet--your poor, tender, abused, ignored, maligned, misunderstood feet--are getting trounced in a war that's been raging for roughly a thousand years: the battle of shoes versus feet--.
Admittedly, there's something counterintuitive about the idea that less padding on your foot equals less shock on your body. But that's only if we continue to think of our feet as lifeless blocks of flesh that hold us upright. The sole of your foot has over 200,000 nerve endings in it, one of the highest concentrations anywhere in the body. Our feet are designed to act as earthward antennae, helping us balance and transmitting information to us about the ground we're walking on.
But (you might say) if you walk or run with no padding, it's murder on your heels--which is precisely the point. Your heels hurt when you walk that way because you're not supposed to walk that way. Wrapping your heels in padding so they don't hurt is like stuffing a gag in someone's mouth so they'll stop screaming--you're basically telling your heels to shut up.
(HT: BoingBoing)
4. Philosopher Alexander Pruss has an argument against abortion. (HT: Fides Quaerens Intellectum)
5. William Murchison refutes the popular myth that American Christianity in the 1950s was an idyllic time for the faithful:
The church of the fifties had generally identified itself with civic purposes such as patriotism and moral respectability, along with national recuperation and prosperity. As those purposes began to wear thin, like a good-luck coin fingered too long in the pants pocket, could one doubt that a broad search for new purposes would commence?
6. Quote of the Week: "Gifted writers make each sentence propel readers to the next. Another strategy is to just finish before readers have time to quit." -- Abraham Piper
7. Dave Cassel made $900 writing 300 reviews for Helium's Reward-a-Thon:
I'd originally begun including biographical information about the actors' lives just to pad things out. But now I was really beginning to feel for them....Maybe I was beginning to wonder if it all meant something, when taken as a collection -- a secret history of the 20th century, as seen by me....They were all snapshots of someone's life, and every moment I'd spent watching it represented a moment in their life that they'd spent creating it.
(HT: Waxy)
8. How to Write Fascinating Content That Readers Will Remember
9. How to Leave the Perfect Voicemail
10. Dennis Prager: Internet Anonymity Is as Destructive as Internet Porn
Sexual images and prose for the purpose of sexual titillation are not new. But the ability of anyone in society to debase public discourse is new. Until the Internet, in the public's best known venue for self-expression -- letters to the editor published in newspapers and magazines -- people either expressed themselves in a civilized manner or they were not published. And overwhelmingly, even those letters that were not published were written in a respectful manner because the letter-writers had to reveal their real names and their addresses (though only names and cities were published).
Being identifiable breeds responsibility; anonymity breeds irresponsibility.
(HT: Between Two Worlds)
11. The Telegraph lists the 50 best cult books:
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1883-85)Incendiary declamation through a megaphone. If only one knew what he was on about. Put six Nietzscheans in a room and it ought to be a bloodbath; except, since they're all nancies who fancy themselves as Supermen, there wouldn't be one. Nietzsche was brave and mad enough to kill God: but look what happened to him. His acolytes are, largely, less brave. AMcK
[...]
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values by Robert M Pirsig (1974)
Burnt-out hippy takes son on bike trip. Remembers previous self: lecturer who had nervous breakdown contemplating Eastern and Western philosophy. Very bad course in Ordinary General Philosophy follows. If he'd done Greek at school and knew what "arête" meant, we could have been spared most of the 1970s.
(HT: The Presurfer)
12. Myth busting Mom-isms: If you shave your facial hair, it will come back thicker. Watching TV too close will hurt your eyes. Don't swallow that gum - it will stay in your stomach for seven years. Eating carrots will improve your eyesight. (HT: The Presurfer)
13. From Cornelius Plantinga's Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin
In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight...Shalom, in other words, is the way things ought to be...Everyone of us does possess the notion of a world in which things are as they ought to be-We would...agree on many of the broad outlines and main ingredients of a transformed world.
It would include, for instance, strong marriages and secure children. Nations and races in this brave new world would treasure differences in other nations and races as attractive, important, and complementary. Government officials would still take office (somebody has to decide which streets are cleaned on Tuesday and which on Wednesday), but to nobody's surprise they would tell the truth and freely praise the virtues of other public officials...Newspapers would be filled with well-written accounts of acts of great moral beauty...
(Via: The Point)
14. Muslim call to adopt Mecca time
Muslim scientists and clerics have called for the adoption of Mecca time to replace GMT, arguing that the Saudi city is the true centre of the Earth--.br A prominent cleric, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, said modern science had at last provided evidence that Mecca was the true centre of the Earth; proof, he said, of the greatness of the Muslim "qibla" - the Arabic word for the direction Muslims turn to when they pray.
The meeting also reviewed what has been described as a Mecca watch, the brainchild of a French Muslim.The watch is said to rotate anti-clockwise and is supposed to help Muslims determine the direction of Mecca from any point on Earth.
(HT: Cranach)
15. Timewaster of the Week: CogFactory (HT: Neatorama)
16. Newsweek: Doctors Who Kill Themselves
Every year, between 300 and 400 doctors take their own lives -- roughly one a day. No other profession has a higher suicide rate. And, in sharp contrast to the general population, where male suicides outnumber female suicides 4 to 1, the suicide rate among male and female doctors is the same.
17. Reason #327 Not to Live in Japan -- In Japan's, oshiyas or "pushers" are employed to squeeze people onto the overcrowded subway and train cars.
(HT: Neatorama)
18. John Mark Reynolds on Obama and the New Elite: from WASP to SLAG?
Bottom Line: If Senator Obama is part of a new elite that assumes all thoughtful and good people, fit to rule, are SLAG (secular, liberal, and globalist), then he will lose this election.
19. Everything I Know About Presentations, I Learned in Theatre School (HT: Neatorama)
20. Anthony Esolen on the six stupidest "grammatical" things our schools teach:
1. Never begin a sentence with "but". When they tell me they've been so advised, I open up the King James Bible at random, glance at the page, and read. "If it's good enough for Almighty God," I say, "it had damned well better be good enough for a high school English teacher." It is the preferred method in English prose of making the quick adversative shift.
2. Never begin a sentence with "because." When our retiring linguist heard about this rule, she gaped in incomprehension. That's what my daughter tells me, who was in the class. What can you say about it? It betrays an utter incapacity to understand how sentences are put together in English. Because teachers do not know what a subordinate clause is, they do not teach their students what a subordinate clause is. And because they have no clear way to explain what a sentence fragment is, and because immature writers will sometimes begin a fragment with "because," they say -- you get it.
21. Whiten Your Teeth with Strawberries (HT: Lifehacker)
22. Jennifer Roback Morse on divorce and the state power:
First, no-fault divorce frequently means unilateral divorce: One party wants a divorce against the wishes of the other, who wants to stay married. This fact means that the divorce has to be enforced. The coercive machinery of the state is wheeled into action to separate the reluctantly divorced party from the joint assets of the marriage, typically the home and the children. Involving the family court in the minutiae of family life amounts to an unprecedented blurring of the boundaries between public and private life.
People under the jurisdiction of the family courts can have virtually all of their private lives subject to its scrutiny. If the courts are influenced by feminist ideology, that ideology can extend its reach into every bedroom and kitchen in America.Thus, the social experiment of no-fault divorce, which was supposed to increase personal liberty has had the unintended consequence of empowering the state.
(HT: The View from Her)
23. Trinities -- a blog that surveys, explains, and evaluates theories about the doctrine of the Trinity. (HT: Maverick Philosopher)
24. MS Word Tip: Catch Mistakes with Word Exclude Dictionary
25. LOLCat LOLBear of the Week
see more crazy cat pics
27. Top 10 Ways to Sleep Smarter and Better
28. In Germany, every 5th adolescent smokes -- As many as 20% of adolescents from 11 to 17 years of age smoke. This was the result of the nationwide German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS). The analysis of tobacco consumption by children and adolescents covered almost 7,000 girls and boys aged 11 to 17. Data on the current smoking status and on exposure to passive smoking were collected for the years 2003 to 2006. Possible factors influencing the findings were examined, including the social status of the family, the type of school attended by the adolescents, and the smoking status of parents and friends.
29. How stereotypes can lead to success -- Stereotypes can boost as well as hinder our chances of success, according to psychologists from the University of Exeter and St Andrews University. Writing in the new edition of Scientific American Mind (out in the UK 22 April 2008), they argue that the power of stereotypes to affect our performance should not be underestimated. Drawing on a large body of research, the authors argue that success or failure at work, at school or in sport cannot always be attributed solely to ability or incompetence. Studies suggesting that gender or race can play a part in performance have proved controversial. The researchers argue that the roots of such handicaps lie partly in the preconceptions that other people hold about these groups.
30. Sexual Intimacy: Why College Men May Hear 'Yes' When Women Mean 'No'-- Faulty male introspection may explain why men so often misinterpret women's indirect messages to stop or slow down the escalation of sexual intimacy, according to new research by UC Davis communication professor Michael Motley. "When she says 'It's getting late,' he may hear 'So let's skip the preliminaries,'" Motley says. "The problem is that he is interpreting what she said by trying to imagine what he would mean -- and the only reason he can imagine saying 'It's getting late' while making out is to mean 'Let's speed things up.'"
31. Concrete examples don't help students learn math, study finds -- A new study challenges the common practice in many classrooms of teaching mathematical concepts by using "real-world," concrete examples. Researchers led by Jennifer Kaminski, researcher scientist at Ohio State University's Center for Cognitive Science, found that college students who learned a mathematical concept with concrete examples couldn't apply that knowledge to new situations. But when students first learned the concept with abstract symbols, they were much more likely to transfer that knowledge, according to the study published in the April 25 issue of the journal Science.
32. T. Rex taste like chicken? -- Putting more meat on the theory that dinosaurs' closest living relatives are modern-day birds, molecular analysis of a shred of 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex protein -- along with that of 21 modern species -- confirms that dinosaurs share common ancestry with chickens, ostriches, and to a lesser extent, alligators.
33. 'Charlie Rose' by Samuel Beckett
"Steve is not happy."
David Kuo on God and Suffering: He says the question of how God can allow the horrible suffering in Uganda isn't a new question for me or for any of us.
I would agree it isn't a new question for any serious Christian. Of course, Kuo goes on to blame himself and us for the suffering in Uganda. Does he think THAT'S a new answer to the old question? David, please shut up. We don't need the prophet Kuo to tell us we're at fault for the starving Ugandans. We need him to quit typing at his computer and get his worthless a** over to Uganda and start feeding those people.
JD,
David Kuo is wondering how come we are doing so little (relatively) to fulfill the commands of Jesus and your response is to be a jerk.
I think you may need to re-evaluate a few things.
No, it's not a new answer. But since people are starving to death to such a large scale, this not new answer obviously needs repeating.
#20 Never start a sentence with a conjunction.
I will focus on Africa's suffering. Africa finds itself where it does today because of a billion or more decisions that people made-- individual decisions. A decision not to invest here. A decision to buy a slave there. A decision to drive an unfair trade deal here. A decision to pay diamond miners pennies. Billions and billions of decisions like this have been made over the centuries. The result? Africa today.
Is that God's fault?
I think not. Because at every moment those decisions were made God was whispering for people to do the right thing, the just thing, the merciful thing. But we chose not to listen.
The problem with this type of answer, at least the problem I have with it, is that it doesn't feel very honest. I agree it would be very good if we tried harder to be a bit more mindful of even our little actions. Multiply that by millions of people and you can relieve a lot of suffering. But whose fault is this really? If God has infinite knowledge he can easily see how a decision by a single mom at Wal-Mart to buy a slightly less expensive t-shirt for her son can turn into oppression 4,000 miles away. How can the mom? How about the examples where an attempt to do good (like 'fair trade' coffee) may end up causing its own sets of harms?
First, no-fault divorce frequently means unilateral divorce: One party wants a divorce against the wishes of the other, who wants to stay married. This fact means that the divorce has to be enforced...Thus, the social experiment of no-fault divorce, which was supposed to increase personal liberty has had the unintended consequence of empowering the state.
The argument only works by ignoring one side of the coin. with fault divorce the burden is increased on the person who wants out of the marriage. The state is likewise empowered equally to keep unwilling people in marriages they want out of.
As for personal privacy, I don't see it either. With fault based divorce there's a great incentive for the person who wants the divorce to bring all the most personal details of their marraige before the state to be judged. How is that not empowering to the state?
TimL David Kuo is wondering how come we are doing so little (relatively) to fulfill the commands of Jesus and your response is to be a jerk.
I think you may need to re-evaluate a few things.
No, it's not a new answer. But since people are starving to death to such a large scale, this not new answer obviously needs repeating.
You are so right. I feel horrible. As a result of your words and Kuo's I have re-evaluated. Where before I didn't give a damn about Ugandans, now I do. In fact, I care so much--that I'm writing about it here on this website. But that's not all. I'm moving over there. I'm going to starve with them and write about it on a computer over there. I will feel so much better. And if only I know that you feel worse because you're not doing as much as I, then I'll know that I care more than you. That is, unless you come over there, too. Then we can starve together and feel better than the rest of the unfeeling jerks who stayed here typing at their computers. So stay here, Tim L, and be a jerk or come with me to Unganda and show how much you care.
But forgive me, I still don't give a damn about those people starving in Ethiopia.
While JD is indeed a jerk I think the 'feel good' point made by Kou deserves some serious scrutiny. How exactly are we responsible for evil elsewhere when we lack the benefit of infinite knowledge? Does anyone here really know what would make Uganda a better place and how to implement it?
Look at it another way. Suppose with infinite knowledge it's revealed that your grandfather's old habit of grilling every Sunday caused Katrina to devastate New Orleans. If he had cut his grilling by only 10%, the hurricane would have pettered out before it hit shore and no one would have been killed.
Is he responsible? Well sure but not in any morally relevant way. He's as responsible as the proverbial butterfly in China whose flapping makes a hurrican here.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Uganda and people who want to help it. If you dedicate yourself to helping Uganda or even if you just toss a few bucks at a charity that does that's great. But I think one can get a bit arrogant if you tell yourself you are responsible for the whole world's problems. Kind of implies you run the whole world, no? In the long run, I think that arrogance turns to complete apathy since people soon realize that for the most part they cannot fix the world's problems. The next response is to over compensate inthe other direction and assume nothing can be done and they should only care about their own wants.
Spell check still not working, boonton?
Perhaps you're just not spellcheck worthy jd.
Kuo's comments are a great illustration of the double standard that most Christians have when it comes to God's sovereignty. In their thinking, God gets all the credit for anything good that ever happens but none of the blame for anything bad. If it rains when I prayed for rain - hallelujah, God answered my prayers. If there is a flood or a drought in spite of prayer, it must be our fault. If a plane lands safely - God gave us safe travel. If it crashes - human error or just natural consequences.
I saw this recently and close-up when a friend died from cervical cancer, a most vicious disease. When this friend had a good day, it was all because of God's goodness. But God was never to blame for bad days or, heaven forbid, the disease itself. Humans or the bad ol' devil were to blame for that. When the friend was on her deathbed, the family prayed that she wouldn't die on a certain day because it was her parents' anniversary. When she died two days later, the family rejoiced that God had answered their prayers (but not their prayers that she be healed). And they never saw the contradiction.
I don't see how I am to blame for the drought in Africa or AIDS. Certainly, humans have played a role in various disasters that have befallen the continent. But if there were a god, he/she/it would have to share a little blame for humankind's woes. As it is, I do agree with Mr. Kuo that it is up to us to do something about Africa's problems. God certainly won't.
Kuo's comments are a great illustration of the double standard that most Christians have when it comes to God's sovereignty. In their thinking, God gets all the credit for anything good that ever happens but none of the blame for anything bad.
You mean, "most Christians" haven't read Job? I guess it is possible, but I am doubtful.
I get the problem of evil...the Charlie Rose thing not so much.
Boonton, we are not responsible for the evil that happens in Africa. We are only responsible for not doing anything about it. Americans are some of the least giving in the world (as a percentage of wealth/income not in real numbers) and Christians in America are little better. All David Kuo is saying that we (as the church, which I realize doesn't include you, it is after all a Christian blog) have the responsibility to ease suffering. Not just to family or friends but also our neighbors (which includes Africa). I'm not sure why JD has a problem being asked to fulfill one of the few actual commandments we have? And I really don't understand the having to go to Uganda thing. But you know what, maybe I will find a mission trip to there sometime? It would be special but it wouldn't elevate me in any special way that I think JD is concluding?
Ex-preacher, I agree, that is a double standard that many Christians have. But that is an issue with us as humans, not God himself. Regarding blame, again Kuo isn't saying that you are to blame, unless you do nothing. In fact you have to look at the blame paragraph with the first that he quotes Ehrman.
Don't you agree that much suffering can be alleviated if we "loved your neighbor as yourself"?
God told us the consequences of sin. We sinned anyway. We are now "enjoying" the consequences of sin - in Uganda, in Detroit, in our own living rooms.
God also provided a way out of those consequences. Those in Uganda, Detroit, or in their own living rooms can trust in Christ and be assured of going to heaven, where there is no suffering at all.
That is what God is responsible for.
" ex-preacher
Kuo's comments are a great illustration of the double standard that most Christians have when it comes to God's sovereignty. In their thinking, God gets all the credit for anything good that ever happens but none of the blame for anything bad."
Great Point Ex, but that is only valid for those that aren't Calvinists...I hate to bring up that controversy but you won't find a Calvinist that will hold that double standard....
Hi D. Taylor,
Nah - Calvinists are just as bad. Just try to get a Calvinist to admit that God is the author of sin, and they'll appeal to mystery just as quick as the rest of us.
Yes D. Taylor, (in agreeing to Wonder's statement).
Completely confused about your statement. Calvinists are the ones that would be completely guilty of what ex-preacher states. Whereas open theists, for example, know that with free will, there are powers and principalities at work against God's will.
Tim L
Boonton, we are not responsible for the evil that happens in Africa. We are only responsible for not doing anything about it. Americans are some of the least giving in the world (as a percentage of wealth/income not in real numbers) and Christians in America are little better. All David Kuo is saying that we (as the church, which I realize doesn't include you, it is after all a Christian blog) have the responsibility to ease suffering.
I'll go along with you to a point. Yes most of us could spare a little more to ease suffering all over the world and we should. However he was attempting to solve the question Job raised and his answer was it's the humans fault (incidently, you may recall that one of Job's friends took this view and blamed his misfortune on some hidden sin he had overlooked). But what were we supposed to do about the Tsuammi or AIDS or a host of other problems whose solutions are not so obvious to those who lack infinite wisdom?
Note when he writes:
But God is allowing this suffering. Certainly he isn't saying God is so weak he can't do anything to stop it. Perhaps you may want to look at the question from an expected angle; why isn't there as much suffering in the US as Africa? Is it because the people in the US do not allow as much suffering? Is it because the people of Africa cared so much about us that they relieved our suffering but forgot about their own?
I think it's find to blame all of us humans for suffering in Uganda but most of the blame belongs to people in or near Uganda and very little to people in Basel, London or Idaho. Since each of us does not have infinite knowledge our primary duty is to relieve suffering where we know we can and for most of us we know the most about our local situation. That means the local battered woman's shelter is going to get more of our money than the refugee camp 4,000 miles away even though the camps needs are probably objectively greater than the shelter. Likewise we are probably going to spend most of our efforts to relieve the suffering of friends and family than distant strangers. We will focus more of our efforts on a teenage nephew with a drug problem than a whole family starving to death. While that may seem selfish I think the fact is on the margin we can do more good for our nephew than we can for the family so it's not necessarily a bad call.
Americans are some of the least giving in the world (as a percentage of wealth/income not in real numbers) and Christians in America are little better
Christians are much better at giving, especially red state Christians (which incidentally are less affluent states). I would agree that as a percentage of wealth Americans might not give as much. However, at some point the percentage becomes kind of meaningless because the actual dollars given by this country dwarf exponentially the amount given by any other country. It's like saying Bill Gates doesn't give enough because it's only 5 percent of his wealth. BUT HE GIVES A BILLION A YEAR!!!
And that brings up the overall point. I resent being preached at by Kuo because he doesn't offer any solutions other than free-floating guilt. We have thrown billions of dollars and thousands of missionaries at this problem and yet it's still our fault. In fact, it can be argued that the money given by the US has done more harm than good by getting into the wrong pockets.
I think it's the self-righteousness of Kuo (and you, TimL) that bothers me. You assume that because I resent being preached at by Kuo, I just don't care, or that JD has a problem being asked to fulfill one of the few actual commandments we have. Yes, I have a problem with it. I have more than one problem with it. I have a job, a wife, two children, and responsibilities at my church as a deacon caring for widows and orphans. I don't need to be reminded that I have failed to meet the needs of Ugandans, when I fail every day to meet every need of people right around me.
And then imagine my utter frustration and dismay to find that I have agreed with Boonton on something.
Oh well, no matter. If this topic comes up again, we'll find Boonton taking the opposite side. In fact, we could probably find somewhere in the millions of bytes he has written here where he accuses me (or someone like me) of not caring enough.
Indeed, it is more optimal for most of us to kick jd's ass here and now than to fly over to Uganda and kick whoever is causing trouble there.
Let's hope he doesn't start whining again about how I once said Clinton was too honest or that the US public school system is underrated.
All this butt-kicking and no one can explain the Charlie Rose video at the end? Come on, you guys have the problem of evil down, somebody tell me what that video was all about. I'm also trying to figure out if I should ditch my shoes for some Vivo Barefoots..errr...Vivo Barefeets...whatever.:)
Come on, you guys have the problem of evil down, somebody tell me what that video was all about.
It's about...nothing. Seriously. It's a parody of the Samuel Beckett's "theater of the absurd" plays. What makes it amusing is that it as goofy and absurd as the work of Beckett, who far too many took (take) seriously.
I have to say I loved the Charlie Rose thing. I like to watch him when I've had plenty of caffeine. He's not the greatest interviewer and the set is bleak, but he interviews people that you won't see anywhere else.
I cam across an interesting article in today's New York Times on Francisco J. Ayala that ties together the issues of suffering and ID.
"Dr. Ayala, a former Dominican priest, said he told his audiences not just that evolution is a well-corroborated scientific theory, but also that belief in evolution does not rule out belief in God. In fact, he said, evolution “is more consistent with belief in a personal god than intelligent design. If God has designed organisms, he has a lot to account for.”
"Consider, he said, that at least 20 percent of pregnancies are known to end in spontaneous abortion. If that results from divinely inspired anatomy, Dr. Ayala said, “God is the greatest abortionist of them all.”
"Or consider, he said, the “sadism” in parasites that live by devouring their hosts, or the mating habits of insects like female midges, tiny flies that fertilize their eggs by consuming their mates’ genitals, along with all their other parts."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/science/29prof.html
Boonton Indeed, it is more optimal for most of us to kick jd's ass here and now than to fly over to Uganda and kick whoever is causing trouble there.
Let's hope he doesn't start whining again about how I once said Clinton was too honest or that the US public school system is underrated.
Nope. Never whined about it. Just reported it. It's one of those statements scrolling across the computer screen of my mind whenever I'm tempted to take you seriously. Calling Clinton too honest was an entirely novel idea to me and one not easily forgotten.
Ex-Preacher:
It's obvious you're bitter. Any chance you're secretly clinging to guns and religion? Are you a typical white person?
All this butt-kicking and no one can explain the Charlie Rose video at the end?
I find him too boring to watch in real life so it's kind of hard to watch the mash-up of it. Looking at the pic, though, I'm guessing the idea is that he is pretentious or something?
jd
...was an entirely novel idea to me ...
You mean you only have clichéd ideas rolling around in that head of yours? Ahh well, something’s better than nothing I suppose.
Regarding the Muslim effort to find Koranic precedent for modern science, here's some predictions:
1. Scientists discover that the magnetic fields responsible for the northern lights seem to end up at Mecca and that spew out into space like magentic waste, showing that, rather than being the center of the earth and spiritual enlightenment, it turns out to be the anus of the earth, from which murder and deception flow.
2. The anti-clockwise Muslim watch can not only point to Mecca, it can identify the anti-Christ, also known as the final Mufti dude.
3. Science will one day prove the Muslim theorem that hate and murder are good, rape is good, mercy and tolerance are weakness, and light is dark.
I am indeed a rock-ribbed Calvinist, I guess. I do also embrace the fact that there is mystery to the concept of God, and we can't nail everything down on graph paper.
However I don't have a problem with the source of evil. Evil is the absence of God. He doesn't create it, but He created all things, but it exists. It is His absence.
I think we can all agree on his absence.
JD,
Don't write the things down with the attitude that you that have written and then call me self righteous. If you have a problem with Kuo and his focus on guilt, then say so. My reaction to you was more an issue of attitude rather than agreement or disagreement.
If your loving to your neighbors, widows, orphans and thus you know you are doing your part, then great! But don't go calling people self-righteous when they are responding to your self-righteous attitude. If you were less self-righteous you would have responded in a much better way (regardless of the fact that I may be self-righteous in saying that). Then maybe people would actually hear what you have to say rather than your attitude.
Thanks Joe. I feel enlightened now that I know that there was no meaning and I didn't find any. It's making me wax philosophical here at my desk, wondering if there is truly something 'meaningless' after all and what that would mean if there were, which is absurd because true meaninglessness couldn't actually make you wonder if meaninglessness had meaning, could it? Fun stuff!
It isn't a new question for me or for any of us. It is among the world's oldest questions I suspect. But as I thought about it something clicked. God isn't allowing this suffering. I am. You are. We are.
Well, if he has the power to alleviate the suffering and he isn't, then Kuo is wrong, he is allowing the suffering. Why is that so hard to understand?
But Kuo's point is that humans don't have to depend on God to alleviate suffering is valid. What that implies, contrary to what Kuo intends, is that God is irrelevant to human morality. Human suffering is a human problem which only humans can solve. God either can't solve it, or he won't. Either way, he is irrelevant.
No Robert, it is the suffering that is irrelevant.