[Vision2020] God's problem: Hawkins Mall

[Garrett Clevenger]

You read my head, Ted.

The hawks at Hawkins will get their way.
We are their prey as the blinded here pray,
"Give us more shopping, take our worries away."
The only problem, as even God may say,
"Shop 'til you drop may make you gay,
but it won't last forever.  One day you'll pay."

Thank God for the mall!  What more could we really ask
for?  Oh, wait, maybe common sense and rationality?  A
little long term planning, perhaps?

gclev

--- Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:

> If God is an omnipotent, all knowing and all good
> being, God does not have a
> problem.  Only limited beings that lack the
> capability to comprehend such
> infinite capacities have a "problem."  Having said
> that, the problem of
> evil, or suffering, in a universe created by "God,"
> as it has been parsed in
> the history of theology and philosophy, is a subject
> that it is difficult to
> say anything new about.
> 
> There are far more opportunities to say something
> new about environmental
> sustainability, alternative energy, the problem of
> CO2/fossil fuel induced
> climate change, and the connections to these
> problems with the USA's out of
> control consumer culture, now to hit the Palouse
> with an inspiration to
> attain even higher levels of wanton consumption,
> with the Hawkins Mall.
> 
> If someone has something new to say about the
> problem of suffering, or the
> problem of evil, given certain assumptions about a
> creator "God,"
> theologically speaking, please, enlighten us.
> 
> Otherwise, perhaps we should focus on the critical
> problems of how humanity
> is to make peace with Nature, before we slide off
> the cliff of species
> extinction, ecosystem collapse, and resource
> depletion, as the human
> population keeps expanding, as we worship at the
> alter of materialistic
> consumption as the primary goal of the human race,
> as anthropogenic climate
> change portends to remake our planet into a world
> unrecognizable to the
> current generation.
> 
> The Hawkins Mall is a local focal point for these
> critical problems the
> human race is facing.  And to deny this is to deny
> the reality of the
> impacts materialistic consumerism is having on the
> very fabric of life on
> our planet.
> 
> Hey, what do I know?  I just read the latest science
> on environmental
> consequences of human activity and industry, and
> connect the dots to what we
> are doing here to the impacts globally.  We are all
> a "wholly owned
> subsidiary" of the Earth as a living system.
> 
> I'll be long gone when we have reaped what we sow...
> In the meantime, yes, I
> am a beneficiary of the capitalist consumer culture,
> so to some extent, I am
> criticizing the hand that feeds me...
> 
> Ted Moffett
> 
> On 2/20/08, Ralph Nielsen <nielsen at uidaho.edu>
> wrote:
> >
> > RALPH NIELSEN
> >
> > Here goes the old librarian again. Yesterday on
> NPR Fresh Air there
> > was an interview with Bart Ehrman about his latest
> book "God's
> > Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most
> Important Question."
> >
> > It deals with the age-old problem of theodicy: why
> is there
> > suffering in the world?
> >
> > The web site is
> >
> >
>
<www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19096131>
> >
> > Or go to <www.NPR.org>, then to the "Top emailed
> stories," and click on
> > Bart Ehrman. You can download the interview or
> listen to it there.
> >
> > We religious skeptics ought to know about this
> problem ourselves. We
> > can't leave it to God, can we?
> >
> > I found myself almost completely agreeing with
> him. I certainly agree
> > with him that Ecclesiastes is one of the best
> books in the Bible.
> >
> > Good listening and good reading.
> >
> >
>