[Vision2020] The Good Lord Just Done Gave Us a Whupping' (really?)

[Joe Campbell]

Donovan asks: "... since we are also the property of God, can he not take
our bodies away at will?"

No. Even if you own a dog, you can't just kill it because you want to do
so. Sorry.


On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 7:19 AM, Donovan Arnold <
donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I don't think God punishes us with tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and
> volcanic eruptions. Most of these deaths are almost 100% human fault. We
> know where floods, earthquakes and volcanoes are located, yet choose to
> still build crappy buildings and live there. Tornado deaths are now usually
> the fault of global warming, caused by humans, and the collapse of
> buildings, built by humans in tornado prone areas. God doesn't create the
> deadly situation, humans do. Any human saved from the consequences of
> human action can be considered an act of God. However, let us also consider
> that since we are also the property of God, can he not take our bodies away
> at will? To God, nothing dies, it just changes shape and location. Only in
> our minds is the death of someone a loss.
>
> Donovan J. Arnold
>
>    *From:* Nicholas Gier <ngier006 at gmail.com>
> *To:* vision2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, May 27, 2013 10:51 AM
> *Subject:* [Vision2020] The Good Lord Just Done Gave Us a Whupping'
> (really?)
>
> Good Morning Visionaries:
>
> I dusted off this exercise in the philosophy of religion from the time of
> Katrina and I'm reissuing it once again.
>
> One Oklahoma official said that it was wonderful that God saved those who
> survived.  But if God was the cause of the storm, then why didn't he save
> those who did not make it?  I address the issue of Satan below.
>
> The problem of evil and the very unsatisfactory answer from the Abrahamic
> religions is one of the primary reasons why good, rational people become
> atheists.
>
> On this Memorial Day I send out my own tribute to those were served, and
> also those, such as Rosie the Riveter and my UP train master father, who
> made sure that war machines were built and that those machines and soldiers
> got to where they were needed.
>
> Nick
>
> *THE GOOD LORD JUST DONE GAVE US A WHUPPIN’!*
> *NATURAL DISASTERS AS THE WRATH OF GOD?*
> I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.
> ~Isaiah 45:7 (Anchor Bible)
>             Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the wicked
> get away with murder and the innocent die in disasters such as tornadoes,
> hurricanes, and terrorist attacks?
>             After Katrina hit, a man gave this explanation to NPR: “The
> Good Lord just done gave us a whuppin’.” This is the Pat Robertson
> answer: all of us are being punished for the sins of homosexuals,
> abortionists, and their liberal supporters.  Most of us, however, are
> repulsed by such an outrageous and poisonous diagnosis.
>             In Agatha Christie’s *Then There Were None*, one of the
> characters opines that those who had been murdered were “struck down of the
> wrath of God.” Justice Wargrave was not convinced: “Providence leaves the
> work of conviction and chastisement to us mortals.”
>             Justice Wargrave is a good Confucian in holding a doctrine of
> General Providence.  In this view, held also by Presidents Washington and
> Lincoln, God presides over a world that operates by natural laws and in
> which humans govern their own affairs.
>             On the other hand, the Abrahamic religions--Judaism,
> Christianity, and Islam-- believe in Special Providence.  This means that
> God chooses particular prophets or saviors that embody divine authority,
> and God then intervenes in history as an expression of divine will and
> judgment.
>             There is a difference between moral evils and natural
> evils.  The first is the result of humans choosing to do good or evil.  For
> orthodox Christians the prototypical moral evil was Adam and Eve’s choice
> to disobey God in the Garden of Eden.
> Natural or physical evil is defined as that which is not the result of any
> human will: disease (both physical and mental) and natural disasters.  In a
> theology in which God is all powerful, it must be God who wills these
> conditions and events to happen.
> Recently some Christian legislators in Oklahoma tried to change the
> language of their insurance law, which called natural disasters “acts of
> God.” For them Satan was the cause of all evil, and they thought it was
> blasphemy to make God responsible for these horrible events.
> Orthodox Christians, however, have always rejected the heresy of
> Manicheanism, a view that undermines God’s power by holding that there is
> another cosmic power that competes with God.
> Following the Book of Job, where it is clear that Satan operates only with
> the permission and delegated power of God, Christian theologians have
> consistently declared that even Satan is empowered by God.  In the end
> Job’s brothers and sisters “comforted him for all the evil the Lord brought
> upon him” (42:11).
> Martin Luther expressed the point most clearly: “Since God moves and does
> all, we must take it that he moves and acts even in Satan and the godless;
> . . . evil things are done with God himself setting them in motion.”
> How do Christian theologians justify God doing evil?  Here is one
> rationale: God cannot abide the moral evils committed by humans, so God
> must show that justice must prevail.
> Natural disasters are simply dramatic previews of the Last Judgment, when
> divine justice will finally be done.  If God is performing justice, then
> God is doing *good*, not evil.  We would call a judge who let all
> criminals off the hook a bad judge, wouldn’t we?
> Let’s take a closer look at this solution to the problem of evil.  There
> is something important that has been forgotten.
> When the former Manichee St. Augustine discussed the Fall of Adam and Eve,
> he made a very interesting concession: “Our first parents fell into
> disobedience because they were already secretly corrupted.”
> Adam and Eve were already corrupted because they had “deficient
> wills.”  But who was responsible for their deficient wills?  They could be
> only if they had created themselves.  The only answer is that God created
> them finite, fragile, and corruptible.
> I submit that General Providence is a much more coherent view if people
> are going to continue their belief in God.  The Confucians and Stoics also
> believed that God is not a Creator.  Rather, God is coeternal with a
> universe that operates according to natural laws and contains rational
> beings that freely choose their own destinies.
> Following Justice Wargrave, we are solely responsible for our own
> “convictions and chastisements.” Louisiana and New Orleans government
> officials are responsible for not being prepared for the big storm they
> knew was coming.  And God had nothing to do with it, and she certainly does
> not stand ready with a whip to punish her children.
> Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31
> years.
>
> =======================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>               http://www.fsr.net/
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================
>
>
> =======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
> =======================================================
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20130529/70613777/attachment.html>