Is God Good or Evil. Don't Count on the Former



While all of us have read more and heard more about the Coronavirus than we care to hear and read, once in a while one comes across a broad view of viruses in general. I found such an article in The New Yorker. It talks of the constant competition between humans trying to stay alive and viruses constantly changing and trying to kill them. We see a tiny window into this with the annual change in flu vaccines.

The link includes a chilling quote from a Noble Prize-winning molecular biologist,

..We live in evolutionary competition with microbes, bacteria and viruses. There is no guarantee we will be the survivors.

If there was a god, for example God, who loves us and is all powerful, why would he/she allow plagues of the past or potential plagues that could kill all humans? As an atheist pointed out recently, if there is a God, he/she is a really mean and nasty.

If we move from the world of imaginary gods, heavens and hells into reality, we can realize humans on the planet earth are not secure or even permanent. Pandemics circled the world before modern medicine and killed half the population. When Europeans arrived on this continent we killed about half the native population with small pox. That some humans survived pandemics does not mean some humans will always survive them.

And, there is the human urge to conquer other humans. That's why some religions still exist and others do not. When small pox decimated native populations in the Americas Christians took over both its economic resources and whatever religion natives practiced. Disease could wipe out the Christian religion in the same way.

All this brings up the question, does it matter which god people think is real? It seems to me any god that makes people happy is OK. If no god makes people happy that's OK to. There is no god that is either good or evil because there is no god.

Comments

  1. little helperApril 20, 2020 at 11:03 AM

    Anti gay Westboro Baptist Church picture. Couldn't find a more connected picture to topic?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matt NoahApril 20, 2020 at 12:20 PM

    Do you remember this day?

    https://www.leagueathletics.com/Picture.asp?id=1019785&album=&team=0&n=&org=fargosoccer.org

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jon LindgrenApril 20, 2020 at 1:27 PM

      Matt--Thanks for posting that, had not seen it. I saw that the Camp house had been demolished. I was in the building a few times when John Camp and family lived there.

      Interesting tidbit about the funeral from Kevin Carvell. I must have told him about the "funeral" and forgotten to mention your dad was there. I recall he left early. It wasn't really a funeral, just the family, your dad and I standing in the mausoleum telling stories. John Camp had his casket inscribed, "I'm fine, really." It was what he said when people asked him how he was feeling. An unusual character to say the least.

      Delete
  3. Ardy BApril 20, 2020 at 12:46 PM

    Jon, “does it matter which god people think is real?”

    In response to the problem of evil, “how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God” there is a new God in town. I have been reading a multi-part commentary by Richard Beck on a book by Katherine Sonderegger, “Systematic Theology: The Doctrine of God”. It’s a good read for anyone interested in what I guess is a unique take on the moral issues raised by divine omnipotence. God is energy tempered by humility — “Perfect Power is Holy Humility." Below is a link to part 10.

    http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2020/04/gods-omnipotence-part-10-hiddenness-and.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. MaxApril 20, 2020 at 2:43 PM

    'Culling the herd', may be the excuse the superstitious assign to there gods (aka:" Natural Selection').

    ReplyDelete

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