Is there anybody 'Out' there?
From the beginning...the fall of man has led to tremendous overwhelming misery and suffering in the world.Over time,human innovation has magnified and refined our methods and application of"Mans inhumanity to man"to a degree that escapes our ability to comprehend.
Religion tells us that we have corrupted the good and pure nature of the garden given to us by God.There is no argument to refute the fact that we are responsible for the political and social turmoil that has resulted in horrendous acts;Acts perpetrated upon one another in the name of duty,ideology,patriotism,and the most insidious of them all...benevolence.
Scenarios through out history have brought out the dark side of people who,time and time again,take perverse pleasure in making the most obscene demands one person can make on another.The application of human imagination applied to causing desolation in others is abundantly clear to anyone with eyes,ears,and a modicum of objectivity.It is Clear that mankind has generated vast amounts of misery and suffering to the point of the world teetering on the verge of apocalyptic destruction.
The argument put forth by believers is very convincing from this presentation of undeniable facts...all of which are agreed upon by open minded people regardless of their religious stance.So it appears that believers have got it right.If somehow we could make amends,repent,and turn away from our sinful nature,we might return the earth to its beginnings when suffering did not exist and humans lived happily under the loving administration of God.
I believe this is a fair and unbiased presentation of religions position on the cause for the existence of pain,suffering,and misery in the world.This is a very convincing explanation and is virtually irrefutable.....It dose not,however,take into account the whole picture.
Written into the fabric of this world is a level of suffering,Independent of Mankind,that equals if not exceeds that caused by humans.The Suffering and Misery perpetrated by humans upon this earth Pales in comparison to the Natural events that afflict the innocent as well as the guilty...the young as well as the old...the ignorant as well as the educated.The misery meted out through nature is not selective in it's choice of who shall suffer and who shall not.
A Volcano dose not discriminate between the Murderer and the infant...both feel the indescribable mind shattering pain of fire and poison gas as it melts them into grotesque contorted caricatures.
The Tsunami dose not individually select the hundreds of thousands of victims,innocent and guilty alike,who experience the terror of drowning,gasping again and again for air only to have their lungs filled with water...the slow agonizing death of asphyxiation as the body desperately clings to its fading consciousness.
The Drought and subsequent famine does not decide who shall starve to death...or that the toddler,laying on a filthy rag of a blanket,stomach bloated from hunger,so weakened it is unable to move,with not even enough fluid remaining in its body to produce a single tear,has brought upon it's self this fate.The child reaching out to us with it's wide confused eyes.
Rampant disease that devastates the body producing a level of pain that the most powerful drugs can only dull...but not remove....Cancer that consumes,opportunistic disease that decimates the body in horrendous ways.
The effect of mental disorders that have organic origins.....Alzheimer's...The brilliant person who is aware of his brain dying a few cells at a time,his mind descending slowly into madness....the shame and depression as dignity slips away...replaced by dementia and the abandonment that follows.
Can we,in good conscience,Lay this suffering at the feet of a loving,caring,and Just God?
A Loving parent wants there children to learn and mature.We do everything in our power to make that happen in a pleasant or tolerably challenging way for our children.
If the God offered us by today's religions is our loving father,why dose he allow the"Written In Suffering"of this world to exist?Why does he not eliminate It and change our environment to protect us when necessary as we mere humans would do for Our children?
The unmitigated and absolute devotion of today's religionists to their God of love,mercy,and compassion flies in the face of reason,logic,and the misery that billions of people endure daily due to natural events that mankind could not possibly have caused...drought,famine,and geological disturbances.If bad things only happened to bad people I wouldn't be writing this piece but that is clearly not the case as I've already described...a person can live a righteous life making all the right choices and doing everything right...and still loose...
To say that God is all powerful and all loving is a conundrum to say the least.Either he is all loving but cannot remove evil...or he is all powerful and will not remove evil from the earth...it cant be both and either one disqualifies him from being God.
If an all in all "I am that I am" God does exist,the human mind cannot possibly comprehend that God.Clearly,our arrogance as a species prevents us from admitting that we cannot possibly understand many of the truly deep enigmas of life...including religions 'God'...who simply isn't there...
