the human experience… is one of pain, suffering and anguish…
and the human experience is one of joy and life and happiness…
and the human experience is one of boredom and monotony and much wasted time…
and the human experience is one of good and evil…
so which human experience is the “right” one?
all of them… but how do we reconcile these opposites?
how do we fit god into these opposites?
God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and is the ultimate good…
how could the ultimate good create evil? the believer in saving god,
blames the human being for the creation of evil… but, but if god
is omnipotent, he cannot be blameless in the creation of evil…
if evil is out of god’s hand, then god is not omnipotent…
either god is omnipotent or he isn’t… either god is
responsible for evil or he isn’t god as we know it…
but how does the believer answer this? by then changing the Goal line…
by saying that it is all part of god’s plan and that plan is beyond man’s
understanding… but that means that god has created evil and is responsible
for evil, but evil serves some unknown reason of god…and we are unable to
understand god’s plan… but evil then does exist and god created it…
the two concepts clash… either man creates evil and god is no longer
omnipotent or god creates evil and is all part of god’s plan for man…
but the problem for today’s believer is simple… how to believe in the
face of the 20th century history… how to believe in the fact of two world wars
and the Holocaust and the death of millions in disease and warfare…
if god is omnipotent, then god is responsible for the deaths of millions,
we just don’t understand why or god isn’t responsible and man is responsible
and god isn’t omnipotent… the solution for today’s believer is simple,
pretend that the events of the 20th century didn’t occur…and this
alone allows the believer to believe in a omnipotent god…
the world wars and the Holocaust simple didn’t occur…
and we can then hold our beliefs intact…
those who try to have it both ways, by saying god is omnipotent
and yet man is responsible for evil is simply avoiding the issue.
by pretending that god is omnipotent and man creates evil…
but to make god omnipotent means god is responsible for evil…
and so they flee to the second choice which is, evil is beyond man’s
comprehension…there is a limit to man’s understanding about god…
I suggest that there is a much easier way to understand the world…
take out the belief in god… and now the universe makes much more sense…
but, but it then requires some understanding of the world without
support of some belief system in divinity…
how are we to understand pain, suffering and anguish…
how are we to understand joy, life and happiness…
how are we to understand boredom and monotony and the wasted time…
and how are we to understand good and evil?
the Buddha believes that suffering is the problem of human existence
and if we find a way to remove suffering, we find a way out of the problem
of human existence…
Jesus believes that the finding salvation is the problem of human existence
and if we find a way to find salvation, we find a way out of the problem
of human existence…
but they are both wrong for they only account for part of the problem,
not the whole problem…
we can remove some suffering by our actions, but not all suffering…
we do grow old and we do die, no matter how hard we try to avoid them…
but by accepting what is to be regardless of what we do, we come to grips with it…
I shall grow old and I shall die… it doesn’t matter what I do, I cannot change that…
so I accept it… and that is the solution… by accepting what is unchangeable,
that of growing old and of dying…I have seen friends and family die… it is
suffering, but I cannot change it… I cannot do anything else but accept it…
I shall continue to see friends and family die… I cannot do anything about it
and I shall suffer from it… but I cannot change it…I can only understand that
aspect of life and accept it… I can do no other…
it is a fatalism of sorts, but only of a sorts…
for I can change other aspects of my life…
and this the key… some aspects of my life, I can change…
I can reason and by reason, I can understand what is changeable and what
isn’t…and I can, by emotions, feel suffering and pain and anguish.
and I can by emotions, feel boredom and monotony and wasted time,
and by emotions, I can understand good and evil…
but then how do I understand the “evils” of the twentieth century?
how do I understand the two world wars and the holocaust
and the deaths of millions?
at this junction lies Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and existentialism…
instead of reason, we turn to emotions… we use art as explanation
for the understanding of “evil”…
for how can we rationally explain two world wars and the holocaust and
the deaths of millions?
for art is the experience of turning explanation into some form…
be it pictures or statues or movies or literature…
we can explain actions that are otherwise unexplainable into the explainable…
by art, we can make sense of the world which is otherwise without sense…
how do you explain the actions of the twentieth century…
the two world wars, the holocaust, the deaths of millions?
do you like the Christian simply pretends it didn’t happen or
do you blame god or do you simply say, it is beyond our understanding?
simple copouts like this is to be expected because people won’t
challenge themselves to actually understand and/or explain
the actions of the twentieth century…
we cannot advance as a people until we come up with an
understanding of the actions of the twentieth century…
and we cannot understand who we are until we also
put into context the science of the twentieth century…
context is just another word for experience…
how do we put into context the science of the twentieth century?
how do we make sense of quantum physics into our lives?
how do we understand gravity into our lives?
perhaps the answer lies in some other area?
perhaps instead of the material world, the tree’s and the stars and
the earth, we find answers in the changes of the world…
perhaps we can find answers in the processes of the world
and not in the material aspects of the world…
perhaps?
Kropotkin