Convince me.

Even if you're correct, how are there things that we cannot explain? Everything is a coincidence waiting to be discovered?

 

What can't we explain? I'm not sure what kind of things you have in mind.

 

For example, what happens when we die? We know what happens to our body, but do we have a soul? If so, what happens to it? Is there an afterlife? We are nowhere near being able to definitively explain this.

 

But for these things to suggest the existence of a deity, you have to accept the premise that something happens when you die other than what science observes. In physical terms, it is all perfectly explainable.

I'm not trying to be argumentative or obtuse. To me, there is certainly something unexplained, suggesting "god": That the universe exists at all. That something derived from nothing. The rest is details. A beautiful sunset, to me, doesn't suggest god any more than, say, a speck of dust. They imply god equally.

 

I really wish I had all the answers for you, but my take is this:

God had to create some bad. He just had to. If he didn't create bad, then how would we know what's good?

Everyone dies. Everyone. We learn this at a young age. Would we be happier if everyone died after exactly the same time on earth? Would the world be a better place if everyone -- just to make up a number -- died exactly 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 years after their birth? Would the world be a better place if none of the deaths were because of cancer and were, instead, all from a violent accident?

Life is fragile. But that's what makes life precious. I hate to use a line from a movie as part of a philosophic debate, but Jimmy Dugan nails it in "A League of Their Own."

"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great."

Along those lines, if everything in life was great, nothing would be great. And I sure don't want to live a life where nothing is great.

That all said, my prayers and good thoughts to you and your friend.

 

I know it makes me a bit of a feelist, but I have a really hard time accepting that the complexity of life came out of random entropy.

Of course, I have a hard time believing an interested, positive God would allow so much of what goes down in the world.

So mark me down for "the fuck if I know."

 

Besides, I've seen enough of humankind to know there has to be something smarter and wiser.

 

I find it equally hard to accept the premise that once you die, that's it.

 

The problem of suffering (and evil) have bedeviled (HA!) some of the greatest minds of the ages. That we mere amateurs can't convince one another doesn't mean squat. So I can't whip up a cogent explanation that a non-believer (or a believer in pain) can accept. Neither could some pretty damn heavy hitters in the past, either.

Oh, and IJAG? I am sorry to hear of your pain. Many of us have been there, and those of us who haven't will be one day.

 

And I understand that. But that's all we know. It's all we can know. The fact that you find it difficult to accept does not point objectively to the existence of a deity. That would be like me saying, "I find it hard to accept the premise that a rock does not have feelings."

 

This won't make the pain go away, but it gives you a chance to smile during these harsh hours.

October issue.

 

The only way I can imagine it being reconciled is by believing that THIS LIFE --- the only one any of us knows and therefore the only point of reference we have --- is of very little consequence in the grand scheme of things. It means the world to us right now because it is our world --- the only one we've ever known.

But to someone who lived from 865-848 B.C. and who has spent the past 2,861 years in heaven, those 17 miserable, disease-infested years on Earth are pretty meaningless. Every person who was "robbed" of this person in 848 B.C. has been rejoicing with him/her for almost three millenniums.

If you can believe that, then the concept of a benevolent God allowing all the suffering in the world isn't so far-fetched.