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Tag Archives: suffering
God Exists And Evil Is Always For The Best?
Sounding like Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide, the Thomist philosopher Edward Feser recently made the following statement at his blog: [I]t is not just God’s existence but also divine providence which can be known via purely philosophical arguments. Hence, even … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, edward feser, evil, God, philosophy, suffering, the Holocaust, theology
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Theorizing Desire
If you think about it, we respond to whatever arises into consciousness with desire, aversion, or neutrality. And the things that appear to consciousness are always in flux: they arise, they ripen, they decline from attention and disappear. Then others … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddhism, desire, Nietzsche, philosophy, psychology, suffering
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Buddha’s Take on Suffering vs. Nietzsche’s
If you think about it, we respond to whatever arises into consciousness with desire, aversion, or neutrality. And the things that appear to consciousness are always in flux: they arise, they ripen, they decline from attention and disappear. Then others … Continue reading
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Tagged Buddha, Buddhism, happiness, life, Nietzsche, nihilism, philosophy, psychology, suffering
11 Comments
Where was God at Sandy Hook?
Randy Newman told us years ago the universe is like this. It doesn’t make it any easier to stomach.
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, faith, God, Islam, Jesus, Sandy Hook, suffering
4 Comments
“Somewhat Religious”: Ted Turner’s Faitheism
In a recent profile of Ted Turner, now 73, in the Hollywood Reporter, his views on religion are reported in the following manner: Once virulently anti-religious, doubt rather than certainty defines his thinking now. He calls himself “a little bit … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, carl sagan, God, Jesus, life, love, suffering, ted turner, theodicy
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Is Love, Beauty, and Ecstatic Vision Just a Higher Form of Pain?
The swoon, obsession, and agony of the heart after a visionary epiphany in Badfinger’s “Day After Day” (1971). And notice the role of memory in the haunting and heightening of longing for what is not, in fact, present:
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Tagged 1971, agony, badfinger, beauty, crucifixion, epiphany, life, love, pain, suffering, the problem of suffering
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Crazy Man
If you’re an atheist or an agnostic living in the United States, perhaps you frequently look around you and think, “There sure seems to be a lot of crazy theists in this country!” And your impression appears to be correct (if a … Continue reading
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Tagged America, atheism, atheist, crazy, life, madness, mental illness, psychology, suffering, theism
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Leon Wieseltier on Roger Rosenblatt’s Journey into Hell Mouth
Sooner or later, and in one form or another, all human beings make their journey—and on more than one occasion throughout a lifetime—into what James Wood and others have coined “Hell Mouth”—the Job-like inferno in which we encounter unavoidable and extreme anxiety, suffering, … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, Book of Job, death, evil, God, grief, Job, liebnitz, life, suffering, the problem of evil, theodicy
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A Great Arthur Schopenhauer Quote
This Arthur Schopenhauer quote is in Susan Neiman’s exceptionally interesting book, Evil in Modern Thought (Princeton 2002, p. 203): [T]he astonishment that urges us to philosophize obviously springs from the sight of the evil and wickedness in the world. If … Continue reading
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Tagged arthur schopenhauer, atheism, evil, pain, philosophy, psychology, suffering, wickedness
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News from Chile in the aftermath of its magnitude-8.8 quake
This morning from the BBC: One journalist speaking to Chilean national television from the city of Temuco, 600km south of Santiago, said many people there had left their homes, determined to spend the rest of the night outside. Some people … Continue reading
Two books for thinking about Chile’s devestating magnitude 8.8 earthquake this morning
See here and here.
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Tagged chile, earthquakes, philosophy, suffering, Susan Neiman, theodicy, Voltaire
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Chile’s earthquake and a simulation from the National Geographic Channel
Chile had a magnitude-8.8 earthquake early this morning (Saturday, February 27, 2010). Here’s a National Geographic simulation of the damage a major earthquake in Chile is capable of causing:
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Tagged chile, death, earthquake, earthquakes, humanity, suffering, theodicy, tragedy, tsunamis
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An 8.8 quake hit Chile early this morning (February 27, 2010). Will the damage and loss of life be similar to May 22, 1960 when the largest earthquake ever recorded (9.5 magnitude) hit the same area?
AP early this morning: A massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake capable of tremendous damage struck central Chile early Saturday, shaking the capital for a minute and half and setting off a tsunami. . . . The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the … Continue reading
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Tagged chile, earthquake, evil, Pat Robertson, quake, suffering, the problem of suffering, theodicy, tsunami
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Evolutionary Biologist Francisco Ayala on Stephen Meyer’s “Signature in the Cell”
Evolutionary biologist, Francisco Ayala of UC Irvine, read Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell (2009), and raises some interesting issues and asks some rather telling questions: The human genome includes about twenty-five thousand genes and lots of other (mostly short) … Continue reading
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Tagged atheist, biology, creationism, evolution, extinction, Genesis, God, life, science, suffering, the problem of suffering, waste
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A Profound Job-Like Meditation on Suffering
And probably now illegal to perform in Ireland: I think the secular blogs—and I include mine among them—should call for a boycott of Ireland’s tourism industry until its anti-free speech laws are rescinded. I’m in. 20th century journalist, I.F. Stone: [N]o … Continue reading
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Tagged atheist, blasphemy, Calvinism, Catholicism, censorship, free speech, ireland, Islam, Job, medievalism, suffering
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Some Perpective on the New Year: A Bit of Pessimistic Buddha-Wisdom from Arthur Schopenhauer (and Monty Python)
A little something to keep life and the New Year in perspective. Arthur Schopenhauer, from Book 1, Section 16 of The World as Will and Representation (1818, translated from the German by E.F. Payne): For whenever a man in any … Continue reading
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Tagged arthur schopenhauer, Buddha, Buddhism, Job, life, monty python, pessimism, philosophy, stoicism, suffering, the problem of suffering, yoga
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An Atheist Writes a Poem: Thomas Hardy’s “God’s Education”
I love this poem, not just for its power as language, but also for its Job-like evocation of the problem of suffering. Hardy recounts the death of a loved one, and his subsequent argument with God over her death. In content and world-weary tone, Hardy’s poem … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, evil, God, irony, Job, suffering, the book of Job, the problem of suffering, thomas hardy
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Charles Darwin on the Problem of Suffering
In a letter to Asa Gray (22 May, 1860): With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me.– I am bewildered.– I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, Charles Darwin, evolution, God, Hamlet, Jesus, life, nature, nature red in tooth and claw, suffering, the problem of suffering, theodicy
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Read Albert Camus’s “The Plague” Ahead of Swine Flu (H1N1) Season?
Documentary filmmaker, John Pilger, recommends Albert Camus’s The Plague as a good read ahead of our upcoming pandemic swine flu (H1N1) season: A novel which tells the tale of the devastating plague visited on the Algerian town of Oran, it … Continue reading
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Tagged Albert Camus, death, H1N1, Job, life, pandemic, solidarity, suffering, swine flu, the book of Job, The Plague, the problem of suffering
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Prometheus Unbound 