Blog Stats
- 2,902,949 readers since June 2008
Recent Comments
- Christian on What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- nothingbutthepub on Evolution v. Creation Metaphor Watch: Is Nature “Red in Tooth and Claw”?
- Anonymous on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Carol Dickinson on Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Bradley on Bonobo Liberals? Chimp Conservatives?
- Bill on Shakespeare, James Joyce, and the Dirty Encoding in Britney Spears’s “If U Seek Amy”
- godisreal2017 on “Male and Female Created He Them!”: Was Adam a Hermaphrodite? And Does That Explain How Eve Could Be Taken from Adam’s Body?
- godisreal2017 on “Male and Female Created He Them!”: Was Adam a Hermaphrodite? And Does That Explain How Eve Could Be Taken from Adam’s Body?
- godisreal2017 on “Male and Female Created He Them!”: Was Adam a Hermaphrodite? And Does That Explain How Eve Could Be Taken from Adam’s Body?
- godisreal2017 on “Male and Female Created He Them!”: Was Adam a Hermaphrodite? And Does That Explain How Eve Could Be Taken from Adam’s Body?
- godisreal2017 on “Male and Female Created He Them!”: Was Adam a Hermaphrodite? And Does That Explain How Eve Could Be Taken from Adam’s Body?
- Anonymous on Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- twilighto on Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- ANSWER THE QUESTIONS - Essay Classes on Feminism for Beginners
- What does Lee Smolin mean when he says that the most fundamental theory can have no symmetries? – GrindSkills on Lee Smolin’s Time Reborn: Physics, Evolution, Atheism, and Buddhism
Top Posts
- Emily Dickinson, Lesbian?: Her Letter to Susan Gilbert, in June of 1852, Might Tell Us Less Than You Think
- Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?
- Walt Whitman: "To be indeed a God!"
- What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?
- "Courtly Love, Or, Woman As Thing": How To Do Lacanian Analysis Like Slavoj Zizek (Or, At Least Understand What He's Getting At When He Does)
- Best Explanation, Ad Hoc Explanation, and Occam's Razor
- Was Emily Dickinson an Atheist?
- Barack Obama: The Leopard in the Book of Daniel?
- James Baldwin on Death
- Quote of the Day
-
Recent Posts
Recent Haiku Tweets
- @abrahampiper Yahweh as a frustrated deity, much to be pitied! Abraham Piper's insight here, if thought about as a… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 year ago
- RT @tbonier: More than 80M votes cast and we're not done yet. Thoughts: - It's too late for an "October surprise" to have a significant imp… 2 years ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: 1. Want to thank @DanielNewman for using his HUGE platform for this work. I want to clarify what this is. In the voter… 2 years ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: Tell me again about how old and feeble Joe Biden is??? twitter.com/ProjectLincoln… 2 years ago
- RT @RachelBitecofer: Remember when you had a chance to choose country over party and you chose party @SenatorCollins? Well, @ProjectLincol… 2 years ago
-
Tag Archives: the problem of suffering
What’s Wrong with This Picture?
Charles Hood’s photo essay on how places, when we travel, are “supposed” to look (as opposed to how they actually do look) put me in mind of the following Christina Rossetti poem meditating upon the inharmonies of existence. It appears to be addressed to … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged chaos, Christina Rossetti, cosmos, harmony, order, photography, poems, poetry, the problem of suffering
2 Comments
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:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 1971, agony, badfinger, beauty, crucifixion, epiphany, life, love, pain, suffering, the problem of suffering
Leave a comment
Historical perspective on this morning’s magnitude 8.8 quake in central Chile
In the same area a magnitude 9.5 earthquake struck (May 22, 1960): And in 1939 was another large quake:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged chile, chile earthquake, concepcion, earthquake, the problem of suffering, tragedy
Leave a comment
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged chile, earthquake, evil, Pat Robertson, quake, suffering, the problem of suffering, theodicy, tsunami
Leave a comment
The Haitian Earthquake: The Pagan Wheel of Fortune or God’s Will and Grace?
In a recent New York Times essay, literary critic James Wood made the following observation on President Barack Obama’s selection of the language of Christian theodicy over that of the pagan Wheel of Fortune (in response to the Haitian earthquake): [T]heological language has … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheist, Christianity, death, earthquakes, God, haiti, Jesus, Job, Judaism, life, religion, the problem of suffering
Leave a comment
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheist, biology, creationism, evolution, extinction, Genesis, God, life, science, suffering, the problem of suffering, waste
Leave a comment
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged arthur schopenhauer, Buddha, Buddhism, Job, life, monty python, pessimism, philosophy, stoicism, suffering, the problem of suffering, yoga
Leave a comment
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, atheist, evil, God, irony, Job, suffering, the book of Job, the problem of suffering, thomas hardy
5 Comments
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, Charles Darwin, evolution, God, Hamlet, Jesus, life, nature, nature red in tooth and claw, suffering, the problem of suffering, theodicy
3 Comments
Wilfred Owen’s “Futility”
One of Wilfred Owen’s great poems is titled “Futility” (1918). It begins with a commander of men at war directing a couple of his soldiers to move into the sun the body of a recently dead comrade: Move him into … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Albert Camus, atheism, atheist, death, existentialism, futility, God, Job, philosophy, the book of Job, the problem of suffering, Wilfred Owen
1 Comment
Unweaving Richard Dawkins’s Promissory Atheist Rainbow
In the preface to Richard Dawkins’s book, Unweaving the Rainbow (1998, xi), he writes: I believe that an orderly universe, one indifferent to human preoccupations, in which everything has an explanation even if we still have a long way to go before … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged agnosticism, apologetics, atheism, atheist, creation, evolution, God, philosophy, religion, science, the problem of suffering
4 Comments
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Albert Camus, death, H1N1, Job, life, pandemic, solidarity, suffering, swine flu, the book of Job, The Plague, the problem of suffering
Leave a comment
Mental Health Break
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, Bible, Book of Job, debate, God, Job, the problem of suffering
Leave a comment
Hipster Condensation of the Book of Job
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, art, Book of Job, existence, hippies, hipster, Job, life, literature, suffering, the problem of suffering, urban
Leave a comment
For Those Who Have Just Arrived: A Little Something for Keeping the Future in Perspective
A quick primer to life’s prospects:
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged comedy, life, philosophy, psychology, suffering, the problem of evil, the problem of suffering, woody allen
Leave a comment
Was God to Blame for the 2008 Chinese Earthquake that KILLED 80,000 People?
According to AlterNet today, maybe not: Last year, one of the most deadly earthquakes on record devastated China, killing over 80,000 people and rendering millions homeless. Yet last month, reports surfaced stating that the 8.0 magnitude Great Sichuan Earthquake could … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, China, earthquake, God, Jesus, philosophy, Politics, religion, the problem of suffering, theodicy
Leave a comment
Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Woman in an American Field Hospital in Czechoslavakia, May 1945
Name: Roszi Frank Age: 24 She was born in Hungary, and was deported to Auschwitz, where, after being moved again, she ended up at a subcamp of Gross Rosen. As the allies closed in on various camps (toward the end … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 24, Auschwitz, genocide, God, humanity, hungary, life, people, roszi frank, the book of Job, the Holocaust, the problem of suffering
23 Comments
Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Women at Auschwitz-Birkenau, with Heads Shaved, Selected for Forced Labor, May, 1944
Source: U.S. Holocaust Museum photo archives
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged genocide, Holocaust, inhumanity, Jesus, philosophy, psychology, religion, slavery, the Holocaust, the problem of suffering, women
Leave a comment
Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: Image of a Prisoner at Auschwitz, Apparently Shot Attempting to Climb a Barbed Wire Fence, and Left to Hang There
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Auschwitz, auschwitz-birkenau, God, Hegel, hegelianism, Job, philosophy, the Holocaust, the problem of suffering
1 Comment
Prometheus Unbound 