I think this is well put, but I have a couple of small disagreements.
"we bring evil upon ourselves by the choices we make! And sometimes, the innocents suffer." Another in a long tradition of statements that tries to explain that the evil in this world is a result of man's own inhumanity to man, not because of God being mean to us. A statement that, in most cases, even atheists can agree with. So far, so good.
Actually, there is plenty of evil in this world (or at least plenty of bad occurences that cause suffering) that has nothing to do with people being cruel to each other. Forest fires, landslides, hurricanes, plagues, volcanoes erupting, tsunamis, droughts, floods--while a few of these (floods and fires for example) may occasionally result from human agency, 1) the vast majority of them do not and 2) of the minority that do, many are inadvertent--people who put levees around rivers or leave a campfire burning are not usually *trying* to cause floods or fires later. Human ignorance or shortsightedness may be responsible for these events, but not human evil.
And then there's all the wasps who paralyze caterpillars and lay their eggs in their helpless bodies type things
But once you think about it, here's the interesting thing. In the context of responding to Gingi's article about the tragedy, those statements contradicts each other. Because Irving clearly couldn't have directly *caused* the plane crash (i.e., none of his actions could have caused the plane to malfunction), then the only way the crash could have been his fault ("evil he brought upon himself") would be supernaturally, i.e., God intervened and smacked the plane down Himself.
I see another supernatural possibility you have left out: some non-God supernatural cause may have caused the plane to malfunction. (Not that I believe that for a second, but just for the sake of argument.) The problem with that idea is that I thought Christians were supposed to believe that non-God magic was inherently evil, and therefore 1) wouldn't bring about a "balancing of the scales" in any sense and 2) would be abhorrent even if it did.
Actually, now that I think about it, this ties back into the idea that seems (to my uneducated eye) to underlie Christianity, which is that it's possible to right a wrong committed by one person by punishing someone else who had nothing to do with it. Christ can't have "died for our sins" unless it is seriously possible to right the scales of justice by knowingly punishing the wrong person. If it is possible to do this, then it is possible in Feldenkamp's case to right the scales of justice by punishing his innocent children and grandchildren (plus three other random adults and two other random children who were also on the plane) for "sins" committed by Feldenkamp.
To me, this seems preposterous and evil. I can't imagine punishing the wrong person setting anything right. But other people seem to think differently.
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Re: God would even contemplate an evil act like murdering five
Date: 2009-03-27 11:03 pm (UTC)"we bring evil upon ourselves by the choices we make! And sometimes, the innocents suffer."
Another in a long tradition of statements that tries to explain that the evil in this world is a result of man's own inhumanity to man, not because of God being mean to us. A statement that, in most cases, even atheists can agree with. So far, so good.
Actually, there is plenty of evil in this world (or at least plenty of bad occurences that cause suffering) that has nothing to do with people being cruel to each other. Forest fires, landslides, hurricanes, plagues, volcanoes erupting, tsunamis, droughts, floods--while a few of these (floods and fires for example) may occasionally result from human agency, 1) the vast majority of them do not and 2) of the minority that do, many are inadvertent--people who put levees around rivers or leave a campfire burning are not usually *trying* to cause floods or fires later. Human ignorance or shortsightedness may be responsible for these events, but not human evil.
And then there's all the wasps who paralyze caterpillars and lay their eggs in their helpless bodies type things
But once you think about it, here's the interesting thing. In the context of responding to Gingi's article about the tragedy, those statements contradicts each other. Because Irving clearly couldn't have directly *caused* the plane crash (i.e., none of his actions could have caused the plane to malfunction), then the only way the crash could have been his fault ("evil he brought upon himself") would be supernaturally, i.e., God intervened and smacked the plane down Himself.
I see another supernatural possibility you have left out: some non-God supernatural cause may have caused the plane to malfunction. (Not that I believe that for a second, but just for the sake of argument.) The problem with that idea is that I thought Christians were supposed to believe that non-God magic was inherently evil, and therefore 1) wouldn't bring about a "balancing of the scales" in any sense and 2) would be abhorrent even if it did.
Actually, now that I think about it, this ties back into the idea that seems (to my uneducated eye) to underlie Christianity, which is that it's possible to right a wrong committed by one person by punishing someone else who had nothing to do with it. Christ can't have "died for our sins" unless it is seriously possible to right the scales of justice by knowingly punishing the wrong person. If it is possible to do this, then it is possible in Feldenkamp's case to right the scales of justice by punishing his innocent children and grandchildren (plus three other random adults and two other random children who were also on the plane) for "sins" committed by Feldenkamp.
To me, this seems preposterous and evil. I can't imagine punishing the wrong person setting anything right. But other people seem to think differently.