In reading, re-reading, and pondering the Bible over the years, I have many questions on many aspects of it. We were raised in a Lutheran household and made to attend Sunday school each week. I didn't mind; I thought of it like school; I enjoyed learning new things (and still do). Somehow what I was learning had to make sense though. I asked a lot of questions (and still do that, too). We even occasionally casually discussed spirituality and gods and religion at home - my parents were "what did you learn today?" interested, in both our public school and religious teachings. If I asked a question they or my older sister couldn't answer, they usually said "ask the teacher" (whether church or school topic). I clearly remember disrupting the class because I didn't understand why Hamlet said to Ophelia "get thee to a nunnery"; isn't that where nuns live? why would he say that? what did he mean? Side note: a quick internet search engine today shows this still to be an ongoing active question well into 2016! No wonder my poor teacher was flustered in the 60's (nunnery was also a synonym for brothel in Shakespeare's time) -- so then I was left with the philosophical question of whether Hamlet was insulting her as "loose woman" or saying she should become a nun -- but at least I knew what to think about.
Anyway, the Bible, God, and so on. Years earlier than the literature class, I asked the Sunday school teacher "where did Mrs. Cain come from?"; our version of this jealousy story was Abel was fooling around with Cain's wife. One of the other kids at the table said she was "his sister". Now even at 7 or 8 years old, I knew enough to know there was something terribly wrong here -- I asked the teacher if that's true -- I was quite upset, actually. Anyway, teacher hemmed & hawed and grunted... and the bells rang and church was over. I asked my parents, I asked my grandmom, I asked my older sister -- of course, they all said to ask the teacher. I even asked my neighbor and some of the kids at school. No one could or would answer. So the following Sunday I asked the Sunday school teacher again. In retrospect, I'm sure the teacher had forgotten the incident, but it had bothered me all week, and I really wanted to know. The whole of humanity was Adam and Eve and their sons Cain, Abel, and I think Seth a bit later (we never heard about any daughters). Anyway, where did Mrs Cain come from? That's where I first heard about "the other tribe". Do what?! What other tribe? Why didn't you mention them before? Who are they? Did God make them too? Were they in the Garden of Eden and thrown out too? Why? Were they always living someplace else? Why? (I really was a pain, wasn't I?) Anyway, the whole experience was so confusing (even traumatizing if you will) that I remember it clearly over 50 years later. And I still don't have a decent answer (it was ok for siblings to marry then because [something]; there was at least one other couple made by God living in a different area for some reason, but these subsequent miracles were just never discussed [for some reason]. I did learn at that tender age that's one of many, many questions I'm "not supposed to ask". Why?
So, another of "those questions" -- If God is all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, omniscient, loving, compassionate, kind, benevolent, omnipotent... then why is there so much misery and evil in the world? Or as said in a now famous quote:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
-- Epicurus (341 BCE - 270 CE)
Believers, Christian or otherwise, usually answer with something along the lines of "free will" and/or "his children" and/or something along the lines of this excerpt from Dan Brown's Angels & Demons:
“ 'Omnipotent-benevolent simply means that God is all-powerful and well-meaning.'
'I understand the concept. It's just . . . there seems to be a contradiction.'
'Yes. The contradiction is pain. Man's starvation, war, sickness . . .'
'Exactly!' Chartrand knew the camerlengo would understand. 'Terrible things happen in this world. Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If He loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn't He?'
The camerlengo frowned. 'Would He?'
Chartrand felt uneasy. Had he overstepped his bounds? Was this one of those religious questions you just didn't ask? 'Well . . . if God loves us, and He can protect us, He would have to. It seems He is either omnipotent and uncaring, or benevolent and powerless to help.'
'Do you have children, Lieutenant?'
Chartrand flushed. 'No, signore.'
'Imagine you had an eight-year-old son . . . would you love him?'
'Of course.'
'Would you let him skateboard?'
Chartrand did a double take. The camerlengo always seemed oddly "in touch" for a clergyman. 'Yeah, I guess,' Chartrand said. 'Sure, I'd let him skateboard, but I'd tell him to be careful.'
'So as this child's father, you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes?'
'I wouldn't run behind him and mollycoddle him if that's what you mean.'
'But what if he fell and skinned his knee?'
'He would learn to be more careful.'
The camerlengo smiled. 'So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child's pain, you would choose to show your love by letting him learn his own lessons?'
'Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It's how we learn.'
The camerlengo nodded. 'Exactly.' ”
-- Dan Brown, Angels & Demons
I haven't yet read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, though I thoroughly enjoyed his The DaVinci Code. I have thought enough about "free will" and "his children" and God as a shepherd to know that I am neither a child nor a sheep. I also know that I have a mind to think.
When I was a child I believed in Santa Claus for a while; the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy, too. By the time I was asking questions about this magnificent, wonderful, warm, loving father in the sky (who I desperately wanted to meet, or at least hear from), I had determined none of those three were real; they were fairy tales.
I know enough as an adult to know a child's scraped knee cannot compare to the horrors of famine, war, abuse, neglect, severe illness and more, endless maladies and calamities endured by so many for so long. Who exactly is "learning the lesson" taught by starving to death? Certainly not the victims. Can hundreds and thousands of innocents dying of hunger be the price of teaching a corrupt leader "a lesson"? Do you really think such a corrupt leadership would even care, let alone learn anything? Are the scars of child abuse a "lesson" for the victims -- maybe, if the lesson is to teach to not trust those who you should be able to trust and expect to protect you -- do we want our children to learn that as a life lesson? The abuser learns no lesson except not to be caught. The abusers' accomplices learn to cover-up the misdeeds to protect their own status or reputation. Do I even need to mention the Holocaust -- what kind of life lesson and for whom, cost over 6 million lives?
This makes no sense. Is this a caring, loving, benevolent God? Is this what you believe God stands for?
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." -- Galileo Galilei.
I'm with him.
