Building the list
In the last post, we asked the questions of how far should God go to restrict our pain and suffering. If we were to build a list, what would it look like and when would it end?
Continuing on page 67, “The big problem for the person who makes that list really isn’t where you start, but where you stop. In a world where pain is constrained, what pain is allowable? Any ? None? This really starts to get tricky. The cancer can be removed, but what kind of life will be left afterward?”
He then goes on to discuss some of the purposes of pain with an example from his life, similar to the ones I alluded to above about pain being good in some circumstances for the short term and more often long term well being of our body and its constituent parts.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Should We Fire God? (Part 3b-2)
From Normal to Abnormal
Let’s take an excerpt from the book.
“Something – we’re not sure what – takes the very natural process of cell replication and causes it to go haywire. Cells start reproducing too quickly or begin producing the wrong things; in some cases, they simply don’t die when they are supposed to. This is all because of something deep within the human body breaking down, a normal process becoming abnormal…
… We probably all have stories of someone hearing the ‘There is simply nothing else we can do’ speech. In our society, which so highly elevates personal choice and flexibility, this can be an especially stinging conclusion. We are immersed in a culture that allows us to do everything from ordering our burgers our way to setting up our own payment plans, to choosing the background for our Twitter home pages. So, beyond the clear implications of hearing that phrase pertaining to a battle with cancer, we are generally unaccustomed to hearing that our choices are severely limited.
And it is almost true.
Let’s take an excerpt from the book.
“Something – we’re not sure what – takes the very natural process of cell replication and causes it to go haywire. Cells start reproducing too quickly or begin producing the wrong things; in some cases, they simply don’t die when they are supposed to. This is all because of something deep within the human body breaking down, a normal process becoming abnormal…
… We probably all have stories of someone hearing the ‘There is simply nothing else we can do’ speech. In our society, which so highly elevates personal choice and flexibility, this can be an especially stinging conclusion. We are immersed in a culture that allows us to do everything from ordering our burgers our way to setting up our own payment plans, to choosing the background for our Twitter home pages. So, beyond the clear implications of hearing that phrase pertaining to a battle with cancer, we are generally unaccustomed to hearing that our choices are severely limited.
And it is almost true.
Should We Fire God? (Part 3b-1)
Perspective Three: Holy Scriptures and religion
There are the big three monotheistic Abrahamic religions that dominate the world today, along with others such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, etc. I’ll just be discussing the Christian scriptures and influenced perspective(s) since that is what I am familiar with, grew up with, and adhere to.
Did you catch that? I just gave away my world view and my presuppositions about my thinking. So I’m not so open-minded, now am I? I am just building up a straw man and blowing him over to push my ‘religion’, right? I’ll let you be the verdict on that. Everyone holds to something, and this is an expression of my current understanding of a piece of mine.
There are the big three monotheistic Abrahamic religions that dominate the world today, along with others such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, etc. I’ll just be discussing the Christian scriptures and influenced perspective(s) since that is what I am familiar with, grew up with, and adhere to.
Did you catch that? I just gave away my world view and my presuppositions about my thinking. So I’m not so open-minded, now am I? I am just building up a straw man and blowing him over to push my ‘religion’, right? I’ll let you be the verdict on that. Everyone holds to something, and this is an expression of my current understanding of a piece of mine.
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