Reading Time: 2 minutes As I meander along the sometimes remote byways of the nonreligious environment, I frequently come across some lovely sunlit glens. I recently found one in the form of a quote posted by someone named u/Lazy_boa in Reddit’s r/atheism tributary, titled “Mark Twain summed up the absurdity of God over a century ago.” This quote submitted […]
suffering
Posted inReligion
Concrete thorns for skeptical theism: Why does suffering still exist?
Reading Time: 6 minutes The problem of evil is the thorniest of challenges for the theist: It is the issue of why suffering or evil exists in the world of OmniGod, where God is supposedly all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving. God knows what to do about this suffering, is powerful enough to do it, and loving enough to care to […]
Posted inPsychology
Sports are for losers: On unavoidable suffering and learning to flourish
Reading Time: 5 minutes The recent Olympic Games, the ensuing NCAA March Madness Tournaments, and all other competitions produce an exorbitant amount of one category of athlete: losers. All told, the 2022 Winter Olympic Games alone sent home more than 2,000 losers. Sports and competition itself is a uniquely unforgiving institution. It’s designed so a large majority of participants lose […]
Posted inReligion
New research says: Most Americans love God but ignore his impotence
Reading Time: 4 minutes (Writer’s note: If you’d like to receive emailed links to each of my columns when posted, please sign up here.) A recent Pew Research Center survey on U.S. attitudes toward the so-called “problem of evil” (and implied divine impotence) brightly underscores how the perpetuating power of religious indoctrination continues into the 21st century to corrupt […]
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
How can you be a humanist when you can’t stand humans?
Reading Time: 5 minutes OnlySky · How can you be a humanist when you can't stand humans? | James Croft I’m not feeling good right now. I feel sad, and tired, and lonely, and empty. It’s my spark. I’ve lost my spark—which is funny, because I never knew where it was to begin with. There’s an episode of The […]
Posted inEthics
Jim Dailey’s Compassionate Lessons on Child and Animal Suffering
Reading Time: 7 minutes Jim Dailey, the Catholic apologist’s unquestioning best friend, says some real odd things. And by odd, I really mean morally abhorrent. I was recently talking about the moral obscenity that is the Exodus story, and particularly the plagues, when Dailey attacked my questioning of the morality of the events. Before I go on to mention […]
Posted inUncategorized
Salvific Suffering and a Possibility of Meaning
Reading Time: 3 minutes I have talked a few times recently about the existence of suffering (or, in commenter skl’s terms “endlessly”) and so it is pertinent of me to mention the then Pope’s 1984 letter on salvific suffering. A few quotes for you from the letter: In the Cross of Christ not only is the Redemption accomplished through […]
Posted inEthics
All the Options to Explain Suffering
Reading Time: 2 minutes Quality commenter here, 3lemenope, recently provided us with his idea of the range of reasons that can be given to explain suffering in light of OmniGod: 1. Suffering is a lesson 2. Suffering is deserved 3. Suffering is a means to some other end That’s it. None of the options speak well of an omni-anything. […]
Posted inUncategorized
The Problem of Evil and the Necessity of Suffering
Reading Time: 5 minutes The Problem of Evil is a well-trodden battlefield. How can there be so much (or any) suffering in light of an OmniGod who cares enough, knows enough and is powerful enough to do something about it. The answers are generally along the lines of: No suffering is gratuitous – there could be/is/must be a reason […]
Posted inReligion
We Never Expected God to Make Us Happy
Reading Time: 7 minutes I recently heard a sermon reminding us all that “God never promised to make us happy,” and I kept thinking if only I had a dollar for every time I heard that one, well…I’d still stay broke most of the time but let’s not go there. This overly confident minister asserted that a common reason […]