Does God exist creating, bringing order and goodness and beauty out of chaos?
One Huge difficulty of the Hope of Quakerism...
“…a caring loving God "could" exist.”
by agnostic Edward T. Babinski
“1) despite the fact that incessant suffering and death appear to have been a necessary part of the very process that eventually brought forth the evolutionary tree of life including the primate and human branches of the evolutionary tree,
"2) and despite billions of years of physical death and increasing awareness of pain and suffering by living organisms, including our stone age ancestors having to struggle just to discover basic comforts like fire, or which plants were poisonous, or the wheel, or agriculture, and a thousand other things that eventually made Randal's (and mine) present time and place on earth seem so wonderful in comparison with past ages.
"Even in our current era of pre-natal medical exams, obstetrical nutrition and exercise science, half of all human zygotes never develop all the way to achieving the birth of another human being, and the woman may not even know she's lost the zygote or early embryo. And prior to the development of vaccines and antibiotics, half of all human beings never made it past the age of eight-years-old.
"3) and despite humans having shown up at the last second of cosmic time, extreme latecomers in the cosmos (who also remain at risk via human-made and natural dangers of becoming extinct the next second of cosmic time, mere flashes in the pan).
“But...
“given that kind of evidence from nature, such evidence makes it appear like whatever "God" may exist, that such a God is at best a distant and aloof figure who simply tossed each generation of "his children" into the water to see if they could swim.
“The children who tread water a bit longer than the rest before drowning are like those organisms in nature who survived long enough to breed the next generation, etc.
“Which is to say that a compassionate God might still exist who pins a medal on everyone's chest, maybe even Koko the gorilla's chest, after they wind their way through their limited lifetime in this cosmos.
“A life where one's knowledge and experiences are limited by one's place of birth and the culture into which one is born, where we each have limited time for study, and limited vision as to what lay on the other side of the metaphysical curtain, as well as living in a world containing a plethora of holy books and an even greater number of books containing rival interpretations of them.
“And one must add to such "less than good" circumstances the countless non-religious obligations one must expend time fulfilling daily just to survive -- in a world already clouded and crowded with ignorance, waves of emotion, headaches, backaches, toothaches, strains, scrapes, breaks, cuts, rashes, burns, bruises, PMS, fatigue, hunger, odors, molds, colds, yeast, parasites, viruses, cancers,
“genetic defects, blindness, deafness, paralysis, mental illness, ugliness, ignorance, miscommunications, embarrassments, unrequited love, dashed hopes, boredom, hard labor, repetitious labor, accidents, wars, PTSD, old age, senility, fires, floods, earthquakes, typhoons, tornadoes, hurricanes and volcanoes.
“Knowing all such limitations and the full spectrum of suffering and ignorance, I certainly don't see what rational sense it makes....”
Edward T. Babinski
Daniel Wilcox replied,
You wrote, "given that kind of evidence from nature, such evidence makes it appear like whatever "God" may exist, that such a God is at best a distant and aloof figure who simply tossed each generation of "his children" into the water to see if they could swim..."
I agree the view that God of all of the Omnis (most of creedal Christianity, Orthodox Islam, and Orthodox Judaism) seems to drown in inherent contradictions, especially related to the horrific nature of survival of the fittest, seemingly purposeless natural evil, and genocides of humans.
But it seems that Charles Hartshorne, Whitehead, Plato, some Jewish thinkers, Martin Gardner, etc. have made a fairly good case that God may exist in a more limited sense,
that God IS
"becoming" is gradually influencing the somewhat chaotic nature (at least from the viewpoint of humans) of existence toward more and more goodness, justice, and beauty.
It is true that there are huge swaths of "parasites, viruses, cancers, genetic defects, blindness, deafness, paralysis, mental illness, ugliness..."
But math, reason, the scientific method, creativity, purpose, meaning, consciousness, kindness, compassion, generosity, justice, human rights, ecological concern, etc.
Do Exist
too.
The reason I am not an atheist, besides the fact that I don’t KNOW the ultimate nature of Realty, I do not define my view of Reality by a negative definition but by the creative moral and rational positives of Reality.
And, far too many atheists claim that morality isn’t real, that HUMANS HAVE NO INHERENT WORTH, and that even our consciousness is an illusion.
Maybe so, but I strongly doubt it.
It makes more far rational sense to think that Reality is TRANSCENDENT, NOT omly matter and energy. That G_D is still creating, bringing order and goodness and beauty out of chaos.
In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox
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