The Difficulties of Thinking that Quakerism is the Truth

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

The HORROR of Natural Evil and Human Evil Actions including the tragedy in Miami

WHY AREN'T TERRIBLE TRAGEDIES LIKE THE BUILIDNG COLLAPSE PREVENTED?

Or questioners could have cited the horrific tsunami in Indonesia in 2004 that slaughtered over 240,000 innocent humans.

Or the 30 Years War, where about 1/3 of all the population of the area of Germany died, about 4-12 millions humans!

The list of human and natural evil events are endless. As a reader of many history book for many years, and a teacher of the American and world literature/history, and the Holocaust, etc., while at the same time being a liberal Christian, I couldn't account for these thousands of years of millions of events of horrific evil.

NONE of the lame theodicies of Christian theologians were satisfying. Most of them made the horrors all that more evil.

Thankfully, I wasn't a creedal Christian, but I did read in depth terrible answers from creedal theologians:

1. God doesn't owe humans any thing because we are his creations and so don't even deserve to exist at all. Its God's grace that we get to live at all.

2. God doesn't rescue the millions of infants who die horrible deaths because at conception, they are in "essence, evil" even though they haven't yet sinned. Michael Wigglesworth the famous American Calvinist stated in his theological poem that was a favorite in nearly every house in New England, that infants will be given "the easist room" in Hell.

3. God plans/ordains/wills all of those horrific evils because all evil brings God "glory" and "good pleasure." That was a favorite of Calvinist leaders:-( Even the Holocaust will give God glory! Whew:-(

4. God gave Adam and Eve free will but they ate the apple so they lost free will and all of us are thus damned, but God provides a limited number of humans, chosen before the foundation of the cosmos, eternal life. IF Adam hadn't sinned, then there would be no natural or human evils. ETC.

I also remember how many Muslim world leaders claimed the tsunami was for specific sins that the 240,000 humans had committed. And, also, one of the key doctrines of Islam is that whatever happens in reality is God's will. ETC.

So what did I do?

As a follower of Jesus and a moral realist, I was convinced that all evils--human atrocities, natural disasters, disease, etc.--are contrary to what is good, what is true, what is just.

So I was left with the terrible contradiction of God's love for every single human versus the utter lack of God's stopping constant evil-- hanging over me-- like a gullotine.

My whole focus was--and still is--on fighting against all human evil actions, and helping to alleviate those who suffer in natural disasters, etc. That is also how some Christian relief-development agencies deal with this.

For instance, MCC and World Vision, which has rescued millions of children and families from poverty, etc. since its founding int he 1950's states that the suffering of any and all humans "breaks God's heart."

They don't attempt to answer how this claim is so contradicted by all of the horrrific evils they work against.

My last comments: It seems to me, that those who think horrific human evil and terrible disasters, cancer, etc. show that God isn't in control is correct. Human history and current events prove that there is no monotheistic God who loves all humans infinitely.

There is too much evidence to the contrary.

Of course, I don't agree that the evidence proves that atheism is true. (But that's another story, why I don't think atheism is true, why I am a Process-theist.

In the Light of the Good, the True, and the Just,

Dan Wilcox

Guest Post: "Vote...with Your Life" by a doctor to the impoverished, Sarah Thebardge

FROM SARAH THEBARGE:
"A while ago, a horrible thing happened to me. Someone I trusted used, abused and violated my personhood, while I was undergoing chemo in a life-threatening fight with breast cancer.

"It took me years to get over it. Years of tears. Countless questions. And hours upon hours of quality therapy.

"I kept asking my therapist how I could get past it. How I could move forward when it was impossible to go back and change the past. How I could live with a terrible stain that could never be erased. How I could live in a world where such injustice was possible...tolerated, even.

“You live your life well,” my therapist said. “Because the way you live your life is your way of voting how the world should be.”

"And in those words I found the peace, the forgiveness, the strength I needed to move forward.

"I forgave because I think the world needs more forgiveness.

"I befriended a refugee family because I think that marginalized, invisible people need to be seen with love and dignity.

"I started a college fund for these five little Somali sisters, and I’ve willed my house to them, because I think the world needs more engaged, intelligent, powerful women to lead it...

"I practice medicine in the U.S. and in developing countries around the world because I think the world needs as many compassionate healers as it can get...

"I don’t do it perfectly, but I try to do it well: I try to vote with my life for the way I think the world should be.

"With every single thing we do, every single day, we can cast a vote for the way the world should be.

"We can vote for Love.

"We can vote for Compassion.

"We can vote for Forgiveness.

"We can vote for everyone’s voice to be heard.

"We can vote for women who have been discriminated against.

"We can vote for people of color who have been oppressed.

"We can vote for refugees and immigrants to be welcomed as our guests.

"We can vote for justice to be served...

Read the rest of Sarah Thebardge's inspiring, encouraging article at:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/sarahthebarge/2018/11/vote-with-your-ballot-then-vote-with-your-life/

"She studied Medical Science at Yale School of Medicine, and Journalism at Columbia School of Journalism.

"Sarah has practiced international medicine extensively, volunteering in Togo, West Africa, Kenya and the Dominican Republic. Her next book, WELL, about three months she practiced medicine in Togo, launched in November 2017.

Guest Post from Neil Carter on Fallacious Beliefs

This is a lucidly powerful article by Neil Carter showing the fallacious nature of many religious people's beliefs when tragedy strikes, especially horrendous natural disasters.

Note: While I agree with Carter's in depth analysis of what is wrong--that the major religions' answers are false and delusional, I strongly disagree with his own alternative answer. He promotes "Godless" as the alternative answer to the ultimate nature of reality.

BUT I think that the real answer is more a matter of God-MORE and Divine-LIGHT:-)

We humans--aware, ethical, rational primates, very finite in an incredibly complex cosmos, don't "know" the ultimate nature of existence, but we can agree that there are good hints toward what that transcendent reality includes inherent within it--life, conscious, finite awareness, math, reason, ethics, the awesome structure of the universe itself (often termed "natural law").

What Praising God in the Storm Reveals About Faith

by Neil Carter

"Nothing puts the cognitive dissonance of faith on display like a destructive storm system ripping through a religious community. “Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?” –Amos 3:6 “I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things.” –Isaiah 45:7

This week people all over the southeastern United States are bracing themselves for another potentially disastrous storm, thanks to a significant uptick in oceanic temperatures the world over. People in southeast Texas have already suffered massive damages and now the nation turns again to prepare for Hurricane Irma, whose path we have yet to sufficiently predict.

Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2017/09/06/praising-god-storm-reveals-faith/#bB8cerVO4xbsXpZb.99
Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/#1qaWuurKA5Ri4Kk8.99

Separating from fallacious concepts and beliefs, seeking the truth about Reality,

Wilcox

The Whys of a Theistic Seeker and Humanist

Growing up in a tiny village in Southeast Nebraska, we were taught that God is Love, Infinite Eternal Love, Goodness, Holiness, and Justice without End.

My childhood and youth were so wonderful, even in the midst of the common troubles and trials that every young human faces, no matter how good their family.

At times, we suffered in minor ways, but my sister and I were blessed beyond measure.

And far better and deeper and wider and higher than everything, than the whole limitless universe was the wonder of God, that despite all of the horror and tragedy and suffering facing all of humanity--in many cases situation so much worse than our minor scrapes--
there was the Infinite Care of the Father who loved every single human being forever.:-)

Of course, early on, despite a powerful conversion experience with God, I asked many confusing questions, deeply troubled by contradictions in life, in the Bible, in Christianity that didn't match the view that Life's essential essence was Love.

#1 Why did so many innocent people die of cancer, terrible tornadoes, earthquakes, and famines?
Especially very young ones, infants, children, young people, before they even had a chance to live their lives and do good?

#2 And why were there so many evil texts in the Bible since it was supposed to be inspired by God?

But living in the wonder of the joy of Christian trust and faith, I could transcend
these deeply troubling questions, even if there seemed to be no answers...

Because we were enveloped in God's infinite love--

That is until I met face to face....

with the leaders of Augustinian-Reformed Christianity, who claimed that our Baptist religion was an aberration, heretical, and that we had never been saved!

I met the first one of thousands of these nay-sayers when I was 17. This Calvinist youth leader also tried to convince us that God will call us Christians to commit immoral actions for God!!

(Note: Thank God, I've already recounted numerous times on this blog doing battle for over 50 years against that many-headed theological hydra, so I don't have to go down into that detailed abyss again here, nor share of how it murdered our faith, our trust, our hope, destroyed our lives. It has destroyed so many millions of humans' lives.)

Instead, in this article, I wish to deal with a few of the deep, puzzling and difficult-to-answer questions that have gouged my mind and my life over the years and still are there today:

One of my questions beginning when I was about 12 years old:

#3 Why didn't God emphasize to all of God's people down through the ages that slavery is inherently evil?

And related questions:
#4 Why does Exodus 21: 20 say, "When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave...if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the slave is his money"?

And I Peter 2:18 "Household slaves, submit with all fear to your masters, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel"?

Think of the millions of humans killed or tortured and harmed and abused because of these and other verses!!

It was Christian and Muslim leaders, ship captains, merchants, plantation owners, etc. who carried out these rules and command, sure that God blessed their slave-owning, even when they were harsh and cruel, even when many of the slaves died in transit.

#5 If the Ultimate Reality of Existence (God, the Divine, the Spirit) truly has benevolence for all things, all beings, why didn't God reveal to humans 50,000 or 75,000 years ago the lethal danger of germs and viruses?

#6 Why did the Divine even allow destructive germs and viruses to come into existence and to thrive?

#7 Why didn't this loving God protect billions of humans from the Black Death, small pox, malaria, cancer, birth defects, and so forth?

#8 For that matter, why didn't God ease the suffering, even protect, all sentient animals, billions of them from excruciating harm and tortured deaths over the last billion years?


To be continued--



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Horror of God Belief

Sometimes, days are from Hell. This week seems to be the case.

Christians and Muslims are saying some basically obscene things about God.

Think about this blasphemous statement:"But it is going exactly the way God planned it."

WHAT?!

God planned for millions of little children to be raped, abused, murdered...

God planned for the countless slaughters going on now around the world, for the beheading, burning, torturing, raping...

God planned the Jewish Holocaust and the other 4 million non-Jews who died in the Concentration Camps...

The Great War, 10 million dead in the trenches alone...

The U.S.and English Civil Wars...

The Taiping Rebellion...

The 30 Years War...

The Black Death...

The Crusades...

The prophet Muhammad at 50 years of age marrying a 9-year-old girl and beheading 500-900 Jewish young men...


Oh but life "is going exactly the way God planned it."

God planned the tsunami that slaughtered 250,000 Asians in only a few hours a few years ago?

God planned the killing of the little Jewish infant by a Palestinian terrorist in Jerusalem several months ago?

God planned every cancer?

God planned every infant born with anencephaly?

God planned every elderly person suffering from severe alzheimer's?


TO HELL WITH THIS VIEW OF THINKING.





Hoping for the Light in this religious world of darkness,

Daniel Wilcox

The Arrival of Advent in the Storm

Advent comes to us from God, in the midst of our trouble.

The word Advent, from Latin, means “arrival,” the arrival of hope in the midst of despair.

Think of the horrific times that Joseph and Mary lived in. And consider many peoples’ tragic struggles now today in Syria, Haiti, Pakistan, Nigeria, the Congo, and Afghanistan.

Think of the young child with cancer, the elderly ones with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease...

Lying in bed day after day, staring at the ceiling, elsewhere...



Or stooped over stuck in a row of wheelchairs in a blank hall...

Wasting away, their memory gone


Yes, the storm of wrong, tragedy, and despair seems endless.



Our own bad experiences, probably, are slight in comparison. But all hurt hurts, does it not? What about the last time events blindsided you and things even seemed hopeless?

About a month ago, I faced relatively rough circumstances, one more challenging day in a slew of them. I was alone and hurting so I turned on Christian radio seeking inspiration and comfort--But tragically,
the minster was preaching,

"...all humans are without value, valueless."

Like a cancer cell, he kept repeating, expanding on his point, kept emphasizing these wretchedly wrong words—"humans are valueless, worth nothing."

According to him, God only loves a few chosen of us humans.

Another famous minister of a church in Oregon with many thousands of members even proclaimed that God created some of us humans as "toilets."

And God has created other humans as "spittoons."

And this horrific God, allegedly, does this all for his own glory!

Very angrily, I snapped off the radio both times, devastated, grieved, and despairing more than before.

When we humans suffer, we need good news, not deterministic, fatalistic despair, not being told we are worthless and depraved.

In wondrous contrast, the verses of Titus 2:11-14 in the New Testament give us the glad tidings of God’s love for everyone. Despite the worst that existence does to us, the blessed words speak comfort to our despairing hearts:
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.”

Isn’t that last word glorious? The Good News to Mary, then to Joseph and outward from there, not limited to a certain few, but to all creation. These precious words “arrive” telling us about the incarnation—how God loves us even at our worst and isn’t willing for anyone to perish. Yes, even the natural world will eventually be redeemed.

And not only do these words of wonder bring us loving kindness now, they train us to renounce impiety and wrongful passions. They give us practical guidance and strategies of how to face our daily struggles and hard times. They give us a living blessed hope for the future.

Consider this humorous but insightful story.*

In the current severe recession, a door-to-door salesperson walked up to one more elegant house, pushed the button and waited to share his product. When the door opened, a gruff man grimaced, and said, “No we don’t want any” and shut the door.

Not discouraged, the salesperson came back the next week. This time when the door opened, the occupant cursed at him and slammed the door.

When the third week came and the salesperson walked up to the door and rang the bell, the antagonistic man raised a fist and spit in his face!

The salesperson pulled out a handkerchief, wiped his nose and eye, then looked up at the clear sky and said, “It must be raining.”

Think about it. If we had been that salesperson, we might have gone away disheartened, or angry at the man’s rudeness or disappointed, wondering why our product wasn’t of value to the customer or why he personally disliked us.

Have you been hurt lately by thoughtless words, or snippy gossip? Even been cursed out lately? Falsely accused?

How did you respond? How are you responding?

The salesperson in the spiritual parable (from a Jewish rabbi) doesn’t live in his or her circumstances, even of the spitting variety. He remembers the “worldwide company” he belongs to, is thankful he will never be fired.

No, she isn’t judged by the depressed economy, or by her success, or by how little or much money she makes...On the contrary, he is aware that his “boss” highly values him for himself alone.

This salesperson hopes that everyone will benefit from his/her product—“the love of God.” He has seen by hope the future and trusts that Truth and Love and Faith are eternally true.

So when he is spit upon, he doesn't take it personally, but thinks of dreary rain and its benefit.

Has it been raining—even hurricaning--on you today;-)?

Look up to the blessed hope of the Advent.

Prayer:
Dear Father, We thank you that You are the God of all comfort for everyone, that your love extends to all as the famous gospel song* sings,

“Could we with ink the ocean fill…
to write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry.”

Please help us today to remember that when negative circumstances attack us, we can “reign” over them in You.

Thought for the day: When bad storms rain, God’s love pours, reigning over all for all.


*Paraphrased from Mitch Albom’s book Have a Little Faith

*Frederick M. Lehman, “The Love of God”

May you experience the love of God,

Daniel Wilcox

Encountering Jesus Part #1

Jesus said, Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God..Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. NIV Luke 12:6-7

These loving words mean so much--that God cares even for the sparrows and so very much for all humans, every single unique individual who has ever lived.

Indeed this may be the central reason to be a theist--to have deep hope for all people we meet now, and hope for all the millions lost in wrong harmful ways in this life. And hope especially for all past humans who so terribly suffered and died in the Holocaust, the genocides of Rwanda and Cambodia and Turkey, the pestilences of the Black Plague, malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and cancer; the tragic loss of life in the tsunami in Indonesia, and endless death from other forms of havoc and evil in the past, and the multi-millions who suffer abuse and die so young in childhood...

NONE OF THEM HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING if somehow all will be made good.

There is not the despair as in a nontheistic cosmos where ruthless determinism or chance rules.

No!

We have God's Yes--Faith, hope, and love are eternal:-)

For those millions of humans and all others, and even countless lesser creatures--they all are loved by God and cared for living within God, and as the NT says, and many people of faith have trusted, God will bring all into the loving realm of total goodness and blessedness in the end.

That, dear Friends, is the Good News, the Glad Tidings, the Ocean of Light--God IS and loves us deeply and endlessly:-)

Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

The Love of God
by Frederick M. Lehman and
Meir Ben Isaac (from his Jewish
poem Hadamut written in Aramic
in 1050 A.D.)

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Refrain


Next in part 2 we will look at the rest of the Luke passage.

In the Light of God,

Daniel Wilcox