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People live in a broken world: injustice, illness and death are everywhere, meanwhile, love, joy and hope are just a shadow of an utopian society. Even the most optimistic people have realized that humanity is immersed in darkness concluding that a hopeless future is what this humanity awaits. Although, the endless works of intellectuals and philosophers have offered explanations of the problem of evil and suffering to the anxious people who seek an end to their interminable sufferings, none of these solutions have satisfy their anguished heart. Hence, where can a man find an answer? Religion has played an important role in this human issue, and Christianity has taken the challenge on explaining the whys of the problem of evil and suffering.
After reviewing the work of David Hume, the idea of a God existing in a world filled with so much pain and suffering is not so hard to understand. Humes’ work highlights some interesting points which allowed me to reach the conclusion that suffering is perhaps a part of God’s divine plan for humans. Our morals and values allow us to operate and live our daily lives in conjunction with a set of standards that help us to better understand our world around us and essentially allows us to better prepare for the potential life after life. For each and every day we get closer to our impending deaths and possibly closer to meeting the grand orchestrator of our universe.
Most can agree that random evil and suffering, such as accidents, war, illness, crime, and many more, have the power to disrupt human happiness. Most would also agree that it is not the evil and suffering that affects one, as much as it is how one responds to the evil and suffering that occurs in one’s life. It is undeniable that suffering occurs to everyone in some shape or form, and while others may not believe that it is suffering, it all depends on one’s life. There are many examples a reader can draw from in recent and ancient literature that provides examples of other’s suffering and how they responded to those stimuli. This essay explores how the problem of evil is addressed by Greek tragedy and by Western monotheistic tradition.
However, individuals of the World State only require comfort for pain and suffering because they are death conditioned at a young age. Interestingly, soma is compared to religion, a comforting human concept. In chapter seventeen Mustapha Mond states, “Christianity without tears - that’s what soma is” (Huxley 238). Soma provides the desired comfort to its consumers, much like the comfort that Christianity provides to its believers. Soma, however, masks the agonies or “tears” in life while Christianity does not completely eliminate the evil in human lives on earth. The Savage, John, suggests, “it is natural to believe in God when you’re alone - quite alone, in the night, thinking about death” (Huxley 235). While God does provide a natural comfort for humans, He does not provide it to the extreme extent that soma does. The World State civilization relies upon soma’s comfort, becoming addicted to the escape from suffering that the drug provides. John confronts Mustapha Mond for “getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it” (Huxley 238). Religion provides comfort from “everything unpleasant,” however, it does not simply eliminate these unpleasant feelings. In the ideas of Christianity, people first must endure these hardships in life before being granted complete relief through eternal life in heaven. Soma does not create the necessity
This essay will attempt to analyze the connection between views of religion in the fictional island nation of Utopia and their views on religion. By the end of this paper, the reader should have an adequate understanding of the connections between Utopian religion and morality. For the purposes of this paper, the definition of religion shall use the erroneous assumption that religion only includes only the organized practice of believing in and appeasing a god[s]. This definition excludes the belief in an absence of a god, however this makes little difference for this paper, as most Utopians are monotheists and believe in an omnipotent god. With that clarification, the message of the paper may be communicated more clearly.
Is there any vision of life that can help us realize that we are living in the coffin of a lethal, dehumanizing culture and show us a better way? A Christian worldview answers affirmatively with a resounding “Yes!” In fact, Christianity is the “true humanism” which delivers us from the pit of degradation and lifts us up to the peak of nobility and respect.
In the book Brave New World by Something Huxley, he tackles the issue of whether religion is needed in societies or not. The World State functions as an example of a society untouched by any of modern days formal religions, while Malapis still holds some traditional religious values. Huxley uses both perspectives in order to create an argument with himself about the place of religion in societies. The distinctions between religions is meaningless if the ultimate goal is to persuade people to conform the a specific set of standards.
For many years, cults have been a subject of great controversy. A cult is a group of people that are bound together by an appreciation of the same thing, person, ideal, etc. Usually these groups keep close because of religious reasons, but their beliefs are almost always considered strange by outsiders. Cults are similar to clans or congregations, but are usually referred to as sects.
A foundational belief in Christianity is the idea that God is perfectly good. God is unable to do anything evil and all his actions are motives are completely pure. This principle, however, leads to many questions concerning the apparent suffering and wrong-doing that is prevalent in the world that this perfect being created. Where did evil come from? Also, how can evil exist when the only eternal entity is the perfect, sinless, ultimately good God? This question with the principle of God's sovereignty leads to even more difficult problems, including human responsibility and free will. These problems are not limited to our setting, as church fathers and Christian philosophers are the ones who proposed some of the solutions people believe today. As Christianity begins to spread and establish itself across Europe in the centuries after Jesus' resurrection, Augustine and Boethius provide answers, although wordy and complex, to this problem of evil and exactly how humans are responsible in the midst of God's sovereignty and Providence.
Religions and philosophies have attempted to diagnosis the human problem and explain its causes for centuries. The four main approaches to this are situated in four different approaches to religion or spirituality. Christianity attempts to explain the human problem in terms of original sin. Humanity's problem is the fault of inherited sin, and a distance from God; only by accepting salvation from God can man heal. Stoicism posits that the human problem is best explained by a lack of knowledge, and can be healed as such. Confucianism explains the human problem as a lack of fulfilling relationships. Humans gain happiness and solve the problem of human suffering in their own lives by following the proper social order. Buddhism explains human suffering as the fault of three poisons as explanation for suffering: ignorance of life's real nature, greed for material things, and anger toward others ("Nichiren Buddhist", n.d.). Cleansing oneself of these by ridding oneself of attachments will lead to enlightenment and then happiness or contentment.
The problem of reconciling an omnipotent, perfectly just, perfectly benevolent god with a world full of evil and suffering has plagued believers since the beginning of religious thought. Atheists often site this paradox in order to demonstrate that such a god cannot exist and, therefore, that theism is an invalid position. Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that seeks to defend religion by reconciling the supposed existence of an omnipotent, perfectly just God with the presence of evil and suffering in the world. In fact, the word “theodicy” consists of the Greek words “theos,” or God, and “dike,” or justice (Knox 1981, 1). Thus, theodicy seeks to find a sense of divine justice in a world filled with suffering.
Central to any study of the humanities is the human condition – our nature, which has historically shown that it is equally capable of both good and evil deeds – and the problem that arises from it; specifically, why do humans suffer? Many philosophies and religions have their own account for this aspect of humanity, and we find that what the accounts have in common is each explains the human condition in terms that are similar to how that institution of thought explains the true nature of reality.
Man has always struggled to find meaning and fulfilment in a broken world. He searches in many places yet each explanation he receives seems to fall short. An explanation for this phenomenon can be found in two specific definitions: one on Sin and one on the Human Condition. These definitions not only lay out why mankind attempts to look for purpose but also explain common reactions to a lack of existence and meaning
According to Sharpe (2015), “when truly deep suffering comes into their lives, Christians will often pray to God for healing or rescue” (para. 2). Based on this fundamental belief in the Christian worldview, it is imperative that every human encounter suffering as this brings a person closer in their relationship with God. The Christian worldview holds a belief that God has a purpose for everything that happens in a person’s life, whether it is joy and happiness, pain and suffering, and life and death. This can be seen throughout the Bible such as “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jeremiah 29:11, New International Version), and in Ecclesiastes 3 “A Time for Everything.” These core Christian beliefs should cause a person to look past the suffering that he or she is facing, and try to see what kind of positives can come from the current suffering that a person is
This essay is a conclusive look at the problems and contradictions underlying a belief in God and the observable traits of the world. This problem is traditionally labelled The Problem of Evil. This essay will be an analysis into the Problem of Evil and a counter rebuttal to objections levied against the Problem of Evil. This analysis will be on the nature of god and the world of evil, the world as a mixed creation, ‘sorting’ into heaven and hell objection, God’s ‘mysterious ways’ objection, the inscrutability of god objection, values presupposing pain objection, inherent contradictions in ‘God’s freewill’ and finally non-human
Suffering and pain are all around us. The world is filled with famines, wars and diseases. Evil is a part of everyday life. Some of these evils are due to man’s own inhumanity (moral evils), while others seem to have no reasons for occurring (natural evils). At times it seems as if it is too much to bear and people begin to question the evil in the world. The problem of evil leads people to question the existence of God. Surely if there was a loving and all powerful God, there would be no evil. Why would a God who loves His people allow so much pain and suffering to occur? According to Moreland and Craig, “The greatest intellectual obstacle to belief in God is the so-called problem of evil (Moreland and Craig 536).” This paper will look at the logical argument for evil and the Christian’s response to the argument.