So what purpose does suffering hold from an athiest's point of view? Improve our early warning systems? Wipe out the weakest?
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty 2596 Replies latest jw experiences
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Ruby456
all I know is that life is full of meaning for humans and even in the most appalling conditions they try to invest in ways to dignify their lives with significance. I don't know what the purpose of suffering is overall - perhaps it is different for each person? on the hand I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything to alleviate suffering because suffering has purpose.
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jgnat
I'd rather get meaning from wiping out the appalling conditions.
Guinea Worm Eradication Program
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cofty
As an non-theist there is no purpose to events like the Asian tsunami.
Shit happens - we do our best to prevent or minimise future events and help the victims.
It is only a dilemma for theists.
I intend to summarise PSac's points later as there are a couple of important questions he ignored.
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PSacramento
Psac this is important for you to read.
I realise this comment will be buried but I must write it. I find it difficult to not get emotional seeing theists defending god's (lack of) actions regarding the 2004 tsunami. I saw the results first hand in Sri Lanka. I saw the children with stones for eyes. No adult relatives to care for them. I had the snotty nosed kid with cross eyes dragging his useless leg and arm wanting money. He only had grandma left with no income. He was normal before the wave. I saw the train pushed on its side that had hundreds of dead in it, the smashed buildings the obscenely washed open cemetery, the snapped palm trees, the hopelessness. Don't tell me there is lessons for my compassion in this! Bullshit!. My brother was in Phuket when the tsunami hit there. He's a quiet guy just saying it was hard to see and hear kids screaming for their mum and dad at the airport while being evacuated.
Cofty, you seem to be implying that I don't understand suffering and pain, that I don't sympathise with those that have lost people they love, love more dearly than themseves.
Having lost more than one person I truly love, having witnessed my father dying slowly and painfuly from ALS, being the one that found him dead that morning, I KNOW of pain and suffering and tragedy and you know what? So do many, many people.
I have learned that NO ONE speaks for the suffering of others and that NO ONE knows how anybody else "feels like" BUT I also have learned that people deal with pain and suffering in many, many different ways from trying to find blame to simply accepting fate, from extreme rage to serenity and I have learned that compassion unites us all.
Now, you may not think that compassion is good enough of a reason and you may be right, you may think that we don't need it OR that there should be a different way to develop it on humans and you may be right.
What I do KNOW is that this triat of compassion that so many think so little about ( or at least it seems it sometimes) has united and strengthened people over and over and over again, it drive people to fix things, to solve problems to save lives to act in ways that they don't act intheir day-to-day, to care about people they don't know, didn't even know existed.
To me, that means something, it means A LOT, perhaps even everything.
But that is MY view and I accept that it isn't everyone elses.
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cofty
I have no doubt you understand suffering Psac. I was criticising your theoretical "ivory-tower" answers.
Of course compassion is a wonderful thing - that is a given.
You still have to join the dots.
The question is NOT about suffering in general. It isn't about suffering caused by accidents or disease. It isn't about suffering caused by the actions of other humans.
It is specifically about the events of 26th December 2004.
You assert that the opportunity for a lesson in compassion, made the violent death of a quarter of a million men, women and infants all worth while.
In your world, permitting all of that death and destruction is a perfect act of love when seen in the context of millions of others who got to experience the warm glow of putting £10- in the tsunami victim collection tin and mutter a few sympathetic words in church.
As the almighty watched the wave begin it's journey he had the option to calm it with nobody knowing anything about it. Or he could let it go on it's way and use the people of the Pacific Rim as a disposable commodity to help the comfortable western christians grow a little in their journey to becoming less smug.
He chose option 2.
You think this makes sense.
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humbled
Compassion is universally valued, PSac.
The Golden Rulen in its various wordings among non-christians throughout the ages teaches compassion. Humans realize this all over he earth.
When suffering comes--and you properly say we all face it sooner or later--it does not matter how it comes to us. Humans who have been hurt know that it matters to comfort or help remedy the causes. The Golden Rule is the description of compassion for others. But what evidence is there that God-of-the-Bible invented compassion?
The Bible says that we deserve suffering and death for disobeying God a few thousand years ago. Compassion is a recent development in the Judeo-Christian timeline. But what of the evidence that compassion has been a part of other cultures clear outside the range of Jesus even?
Compassion is hands down the most important thing we have in this world, PSac. But suffering doesn't prove the existence of God.
Maeve
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PSacramento
Compassion is universally valued, PSac.
Yes, I believe so ( though at varying degrees it seems, not every culture values compassion the SAME way) and it is developed how?
By the existence of suffering, by dealing with suffering.
Compassion doesn't really have anything to do with the golden rule per say, though one can see the GR being motivated by compassion ( but it camn calso be motivated by self-interest).
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PSacramento
You assert that the opportunity for a lesson in compassion, made the violent death of a quarter of a million men, women and infants all worth while.
Have I?
I hope not.
I asserted that with suffering comes compassion and that without suffering we don't develop it ( at least not to my understanding, if someone can show that we develop compassion without being exposed to suffering then please do because I don't know that we can) and that compassion is a very important trait, perhaps THE most important in a human.
As a human I have a hard time understanding WHY we need suffering to develop compassion BUT I can't deny that we seem to need it.
Do I think it is worth it?
Now, THAT is a question and a very good one.
I believe God thinks it is worth it, and IF there is a GOD that means He KNOWS it is.
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cofty
PSac - It's getting increasingly difficult to be generous and assume you are genuinely misunderstanding the topic.
All your many words amount to nothing more than, "Suffering can teach us compassion".
So what?
As I have explained to you very clearly at least 3 times this does not even come close to addressing the topic.
It is typical chrristian obfuscation. You answer the question nobody is asking because the actual question is too hard.
Your degree in theology seems to have turned you into a dispenser of facile god-talk.