Why do we suffer?

My first post on this little series will be "Why do we suffer?" The What does the Bible really Teach book has this to say about it.

"Do you know why people make the mistake of blaming God for all the suffering in the world? In many cases, they blame Almighty God because they think that he is the real ruler of this world. They do not know a simple but important truth that the Bible teaches. You learned that truth in Chapter 3 of this book. The real ruler of this world is Satan the Devil.

The Bible clearly states: "The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one." (1 John 5:19) When you think about it, does that not make sense? This world reflects the personality of the invisible spirit creature who is "misleading the entire inhabited earth." (Revelation 12:9) Satan is hateful, deceptive, and cruel. So the world under his influence, is full of hatred, deceit, and cruelty. That is one reason why there is so much suffering.

A second reason why there is so much suffering is that, as discussed in Chapter 3, mankind has been imperfect and sinful ever since the rebellion in the garden of Eden. Sinful humans tend to struggle for dominance, and this results in wars, oppression, and suffering. (Ecclesiastes 4:1; 8:9) A third reason for suffering is "time and unforeseen occurrence." (Ecclesiastes 9:11) In a world without Jehovah as a protective Ruler, people may suffer because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Now, as Chapter 3 is referenced in this bit, I suppose it fair to say something about Chapter 3. The two parts that are referenced is the second reference that Satan (ie the serpent, who apparently was Satan) tempted Eve. This is a semi common interpretation of the serpent, so not a surprise. However, the first part refers to Satan as being the real ruler of this world. In Chapter 3 of the book, paragraph 5 it says

"Since all of Jehovah's creations are perfect, however, who made this "Devil", this "Satan"? Put simply, one of the powerful spirit sons of God turned himself into the Devil. How was this possible? Well, today a person who was once decent and honest may become a thief."

Interesting as I didn't know that God had spirit sons. I certainly didn't know that one of them turned into Satan. Not sure if this is only an interpretation that the JW's hold or of some others denominations of Christianity hold to this as well.

Now, and I suspect most of these questions and answers will have this same flaw, but this section seems to be purely based on the Bible. If the Bible did not exist, there would be no reason to hold to any of this. So, in order to basically believe in this, you must accept that the BIble is correct and true.

Now, it gives three reasons why we may suffer. First, Satan done it. Satan tempts humanity to do hateful things. He rules this world so to speak. However, the way it explains this is that Satan is full of hate, deceit, and is cruel and thats why theres so much of those three things in the world. And while it may be true that there is a decent amount of hate, cruelty and deceit I would say theres an equal or perhaps moreso of love, generosity and truthfulness to combat that. Does that prove Satan does not exist? Perhaps not, but it does prove that even if he did exist, hes not the only force (and therefore not the only ruler if there were one).

THe second reason is that ever since Adam and Eve rebelled in the garden of Eden, humans tend to struggle for dominance which causes wars and oppression. Now, while I reject the premise that this has to do with Adam and Eve (as again, only real evidence of the Adam and Eve story is the Bible) I don't completely disregard this. Humans do tend to (at least as current and past events have seen) have power struggles, which lead to wars and oppression. However, I would argue two things on this. One, that could in fact be human nature. Two, religion tends to be the root at much of this. However, its hard to tell that if there wasn't a religion aspect (such as the crusades, however they were fighting for the HOly Land, which if there was nothing that said it was Holy, its hard to imagine why they would be fighting over it) that other things would be caused.

The third I think is the most telling aspect of this question. The book, states (and either im crazy and misreading this or there is a tiny aspect that they admit they could be wrong) that "A third reason for suffering is "time and unforeseen occurrence." (Ecclesiastes 9:11) In a world without Jehovah as a protective Ruler, people may suffer because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." Ecclesiastes 9:11 can be looked up http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%209:11&version=31

This third reason why there may be suffering seems to state that in a world without God as a protective ruler, people may suffer because they happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now to me, this happens to actually be the case. Good people sometimes have bad things happen to them and on the flip side bad people have good things happen to them. And sometimes, and perhaps most times, good people have good things happen to them and bad people have bad things happen to them. From an objective outside observer, it seems to be random chance in some cases or modified that if you are good, people will be good to you and if your an ass (bad) they will be bad to you. So this third reason seems to be the most likely reason why there is suffering, as reason 1 requires assuming a lot (bible = true, Satan = true and that Satan rules the world). Occam's razor in general would pick reason 3 over 1 as reason 3 assumes far less. Reason 2 can be read either its Adam and Eve's fault or human nature tends to lean towards power grabs. I don't agree that all humans have that nature, but it may be human nature (alpha males in other animal species is seen as well, not far off from this concept. We are just more clever and getting the alpha male part).

I tend to agree with reason 3. Sometimes you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, sometimes you are in the wrong place at the right time and so on. There is an aspect of luck to much of what humans do. Some are luckier than others. However, probability says thats more than likely the case.

This all assumes that we, as the human race, do suffer in the religious sense. Most religions have a reason why we suffer. Either its cause we are all evil, or because we are not seeing the correct reality, or because what we see is an illusion to be seen through is common in many parts of religion. However, not everyone "suffers". Some are born into a situation where they suffer very little, and some suffer more. However, again it seems to be completely random as there are believers, many of which I know, who suffer far more than those that don't (and of course the opposite exists as well.)

One thing I did notice that it doesn't really answer how we can stop suffering. In fact it does say, it just suggests that we can't stop it, God can by Jesus coming back and taking all suffering, past and present away. However, not sure what the wait is. One thing I did notice, and to finish this long ass post up, is what it does say about this subject.

Apparently its good that he has waited so long, as it helps us all apparently server Jehovah. Whatever, an assertion based on the Bible again. However one thing I read that makes me angry (as some might be surprised, most of this post has not really provoked any emotional response till now.) is one of the things that it says will happen when Jehovah comes to "break the works of the Devil." From page 112-113 "Therefore, he can and will undo the effects of mankind's suffering. As we have already learned, the ruining of our planet will be undone by the turning of the earth into Paradise." Ok, so what that tells me is "Fuck up the planet, its ok. No problem at all. Cause at some point, God will make it all better." Sadly I don't believe that Jehovah's Witnesses are the only denomination to hold to this idea. Who cares if all life on the planet dies as God will make it all go away.

I would like to say that in some ways, it would be interesting if I held a book and an ideology based on it to be true. I just can't. I have read a shit ton of books in my life, and many books more than once. Dune from Frank Herbert is a favorite of mine. However, I don't not believe that its real. I do not, understand, at all, why people take the bible to be literally true (though very few take the entire things to be literally true, only certain parts which is a conundrum in itself). What this part shows is that its ok to fuck up the planet. Sorry, its not. Ill take the evidence that at some point (perhaps soon even in my lifetime but certainly some point in the future) the planet will be void of huge chunks of life, including humans, if we don't change how we do things. I do not have the faith, and I don't understand those that do, that because a book and some people who believe in that book tell me that its ok, the planet will be fine cause it will be reborn when god shows up. I think ill err on the side of caution and try in at least some small parts of my life not to fuck up the planet anymore than I have to, and encourage others to do the same.

As always, feel free if you want to talk more about this to message me or whatever.

The Visit and updates

So yeah, I know I haven't posted in a long time. Been really busy, and from what I found out at work today thats going to remain the same. However, now that I have a computer that doesn't piss me off most of the time (Go Apple) im going to force myself to update this more often.

Beyond the typical, had to work this last weekend which sucked. Stupid on call. Beyond that, really haven't done much. Just kicking it at the house, loving my Mac.

So Saturday, right before I had to go to work, I got a visit at the house. Jehova's Witness. First time ever that I was at home and was the one that answered the door. She was a very nice older lady with her granddaughter behind her (who sadly, was visibly bored beyond belief. She was only 10ish, so most of the discussion was uninteresting to her as it would have been when I was 10.) The nice lady and I had an interesting discussion for about 15 minutes.

Now, anyone who knows me well enough knows that while I like to talk about religion, its very rare I do so with a stranger. Usually if its a situation like this, I would just say "Sorry, not interested" and keep walking. However, in recent months and years I am more and more compelled to talk about it, especially if someone comes to me. She was pleasant to talk to and I believe that I was quite cordial with her.

We really didn't talk about many different topics. She started giving her speech and asked how I felt about it. I told her I was an atheist and didn't believe in it, and she said "Oh you need more faith" which I thought odd is more implies I had some. Anyways, she started talking about the bible and asked if she could read just one passage thing from a book she had thats titled "What does the Bible really teach?".

The part that she read I thought was quite interesting. She decided out of the entire 200ish page book to read the part where basically it says that the wife of a family should be subservient to the husband. The Bible "says" that the husband should listen to the wifes input, but ultimately its his way that gets done. I told her I had a few issues with that and I disagreed with the original premise.

First of all, she said that for the most part, a family could not function well unless it was that way. She likened it to a business where theres a CEO. I disagreed that it was the same as in a business, a CEO is usually hired by a board or is kept in place by such. The CEO can be fired or removed if he doesn't do a good job.

Now in a family, say for arguments sake its just a husband and wife, thats the board. Im sure families could work if the husband had the ultimate say. However, it could also work with the wife having final say. Or, like my family (or they hid it well) its a shared thing between both. No one was the ultimate decision maker. Yes, there may be disagreements but there would be disagreements either way. Personally, I would think there would be resentment if the husband always made the decisions even if the wife didn't agree with some of them, and there was no working it out.

The lady I was talking to (sadly, I don't recall her name) even said she had an issue with being the submissive to the husband, but thats what the bible says so thats what it should be. I then asked why she thought the bible was a good source for that, and she said "well we have the gospels which were eyewitness testimonies of Christ" which I then attempted to explain to her that those gospels were not written till at earliest decades after Christ's life. I didn't even go into the fact that many of the gospels pull from the other gospels as she was adamant that the gospels were indeed written down during Christ's life.

The last thing her and I talked about was one of the issues I have with the Jehova's Witness way of looking at the bible in reference to the passage (of which ill make another post about this later with some more specific info I find in a little research project im going to do) in which "taking in" (or eating or whatever) of blood is a sin, which leads to many JW's not getting blood transfusions. I mentioned to her that I had an issue with this as it flies in the face of good scientific evidence that getting a blood transfusion which may save your life and that not getting one could end it.

The thing she told me, of which I have heard this exact same thing from others, is that not only does the bible say that its wrong (which is very much open to interpretation as the Bible was more than likely talking about eating blood as back then it was not very healthy to do) but that even in modern times, blood transfusions have a very high risk of getting infection like hepatitis and other blood transfered diseases.

Now, I believe that to be patently false. Its very rare these days for that to occur, as blood is checked a bunch of times for bad things, you can't give blood if you have had like a piercing for a year and a bunch of other rules. I suspect that the incidence of infection by transfusion in modern faciities (read, not Africa or off the grid clinics were some of the rules on who can give blood are not followed) is stupid low. This is one of those things in a future post (in the next month or so) im going to do some research on statistics associated with what the likelyhood of getting an infection is these days.

At about that time my roommate had to go outside and informed the nice lady as hes walking out that I was a tough nut to crack which I thought was funny. At that point we pretty much ended the conversation, said our thanks for the discussion and she asked if she could give me the What does the Bible really teach book to look over, which I said sure.

The book came with a little paper that basically poses general life questions that people may ask themselves (or God, same thing).

Why do we suffer?
How can we cope with life's anxieties?
How can we make our family life happier?
What happens to us when we die?
Will we ever see our dead loved ones again?
How can we be sure that God will fulfill his promises for the future?

In future posts, and im going to try real hard to do one a week, im going to take each of these questions and look at the answers to them and post about it. Another question thats mentioned in the book but not on the little paper that ill also write, mainly cause it amuses me is "How do we know which religion is the correct one?" (or something to that effect).

In addition to putting what the book says and my thoughts about it, im also going to put how I would answer those questions (however the last one from the paper I can't as I don't care about supposed promises for the future). Partly I want to put what I would say to those questions as recently, by a few people who I talk to from time to time about religion it has been brought to my attention that while I may rail on religion and what I think is wrong with it, I rarely bring up or mention what I believe in. I happen to think this is a valid point, therefore ill put my personal beliefs and thoughts when I reply to those questions. As I go through the book, I may also put some more questions on the list (the paper has those 6 original ones but the book 19 different chapters, mostly written as responses to a question it poses).

Also in between these I'm going to try to get some info on blood transfusions. We shall see how easy that is as time goes on.