It's been a while ...
So it has been far too long since I've written anything here lately. As you may remember, I started this here blog with the ambitious intention of writing every day so I could better develop my skills as a writer. Well, there's a reason writers are stereotyped as anti-social recluses who live in remote cabins on the mountains drinking too much brandy ( "Um, Meghan, I've never heard of that stereotype." "Shut up and just go with it!"). For normal people like me, life gets in the way. There, now you've heard my justification for my poor time-management skills. Moving on.
Boston in the Fall
I'm now experiencing the much-heralded "Boston in the fall." Actually, I'm experiencing Quincy in the fall, and I'm enjoying it immensely. The leaves are not only the brilliant shades of gold, red, orange and purple on the trees, but they stay that way when they fall on the ground. The leaves in Texas were always brown and icky when they fall on the ground, so this is a nice change. The not-so-nice change is the chilly weather. I think it's finally dawning on me that it gets cold in this state. Really cold. Like, wear-four-layers-of-clothing-and-then-a-goose-down-jacket cold. And it's still only autumn here. I don't know what I'm going to do when it snows ("Be cold." "Oh thanks.").
Hard Questions, No Easy Answers
I recently read an article by Sam Harris of the Huffington Post entitled There is No God (And You Know It).
"Oh," I thought, "This looks like a cheery read!"
In his article Harris makes the claim that atheists are the ones who are truly in touch with reality and therefore are the only people who can truly empathize the frailty of the human condition.
He also addresses the age-old question of how can a good God allow bad things to happen?
"But how else can we understand the claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent? There is no other way, and it is time for sane human beings to own up to this. This is the age-old problem of theodicy, of course, and we should consider it solved. If God exists, either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities, or He does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil."I believe Harris fails to consider a third option, which is that God is both good and all-powerful, but he chooses to restrain his power and allow his creation to exercise their own free-will.
First of all, how many times has God averted a disaster and we never knew about it? I remember a couple years ago back in college when I learned that an asteroid almost hit the earth with the potential to cause a lot of destruction. However, the asteroid did not hit the earth, but I didn't hear anyone give God credit for changing the trajectory of the asteroid, rather it was a lucky break.
Then Katrina hits. And that's when God gets the "credit." Does that seem a little unfair to you? If Katrina can be used as evidence against God, can a near-miss with an asteroid be used as evidence for God?
The problems is Harris doesn't really want a God who would actively work to avert tragedies. He uses an example of a child molester kidnapping a little girl as an example of things God allows to happen, which brings up an excellent point that most human suffering is caused by other humans. This is where free-will comes into play. God allows people to pretty much do whatever they want here on earth. Of course, you can argue that God's a big meanie because he punishes people for that in the afterlife, however, that's a digression. For the time being, you can be as nice or nasty as you want. Now, would if God did intervene, and every time someone told a lie God caused them to have a pang in their foot?
"No, honey, of course you don't look fat." Ouch!
Maybe God could cause people to temporarily go blind if they look at someone lustfully, or to become paralyzed when they try to hurt someone. Wouldn't that be effective in preventing people from doing bad things? But I think Harris would complain that a God like that would also be bad because he would be constantly interfering with people's lives. Well , maybe God should take away our evil desires and then we wouldn't have that problem. But then, wouldn't we just be robots following God without thought? Isn't it our ability to think and reason and choose between what is right and what is wrong that makes us human? Isn't God showing a severe mercy in restraining his power and allowing us to live as we will, for good or ill?
There are no easy answers to why God spares some people and not others. Why does the rain fall on the both the righteous and the unrighteous? Why does God say "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."? Paul even addresses this in Romans 9.
Even though an atheist might not like this answer, when it comes down to it, God's ways are not our ways. God only knows what he has planned for us in this world. Our responsibility is to take what small portion of life we've been given and make the most of it while we can, and rest in the assurance that all things work for the good of those who love him.
Halloween Festivities
On a lighter, more shallow note, Halloween is tomorrow, and I am very excited ("What? I thought crazy Christian fundamentalists like yourself think Halloween is Satan's holiday!" "Who said I was a fundamentalist?"). Since I'm working in the pharmacy, I have big plans of wearing a tacky wig to celebrate. I originally wanted to smear my lab coat with fake blood and fill pill bottles with tic-tacs that I would munch on in front of customers, but my boss told me that was a bad idea. So tacky wig it is. Afterward, I'm going to my friend's house to pass out candy and watch scary movies. This is a pretty low-key Halloween for me, as I usually like having costumes parties with all the works, but like I said, that whole life thing gets in the way of me doing creative things. Like writing in this blog.
