Religion, it confuses me

[housepet]

A comment on someone else's journal led me to find this statement in Wikipedia: Christian Science avoids the theological problem of evil by teaching that evil is unreal and an illusion.
I am not sure I can understand a disbelief in evil, unless it's being viewed or rationalized as misguided [insert your choice of action / intention here

Comments

[bemused_leftist]

I'm not really getting into this, especially with Wikipedia involved. But distinguish these two meanings of 'evil' (among many other meanings).

1. Pain, suffering, or a bad or destructive event (such as an earthquake). This is an old meaning but important.

2. An intention to deliberately do something bad or destructive

[housepet]

Thanks. I actually have an interest in what it means to the people that practice it. If I am understanding correctly, I might have a better grasp at this if I use the first definition?

I heard a story when I was younger, a good thing/bad thing story. This is the one where something that looked unfortunate initially or on the surface was actually beneficial, and the thing that looked like good luck on the face of the thing turned out to be not so good in the long run. Is this sort of like that?

maybe...

[surlytroll]

the point that they're trying to make is that there is no conscious entity devoted to evil? I suppose you could simply define "good", and let what people refer to as 'evil' be characterized as simply lacking in any measure of good-ness.

I believe that -something- got the universe started, but I'm a non-fan of most organized religions (too much intolerance and corruption). Frankly, I don't think humankind needs any outside help to enact horrible things on itself, we are quite capable of being terrible all on our own.

Re: maybe...

[housepet]

Yanno, organized religion leaves me mostly confused. I'd like to understand why certain segments of religious culture believe what they believe a bit better, but I can't seem to get my internal logic* out of the way.

* I'm not saying my internal logic is correct, just saying it's pushy and tends to outshout other stuff at times. My internal logic could also be called a master when it comes to creation of a Gordian knot.

[bemused_leftist]

The Christian Science movement began back when definition #1 was better known than it is now, and I think it is probably the definition they were using.

My impression is that their approach is more that pain etc is an illusion.

The story about bad luck that has a good effect and vice versa is from Hindu or Buddhist culture I think. A horse runs away but comes back with a herd of mares. A son rides a mare and is thrown and breaks his leg. Because of the broken leg he is not drafted to military. Etc etc. I think the Christian Scientists would say the broken leg doesn't really hurt, or wasn't really broken.

These are not fighting words, just a curious

[housepet]

I think the Christian Scientists would say the broken leg doesn't really hurt, or wasn't really broken.

This is the sort of viewpoint I have a lot of trouble with...
WRT the broken leg example, I can see that one may be able mitigate painful effects (like lessening pain to mostly tolerable levels by breathing deeply and focusing on the breath), or even focusing on a positive outcome from breaking the leg... but to say that there is no broken bit or pain associated just seems... illogical.

I am curious as to how this belief works when two pieces of bone are evident when there was only one piece before?