Bart Ehrman's been on
Unbelievable again, this time talking about the Problem of Evil: if God is good and all-powerful, why is there so much suffering in the world? His opposite number this time was
Richard Swinburne, a Christian philosopher. Both of them have written books on the subject. I've read Ehrman's God's Problem but not Swinburne's
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Still, he's a clever guy and I usually get something out of reading his stuff, even if it isn't always what he was aiming at.
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There's not much point getting angry with a fictional character, but on the off-chance we encounter God on judgement day, we ought to say that he could have done better.
On the other hand, why not make your own judgement day?
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Blimey, that's good.
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5 points to anyone who can write an "Objection: What about Nazis?" verse expounding Swinburnism
OK, here goes. The second stanza is about another of Swinburne's extraordinary arguments, which from your summary he appears to have been wise enough not to air in this discussion: that natural evil (tsunamis, forest fires, poisonous plants, etc.) benefits us by showing ways in which people can be hurt, and thereby giving us more opportunity to refrain (deliberately) from doing so. If you find it incredible that a sane and intelligent person could propose such a thing, take a look at the chapter called "Natural evil and the possibility of knowledge" in "Providence and the problem of evil". Anyway:
PAQUETTE:
Objection!
What about Nazis?
PANGLOSS:
Nazis!
The Nazis did abuse the Jews,
But let this not yourselves confuse
Since their distress
Made others guess
The need to act with virtue!
(Does that not quite convert you?)
Without the evils of this world
I'd not have learned to hurt you
Without which, I'd have ( ... )
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Now we need a nice tenor to record this for YouTube...
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No, a starving person will steal from the dead, steal food from children, or eat corpses. All documented in the Siege of Leningrad for example.
Suffering often makes decent people into barbarians.
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I don't think I'd disagree that these things are good things, but it would be better not to have so many of the situations in which people need help, ISTM.
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And if suffering turns good people into bad people, that is also a good thing.
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Suffering is character-forming, turning a character from a bad character to a good character.
Yes, God despises cry-babies who break down sobbing when they are told they have terminal cancer.
God admires people with character, people who keep a stiff upper lip in the face of personal tragedy.
Those kinds of people are just plain better people than those who find their suffering unbearable and sink into despair. Those people lack character.
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