Theologicamol Questions

[erika]

Josh you might want to steer away from the "This week in God" segment at least on the radio... just my opinion... it might become tiresome and have the opposite effect you're going for.

[Bryan]

Josh you might want to steer away from the "This week in God" segment at least on the radio... just my opinion... it might become tiresome and have the opposite effect you're going for.

Well said, Erika. This is just about the most diplomatic way this could have been expressed.

[Clint]

Josh, I know this question has been asked since the dawn of time but I'd like your take. Why does God let bad things happen to good people and vice versa?

Also, what is it that makes you believe in God? Is it nature, acts of kindness or what.

[Pastor Josh]

Yep.  So?

Eye for an eye?  I never said that, you did.  Why are you so angry over a harmless post?

Oh I'm not angry just giving you a hard time.

I'm really sorry too.  Sorry to everyone.  REALLY.  And sorry most to you and Dave.  Sorry Dave.  I was just being a jerk.

And I am sorry if my response was too snippy. It's been a tough month (and I am almost at the end of being able to use that as an excuse any more, so something tragic's probably about to happen to me.)

I will say that I find Pastor Josh's response to me to err slightly on the side of dismissiveness; I am faced with a youth leader who wants to take MY CHILDREN to the creation museum in Kentucky, because he believes the Adam and Eve stories, and the flood story to be LITERALLY TRUE. It probably drives me as crazy as random capitalization probably drives OTHER people crazy.

In other words, people in positions of authority in my church use crazy backwards approaches to biblical inerrancy to defend their actions. I need help in addressing these folks without seeming all condescending about it, so even though Pastor Josh told me these are the "wrong questions", they are answers I could sincerely use help with.

Anyways, Ben, you're great, you keep doing what you're doing. Pastor Josh, I am thrilled that you are here and that you engage openly with people from backgrounds different from your own. I got my first kiss, at age 4, in a performance of the Night Before Christmas in the basement of a United Methodist Church, one of my many fond memories.

Dave, I can't answer those questions.   I don't mean to be dismissive, but I simply don't know.  The ark would be ridiculously big, and there would have been no way to get penguins and such.  We aren't even sure how big a cubit actually is, or if it's a unit of length or volume.  It's not only the wrong question; it's an unanswerable question.  I don't see, however, how answering these questions will help you with a delusional youth pastor.  I have found that the best way to get people to start thinking about these stories is to start challenging them to ask the right questions about them.  If all they are are history, then what's the point of studying them now.  Especially Noah, since it ends with the promise that God would never flood the earth again.  There's no practical lesson to be learned there, so what's the theological lesson?  If you really want to get people thinking about these stories, though, have them actually read them with you.  Noah and the ark is especially weird, because everything happens twice, with slight differences.  But the story isn't told twice.  The first thing happens, and then it happens again.  Then the second thing happens, and then it happens again.  It is a story that, as the text presents it, is impossible to take literally.  Challeenge assuptions.  Literalists always bring assuptions to make things make sense, but once they intorduce an idea that isn't in the text, then you can call them on not taking the text literally.  This is the way to go if you want to win an argument.  I'm not sure how grace-filled it is, but if a lunatic was wanting to take my kids to the creation museum, I'd be hopping mad, myself.  I hope this helps some.   Feel free to dig some more, and I'll answer what I can.

[Pastor Josh]

Josh you might want to steer away from the "This week in God" segment at least on the radio... just my opinion... it might become tiresome and have the opposite effect you're going for.

I agree.  I meant that as a joke.  I need to get more familiar with emoticons, I guess.

[Pastor Josh]

Josh, I know this question has been asked since the dawn of time but I'd like your take. Why does God let bad things happen to good people and vice versa?

Also, what is it that makes you believe in God? Is it nature, acts of kindness or what.

1)  God can't prevent bad things from happening to good people.  If he could and doesn't, then he would be evil or indifferent.  My God is personal and loving.  I'd rather have a loving, weak God than a powerful, evil or impersonal one, which puts me at odds with many, many Christians.  I don't believe that God is weak, really, but I believe the universe has rules.  Chaos has a role in creation.  I think that's the point of Job, especially if you ignore the prologue and epilogue, obvious later additons.

2)  The main reason I believe in God is that I want the God proclaimed in Jesus Christ to be the creator of the universe.  I want a being of supreme love and compassion to be behind everything, as the model and inspiration for our actions.  I really see no evidence for God in nature.  All I know that when I love and act on that love, I feel a connection to something transcendent.  If we all acted solely on the basis of love, I believe we would have a perfect world, what Jesus called the Kingdom of God.

[J. Garbage]

What do you think of those crazy catholics?  Specifically:

Vatican II: Catholics frontin' on the Protestant tip?  Is it truly bad that the Bendedict seems to be backpedaling on it or do you think the backpedaling is necessary since if Catholicism is not blinkered and superstitious then it has no reason to exist?

Also, admit how much you hate Catholics.

[Pastor Josh]

What do you think of those crazy catholics?  Specifically:

Vatican II: Catholics frontin' on the Protestant tip?  Is it truly bad that the Bendedict seems to be backpedaling on it or do you think the backpedaling is necessary since if Catholicism is not blinkered and superstitious then it has no reason to exist?

Also, admit how much you hate Catholics.

Well, I'm no fan of the current pope, especially since he told Catholics that they can't refer to non-Roman Catholics as brother or sister Christians because we aren't true Christians.  I think Vatican 2 made some good changes, and it's a shame that this pope and the previous one did so much backpedling.  Most Catholics I know are great people, and a lot of American Roman Catholics seem to think of the pope as a crazy uncle who you have to listen to at Thanksgiving.  Catholicism has some of the best progressive theological minds in the world, and it's a shame that they silence or excommunicate so many of them.  Obviously, I think Roman Catholic theology is wrong more than it's right, or I'd be a Roman Catholic.  Same reason I'm not a Baptist or a Muslim.  I think some of their recent newsmaking announcements make them look very silly, bu at least a part of that is how they're reported.  (Not a lot, but at least some.)   Christianity has to evolve, as does any organization, whether a business, a government, or anything else.  Roman Catholicism has a sturcture that can effectively quash any change, and sometimes they use it to poor effect.  However, they were on board with evolution well before most Protestant groups.  In light of offshoots like the Ecumenical Catholic Communion, there is a call for such progress within American Catholicism.  Will the hierarchy listen, or will such schisms be the norm?

[crumbum]

Dear Pastor Josh,

Have you read Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason? I'd like to know what you thought.

It's been a long time since I looked at it, but I remember something that bothered me about that book was the fact that he goes to a lot of trouble to set up rational arguments dismissing the Bible, and then fails to take his argument any further by questioning the logic of belief itself. He just sort of stops short and says (more or less), 'anyway, we can all agree that God exists. Just look at the world around us.' Seems kind of lazy to me. Though again, I may have forgotten some important stuff.

I certainly don't begrudge anyone the right to believe because, as you put it, he or she 'want(s) a being of supreme love and compassion to be behind everything' or feels a connection to something beyond reason and nature. It's just that, having called the book The Age of Reason, Paine seems to want desperately to find a purely rational reason in nature for his Deist beliefs. To me that seems like a fools errand.

(also he seems a little anti-semitic, though I'm going to guess he didn't really know any Jews.)

Thoughts? Thanks!

[crumbum]

I kind of contradicted myself there... I think Paine doesn't so much want there to be a rational reason for belief as he needs to ignore the fact, in the context of his book, that there may not be.

[snoopywaves]

It's been a long time since I looked at it, but I remember something that bothered me about that book was the fact that he goes to a lot of trouble to set up rational arguments dismissing the Bible, and then fails to take his argument any further by questioning the logic of belief itself. He just sort of stops short and says (more or less), 'anyway, we can all agree that God exists. Just look at the world around us.' Seems kind of lazy to me.

That's a pretty standard 18th century Romantic view. "I believe in God, only I spell it Nature" etc. So he can reason the Bible away, but science didn't yet have his back regarding the multiplicity of being and all that. It's not so much laziness as knowing where he wouldn't be able to go without losing his basis in reason.

Edit: that line I quoted is from Frank Lloyd Wright... oops... sentiment holds nonetheless.

[Pastor Josh]

Dear Pastor Josh,

Have you read Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason? I'd like to know what you thought.

It's been a long time since I looked at it, but I remember something that bothered me about that book was the fact that he goes to a lot of trouble to set up rational arguments dismissing the Bible, and then fails to take his argument any further by questioning the logic of belief itself. He just sort of stops short and says (more or less), 'anyway, we can all agree that God exists. Just look at the world around us.' Seems kind of lazy to me. Though again, I may have forgotten some important stuff.

I certainly don't begrudge anyone the right to believe because, as you put it, he or she 'want(s) a being of supreme love and compassion to be behind everything' or feels a connection to something beyond reason and nature. It's just that, having called the book The Age of Reason, Paine seems to want desperately to find a purely rational reason in nature for his Deist beliefs. To me that seems like a fools errand.

(also he seems a little anti-semitic, though I'm going to guess he didn't really know any Jews.)

Thoughts? Thanks!

I haven't read it, but I'll try to check it out.  I agree that trying to find a rational reason (is that redundant?) to believe in God is a waste of time.  So is reasoning away God.  If we want to be slaves to reason, agnosticism is the only honest front.  I' not saying that to pick a fight with atheists or to be critical of atheism--it's just what I think.  I suppose that, if I'm honest, I'm an agnostic.  I don't know if Goid exists, and I sometimes find it hard to  believe in him.  But here is something I connect to when I live a Christ-ian (as opposed to Christian) ethic, something I can only describe as God.  It's not rational, but it is.

As a side note, I want to thank the other people in this thread.  I've been home sick today, and you and Civ IV have kept me sane.  If I haven't made much sense, blame the cold medicine and hot toddies.  Thanks!

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

Pastor Josh,

I like you, and this thread.

Have you ever heard the theory that the Book of Job was a holdover from Paganism, possibly of the Greek variety?  I forget where I heard this (probably some grad school theater history class), but the theory points out the obvious resemblance to a classic Greek tragedy wherein the gods just get mad at somebody and proceed to utterly destroy them for no good reason.

I have no idea whether or not there's any truth to this, but it does sound more believable to me than the interpretation you gave earlier in the thread.  No offense -- your interpretation is about as civilized and modern as possible.

Also, have you read either Terry Eagleton or Slavoj Žižek?  Both mount very interesting (Marxist/post-Marxist) defenses of Christianity.  You can find free lectures from both of them on this topic at iTunes.

Also, if you want to call in every week, I think it should be to review movies that Spike's friends (or "friends") have seen.

[yesno]

I enjoy reading Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne because they're so interestingly wrong.

[Pastor Josh]

Pastor Josh,

I like you, and this thread.

Have you ever heard the theory that the Book of Job was a holdover from Paganism, possibly of the Greek variety?  I forget where I heard this (probably some grad school theater history class), but the theory points out the obvious resemblance to a classic Greek tragedy wherein the gods just get mad at somebody and proceed to utterly destroy them for no good reason.

I have no idea whether or not there's any truth to this, but it does sound more believable to me than the interpretation you gave earlier in the thread.  No offense -- your interpretation is about as civilized and modern as possible.

Also, have you read either Terry Eagleton or Slavoj Žižek?  Both mount very interesting (Marxist/post-Marxist) defenses of Christianity.  You can find free lectures from both of them on this topic at iTunes.

Also, if you want to call in every week, I think it should be to review movies that Spike's friends (or "friends") have seen.

No offense taken.  You're right.  Although a Israelite redactor made some final alterations to it, the Book of Job, in a form probably very similar to what we have now, was taken from most likely Assyrian or some other Ancient Near East culture.  However, the Israelites took it for some reason, and I believe it was to illustrate the point I made so briefly in an earlier post.  Why do you say it's more believable?  (I'm not being snarky--I'm genuinely curious.)  I think both are true.  If it's just a stolen text, why keep reading it?  It had some theological significance to the Israelites, especially during the rise of the Deuteronomisitc redactors of the Torah, whose theology was very much the type of theology of Job's friends (if you're good, good things happen to you, and if you're bad, then bad things).  It's a theology that obviously doesn't hold up in practice, although it keeps coming back, and it's currently very popular.  It might not have a truly Jewish origin, but it's been an important book to Jewish people and those who trace back to Jewish roots who seriously grapple with the presence of evil and the belief in a good God.

I have heard of Eagleton, but I don't know where.   My wife is a big Zizek fan, but I haven't read any of his stuff.  I'll check him out.  Any particular books you'd recommend?