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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to my channel, Vice Rhino. Here. Today
Speaker 2: we're back at the Christianity Engage channel that y'all remember
Speaker 2: from the Skeptics Journey series. Today we're not listening to
Speaker 2: them tell a fabricated story about Natheis they claim was real. Instead,
Speaker 2: we are going to hear them explain their view on
Speaker 2: the problem of evil. So let's take a look.
Speaker 3: How could a good God allow evil and suffering?
Speaker 2: Well, As philosopher Philip Goff has suggested, God could be
Speaker 2: a god of limited power, thus leaving him unable to
Speaker 2: prevent it. But usually the only time apologist turned to
Speaker 2: that explanation is when engaged in definition fights that they
Speaker 2: attempt to win on technicalities. But I'm not sure the
Speaker 2: Christian God would appreciate being thrown under the bus in
Speaker 2: order to technically win a definition fight.
Speaker 3: To paraphrase the ancient philosopher Epicurus, if God is willing
Speaker 3: to prevent evil but not able, then he is not
Speaker 3: all powerful. If he is able but not willing, then
Speaker 3: he is not good. If he is both able and willing,
Speaker 3: why does evil exist? And if he is neither able
Speaker 3: nor willing, why call him God?
Speaker 2: Yes? And I appreciate that you point out that this
Speaker 2: is a paraphrase, not a quote. Epicurus was not an
Speaker 2: atheist and likely would not have appreciated the why call
Speaker 2: him god bit that was tacked on at the end.
Speaker 2: He just believed that whatever gods might exist, they were
Speaker 2: clearly either unable to do anything about human suffering or
Speaker 2: didn't care about human suffering any more than a person
Speaker 2: cares about the suffering happening in the ant colony under
Speaker 2: their house. Chances are the gods aren't even aware of
Speaker 2: our suffering, and if presented with the fact of our suffering,
Speaker 2: would be indifferent at best.
Speaker 3: Evil and suffering is a very difficult topic, and not
Speaker 3: just for Christians, even atheists to have a hard time
Speaker 3: with the concept of evil.
Speaker 2: Notice how he suddenly transitioned from talking about evil and
Speaker 2: suffering to just the concept of evil when bringing up
Speaker 2: this problem for atheists. This is a common slight of
Speaker 2: hand tactic that apologists use when talking about the problem
Speaker 2: of evil. Evil as a concept is very easily tied
Speaker 2: to religious ideas, but suffering is just suffering. A Christian
Speaker 2: might call fornication evil, and I might, with some caveats,
Speaker 2: call that same act good, and the difference there is
Speaker 2: tied to religion. But stub in your toe hurts just
Speaker 2: the same whether you're a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, or whatever.
Speaker 2: So I'm wagering that we're about to see him use
Speaker 2: the view of evil as filtered through a Christian lens
Speaker 2: to say that atheists have a problem with it. But
Speaker 2: he'll completely ignore the fact that atheists are perfectly capable
Speaker 2: of understanding that suffering is bad without Christianity.
Speaker 3: Because without God, there's no logical basis for a definitive
Speaker 3: moral code. If you take God one of the equation
Speaker 3: right and wrong are completely subjective, and absolute values for
Speaker 3: good and evil don't exist.
Speaker 2: Yep, there we go. Now I have explained how atheist
Speaker 2: morality can work in previous videos, but I do want
Speaker 2: to say I disagree with that personally, I think that
Speaker 2: even with a God, his opinion should not be automatically
Speaker 2: accepted as the absolute standard for right and wrong, especially
Speaker 2: given that his opinion has frequently landed on genocide being
Speaker 2: an acceptable solution to what he considers to be the
Speaker 2: problem of religious freedom. Or there's the time when he
Speaker 2: landed on genocide being an acceptable solution to the problem
Speaker 2: of some men committing a brutal murder, but then just
Speaker 2: before the genocide was completed, he changed his mind on
Speaker 2: that one. But now whys needed to be found for
Speaker 2: all the surviving men of that tribe since all the
Speaker 2: women and children had already been killed. So the solution
Speaker 2: God landed on for that problem was to do a
Speaker 2: mini genocide against the town of Jibeshkiliad and then subject
Speaker 2: the surviving virgin girls to sex slavery. In my own
Speaker 2: subjective view, genocide and slavery, sexual or otherwise are always wrong,
Speaker 2: So I don't see why I should have to act
Speaker 2: to God's moral opinions here, because honestly, if we're defining
Speaker 2: good in a way that could potentially include genocide and slavery,
Speaker 2: then I wouldn't want to be good.
Speaker 3: According to evolutionary biologist and pronounced atheist Richard Dawkins.
Speaker 2: There will come a day when Christian apologists will fail
Speaker 2: to bring up Richardawkins in one of their videos, But
Speaker 2: it is not this day.
Speaker 3: The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should
Speaker 3: expect if there is at bottom no design, no purpose,
Speaker 3: no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
Speaker 2: Yes, and clearly he is referring to good and evil
Speaker 2: in the religious sense. There his point is that the
Speaker 2: world we live in is rife with suffering, which is
Speaker 2: the kind of world we would expect to exist if
Speaker 2: there were not an all powerful and benevolent being in
Speaker 2: charge of things.
Speaker 3: The atheist worldview doesn't have any foundation to condemn. War, oppression,
Speaker 3: or crime is evil.
Speaker 2: Can't condemn them as evil in the religious sense, maybe,
Speaker 2: but we can absolutely condemn them as evil in the
Speaker 2: suffering sense. Suffering is bad. Those things cause suffering, so
Speaker 2: those things are bad. Why is suffering bad because we
Speaker 2: don't like it? It really is that simple. Sure, you
Speaker 2: can get into the weeds about specific scenarios and whatnot,
Speaker 2: but this is the foundation upon which atheist morality is built,
Speaker 2: and notably Christians can't condemn wars evil either, because there's
Speaker 2: so many wars in the Bible that God explicitly condoned.
Speaker 3: Someone may believe the Holocaust was wrong, but their opinion
Speaker 3: isn't more valid than the Nazi soldiers believe that it
Speaker 3: was good.
Speaker 2: The Holocaust caused lots of suffering. The suffering far outweighed
Speaker 2: any positives that such a person might have seen in it,
Speaker 2: or go, the Holocaust was bad, and those that think
Speaker 2: that it was bad have the better justification for that
Speaker 2: position than those who thought that it was good, many
Speaker 2: of whom were Christians who thought that they were doing
Speaker 2: God's will, by the way, which kind of undermines the
Speaker 2: idea that Christians can, on the basis of their absolute
Speaker 2: moral standard, condemn the Holocaust is wrong and have their
Speaker 2: combination be more valid than the Nazi soldiers, some of
Speaker 2: whom believed, on the basis of their absolute moral standard
Speaker 2: grounded in the Christian God, that the Holocaust was not wrong. Now,
Speaker 2: to be clear, the relationship between Nazis and religion is
Speaker 2: not a straightforward one. There were definitely anti Christian sentiments
Speaker 2: among some of the higher ups, including Hitler himself, but
Speaker 2: Germany at the time was an intensely Christian nation. In
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine, when Nazi Germany was nearing its peak,
Speaker 2: the population was ninety four percent Christian of some flavor
Speaker 2: or other, and the public message from the higher ups
Speaker 2: was very much a pro Christian one, with Hitler explicitly
Speaker 2: saying that their movement is Christian. So don't pretend like
Speaker 2: the condemnation of the Holocaust is an automatic conclusion of
Speaker 2: Christianity based on their absolute moral standard, when Christians can't
Speaker 2: even unanimously agree on what their absolute standard has to
Speaker 2: say about pretty much anything. And heads up, there is
Speaker 2: some mild goore in the next pit. They used a
Speaker 2: clip of a lion eating another animal, So if that
Speaker 2: sort of thing bothers you, look away until you hear
Speaker 2: me talking again. It's only about five seconds.
Speaker 3: Survival of the Fittest doesn't condemn such behavior.
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't, because survival of the fittest is not
Speaker 2: a moral or ethical framework. It is just an oversimplified
Speaker 2: and somewhat incorrect description of how natural selection works. The
Speaker 2: organism that is the best fit for its environment is
Speaker 2: most likely to survive long enough to reproduce. It doesn't
Speaker 2: actually mean the biggest or strongest win. In fact, by
Speaker 2: the numbers the ones that are typically thought of as
Speaker 2: the weaker ones, the prey animals do better than the predators,
Speaker 2: like the line from their clip. If the predators are
Speaker 2: too successful, then they eat themselves to extinction. Now has
Speaker 2: a misunderstanding of the concept of survival of the fit
Speaker 2: has been used as a moral or ethical framework by
Speaker 2: social Darwinists. Of course it has. Has it turned out
Speaker 2: well for anyone? Obviously not heir go, it isn't a
Speaker 2: good moral or ethical framework.
Speaker 3: Sometimes atheists use evil and suffering as proof of God's
Speaker 3: non existence without realizing their worldview doesn't account for evil,
Speaker 3: and by validating the idea of an inherent moral code,
Speaker 3: they would actually be supporting God's existence, not the other
Speaker 3: way around.
Speaker 2: Okay, but the answer was in the second word you
Speaker 2: used it the beginning of that statement, suffering. I don't
Speaker 2: need to account for the religious concept of evil, but
Speaker 2: I don't need a god to tell me that feeling
Speaker 2: bad feels bad, and a benevolent God would surely have
Speaker 2: designed a world where feeling bad didn't happen, at least
Speaker 2: not to the degree that it does in the world
Speaker 2: that we live in.
Speaker 3: Just as Darkness is defined as the absence of light.
Speaker 3: Evil is the opposite or absence of good.
Speaker 2: Opposite sure absence. No, there are plenty of things that
Speaker 2: I would not describe as good, but which don't rise
Speaker 2: to the level of evil. There is no good in
Speaker 2: a long way at a traffic light when I really
Speaker 2: have to pee, But I don't think that anyone would
Speaker 2: describe that as evil on the basis that there is
Speaker 2: an absence of good. There even completely neutral things. Right now,
Speaker 2: there are countless photons traveling through the vast expanse of
Speaker 2: space which will never interact with anything. They will just
Speaker 2: keep going until the end of time. There is no
Speaker 2: good in that, but it's not evil. It's just the
Speaker 2: way it is. So no, evil is not the ab
Speaker 2: sense of good in the same way that dark is
Speaker 2: the absence of light.
Speaker 3: In Biblical terms, it's often defined as unrighteousness, injustice and ungodliness.
Speaker 3: And because real beings act out real evil, evil is
Speaker 3: very real and its effects are devastating.
Speaker 2: So you move from talking about evil in the religious
Speaker 2: sense to evil in the practical sense. You define evil
Speaker 2: as unrighteous. Now, to take it back to my formication example,
Speaker 2: I have no doubt that you would consider that to
Speaker 2: be unrighteous and therefore evil. And while unsafe sex certainly
Speaker 2: does have some potential ramifications that could be described as
Speaker 2: devastating effects, what about my situation? I live with my
Speaker 2: partner and we are unmarried. According to most Christians, we
Speaker 2: are living in sin. But where are the real and
Speaker 2: devastating effects of our evil transgression? I have yet defined
Speaker 2: any Honestly, the worst part about our sex life is
Speaker 2: how infrequent it is, because between the two of us
Speaker 2: we got five kids, and kids are a really good contraceptive.
Speaker 2: But let's get petty about this, shall we. Let' look
Speaker 2: at something that we both agree is wrong and is
Speaker 2: in your list of big ten rules that you have
Speaker 2: to follow. Stealing in my house is a spoon that
Speaker 2: I stole from a restaurant that I worked at over
Speaker 2: a decade ago. I mean, I guess technically I didn't
Speaker 2: really steal it. It was just in a pocket of
Speaker 2: my apron and I noticed it at home and just
Speaker 2: never brought it back. The initial theft was accidental, but
Speaker 2: I made the decision to keep it. All of my
Speaker 2: former pastors would agree that this was an unrighteous decision
Speaker 2: that moved the act from an accidental slight into the
Speaker 2: breaking of the no stealing commandment. So what were the
Speaker 2: devastating effects of my thievery? The restaurant didn't even notice,
Speaker 2: and I didn't really gain anything.
Speaker 4: From the act.
Speaker 2: It wasn't a particularly nice spoon, and we weren't in
Speaker 2: need of spoons at the time. It was motivated more
Speaker 2: by apathy than anything. But on the flip side, I
Speaker 2: suffered zero consequences, and the victim of my evil act
Speaker 2: is to this day unaware that such evil took place. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm not bringing up this small, petty evil to say
Speaker 2: that evil never has bad consequences, but rather to argue
Speaker 2: the definition of evil. These sorts of actions are evil
Speaker 2: in the religious sense, in that the Christian moral Code
Speaker 2: says that they are wrong and they have had zero
Speaker 2: devastating effects. So he switched to a more practical definition
Speaker 2: that is centered around human suffering. The way I would
Speaker 2: define evil is the intentional inflicting of suffering, or the
Speaker 2: refusal to take action that would alleviate suffering, with the
Speaker 2: caveat that the action to alleviate the suffering actually has
Speaker 2: to be possible for you, and you have to know
Speaker 2: about the suffering. If there is a kid beating up
Speaker 2: another kid on the other side of town, and I'm
Speaker 2: not even aware of it, then it is not evil
Speaker 2: for me to not stop it. But if it were
Speaker 2: happening in my front yard, then it would be so.
Speaker 2: With this definition, yes, I'd agree that evil is real
Speaker 2: and has devastating effects. But also with this definition, the
Speaker 2: Christian God is inherently evil because he has the knowledge
Speaker 2: and ability to stop any evil from happening, but chooses
Speaker 2: not to.
Speaker 3: So if God is good, why does he allow evil
Speaker 3: and suffering?
Speaker 2: Because he doesn't exist. But notice that now he slipped
Speaker 2: back into the grouping of evil and suffering. Weird how
Speaker 2: the word suffering just gets casually forgotten about when it
Speaker 2: becomes inconvenient for their argument.
Speaker 3: Before we answer this, consider the difference between how a
Speaker 3: doctor will approach the topic of cancer compared to a
Speaker 3: patient who was just told they have less than six
Speaker 3: months to live. In the same way. We can look
Speaker 3: at this topic from a philosophical, theological, and intellectual point
Speaker 3: of view, but at some point in our lives we
Speaker 3: will all face this topic like the patient, in the
Speaker 3: midst of deep rooted personal pain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, suffering is a thing that everyone goes through at
Speaker 2: some point though, two varying degrees. But I'm not sure
Speaker 2: why the fact that suffering is universal is relevant here,
Speaker 2: unless you're arguing on my side. Seems to me could
Speaker 2: be a good argument for Christianity if Christians were actually
Speaker 2: protected from suffering, But I'd argue that in such case,
Speaker 2: God would still not be good, as he will only
Speaker 2: stop your pain if you devote your life to him first.
Speaker 2: But we also know from the Book of Job that
Speaker 2: sometimes the suffering of God's most devoted followers could just
Speaker 2: be the result of God gambling with the devil. So
Speaker 2: I guess Christians don't get protection.
Speaker 3: And in that moment, let's be honest, there is no
Speaker 3: answer to this question that will be truly satisfying, because
Speaker 3: knowledge won't heal the hurt. We believe the Christian worldview
Speaker 3: provides the most hope.
Speaker 2: The worldview that your personal suffering could just be God
Speaker 2: gambling with your well being provides the most hope. Well,
Speaker 2: that's a bit of a moot point anyway, because how
Speaker 2: satisfying or hopeful an answer is isn't actually relevant to
Speaker 2: whether or not that answer is true. If I were
Speaker 2: asked how much money is in my bank account right now.
Speaker 2: The hopeful and satisfying answer would be at least a
Speaker 2: million dollars. The real answer of barely enough to last
Speaker 2: until my next payday as long as I figure out
Speaker 2: which bills I can be laid on is much less
Speaker 2: satisfying and hopeful, but it is unfortunately the true one.
Speaker 2: So yeah, the answer after you die you go to
Speaker 2: a magical happy place where you'll never feel bad again,
Speaker 2: is a lot more hopeful than suffering is just a
Speaker 2: fact of life. But wishing for a magical happy place
Speaker 2: doesn't make it real.
Speaker 3: No worldview will shield you from the pain.
Speaker 2: That is the problem of evil in a nutshell doesn't
Speaker 2: matter what your worldview is. Reality behaves as though there
Speaker 2: is no benevolent God watching out for anyone.
Speaker 3: So why does God allow it?
Speaker 2: Well, remember, according to Isaiah forty five to seven, God
Speaker 2: doesn't just allow evil, God creates it. The cause of
Speaker 2: evil in the world, according to the Bible, is the
Speaker 2: God of the Bible.
Speaker 3: The Bible teaches God created human beings and his image.
Speaker 3: This is where we get our inherent value. And while
Speaker 3: we cringe itto heinous crimes.
Speaker 2: So let me get this straight. We don't cringe it
Speaker 2: hainous crimes because we have empathy. We cringe it heinous
Speaker 2: crimes because it's not actually just a crime against a
Speaker 2: thinking and feeling being. It's also a crime against a
Speaker 2: being who can't possibly be harmed in any way. That
Speaker 2: sounds rather heinous in and of itself.
Speaker 3: Actions like rape, murder, and child abuse are not just
Speaker 3: socially unproductive behaviors. They are moral abominations, not subject to interpretation.
Speaker 2: Except that in the Bible, rape is a property crime
Speaker 2: committed against the man whose woman is raped, and there
Speaker 2: are no provisions protecting men from rape. Also, child abuse
Speaker 2: is commanded as a thing you must do if you
Speaker 2: love your children. As for murder, the only reason you
Speaker 2: can escape from that one is on a technicality. Murder
Speaker 2: is unlawful killing. If God is the one deciding what
Speaker 2: is considered lawful and what is not, then anytime he
Speaker 2: kills people or has people killed, it can't be murder
Speaker 2: because it doesn't break the law that he set out.
Speaker 2: Never mind that he commanded the Israelis to commit heinous
Speaker 2: atrocities in his name. It's not technically murder, so it
Speaker 2: must be okay. So two out of three of those
Speaker 2: are subject to interpretation, and the third one you are
Speaker 2: only capable of winning by defining yourself as the winner
Speaker 2: in advance some moral system you've got there.
Speaker 3: God gives us the freedom to do both good and evil.
Speaker 3: He created us with the capacity, but not the obligation
Speaker 3: to do both.
Speaker 2: If we don't have the obligation not to do evil,
Speaker 2: then hell wouldn't exist as a punishment for those who
Speaker 2: fail to do good. Wait a minute, it doesn't actually
Speaker 2: matter if you do good or evil? Does it? You
Speaker 2: get into heaven based solely on the question of whether
Speaker 2: you've accepted Jesus as your Lord and savior. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess that tracks. It also explains why the most
Speaker 2: vocally Christian politicians are also the ones most likely to
Speaker 2: vote against the criminalization of child marriage in the United States.
Speaker 2: Actions don't matter, after all, you don't get into paradise
Speaker 2: by being a good person, so why bother? In this sense,
Speaker 2: I actually find the atheist answer to be the more
Speaker 2: hopeful and satisfying one. This is the only life we have,
Speaker 2: so we'd better make the best of it and do
Speaker 2: what we can make other people's lives better as well.
Speaker 2: None of this, this life doesn't matter, so why bother
Speaker 2: making things better, just empathetic people working to help each other.
Speaker 2: The world would be a much better place if we
Speaker 2: could make the performative Christians behave this way. But sadly,
Speaker 2: it seems as though the Christians most likely to actually
Speaker 2: want to do good don't end up in prominent or
Speaker 2: powerful positions, So the unethical, power hungry monsters like Pete
Speaker 2: Hegseth fill those spaces and seem to be hell bent
Speaker 2: on making life as miserable as possible for as many
Speaker 2: people as possible. Is he a true Christian? Don't care
Speaker 2: he's using Christianity to spread violence and misery. The effect
Speaker 2: is the same regardless of what's in his heart of hearts.
Speaker 3: He has given clear instructions on how we should live,
Speaker 3: and it pains him to see us bring destruction on
Speaker 3: ourselves and others when we violate his rules.
Speaker 2: Can we really call his instructions clear when Christians can't
Speaker 2: even agree on them? For example, there are plenty of
Speaker 2: progressive churches that are LGBTQ affirming, and I've seen several
Speaker 2: apologists laugh at the idea that they could ever be
Speaker 2: considered the same as those people. Each side of that
Speaker 2: debate will have Christians claiming that God's instructions on this
Speaker 2: matter are clear, and they will each be able to
Speaker 2: bring Bible verses to the table to support their position
Speaker 2: and explanations as to why the Bible verses brought by
Speaker 2: the other side don't work for their argument. As an
Speaker 2: outsider looking in, it looks to be anything but clear.
Speaker 3: Many opponents to the Christian faith claim that because life
Speaker 3: on earth isn't heaven on earth, God must not exist.
Speaker 3: But the Bible never teaches this life will be perfect.
Speaker 2: I know of no one who claims that it does.
Speaker 2: That would actually be a bit of a failing on
Speaker 2: the human author's part if it did. After all, religion
Speaker 2: developed at least partially as a way of explaining the
Speaker 2: human condition, and suffering is a part of that. That's
Speaker 2: why there's a whole lass book in the Bible explaining
Speaker 2: that bad things happen to good people. I just happened
Speaker 2: to think the explanation of God was gambling with the
Speaker 2: evil being he created isn't a very good one. Though.
Speaker 2: To be fair, God was less powerful to the author
Speaker 2: of job than he is to modernay Christians, and Satan
Speaker 2: hadn't graduated to the Christian caricature that he is today.
Speaker 2: He was just a member of God's heavenly court. So,
Speaker 2: now that I think about it, this was actually in
Speaker 2: line with some of the pagan ideas about gods who
Speaker 2: interfere with our lives for entertainment.
Speaker 3: In fact, Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble,
Speaker 3: but take heart, I have overcome the world.
Speaker 2: A statement that makes it seem like after Jesus there
Speaker 2: will be no more trouble in the world because you know,
Speaker 2: Jesus overcame it. But realistically that actually sounds like something
Speaker 2: written by a Christian who is convinced that they were
Speaker 2: living in the end times. Jesus has overcome the world,
Speaker 2: so we're all moving on to the post apocalyptic paradise
Speaker 2: that he promised us. Of course, for modern Christians, it's
Speaker 2: just interpreted so that Jesus just providing a way for
Speaker 2: humans to access Heaven counts as having overcome the world,
Speaker 2: even though the world is still chugging along same as
Speaker 2: it was before he came into this thing.
Speaker 3: The truth is we may not always understand why God
Speaker 3: allows people to suffer, but the Bible promises in all
Speaker 3: things God works for the good of those who love him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Bible also has a whole book dedicated to
Speaker 2: how God might have your children killed in order to
Speaker 2: test your faith and win a bet with Satan. Seems
Speaker 2: like a bit of a mixed message if you ask me.
Speaker 3: Sometimes God may allow us to suffer to test the
Speaker 3: genuineness of our faith.
Speaker 2: Okay, come right out and admit it. Then yeah. Sometimes
Speaker 2: the all knowing guy decides to test whether or not
Speaker 2: he really is all knowing by torturing us. Once again,
Speaker 2: I contend that if the Christian God exists, he isn't
Speaker 2: a good God.
Speaker 3: Other times, like with the thief on the cross, our
Speaker 3: suffering is our own fault.
Speaker 2: Being nailed to a cross and left hanging until you
Speaker 2: die is a bit of a overreaction to the crime
Speaker 2: of theft. So I actually blame the Romans for that one.
Speaker 3: Sometimes God may stand ready to heal you if you
Speaker 3: would only ask him in faith, thus.
Speaker 2: Setting up a victim blaming trap. Oh you prayed and
Speaker 2: God didn't heal you. You must not have enough faith. Try
Speaker 2: giving the money for your chemo treatment to the church.
Speaker 2: That will surely show God that you are faithful. That
Speaker 2: sort of reasoning has caused a great deal of suffering
Speaker 2: over the years, often by grifters like Peter Popoff, who
Speaker 2: know that they are hurting people, so by my definition,
Speaker 2: it is evil.
Speaker 3: Other times, he may not hear your suffering directly, but
Speaker 3: instead provides supernatural comfort and peace, or show you kindness
Speaker 3: and compassion through someone else.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's another gross tactic. If someone is being kind
Speaker 2: or compassionate to you, that's not to their credit for
Speaker 2: being a kind and compassionate person. The credit goes exclusively
Speaker 2: to God. Everything needs to be all about him at
Speaker 2: all times, because he's apparently a selfish prick.
Speaker 3: Sometimes, like Job in the Old Testament, we may never
Speaker 3: fully understand the specific read for our suffering until we
Speaker 3: get to heaven.
Speaker 2: And this is the answer that you said was more satisfying.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe we'll find out after we die.
Speaker 2: That's not even an answer, much less a satisfying one.
Speaker 2: So while how satisfying an answer is has no bearing
Speaker 2: on the truth of that answer, turns out that the
Speaker 2: Christian answer isn't even satisfying anyway.
Speaker 3: Other times, like Joseph in the Book of Genesis, we
Speaker 3: may see God's good purposes for our suffering in our
Speaker 3: lifetime Joseph told his brothers, who sold him into slavery,
Speaker 3: you intended to harm me, but God intended it for
Speaker 3: good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving
Speaker 3: of many lives.
Speaker 2: So the thing with that is that those lives could
Speaker 2: very easily have been saved by you know, God, not
Speaker 2: causing a seven year famine unless you think that weather
Speaker 2: patterns are outside of God's control for some reason.
Speaker 3: And then there are times when we can't possibly fathom
Speaker 3: what God is doing. In Psalm twenty two, King David
Speaker 3: penned the words, my God, My God, why have you
Speaker 3: forsaken me? He was in agony, and he didn't understand
Speaker 3: why God didn't save him from his anguish. About a
Speaker 3: thousand years later, one of his descendants under those same
Speaker 3: words while he died on a cross identifying with David's suffering.
Speaker 3: How could David have possibly known that his pain would
Speaker 3: foreshadow the most significant event in human history?
Speaker 2: Are you seriously suggesting that David wrote those words knowing
Speaker 2: that Jesus would repeat them hundreds of years later. Isn't
Speaker 2: it far more likely that Jesus, a guy that was
Speaker 2: supposed to have been intimately familiar with all of the scriptures.
Speaker 2: Was just making a reference. That's giving the stories more
Speaker 2: credit than they deserve. But still, when I say I
Speaker 2: have grown accustomed to your face to my partner, how
Speaker 2: could Alan Jay Lerner have possibly known in nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: six that I would say that? Or is it perhaps
Speaker 2: more likely that I, being familiar with the musical My
Speaker 2: Fair Lady and knowing that as one of my partner's favorites,
Speaker 2: am just referencing it.
Speaker 3: Sometimes God may use so suffering as an opportunity for
Speaker 3: you to turn to him.
Speaker 2: Translation meetings will continue until morale improves.
Speaker 3: Perhaps a more important question than how could a good
Speaker 3: God allow evil and suffering? Is this? Did God make
Speaker 3: any provision for the existence of evil? And can we
Speaker 3: trust him in our suffering?
Speaker 2: How is that a more important question than why is
Speaker 2: their suffering? God is supposed to be all knowing and
Speaker 2: all powerful. He shouldn't need to make provisions for evil.
Speaker 2: We shouldn't have to trust him in our suffering. It
Speaker 2: should just not exist, and since it does, it is
Speaker 2: reasonable to expect an explanation as to why.
Speaker 3: And to answer this appoint you to the cross where
Speaker 3: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, suffered, and died.
Speaker 3: He lived a perfect life and yet paid the ultimate
Speaker 3: penalty for all the evils of mankind.
Speaker 2: Well, not all of them, just the ones committed by
Speaker 2: those who believe in Him at the point of their death.
Speaker 2: Although there may be a loophole here. When I was
Speaker 2: a Christian, I sincerely ask God to forgive all my
Speaker 2: sin in Jesus' name. And God is outside of time,
Speaker 2: so presumably the all there is not exclusively those in
Speaker 2: the past, but includes future sins. So even if Christianity
Speaker 2: winds up being true, I should be set now. I
Speaker 2: know this isn't how any Christian thinks it works, but
Speaker 2: I don't see why an all powerful God should be
Speaker 2: limited to our timeline. So there we go.
Speaker 3: You see, God isn't distant from us in our human sufferings,
Speaker 3: as some would say. At the Cross, he became a
Speaker 3: part of it.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's nice, but we're not asking him to be
Speaker 2: a part of it. We're asking him to explain why
Speaker 2: it exists at all. Why did he create evil? Why
Speaker 2: does he allow suffering? Him joining him briefly does nothing
Speaker 2: to answer these questions.
Speaker 3: The Bible teaches one day God will completely eliminate evil
Speaker 3: and suffering from the presence of his children. Forever, there
Speaker 3: will be a new Heaven and a new Earth, and
Speaker 3: evil and suffering will pass.
Speaker 2: Away, thus demonstrating that making a world without suffering or
Speaker 2: evil was within God's power. He just decided to make
Speaker 2: a suffer for no apparent reason.
Speaker 3: There will be a final judgment one day, and there
Speaker 3: will be justice for everyone who suffered at the hands
Speaker 3: of evil man.
Speaker 2: Well, unless those evil men happen to have converted to
Speaker 2: Christianity at some point before their death, then you get
Speaker 2: to spend an attorney in the same place as the
Speaker 2: people who inflicted suffering on you. Huzzah for the God
Speaker 2: of Justice. Now I'm skipping a bunch of preaching. When
Speaker 2: we come back in a different presenter will have just
Speaker 2: given a brief summary of the story of Corey Tenboom,
Speaker 2: a woman who helped hide Jews from the Nazis and
Speaker 2: became a survivor of one of the most brutal concentration
Speaker 2: camps of World War II. After the war, while giving
Speaker 2: a talking munich, a former guard at that concentration camp
Speaker 2: approached her.
Speaker 4: He came up to her and he told her that
Speaker 4: after the war he had placed his faith in Jesus
Speaker 4: and became a Christian. He went on to say that
Speaker 4: God has forgiven him for all of his cruel actions,
Speaker 4: and then he held out his hand and he asked
Speaker 4: for her forgiveness, at.
Speaker 2: Which point she struggled for a bit, and then after
Speaker 2: a brief prayer to God for the strength of forgive him,
Speaker 2: she forgave him. But while this story is meant to
Speaker 2: highlight the power of forgiveness, it does leave me wondering
Speaker 2: what of the people who didn't forgive him? What of
Speaker 2: the people who don't have the option to forgive him
Speaker 2: because they are dead as a direct result of his actions, Many,
Speaker 2: potentially most of them would not have been Christians, and
Speaker 2: so according to Christian doctrine, they went from suffering in
Speaker 2: the concentration camp to suffering in hell. But this man
Speaker 2: who caused their worldly suffering gets to walk around free
Speaker 2: and feels the weight of his actions lifted from his
Speaker 2: shoulders because he apologized to God and one single former prisoner,
Speaker 2: how in the ever loving fact is that justice and
Speaker 2: he became a Christian. So a Nazi camp guard who
Speaker 2: is guilty of some of the worst crimes we can
Speaker 2: possibly imagine, gets to enjoy eternal paradise while many of
Speaker 2: those who were the victims of his crimes are sentenced
Speaker 2: to eternal torture. That's the Christian worldview. True, it is
Speaker 2: not a universal view. There are plenty of Christians out
Speaker 2: there who don't believe a God would send anyone to hell.
Speaker 2: But the most vocal Christians are the ones who are
Speaker 2: happy to preach about hell, fire and damnay. How can
Speaker 2: they possibly say that God is a god of justice
Speaker 2: when that God allows Nazis into paradise while torturing the
Speaker 2: victims of the Nazis. That's it for this one. Today's
Speaker 2: common to the day comes to us from let me doubt.
Speaker 2: Who says, well, if there is no heresy in science,
Speaker 2: then climate science is definitely a cult. They've burned their
Speaker 2: fair share of scientists at the proverbial stake, and you're
Speaker 2: not allowed to doubt the ninety seven percent consensus. No
Speaker 2: doom predictions came true, but you still have to believe
Speaker 2: in an imminent apocalypse while the scaremongers buy their seaside mansions.
Speaker 2: Do we live in the same reality? I mean, okay,
Speaker 2: I can see how one could paint a picture of
Speaker 2: climate change predictions being inaccurate if they were only looking
Speaker 2: at news outlets and political grandstanding. Yes, there have been
Speaker 2: predictions that were wrong, but when you look at the
Speaker 2: actual scientific analysis of the performance of climate models over time,
Speaker 2: they have been incredibly accurate. Actually slight correction, there have
Speaker 2: been some incorrect predictions on the scientific side of things.
Speaker 2: Turns out several models predicting an increase of extreme weather
Speaker 2: events were significantly wrong in that they underestimated how bad
Speaker 2: it would actually be. Reality is worse than they predicted.
Speaker 2: The thing about science is that while there is no
Speaker 2: heresy because it is a process of discovery about reality,
Speaker 2: as time goes on there will be more and more
Speaker 2: unity when something new is discovered. At first, there will
Speaker 2: be disagreements as different scientists will come up with potential
Speaker 2: explanations for that new thing, but as more has learned
Speaker 2: about it, the hypotheses will be eliminated until only one
Speaker 2: is left standing. That's an oversimplified picture, of course, but
Speaker 2: when that happens, it can appear as though consensus is
Speaker 2: the orthodox and anything counter consensus is heretical. But as
Speaker 2: has been shown numerous times in history, even if you
Speaker 2: start from a counter consensus position, if your position is
Speaker 2: actually correct. Reality will bear that out and you will
Speaker 2: eventually be vindicated. With regards to climate change. The reason
Speaker 2: the consensus is at ninety seven percent is not because
Speaker 2: those who disagree get burned at the stake. It's because
Speaker 2: the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming does appear to match
Speaker 2: reality very closely. Thanks for watching. I'll be back next
Speaker 2: Friday with more, but if if you need to get
Speaker 2: yourn effets in before then, my live stream was service
Speaker 2: every Wednesday eight thirty Eastern on my other channel, A
Speaker 2: Watering Hole, and periodically published shorts on the channel Vice
Speaker 2: Rhino Shorts. Thanks to Piper for being my editor, and
Speaker 2: special thanks as always to my patrons, who are the
Speaker 2: prey animals that outnumber the predator that is my channel.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to prove the common interpretation of Survival
Speaker 2: of the Fittest wrong, you can join us on Patreon
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Speaker 2: found at LinkSA viceround dot com, which is also where
Speaker 2: you find links to my other projects. If for whatever
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Speaker 2: in the description see and next time