I have been sick since yesterday, stuck in bed all day yesterday, and have only managed to reach my computer do to the help of modern medicine. So now it is a proper time for the "Whence Commith Evil?" thread.
So were does "evil" come from? And I am not speaking for human evil, I am speaking for natural disasters, sickness, and other things that are "evil" but not caused by humans. Why would your god create that? And if it wasn't your god who created it, who was it? And why doesn't your god simply stop it? And if your god is for some reason unable to stop disease, then why can modern medicine stop what your god can't? And if your god causes it, then why can modern medicine stop it? Is medicine more powerful than your god?
Only with human-like intelligence (I said ants because some scientists thinks many animals have a bit) we think about the single individual and consider many dies "evil".
Finally spotted that bit. So how does the state of being a single individual lead to us considering things/events as evil.
I don't know if you know something about zen buddhism, but the zen masters try to help their disciples to achieve enlightenment (hope it's translated this way). And often to help them he beat them, because physical pain helps the mind to separate from the body. So, maybe God is a kind of zen master, and with "evil" he helps us to achieve enlightenment and prepare us to heaven. Who knows, maybe heaven would be boring for un enlightened people. All the day contemplating God's presence...
I really don't think it's fair to mix up religions like that and generalise. For one, the state of enlightenment is achieved via mediation and individual reflection, not by praying endlessly to God.
He's not trying to generalize, he's making an analogy. He's comparing the tactics of some buddhists in which pain is used to cause a state of heightened mental awareness, and that perhaps God is doing something similar with plague, natural disasters, and the like.
He's not trying to generalize, he's making an analogy. He's comparing the tactics of some buddhists in which pain is used to cause a state of heightened mental awareness, and that perhaps God is doing something similar with plague, natural disasters, and the like.
Correction: 2.this one is for Christians, or religious people in general.
Seriously? Using the term 'in general' does not connote a generalization being made. It means, in this instance, that he is directing his analogy at a general (broad) audience, not making a generalization. If you're going to try to be pedantic at least make sure you have an understanding of the function of the terms.
general adj. Concerned with, applicable to, or affecting the whole or every member of a class or category
In his comment the term 'in general' means "directed at all religious people". That sentence only means that his analogy is for the consideration of all theists, not that his comment is a 'generalization'.
Analogy noun. a. Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar. b. A comparison based on such similarity.
Now, for our lesson of the day, the analogy (god could be similar to buddhists that use pain to achieve enlightenment because god causes pain) is the subject of the comment. The portion of the sentence "theists in general" means that he is directing his analogy at all theists, as opposed to solely Christians as he had first claimed earlier in the comment. He is not claiming ANYWHERE that Buddhism is about a God, he's only positing that methods used by some buddhists have some parallels to methods attributed to God.
Seriously, if it is this difficult to understand I suggest you refrain from posting for a bit and come back when you have a better understanding of how to communicate, because your refusal (or inability) to understand basic written communication is becoming rather taxing.
PS this is almost my first post in the WEPR, mainly because of my language problems. I hope I didn't make bad mistakes this time.
Can I be blamed entirely for my misinterpretation of his argument? I don't speak proper English, I speak a creole of it, which has it's own twists and turns. When I use in general in Singlish it means a generalization. Like âIn general, I think all Muslims are bad.â Thatâs how we use it here, broken English or not. The fact that he links Enlightenment to an article concerning Buddhism lead me to think that the enlightenment he mentioned later was linked in a way to Buddhism and tied Buddhism to the argument. Enlightenment as he mentioned it was a wholly Buddhist concept, so if he mentioned heaven would be bring for an enlightened people, I would assume that he thinks Buddhism has a god.
