Recently, I was reading a book by Greg Iles called The Footprints Of God. Now, before I go losing half of you thinking that this was a religious book I am going to review here, I would just like to say that it is not, and reviewing the book is not my intention. The book is actually about the development of artificial intelligence and its potential ramifications. While discussions about God do occur in the book, it is more in regards to philosophical debate. With that said, there was one passage in the book that I found very interesting, and I thought I would share it here. Before I quote the interesting passage, let me set the scene. In the book, the two main characters are travelling to Israel and are having a discussion on the plane. The one character has been used as a test subject for an MRI machine that is about 1000 times stronger than the ones currently in use. He, and the other test subjects have been suffering psychological effects. His are in the form of narcolepsy and vivid dreams. He is talking about a dream he had where he thought he had memories of being God, and he is having trouble relating man as he is, to his dream of God. The woman he is speaking to is a Jungian psychiatrist. The passage I am about to quote is her idea of why man is flawed, and why free choice often leads to unintended consequences. I found it very interesting. With that as a background, here is the passage. Hopefully, I have not cut too much of it out so that you at least get the gist of the argument. "I believe that to create means to make something that didn't exist before. If God is perfect, then the only way he can truly create is to make something separate from himself. So by definition, his creation must be imperfect. You see? If it were perfect, it would be God." "I believe that for human beings to be distinct from God, we must be able to make our own choices. Free will, right? And unless bad choices resulted in real pain, free will would have no meaning. That's why we have such evil in the world." Well, those are the parts that I found interesting. The two characters carried on their philosophical discussion for another five or ten pages, and a few other gems were nestled among the writing. I may paraphrase some of the thoughts in the next couple of paragraphs, but for the most part, those were the passages I wanted to highlight. In my mind, the above passages do go a long way towards explaining our world. Yet many people would say, "Well, what about instances where there was no clear choices made yet evil still happened. They point to people who die in natural disasters or childhood cancers as examples. I think part of the problem is that they are mistaking bad things that happen as evil. Also, many people look at natural things that happen and say "there was no reason for that, when in actuality, there is. As an example, when people die or lose their homes in flooding, it is often because they built their homes in a flood plain, or on a part of a beach where it may be above the line of a typical storm surge, but still within an area that gets impacted during extreme storm surges. In the case of illnesses, people can suffer from genetic disorders or due to dangerous materials in their environments. Two good examples of environmental factors would be workers who got sick due to their exposure to asbestos. Many ship builders, and factory workers have gotten sick over the years due to their exposure to that legal (at the time) product. Children who got lead poisoning from paint chips is another good example. The parents didn't knowingly put their children at risk... they didn't know any better! Although their is some evidence that paint manufacturers did know the risk, but made the paint anyway! A current example would be South African gold miners. There is a class action lawsuit taking place in that country concerning the care for miners who got tuberculosis and silicosis from inhaling rock particles while working in the mines. A personal example of a genetically caused disease is hemochromatosis. Although many people can be carriers of the gene, they may not be directly impacted from it. For a person to become ill from the genes, both the mother and the father had to be carriers of the genes. My wife was afflicted with hemochromatosis, because both of her parents were carriers. Meanwhile, her step sisters were not affected by it since they had a different father, and he was not a carrier. I guess what I am trying to say is that not everything that happens that is bad is evil. I think many agnositcs and atheists see this as being proof that there is no God, or that he is an unjust God, but I think that this may be lazy thinking on their part. The passage above goes a long way towards explaining the flaws, and our decisions can go along way towards explaining the rest. One final quote from the book. It is about facing evil head on. The character went on to quote three statements that made thoughts about western religions suspect. These were:
He then stated that you can logically reconcile any two of those statements, but not all three. Many Eastern religions believe that evil flows from God, and they do not try to blame some lesser figure, such as Satan.
That might be all well and good, but I think the topic them moves away from the existence of God and into the realm of thinking that God must fit the definition of any one religion. When man gets involved, there will always be flaws present... and that includes with their religious thoughts. After all is said and done, I don't think anyone can reliably describe God or his/her traits. For me, I believe there is a God, and I am happy to pray in my own way. At the same time, I believe that most religions can be a positive force for humanity. Which one is right and which ones are wrong, I can't truly say. No one can. I go to church on Sundays because I believe it is a positive action for my daughters. And that if they listen to what is being said, that they will eventually turn out to be honest, caring and empathetic people. That is why I go to church. In my own life, I try to live my faith. Hopefully, my daughters see that in me more than they see my flaws. I try to lead by example. To do that, I need to actually live my beliefs so that they have a good example of what I want them to become. That's about it for tonight. I hope these thoughts make you think a bit about your own beliefs and whether or not ou actually try to live them. Peace, empathy and kindness. It's the way I try to live.
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