Bishop Barron discusses the "problem of evil" in his talk about God, Tsunamis, and the Problem of Evil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx8ZMkWL8hw
What he and no other Christian ever really cares to discuss when talking about "the problem of evil,"however, is the great many evils committed by their own "loving" God, and by their own religion in the service of that "loving" god.
Take the flood, for example, which is perhaps the greatest act of evil that has ever befallen man, which surpassed in its utter murder of all of humanity, all of the genocides ever committed combined, from the Old Testament to the 20th Century.
No Christian will ever admit, however, that murdering nearly everyone and everything on the planet should ever be considered an act of "evil" by their most loving God. It is only when such acts of mass murder are done so on a much smaller and more targeted scale by comparison, by the likes of a Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot, not when it is so indiscriminate in it's utter discard for the value of human life that only a God could've been responsible for it. Then, and only then, should it be rightly called "evil." God killing everyone on the planet, however, is never, ever "evil."
And the best reason the Christian can give as to why such indiscriminate and deliberate act of "specicide" is never evil when committed by God, is because God is the "creator" of that species. Never mind that such reasoning is essentially a justification for abortion, or a validation that any parent who brings a child into this world, is then justified in taking them out of it, no matter their age. No, God gave us life, so he can murder us any way he damn well pleases. Amen and launch the nuclear weapons!
Nor does the Christian ever admit it was pure evil for their own "loving" God, who Christians insists hates abortion because he sees it as "murder of the innocent," to kill the first-born children of Egypt to free his people, in the same way Herod the Great engaged in "the massacre of the innocents" to free himself of the threat to his throne posed by Jesus. Hell, the Christian won't even admit it was evil of God not to tell anyone about Herod's plan but Joseph! Which is like knowing the building is on fire but only telling the two people inside of it that you care about, and letting everyone else fry!
Worse still, God, in his kindness and wisdom, decided to create a "hell," into which he threatens to throw all of his "children" for failing to love him, on the incredibly ambiguous and contradictory terms he so clearly laid out in that operating manual for the human soul, called the Bible. This is like a parent posting "House Rules" on the fridge in their kitchen, and threatening to throw any child who breaks the rules, or who even just wants to move out and live on their own, with being thrown into the furnace in the basement. God, in this sense, is basically a wicked witch, and humanity is Hansel and Gretel.
God could've created an Australia in the afterlife, after all, where all those "criminals" who did not want to "love" him for all eternity, on his terms, could go and stay, but he decided it was more benevolent of him to create a place where such people could spend eternity, roasting forever in an oven hotter than those of Auschwitz.
We won't even go into the countless acts of evil perpetrated by Christians for Christianity, since every Christian in the world simply denies that those acts of evil are ever, and in anyway, a reflection of their own sacred "beliefs," even as they always claim that any and every act of "evil" committed for any other set of "beliefs" - from atheism to Nazism to Communism and more - is always and only ever a reflection of how truly evil all those other, non-Christian "beliefs" really are. How convenient.
In the video above, Barron essentially established the unavoidable need to simply "believe" that all of the evil and suffering in the world must "have some greater meaning," and must serve some "greater good." Of course he cannot prove this, nor does he ever try, opting instead to argue that only a fool would pretend to know what the greater good of genocide or tsunamis, biblical plagues and famines, might possibly be, while only the truly rational man would have the god-given sense to "believe" that any and every such evil deed committed in the world, must only somehow serve an undeniably "loving God."
And while this "God" is clearly powerful enough to prevent these evil acts, he demonstrates his deep love for us, and his abiding devotion to honoring our precious "free will," by choosing to do not a damn thing.
But what parent doesn't prevent their child from putting their hand on a hot stove, or from running into traffic, or playing with a loaded gun, running with scissors, or drinking poison, on account of "the child has free will'? Would any parent anywhere really ever offer so ridiculous an excuse as a defense in any court of law? And if they did, is there any court of law that would not be laughed off the planet, and by Christians most of all, for accepting such a "defense" as perfectly legitimate?
You see, the Christian is quite convinced that it is never their own beliefs that have ever been responsible for any evil, even when it was those same beliefs that lead so many good Christians to burn witches and heretics or murder Indians and enslave Africans. No, those "evil" acts were not the result of the Christian beliefs, which only prompted people to defend their souls by murdering those who they were convinced threatened to drag those souls to hell through their heathen ways or errors of dogma and liaisons with demons.
No, it was simply human ignorance, and nothing more, that had failed to understand as clearly as any good Christian understands so clearly today, what God's ultimate plan really is. The ignorance that resulted in so much misery and suffering in God's good Christian name, however, was certainly not in vain. No, no, no! God, in his benevolent wisdom, used all of those killings of witches and heretics as the motor to fulfill his "divine plan." Of course, by such reasoning, every act of genocide from the Armenians to Rwanda is simply an attempt to speed that plan along.
And anyone who engages in prayer to stop all of these acts of evil is really just complaining to god about his plan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx8ZMkWL8hw
What he and no other Christian ever really cares to discuss when talking about "the problem of evil,"however, is the great many evils committed by their own "loving" God, and by their own religion in the service of that "loving" god.
Take the flood, for example, which is perhaps the greatest act of evil that has ever befallen man, which surpassed in its utter murder of all of humanity, all of the genocides ever committed combined, from the Old Testament to the 20th Century.
No Christian will ever admit, however, that murdering nearly everyone and everything on the planet should ever be considered an act of "evil" by their most loving God. It is only when such acts of mass murder are done so on a much smaller and more targeted scale by comparison, by the likes of a Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot, not when it is so indiscriminate in it's utter discard for the value of human life that only a God could've been responsible for it. Then, and only then, should it be rightly called "evil." God killing everyone on the planet, however, is never, ever "evil."
And the best reason the Christian can give as to why such indiscriminate and deliberate act of "specicide" is never evil when committed by God, is because God is the "creator" of that species. Never mind that such reasoning is essentially a justification for abortion, or a validation that any parent who brings a child into this world, is then justified in taking them out of it, no matter their age. No, God gave us life, so he can murder us any way he damn well pleases. Amen and launch the nuclear weapons!
Nor does the Christian ever admit it was pure evil for their own "loving" God, who Christians insists hates abortion because he sees it as "murder of the innocent," to kill the first-born children of Egypt to free his people, in the same way Herod the Great engaged in "the massacre of the innocents" to free himself of the threat to his throne posed by Jesus. Hell, the Christian won't even admit it was evil of God not to tell anyone about Herod's plan but Joseph! Which is like knowing the building is on fire but only telling the two people inside of it that you care about, and letting everyone else fry!
Worse still, God, in his kindness and wisdom, decided to create a "hell," into which he threatens to throw all of his "children" for failing to love him, on the incredibly ambiguous and contradictory terms he so clearly laid out in that operating manual for the human soul, called the Bible. This is like a parent posting "House Rules" on the fridge in their kitchen, and threatening to throw any child who breaks the rules, or who even just wants to move out and live on their own, with being thrown into the furnace in the basement. God, in this sense, is basically a wicked witch, and humanity is Hansel and Gretel.
God could've created an Australia in the afterlife, after all, where all those "criminals" who did not want to "love" him for all eternity, on his terms, could go and stay, but he decided it was more benevolent of him to create a place where such people could spend eternity, roasting forever in an oven hotter than those of Auschwitz.
We won't even go into the countless acts of evil perpetrated by Christians for Christianity, since every Christian in the world simply denies that those acts of evil are ever, and in anyway, a reflection of their own sacred "beliefs," even as they always claim that any and every act of "evil" committed for any other set of "beliefs" - from atheism to Nazism to Communism and more - is always and only ever a reflection of how truly evil all those other, non-Christian "beliefs" really are. How convenient.
In the video above, Barron essentially established the unavoidable need to simply "believe" that all of the evil and suffering in the world must "have some greater meaning," and must serve some "greater good." Of course he cannot prove this, nor does he ever try, opting instead to argue that only a fool would pretend to know what the greater good of genocide or tsunamis, biblical plagues and famines, might possibly be, while only the truly rational man would have the god-given sense to "believe" that any and every such evil deed committed in the world, must only somehow serve an undeniably "loving God."
And while this "God" is clearly powerful enough to prevent these evil acts, he demonstrates his deep love for us, and his abiding devotion to honoring our precious "free will," by choosing to do not a damn thing.
But what parent doesn't prevent their child from putting their hand on a hot stove, or from running into traffic, or playing with a loaded gun, running with scissors, or drinking poison, on account of "the child has free will'? Would any parent anywhere really ever offer so ridiculous an excuse as a defense in any court of law? And if they did, is there any court of law that would not be laughed off the planet, and by Christians most of all, for accepting such a "defense" as perfectly legitimate?
You see, the Christian is quite convinced that it is never their own beliefs that have ever been responsible for any evil, even when it was those same beliefs that lead so many good Christians to burn witches and heretics or murder Indians and enslave Africans. No, those "evil" acts were not the result of the Christian beliefs, which only prompted people to defend their souls by murdering those who they were convinced threatened to drag those souls to hell through their heathen ways or errors of dogma and liaisons with demons.
No, it was simply human ignorance, and nothing more, that had failed to understand as clearly as any good Christian understands so clearly today, what God's ultimate plan really is. The ignorance that resulted in so much misery and suffering in God's good Christian name, however, was certainly not in vain. No, no, no! God, in his benevolent wisdom, used all of those killings of witches and heretics as the motor to fulfill his "divine plan." Of course, by such reasoning, every act of genocide from the Armenians to Rwanda is simply an attempt to speed that plan along.
And anyone who engages in prayer to stop all of these acts of evil is really just complaining to god about his plan.
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