Is God A Cosmic Monster?

"I am more afraid that we are really rats in a trap. Or, worse still, rats in a laboratory. Someone said, I believe, 'God always geometrizes.' Supposing the truth were 'God always vivisects'?"--C. S. Lewis

In Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, the death toll from a killer cyclone stands at 78,000, with 56,000 people still missing. At least 1.5 million are hungry, hurting, homeless and in desperate need of supplies.

In China, the death toll is equally staggering. Some 80,000 people have been confirmed dead by the 7.0 scale earthquake, and at least 20,000 are missing. Countless more are without shelter, food or medicine.

How do we explain such tragedies in light of the fact that in most churches it is taught that there is a God who is loving and all-powerful? If this is true, why is there so much excruciating pain and unspeakable suffering in the world? Is God simply a cosmic sadist or a monster who visits mayhem, destruction and death on innocent people?

Natural disasters have wreaked havoc on the planet since its beginning. But all the pain people have had to endure has not come by way of so-called acts of God. People hurting people accounts for much of the suffering of humanity. It is people, not God, who produced the wars, bombs, guns, whips, racks, prisons, torture and so on. It is people who pollute and destroy the ecological environment, thus helping to create more adverse weather patterns. And it is human avarice and stupidity, not the workings of nature, that explains much of the poverty and suffering which exists.

Nonetheless, there remains much suffering that is unexplainable. According to reports released by the United Nations, approximately one in seven people in the world--that's 850 million--don't have enough food to eat. Every five seconds, a child dies of starvation. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases estimates that between 400 and 900 million children, almost all of them in Africa, contract an acute case of malaria every year. And an average of 207 million people die of it every year. That's more than 7,000 a day, 300 every hour, 5 every minute. The list goes on and on.

The question is, why is there suffering of any kind? And why would a so-called "good" God allow suffering? If there is a good God, according to theologian C. S. Lewis, then he is no less formidable than a cosmic monster. And if God hurts only to heal, as traditional Christians believe, there is little hope in avoiding the pains of life. "A cruel man might be bribed--might grow tired of his vile sport," writes C. S. Lewis in his book A Grief Observed, "might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose that what you are up against is a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless."

Thus, according to Lewis, if there is a good God, then pain and suffering are necessary. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. And how do I (or anyone, for that matter) expect to escape the same? After all, God, according to Christian tradition, killed his own son.

Likewise, disasters such as recently happened in Myanmar and China show us that, in an age of cosmic alienation, we really do not understand God. "What reason have we, except our own desperate wishes, to believe that God is, by any standard we can conceive, 'good'?" wrote Lewis. "Doesn't all the prima facie evidence suggest exactly the opposite?"

Applying the word good to God is meaningless. Obviously, what God considers good--at least by the standards of some theologians--is radically different from our perception. In fact, maybe we are so intellectually and morally depraved that we cannot fathom what a good God is.

We are not the commanders of our fate. We are not gods. We are frail, vulnerable beings hoping (and praying) that somehow we can communicate to that one who determines our fate. So many questions remain. But as C. S. Lewis recognized: "When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of 'No answer.' It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand.'"

Where does this leave us? Suffering just comes, and we need to deal with it the best we can. As professor Bart D. Ehrman writes in his book on suffering, God's Problem (2008), we should "work hard to make our world the most pleasing place for others--whether this means visiting a friend in the hospital, giving more to a local charity or international relief effort, volunteering at the local soup kitchen, voting for politicians more concerned with the suffering in the world than with their own political futures, or expressing our opposition to the violent oppression of innocent people."

Comments

[NoSillyName]

The only thing "God" is responsible for is being the cause of most of the WARS throughout history leading to untold numbers of dead humans. Thanks, dude.

[morenot]

Why do you have so much hurt over wars from ages ago? Wars that were fought between Romans and Greeks still got you bummed? All them folks is dead. Even the ones who stayed home.

[wadenelson1]

>All them folks is dead --

Who so ever shall believe in me shall have life everlasting.

What is life everlasting, anyway? Eternity in a boxing ring wearing a pair of Everlast shorts?

Anyway, might have been a few Romans and Greeks "up there" in heaven.

[JoDeeVa]

What man has wrought on his fellow man should be viewed as the true acts of cruelty, rather than the perception of an angry or cruel god and what he has wrought on the planet. When we assign natural disasters to god, it's only to assuage our own guilt and the responsibility we bear for any part we may have played in such disasters and their aftermaths, as seen with Katrina and Burma. Who, what, why?.. What did we do to deserve this? Why did this happen?, etc., etc. Those should not be esoteric religious questions. The dramas played out are those of nature and how humans react, dictates culpability, not a miasmic god.

It's only us monkeys on the lonely blue marble, known as Earth, floating in the vastness of space, that can be held responsible for our plight on the planet. Those who believe in a god and fear his wrath is responsible for the natural evolution of the planet should be more concerned about the human dilemmas and travesties brought about by the actions/ inactions of man, either in the name of god or men who think they are god(s).
They are the true cosmic monsters!

[morenot]

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that we might have life everlasting" is one of the verses in the Bible from where this notion that God was an active participant in the inevitable death of Christ. Christ represents many things aside from the mysticism of his crucifixion. He brought a revolution of ethics to the world that promulgated much of the humanist values that are used to discredit religion as not being able to live up to its' own standards of good. God was given credit for sending Christ to bring his message and stories about God holding the forces that would have killed him at bay "until the appointed hour" are also used to make God out to be a conspirator for Christ's execution. The Christ story begins with King Herod attempting to thwart God's design by executing all the male children born at the time when it was beleived the messiah had been. God, by these standards, would be partially resposible for all the murders committed to avoid the prescence of Christ. Ideas that God could just make the world a perfect, pain-free eternal paradise are continually thrown up to ridicule religion, and that since he does not he is either not real or not good. God could be doing all that he can and still be good.

[wondering]

Yes.

God is a petty, cruel, malicious tyrant who takes pleasue in our suffering. The best you can hope for is to get down on your belly and grovel and plead and cry for mercy. But god is just gonna laugh, and then crush you between his finger and thumb like a little bedbug biting his Almighty fanny.

Of course god is a monster. How could it be otherwise - WE made him.

[johnnyjust]

Why do atheists even bother contemplating something they don't believe exists?

Such attitude bespeaks a certain lack of....faith?

Simply believe we are here by random chance and will suffer random acts of Ghia and then receive the reward of evolutionary anhillation and you will be at peace.

[Jonahson]

God(s) is a human entity. Without humans there won't be God but univesres will still be destroyed and reborn again and again. Life like those on planet earth will exist given the right conditions. The formation of planets and the process of cooling down means upheavels such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis and whatever we experience now would have prevailed in a megascale. If life exist it will be destroyed and when conditions are right it will flourish again. All phenomenon including the univese is in a flux and impermenant. This fact was already known more then 2500years ago, it only took recent scientific observations to confirm it. We exist only for a short period and during this time we try to find permenance and fight each other trying to prove in vain our ideal god we cannot prove exist.
We have to deal with old age, sickness and death the minute we were born, why not make peace and work with each other for a better world? Believe what you want but don't impose it on others directly or indirectly. There are alot of common good among the major religions in the world that we can work towards.

[DharamDev]

The objections raised are quite elementary. Anyone who reads Bhagavad-gita As It Is with an open mind can understand. http://bhagavadgitaasitis.com/en1

The self (soul) and the body are different. The body is born, undergoes various transformations, and dies; but the spirit soul is unaffected by all of this. We are simply in illusion thinking thinking we are the material body.

We are eternally in God's pastimes, but have forgotten. Krishna is the Supreme Lord, and He is eternally a person residing in His own spiritual abode, where everyone serves Him in various loving relationships. Due to our minute independence, some souls desire individual enjoyment, and to fulfill this desire Krishna allows us birth here. He advises against it, but we have come anyway. We are therefore responsible for our miserable condition, and when one has had enough, Krishna either comes Himself to give instruction, or He sends a representative to lead us back home.

While we are here, our suffering and so-called happiness are exactly appropriate to our actions, and the connection between our actions and the results is not limited to one lifetime. This is called karma and reincarnation. It explains why people are born into different circumstances and why "bad things happen to good people." Our perspective is limited, so we have to hear from authority. The original authority is Krishna, and His simple instructions are in Bhagavad-gita. Read it, and if any questions remain, I can answer them.

[fedupnburnin]

He's right. Humans cause most of the suffering of other humans. Look what damage former Senator Phil Graham (and now lobbyist) did with his low-life stunt of passing legislation to help Enron. 1 man caused the bankruptcy of thousands. Goddamn Phil Graham and others of his ilk.

[CitizenFace]

How would you describe a being, fictional or otherwise, that decimates an entire countryside, killing everyone: babies, the elderly, pregnant women, all the innocent and good along with all the guilty and malevolent? Though it's generally understood that this being kills for some reason, that reason is entirely unfathomable. When asked why, this being doesn't respond.

If this being is human, it's desribed as an abomination; if beast, a monster; if germ or viral, a scourge; if demonic, an evil; if ephemeral, a terror.

But a god? In the wake of such horrible disasters the author mentions in this article, only a god could prompt such an absurd response to tragedy as this author presents by suggesting, cruelly and with no apparent irony, that "maybe we are so intellectually and morally depraved that we cannot fathom what a good God is."

[jeanruss]

Walter Russell, a 20th century American genius, experienced many illuminations from God throughout his life, starting when he was 7 years old. His biography is called "The Man Who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe." He was a modern day prophet who merged God and Science. A fascinating person and message.

[mergina]

There is no god, but if there was one, that entity would indeed be a cosmic monster. Do it or else.

[aceholiday]

applause

[mergina]

'oh i have joy joy joy joy down in my heart,'.........granny clampett.

[Badbone]

I’m a microbiologist. In the course of my day, I will grow several cultures, subject them to any number of stressors like chemicals, lack of food, or even radiation, and then kill them off when I’m done.

Does this make me a cruel god? Are my little creatures so intellectually and morally depraved that they can’t fathom what a good god I am? Of course not. If there is such a god as most suppose, he is so far above us that what we do is meaningless.

What if god is a horrible, capricious monster? What can we do about it if were true? Nothing. All we can do is what my cultures do. Live the best live you can in the short time you are given. Work through the inevitable adversity. And try to leave a better world for the next generation.

[Vurz]

The "You cannot understand my plan" school of Theology is at it again I see. I don't find it at all comforting to think that some being is basically playing a game of "Civilization" with everyone's lives.

It's much more comforting to me that these things are natural phenomena and it's the luck of the draw as to whether you die in them or not. That's an explanation for why the family of three was completely wiped out and the 2 month old baby lived, but the parents died that makes sense.

[UncleJimbo]

This is one of those arguments I just can't get involved in! The fact that it is 2008 and people,supposedly intelligent people,still believe that their lives are governed by a "Bearded Man in the Sky" (To quote George Carlin) is "Mind Bottling!" (to Quote Chazz Michael Michaels)!