The Problem of Evil

 Theodicy

Historicity is historical authenticity.   Theodicy is theological idiocy.  We cannot know the mind of God, so we are speculative idiots, but I will not leave the topic unaddressed, and -being God- I will answer the problem (If God is AP, AK, PG, then how can there be evil and suffering?) for everyone: philosophers, the religious, regular people, and of course, for me, myself, and eye (Holy See? ha).

All-Powerful, All-Knowing, Perfectly Good: Pain exists because we need neurons to tell us when our body is damaged and needs to heal.   It is part of human makeup because we evolved it; it confers genetic advantage, reproductive success.  Suffering includes pain, but also grief, depression, broken-heart, loneliness, sickness, fear of death, nausea, disgust, revulsion, guilt, fear of hell, and dissatisfaction with self, others, the whole world, the system.  The compassion and sympathy of empaths with mirror neurons makes us feel other's pain, puts us in the shoes of others.  Our imaginations dream up all kinds of misery and nightmare.  Self-hatred and suicide, when malice turns inward, or the misery becomes unbearable, compels good people to seek escape.  If God doesn't believe in himself, and doesn't do what he could do to alleviate evil and suffering, could conceivably make a deity miserable, himself.  The depressed comedian, the crying clown, is not quite the godly psychic, who sees the costs and benefits of every act, and can therefore act in the long-term best interest.  The library is filled with creative explorations of different psyches, alternative histories, songs and memes and spells, other worlds, even criminal fantasies.  Who knows?  Maybe it's all the same, everything works out for the best, and there really is no evil, from this lofty perspective.  Even if God is dead, his corpse will feed the plants, just like everybody else.  It's all good!  God, humanity, the universe, the whole enchilada.

Evil doesn't exist.  Evil is an illusion.  It's all good.  God is good, and if he wants to prevent anything, he certainly can (and does).   Muslims believe that even though we have free will, God is aware of what we will do, and if Allah wanted to stop something from happening or force something to happen, he is certainly able to do so.  Therefore, everything occurs because God has allowed it to happen.  So do what thou wilt!  Not my will, but thine, oh lord.  We've learned about the holocaust.  We've learned about Jonestown.  We've learned about My Lai.  Nuclear explosions decimating Japan.  We've learned about slavery, the civil war, assassinations, the killing fields, Manson and his thrill kill cult, serial killers, mass murderers, cannibals, ongoing gun violence, on and on and on.  So we must not repeat those mistakes.  It's a mad world.  Emerging from madness into sanity takes time, for individuals, for societies, for the world at large.   The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice, Obama said.  I wouldn't mind speeding things up a little.  Evil exists in the now, but disappears from the eternal perspective.  Once we're all dead, our lives won't have meant shit.  But it's always now.

God doesn't exist. God is dead. But there are plenty to take his place. Old Gods die, and new ones sprout up to take their places.  You don't need God to be good, but it's an interesting thing to observe and think about, as kids, to make sense of the madness of adults.  God is hypnosis, a spell to connect people to their higher selves.  Of course, I know that God can be really real.  But someone playing the role can't actually make Putin stop his war on Ukraine, for example (right?).  God disappears in the trenches. Or rather, God becomes schizophrenic, of two minds, if not a confrontation between different Gods, altogether.  Also, there are ecological considerations, like thinning the herd, or protecting humanity from ecological collapse, which might be a consideration for The Almighty, which mere mortals would consider to be wicked (such as pandemics, or hurricanes, etc.).  A deity who can see alternative futures has a hell of a responsibility in influencing personal choices and political policies and what to think, say, and do.   (Breathing out hurricanes, jump-roping out some earthquakes, and such, lol.)

Humans have free-will.  So does God.  He doesn't have to be perfect, all the time.  The mind of God is accessible through books and movies and dreams (and computers?), so is not entirely inscrutable.  The law of karma purports to explain rewards and punishments across lifetimes.  But God is good, which to me sounds like he would forgive everybody.  The long-term, karmic, balance of heaven and hell, pleasantness and misery, pleasure and pain, could be really complex, in fact.  The sacrament of reconciliation is indispensable, for sinners, and to end the tit for tat.   Eye for an eye justice has been said to leave the whole world blind.  Fairness is a fiction.  Aside of course from everybody dying, eventually.  God could even be a sadist.  He must put up with a lot of aggravation.  A capitalist society, with everyone pursuing money, and "success" defined by prosperity, is dysfunctional, if not sick and twisted.  America has been called the Great Satan.  No country for old men.  Drugs make people turn to crime.  Sugar and alcohol can be pernicious.  Morality can derive from brain chemistry.  Depraved leaders deserve some blame.  NRA lobbyists, for example, aren't doing much to lesson opportunity and temptation of the mentally ill to commit mass shootings.  Rappers glorify violence.  Nature is red in tooth and claw.  Crimes of passion fight the sensibility of buddhist meditators.  The Catholics say everyone is born with original sin.  The Doors sang All the children are insane.  DNA makes some people more evil than others.  God help us.  Have mercy!

Fate, the stars, evolution, there's a lot at play.  Only God is good.  Be good.   

The theological odyssey of theodicy!  Theodicy is actually defined as "the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil."   Justifying god's ways to man.  To justify or defend God in the face of evil.  If we hadn't eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, say.   Or, if there is no sin (only crime). Yahweh's ways (his m.o.'s!?).  The face of evil, with an evil eye, or a snarled lip.  God wants everyone to be like Him, and so allows the process of trial and error, learning from our mistakes.  And, of course, without free will, we'd be automatons.  So there you have it.   

Some people blame evil on the devil.  Or Ahriman.  Or me, whatever I am.  virtually virtuous wicked Wiccans, with low MOA (monoamine oxidase A), haha.   And Lovecraft crafting love (Cthulhu the ancient nameless evil spawning love!).   Danger spawns clinging, and some women are turned on by evil (love-letters to criminals in prison).  Rape fetish and attraction to "gorillas."

Forked Tongue at Catholic Mass:

Good morning everone!  God mourning, evil one

Father, fa (which note on the piano? A bother to determine!)

Blessings, B - less (assless chaps?  double-mastectomy?)

Mary Magdallene and eminem in my mouth

God’s mercy, mercy hs, given Four, forgiven

Bring us to everlasting life, everlast boxing equipment, iced christ

Christ on ice, iced, ice man (criced) 

Don’t live for yourself, (someone else’s sense of you?)

   Die for yourself

tomb, two mm

Lore of the lord, lard, laird

Peace of the lord, piece of the lord/eucharist

   You want a piece of me?

Law and lost, law saint

I-chng and teaching (eye, tea)

Dough-nors (bread!)

Screaming in pain, souls in purgatory, shelter-in-place

Emotions and moving ecstasy 

Sadness, gladness, madness, badness, radness!

Crew-sified (rowing christ)

Throw yourself at his feet, lol

Let us prey (vampiric)

  bloodthirsty, blood orange, drink the drunk

  thirst for the worst, red wine, I'm a perv

  trinkets of deceit

Feel the eels, (zap!), feel the yield

Humble bible parable cannibal bull

  coke is cocaine, red bull is a can o' bull

Despite, David’s spite

Surprise, prize of the south

Experience, ex peer (now higher, or now lower)

You-nity with Me-nity!  

poor, homeless, and needy (phan)

Bread is fruit of the earth?  Breadfruit, maybe

Spiritual drink, drunk on christ (spear it, in my mouth)

blessed be god forever (bless Sid) (glory be) (for Eve)

Eve - I’m every woman

Peter the rock, seed on rocky ground, yield

Soil, night soil, Soylent green, stained and soiled

and and

My brothers and sisters (extended family)

Lives and reigns, forever and ever, (no one lives forever!) (not one?)

thoughts and words, 

Free from sin and safe from all distress

   liberty from having sinned?

   stress and distress, sad

in what I have done and what I have failed to do

Right and just, our duty and salvation,

 always and everywhere, almighty and eternal, 

Betrayed and entered willingly into his passion (trade!) (whips)

   betrayed, on a tray

Hallelujah LU (yum)

God our heavenly father 

  (in heaven/dead, the best, aliens from space that seeded earth)

   orgasm

Hymn of praise (hip hop!)

body given up for you (up, erection) (taken up by gay priests)

Celebrate, sell a brat

On earth as it is in heaven (argh, the heavens are deathly inhospitable)

kingdom, power, and glory (kpg)

Sign of peace, sopping wet

Lamb of god, you take away the sins of the world

   Log, sow (shit out the evil!) dead pigs

Supper of the lamb (eating lamb?  What the lamb eats? Both and Neither)

we and wheat and weeds, wheat and wait, weeds and words

all the dictionaries are the word of god!

prayers and penitence in our hearts and homes

Priests have a helluva forked tongue (give it up?) (holy holes)

Soul, sol, sole

Mystery (L or D)

Hood, hour of our death (boyz in the hood, neighborhood, jedi hood)

Forever and ever (yawn) 3 evil, 4 d as in devil, death

L UNIT, lead us not into temptation (G unit!)

mass, passion, bring us to eternal life, lamb of god…under assault

    Sacrament and excrement, sacrum

Mass is ended, thanks be to god (male ass, prison rape, justice)

Thanks tom hanks

parable, pair of bulls (even educated fleas do it)

Holy See and Eye-ze-uh (Isaiah)

Misunderstanding, understanding women, hit or miss

KPGG, Texarkana radio station, the pig!

   (kingdom, power, and glory of god!)

God of all creation (cock) (spiritual drink, fellatio swallow)

Jesus christ, 25, 7 up, given up 4u (7)

Lift up your hearts lol (aztec interpretation)

Love you above all things (there is no up in space)

Do this in mom (memory of me, perfect as father in heaven)

(native american reservation). Rez erection and resurrection

World Trade Center, world to come, write talk create

hip hop and hypnotic hopi

creativity and lies at Cal

success, abundance, and prosperity

Jacob, Joshua, Jesus, Joseph, Jezebel, Jesse

self-realization, self-actualization

evil evolution, love you shun

H.I.M.  (his imperial majesty)

E.T.O.P.-uh (ethiopia, ethereal utopia)

Hallelujah, Haile (emperor, 1930-1974)

Highly Selassie-I (on high, high on pot)

POT - power of the trinity

Let Jah be praised;  Jah and Hajj

respected, feared, held in awe

I and I, eye the first, aye, ay!

biblical confederacy - only god is good, 

   he who would be first must be last, godslave, 

    a slave to all (only being a slave is good?)

    pope as servant of servants of god

    lord of lords, king of kings, servant of servants, slave of slaves

soldier's headstone options include Wiccan pentacle, hammer of Thor!

hellfire missiles