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Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? --Epicurus
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3 comments:
Okay,
I found Stacy's poster pretty twisted and kind of mean spirited (though that's not always a bad thing... I like twisted) but this one is absolutely brilliant.
My question for you is this, though. And I mean to take this out of the religious realm. Why do you think so many people are willing to take things at face value without thinking? Why do humans follow a herd mentality? Why do we go with the crowd and not seem to be able to think for ourselves? I'm troubled because I see this throughout history at so many levels. How did the Nazis get all of Germany to go along with them? How did slavery last as long as it did in America? How is it that people cheered Jesus when he entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (though many of them had never seen him before) and then called for his crucifixion a week later (though, again, most of them probably didn't know what the issue was)?
What is it about human beings that makes us such good followers? What makes us so much like sheep?
I would venture to say that the questions you list all contain different social, psychological, economic and, yes, evolutionary implications. To ‘answer’ to any of those questions, or rather, to arrive at any universal truth – there is a considerable amount of risk involved by any individual.
The first step in finding truth is stripping away any preconceived notions, prejudices and presuppositions. Then the difficult task is for the individual to also strip away his or her own identity, often at the detriment of that person’s assimilation.
This is virtually impossible to Christians (or Nazi’s, past slave owners, etc) who find their identity a ‘body’ -- of Christ, nationalism, tradition – literally and metaphorically.
Intellectual submissiveness results and the individual’s progress is – for a lack of a better word -- sustained -- rather than expanded. This creates the brutal mediocrity that we find in most herd mentalities.
Perfectly awesome. Hey, it's their metaphor! I say they have signed off on it!
HJ
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