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From: steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Omnipotence, justice and suffering: a very long question.
Message-ID: <501@scc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 7-Jul-85 15:16:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: scc.501
Posted: Sun Jul  7 15:16:14 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 8-Jul-85 00:59:26 EDT
References: <1034@phs.UUCP>
Organization: Computational Linguist
Lines: 67

**
> 
>     1. Inspired by Zarathustra (Zoroastrianism), the exilic Jews came
>        up with Satan, who is invoked to solve the problem of suffering.
>        "That this is no solution appears as soon as we ask why God
>        allowed Satan to do such a thing.  The problem has merely been
>        pushed back, not solved."

	The Jewish people only partially believe in Satan.  My wife,
whose father had a strict Jewish background, claimed that she was
taught that the Jewish people do not believe in Satan at all.  I had
to drag out the Bible and read passages from Job to convince her.  

	They made a deal with a god, they made a deal that he would
be their god, and they would be his people.  They accepted that he
was the best god of all, and they would all stick together.  The
Prophets, who arose after the exile to Babylon were especially
vocal in the assertion that the reason that the Jewish people
were having such tough luck was because they had broken their
side of the deal (coventent). 

> 
>     4. "The fourth spurious solution, which is one of the prime glories
>        of Christian theology, claims in effect that suffering is a
>        necessary adjunct of free will.... 
>
> So, finally, the question:  Does anyone out there know of a genuine
> solution to the question posed by Kaufmann:  Can God or a god be both
> omnipotent and just (including good, morally perfect, and so on) and
> permit the suffering we know to exist?
> 
	At the time of the Prophets, c. 500 B.C.,
the Jewish people had worked out a system that explained the suffering
as god's retrubition for them breaking the covenent.   

	It is important to remember that early Juddhism was not 
abstract like the Ayran religions.  They did not worship good,
light, and other abstract things, they had a deal with god that
went . . . we obey your laws and you heap (material) good fortune
on us.  Zoroasterism is an Aryan religion brought to the mideast
by the Indo-European invaders.   It was a Zoroastrian king, Cyrus,
(fondly referred to in the Bible as "the annoited one"), who allowed
the Jewish people to return from Babylon and rebuild the temple.

	Any explaination about why god permits evil is as good
as the next.  The Zoroastrians were dualists, they believed
that good and evil were both eternal and uncreated.  Their
job was to help good fight evil.  We get an incredible amount
of religious baggage from Zarathustra, including, judgement
at death, hell, Satan, the idea of a last judgement when souls
are reunited with the flesh, and god as judge.   

	If you don't believe in god, then there is no question to
resolve.   Good and evil become subjective.  What is good to me
is good to me, what is evil to me is evil to me.  If someone
gets eaten by a lion, it is not too good for the person,  but
it is great for the lion.  If someone gets ripped off it is 
not good for them, but it might improve the life of the person
who did the ripping off (or his or her dealer). 


-- 
scc!steiny
Don Steiny @ Don Steiny Software 
109 Torrey Pine Terrace
Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060
(408) 425-0382