Thursday, December 27, 2012

Why, God? Maureen Dowd Column in NY Times Dec. 26, 2012



Why, God? To paraphrase Hitch when he asked the same question, "the universe screams, why not?". 
I'm not an atheist but I'm close.  I believe in a universal-consciousness but not a universal all-knowing controlling intelligence.
If one observes what happens in the world it seems to happen exactly as one would expect without a universal puppet-master.
The question I ask is why did God create?  If one accepts that "God is all-powerful and all-knowing" as noted by Father Kevin then one has to accept that God is also prescient and that He created evil.  The angels that rebelled were from God and he knew what they were going to do and create on their own before he created them. 
Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas struggled with this question and could not come up with a satisfactory answer except, that it pleased Him to do so.  Well that bespeaks a selfish, cruel intellect that would create such suffering for his personal entertainment. Why, to assuage the boredom of being God?
After reading Christopher Hitchens the doubt that began in 1996 shortly after my mother's untimely death increased. I tried to be an atheist but found it depressing.  My wife introduced me to Eckhart Tolle and his secular spiritualism and I found peace in being or at least attempting to be "present".
After episodes like Newtown and Webster, I'm even more convinced that Mr. Tolle and the Buddists may be onto something.  Life is about learning to live with and reduce pain.

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