A Quote by Julian Baggini
Whatever your religious persuasion, if you believe that the universe is governed by benign forces, at some point you have to explain why there is so much suffering, misfortune and misery in the world.
Related Quotes
Whatever your religious persuasion, if you believe that that the universe is governed by benign forces, at some point you have to explain why there is so much suffering, misfortune and misery in the world.
All countries must be governed by the modern people; they must be governed by the progressive people; they must be governed by those who believe in the reason and science; they must be governed by the compassionate and just, by the ethical and honest, by the nonviolent and peaceful people; they must be governed by the libertarians; they must be governed by the people who believe in the enlightenment and who refuse to shape the society based on some childish religious stories!
Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both.
I'm a fairly religious person, so I believe in some things that sound a little crazy I'm sure, depending on where you're standing. I believe in leaving room for things that you can't explain in the universe, and you don't have to be religious to leave room for those things.
Once you're in a kind of revealed religious tradition, you wind up having to explain how the things said about God in the Bible or the Qur'an or whatever religious text you're dealing with, why these statements are true.
But how to explain suffering because of a man? It's not explainable. With that kind of suffering, a person feels as if they're in hell, because there is no nobility, no greatness - only misery.
I want to be a force for real good. In other words. I know that there are bad forces, forces that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good.
Use all your suffering for meditation, and soon you will come to know that the suffering disappears because the energy starts moving inwards. It is not moving to the periphery, to the suffering, you are not feeding your suffering. It looks illogical, but this is the whole conclusion of all the mystics of the world: that you feed your suffering and you enjoy it in a subtle way, you don't want to be well—there must be some investment in it.
Physical processes alone will never completely explain the existence of the universe , life , and consciousness . Religious answers are just wishful thinking and wanton fabrication cast over a bottomless pit of ignorance . To explain their occult and mystical experiences , magicians are forced to develop models beyond the scope of materialistic or religious systems .
Life is suffering. Life is not resistance to suffering. The point of life is to suffer. This is why we're here: We're here to suffer. I believe in a higher power that compassionately allows suffering for us as a race, to grow and mature.
The question is absurd: when you ask, 'If God is both all good and all powerful, why then does He allow suffering?', what you are really asking is, 'If God is both all good and all powerful, why then can He not make me (the questioner) - who is just as much a part of a universe in which there is suffering as is any other part - be at the same time the exact same questioner, but one who is now part and parcel of a universe in which there is no suffering?' Which, reduced down, is the same thing as asking, 'Why can there not be, at the same time, X and the preclusion of X?'
The universe, they said, depended for its operation on the balance of four forces which they identified as charm, persuasion, uncertainty and bloody-mindedness.
I’m not religious in the normal sense. I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws.
I'm sure it's very obvious . . . how upset I am with incompetence and the lack of common sense in life. If I can sum up the reason . . . it's that these characteristics are not benign. They are responsible for much, if not most, of the great problems, misery, and injustice in the world.
Misery nourishes your ego - that's why you see so many miserable people in the world. The basic, central point is the ego.
I want to be a force for real good. In other words, I know there are bad forces. You know, I
know that there are forces out here that bring suffering to others and misery
to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which
is truly for good.
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