... by Philip Mion January 22, 2015 Outline……………………………………………………………………………iii Introduction………………………………………………………………………1 C . S . Lewis’ Influential Experiences with Pain and Suffering………………2 The Weight of Pain and Suffering………………………………..……….2 C. S. Lewis’ Theological Foundations on Why God is God?………………….4 Divine Goodness…………………………………………………………6 Human Pain………………………………………………………………8 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….……9 Bibliography………………………………………………………………….…11 ”If God is so good and all loving, why does he allow pain and suffering to enter our worlds?” a question asked by many, believers and non-believers alike as to how God could allow people to suffer if He loves them. Naturally, the Bible has something to say about the subject. For example, in his book, James declares,”Count it...
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...we live in a world in which the population in general is interested in obtaining "great gain." Throughout the history of man "getting-rich-quick" have always attracted great interest. Even today, in our so called enlightened age, virtually anyone is assured of a large following if he can only convince the public that his "new idea " will produce great gain. However, the faithful child of God is also concerned about "great gain."The faithful Christian is aware that there are two kinds of gain physical and spiritual. While great physical gain is not inherently sinful, its possession often comes at tremendous risk to spirituality. On the one hand, with the increase of material wealth, there is the accompanying danger that the possessor thereof might become "high-minded," and prone to "trust in uncertain riches" instead of "in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy" (1 Tim. 6:7). We often multiply our earthly cares as we increase our material wealth (Eccl. 5:10-12). Then, too, as a materially wealthy person nears the sunset of earthly life his tangible possessions may become a source of great concern as he begins to contemplate the hands into which they will fall; will the next owner "be a wise man or a fool" (Eccl. 2:19)? Also earthly riches are inherently "uncertain," for there is always the possibility that they will be corrupted by "moth" or "rust," or thieves might "break through...
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...It’s Never Too Late! We serve an on time God. Just when we think we will never receive all that He promised us He shows up! I believe its because we hold onto His Word. Listen to this from Psalms 119:49-50: “Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.” As we continue to serve Him, to seek Him and to worship Him He will always come through. During this study I will present to you a man that has exhibited those qualities and had held on despite every opportunity not to. His name is Caleb. God will use anyone who will devote themselves to a life of servant hood without regard to any outward circumstances. In order to fully understand this concept we first must understand who Caleb is. Caleb was the son of Jephunneh, a Kenazzite. The Kennazzite’s were part of the people of Canaan and a search will show that he was not of the lineage of Judah. In Numbers 13:6 we see that the Word says that Caleb was chosen from the tribe of Judah. “6 from the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh;” Why would there be such an apparent contradiction? I would like to point out as we go on from here what I believe to be the reason why. The key to understanding why God favored Caleb can be found in Numbers 14:24 where God said: “But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went...
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...difficult time in their lives. They are frequently disoriented and in shock. “In Memoriam”, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson can compare to “Dog's Death”, by John Updike in many ways. Both poem progresses are noticeable in the rhyme of the poems. Reading these poems feeling of sympathy, which is likely to became empathy (Clugston, 2010 2.3). There's an initial feeling of sadness, but if the reader reflects in what the poems has to say about the person, who is died in inevitable life cycle (Clugston, 2010 2.3). Author uses words to express ideas and feelings and they sense deeply. Yet as the poems progresses, more reminiscent and praising diction is used by the speaker such as “warm” and“love”. (Bush 2006 – 2011). In this poem the family cares about their dog in “Dog's Death by John Updike and the poem “In Memoriam”, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the author lost friend in his twenty. While caring for an ill or dying loved one was an important family function during past generations “it is clear that the handling of illness and death are increasingly the responsibility of institutions other than the family (Fournier & Weber 1985 Pg. 43 –...
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...controversy because evolutionism can be tied into creationism in many ways. Almost everyone wonders if the world was really made and how it was made. Students everywhere also ask, “How did the human originate?” This is a huge controversy that has been fought for many years. Although there are many ideas, people mainly argue over two of them. The first theory is that people was created by God during his creation of the world; this is the idea of creationism. It is backed up by many religious people and religion itself. There is much turmoil on the broad topic of creationism and its place in American society. The big controversy of creationism versus evolutionism is a very large topic, something that has been made increasingly evident by the numerous books printed on the subject. Most evolutionist and creationist spend their time attempting to prove the other’s theory wrong; in one way or another, prove that theirs is the correct answer to the origins of life as we know it. I have no intent of diving into that raging battle, but would rather take a very different approach. Being raised in a religious household, I naturally have assumed the Christian faith and taken great interest in what creationists have to say. Readers who want a short, quick, straightforward account of the evidence may find that Coyne (who focuses on evidence for evolution, not refutation of creationism) suits them better; those who prefer their science served with more anecdotes...
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...philosophy also uses the word 'good' in a variety of ways, sometimes as a noun, sometimes as an adjective. GOOD CAN MEAN: A. An inherent quality which is widely beneficial.. B. The opposite of bad or evil. C. Something one person (or more) approves of. D. Useful, in that the good action/concept/attitude enriches human life. E. God-like, or what God wants. For each of these five types of usage (and the list is not exhaustive) it is possible to see room for differences of interpretation. Usage A will vary, depending on how 'widely' and' beneficial' are defined. 'Widely' could mean anything from 'often in the life of one person' to 'universal, to every being'. 'Beneficial' could mean any of pleasant, healthy, productive, useful, life-enhancing/ enriching. Usage B depends entirely on the person's view of what is evil. Usage C will probably be different in detail for every single individual, and will be dependent .on the background of the person concerned. Usage D depends on the long-term and ultimate goals that a person has in life. A person aiming primarily for monetary wealth will regard training for increasing earning power as good. Someone else aiming to create a happier! more equitable society will regard training in social work as good. Usage E depends on the individual's ideas of the nature of God. Since there are as many understandings of God as there are believers, this use of the Word 'good' will have the greatest number of...
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...society 1. Title of the Book – The Great Gatsby: Gatsby became rich because, most probably Cody – the owner of the yatch, left him money but at the same time he is was committed to earning money at an early stage in his life. And the adjective Great added to the word noun, accounts for Fitzgerald reason why a man could be called a great that is he struggled hard to achieve the love of his life by trying to raise his stature. The word “Great” is added to emphasize the fact that he rose from rags to riches, and this fact should be respected and valued. Nick: “I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people--his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God--a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that--and he must be about His Father's Business, the service of a vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.” 2. Inner workings of elite class: Jonathan Wolff...
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...to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves." Even in the early days of the fledgling church, the Apostle Paul said this, "For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.", Acts 20:29-30. After 2,000 years, the troublemakers are still with us. There are still those within and without the church who work against the plan of God and seek to mold the church to their likeness. I. THE DEEDS OF THE TROUBLEMAKERS Paul tells us that there are some tale tell signs associated with those who would cause trouble in the church. Their deeds prove them to be just what they are. Remember what Jesus said, "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." Matt. 7:20. A. They Are Divisive - Paul uses two words here that describe what the troublemakers so in the house of God. The first is the word "divisions". It means "to splinter of cause dissensions." The other word is "offences", it means "to lay a trap or snare in the path of another to cause them to stumble." We get our word "scandal" from this word. How do they do this? By deviating from the Word of God! They come in and begin to teach doctrines contrary to what the Bible says. They twist the word of God to teach doctrines that are not biblical and thereby lead people astray. They teach doctrines that resemble what one finds in the Bible....
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...One of the main themes of Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov is the problem of evil. In this chapter Ivan makes the cases that God could not possibly exist given the suffering in the world. Well, not exactly but something along those lines, you’ll have to read it to see exactly what he says. This is a useful piece to read as it takes us beyond the intellectual discussion of the logical compatibility or incompatibility of certain claims and forces us to actually confront the suffering, feel it, and struggle with how hard it is to reconcile the suffering in the world with the existence of a loving God. Part II. Book V: Pro and Contra Chapter 4: Rebellion “I MUST make one confession” Ivan began. “I could never understand how one can love one’s neighbours. It’s just one’s neighbours, to my mind, that one can’t love, though one might love those at a distance. I once read somewhere of John the Merciful, a saint, that when a hungry, frozen beggar came to him, he took him into his bed, held him in his arms, and began breathing into his mouth, which was putrid and loathsome from some awful disease. I am convinced that he did that from ‘self-laceration,’ from the self-laceration of falsity, for the sake of the charity imposed by duty, as a penance laid on him. For anyone to love a man, he must be hidden, for as soon as he shows his face, love is gone.” “Father Zossima has talked of that more than once,” observed Alyosha; “he, too, said that the face of a man often hinders many people...
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...in 1936, Swami Bhaktivedanta was charged with the responsi bility of spreading the Samkirtan Movement to the English-speaking world. Shortlythereafter, anEng lish fortnightly was established and work was begun on a number of books and translations, the most am bitious of which is a proposed sixty volume transla tion with commentary ofthe Srimad Bhagwatam, still in progress. Finally, in 1959, he took up the life of a sanyasin, fully engaged in the duties ordered by his Spiritual Master, and in 1965 the seventy-year old Swami sailed to the West with the message en trusted to him nearlythree decades earlier: "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say REJOICE." KRI SHNA, THE RESERVOIR OF PLEASURE by Swami A. C. Bhaktivedanta Krishna-this sound is transcendental. Krishna means the highest pleasure. All of us, every living being, seeks pleasure. But we do not know how to seek pleasure perfectly. With a materialistic concept of life, we are frustrated at every step·in satisfying our pleasure because we have . no information regarding the real level on, which to have real pleasure. For the last few weeks we have been learning that we are not this body; we are consciousness. Not exactly consciousness, for consciousness is actually the symptom of our real identity: we are pure soul, now merged within this material body. Modern material science lays no...
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...shares, “I met Trudy in 1982 when she came to the Holy Land after Betsy had a massive heart attack. We spent the day together packing Betsy's belongings from her flat in Haifa. And that famous family laugh came into play once again. That is when and where our friendship began. We returned to South Carolina after retiring from the Baha'i World Center because we felt we had not fulfilled our commitment to teach the Faith as participants in the Deep South Teaching Project as it had been described to us by the Hands of the Cause of God and the ABM members at that time. We had only been at our post a few months when called to the World Center. It seemed like the right...
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...first time." -- T.S. Eliot "Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." -- Vaclav Havel "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now -- when?" -- Hillel "Come my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world." -- Tennyson "If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are." -- Zen proverb "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice." -- Meister Eckhart "There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." -- Albert Einstein "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances." -- Victor Frankl "Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards." -- Unknown "The shell must break before the bird can fly." -- Tennyson "Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." -- Carl Jung "The years teach much that the days never know." -- Emerson "If you...
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...few people display the struggle in society financially and emotionally in the era of The Great Depression. Though times were already bad, being an outcast was definitely more difficult. What is an outcast? The definition of an outcast is a person who is rejected or cast out, as from home or society. Here are some examples of outcasts in this book. George and Lennie have had only one another and only each other. They are outcasts from the beginning and it’s because of Lennie’s disorder. According to John Steinbeck’s book, Of Mice and Men, George is angry and tired of Lennie. “God a’mighty, if I was alone I could live so easy. I could get a job an’ work, an’ no trouble. No mess at all” (Steinbeck 11). This shows that Lennie is difficult to work and live with but they still...
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...Understanding *Varnasrama* Through Bhagavat-dharma Introduction: In September 1972, His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada gave a series of "Bhagavat-dharma Discourses" in New Vrndavana. I was greatly blessed by being present for all of them. Prabhupada explicitly spelled out the relationship of the mission of ISKCON, Bhagavat-dharma, to varnasrama-dharma. This paper is composed of direct quotations from those discourses (apart from my own linking texts that simply introduce or summarize Prabhupada's words). The quotations are excerpted from an edited-for-publication compilation that Palace Press produced in 1983. The BBT Vedabase Folio can be consulted for the raw transcripts (look for the NV lectures from the first week of September '72). Below I do not credit the exact day upon which the quotations were made. Prabhupada's elucidation of particular subjects spanned several discourses; thus the quotations clubbed together around one point may not be from the same day. 1. Vedic *dharma* real and apparent This section of quotations shows that real Vedic dharma, or *varnasrama-dharma*, is *nivrtti-marga.* Accordingly, the *yajna* (sacrificial work) meant for each and every occupation of the social body's four parts aims at liberation. *Pravrti-marga*, "Hindu dharma," and modern technological society, are aimed at some kind of materialistic substitute for liberation. According to the Vedic system, there are two paths: *pravrtti-marga*...
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...he tripped over the cord, chasing the dog to put it in the washing machine. Exasperated, his Mom cried out... “Johnny, why can’t you be good?” Johnny, eyes tearing up, face downcast, whimpered. “Mommy,” he answered, “if I break one less thing tomorrow, will I be gooder?” Do we know what good means to us ? Are you only “good” when you’re perfect? How good do you have to be, not to be bad? Or how bad do you have to be, not to be good? And where is the justice in it all? Why are some criminals in jail for stealing a car, while others are Scot free, who murdered and raped? When is good, good enough? Who knows what good is? Do you? We say a meal is “good” when it tastes good, but someone else may hate it. We say a ball game is “good” when our team wins, but it wasn’t “good” for the other guys. We say a car is “good” when it doesn’t break down. We say a book is “good” when it keeps our attention. We say it’s been a “good” day, when not too many catastrophes have occurred or we haven’t received the 10th phone call or facebook message from a guy or girl who likes us but we don’t like them. The goodness of God In Matthew chapter 19, verses 16-17, we read: “Another day, a man stopped Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”, Jesus said, “Why do you question me about what’s good? God is the One who is good”. In other words, Jesus was saying, “Don’t you know that goodness exists only in God and not in any person’’. The principles...
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