Saturday, January 1, 2011
AGNOSTIC ANYONE?
Can someone be religious and agnostic at the same time? I didn't think so until today when I met a guy who told me he is a religious agnostic. He said he's read 4 different versions of the Bible, but none of them were able to explain to him why bad things happen to good people. What was I supposed to say? Please help me figure out the right words to use next time.
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I can't answer why bad things happen to good people, but I /can/ recommend thinkers who I think are very knowledgeable about the subject, and are very eloquent and balanced. I happen to like Rabbi Shalom Carmy's writings. And his class on the topic sounds like it could be informative:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.yu.edu/faculty/carmy/page.aspx?id=9512 This link tells of his class on "Honours Suffering". (Odd title, no?)
-- Phil
Maybe you could ask your friend if he is a religious agnostic /overall/, or just a religious agnostic with respect to /one/ issue.
ReplyDeleteConcerning the Bible: Perhaps you can say that the Bible /is/ able to explain why bad things happen to good people. And it does so many times. The problem is that the explanations are so varied! (Of course, the /circumstances/ are so varied, too.) He could accept the various explanations that make sense to him, and -- (not outright reject, but) -- put on hold those explanations that don't make sense to him.
The following essay attempts to gather various explanations in a systematic way:
http://www.innernet.org.il/article.php?aid=396 In the book from which this essay comes, there's a Q and A section afterwards, with questions from some of Rabbi Gottlieb's students that challenge him on some of his arguments.
--Phil