Don't Ask Me

Now, before I start I want to establish that I'm not talking about innocuous questions such as what color to paint a room or what I think about an outfit or a sport or a book. Those are generally matters of taste and I'm happy to leave them at that. But with regard to The Great Questions, questions about how to act or what to do in serious situations, that's what I'm addressing here.

Far too many folks these days begin a presumably serious, introspective discussion with something like, "Be honest, because there's no right or wrong answer."

Here's my painfully honest and arguably harsh response. 

Don't bother me with the damn question then. If you aren't trying to find out what's really, truly, actually right or really, truly, hideously wrong with a venture or outlook then we ain't got nothing to talk about. If there really is no 'wrong' answer then it don't matter what we do. And if there is a right answer, the statement is hypocritical nonsense, if not downright Orwellian, dangerous to our growth and well being as persons. It's as simple as that.

People wonder what's wrong with the world. I can tell you that readily. It comes from answering serious and necessary questions as though there's no right or wrong answer.

The Speck

There are those who wish to belittle the importance of humanity as 'a speck on a speck on a speck (on a speck)'. In short, in a vast, expanding universe, we're tiny, unimportant nothings.

I never found this a convincing argument. For starters, it actually encourages us to not take the entirety of the universe seriously. Alien worlds, alien lives? Speck on specks on specks (on specks) too. Each as tiny and unimportant as us. Take that, SETI.

Even in earthly terms, size isn't the keystone. A Giant Redwood is a magnificent tree. But it isn't human. It isn't self aware. It isn't able to consider its place in creation. It also far overshadows we mere humans. Yet it's asinine to argue that a tree is superior to a person, or a person unimportant merely because the tree is larger. 

In short, size, mass and relative geography aren't the end all be all. Moral value and moral virtue are not in them. They're just there. But individual human beings? We're aware that we're here. And we can do something about that.

Right When Wrong

I don't need a Church to tell me I'm right when I'm right. I need a Church to tell me I'm wrong when I believe I'm right. So said Mr. G. K. Chesterton.

He's onto something. What's the point in belief if you're okay exactly as you are? What's the point of anything if we're all all right anyway? And what's the point of a critical institution if it can't be critical?

A parent who never instructs or admonishes their child can't much of a mom or dad. Well, perhaps if the idea of parenthood is to create arrogant and self centered offspring, but that doesn't strike me as a sane way to raise a family. It strikes me as cruel to the kids and inconsiderate of the general society.

But maybe that's just me. 

Does God will evil?

Okay, here I go, trying to make a sensitive blog on a sensitive question. On a Sunday no less. But such concerns have never stopped me before.

I've heard many times when something bad happens that it is God's punishment. I have similarly heard that God doesn't work that way. So what's fella to think? Does God punish or doesn't He? And the short answer is: He might, we just don't know if or when. And I think it's nonproductive to fret too much over that point.

Still, I think a better way to phrase the issue is, does God allow bad things to happen? Yet even then I'm not sure that allow is the correct term any more than I would automatically say that he causes them to happen. My point is that sometimes things just happen, things which may be interpreted as punishment. In fact, the corollary is also often true: sometimes good things just happen. It's interesting though that when good things happen folks aren't so quick to question the motives of the Almighty.

Be that as it may, the bottom line is that God wills what He wills, and we simply don't know when, where, and how He does that. Many actions are simply the result of human free will, and nothing more. So how about we concede that we don't really know God's intent, but we do know our own, and work from there?