Early in this website’s history, I reviewed a series of three religious pamphlets I found in a hospital restroom. There is a very high standard of journalistic integrity on this website. I titled my reviews “Bathroom Christian Literature”. Since then my eyes will scan every public restroom I enter looking for more booklets. Most of what I find is fairly typical. “Homosex is bad”, “Jesus is good”, “Sinners burn in hell”. Recently I found two magazines lying on the floor of a bus. I scooped them up on my way to an empty seat. One of them showed some signs of damage, perhaps from a misplaced footstep. But otherwise they were in good condition. I slipped them into my backpack and chuckled a little to myself. It looked like I had some new source material.
The magazines were printed by a Jehovah’s Witnesses organization. One magazine was the December 1 2010 issue of The Watchtower Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom and the other magazine was a December issue of the compilation magazine Awake!. Awake! and The Watchtower are some of the most widely circulated magazines in the world. Most of the content inside these issues was your typical stuff. “Homosex is bad,” “Jesus is good”, “Sinners burn in hell”. But there was one article in the Awake! magazine that caught my attention.
The article is titled “The Bible’s Viewpoint: Why Doesn’t God Get Rid of the Devil?” A really damn good question. As the article mentions, the Devil is “the one who is responsible for untold human suffering.” Thus the article relates to the more general “problem of evil” which daunts many philosophers and theologians. The problem of evil is a contradiction in the following commonly held beliefs in the Western world:
1. There is a cool sky dude we call God
2. God has the super power of omniscience
3. God has the super power of omnipotence
4. God has the super power of omnibenevolence
5. Bad shit happens
If all of these are true, then we run into problems. We see suffering and evil in the world all the time. It is rare for anyone to doubt this, so we shall take Statement 5 to be true. Now we have a cool sky dude (Statement 1) who can see that there is suffering the world (Statement 2), who can do something about it (Statement 3), and who cares about the suffering (Statement 4). Yet bad shit happens anyway. This makes no sense and has plagued every religion since the Greeks, who realized their gods were pricks, and they learned to live with it. The atheistic treatment is to assume Statement 1 is false and God does not exist. Other folks will take one or more statements between 2 and 4 as false. Perhaps there is a God, but he cannot do everything or he cannot see everything or he is a prick.
Some people would argue God uses evil to achieve His goals or teach humanity a lesson. This is incredibly stupid.
Back to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Maybe these guys have cracked the problem. Maybe they can explain why there is a Devil, the one causing this ruckus. If cool sky dude is such a nice guy, why does he let this douchebag ruin everybody’s day at the beach? Let us hear what the article has to say.
To help answer the question, you might visualize a prominent court case.
(Open up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iTqoDH0vFU and play it as you read along)
The murderer, desperate to halt the proceedings, claims the judge is dishonest in the way he presides over his own courtroom, and he asserts that the jurors are being bribed by the judge. So countless witnesses [that’s a lot] are allowed to provide testimony.
The judge knows that the extensive proceedings will cause much inconvenience [a “countless” amount to be precise], and he would like to have the case concluded with out undue delay. Yet, he realizes that to arrive at a judgment that will set a precedent for possible future cases, both parties must be allowed sufficient time to present their side of the dispute.
Here God is the judge and the Devil is the murderer. I think. I am picturing God as Judge Judy and the Devil as the guy with over ten grand in back child support. But who is the prosecution? Jesus? That has to create a conflict of interest. Does the Devil have an attorney? His attorney is Jewish, isn’t he? The article continues.
Originally the one who became the Devil was a perfect spirit person [what the fuck does that mean?], one of God’s angels. He made himself the Devil when he became obsessed with a selfish ambition to be worshipped by humans [and by donning a bed sheet and flying around the room]. So he challenged God’s right to rule, even insinuating that God does not deserve to be obeyed. He charged that humans serve God only when bribed with blessings.
So wait. Maybe it is God who is on trial and the Devil is the prosecution? We are the jury. But then God is also the judge, so I think we all know how this will turn out. “That Devil character raises some good points. I have been a total dick. I’ll sentence myself to five-to-nine in the pokey.”
Such accusation from Satan required responses that could not be answered simply by a show of force. In fact, executing the Devil in the garden of Eden would perhaps have suggested to some that the Devil was right. So God, possessing absolute authority, began legal proceedings to settle such issues in the minds of all observers.
Alright, so God is the prosecution and the judge? But He is God. Why does God need to file legal proceedings? He could execute the Serpent in the Garden of Eden, appear in the clouds before humanity every couple of years, and remind them how he is still the cool sky guy. Maybe do something nice. Buy everyone an ice cream bar. Then let people have free will. When one of them molests a child or takes a dump in a church confessional, He could isolate and deal with the perpetrator. God the third grade school teacher. Little Johnny puts paste in Susie’s hair. Johnny is going to get a time out. And God would not have to be a dick about it. He would not have to burn Johnny alive. A simple “Use your head. How would you like it if paste was in your hair?” will do. That would still command respect and love.
In harmony with his principles and perfect justice, Jehovah God indicated that each party would produce witnesses who would give supporting testimony to its side of the controversy. This time allowed has given Adam’s decedents [that is us!] a chance to live [I think we are still dying] and to add their testimony in God’s behalf by choosing to keep integrity to him out of love despite any hardships. [God, you are not so good at selecting witnesses.]
Jehovah God is keenly aware that while those legal proceedings take place, humans continue to suffer. Yet, he is determined to close the case at the earliest time possible … When the issues are finally settled, Jehovah’s right to rule will have been thoroughly vindicated.
What is He waiting on? God already knows who is right. Him. Apparently we already know who is right. Are we the jury? No, we are witnesses. Err, no the evidence. The Watchtower, your analogy is a complete failure. Not only did you manage to not communicate your deep theological argument in simple terms, but you also found a way to confuse me even more. On the plus side, I did make a religious revelation. I like my God like I like my Nancy Grace: Not taking shit off anybody. He makes up His mind long before the defendant speaks, and He is going to scald you for disagreeing with anything He says. Fuck this judicial shit.
Hey God, rip the Devil a new one, get rid of misery, and you will get all the praise you could ever want.
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