The Huffington Post is interesting reading, if you like a relentlessly anti-Christian and anti-Red State approach to everything. Case in point: an editorial by blogger Cenk Uygur that mocks Christians for believing in a benevolent God. Link. It's not really worth reading, unless you're unacquainted with the Problem of Pain, which goes back at least to the Book of Job. Uyguy just rants and mocks, as if he was the first to stumble across this paradox.
But I mention the post for the last paragraph:
Here's the great irony in all this -- God doesn't care, but we do! For whatever reason, we were built to care about each other (mainly because it helps us to survive). So, let's stop waiting on God to come riding to the rescue. And let's start depending on each other, because in reality that's all we have -- one another.
"For whatever reason." Uyguy admits he has no better answers. It's easy to attack and tear down (two year olds do it all the time), but to construct and defend, that takes reflection and patience.
For me, I will continue to throw my support behind the idea of a benevolent God who stamped us with his likeness, which includes, as Uyguy implies, the images of peace and love, even in the face of torture and suffering. It's a paradox, yes, almost as much of a paradox as an omnipotent God who allows himself to come down and be crucified to pay for the sins of others. Bizarre stuff, but it's the ultimate paradox that makes sense of all the other paradoxes that folks like Uyguy can't hope to comprehend.
