What The Problem Of Evil Is Under A General Scope

In this paper, I explain what the problem of evil is under a general scope in order to demonstrate the synthesis of my research. I also describe and evaluate four classic examples of solutions, or attempts, to solve the issues surrounding the problem of evil. These approaches to the problem were discussed in our textbook and include, karma, appeal to sovereignty, the consolation of promise, and dualism. I also include some selective quotations from a variety of scholars that compliment my evaluation and help further illuminate my insights. I discuss the reoccurring theme of possible indifference displayed by God in regards to humankind. I also touch on the possible implications of having an indifferent solution to the problem of evil†¦show more content†¦This event was so disturbing that it actually modified or destroyed the faith of many of the survivors. One of the explanations usually offered, is that through pain and suffering, vital life lessons can be ascertained. Mar k Stephen Murray Scott seems to echo this thought in his work, Theodicy at the margins: New trajectories for the problem of evil. Mark Stephen Murray Scott states (2011), Since Christ was the ultimate victim of oppression, he identifies with those who suffer from victimization. (p. 151) He discusses how when we embrace ours and other people s pain and suffering that we are effectively embracing God. I feel this is a weak argument though because how could so much excessive, grotesque pain and suffering be necessary? I agree that pain and suffering can help us evolve and become a better version of ourselves, but I don t agree with the cost. Could an excess of evil teach us important lessons? I believe the answer is yes, but so can a small or moderate amount of evil as well. There seems to be a disconnection with the cost versus the actual value of the information gained. Our text explores four different attempts at answering the issue of evil s existence. Our book describes the four common attempts at finding a solution to the problem of evil as, karma, the consolation of promise, the appeal to sovereignty, and dualism. The concept of karma involves the individual person being reborn repeatedly until they can learn

Essay about Its Time for More Bible and Less Welfare

Its Time for More Bible and Less Welfare Government has considered and tried many plans for dealing with poverty in the United States, from all different points of view-welfare, workfare, charities, economic interference, and the like. There is one method, however, which has fallen out of popularity in this age. This is the biblical method. What God says about the poor The Christian, or biblical, view of poverty is liberal in some respects and conservative in others. For example, Paul gives this rule to the early church: If a man will not work, he shall not eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10). At the same time, the leaders of the church placed great importance on providing food for the poor, and James says that†¦show more content†¦Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien (Leviticus 19:9-10). In ancient Israel, those who couldnt afford to buy food could go into the fields and vineyards, follow behind the harvesters, and glean the excess from the fields or vines. In this way, individual Hebrews provided for their less fortunate neighbors. It seems at first glance that many of the Bibles statements on poverty contradict themselves. Are those not working not entitled to assistance, or do all the poor have rights which we must protect? Is poverty the result of individual choices, or is it a situation in which the individual has no choice? Should government, whether church government or state government, care for the poor, or is that the job only of individuals? In fact, none of these statements are contradictory, because poverty is an issue with a wide range of questions, and the Bible addresses many of those questions in the statements above. All the poor have rights to assistance, but they also have a responsibility to work in some way-thus the Hebrew practice of gleaning, where the poor could obtain assistance only if they would go out and get it; gleaning was undoubtedly hard work. Poverty often is the result of individual choices, but in many situations the poor are not responsible for theirShow MoreRela tedThe Issue Of The Gay Rights Movement Essay867 Words   |  4 Pagespeople living off of Welfare, or even that we can’t seem to get an effective health care bill passed. Those are only minor issues. The real problem is that we give away rights like they are free to give away. We gave the blacks their rights, and look what it got us. Barack Obama. We gave women their rights, and look what it got us. Hillary Clinton. What’s next? The Gay Rights Movement. The main issue with giving the gays their rights is that homosexuality does not truly exist. It’s an infection of theRead MoreThe Legalization Of Polygamy1349 Words   |  6 Pagescoffee dates, even when someone is eavesdropping on a neighbor s endeavors with his mistress. Nowadays, it seems as if horror stories about infidelity are more common than happy marriages. Cheating on a spouse is morally wrong, so why not make it easy and legalize the act of polygamy? Polygamy is defined as willfully and knowingly ha ving more than one husband or wife. As unnatural as it seems, many successful people have been in multiple marriages at once. The founder of the Mormons, Joseph SmithRead MoreThe Relationship Between State and Church Essay901 Words   |  4 PagesEvery person has the human right to engage in worship during public forums. Thus every person has the right to pray in school. When prayer was still allowed in school crime was at a low rate. Basically there was less crime everywhere. We consider the good ole days when basic morals were taught at home. When the difference between right and wrong was enforced. When family and religion was considered the most valuable and precious things to have. Now look at the mess we have created. Children lookRead MoreAttitudes of Christianity and Islam Toward Merchants and Trade.1421 Words   |  6 PagesChristian and Muslims toward trade shifted as conditions in the Christian and Islamic worlds changed. In the beginning, Christian attitudes were mo re negative, while Muslims tended to encourage and respect trade and merchants. Over time, Muslims became more like early Christians in that they were suspicious of traders whereas the Christians became more like the early Muslims, equating merchants (at least honest ones) with doing God’s work, reflecting the changed importance of trade in the high MiddleRead MoreTaking a Look at Political Ideologies684 Words   |  3 PagesIt’s an understatement to say our ideology shapes the way we live our lives every day. It affects the way we view and react to different people. Ideology is a set of beliefs that affects our outlook on the entire world. Most of the time ideology refers to a set of political beliefs or a set of ideas that relate to religious views. In a simpler meaning, ideology means having a views or opinions based on your ideas of that thing. The Republican ideology today is based on conservatism. They believeRead MoreGay Civil Rights689 Words   |  3 Pagesbe around them, so the people like this in the military will focus more on them and not getting their job done. People also believe this could cause fighting and disorder, again leading to not getting their jobs done. On the other hand people believe not allowing homosexuals in the military might take away from our ability to fight. Allowing them puts more people into our military. Not just more people, more willing people. More people who actually want to go over. When they were kicking the homosexualsRead MoreEssay about Intolerance of Homosexuals in a Tolerant Culture578 Words   |  3 PagesIntolerance of Homosexuals in a Tolerant Culture In this country there is a serious problem. This land that was founded on All are created equal we have a problem: inequality. Culturally, we have welfare and other social programs to help racial minorities and any other minority you can think. Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity form the basis for the religious miasma that is the U.S. So you can see religious and cultural differences are accepted. We live in a tolerant societyRead MoreThe Importance Of Studying The Relationships And Subject Formations1688 Words   |  7 Pagesmost taxes, and we get paid the least. Upper classed people are more than likely overly wealthy, and their money isn’t being spent in the right places, the lower class people actually have more rights and advantages than the middle class because the united states love to place economic and social welfare programs in place to take care of those people. According to the United States census, 22% of the American population is opn welf are, and of that 22%, African Americans take up 53% and of that 53%Read More The Welfare Problem Essay2320 Words   |  10 PagesThe Welfare Problem The poor are everywhere it seems. They are on the street corner, in the local 7 Eleven, and in the plaza. Sometimes I get sick of them and even angry with them when they pester me for money. I ask myself, Is the best way to deal with poor, to give them money from my pocket? Its obvious that other people have given them money from their pockets at different times. If no one had ever given them money, then these people wouldnt be standing here asking for money. The factRead More Abortion: Common Ground Must Be Found Essay1722 Words   |  7 Pagestrimester of pregnancy, the stage called quickening. Church courts imposed more severe sanctions than secular courts, and were more concerned with unborn human life and abortions that occurred earlier in pregnancy. The first abortion legislation enacted in the English-speaking world was an English law of 1803 that punished whoever acted â€Å"to cause and procure the miscarriage of any woman then being quick with child.† Later enactm ents more strictly imposed liability on pregnant women themselves, and because

Overcoming Challenges in a Multicultural Virtual Team free essay sample

When working in a multicultural virtual team, there are many challenges that you will most likely come across. Some of the problems that multi-cultural virtual teams experience include: time delays in replies, lack of synergy among cross-cultural team members, communications breakdowns, unresolved conflicts among members, limited hours allowed to be worked and different holidays. Multicultural teams often generate frustrating management dilemmas. Cultural differences alone can create substantial obstacles to effective teamwork. But these may be subtle and difficult to recognize until significant damage has already been done. The challenge in managing multicultural teams effectively is to recognize underlying cultural causes of conflict, and to intervene in ways that both get the team back on track and empower its members to deal with future challenges themselves. The good news is that cultural challenges are manageable if managers and team members choose the right strategy and avoid imposing single culture based approaches on multicultural situations. People tend to assume that challenges on multicultural teams arise from differing styles of communication. But this is only one of the four categories that, according to research, can create barriers to a team’s ultimate success. These categories are direct versus indirect communication; trouble with accents and fluency; differing attitudes toward hierarchy and authority; and conflict norms for decision making. (Brett 2006) Communication in Western cultures is typically direct and explicit. The meaning on the surface and a listener doesn’t have to know much about the context or the speaker to interpret it. This is not true in many other cultures, where meaning in imbedded in the way the message is presented. For example, Western negotiators get crucial information about the other parties’ preferences and priorities by asking direct question, such as â€Å"Do you prefer option A or option B? † In cultures that use indirect communication, negotiators may have to infer preferences and priorities from challenges or the lack of them and the other parties’ settlement proposal. In cross cultural negotiations, the non westerner can understand the direct communications of the westerner, but the westerner has difficulty nderstanding the indirect communications of the non westerner. The differences between indirect and direct communication can cause serious damage to relationships when team projects run into problems. (Brett 2006) Communications need to be carefully managed to take into account the cultural differences among team members. Communication is not necessarily the same when you match virtual teams in a multicultural environment. A major problem deals with the geographically dispersed virtual team members and how precisely they address questions or pass on information to their colleagues. Because many of these members reside in different time zone areas, it is a â€Å"rule of thumb† to be precise in what each member wants to know or how well they ask a question. If team members phrase their questions carefully the first time, they will get their point across successfully without having to deal with sending changes and making up for the time lost. Writing clearly and not using acronyms is another way to deal with this issue. Advances in technology have increased each person’s ability and likelihood of interacting with people of cultural backgrounds quite different from their own. (Vinaja 2003) There are a few issues that can arise from workers from different cultures. Maybe some workers will want to be aggressive about their work and others would not want to be like this because they do not believe in being that way. People from different cultures may tend to misunderstand each other’s behaviors or stereotype people from other countries and hence come to distrust one another. One cultural issue is the importance of social status within cultures. Americans have a â€Å"need for speed† and like the efficiency of targeted, sparse prose that is used when communicating by email. They also like fast responses. In other cultures, such as the Japanese, this form of communication collides with their work ethic. The Japanese are correct and proper, expecting to carefully craft their responses and the idea of a written message devoid of non verbal, social and grammar is an incomplete message. Virtual teams must recognize discrepancies between cultures in order to work efficiently and effectively. Working in a cross cultural virtual team can create awareness concerning the principle cultural differences that effect communication and working situation and it can provide techniques for lessening cultural based problems. Eventually with he growing use of the internet to conduct business to business transaction it is essential for cultures to learn to adapt and understand cultural issues. (Vinaja 2003) I believe that this team will spend quite some time before they reach the actual performing stage of their team. I think that there will definitely be some communication issues among the different cultural members among some other conflicts that with proper management can be successfully worked through. In my personal experience it is the Americans that have the hardest time coping with intercultural difference due the arrogance of our people. Some slight cultural awareness and diversity sensitivity may be in order to successfully integrate the team successfully but I think that it is fully achievable and that the team can be a great success with proper coordination and teamwork.

The Firemen of House 24 Essay Example For Students

The Firemen of House 24 Essay The firemen of house 24, a faded, red station known for its heroic endeavors, waited around their dining table playing poker. It had been weeks without a fire and the boredom had started to sink in. all of a suddenThe alarm began to ring; they sprang into action ready to fight. They arrived to a blazing inferno raging at the local mall, set by an arsonist who wanted to see the world burn. Hundreds of innocents trapped inside, the men rushed in to save as many as they could. It was all in vain as the arsonist used an accelerant and the fire burned too fast killing more than 400 including 6 firemen. We will write a custom essay on The Firemen of House 24 specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now It became a matter of blood for blood; they swore they would find him and make him pay. Warren was a volunteer firefighter and police officer who served along those the fallen. He took it upon himself to catch this man no matter what the cost. A week passed before there was another fire and this time the firefighters were ready and halted the fire in its tracks. The arsonist hadn’t planned on their fast response and became sloppy leaving behind evidence his can of gasoline and a lighter of his. Warren immediately started a finger print analysis test of them both, but the man was not in the system. Warren planned on catching him in the act instead. The mad man had been waiting and planning for his biggest attack on a gargantuan commercial church on Easter night where over 75, 000 people would be present. Warren began investigation into the lighter and discovered it had been custom made by only one man who makes the lighters. Easter day crept up, and both men were almost ready to complete their plans. Warren finally traced the lighter to a man in his fifties, an old explosives expert, named Mr. Jangles. Easter day arrived and Mr. Jangles hustled into the church to set up while warren searched his apartment because he had gotten a warrant. He found a map of the city in the room with a big x through it; it was the Church Of Life. He figured that’s him knocking over bystanders in his path, when Mr. Jangles noticed this he too began to run. When he ran out of breath, he stopped and pulled out a dead man switch and threatened to blow the place right there. Warren stood there thinking what to do he could be bluffing, but why would he. Warrens only choice was to shoot him where he stood, but the bomb might still go off. He aimed and fired his pistol shooting him in the leg injuring him, but stopping him from pressing the trigger. Then they wrestled for control of the switch only to find himself overwhelmed Mr. Jangles surrendered. He was arrested and taken to prison where he was to serve 3 consecutive life sentences in solitary confinement.