On Thu, 06 Jan 2005 03:31:35 GMT, stephenrhowell{at}btinternet.com wrote:

>"Such disasters
>happen because the physical world was corrupted as a result of human
>sin."
>
>I am interested in this comment. It implies that if humans had not
>sinned the physical world would not be "corrupted". What does that
>mean? Would there be no plate techtonics? Would there be no
>earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, lightning, meteorites, road
>accidents, cancer, heart disease, strokes, diabetes?

You're getting the right idea.  Christians believe that the universe
was perfect when God originally created it.  Before the first sin,
there were no destructive storms, no floods, no earthquakes, no
accidents, and no diseases, and there was no death.  The entire
universe and all living creatures in it were in perfect harmony with
God, and He kept everything in order.

> Would the world
>exist in a state of pertetual suspended animation?

In the perfect world that God originally created, all living creatures
were able to move freely without fear of harm.  They didn't even know
what harm was!  They had never experienced any kind of evil or
suffering.

>I find it very depressing that many people still cling to this belief
>that everything always has to be somebody's fault. If it isn't God's
>fault, then it's the fault of us sinful humans. The concept of blame
>solves no problems. It doesn't feed the hungry or house the homeless.

You are right that neither blaming God nor blaming humans, in itself,
solves the problem.  We still need to respond with compassion to the
suffering in the world.  We need to try to do whatever we can to make
things better.

None the less, it is important to understand what the source of the
evil in the world is, because if we ignore the true cause of our
suffering, we will never be able to overcome it.  It is good that
researchers in many branches of science are seeking solutions.  We
should try to apply these solutions wherever we reasonably can, but if
we expect that the human race, collectively, is going to be able to
solve all of these problems on its own, by human effort, we are
opening ourselves up to an even worse kind of evil than what we have
now.

In areas such as social engineering and law, people are trying to
remake society and in doing that they are ultimately trying to remake
other people.  That may appear at first glance to be a noble effort,
and in most cases it is done with good intentions, but what a lot of
people are missing is that when people try to remake others, the ones
who are doing the remaking are themselves just as seriously flawed as
are the people whom they are trying to change for the better.  Would
you really want to give any psychologist, sociologist, politician or
lawyer enough power to let him or her get inside of your mind and
forcibly change how you think and behave?  I can't imagine any worse
form of human tyranny.

The account of the Fall into sin in the Bible is a simple allegorical
story which illustrates a real event in history that is actually far
deeper in its meaning than what any of us can fully understand.
Someone asked me how I know that the Fall actually happened.  I know
because I think it is quite  reasonable to accept the idea that the
biblical writer who wrote the story down received the content of it in
the form of inspiration from God.  Science can neither prove nor
disprove even the existence of God, let alone the reality of the Fall,
but there is nothing in a reasonable allegorical reading of the
biblical account of the Fall that conflicts with anything that science
has proven.

Someone also raised the question as to why God would allow the sin of
the first humans to affect all of their descendants.   For one thing,
the only way God could prevent the corruption of the physical world
that was one of the consequences of the Fall from affecting all of us
would be to bring the whole creation back into perfect harmony with
Him, and He can't do that without taking human freedom away.  God does
not force us to obey him, because if He were to do so He would become
the ultimate tyrant, and that kind of tyranny would be a far worse
evil than what we experience on earth now.  Through all the time since
the Fall, humans have continued to choose to disobey God, so both
moral and physical evils continue to mar our experience.

It is crucial to recognize that the basic cause of all of the evil in
the world, both moral and physical, is sin against a holy God.  Until
people realize that, they will continue to struggle to use methods of
increasing sophistication to try to remedy the problems in our world,
without having a clear idea of what an ideal world should be like.  If
your idea of what is best conflicts with mine, how can we determine
which of us is right?  The only possible way is to seek guidance from
the infinite, just, and loving God who is far above us all.

__________
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