[MD] Faith/Skepticism

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Michael]
I see the extent of man's depravity *and* the presence of God:

[Arlo]
Well this is my point. You ascribe that which supports your view of a 
"loving god" to being "evidence of god", and that which denies that 
view as being nothing but "bad people". So you can end up looking at 
a work of Cezanne and "seeing the hand of god", but looking at a 
child burning in napalm as "seeing the hand of man".

The argument ends up being; good things prove their is a god, bad 
things are attributable to people. We see a plane crash and everyone 
walk away and we "thank god", we see a plane crash and everyone die 
and what do we do? Blame it on the mechanics or the weather or human 
error. We catch a touchdown pass and we thank god, we drop it and we 
think about how we should practice more. And that same touchdown 
completion in the eyes of the defender is not evidence of god at all.

When a plane crashes, whether everyone lives or everyone dies has 
nothing to do with "god", it has to do with a myriad of human and 
environmental factors.

I submit you do not see the extent of man's depravity and the 
presence of God, you see the extent of man's depravity and the extent 
of his goodness. You see how cruel he can be, and also how loving. 
How barbaric and how humanitarian. How destructive and how creative.