Feeling spontaneous, I attended PH1102E: Introduction to Philosophy last Friday. Turned out to be a lecture on the problem of evil. It is one of the most used argument against theism and in particular, Christianity. In short, it argues that the evil that is present in the world is inconsistent with the notion that there is a God who is both omni-benevolent and omnipotent.
I was feeling rather frustrated throughout the lecture as I felt that the lecturer was giving too little credit to the four arguments against the problem of evil & was rather biased in the way he presented the theist's defense. (After the lecture I realized that it was because it is an introductory lecture and there wasn't enough time to go into the finer detail.. and I guess the lecturer has to say what he believes.) A example he raised was of Elizabeth Fritzl, a girl who was held captive and raped by her father for 18 years. Our best defense for God, according to the lecturer is that God has a higher purpose that is unknown to us, but one that is good, perhaps one that is found in the afterlife. To this I agree. But I must also say that just stopping there is doing great injustice to Christianity.
Anyway I have been mulling over it since then and one thing I realize is that while morality is not relative, I strongly believe that suffering is. The human spirit is much stronger than most people think. I know because I have once lived a life that could be deemed to be not worth living by many, albeit it was only for a few days. A victim of brain infection, I lost almost all ability to see and could not speak. But those few days I suffered the most was when no one believed me and was even punished for 'lying'. In one week, I lost almost everything. Yes I am perfectly fine now, but just looking at that time frame in my life and nothing else, it is an experience no one would want to go through - what more as a nine-year old. But to be honest, I did not feel like I was the most "poor thing" person on earth then. No - that thought was only present in the mind of others and in mine while I was recovering. But while I was at the peak of my suffering, only two things were on my mind: fear and survival. The mental preoccupation with these two notions meant that I had no time to compare myself with other kids, no time to think why this had to happen to me. I was not sad or dwelling in self-pity. I was wholly focused on my future and in that sense failed to see how much I was suffering. And I believe that it is when we are able to let go of asking why that we are able to reap the most benefit from our suffering.
Of course, my case does not apply to all who suffered. I could very well have lingered in self-pity and complained about how much I was suffering. But that does not exclude the fact that we all can choose not to.
What I want to say in other words, is that it is impossible to know how much another is suffering. The ones who use suffering as an argument against the existence of God are usually not the ones who have suffered.
And if suffering is relative, then so is joy. The lecturer drew a graph of Elizabeth Fritzl's level of joy with respect to the events that occurred in her life. It basically showed her joy level way below the barely worth living level for the majority of her life which then increased to a normal person level of joy when she was rescued. Don't you think that she would have been much much happier than a normal person when she was rescued? I know I was when I was finally able to swallow my food. the graph the lecturer drew is what he perceived her level of joy to be. It is from his perspective, not Elizabeth's. We can only imagine what it is. And imagination is out-of-bounds for philosophy.
(Haha seems like taking imagining animals last semester was a very good choice)
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