Three Friends Discuss Good and Evil

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#Evil    #Worldviews
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Land laid waste, strewn bodies hacked to pieces, fields blood drenched, women and children forced to be prostitutes and slaves, families torn apart. It’s history. Genghis Kahn, the Huns, Vikings, Caesars, Hitler, Stalin and Mao—the list of heartless killers never ends. Today, instead of slaughtering each other with spears and swords, we can devastate our planet with ballistic missiles carrying atomic warheads.

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Why can’t people live together in peace and work for a good world thought Terra as she waited on her friends to bring the drinks and pizza to the park table?

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Pan arrived with the drinks. “Hello, Terra, have you been waiting long?”

“No Pan, I arrived five minutes ago. I brought a chocolate cake.”

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“Great. I love chocolate. Chris does too. Here he is with the pizza. Everybody dig it. Boy, this will be a good outing. What subject would be good to discuss today Terra?”

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“Well I’ve been thinking about wars, devastation and our real danger of destroying life on this planet. We can discuss what we think about good and evil and what might be the outcome. Do you guys agree?”

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“Oh yes, Terra that bothers me too.” Pan grabbed a big piece of pizza and a bottle of green tea, “Chris, is that alright with you?”

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“Sure, Terra what do you think about good and evil?”

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The Materialist View

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“Well, they both definitely exist and I prefer the good. Since man evolved, we’ve been slaughtering each other in larger numbers with greater efficiency. It’s scary. We might exterminate everybody. Or, if we don’t, a huge asteroid slamming earth might. The universe has always existed--it’s just energy evolving into plants, puppies and people. Maybe people exist on other planets too. We can’t escape destruction. Even if the sun doesn’t blow us up our lights go out when we return to dirt. I think science proves me right. It’s our fate. So, ‘do your own thing’ seems logical. Shrugging her shoulders--eat, drink, be merry for tomorrow we die. But, it bothers me. What do you think Pan?”

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The Pantheist View

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Smiling, “I think this sure is good pizza. But I’m glad it’s plain cheese. I don’t eat meat. It might be one of my ancestors. Ha! Ha!”

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“I largely agree with Terra. The universe is a mass of energy that assumes different shapes. But I believe its all illusion. It’s like the movie horse and rider moving across the screen. Flick the switch and it disappears. It was never there. It’s like vegetation that comes to life in the spring, dies in the fall and returns next spring.”

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“Justice requires we reap what we sew—things assume thousands of forms and lifetimes until ceasing to exist. They’re absorbed into the World Soul like waves of the sea coming to rest.” The universe is a principle, a force—it’s god. And as part of it, I’m god. Only ignorance imagines that pains, death, disasters, disunities are real.”

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“Chris, finish off that big piece of chocolate cake and tell us what you think.”

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The Christian Theist View

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 “Hum. That lunch was good. Okay. First, I’m thankful I live in a country that still respects human life, allows free speech and opposing worldviews. But I believe my view of the world is what makes this possible. And I believe my view alone gives life dignity, a basis for ethics, makes sense of justice, truth, love, freedom, responsibility, assures us of an afterlife, and furnishes ultimate purpose for living. So goodness will triumph.”

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“If we can put our philosophy aside, science shows the universe is not eternal. Like a new wound clock, it’s running down, so it must have had a beginning, a starting point. Good sense, experience, and science shows non-existence can’t produce existence. Something can’t come from nothing—nothing is mindless, powerless, space less, timeless, a no-existence. So the nonexistent universe didn’t produce itself—that’s a logical contradiction. Then something must have produced it.

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“An eternal source is necessary to explain this temporal dependent universe, and its cause must be equal to or greater than its effect, the universe itself. It would be the source of all life, consciousness, intelligence, power, and will existing in the effect. That being true, we owe our every breath, our every heartbeat to our source.”

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“I know of no evidence that molecules can evolve or arrange themselves into men even in fourteen billion years. True science acknowledges amino acids in nature do not form proteins or a chain in DNA sequence, and they easily break up. One microscopic DNA molecule contains as much information as a big city library. This requires a creative intelligence far exceeding a human mind. The human body is irreducibly complex and must be alive and functional at the outset. And the anthropic principle of 122 factors—right atmosphere, water, temperature, gravity--shows the physical universe is exactly what it must be for man to originate on earth.”

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“Chris, it sounds like you believe in God. Do you believe the Arab who claimed an angel told him God’s word?”

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“No Terra. I believe the man who came from heaven, lived a perfect life, healed the sick, in love gave his life on the cross to correct our wrong doings, arose from the dead, and promised all who trust in him eternal life. He’s the only hope for this evil world. Not just some man who came out of a cave and claimed an angel nobody else saw. Jesus is the One who loved us and died to save us."

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“As made in God’s image, we have dignity and choice--we will not be annihilated. King Jesus will imprison evil forever and restore the earth to its original paradise. He triumphed over death, the devil, deceit and evil. We can too if we choose life in him and his restored paradise.” Would you like to say, Lord Jesus I'm a sinner and I trust you now and forever to be my Savior, Lord and Guide. Done! Thank you Lord. I know according to your word: "he who hears Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life" (John 5:24). Praise God I'm born into God's eternal kingdom right now to live forever with Him.

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