https://youtu.be/VDu4YZmXgRk

I respond to a conversation about the Biblical story of Job that occurred during an EFAP mini superchat catchup on 2021-06-24.

Original comment
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~ 3:39:00 Didn't Rags go to a Catholic school? IIRC he mentioned it previously, but point being, I thought he would know what Fear means in the biblical sense. Those words don't mean the same things they mean today. In the Biblical context, to Fear is to respect, to revere. But if God is capable of taking away everything you worked for in your life, perhaps we should fear him in the modern sense of the word, too...

edit: I thought I was correct; Rags commented on this distinction later. Good boy Rag!

Not to point fingers, but as a matter of fact: it's easier to be casually dismissive of a story when you haven't read the original text. People's simplistic retellings and rationalizations are admittedly frustrating. Far be it from me to defend the poor argumentation and reasoning of many religious people. They can flounder with their poor interpretations; I speak only for myself. It's easy to attack poor argumentation. Your skepticism makes you wiser than those who preach blind faith. But if you are to challenge any school of thought, not in the least one that has transfixed billions of people throughout history, then it serves us right, in seeking the truth, to acknowledge only the greatest possible arguments for said school. There are many people in chat, for example, who abstractly agree with you, but can't necessarily articulate why. In the same way that you wouldn't prefer your position to be represented by them, it's only fair that the Judeo-Christian worldview be given the best arguments from the most charitable lens. Not everyone who claims belief in the Bible have read and comprehended it. But out of those who can articulate their positions well, only those should be chosen to make arguments for and against the veracity of the supposed Truths within it. In other words, don't pick convenient enemies who make poor arguments to be your opposition. There are many a fool on reddit I could find to make poor arguments for atheism. Get in the ring with someone within your intellectual weight class, and let the fools on either side squabble on what level of comprehension they're capable of.

The mythological story of Job is, at its core and at its best, this: no matter what undue suffering comes my way, I will be good. Though Hell came to me, both by acts of nature (God) and acts of others (Sabeans & Chaldeans) and though I may mourn the loss of everything good that was taken from me, I will not allow it to make me become bitter, resentful, and angry. This principle does indeed overlap with stoicism. Job is described as a perfect man in the original text; he is not like you or I. Hell is a state of being that comes upon us when our lives are overtaken by Chaos. Job was in Hell. And it's only fair to put yourself in his shoes and to wonder why he doesn't shake his fist at God for putting him there. But Job refuses to do so. Why? If you take God in a literalistic sense, as a moral actor like you or I, you'd be rightfully upset at him. But within the narrative itself and within its theology, God is the source of all that is; the personification of reality. So when something happens in reality, like a natural disaster, humans are forced to attempt to rationalize that in the only way we know how, by personifying it within a narrative lens. It's why storytelling (if not *good* storytelling) is a Human Universal. Humans need an explanation of reality, a Conceptual Schema, in order to continue to transform Chaos into Order. So how do you continue to live when your Schema is destroyed by Chaos? Job's example is presented as the ideal response; he doesn't blame his problems on the Chaldeans, nor the Sabeans, though they are responsible for some. He doesn't blame the natural disasters on the only person left to blame, nature itself, or God. He mourns, he struggles, he questions why he was ever born, he teeters on the brink of insanity as even his wife encourages him to give up. But he shoulders his burden and carries on. It's wiser to be cynical, skeptical, and untrusting, than to be naive, blind, and foolishly vulnerable to usurpation. It's not as if there is no wisdom to shaking your fist at God when he clearly allowed Hell to be brought about. But it's wiser still, to be courageous; to know that Hell, Chaos, is around the corner, and to have integrated your Shadow to be ready to meet it.

But why would God do such a thing, if God is Good? I'm certain this isn't the first time we've encountered Theodicy. The better question to ask is this: if there were no Evil, could there be any Good? The only case there could be no God, is if there were no Evil. I'm not referring to a material, moral agent when I speak of God. I'm invoking the narrative manifestation of all there is, or perhaps, the hypothetical source of all the Good that there is. If there is Good that can be abstracted, and then condensed into an archetypical moral agent for the purposes of conceptual exploration within a narrative, that is God. So when God "makes drunken bets with Satan" to quote a member of chat, he's making a bet on his champion, Job. God says, he's perfect, which means he won't cease to believe that all that is Good will prevail, even if everything is taken from him. That courageous optimism; knowing Hell, but facing it head-on and not allowing it to win over you, speaks deeply to what it means to be Human. It's not as if this ancient story has stuck around for millenia, for no reason. Only a great fool would be casually dismissive of that. The less primitive wisdom of Cynicism must at least grapple with it.

"'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" - Alfred Lord Tennyson