In Reply to: New Physics posted by Perry on August 16, 2004 at 19:56:43:
From my position of priviledge, I see a perfection in the order of creation and human affairs the even includes suffering and death. And I wonder sometimes if what we call injustice & sin are really a matter of having a limited human perspective on the totality of existence. It seems that everything, even the human perception of separation from a supreme Being, is necessary to the workings of the universe.
Knowing what I do about the construction of the universe (web of creation), I find hard it to reconcile with the hope that a new heaven & new earth without suffering & death is something to be desired. Belief in a supernatural intervention that transforms the material universe into an eternal, incorruptible form is based in platonic dualism, imo. It has no support in what we can observe about the nature of being.
But if I suffered on a daily basis just the struggle to survive and perpetually faced the oppression of injustice and the agonies of spiritual separation & death, I would certainly hope for a better world and strain very hard to see the perfection of creation. This is probably why Jesus said the poor are blessed and will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven--because they live much closer to the edge of that reality.