Devil Wisdom Reading

Why does evil exist?

There are many formulations of the “problem of evil,” some presupposing an all-powerful and all-merciful deity.  (If God loves everyone and can do anything, then why does he allow bad things to happen to people?)  But my question is more encompassing, with fewer assumptions:  Why is there evil or bad things at all?  Why do people do things to hurt other people (sometimes on a spectacular scale), and why are there earthquakes and tsunamis that kill and destroy?

While I was gently pouring the stones back forth and between my hands and thinking of the question, 20-Judgment-Petrified Wood pretty much jumped out of the pile to the table.  I thought it probably needs some back-up, so I dropped two more stones near it,  which turned out to be 3-Empress-Malachite and 12-Chariot-Amethyst.

Judgment makes me think of the Christian idea that this life is a vale of tears, just a testing place for souls headed to some other eternal destination.  Evil exists because that’s what humans are destined for.  To be tested.  Doesn’t really sound like the work of a merciful God, but maybe it’s tough love.  Just as a teenager thinks she can’t bear the agony of missing the party of the year while her father knows that grounding her on that Saturday night is the best thing he can do for her growth.    

Buddhism also teaches that this world is a mixed bag of good and bad for a reason.  We are lucky to live in this world because there’s just enough suffering for us to realize that we want to try to be released from the endless round of birth and death, but not so much suffering that we are unable to find the right way or have an opportunity to try it. 

And probably all religions teach that most evil in the world is caused by people who are doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons, hurting other people in the process.

But Judgment says that’s not the way it is everywhere, all the time.  There is a higher level we can rise to.  There is a heaven or a deathless realm or a nirvana, above or surrounding or within this world of bad things happening to good people.  And the best way to get there is to try to create it where we are right now, beginning within ourselves.

Empress backs all this up by saying, life itself is a mixture of good and bad (especially from the individual organism’s viewpoint).  Humans are born in pain and usually die in pain.  There has to be death in order for there to be life.  Living things eat and are eaten.  The same operations of the planet that make life possible also make weather and geological disasters inevitable.  This world, by its very nature, is a vale of tears--and joys.

Chariot says “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”  (Winston Churchill)  “The only way out is through.”  We’re here in this world of tears and joy, so we have to live by its rules.  Our choices are despair and give up or do the best we can with what we’ve got. 

So I guess the answer to the question of evil is “That’s just the way it is.  Live with it.”  But there is the intimation of something better, something greater, if we keep going in the right direction.

Temperance Wisdom Reading

Temperance wisdom question:  What opposites most need to reconciled at this time in our culture?

I decided to drop two stones and hope they are opposites or could be made to be!

And I got 18-Moon-Mother of Pearl and 8-Fortitude-Tiger Eye.  Interesting and, yes, arguably opposite pair. 

We need to reconcile illusion and imagination with surface appearances and materialism.

Imagination is a wonderful thing.  We need to be able to dream and visualize possibilities before we can pursue them and make changes to the way things are.  But often in our culture, our dreams and imagined worlds (and goals) are manipulated to serve someone else’s agenda (to sell something, or some other, more power-hungry agenda).  That’s when we need a good dose of reality, often of the surface appearance kind.  (If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .)

On the other hand, scientific materialism is the superstition of our age.  If an M.D. doesn’t agree with it, it can’t be possible.  Religion is the opiate of the masses.  Or at least more than a little kooky.  You get the idea. 

A negative (nefarious?) reconciliation of these opposites was the perpetration of the global warming denial hoax.  Smoke and mirrors, bought with very deep pockets and untold political influence, were able to blind people to the plain scientific truth just long enough so that there’s nothing that can be done to prevent serious repercussions.  So we might as well burn the climate and environment down.  (Hopefully, that’s another illusion that we can awaken from . . .)

A positive reconciliation would be a society that values the two truths, those of imagination and the spirit and those of science and reality.  We can dream of a world in which most people live in comfort and justice.  Then we can think of and act on a sensible, solid, practical way to make that a reality. 

Stranger things have happened!