Some people have a hard time reconciling Hitler with a just world. I see no major problem created by Hitler for believing in a just world―he did get some level of comeuppance (it was inadequate to his crimes).
Is there any way to reconcile the life of Leopold II with a just world? Is there anyone who can look at his life and truly believe that a person gets what they deserve? Leopold II was personally responsible for millions of deaths (probably over 10 million) and lived a nice, comfortable, and happy life. It was a life fun of riches and pleasures (including some great whores). For those that believe the world is just, does the life of Leopold II cause you to question this belief?
Plenty of Christians. It’s logically implied by the common claim that God’s omnipotent, omniscient, and just. The arguments usually boil down to "You can’t understand God " and “This world doesn’t matter, anyway !”
You trying to derail the tread ? I answered a question, and I didn’t attribute any claims to Christians that they don’t make all the time, including on this board whenever the subject comes up.
You are just demonstrating why I don’t bother with being polite or respectful very often; it doesn’t work.
You are the one inserting the hijack.
I do not care that you never try being respectful, (and you were certainly not doing that here). Your lack of civility, however, is an issue when you interrupt a thread to make a comment that is really not pertinent to the discussion. Take your anti-religious hard-on to religious threads rather than inserting your beliefs into every opening that you consider a straight line.
How is it a hijack ? Koxinga asked a question of the OP; “Who on earth ever advocates that position?”. “That position” being that the world is just. When has that ever been anything but a religious claim ?
I was being civil and respectful, in my first post. And it WAS pertinent to the discussion. Again, when does anyone ever claim the world is just, except as a religious claim ?
Kharma or karma ( I’ve seen it spelled both ways ) is still a religious, or at least a superstitious belief. I DID make a mistake in attributing only Christianity with that claim, but that’s because I seldom run into non-Christians making that claim.
Perhaps somewhere there really are people who claim the world is just, and do so for non-religious reasons. But if they exist, they seem pretty obscure. When someone starts making an argument under the assumption that the world must be just, or asking that others show how something that happens is compatible with the idea that the world is just, then it’s a safe assumption the argument is about religion. Either they are operating under religious assumptions, or they are trying to undercut someone else’s religious claims.
Dude, you’re forgetting that while Christians think we live in a just universe, they don’t believe everyone gets justice on planet Earth. You don’t get justice here on Earth, but Jesus is keeping a list of asses he’s gonna kick once they’re no longer living.
No one seems interested in defending him; and the question asked by the OP was if his life could be reconciled with a just world, not whether or not he was a good man.
These are people that was thinking about when I wrote the OP. I know a bunch of people that think that people “get what is coming to them.” And that you reap what you sow. Maybe nobody here thinks like that.
Well, find me a Christian who thinks you always get your just deserts in this world. I don’t think you’ll find many.
Every Christian I’ve ever heard of thinks that bad things happen to good people and vice-versa, and it sucks, but it’ll all even out in the afterlife.
I know of no Christians who believe that the good are always rewarded in this life, and the evil are always punished in this life. Sure, you’ll find some Prosperity Gospel hucksters, but even they don’t think that 10 year old Timmy got cancer because he deserved it.
Some do; the same sort who reconcile a literal belief in the Flood of Noah and a just God by claiming that the babies that drowned were “evil babies”. They aren’t likely to show up on the Dope because they’d get rhetorically ripped in half, but I’ve run into them.
And there’s the occasional poster on this board who claims that all suffering in this life is either meaningless compared to the eternal afterlife or is a “learning experience” designed to benefit us in eternity.
