THOUGHT OF THE WEEK – October 15, 2021
I want to talk with you about the concept of ‘good versus evil’.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending my annual men’s group that I missed last year due to Covid.
One of the discussions we had was regarding the afterlife, religion, and our beliefs.
I suggested that any religion or belief is valid, as long as it’s a way to treat all people with kindness and love. It’s when we use our beliefs to discriminate–or even worse, harm others– that we have forgotten the intent and strayed way off course.
The incredible gift is that we all had a different conception, yet we were able to listen to each other and find commonality even though our beliefs were so different– from Christian, to Jewish, to Quantum Physics.
My questions to you are: What are your beliefs? How do you make sense of everything in this world? Finally, what do you think happens in the afterlife?
For me, the greatest difficulty lies in making peace with evil. How does a loving God allow so much evil and hurt in this world? The basic explanation for me, is otherwise we wouldn’t have any freedom of choice to be good and righteous.
I’m reminded of a story of two brothers who lived through the Holocaust who were reunited afterwards; one remained a believer and the other became an atheist.
The atheist said to his brother, “After all the evil we witnessed, how can you believe”? To which the believer responded, “As a believer, I must explain evil, yet as an atheist, you have to explain everything else”.
This week, let’s focus on all the good we have in this world. There are so many amazing people doing amazing things– let’s not lose sight of that!
Accountability, Community, Unconditional Love
Asher
I want to remind all of you that you can hear more on my podcast, Showing Up. We have lots of amazing shows with interesting guests on a variety of personal development topics. It would be great if you could also rate 5 stars, review and subscribe to the show. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/showing-up-with-asher-gottesman/id1489856285y