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  • Created by: Lina
  • Created on: 28-05-12 19:08

Useful Vocabulary

Vegan- someone who does not eat any food made from animal products, such as meat, eggs, cheese or milk.

Vegetarian- a person who does not eat meat or fish.

Pescetarian- someone who eats only fish.

Omnivore- an animal that eats all kinds of food, including meat and plants.

Carnivore- an animal that eats meat.

Morality- a good moral conduct.

Ethics- moral beliefs sbout right and wrong.

Protein- a complex compound consisting of amino acids, found in many foods and essential for all living things.

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Stewardship

Stewardship is an ethic that embodies responsible planning and management of resources.

Many Christians consider the earth to have an intrinsic value because God created it whilst other Christians argue that it has instrumental value because God created specially to sustain human life and we are the ones who are sacred. But either way, there is clearly an imperative to protect the environment.

Christians believe that we have had this responsibility since the day God made us. We should therefore do our best to ensure every part of our day to day life is enviromentally friendly, from recycling to energy efficiency.

Christians may also choose to vote for a political candidate who shows concern for environmental issues; pray about the problems of the environment or take part in conversation projects locally or overseas.

Many Christians may view the natural world as a constant reminder of God as the all-powerful, all-loving, creative force that governs all existing things. Martin Luther King Jr talked about how he could see God in every beautiful sunset or moving view. There is the suggestion that we never understand God more than we do when we look at this amazing world we live in. To allow the damage of such a world is wilfully reduce our closeness to God.

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Environmental organizations

Some of the most famous organizations working to help the natural world are Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and The World Wildlife Fund for Nature. They work tirelessly to raise the environmental awareness of individuals, businesses and governments all around the world.

A Chtistian's commitment to stewardship extends to all faces of the world we live in, including human and animal rights. To be aware to take action and do as much as possible to ensure that others also accept these responsibilities, is of huge importance to Christians. Stewardship is treated as a responsibility and a privilage. For most Christians the debate over what meant by "dominion" is meaningless. Control means nothing if we do not also respect God's creation. But sometimes the concept of "dominion" is used to suggest humans have absolute power over animals particularly.

Christians believe it is responsibility of everyone to take care of the earth, whether we are religious or not. Some argue that it's the earth's intrinsic value that makes it worth protecting. Christians do not necessarily agree that the earth has such a value.

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Problem of Evil

'Determinism' is a line of thought that says we are not truly free at all, but that everything we do is really decided for us.

Moral Evil: Mankind has chosen to act in such a way that their actions cause harm and suffering to others, e.g. Hitler's actions during the Holocaust.

Natural Evil: This results from actions out of control yet they can cause devastation on a massive scale. The recent Tsunami is an example of the huge suffering which can be caused by nature.

A theodicy attempts to defend and justify God's benevolence, omnipotence and omniscience in the gace of evil.

Irenaeus- God permits evil for a good purpose.

Augustine: Evil and suffering are not God's responsibility and he is therefore justified in allowing them to continue.

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Irenaeus

God is responsible for evil; He intentionally created an imperfect world and imperfect beings to live in that world.

Free will is necessesary in order that humans can mature and grow through making their own moral choices as well as freely respond to the moral choices of others.

All people are eventally prepared for heaven as all humankind will mature because of suffering. 

Evil performs a positive role in God's ultimate plan. We are able to grow spiritually and morally because of evil.

Evil allows us to develop compassion generosity, wisdom and other 'goods'.

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Augustine

No! Evil is down to the 'fall' of angels and human beings. God created the world to be perfect and we have made it imperfect.

Free will is responsible for the 'fall'. Adam and Eve's poor choices through free will have led to the suffering that exists today.

God will judge people and either admit them to heaven or condemn them to hell, they can attain salvation through Christ.

Evil is either a sin or a punishment for sin. Either way, it is ultimately negative.

Evil allows us to see what is truly good in the world, to live a good Christian life.

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Why God Doesn't Stop Evil

God does not create or will evil- he created everything good. Evil cane be divided into moral evil (bad thing that humans are responsible for or sin) and natural evil (bad things that happened naturally or out of human's control). God created humans with free will, meaning that they could choose good or evil. God has not yet ended moral evil, because he does not want to take away free will. If there was no free will, humans could not love or do good either- they would not be able to choose anything. There are a number of explanations for natural evil; it has sometimes been thought to be a punishment for moral evil, but this is not right because bad things also happen to good people and God is omnibenevolent and therefore would not cause evil to human to humans. Sometimes it has been thought that it is the world is, and people get hurt because they happen to be in the way, but that is also wrong because God is omniscient and therefore did not create the world with imperfections. The final explanation suggests that when humans chose moral evil (the fall), the whole creation was damaged and became unbalanced because these humans are such as important part of the creation that when they go wrong, everything else is affected. God has allowed his own son, Jesus Christ, to suffer the horrible effects of both natural and moral evil. Some Christians believe that by suffering all that, Jesus Christ took away the worst effects of moral evil (eternal death). God wants people to stop moral evil and to help others suffering from moral and natural evils. This is part of God's plan to end evil because God will not allow evil to continue forever.

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The problem of evil

Omnibenevolent= all-present

Omniscient= all-knowing

Omnipotent= all-powerful

God knows about evil, has the power to stop it but it doesn't care. OR

God cares enough to stop evil, and he knows about it but powerless to stop it. OR

God cares, he is powerful enough to stop it but just doesn't know about it.

A moral evil is an evil that humans are responsible for, an evil that humans bring on themselves.

A natural evil is an evil that occur naturally, an evil that is out of human's control.

Zoroastrianism- there are 2 deities who are at war, Ahura Mazda, the good deity and Aura Mainya, the evil deity. Zarathustra tries to get people to worship Ahura Mazda. But the idea is that you choose which side to worship freely.

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