{"id":198,"date":"2020-03-13T17:58:18","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T16:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/?p=198"},"modified":"2021-11-26T08:50:26","modified_gmt":"2021-11-26T07:50:26","slug":"god-because-of-evil-some-reflections-in-the-face-of-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/2020\/03\/13\/god-because-of-evil-some-reflections-in-the-face-of-the-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"God Because of Evil &#8211; Some Reflections in the Face of the Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"twoclick_social_bookmarks_post_198 social_share_privacy clearfix 1.6.4 locale-de_DE sprite-de_DE\"><\/div><div class=\"twoclick-js\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/* <![CDATA[ *\/\njQuery(document).ready(function($){if($('.twoclick_social_bookmarks_post_198')){$('.twoclick_social_bookmarks_post_198').socialSharePrivacy({\"txt_help\":\"Wenn Sie diese Felder durch einen Klick aktivieren, werden Informationen an Facebook, Twitter, Flattr, Xing, t3n, LinkedIn, Pinterest oder Google eventuell ins Ausland \\u00fcbertragen und unter Umst\\u00e4nden auch dort gespeichert. N\\u00e4heres erfahren Sie durch einen Klick auf das <em>i<\\\/em>.\",\"settings_perma\":\"Dauerhaft aktivieren und Daten\\u00fcber-tragung zustimmen:\",\"info_link\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.heise.de\\\/ct\\\/artikel\\\/2-Klicks-fuer-mehr-Datenschutz-1333879.html\",\"uri\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\\\/zekkblog\\\/2020\\\/03\\\/13\\\/god-because-of-evil-some-reflections-in-the-face-of-the-pandemic\\\/\",\"post_id\":198,\"post_title_referrer_track\":\"God+Because+of+Evil+%26%238211%3B+Some+Reflections+in+the+Face+of+the+Pandemic\",\"display_infobox\":\"on\"});}});\n\/* ]]> *\/<\/script><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;&#8222;Hell is other people,\u201d says Sartre in his well-known play <em>Huis Clos <\/em>(1944). The \u201cother\u201d is often the source of fear, the \u201cnot-us\u201d that is frightening, but at the same time necessary and constitutive for our self-identity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHell isn\u2019t other people. Hell is yourself,\u201d is quoted from Wittgenstein, and never more than today could it be felt with flesh and blood, now that we are faced with a threat, the medium of which is \u201cus\u201d. I am talking about the new epidemic, the so-called coronavirus. It is true that the threatening \u201cother\u201d is still playing an important role there \u2013 for he\/ she is infecting me with the disease \u2013 but the virus would not work if I \u2013 better said \u201cmy body\u201d \u2013 is not cooperating. The virus is best transferred by our hands; they should constantly be washed and disinfected, we are told. \u201cMy body\u201d is turned into my enemy.&nbsp;The enemy is no longer the \u201cother,\u201d who is going to threaten my \u201cculture\u201d with his\/ her (to me fully unknown) culture \u2013 religion, language, value system, habits etc. The enemy is <em>me<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And unlike other instances of evil that are exclusively confined to a certain social class, or race, or religion, or country \u2013 like poverty, social injustice, slavery, colonialism, genocide, racial or religious discrimination or persecution etc. \u2013 this one knows no borders. It infects everyone \u2013 regardless of any classifications \u2013 and with <em>our<\/em> help; through <em>us<\/em>. Our bodies turn into death-mediums for others as well as ourselves \u2013 without us wanting and willing it. We turn into the&nbsp; \u201cmediums of evil\u201d, without intending to be so. Thus, demonstrating to us, more than ever before, that the actual threat is not \u201cthe other\u201d but <em>ourselves<\/em>. We can turn into the hell for ourselves and to the world.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These days, hearing constantly the alarming news of the fast spread of the epidemic worldwide, and the lack of certain goods in the market \u2013 which is due to people\u2019s onrush to the supermarkets, in order to buy antiseptics and disinfectants, masks, and food, mostly to store, out of the fear of the imminent \u201capocalypse\u201d (!) \u2013 I cannot help but being reminded of the Portuguese author, Jos\u00e9 Saramago\u2019s novel, <em>Blindness <\/em>(1995). It is the story of an epidemic of blindness afflicting people, one after the other, in an unnamed city, following a swift social breakdown. The epidemic starts with one person suddenly going blind, and then fastly spreading around, without any clear reason or explanation. In panic, morality and ethics fail; people literally kill each other in order to survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/files\/2020\/03\/face-mask-4890115_1920-1024x633.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-200\" width=\"318\" height=\"198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/files\/2020\/03\/face-mask-4890115_1920-1024x633.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/files\/2020\/03\/face-mask-4890115_1920-768x475.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/files\/2020\/03\/face-mask-4890115_1920-485x300.jpg 485w, https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/files\/2020\/03\/face-mask-4890115_1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 318px) 100vw, 318px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>We<\/em> are for the most part the source of evil, neither \u201cGod\u201d nor \u201cothers\u201d \u2013 and the most tragic part is that we do not realize it, as is clear in the case of mediating this virus. We harm others without realizing it. However, most of the times the evil comes or is sustained through our <em>in<\/em>action. But is the situation this hopeless? Could anything be done against it? Or are we doomed? My response is: <em>Yes<\/em>, by realizing the source of true evil in \u201cus\u201d, and while taking responsibility, going for action. Like Dr. Rieux in Albert Camus\u2019 <em>La Peste <\/em>(1947), in a plague-stricken world, all the more absurd it seems, we have to fight against the evil: \u201cI have no idea what\u2019s awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the face of this horrendous evil, possessing nothing but this flawed and broken existence, how are we to bear <em>The Unbearable Lightness of Being? <\/em>(the title of a novel by the Czech author Milan Kundera) What to do with this feeling of absurdity, despair and meaninglessness in the face of evil? There, maybe, faith can help us; a kind of belief and hope in a higher being \u2013 call it God if you may \u2013 out of pure pragmatic reasons, that can give meaning to our life and work as a source of energy <em>to act <\/em>\u2013 no longer faith for the purpose of escapism, or over\/ underestimating man\u2019s role in the evil of the world. Therefore, I agree with the American philosopher John Caputo in that: we need to believe in God, not \u201cin spite of\u201d evil, but exactly \u201cbecause of\u201d it \u2013 and I would add: and in order to fight <em>against it<\/em>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right has-blue-color has-text-color\">Saida Mirsadri ist Doktorandin am Zentrum f\u00fcr Komparative Theologie und Kulturwissenschaften in Paderborn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;&#8222;Hell is other people,\u201d says Sartre in his well-known play Huis Clos (1944). The \u201cother\u201d is often the source of fear, the \u201cnot-us\u201d that is frightening, but at the same time necessary and constitutive for our self-identity.&nbsp; \u201cHell isn\u2019t other &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/2020\/03\/13\/god-because-of-evil-some-reflections-in-the-face-of-the-pandemic\/\">Weiterlesen <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8594,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8594"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-paderborn.de\/zekkblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}