Three things have me thinking about causation: a comment on autism my wife heard on the radio…the Arizona shooting…and the ending of my Congo book (mentioned in the previous post). We love to know WHY something has happened. Why autism or any other illness? Why a senseless shooting? Why so much corruption and unrest in central Africa?
Why is a good essential question. Might it be part of being an image bearer of God? It is hard to have dominion over our world if we don’t have the capacity to understand cause and effect. But, being human and therefore limited hands us a challenge. How do we understand complex facets of problems. Too often we mistake correlations for causes. And even more often we limit the cause to one simplistic answer.
Simple works for us. It is more efficient. We consider a problem, conclude an answer, and move on to other subjects. If we couldn’t move on, we might bog down and lose traction in our lives. Simple also works for us humans when we want to lay the blame for something that has happened at someone else’s feet.
Here’s what I notice in many of these kinds of conversations. If you try to single out a particular causal facet for focused discussion, there will be others who say, “yes, but, you also need to consider…”. It is extremely hard to play out one part of the cause/effect without being accused of being biased. And if you try to develop a laundry list of causes…the conversation often loses traction and some hear you as letting others (e.g., vaccine manufacturers, Sara Palin, Mobutu, etc.) off the hook.
Try this experiment!
So, try to have a conversation today where you either (a) try to single out a particular cause for some widely discussed situation, or (b) try to list the complexities of the situation…and see what happens. Would love to hear your experience! What happens when you single out a possible cause? What happens when you try to include all of the possible causes?
Not sure what to talk about? Try one of these:
Consider autism. Why does it happen and why does it seem to start happening soon after a vaccine? There are known neurotoxins in vaccines…child seems to develop them after being vaccinated…thus it is the fault of companies who make them (and the medical establishment that promote them). See if you can talk about the relationship between the two without getting into an argument. Or you might decide to discuss the fact that autism is higher in subsequently born children if they arrive within one year of their older sibling. (Of course, if this were true then we should be able to document higher autism rates in Catholic families from the previous century!)
Consider the Arizona shooting. Why would someone shoot so many people and have so little disregard for human life? Sounds like the shooter was delusional and probably suffering from paranoid schizophrenia (armchair diagnosis). Try discussing the possible causes of this behavior? Schizophrenia? Over the top political fighting language? Failure of the educational system to get him to treatment?
Consider the Congo. Why is there so much corruption and unrest? African culture? The sad effects of so many decades of European rule and racism? Greed over the countries natural resources?
Musings on Faith and Psychology 
Well here’s my Musings as an Artist:)
ummmmm I’ll take a Jab at your Autism Q.First.
I tend to be more of a conspiracy theorist at heart so It is my opinion of course that after making the announcement recently on the news about vaccines NOT being a linked to Autism now , The Government had to quickly come up with this new discovery that its from not spacing children apart a certain amount of years… The FDA would go completely bankrupt with law suits if they ever had to admit they gave contaminated vaccines out knowingly to children who were pre- disposed to getting Autism due to family History etc.. I think Autism is caused by a genetic malformation just like other diseases are. Just like diabetes ,you can trigger it later in life if its inhereted by not taking care of your self so it becomes on- set . My opinion its the same for Autism its “triggered ” by certain toxins if certain individuals who are prone to Autism get overly exposed to those toxins they on- set Autism…Well that’s the only thing I can figure since first borns have been born with it (no spacing there) and because it was first diagnosed over 50 years ago b4 our Vaccine happy culture began like it is today . We had vaccines back then but nothing like the amount they do today and it was much rarer back then. They Amish culture has no known cases of Autism because they do not believe in vaccinating (interesting huh)
If you were to stretch out our genome it would go from here to the moon and I think they haven’t even begun to figure out half of its cause and effects . I think as they research our DNA more and more we will have more and more discoveries to the causes of disease etc…As for the other Q’s here ,The shooting etc. I think we live in a fallen world and until The Kindgom of Heaven sets its self up and rules on this Earth again ,we will for ever have things to muse about becuse until that time comes there will always be Evil people in this world to harm other people etc, etc ,etc… and those are some of my musings:)
I saw a bumper sticker recently that made me laugh out loud, maybe because it resonated with my way of thinking:
“EVERY COMPLEX PROBLEM ALWAYS HAS A SIMPLE ANSWER…AND IT’S USUALLY ALWAYS WRONG!”
That quote (or paraphrase of) is attributed to H.L. Mencken though I saw that several others have been given credit for it as well. Fun quote.
good one
Why? Because we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The world is imperfect because of our basic sin nature.
Like in the movie Bruce Almighty … we are really saying … if we were God we’d do it better.