And I am not going to pass on this either...
In Victor's excellent response:
Colin wrote:
> <clip> By believing this, Xtians think we escape the consequences of our
> thoughts and actions. his is magical thiking. <clip>
And Victor replied:
> Some Christians do think in this way but to imply that all Christians follow
> this pattern of thought is a vast generalization and innaccurate.
Right on, my brother!
And Colin raised the necessary qustion:
> <clip> Compare His suffering with that a girl named Anna who was beaten and
> burned, starved and tied up in abath until she died of cold and malnutrion.
> She was 6 years old. She suffered this abuse for years.
> > people who in their fantasy think Jesus' suffering was anything like this,
> have no clue what suffering is. What about the Jews in the camps? What about
> thstarving in Afirca? What about the millions of children starved, beaten,
> raped, killed everyday in this world?
>
William Styron, in his book, 'Sophie's Choice,' which is centered on the
Holocaust, asks the question, in relation to the Holocaust, "Where was God?"
And Stron responds to his own question with another question, "Where was man?"
"Where was man" may be phrased in a gender-exclusive way, but that is *the*
question.
We should quit blaming God for what we do. We should quit blaming God for what
humans do. Blaming God is the ultimate irresponsibility... practiced by people
of faith and people who question faith and people who mock faith.
The story is told from one of the death camps that a teen age boy was hung by
the Nazi's with piano wire instead of rope to make his suffering and death more
terrible. The death camp inmates were as always forced to watch. One cried
out, "where is God?' Another inmate pointed to the dying and suffering victim
and said, "There is God."
God is found in those who suffer, not in those who inflict suffering.
That is the point of the Crucifixion.
As Christianity is a child of Judiasm, the parent of that concept is Israel as
the suffering servant in Isaiah 40-55 and elsewhere in the books of the
prophets.
Other faith systems will teach similarly, so I am not saying at all that
Christianity is superior. I am saying that God, by whatever term we use for
God, is found in those who suffer, not in those who inflict suffering.
(the Rev) Vince
(By the way, if the incoming administration succeeds in its plans to drill for
oil and despoil the Alaskan wilderness - for the sake of more fossil fuel for
human cars, electricity to run our computers, our little toys and
entertainments, etc, we could ask: who created the beauty? Who ruined the
beauty, and why? This is just a little illustration of the question in all
things: where are we? Where are we?
