“Comfort, Comfort My People”

IN REPLY TO: JESUIT FATHER THOMAS REESE:
"God is not all powerful in the face of human freedom. Our freedom limits his power. God did not want these children to die."

ANS:
The assumption seems to be, “therefore God could not prevent their death.” God will not take away man's Free-Will, but He is powerful enough to prevent the murdering of people if He so chooses. Namely, God has prevented many evils by interceding and preventing people to harm others or themselves. The history of Israel should be a sufficient example. St. Paul is another one.

No, God will not force anyone to do something against their will, but he can prevent them from doing it.

The shooters in Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and West Virginia all had the same problem. They didn't know God. Without God, there is no love, no purpose to be charitable except for one’s self-gratification, because God is All-Good.

The temporary good that man chooses dissipates and is not lasting. Man can never be satisfied in the temporal world. Thus, the atheist becomes his own God and fails miserably at it. He generates a self-aggrandizement, self-importance, frustration, depression and a loss of self worth. In the end, life has no meaning if there is no God.

St. Augustine says, “Lord, our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Life without knowledge of God’s love is to live a life that is without a compass. Knowing we yearn for eternal happiness and can’t achieve it is a common frustration of the atheists and agnostics.

Without purpose, life’s encounter with tragedy is nearly impossible to navigate, and more impossible to rationalize. Without a God, a formation of benign madness ensues in the form of irrationality. The Godless seek a subterfuge to escape their madness. They seek to alleviate their frustrations and disappointments by seeking the vanities of the world, but the world fails them too. Hence, they flee to the Drug culture and the Sexual Revolution that has created more problems then they previously had.

To solve the catastrophes of the Sexual Revolution we’ve legally murdered over 48 million unborn. We are launching an assault on the embryo. That devalues human life, especially when you sell the aborted body parts on the open market.

When our culture can rationalize the plunging of a surgical scissors into the back of the skull of baby being born and then suck out its brains; when we can leave invalid born children in utility rooms to starve to death, when we can legally murder the defenseless like Schiavo, by dehydration and starvation, human life becomes of no more value than an animal.

Our Culture is metastasizing into a materialistic ethic that is transmogrifying a once theocentric society into an anthropocentric one. The culture evolves around self-autonomy and moral relativism of the individual. The agnostic and atheists’ lives are based on the vaporous and materialized wiles and vanities of a world. Human values have no meaning because they are transitory under a godless regime. When the vanities they trust in dissipate, the lives of agnostics and atheists collapsed with them.

In Victor Hugo's immortal novel "Les Miserables," Jean Valjean “the wretched,” found God and therefore Love; Inspector Javert, Valjean's nemesis, found the Law that had no Love or Mercy. The Law could not forgive. Javert could not forgive himself; his world collapsed and the world consumed him. His life was an odyssey based on a falacy. Javert had made the law perfect when the world harbors no perfection. In the end, the imperfect consumed him.

To the atheist man is a material being whose soul dissipates with one’s body. He has no eternal destination. Hence, he becomes a material imperfection without a promise of perfection, and incomplete being with with no way to be completed, a.k.a. frustration and depression, a.k.a. shooters.

However, quite to the contrary, man is an eternal being who chooses his destiny and is perfectible.

The shooters’ lives collapsed and they sought revenge. To them, their lives didn’t matter, so they attempt to make them matter by taking the lives of others that did matter.

Unfortunately, thinking Death would bring them fame, it brought them more misfortune, an eternal death. Instead of escaping Hell, they plunged more into Hell and into eternal torment, suffering they could never imagine. That is, if they weren't fortunate enough to ask God, a God they did not know, to forgive them before they died.

As to the tragedies of the young lives the shooters took with them, the loss is not the young’s loss; It's their reward, if they are in Heaven. The loss is to those who loved them. Hence, Francis Thompson’s “Hound of Heaven” states succinctly why there was a loss in these few lines.

“All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it,
In My arms."

In the end, the shooters never valued their lives or the lives of others, because the value of all human life is in proportion to the value one places in God.

E. Favorite:

When people run out of logical reasoning, they attack the person. You did not interact with what I said about inductive/deductive reasoning; scientific proof and probability; as well as logic and the existence of God. Also, it is not a matter of your liking or not liking what Christian Denominations teach in their basic doctrines about the human condition both personally and socially. Nor is it a matter of weather you accept the Bible as scripture and God's revealed truth which from what I've read in other posts you do not. It is a matter of what the Bible teaches and how similar Christian denominations all around the world and down through history view the spiritual/social/individual, etc. framework in which we live. I'm not trying to impress. You can claim that I don't know what I'm talking about. That is your choice and one often used to discount someone and their ideas. However, I do know what I'm talking about and I know they are true. I gather from some earlier comments that from your perspective I am one of those clergy who is pulling the wool over people's eyes. Not so, it is the fundamentalist liberals who have been pulling the wool over people's eyes for years.

Hi, J Daly - if you're still around, I suggest you go over to the Einstein guest voice conversation. Your skills are needed there.

John Crowe – I just noticed your post of 4/25. As you can see, I’ve been busy responding to J Daley.

Regardless of the pedigree of your quote about living “in a world and society wrecked by sin” I’m not impressed. Like many people, I don’t accept the importance or validity of everything that’s in the Bible, just because it’s in the Bible.

Please be careful using terms like “pull the wool over our eyes” and “illogical”– I think your post reeks of these things. Shame on you for saying things you either know are not true, or haven’t bothered to check.

Hello J Daley – my response to your response –

Re: Sunday school - yes, I was reflecting negatively on the inculcators and I’d say it’s only recently, as atheists find their voice, that believers in the supernatural have been objects of ridicule. As believers form the majority opinion in the US, the ridicule has gone almost exclusively in the other direction, with atheists being perceived as having no morals and unfit for public office. Of course, part of that ignorance is the responsibility of atheists who choose to remain closeted. I just don’t buy that Christians take risks proclaiming their faith – in the old days sure, but not for centuries. I think it is inculcated in Sunday school (or conversion classes, perhaps – I don’t really know) and reinforced through life.

Re: numinous experiences – perhaps the supernatural can be a part of it, but the explanations of it that I found did not require supernatural involvement. My experiences fit your third definition “Inspiring awe and reverence; spiritual.” [I don’t equate spiritual feelings with a set of religious beliefs.] One experience even took place in a church – at the end of a Good Friday service. The beautiful music and solemnity at that church, that I just happened into, overwhelmed me. I felt unable to leave the pew, my arms limp at my sides, I was completely at peace. When I finally felt able to leave, I saw the world with new eyes – every petal of every flower glowed with beauty and goodness. And no, I didn’t feel closer to God. I realize other people would react differently -- These events are very subjective – not “suspect,” but individually interpreted. If I had been more religious, perhaps I would have attributed the experience to the presence of God. As it was, I attributed it to the thrill of finding myself in a beautiful, peaceful setting after weeks of grueling work. This kind of experience is human – open to all, regardless of religion of lack thereof.

Re: Clergy – when I said some “make other accommodations” I did not mean to account for a “dramatic loss of belief” but with respect to how to handle their knowledge in the context of their faith and their ministerial duties. I don’t know the range of individual perceptions of it – I’d like to though. I think it’s very important to the future of organized religion. I think some of what you speculated is likely (“crisis of personal identity….”). By the way, I think the ministerial function – providing counsel, solace, guidance – is a very important cultural role throughout history and should continue (but without the supernatural component).

Re: individual experience being a sound basis for talking about the reality of God – in addition to “facts” Sure, but here’s the catch – in my mind, it’s the “feeling” of the reality of God. Neither believers or non-believers know for sure about God. Non-believers say no based on the profound lack of evidence; believers say yes based on feelings (and for some, the “facts” and “proof” that they think the Bible provides).

Re: the disciples – I didn’t originally understand the heart of your question, and I couldn’t honestly respond given your premise – that the disciples existed and had made great sacrifices for their beliefs. If we knew they really existed – of course – it would show great dedication to their leader. Even so, it wouldn’t necessarily mean such dedication was well placed. People through history have given their all for worthy as well as very unworthy causes. People have made themselves, or been made by others, into heroes without deserving it or wanting it. I do want to comment that I think “something…read in a book or learned in a class” is a valid way of gathering knowledge and could well be how you learned what you know about the disciples. It certainly reflected the sum of my knowledge until my more recent reading.

Regarding Christians giving out of love – no doubt. I’m saying those same people could and would give without the overlay of Christianity or any religion. The Church is a conduit – not the only one and not necessarily the best one.

Regarding revisionist history – you’re right – anyone can do it and many do. I think it’s important for it to be corrected. That correction is happening right now with the war on terror – on many fronts – I’m thinking particularly of the bogus, set-up “heroic” stories of Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch. Lynch, who is alive to talk about it, has denounced the story herself. Tillman’s family is livid with the Government for covering and distorting the story of Pat’s death by friendly fire. The corrections are happening with religion too, but it’s a bit more complicated, especially when a component of the religion involves disregarding or discounting facts.

I’d say both religious believers and humanists “rely solely on themselves and their intellect and capacity for cooperation to solve human problems.” Believers just run it through the filter of God – who is also human-made (according to humanists).

Re: what you think makes you a believer – Obviously, I haven’t had your exact life experience and even if I had, I might not react the same way to it. Nonetheless, I can easily say that I relate to much of what you say and have felt a lot of those same things irrespective of the status of my belief in God. I feel I appreciate life even more now, actually – grateful to have been born and to have loved and been loved my whole life. I feel a new affinity with the people who came before me and those who will come after. I’ve found joy – really- in learning about the origins and history of religion, and more joy knowing there are many like me who had been quiet up until now about their lack of belief. While doing my research, everything started to fall into place. No more accepting convoluted reasoning or trying to make sense out of things that made no sense -- realizing that taking something on faith often meant not questioning authority – for the benefit of authority. Realizing that things that you don’t understand aren’t “God” or a matter of faith, they’re just things for which there is no explanation - yet.

You imply that atheists approach matters strictly through reason, intellect and evidence. Perhaps some do, or think they do. Speaking for myself, I’d say that while atheists definitely use reason, intellect and evidence, other approaches, such as instinct, intuition and “gut” feelings also come into play. Certainly believers use all of these, too, but often express them using religious terms.

J – I’m glad to hear you’re going to talk more to Christians who use exclusionary tactics. I think you’ll be good at it – that’s why I’ve been suggesting it! Meanwhile, I consider our conversations to have been consciousness raising for you, me and whomever has been reading along. Thanks.

PS – if you want to hear another atheist and believer discuss their points of view, Andrew Sullivan (Catholic journalist and author) and Sam Harris (atheist author and neuro-science student) just finished a long email dialogue, available here: http://www.beliefnet.com/story/209/story_20904.html

E Favorite: Thanks for the response. A few things I’d like to address.

“I didn’t make the point that lots of now-Christians went to Sunday school, but rather that many adult Christians have a Sunday school understanding of their faith.” I think what you said was that "pride in the unseen is inculcated in Sunday School and the ritual of Mass.” This statement sounds more a negative reflection on the inculcators than a reflection on the inculcated. Then, one of your next statements was that this pride in the unseen is what makes Christians special (i.e., “think they’re special”). Actually, in our society – as is clear from conversing with some atheists -- believing in the unseen is to risk being ridiculed and labeled as close-minded, stupid, ignorant, or too timid to face the world as it is. Taking these risks is a not badge of honor for most of us and doesn’t make us feel part of an exclusive club.

Taking these risks does, though, provide fellowship and community for those of us who are energized, excited, motivated and humbled by the loving unseen – by the palpable unseen we perceive in people, our Earth, etc. It provides community for those of us who, when we look inside ourselves, perceive a poverty that we lack power to address on our own. And yes, my Christian upbringing taught me to name what I see in myself “spiritual poverty” (which has nothing to do with self-hate, by the way, as psychologists would define it). Is there something wrong with using idiom that fits our circumstances, just because we learned it “at home?”

Re: numinous experience, numinous is defined as “1) Of or pertaining to a numen; supernatural;” 2) Indicating or suggesting the presence of a god; divine; holy;” and 3) Inspiring awe and reverence; spiritual.” I don’t quite understand how you could have had what you termed a non-religious numinous experience when you were religious, unless you were using the word as meaning simply “awe,” with no reverence or spirituality attached. I agree that such experiences are highly individual and many times culturally based…but does this make them somehow suspect? I had a powerful such experience as a fairly young child – the experience of a loving unseen presence. Maybe it was only later that I came to think of that presence as Jesus, since Jesus was the God of my family’s religion. I’m not sure. My point is that I believe that many such experiences – no matter what faith tradition one calls one’s own – are important, real and valuable. In addition, not sure I agree that one can’t have a numinous experience unrelated to one’s own tradition. I’m reminded of Carl Jung’s theory of archetypal dream figures, carrying common and consistent themes, experienced by people of widely varying cultures (that is, their psyche may be expressing something unconscious in terms not immediately clear to them). Tangential, maybe, but interesting as it relates to the numinous.

Re: the Bible, many Christians regard it as a “rule book for modern life” in the sense that the New Testament calls for love, forgiveness and service of one’s neighbor. Many of us don’t regard it as our only source of Christian authority…in fact, for Catholics, tradition is considered just as important. I know this is problematic for you, since “traditions” are often equated with hearsay, mythology and active deception. I don’t tell others that the Bible is the only needed authority. If this makes any sense, I think the words attributed to Jesus in the Bible contain what any person would need to live a moral and loving life. But I don’t think of it as the full extent of God’s revelation…I believe God speaks in many ways, and through many people (the Buddha, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Confucius, and millions of ordinary people.

Re: priests and ministers’ “holding back” their true beliefs about the resurrection or people going through seminary only to realize they couldn’t stand up every Sunday and preach things they no longer believed…I know these viewpoints are persuasive for you, but I don’t think it’s safe to assume that these folks’ feelings and opinions represent the majority of clergy (it depends, at least partially, on what kind of seminary they attended and how they’re reacting to their own life experiences). I also don’t understand why they’d feel pressure to live an employment lie...because of the power, prestige and big money they’d lose by leaving the church?! What you’re getting at must be not the employment loss itself but the crisis of personal identity that such a person would suffer, and the practical and relational consequences of it. I also simply don’t agree that as many people as you think “make other accommodations” for a dramatic loss of belief. I would say, though, that mature Christians change in their understanding of the faith.

Re: “efficaciousness of personal experience for purposes of religious discourse…” Sorry, I should have used the word “efficacy,” and what I meant to ask was, do you consider individual experience a sound basis for talking about the reality of God – in addition to “facts?” Objectivity, while critical in many things, is overrated in other arenas.

Re: fundamentalists influencing people away from mainstream religions and promising to be the Elite here on earth, could it be that, in such a dangerous, increasingly pluralistic world, a fundamentalist stance makes many people feel more secure? I am NOT defending violent fundamentalists or those who seek to legislate selected religious practices into law. I am simply pointing out that it’s hardly surprising – in a society marked by greed, extreme moral relativism and shameless self-centeredness (ours), and in others marked by poverty, desperation, deprivation and lack of development (some Middle Eastern nations) – that some people may find comfort in a such a strict code of belief and behavior. A relevant question might be, how can people work and maintain dialogue to help reduce the conditions that give rise to these attitudes?

Re: my ill-expressed comment about your concern with effects of fundamentalism in a liberal world, I was trying to say I found it hard to believe that you thought fundamentalism could overwhelm a world populated with clear-thinking, intelligent atheists like yourself. This was snide on my part; I’m sorry.

Re: divinity schools, I understand your point about those that teach fundamentalism. I worry about that, too. But I’m also concerned with big-name, mainstream divinity schools that turn out graduates who don’t seem to believe in the divine. I don’t attribute this to “evolution” in understanding, but to a bias toward seeing the material, physical world, and observable phenomena, as the only reflections of truth.

Re: your wondering whether I was aware that Christian authors had raised some of the same points I brought up, I am aware of that. But I do have a decent brain capable of relevant inquiry…at the same time, the points I raised are pretty basic. And the only response you made was that we couldn’t even be sure the disciples really existed – something you read in a book or learned in a class. You made no effort to respond to the heart of my question. How might you respond if we could “prove” the disciples existed? You don’t have to answer – just a rhetorical question.

Re: non-religious groups also aiding the needy, this is a great thing. But that wasn’t my point. I was saying that Christians give money out of love, not only to propagate their own beliefs and “give unwelcome lessons on Jesus,” which I interpreted as your major charge. In the case of Catholics, I know almost none who actively evangelize or “proselytize,” as I imagine you might conceive of it, as part of their charitable giving.

Re: “human” and “humanism,” my mistake. I was trying to say that, simultaneously, secular humanists and atheists recognize that we have deep faults and deficits – and cause great carnage – yet rely solely on themselves and their intellect and capacity for cooperation to solve human problems. I can’t see that this has gotten us much further other worldviews (including the admittedly heinous religious views and acts that have led to slaughter like the Crusades, etc.)

Re: revisionist history, I was talking about fact vs. story…that facts are used almost as widely as are stories – and rewritten and even twisted – to support a wide variety of different viewpoints. Relevant to discussion because the foundation provided by facts is often no firmer than are the intangibles we argue about, because facts are subject to interpretation, and their use to bias. This is not the province only of the religious.

Finally, about your reference to honest discussion with friends with whom you disagree politically; the effort to avoid the controversial subject most of the time; and the honest and understandable wish to try to change views. This I understand. I don’t think I’d be on this blog if I weren’t trying to say something I hoped someone would hear and take seriously. I also think I’m talking as much to myself as to others. It’s important to say what we believe and why. Many of us don’t get or take that opportunity very often as mature people.

I have believed in a loving God since I had a memory. Yes, I was raised in a Christian home, but I don’t think that’s why I’m a believer today. I haven’t led an unexamined spiritual life. But yes, there are just some things I believe without needing to prove. When you find you have encountered a great Love beyond your wildest imaginings…a Love that increases your regard for yourself and for others…that makes you want and work for good for others as much as you do for yourself…a “grace” that doesn’t seem like it could possibly spring from one’s wondrous but limited self…a deep well of joy that exists even through tragedy (to which I am not a stranger, on many counts)…a beauty and resilience in all life that doesn’t seem attributable to randomness or chance…Then I guess you’ve a believer. This may not be intellectually rigorous, but it’s very real.

Have discovered here that I have no wish to argue with an atheist. Life is too short. It isn’t too short, though, in talking with fellow Christians, to urge them not to drive people away from the Lord by exclusionary, judgmental words and actions. For this, I believe we will be called to account. Thanks, E Favorite.

J Daly - in answer to your questions:

>Why do you assume that lots of now-Christians went to Sunday school?
I don’t have stats on this, do you? I couldn’t find anything on a quick Google search. Besides, I didn’t make the point that lots of now-Christians went to Sunday school, but rather that many adult Christians have a Sunday school understanding of their faith. That’s simply what I’ve noticed – even among highly educated people. I would like to see information on the Sunday school experience of most “now-Christians,” as you put it.

>Can you consider that some of us may have had "a numinous experience" -- as children or as adults
Of course – I’ve had a few myself – but unrelated to religion – even when I was religious. It’s a great feeling, though very subjective and unrelated to specific truths of specific religions. I don’t mean to detract from these experiences, just to say that while they are profound, they are highly individual and culturally based – e.g., people raised in a Christian culture are likely to have a Christian-based numinous experience and won’t have an experience based on an religion unknown to them.

> Many of us try to counter what you say by quoting the Bible or referring to Scripture, which gets nowhere with a person coming from your viewpoint.
That’s right – For me and many people like me, Scripture is not enough. It’s parroting what people have learned and expecting others to accept it as the ultimate and only needed authority, even as people through the ages have interpreted the bible to suit their own ends. The bible was used to justify slavery in the South and is now being used to justify homosexual repression. The Bible has some good stories in it, some wisdom, poetry, etc., but as a rule book and authority for modern life, I think it’s sorely lacking – an opinion that is shared by many.

> Do you believe in the "efficaciousness" of personal experience for purposes of religious discourse? ….
Sorry, not sure what you mean by this passage

>[Regarding the resurrection] They're speaking of it in terms that make sense to them, and that they think will make sense to believers.
Maybe, but I also think ( based on my reading “The Dishonest Church” cited above, and recommended to me by a former priest) and talks with clergy and former seminarians, that they are also holding back to not shake up believers and thus shake-up the church and their employment status. I think some clergy are in denial about this and some are so accustomed to expressing themselves in a certain way, that they’re not conscious of doing it. This may sound wacky. It did to me at first, which is why I started checking it out. I first learned of this phenomenon from a university professor acquaintance whome I approached when first I started gathering information on Christian history. I had no idea that he had trained to be a minister. Much to my surprise, he told me that he went all the way through seminary and decided not to be ordained because he felt he couldn’t stand up every Sunday and preach things he knew weren’t so. Obviously, others react differently and make other accommodations. I’d like to know more about this. I’m still reluctant to approach clergy about it – it’s so sensitive for me and them.

>Regarding fundamentalists as a threat:
Yes to everything you mention – spiritually, the dangers of theocracy, practical and intellectual. But my views of religion are not unduly influenced by fundamentalism; my views are influenced by everything I’ve learned about Christianity in general over the last 2 years. I think fundamentalists intend to do great harm and are infiltrating the government and influencing people away from mainstream religions with their promises of being the elite here on Earth. So far the list of presidential hopefuls of both parties looks pretty good, except for Romney and Thompson. I’m hoping that the 2006 elections reflect Americans’ ongoing distrust of the fundamentalist mindset, but I’m not ready to heave a sign of relief and assume the battle is won. Zealots don’t give up easily.

> Regarding what you refer to as my “concern with the effects of fundamentalism when you seem to regard even moderate folks here as "anomalies" in a "liberal" world.” I don’t think this way and can’t find any reference to voicing this attitude or using the words you put in quotes (except for describing you as a “liberal” Christian).

> Regarding divinity schools – I’m not concerned with the university-associated divinity schools, or the Episcopal or Catholic Diocesan seminaries, my only concern is with the seminaries that teach a strictly fundamentalist view of Christianity, where both teachers and students have to sign a statement swearing that they hold the Bible to be inerrant.

>Regarding your arguments being “indeed basic and oft-offered” –
No problem, I just wondered if you were aware of being influenced the viewpoints of some Christian writers, and if so, which ones. I’ve read so much that I often can’t recall the attribution or if the thought I’m expressing is original.

> Yes, it does occur to me that religious denominations “make financial contributions to help ease the burden of the poor…,” etc.
That’s very good, but not a raison d’etre. Non-religious groups do the same and one needn’t be affiliated with a religion to do good works. Also, in some cases, a possibly unwelcome, unexpected lesson on Jesus comes with the good works that churches do.

>Regarding my summary of a Christian view: "There’s no easy explanation, so Jesus must be the Son of God"
I stand by it. I can respect a lot about any given person or group of people, and not respect a particular belief, preference or viewpoint of theirs. Some of my closest friends and I hold very different political beliefs. We’re aware of it, will tell each other candidly why we feel the way we do and why we feel the other is misguided. We’ll try to change minds, and then go on with our friendship, avoiding the conflictual subject most of the time. We still like each other, but we don’t respect the belief and would still like to change it if we could. I think this is common behavior among people with different views, with religion as a notable exception. (This I know is not an original thought – I read it in either Dawkins; “The God Delusion,” Harris’ “Letter to a Christian Nation”, or both). My “personal experience” is a result of thinking, reading, analyzing, researching, taking classes and talking with people. I value that highly. If you believe something so firmly in your religion that can’t be verified (e.g., has been proven false, or goes against the now established and accepted laws of nature), and have the company of millions of people with the same beliefs, I ask you to consider that respect of others with vastly different beliefs and means of accepting conclusions is not very important.

Regarding human/humanism. These words have the same root, but different meanings. According to Merriam-Webster, the adjective “human” means “relating to, or characteristic of humans” [that is, “persons”], while “humanism” is a philosophy that “usually rejects supernaturalism and stresses an individual's dignity and worth and capacity for self-realization through reason.”

>Regarding comparing Christian revisionist history to updating textbooks, I’m not sure I understand the connection and you supposition about my view, or that I agree with your observation, so I hesitate to comment.

So J Daley, those are my thoughts. Whew. I hope this answers your questions. If I’ve left anything out, please let me know.

PS - go to the Cal thomas thread for a chance to engage with some fundamentalists and other atheists

E Favorite: No more questions for a while. And, respectfully, I have no intention of trying to "psych you out." I wouldn't give myself enough credit for the ability. I'm here talking about something of great importance to me and posing legitimate questions, as you are. I think we're both up to our ears.

J Daley – First – to clear up a couple of things: I did not say the disciples “all invited death.” The reference was to “early Christians” and I was thinking specifically of Christian martyrs. Jesus’ disciples were not Christians, per se – they were Jewish followers of Jesus. The term “Christian” didn’t come until later. Here’s an excerpt of my comments above: “Christianity was like a death cult, similar perhaps to the Branch Davidians, the James Jones followers, or those comet people. I don’t suppose you like being compared to those people, but I do want you to think about how easy it is for you to identify with the original Christians and how similar their beliefs are to people you don’t identify with at all. They all so firmly believed that dying would bring them to eternal life, that they invited death.”

Regarding John and Patmos – it’s another of those “traditions” that the John of Revelations is the same as John the Apostle. Biblical scholars generally don’t think so, including the one I took an NT class from recently. Scholars, including Catholic ones, think Revelations was the last book of the bible, written in 93AD at the earliest – making John the Apostle quite old indeed.

If you’re going to build a case of the apostles risk taking behavior as meaningful for Christianity, isn’t it important to know whether that actually happened? Lancelot and the knights of the roundtable took risks to rescue Guinevere. It’s a nice story, instructive, even, but everyone knows (or will be told, if they don’t) that it’s a legend. There’s no King Arthur in English history. This is not my perception of being a “slave to empiricism”

I do think there’s great value in myth, as I’ve stated before and am open to “unseen realities” also stated before, but not if they’re attached to a whole ancient story. The only thing “absurd” about the stories is that some people believe and have been taught to believe them as if they are facts.

The “emperor has no clothes” is a wonderful, instructive story that everyone knows is not a fact. So, why not make it more clear to readers that this is often (if not always, in my opinion) the case with the bible.

I did not opine that “the Bible holds no authority; it's not Scripture; it's just a collection of stories compiled by people seeking to perpetuate myths for various self-serving ends.” It certainly holds authority – look at all the people who consider it as such. I refer to the bible as “scripture” but perhaps that has a different meaning to you than to me. And while I do think some of the OT is pretty self-serving (and I’m not alone in that), I think the NT has a welcomed and needed message of love and compassion. Whether it comes from a flesh-and- blood or mythological Jesus, I don’t care and don’t think is important. The whole supernatural story with angels, virgins, wandering stars, resurrections, etc. is superfluous. I’ve also said elsewhere that I’d like to see the church survive without the supernatural component, because I think that’s ultimately it’s only hope.

If you prefer to trust “the witness of people who were there 2,000 years ago" fine, but please keep in mind that they were viewing matters through a lens that included little understanding of the universe as we now know it. They thought the stars were in the roof of the “firmament” and that God’s home in heaven was just beyond that. They thought hell was under the ground and they thought the earth was flat. Lacking modern medicine, miracles were often the only hope for a cure. (Now we count on miracles only when medical technology has no answer). Please consider that it was easier and even logical for people lacking this kind of knowledge to accept bible stories. Or maybe they didn’t see them as factual, but rather as allegories.

I’m enjoying this too and will address your other questions when I have more time. Please consider holding off with additional questions for a while – I’m up to my ears in your current ones.

One other thing – I notice that you are trying to psych me out (for lack of a better term) – that’s fine, I like to do that too. Meanwhile, please consider that I’m reacting not to a painful psychological jolt, but to a startling jolt of information. I ask you to consider it, not to accept it, because even considering it, you might be able to look at the information component of what I say more objectively.

E Favorite: Would like to address some of your points.

The disciples "all invited death." No, St. Paul said that while he wanted to be with Jesus, he thought it better to stay here and witness and teach. The Bible also indicates that St. John the Apostle lived into old age exiled to Patmos.

"Pride in things unseen is inculcated in Sunday School and at the ritual of Mass." Why do you assume that lots of now-Christians went to Sunday school? And can you consider that some of us may have had what the highly respected Swiss psychologist Carl G. Jung called "a numinous experience" -- as children or as adults?

Many of us try to counter what you say by quoting the Bible or referring to Scripture, which gets nowhere with a person coming from your viewpoint. In your opinion, the Bible holds no authority; it's not Scripture; it's just a collection of stories compiled by people seeking to perpetuate myths for various self-serving ends. When I mention the risks the disciples took because of their conviction, you question whether such people ever existed, because there's so little record of them outside the Bible.

Therefore, attempts to talk with you about the Bible are more in the character of appeals to the authenticity of our personal experiences and how they relate to what's in the Bible. Do you believe in the "efficaciousness" of personal experience for purposes of religious discourse? Yes, I know it's subjective -- you might ask, "If you expect me to attach any credence to your personal experience in regards to spirituality and Christian faith, why don't we regard the experiences of fundamentalists or unbalanced people as equally valuable? This is not logical." And you're right, it's not. Not everything is -- that's why I don't regard logic as the last word.

You also point out that not all of us can be "right" about the resurrection: Was it a physical event that happened to Jesus; was it a perception by the disciples? Was Jesus resuscitated, or do we regard the resurrection as the transformation of the body of the man Jesus of Nazareth into a "spiritual body," something we don't understand but accept? I don't see Martin Marty and others as trying to "dance around" this issue or deceive about it...They're speaking of it in terms that make sense to them, and that they think will make sense to believers. If you are interested in informed Catholic discussion of these matters, I'd recommend Notre Dame's Richard P. McBrien. And please give us Christians some credit for our own understanding, rather than holding Christian leaders responsible for our mis-education. I think you can see from the posts here that many of us don't blindly accept what leaders or any others tell us...We're not undiscerning about what our fellow Christians say, and we're not undiscerning about what an atheist says.

When you say fundamentalists are a threat, do you refer primarily to the spiritual "tearing down of others," or the dangers of theocracy and terrorism motivated by a desire to destroy infidels, or the effect of the U.S. religious right on American politics? Or all? Is your point not really a practical concern, but an intellectual objection to this kind of worldview? Or both? I regret that your views of religion have been unduly influenced by people with fundamentalist views. Yes, they can do great harm...but do you really think their influence is greater than most others'? Amongst the field of serious 2008 presidential candidates, for example, who do you see that would want to change our "precious secular democracy" to reflect their fundamentalist beliefs? Hillary Clinton? Barack Obama? Rudy Guiliani? John Edwards? John McCain? I don't quite understand your concern with the effects of fundamentalism when you seem to regard even moderate folks here as "anomalies" in a "liberal" world.

From what I have heard about many of today's prestigious divinity schools, I'm surprised you're so concerned about fundamentalism. I don't know why many of these institutions are called "divinity" schools, because they seem little concerned with divinity. While I applaud their apparent emphasis on social justice, it seems that some of their graduates emerge with almost nothing recognizable as "faith." You may say this is because they are being told "the truth..." And "What reasonable person could possibly believe all these absurd stories after learning the facts?" But I would agree with the poster who said, last week, that I trust just as much the witness of people who were there 2,000 years ago as I do that of humans thousands of years hence looking at these matters through a completely different lens.

While the arguments I put forth are indeed basic and oft-offered, I believe they have value. Just because they "sound familiar," does that make them unworthy of consideration...and used only by people who are trying to "foster belief?" They're perfectly legitimate and, more to the point, practical questions.

Re: your point about people making "financial contributions to support 'these stories,' does it occur to you that most of us make financial contributions to help ease the burden of the poor, the sick? For social services?

As for "There’s no easy explanation, so Jesus must be the Son of God," I think that's a reductive (and frankly, condescending) way of summarizing what the Christians here are saying. Again, attach you no importance to people's (admittedly "unverifiable") personal experience? You clearly attach high value to your own personal experience and the conclusions to which it has led you. You trust your own mind. Can't we enjoy the latitude to do the same, without being intellectually belittled?

Re: "Even in our own time, political leaders who have been perceived as heroic and sent by God have eventually been seen as all too human." What does this, your own statement, do to your championing of "humanism?"

Thanks for engaging. This does the brain and heart good.

All: Want to respond to recent posts here but am at work. Will try to get back later. E Favorite, you intrigue me...You seem to be someone who almost "protesteth too much." You obviously care deeply about these issues or you wouldn't be on this blog. I am dismayed that an intelligent, sensitive individual would refer to much of what we discuss here as "absurd stories." Throughout history, story has been used to convey truth every bit as much as have "facts."

Are you enslaved by empiricism? Do you concede, while heartily disagreeing with much of what is expressed here, that there can exist unseen but powerful reality that we limited human beings (and devoted Christians) try to follow, though we don't "know all the facts?" And you, as one who has read and studied so widely, know that "facts" are just as open to interpretation as "stories." We've all heard of "revisionist history," and know, for example, that textbooks we used in grammar and high school and college contained material largely put together by people coming from a very specific viewpoint. You may say we Christians are doing the same...and we are. But so are you. I'm not criticizing...just making an observation.

Quick note: None of the points I made in previous post came from anywhere specific...These are my own wonderings. Yes, many others have wondered the same. And if C.S. Lewis -- who had a fine, sharp mind -- was one of them, that's OK with me. I only wish he were on this blog! Back later. Thanks to all.

Hello BigD - I just now noticed and checked out your links above. I see they are all criticisms of the Jesus Seminar, of which Marcus Borg is a member.

However, my quote from Borg is a description of his educational experience in divinity school which was long before the Jesus Seminar even existed. Your information does nothing to refute it.

E favorite:

What you call an assertion of my opinion "We live in a battle zone because we live in a world and society wrecked by sin” is classic biblical Christian teaching that I did not make up nor does it come from me. It comes from the Bible. One biblical teaching that is affirmed by Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Charismatic, Holiness, Pentecostal, Fundamentalists, and non denominational is the foundational teaching of original sin and its destructive impact upon all of creation. For sure, there are individuals and sometimes several who do not profess such basic Christian teaching.

Are you trying to pull the wool over our eyes by saying the reality of sin and its impact upon the world is possibly one not shared by all Christians? That is illogical.

Speaking of logic. It is foolish logic to say there is no God. How do you explain your own existence, the creation of earth, the origin of the universe. Is it just by chance that earth is just the right distance from the sun and has many other things just right for life on this planet?

Furthermore, the scientific idea of proof means it can be demonstrated over and over again. Other types of proof based themselves on probability which depends upon how strong or weak the evidence is. For example, there is external evidence which supports a high probability for the reliability of the Bible.

The Gospels and Epistles were written very closely to time of the actions described.

Other ancient documents, accepted as reliable, are not written closely to the actions described.

So, while we cannot always logically speak of scientific proof, we can think logically about the probability of something being proven based on the weight of the evidence. This requires an inductive approach of having an open mind in looking over the evidence.

Inductive reasoning in looking for and over the evidence for something's probability of proof is quite different from the deductive approach of making a decision about something and then going to find 'proof' to support it.

There is a place for deductive reasoning in figuring out the application and implications of something. However, without open minded inductive questioning, observation, and research, the fruits of deductive reasoning will be short sighted.

I'll give you one quick illustration of how this played out in the last century. Julius Wellhausen developed a Documentary Hypothosis based on deductive reasoning in sear of proof while ignoring the findings of archeologists to the contrary. The fruits of the documentary Hypothosis was the undermining of people's view of the OY which in turn hurt their view of the OT. Many of the seminary professors who bought into this have been pulling the wool over seminary students eyes on this subject. Unfortunately, not everyone has learned how to think critically nor do all seminary professors want their students to think critically. To the contrary a professor and author told his class one day about applying the Docementary Hypothosis to his books and articles for over 20 years. He laughed saying according to that Hypothosis, he would not be claimed as the author of all those books, but he was.

We certainly have different ideas of what is logical. And when it comes to religion, people seem to decide for themselves, regardless of their religion’s official teachings. My Catholic friend, like many Catholics, including J Daley, has an individual interpretation of religion. J Daley doesn’t think I’m going to hell (assuming I’m a good person), but my Catholic friend who thinks the resurrection is a metaphor and who knows I’m a good person, thinks I am going to hell. Maybe you think the resurrection is physical and people like me go to hell.

The whole thing gets quite complicated and illogical, in my opinion. You can’t all possibly be right. Here’s another scenario – it can’t be proven, but at least it’s logical – there is no God and there is no hell.

I meant the quotes as too often used excuses. I didn't take them right out of your text but I can quote neraly identical arguments in your prior post:

"..seems like quite a stretch to me." (You already told us you weren't an expert in this area so this isn't much of a valid argument)

"I just learned today that one of my oldest friends from childhood, a practicing Catholic, has always thought of the resurrection as a metaphor and can’t imagine how anyone would think anything else." (Your practicing Catholic friend must net be practicing too well. Even with a basic understanding of the faith Catholic's do not believe the resurrection was metaphorical)

While you did make a couple attempts to answer some of J Daley's points with other logical points - you also did resort to these types of arguments which don't show much of anything. You were right in calling me to task for using the quote marks if it seemed to come across as I was quoting you. But you are guilty of making these arguments which are not based on logic or backed up with fact.

My point was this is often the case. When someone like J Daley posts some very basic and simple logical arguments to support Biblical teaching they get tossed aside without an equally logical response. These logical arguments are very well known and should be easily countered if they aren't accurate.

Hello BigD - I searched this discussion for your quotes: "I find it hard to believe.." and "this guy I know who was..." and didn't find them.

Perhaps they're in another discussion?

J Daley -

Isn't it amazing how often logical arguments are thrown aside for the: "I find it hard to believe.." and "this guy I know who was...". I find it amazing - anyway still liked your post earlier. Keep up the good work.

Hello, John Crowe – I’m not sure what you beg to differ on – my general point of view or my thought that you might want to know my opinion, or something else. Also, I did not later “modify” my comment. I made a completely different comment on the same subject to another person.

I stand by what I said to you, though, especially in light of your continued response. You obviously put a great deal of thought into God’s role in your own life. I’m not surprised by this – many Christians do it. You also make assertions, such as “We live in a battle zone because we live in a world and society wrecked by sin” as if it’s a known, accepted fact. It isn’t. It’s your opinion, perhaps your belief, and possibly one not shared by all Christians. I realize that clergy are used to giving sermons. This forum is a different venue.

Nice to have you here.

Hi, J Daley – first of all I want to clarify – I am not clergy and did not go to Union Seminary – that was a quote from Marcus Borg, a well-known Biblical scholar. I credited him, put his whole passage in quotes and provided a link to the original source, but like BigD, you assumed I was discussing my own experience. I’m flattered if you think my writing style is similar to his. You can read his essays here at the “All On Faith Panelists” link.

I can’t really answer all the questions you raised, in part because of the big assumptions some of them make. For instance, “Why would ordinary people like the disciples have been compelled to take such enormous risks -- leaving their jobs and families, traveling widely, and many ultimately being put to death -- …” There is no historical record (meaning outside the bible) of the disciples. Having 12 disciples was a common theme in pagan myths. There are “traditions” surrounding the disciples’ deaths but there is no historical basis for the information and except for Judas, the only biblical account is about James, Acts 12:1-2 - "It was at this time (of great famine, possibly around AD44) that King Herod laid violent hands on some of the Church members. James, John's brother, he executed with the sword .....").
Also, you say,” If He were just a myth, wouldn't his following have probably lost steam a long time ago?” Not if you have the whole Roman empire behind you for political reasons – as Jesus eventually did. Even in our own time, political leaders who have been perceived as heroic and sent by God have eventually been seen as all too human. (No slight intended to Jesus).

I don’t know, but I’d say that a lot of people in the first century, DID believe that what they heard about Jesus was “true.” But the fact that a lot of people think something is true doesn’t make it so – Just think of all the urban legends floating around today. And It’s pretty well documented in Roman history that the reason Christians were willing to die for Jesus is because they really believed that as martyrs, they were going straight to heaven– like the suicide bombers today (again no slight to Jesus).

As to some of your other questions, they seem to be begging for the response – “There’s no easy explanation, so Jesus must be the Son of God” which seems like quite a stretch to me. For other things, such as: “If writers (and subsequent editors) had been making up a story, wouldn't they have painted a rosier and less complex portrait than this?” This answer is, “Maybe, but that doesn’t mean the story is true.” And of course, “truth can be stranger than fiction” but that doesn’t mean it is in the case of Jesus, or any given case. Some of your questions sound familiar. Are they from Stroeble’s “The Case for Christ” or Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”? I haven’t read those books completely, but have skimmed them. If a person reading these books is already inclined to believe, I have no doubt the books foster belief – that is their purpose.

You ask, “Can you see that many Christians are “intelligent, thoughtful people who understand some of the points you are making but choose to be people of faith in a power that we perceive as being ‘higher’ than we are on the continuum of reality.” Certainly I can. What I can’t understand (and don’t think can be explained rationally) is how that “higher power” comes with a whole life story of virgin birth/Jesus/resurrection etc., etc. or Joseph Smith/sheaves of gold or Allah/winged horse, plus the expectation that the faithful make financial contributions to the human organizations that support these stories. I’m not so concerned about intelligent, thoughtful people like you who still choose to believe that Jesus could have physically resurrected from the dead (assuming that’s what you think), but I am concerned about the fundamentalists who think everyone should believe it and that our precious secular democracy should be changed to reflect their beliefs -- and I fear that people like you don’t see them as a threat, but simply as your “brothers and sisters in Christ.” Instead of urging non-believers not to be insulting to Christians (which is how our conversation began) I wish you’d urge fundamentalists to keep their religion out of government.

To see how clergy express themselves about the resurrection, I suggest you read some of this “on Faith” discussion http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/2007/04/remains_of_jesus/all.html especially Martin Marty and Thomas Reese. I think both of them very skillfully dance around the question of the resurrection –never actually saying they believe in it, but leading believers to assume that they do. See what you think. I think it’s a form of doublespeak that works for them -- They can comfort the faithful without getting into the sticky details which might cause some people to feel they’ve been duped. I suspect they’re grateful for people like you and BigD who don’t hold them responsible for your education. I hold them responsible for your continuing mis-education. Irrespective of the actual information that exists on religious history and dogma, it seems like people can pretty much make up whatever they want. It’s odd. I just learned today that one of my oldest friends from childhood, a practicing Catholic, has always thought of the resurrection as a metaphor and can’t imagine how anyone would think anything else.

Something I learn from these conversations is how proud people seem to be about their faith in what now seem to me to be absurd stories. I know from my own experience that that pride in having faith in things unseen and inexplicable is inculcated in Sunday school and in the ritual of the Mass. It’s part of what makes Christians special. In the conversations on this forum, I think it’s also more than that, but I don’t know what. I can see that it might have made sense 2,000 years ago, when a lot less was understood about the world and people oppressed by the Romans were in a hopeless situation. In those circumstances It could be easy to be convinced that death, followed by eternal life, was a logical solution. In those desperate days, Christianity was like a death cult, similar perhaps to the Branch Davidians, the James Jones followers, or those comet people. I don’t suppose you like being compared to those people, but I do want you to think about how easy it is for you to identify with the original Christians and how similar their beliefs are to people you don’t identify with at all. They all so firmly believed that dying would bring them to eternal life, that they invited death – something the great majority of all types of Christians today would never dream of.

E favorite:

Your first comment on my sermon "Tragedy and Prayer" was

E favorite:
John Crowe - I know you're trying to help by posting that sermon, but personally I think people would be better off if they didn't spend time trying to figure out what God's role was in a tragedy and instead just concentrated on comforting each other.
Posted April 19, 2007 11:47 PM

Then you modified it to:

E favorite:
J Daley -
Regarding your comments on John Crowe’s post, please note I didn’t question the appropriateness of his remarks or his right to express them here. We’re all expressing our opinions here. I thought he might like to know mine.

Posted April 20, 2007 10:49 AM

I beg to differ.

Also, in reading many other blogs, people are either questioning or proclaiming various view about God and this tragedy. Although, this subject may not matter to you personally, helping people with finding how their faith in God relates with all this mess does bring comfort into people's lives.

I really didn't say anything about God's role in all of this. I just pointed some help in how prayer to God can help in, through and after this tragedy.

I've spent a great deal of time online dealing with two extremes. One pronounces this young man was demon possessed. The other pronounces that God predestined him to kill these people who were predestined to die on that day as well as kill himself and in it all bring great shame and pain to his family along with bringing an enormous amount of pain to others.

BTW, My conclusion is this. We live in a fallen world in which God gives us some degree of choice. Being a Christian does not exempt us from unexpected tragedy as if we are someone special. Our faith in Jesus does not mean that he will make everything in our lives turn out just right so that we reach the American Dream. That is a santa clause view of God. In the midst of all sorts of tragedy and suffering, our minds will never be able to figure out exactly why. Best of all God is with us.

How else can I live with unexpected, previously undiagnosed, and in no way preventable changes inside my body that placed me on disability before reaching 50. If it were not for modern medicine, I'm certain that I'd be dead by now. So, if God predestined various parts of my brain to stop working or not work right (as has taken place), then is modern medicine standing in the way? No, that is dime store theology as well as stupid. Satan works through the deadly tragedies of life to pull us away from God. On the other hand, God is at work in both the valley experiences of life and in the mountain top ones to draw us closer to himself. Life is a battle. We live in a battle zone because we live in a world and society wrecked by sin.

Sometimes our own sin or the sin of others or just the overall death inflicting of sin as a whole is why horrible things take place. Not everything that happens to us is for our good. ( I would not have chosen any of the medical problems that I have nor could I have prevented them by better care of my health.) However, God is at work even in the face of the most hell like tragedy to help us through which may mean rebuilding a life quite different than what we lived before which mine is.

I still like what a seminary room mate said once is wrong "Too much sin, too much stupidity, too much dime store theology, and too many living in a fantasy world."

Do you want me to continue? The assertions made by the Jesus Seminar – that you brought up here are not even close to what THE VAST MAJORITY of Biblical Scholars would call good scholarship. I do hope readers of this blog – if there are any left – do check out the FACTS for themselves.

(Quotes above come from the last hyperlink)

Joel Belz, editor of World magazine, observes that a review of the sayings attributed to Jesus and the ones which are not reveal how "loaded the project was" with "social engineers" with a doctrinal, not theological social agenda (World, 25 December 1993, p. 3).
Dr. Jacob Neusner, professor of religion studies at the University of South Florida "refers to the Jesus Seminar as 'the greatest scholarly hoax since the Piltdown Man'" (The Lutheran Witness, April 1994, p. 5). The great Oxford University scholar N.T. Wright deems the seminar's findings a 'freshman mistake" and notes that recent books denying the Biblical accounts of Christ as well as the Jesus Seminar have no credible explanation as to the willingness of obviously sane, reasonable, and extremely ethical disciples and followers of Christ to be willing to die for the cause based on the resurrection of Jesus (Christianity Today, 13 September 1993, pp. 22-26).

Dr. D.A. Carson, New Testament professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, notes that "one of the most striking features of the press releases of (Funk's) Westar Institute" is that "the words 'scholars' and 'scholarly' are almost always attached to the opinions of the Jesus Seminar and detached from (the opinions of) all others" (Christianity Today, 25 April 1994, p. 30). Carson writes that the "doctrinal redaction criticism" approach is "repeatedly criticized."
Carson states that to say Jesus, a first century Jewish man must not sound like his disciples or contemporaries, that his sayings must by nature be idiosyncratic; or to say that Jesus' sayings must not sound like the older churches views, "is to assume that the most influential man in history never said anything that the church believed, cherished and passed on is blatantly reductionistic" (Ibid., p. 32).
Carson, whose Ph.D. is from Cambridge University and who is a member of every prestigious, scholarly society including the Evangelical Theological Society concludes, "for all its scholarly pretension, the Jesus Seminar is not addressing scholars. It is open grab for the popular mind, for the mass media" (Ibid., p. 33).

http://www.ovrlnd.com/FalseTeaching/jesusseminar.html

Dr. Richard Hays, New Testament professor at Duke Divinity School (certainly not the bastion of conservatism) has written a very strong critical analysis of the Jesus Seminar and its product, The Five Gospels. He writes that the seminar was "sponsored by not one of the major scholarly societies such as the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, or the Society of Biblical Literature." Also, he observes that "This self-selected group, though it includes several fine scholars, does not represent a balanced cross section of scholarly opinion. Furthermore, the criteria for judgment that are employed are highly questionable" (First Things, May 1994, p. 44).

http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~echong/pubs/apologetics/jesus-seminar.pdf

http://seminary.cbs.edu/content/events/nlc/1999/papers/The-Jesus-Seminar.pdf

http://lawreligionculturereview.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html

E Favorite - Here it is - if it ends up on here twice I apologize - there are going to be several reference posted individually because I can't get them up all at once:

Here is a listing of just some simple posts on information that discredits all the assertions made by the Jesus seminar as unscholarly work:
http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles/resources/unmaskingthejesus.htm

E Favorite -

All the links and references are coming. It seems it might be a lot of info to post. I just sent it up. If it doesn't show up in the next few hours I'll break it up and get it up here.

J Daley -

Excellent post! I wasn't sure anyone was still reading this one.

E Favorite: Was glad to read Virginia Bain Allen and BIGD's posts. All scholarly considerations aside (because I'm not qualified to make them), what about the following questions:

Why would Jesus have been put to death if something he did, or something he said about himself (e.g., identifying himself with God or claiming the power to forgive sins) hadn't been considered profoundly blasphemous? The Gospels seem clear that Jesus's aim was not to be a political leader -- the kind the Jews clearly expected, so it doesn't seem he would have been threatening on that level or "eliminated" because of it.

Why would ordinary people like the disciples have been compelled to take such enormous risks -- leaving their jobs and families, traveling widely, and many ultimately being put to death -- unless they knew and believed something absolutely extraordinary and unique about Jesus? Unless He had uttered words and effected deeds that compelled them beyond human fear to proclaim him as One we should follow? Why would millions of people, from then until now, follow this One -- even if they aren't history experts -- unless they found in Him something that could be found nowhere else? If He were just a myth, wouldn't his following have probably lost steam a long time ago? (And you may claim it's losing steam now in some parts of the world...but I don't think I agree with this point overall. I don't have numbers, but I don't agree).

Why, when the Gospels were written, would Jewish people of that time have been willing to record details that -- unless they believed they had witnessed and participated in something absolutely unique and "saving" -- would subject them to danger, ridicule, torture, death, loneliness and many other things most human beings try mightily to avoid? Why would they have recorded accounts of their "own" -- fellow Jews (Pharisees, Scribes, the Sanhedin, etc.) -- that were so unflattering? Why would they have told of the significant role of women in Jesus's ministry and, Christians believe, in witnessing to His Resurrection, when women had such a low place in society? Why would they have openly reported that the man they believed to be the expected Messiah befriended "sinners" and "unclean" people of every description -- and their own surprise at this? That he was clearly not a military leader who would restore their nation through military might? Why would they have recorded that the disciples "didn't understand" when Jesus first told them he must suffer and die and would rise again (and any number of other things)? If writers (and subsequent editors) had been making up a story, wouldn't they have painted a rosier and less complex portrait than this? The very fact the synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John contain differences lend these books authenticity. We might remind ourselves that truth is stranger than fiction.

Not all Christians claim that the Bible is entirely "historical" -- many of us view it as a mix of history and story -- an "inspired mix." Most of us respond much more deeply, and "get a point" much more effectively, when someone tells us a story in illustration instead of laying out lists of "facts." And why do people tell stories? Because they're trying to impart something important -- the essence of a matter.

I'm trying to say that there is something very clearly compelling here in peoples' encounter of Jesus -- then and now -- something at the heart of the matter which engendered faith and belief even in the midst of human disagreement about the historical Jesus of Nazareth (Gnostics, Arians, etc.), what He said, how it was recorded and by whom; the Church's formulating and propagating doctrine over centuries, etc.

I am NOT discounting what you were taught at Union (Union Theological Seminary in New York City?) But I think that, similar to your points about ultra-conservative seminaries, there are those that teach in ways that all but take the Christ out of Christianity. It seems to me there are extremes on both ends.

I don't think most Christians are given to willful ignorance of history. Nor do I think lots of priests and ministers are. I think that, what a lot us say is, in effect, "Tell me what time it is -- don't tell me how to make a watch." And this in the sense that some of us -- due to our life circumstances, our temperament, our intellectual abilities and inclinations, etc. -- want to live and work with the heart of the matter discussed above -- focusing on the Love. I feel as if you feel you were "duped" in your childhood and want to convince others that were, too. Can you see that many of us are intelligent, thoughtful people who understand some of the points you're making but choose to be people of faith in a power that we perceive as being "higher" than we are on the continuum of reality (I wouldn't call it "natural" and "supernatural," because this is a construct of the limited human mind). This power, for Christians, is the Trinity, with Jesus being the Person of the Trinity who came to live among us as a man, and the Holy Spirit poured out on us, we believe, when a resurrected (NOT resuscitated) Jesus returned to his Father.

Perhaps people who object so strenuously to this way of thinking fear that those of us who choose this life and outlook are harming others or wittingly or unwittingly keeping them in "ignorance," or somehow contributing to fundamentalism that can be harmful to our world in scores of very real ways. But I don't see myself this way. Yes, fundamentalist Christians are my brothers and sisters in Christ, but I have no trouble expressing disagreement with the way many of them see and express things. And I agree with BIGD that we are all responsible for educating ourselves.

Thanks for listening. And thank you all for your rigor -- it is much appreciated.

Please provide references for your "assertions do represent the majority of accepted Biblical scholarship." For instance names of scholars and divinity schools.

That way people can check credentials for themselves. Some fundamentalist divinity schools make professors and students sign a statement that they accept the bible as the inerrent word of God.

E Favorite -

My apologies if I asserted these points to you. Marcus Borg is a founder of the Jesus Seminar which has very little scholarly support outside their own circle. They caused a big fuss when they came on the seen but MOST scholars now do not view their work as the best in scholarly research.

If people do the research I believe that they will find my assertions are much more backed up then the points you illustrated. While there maybe some bad divinity schools out there teaching people like Marcus Borg inaccuracies. My assertions do represent the majority of accepted Biblical scholarship but definately not the scholarship of the Jesus Seminar.

Even if there were handfuls of people still alive around the year 60 AD that personally knew Jesus, or at a minimum knew a close realitive that knew him, I trust what they said about Jesus more than someone doing speculative studies almost 2000 years later.

BigD - please keep in mind that when you're commenting on those 10 points, they are not mine, they are from Marcus Borg (as I referenced), a theologian and essayist here, who is describing what he and other students learned in divinity school.

Also, everything I've read myself says the first Gospel - Mark - was written in the late 60's, so there weren't too many people still alive from the time that Jesus died in 33. Life spans were much shorter then, about age 50.

The assertions you make are not backed up. If you want to "believe" them, fine, but it they don't represent acccepted Biblical scholarship.

I appreciate the opportunity to provide information here. I didn't expect it to have an impact on your thinking, but perhaps others reading here will be interested enough to follow up on some of the internet links and books I've mentioned in these discussions, to further their own exploration of their faith.

E Favorite

You are right on one point. Most people in all faiths have a very simplistic understanding of their faith. Not the fault of the clergy though because its up to each of us to be responsible for our own education.

Beyond that you are way off base.

Most clergy (definitely not all) are well informed on their faith and happy to share and teach as much of it as people want to know. The problem for you is that they know more about the accurate truth then the claims you make which have been proven false long ago.

To address your specific points:

1 – Each book of the Bible is a separate book. Some are written to be historical some are not. Most scholars religious or secular will agree that the historical aspects of the Bible are as accurate as any historical work we have from that age in history. There are several outside the bible references that collaborate many of the events as they are described in the Bible.

2 – You are correct in the source of some of the early material.

3 – The gospel of John is the most symbolic of all the Gospels. Doesn’t mean that just because he was a good writer who could use symbolism that he didn’t also portray actual historical events.

4 – Most scholars now agree that the synoptic Gospels were all written and in basically the same form as they exist today prior to 100 AD. Most place the earliest at between 35-60 AD and the latest between 75-90 AD. These are very early and would have included people who lived at the same time as Jesus. They were not altered over a long period of time nor was there long enough for oral traditions to screw up their information.

5 – This is non-sense if you read the Greek and understand the ways of life at the time Jesus made several references to being divine that are very clear. In fact it wasn’t until around 430 AD that this was even questioned by any believer. It is this very aspect that prevents calling Jesus just a good moral teacher. He clearly claimed to be divine.

6 – Jesus’ message was about following God’s will and to do that one should follow the way of Jesus lived.

7 – The most accepted understanding of these references is that Jesus was referring to the institution of the new covenant. The time after his Death and Resurrection. This occurred and we entered into what is referred to by Jesus. It was not a literal end of the world. If you are going to assert that then you must take the rest of the Bible literally as well right?

8 – Imminent is relative just because you define imminent as a few years – God might very well think imminent is millennia. But for all of us the end is imminent – life is short.

9 – There are many specifically stated references that Jesus will come to judge the world.

10 – Again this is not at all accurate. As I mentioned above most scholars today agree that the Bible is as historically accurate as any text we have (even if they don’t agree with all aspects of the Bible). We can know about Jesus by seeing what was written and by the understandings passed down through tradition.

I am glad you don’t think clergy are purposely being deceptive. That is reassuring. But you are way off base if you think most clergy believe what you believe. The only reason people have a Sunday school understanding is because they haven’t spent more time to learn their faith.

BigD – J Daley originally used the term “pulling the wool” over their eyes. I repeated it in the context of clergy teaching children a very simplistic understanding of faith which is perpetuated in adulthood. There’s nothing conspiratorial about it. It’s more a matter clergy not sharing an adult view of religion with their congregations, thus be inadvertently misleading or deceptive. For instance, clergy educated in mainstream seminaries (Catholic and protestant) know very well that the bible was not written by eyewitnesses. They know Jesus was preceded by numerous pagan mythological “sons of God” some born supposedly born of a virgin, or died on a cross, or rose from the death. (One was even born on December 25th.) But most will not talk about these things or will deflect questions about them.

Marcus Borg, an “on faith” panelist, described his seminary experience. Here’s an excerpt:
http://www.westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Articles/Borg_bio/borg_bio.html

“I realized that the image of Jesus from my childhood—the popular image of Jesus as the divine savior who knew himself to be the Son of God and who offered up his life for the sins of the world—was not historically true. Moreover, I learned that scholars had been saying this for almost two hundred years.

This mind-boggling realization was based on the understanding of the gospels that has developed during the last two centuries. I learned that the gospels were neither divine nor particularly historical. They were not, as I had thought, "divine products" inspired directly by God, whose contents therefore were to be "believed." And they were not "eyewitness accounts" written by people who knew Jesus and who sought to report what they had seen and heard. I was fascinated. In spite of the heavy workload assigned to Union students in those days, I did voluminous amounts of extra reading about the quest for the historical Jesus.

From that first semester came some central awarenesses about Jesus and the gospels. These realizations were, I think, the "common property" of most of us doing graduate work in the 1960s. Several remain foundational to my work on Jesus, though some have fallen away.
The first four realizations were about the gospels:

1.The gospels are not primarily history, but "proclamation" (kerygma, as we learned to call it).

2.The oldest parts of the gospel tradition are Q (a collection of sayings) and Mark (the oldest narrative).

3.The gospel of John is highly symbolic and essentially not historical.

4.Even the material in the synoptic gospels is the product of a long process of development, shaped by Christian communities during the time of oral transmission, and further redacted by the evangelists. Using them as historical sources for Jesus is thus difficult.
The next six realizations were about Jesus himself:

5.Most (perhaps all) of the "exalted titles" by which Jesus is known In the Christian tradition do not go back to Jesus himself. He did not speak of or think of himself as "the Son of God," or as "one with the Father," or as "the light of the world," or as "the way, the truth, and the life," or as "the savior of the world." Only two "exalted titles" might possibly go back to him: "messiah" (about which "cutting edge" scholarly opinion seemed to be negative), and "Son of man" (see "9" below).

6.It follows that Jesus message was not about himself or the importance of believing in him.

7.Jesus was an eschatological figure. He expected "the end of the world" in his own generation. This expectation was quite literal, involving the coming of the Kingdom of God "in power," the gathering of the elect, and judgment. This expectation was central, not peripheral, to shaping and animating Jesus' ministry and message. This point, along with the next three, has fallen away as a foundation to my work.

8.His central message was the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God, understood eschatologically.

9.Jesus also spoke of "the coming of the Son of man," whose advent would be associated with end of the world events. Scholars were divided about whether he was referring to himself (that is, to his own future role), or whether he was speaking about a figure other than himself (that is, though he expected "the coming of the Son of man," he did not identify himself with that figure).

10.Finally, we cannot know much about Jesus. Any very specific claim about him is highly problematic.

The news that "the Jesus of history" (as I learned to call him) was very different from the Jesus I had heard about growing up in the church seemed important to me. It also seemed vaguely scandalous, and something I shouldn't tell my mother about.”

Big D -I don’t think most clergy are purposely being deceptive – I think they don’t know a way out of it and it’s easier not to deal with it. Nonetheless, the result is that clergy are complicit in mature adults being left with a Sunday school level understanding of religion.

I also didn’t say (and don’t think) that “faith is destroying America.” The terms “secular” and “religious” are not opposites and are not inherently in conflict with each other. We in the US live in a secular democracy in which people have freedom of religion. That hasn’t changed. When I mentioned the “destructive intentions of fundamentalists” I was referring to the movement over the past several years of some fundamental Christians who want to “reclaim America for Christ” as if America ever belonged to Christ or any religious figure. Any attempts to curtail freedom of religion and give one religion official precedent over another would be destructive – changing the secular democracy that our founding fathers worked so hare to achieve. I would like moderate Christians, who also want to preserve our secular democracy, to be more aware of that.

Do you have examples or personal experience of these clergy pulling the wool over someone's eyes? At least someone that didn't get in trouble for it? (I am definately not making the argument that there aren't bad clergy - nut bad clergy don't make a faith) You state it as an obvious fact but I have not seen this. J Daley is right - they have enough to do to try and get the first message of love one another across. Its up to people to learn about their faith - the clergy can only help. Your explination sounds like the Da Vinci Code.

And do you really believe faith is destroying America? I think you'd have to admit that America has gotten more secular since its founding and not less so. So if it is more secular now what is destroying the country? If you want to make the argument that it isn't more secular now I have a hard time believing you could prove that.

God, being in control of the universe, can prevent suffering whenever He sees fit, but wherever free will exists, consequences of choice must also exist. We refuse to remember that we are the ones who betrayed God, not vice versa. We are the ones who listened to the lies of the evil one in the Garden of Eden. We chose to mistrust the heart of God. In breaking the one command He gave us, we set in motion a life of breaking His commands.

Being able to discipline oneself for the benefit of others is the very essence of maturity. Shantideva said, “All the joy the world contains, Has come through wishing happiness for others. All the misery the world contains, Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself (at the expense of others).” How we spend our time shapes who we are, and how we assemble the persons we are is cause for social concern. What examples are adults, entrusted with the awesome responsibility for their care, to the rapidly maturing next generation who will impact our society positively or negatively depending on to what we expose them. We have experienced the natural progression of an unguarded nation towards neglect, corruption and the loss of idealism. When awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the Dalai Lama said in his lecture, “…For if we each selfishly pursue only what we believe to be in our own interest, without caring about the needs of others, we end up harming not only others but also ourselves…” One does not have far to look to witness the chaos and devastation caused in our society due to our turning away as a nation from our Judeo-Christian roots. Our culture is rotting. Just listen to the lyrics of popular songs, pick up a book or magazine, view a movie or television show. Pay attention to the violence permeating our communities, the disrespect and lack of courtesy displayed by all, judicial tyranny, and the neglect of and abuse directed at women. (Could this be a direct result of pornography? Duh!) Then consider that perhaps we are allowing the wrong input in our lives and the lives of those who have been entrusted to our care. After all, we are raising our next generation of leaders!!! Words like diversity, pluralism and tolerance have anesthetized us to the reality of good and evil. Tolerance is the cultivation of an attitude of indifference to things we see happening around us. In the name of peace, we tolerate evil. In the name of tolerance, we accept sin and call it freedom of speech or freedom of sexual persuasion. Albert Einstein once said, “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” We dare not stand up for what we believe for fear of being labeled intolerant. Tolerance sees your sin and embraces it. Grace sees your sin and hands you over to Christ's healing embrace.

God cannot make us choose to abide with Him. For now, God, tormented, waits upon us through one holocaust after another. satan’s best deception is its general success in concealing its own reality from the human mind. Most people live in such naivete regarding evil. What will it take for us to take evil seriously? satan lashes out on the earth like a madman, setting people against each other all over the globe. it devastates many lives through starvation, alcoholism, substance abuse and pornography. satan is at work in the holocaust of violent, disrespecting aborting of babies; narcissism; materialism; elitism; and the self-absorption we wallow in when we do not ensure our next generation is brought up in a culture with enriching, wholesome values. Failing to label evil evil misleads us about the world in which we live and our necessity for God’s grace, the only real answer and hope for any of us. If you are not living in touch with God, it is easy to blame Him or pass judgment on Him. We experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow satan. Lurking in the heart of man, evil will erupt when it is permitted to act unimpeded.

Entrusted with the awesome responsibility of my children’s care, I am concerned about how their generation is being raised, to what they are being exposed, and the examples they have in their lives. Are they being enriched in mind, spirit and character? They all need highly esteemed mentors to guide them along the path to liberty. If we don’t stand for something, we will fall for anything. “The humblest citizen of all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of Error,” - William Jennings Bryan. Hopefully, seeking our own pleasure is not the measure of our lives. We are called to be intolerant in love. Why not live as Philippians 4:8 instructs us to: Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. God is reaching out to rescue us … God made nature to sing His praises, to declare His glory and to love Him. He made humans with the ability to choose. He could have ordered our obedience; instead, he calls for our heart.

Perhaps Rev. Thomas Reese could correct his statement regarding evangelicals and hell. Evangelicals, pentecostals and most non-Catholic Christians believe that there is an age of understanding at which individuals are capable of choosing to accept salvation offered to all according to the Word; until the age of understanding and therefore of the possibility of a choice, God's unfailing grace covers those He causes and allows to be formed in the womb. No one goes to hell who has not reach the age of responsibility according to all such major denominations and groups. You can contact me to discuss scripture - I don't wish to argue the point but to ask that the Reverend properly restate his characterization of "evangelical" beliefs.

Thanks for the response. I don’t think lay people can possibly rely on clergy for additional knowledge. I think many lay people don’t want the knowledge, or assume they already have it. I do think that clergy reinforcing things they know not to be true is wrong and becomes a bigger problem as information is so easily accessible to all. I think the “wool” has already been pulled over parishioners’ eyes (as children) and clergy keeps it there – in some cases because trying to get through would be too hard or could hurt their employment status. I think clergy often uses “code” type language, sort of like crossing fingers behind their backs, to say things without saying them, like “according to our tradition” which many lay people translate as “according to history” when it really means – “we’ve said this for a long time and we know a lot of people believe it as a fact, but there’s no historical record of it.”

I’m afraid that assuming clergy are too busy to be straightforward with their congregations is a cop out that will ultimately destroy the church. I personally would like Christianity to survive – without the supernatural beliefs, without the insistence that the Bible is the inspired word of God (the Catholic church “officially” believes it too) and with an honest airing of the bible stories and Christian history. Then we can keep the music, ritual, good works and supportive community without the “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” act.

I agree with this: “Many, many people of all of the world's religions are challenged enough by everyday life -- by the imperative of survival -- to keep them from being expertly versed in the matters you refer to.” No need to be an expertly versed, but some knowledge would be nice. I think a lot of religious people who spend time trying to figure out how God fits into situations would be better off learning some of the facts behind their beliefs.

I also agree with this: “I guess talk of faith, by its very nature, implies assumptions, hopes and sometimes fragile acceptance of things we can neither see nor prove.” But I think “the faithful” may not realize how much this attitude has been fostered by a church that knows it can’t possibly explain itself, so elevates “faith” as a virtue, teaching “believing without seeing” to young children and using faith as an acceptable fall-back for anything that is hard to understand using reason and common sense.

I think you’re right about the “faith” issue being a stumbling block between non-believers and believers, but I’ve found it useful understanding the different ways people relate to faith. It’s one word with many meanings – many of them quite personal and individual. I was a person of not very deep or examined faith for many years. When I started to examine it, it fell apart very quickly. It felt good to understand religion - not to just drop thinking about it when it became too complicated or try to make sense of it when it didn’t make sense. Not that that happened very often, because, truly, my faith, such as it was, was never really tested.

I used to think faith was a good thing. Now, I think faith is harmless in some cases. These days, with faith (in my opinion) threatening the US secular democracy and countries around the world, I think it’s important for everyone to think very carefully about the meaning of faith in their lives. I think it’s especially important for people like you, who treasure your faith, to make sure you’re not inadvertently feeding in to the destructive intentions of fundamentalists.

I appreciate you engaging with me on this topic.

E Favorite: I understand what you're saying. However, I don't think we should assume that lay people rely only on their clergy for knowledge about Church history and tradition. This assumption puts way too much in the hands of our spiritual leaders. Some of us are curious and intelligent enough to explore these matters on our own, and to gain real perspective on the Church, its traditions, and both its destructive and loving acts. Though we often call ourselves a "flock," we are not "sheep" incapable of inquiring into and understanding these issues.

Some of the comments you quote sound like priests and ministers are trying to pull the wool over their congregants' eyes (no pun intended). No doubt some "don't want to go there" with what they learn in the seminary because they think it would take too long to explain to busy 21st-century men and women with short attention spans. Maybe others simply find it not very relevant to the challenges of everyday life. Others may find it too abstruse to be helpful or useful (utilitarian terms, to be sure). Others, however, are willing to have these discussions and often do, in my experience.

Have you ever heard the legend of St. John the Apostle, exiled to the island of Patmos? As the story goes, when he was old, believers repeatedly asked him, "What did Jesus say? What did he do? Please tell us everything you remember." His reply: "Little children, love one another. Once you are able to do this, I'll tell you more." The love was so hard, and so demanding, that I think they never heard much else. I believe many priests and ministers -- and lay people -- have their hands more than full with this task.

My own experience tells me that mature people, both clergy and lay, go through the "painful dismantling and reconstruction" of faith and beliefs referred to in an earlier post, and indeed share this with each other. I also want to add that, for most of us, the sheer demands of everyday life might keep us from inquiring as deeply as someone like you into the complex history of the Church. We are not all called or equipped to be apologists.

Yes, as you've suggested, I think many of us need to take a more active role in understanding the complexities of our faith and to be able to discuss it intelligently with those who don't share it. But I don't fault the many ordinary people who try to live in faith and love without necessarily fully understanding the very complicated history of the Church. Many, many people of all of the world's religions are challenged enough by everyday life -- by the imperative of survival -- to keep them from being expertly versed in the matters you refer to.

I'm starting to wonder whether a true atheist and a true believer have a real basis for discussion, if the atheist insists that everything presented must be based in "fact." Can we always establish "fact?" I guess talk of faith, by its very nature, implies assumptions, hopes and sometimes fragile acceptance of things we can neither see nor prove. I think these are two way of looking at things, and of living -- both worthy of respect.

J Daley -

Regarding your comments on John Crowe’s post, please note I didn’t question the appropriateness of his remarks or his right to express them here. We’re all expressing our opinions here. I thought he might like to know mine.

J, I’m interested in understanding your faith as part of a broader understanding of how people relate to their various religious traditions. No need to defend it, at least from my perspective. I not trying to change your mind about anything and I’m sure, having once been a Catholic, that I won’t be going back to it.

J Daley – to clarify a bit – the dishonesty I’m referring to is not specifically related to clergy/lay personal issues, but what priests and ministers learn about Christian history and dogma in seminary that they never share with their congregations – keeping lay people in a state of ignorance and misinformation. I’ve read about this and now talked with several Catholic and protestants with seminary educations to confirm it personally. This is my major concern, when I refer to people preserving communities at the expense of their integrity.

At any rate, the confessional stories you mention are one-way and personal. The priests know about the parishioners “sins” and foibles, but the parishioners know only what the priests want to tell. I’m not suggesting it should be any different – but that because of the confidential nature of confession it is not open communication. Nor is it the type of communication I’m referring to.

I’m all for people being comforted, by an “unseen presence” or any other means that is otherwise not damaging to the person needing comfort or to the general society. My concern is when the comforting mechanism is a part of a system which requires (or at least assumes) accepting supernatural beliefs and accepting stories with little or no basis in fact.

John Crowe: Thank you for your post. As a religion/faith blog, I think this is a fine place to offer comfort by sharing faith if we have it. Because this is a religion and faith blog, it's also an appropriate place to discuss "God's role" in the tragedy. Others have been doing that, and you have the right to do it, too. Thanks again. I found the words comforting.

John Crowe - I know you're trying to help by posting that sermon, but personally I think people would be better off if they didn't spend time trying to figure out what God's role was in a tragedy and instead just concentrated on comforting each other.

J Daley -

Don’t worry about rambling, and take your time responding. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness. I’ll be back.

The events that took place at Va. Tech Monday are horrible indeed. I offer for your own use and in offering pastoral care to others a sermon on "Prayer and Tragedy" posted below.

In Christ,

John M. Crowe, D.Min., APC
Incapacity Leave
Chair Committee on Disability Concerns
nccumcmentalhealth.org

On September 9, 2001, a sermon was preached from Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18. Psalm 139 contains King David's joyous reflections upon the truth that God knows. Throughout King David's obstacle filled life, he learned the security of living in relationship with God. David's Psalms express his certainty that God knew and understood the depths of his words. So, he poured them all out before God in times of tragedy, crisis, and when godless foes attacked him.

Two days after the preaching of the sermon on Psalm 139, the tragic events of 9/11 took place. People gathered together to pray. How comforting it is to know in times like those that God knows and understands the depths of our words when we pour them all out before Jesus in times of tragedy, and crisis.

According to Psalm 139, God knows the very depths of your soul. God knows what you are saying to him in prayer even better than you do. Isn't this what we are told in Romans 8:26 about the Holy Spirit helping us.26 "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."

As we focus on prayer, remember last year's national tragedy, and focus on the tragedies of our own or of others, I

Human tragedy cuts deep. It is very painful. The Bible says in Ephesians 6 that your real struggle with tragedy, suffering, and evil in the world is not a fight against people on earth. You are fighting against spiritual powers of evil that attack outwardly through others who yield themselves to evil attitudes and actions. You also fight against spiritual power of evil that attack your soul in hope of leading you into evil attitudes and actions. The strongest attacks upon your soul always come in times of great tragedy and crisis. These attacks can be overcome through prayer. You can do this by asking God daily to grant you wisdom and courage for the living of these days. Then, God's grace will save you from weak resignation to the evils you deplore.

Fulfilling the Bible's call to be angry and yet not sin is very difficult when you are in the middle of a painful crisis. Barnacles on a wooden ship are as bad for the ship as for anyone who knocked up against them for their cuts are painful. Some find their lives shipwrecked after such experiences with the barnacle like tragedies of life by becoming a barnacle themselves.

If you forever nurse the pain, you will never be free to love again. Also, if you do not feel the pain of your experience with the barnacle like tragedies of life, then you become numb and remain naive. Feeling the pain and giving it to God for his healing work as well as his dealing with those responsible in prayer is the biblical way to a better day. This is much healthier than feeding the pain and holding onto it as if that is somehow going to accomplish something. Not to forgive digs a dark and dreary day. However, to forgive brings about a better day.

To forgive means taking others off of your hook and placing them on God's hook. Such a prayerful response by God's free grace through Jesus Christ can make you a better person. I am convinced that a lot of people's lives' are shipwrecked in a crisis by their living in self-pity. Bitter self-pity, unfocused anger, loveless fears, and wounded pride will shipwreck you unless you stop and change your mind as well as your heart from the bondage of unforgivenessto freedom through forgiveness. Such freedom comes only after pouring your heart out completely to God in prayer.

Also, you can prayerfully refocus the energy of your anger. You can focus your energy to work toward making the world, your country, your state, your county, your schools (shooting), your community (political assassination, racism), your families (spouse abuse & child abuse), and your hearts free from the sins that leads to inflicting terror into people's lives.

Very often in times of tragedy, you feel abandoned by God. You may find it difficult to believe that with God's help, your life can be rebuilt. Yet, the good news of rebuilding with God's help is the Bible's message for you today.

It is easy to sail along life in your own strength and wisdom, when life is smooth sailing. However, no one's life is without tragedy. Disaster and heart-ache will inevitably hit you. There's sorrow by death. A woman dies, leaving her husband with three small children to raise. A car accident claims the life of a couple's only son or daughter. A senseless boating accident caused by someone' drunken and reckless condition takes the life of someone's fiancée just a few days before the wedding.

While some are the soul survivors of a departed spouse, others experience multiple losses in their life over a short time. In one three year period, a lady lost her father to cancer, her mother to senile dementia, her husband after 31 years of marriage, her talented son in an accident. Many were the nights that she went to bed hoping that she would never wake up. Because of her faith, she knew that she could no more take her life than the life of someone else. Through it all she never doubted God's love and mercy for her, yet she did not always feel his presence. She did however reach a point where she could no longer bear the pain of her losses. She prayed to God for help. He brought I Thessalonians 5:18 to her mind. It speaks of giving thanks in all things. It does not say give thanks only when your life is going right. Nothing in her life changed outwardly, but she did gain a heart for gratitude that changed her. Truly, without her faith, she would either be a miserable person or dead. The hymn "I need the every hour" probably became very dear to her.

Neither the book of Isaiah nor the rest of the Bible make any claims that rebuilding is easy. No, rebuilding after any tragedy or crisis in our lives is tough and takes time. Isaiah and the Bible does say that with God's help through prayer whatever rebuilding needs doing will be done by God's grace and power.

God still controls the world, even your world with unexplainable suffering. Your mind can neither contain nor control all knowledge. The important truth is that God can be trusted in the worst of circumstances as well as in the best. Thus, living by faith means far more than simply accepting suffering as a part of life.Living by faith means growing in your relationship with God, knowing his care and love more deeply as you trust God more thoroughly in prayer.

The author of "It Is Well WithMy Soul" must have been a great person of prayer to have written this hymn after such a personal family tragedy.

As you intercede for those most directly impacted by 9/11 and other tragedies, pray that each one will experience the reality of God knowing and understanding the intensity of their souls.

As you intercede for those most directly impacted by 9/11 and other tragedies, pray that each one will see their fight is not against other human beings, but against the spiritual attacks upon their souls in hope of leading them into evil attitudes and actions.

* Pray for God to help them fulfill the Bible's call to be angry and yet not sin.

* Pray for people to not nurse the pain forever, but to feel the pain and give it to God in prayer for his healing work.

* Pray for the healing of those whose lives are already or almost shipwrecked by bitter self-pity, unfocused anger, loveless fears, and wounded pride.

* Pray for people to refocus the energy of their anger toward making their country, state, county, community, workplaces, schools, churches, marriages, families, and hearts free from the sins that leads to inflicting terror into people's lives.

* Pray for people to believe and keep believing that with God's help, their life can be rebuilt

* Pray for others to know that God still controls the world, even their world with unexplainable suffering. Pray that they may trust God in the worst of circumstances as well as in the best.

Prayer

God our hope and refuge, we confess that anger and hatred have held on to us. Healing has begun, but loss is still real. We are not in control. We don't like being vulnerable. We still want security or the illusion of it. We still want our enemies to be annihilated and for our lives to return to safety and Shalom. Forgive us and heal us. Raise us to new life. Strengthen us in the way of compassion and justice. Fix our faith on you so we know that nothing can separate us from you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reprinted from Candles in the Dark, Flames for the Future: Preaching and Poetry in Times for Crisis, ed. David Randolph (Albany, CA: New Way Media, 2003)

http://bachdevelopment.com/BACH7b.html

I want to contribute this important article to this discussion.

John

The VTI Tragedy: Distinguishing Mental Illness from Violence

Statement of Ken Duckworth, MD
NAMI Medical Director

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) extends its sympathy to all the families who have lost loved ones in the terrible tragedy at the Virginia Technology Institute (VTI). We are an organization of individuals and families whose lives have been affected by serious mental illnesses.

Despite media reports, Cho Seung Hui, the shooter in the tragedy may not actually have had a serious mental illness relative to other diagnoses. But the possibility opens the door for reflection on the nature of mental illnesses—what they are and what they are not— with regard to symptoms, treatment and risks of violence.

The U.S. Surgeon General has reported that the likelihood of violence by people with mental illness is low. In fact, “the overall contribution of mental disorders to the total level of violence in society is exceptionally small.” More often, people living with mental illness are the victims of violence.

Severe mental illnesses are medical illnesses. They are different from episodic conditions. They are different from sociopathic disorders.

Acts of violence are exceptional.

Treatment works, but only if a person gets it.

Questions must be answered about whether the mental health care system responded appropriately in this case. We know that Cho Seung Hui was referred to a mental health facility for assessment. Did he receive the right treatment and follow-up? If not, why not?

NAMI offers below the federal government’s authoritative language on perceptions of violence.

Mental Illness and Violence

Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health (1999)

Are people with mental disorders truly more violent? Research supports some public concerns, but the overall likelihood of violence is low.

The greatest risk of violence is from those who have dual diagnoses, i.e., individuals who have a mental disorder as well as a substance abuse disorder. There is a small elevation in risk of violence from individuals with severe mental disorders (e.g., psychosis), especially if they are noncompliant with their medication….Yet to put this all in perspective, the overall contribution of mental disorders to the total level of violence in society is exceptionally small.

National Institute of Mental Health (2006)

A study of adults with schizophrenia showed that symptoms of losing contact with reality, such as delusions and hallucinations, increased the odds of serious violence nearly threefold. The odds were only about one-fourth as high in patients with symptoms of reduced emotions and behaviors, such as flat facial expression, social withdrawal, and infrequent speaking.

Overall, the amount of violence committed by people with schizophrenia is small, and only 1 percent of the U.S. population has schizophrenia…By comparison, about 2 percent of the general population without psychiatric disorder engages in any violent behavior in a one-year period.

The researchers found that the odds of violence also varied with factors other than psychotic symptoms. For example, serious violence was associated with depressive symptoms, conduct problems in childhood, and having been victimized, physically or sexually; minor violence was associated with co-occurring substance abuse.

SPECIAL EDITION

Friday Facts from NAMI National: April 18, 2007

For Immediate Release
April 18, 2007

Contact: Alexis O’Brien
703-312-7893
202-441-8764
alexiso@nami.org

BigD

I think it is clear we both hate to see Saddam's kill their own people, and we hate to see people die tragically.

You and I clearly differ on Bush, and that is what makes this a free country.

There is lots of evidence that the Bush administration KNEW they were lying when they said "there is not question that Saddam has reconstituted his nuclear program."

There is lots of evidence that the intelligence agencies were a lot more equivocal on their assessment of Saddam's threat, and that Bush people spun it to justify their war.

Do you KNOW hoe many of his people Saddam killed in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Let's try to find out. I bet it was a LOT less than 100,000, the number who died because we started the war.

There have been lots of awful dictators inthe world whom we not only DID NOT dislodge, but actively supported.

By dislodging Saddam, we caused much more death than would otherwise have happened, caused uncalculable damage to the middle east, and profoundly damaged the reputation and leadership and moral authority of the US in the world.

other than those lies and those disastrous results it was a great move to go to war.

E Favorite: Forgive my glibness. Some of what I read here angers me...including the recounting of non-believers that numerous Christians have told them, in no uncertain terms, that they are "going to hell." You make a lot of interesting points, to which I want to respond...but I need a little time. I am not as adept as I'd like in "defending" my faith. I have read John Shelby Spong's "Into the Whirlwind," and yes, he is compelling, but I think that, with the views he expresses, one could say he is no longer really a Christian. A good man, but not really a Christian.

As a mature person (I am 44 years old) raised in a family with a lot of problems; exposed to a variety of Christian and other religious traditions (and agnosticism and atheism); and having lived beside and loved a husband who went through horrible suffering with a brain tumor for a period of decades, I can attest that many members of Christian churches/communities don't ask (out loud) a lot of questions. I would agree that many priests and ministers don't share their deep doubts and fears with their "flocks" in a public setting. But I don't agree that this means we're preserving our communities at the cost of integrity. I don't agree that priests and ministers fear their people can't handle it. My experience has in no way resembled "don't ask, don't tell..." Do you have any idea of the things ordinary Christians confess every day to the priests in a Catholic parish? They admit they've lost the faith of their childhood. That they cheat on their spouses, abuse their children, are addicted to substances, are dishonest in business, are apathetic toward others' needs, have destructive habits of all kinds, etc. etc. etc. One priest I know told a friend of mine, "We hear it all here." These priests have no illusions about the people in the pews. And the people in the pews -- at least in my church -- know that our priests are human and subject to the same doubt, bewilderment, temptation and loss of childhood faith that we are. "Faith" as we knew it may seem to dissolve, only to be replaced with a "knowing," rather than a "believing in," God's presence.

One of the key words here is "childhood." I believe that all honest and good priests and ministers want their congregants and friends to have an adult faith -- a view of God that differs vastly from the benign notions we dreamed of as little ones. I personally know few adults -- just by virtue of their own painful and joyful life experiences -- who retain the naive faith of their youth. Brother Carlo Carretto, the late Italian monk and author, urges Christians, in the way of mystics of many religions, to "disregard all notions" of God. Don't think about Him/Her...rather, see and experience. Remember Swiss psychologist Carl G. Jung's phrase: "I don't believe, I know." And how can a "believer" or "knower" possibly impart in words to a non-believer that he or she has been "visited" by a loving unseen Presence that seems to guide -- or want to guide -- their lives?

I heartily agree that, for many of us, our highest calling as Christians may be to hold each other accountable for how we represent our shared faith to others. I read something recently that helps me do this: A talented Catholic priest and author says that we humans tend to conceive of God as power (control), instead of as Love. What if Jesus came to show and model for us pure Love? He even said, "My strength is made perfect in weakness." What if the word "power," in God's "mind," means Love...what if it is not synoymous with control? What if missionaries are not just out there to "win souls" by gaining the intellectual assent of others to Jesus' messiahship, but to introduce them to pure Love?

Sue Monk Kidd, author of the acclaimed novel "The Secret Life of Bees," in another book urges readers not to see God as a rescuer, but as a midwife. Someone who "births" us throughout our lives. Someone who doesn't necessarily protect us from harm or hurt -- as no human parent can do for their child -- but is with us through it all. The power of Presence holds value, just as much as -- and maybe more than -- the power to control.

And yes, all institutions need money in order to operate. Church leaders have to ask for money. Without money, could you pay your mortgate, your electric bills, etc., buy food, educate yourself? Is it possible that Goodness can show itself through vastly imperfect people and institutions? I think the answer is yes.

Sorry again for rambling. I haven't begun to address your points. Let me leave you with this: I married a loving, generous, funny, zesty, passionate man full of gratitude for life. He believed in God with all his heart in a very undogmatic way. He was the most accepting, humble, gracious, trusting (and tough) of people I have ever known. And all that while suffering loss after loss that would turn most of us bitter...make most of us assume the fetal position in a corner somewhere. The absolutely inexplicable goodness, patience, love and grace that radiated from the person of my husband was just as real and powerful, and just as unexplainable, as the awful violence and pain we're seeing at Virginia Tech. It's a mystery. I don't believe, I know.

Henry James

You are right nothing we could have done in 2003 would have brought back the 600,000. But we could do something about it continuing in the future. To say only another 5,000 would have died if Saddam would have remained in power is absurd. Over the course of his reign the average was at least 30,000. If he would have just done the average the same amount of people would have died whether we invaded or not.

It is not debatable about who we should grieve more about. Every human life is sacred and equally valuable. Naturally as humans we will grieve more about those we have closer connections with but the tragedy is the same. This is the very reason it’s not okay to allow a dictator to kill 600,000 people. Just because its not our fault doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do something about it.

The only legitimate argument against this war in my opinion is that the Bush administration is guilty of poor PR. The issue of WMD should have been one issue but the main issue should have been that we can not let someone committing such atrocities stay in power. With this focus we would have garnered more international support (you would think). And maybe have been able to achieve faster and better results.

I think Bush acted exactly how he said. I believe that because of the intelligence that he had he truly believed that the WMD poised a real threat. Further more I think he realized that the world could not continue threatening Saddam but never doing anything to back up the threats. I believe that if we would all look at this from the big picture. Realize where we are at and that we need to see this through a great good could be accomplished in removing one of history’s worst dictators and establishing a country of freedom in one formally ruled by tyranny.

J Daley - welcome to the forum. Glad to have you here and to respond to your comments.

You say, " Look around you...and you'll see the good. The young men and women and others who died did. Can we honor their memories by being people of hope, even as we grieve?"

Yes, I agree - I have seen the good and I honor the memories of the dead. I realize that many Christians don't think in terms of the heroic Jewish professor being in Hell, but I also know that it is indeed a tenet of the Christian faith that only people who accept Jesus as their savior can go to heaven. The whole point of missionary work is to save souls. (Of course, getting the financial support of new church members may also be a motivator). I don’t just mean to be glib (though I admit, I couldn’t resist being glib – somewhat like your and Steveroot’s “heart/h” line).

I perceive you to be a moderate or liberal Christian, who doesn’t identify with the more fundamentalist views that are so often expressed these days. However, I think if you want to change how people talk and think about your religion, you should look to fellow Christians, of all kinds, and not to non-believers like me. You are responsible for your own reputation, after all. Besides, it’s not like I’m telling bad jokes about Christians. What I say may be insulting, but it’s not misleading. It’s true – I know it from my own Christian upbringing and from the numerous Christians here who have told me, in no uncertain terms, that I’m going to hell, no matter how “good” I am. I’d like to see people like you do something about that behavior within your faith community. Trust me, I’m doing my part to try to get across to Christians that it isn’t nice to tell people that they’re going to hell.

By the way, I think I’ve taken a “serious look at the faith” and have a “sensitive, nuanced understanding of it.” What I’ve found is a lot of good people – clergy and lay – playing what I call a game of “don’t ask/don’t tell.” The clergy is not honest or direct with parishioners about what clergy knows about Christian and church history and lay people don’t ask too many questions for fear their faith will be shaken or their lack of faith will be made known. I fear people are preserving their communities at the expense of their integrity.

I think, by now you can tell you’ve struck a chord with me. I strongly suggest two books to you – The Dishonest Church, by Jack Good – a retired UCC minister. He book is available on Amazon. Here’s an excerpt:
http://myhome.iolfree.ie/~andrewfurlong/dishonestchurch.html

---"Here is the central issue: pastors and other trained professionals of the church often have developed a system of beliefs that is qualitatively different from the faith they communicate to local congregations. Their individual faith has developed, in most cases, after an intense and sometimes painful time of questioning, dismantling, and reconstruction. For reasons that are not clear, these leaders assume that local church members are either unwilling or unable to survive a similar process. So, in an act of dishonesty that threatens to erode the core of the church's mission, they hold one kind of faith for themselves while the literature they produce for the laity and the sermons they deliver assume another, basically different, style of faith for the non-professional" (p9)

I also recommend Letter to a Christian Nation, a bestseller by Sam Harris that you can read in two sittings. Beware – he’s an Atheist. Here’s an Amazon comment: “We all know about good things that have been derived from bad ideas. Modern religions serve many social goods such as health care for the poor. The problem is that is also services many reprehensible ideas. Harris blows the whistle, pointing out the religions of the world are based on human generated vengeful stories. Read this book and you decide your stance for the future.”

So, J. Daley, I hope that some of what I’ve said interests you and prompts you to further reflection and even action. I’ll be checking back here for your response.

PS – Also check out “Why Christianity Must Change or Die” By John Shelby Spong and “Breaking the Spell” by Dan Dennett.

Steveroot: Must we make a religious slur out of a typo? C'mon! Have a heart(h).

"Carlos:

My hearth goes to the families.............

Posted April 18, 2007 3:39 PM"

... more burnt offerings?
Steve

added point for BIGD

Nothing we could have done in March 2003 would have brought back to life the 600,000 Saddam had murdered by then.

What we DID do in 2003 resulted in many hundreds of thousands dying who would NOT have died had we not invaded.

BIGD

I fully realize and grieve over the fact that Saddam killed so many over the 30 years of his reign.

Let me refine my point a bit and see if you agree:

It is tragic that 32 people died at VT.
It is tragic that 161 people died YESTERDAY in Bagdad.
Obvious, but worth stating.

it is debateable as to whether we should grieve MORE over the 32 at BT or the 161 in Bagdad.

I think we should grieve equally, and by sheer numbers, more for the Bagdad deaths.

The United States is directly responsible for the Iraqi deaths. If we had not invaded, they would not have died in this manner.

If we had not invaded, people would have died as a result of Saddam. Since we did invade, they die as a result of the US of A.

If Saddam were STILL in power, it is a reasonable estimate to say 5,000 people would have died at his hands.

It is hard to imagine that 100,000 people would have died THIS YEAR at Saddams hands if her were still in power, though many more than 100,000 did die over his reign.

Two points
There are more deaths - many more - in Iraq this year because we invaded than if Saddam were still in power.

If we had NOT invaded, such deaths would NOT be the direct responsibility of the US. Since we DID invade, they ARE our direct responsibility. THAT is tragic, both for the IRaqis and for the US.

You might say Bush acted out of benign motives.
I think he acted with arrogance of power and without knowing what he was getting into, and it resulted in 400,000 more people dying over the last 4 years than otherwise would have.

HENRY JAMES:

If you are going to post scorecards lets try and get the facts right.

Saddam was in power for much longer than 2 years. Do you really think its good that he was able to bring his killing spree down to only 5000 people in the last two years he was in power (when he had a monumental amount of world pressure on him)? Come on 5000 people are still a lot. If you don’t believe that then you have other problems. But lets look at his real record.

Saddam is conservatively estimated to have killed at least 600,000 people over his reign. He was one of the worst dictators and committed some of the worst genocide in the history of the world. He killed over 180,000 Kurds between 1987-1988 alone!

While these are conservative estimates, aggressive estimates place the total Iraq casualties since the beginning of the war at 100,000. How many of those were committed by terrorists loyal to Saddam trying to fight to regain control – or those from other countries who know that they do not want to have a democratic state in the heart of the Middle East? Please let me know.

Again while all these numbers are tragic and tend to be so overwhelming that the true human tragedy gets overlooked. But my point is that to remove someone who killed 600,000 of his own people will obviously come at a price. But if we had the guts to follow through and finish the war then after a few years of hard work and yes unfortunately steep prices in human life the world could be a better place. Don’t diminish it to he only killed 5,000 in his last two years. That is ridiculous.

Henry James, it is sad that so many die in Iraq and else where! It's sad that so many died at V.T., however in your complaints about Iraq you don't mention the 100,000 murdered each month at our own hands in abortion clinics! Are the mothers who sentence their babies to death evil? No, I don't think so. Are the doctors who murder the babies evil? I'm not sure. Is the action evil? Definitely!
Evil isn't always what one is as much as what action taken is. Arguements can be made about Hitler because he did have mental problems, but theres no arguement that what he did was evil to it's extreme!

E Favorite: Please do not assume that "the tenets of Christianity" say that this heroic man, who was Jewish, will "burn in hell for not accepting Christ as his personal savior." Some --far from all -- Christians view things this way. And using inflammatory (excuse the pun) terms like "a special place next to the furnace" -- for this man and for the shooter -- make honest, caring, intelligent people of Christian faith sound like spiritually, emotionally and intellectually blighted people. Many of us are not, though we carry within us, as Anonymous pointed out, withered places that need healing. You are free to express youself however you please (one of the gifts of our society), but I find this characterization of Christianity insulting and misleading, and reflecting a lack of any serious look at the faith or sensitive, nuanced understanding of it.

In my previous post, I was trying to make the same point that "Anonymous" made...how can we fail to notice, appreciate and praise the "towering good" that the lives of these men and women brought? A lot has not been lost -- but not all. The well known British author and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis wrote in his book "The Screwtape Letters," that to us humans, the "bad" or "evil" can seem much more real than the good. But it isn't. Look around you, as Anonymous suggested, and you'll see the good. The young men and women and others who died did. Can we honor their memories by being people of hope, even as we grieve?

yes, Anon's post was very nice, though it failed to note that the victim who "chose in his final moments to make his last actions a monument to the good life he had led up to then, making the ultimate sacrifice to save his students" was Jewish and according to the tenets of Christianity is now burning in hell for eternity for not accepting Christ as his savior, irrespective of the lives he saved here on earth.

I wonder if there's a special place in Hell, right next to the furnace perhaps, for people like the shooter, or if he and the heroic professor are side by side there, having arrived on the same day.

Only God knows.

Thank you Floyd Johnson,

I missed the 9:39 posting 18April by anonymous
having qucikly passed over it due to it's length.

So glad to have gone back and read it.

Quite a beauty.

I suggest to anonymous that this be sent in for major publication..... Might be of consolation to some of the grieving.
It is one of the best I've read.

Thanks anonymous.

Peace of Christ

To Anonymous:

Your post of April 18, 2007 9:39 PM,

Why did you make it 'anonymous'?

Truly it was not a lousy piece of writing you posted.

rgrds,

Don't mean to point fingers here but are you telling me that no one at VT had the authority to expel this deranged student with all those clear warning signs? Hindsight being perfect, of course, but damn(!), what signs there seem to have been.

"Yet those who would help him were hindered by laws and...we can't force him to seek help."

TJ

I'm told that under New Jersey gun laws, he would have been unlikely to be able to get a gun there, since he would need 2 references saying he wasn't a looney.

But in VA, you just need to pass a background check, which is not sufficient to catch those who have voluntarily committed themselves.

It's nothing to do with an "just society". It's to do with some common sense about putting in some filters.

I'm sure he could and would have tried and build bombs instead, but he was giving off so many signs that if his roommates had found any bomb material, they'd have had cause to get him involuntarily committed. Just something to think about there.

There is no theological answer to the problem of evil that admits the existence of an all-powerful and all-good God -- at least none one that can make any sense, since even the promise of a nicer after-life begs the question of why so much suffering is allowed to persist here and now for so long a time for so many innocent people. But theology is not my main point this time.

The killer was deranged and in a better world would have been locked up, but how could it be done in a just society with its inherent imperfections? Until somebody commits a serious crime, it is difficult to just put them in a cell. In Stalinist states that kind of thing happens easily, but that is not the kind of state we want to live in. And so, this kind of tragedy happens again and again. I see no answer to it.

But it is scary that a paranoid schizophrenic with restraining orders to stop stalking fellow students could walk into a gun shop and walk out with a gun that easily.

I'm with Jacob on that problem-solving for school shooters. Now if we could figure out something for Iraq, I'd be all ready to push for it.

I did my best personally-- I voted against Bush twice and I didn't back the invasion of Iraq at all. I lost a cousin in Iraq.

It can feel frustrating when the warning signs are there, but you don't know how to act to stop it before or after it's set in motion. You can feel helpless or try and focus on what you know you can do to change things, and then build on that.

I'm not clever in political science, in diplomancy, or in Islamic studies. All I can do is demand better leaders who do their homework and refuse to back further failure from this administration.

Laurie:

What I or you 'believe' about evil has no bearing on finding ways to minimize its effects.

The fact is that your compassion for the dead and their loved ones exists only to the extent that it reinforces your 'religious' beliefs and makes you feel that your beliefs are superior to others'. You really don't seem to be much concerened about the actual people who died, at least the ones in Iraq today.

Utilitarian Morality

a little scoreboard:

Number of people who were being killed by Saddam in the 2 years before we invaded: 5,000/year.

Number being killed in In Iraz since US invaded: 100,000/year.

Percent killed as a result of US actions before invasion: zero percent. or 0
Percent killed as a result of US actions after US invation" 100,000

Amount of guilt US citizens should feel for creating the climate of violence and gun use that led to 32 virginia tech killings: significant.

Anount of guilt US citizens should feel for letting themselves be duped by Bush and Cheney into invading Iraz and causing 100,000 killings per year: Much much more significant.

Laurie

Thank you for reminding us that War is Hell.

That makes everything the US is doing in Iraq all right, i suppose,

and makes us not need to recognize the relationship between the 32 Americans who died in Virginia on Monday and the 161 people who died of bombings in Iraq today.

One group was killed by a suicide gunner, and they were american.

the other group were killed by suicide bombers, and they were iraqi.

i think they were all human beings.

i think they were all killed because of senseless, stupid, unthinking, uncontrolled human actions.

But we can ignore the Iraqi deaths even though they outnumber the American deaths by 5 to 1, ande they happen every day,
because War is Hell,
and what can you do?

By all accounts, each one of these students and faculty members made their lives a gift to their families, their friends, the communities in which they grew up and lived. 32 beautiful lives, characterized by hard work, perseverence, dedication, giving joy, giving back, creating art and beauty, doing all the right things and making all the right choices. Experiencing the joys of life, times of sorrow, living and growing and planning for the future while traveling down their individual paths until they converged, in a place, with a madman, who chose to rob them and their loved ones of a future together. They were present for his mental collapse and he chose for them, as it often happens, not for any other reason than because he could. And there are no coincidences. We are wired to search for the larger reason, to want the answer to the "why?" Something beyond what we can see, the physical cause and effect: that is proof, in and of itself, that in our gut we believe in God. We know that at least one of these victims chose in his final moments to make his last actions a monument to the good life he had led up to then, making the ultimate sacrifice to save his students. What small-minded, atrophied soul out there is not painfully aware of his own failings next to that example and inspired by it to greater acts of good and sacrifice for others? Who is not inspired by the amazing achievements of these people who lost their lives? "Reason" is personal and everything happens for a reason, unless you are too intellectually lazy, emotionally weak, spiritually impoverished and disrespecting of these peoples' lives to look with clear eyes around you and see all of the effects of this event. Not just the tragedy, but the heroism. Not just the horrible loss, but the inspiration. Not just the evil, but the towering good of victims and survivors. Not just the feelings of being abandoned by God but the coming together of a community in love to comfort and mourn. Not just the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness but the determination to change society to avoid this kind of carnage in the future. Bad things happen for alot of reasons, most of which we, individually and as a society, control through our choices and/or failures to act. If they didn't, you wouldn't really understand what is good, what is love. And today, and tomorrow and the day after, the warm sun will still shine and the breeze will blow and the soft grass will grow green and the world will go on, the good and the bad and God will still be there in it with all of us. But it won't be the same because now we all know who these 32 awesome people are and their lives and their stories changed the world. And it's our job to choose to continue their good work.

Mr. Mark: I agree with the poster who said that religion is spoken better in poetry than prose, and that we can look at Fr. Reese's statements in a more metaphorical way. I believe in "moral evil," which is a destructive choice a sane, free-willed person makes.

Mr. Cho was obviously disturbed and ill, so no, I don't think his violent actions made him an agent of moral evil. But I think that the consequences of his illness; others' limited abilities to help him, indifference, sheer helplessness in the face of an intractable problem, etc. somehow represent a life-defeating, mysterious force we perhaps feebly term "evil." But just because our language is inadequate and our minds limited, it doesn't mean what we're attempting to describe isn't frighteningly real. If it weren't real but incomprehensible, why would we call it "senseless?"

And to the poster who said that, to determine the cause of something, look at what gave rise to it...If only things were that simple. If only we could explain things in those terms. If this equation always worked, wouldn't the human race have come a lot further by now?

I have always believed in God, and in a realm that we cannot see with our eyes. And I believe there is grace -- and much mystery -- in this. Think of dogs, whose noses and ears equip them to detect smells and sounds that we would never otherwise know were there. This may seem a silly example, but it helps show in some small way that our world, other people, things we term "good" and "bad" are partially perceptible and explainable and largely veiled and unexplainable.

To the poster who respectfully asked why we had to attach meaning to something, I would say simply because we're human. Because no one wants to believe their loved one's death has no value, no possibility of bringing about learning or love. No one wants to believe their loved one "died for nothing." But I don't think this means we're naively looking for a "silver lining." It's the very definition of what makes us human. It's what the toughest and most resilient of human beings do. They seek, find and create meaning.

Sorry for the rambling. Trying desperately to say that Mr. Cho was clearly mentally ill -- something we can define and sometimes treat -- but not something we can wholly understand. And that the innocent lives he took were precious and meaningful, though short. And that many families of the victims are people of faith and prayer even as they are wracked with grief, bewilderment and probably anger. They will grope their way along, in a "storm" of sadness, love, grief, hope, rage, peace, exhaustion, fierce energy, shaking their fists, and in humility -- all at once, like most of us do. And I hope no one will take offense if I say, may God be with them on their journey.

War is hell. I believe those premediated acts are an example of how evil spreads, corrupting even people who would live peaceably if they could.

"Our Iraqi people are being subjected to a brutal attack that does not differentiate between an old man, a child or a woman. This targeting of civilian populations brings back to our minds the mass crimes and genocide committed by the Saddamist dictatorial regime," said a statement from al-Maliki's office.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070418/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

What do you believe, Gregor? You want to stop the war? Hand out medals to the suicide bombers? What do you believe about evil?

All this self-awoed holiness by the Washington Post and its columnists and avid readers sounds quite hollow in light of the murder of 183 people in Iraq today, which would be equivalent to the slaughter of hundreds of people in our country.

The silence of the paper on the Iraqi deaths and the cause of it, apart from the usual clinical reporting of the facts, is quite deafening.

Now, you see-- a lot of people don't like the word "evil" because they don't believe it exists as a force in the world. I understand that, actually. I was like that once. I don't have strong evil impulses myself, so I don't really understand it in others.

As a child, I read the biography of Hitler, and was appalled at all the abuses he suffered as a child. I pitied him. Yes. I did, even knowing his adult life. You should read it sometimes-- it's an eye opener.

I was loathe to label what seemed like natural impulses with horrible consequences as "evil". Then I learned to see the connection between abuse and further horrible consequences.

It took wisdom for me to understand eventually that he had to have experienced such evil to be so evil.

Now the question is: does that excuse his acts? NO. Not everybody succumbs to such evil, and some people simply act cruelly despite being given an upbringing many people in the world would envy no end.

It's not for you to asssume that I understand mental illness any less than you do, just because I disagree with you.

Here's some facts: A study done of most female murderers and violent criminals in prison showed a prevalence of mental illness of over 90%.

Now, most women with mental illness do not wind up in prison at all. Far from it! They're also much more likely to be victimized by crime, too.

But it seems, in order to commit evil acts, you must be in a form of mental or emotional estrangement to begin with. Mentally ill people often have very poor social networks, which puts them at risk for suicide or other violent death.

As for the common cold analogy:

Schizophrenia may be caused by toxoplasmosis carried in cat feces.

Rabies itself will cause animals to act madly, biting their kin and attacking animals larger than themselves they would not normally do.

Rabies's goal is to spread itself by all means possible, including having their victims indulge in suicidal behavior and bite others to infect them.

Syphilis can cause megalomania, hypersexuality, and violence.

Brucellosis has also been recorded to cause homocidial thoughts.

Steroids and many things-- seizures, even malnutrition can also cause violent behavior in those prone to it.

And immersion in violence, daily evil, and lack of love and social structure also causes violent behavior. Just ask anybody who grew up without a father, or grew up in a gang neighborhood.

I choose to see evil itself as an impersonal disease that can spread itself through acts of evil, as well as thrive where the person is weak or already mentally ill.

If I don't believe in evil as a disease apart-- then I have to ask myself questions about why, if abuse or mental illness automatically equal evil, why don't all people become evil, mean, self-centered, and violent?

Why are my friends who have endured it have become surprisingly kind people and not prone to violence, crime, drug use, or antisocial acts?

They all had faith in God and remaining open to the love of others, which lead them to continue healing themselves.

The most extreme victim of abuse that I know (and it is extreme, his story)-- he would tell me "Yes, they did evil to me." And like Jesus, he might also say "They knew not what they do."

It's the ones that know exactly what they do, that terrify us the most. Cho premediated this attack for months. He was mentally ill, but he was able to make the decisions leading to this act in a form of cold anger.

Yes, indeed, he was acting as an agent of evil. Just because he might not have known how else to act, doesn't negate the effects of his deed, or his choices.

Henry James: You misunderstand the word evil. You are using an archaic and barbaric sense of the word. Evil means the opposite or absence of good. Moral evil results from the free choice to sin (Sin: An offense against God – AS WELL – as a fault against reason, truth or right judgment) which men have.

Even if you do not believe this shooter had free choice because of a mental illness the action can still be evil – it might not be morally evil – but its still and evil act. There is nothing barbaric about that concept. Father Reese (I believe) was definitely not saying that the shooter was possessed or forced to do it by the devil. He simply was making the point that the action was evil.

Finally, do some real research. France and England do not have lower problems because of gun control. As is the case with most of Europe they tend to have much swifter and more exact punishment for crimes.

Criminals are deterred not by gun control but by swift and certain repercussions. Take Italy for example. They have an astonishingly low murder rate compared to the US. Not because they have better gun control. It’s because when I was visiting I watched a bank robber be gunned down by the heavily armed police as he left the bank. He hadn’t killed anyone. I call that swift and very certain punishment. Do you think that is fair? If not let’s look at England. The average police officer doesn’t even carry a gun. They don’t need to because the punishment for committing any crime with a gun is swift and severe. Pass all the gun control we want if the reason this person committed this crime is because of his mental illness, his ability to obtain a gun would not have stopped him. If his mental illness made him do this he would have found a way to either get a gun illegally or come up with some other terrifying and horrible way to do the same EVIL action.

Many religions speak better in poetry than in prose; I believe the Reverend's statements will make more sense if taken metaphorically rather than literally. Language is so limiting.

Bush Bashers: The point was well made that this is a blog on faith and a seemingly sensless tragedy like this, while horrible, brings a great many together to a place like this to discuss issues that otherwise often don't get discussed. But its not a political Blog on the likes or dislikes of the president but seemingly it always turns into that.

To that end if you want to argue that Bush is horribly evil and doing wrong in Iraq answer me this: How many people died under the rule of Saddam Hussein? The reasons we went to war may have not proved true but the whole time the world's focus should have been on removing a dictator that killed hundreds of thousands of his own people. The world should have stood up to him a long time ago. Most of the Bush bashers on here would say that its a horrible tragedy that we have lost 3,000+ of our own brave and valiant men and women, and it absolutely is. But the removal of a dictator who killed hundreds of thousands and was never going to stop is worth a price being paid. America used to stand for exactly those types of issues. We were willing to pay the ultimate price in order to accomplish a greater good and save the lives of others.

Maybe God can use evil for good (or if you don't by into evil - then in your mind the hypocrisy of the president - your mind not mine)? Maybe there is a bigger picture that you can't see. Maybe this senseless tragedy prevented a much bigger one later. Despite any of our efforts no one will ever know, with the only possible exception of God. Either way if you believe in God or not human beings have free will. If it is warped by evil or mental illness or even a combination of the two, each of us can choose what to do even if our capacity to choose is impaired. If you can't understand that people have total free will and why a God would not impair anyones free will, whether it be imparied or almost non-existente through evil or menatl illness, then you need to do a lot of reading.

"EVIL is a Barbaric Concept"

Recognizing the Father and Laurie's right to hold their beliefs, I have a right to disagree.

Most things that happen have a cause. Cho's murders were caused by his mental illness.

To call it "evil" is equivalent to saying he was "possessed by witches" or "the devil made him do it."

It is mythology. It is superstition. It tells us nothing.\

There is no reasonable sense in which we could say Cho was "responsible for his actions."

I respect the Father's right to his beliefs. I think his beliefs are archaic and barbaric. He has every right to feel the same about mine. It is a free country. We can buy all the guns we want and kill all the people we want.\

Has anyone noticed that England and France have about 1 percent of the gun fatallities of the US? But it's not the guns fault, is it?
The Devil makes us do it.

The good Father wants to 'give meaning to the senseless waste of life'.

Well if it's a "senseless waste", and I agree it is that and worse, why bother trying to impose meaning on it?

I have no intention to be disrespectful, but I don't quite understand the need for this.

It is evil that thirty three people died at the hands of Mr. Cho. The taking of these lives was evil. It does not matter whether Mr. Cho was mentally ill or not. The results are evil. In catholic theology, it is my understanding that evil exists in the world because of original sin. How can anyone deny that there is evil in own's heart at times or in our families? the results in VA Tech were evil. Mr. Cho may have been an unwilling instrument of evil due to his mental illness.

Laurie,

"Evil" is a word people use to characterize certain things they don't like. That's all it is, a word.

In the physical world that actually exists, all happenings and events are the products of the specific causes and conditions that gave rise to them.

If you want to understand an event or a happening, focus your attention on what gave rise to it.

Labelling an event as "evil", or anything else, merely blocks your perception of what really happened, i.e., of the truth.

Let's see... thirty something people die and the
whole country goes crazy with SHOCK. Meanwhile,
every day in IRAQ these same number of young people
are butcher, thanks directly to President George Bush, and the American Public could care less.

Sorry about the double postings. Those aren't happening from my end as I only click "Post" once.

Dear Laurie -

You do not understand mental illness, and Mr Cho was declared mentally ill by a State court. To label it an "evil" is as misguided as it would be to label a common cold as evil. Mental illness is not the result of demons. The bad things that mentally ill people do are not choices they have freely made as their minds are not free, they are ill.

Mental illnesses - which are often caused by chemical imbalances in the brain - are treatable just as surely as are other diseases. If there is any evil here, then it is the evil of the people who ran the system and did nothing for this young man after he was declared mentally ill by the state.

Your ideas on the boy's mental illness are medieval in their causation, ignorant in their treatment and, frankly, inhumane in their comparison to Hitler.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Dear Laurie -

You do not understand mental illness, and Mr Cho was declared mentally ill by a State court. To label it an "evil" is as misguided as it would be to label a common cold as evil. Mental illness is not the result of demons. The bad things that mentally ill people do are not choices they have freely made as their minds are not free, they are ill.

Mental illnesses - which are often caused by chemical imbalances in the brain - are treatable just as surely as are other diseases. If there is any evil here, then it is the evil of the people who ran the system and did nothing for this young man after he was declared mentally ill by the state.

Your ideas on the boy's mental illness are medieval in their causation, ignorant in their treatment and, frankly, inhumane in their comparison to Hitler.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Mr. Mark, of course Mr. Cho was touched by and harbored evil. We all are.

Evil is a disease, not a label for the whole person except in rare cases, when it engulfs the person's thinking completely that all the person's energies become directed to evil.

I don't have to mention that guy who started the holocaust, do I? And how he had deep behavioral and mental illness from a boy onwards in part due to abuse, including stalking women, indulging in war games, sitting alone, holding his head in silence, before leaping up to utter tirades?

Dear J Daley -

You raise valid points about beliefs and this blog, and I respect that.

I now ask you: in light of the fact that Mr. Cho was declared mentally ill by a VA court two years ago, do you agree with the Father that Mr Cho was an agent of "evil" when he committed these killings?

I'm Catholic, and I do wish Father Reeves could have discussed the theological issue of evil a bit better.

This man was mentally ill. He gave multiple warning signs. Yet those who would help him were hindered by laws and "we can't force him to seek help." He did get help, not enough. He was carrying a lot of evil inside him... not made by him to start with. But he was not able to conquer it without help.

The call to worship in church is not just about making brainwashing easier-- it's so we can gather as a community when we are at peace and open to helping each other. It strengthens ourselves as humans, by allowing us to focus on what should be our best virtues.

He could have been bitterly lonely in church; it happens everyday in churches. But he could have learned what goodness is. He could have tried to unburden his cares on God; just to talk to him, that would be better than holding it all in and feeling utterly alone, cut off from himself.

I will admit that ritual is good, when honed to a purpose to benefit-- celebration, respect, purification, or grief.

Unfortunately mass murder has become a ritual for those who have no other hope left, who feel despair, loneliness, and a great hate for all who go about happy, who have all he would want, and they do this in spite of his great suffering.

It's interesting that Father Reese believes only human nature is evil. I don't know if Catholic thinkers has explored the issue of non-human evil. Certainly God was often thought to be in control of weather, lightning, earthquakes, etc, but in the Book of Job, Satan is allowed to wreack no end of havoc on Job.

...Wasn't the formative incident leading to original sin the breaking away from God in the attempt to grasp our own knowledge and be independent from God, which was doomed to be flawed without God's grace?

To this day nature runs on its own knowledge. Everything from the sparrow to the mighty whale has their own limited knowledge, in their bodies, in their brains, in their instincts, indeed the bacteria themselves. They all die eventually.

Even the weather has its interactions with life, with what we do, with what the merest bacteria and algae in the water do.

It is axiomatic we are all flawed, limited without God. That means the universe itself; nothing can be perfect if it harbors a flaw, no matter how small.

So, it is my inclination to believe freedom of will, as we call it, exists even down to the quantua of the universe for a reason-- God's reason.

This is why many people, looking at the material cause of our universe, believe that this is the only cause of our being. It's a dangerous illusion, though.

The universe is billions of years old and very big by our standards. We will not scry even a solid one percent of all it is in our lives. We cannot know even all the universe is, how can we presume to know there is nothing BUT it?

Another blog mentions the quote from Isiah:

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isa. 55:7-ff).

Again, we do need to engage in the ritual of lifting our eyes and hearts beyond our little lives and prejudices on a daily basis, if we are to build the world we want to live in.

That is a good reason to indulge in worship-- for it can be very good for us to seek that bond.

And I rather suspect we'll never be good enough to build the world we want within our hearts without supernatural grace.

Those lives have been all too short. We need to engage into a dialogue about how we can make ourselves better, and not argue for our selfish wants and fears when it comes to mental illness, gun control, and a network for locating, helping, and stopping mass murderers before they explode from their utter loneliness.

Mr. Mark: "The case could be made that the good Father is being disrespectful of those who don't share his particular belief set." Fr. Reese isn't being disrespectful to those who don't share his faith...he's simply presenting his point of view, as you are. I thought this site was set up so a variety of views could be shared.

And, as for all these "huh?" responses, this is, after all, a religion and faith blog...it isn't as if most people reading this material haven't heard these basics of Christianity before. Even in the face of this awful devastation at Virginia Tech, I feel amazed at how biting and critical of each other some of us sound here. Wow! No matter what our beliefs (or lack of any religious belief), can we practice a little basic respect, instead of accusing ourselves or each other of "wallowing in self-pity," etc. Grieving together, analyzing and solving real problems together, comforting each other in confusion...these are good.

I'm a believing, practicing Catholic who believes in "evil" but doesn't understand it; who has witnessed, in her own life, intense suffering; who believes mental illness shouldn't be labeled as "evil;" who wants to treat with respect all people of good will, no matter their beliefs; and who DOESN'T believe that non-Christians or atheists are "going to hell." Yes, it comforts me to believe that my wonderful husband, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor at age 7 and died 2 years ago at age 43 after untold suffering, is in a "place" (for lack of a better word) where he is somehow alive and free of what limited him in his physical body.

It is tragic and just plain "sucks" (excuse the language) that all gunned down at Virginia Tech don't have a future as living, embodied human beings. Of course it is. But can we remember that that they had pasts -- pasts full of love, and pasts in which their presence made a huge difference to others -- otherwise, no one would be grieving. And, for those of us who believe that a spirit lives on, these men and women have a present and a future, albeit ones we, with our limited minds, don't understand. Is the parallel reality of tangible love and good -- even as it stands beside the awful reality of terrible loss -- senseless? In my opinion, no. Can we grieve together, and when it's time, hope together?

Father Reese has called these killings an evil act, with which many of us disagree.

It now appears that Mr Cho was found to be mentally ill by a VA court two years ago.

What say you of evil now, Father? Do you consider mental illness to be "evil?"

VT Killer Ruled Mentally Ill by Court; Let Go After Hospital Visit

By NED POTTER and DAVID SCHOETZ

April 18, 2007 — A Virginia court found that Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho was "mentally ill" and potentially dangerous. Then the state let him go.

In 2005, after a district court in Montgomery County, Va., ruled that Cho was either a danger to himself or to others — the necessary criteria for a detention order — he was evaluated by a state doctor and ordered to undergo outpatient care.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3052278&page=1

Gregor has said One True Thing

we should not exploit this tragedy in order to propound our view of God and/or Christ or a religion that the victims' families may not subscribe to.

We should profoundly sympathize and be compassionate towards those families and all of our fellow humans in a humble and non-dogmatic way.

Thank you, Gregor.

wiccan wrote:

"Weren't the adults supposed to take over Washington when George W. was elected? At least, that's what I was told."

Right. As an adult myself, I found the use of the word in context of describing that group of criminals to be insulting.

Believing in magical things neither makes them true nor diminishes the grief of those who have lost their loved ones.

Why can't we just empathise with the heartbroken and the bereaved without bringing God into this?

Mr. Mark-

Weren't the adults supposed to take over Washington when George W. was elected? At least, that's what I was told.

Carlos wrote:
"It is so sad that the comforting words of Father Reese have sprung a debate on whether he, as a catholic, is right or wrong about God or life after death.

"Please take his words as an honest attempt to comfort grieving people.

"It is pointless and disrespectfull to the people suffering right now to start a religious discussion in a forum specifically created to confort the victims no matter what religion they practice."

What total hokum.

On Faith is a relgious blog. The discussions here on on religion, and the good Father made a religious argument about dealing with this tragedy. If he's going to make a religious statement, then he - and you - should expect a counter argument.

What he says are surely words of comfort for some, sheer idiocy for others. No one is being disrespectful of people suffering right now. The case could be made that the good Father is being disrespectful of those who don't share his particular belief set. It doesn't matter if it was an "honest" attempt on his part to address the issue.

Grow up if you're going to post here. Suspending the discussion that goes on here because the nation is in mourning is BS. If On Faith wanted no discussion, they could shut down the board for a week.

The nation will be better served if we move quickly to address the base issues raised by this tragedy, rather than imposing a hands-off policy on discussion while we wallow in self pity.

God, what I'd give for a president who would stand up and address the political issues raised here, rather than a moron who likes posing as the "parishoner-in-chief." Let the religious leaders utter their religious platitudes, for such platitudes ring especially hollow coming from the mouth of a man who has visited senseless death and destruction upon hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

Where are the adults when you need 'em?

Carlos,

"How does your faith tradition explain (and respond to) senseless tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shootings."

Not "Share your condolences here."

This is a forum for discussing religion/faith.

It is so sad that the comforting words of Father Reese have sprung a debate on whether he, as a catholic, is right or wrong about God or life after death.

Please take his words as an honest attempt to comfort grieving people.

It is pointless and disrespectfull to the people suffering right now to start a religious discussion in a forum specifically created to confort the victims no matter what religion they practice.

My hearth goes to the families.............

last post was mine.

TJ: "Those who tout their "freedom" from religous belief have nothing to offer but a dim and dismal future. I feel sorry for them."

Don't feel sorry for me, TJ, Feel sorry for the victims. They're dead, most of them much younger than me. Feel sorry for their grieving families, especially the ones, who on top of everything else they have to cope with right now, are trying to figure out how God could have let this happen.

Fr Reese - you seem like a wise man. I think it would have been better not to try to explain God's behavior: "God became one with us in our suffering in Jesus. Because he could not explain it, he joined us in our suffering. Not only did God lose a son, he suffered and died like us."

It doesn't add up. God could have avoided all the suffering by not murdering his own son and just dropping the whole sin idea. He's God after all.

I agree with you Fr. Reese, however I believe a fourth response is also necessary. We cannot stand idly by and continue to allow such things to occur and simply say they were-- take your pick-- the work of a deranged lunatic, God's will, the devil's handywork, the fault of the local police, or whatever. We may not be able to prevent entirely such tragedies, but there is something we can and should do to reduce them.

It is time for this country to wake up and realize that gun violence is a national tragedy on a daily basis--not once in awhile, but everyday-- that robs literally thousands of good people of a full life. The Christian community, as divided as it is, must advocate for a change in the second amendment and in our understanding of its original intent. We have to get beyond a "rights" mentality in regard to this issue and see that there is a greater good that is not being served by the availablity of guns on our nation's streets.Stricter gun laws and more severe sentences have been tried to only limited success. So the Church must speak prophetically regardless of how many naysayers we might encounter. Until and unless guns are made illegal, these tragic events will not only continue but increase in lethality and frequency.

For those who think it can't be done, I say they said the same thing about slavery. What is required is a people with a vision for the kind of community we wish to have, and the guts to struggle for it against the powers that be.

Reading Fr. Reese's post reminds me of why I am a Catholic and glad of it. Those who tout their "freedom" from religous belief have nothing to offer but a dim and dismal future. I feel sorry for them.

Here's a more rational and scientific take on the whole thing, from sfgate.com:

...Providing that support has become a significant issue for higher education as students with complicated and serious mental health histories are increasingly showing up at college campuses, in part the result of the stabilizing effects of prescription drugs.

"Modern medications have made it possible for students with rather severe psychological problems to be successful in high school and go to college," Harris said. "It's a tremendous challenge across the nation for universities to have sufficient staff and services available to meet the growing demand." ...

"God did not want these children to die"

Why, then, do Christians say things like "it was their time" and "He has called them to be by his side" and all that other nonsense?

Boy, the cries of "evil" and the sense of false hope provided by the religonists on this board are as mind boggling as they are numerous.

First - there was nothing "evil" about what happened. This boy was mentally ill. He was also traumatized by his parents trying to force Christianity upon him. This individual needed the kind of help provided by mental health professionals, not the kind of "help" offered by imaginary gods and their childish threats of damnation/eternal happy hour for the believers.

Second - your speaking of "victory over death" is a chimera that actually LESSENS the senselessness of this tragedy. The tragedy is that these 32 young adults had their earthly lives to do something good for the world, and those lives have been ended prematurely and senselessly. The tragedy is that they have been robbed of doing something concrete, positive and meaningful for their fellow human beings.

Imagining that these victims are now prancing in the Elysian Fields, freed from the travails of this world and awaiting a happy snappy rendevous with their loved ones trivializes the gravity of their deaths while providing an obscene silver lining to an event that will - ultimately - be better dealt with in the cold light of reality.

It's responses like this that make me glad I'm no theist. I'm not sure how I could swallow the platitudes. "Because he could not explain it, he joined us in our suffering." Huh?

I'm also not sure how the Reverend purports to know what his god wants. Isaiah 55:8: "My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways." For all we know, his god wanted, nah, willed, this to happen. All part of the Master Plan (tm), no?

Father Reese

Thoughtful and compassionate post.

For those of us who do not believe in a God or Jesus, we have to deal with this meaningless and senseless tragedy in the company and compassion of our fellow humans.

We believe the idea of resurrection is comforting but illusory
but we do believe that through struggle humans can at least come to terms with the inevitability of death.

In my opinion, the spiritual practices of Buddhism, that don't require supernatural mechanisms, is the most developed and effective way for humans to learn to cope with lives shocks and tragedies.