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Post yours too, Brandi. I'll take ALL Y'ALL on, ya idealists

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Gladly! But I must admit, Mephi, that you are not taking me on because I tend to be in your camp. I agree very much with you and Electra that in the end it gets down to FAITH that we CANNOT know all the ways of God.

Here is my latest post from the "Faith and Doubt after Sept. 11 on PBS" thread. I will repost it because I TRULY want to understand and would LOVE some feedback...

I agree with Iconoclast and Semeia that to return evil with evil is EVIL. To participate in an evil event to prevent another one is still participating in evil. I don't mean to drag on about a topic that I'm sure many are getting tired of me harping about but to get back to my usage of abortion in regard to evil I think it would apply with what you said above. If a young girl was raped and became pregnant (an evil event) would having an abortion (another evil event) be the answer to prevent the young girl from going full-term and having to live with the painful memory for nine months? Would returning the evil with evil to prevent pain be worth the murder of an innocent life within the womb?


I have a question for ANYONE (perhaps it's simple or not worth the effort) but I would sincerely like to understand... Since the God of the Old Testament did use evil means to bring about judgment (i.e. Pharaoh) and even allowed evil (i.e. Job) then was God less loving in the days before Jesus? Did God's character somehow change?


I hope to get a response from someone in regard to my questions
~Brandi~

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I have no interest in participating in a discussion about the "ethics" of torture.

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Mephi...I would like to know what you would do...would you really hand your son over to be raped?! Rape victims are often the walking dead and the implications of a parent handing over a child to be sexually assaulted??? Now I on the other hand could see sacrificing myself to the hands of a rapist to prevent the death of one person...I don't think the number is relevent.

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Just being honest. I would have done it. If this was really the ONLY chance they had and there didn't seem to be ANY OTHER WAY to save the kids, I would have done it. There is absolutely no way that I would have let 24 children (including my son) and 3 adults die, when I COULD have possibly done something to stop it. If my soul is to pay for that, then screw it. If God couldn't see the pain in my heart to do that and give grace, then screw it. Why? Because I know that if Lucian were one of the OTHER 23 kids in that class...and my kid and all his friends in that class (including the child of the person who "couldn't") died at the hands of that maniac because someone didn't want to sully their hands with "evil"...

they'd better get a damn restraining order on me...cause I'd probably take the first opportunity to drop kick them in the face...as I cried 24 tears for those 24 kids. And ask for forgiveness later...maybe. And I mean that.

I WISH that life were so simple that we could just opt out of stuff. I WISH that I could be some type of idealist saint in this messed up world. I wish...

Being utterly real,


PS: To those holier-than-me who may be reading this, judge me if you dare.

Edited by - Mephi2K on 09/16/2002 12:06:41 PM

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PS: To those holier-than-me who may be reading this, judge me if you dare.

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I believe there are evil telemarketers. They delight in torment. They call incessantly, asking for the ‘man’ of the house. That, right there, is obnoxious.

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Yeah, especially when the person calling is a woman!

Tom

"Every saint has a history and every sinner a future." Oscar Wilde

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PS: To those holier-than-me who may be reading this, judge me if you dare.

Edited by - Mephi2K on 09/16/2002 12:06:41 PM

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PS: To those holier-than-me who may be reading this, judge me if you dare.

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No judgment here Bro. I totally love your heart and honesty. I honestly don't know what I'd do. If saving the kids was guaranteed, perhaps. I don't know. But to torture my wife on the basis of a possibility only, and that promised to me by the purpetrators if the evil? I don't think so. I'm inclined to feel also that there's just as much heart-wrenching going on inside of those who decide NOT to act as you would. It's a "choice" too and not an "opting out" or sort of "idealism."

Love,
Tom

"Every saint has a history and every sinner a future." Oscar Wilde

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Brandon:

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Sum you peoples just aren't gett'n it. Reality is such that one has to choose between "the lesser of two evils."

The same for God.

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I just don't see it the same way as you...does that mean "I don't get it" or just that I don't agree with you?

Shell

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I apologize Shell. I didn't mean to come off sounding condescending. Not like some who accuse others of being holier-than-thou (which may or may not be true) . As Meph says, choosing between "the lesser of two evils" is a relevant question, because ALL of us have to do this daily from the not so bad (going through red lights in the middle of the night to get our spouse's into the maternity ward), to the real bad, (having to decide which child to pick for whom the Nazi's will smash their head against rocks). Thomas Aquinas said that many people will believe in God because of evil. And in the same breath he also said, many people will not believe in God...because of evil.

So it is a rather relevant question. I apologize once again.

Brandon
"Sharing a prison cell unites you much more powerfully than sharing a conference table."--Ecumenical Jihad: Ecumenism and the Culture War

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Mephi’s infamous analogies have been known to bring out the Elektra Assassin in me , so I am sympathetic with those who find them offensive or at least too disturbing to engage. There may be pastoral issues involved in discussions of gratuitous evil that involve hypothetical horrors like clitorectomies. But then again, there may be pastoral issues involved in refusing to discuss such horrors in a world where husbands—and even mothers—really do circumcise their wives and daughters. It happens. Really. This is the kind of creation we live in, this is the context of our faith in Creator’s goodness.

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Thanks for this, Electra. I probably need to make this known. Whenever I deal with controversial or offensive things, it's not merely to be some type of shock jock. Or merely to speculate for speculation's sake. The fact is that I deal with things that I actually see. I've come to learn that truth or true life situations are WEIRDER and more grotesque than many people's imaginations could ever be. Like I've said before, I work at a psychiatric hospital for children and adolescence. If you could read some of the unmentionable things that these kids have gone through at the hands of supposed "loved ones", it would make your brain want to melt. And this is just the REPORTED cases...

My thought is simply this. To the extent that our theologizing and praxis doesn't deal with the depth of human depravity and chaotic occurances, it's pretty much useless. There must be places where rubber meets the road...and they should be the roughest places.

So, hopefully, this will explain some things. Though I like kiddin' around and all, I take all of this theological deliberation very, very seriously. This is my faith in this, too, after all.

Thanks again for the empathy.



Holla,