Countin' churches...

Re: Re: Countin' churches...

Yes. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat. And I'm only part-way kidding....

 

Re: Re: Re: Countin' churches...

The people you disdain are the proletariat. The religiosity that you dispise is the authentic voice of the poor.

You aren't suggesting the Dictatorship of the Proletariat so much as some Dictatorship of the Smug Bastards.

The rural churches that you laugh at soothe people's pain. They stand for values and for eventual justice. They help people face ill fortune and ultimate death. They hold out the hope that everything will eventually turn out right. They offer the dream of transcendence.

What's going to replace all that in these people's lives? What replaces it in your own?

 

Bill,

Excellent post! Carl is an exemplar of many on the left today. They point to all the problems yet offer nothing constructive.

 

I'd been reading around in James Agee's and Walker Evans's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men when the Sago disaster took place. I'm struck by its resonance with this discussion.

I've lived in WV off on and for many years, and while my little holler has more than its share of characters, I can't say that people there are much different from people in, say, Kumamoto.

I will say though, that Martin Toler Jr.'s letter struck a chord of graciousness that sounded reminiscent of my neighbors at their best:

"Tell all I see them on the other side. It was not bad. I just went to sleep. I love you. JR"

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Countin' churches...

Thanks for these posts Bill. As usual you go right to the heart of the matter.
Jack

 

God didn't kill anyone.

BLD

 

Man, I couldn't agree with you more. As I have pointed out here and many other places, the sheer ECONOMIC impact of religion on American society is devastating. The amount of tax-exempt church property in this country is, well, "jaw-droppingly" shocking. The net effect is that EVERYBODY is forced to subsidize everybody else's religious beliefs to the detriment of society as a whole. Ironically, this is the very anthithesis of separation of church and state. What really steams my clams is when churches buy up vast amounts of acreage and then sell it off piecemeal to finance missionary activities overseas. A few years ago, the local newspaper published a map of the county with tax-exempt church land blacked out. They must have used up most of their black ink stock. I almost puked. I understand that in certain Scandinavian countries, people who swear on their national tax forms that they are atheist or agnostic get a tax break. Sounds good to me. I'm not a big fan of the ACLU in most cases, but I understand that one of their highest priorities is to end tax exemption for churches. That's almost enough to get me to join.

 

Yes, isn't it horrible when those low-down, good-for-nothing churches take their money to feed the poor in the third world, teach them how to farm productively, build hospitals to take care of their sick, etc... Man, they are just evil...

 

Oh please! What planet are you from? Around here, they spend most of their time and money attacking each other's beliefs and encouraging the unwashed masses overseas to do the same. I've lived in six states. Nothing unique about things here. By the way, I envy anybody who only has only one of those "wacky compounds every ten miles or so." There are a half dozen quite literally within a stones' throw of my house, and I SWEAR three are of the SAME DENOMINATION!

 

I happen to be a Christian pastor who does the types of things that I described in my post. There are many of us out here trying to make the world a better place and assist those in need, while whiners like you stand by on the sidelines and gripe.

BLD

 

Thanks for the laugh, jugador! Your thesis is amusing...........

 

Surely these miners are victims of capitalism, not God?
Roy Maybery

 

s

Now we're getting somewhere.

Precisely.

And a capitalism that is shored up by religious allies at the pulpit that declare "Bush is right", "socialism is wrong", "render unto Caesar", and "turn the other cheek". Works very well for keeping a poorly educated and impoverished workforce in check, as exemplified by the working poor of WV who still vote Republican and believe that Jesus is coming to save all their sorry asses any day now.

 

And what caused the explosion? Did they say?

 

So, if we only had the sense to have a Marxist revolution, there would be no more accidents? There would be no more disease? There would be no more pain and tragedy? People would no longer grow old and die?

I don't think that blaming the mine tragedy on the evils of capitalism solves the philosophical-theological problem of evil.

Eliminating God entirely would probably accomplish that, simply by removing the premise of the problem. But without religious faith, man is faced with an analogous question that's even larger, the problem of how to understand and come to terms with the human condition in a universe without discernable purpose or providence.

 

What we always seem to forget is that so much in life that is bad happens because of human beings.

We have to look at all tragedies and see how man has been the culprit in most of them.

Drunk drivers, negligent parents, obesity, working in coal mines (black lung), working with asbestos (mesothelioma), smoking (emphysema, lung cancer), etc., etc., etc., all are not the fault of God.

People dying in battlefields die because they chose (US) to join the military and the risk of death comes with the territory. Window washers getting killed by fall off skyscraper ledges and trolleys are not God's fault.

People dying from obesity because they are gluttons is not God's fault.

We are living in a culture that shirks individual responsibility and we want to blame God and everyone else because of our irresponsibility.

Now, this begs the question, I know, about people who didn't do anything to themselves and still suffer. Someone, somewhere along the line, did something to cause the suffering, however.

Look at the environment. How many of us suffer ill health because of polluters? How many of us have health problems now because we played with mercury as kids?

I did. I played with mercury all the time. We did in elementary school. Remember, we dropped it to see it break into hundreds of tiny balls; we coated pennies (or was it nickels) to see them shine; etc., etc., etc.

If we really get out of the "hatred-of-God" syndrome, we can see the human handiwork behind most if not all tragedies.

 

JC was resurrected.

Really knowing whats is like to lose a child is when you have no ability to raise him from the dead.

This is hard to understand, I don't think we can comprehend God.

A man was taken from a jungle and founds him self in a room
whit persons holding knives in their hands and they are cutting another human being whit the knives.
This was a terrible sight for him.

But for us when we entered the room we see the same man with knives and they are medical doctors performing surgery.

Learner

 

I don't even understand what the word 'God' means. I'm more bemused than hate-filled.

But whatever, the theological problem of evil certainly exists for theistic believers, at least for those who endow their deity with the qualities of omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence.

Death must have come into the world because God created it. The very possibility of pain and tragedy are God's work, not our own. Misfortune continues to afflict us because God wants it to.

The Judeo-Christian tradition has been wrestling with that conundrum since the time of Job.

 

Life is not linear and anyone can die at anytime or at some time.

Its how we live not necessarily how we die.

Learner

 

This is an interesting book, if you've got a few spare moments.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0834803917/103-7672346-1046217?v=glanc&n=283155
Jack