[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

I love the issues this book brings up! Job? Satan? Universalism?

Bill, as far as Job goes, I think it represents a change to the traditional Jewish thought that people get what they deserve from God. People used to be very judgmental of others, saying -- he got sick because he sinned or (even) because his grandfather was a sinner. I don't think we are pawns in a game between God and Satan. I think God is with us in trials, crying His eyes out with us. I do think the book of Job makes a healthy point that we should not abandon God in our times of suffering. I'm so sorry about your lost babies, and that people were so insensitive in their remarks to you.

I loved the point about the princess' sacrifice pointing to universal salvation. I can't see logical connection, either, about how blood sacrifice appeases gods. However, someone who is willing to "lay down His life for His friends" is inspirational to me at the core. I believe the Jewish customs of animal sacrifice would have made it easier for people of the time to accept Jesus as the ultimate substitutionary sacrifice - God's son. But it doesn't work for me now. I look at it as God's way to communicate to people of that time that they could be forgiven no matter how badly they had messed up. The truth I take from the story is that God is always looking to take us back, even if humans reject us.

Dutch, your observation about the strength and depth of the Phillips family and their belief in God was wonderful! That helps us understand that life can sidetrack even the most ardent believer. I really appreciated your Bible verse references, too. I'm partial to the one in Romans.

I agree that "holy ground" is what we make of it. Waterfalls are indeed awe-inspiring, as I found out when I visited Yosemite this summer. Did you make it to Multnomah before they closed the path into the cabe behind the falls, Bill? As an aside, my dad worked on silly-scopes for HP at the same time

The only thing I can add to Chapter 2 discussion right now is that Mack's first thought about why he didn't tell Nan about the note was to protect her:
"if it turned out to be some kind of cruel joke."

Thanks for the insights!
Janet

[billmc]

AllInTheNameOfProgress, on 21 September 2009 - 01:28 PM, said:

Did you make it to Multnomah before they closed the path into the cabe behind the falls, Bill?

No, Janet, it was closed even when I was there ('88-'92).

Quote

As an aside, my dad worked on silly-scopes for HP at the same time

Cool! I almost went to work for them! Tek called me and hired me 1 week before HP called me. They are both quite different companies now from what they used to be, though.

Quote

The only thing I can add to Chapter 2 discussion right now is that Mack's first thought about why he didn't tell Nan about the note was to protect her:
"if it turned out to be some kind of cruel joke."

Yes, that is interesting. It's been a while since I've read the book, but I tended to think of Nan as the "stronger" one. Of course, this is fiction. Real parents would both be devasted by the events of the book, but men and women deal with it differently. But I appreciate that Young portrays Mack as sensitive, as able to cry, as taking his suffering seriously enough to even give it a name. Men in the past were stereotyped as taking suffering as "nothing to it" -- macho. Not Mack, at least not overall. He feels this from his gut. And Young makes us feel it too. Maybe that is why I...("enjoyed" is not the right word)...appreciated this book: It doesn't really answer MY own questions of why, but it does encourage me to have the freedom to ask them. And, in some strange way, the freedom to ask can even be healing.

Thanks for the insights!
Janet
[/quote]

[glintofpewter]

Been spending time getting my mind around packing and moving. A few more comments about topics in this wonderful discussion.

Bill

Quote

How does blood wash away sin?

In the baptism of the devotee, crowned with gold and wreathed with fillets, descended into a pit, the mouth of which as covered with a wooden grating. A bull, adorned with garlands of flowers, its forehead glittering with gold leaf, was then driven on to the grating and there stabbed to death with a consecrated spear, Its hot reeking blood poured into torrents through the apertures, and was received with devout eagerness by the worshipper on every part of his person and garments until he emerged from the pit, drench, dripping, and scarlet from head to foot, to receive homage , the adoration of his fellows as one who had been born again to eternal life and had washed his sins away in sins in the blood of the bull.
Classical Mythology By Mark P. O. Morford, Robert J. Lenardon http://books.google....page&q=&f=false

Raised in the Presbyterian church I was not indoctrinated in "blood of the Lamb" imagery and dogma. I wish sometimes that we could just say that "washed in the blood" is part of the area's mythic culture and a syncretism which can easily be jettisoned from Christianity - at least mine.

Quote

Christians say that someday, in the great by-and-by, all will be revealed, we will finally get our questions answered. I doubt it. If God can't answer the question of theodicy NOW, then there is no reason to expect that he will answer it LATER.

My son is keeping his list of questions for later. Like Job I think the answer to the problem of theodicy is that God can neither cause nor prevent harm. God doesn't choose not to intervene. God can't intervene. Probably I should add "without our agency" but I haven't figured out the words with which to explain that.

Janet

Quote

However, someone who is willing to "lay down His life for His friends" is inspirational to me at the core.

I think laying down one's life for one's friends is healthy also. One of the first suggestions to one who is depressed is to go help someone.

I'm ready for c.3.


Dutch

[billmc]

glintofpewter, on 21 September 2009 - 08:37 PM, said:

Raised in the Presbyterian church I was not indoctrinated in "blood of the Lamb" imagery and dogma. I wish sometimes that we could just say that "washed in the blood" is part of the area's mythic culture and a syncretism which can easily be jettisoned from Christianity - at least mine.

I often feel the same, Dutch. I have an aunt who wants nothing to do with Christianity because, from her perspective, it is a religion centered around a human sacrifice to an angry deity.

Quote

Like Job I think the answer to the problem of theodicy is that God can neither cause nor prevent harm. God doesn't choose not to intervene. God can't intervene. Probably I should add "without our agency" but I haven't figured out the words with which to explain that.

Me, either. But I enjoy how your words stir my own thinking and imagination. I was raised in a very theistic form of Christianity where God was an interventionist, in fact, an all-powerful, omnipotent one. Because I still go to church with my wife who finds meaning and fulfillment in this sort of religion, I still endure the many prayer requests and prayers offered in faith in order to try to get God to "do something" about our human condition - whether it be sickness, comfort, loss of job, drug addiction, healed marriages and relationships, etc. While I certain sympathize with these human conditions, and while there are often "praise reports" of God's intervention in people's lives, I'm just very skeptical that God "works" that way. If I believed that way (and I used to), I would pray for the healing of the whole world -- with little visible results. I couldn't pray for God to heal my child without also praying for God to heal all children everywhere.

I would love to read a book or hear a sermon on the "weak" God. This book/sermon would approach the subject of theodicy from the viewpoint that love, in order to be love, simply cannot assert it's will from the outside. The "weak" God would not force people or situations from without. Rather, he would gently invite and motivate from within. He wouldn't "intervene" because intervention is a force from the outside. Rather, he would empower (in the best sense of the word) from within, not in order to see his will done, but in order that we, as co-creators, become God's cooperative presence in our world.

This book/sermon would not be popular. People generally just want God to fix things for them while leaving them essentially unchanged. But I suspect that it would be honest enough to cause people who really want to know God and others to look within for compassion instead of to without for deliverance.

Sorry about derailing the subject a bit. On to chapter 3!

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

Bill,
I started to object to your post, when you were saying that God doesn't do anything about our human condition. But, then as I read on, I loved what you were saying about God empowering us to change our condition. I think the sharing of prayer concerns is good, because it is a way to clarify what is most on our hearts and calls others to reach out in love toward those we are concerned about. Although, last week's sermon at my church noted the penchant Christians sometimes have about making the prayer concern time a chance for gossip.

Dutch,
I am not certain if I am on the same page with you or not about whether God has the power to intervene in our lives. I have set up camp with those who say God chooses not to intervene so that humans have free will and so that they learn that God does not go "Zap" but rather is present with us in times of trouble, offering energy, power, strength, wisdom, and love.

If you guys have anything interesting about Chapter 3, let me know. I personally thought the editor should have been more heavy handed with the cross out ink. I didn't think it furthered the plot to have the other families involved, and trying to keep people's names straight was confusing. I also wished he hadn't been quite so descriptive about the places, but then, I am an engineer

Janet

[glintofpewter]

Bill, Janet,

First - a co-worker has expressed an interest in joining the discussion. I just sent an email with the link. He may check in tonight. I have some thoughts about c. 3, nothing earth shaking, but I will wait until tomorrow.

Then

Quote

He wouldn't "intervene" because intervention is a force from the outside. Rather, he would empower (in the best sense of the word) from within, not in order to see his will done, but in order that we, as co-creators, become God's cooperative presence in our world.

This is similar to what I was thinking when I said God cannot act "without our agency." I have suggested elsewhere that "We are completed in God and God is completed in us." I think then if we leave the rest to mystery there is room for stories of visions and miracles as stories, perhaps, as long as we don't use these events to create dogma and doctrine. I do honor stories, holy stories of experience with the divine. I honor my own stories by not deconstructing them as I "mature". We share burdens and joys in our relationships. We are in relationship with God and so the suffering is shared.



Dutch

[glintofpewter]

My friend will be joining us soon. He said he just may read for awhile before he joins the conversation.

C.3 tells more about Mack and also helps anchor the story in reality. Other stories do this also prior to the main event. Perhaps this is too long?

Mack notes that he is naive about the world. Curious, because the Foreword says of Mack:
13 too young to be all grown up...adapted quickly
working overseas
armed conflict over seas
seminary in Australia

Mack is experienced .. and naive.

Young seems to emphasize Mack's vulnerability and openness in this chapter: the joy and contentment he experiences in his family, his openness to the divine in nature -- and limited, guarded sharing of his feelings. He is uncomfortable with them. The stereotypical male, who is uncomfortable talking about his feelings.

When my father and mother were in counseling a letter from my dad says, "I have talked about feelings more in the last two days than in our whole damn marriage."


Dutch

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

Dutch,
Thanks for the comments about Ch. 3. I agree that it provides background and some insight into Mack's family life and his personality/character.

I know several of my friends remarked to me that the book was difficult to get through in the beginning, so I think the detail was a bit too much and kind of off-plot. However, I think this chapter is good in that it shows that even a strong family, like Mack's, can crumble under severe strain. This chapter just made the Phillips kids and Mack become like friends to me.

Ch. 4?

Janet

[glintofpewter]

In Chapter 4 I see that the introduction of the two other couples in chapter 3 may help the narrative. At least Mack and Josh and Kate have some support. It isn't always so when tragedy strikes.

I appreciate in a small way the fear that a missing child brings. In her first year of high school, my daughter Annie, who had Down Syndrome, was upset by something at school and left campus. As fruitless searching on campus continued, the police were also called. About an hour after Annie went missing a patrol car spotted her a little less than a mile away. She had decided to go to a nearby elementary school where her daycare provider might be volunteering.

I was at work and didn't learn of the problem until it was over. Diane learned of it a earlier and so experienced the panic Mack does. For us the "What ifs" were "What if something very bad had happened?" We tried to find evidence that nothing sinister would be among the "What ifs'.

Another connection -
When Annie was having facial reconstruction surgery in San Diego and our two weeks ended up being 7 weeks I had chosen to read the novel, Byzantium, by Stephen Lawhead, without knowing that I would find such support in those difficult weeks. Several times I reread the last 60-100 pages.

Here's the passage that parallels Mack's experience and doubt:

“I expected God to honor his word. That, at least, if nothing else. I thought I could depend on the truth. But I have learned that there is no truth. The innocent are everywhere slaughtered—and they die pleading for God to save them, and death takes them away. Faith’s own guardians are inconstant liars, and Christ’s holy church is a nest of vipers; the emperor, God’s co-ruler on earth, is a vile unholy murderer.”

“I did not lose my faith. It was stolen from me. God abandoned me.”

Dutch

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

CHAPTER 4:

Dutch, thanks for sharing your connection to the story. I'm sorry it evoked sad and scary memories. I temporarily lost my youngest son when he was 2 and I was SO frightened. Interesting how the story ties to Byzantium. I haven't read that.

I was originally thinking that the witness, Virgil, should have done something when he saw the guy slap Missy or push her down, but then, I have been in situations before where I have been unsure if a child needs help or not.

It was nice how much help Mack had in the search. I can relate to Mack's exhaustion by the emotions of the day, and what he would give for a do-over. I have never experienced something so terrible as this, but I have had some minor crises, and I thought this was an accurate description of what Mack might be feeling. Interesting that Mack relived memories of Missy as a toddler while contemplating her faith.

Missy was coloring the Multnomah Indian Princess when she was taken. I thought when I first read it, that wasn't a good foreshadowing. Interestingly, when I read the book to my boys (who were 12 and 14 at the time) my eldest remarked, "I'm sure it will all turn out OK in the end." They had never read books before where the ending was terrible. I reminded them of the Great Sadness that accompanies Mack in the present day so that they could prepare. I wondered if I was a bad mom reading it to them, but tonight my son, now 15, said "I LOVED that book!"

It was a good point on page 59 of my book that "Even in such a world of relative morality, causing harm to a child is still considered absolutely wrong. PERIOD!"

The description of Kate post-tragedy is frighteningly accurate and similar to my brother in law right now. Aargh!

Then the fun part - some of the first theological musings by Mack. He has embraced a stoic, unfeeling faith instead of dealing with the rift in his relationship with God. I would contrast this with the father in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof," who asks God the tough questions. Which one are you more like?

Mack had been taught in seminary that "God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, pereferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted of course." Is that what you were taught? How do you think God's voice is heard today (if you do?)

"Cloistered spirituality seemed to change nothing in the lives of the people he know, except maybe Nan. But she was special. God might really love her..." Do you see God making any difference in people's lives?

Awful chapter!
Janet

[billmc]

Ouch! We're getting into the tough stuff now, in the book and in our own journeys. The "Where is/was God when..." stuff.

I haven't yet reread the 4th chapter, but the one thing that I do appreciate about this book and the personal testimonies here on the forum is that we are honest about these questions and the questions being raised.

I haven't lost a child, except for two in miscarriage. And I realize that this is not quite the same as losing one that you have held in your arms. But we have had the experiences of having our children in the hospital and knowing the dread of "just waiting" to see if they are going to make it or not.

An experience of my youth came back to me when I first read this chapter and, moderators, you can edit/remove this if you think it necessary to do so. But I was saved when I was twelve and sexually assaulted by a 17-year-old boy when I was 13. Back then, I was very small for my age and powerless to fight him. My relationship with God was so real back then that I cried out to God and to Jesus for help and deliverance during the ordeal - to no effect. I won't go into all of the details but things like this, as I've said before, make you wonder where the all-loving, all-controlling God of the universe is. The Bible is filled with story after story of God delivering people when they cried out for help and real life doesn't seem to match up very well with these ancient stories. Sure, there are also tales in the scriptures of people who suffer, but Christianity focuses mainly on the deliverances. God is the Rock, the Shelter in the Time of Storm, the Mighty Fortress, the Mother Hen who protects the chicks, the Deliverer, the Savior. Not for me, he wasn't.

For me, I just don't believe in a God who is in control. Missy's story isn't real, but there are way too many others who are. I don't think "The Shack" really answers the questions of theodicy. But it at least allows us to ask them.

This post has been edited by billmc: 29 September 2009 - 09:21 AM

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

Bill,
Thank you so much for sharing your experience, and I am so sorry that happened to you! I have experience so much less trauma in my own life, but I have given up on the God that pulls the strings, that goes ZAP, that is a vending machine.

I'm sure the stories that survived in the Bible were those of deliverance. With a pre-scientific worldview (or in the "intervening God" worldview), if God didn't deliver you, it was because it was not God's will. Often in that time, people thought you somehow deserved the bad that happened to you. Even if it was because your great, great, great grandmother had sinned

Good observations!
Janet

[billmc]

AllInTheNameOfProgress, on 30 September 2009 - 03:13 PM, said:

I have given up on the God that pulls the strings, that goes ZAP, that is a vending machine.

Me, too, my friend. I was quite bitter for a number of years. But then I began to realize that being mad at God for not rescuing me was about the same as being mad at Superman for not rescuing me. What (or who) I was mad at did not truly exist, only in legends. My story has turned out differently from Mack's, but that's okay. The only way that I could believe in and experience GOD was to stop believing in God.

[glintofpewter]

Bill,

12 years old its hard to imagine a worse age I'm sorry.

My question was, "Where was my mother?" As a result my default is that parent/God doesn't care or isn't aware. It's tempting to draw a picture with God further and further away. I wasn't bitter I was stoic.

Janet

Then the fun part - some of the first theological musings by Mack. He has embraced a stoic, unfeeling faith instead of dealing with the rift in his relationship with God. I would contrast this with the father in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof," who asks God the tough questions. Which one are you more like?

Mack had been taught in seminary that "God had completely stopped any overt communication with moderns, preferring to have them only listen to and follow sacred Scripture, properly interpreted of course." Is that what you were taught? How do you think God's voice is heard today (if you do?)

Hearing that a Bible study leader spoke in anger to God was a very freeing moment for me. Talking, shouting, crying, laughing are all better than silence in a relationship. "God is still speaking..." in the words of the UCC. Conceiving of the Apocalyptic moment as that moment when heaven comes to earth, when our hands join with God's, because our reading of scripture, our dreams, our visions, our planning, our gut instincts, our hunches, bring to this moment a time when justice reigns, equality rules, hungry are fed, ... is easier than figuring out how it works in my own life. It is a continuing challenge to be present in the moment so I can experience God's call or direction or beauty or ...

I knew an artist who walked into her studio each day and said, "OK, God, what are we going to make?"

"Cloistered spirituality seemed to change nothing in the lives of the people he know, except maybe Nan. But she was special. God might really love her..." Do you see God making any difference in people's lives?

It is a complex issue but I guess I fall on the believing side. Does God make a difference? or Does believing in God make a difference? or Do people who believe in God make a difference? I can point to believers who make a difference, to people for whom believing has made a difference, but I can't point to places or mmoments where God has made a difference -- when I am standing on the outside looking in. If I am inside that reality then I might say that God has made a difference. I've had intense experiences of God and of Jesus. The stories of these experiences can not be told without the believing, without the words and without the language that makes my reality. And without the believing, without the words, without the language the experiences of God making a difference did not happen.

I think people who believe in God make a difference. For better or worse.

Janet, you've asked good leading questions and I could go on and on about each.

Fun Theology

1. Young is establishing a position against the intelligentsia, moral relativism, intellectual elite ("oncology patients--uh, cancer patients"), higher education and people who think in grays. Perhaps unconsciously, he equates the color gray with meaninglessness.

2. Relationship and love are key, especially in understanding sacrifice.

3. The Bible is true, not a story with a lesson or a story based on truth.

Just thinking
Dutch

This post has been edited by glintofpewter: 30 September 2009 - 09:32 PM

[billmc]

I appreciate your posts and your thoughts, Dutch. It's interesting to see how people react in different ways to events in our lives. Whereas you and Mack became more stoic, I felt that the failure was on my part -- that God didn't hear me because I had some "secret sin" or that I wasn't praying or reading my Bible enough. I wasn't really ready to lash out at God because I was just a kid. I simply attributed all the bad stuff to my own failings.

You and Janet have both hit upon the stuff in this chapter that also stood out to me, so I won't comment further on those. The only other thing from this chapter that stood out is Mack asking, "What kind of father am I?" to let something like this happen to his daughter. Guilt like this is so paralyzing. And, because of my own experiences, I also wondered what kind of father is God to let things happen to his children down here?

To me, it makes me ask, what role should a father really play in the life of a family? Especially within the Christian context where it is said that the goal of the Christian is to become more like God, does this mean that the Christian should be as uninvolved and unmoved by the world's pain as God seems to be? If we should become more godly, and God doesn't intervene to stop evil, then why should we?

[glintofpewter]

Thanks, Bill.

I am tempted to reply to some of what you've said but I'm sure we'll see the topic again. On to the next chapter.

Dutch

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

Before we move on, I think we should discuss this one just a bit.

"Especially within the Christian context where it is said that the goal of the Christian is to become more like God, does this mean that the Christian should be as uninvolved and unmoved by the world's pain as God seems to be? If we should become more godly, and God doesn't intervene to stop evil, then why should we?"

This is something I had to reason about and grapple with quite a bit, and while I was doing that I felt pretty angry and disconnected from God. I do not believe that God is unmoved by the world's pain. I believe God is a spiritual presence with us, offering wisdom, energy, strength, encouragement and love, impelling us to be the ones who use our physical bodies to intervene and to be conduits of God's love. I don't think God intervenes, because that would interfere with our free will. But I also think I suffer from an inability to use words to describe God, and that I only have a dim picture of what God is at this point. I'm on a journey, ever seeking.

Janet

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

Also, I'll answer my own questions...

Which one are you more like?
I think I am not like either Mack or Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof. When I hit a bump in my relationship with God, I tend to back off a bit and hit the books. I try to learn as much as I can about how others have wrestled with the issues I have had and what their conclusions are. I also talk with friends quite a bit. However, I have not had that much tragedy in my life, so my time is probably coming...


How do you think God's voice is heard today (if you do?)
I think God is still inspiring writers, just as God did when the Bible was written. (I'm sorry the canon has been closed) I feel the tuggings on my heart that others may call conscience, and I attribute that to the Holy Spirit. The Methodists say the will of God can be learned by considering scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.

Do you see God making any difference in people's lives?
I can see God shaping me, changing my heart. I am much less offended by other people than I used to be. I am easier on myself in many ways. However, I don't know if other people can see any difference.

OK, if you guys are ready, I'm okay to move on...

Janet

[billmc]

Without giving too much away, I think that Young’s ultimate theology about God’s fatherhood is the typical Christian fare that no matter how bad things seem down here, there is another reality coming that has little to do with this reality. It’s typical Pauline doctrine that says that the sufferings of this world cannot be compared to all the good things that God has waiting for us someday. And if we will believe that - that everything will someday be set right - then we can endure the sufferings of this world. For we know that they are only a blip on God’s radar of eternity. So God doesn’t come riding in to save the day or to spare us from our times of “Great Sadness” because these sufferings are ultimately inconsequential and just not worth God’s time to do anything about.

Young is saying that there are two realities – now and then, and that “then” is so much longer than “now” that “now” doesn’t really matter. Both realities are real, and they have some overlap, but heaven is so glorious that earth just pales into insignificance. Young’s answer to theodicy is that we live in a fallen, sinful world, that God never planned it to be this way, but that God will someday fix things. It’s the story of fall and redemption and, according to Young, although God may have reasons for why things are the way they are, Mack wouldn’t understand them and so he should just trust in God’s goodness, something which, because of where we are in the story, Mack just can’t do.

In contrast, what many Christian mystics say is that it isn’t so much that there is a better world coming (as Young says), but that what we experience here (including the pains and joy) is simply not real. Mystics tend to deny the reality of the suffering or the reality of this world. God doesn’t come riding in to save the day because there is, in reality, nothing to save anyone from. Everything is perfect as it already is – if only we could see it. What we might call “reality” is, in fact, not really real. It is only a façade, like a movie that God is watching in his own home theater where none of the events, none of the characters, none of the stories are real. Like Young, mystics seem to think that God’s reality and human reality are two completely different things. For Young, God’s reality comes later. For mystics, God’s reality is now, what we might call the substrate, but everything human and what happens to humans is merely a false projection on a screen or a false perception.

To me, Young’s view and the mystical view are both self-delusions of escapism. Young says that suffering is inconsequential because it is only temporal. Mystics say that suffering is inconsequential because it isn’t real. Neither take it seriously. Or maybe the only way that both of these worldviews can both deal with suffering is by minimizing it – Young by saying it is temporal, mystics by saying it doesn’t really exist.

I, on the other hand, insist that both this world and its suffering really do exist and that God is not going to coming riding in to save the day, either now or later. If there is anything to be done about suffering, it is we, not God, who must do something about it. If we don’t, then we will continue to live with it.

If there is another “perfect world” coming, then I know nothing about it and put no trust in it. Why? Because if things are the way they are now, there is no logical reason to assume that things must get better, especially at the hands of a God who is supposedly in control. It is a nice hope, a nice fairy-tale, but if God really wanted a perfect world, he could have kept it that way in the first place.

And while I might agree with the mystics that there is an Ultimate Reality, a substrate to this reality, I think that this Ultimate Reality lends itself to making this reality more real, not to offering us a way to escape it. I suspect that the mystical view of Ultimate Reality helps them to escape the hurts and pains of this world by insisting that they are not real, that, seen from God’s view, everything is perfect and just as it should be, everything in its place according to some great design.

My Ultimately Reality helps me deal with the hurts and pains of this world by saying that they are real, that things are not perfect, but that we have the capability to make things better. We don’t have heaven on earth, but we need not have hell here either.

So, in conclusion, I think both the conservative Christian view and the mystical view of suffering are simply offering a form of escapism. Young says we escape from reality by remembering how temporary it is and by trusting that God will allow us to someday re-enter the Garden. Mystics say that we escape from reality by believing that what we call reality is not really real, that what we see and experience all around us is only God playing “make believe” with the universe. It is all a dream within a dream.

I say that we must deal with reality as it is and that God doesn’t want us to escape from it by looking to heaven someday or by pretending that this world is not real. For me, I don’t find either Young’s view or the mystical view to be persuasive. I’m a humanist that believes and tries to live out some of the teachings of Jesus. For me, those teachings don’t say that we should ignore suffering by looking for a future world or to pretend that they don’t exist. But this is my path, and I realize that it is not for everyone.

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

"I say that we must deal with reality as it is and that God doesn’t want us to escape from it by looking to heaven someday or by pretending that this world is not real. For me, I don’t find either Young’s view or the mystical view to be persuasive. I’m a humanist that believes and tries to live out some of the teachings of Jesus. For me, those teachings don’t say that we should ignore suffering by looking for a future world or to pretend that they don’t exist. But this is my path, and I realize that it is not for everyone."

I think our mission here is to help God's kingdom come on earth by alleviating suffering for others however we can. I am on the same path. However, I am not a humanist, because I think it is God who motivates humans to want to make the world a better place for others. Whether people call God God or not. I totally agree that we should not ignore suffering. I think it has been a coping mechanism for th oppressed to say, "This life sucks, but it is only for a short time. Something better must be coming." Even within those groups there have arisen leaders who try to alleviate the suffering of their people.

I agree with you. It is one of the reasons the book is not one I would have written. But, it is interesting and thought-provoking nonetheless.

Janet