Comments on: Undoing A Miracle

By: Nick J.

Nick J. — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 20:11:57 +0000

I was being flippant. I understand fully that Buddha is not, in the strictest sense of the word, a deity. One is allowed poetic license when one is employing hyperbole.

By: Kamachanda

Kamachanda — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 16:42:40 +0000

The real question which should be asked after the deaths of these people is: Why was a mining company allowed to continue operating a mine which had three recent cave-ins with only a meeting scheduled with regulators to discuss ways of improving mine safety?

By: DT

DT — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 14:47:49 +0000

Nick, Buddha is not a deity, just a philosopher whose teachings form the basis of Buddhism. The religion’s major foundations are peace, seeking enlightenment and rejecting materialism. Thus, a Buddhist neither seeks nor expects any time of godly intervention.

I agree with your point, though.

By: Nick J.

Nick J. — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 06:13:29 +0000

Honestly, I’m not particularly interested in whether or not there is a god, because from what I’ve seen of the world, it’s far more important to do what you can to help your fellow man right now, even if it’s only a little bit, because no one else will.

So right now, I couldn’t give a damn whether Jesus, Buddha or Ahura Mazda let the miners die. I just hope that the families of the victims get all the help that is possible. And if there’s a fund being set up to aid them, I’d like to contribute.

By: gordbrown

gordbrown — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 03:36:22 +0000

Like Greg says, I appreciate the good intelligent discussion. As a liberal Christian myself I sometimes find it hard to hang out where I hang out (on leftwing blogs) and hear people give the same old atheist “God can’t exist if bad things happen.” But its not nearly as hurtful as having to put up with anti-Christians spouting their hate and supporting a “conservative” viewpoint that frankly is nothing more than a thinly veiled rationalization for personal selfishness (you know, the kind that the 2/3s of the Bible that no one ever reads condemns over and over and over).

I go back and forth from a Unitarian to a Trinitarian view. I remain convinced that there is real power in the “good news” of Jesus but that much of his story as we possess is “revelation” only in that which is contained in the story as we possess and that any relation between that story and history as we think of it is purely a coincidence.

The best way to address the question of where is God when bad things happen is the Jewish conception of the empty vessel. In order for God to have created our universe, it was necessary for him to absent himself. Hence, we live in a chaotic universe of weather and death and imperfection. Further, it is our duty to fight against this chaos by praying (or meditating or thinking good thoughts) for redemption. Some of that prayer needs to be action. I myself try to fund as best I can relief projects and have volunteered to work with the homeless.

The fact is sooner or later, we all die and it is never convenient when it happens (as I found out last month when my 97 year old Grandmother starved herself to death). I couldn’t say goodbye to her. I said “a la prochain”, which means “until we meet again”. I read once a phyisicist who said “energy never dies, the part of us that is energy must live on. And that’s why I believe in Life After Death.” My faith is built on good works, but I also believe in life after death in some fashion. We in NA are too insulated from death, that’s why disasters freak us out so much. But having seen death, I can’t believe that it is the end. And that stands whether I believe in a prime creator or not.

By: funfunfun

funfunfun — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 23:23:17 +0000

. . . felt so good, I had to say it twice. . .

By: funfunfun

funfunfun — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 23:21:41 +0000

What’s most depressing to me about all this is the fact that we, as a nation, have come to point where we can’t even experience a disaster like normal people.

By way of having to IMMEDIATELY blame, educate, communicate and problem-solve any disaster (pick one: manmade or natural) we, inevitably, create our own mini disasters within the major disaster. And you know what, we’re ALL to blame: the public who just HAVE to know what’s going on RIGHT NOW; the media for spoon-feeding the ever-hungry public’s desire the most minute details (“Nevermind if it’s conjecture. I need to be the first to know!”); the politicians for attempting to quickly solve ANY problem — no matter how difficult — to appease the public’s freakish demand for immediate justice (even if it’s justice for something Mother Nature caused, dammit, someone MUST PAY!).

It feels like we’ve become a nation of impatient spoiled brats who believe we have a right to everything without having to give up anything.

Frankly, it’s become embarrassing.

By: funfunfun

funfunfun — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 23:15:19 +0000

What’s most depressing to me about all this is the fact that we, as a nation, have come to point where we can’t even experience a disaster like normal people.

By way of having to IMMEDIATELY blame, educate, communicate and problem-solve any disaster (pick one: manmade or natural) we, inevitably, create our own mini disasters within the major disaster. And you know what, we’re ALL to blame: the public who just HAVE to know what’s going on RIGHT NOW; the media for spoon-feeding the ever-hungry public’s desire for the most minute details (“Nevermind if it’s conjecture. I need to be the first to know!”); the politicians for attempting to quickly solve ANY problem — no matter how difficult — to appease the public’s freakish demand for immediate justice (even if it’s justice for something Mother Nature caused, dammit, someone MUST PAY!).

It feels like we’ve become a nation of impatient spoiled brats who believe we have a right to everything without having to give up anything.

Frankly, it’s become embarrassing.

By: Arwen

Arwen — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 21:35:17 +0000

Oh, that’s phrased badly. In all versions of Christian or Jewish spirituality that I know of, Yahweh would give a shit about the 12 dead miners, but not in the way that people who want the miners to stay alive do.

By: Arwen

Arwen — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 21:32:12 +0000

dave – Huge difference between God-Is-Santa and an interventionist idea of God. Huge. Huge. Like Bach And Britney. Really. I’m not saying that God’s not been construed as interventionist in most traditions. ( I was trying to open up the discussion of God to all the different paths, too: there’s as much disagreement in theology between Quakers and Baptists as between Baptists and Buddhists, so words like “Christian” are somewhat meaningless, really…)

I’m also not dismissing atheism as a valid interpretation. However, don’t let the *pop culture* trick you into thinking it has anything to do with *real spiritual or religious thought*, and your arguments will become more cojent.

There’s a vast historical tradition of non-idiots who believed that yahweh could both intervene where he thought appropriate and not give a shit about the superbowl or 12 dead miners.

And then there’s other, non- Judeo-Christian tradtions, who take a totally different view of god entirely: interventionist, surely, but death and not death aren’t vastly different. Actually, that’s a pretty common spiritual theme: what we think matters, doesn’t.