[Vision2020] 01-05-05 Belfast Telegraph: Attention Cult MasterWilson

[Ron Force]

Other religions have different responses:


 Commentary; What Was God Thinking?
Jonathan Sacks. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif.: Jan 5, 2005. pg.
B.11

Excerpt:

... Earthquakes and tsunamis were known to the ancients. Job said: "The
pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke; by his power he churned
up the sea." David used them as a metaphor for fear itself: "The waves of
death swirled about me.... The Earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of
the heavens shook.... The valleys of the sea were exposed, and the
foundations of the Earth laid bare." In the midst of a storm at sea, Jonah
prayed: "Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all
your waves." Yet God taught Elijah that he, God, was not in the earthquake
or the whirlwind that destroys but in the still, small voice that heals.

What distinguished the biblical prophets from their pagan predecessors was
their refusal to see natural catastrophe as an independent force of evil,
proof that at least some of the gods are hostile to mankind.

In the ancient Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, for example,
Tiamat, the goddess of the oceans, declares war on the rest of creation and
is defeated only after a prolonged struggle against the younger god, Marduk.
Essential to monotheism is that conflict is not written into the fabric of
the universe. That is what redeems tragedy and creates hope.

The simplest explanation is that of the 12th century sage, Moses Maimonides.
Natural disasters, he said, have no explanation other than that God, by
placing us in a physical world, set life within the parameters of the
physical. Planets are formed, earthquakes occur, and sometimes innocents
die.

To wish it were otherwise is in essence to wish that we were not physical
beings at all. Then we would not know pleasure, desire, achievement,
freedom, virtue, creativity, vulnerability and love. We would be angels --
God's computers -- programmed to sing his praise.

The religious question is, therefore, not "Why did this happen?" but "What
then shall we do?" That is why, in synagogues, churches, mosques and
temples, along with our prayers for the injured and the bereaved, we are
asking people to donate money to assist the work of relief.

The religious response is not to seek to understand, thereby to accept. We
are not God. Instead we are the people he has called on to be his "partners
in the work of creation." The only adequate religious response is to say:
"God, I do not know why this disaster has happened, but I do know what you
want of us: to help the afflicted, comfort the bereaved, send healing to the
injured and aid those who have lost their livelihoods and homes." We cannot
understand God, but we can strive to imitate his love and care.

That, and perhaps one more thing. After an earlier flood, in the days of
Noah, God made his first covenant with mankind. The Bible says God had seen
"a world filled with violence" and asked Noah to institute a social order
that would honor human life as the image of God.

Not as an explanation of suffering but as a response to it, I will pray that
in our collective grief we renew the covenant of human solidarity. Having
seen how small and vulnerable humanity is in the face of nature, might we
not also see how small are the things that divide us, and how tragic to add
grief to grief?

**********************************************
Ron Force         rforce at moscow,com
**********************************************

  -----Original Message-----
  From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com
[mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]On Behalf Of Art Deco
  Sent: Thursday, January 06, 2005 4:11 PM
  To: Vision 2020
  Subject: [Vision2020] 01-05-05 Belfast Telegraph: Attention Cult
MasterWilson


  South Asia disaster may lead more to see religion as bunkum


  By Eamonn McCann

  06 January 2005
  In the Belfast Telegraph yesterday, Mary Fitzgerald and Judith Cole asked
local leaders of religious groupings how they reconciled the pitiless horror
of the tsunami with the notion of a loving god.  <snip>
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