Steve

I’m not always sure how to comfort people, especially if their religious ideas are more, say, rigid than my own. Perhaps all we can really do is express our sorrow over their loss.

I think I’ve come a long way since then living in a such a melting pot city as Paris.

I still don’t believe in any religion or particular God and it still pisses me off when people start to get all judgmental and religious on me (I used to work for a Jewish company and get nasty looks for not eating kosher and staying to work after sundown on Fridays, specially because my last name is Shapiro)….

I hate how people stand behind the wall of their “faith” in order to impose ridiculous and even ludicrous regimes to the easy-to-manipulate masses. I’m not thinking of any religion in particular but when people go to the extremes… it simply pisses me off because I feel they are being ignorant: by refusing to accept any other “truth” can be plausible they are shutting themselves from the world and thus not allowing it to evolve. What a shame.

However, I have also seen what having faith can do to a person. It can get them through the hard times and it can give them courage to do things they wouldn’t do otherwise, all by feeling that someone is “watching over them”. I’ve come to realize that if that is what it takes to get them through the day, then ok, good. I know, it’s not what it takes ME to get me through MY day, but that’s what diversity and free-thinking is all about, right?

Which leads me to a new dilemma. What can you say to a mother who has lost a child? In what words can you offer comfort to her without sounding fake? I ask this because, I too HATE the “everything happens for a reason” line (it just sounds sooo…. fake) but then again, what CAN you say?

Fned.
P.S. Great post.

Contact me when you get here, we can grab a cup of coffee or something.

Oh really? I am not angry at God, in fact, I consider myself to be pretty “cool” with the man upstairs…. at a bible study when the leader gave me that line, I asked him if I had been a weaker person, would my son then still be alive? Would God have decided not to give me a handicapped son? Why was I “made” such a strong person?

I have never seen this man speechless, but there he was. All he could do was embrace me and cry. I cried, too.

My son has been gone 4 years now (Tue 2/20 was the 4th anniversary of his death). I have come to an inner peace by telling myself that God didn’t “give me something I couldn’t handle”, but rather God helped me to be come a strong enough person to handle whatever “life” threw my way.

I wouldn’t trade a minute spent with my son, but I also know that Chris is now in a better place.

Steve - coming to Cancun June 3-18 with my family. Any chance of saying “hi” to you and yours?

Ah yes, free will! The big question. I would be pretty depressed if I didn’t believe I had free will.

Oh yes, 42. For anyone who doesn’t get that reference check out the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything

But being able to learn and improve yourself is a long way off from ‘Everything happens for a reaso’. Not least because the same christians who’ll tell you this will later tell you that you have free will. Duh.

Lisa - My husband is pretty good at running of Witnesses, they don’t stand a chance with them.

Jonna - I’m with you, people want to believe that God is involved in their daily lives and “cares” about them.

My own belief system doesn’t involve a God that judges me or tries to teach me lessons. I learn plenty on my own and judge myself too harshly already.