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This is a beautiful story, illustrative of so much that is underlying society: fantastic. Love Chambers, since he's challenging some of the in American political discourse.

Of course, God did get his day in court on Ö÷²¥´óÐã2 in September. In the play God on Trial, Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz, half of whom are waiting for the gas chambers, decide to hold a tribunal in which God is put in the dock on the charge that he broke his covenant with his chosen people to protect and care for them.

Needless to say, the verdict was guilty. When the Jews are being led into the gas chamber, one of them asks, "What do we do now that God is guilty?" Another replies, "Now, we pray".

The DVD should definitely be shown in schools. Perhaps, they will learn the lesson: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things".

Brian

I'm sitting here wondering if it is possible to contribute to this thread without trivialising the horror of the Holocaust or the daily suffering of many, so a step at a time.

The idea of putting God on Trial is, interestingly, a biblical, and therefore Hebrew theme. The bible is full of the idea.

Maybe this article in The Guardian would be a good place to begin further discussion.

Hi Peter:

Gosh! Amazing! I see that even Frank Cottrell Boyce is quoting La Rochefoucauld!

I agree with your post 3. Of course, Job does it.

I also agree with Primo Levi:
"There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God" (an interview); and:

"The aims of life are the best defense against death."
(The Drowned and the Saved)

Frankly I think God got off the hook on a free pass this time. He's an unindicted co-conspirator who along with his priests and their dupes who follow them have conspired to inflict as much pain and misery on the world as they could. As a sadist he first creates man and then tortures him endlessly and mercilessly for his own perverted pleasure. While we can't lock him up, he could be banished but unfortunately nobody's got the guts to try it. Now that would be one thing the UN could do for humanity, bring god to trial in the ICC, convict him, and prohibit worship of him on penalty of life in prison in solitary confinement as a way to isolate the infection. But since the UN has proven to be a useless gutless wonder, I don't think they would even consider it. They're more interested in going after his minions like Serbian war criminals. Funny how the small fish always get to pay the penalty while the big fish get away.

Marcus

I made sure to read your post in double quick time, just incase someone 'pulls' it. Not that it should be removed. I hope it isn't.

It's always interesting to read proposals on how we might banish God.

Brian;

It's strange, I watched that play, and was also struck by that one piece of dialogue

""What do we do now that God is guilty?"
"Now, we pray".

It's funny how we can take totally different things from the one experience.

Odd is it not, that those who persist with the notion of trying God and finding Him guilty, are those who do not believe He exists.

Having said that however, it would be a mistake to presume that this Christian for one, has never hated Him.

And yet...

petermorrow

Don't you like my playful sarcasm? Perhaps god should be tried in absentia and when found guilty, his "assistants" should be forced to pay the penalty. After all, they aided and abetted him. Where I come from that's as good as having committed the crimes themselves especially where murder is concerned. BTW, god can hardly pretend he didn't know what was going on since he supposdely knows everything just like Santa Claus and his priests can hardly pretend that they don't know what he is thinking. They justify their existance by asserting that this is exactly what they know and telling us what he thinks at every opportunity.

"Don't you like my playful sarcasm?"

Of course Caesar, I love it, but others have complained before. How wise of though you to realise that God can only be targeted through his followers.

What did you have in mind, lions?... maybe too passé, the colosseum is not what it was. Crucifixion? Worked before, but maybe not well enough, and the Christians making a metaphor of an execution device was something of a master stroke, don't you think?

Troublesome people these 'Christ's Ones', don't appear to fear death, very tiresome.

The word was passe... as in "maybe to passe.

I put in an accent and it wasn't recognised.

Hi Peter:

There you go again, in #6, putting ideas into other people's minds.
Marcus is an atheist living in the most godly country in the universe. Take pity on him, as I am sure the rest of us will.

But it is a pity, too, that his critical freethinking is exercised in such a narrow field. His brain seems to take a holiday when it comes to more secular issues.

Wilfred Owen lived through and died in a horror easily the equal of Auschwitz. I think it is interesting in this context to see what he made of it.

He put God on trial all right and that from one of the best places in all of human history to assess the evidence at first hand. He found in that horror and darkness light and could see himself "more and more Christian as I walk the unchristian ways of Christendom".

I have read no more powerful statement of real Christianity than this:

"For fourteen hours yesterday I was at work – teaching Christ to lift his cross by numbers, and how to adjust his crown, and to imagine he thirst until the last halt. I attended his supper to see that there were no complaints; and inspected his feet that they should be worthy of the nails. I see to it that he is dumb and stands to attention before his accusers. With a piece of silver I buy him every day, and with maps I make him familiar with the topography of Golgotha".

brianmcclinton

Well I don't know if the US is more "godly" as you put it than Pakistan, Iran, or Saudi Arabia but it is also the most tolerant country in the world and I have never suffered any abuse or discrimination because of my atheism. I don't go around advertising it but then I don't hide it either. I suspect I'm hardly alone. Bill Maher's movie Religilous just came out and I haven't heard any public outcry against it.

As for me not being a socialist the way you are, it occurred to me that when you live in a socialist country, there is no way to get rich. Are you rich? I for one am not complaining and I expect in the long run believe it or not to profit from the current financial crisis. I saw it coming and see it as an opportunity. I'm sure most other people don't see it that way but then again most others at least in my country believe in god. They pray...I invest. Perhaps I'm more careful in my investing than they are in their praying.

Marcus:

It is of course a characteristic of totalitarianism to claim that anyone who thinks differently from it must be an extremist. The Nazis saw their main task as saving Germany from the very 'Bolshevism' you rail against.

As for your prescience about 'the current financial crisis', it was only a few months ago that you were arguing on this blog that the US economy was sound and healthy.

brianmcclinton;

It is characteristic of the despotic mind to insist that only in a society completely planned and run by a central authority can people live peacefully and prosperously yet every one that has tried it has come to ruin. Such a society is antithetical to the culture and values of the most successful of all societies in history, that of the USA.

If I said the US economy was sound, I was only repeating what our top economists were saying. But I don't remember saying that at all. At least as far back as April after my first recent business trip to Southern California, I was aware and probably said that the real estate market had collapsed due to the sub prime mortgages which would result in a serious recession. I said that this would greatly impact the entire world's economy especially in China and Europe. What I wasn't aware of until recently was the credit default swaps which are resulting in the possibility, even the likelihood of a depression.

What I also recall that I said was that the problems of the US economy were not due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I said that the trillion dollars they cost between them over 6 years was only slightly over 1% of GDP which was not enough to severely impact an economy the size of America's to any great degree. Not only has the size of the fiasco of the sub prime mortgage debacle, the credit default swaps, and the fall in stock markets dwarfed the cost of the wars many times over, the suddenness of their impact has resulted in a major jolt to the world's entire economic structure. I've posted my views on it extensively on Robert Peston's and Robin Ludwig's blog sites. It appears America's government forgot the lesson of the great depression and as Santyana said is condemned to repeat it. However, one way or another eventually we will recover. Socialist societies by contrast such as the USSR's were in a state of perpetual depression which would never end. That's what a planned economy usually gives you. At most you can hope for mediocrity if you live in one since there is no incentive for anyone to exert any meaningful effort in anything they do in life. Why bother when there is no profit in it, all the fruits of it are stolen by the government? BTW, Barack Obama has recently revealed with the Joe the plumber incident that he is prepared to take America down the road of Robin Hood rob from the rich to give to the poor spread the wealth socialism as well. With the dumbing down of society, we in the USA just might elect him. If you think things are bad now, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Hi Brian

It would probably be best if I read you post 12 as a joke, but to be honest I'm not sure how to understand it.

There I go putting ideas in people's minds. Em? I don't presume to have that much influence! However if you would like an insight into my thinking, I wrote post 6 as a tongue in cheek (Marcus might say 'playful sarcasm') reply to his post 5 where he said "He's an unindicted co-conspirator who along with his priests and their dupes". Strikes me as the sort of thing some Christians might find offensive, so I was kind of smiling at my own (often unnecessarily sensitive) community too. And... I did say, "Not that it should be removed. I hope it isn't." and in post 10, "I love it"

Of course my post 10 has the potential of getting me into even greater trouble, after all if there's a sudden escalation in the number of Christian deaths due to mauling by lions it's obviously going to be my fault.

Peter I hope you will permit me to respond here to your last post to me on the MO'D thread - both because it seems to be disappearing off-screen and because the subject matter seems appropriate to this thread.

You are not alone: we all happily sing things we would think twice (I hope) about saying. Hymnists sometimes just have not got a clue - I could not repeat on this blog what I want to jump up and shout every time I hear "Grace it seems is all he has and one big open heart".

Wilfred Owen has helped me a lot in my thinking about suffering; I posted a quotation on this thread earlier which ties in with some of what you are saying and which has been an immense inspiration to me.

Owen is caught up in the unimaginable horror of the First World War, as an officer he is an administrative and guiding part of the ghastly machine of suffering - a machine which he sees as as much as it wounds humanity. What enables him to cope, what perhaps we might say participates in his redemption, is that he sees the suffering of Christ in that horror - not just reflected but extended.

The awareness that he, in the routine of his duties as a soldier, is repeating and renewing the torture of Christ simultaneously awakens him to the reality of Christ in the persons of those whose lives his actions affect.

We most of us make compromises with the world in which we live; we fail to live as Christ did or as we would, but there is light when we can see His features even in the faces of those whose pain we have played our part in creating and that seeing transforms our sensibilities.

Where was God in Auschwitz? He was dying on a cross.

Why did God permit such things? Because he allows us to be free.

smasher-lagru

"god works in mysterious ways. He has a plan for us but he will not reveal it until the proper time."

Isn't the human mind remarkable? It can rationalize anything it wants to if it wants it badly enough. And here I thought Jesus was put on earth to suffer for us. Guess there was too much sufferering to be done for just one god to finish the job. So which god am I to choose? If I were a Christian and I lived according to how the priest or minister said I should, I might go to heaven...and then again I might not. But if I were a Moslem and blew up lots of infidels with a suicide bomb or killed them in an ambush, I will surely go to Paradise and get 72 virgins. I must say that their offer sounds a lot more enticing than the Christian offering unless you are obsessed with harp music. I'm not sure what you get or don't get for all eternity if you are Jewish and live a holy life. So for Christians, to redeem yourself and go to heaven you must repent your sins. For Moslems you must convert to Islam and kill infidels. (The way I understand the Koran, this is quite explicit.) Can both be right at the same time? Do Moslems who save the lives of infidels such as by rescuing them from a burning house so they can continue to practice their heresy go to Moslem hell? Is there a Moslem hell?

One thing that has always struck me about fundimentalists and other Christians who demand prayer in the public schools is what makes them think that on many occasions those prayers won't be from someone else's religon, not just Islam or Jewish but any of hundreds or thousands of others such as those incantations of Native American tribes? How would they feel if the children went to school and were forced to do a rain dance?

Marcus - your key question, of course, is can they both be right at the same time and the answer is no. I believe in truth and that contradictory things cannot both be true. But of course sometimes there are subtleties (that spelling doesn't look right). Christians, Jews and Muslims all believe there is one God, but Christians believe in the trinity within God. I think muslims have some things right - the power and omnipotence of God, but I think they are wrong in not recognising, as St John did, that God is love. I don't know where jihadists will end up. Perhaps purgatory provides an opportunity for otherwise goodliving people like yourself and jihadists and northern Ireland humanists to become Catholics before going to heaven.

As for prayer in public school - there is a wide spectrum between preventing prayer and mandating prayer. Whither free exercise?

Smasher-lagru

Don't you remember that in a budget cutting move, the Catholic Church closed down purgatory? There is no such place anymore. Where those who occupied it went is anyone's guess. Those who know aren't talking.

God is love? Seems to me that is a very wide stretch considering how much pain and suffering he not only tolerates but inflicts. I suppose you could say the Tsunami was his doing and the people who were killed or suffered in the aftermath deserved what they got. Most were Moslems and many Moslem clerics said just that. All things considered, the thought occurred to me that they might be right. Many years ago, a strange thought crossed my mind. In every disaster in which people are killed or suffer whether they are manmade or due to natural events, there are a certain percentage of the victims who got exactly what they deserved. Has that thought ever crossed anyone else's mind? Even if it was only one or two percent, that's something.

Those who advocate prayer in the public schools want no such thing as voluntary moments of silence. When I was in elementary school in NYC many decades ago, we heard a reading of a psalm every week in "assembly." We were required to sit silently and listen. This is what they want a return to. Why they might get are Hopi chants to the fertility gods or Bhuddist incantations in some oriental language. Would serve them right too.

Was that not limbo? I think purgatory's still there.

:)

It would have to be.

Interesting how atheists blame the God that they assert doesn't even exist for all the bad things in the world, and are just as quick to take the credit for themselves for all the good things. It really is a dud argument.

If god exists, then we know nothing about what makes something good or evil, and therefore have no objective standpoint on the issue.

Marcus

"In every disaster in which people are killed or suffer whether they are manmade or due to natural events, there are a certain percentage of the victims who got exactly what they deserved.

And how would you go about figuring out who did or did not get what they deserved?

And emmm, hate to ask, but what do you think you deserve?

petermorrow

You'd have to know the biography of each person to decide if they got what they deserved. I've seen people have devastating things happen to them and IMO some of them earned it. It was almost enough to make me believe in god. Perhaps if I saw more of it I would believe in god. At least three people who were cruel and vindictive towards members of my family died shortly after by complete surprise, one a most terrible and deserved death from multiple sclerosis. I'm not going to supply you with the details but rest assured they deserved what they got.

I'm quite satisfied with my life. I'm safe and secure and very comfortable both physically and financially even in the current economic disaster. I saw it coming and planned for it. I can have pretty much anything I want within reason. Funny, knowing that has sharply reduced my desires for any more material things, I have far more than enough of them. Any failures in my life, any disappointments have usually been largely due to my own choices and shortcomings. I have no one else to blame and I do not blame anyone else. Think of all the cruel people you meet in life who have done terrible things to other people often for no apparent reason. Should I regret their suffering or death? Well I don't. Nor do I take joy in it. I simply notice it and accept it just like I do with everything else in life. If you read my old postings, you'd know I'm ultimately a fatalist. I think free will is a complete illusion and anyone who really believes in a rational universe can come to no other conclusion. And yet when I see people get their just rewards, it sometimes makes me wonder.

Marcus

Interesting post.

Do you think it is possible to speak of 'just rewards' and at the same time hold to a concept of fatalism?

As regard myself, I fear that if my heart were to be weighed against the 'feather' of truth and justice, I might find it to be a tad heavy!!

"Marcus

Do you think it is possible to speak of 'just rewards' and at the same time hold to a concept of fatalism?"

No, clearly it is absurd. Clearly I'm just as irrational as everyone else. The only difference...I know it.

of course purgatory is still there. Limbo was always only a theological theory and it remains that - but not endorsed by the magisterium.

Jesus made it quite clear that bad things like towers falling and children being born blind don't happen to people as punishment. They happen because we live in a physical world - if you have gravity then slates will sometimes fall of roofs and kill someone.

You'll get your just desserts when you die - but I think people will end up where they want - good people will want heaven, bad people will want hell. Humanists will want oblivion - maybe they'll get it.

smasher-lagru

Are you saying god can't or won't keep slate tiles from falling off a roof for an extra second or two when a child is walking by? Sounds like a rather indifferent god to me. If he won't do that to save a child's life, what makes you thiink he will even bother to listen to your prayers let alone answer them?

So people go where they want to after they die. Are there no bad people who like harp music? Are there no good people who like a tropical climate and stimulating conversation? I'll bet there are some who could spend all eternity listening to Hitler explain how he would have conquered Russia if his generals had just listened to him and done it his way.

God can do anything that it is not logically impossible for Him to do. But He gave us freedom and a life that ends in death (not excluding Enoch, Elijah and possibly the Blessed Virgin Mary). Do I believe in possibility of miracles? Yes, but I believe they mostly occur as signs. God is not indifferent to a child dying by a falling slate, or ripped from its mother's womb by a "doctor" but you've to appreciate that death for God and those who believe in Him is not the disaster it is for humanists.

As for the afterlife - I mean people by their beliefs and behaviour are pre-disposed to heaven or hell. If you live a life which includes God, you pray etc then you will be happy spending eternity in His presence. It's nothing to do with harps, though music can be a helpful analogy.

smasher-lagru

"God is not indifferent to a child dying by a fallilng slate...."

But why then does he allow that child to die before it can grow up, live a life of sin, and go to hell? Where's the plan. Oooooh, I see, god works in mysterious ways. Good answer for anything that does not have an answer.

Smasher - your posts #28 and 30

I never had you down for a Blakeian - I don't think the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would approve!

I assume you've read 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' - I can see its influence in your thinking. "As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity". Blake says we all get what we want and we all enjoy it - where's the justice there then.

COURTROOM NO. 10 - 4TH FLOOR
Judge Marlon A. Polk
Bailiff: Angela Sanders
Phone: 444-7009
Fax: 996-8161
Court Reporter: Karen Peterson
Court Reporter Phone: 444-7010

Douglas County Clerk of the District Court / Jury Commissioner
300 Hall of Justice
1701 Farnam Street, 3rd Floor
Omaha, NE 68183

To the Honorable Justice, Marlon A. Polk,

Unfortunately, due to some limitations on my part, I was not notified of the adjuration to testify in the case brought forward by the plaintiff, Senator Ernie Chambers concerning some accusations of note. Specifically, (although I have yet to receive the official suit), the plaintiff has claimed that, God had threatened him and the people of Nebraska and had inflicted widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants.

I am obligated both by law and through moral obligation to notify this court, that I am a duly appointed representative of the One in whose service I am employed.

If the court needs to review the legal documentation evidencing my obligation to represent the Defendant in this matter, I would be more than happy to provide a copy of the contract under which I am obligated; although, I do believe you may have many copies of this on hand yourself. Further, due to the nature of the relationship between the Defendant and me, I can assure you that the Defendant would be present during the proceedings.

Again, I do apologize for my failure to respond to this adjuration and personally seek leniency of the court in this matter for my own sake. Again, I must protest and clarify, it should not be considered a failure on the part of a defendant if their representation is so not as faithful as they should be in their responsibilities.

As an appointed representative of the Defendant, and under personal instruction to represent Him in this matter, I hereby request the appropriate information, including the complaint, be forwarded to me.

As for evidence concerning the Defendant's election for me to represent them, I refer to the above stated contract in the following section,

Lev. 5:1
Now if a person sins after he hears a public adjuration to testify when he is a witness, whether he has seen or otherwise known, if he does not tell it, then he will bear his guilt.

Also, as is the case for foreign representation, I request a locally appointed counselor to advise concerning the necessary proprieties, processes and obligations required to represent the Defendant in this matter.

Please accept again my apologies for failure to execute my responsibilities in this matter.

Sincerely,
Elika Kohen

god is cool and i love him very much because if it wernt for him i would have nothing and if i found out he isnt real i think i would kill myself