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From: mat@hou4b.UUCP (Mark Terribile)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Saint DuBois, Sinner Kulawiec
Message-ID: <1169@hou4b.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Oct-84 01:52:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: hou4b.1169
Posted: Mon Oct  1 01:52:04 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Oct-84 07:35:47 EDT
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>	I don't like the idea that some bozo god-being is going to send
>	some of us to eternal bliss, and some of us to eternal torment.
>	That's a really stupid way to run a universe.

Isn't the whole point YOUR choice to accept or reject God?  How can you say
``I am not going to obey the laws of the creator of everything'' (who surely
knows a little more than you do ...) and then condemn that same creator for
rejecting YOU?

>	When the day comes that I die, and find myself standing before some
>	cosmic entity in judgement, I hope to be able to deliver my
>	complaint(s) in person...if then, I'm relegated to the pits, well,
>	at least my self-respect and integrity will be intact.

How would you feel if you were God, and you call two people to judgement:  One
has spent his life making people happier, raising a family and teaching his
children well, going out of his way to help others.  The second came in
sniveling with complaints about the way you run things.  He has superb
intelligence, and he has had every material need (need, not want) provided out
of the love of others.  And all he can do is lambaste you for a couple of the
things you asked him to do.  How would you be inclined to treat the second?
I hope God is more merciful than I ... more for my sake, I'm afraid, than for
yours.  I know that I am unworthy ... and that there is something to be worthy
of.

>If I wreck my health or kill myself at an early age, what possible concern
>is that of yours?  If I drink, or smoke, or get high, or have sex
>(yes, please), or anything else that falls into your category of "self-
>destructive", why should YOU worry about it?

Why?  Perhaps some of us CARE about you.  We are told to love one another as
we love ourselves.  There's not much reason beyond that.

>Look, I'm having a great time, and if I go out this way, well, ok, maybe I'd
>rather stick around a little longer, but I'll settle for the good times I've
>had in preference to cringing about and worrying about what some turkey up in
>the sky thinks.

How about worrying about your fellow man?  Or is that not worth your effort?
Look, I wouldn't take this position so strongly if you did not condemn the
people who are trying to live good and caring lives.  And if some of them
have grown bitter in frustration, well, why not pray for them?  Even if YOU
don't believe that it will make one bit of difference.


	Through the persona of his detective character, Fr. Brown, Chesterton
wrote:
	``You see, it's so easy to be misunderstood.  All men matter.
	You matter.  I matter.  It's the hardest thong in theology to
	believe.  We matter to God -- God only know why.  But that's
	the only possible justification of the existance of policemen.
	Don't you see, the law really is right in a way, after all.
	If all men matter, all murders matter.  That which He has
	so mysteriously created we must not suffer to be destroyed.''

And here, most of us would include suicide, both physical and spiritual.
-- 

	from Mole End			Mark Terribile
		(scrape .. dig )	hou4b!mat
    ,..      .,,       ,,,   ..,***_*.