Making Sense of Suffering in a Post Modern World

Life is filled with suffering. That's a given. Despite the fact that some of us suffer more than others, there is no escaping it, and this - evil and suffering - present the greatest obstacle to faith in God, especially in modern and post-modern America.

And let's face it, most of us lose more than we win. But what if there was a way to win by losing? Well, in the audio version of the book below, Making Sense Out of Suffering, by Peter Kreeft, you may begin to look at suffering and pain in a very different way.   I know I did. And you don't have to be Catholic or Christian to read as he - albeit with 100% Christian bias - compares and contrasts all the different religions, philosophies, ets.

If you find that hard to believe, too good to be true, know that even the atheist Ivan Karamazov understands that hope. He says,

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world's finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they've shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.

Why then does Ivan remain an atheist? Because though he believes, he does not accept. He is not a doubter; he is a rebel. Like his own character the Grand Inquisitor, Ivan is angry at God for not being kinder. That is the deepest source of unbelief: not the intellect but the will.

Often using the Socratic technique of dialogue between himself and a very skeptical prospective reader, Kreeft brings together a variety of novelists, poets, prophets, philosophers and scriptures and he gives, what I think, is one of the best answers - if not the best - to the question for all time, if God exists, why is there so much suffering?  He masterfully exposes the fallacious thinking of modern times in a thought-provoking chapter on why it is most, if not all of us cannot understand suffering. He urges us to view ourselves as protagonists in the midst of our own life stories, where, maybe not in this world, good finally triumphs, as Christians believe.

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9/11 Heroes Must Pass Terrorist Test Before Receiving Benefits.

As we approach the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, and as the death toll of first responders nears 1,000 (916 first responders to be exact), the political elite believe it's a fitting memorial to force thousands of people who risked their lives and sacrificed on that day to prove they are not terrorists before they can benefit from The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Law.

• Over 400 tons of asbestos, which once inhaled in any quantity cannot be expelled by the lungs.
• 90,000 liters of jet fuel containing benzene, a carcinogen that suppresses the immune system and causes leukemia.
• Mercury from over 500,000 fluorescent lights that is toxic to the nervous system, and damaging especially to the kidneys.
• 200,000 pounds of lead and cadmium from personal computers, toxic to the respiratory track, especially damaging to kidneys.
• Polycystic aromatic hydrocarbons that cause lung, laryngeal and throat cancers.
• 130,000 gallons of transformer oil with PCBs, causing serious skin rashes and liver damage.
• Crystalline Silica from 420,000 tons of concrete, sheetrock and glass (tiny particulates that lodge in the heart, causing ischemic heart disease).

You can add to that list: thermite, thermate and nanothermite.

Dust to Dust: the health effects of 9/11, as Jerry Mazza put it, "911’s second round of slaughter."
 

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Inch by Inch, Hour by Hour — Play by Play!

"Destiny, the fatum, or the inner voice, tells you where you have to wind up and what you’re destined to do, but it doesn’t tell you how to get there or how to do it…

Aeneas cannot choose not to found Rome; he’s destined to create it. But he as to wrestle with himself, inch by inch, hour by hour — play by play! — to figure out how to endure the struggle and torment of doing it, and take all the bad breaks along the way.

As I sat there, an impressionable, twentieth-century seventeen-year-old, I wasn’t really swallowing Virgil’s brand of fatalism. But I sensed him speaking to me with a broader and deeper kind of truth.

It was terrifying that Aeneas’ beloved Troy had to be destroyed. But what I absorbed as we read was that the founding of Rome had a cost — Troy’s defeat and Aeneas’ years of torment. No accomplishment comes without suffering. Humanum est pati. “To be alive is to suffer.” Virgil wasn’t saying something as simple-headed as “No pain, no gain.” That implies you can choose between suffering and taking life easy. To Virgil, nobody gets to choose not to suffer.

And nobody is guaranteed a reward, a victory, in repayment for his suffering. The best man, the best team, isn’t automatically entitled to win. The winds of fate can turn you around, run you aground, sink you, and sometimes you can’t do a thing about it. However, just to make the commitment to something you believe in is winning — even if you lose the game. But for committing yourself to winning the game, whether you win or not, you always pay in tears and in blood." -- Joe Paterno

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Pope: 'Nothing Positive' From Iraq

In a live televised address, the pontiff said Iraq was being "torn apart by continual slaughter".

Pope Benedict also voiced worry over continuing violence and human suffering in parts of Asia and Africa.

Earlier the pontiff led Easter Sunday Mass before tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered in the square.

Easter Sunday is the holiest day in the Christian calendar, marking the Resurrection of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion on Good Friday.

'Signs of hope'

Speaking from the balcony overlooking the square, Pope Benedict expressed his concern at the level of suffering in the world.

"Nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees," he said.

Peace is sorely needed

His remarks came hours after at least 15 people were killed in an explosion in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in the latest violence in Iraq.

But the Pope noted "some signs of hope" in the Middle East in what he called "the dialogue" between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Talks between the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have continued despite Israel's boycott of the recently formed Palestinian government of national unity, because it contains the militant Hamas group.

The Pope also expressed fears about the political future of Lebanon, which he said was in serious jeopardy.

'Faces of violence'

The pontiff spoke of the faith of Christians in the risen Christ but he also painted a very sombre picture of a world disfigured by war and terrorism.

He condemned terrorism and the use of religion to justify a "thousand faces of violence".

"Peace is sorely needed," he said.

The Pope said he also looked with apprehension at conditions prevailing in several parts of Africa, including the "catastrophic" humanitarian disaster in Darfur, violence and looting in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the "grievous crisis" in Zimbabwe.

After giving his Easter blessing, the Pope, dressed in gold vestments, greeted pilgrims in more than 60 different languages.

The Pope will spend the next few days at his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, before returning to Rome.

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