Only for the brave

...and probably for the truthful and the not so fanatical. See the post here.

Don't bother, we'll just do it ourselves

I am a committee member of my state chapter of the IEEE-CS. Last week, we hosted Mr. Edwin Black, the author of this book to talk about the ethics of technology and how it is important today. Technology can not be ethics neutral and it should not be just a matter of commerce.

Anyway there were a few of us who took the author to dinner. It so happened that I sat beside him and so we chatted a bit. Mr. Black comes from a Jewish background and so my mind went back to the time when I was taking my Religious Studies degree 20 years ago, when one of my subjects was OT Judaism.

As we chatted about the Holocaust, I was reminded by one quip from someone I heard a long time ago of how Jews have abandoned their belief in God due to this tremendous suffering that they have experienced in WWII.

Many people criticize Pentecostalism's wealth and health prosperity doctrine saying that this is a sure fire way of making people atheists. While there is truth to this observation, this is not the only source of why people become atheists. One source is turmoil in life and unspeakable suffering. Life hurts. That quip I heard a long time ago goes along these lines...

"Where were you God when all of these were being done to us? Thanks very much, don't bother, from now one, we will just do it ourselves".

That seems to be the prevailing attitude of Israelis today.

As I thought about this, many statements of Jesus came to my mind as I relate to my own sufferings. For example...

John 16:33
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

I am glad Jesus said this but I have not fully comprehended all of this. The tribulation part is very obvious; it is the part about being of good cheer because he has overcome the world that I want to learn how.