[Hank Kerchief]

Which are you? A lover of humanity or a lover of human suffering?

Hank

[sinkspur]

How many times are you going to post this? WHy didn't you just bump your previous posting of this article?

Or, did it get bounced?

[Hank Kerchief]

PHILOSOPHY PING

(If you want on or off this list please freepmail me.)

Not exactly philosophy, but there are definitely philosophical questions raised by this article.

Hank

[Charles Dodgson]

"More blood, more pain, more suffering. Ah, that's the thing, isn't it?"

"But, I do not like to see suffering. I want people to be happy." the girl in white said.

"You must not be a Christian, then."

LC

[AAABEST]

You're so caught up in love of your philosophical self, that you love your sophet. Philo-sophic.

You haven't even learned lesson #1 though. That part of love is sacrificing for others. You want false happiness that doesn't exist, an illusion.

Love is a verb that requires pain.

Loving others is painful, you always have to sacrifice whether you're putting your kids through college, feeding the poor, cleaning up after somoeone, putting up with an idiotic internet poster or dying for others because you love them dearly.

You love yourself and want to be happy, though you're not. You hate Christianity and can't even take the pain of leaving your brothers and sisters alone.

Your philo-sophy is not very attractive.

[mhking]

Which are you? A lover of humanity or a lover of human suffering?

A lover of God.

[conservonator]

The Passion of the Christ's theme is that suffering, not joy, is man's proper fate."

Sigh..., wishing this to be true does not make it so. Demonstrate the veracity of the above statement from the article by citing; Christian Scripture or other Christian dogma universally held. Please provide links to sources.

Thank you

[man of Yosemite]

Jesus said he came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. To say that Christianity is a religion that promotes suffering is completely wrong. I suffered far more pain when I was in Satan's fold. The passion of Jesus was inflicted by unbelievers, their sole purpose to be rid of this Christ. God, in his gracious and brilliant mercy, allowed this act of theirs to expiate the sin of mankind, the just one tasting death for everyman. The actions of Jesus were obedience to God, but God did not murder his Son; those who delivered him up were guilty of his death, the suffering clearly inflicted by them.

[ahadams2]

one who loves God -- no one in their right mind can possibly love humanity in it's sinful, fallen, and depraved state, which fails to even comprehend the nature of God, His Righteousness, His Justice, and His Mercy. Your article clearly demonstrates this total lack of comprehension by fallen and unredeemed mankind.

Or to put it more directly here is the way St Paul put it in the first chapter of his first letter to the Church at Corinth :

---

20Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, 24but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

---

please understand this clearly: it does not matter whether you mock it; it does not matter if you hate it; it does not matter if you choose to ignore it, it does not matter if you reject it - none of that matters, because you see, in the end, the universe functions by God's rules, not yours.

[Sloth]

And then we see his mother wiping up masses and masses of blood.

Sullivan's full of crap. The amount of blood depicted in that scene might be a pint or so -- it ain't "masses and masses."

[Just another Joe]

Whether this man knows anything about the movie, I don't know. I haven't seen it yet.

That this man know nothing about Christianity is obvious. At least not the Christianity I know.

Christianity is not about suffering. Sacrifice, perhaps, but sacrifice is not the same as suffering.

[Campion]

The Passion of the Christ's theme is that suffering, not joy, is man's proper fate.

I'm sorry, but that's just the stupidest thing I've seen here in a long time.

The point of the movie is that God's beloved son endured unspeakable pain in order to free mankind from sin and death.

The warped minds you admire don't know the difference between that and "worshipping suffering". That, far from being a key to "joy", I find truly sad.

"Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by his death, and on those in the tombs, bestowing life."--Easter Troparion, Byzantine Rite

[beckett]

A truly offfensive, severely myopic article which deliberately misrepresents the Christian message.

Real garbage.

[Red Boots]

Pain and suffering are part of humanity.To love humanity is to love all parts of the human experience, which includes pain and suffering. Great love comes with great suffering.They are two parts of a whole. I don't enjoy suffering, but I have learned things about myself, and God, that simply couldn't have been learned any other way.That learning is what life is all about. Therefore, I don't try to run from suffering, nor do I help others run from it, nor does God. That would be a grave diservice to humanity.

[Diamond]

...This pathological fascination with suffering in religion is not an anomaly, it is fundamental to the whole superstitious perversion which are "religious" values...

The author, presumably based on nothing more than a presupposition of the totality of random, impersonal evolution as the source of all things, gives no accounting for his use of such words as "pathological", and "perversion" in the first place. Without a coherent accounting of such notions his moral judgments and outrage are laughably self-refuting.

... It is certainly no surprise that Christians are opposed to anything that relieves suffering in this world...

A statement that is flatly false on its face. I could go on, but it's not worth it.

Cordially,

[stuartcr]

I think if you want someone to follow certain religious tenets, then it's not supposed to be too easy. I believe it has to be very hard to achieve, otherwise, you wouldn't get the awe that is associated with religious beliefs. Once you get someone to believe in certain things that are impossible to reproduce, then you have achieved the ability to get people to follow practically anything you say. Human nature has it that the harder you work for something, the more valuable it is...God put that little 'gotcha' in us. I believe part of human nature really wants to know there is something better, because we are afraid of death and the unknown. Christianity is my example because it's the one I'm most familiar with. If you can get people to believe in something like virgin birth, the Trinity, resurrection, walking on water, etc. then you can convince them of anything.

Personally, I have any number of thoughts on the concept of religion...one, if there is such a thing as original sin, then perhaps religion is the punishment...something to make man think and fight over, without ever getting an answer....two, it's just one of the ways God created for societies and mankind to function together....three, it could just be His little joke to give us something to do.

Myself, I think it's probably the same for everyone after death, because, when one tries to comprehend God, the universe, infinity...then our pitiful 70 or 80 years here on this planet, are extremely insignificant.

But of course, no one knows...it's all faith and hope. I don't think mankind is inherently good, or inherently evil, he just is the way God individually made us...part of His plan. So bottom line...I'm for humanity.