Story of Civilization ~ Will & Ariel Durant

[Justin]

It is interesting to speculate on why people become religious. Many I suppose , inherit a religious association and as they grow older and involved in economic processes, see no reason to challenge the association's supporting assumptions. Some one told me, "there is less risk in believing." That strikes me as the essence of social  irresponsibility but I suspect that reason alone accounts for a large segment of the population carrying on the religious tradition.

The fear reason is strongly supported by a professional priesthood that draws it's living from the willingness of a congregation to remain enthralled.

There are herd reasons as well, I suspect. One believes and attends services on Sunday morning because it is done by "the best people in town."

None of those reasons suggest the presence of a gene. I'm sure Robby,  you can assign terms to those causes that describe them as very ordinary human reactions produced by a free and independent body.

[Justin]

The Baha'i concept does reduce the problem of exclusivity by incorporating all religious ideas of God into it's one God idea. It denies the idea of the Christians however, by denying God's incarnation in Jesus. Since it assigns no gender to the deity, the idea of a Trinity and God the Father is anathema.

The religion is probably too advanced for it to adjust to these differences to make it compatible with all the others. When one tries to be all things at once one is often nothing at all but that can be a good thing.

[3kings(Trevor)]

Justin. Your #680 expresses my 'beliefs' in this matter of religion far better than I could . Right on! Trevor

[Robby]

I know that I'm inserting a third article in recent days but, like the others, it seems to fit in with our Renaissance discussion of the "battle, disagreement, confrontation" between the two Popes.

Op-Ed Columnist
Let’s Talk About Faith
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Liberal democracy offers religious believers a bargain. Accept, as a price of citizenship, that you may never impose your convictions on your neighbor, or use state power to compel belief. In return, you will be free to practice your own faith as you see fit — and free, as well, to compete with other believers (and nonbelievers) in the marketplace of ideas.

That’s the theory. In practice, the admirable principle that nobody should be persecuted for their beliefs often blurs into the more illiberal idea that nobody should ever publicly criticize another religion. Or champion one’s own faith as an alternative. Or say anything whatsoever about religion, outside the privacy of church, synagogue or home.

A week ago, Brit Hume broke all three rules at once. Asked on a Fox News panel what advice he’d give to the embattled Tiger Woods, Hume suggested that the golfer consider converting to Christianity. “He’s said to be a Buddhist,” Hume noted. “I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. ”

A great many people immediately declared that this comment was the most outrageous thing they’d ever heard. Hume’s words were replayed by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, to shocked laughter from the audience. They were denounced across the blogosphere as evidence of chauvinism, bigotry and gross stupidity. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann claimed, absurdly, that Hume had tried to “threaten Tiger Woods into becoming a Christian.” His colleague David Shuster suggested that Hume had “denigrated” his own religion by discussing it on a talk show.

The Washington Post’s TV critic, Tom Shales, mocked the idea that Christians should “run around trying to drum up new business” for their faith. Hume “doesn’t really have the authority,” Shales suggested — unless of course “one believes that every Christian by mandate must proselytize.” (This is, of course, exactly what Christians are supposed to believe.)

Somewhat more plausibly, a few of Hume’s critics suggested that had he been a Buddhist commentator urging a Christian celebrity to convert — or more provocatively, a Muslim touting the advantages of Islam — Christians would be calling for his head.

No doubt many would. The tendency to take offense at freewheeling religious debate is widespread. There are European Christians who side with Muslims in support of blasphemy laws, lest Jesus or the Prophet Muhammad have his reputation sullied. There are American Catholics who cry “bigotry” every time a newspaper columnist criticizes the church’s teaching on sexuality. Many Christians have decided that the best way to compete in an era of political correctness is to play the victim card.

But these believers are colluding in their own marginalization. If you treat your faith like a hothouse flower, too vulnerable to survive in the crass world of public disputation, then you ensure that nobody will take it seriously. The idea that religion is too mysterious, too complicated or too personal to be debated on cable television just ensures that it never gets debated at all.

This doesn’t mean that we need to welcome real bigotry into our public discourse. But what Hume said wasn’t bigoted: Indeed, his claim about the difference between Buddhism and Christianity was perfectly defensible. Christians believe in a personal God who forgives sins. Buddhists, as a rule, do not. And it’s at least plausible that Tiger Woods might welcome the possibility that there’s Someone out there capable of forgiving him, even if Elin Nordegren and his corporate sponsors never do.

Or maybe not. For many people — Woods perhaps included — the fact that Buddhism promotes an ethical life without recourse to Christian concepts like the Fall of Man, divine judgment and damnation is precisely what makes it so appealing. The knee-jerk outrage that greeted Hume’s remarks buried intelligent responses from Buddhists, who made arguments along these lines — explaining their faith, contrasting it with Christianity, and describing how a lost soul like Woods might use Buddhist concepts to climb from darkness into light.

When liberal democracy was forged, in the wake of Western Europe’s religious wars, this sort of peaceful theological debate is exactly what it promised to deliver. And the differences between religions are worth debating. Theology has consequences: It shapes lives, families, nations, cultures, wars; it can change people, save them from themselves, and sometimes warp or even destroy them.

If we tiptoe politely around this reality, then we betray every teacher, guru and philosopher — including Jesus of Nazareth and the Buddha both — who ever sought to resolve the most human of all problems: How then should we live?

It’s reasonable to doubt that a cable news analyst has the right answer to this question. But the debate that Brit Hume kicked off a week ago is still worth having. Indeed, it’s the most important one there is.


Robby

[JoanK]

BRIAN: I didn't read the whole article, but enough to see their respect for other people's religions. That's key for me. I can respect other's beliefs as long as they have respect for other people.

By the way, are you still curling? The Winter Olympics is coming up, and I look forward to being able to see some on TV. Needless to say, curling is not usually broadcast here in Southern California. Beach volleyball takes its place.

[Brian]

JoanK - - - good to hear from you.

I do not know a great deal about Bahà'i, I have only met one follower of the Bahà'i faith, but was most impressed by his earnest interpretation of his beliefs.  He, like his faith, came from Persia.  The thing that came out most strongly was his insistance that the Bahà'i respect ALL worshippers of ANY God, and are totally opposed to violence in the name of religion.  I searched the site and spent a fair amount of time there.

Unfortunately I am no longer able to curl, but that does nothing to diminish my love for the sport.  I will, indeed, be following the Olympic Curling, and have great hopes for the Kevin Martin rink which comes from my home city.

Beach volleyball is a good spectator sport.

Brian.

[Justin]

Thank you, Robby for printing the Douthat article.  The tendency we have in our western culture, to think that it is improper or impolite for one to debate religious differences as well as the effects of those differences upon society, denies a constitutional right and leaves the society vulnerable to abuse.

Brit Hume was well within bounds when he suggested Tiger Wood give up Buddism and adopt Christianity in order to gain the forgiveness he sought. Such solace can be achieved with the Buddha but that is an issue apart from the more technical one of Hume's right to address the issue as well as the appropriateness of his comments.   There are many, I am sure, who think Hume should have kept his mouth shut.

I am reminded of the Father Coughlin- Westbrook Pegler duel of so many years ago. Coughlin was a demogogue who supported Hitler in his sermons on radio. Pegler said so and it took papal intervention to get Coughlin to close his mouth.

Religion is a topic that must be debated in the public arena to control it's abuses and the religious among us must encourage such debate.

Douthat seems to agree. His opening paragraphs may be seen below:

"Liberal democracy offers religious believers a bargain. Accept, as a price of citizenship, that you may never impose your convictions on your neighbor, or use state power to compel belief. In return, you will be free to practice your own faith as you see fit — and free, as well, to compete with other believers (and nonbelievers) in the marketplace of ideas.

That’s the theory. In practice, the admirable principle that nobody should be persecuted for their beliefs often blurs into the more illiberal idea that nobody should ever publicly criticize another religion. Or champion one’s own faith as an alternative. Or say anything whatsoever about religion, outside the privacy of church, synagogue or home."

If religious debate were a spectator sport we would all be better protected from abuse.  

[Brian]

If religious debate were a spectator sport . . .

It obviously IS on these pages, and I am enjoying being a spectator.

Brian

[Justin]

I'd like, some day,  to describe the benefits of religion. Unfortunately, we are in a period  in history in which religion does not show well. It may never have shown well and it may not show well today but in spite of all the damage it inflicts on society there are saving graces that we have not really looked at.

As patron of the arts it contributed to the well being of artists and left us a heritage of work that is magnificent. Some of the earliest hospitals were founded in Medieval times and expanded in the Renaissance. The contributions of the Church to the art of medicine must be substantial. The need to build churches and cathedrals has advanced the arts of the building trades. The master masons of the cathedrals were architects of great skill. They drew in palimpsests and as result their knowledge is left only in the artifacts that remain.

I'd like to say they gave people peace of mind through prayer but they created anxiety by promising everyone a little touch of hell at death.

[mabel1015j]

When liberal democracy was forged, in the wake of Western Europe’s religious wars, this sort of peaceful theological debate is exactly what it promised to deliver. And the differences between religions are worth debating. Theology has consequences: It shapes lives, families, nations, cultures, wars; it can change people, save them from themselves, and sometimes warp or even destroy them.

If we tiptoe politely around this reality, then we betray every teacher, guru and philosopher — including Jesus of Nazareth and the Buddha both — who ever sought to resolve the most human of all problems: How then should we live?

It’s reasonable to doubt that a cable news analyst has the right answer to this question. But the debate that Brit Hume kicked off a week ago is still worth having. Indeed, it’s the most important one there is.

I loved this summary, i agree w/ him even as an agnostic, maybe especially as an agnostic. I'm not sure if it's the most important discussion around the Tiger Woods incident, i think maybe sexual addictions may be more important in that instance. I also like the way there has been discussion around racial issues both by the TW incident and our having an AF-Am'n president. Perhaps the most important thing about Obama's presidency will be the initiation of discussions about race in the USA.

Re: "theology has consequences" comment - our discussions from Durant have spent a great deal of time talking about religion giving truth to his comment. ................jean

[mabel1015j]

"When liberal democracy was forged, in the wake of Western Europe’s religious wars, this sort of peaceful theological debate is exactly what it promised to deliver. And the differences between religions are worth debating. Theology has consequences: It shapes lives, families, nations, cultures, wars; it can change people, save them from themselves, and sometimes warp or even destroy them.

If we tiptoe politely around this reality, then we betray every teacher, guru and philosopher — including Jesus of Nazareth and the Buddha both — who ever sought to resolve the most human of all problems: How then should we live?

It’s reasonable to doubt that a cable news analyst has the right answer to this question. But the debate that Brit Hume kicked off a week ago is still worth having. Indeed, it’s the most important one there."

I loved this summary, i agree w/ him even as an agnostic, maybe especially as an agnostic. I'm not sure if it's the most important discussion around the Tiger Woods incident, i think maybe sexual addictions may be more important in that instance. I also like the way there has been discussion around racial issues both by the TW incident and our having an AF-Am'n president. Perhaps the most important thing about Obama's presidency will be the initiation of discussions about race in the USA.

Re: "theology has consequences" comment - our discussions from Durant have spent a great deal of time talking about religion giving truth to his comment. ................

(I tried to set the quotes, or change the color of the quote, but that didn't work for some reason.).............................jean

[Justin]

Jean, I endorse that idea as well. Religion has consequences and unless we address the issue squarely we are denying the message of Jesus. He was a revolutionary and a radical and he lost his life because of it. The least we can do is expose the power of the priests in the temple and their excesses.  

BTW I hear that women are 51% so they hold up more than half the sky.

[Brian]

BTW I hear that women are 51% so they hold up more than half the sky.

I don't think they do in China any more.

Brian.

[mabel1015j]

Justin - we don't want to over reach, modesty is more becoming, but we do want our due............ ..............jean

[Justin]

OK girls, be modest but  I think you guys have real power in this world. You just have to learn to use it. Of course maybe  you are using your powers wisely and that's why I am not conscious of it. You may be moving us guys around the chess board and we don't realize it.

[mabel1015j]

Women Power gets stronger and stronger every day - take a look at the news, isn't it wonderful that we range from Sarah Palin to Hillary Clinton and the chancellor of Germany? I'm serious. Women in the women's rights movement used to say that we'd be equal when some women in power positions could be as stupid and incompetent as some men in similar positions .............i think we've achieved that status!.....................jean

[JoanK]

 

[Robby]

More Papal action - - -

On Eve of Pope’s Visit to Synagogue, Some Ask if It Will Help
By RACHEL DONADIO
ROME — When Pope John Paul II visited Rome’s main synagogue in 1986, the first time a pope had ever entered a Jewish house of worship, it was a historic step forward in Catholic-Jewish relations. When Pope Benedict XVI visits the same synagogue on Sunday, the question is whether it will begin to repair the tensions that have developed between the two religions under his papacy.

Since becoming pope in 2005, Benedict has set off several contretemps with Jews. He has advocated a rite that includes a prayer calling for their conversion. He revoked the excommunications of four schismatic bishops, one of whom had denied the scope of the Holocaust.

Last month, he advanced Pius XII, the World War II-era pope, one step closer to sainthood, a move that almost derailed the synagogue visit and has prompted at least one leading Italian rabbi to boycott it. Many Jews say Pius could have done more to stop the deportation of Jews; his defenders say his silence toward the Nazis was sound diplomacy, aimed at saving more lives.

Amplifying sensitivities is the fact that Benedict, 82, is also a German of a certain generation, an unwilling member of the Hitler Youth, whose every action is scrutinized closely in that light.

“The cloud over the relationship still relates to the Holocaust,” said Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League.

And yet a visit by a pope to the Jewish community here, the oldest one in Europe, has particular resonance. The city’s Jews have lived in the heart of the Roman Empire and the shadow of the Vatican theocracy for millennia. Consigned by the popes to a ghetto in the mid-16th century, they gained full citizenship only with the unification of Italy in the 1870s, before Mussolini’s 1938 racial laws stripped away many of their rights again.

In 1986, John Paul was warmly received at the Rome synagogue, where he called the Jews “our dearly beloved brothers.” He also quoted from “Nostra Aetate,” a landmark document on interfaith relations from the Second Vatican Council, saying that the church “deplores the hatred, persecutions and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and by anyone.”

If John Paul’s visit “brought down a wall, then Benedict’s visit builds a bridge across two sides of the Tiber that sometimes seem very far,” said Andrea Riccardi, a church historian and founder of the lay Community of Sant’Egidio, which helped orchestrate Sunday’s event. (The Vatican is on the other side of the Tiber from the synagogue in the former Jewish ghetto.)

Both the Vatican and Jews in Rome see Benedict’s visit, his third trip to a synagogue since becoming pope, as the continuation of an interfaith friendship and an effort to calm recent controversies.

“It’s true that there have been moments of tension and misunderstanding,” said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi. “But a specific meaning of this visit is to affirm from the Catholic side the essentiality and richness and importance of the common elements in the relationship.”

The visit evolved from a longstanding invitation by Riccardo Di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, for Benedict to call at the synagogue. “We have a very, very complicated history and a lot of problems to resolve,” Rabbi Di Segni said. “But it’s one thing to resolve them at a distance marked by chill and total hostility, and it’s another thing to have a willingness to listen respectfully.”

Both sides were waiting for the right time. Tensions flared last January after Benedict revoked the excommunications of four bishops from the Society of St. Pius X, a group founded in opposition to the liberalizing changes of the Second Vatican Council. The Vatican has said that Benedict, who has denounced anti-Semitism, was not aware that one of the bishops had publicly denied the scope of the Holocaust.

Relations between the Vatican and Jews improved somewhat after the pope went to Israel and the Palestinian territories last May, although some Israelis complained that he did not mention the word “Nazi” or “German” while at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

Benedict’s decision just before Christmas to confirm the “heroic virtues” of Pius XII, moving him closer to sainthood, stung many Jews, especially those in Rome, where 1,000 Jews were deported to their deaths in 1943 during the Nazi occupation.

“These acts happened under the windows of the pope,” Rabbi Di Segni said. But he added that it was “undeniable” that the church helped save thousands of Italian Jews by hiding them in church buildings.

The Vatican has explained that the beatification track of Pius is not a “hostile act” toward Jews and is based on his Christian life, not his historical record.

Scholars and Jewish groups have called on the Vatican to open the archives from Pius XII’s papacy to full historical scrutiny. The Vatican has said it will take at least five more years to catalog all the material.

Yet Rabbi Giuseppe Laras, the president of the Italian Rabbinical Assembly and a former chief rabbi of Milan, said he would not attend the visit on Sunday, as a protest of the pope’s move on Pius XII. “To do this so close to the visit was in bad taste,” Rabbi Laras said. He said the visit would not help dialogue. “Who gains more?” he asked. “It’s not us, it’s some reactionary elements in the church.”

At the start of what is expected to be a two-hour stop on Sunday afternoon, Benedict is to place a wreath by a plaque in the Jewish ghetto commemorating the deportation to Auschwitz of 1,000 Roman Jews.

Shopkeepers in the former Jewish ghetto surrounding the synagogue seemed generally enthusiastic about the visit. Tending her family’s clothing shop, Fatina Calò displayed the kind of realpolitik and resignation that have helped Rome’s Jews survive for millennia. “Peace is better than war,” she said with a shrug.


How does a Pope know when he is doing something right.

Robby

[JoanK]

" Consigned by the popes to a ghetto in the mid-16th century, they gained full citizenship only with the unification of Italy in the 1870s, before Mussolini’s 1938 racial laws stripped away many of their rights again".

And the seesaw continues. One Pope liberalized the relationship of the church to Jews, the next goes back. If there is one thing we have seen throughout reading this history, it is that, as long as treatment of minorities depends on the rule of one person, human rights will seesaw back and forth like this, at each rulers whim.

[mabel1015j]

To my prejudicial, stereotypical taught mind "Rabbi Giuseppe" is an oxymoron.......................i had to smile at myself when i read the name.......... ..........

a question to Robby's question........aren't popes infalible, so doesn't that mean they are always right? ...................jean

[Justin]

Popes are infallible only in matters of faith and morals. They are jerks in other matters. This man Benedict has absolutely no human sensitivity at all. He is a Hitler youth trained goon who has failed to grasp the error in the Hitler movement. When he absolved the Bishops even though one has repeatedly denied the holocaust. Benedict says he was unaware the man denied the Holocaust but he lies because it was he who publicly chastised the man for his actions and endorsed the punishment. Now that he chooses to raise Pious X11 to sainthood he doubly compounds the insult and the injury. Sometimes these people are despicable.

We had our problems with Geo. Bush because our electorate isn't too smart but the college of cardinals is a collection of smart guys with no human sensitivity.

[winsummm]

religion is "much ado about nothing. has anyone here noticed the earthquake in Haiti. and would the religious claim that it was "god driven". . . We are haivng a spate of quakes above FOUR mag here in southern CA and northern Mexico. I subscribe to a service. gives longetude and latitude.as well as timing and near bye cities. 117 miles from los angeles and closer for me.

 when compared to my own, these are capturing my attention along with the coverage of this major catastrophe on the TV. the cell phone donations  sent to
HAITI at 90999 raised six million the first day and have doubled that since. even high school kids have been able to join in helping out.

how does religion work here? I don't think it matters at all in any way. . . people have it in ther DNA to help when they see a need. Religion has taken advantage of that and claimed it for its own. "dispicable" indeed.

[Justin]

Yes, Claire, religion is much ado about nothing but the ado has consequences that affect us all and sometimes very damagingly.

[winsummm]

well justin I speak out against it in reasonable terms hoping that someone or other may begin to  question their faith in reasonable terms. No point in making them hate me.   They should think about it without any more emotional input than they already have.  It is an emotional issue with people, not  an intellectual one although they try to make it one, to rationalize it rather than admit what it really does to their lives. . .infantelizes them. Humans are better than that, capable of creative and couragous acts.  We don't need a god to be that.

[winsummm]

Hi tweety and welcome.  I dip into this discussion now and then when it relates to either art or more modern issues. As an atheist I find the constant role of religion to being the most destructive force in the universe so the history of it only matters in that it seems to be inimitable . . . a constant force.  I was an art and psychology major in college. History seems to me to be important only in that it suggests that we should not repeat it.

However I like the people here, so will see you from time to time.

Claire

[Robby]

The economic support of Rome came partly from pasturage and the production of wool, and the cattle that grazed in the environing fields, but chiefly from the revenues of the Church.

 There was little agriculture and only petty trade.  Industry and commerce had well nigh disappeared through lack of protection from brigand raids.  There was almost no middle class – only nobles, ecclesiastics, and commoners.  The nobles, who owned nearly all the land that had not fallen to the Church, exploited their peasantry without Christian compunction or hindrance.

 They suppressed revolt and waged their feuds, with bravi – strong arm ruffians kept in their employ and trained to beat or kill.  The great families – above all the Colonna and the Orsini – seized tombs, baths, theaters, and other structures in or near Rome and turned them into private fortresses and their rural castles were designed for war.  The nobles were usually hostile to the popes or strove to name and govern them.  Time and again they created such disorder that the popes fled.

 Pius II prayed that any other city might be his capital.  When Sixtus IV and Alexander VI warred against such men it was in a forgivable effort to win some security for the Papal See.


I have been saying for the nine(?) years I have been studying along with you the Story of Civilization that history is merely a struggle between classes.  Others of you have said the same.

Robby

[winsummm]

robby so what you have learned is that HISTORY IS POLITICAL, about power really.  nothing  is very different now. Religion, the church  hasn't given up  although our constitution here in the usa makes it a little harder.  what else is new. intellectual evolution??? the survival of the fittest. keep using those brain synapses to make new ones. the elderly, that's us, keep having to do that since we keep losing them as a part of our aging process. I find the current interest in the brain  on public TV  to be relevant.  There is HISTORY there too. The people of the fourteen hundreds seem to be very primative to me.

claire

[Justin]

Claire: I've been reading your stuff for almost nine years and I think that your 703 is the best thing you have written. It is cogent, relevant, and focused and the message is loud and clear. It is the opposite of the response I have made to the problem but I see no reason to think your approach will be any less effective and probably more effective than mine. I try not to attack religious people personally but rather  address the topic as an outsider might dealing primarily with it's effect on society. 

[Justin]

Class separation is quite evident in this period in Rome. The three estates standout with clear distinction. The ecclesiastical, the nobility, and the peasantry are sharply defined. However, as trade develops, as the brigands are brought under control, as artisans gain prominence, the classes tend to grow fuzzy at the edges and eventually a third class appears. This process is going on in a more pronounced way in places such as Genoa and Venice.   

[winsummm]

almost a year and  a half has passed since I met IDA who is a care giver. She markets for me and trades for art since money is an issue for both of us I appreciate her willingness to do so.  She is also a dedicated bible study person  and teacher of that to children and we have become close friends. It isn't "respecting each others beliefs"  but simply loving and respecting each others humanity.  there is a huge difference I have found, so my automatic rejection of personal relationships with believers has had to be modified. Creative people are blessed with adaptability.

claire

[Justin]

Claire: It's a quirk in human relationships.  I would have to reject my whole family and my wife's family were i to avoid believers. We nonbelievers are in the minority- a small minority, at that, and if we are to function in society we must function with believers. If they observe that we get along ok in life and have a positive attitude then being a non believer can't be too bad. If they ask how we cope with sin as one did me and reply that sin is an invention of the guys who wrote the bible and that we are free of sin. "You mean you can commit murder and not have sinned." I say, "yes that's true but at the same time we must recognize that I have broken the law of the land and must be punished."   That's a step in the right direction.

[Robby]

The power of prayer in Haiti - - -

Amid Rubble, Seeking a Refuge in Faith
By DEBORAH SONTAG
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Five days after Haiti’s devastating earthquake, an evangelical pastor in a frayed polo shirt, his church crushed but his spirit vibrant, sounded a siren to summon the newly homeless residents of a tent city to an urgent Sunday prayer service.

Voice scratchy, eyes bloodshot, arms raised to the sky, the Rev. Joseph Lejeune urged the hungry, injured and grieving Haitians who gathered round to close their eyes and elevate their beings up and out of the fetid Champ de Mars square where they now scrambled to survive.

“Think of our new village here as the home of Jesus Christ, not the scene of a disaster,” he called out over a loudspeaker. “Life is not a disaster. Life is joy! You don’t have food? Nourish yourself with the Lord. You don’t have water? Drink in the spirit.”

And drink they did, singing, swaying, chanting and holding their noses to block out the acrid stench of the bodies in a collapsed school nearby. Military helicopters buzzed overhead, and the faithful reached toward them and beyond, escaping for a couple of hours from the grim patch of concrete where they sought shelter under sheets slung over poles.

In varying versions, this scene repeated itself throughout the Haitian capital on Sunday. With many of their churches flattened and their priests and pastors killed, Haitians desperate for aid and comfort beseeched God to ease their grief. Carrying Bibles, they traversed the dusty, rubble-filled streets searching for solace at scattered prayer gatherings. The churches, usually filled with passionate parishioners on a Sunday morning, stood empty if they stood at all.

In a sign of the importance of churches here, President René Préval gathered religious leaders along with political and business leaders at the police station that has become his headquarters. He asked the churches in particular to focus on feeding people, but he gave little guidance on what the government would do to help.

Not far from the makeshift evangelical church at Champ de Mars, parishioners gathered outside the ruins of the capital city’s main cathedral to hear an appeal for forbearance from a bishop.

“We have to keep hoping,” said Bishop Marie Eric Toussaint, although he acknowledged that he had no resources to help the many who were suffering and that he found it hard to state with any confidence whether the cathedral would ever be rebuilt.

Built in 1750, the cathedral, once an architectural centerpiece of the city, is now but a giant pile of twisted metal, shattered stained glass and cracked concrete. Bishop Toussaint said the quake had toppled the residences where priests stayed, crushing many of them.

The Sacre Coeur cathedral, another grand structure, also lay in ruin, with a large, perfectly preserved Christ on a cross bearing witness to the destruction below — and a woman’s body lying across the street atop a mattress, her head resting on a pillow, sheeting draping over her.

“It may seem like a strange moment to have faith,” said Georges Verrier, 28, an unemployed computer expert, his eyes moving from the body to the church. “But you can’t blame God. I blame man. God gave us nature, and we Haitians, and our governments, abused the land. You cannot get away without consequences.”

Sounding a similar note, a self-appointed preacher at Champ de Mars stood on a crate during the makeshift service and proclaimed the earthquake punishment for a long list of sins that he enumerated in a singsong. “We have to kneel down and ask forgiveness from God,” he said.

Vladimir Arisson brushed the self-appointed preacher away with rolled eyes. Mr. Arisson stood propping up his severely wounded girlfriend, Darphcat Charles, whose head was wrapped in bloody gauze, her eyes bruised and her face swollen, infected and grimacing. “My position is God bless, and send us, please, oh Lord, a doctor to plug the hole in my beloved’s head.”

Another man attending the evangelical service introduced his wife, eight months pregnant, who sat on the pavement blank-faced. “A concrete block fell on her stomach, and we don’t know if the baby is still alive,” said the man, Ricot Calixte, 28. “Prayer can help, I think. As I still breathe, I have faith.”

Around them at the service, the clapping and amens intensified in the tent city that boasted no real tents, only tarps at best. The central encampment at Champ de Mars is Mr. Lejeune’s makeshift church, which in its now destroyed home counted 200 active members, three of whom had been killed and many of whom are missing.

“Here we start every day with what I call my ‘cup of hot coffee service,’ ” he said before the Sunday prayers. “We don’t have the real beverage, of course. This is a prayer to wake us up and fortify us as we look ahead and think, ‘What, oh what, next?’ ”

He paused, wrinkling his nose at the wafting odor of human waste, and added: “A church in a bathroom, that’s what we are. For the moment.”

[Justin]

The evangelical ministers and other priests who give the broken among us comfort when it is most needed are doing a good thing. That's what people think religion is all about and I wish that were so. Our own local Evengelical, Pat Robertson, had other things to say about the disaster and it's causes. Some of these guys are compassionate and understanding and others are much less so.

[winsummm]

"abuse the land"  nope we didn't do that. we don't deserve this catastrophe. it is nature doing what it does.

I was struck by an image on the tv on the national geographic channel about elephants ggrouping around a dying member and staying for three days after the death. . . comforting each other, bearing witness, before moving on.

is that what  we are doing? those of us who can't stop waching the images on our televisions and following, even contributing in small ways to the efforts that are being made to help.  the immediate response to the 90999  HAITI  effort was I think  part of this. six million the first day by seven o'clock.  wow.

[3kings(Trevor)]

Haiti Earthquake. Events such as these bring much questioning among the faithful who are personally suffering. For some it is taken as a sign that God has no influence over nature, even though they believe that God is the creator of all things The tragedies that inflict us all are blamed on Man's sin, which is thought more powerful than God's forgiveness, and those impacted by such events are being punished for their/our sins.

Some notable, I forget who, claimed that "All things happen for the best, in this best of all possible worlds." He was referring to the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, I think.

Some of the wavering faithful will become agnostics, while others will some how have their faith strengthened. The former I can understand, the latter just leave me perplexed. ++ Trevor

[mabel1015j]

I wish we had another word/concept other than "prayer." Often ideas that are stated in prayer are worth thinking about, but for me making the tie to god is off-putting.

At the Martin Luther King service last night the minister who led the prayer and the minister who provided the sermon both had very good concepts for us to deliberate over.........caring, sharing, peace, brother/sisterhood, as you would imagine. The scripture included the tho't of "to those who have been given much, much is required." This was especially apt for we live in a town that has many very prosperous people and a great education system, but is very stingy about providing housing for low-income people. In fact, even a very small bungalow sells for $300,000 in this town, even in this poor housing market. The beginning teachers who teach in this very good education system can't afford to buy a house here.

So, i was thinking as i sat there that we needed to be reminded of all of those concepts and i would accept the reminder in the form of prayer, but i wished that we could talk about those things and have some other form of reminder that wasn't associated directly w/ religion all the time.

The same is true in the article that Robby posted above. We often need to remember to be grateful of the circumstances we are in as opposed to the circumstances many in the world are in, i just wish we could do it in some other structure. Maybe that is why so many people stay w/ the concept of prayer, (as in "tell her we're praying for her" when we here someone is in dire straits), we don't have another structure.............Or at Thanksgiving it is nice to hear "we give thanks to the hands that prepared this meal" which could be said outside of the form of  "saying grace," but i've never heard it done.............maybe i'll have to start a new form.............. .................jean

[Brian]

Trevor - - -

"All things happen for the best, in this best of all possible worlds."

In Voltaire's Candide, Pangloss says this often, as the eternal optimist that he is :

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/candide/themes.html

Jean - - -

Prayer

- - - we often tell people who ask to be in our prayers, that they will be in our thoughts, and that we think of them often.  I agree with you that prayers should not be thought of in a strictly religious context.

Brian.

[winsummm]

Jean I couldn't agree more. Pray is an oxymoron or something like it. Caring and considering and helping if possible exist outside of that demeaning concept.  I'm sticking up for us in the discussion at" seniorns and friends" about "atheism, agnostics and humanists" by those who insist that it is a good place to discuss ALL religions and that my position is PREjUDICED against religion  a bad word meaning PRE judged.  Just the opposite of the real purpose which is to not have to discuss ANY RELIGION while defining our beliefs. come help me. . . whew.
claire

[Justin]

The language of compassion is often associated with religious devices such as prayer and that vehicle becomes so embedded in our language that it is difficult to find other ways to express the same ideas. Your concern is well taken, Jean. Expressions such as "you are in our thoughts"  do not seem to have the same impact as "you are in our prayers." One seems active and the other passive, yet both are ineffective in easing one's burden.

Obama, unlike Bush, seems to say compassionate things without the generalities of prayer. "We will not abandon you. Help is on the way." These are compassionate phrases with real meaning and perhaps that is the way unbelievers can also express compassion. Phrases like "I am standing by to help in any way I can," are useful and  compassionate.

[Justin]

Claire: give me the details. I will come help if I can.