Ooh. San Francisco.

[icewolf]

American Cities That Best Fit You::

65% Boston

60% New York City

60% San Francisco

55% Honolulu

55% Los Angeles

Which American Cities Best Fit You?

I additionally suggest everybody go over to one of my favorite webcomics, where they are covering one of my favorite authors.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Should somebody point out to them that there are two "r"s in Barrayar? (Well, three, all told.)

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

Hey, I assume you saw this (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060528/ap_on_re_eu/poland_pope_51):

"In a place like this [Auschwitz], words fail; in the end, there can be only a dread silence, a silence which itself is a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?" -- Pope Benedict

I'm afraid I don't understand the question. Catholic theology has a fairly strong set of answers to the "why do bad things happen to good people" question. Why would the Pope be asking it?

[jcsbimp.livejournal.com]

Because that same Catholic Church does teach that we do not have all the answers to why God does things, and that sometimes the lack of answers will cause us, even the best of us (read, Popes), to ask why, to despair. Their strong set of answers, however strong, do not silence all questions, even at their own admission.

Plus, they've been trying to refine their stance towards reality's and existence's questions in a way that does not necessarily clash with modernist and post-modernist thought. Kind of a divinely motivated sales pitch. "I become all things to all men, that I might win some." -- Paul, for whom many Popes were named

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

I suppose what I was really questioning were some of the suppositions. God doesn't usually, in my experience, intervene in bad things, no matter how heinous. Does Benedict really think that the Holocaust crossed some threshold that God should intervene in it? Terrible things happen all the time, and God seems to allow all of them to happen, from a stubbed toe to genocide.

I'm not complaining about it; I'm simply wondering why Benedict should pick this particular question to address to God just now. Because he's going to get the same answer he's always gotten.

[icewolf010.livejournal.com]

Benedict XVI is still Joseph Ratzinger. He's still a man. And as men we keep asking God the same questions over and over, eon after eon. Forget "Why did the Holocaust have to happen;" how about "Why did Adam have to fall?" For Christians a big one is, "Why did Jesus have to die?" We do keep getting the same answers, but as men with limited understanding (at least in comparison with God), we don't fully understand the answers, so we ask the question again.

As for why now? He was visitig Auschwitz. He's the Pope. He's German. He lived through the war. Aside from all the other good, innocent people who died, it's the site of Maximillian Kolbe's martyrdom. He's going to be moved to say something.

I personally have been very pleasantly surprised by Benedict XVI, but that's a post all by itself. (I want to read his first encyclical, first.)

[tompurdue.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent answer; the two sentences are really quite insightful. Thank you.

[jcsbimp.livejournal.com]

Never heard of her 'til now. Need to take a look someday.