I say if a He exists, He gave me a conscience and the ability to know cruelty when I
see it; and anyOne who burns innocent children to death is cruel. Be afraid, if you
believe there is someOne there to be afraid of; don't worship. It's simply wrong to
worship cruelty.
You see, there is our fundamental difference. I see certain things as cruel by my understanding. But my understanding is not perfect. The baby sees the vaccination as cruel and cannot be persuaded otherwise by reason, logic, or anything else. I don't know why people die cruel deaths. In fact, I don't know why people die at all. I don't consider myself cruel when I eat a hamburger, but does the cow think I am cruel? And I'm sure some vegans and buddhists think I am cruel. When I take penicillian(sp) for an illness, I am sure I kill innocent bacteria along with the bacteria that are causing my illness. But I don't consider myself cruel to do so. I have had animals "put down" more than once in my life to spare them what I considered misery, but who is to say that THEY felt I was being kind rather than cruel? They were certainly innocent, but I had them killed.
Basically, I am not prepared to impose my human judgment of what is right and wrong, kind and cruel, on God. I will live my own life by precepts that I hope favor kindness over cruelty (but still I did vaccinate my children, and send them to the dentist, and send them to their rooms when they broke family rules, all of which they certainly at the time considered cruel). But as to what is cruel or kind, or even whether those terms apply, with God, I am unwilling to say. |
