This was sent me last week:
Dear John,
I am a secular humanist who practices Buddhism. I am writing to you because I appreciate your writings regarding people like me who do not follow Jesus. I would like to share some of my history with you, and explain why I no longer follow god.
When my son was nine years old, he was raped by his best friend and his best friend’s parents. All together. All in one night. He was drugged, and when he woke up in the middle of being raped, a gun was held to his head. He was told that both he and I would die if he told anyone, or attempted to stop himself from being raped.
Anyone who allows that to happen to a nine-year-old boy, or who has foreknowledge of such an event and does not stop it, is evil, and deserves no more respect than the actual perpetrators.
I had no idea this had happened at all. My son hid it from me because he was in fear for my life.
My son is now sixteen years old, and deeply troubled. He physically lashes out; his behavior became increasingly sexual and inappropriate. Finally, he tried to harm himself. He was admitted to a mental hospital, and has bounced from hospital to hospital ever since. He hasn’t been able to make it on the outside for more than a couple months at a time.
I had always taken my son to church. I prayed over him every night; I read my bible daily (and knew it well). I believed and trusted god with my own life—and especially with my son’s life, since he was born three months early. I dedicated him to god while they held him nearby the operating table so I could see him before they whisked him off to the neonatal intensive care unit.
I also believed god through my first (very young, very brief) marriage, and also throughout my second marriage to a philandering preacher’s son, who beat me and my son, as his father had done to his mother and children before him.
With regards to this second marriage, every single leader of my church—from the head pastor, to associate pastors, to bible study leaders, and all the way down—told me to stick it out. One church leader told me that I should “pray the bruises away,” literally. They said that. And I heard this exact same thing from the leaders of more than one church, because we moved a couple times.
So those are the big reasons why I no longer follow god. I’d rather burn for eternity than follow someone who would allow all this.
Since leaving God behind I have less guilt, and have been building a more solid and secure life for myself. It is hard sometimes to not be able to place all my burdens on Jesus; it would be nice to have someone else carry them for a while. But he couldn’t help my son, so he certainly cannot help me. I believe it is a matter of self-delusion to find peace from faith; I find the same peace nowadays when I practice meditation, which involves no deity.
The little reasons I don’t follow god? They are all ones I find in your articles: the inconsistency of believers, the greed, the judgmentalism. The hate spewed by followers of Christ—or followers of any religion, really—seems to be poisoning the world.
I hope you will take the time to respond to this. I would be interested in your thoughts. Thanks for reading.
Dear woman who has suffered so much I barely know how or where to start with this:
It means more than I can possibly say that you trust me enough to bring this to me. It’s a genuine honor. Thank you for it.
You amaze me. You have ultimately responded to the morass of dark pain that has been so much of your life by lighting your own way out of it. That is absolutely inspiring.
Instead of staying beaten, as most anyone would, you’re rejuvenating. You’re meditating. From all through which you’ve thought and fought you’ve forged an actual, practical philosophy. So I cannot be in anything but sheer awe of your strength.
That said, I pray that you will not find too offensive my saying this: God did not harm your poor child. God did not beat you. God did not tell you to pray your bruises away.
It was not God who did those things. It was ignorant, vile people.
Your complaint against God is that he didn’t stop those ignorant, vile people from doing the ignorant, vile things they did.
What you are in essence asking about God is what throughout time people have always asked about God: Why does he allow evil to exist?
And that excellent simple question has an excellent, simple answer: God allows people to do whatever horrible, vile, evil things they want to, because to do otherwise would be to violate people’s free will, which is something that God’s love for all people absolutely prevents him from doing.
God gave us free will. And he will not take it from us. And we do not want him to take it from us. Free will is what defines us. It’s our most precious attribute. Without free will we are at best animals, and at worst mindless automatons.
God gave us our free will because he wants us fully independent. He so loves us, in other words, that he gave us the power to reject him. That is love, and full respect. We would not want, or stand for, anything less.
The great downside of free will is that it grants each and every one of us the capability of violating the free will of anyone weaker than ourselves. That’s a despicable thing to do, of course: it is what crime is. Ultimately all crime boils down to one person exercising their free will to in some way override the free will of another—which we all understand as such an egregious thing to do that we punish the perpetrator of such a violation by in turn removing, via imprisonment, their free will.
Life is about the exchange and negotiation of relative free wills.
The irreducible truth is that right now, if I want to, I can beat my wife. She is weaker than I; she could not stop me from doing that. I am free to commit that atrocity.
What you would wish is for God to stop me from doing that, to stay my hand. You wish for God to look down, see that I am about to strike my wife, and somehow arrest that action: freeze me in mid-motion, paralyze my arm, instantly replace my crazed fury with peaceful thoughts and feelings.
You want God to in some way directly and purposefully violate my free will. You essentially and explicitly want me, at God’s will, to at that moment transform into God’s puppet.
But the truth is that you do not, in fact, want that. Because you would not want God to also be able to at will transform you into his mindless, will-free puppet. Ultimately you would insist for me what you certainly insist upon for yourself: absolute freedom.
Every blessing carries its own curse. The blessing of free will is the curse of human evil. The two are inseparable. That cannot change.
If you want will that is truly free—if you want everyone to have the kind of autonomy you certainly desire for yourself—then you want stronger people to be able to victimize weaker people. I know that feels pretty distinctly counterintuitive—but, if you think about it, that is where you arrive. It is where we all arrive. No human being wants a God who is constantly busy monitoring their every action and thought, and preventing or suddenly changing those which he feels cross the line between good and evil, between right and wrong, between acceptable and unacceptable.
None of wants to exist on a slope so weird, slippery, random, and out of control. Not you. Not me. Not anyone. We don’t want God interfering with our lives and identity that way. And we can’t wish for others what we don’t want for ourselves.
I’d be the last person in the world to blame you for rejecting God. But the hard truth remains that it was not God who betrayed you. It was people. And God did not stop those people from committing their horrible transgressions against you and your son for the same reason he did not stop you from recovering from those transgressions in the valiant, ennobling way you have. With all my heart I hope that the damage done your son is in time similarly undone.
Below is a video about this very matter that I once wrote and produced via the free online tools available at xtranormal.com. (When you make these things, you have no control over the look of your chosen setting, character, or character’s voice—and you have few enough choices for either those. So you just … do what you can.)
Again, I’m profoundly humbled and honored that you wrote and allowed me to share in this manner your gut-wrenching and ultimately inspiring story. As I say, I’ve zero interest in trying to turn you into a Christian. But, man, I know that if I were Christ, I’d want nothing more than to have on my team someone of your quality, drive, and integrity. I don’t know much about much, but I’m certain of one thing: God would love to have you back.
As, most certainly, would I. Please write me again sometime, and tell me how you and your son are doing. In the meantime all my love to you, and thanks again.
Additional Reading in Christian Issues...
- From hell to Crazy Town
- They’re here; they’re queer; they’ve plenty to fear: LGBT students form secret club at conservative Christian university [now including updates]
- When evil is serious, it reaches for a Bible and cross
- Guest post: “A Good Week to Hate Christians”
- From gay-hating fundie to righteously angry lesbian. Now what?
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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See? I knew I shouldn’t have read it, lost a couple hours of sleep last night. I prepped myself before I read it, “It’s just words on a screen, heck, it might not even be real, maybe John made it up so he could ‘respond’ and make a point” (not that I think that IS the case, just trying to deal). So here’s where I am this morning: We treat god like a spoiled rotten teenager. We give credit, praise, even worship for everything GOOD in this world, but we can’t blame him for anything bad. It’s not “his fault”. This ‘being’ that said let there be light and there was, let there be seas and plants and animals and there just magically WAS, he couldn’t have put in some kind of limit on human viciousness?? And, in yet another strange contradiction, at the same time that we treat him like a spoiled teenager, we always refer to him as The Supreme Parental Figure. God our father. No, I wouldn’t want god to step in and take away all free will. But any halfway decent parent, if he walked in and saw (this is obviously in the god-sees/knows-everything scenario) one sibling raping or killing another sibling, he wouldn’t simply stand there feeling all broken hearted.
Here, here.
Yes. This.
yeah. if there’s stuff he can’t do, that’s not really The God.
God’s big enough to take our pummeling, especially when we don’t think He’s “doing His job”. But you nailed it, by being both theologically sound and compassionate in your response to her.
My previous job exposed me to the most horrible, vile, evil things in the world. My morning meetings consisted of viewing all the photos of fatal accidents and crime scenes from the previous day. The photos of a vicious rape and strangulation of a 17-year-old girl made my blood run cold. No movie, no books, nothing, can prepare you for the horror of a violent rape and murder. I wanted to kill the perpetrator. I really and truly wanted to kill him. As I was driving home a sudden thought flashed into my head: this man, this horrible man, could go to heaven if he asked for forgiveness.
I could not reconcile this. I did not want anything to do with a God that would let this man into heaven. I was a mess, a total mess. I have a preacher friend and sought his counsel. He told me that God alone would be able to determine the man’s sincerity if he truly asked for forgiveness. And my friend told me that yes, if indeed God judged him sincere, the man would go to heaven. I still have a hard time accepting this. I have a hard time accepting that a sin is a sin is a sin. I have a hard time grasping the idea of loving the sinner and hating the sin. I no longer work at this job, as it caused me a lot of emotional turmoil. Some people are able to distant themselves from the victim. I, unfortunately identified with the victims, and brought their sorrow home with me. Sorry this went off topic but after reading John’s original post, this young girl has been on my mind.
You are not off topic at all. You are actually right on point. Thank you for sharing your experience.
You’re brilliant. A true messenger of God (and I’m not a Christian, but it’s clear to see).
Dear Letter Writer,
The most healing memorial service I ever participated in was also the most difficult because it was for a person I deeply loved. I still do. It was in Hollywood and was organized and attended by a host of Jews and Atheists. I’m sure Buddhists were also well represented. I took notice of how the people came and went through the house. What was said and what was done. The fine print within the slow motion surrealness of it all.
It had been a tragic death. An untimely death. And, most certainly, an unnecessary one. She was not done mothering nor creating nor living, and we were not done loving her. The hole was immediate and deep. What I noticed in that week of pain, beyond the outpouring of compassion by the community, was what was beautifully and graciously missing: the all too common phrases I had learned from my Conservative Protestant upbringing in times of sorrow and loss about God’s will and God’s plan and how we don’t always understand God’s ways, but, rest assured, God knows what God is doing and how my grief and these children losing their mother was part of it. And when I reflect back on why the week was noticeably absent of insensitive, inane remarks or bad theology it was that in the face of such tragedy no one tried to make sense out of it. Or explain it. Or give it meaning.
It just was.
It was unwanted. It was unfortunate. It was and is devastating. There seemed to exist a collective awareness of this while we were there. That some things make no sense. There is wisdom in the ability to say, “I don’t know” and still be comfortable there.
I used to buy into the party line of my religious rearing. I don’t anymore. What the Jews and the Atheists and the Buddhists in LA knew was that some things don’t make sense. And, at least for me, attempting to make sense out of them was and is an act of futility. What was beautiful in those days was that no one needed to find meaning in it. No one asked why or tried to answer it. It hurt, and it was real, and we held each other.
The Buddha discovered what all of humankind has discovered: life is full of suffering. This is the reality of life. No one wants to experience suffering, and, yet, in various and sundry ways, we all do. What the Buddha taught is not so different from what Jesus taught: by doing what we can to eliminate the suffering of others we also work toward eliminating our own. This is the paradox of the Divine reality: we help heal our own pain by healing the pain of others. We get what we give. We reap what we sow. Compassion begets compassion.
The God I believe in doesn’t commit acts of violence upon us any more than God omits to protect us. The God I believe in is a Divine presence – a Divine possibility – in all of us. That some have been so pained in this life that they canot connect with and act on the goodness within them speaks to the great power of human suffering. Our job as Christians and as Buddhists is to work to eliminate suffering in all its forms so that the suffering of one does not cause nor contribute to the suffering of another. This is what John refers to in his example of the boy who would have cured cancer in the video. This is our calling. In service to others, we also heal ourselves.
Blessings to you on your journey as you continue to find peace.
great post!
Thank you. I agree one hundred percent, and your letter helps reinforce that and bring me peace. I appreciate you. Love to you.
Amazing post. Just amazing. Thank you.
OK, this kind of makes sense, as much as it can make sense. (i say that as someone appreciating and semi-studying Buddhism, knowing it’s beyond sense as much as the things of life are beyond sense.)
All the comments have been amazing,…. amazing as only human beings can be. Different thoughts, different opinions, different backgrounds, different faiths or no faith. I always stand in complete awe of this world and all it contains. My precious son was diagnosed with cancer when he was six, I saw him suffer and fight for his life. He relapsed 5 years later and it was even worse. I watched a 2 year old, a 4 year old, a 9 year old and a 16 year old die in the 3 months we lived in a transplant unit in a major hospital. I heard parents pray to God, curse God, praise God and deny God. I fell on my own knees in the bathroom floor one night and screamed out at God and to God and questioned the faith I had accepted as a child. It was certainly put to the test. I was told by some surely my child was being punished for my sins, I never truly believed that for a moment, but I did question everything. I would not worship a God that would not let me ask questions and seek a truth that I could accept. My mother was not an educated woman, but she did bring me up in a faith that made good sense. With or without God, life would not always seem fair. Would I choose a life as a robot where nothing bad ever happens to children but void of the depth of love for a child that can bring that sort of grief when something horrible happens to them? I am pretty sure given that choice at that moment on the bathroom floor I would have screamed YES…I do not want pain. But in all reality, how can we be real human beings without both? There is an old song that says, “We will understand it better by and by.” Maybe I am naive and a little old fashioned myself, but I believe that. I didn’t get all the answers when my child was so sick and suffering, but I did get a peace and a strength that was supernatural and the things that experience has led our family to be able to do since then is nothing short of a miracle.
Everytime I hear that a parent has been told that his/her child is being punished for the parent(s)’ sins, I want to scream. Such a God would be a monster.
I’m glad that your mother brought you up in a faith that made good sense.
I am so sorry for all you have been through and have seen close up. Thank you for using your experience and wisdom to help me.
My prayers and my heart is with you at this very moment. Thank you for sharing with us and opening the door to a question that if everyone is honest…we have all ask ourselves at some point. You are remarkable!
I’ve not experienced what you have, but your account of how diferrent people respond to the same/similar situations reminds me of an addage I’ve heard:
“Disaster doesn’t change us – it makes us more of who we are.”
I recall first hearing that over the radio on 9-11-01. The context was in different responses to the terrorist attack. There were rumors of looting and someone on my local (Arizona) radio spouted that, comparing looters to all the people lined up at the blood banks, eager to help. I think 9-11 is a good way of thinking about that, too. In the days and weeks that followed, how varied was the response? You had some people get scared and get guns. You had some people trying to sell you things – everything from “skyscraper parachutes” to commemorative coins. You had some people eager to pitch in and try to help any way they could, even if there was nothing they could do (that was my response: I was annoyed that my local blood banks were turning away people with my blood type for having too much of a supply)! You had some people beseeching God – whatever their conception of “God” was, asking God “WHY?” and acknolweding their vunerability in life. We saw some praising the stories of survival. Then you had people writing and publishing and buying books like “The God Delusion” and “God is Not Great.” (I’ve not read those works, but I have a suspicion they wouldn’t have been nearly as popular – perhaps even not have been written or published – had 9/11 not happened).
Different people, different responses – and most of them mad at each other for responding in ways different than “what they did.” In the end, I think that people’s brains/minds/souls/whatever you want to call it work differently. We’re all going to respond to pain in a variety of ways. People might hate you for still talking to a “God who did this to you,” but that’s only becuase they don’t understand your conception, and probably can’t, and then, you’ve got to let them deal with pain the way that makes sense to them (as long as they aren’t hurting others).
Everyone should check out the process theology point of view. This is a brief intro, but here ya go. http://homebrewedchristianity.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/What_Is_Process_Theology.pdf
In the Anglican (Episcopate in USA) Church’s lectionary, yesterday’s Gospel was was Mark 5:21-43 (the woman who touched Jesus’s cloak; the father who begged JC to save his critically ill daughter, and he did), it occurred to me, have we been poorly trained or incorrectly guided by a contemporary/dumbed down version of Jesus’s life (misconstrued so as to make Christianity more appealing, perhaps) that we SHOULD expect the hand of God to appear from the sky and ‘fix’ things?
Is that why we’re angry when evil and pain is inflicted? That no-one is accountable? In a child’s simplistic and therefore pure and natural view, then it has to be God’s fault.
Let us pray.
Amen
What a courageous conversation!
I have a hard time with believing God is both All loving and All powerful. To me, the fact that such horrible things happen proves that he can not be both. So I choose to believe he is all loving, but not all powerful.
and what about evil that is NOT caused by people? For example, babies born with terminal illnesses. I would be very interested in your thoughts on that, John.
Life is full of suffering. But life is not God. I agree: all loving. About the all powerful I have to say, God doesn’t work like that.
I seem to remember arguing once that I thought that Human Stupidity was the most powerful force in the universe (possibly more powerful than God).
I also seem to remember the people I was arguing with insinuating that I was stupid and evil for daring to propose that. *Shrug.*
Ok, see I would be much more ‘down’ with that kind of a god; that was never how it was presented when I was a kid. It was he is all-knowing and all-powerful AND we have free will, nevermind the obvious contradiction. He had already written down in some heavenly script everything that would ever happen. (So, you come to a stop sign, and you THINK you are making the decision of whether to turn left or right or go straight, but of course, you are not actually making a decision, it was written eons ago that you would turn right.) This kind of god sounds more like a ‘force’ and you wouldn’t even have to call it ‘god’ you could call it fate or the universe or whatever and you’re talking about the same thing. And this kind of thing would bring way more people together. If we could all embrace the fact that we don’t KNOW, and be okay with that, and then get to work on the things we do have some control over…we’d have solved half the worlds problems by now. Has anyone here seen Zeitgeist? Or read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn? Just some interesting things to throw out there if anyone is interested.
I read somewhere that “Zeitgiest” (whatever that was) was a fraud. All I know is that I used to know people on a message board that would link to parts of it all the time, but I the last time I searched for it on YouTube, I couldn’t find it.
Quite possibly God’s power isn’t the sort of power that knows absolutely what will happen ahead of time or can control all that happens. Perhaps free will is not only God’s gift to us but a fundamental reality that God cannot change, along with some of the randomness and unpredictability of our quantum world. Could be that the kind of power that is the love of God cannot absolutely prevent such things but is lovingly present, suffering with us and supporting us as they happen. Perhaps God saves whatever it is possible to save for good from such situations and weeps and screams and labors bring out new life from them even though evil seems to have prevailed. I don’t believe God is an absentee landlord and I do believe God has power– but it’s the power of suffering love, not of paralyzing force. I don’t blame people if that’s not enough for them– but a God who could stop such a horrible thing and did not would have to be a demon, and we don’t worship a demon.
John – I want to thank you for something about your response. I was very afraid that somewhere in there you would try to go with “we can’t know what god knows”, as if there could be a higher good here. My own 16 year old son was shot and killed while working his second day at a fast food drivethru. Three young people waited for him to leave (leaving only the manager inside), held a gun to him to get the manager to open the door, and then shot and killed him. It was a bad thing. God does transform situations and bring some good out of evil, but that doesn’t mean he allowed it because having him shot and killed was somehow “good” for me or him. It was an act of evil. I was a Christian before. I’m still a Christian. But I was stunned….where was God? I realized that somehow I expected to get special protection as a Christian – that evil things would not happen to my own family (if so, wouldn’t we all be Christians?) Now I know that man can choose to harm anyone, and that my family and I are in the world with everyone else. I believe the answer to “where was God” is, that he was with my son, suffering with him, and later with me, sharing my suffering. I do get strength to carry on thru God, and am currently going back to medical school in my 50′s to carry both medical care and the gospel internationally – because where there is an imitation of Christ and a true presence of the Spirit in people’s hearts, they treat one another as the precious children of the Father we all are. Some people give lipservice to religion (any religion, including my own)without treasuring the Creator’s spirit in each of us, but it is easy to see those who are genuine. I have no doubt that God continues to care for me and that my son had the privilege of finishing his growing up in Jesus’ household – looking forward to seeing how he turned out !
This is just so … dead-on beautiful/touching/ennobling/heartbreaking/powerful/perfect. THANK YOU, Kate. I’m so inexpressibly sorry for what happened to your son.
I am so sorry for your loss, I cannot imagine how awful it must be/have been. Thank you for sharing your experiences with me.
Love you Kate, wish I could hug you! First response that brought tears to my eyes. You nailed it.
greatly appreciated this. Thank you so much for sharing
@Mundy…I think a comic once referred to god as an absentee landlord.
Wow!!!
Ok, so god created all this, and now he is just sitting back to see how it all plays out…? Does he know what is happening, but doesn’t stop it? Or does he not even know? Sometimes people say stuff like “It’s all in HIS plan” or “God works in mysterious ways”, as if all the terrible stuff is part of the script. So are we believing in omnipotence and omniscience, or no? Just wondering. I heard on a radio show a very long time ago, about a belief system that included a god that created the world (because of the exactness of our ecosystem that allows life to thrive, from the amount of gravity to the closeness to the sun, that it almost HAD to be created by ‘intelligent design’) – but then God promptly went on his way to go create other worlds or something because there is no sign of him after that.
As John put it so well, it is because of our free will and sinful, rebellious nature. No, God is not ignoring us, but I highly doubt you want Him to interfere all of the time. What He does do though, is take bad things that have happened to us, and heals us and turns them around for good. I was molested as a pre-schooler and never told anyone. I got into drugs and alcoholism at a very young age and was raped at 13, went through a series of cheating, abusive boyfriends and lost all hope for anything good to ever come my way, because on top of that. my family was poor and I was always working. Then, I met my now husband. He and I met and we both gave our lives to Christ and He has turned those horrible experiences into lessons and I am now able to help other hurting women who have gone through similar things, and I am much wiser and smarter because of it, and I now have a daughter who I can warn to stay away from certain situations and be there for. The world is evil, God said that we are going to have trials, troubles and tribulations and that it rains on the good and the bad. But the one’s who hold on to God and never lose faith, because of temporary circumstances are the one’s who are going to have eternal life.
I think the rain in that verse from Matthew 5 along with the sunshine was a metaphor for good will not tribulation and a moral lesson for us all to learn treat all with goodwill whether they are our friend or our enemy.
Elizabeth, my heart goes out to you for the suffering that you endured as a child. But now, as a “Christian,” what do you believe would have happened to you if you had died fore learning to “hold on to God and never lose faith?”
Would you be sent away to eternal hell for such a “failure” on your part? Did you save yourself, or did God save you? And what will He do with those who aren’t as lucky or as “strong” as you are?
Jim it’s clear you have a pretty strong point of view about free will, God, etc. That you’re now passively-aggressively attacking the solution that someone like Elizabeth used and continues to use to find perspective and healing is gross and inappropriate and you’re doing it all over the place.
I can understand where youre coming from Maddie
I have finally realized that it is not God who let bad things happen to people it us as people who allow the bad to happen. It all starts with us….
You forgot to say: “You may have rejected God, but God hasn’t rejected you.”
If I had wanted to say that, it would certainly be true that that would now be something I had forgotten to say.
I certainly don’t want to trivialize what this woman and her son have been through. But, expecting God to actually prevent bad things from happening is like expecting God to intervene and make your team win the football game. What happens when two devout players for opposing teams both ask God to make them win? On a larger scale, what about two devout soldiers from different armies asking God to make them the victor on the battlefield? John’s point is that God has given us free will and is determined to support that gift no matter what we do. Therefore, we don’t get to blame God when bad things happen, no matter how incredibly horrible they may be. I cannot imagine the horror of discovering that my child had been drugged and raped. I would probably lash out and blame everyone I could, including God and myself. But…when it comes right down to it, the only people to blame are the perpetrators of the crime. And they need to be punished and prevented from ever doing it again. It’s not satisfying, but it’s the only recompense we get.
Good reply Gordon!
Awesome, John. The free-will to sort through life’s ambiguities as we see fit is the essence of life. There are always going to be people at either end of the spectrum – the incredibly evil and incredibly good, with the rest of us falling in the big part of the bell curve. You can’t legislate evil out of existence or pray evil away or force people to be good. You can only make sure what side of the curve you’re on. Atheist, agnostic or religious, you can only control you.
John, Thank you so much for sharing this. I had to share it with my Facebook friends. It so clearly explains everything. I didn’t know what to say to an atheist who posted a question similar to this when I shared something on FB about faith.
@Holly Tieken: I would agree that God does protect. But, there is a difference between being protected and being invulnerable. God does not promise the latter, and cannot without violating our humanity…or so frequently contravening the laws that govern our universe that the very fabric of relaity would be shredded in the process. What happened to this poor child is monstrous, vile, and heartbrekaing. But, I daresay it would happen much more often, if there weren’t people and organizations that work to prevent it. I sincerely believe God works through their choices to be the guardians of the innocent. I also believe God is at work in the people who work so hard to help the victimized to recover. The voice of God is heard in those who cry with the victims and cry out against any further such atrocities.
Here’s what didn’t get said above: God didn’t reject you and hasn’t yet. End of story.
Bryan, to say that to someone who no longer believes in God is – to many, from what they’ve indicated – not about what they need but more about what you need.
Thinking upon this some more…
At present, I don’t think there *is* a satisfying answer to this question. Really. I find myself wanting a big steak dinner and everyone I’ve ever read feeds me crackers. I hope that I’ll get that steak dinner someday, is all I’m saying.
Another thing I know is that when people have told me “Things happen for a reason” and not just your usual “god-wads” but I’ve had folks who “believe in karma” tell me this, too (particularly, someone I know at work whose specific religion I do not know, but “believes in karma” – which can make her anywhere from Buddhist to New Ager… I have never asked), I can kind of accept it. It’s a pat answer, but I guess I accept it because I really *want* it to be true, I really *hope* that things will work out in the end.
At the same time, I consider that “FOR ME” – not necessarily for others. It seems that the crap of my life always works out in one weird way or another. Maybe it’s just a matter of perception (I do think we are slaves to our perceptions, in the end). In the midst of pain, I don’t really want to hear “everything works out for a reason” – I know enough NOT TO EVER tell that to somene who is in pain. At the same time, if someone were to come up to me while I was in pain and say “Oh, you’re in pain because there’s no God and it’s all just Nature, you stupid praying-person” I’d smack them upside their fat lip and tell them to shove their words so far up themselves they can taste them.
One example from my life to illustrate my weird perception: A couple of years ago, at work, I fell down a flight of stairs. Cracked a bone in my arm. Bruised a kidney, too, but I didn’t know that until three days later when I could no longer ignore the stabbing pain in my side that I thought was “just gas” or “me just recovering from being bumped around and being a wimp.” (I was afraid to go to the hospital for “nothing,” you see, ’cause I’m poor). I considered it a miracle to be alive, though, since I did slam into *solid concrete* AND my head avoided a *jagged cinder block* someone was using as a doorstop and had at the food of the stairs *by a hair.* By all rights, I shouldn’t have been going “I’m fine, I want to get back up and finish my work!” and trying to get up after I’d fallen. I should have busted up my spine or cracked my skull open and died/become paralyzed/become a jibbering brain-damanged mess. Nope – relatively minor injuries.
Still painful, though. I’ve thought “If it was a miracle, if I was saved by God, caught by an invisible angel or something, why did I fall in the first place? Why did I have to be a month out of work with a broken arm?” It turns out, I actually learned a lot from the experience, primarily about trusting people. Trusting people is something I have a difficult time with – and here I find out that not only did my significant other love me enough to visit me in the hospital every day (though he probably had to go through rigamaroll since we aren’t married and I was treated at a Catholic hospital) – and this is better than my family has acted toward me in similiar situations – my boss was willing to pay all my medical bills and keep me on the payroll even though I’d only been working for her a few months. (Most would have found an excuse to fire me – I know). As an “agricultural worker” in my state, I didn’t qualify for Workman’s Comp. My boss actually paid out of her own pocket for me – including physical therapy. For a good long time, I’d convinced myself that she was an angel in disguise. At present, I just think of her as an extrodindary human.
This is a situation in my life in which I suffered pain, but think I needed to in order to learn stuff. I was spared pain I should have “by nature” had. I’m not sure I’m “worth” being alive when others have not survived similar situations, I just know that I am. It’s one of the many things in my life that’s “weirdly worked out” but possibly only because of my own perspective and perception on the matter.
But I’m not going to say “everything happens for a reason” to you or to anybody else. I consider that little pat condesnension philosophy something that’s “for me” and probably why I still believe in God even though I don’t have any “logical reason” to, and, perhaps in an any given person’s eyes, I’m “evil” for doing so. *Shrug.* I’m a slave to my perceptions.
I have worn a similar pair of moccasins as the OP and I’ve walked a more than a few miles with the same burden. I don’t follow the God of the Abrahamic religions. I can’t. However, I’ve also come through stronger, with my spirituality intact and strong. I think perhaps, because of your monotheism, you seem to have an ‘all or nothing’ kind of tone. God either is, or is not attentive. He allows free will or doesn’t. He is loving or vengeful. Yet, there’s so many situations that are, say, not black and white but shades of grey. I don’t have this point of view on my path, which allows for many gods who can indeed, interfere at random, however usually won’t without good reason. In other words, its all grey to me. In the example of “God’s will” vs “freewill” I believe a just and merciful deity would indeed weigh the ‘harm’ of free will violation in order to save his/her follower for even more severe ‘harm’, especially that of the innocent and in need of protection. Its only a short step from “Hate the sin not the sinner’ to “Its not his/her fault” to “Its a disease” to “S/he was asking for it, dressing like s/he wanted it/drunk so its all their own fault”. After all, it was their own free will that put the victim in the place at that time in order for the rapist to attack them. That point of view, or a deity who would allow that to happen without a serious counter karmic backlash, is anathema to me. I’m sure most survivors of sexual abuse would have cheerfully given up a few moments of *ahem* “free” will to avoid the years and years of pain that follows such an expression of someone else’s “free will”. So your argument really doesn’t work to comfort anyone much, and if what you say is true, of what use prayer or other forms of supplication? Or even, what use is church, if not to comfort and provide hope for needy, and answer the seemingly unanswerable?
I think the test is to keep your faith in these most trying of times. John is right.
The problem I have with “Free will” as the answer to why terrible things happen (especially to the innocent) is that it seems that most Christians want it both ways. If something terrible almost-but-doesn’t-quite happen (near miss car wreck, good Samaritan shows up and stops assault/mugging/rape in progress), people are quick to credit God for the intervention. If something terrible *actually* happens, we’re back to the free will of the perpetrator. That is incredibly theologically frustrating– if God sends a well-timed stranger to frustrate the free will of some rapists/muggers/drunk drivers, why not others?
Perhaps the person God wanted to send ignored the call…
THIS is just as offensive.
How is that offensive?
Yes. How is that offensive?
That God is relying on us to save ourselves and others.
I think you’re mixing your metaphor here.
The well-timed stranger has free will, too – and used it to step in and put themselves at risk rather than drive by. Even when people say that “God sent the person” they are rarely saying that God overrode the person’s will – just that the person responded to the promptings of the part of themselves that is their best self.
I have more problem with people who pull the “thank God that God saved us from the tornado by directing it to destroy our neighbor’s house instead” trick than with people who thank God that another human being rose to the challenge of being decent, courageous and helpful.
For me, it still comes down to the same sort of idea that “what kind of loving human parent wouldn’t make sure that their kid wins every game of Monopoly by stacking the deck and giving them extra Monopoly money.” Because that’s not what the game is about, and who the kid grows up to be is more important than feeling good about owning Boardwalk every time -and spoiling a kid that way ruins them for life.
Well, “when I was a child, I thought as a child… now that I am a man…. and what we will become has not yet come to light.” Whatever else is true, what happens to us on earth is only the start of our story, and it’s very possible that having a safe and pleasant and effortless life is the best answer for us in the long run.
People can exercise their free will to harm us, but we can also exercise our free will to decide how to respond to that harm. We can ask God for guidance on how to respond in the most constructive way, not through bitterness and vengeance but through compassion and assistance for others who are suffering.
The OP and her son may find healing in support groups for crime victims and eventually come to the point where they can be a source of healing for others whose victimization is more recent.
This may seem like a facile suggestion from one who has never undergone such a traumatic experience, but in the lesser traumas of my own life, finding a way to convert the experience into a catalyst for positive action has been the key to healing.
Karen what you speak of is what the Buddha discovered: we mitigate our own suffering by working to alleviate the suffering of others.
I’ve heard this argument, and it is better than others, but…
The problem is this: You say that we, meaning society, punish those who take away the free will of others by taking away theirs, meaning sending them to jail. If this is a good way to go (I’m not sure, but that’s another discussion), why doesn’t God swoop in and put abusers in “jail” by revoking their free will for a time?
And of course there are also natural disasters to cope with. The whole theodicy thing is not so easily solved. That’s why it’s got its own name. Not many problems have their whole own name.
People continue to have free will while in jail. They may not have certain rights, or freedoms, but their free will is still completely intact.
That’s absolutely true, in that they still have the free will with which to make decisions in a narrower range, but they do not have the ability to make decisions that other bearers of free will generally have, like when they will turn the lights out, or whether they will leave a certain room. I think, though I’m willing to be corrected, that this is what John meant when he said
” Ultimately all crime boils down to one person exercising their free will to in some way override the free will of another—which we all understand as such an egregious thing to do that we punish the perpetrator of such a violation by in turn removing, via imprisonment, their free will.” (This is an excerpt from the post above)
So, to ask my question more accurately, why doesn’t God swoop in and put abusers in “jail” by revoking their free-will ability to make the choice to abuse for a while?
The narrowing of choices people can make – like changing light switches – doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the foundational concept of free will but I see what you’re saying I think – why doesn’t God limit the ability for bad people to exercise their free will in ways that victimize others?
To answer, I believe he does via the free will of those who choose to pursue Good. The constraints of our very existence depend upon the choices human beings make, we actually *create* things by our intention and our will to put those intentions into practice and if enough of us practice those intentions, what we practice becomes institutionalized which becomes are norms. So if enough people pass laws to put certain kinds of behaviors in bars, then that is God protecting His people.
In short, I don’t think we have any idea of how powerful we are. I think we’re scared of it and collectively – if I used myself as an example to generalize – we’re too lazy to discover it. It’s *hard* to exercise free will for the betterment of people around us – we seem as human beings, quite focused on using our free will to simply make ourselves and our family as comfortable as possible.
(Clearly I’ve thrown in the towel and I’m engaging in the debate. When in Rome, do as the Romans do!)
Good work, towel thrower! This is the 1st time I’ve become engaged in debate on this cite too.
Perhaps you are right. I mean, we are powerful when we work together. So perhaps what you’re proposing is a non-interventionist God. I could get my head around that. But…I don’t think I can accept “God wants to help and does, he just does it in an indirect and not terribly effective manner.” I could totally accept “God sees and feels for the world, but limits himself to feeling for us.” I don’t think that’s what you’re saying though. Is it?
oops, site, not cite. sorry.
It’s so hard to have this conversation in written text, the nuance of meaning is super difficult.
I see why you’d get that I believe in a non-interventionist God (I love that term, by the way). Maybe I do to the degree that it interferes with our free will? Here’s a better way of saying it (I’ll try). I take the “made in the image of God” quite seriously. I think that has nothing to do with what we look like and everything to do with our capacity. I think of those moments of sacrifice, where someone does something incredibly kind for someone else and it brings tears to all of our eyes. I think of Pope John Paul 2, visiting the man who shot him in jail and just hugged him and hugged him. This extraordinary capacity we seem to have to love and this *joy* we get when we do – the healing that occurs when people watch us do that.
There’s something very “god” like that to me. When I *choose* to love well, go beyond myself instead of being *obligated* to do it by some kind of cultural norm. I think atheists are actually, an excellent example of loving well because they do it without any eternal pay off – they do it because something inside of them says “You are human. This is a very good thing to do. So do it.”
I’m rambling a bit here so let me try to bring it home. I believe the universe runs on free will, that being human would not be “humanity” without it. That we are also sick and damaged is a reality. That free will is abused and perverted and that it makes no logical sense when a loving God doesn’t intervene with saving these innocents from these acts of evil is a valid question asked by sensitive, reasonable people who love GOOD, who aren’t satisfied with pat answers. Who think the concept of a loving God should have some consistency and substance behind it when things get hard, just like we say about people.
And ultimately, I believe all of this is eternal. That monstrous evil lives for a season that seems unbearable to endure but perhaps, has some kind of story now that triggers some kind of domino board of consciousness for us. And that God is in that so deeply than none of us would have the words to explain it, even if we understood it.
which becomes are norms = which become *our* norms, as in “societal and cultural norms”.
I afraid all this is simply inadequate. Could you make these sorts of explanations about God to a child about be gassed to death in a prison camp or to a person being tortured in some wacko’s basement? What about those who are harmed and no one steps into help –no one exercises their free will to do “good”? (case in point: Joe Paterno and those who ignored child rape on that university campus). These are all fine academic arguments, but how could we possibly say these things to the person actually experiencing the harm and say “This is happening to you because your all powerful and loving God gives your abuser free will to do these things. And even though there is no one around to help, God isn’t going to step in and stop the abuse.”
“a person being tortured in some whacko’s basement”
I think we are already talking about this extreme scenario. The cases you cite are also horrendous, but the awfulness of the even in this letter sent to John is already bad enough.
I agree Brian. It is very inadequate. The Bible makes claims that God intervenes in human affairs, often striking people dead. What better candidates for being stricken dead than rapists with a gun to the head of a child? In Acts, Ananias and Sapphira struck down for lying about their finances and Agrippa for proclaiming himself a god. In Corinthians, Paul warns of believers who have died because of partaking communion in the wrong fashion. I guess child rapists are too low on the Almighty Priority List for smiting. Do you think the poor boy cried out to God for help as he was being assaulted (even if only in his heart)? I bet he did. And no help came. Horrible! In everyday life, we hold those in positions of power and authority liable if they fail to intervene when they are aware of an abusive situation. How much more should be indict a God who looks the other way? Hell, any employee at the school district where I work would be criminally charged if they ignored an abuse situation.
Yes JM. Ditto all you just said. As one wise fellow pastor once said to me “Why should I worship a God that behaves worse than we do?!”
Yes.
I like your post , it brings deep thought to me in us existing as humans on earth. I’am going to paraphrase words from scripture in my case in which I mean we didn’t ask to be here on earth going back to Adam and Eve they didn’t ask to be created nor the devil. Some may wonder why did he have to cast the devil to earth and not some other planet or somewhere else other than where he made human life I don’t know… and that he knows everything that is going to happen from beginning to end as well as the angels rebelling against him … I ask why … we read it is all apart of his plan but I ask myself he knows who will accept and who will reject him , then the part of him being all loving and creating and allowing the sin he hates and only he can take away, but wouldn’t one feel that God is contradicting who he is ? Or he is just an all powerful crazy being ? I had these thoughts … but back to the boy who was violated , yes we have free will and are sinners saved by grace and also there is a devil with demons on earth, knowing the enemy works to kill, steal and destroy would leave one to explain to the mother of this boy that its the fallen angels working on hand. Sorry I know this long but to my final point another paraphrase : the bibles says we all fall short of his glory could this be karma coming back to the child for something he did ? not trying to point fingers or sound mean but just thinking through , thank you for reading.
Re: “could this be karma coming back to the child for something he did ? not trying to point fingers or sound mean but just thinking through , thank you for reading.”
No. And it is mean and cruel to say so. It is the kind of thing no loving God would do – ever – especially to a child.
You didn’t fully understand what I was implying, I wasn’t saying this was an act of God and never would I believe God will to a child but knowing he is a just God that takes revenge for his people and punishes sin I just wanted to make this factor known , but knowing that we all are fallen from and no one is innocent especially to sin I was implying that could this young boy done something before that know one knows about , but only God and his fate was carried out back to him, not blaming God and then also knowing the devil and his demons at work on earth could this situation be ruled out from the following two explanations I just explained ? and no I wouldn’t wish this to happen to anyone but just keeping an open mind.
And again I push back with a resounding – NO.
1) This is a child. By some traditions not even at the age of accountability
2) NOTHING anyone does adult or child makes them “deserve” karma, or the universe, or demons, or God coming round again in this way. A few rare exceptions. Hitler, perhaps. But that is what you are saying. That somehow the child is complicit in this horrific crime being committed upon him and THAT is an evil thing to suggest.
Please do not pursue this line of thought a moment further.
The reality is that bad things happen to both good and bad people. And good things happen to good and bad people. Good and bad things happen. To everyone. This is reality.
It is also true that sometimes the things we do directly contribute to our suffering. But to apply the inverse: that when bad things happen to us it is because of something we did or omitted to do – does not hold. This is the lesson of the story of Job as well as what Jesus said in Matthew 5 about God’s rain and sun shining on the righteous as well as the wicked.
“Do not return evil with evil – but return evil with good.” If God is going to bother to incarnate himself in order to come to earth to teach us some things – I gather that this same God – and the universe we postulate that God is in charge of -plays by the same rules he taught while he was here.
Washington A,
To suggest that someone “earned” being raped in a former life – to speculate on such a thing when you don’t even know if that’s accurate – that *that* is the damage that religion and Christianity bring upon this world and it’s exactly why people run from it (and why they should).
No, it’s not a good idea to consider this. No, it’s not healthy, wise or productive to “keep an open mind” about this. No, I won’t think it through and yes, you should absolutely never say this to anyone again who’s been a victim of a violent crime, ever.
There was a big miss understanding , I never implied he earned what happened to him. Also yes it does rain on the just and unjust, but just was implying knowing we as Christians that are coming into the knowledge of God knowing he does punish those who rebel and sin , again this applies to the sinner that’s saved by grace knowing now whats right or wrong. I understand he is a child and not at the maturity and don’t expect or know where he stands with God , to also I can’t speak on it because I don’t what is accurate like you said above . When I mentioned that comment I said is it a
POSSIBILITY that what occurred could be something that was done , and I say this graciously knowing that we ALL fall short of his glory. Never was I wanting to say he deserved this or any one then coming back to my ending point knowing this is an Demonic deed of satan and his angels that they come to torment us. I never said God was the one who directed this act , but I was implying that he allows satan to go so far with souls and on earth especially the ones who are still in the powers of darkness ,to then saying I can’t judge this boy because i don’t know where he stands , but was just giving my point on how God operates in dealing with sin and of what could have been a possibility . My dearest apologies for the confusion on my comment , I hope I was able to clarify.
Re: “knowing he does punish those who rebel and sin”
This is one theological point of view that not everyone holds: a God of retributive justice – a punishing God. I hazard a guess that many, if not a preponderance of people on this thread do not believe in such a god. Many, if not most, believe in an unconditionally loving God. The God of retributive justice is more commonly found in conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist circles.
Re: “When I mentioned that comment I said is it a
POSSIBILITY that what occurred could be something that was done”
And we are still emphatically saying NO to even the hypothetical possibility of it.
Re: “never said God was the one who directed this act , but I was implying that he allows satan to go so far with souls”
Whether you beleive God punishes us directly for our bad behavior by making us suffer at the ahnds of others or whether you beleive God ALLOWS satan to harm us is a very fine thread so fine that it matters very little whether God harms us directly or permits things to happen to us: neither of which I am willing to allow to be said to this suffering woman about her situation even in the hypothetical.
I know you want to defend yourself here Washington as having not said anything INTENTIONALLY hurtful – but it was. And it still is essentially saying the same thing even if you aren’t seeing it that way.
I appreciate your apology, but your hypothetical theology, even as a possibility, is still unpleasant to me. And my response is still No. I do not believe in a god who intentionally either by acts of commission or by acts of omission causes harm to befall us or permits harm to be done to us by Satan or demons or anything else because we are disobedient to a particular set of standards as interpreted by humans.
God loves us. God is not the author of our pain.
Life is full of pain. This is the way life is. But life is not God.
This goes to the very point of John’s response. Free will. (And now I’m going to be forced to agree with John even though I didn’t love his reply.)
People do bad things to people. Not God.
I know this is tricky, but the way God is explained in the Old Testament is not the same as God is explained in the New Testament. To take literally the God of the Old Testament out of context and apply that same vengeful god to situations of today is not applicable. God no longer strikes people dead. (Some would say God never did that in the first place). You are applying a very literal interpretation of the OT understanding of God to modern day and it doesn’t fit.
God does not send hurricanes to flood cities because of US policy or how “sinful” that city is perceived to be by a certain faction of religious people. God did create the earth and the weather and science – and if we did a better job of studying it and learning how it works and applying what we know and how we build our cities in coastal areas – we could better prepare and avoid tragedies like New Orleans.
God does not send earthquakes to destroy countries who are not Christian. God did create the earth and tectonic plates move under the earth.
God does not allow Satan to give people cancer to torment them or test their faith – even though that’s what the story of Job says. This is a literal interpretation of Job rather than one that says – bad things happen to all of us whether we are righteous or not. It has nothing to do with our righteousness. In the face of trials do not lose faith or hope, for God is always with you. It is not a punishment.
Satan and his demons do not inhabit people who kidnap and torture people. People who have been horribly mistreated, who have been abused themselves, who do not know what normal is, or who have been allowed to think too highly of themselves, who feel they can do no wrong create an alternate sense of normal in their mind – a place of unreality – in order to deal with their own pain and act in ways that are not in keeping with the rules of society which can and do cause people harm. God created psychology, but God does not tell people to live in unreality nor allow Satan to trick people’s minds.
People hurt people. Not God. Not Satan.
Do you see what I’m trying to say?
I understand he is a child and not at the maturity and don’t expect or know where he stands with God>>>
Yes, he does. He’s deeply loved and cherished and absolutely nothing that he or anyone did in a former life or this current life – or the state of Original Sin – contributed to any kind of role on his part in being raped. He was a victim. An innocent victim. Period.
I can’t speak on it because I don’t what is accurate like you said above . When I mentioned that comment I said is it a POSSIBILITY that what occurred could be something that was done>>>
Well you did speak to it by saying it was a possibility. I know you didn’t intend to cause harm but even when we do so accidentally it’s important for those around us to say so in order for us to repair it. This kind of speculation is something that is very damaging. Please, in the future, don’t even speculate about any kind of “possibility” that sin as it relates to the victim of violent crime is any way, shape or part of them being a victim. Again – I understand your intent was not to harm. I’m focusing on the impact.
Thanks, DR.
How could anyone say such a thing? How could you? This is my son you are talking about. No one EVER deserves what he went through, not even his attackers. Suggestions like yours are the type of thinking that puts children into mental hospitals. No one with compassion would suggest a rape victim is at fault, especially one who is 9 YEARS OLD!
Courtney: I’m terribly sorry I didn’t delete Washington’s comment before anyone had a chance to read it. I try to keep on top of that kind of nonsense, but that one slipped through. Sorry again. Love to you.
Thank you, John. Its ok. I am grateful to see Christy & DR’s responses as well as your concern. Washington aside, the entire comments section is amazing and I am gaining so much from everyone’s compassion and wisdom. I thank you so much for making it possible. Love to you too!
First off let me apologize for the misunderstanding , no where did I say he DESERVED , what happen but just questioned the situation that happened over all . I am sorry if it sounded that way to you never would i would want to just to be arrogant and say he deserved what happened to him but just was thinking it from both side of the situation. I understand he is a child and that there is a certain level of accountability he can bare at that age especially being a Christian. There is one scripture I forgot to quote which was Psalm chapter 1 verse 1 : blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly nor stands in the path of sinners nor sits in the seat of the scornful. Please don’t take this wrong and I am not saying your son is at an level or place to discern his Christian walk of accountability , but knowing the world and peoples rebellious demonic deeds could have have it role in that horrible situation to simplify he wasn’t the guidance of God’s way during the situation. Please believe when I say this is that I am not blaming him but knowing simply that a child knows no better, and yes it does also rain on the just and unjust , I hope I was able to clarify what I was trying to say and not make it seem that I just felt that like he got what was coming to him for what ever reason in any evil way.
Washington, you absolutely did imply it. You did right here:
“I was implying that could this young boy done something before that know one knows about , but only God and his fate was carried out back to him”
There’s nothing about his “fate” that was “carried out back to him”. Just stop back tracking. You were wrong, there is no room for excuses. Just *learn*. Stop taking, stop justifying – just learn so you never, ever say anything like this again to a rape victim’s mother or God forbid, a rape victim him or herself.
Yes. Please don’t do that again.
Explanations are received only when people are really seeking answers, answers that make some kind of sense. So the answer to your question is yes, if someone was actually looking for that.
But here me when I say this, please. I don’t think people are really looking for an answer when they ask this question – at least I’m not. When I’ve asked God “Where the fuck were you and WHY did you let this happen?” I knew I’d not get an answer. I knew somehow I’d never understand. For me, I was grieving the innocence of believing in this Presence that I trusted. Perhaps like me, many who ask this question aren’t really asking a question, perhaps they are mostly, expressing their rage, their grief and disappointment in a “loving God” who would allow someone to keep a man around kids who raped little boys. I find it ironic that loss seems to be mostly, the univeral human condition and it’s rare when any of us can grieve while at the same time, hope. I think it’s way too hard to hope in a loving God who’s disappointed us in such shocking, savage ways. What was freeing for me was to realize that God didn’t expect me to – I was not made with that capacity. It just after a long time, started quietly showing up again.
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