← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Centinel
Thread ID: 16182 | Posts: 13 | Started: 2005-01-04
2005-01-04 19:25 | User Profile
*If guys like Williams were in charge back in history, Christianity would never have survived the wars that tore apart the Holy Roman Empire, the plagues of the Middle Ages, or the Soviet gulags.
What a cop-out pussy.*
From the Sunday Telegraph: [url]http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/02/nbish02.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/01/02/ixportaltop.html[/url]
Archbishop of Canterbury admits: This makes me doubt the existence of God
By Chris Hastings, Patrick Hennessy and Sean Rayment (Filed: 02/01/2005)
The Asian tsunami disaster should make all Christians question the existence of God, Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, writes in The Telegraph today.
In a deeply personal and candid article, he says "it would be wrong" if faith were not "upset" by the catastrophe which has already claimed more than 150,000 lives.
Prayer, he admits, provides no "magical solutions" and most of the stock Christian answers to human suffering do not "go very far in helping us, one week on, with the intolerable grief and devastation in front of us".
Dr Williams, who, as head of the Church of England, represents 70 million Anglicans around the world, writes: "Every single random, accidental death is something that should upset a faith bound up in comfort and ready answers. Faced with the paralysing magnitude of a disaster like this, we naturally feel more deeply outraged - and also more deeply helpless."
He adds: "The question, 'How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?' is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren't - indeed it would be wrong if it weren't."
Dr Williams concludes that, faced with such a terrible challenge to their faith, Christians must focus on "passionate engagement with the lives that are left".
His comments came as Tony Blair finally broke his silence on the tragedy, branding it a "global catastrophe" that would take the world "years" to deal with. The Prime Minister, who has faced criticism for not cutting short a family holiday in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh, also insisted that the United Nations should lead the international aid effort. He praised the "extraordinary generosity" of the British people, whose donations topped ã60 million last night. The Government has thus far pledged ã50 million.
Interviewed by Channel 4 News, Mr Blair said: "At first it seemed a terrible disaster. But I think as the days have gone on people have recognised it as a global catastrophe.
"It is not simply the absolute horror of what has happened and how many people's lives have been touched in different ways, it is also the fact that the consequences are not just short-term and immediate but long-term and will require a great deal of work by the international community for months, if not years, to come.
"We've got millions of people displaced, we've got the potential of disease coming from this and we've got whole areas of that region that will have to be rebuilt."
He shrugged off claims that he should have come home to take charge of Britain's aid effort, adding that he had been in touch "practically hourly" with Downing Street.
Mr Blair said that one of his key tasks during Britain's year-long presidency of the G8 group of leading industrial nations, which started yesterday, was to liaise with other leaders. His faith in the UN seemed undimmed despite the international rows in the months prior to the war in Iraq and he dismissed as a "misunderstanding" claims that President George W. Bush had tried to snub the organisation by setting up a four-country task force with Australia, India and Japan.
"When I spoke to President Bush a short time ago he made it very clear that he wanted the UN to be in the lead and that he sees the work that the US is doing as very much supportive of that," he said.
Mr Blair's intervention was made as it was disclosed that Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, would lead Britain's international anti-poverty drive by going on a three-nation trip to east and southern Africa later this month.
Meanwhile, a 10-man British military reconnaissance team arrived in Sri Lanka to assess how British Armed Forces could best assist the stricken country which, with Thailand, Indonesia and southern India, has borne the brunt of the disaster.
The team will report back to the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, Middlesex, in the next 72 hours. The main focus of Britain's effort is likely to be directed towards Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
Two Royal Navy ships, the frigate Chatham, currently on patrol in the Gulf, and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel Diligence, already in the Indian Ocean, are heading for Sri Lanka. A C-17 Globe Master transport aircraft, which can carry 100,000lbs of cargo, has also been allocated to supply aid.
The Pope in his New Year message yesterday led prayers for victims at St Peter's Basilica in Rome, and a prayer vigil for victims, survivors and families was being held at Central Hall, Westminster, last night.
2005-01-04 19:35 | User Profile
This guy was a completely apostate liberal POS to begin with, almost a British equivalent of John Shelby Spong. I'm quite sure that his views haven't changed in any meaningful extent.
Petr
2005-01-04 19:57 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Centinel] The Asian tsunami disaster should make all Christians question the existence of God, Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, writes in The Telegraph today. Should make all Christians question the existence of God? This is the response of a pastor looking out for his flock? People suffer every day all over the world. I say this not because I am indifferent to this suffering, but because anybody who has cultivated a mature Christian faith has thought about the reality of suffering, absorbed some of the wisdom of the many, many great Christians that have meditated at length upon this subject, and then come to some kind of understanding which they can accept, even as they understand that some things are beyond human comprehension on this mortal coil. Has this Williams actually come through his entire life, finally reaching the pinnacle of the Anglican Church, without having ever considered these things at length? If he has not, then he is woefully unprepared spiritually for the position in which he now finds himself, and he should step down. His vacilliation and doubts help no one. If he has considered the issue, why should this disaster cause him to suddenly reconsider? Comparable numbers of people have been killed at other times throughout history -- such as right now in Iraq by the US and British, for example. Does this suffering not count, for some reason? Or perhaps it is because wars are caused by men, whereas the tsunami is a natural disaster? Why should this matter, since the result (suffering) is the same? Why should it be more problematic for one of God's creations (the oceans, or the tectonic plates) to cause suffering, than it is for another one of His creations (mankind) to cause suffering? I guess my point is that someone who's faith has all the depth and sophistication of a 10-year-old's should not be the Archbishop of Canterbury.
2005-01-04 20:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr]This guy was a completely apostate liberal POS to begin with, almost a British equivalent of John Shelby Spong. I'm quite sure that his views haven't changed in any meaningful extent.[/QUOTE] Isn't this the guy that participated in a Druidic rite of some kind after he was Archbishop of Canterbury? How did the Anglicans let a joke like this become Archbishop?
2005-01-04 20:00 | User Profile
Do the Anglicans ever bother to read the Bible they helped translate anymore?
Hebrews 11 (KJV)
1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2 For by it the elders obtained a good report.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
2005-01-04 20:06 | User Profile
[QUOTE][Quantrill]Should make all Christians question the existence of God?[/QUOTE] No, but it does make me question the existence of the Church of England.
Walter
2005-01-04 21:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]No, but it does make me question the existence of the Church of England.[/QUOTE]
Tell me about it. Just read the other day that David Beckham and his wife named Elton John and his queer husband Godparents of their new baby.
What the heck happened to the English?
2005-01-05 03:38 | User Profile
I think we already knew Dr Rowan Williams was a marxist. I am not shocked to see say such things.
2005-01-05 14:06 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Tell me about it. Just read the other day that David Beckham and his wife named Elton John and his queer husband Godparents of their new baby.
What the heck happened to the English?[/QUOTE]
Oh, I dunno.
Maybe 400 years of heresy?
2005-01-05 14:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]Oh, I dunno.
Maybe 400 years of heresy?[/QUOTE]
More like 400 years of Jews.
2005-01-05 15:01 | User Profile
Archbishop of Canterbury admits: This makes me doubt the existence of God
So he turned in his resignation?
2005-01-05 17:08 | User Profile
[COLOR=Indigo][B] - "Maybe 400 years of heresy?"[/B][/COLOR]
I don't see much cultural connection between this degenerate ninnie and the Puritans of Cromwell.
Formerly ultra-pious Roman Catholics in Spain are becoming just as messy case under the Socialist government, legalizing faggot marriage and pandering to Muslim invaders.
Petr
2005-01-05 18:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr][COLOR=Indigo][B] - "Maybe 400 years of heresy?"[/B][/COLOR]
I don't see much cultural connection between this degenerate ninnie and the Puritans of Cromwell.
Formerly ultra-pious Roman Catholics in Spain are becoming just as messy case under the Socialist government, legalizing faggot marriage and pandering to Muslim invaders.
Petr[/QUOTE]
Right, and that was only 70 years of heresy in Spain.
Also, Cromwell wasn't CoE.