My lead issue in today’s most brief offering might again evoke familiar responses from the more confirmed, die-hard (even self-righteous) Christians.
It’s my usual losing tussle to grapple with the concept of a God who allows such misery to happen – even to under-age innocents – in Linden, in Laing Avenue – and in this world at large.
(I must confess publicly – although the gentleman seems to prefer privacy – that I have never taken up an offer from Mr Alfred Bhulai to receive enlightenment on this matter I seem to be taking to my grave.)
Recall my now familiar lamentations – born obviously of my own ignorance – or stubbornness to understand and accept. This is how I’ve often outlined my wonderment:
“At risk of being simplistic in my own uninformed, irreligious, cynical manner I’m veering towards the point of view that the Devil, Satan, the former Lucifer is winning the souls and beings of the human beings on this planet.
And what “informs” this
growing opinion?
It is because of the fact that on every occasion I enquire of good Christian folk – both preachers and laity – the reasons for the manifestation of such widespread evil in this world – crime, child abuse and murder, disease, brutal natural disasters, traffic accidents, corruption, discrimination. I am told that it is the devil’s doing. That mankind brings about all the bad, their own demise when they reject God’s Way and follow the evil of Satan which results in everything bad.
Yes, the point is always made that God, while He punishes wrongdoing is compassionate and forgiving. Sin results from man’s own consistent refection of His way. The consequential results are crime (man succumbs to accepts the Devil’s lack of values and willingly breaks his society’s rules, disease (except you were born with health defects) man’s own recklessness and indifference to cleanliness, good-living and correctional therapies, cause sickness, and cause disease to multiply and spread, hate (definitely a man-made misbehaviour) and yes, even certain Natural Disasters (global warming is a result of man’s careless emissions, levees break when man builds them wrong or at the wrong place, floods are contributed to by man’s indifference to proper drainage and irrigation, fire, and hurricanes result in death because man’s precautions were poor.)
And Satan smiles
