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DMC12
Guest
yes, of course it is. my sadness is not going to solve anyone’s problems, and will give me lots of them.
Is it OK to be truly happy living in a world where more than 9,500 innocent children starve to death each and every day?
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Aloysium
Guest
This does not seem to be a question that can be answered with a yes or a no.
The idea of innocent starving kids yells out a call for action.
The lack of justice, the inequities of the world are definitely very troubling. We do have a duty to make the world a more loving place by being more loving ourselves. I share in the guilt. There may be something I could be doing more that I am not. A big part of the problem is ineffectualness. This all makes me feel a bit stupid and wondering if I am in some sort of denial. I’d say enough of my neuroses and excuses, but this seems to be a personal question:
I am not sure what true happiness is. I might be truly happy. I believe I have had more than my share of suffering, but given God’s blessings, I am thankful.
I am not sure what being OK means. I fear I am a goat, hoping to be a sheep.
This is a world of suffering where the innocent and the guilty suffer and die.
The idea of innocent starving kids yells out a call for action.
The lack of justice, the inequities of the world are definitely very troubling. We do have a duty to make the world a more loving place by being more loving ourselves. I share in the guilt. There may be something I could be doing more that I am not. A big part of the problem is ineffectualness. This all makes me feel a bit stupid and wondering if I am in some sort of denial. I’d say enough of my neuroses and excuses, but this seems to be a personal question:
I am not sure what true happiness is. I might be truly happy. I believe I have had more than my share of suffering, but given God’s blessings, I am thankful.
I am not sure what being OK means. I fear I am a goat, hoping to be a sheep.
This is a world of suffering where the innocent and the guilty suffer and die.
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maryjk
Guest
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Qoeleth
Guest
Good answer. Who knows what it means to be ‘perfectly happy’?
I would also note that the call to action varies. There are those called to prayer, or to solidarity with the suffering by embracing voluntary poverty. There are those called to raise money, or do humanitarian work.
There are some whose ‘mission’ and ‘witness’ is simply to bear their own private Cross in silence- people who may, to all the world, seem useless and ineffective. Milton said “They also serve who simply watch and wait.”
One cannot make an emotional response vary by arguing (apart from making it worse!), or logical demonstration. You cannot ‘prove’ that anyone ‘should’ be either happy or sad.
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inocente
Guest
In the Simpsons series 20 episode 13, a nun in a convent is singing to children: “If you’re happy and you know it, that’s a sin!”
We must act, we must see the good in others and do good for others to find the happiness called, I think, beatitude. If we don’t act, then we’re doing nothing for the kingdom, and whether we’re happy or unhappy, whether we laugh or cry, that’s a sin.
It’s pretty simple: “Love your neighbor as yourself” means you first have to love yourself, or your love for your neighbor can’t be worth much, can it?
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Robert_Sock
Guest
“Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
-John 12:25
-John 12:25
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Gricken
Guest
Your point?
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Robert_Sock
Guest
This life is not meant to be lived happily, obviously.
meltzerboy
New member
Well stated, and I agree. Life is not meant to be a burden but a gift which we joyfully partake in. At the same time, our earthly journey is not meant to be a solitary one, divorced from G-d and our fellow humans as well as other creatures. We must therefore do whatever we can to ease their pain and suffering.
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Gricken
Guest
Are you honestly trying to tell us that God demands we be sorrowful and in pain every day of our lives? That’s ludicrous. This world is good, not just good, but VERY good. God created the world because he knew we would enjoy it. God would not fill a world with such beauty and goodness, go as far to call it good, then turn around and demand we never enjoy it, tell us that we must hate his creation.
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Sailor_Kenshin
Guest
Don’t get it…joke? Not?
If this is really your viewpoint, why do you remain alive? Why has God give us the instinct to fight for our lives?
Ever hear of Albingensianism?
And so…was Fulton J. Sheen wrong when he said everyone strives for happiness?
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dshix
Guest
Robert, are you ever going to respond to my posts instead of changing the subject?
I’m thinking of compiling a linked list of all the occasions you’ve done so, just for amusement.
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Elizabeth502
Guest
Do not confuse sadness (emotion) with caring.
Further, if I am so emotionally enmeshed in the lives of others that I cannot detach from their misery, then I am of little use to them in helping them out of their misery.
Finally, Robert, do you not yet understand that posters do not appreciate your substitution of guilt-tripping for constructive suggestions? You are forever opening threads about how we should all wallow in misery because we have the misfortune to live in the First World. Outrage is a more genuine (and more Gospel) response to starvation than is sadness. Cheap emotion is no substitute for action or at least constructive discussion.
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Elizabeth502
Guest
I’ve asked him this on other (extremely similar) threads he has opened. His reply, as I recall, was that supposedly he is unable, physically and emotionally and practically, to do much of anything. However, many disabled people live constructive lives now that computers are a source of communication and even action (spreading the word, organizing movements, etc.).
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KathleenGee
Guest
If we carried the suffering of children every day, we would break under the weight of this.
The children of this world show humanity the value of the human being created with a soul, made in the image of God. When they suffer, our very own souls suffer to the core of ouf being, and it is so disturbing how anyone could hurt an innocent.
We must turn to Jesus to make our burdens light. We must will to be joyous in spite of the suffering to witness the resurrected life for humanity for hope, and also that this world cannot make us truly happy but with Jesus in the next.
God loves them so much and when they pass on, they encounter His embrace, erasing any suffering they had on earth.
The children of this world show humanity the value of the human being created with a soul, made in the image of God. When they suffer, our very own souls suffer to the core of ouf being, and it is so disturbing how anyone could hurt an innocent.
We must turn to Jesus to make our burdens light. We must will to be joyous in spite of the suffering to witness the resurrected life for humanity for hope, and also that this world cannot make us truly happy but with Jesus in the next.
God loves them so much and when they pass on, they encounter His embrace, erasing any suffering they had on earth.
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Robert_Sock
Guest
How do you interpret John 12:25?
The world we live in is both good and evil… just take a look around you.
Also, In Judaism, “very good” connotes evil:
NATURAL IMPULSE
THE good impulse (yetser tov) and the evil impulse (yetser ra) are pictured in Jewish literature as wrestling in perpetual conflict within the heart of man. Satan is usually identified with the yetser ha-ra, the evil impulse. In the book of Job, Satan’s function is described as that of testing the sincerity of men’s characters. In Talmudic literature, Satan’s function is to strengthen man’s moral sense by leading him into temptation. It has been said that every man living shall assuredly meet with an hour of temptation, a certain critical hour, which shall more especially try his mettle.
According to a midrashic statement (Genesis Rabbah 9:9), the existence of the yetser ha-ra in the heart of man and the struggle to overcome it lends high value to the good that emerges from the inner battle. The two conflicting impulses, the good and bad tendencies, are said to be implanted in man as a consequence of his having been formed from the dust and endowed with a soul (Genesis 2:7).
According to rabbinic thinking, the evil impulse is to be found in man at birth; the good impulse begins to develop when he is thirteen years old. The teachings of the Torah are referred to as the antidote to the yetser ha-ra. Similarly, Ben Sira (21:11) states: “The man who keeps the Law controls his natural tendency.”
In commenting on the two yods in the word “omitted Hebrew character here”, (Genesis 2:7), the rabbis declare that God created both the yetser tov and the yetser ra (Berakhoth 61a). The command to love God “with all your heart” they interpret to mean “with both your impulses” (Berakhoth Ma), since both human elements can be employed in the service of God. “Were it not for the yetser ha-ra, no man would build a home or get married or follow an occupation” (Genesis Rabbah 9:9). The phrase “very good” (Genesis 1:31) is therefore explained, as alluding to the yetser ha-ra, frequently used in the sense of the productive urge.
Taken from the Encyclopedia of Jewish Concepts
Genesis 1:31
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
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Gricken
Guest
I interpret it as saying that we can never be truly content with this world. That we all have a longing for something more than this world can offer. That something is Christ. And that anyone who seeks fulfillment in merely worldly desires will not find their fulfillment after death. Anyone who loves this world and nothing more, those who seek to fill the void and yearning in their hearts with material things will not reach the kingdom of God. While those who recognize this yearning for what it is, will.
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Robert_Sock
Guest
Why would Christ use very strong language, ‘hate,’ in John 12:25. Surely Christ is making a key point here and wants to emphasize that we are to have a disdain for this world in order to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
meltzerboy
New member
The evil impulse (yetser ha-ra) must be tamed and re-channeled, as you state, by means of Torah study and practice. However, it cannot, and should not, be totally eliminated because, as you also point out, it is necessary to achieving productive tasks. This is similar to what Freud thought of as the life-affirming aggressive drive as distinct from the destructive aggressive drive. In none of this does Judaism suggest we wallow in misery and not enjoy life, even as we encounter obstacles both from within and without. The solution to the problems of the world is to take action in an effort to reduce them and thus “repair the world.” This is the noble mission that G-d has entrusted to us all, having created a world that is incomplete in terms of its morality, containing patches of evil that must be set right by us.
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Gricken
Guest
Christ also used hyperbole a lot to make a point.
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