The words above tell us allot about the nature of this world and Christ in relation to it.  Your concern you've expressed in the editorial above speak of an ongoing concern many people have about God in general.  It is the same question: if there is a God and He is good and loving, omniscient, and omnipotent, why does He let bad things happen?  This isn't going to be a long message.  The answer is simple.  God's primary concern is the salvation of souls.  Man screwed this up by rebelling in sinfulness.  This causes all manner of evil and suffering, death and the service of devils, whose primary existence is for the destruction of men.  Since man has free will, he can choose to serve God or evil.  The conclusion is obvious and I'm sure you've heard it all before.  The idea however that God sat back and either took a nap or filmed the whole thing is strange.  I know you won't like it but according to our belief, from before the foundation of the world, God saw 9/11 and allowed it to happen. 

Mark Smith here}  So if your gods are do-nothing gods, that have seen from thousands of years beforehand tragedies, and done nothing to prevent them, why do you religionists pray to them? If you can't change their minds, if they won't change or prevent the bad things from happening, why do you ask your gods to do anything, such as "bless America"? According to your own letter, they will or they won't, depending on if they were going to in the first place. My do-nothing lifeguard analogy fits.

 But in a fallen world God uses tragedy for His strange purposes.  The greatest evil isn't that men kill each other or that one or more men kill thousands at once.  Put things in perspective. 

Mark Smith here}Please notice the callous disregard for human life. This is yet one more piece of evidence that Christianity kills off normal human kindness, and replaces a warm heart in people with a heart of stone. This religion is a pain and suffering cult, and doesn't give a rats ass about the quality of life here and now.

 The greatest evil is that men perish in eternal torment.  This, God came to fix  through Christ.  In any case, being that God is all compassionate, not only did He not sit back and enjoy the show, but He was suffering in the midst of the tragedy.

Mark Smith here}Oh yes, they were suffering so much they did nothing to stop it. In reality (if your gods were real) they were probably eating popcorn and trying to change the channel.

  Try to see the two towers  as the two crosses on either side of the crucified Christ.  Then picture Christ suffering on an invisible cross in the midst of this.  What God does with each individual soul is not our business, but when one dies, know that it was God's intent for this one to die right then.

Mark Smith here} So again, why pray at all, if all things have already been predetermined? If it has been predetermined that Biblegod will destroy America, no amount of praying for Biblegod to "Bless America" is going to change his mind, is it? So why pray if you can't change a damn thing???

 The race of Adam created our own  sufferings through original sin.  Christ came to enoble this suffering, then destroyed death.  We still have to die, but we get to be resurrected.  Notice Christ didn't eliminate earthly suffering, but suffered with us on the cross.  God suffers with men in this life; He makes our sufferings Holy.  This is the fallen world, with no escape.  This is life.  The one thing needful, therefore, is for us to prepare for inevitable death and the confrontation with Christ at the end of the age.

 

"Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming." -Christ

 

   Michael Karcher-----email address withheld by request---