excerpts from Life of Pi, Yann Martel:
Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
________________________________
What? Humanity sins but it's God's Son who pays the price? I tried to imagine Father saying to me, "Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed two llamas. Yesteday another one killed a black buck. Last week two of them ate the camel. The wek before it was painted storks and grey herons. And who's to say for sure who snacked on our golden agouti? The situation has become intolerable. Something must be done. I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed you to them.
"Yes, Father, that would be the right and logical thing to do. Give me a moment to wash up."
"Hallelujah, my son."
"Hallelujah, Father."
What a downright weird story. What peculiar psychology.
_________________________________
This Son, on the other hand, who goes hungry, who suffers from thirst, who gets tired, who is sad, who is anxious, who is heckled and harrassed, who has to put up with followers who don't get it and opponents who don't respect Him - what kind of a god is that? It's a god on too human a scale, that's what.
_________________________________
It is a religion as swift as a swallow, as urgent as an ambulance. It turns on a dime, expreses itself in the instant. In a moment you are lost or saved. Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now.
Labels: Christianity