Resurrecting God

[Re: “Down with God” Letters, June 19] Letter writer William Richardson misunderstands totalitarianism. Totalitarianism properly understood is something repressive.

Contrary to Richardson, the church is not repressive at all but is in fact the great liberator. The church follows the Natural Law set in motion by God. Those who accept man’s limitations and follow the Natural Law are on their way to freedom.

Those who carelessly use their free will to reject the Natural Law which prohibits murder, stealing, contraception, homosexuality, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia etc., become themselves willing slaves to sin—and this is the worst kind of slavery because it involves a kind of self-imposed exile. This is what the church refers to as Hell. It is not God nor the church that condemns one to hellfire but the individual himself. God in fact loves everyone and wants all men to be saved, but he gives each person a free will to accept or reject his love.

Richardson and other atheists may try to reject the Natural Law and its objective rules but it exists nonetheless. God exists.

Common sense tells us that there has to be a First Cause. If there were no God and no objective laws to govern people, everything would be reduced to opinion. This would result in anarchy, not freedom as we see happening today. Contrary to Richardson, democracy does not mean the freedom to do as one pleases. Richardson is thus quite mistaken about the church, totalitarianism and democracy.

Letter writer John Dirlik also confuses church teaching with the sins of men—a common mistake made by those who wish to discredit the church and religion. Nowhere, for example does the church teach or condone crusades or inquisitions. It is not religion that is responsible for wars but people who use their religion in a false way to serve their own selfish ends. So far as we can learn about the history of mankind, through excavations back into prehistory, we can see that there has always been an idea of God.

The Marxists had predicted the end of religion. With the end of oppression we would no longer need the medicine of God, we were told. But even they had to recognize that religion never comes to an end, because it’s present in man as such.

This inner sensor does not, in any case, work automatically, like some piece of technology, but is a living thing that can either develop with the person or, on the other hand, become desensitized and almost dead. Because faith in God goes beyond mere knowledge, beyond what is demonstrable, one can always turn their life away from faith and find arguments that seem to refute it.

Nonetheless, even in an unbelieving person there remains somehow a vestigial question of whether there is after all something there.

>>Paul Kokoski, Hamilton, ON.

With regards to John Dirlik’s dead-on rebuttal of Paul Kokoski’s robotic championing of religion’s dubious benefits to mankind (“Church and state together again?” Letters, June 12), I can only say God, I wish I’d said that!

>>A. Lawrence Healey

Theft is theft

[Re: “Load down,” Music, June 19] To paraphrase Shane Sinnott: “Everyone is downloading stolen music, so it’s okay to do. Damn those laws.”

Hey, I like free stuff, but let’s get real here, not delusional. If someone is charging for stuff, and you take one, it’s theft. Yes, I dislike the archaic old-media, and they will have had their day in a decade, but for now, theft is theft is theft.

Now about visionaries like Trent Reznor who play within the system, give their music away and still make a fortune. That’s the way of the future.

>>Schwartzman

Euthanasia not the answer

[Re: “People,” News, May 29] Chris Barry’s interview with SPCA worker Julie Laurin was great. I really admire people like Laurin, who try against all odds to save many pet animals from euthanasia.

The problem is that too many cats and dogs are not sterilized and neutered by their owners. Pets are seen as disposable products in our throwaway society, and the SPCA often doesn’t have enough financial resources or organizational skills, in many cases, to keep most of these pets alive.

The SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) has in many cases a number of branches that have sadly become the SPEA (Society for the Promotion of Euthanasia of Animals). It would be better to spay or neuter unwanted pets and release them into the wild, rather than send them to the SPCA. That way, these discarded pets would have a greater chance of surviving and at the same time they would not contribute to pet overpopulation.

>> Manish Patwari

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