Althouse: "How at 6 1/2 years old can you be that smart, that brave?"

December 16, 2012

"How at 6 1/2 years old can you be that smart, that brave?"

"I think it's impossible outside of divine intervention. She has wisdom beyond her years."

21 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...: God decides who lives and who dies.

When people we love die, we struggle to find meaning and explanations. In my experience, there is no other explanation other than that God decides who lives and who dies.

I struggled for years after my wife died to understand why a woman who had so much to teach the world, and to give to the world, could be taken when so many people who seemed to have nothing to teach or give still lived. For years, I was furious that her incredible potential went unrealized.

My girlfriend, and my priest friend, both kept telling me...
"It was her time. It isn't for us to decide. That's for God to decide."; 12/16/12, 7:40 PM
edutcher said...: Every little kid has hid under the covers from monsters.

She did what came naturally.

But she's got an awful lot of grit.; 12/16/12, 7:53 PM
Anonymous said...: Kids can be pretty smart, brave, and resourceful. I'm not sure what is gained by attributing that to God and saying so can only suggest to other grieving parents that God chose not to intervene on behalf of their dead children.; 12/16/12, 7:58 PM
Joe said...: Why diminish the intelligence of a child by attributing it to God? My kids were scary smart at that age as is my three-year-old granddaughter.

Moreover, as suggested above, if this is God at work, he's a fucking asshole.; 12/16/12, 8:00 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Moreover, as suggested above, if this is God at work, he's a fucking asshole.

Same old question. Why does God allow evil and suffering to exist?; 12/16/12, 8:09 PM
Anonymous said...: The only explanation I've heard that solves the challenges and incongruities, and that resonates in my heart, is the explanation that the Mormons give.

Which is that our present earth life is Act II of a three act play.

We lived before we came here.

We'll live after.

And this life was purposely designed to be and experience in learning.

In Act I we chose to come to this life because we wanted to fully understand joy and sorrow, health and sickness, good and evil.

So here we are, right in the middle of all of it. Each is given a spark of light in their souls to enable them to instinctively know what is good, nourishing, fulfilling, right. Each is also free will to do as they wish, for good or evil.

And while God can and does overrule in many cases, God will never fully deliver us from the very things we came to experience, even the very painful ones.

He will never step in and totally thwart the purpose of this whole world and our life.

So we sometimes suffer deep and great losses, particularly from the acts of others.

But this suffering teaches us, because it expands our reference point against which we are able to contrast, understand, and experience love and joy and kindness.

And when we fall down or are misguided in how we use our free will or in how we respond to the difficult experiences in our trial-and-error learning program, because of the sacrifice of God’s Son, we can immediately be forgiven and set on our feet and sent back to try again.

Sin is off the table as a inhibiting issue.

And so it goes, until every soul has had the chance to come experience this, whereupon:

“…the home of God [will be] among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things [will] pass away.”; 12/16/12, 8:09 PM
Joe said...: The problem, Quayle, isn't that God does or doesn't allow evil, but to suggest he's picking winners in something like this is obscene.

The fundamental problem with Mormon theology is that you can't believe in free will and that God is meddling. If God could have prevents one of these murders, He could have prevented all of them, not only sparing the lives of innocents, but freeing the perpetrator from sin.; 12/16/12, 8:20 PM
sunsong said...: For those who grieve:

Calling All Angels

Santa Maria, Santa Teresa, Santa Anna, Santa Susannah
Santa Cecilia, Santa Copelia, Santa Domenica, Mary Angelica
Frater Achad, Frater Pietro, Julianus, Petronilla
Santa, Santos, Miroslaw, Vladimir
and all the rest

Oh, a man is placed upon the steps, a baby cries
and high above you can hear
the church bells start to ring
and as the heaviness, oh the heaviness, the body settles in
somewhere you can hear a mother sing

then it's one foot then the other
as you step out onto the road of hope
step out on the road
how much weight? how much?
then it's how long? and how far?
and how many times oh, before it's too late?

calling all angels calling all angels
walk me through this one
don't leave me alone
calling all angels calling all angels
we're tryin' and we're hopin'
but we're not sure how...

ah, and every day you gaze upon the sunset
with such love and intensity
why it's ah, it's almost as
if you could only crack the code
then you'd finally understand what this all means

ah, but if you could...do you think you would
trade in all, all the pain and suffering?
ah, but then you'd miss
the beauty of the light upon this earth
and the sweetness of the leaving

calling all angels calling all angels
walk me through this one
don't leave me alone
calling all angels calling all angels
we're tryin' and we're hopin'
but we're not sure...

calling all angels calling all angels
walk me through this one
don't leave me alone
calling all angels calling all angels
we're tryin' we're hopin'
we're hurtin' we're lovin'
we're cryin' we're callin'
cause we're not sure how this goes

Jane Siberry & kd lang -
Calling All Angels; 12/16/12, 8:20 PM
Petunia said...: Smart kid. Attributing her survival to divine intervention is nothing short of insulting, as her friends and classmates were slaughtered around her.

Solomon is at least the third clergy person to go blabbing to the media about what Newtown families have done and said. What happened to being able to talk to your clergyperson in confidence? They need to STFU.; 12/16/12, 8:33 PM
edutcher said...: Joe said...

Why diminish the intelligence of a child by attributing it to God? My kids were scary smart at that age as is my three-year-old granddaughter.

Moreover, as suggested above, if this is God at work, he's a fucking asshole.

No, Joe is.

God never promised us a life without pain. He gives us times like this to think about our own situation and learn.

Clearly, some people are incapable.; 12/16/12, 8:57 PM
MadisonMan said...: Solomon is at least the third clergy person to go blabbing to the media about what Newtown families have done and said. What happened to being able to talk to your clergyperson in confidence?

I had the same reaction. How unseemly.; 12/16/12, 9:10 PM
Joe said...: edutcher, you entirely miss my point.

The suggestion is that God intentionally picks those who will suffer and those who will not. If God is dictating our lives, then what free will do we actually have?

To put it another way, if we are to be judged by our actions, then they must be our actions, not due to the whims of God. Turn this from victim to perpetrator; if God is deciding who lives and who dies, who suffers and who does not, then how can those that commit evil be truly judged?

Say a person shoots another and God preserves the latter's life. Another person commits the same act, but this time the victim dies. Could the second perpetrator not argue that since God failed to intervene, the guilt lies with Him? Is God not, then, aiding and abetting?

The bottom line is that if you believe in free will, God is very limited in what He can do. If you don't believe in free will, then why worry about what criminals do?; 12/16/12, 9:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Seriously, why did the pastor relay this story to the media? She is a brave little girl, but it was wrong of him to abuse his confidential privilege.; 12/16/12, 9:21 PM
chickelit said...: The bottom line is that if you believe in free will, God is very limited in what He can do. If you don't believe in free will, then why worry about what criminals do?

Face many choices each day Joe? Just what do you envision, a micromanager?; 12/16/12, 10:05 PM
chickelit said...: Note that many of the same people who must deny God's existence must also deny the existence of evil. At least there's consistency.; 12/16/12, 10:09 PM
Anonymous said...: Seriously, why did the pastor relay this story to the media? She is a brave little girl, but it was wrong of him to abuse his confidential privilege.

True.

I used to read a hippie guru named Stephen who taught that humans have a strong tendency to seek the attention of the group.

Not an original insight, I grant you, but he raised it to a high explanatory principle. Attention equals Energy, he said, and if you grab a group's attention, you grab an extra-large portion of the group's energy for yourself.

Stephen called it being "into the juice."

I never forget that when I observe human behavior before an audience.; 12/16/12, 10:09 PM
Anonymous said...: Sun Song, Calling All Angels, absolutely beautiful.; 12/16/12, 11:32 PM
Aridog said...: Rustling Leaves said...

Seriously, why did the pastor relay this story to the media? She is a brave little girl, but it was wrong of him to abuse his confidential privilege.

Because he is an attention seeking asshole who just had to give ABC news a scoop.

God had nothing to do with this tragic event. This hysterical viewpoint is like the old military cliché' of no atheists in foxholes. Really, the enemy is in fox holes too, bitch. Explain that Sky Pilot!; 12/16/12, 11:45 PM
Alex said...: Human beings are more resourceful apes, that's all there is to it. No God.; 12/17/12, 1:18 AM
Rumpletweezer said...: It all comes back to George Burns playing God in that movie:

"Then there can't be good without bad, life without death, pleasure without pain. That's the way it is. If I take sad away, happy has to go with it."; 12/17/12, 7:33 AM
Crunchy Frog said...: Everyone dies. Life is short. Eternity is forever.

Live well while you have the opportunity.; 12/17/12, 3:51 PM