From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: THE SUFFERING OF SOME UNBORN AND THEIR MOTHERS (Case 1)
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 27 Sep 92 21:14:08 GMT

In <6835@pharaoh.cyborg.bt.co.uk> martin@pharaoh.cyborg.bt.co.uk (Martin Gorman) writes:

>>>nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:

>>>> Quoting the words of Ivan Karamazov in Dostoyevsky's
>>>> _The Brothers Karamazov_, in the chapter "Pro and Contra":

>>>>         "Tell me yourself, I challenge you--answer.  Imagine that
>>>>         you are erecting the edifice of human destiny with the
>>>>         object of making men happy at last, but that to this end
>>>>         it was essential and invevitable to torture to death only
>>>>         one tiny creature--that baby beating its breast with its
>>>>         fists, for instance--and to found that edifice on its
>>>>         unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect
>>>>         on those conditions?  Tell me, and do not lie."

>>>> Comments:
>>>>         1. "Torture to death" is, IMHO, an apt description of what
>>>>         the salt solution did to Nancyjo Mann's daughter.
>>
>From South Carolina in the U S of A? Presumably, as the point of your
>above quote is that any humane person would answer "no" then you would
>also propose the dismantling of your society, starting as it did with
>the unavenged tears of countless red skinned children, and continuing with
>the unavenged tears of countless black skinned children.

The point of the quote was not the dismantling of such a society but
whether one would consent to be the architect of one.  Ivan's follow-up
question had to do with the idea of whether people of such a society
could be really happy forever, knowing that such an injustice was at
its root.

We are not happy about the very great injustices you mention, and are
still paying the price for them.  Right here in South Carolina, just about
a month ago, the Catawba Indians made a soul-searching decision whether
to accept a settlement of $30,000 per capita (man, woman, [born] child)
for the land that was stolen from their tribe centuries ago, or to start
filing lawsuits against present landowners to get the land back.  They
voted to accept the money, but it was far from unanimous.

[BTW Native American activist Russell
Means has said recently that the moniker "Indian" is still OK, certainly
not politically incorrect.]

At any rate, as long as _Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee_ remains in print,
and _Roots_ is available in videotapes,etc., our society will not be
a happy one until these terrible wrongs have been somehow righted, at
least as far as the descendents of the victims are concerned.

>And as this is alt.atheism, isn't christianity founded on Jesus's alleged
>unavenged tears? Isn't your above quote PRECISELY what god is reported
>as having done?

The "allegations" of which you speak do not stop there.  They go on to 
allege that Jesus is alive today, though not visibly inside our physical
universe, and that untold millions of his followers, down to the
present day, will some day share in this eternal life, along with others,
including atheists (see Romans 2) who follow their consciences as best
they know how.

A pipe dream, perhaps, but also something that gives the lives of millions
today meaning, through hope that it may be true (I don't want to talk about
faith and belief, they mean too many different things to people).

But to get back to your question, while perhaps the suffering of Jesus
has not been avenged, it may have been vindicated.

Peter Nyikos

Newsgroups: talk.abortion