Friday, October 21, 2011

Beatrice and Virgil


I am amazed at how people can suffer the most horrific experiences in wars and say it strengthens their faith, as in the case of the women in Liberia.
The reaction of the father in Atwood's The Blind Assassin makes more sense to me:

"However, a much worse thing had happened: my father was now an atheist. Over the trenches God had burst like a balloon, and there was nothing left of him but grubby little scraps of hypocrisy. Religion was just a stick to beat the soldiers with, and anyone who declared otherwise was full of pious drivel. What had been served by the gallantry of Percy and Eddie, their bravery, their hideous deaths?"

2 comments:

TC said...

Indeed.

Moreover, it may well be that not only the horrific experience of wars, but the immediate experience of so-called ordinary life, in any of its many complicated dimensions, can have the same effect on some people (as they learn and grow) as that expressed by the father in Atwood.

God was just not meant to stick to some people's flypaper.

Nin Andrews said...

Yes, I agree. Maybe it's a gene.
I was always amazed by the Book of Job . . .
My mother reading it for educational purposes, was completely annoyed by my questions: You mean, God tortured him for no reason? Or just to prove himself?
And his justification--who are you to question me?