Hidden Goods All the Way Forward.

Warning, the link above has graphic images of this young woman hideously and irrevocably burnt.

This exchange is between me and a fellow stumbler, it is over 18 months old. I'll will update my opinions at the end.

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Link to original review.

After careful consideration I have to thumbs this down.
I can't help but feel it's only getting attention because of its gruesomeness, and the fact that the victim was an attractive female.

Blaming booze, or a person, is just as valid as blaming cars. Granted if he had not been drinking he may not have had the crash, but if he had, and the outcome had been the same, what would be the difference?

Blame... blame is the only difference. Blame lets you write the event off and still drive to work. Blame lets you feel superior. Blame lets you indulge your animal dark side and get a pat on the back for it.

We can stand in the crowd and yell "BURN HIM!" without feeling like the monsters that we are all capable of being.

Yes, this is heart wrenching, but it's our fault. We stifle innovation at every turn. Skin is an organ people, and stem cells promise to let us regrow organs. The human genome project could let us turn on human organ regeneration, a skill even lowly salamanders have.

All because of the idea of god. Ironic that this message will hit christens the hardest, since if she had died, we could all happily imagine her in heaven. But no she's stuck here, and we get to watch. Ironic because as kind as they are, as kind as they want to appear, and as just and loving as the claim their god is, if she decided to take two weeks of pain killers and sleep for eternity, they mentally and their god actually, would sentence her even after all this useless suffering to an eternity of the same, since suicide is a sin.

This page should make us look at why we have cars filled with gasoline still instead of battery driven cars. This is all our fault, not just the kid who was driving.

Think it through people. Pretend you're capable of it.

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To which was responded... Which I seem to have totally missed.

Link.

I never know how to rate sites like this...It's really, really sad.

However, my response is more to "Innomen" (below) than to the page.

You said: "if she decided to take two weeks of pain killers and sleep for eternity, they [Christians, I'll guess?] mentally and their god actually, would sentence her even after all this useless suffering to an eternity of the same, since suicide is a sin."

I have 2 thoughts regarding that quote.

First, we have no idea how her accident has impacted the lives of those around her; how it has possibly (probably) caused people from all walks of life to come together in compassion and with a sense of unity for a cause. It's easy to pin blame for disasters on the idea people have of God, but the truth is, everyone is given their freedom of choice to make whatever decisions they choose to make. Is it a just God who removes a person's choice so that person won't make a mistake that will alter a life/lives? Just as our parents really just have the ability to try to show us the right way to go (which they can foresee due to wisdom and experience), they can't make our decisions for us -- if they did, we would learn nothing.

Thought #2: saying that God will condemn a person to hell who commits suicide is merely interpretation. Yes, taking a human life is a sin (at least, wouldn't we all say that taking human life is morally wrong?), but God is the only one who knows us completely -- our hearts, our thoughts -- and judgment will be placed more based on our state of being than on the actual act.... (aside from the fact that Christ atoned for our sins so that if we do our best, he can make up the difference... because, let's face it, we all know we're not perfect :))

That's all, really. I just found your review really interesting, because i carefully considered what "rating" to give the site as well and came up at a loss to choose one way or the other.

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My response:

What cavalier disregard for quality and quantity of pain. What typical christian reverse for guilt inspired and therefor self serving charity.

I'll skip the dissection of that statement, as such dissection would be lost on those who disagree and redundant for those who do, I'll also skip the issue of eternal punishment and reward since the addition or subtraction of trips to heaven and hell here are unknown and I can defend my position without them.

I simply ask this. After at least a year of this story circulating, has this phantom "sense of unity for a cause" resulted in the termination of drunk driving accidents? Has there even been a measurable drop?

No. In the final analysis the only positive impact this person's being burnt and then kept alive could remotely have is as a final damning stab to at least one person's faith. Personally, fire burned away my faith as well. It also may show the dangers of commuter based infrastructure, and a rather gruesome risk associated with internal combustion vehicles with liquid fuel. Perhaps it also exposes the greed of car manufactures in other ways, since a honey combed gas tank like those found in racing cars would have potentially prevented this as well.

But that is all incidental, the core fact is this. They who knowingly initiate an event are responsible for it and its repercussions. They with the power to prevent and knowledge of an impeding tragedy who fail to do so are directly responsible for good or ill.

The classic theodicy, in other words. Why did god let this happen? So you can wax touchy feely and so I can wax futuristic? No, because the question then becomes why did god allow the evils we shoehorn this travesty into preventing? I suppose for you it's turtles all the way down, or hidden goods all the way forward.

But that's not possible for me because, if I were all powerful, and all knowing. I don't need to be all loving on this one as "remotely loving" will do. I would not have allowed this. I would have found another way to bring people together, if roasting this child alive indeed accomplished that goal. I would have found another way to teach all those concerned whatever lesson I felt was important enough for them to learn to even momentarily contemplate torching a living human.

Does that sound better to you? It certainly does to me. I mean for a person who utters absolutes such as "wouldn't we all say that taking human life is morally wrong" it should be simple for you to grasp Roasting a person alive is also generally bad?

Why allow pain at all? If god is supposed to be perfect then how come I, a pathetic reflection of him, can be more merciful?

If this is the best of all possible worlds, then is your god not the architect of the physical constants that dictate possibility in the first place? If your god is at the mercy of them like I am then who's his god?

Do you realize your logic retroactively justifies ANY act? By your logic injustice does not exist. Why bother with laws and ethics at all godly or otherwise?