What Hope Is There?

[Sukerkin]

When the violent and ignorant slay the altruistic and educated, the light of hope I have for my species is diminished.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10902094

We don't yet have details of the rest of Dr. Woo's 'team' but my sorrows go out to their families.

I put this here rather than in the Remembrance as I did not want to stultify people from making comments over and above condolences.

 

[Archangel M]

I'm sure humanity hasn't "improved" or degraded as much as some would think. As a matter of fact...as a whole there is a case to be made that humanity has become less violent over the ages.

 

[K-man]

I'm sure humanity hasn't "improved" or degraded as much as some would think. As a matter of fact...as a whole there is a case to be made that humanity has become less violent over the ages.

Unfortunately the light of civilised society has been extinguished in some parts of the world despite the fact that this region was the cradle of civilisation.

 

[Archangel M]

True. There have been, are and probably always will be places like that on the globe.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

There is nothing I can add but my sincere sorrow.

 

[Tez3]

The prayer of an unknown woman, found on a piece of wrapping paper in Ravensbruck concentration camp.

"Oh Lord remember not only the men and women of goodwill but also those of illwill. But do not remember the suffering they have inflicted upon us; remember the fruits we brought thanks to this suffering, our comradeship, our loyalty, our humilty, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart which has grown out of this; and when they come to judgement, let all th fruits that we have borne be their fogiveness."


However bad the deed, however much evil there is, always will shine out mankinds better instincts, the hope and the goodness. There is always hope and always light at the end of the tunel, however long the tunnel, it is there.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

The prayer of an unknown woman, found on a piece of wrapping paper in Ravensbruck concentration camp.

I confess to not possessing such an awesome power to forgive. I would gladly wield the ax on those who engineered the Holocaust as well as this atrocity. Forgiveness is divine; I'm not divine. I accept the judgment of man and God for grimly collecting the scalps of the evil.

 

[Sukerkin]

As a matter of fact...as a whole there is a case to be made that humanity has become less violent over the ages.

Aye, I think that, overall, you have a point there, Angel. There are regions of the world however where the movement seems to be in entirely the wrong direction. This story hits home to where I live, philosophically, with it's juxtaposition, as I said, of the violent and ignorant preying upon the altruistic and educated. It saddens me at a visceral level, possibly because it happened on a 'human scale' that I can comprehend and take to my heart.

 

[Tez3]

I confess to not possessing such an awesome power to forgive. I would gladly wield the ax on those who engineered the Holocaust as well as this atrocity. Forgiveness is divine; I'm not divine. I accept the judgment of man and God for grimly collecting the scalps of the evil.

Ah but it's not your place, we believe, to forgive. Only the victims ( in this Afghan, case the bereaved) can do that, if they wish to. Everyone else is perfectly entitled to go and extract revenge, the victims too if they chose. They aren't bound to forgive. Sometimes though the perfect revenge is forgiving your tormentors, as in the prayer. It says that whatever you have done it is nothing and you are nothing because I forgive you therefore I am the better person, the winner if you like. It depends who it is, the Nazis were so superior, so sure they were right, to have their victims forgive them made them insignificant, a nothing after all their grandiosity, to be cast aside like the dirt they were.

As with the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes, individuals could forgive the murderers if they wished but vengence was enacted all the same.