"Boston ... Horrible"

By Nathan Miller 

(Gospel) Those are the words of Patton Oswalt. But, as you can see, he comes up short.

If you checked out his Facebook page, you could read the following:

Boston ... horrible. I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity." But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths. 

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

Words coming from an Atheist. Words which carry the repercussion of almost 230 thousands SHARES on FB.

He manages to be positive in an instance of Fear, Grief, Pain, and Anger. Hats off to Mr. Oswalt! We can learn from that kind of spirit: Realism and Guts bound together with an upbeat push towards the future.

But his view of the carnage does come up short. His logic shows that percentages win the day, as if that's enough to rest our minds. No God, no eternal reward for those just blasted into nothingness, but at least the great majority of the rest of us are "good." So that's good. 

Huh?

The real world is not finely divided into GOOD and BAD people, as if you are bad if you fulfill Patton's list of evil: violence, bigotry, intolerance, fear, garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance. And as if no good person ever committed anything evil. The REAL picture of the day shows a crowd of non-perfect individuals - sinners - racing to help innocent victims - also sinners - injured by the blast planted by "sinners" - who are most probably also good husbands and fathers and sons and friends to some.

The Christian vision of what happened offers in fact a more balanced approach, beginning with the opportunity of eternal life (or death) for those who died, and not ending with an automatic crown of "sanctity" for each person who had enough compassion to turn and help a neighbor in physical need.

Any Atheist could claim, together with Patton, that this is certainly beyond religion. Yet we who believe are not blinded by an idealistic concept of reality. We know the truth, that every man is capable of good and evil, and that religion gives us what no Atheist has ... a MUST which necessary points to an eternal punishment or reward.