"Ye immortal gods! Where in the world are we?" (Cicero)

.....After the Feb. 8 piece I received a comment on it from Ruth Grimsley in England in the form of an e-mail. It's a trifle long to go into the comment box on the blog, but what she says is pertinent to my blog so she can be a guest blogger for the nonce:

Hi Cuz - I'm very impressed by both the quantity and quality of your output in your blog since your return from the rehabilitation centre (whose idea of rehabilitation was to wake you up early in the morning when it was the last thing you needed.) Thank you very much, cuz of mine.

I don't know that much about sport, but I was intrigued by your disquisition on the Greek philosophers' and Sophists' arguments on right and wrongdoing. I wouldn't disagree with anything you said, but would merely remind you that Greek theology rested on the basic conviction that he gods could themselves be capricious and merciless when it came to disposing of the affairs of mortals. In some ways this compares favourably with the Judaeo-Xtian idea of a merciful god. It's more in touch with reality: look at the Haitian earthquake! Does this accord with the concept of a merciful god? (Nah!) I know that some arguments have over the last couple of millennia been advanced to account for awful things happening within a merciful God's provision. For example, it has been argued that God has a plan for us all, even if we don't understand it at the time, but if we try, over time, we will see that it is all for our own good, to bring us closer to God. (Who decided that??) Additionally it has been argued that human suffering stimulates other humans to compassion and the relief of suffering in others, which are holy acts. All this no doubt makes sense to old-fashioned Jews and Christians, but most modern and liberal-thinking religious people have decided to by-pass all these very severe unrelenting views of the deity, and they simply state that there are a lot of things we'll never understand, and then they just humbly go on with their daily tasks of charity and the relief of suffering.

.....And so cuz Ruth has authored some other views of the concept of "justice". In this case her disquisition of the nature of gods and God. It's nice to have erudite opinions from so far away a country as England, and especially since I'm an Anglophile...first class. After all, Shakespeare was English and an author and an actor. Can't beat that.