LETTER TO THE EDITOR

“How could God allow this?”

Posted

TO THE EDITOR:

As to the raw and sensitive question following the Sandy Hook School tragedy, "How could God allow this?" the scary and challenging answer none of us wants to hear is "free will," without which we would be mere robots, programmed to do good and, therefore, rendering the question of good and evil moot.

The horror of Sandy Hook brought to the forefront the dedication and protectiveness that teachers have for their young charges. For every lesson a teacher makes up, he/she has to answer the questions: “What is the intended outcome? What is the goal of this activity? How will this lesson benefit the students’ understanding and progress?”

If the designers of video games and producers of movies and music videos had to honestly answer those questions in terms of what they offer up to their young audiences, we just might live in a less violent society.

So it is up to us who profess to want a more peaceful and safe world to do all we can by way of applying pressure, most especially by withholding our dollars from gratuitously violent movies, music, video games, and other forms of entertainment. It is up to us to ask, “Will this help or hurt our youth?” and then to make the responsible choice.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, one could sense the almost palpable need people of all faiths and no faith felt to turn to God. Which brings us back to the original question, “How could God allow this?” By way of an answer, it is my firm belief that no one weeps longer or harder than God when horrific events like this take place as he watches us make terrible individual and collective choices with our free will.

Kathy Pesta

Wakefield