Angels and suffering

Now I'm a bit of an irritant in Christian circles because I tend to want to be positive about New AGe people. This is because I wnat us to take seriously two things; one is that many NA'ers are on a serious spiritual quest and I suspect that the Holy SPirit might even be at the bottom of it for many of them. The second thing is that we should take seriously how unspiritual the church often seems to them which is why they often give up on it/us before they even start. Unless we grok these things we are not fit to begin to reach out with the Good News to many spiritually searching people in western culture. However, my positive stance in these terms should not by any means be taken as any kind of endorsement of this stuff:
"Among Cooper’s recent pronouncements is the claim that the estimated 200,000 victims of the Asian tsunami died to cleanse the Earth of wickedness. The victims had bravely chosen this path before they were born, invited to make the sacrifice by something called the Intergalactic Council. “It’s helpful and healing for some people, such as loved ones, to know that. But if you find it upsetting, you can simply forget it,” she says."
Now we have to recall that within its own terms this is a very consistent way of thinking, but we should notice the way that it blithely elides suffering: basically the human suffering in this world is a choice undertaken by the sufferers before they incarnated into their current existence in order to pay of karmic debt. So that's alright then.

Except that it means that we should not attempt to relieve suffering because we would be interfering with karma and making things worse for those attempting to pay of their debt with their own suffering.

Bummer.
Jesus and other religious and political teachers are/were clearly wrong to suggest that human suffering should be mitigated ... That's what is at stake folks: an ideology that legitimises suffering and says that we are 'okay' because we cosmically deserve it versus ideologies that say that suffering is often undeserved and that we are right to try to put it right.
I will resist all of the former with all my might.
Books :: A wing and a prayer: