Edward N. Haas

Two Letters for 1993 Edward N. Haas

If you always follow the voice of your conscience, are you on safe ground? Do some people at least sometimes have motives of the highest and noblest kind, which ever perhaps existed? Do some people at least sometimes try to be the best person they could and ought to know how to be? On the other side of the grave, is it possible most people will find hell is their preferred destination? If so, why?! How could a truly loving God allow either that a hell should exist or that some people should prefer its eternal torment to the eternal bliss of heaven? Do all of us, as children, 'picture' God as the kind of father who comes after you when you do something bad? What is the nature of individuality? Which should one concentrate on the most: not giving offense or not taking offense? What about motives so hidden we ourselves who have them are not aware of either their nature or their presence in us?! Why do some people find it impossible to believe in a God but easy to believe that they themselves are gods from the standpoint of their behavior's merits? Does agnosticism rest on an intellectually sound basis? How does Christianity affect our failure to be the best people we could and ought to be? Is love ever totally unconditional? Which is more important: to avoid hurting other people's feelings or to enlighten them?Those are the kinds of questions considered in the pages of this book. But, why should one be interested in what this book has to say on such issues? I'm quite sure I myself cannot give anyone a truly compelling reason to do so. At best, I can only say this: The answers given herein have done wonders for me. Though, at 64 years of age, I am as alone, lonely, and rejected as anyone I have ever met. (As a child, my parents repeatedly assured me I was nothing to them but the hell they had to endure on Earth in order to escape the hell hereafter. Despite 50 years of heroic effort to keep The Ten Commandments, I'm still so immersed in mortal sin, it strongly suggests