[yldstrk]

His message that you too can suffer and be unhappy? Great. Why anyone would want to be a Christian I don’t know. I am one, but it is because there is no other Way, not because I can recommend it

[CHRISTIAN DIARIST]

His message, to borrow from the Apostle Paul, is that our sorrows are “only for a while.” We are more than conquerors through Christ.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Well, everyone experiences suffering, including the Divine and infinitely lovable Son of God, who was spiked up onto piece of wood, knifed, and left a totally bled-out, wasted corpse. For awhile.

The only question is: is all this suffering, in addition to its own temporary misery, totally and eternally meaningless as well? Is it absurd, with everything else that exists absurd as well? (The dandelion's puff, the whale's baleen, the happy truck driver, the happy blood-filled tick, the Trisomy-18 baby, the spiral nebulae?)

Or is there a chance it all means something, and yields a great good: not merely a proportionate good, but a superabounding, triumphant, conquering good?

As fact, unknowable.

As choice: you choose.