"Giles" wrote in message
...
On Jan 17, 9:14 am, "Tom Littleton" wrote:
"jeff" wrote in message

. ..

....speaking of bargains...the self-annointed far-right reverend, pat
robertson, says the haitians made a bargain with the devil. really,
that's what he said...a real, honest to badness, bargain...made more
than
a century ago, and they are now reaping the consequences. so, uh, i
reckon
it's all god's doing...another great heavenly lesson about negotiations.
that'll teach them to be friendly and outgoing and musical, especially
those infants and children.

jeff (busy negotiating with his own divine comedies and demiurges)

Jeff,
I think the take-home message from Robertson's description should be, at
the
very least, reassuring to those of us who are run-of-the mill sinners. It
seems that
God is working on a serious backlog, if he is just getting
around to rectifying pacts with the devil from the 19th century.
Tom

Well, the right Reverand Robertson is indoubtedly right in his
assertion that the Haitians made a bargain with the devil. I mean,
****, who hasn't? But god dwells in the details. What bargain with
which devil, when and under what circumstances, and what were the
terms? Mostly (if we are to give credence to the oral and literary
canons in virtually all cultures) the devil ain't real bright, and
ends up holding the ****ty end of the stick. Thus, the vast majority
of the bargains aren't even mildly interesting. But it would be fun,
and probably instructive, to hear of one in which old Nick actually
came out on top.

Meanwhile, gods don't trouble themselves much with the private
dealings of devils. They have enough on their minds already, what
with ennervated desperation over the inevitable fate that most
assuredly awaits them all. Think about it.....personal extinction is
a troublesome enough thing to contemplate for those of us who already
know that this is what eternity invariably holds for us. How much
more horrifying must it be for those whose job descriptions carry an
immortality clause (albeit one that has never yet been adhered to.)?
When you get right down to it, most gods, being prehistoric, like most
other species, never even leave any fossil remains. They ain't got
time to be worrying about devils and humans and robertsons and
haitians......they got legacies to build, incunabula to strew about,
holy books to dictate.

The Haitians.....well, they got hit by an earthquake, a seismic event
easily explicable (if not precisely predictble) via plate tectonics.
Sad. Indescribably sad. But no more or less so than when it happens
in any other place in the world.....and no more or less meaningful.

giles.
or maybe it's fingal stirring in his cave.....i dunno.

and the above muse is but one reason why you are so special to this world!

Op