Child of God

Key Takeaways

Under Consideration — to be added.

Connections

Books: By the same author, Cormac McCarthy — Blood Meridian, The Road, No Country for Old Men, and All the Pretty Horses.

Highlights

Roam capture metadata — Author: Cormac McCarthy · Reading Status: Books Read · Source: https://medium.com/@kwharrison13/2018-in-books-part-i-7d3590e7f5e8 · Recommended By: Camden Harrison · Tags: #Books

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  • Round 3 with Mr. McCarthy, and I gotta say — this was the least fun I’ve ever had in my life. The book is short, and chronicles a terrible thing. The key takeaway I had came from the title, and a brief interaction that I quoted below. “Child of God.” The nature of human-kind is something a lot of people have thought on. The same humanity that leads someone to save someones life, or take them in, is the same humanity that leads to murder, rape, robbery, and pain. What are we to make of that?
  • A lot of people use it to “annihilate” the idea of God. Stephen Fry, a vocal atheist, was asked what he would say if God turned out to be real, and he met Him/Her/It face to face.
  • “Bone cancer in children? What’s that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world where there is such misery that is not our fault? It’s not right. It’s utterly evil.”
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  • You could add some of the things that happen in this book to Fry’s list. And as I thought about the idea of a Child of God, but one that does something we would call evil, what does that say about God? In my mind, the answer has everything to do with perspective. If this life is all their is, then yes, any amount of avoidable suffering is despicable and wrong. But if today is the only day we live, then getting surgery, vaccinations, putting our kids in timeout, or even making them exercise, or eat healthy, all of those things are completely out of the question and wrong, because they take this little time we have and fill it with unfortunate things.
  • But today is not the only day. This life is not all there is. And so what suffering we see here is not an ultimate thing, and to treat it as if it was, is the same as saying we should never vaccinate our kids because it hurts them. It does. But in the long run, the result is more important than the pain.
  • “It’s like a lot of things, said the smith. Do the least part of it wrong and ye’d just as well to do it all wrong.”
  • “You think people was meaner then than they are now? the deputy said.
  • The old man was looking out at the flooded town. No, he said. I don’t. I think people are the same from the day God first made one.”