After 66 years of hardcore, dedicated service to the cause of Christ Mother Teresa died(ten years ago). This was a woman who didn't have alot in life because she had sacrificed it all to God. The only thing she asked when she was dying was that her letters she had written over the period of her 66 year long servitude be destroyed. Did she get it...No!
What she got was that the church held onto her letters and made a book out of them. They say that it will help people to better understand her and her work.
Some letter are letters that she has written where she questions here faith. Atheist are having a field day with that. He is some news to you. Every one questions their faith. Everybody will come to points in their lives where they will say they have doubts. They would be lying to sya they don't. We still have to seek answers. We need to be reassured. He would be nice if we didn't but we do. We have to study the Bible so we can see how God works and learn to look for Him in nature, objects, people, places, in everything we can find Him.
So what if she questioned her own faith from time to time. She still stayed true and continued to work for God, speak of God, show His love, and all that other jazz that most of who call our lives Christian lives never learn to do. Questioning our faith can actually do us good. We can sometimes learn how small we really are, how little we understand, to dig deeper for the answers, lead to more prayer which is always a great things, lead to more reading of our Bible, and a revival of our faith.
Just because she was considered a "Super-Christian" by many changes nothing. She was still human and still dealt with alot of the same doubts that we do. She just learned to over come them. It is wrong for us not honor her wishes and destroy the letters. Wrong in all ways. Shame on us.
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On the other hand, she was free, white and over 21, as they say. She was perfectly capable of destroying those letters herself, if she didn't want anyone to read them. Or perhaps not writing them in the first place. She was a woman of some historical interest, and I'm sure she knew that her letters would be valuable to historians, and most likely her wishes would not be followed.
Here's my theory - admittedly that of an arm chair psychologist, but I think valid nonetheless. Her letters clearly show a woman in conflict between what she thought she should believe, and that which she actually believed. I think she wanted the world to know this conflict, deep down. She wasn't simply having fleeting doubts, like most people of faith. Her doubts were deep, and life-long. She spent her 66 years of "servitude" constantly searching for the answer to her prayers, an answer she apparently never received.
I think the non-believing side of her wanted the world to know. She could have destroyed the letters anytime, or asked those who had them to give them back so they could be destroyed. She could have kept her doubts to her self, but she chose not to.
While I agree that someone's final wishes should be granted when possible, in the case of historical figures, people who have been and will continue to be role models for we common folk, I think there is an exception for history. Imagine if Abe Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson had destroyed everything they wrote?
No, I suspect that theists such as yourself feel uncomfortable with the content of the letters, not the fact that they exist. Your complaint is a deflection of the issue that should be discussed, and is in fact being discussed even by the Catholic Church (which I commend) - whether Mother Teresa was a true believer, or whether she was living a lie.
And beyond that, whether the object of her belief actually exists.
No it is not. My problem with is the fact that she asked for her letters to be destroyed and they were not. In the post I state that all Christians doubt their faith at one time. For you to think otherwise would be foolish. Much like how I believe that all atheist will at one point question what they believe to be true.. SO that is irrelevant to me.
She was unable to destroy the letters herself as the Catholic Church possessed them(being who most were written to). The thing is, and I am now repeating myself to you, someone told her that they would destroy them. This is confirmed. Some one lied to her. If you died and left to kids you entire estate. Only to have the estate sold to the public against your kids wishes would that not be a great injustice and even an act of theft? See my problem.
What does the fact that she is white have to do with anything?
Did you ever see this on her by Penn and Teller?
Philly that video was not worth watching at all. It in no way presented any evidence that she made that amount of money and used it for building establishments with her name on them. I would say she built homes where supplies could be stored or people could come and stay.
Christian or not no one can honestly say that she did help people. To believe that she made more people poor and sick is just ignorant. You actually agree with that?
Well, BG, did you watch it, even though you don't think it's worth watching? I'm curious, because I can't say that I know everything there is to know about Mother T, but I do have an open mind. I, like you, always thought she was a very selfless, dedicated nun, trying to alleviate the poverty and suffering of the world. But the more I read about her, the more that there seems to be another side to that image. It's not that simple.
This is one of those areas where I think that atheist criticism of religion is valid. It seems that all you have to do is say you are working for god, and you are exempt from criticism. Put on a wimple, and you are automatically granted deep, uncritical respect. Penn and Teller call that BS. I agree.
Mother T is not exempt from criticism, and you should keep an open mind about her. Her "charitable" activities actually did little to alleviate suffering, and a good case can be made that she increased it. Very much like the official position of the Catholic Church that birth control, specifically condoms, should not be used in HIV infected areas of Africa, thereby sentencing people to sure death. As Hitchens convincingly points out, she spent her entire life opposing the only known cure for poverty, (short of the Robin Hood approach) the emancipation of women from compulsory reproduction. She needed poverty to exist, else she'd have nothing to fight against. And now it turns out she had some serious doubts about her own faith, and not, as you suggest, fleeting ones, but life-long, never resolved, mental health affecting doubts.
I don't think that necessarily qualifies her for role-model status, much less sainthood.
Yes I did watch the video. Where can proof be found about the money she used? Where can information be found about establishments she opened? How did she make people more poor than when she meet them?
"It seems that all you have to do is say you are working for god, and you are exempt from criticism. Put on a wimple, and you are automatically granted deep, uncritical respect."
That is not my way of seeing it. Ultimately I see us as all sinners. Not good people. However charitable people, like Mother Teresa, do hold a high prestige with most because of her desire to help them. Atheist or Christian, any one who sacrifices the time she did to serve and help is a charitable and loving person. I have not read all of the letters and more than likely won't. I fully believe that publishing those letters are very inappropriate and the church is wrong for allowing it.
She could have had a form of Munchausen syndrome in that she maintained a certain level of misery in order to "treat" it, and be seen treating it.
Hitchens I believe wrote a book on her years ago. I'm not too up on her so I can't supply any valuable nuggets of info or recommend any sources for future study. I just always was a tad suspicious as a child hearing about her and when I got older and understood the whole condom thing, then I really questioned whether she was all that great.
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