Letters: Apr. 28, 1997

• Share

(2 of 6)

Traditional religions no longer hold ground in our search for spirituality or a higher form of awareness. Does this mean that Christianity, among other religions, is remiss in providing for the spiritual needs of us mortals? The proliferation of alternative religions seems to indicate so. What will be the next group to leave us on this quest? We should brace ourselves for more surprises and hope that our capacity to be shocked, as well as our ability to recover from the shock, will remain intact. VICTOR SOLLORANO Geneva

The suicide of the cult followers shows that they lacked the very basic principle of life: one must have the will to live. Were these people seeking something that did not and could not exist? CHEVAUN BEDDY Pretoria, South Africa

I don't know why Applewhite & co. bothered to take phenobarbital. With a little extra effort, they could have bored themselves to death. DAVID IRBY Dingle, Ireland

There is one consolation: at least the Heaven's Gate members did not kill innocent people going about their daily lives, as Aum Shinrikyo cult members did in Tokyo's subway in 1995. HIDEKAZU UTSUNOMIYA Tokyo

We must ask ourselves why more and more people are seeking God, heaven or Nirvana outside the organizations that supposedly are meant to assist the faithful in their search of the divine. Whoever does not find food in one place abandons it for another where nourishment is promised. At a moment of crisis, when people most need supernatural assistance, all they find are hollow temples given to worldly pursuits. And so these poor souls fall into the hands of some charismatic, self-appointed guru and end up gassing Tokyo's subway, forcing suicides on hundreds in Guyana or trying to escape in a UFO. If organized religion does not serve the purpose for which it was established, isn't it time that it was renewed and rethought? MIGUEL A. SALABARRIA Salamanca, Spain

The Heaven's Gate members were selfish; they cared only about themselves and not about their families and the people who loved them. But even so, I feel sorry for them. Applewhite wanted to manipulate people and make them do things for him through pity. He told his followers to reject their families because he wanted total control over their hearts, minds and eventually their souls. What scares me most is the fact that there are more Marshall Herff Applewhites out there. What are we doing about it? ISABELLE WEERAWARDENA, age 17 Yakkala, Sri Lanka

Cults are on the rise; so is interest in aliens, witchcraft, New Ageism, Satanism and anything having to do with the occult. Spiritual hunger is a natural part of the human psyche, but so are self-centeredness and obstinacy. Rather than turn to God, we try to fill the hole in our souls with money, prestige, sex, drugs, alcohol, food, pop culture, occult knowledge--virtually everything. Where does this lead us? To a decaying society rife with addicts and 39 dead Trekkies. It's time to get our heads out of the stars and turn back to that old-time religion. BRIDGET FINNEY Ube, Japan

THE HEAVEN DEBATE