Died at mass

Where does God promise us that bad things won't happen?

Voltaire, of course, famously based the philosopher Pangloss in Candide on those who explained (to Voltaire, excused) the Lisbon earthquake as part of "God's plan."

Each day you should remind yourself it may be your last second on this earth. Live it as you would if you knew it was. My dear, blessed Mom lived this philosphy and taught us every day of our lives. She died as she prayed, quickly and alone. She did not want her children to watch her suffer, she never took a pill in life and only saw an MD when she broke her arm one Christmas eve. Once in her life she got what she wanted. God bless the victims

We should live each day to the fullest as though it were our last. Life is far too short even without negative crisis. We sometimes waste precious moments we can not recover. I try not to waste time, ofcourse also, I'm 56 y/o.

it is no fault of theirs...even jesus said that the rain falls on the just and the unjust when asked if the tower falling on some people was a result of someone's sin....

It is, indeed difficult to reconcile all stories like this, where God seems to be completely silent and inactive, with biblical images like the collective liberation of the Jews, led by Moses from Pharaoh.

Here's an interesting take on understanding God in natural disasters, from WFB, published in National Review (on dead tree) in 2004:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_1_56/ai_112493439/pg_1

By all news counts, over 200 died in catholic churches during mass. What better proof than this that the monstrous god of the catholic church does not exist and that prayers are a farce! I mean, imagine a god who does not even protect the people who surrender themselves to him, who prostrate before his image, who pray to him, who sing praises to him, etc. What kind of a “merciful” god is it who would do this to his own “creatures”. What kind of an “omniscient” and “all-powerful” god is it who would allow such a terrible thing to happen to his own faithful! Only blind belief and plain old stupidity would lead someone to believe in these ridiculous teachings of the church. Very embarrassing for the Vatican – I bet they’ll do anything to keep this hush-hush. Of course, in their twisted mind they will find some wacky way of explaining this off to those who would dare to ask!

Some who were in church died, and some lived. Some who were frequenting bars and brothels at the time no doubt died (but didn't make the papers) while others lived. Unless your god-concept is, shall we say, that of the naive and trusting 5-year old, none of this is evidence for or against the existence of deity. It evens out in the long run. We're not going to solve the "problem of evil" on this board, folks - everyone from Kant to Dostoyevsky has had a go at it and the question remains open.

The problem of evil is one that is seldom grappled with by those that see God as both omniscient and omnibenevolent. Since God is plainly not omnibenevolent, (the evidence is history), this is the one I set aside.

And why would an omniscient God be interventionist? If God is omniscient and omnipresent then all follows in harmony with God's will from before the first instant of existence until the end of time.

"The problem of evil is one that is seldom grappled with by those that see God as both omniscient and omnibenevolent."

Not so. There are numerous discussions of the problem of evil in theological history, especially in the Western church. Some of them, obviously, are of more value than others.

The argument that you mention, "if God is good, he can't be all powerful, and if he is all-powerful he can't be good" is dealt with by Hart in his book.

"The problem of evil is one that is seldom grappled with by those that see God as both omniscient and omnibenevolent. Since God is plainly not omnibenevolent, (the evidence is history), this is the one I set aside."

Uh--yeah, I'd beg to differ, just from my own experience, even among non-intellectuals. Gotta love these sweeping statements about what religious people do and don't grapple with--Of course, I guess the real underlying purpose is to inflate one's own sense of superiority.

By all news counts, over 200 died in catholic churches during mass. What better proof than this that the monstrous god of the catholic church does not exist and that prayers are a farce! I mean, imagine a god who does not even protect the people who surrender themselves to him, who prostrate before his image, who pray to him, who sing praises to him, etc. What kind of a “merciful” god is it who would do this to his own “creatures”. What kind of an “omniscient” and “all-powerful” god is it who would allow such a terrible thing to happen to his own faithful! Only blind belief and plain old stupidity would lead someone to believe in these ridiculous teachings of the church. Very embarrassing for the Vatican – I bet they’ll do anything to keep this hush-hush. Of course, in their twisted mind they will find some wacky way of explaining this off to those who would dare to ask!

And yet, here you are, on a website frequented by religious believers. Are you quite sure that God doesn't exist? In your rage against suffering and injustice, you may be closer to Him than you understand now.

Rod,

Have you ever read the Gospels?

Jesus did not say wars, famines and earthquakes "except" for My followers. Even Lazurus had to die "again."

As a person that has suffered incredible loss and blamed God for it, I now realize that the natural world has natural laws and the spiritual world has the same immutable truths.

Christian faith is founded on facts. Some incredibly painful to realize but bringing joy in the realization of truth. Life does not end at death.

Don't believe the rumors to the contrary.

I have no problem with the defense of God provided by Hart, and other similiar ones, i.e., bad things happening to good people is not a bug, it's a feature, of Christianity. I think it's internally coherent and really quite a nifty philosophical construct. I think, "hey, what an interesting way to frame our experience of being human and being on earth."

However, if we're going to say that God is not to be blamed for hurting good people, it seems like he really shouldn't be credited with anything good that happens in people's lives, either. As soon as, say, a person whose child survives a fire praises God for their good fortune, or an athlete thanks god for a team victory, it seems to put the kibosh on the whole deal. It's like, okay, so god _does_ decide, for whatever reason, to do good things for individuals now and then, and he gets credit for that. But if bad things happen to good people he's not at fault. And when good things happen to bad people he's not at fault.

I see that as an irritating inconsistency. I'm sure there's some way to finesse an argument that it's actually all still consistent, but frankly I don't expect it to counter one's common sense feeling that there's an inconsistency. If believers would just follow the thinking to its logical conclusion and not praise/thank god for the good things in their lives -- any more than they curse him for the bad things -- I'd respect it a lot more. (Which of course matters enormously to everyone.)

-O

The people who cannot understand death do not love God. If you love God, you know that through one man sin entered the world, and through that sin, death. Which is the greater horror, sin or death? Those who lament death and yet do not lament sin which makes death possible, do not love God. People are swift to blame God for death and yet do not blame the human race(and thus, themselves), for sin which produces death in the world. It is our sin which brings about the death and sorrow in the world. How is that God's fault?

Once Thomas Edison was approached by a group who told him that they were planning a building that was going to be the tallest in the city and wondered if they should put a lightning rod on it. He asked them what kind of building it was and they responded that it was going to be a church.

"By all means!" he said. "The Almighty does get a bit careless at times."

If you build a church on a fault line you can hardly blame God if he accidentally knocks it down.

I think Katie Angel has the right idea in her comment above. Part of our problem as we struggle to understand suffering and death is our tendency to think of death as the end instead of the beginning. Some who survive tragedies and grow old will sometimes say of those who died that they were the lucky ones, the blessed ones. It takes the wisdom of age and a life of suffering to see this truth and understand it.

Rod said, "I don't believe it to be wrong to wonder where God was when the earthquake hit, even as I believe on faith that He was there, and that He has his purposes that we cannot know."

No, it's not wrong to wonder where He was; but I don't wonder.

He was with the dead, who saw Him face to face after a few moments of pain and fear.

He was with the dying who called to Him for more than earthly salvation.

He was with the suffering and injured who asked to be spared, despite their physical anguish. He remained with them even after they were rescued, and He is with them, and will be with them, as they recover.

He is with the grieving; He holds the mourners close to His Sacred Heart. He, who wept during His earthly life at the death of his friend will not abandon those who weep, and He will raise their loved ones to eternal life.

And He is with all those who observe the tragedy both close at hand and far away, as they perform the corporal and spiritual works of mercy for those who have suffered. He uses our hands to rescue those in peril, to give medical aid to those who are injured, to bring food and water to those who hunger and thirst, to rebuild their homes and provide them with shelter; He also uses our hands when we fold them to pray for those impacted by this tragedy and for the repose of those who have died. We are, after all, His Mystical Body, and whatever we do in His name He does through us. In a profound and mysterious way, then, we are the answer to the question, "Where is God in the face of tragedy?"

Rob,

I appreciate your respectful reply. I don't mean to be flippant, but it still seems like a pretty good deal for god to get praised for the good stuff but not condemned for the bad.

-O

One particular vulnerability of Enlightenment Europe was that she thought God had created the best of possible worlds, but she had forgotten that a primeval catastrophe had transformed Eden into a valley of tears. Any merely therapeutic creed that tries to explain away the Cross or other instances of human suffering is simply deluding itself.

"The only way to avoid them, it seems to me, is to lock people in the basement where they will be safe. But what loving parent would do that?"

Okay, then let's continue the parenting analogy, shall we? Imagine a mother who has two sons. She nurtures one son, sends him to the best schools, provides any and all opportunities so that he can have a happy and prosperous life. The other son, she ignores -- he's left to fend for himself. The first son enjoys a life of happiness, economic success and loving relationships. The second son's life is a string of misery and despair.

Is this mother a loving parent?

God supposedly loves everyone, yet some people on earth enjoy good health, good families, good opportunities, and good fortune. Others don't. Doesn't sound too loving to me.

"Okay, then let's continue the parenting analogy, shall we? Imagine a mother who has two sons. She nurtures one son, sends him to the best schools, provides any and all opportunities so that he can have a happy and prosperous life. The other son, she ignores -- he's left to fend for himself. The first son enjoys a life of happiness, economic success and loving relationships. The second son's life is a string of misery and despair."

This is a false analogy. Eliminating all suffering would require an abrogation of free will. The vast majority of starving people in Africa are dying not because there is a lack of food, but rather because we are not willing to share our food. Some people are not educated because we don't educate them. If someone suffers a bad upbringing, the fault is usually with other humans.

"God supposedly loves everyone, yet some people on earth enjoy good health, good families, good opportunities, and good fortune. Others don't. Doesn't sound too loving to me."

Even good people suffering. It's a result of sin. Besides, sometimes people coming from the worst of upbringings become the greatest heroes ever to walk the earth. Meanwhile, people who are spared no expense growing up turn out like Paris Hilton, a spoiled brat who could care less about anyone else but herself.

The definition of love is to will what is best for the other person. Pampering is not always best. Humanity must learn to deal with the consequences of its actions, and we must learn to cope with our environment. Otherwise, how could we ever become the Christ-like beings God wants us to be? You think it's unfair that some people suffer more than others, and you think He plays favorites. But when He became man, He was born into the most humble of conditions and lived a life of misery and suffering. That should tell us something right there. The Judeo-Christian concept of God is much deeper than "the guy upstairs who's supposed to fix everything."

And why fix everything? Death is a consequence of original sin. Sooner or later something has to kill us.

Sorry, Timbo, that you find it "incredibly offensive" to assert that human suffering is the consequence of sin. Offensive or not, that is what Christians (orthodox Christians of varying flavors, at any rate) believe. Theodicy has always seemed a waste of time to me; either one believes in the benevolence of God, despite the existence of evil, or one does not. Tanker-loads of ink have been expended in the attempt to justify God's ways to man, but it seems to me that the Cross, followed by the eucatastrophe of Resurrection, is all the answer we're going to get this side of eternity.

Others were also executed, but the child took hours to die. Someone asked, "Where was God." And was answered, "Hanging up there."

Why do I imagine hanging out up there would have been different for God than it was for the child? I mean, he's God, right?

But let's say He can put Himself entirely into the experience exactly like a terrified child dying horribly over hours in a death camp. Like one of us lying on the ground next to it, transfixed, fully sharing and consuming the death agony of a screaming kitten slowly being ground into a smear by an 18-wheeler accidentally backing over it.

Why is just consuming that experience as totally as possible, doing nothing else, a good thing and not the sickest, most monstrous thing possible?

Thanks for your thoughtful posts, Scott and " ".

Scott said: "the Cross, followed by the eucatastrophe of Resurrection, is all the answer we're going to get this side of eternity."

I'm not looking for an explanation, because I don't believe there is one. It's believers who have the burden of explanation, and their explanations just don't stand up to scrutiny. Even their non-explanations -- well, we can't know god's purposes -- disappoint.

We agree on the theodicy issue, though for different reasons. I think it's pointless to spill ink over the problem of evil because I don't believe there is a god. Or if there is one, he's not at all concerned with humanity. To me, that's the clear lesson of tragedies like this earthquake.

"either one believes in the benevolence of God, despite the existence of evil, or one does not."

Belief in god's benevolence is excellent evidence to support the idea that faith is mere wish fulfillment. We'd like it to be true, but that doesn't make it so. The world is filled with joys and sorrows, probably in equal measure. It would be just as reasonable to believe that god is evil, and then try to explain the "problem of good." There's no reason to believe that god is good, just as there's no reason to believe god is evil.

Without belief in God, there is absolutely no criteria for determining good and bad. We believe something is bad if it is not the way things are supposed to work. Without God, no one can say that these people dying is sad. It all depends on personal taste.

For example, rape. Why is it bad? Because you say it is? What if the majority of other people disagree? If there is no moral code beyond human society, if ethics is a creation of the mind, why should I obey it? If I want to rape someone, and it feels good, and I can do it without getting caught, why shouldn't I rape someone? Because it hurts them? What do I care? They have nothing to do with me, and like me, they are to be exploited when convenient. If we are mere animals, let's get pleasure whenever we can. If hurting others makes you feel good and the consequences are worth it, do it. If hurting people doesn't make you feel good, don't do it. It's all about personal taste.

Atheism is the ultimate wish fulfillment. You're in charge, you can do anything you want, though you must secure power and influence to keep others from interfering. After all, what they want to do may conflict with what you want to do...

Atheism is also the ultimate expression of intellectual laziness, and if you think Christianity's answers to life are unsatisfactory, you'll definitely be disappointed by atheism.

What is the meaning of life? There is none.
Is there a higher power? No.
Why? There is no reason.
Why is there suffering? Survival of the fittest.
Why should we try and survive? There is no reason.
Then what should we do? Try and feel good.
Why? Because it feels good to feel good.
What is good? There is no good or bad.
Then what does it mean to feel good? ...I suppose it's just subjective personal taste.

Sounds like an intellectual cop-out to me. Seems like atheism consists of "I cannot find the answer, therefore there is none and I will not seek any further."

Atheism cannot comfort, it cannot explain things. It claims there is no explanation. All it can do is free the individual to do as he pleases. It eliminates a higher order to make a lower one, where every man is god and every man is nothing.

The western form of atheism has a psychological genesis, according to some experts. It is indeed wish fulfillment: a desire to kill father figures due to being disappointed by one's human father.

http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?id=3697&repos=1&subrepos=&searchid=46555

As for me, I will not limit my intelligence and intellectual curiosity by accepting atheism. There is an explanation out there for things, and I may not be able to put the whole puzzle together, but at least I can find some of the pieces and admit that they do, in fact, form some kind of whole.

Then again, Brad, perhaps our wondering about a remote, distant God who looks at human suffering from a distance has more to do with our own projection than with the actual meaning of the suffering.

When suffering happens half a world or half a hemisphere away, it is hard to imagine that it is real, whereas, it is easier to imagine the suffering that is closer to us. New Orleans after Katrina, for instance.

Maybe humans need to block out an awareness of "the suffering of all" in order to survive. But God, if there is a God, might have no such need to "block out" human suffering. Hence God might be able to be with suffering people in a truly compassionate way. Speaking from my distance from those suffering people it is hard to say.

Have a nice weekend.

Norris,

You may have stumbled onto something we can all agree :-)

Yes, but was it during the Novous Ordo Mass or the Trientine?

Timbo, CS Lewis began "The Problem Of Pain" with exactly the question of the existence of good in the world that you describe. It's a good read, and an excellent introduction to theodicy, and quite convincing to a Christian...but useless in the face of Auschwitz if one is not a Christian. Take a look at it if you're at all interested in the strange things we Christians believe. It's not likely to change your mind, and such is not my intent anyway, but atheists ought to check out Lewis just as theists ought to check out Dawkins. I hope your weekend, wherever you are, is as lovely as what we're having in the Northwest...until the rains begin.

Norris,

I assume you know the famous Housman line, "Beer does more than Milton can / To justify God's ways to man." Great poem.

Aaron wrote:

"Yes, but was it during the Novous Ordo Mass or the Trientine?"

Now THAT'S funny.

:-D

In response to my comment:
"The problem of evil is one that is seldom grappled with by those that see God as both omniscient and omnibenevolent. Since God is plainly not omnibenevolent, (the evidence is history), this is the one I set aside."

Don said:

Uh--yeah, I'd beg to differ, just from my own experience, even among non-intellectuals. Gotta love these sweeping statements about what religious people do and don't grapple with--Of course, I guess the real underlying purpose is to inflate one's own sense of superiority.

Actually no. My point is draw attention to the irreconcilability of omnibenevolence with omniscience and omnipresence. A person who seriously grapples with this is faced with either compartmentalizing or discarding omnibenevolence or omniscience and omnipresence.

Further, trying to fit God into the frame of the good-evil dualism, (even at the most extreme end of good), is elevating that frame to something which God must fit within. Clearly this is fallacious. God is not good and God is not evil. God is God, or to quote from Meister Eckhart:

God is nameless, for no man can either say or understand aught about Him. If I say, God is good, it is not true; nay more; I am good, God is not good. I may even say, I am better than God; for whatever is good, may become better, and whatever may become better, may become best. Now God is not good, for He cannot become better. And if He cannot become better, He cannot become best, for these three things, good, better, and best, are far from God, since He is above all. If I also say, God is wise, it is not true; I am wiser than He. If I also say, God is a Being, it is not true; He is transcendent Being and superessential Nothingness. Concerning this St Augustine says: the best thing that man can say about God is to be able to be silent about Him, from the wisdom of his inner judgement. Therefore be silent and prate not about God, for whenever thou dost prate about God, thou liest, and committest sin. If thou wilt be without sin, prate not about God. Thou canst understand nought about God, for He is above all understanding. A master saith: If I had a God whom I could understand, I would never hold Him to be God.

If I could pick my time and place of death, I could think of none better than at the sacrifice of mass. Presumably in a state of grace, preparing to receive the person of Jesus in his body, blood, soul and divinity, I can think of no time when I would be more likely to be prepared to meet my maker, except perhaps immediately after confession.

Death comes for us all, whether we're prepared of not. Perhaps it was God's benevolence which called his faithful children home when they were in the midst of praising him, and full of longing to be in his presence.

Rob said:
Zero, Eckhart's God is not the Christian God. To the Christian there is no "God beyond God," neither is God "beyond good and evil." True, there are limits to what humans can say about him, but this apophaticism, as St. Augustine knew (and Eckhart apparently did not), doesn't collapse into the modern idea that all God-talk is just metaphor.

"Further, trying to fit God into the frame of the good-evil dualism, (even at the most extreme end of good), is elevating that frame to something which God must fit within. Clearly this is fallacious. God is not good and God is not evil."

One may say this about the god of the philosophers, or some other general all-purpose deity, but this, again, is not the Christian God. Our God defines good by his essence, by the very fact of who he is and what he is like. As I said above, he is good in essence, and the good derives from his being, not from his will.

Then the Christian God is finite not infinite, temporally limited rather than eternal and unchanging. If God is eternal and omnipresent, then the universe of necessity is, and is precisely as it must be.

"If God is eternal and omnipresent, then the universe of necessity is, and is precisely as it must be."

Rob said:

No, because A] God willed to create the universe ex nihilo; it is not an emanation, and creation is in no wise an aspect of his essence (God is not Creator by nature) and B] the freedom given to creation by God is a real freedom and is not illusory; hence one might say that God is, in a certain very strict sense, self-limiting regarding the freedom of the creation.

Your statement is dogmatic not logical. It does not follow from the premises of God as eternal and omnipresent.

For God to be eternal and omnipresent, there is no state that is not a present state. (i.e. For an eternal and omnipresent entity; past, present and future do not unfold but are an abiding now) The closest analog to this that I have found is the relationship between a fractal equation and its instantiation into a fractal form that unfolds iteratively. The equation is eternal and omnipresent with respect to its instantiation. The fractal form is the necessary and contingent expression of an equation that is eternal and omnipresent to that fractal form. A fractal form expresses a fractal equation. The universe expresses God the eternal.

For God, all that is, is within God. Nothing can be that is not rooted to and extended logically from God, as only God is in itself. This follows or we must dispense with God as eternal and omnipresent.

By the way, I am enjoying our exchange. Thank-you.

I agree that God is beyond our ability to frame, that logic and form, even brilliantly beautiful form is only a surface. It is like Plato's analogy of the cave. We see shadows on a wall, and seldom gaze even momentarily into the blazing brilliance of formless presence that gives the shadows we take as real their form. Ec stasis, or as William Blake said: "To see eternity in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower."

Actually I am saying that God is both immanent and transcendent, that no thing exists that is not intimately bound to God as God. Since God is the only in itself, that through and by which all is, there is an immediacy or presence that is never absent. I can never be removed from the presence of God; though I may be so distracted and fixated on form that the subtle grandeur of that presence may go unnoticed.

I would not call myself a pantheist, (as a matter of fact I try not to think of myself as ______________.) I find that direct experience is the best teacher and that each tradition has both wisdom to teach and things to be wary of.

My poetry and art are my preferred medium of expression. I will include one poem below to give you a taste of what stirs within:

For this poem to work, it must have no form.
How can it stretch itself into nothing?
How can it collapse the world of forms?
How can it silence the clatter of the mind?

Oh Beloved, One of purest beauty and love,
Make of me a silent testament.
Make of me a mirror, and break me into pieces
So that becoming formless, I reflect perfectly.

Snap the pen and the mind that hides you.
Burn the paper upon which I am written.
Sear these words in the fire of perfect love.
Leave not so much as ash behind.

Oh Beloved, in whom I have become,
Erase me within thee.
Let no-thing remain to witness:
What never was is gone.

Many and perhaps most forms of Christianity would reject this. Even so, there are some expressions within Christianity, Judaism and Islam that certainly allude to what I was trying to express in poetic form.

One thing that is interesting is that the path of direct encounter with God is treated with great distrust within many religious traditions. Perhaps it is because Primary Religious Experience (PRE) is unencumbered, and does not require a formal belief structure, a priesthood, or prescribed rites to realise. And here again is where I have difficulty with "hard" beliefs: The belief is primary; while PRE is relegated to a secondary or tertiary role at best. The mystics across traditions, (William Blake, Meister Eckhart, Rumi, Attar, Hafiz, Kabir, Sri Ramakrishna, et cetera) speak with a very similiar emotional palate. Their words illuminate not as lessons but catalytically from within the reader who hears them. The Presence which is experienced as the veils part is of singular importance. Even St. Thomas Aquinas acknowledged as much saying: "I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all I have written seems as straw, and I now await the end of my life."

Or to put it another way; to be drawn to God is to be drawn past any form that could inhibit the return from exile that is individual life. (Not that I am complaining: I love life, and I love what wells up and expresses through life.) The return of the prodigal, is passing back from this life to the eternal, the other side of the event horizon that surrounds the Divine singularity. If you read (or re-read The Cloud of Unknowing), it is pretty unmistakable, (to me at least.)

The problem that I see with this is that without the 'hard' beliefs (i.e., dogma) one has no safeguard or standard by which to judge the DRE other than emotion and/or intuition. The writings of the mystics (see especially the Desert Fathers on this) are replete with examples of people being deceived by false DREs. Of course, you can say "I'll take my chances" to avoid submitting to a hard belief of some sort, but I'd see this as dangerous and potentially soul-destroying.

My experience is that inevitably DRE strips me of my presuppositions. It is certainly possible and tempting to create a rational "envelope" around DRE while not in the midst of the experience. It is here that the risks of delusion exist. It is also possible to become a DRE junkie, and that also is a risk. If I become enamoured with ecstatic states for their own sake, this is a problem. (I know that from personal experience.)

The key to avoidance of these traps is a willingness to allow the longing for God to be the astrolabe of the soul, (with acknowledgements to Rumi for that observation.) It is also important to remain active with people and community, to be anchored in the physical world while following the callings of the spirit. I use such rational intelligence as I have to probe the ego for delusionary attachment and I remain engaged in critical thinking. In the world of ideas I must have no sacred cows.

In my view as an Orthodox Christian, the Eastern Church strikes a good balance between these two aspects of belief: one of our fathers has said, "he who is a theologian prays truly, and he who prays truly is a theologian." Another has said, "theology without prayer is the theology of demons." In other words, both the rational and the mystical aspects of faith must be kept in balance.

And both must evolve. No place is a point to stop the journey. If ever a form becomes so attractive or repellent that I stop, it has become an idol. An idol is any form before which homage is placed to the point that the longing for God is either projected upon that form or falls into the psychic noise floor. To use a Sufi analogy, if a lover becomes so transfixed by a veil upon his Beloved that he fails to part that veil he is unfaithful. Veils can take many forms that are either intensely attractive or produce fear to inhibit further progress. It is essential to pass through both, to be neither transfixed by beauty or paralyzed by fear. This seems to be generically true without regard to the specific tradition and community a person is a part of. (Note: Attar's [i]Conference of the Birds[/i] is a brilliant exposition of this, and worthy of a read. His observations are valid without regard to the tradition one is a part of.)

'It is certainly possible and tempting to create a rational "envelope" around DRE while not in the midst of the experience. It is here that the risks of delusion exist.'

In fact, I'd say the exact opposite. With no rational, kataphatic backup, the pure apophatic experience is just that, an experience without content. As such, unless one works on the (to me false) assumption that whatever one is going to meet in a DRE is from God, then there is no way to judge the DRE. Even Satan can appear as an angel of light.

My statement is concerned with the desire to create a rational structure around what is essentially non-rational. One of the things that is a cause of concern to me is that the same state can lead to very different rational structures, and that disagreement about the structure often exists where what was experienced was the same. We can each eat a fine truffle, while the words we use to describe that experience may vary substantially. For something as inconsequential as a truffle, this may not be of great importance, but where it results in religious strife it is of great importance.

This brings up another observation that I am making as I type this: The associations that evolve internally and relate to a memory of an event distort an event via personal historical context. Re-experience of states may help clear away some of the personal baggage, and especially if a very similar or identical state occurs outside of a familiar context. (i.e. If the experience of the Eucharist evokes states of awe and reverence and the same states of awe and reverence are evoked through listening to a Mahler symphony, or seeing a Hubble photo, or gazing into the eyes of a newborn; does this not speak of the underlying common ground that is not limited to one tradition, rite, society, or culture?) It is on the surface that diverse forms manifest which may collide in violent disagreement due to the mistake of vesting the form with a value in itself. This is the danger of idolatry, of making form primary and experience secondary. Where experience is primary, people of many traditions can meet without rancour in a common state.

This is not to say that I oppose the diversity that is evident in the sacred and not so sacred forms that are expressed. On the contrary, the richness that is made manifest eludes to the eternal even while it is unable to contain or fully express that richness.