Jerry: Why does seeking God -- that which you believe to be ultimate happiness, complete bliss, perfect repose, and unending joy -- have to involve you torturing your human self, depriving your body and your mind, abstaining from all honorable joy and happiness? Can we not find God in our moments of heightened happiness and joy? Can God not reveal himself to us in our proudest moments of achievement, to stand by us in pride and solidarity at the things we have accomplished? Will a mother only stand by her child when the child is suffering and fallen? Will she not also want to be by the side of her child to witness his greatness, his achievement?Does God only come to the self-loathing, self-depracting, suffering leper?

Sophia: Preguntas buenas...First off, I ask you what artist (Michelangelo, Rodin, Van Gogh, etc) has not tortured himself, deprived their body and abstained from all (common consensus as source of) joy and happiness, for the sake of his art, which is inseperable from his life? What immense tortures did Romeo and Juliet put themselves through to get to the person they loved? Second, yes, of course the mother will stand with her child in joy, but how much closer is she to her child, how much faster does she quicken to his side when he is crying, bleeding or suffering. How strong their bond becomes in suffering, and how quickly she will rush to her sad child...