"Is health care for children a parental responsibility or a moral imperative for society?

My answer: an emphatic 'yes'.

Wherever parents can provide most of the care, they will want to, and should. Most of such care occurs in the home or not at clinics. When it occurs at clinics, those who can afford it, will make use of their own resources.

HOWEVER, that version of the question all but implies that responsible parents are in position to provide the care. The horrendous statistics which reveal how many children are not under parental care, or find their parental homes to dysfunctional, so broken, so broke, that they are beyond the range of even reasonable and sometimes of emergency care.

Parents are part of "society." "Society" can be an abstraction, but we remember that it is in the end, people, and people can be agents and use all kinds of agencies. There are voluntary institutions which perform many services. But in the end, societies have to reckon with the role of government. Talking about that leaves the faint-hearted faint. There are all kinds of excuses given by people who do not care if children suffer and die needlessly, and their not caring is based either in political ideologies or resentment or greed.

A generous society, especially one that claims to be influenced by biblical thought, will find ways to provide where other institutions and agencies do not and cannot. All the scriptures that I know commend the weakest, the most vulnerable, the littlest, to the care of the strong, well-established and larger people and institutions.

Other, poorer, nations provide care more readily than we. Rethinking the role of government is a top pirority item. If we can spend $2 billion, which is two-housand million dollars on one of our wars, we can peacefulliy find ways to do some reapportioing of assets and perhasp assauge te consciences of many (religious) citizens, and inspire others to find ways to meet needs.

Can the use of torture ever by justified?

Yes, by anti-human beasts.

No, by those with humane, humanitarian, humanist impules.

Never, by Jew and Christians and other religious people who believe that the "human is made in the image of God."

You don't torture someone "made in the image of God," no matter how despicable he or she has become.

You must forgive if:
- your enemy pleads for forgiveness
- gives any signs of sincerity
- especially if she or her shows resolve to make amends or to change

You cannot FORCE forgiveness on anyone, and it is meaningless if it is only "pro forma" and generic. The forgiver-to-be must look at the other as someone who has been made in the image of God, though there are no signs of that in him or her when committing atrocity.

It is hard to measure degrees of atrociousness: all war wounds on the innocents are atrocities, so we have committed many when we bomb cities, yet we do not repent and ask for forgiveness. Yet a nation can shows signs of regard for others made in the image of
God and can seek to restore the enemy to a positive place in world society.

For the Christian, this question is most intense, since in the gospels and the New Testament letters, disciples and others are constantly asked to forgive - and not to claim innocence.

Whether holidays are happy or not depends largely on personal and private moods and situations.

Observations of culture-wide tensions and unhappinesses usually fall into two zones:

1) Most holidays have some sort of religious cast--even "civil" holidays tend to. Those rooted in particular religious traditions are most likely to induce tension.

This is the case in "mixed marriages" or in citizen arguments about public displays.

Mixed marriages: people bring highest expectations to holidays, and so they make greatest demands on each other. It may well be that holidays are the WORST time to try to solve anything. Relax. Enjoy "both" (or more) traditions and sets of customs. They are NOT the same; they have different stories and promises. But these stories do not conflict at all points. They are often parallel and overlapping. I'd advise halves of split families not to try to score points or settle anything. Sit back. Listen to the other side; Learn from each other.

Citizen disputes: as churches and synagogues and families neglect the gatherings where holidays are celebrated, they want the public order to take over. That's the worst place. For example, you can mount a creche on a hundred thousand private lawns and almsot everyone will cheer. Insist that your symbols have monopoly or privilege on the court house lawn or in school and you are demeaning your own faith and trampling on the ways of others. Why make the public order have to compensate for our failure to "do" holidays in their natural habitats.

2) Other unhappinesses? We don't notice them so much as we scurry to and from work and meet deadlines; When we relax, let things go, "idle," we expect too much and bring up all the unhealed things that we don't attend to on non-holidays. We defeat the purpose of holidays in such cases. Again, advice; relax. Enjoy. Reach out to people to whom you can bring happiness.