Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya.

Here an attempt is made to explain suffering: the outcaste of traditional Hinduism is held to deserve his fetched fate; it is a punishment for the wrongs he did in a previous life.

Man stands alone in the universe, responsible for his condition, likely to remain in a lowly state, but free to reach above the stars.

Faith means intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person.

Those who believe in God because their experience of life and the facts of nature prove his existence must have led sheltered lives and closed their hearts to the voice of their brothers' blood.

For atheism and polytheism there is no special problem of suffering, nor need there be for every kind of monotheism.

Life ceases to be so oppressive: we are free to give our own lives meaning and purpose, free to redeem our suffering by making something of it.