It is 12:15am and I have only 45 minutes to ramble....
Remorse - 1) compunction: a feeling of deep regret (usually for some misdeed) 2) An emotion experienced by one who feels they have committed an action contrary to their moral code. It is characterized by feelings of regret, self-hatred and a desire to make the wrong thing right.
If I have one weakness-- and in truth I have many --it is science fiction; or more specifically, Science fiction television; or more specifically, Battlestar Galactica. There used to be others, but they all now pale in comparison. For five months I waited for season three, and in the midst of that wait I read an interview with one of the actors, James Callas, who described the third season as "Remorseless", the antithesis of Remorse.
Remorse is a word with, at the very least, a passing acquaintance with God. And it would seem that with all the ills in the world today, surely God mst feel some measure of remorse for allowing events to get to where they are today. God did after all repent that he had made man at all, and washed the world clean for forty days. But the simple truth is; things are as they are not because God allowed them to get where they are, but rather, this was the inevitable result of man's rebellion against God. And sometimes the best lessons are those learned with the innocent hand touching the hot eye on the stove. Does God feel remorse? Only, I think, in the sense that He knows the lesson needed to be learned, and wished there had been another way.
But what about those who believe in no god? Let alone the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The only possiblitity then, since remorse is an emotion and the sole pervue of sentient beings, is a remorseless universe that cares nothing for the world and the shape it has gotten itself into. It is through the prism of the godless that such people look at the world with all its war, poverty, hunger, and avariciousness with no hope for anything better-- The universe is what it is, and no amount of prayer can change it!
The universe doesn't care that 45+ million children have been ripped from the womb... murdered. The universe doesn't care that men commit murder, steal, lie, cheat, and wage war, because through the prism of the godless no rhyme or reason for the ills of the world is possible-- all things occur by chance, and the inexplicable laws of randomness sows only chaos. The world is what it is without apology from the Universe that spun it out of the cradle. We are, therefore, what we are by mere happenstance, and doomed as a result.
Remorselessness... who would want to live in a world where such an attribute ruled the day? Personally, I thank God that the world is not so cursed. That there is rhyme and reaon for all that transpires before my tired and jaded eyes. I thank God that there is purpose to every pain, and every joy... That random chance is a lie.
...and my time is up.