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I hate it when I can’t sleep–especially when I have an appointment the next morning. Then I’ll fall into deep sleep about 5 minutes before the alarm goes off. I also hate it because then I start thinking about stuff—strange stuff–about the existence of God and misery and such. I got to wondering…from what I can see of my own world and what is brought to me by various medias–I can see suffering and misery and cruelty of man towards man and beast. Quite frankly, from what I see it just makes me sick to my stomach! :puke:
Now most of us believe in a God–whatever you want to call him/her—and this supernatural/spiritual being sees all the misery and suffering and cruelty going on all over the world all the time! Now if this being is supposed to have an infinite amount more of compassion, love, justice, mercy than we have, I have to wonder and ask this being this question: HOW CAN YOU STAND IT! HOW CAN YOU LET IT ALL HAPPEN! Ever wonder about that? :shrug:
Humanity’s gift of free will to choose between a life with God and a life without. The cruelty and suffering are a consequence of the choice of a life without. And sometimes, God allows these things to happen to bring us closer to Him.
He never promised a perfect life until after His return. S’matter of fact, after the orginial sin and the kicking out of people from Eden, he said it would be this way.
The only question I posed to my mother who is a total believer in the Holy Spirit, is where are the Dinosaurs in your wonderful book? Read Genesis…You see one Dino in there? Nope. It’s god created Earth, the Heavens, water, man, and fur bearing animals. She had no answer to that.
I believe in a higher power, weather you want to call it God is your choice. But, I really cannot accept the bible as GODS one true word. HE certainly didn’t write it. I believe that the 10 commandments are to be followed as well as you can through life. But the bible is just another book as far as I am concerned. Sorry for my point of view and if it offends anyone here I am friends with, but that is MY point of view of the whole thing (And it doesn’t change the fact that I still pray to a higher power or ask for things for others from that power). 😕 I also want to point out I am baptized Methodist, and have nothing against Catholoism it is everyone’s choice to worship whomever they choose. Whatever their religion is, I don’t hold it against anyone, so I would hope that no one holds my views on religion against me. There are just so many religions, and followings now…Think of it this way, the Native American culture was almost completely wiped out over the fact they were savage heathens (SO unfair), simply because our ancestors moved over here and the Indians did not believe in their god, but in their MANY gods, and those were HIGHER POWERS to them.
Ok, this I did not want to sound as a rant, but I guess it did. 😈
This is just one of those types of topics that makes my hair stand on end. Which exactly why its called FREE WILL.
Whoaaa!! This is one of those topics that many forums BAN… it’s definitely a hot one. I don’t want to get rid of this because I really like to moderate with a light hand… that is, you guys are really awesome and even when things get ugly you tend to work it out just fine. But religion is a HUGE, FLAMING HOT topic, since we have people from every walk of life and probably many religions, here. Tread with caution and the moment it gets ugly – this is a warning– this thread will go away. Be good to one another, and exercise tolerance. I’m not saying you need to or should accept anything– just.. tolerance, please.
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One of the greatest gifts that God gave to us is, as Rusti put it, is free will. Our family calls it agency. We have the right and the responsibility to choose and make decisions for ourselves. This power to choose is not neccesarily ‘free’ – there are a few rules attached. Think of it as a parent who is trying to raise a child to be a mature, responsible adult. As children, we have rules that our parents set for us; some to keep us out of harms way, some to teach us correct social behavior, some to help us learn to make decisions on our own. Hopefully we grow into caring, responsible people who make wise choices and decisions that help to improve the world we live in.
As for the suffering and cruelty and misery that happen in our world, it is SUPPOSED to make you sick. It’s purpose is to teach us to live in a manner that our Heavenly Father would want. Sometimes WE are the ones that work the miracles for others in this world. It is our hands, our hearts, our selves that God uses as His instruments on earth to help alleviate the suffering and cruelty that occurs when somebody misuses their agency or when a natural disaster strikes. ANY act of kindness or charity helps, no matter how large or small it maybe; from holding a door open for someone, to smiling and saying ‘good morning’ to volunteering time, effort or money to a charitable cause.
Nowhere in any of the scriptures that I’ve read (and believe me I’ve read many differing versions) does it say that life here on earth would be easy. God only said that in the end, it would be worth it. We have a print that hangs by our front door that we see each time we leave the house. It reads as follows: “Enjoy your sojourn on Earth going forth with the power and knowledge that you are a Child of God, born to a heritage of Royalty. Return With Honor”. This is part of what we have been trying to teach our boys; it is not someone else’s job to alleviate the misery and suffering in this world – it is part of YOUR job and responsibility to do so. Do it without having to be asked or told – know you have a spiritual heritage to fulfill just as you have a mortal heritage to fulfill.
One other thing and then I’ll stop (’cause I don’t want to sound preachybut prolly all ready have… and it is this; Just as we have rules to follow or obey (however you see it) so does God. If He took away our ability to choose right from wrong He would cease to be God. I KNOW his heart must break with the things he sees His Children doing, but I have faith and the belief that there is more good in the world than bad and so I keep plugging along doing what I can to make things better.twindragonsmum
tdm
twindragonsmum wrote:This is part of what we have been trying to teach our boys; it is not someone else’s job to alleviate the misery and suffering in this world – it is part of YOUR job and responsibility to do so. Do it without having to be asked or told – know you have a spiritual heritage to fulfill just as you have a mortal heritage to fulfill.
Copied for emphasis. THIS. Don’t just sit moaning about all the horror in the world–go make a difference! God knows I wish I could do something about the awful things in faraway places–sex trafficking, disease, government oppression…but I’ve been blessed with freedom, money, time, health, ability–at least I can make a small difference myself, be it a money donation, blood donation, service project, whatever. At the risk of an awful cliche, a lot of small candles can make a bright light. I’ll try to do what I can with what God has given me. 🙂 (And wait for the day he kicks some major ass down here 👿 )
I was half way raised a Christain myself and all that has been said does make sense. It’s just that you see all this suffering and cruelty and it’s rampant! I am just one little person living in this huge world and I try my best to not add to the misery that is already here, but I’m only one person trying to do what is right. I am pretty much accepting of everyone’s religious views as I am accepting of what color they are, what gender, what sexual orientation–I personally feel that no matter what our beliefs there is a higher power–the eyes of truth are always upon you. But I see innocent people and creatures suffering…I can’t help every human or animal in need so I feel helpless. Then I wonder about a God who can stand to see all this. Personally, I didn’t post all this to start any hot issues–it wasn’t about true religions and beliefs—just a thought that passed through my mind in the wee hours of the morning. It’s like one of those stop and think about the world around you. Yes, we have a free will but how others abuse it causes suffering to those who are innocent. None of us sinned in the Garden of Eden, but we’re all paying and suffering for it. We live in a complex world with all sorts of issues–I am just one person trying to make sense of it all.
I was offering the only explanation I had for you. Honestly I’m pretty sure that our shenanigans as the human race hurt God too, much like a wayward child will hurt a loving parent. I’m with twindragonsmum in agreeing that the best we can do is to fix what we are able to fix and not contribute any more hurt to the world to the best of our ability.
the word ‘god’ makes me uneasy. i don’t believe in anything specific except the idea of ‘karma’ or the ‘golden rule’ or whatever you want to call it is what really makes sense to me. there’s a lot of suffering in the world because that’s what people cause. you get what you put out there. i know its unfair sometimes but what goes around comes around and everything happens for a reason. i’m vegan because i can’t stand the idea of mass amounts of animals suffering for human taste and profit. but that’s my view and my lifestyle. haha… i wasn’t even planning on responding to this thread but… hey. oh well 😳
WindstoneCollector wrote:where are the Dinosaurs in your wonderful book?
exactly!! and without dinosaurs, would there ever have been dragons????? :shrug: 😉
When it comes down to it–it’s hard to give an explanation to this. I did volunteer once in a hospital under Chaplain services and we visited individuals who wanted or requested to be visited. So each day, a different volunteer would visit this patient and you could have upward to 18 patients to visit. It was a mixed bag for me–on one hand, it was a very nice experience, I met all sorts of wonderful people and maybe I’ll take it up again; then there were those times when that question I pondered got asked me. These people would pray for relief of their pain and none came–I remember one woman saying that God and all his saints must have cotton in their ears–send me some comfort and send it to me now! Well it was brought out to me afterwards by the Chaplain on duty that their prayers were answered because I was there. Problem is, I couldn’t make their pain go away–I would have loved to do that, so I would leave that patient feeling that I have failed somehow in not being able to help or to even offer comfort–thanks for visiting, but you couldn’t help me.
We all try but sometimes what we do isn’t good enough–that is frustrating! Of course I had to drop this volunteer service because I was starting to burn out–maybe I tried too hard or not hard enough. But I did try–a small, small step towards trying to make this world a better place. So I feel the frustration of trying to do the right thing yet nothing seems to be accomplished. So when sleep doesn’t come like I would like it to, I ponder these things–maybe I shouldn’t write them down but it was what I was feeling at that time. The frustration of one drop of oil contaminates a glass of clean water but a drop of clean water doesn’t purify a glass of foul water and for me it wasn’t the first frustrating encounter nor will it be the last.
LadyFirebird wrote:The frustration of one drop of oil contaminates a glass of clean water but a drop of clean water doesn’t purify a glass of foul water and for me it wasn’t the first frustrating encounter nor will it be the last.
Oh man, *hugs* Don’t know if it’s any consolation, but there’s a metaphor that works for me… The world, is like a swimming pool and we’re all in it. Some people, out of ignorance (like little kids) or out of malice (like genuine jerks) pee in the pool. But as disgusting as that is, they are vastly outnumbered by those with the sense or decency to ‘hold it’ and so most of the pool is still blue, (or at least aqua colored) All the horrific crimes of this world are still outweighed by the little gestures of good.
Now for religion… (This may annoy some, but I apologize in advance if I genuinely distress anyone) I think there’s a cohesive, creative force in the universe that’s virtually impossible for us to wrap our tiny primate heads around, a force that mystics might occasionally ‘get’ but not be able to place into words, and that some monotheists might greatly anthropomorphize.
Between us and it, I believe there are the ‘little gods’, not omnipotent, omnibenevolent, or omniscient, (though in many cases perhaps one or two of the three) but great beings inclined in our favor nonetheless. (I’m stuffing the deities of all major religions and many obscure ones in this category) Going back to the pool metaphor, they’d be like lifeguards. Looking out for us, occasionally chatting with visitors and being friends with some, able to even dive in in emergencies, or swimming with us off duty, but incapable of taking care of everyone at once, and it’s up to us to read the pool rules and listen for the whistle.
*hugs* Take care, LadyFirebird
Love one another, brothers and sisters. In times of joy, and in times of pain. When we help each other through times of sorrow, this is when our true glory begins to shine through. 🙂
“Ho! Mitakuye Oyasin.” We are all related.
“Ea Nigada Qusdi Idadadvhn.” All my Relations in Creation.
“Wakan Tankan Nici Un.” May the Great Spirit walk with you. <3
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