condensed version... But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. – Galatians 5:22-23, KJV
Opinion. Yet you spend so much time pointing out it's "imperfections". Oh excellent. Is that a display of love? Kindness? Patience? Self-control? Perhaps you didn't quite get all of the *cough* "Fruits of the Holy Spirit". They think it's replicable? Verifiable? More than anecdotal? Not subjective? You do know that "eye-witnesses" are just about the least reliable form of evidence there is, don't you?
opinion. i'd love to eliminate suffering. do you have a problem with that? it was just an honest observation dy. i still love you though. i can be an ass too. why bother observing anything then?
Quite. But "suffering" isn't the only "fault" you post about. You mean "opinion". I neither require nor desire your love. No shit Sherlock? You really don't quite grasp science do you?
suffering isn't a fault; it's a result. well you've got it anyway. sure i do. but science didn't heal me; and god did.
You did notice the quote marks, didn't you? And you're the one that mentioned suffering. I'll put it in the bin. Apparently not. Otherwise you wouldn't have asked that question. Or delusion.
ok then. you continue to deny those things that cause suffering, like rejecting love. i will continue to identify what causes suffering and continue loving, and we can see who gets the best results. sound fair?
Supposition. How does rejecting love (presumably, in this case, yours) cause suffering? Have you identified what causes suffering? You think you have. This is, I suggest, part of your anger at the world.
wow. are you seriously this oblivious? yeah, sin. i'm not angry with the world. how can you be angry with the whole world anyway? i've been angry with god. i've been angry with specific people. but not so much any more. we worked through it, and so now i'm empowered and determined.
Can you actually answer the question? Fail. Refer to my earlier post: And angry at the world for questioning/ doubting their delusion...
sure i can, can you? you can live through it and find the results on your own. it's a shame you don't trust your own experience and perspective, but that's your deal. if you want, you could delve into some behavioral science, which is probably the most underrated of the sciences. lord knows no one wants to look too objectively at their own behavior, causes and effects of it. we're too busy making bombs and pills and trinkets. opinion duly noted. i'm not angry with the world. i don't mind questioning, and i don't care about the doubt. the only thing i care about is results. you do realize there's a difference between a scientific study and a life, don't you?
Yet you still haven't. Since I asked you then (in this case at least) I'd say it was safe to assume I can't. And now you're making things up. Er, like the degree course I went on ten years ago maybe? Unfortunately (for you) that wasn't an opinion. Then why persist in finding fault with it? Irrelevant question.
i don't think it's irrelevant; i think that's your problem. so how about we put your money where your mouth is, and my money where my mouth is, and see who will end up taking it to the proverbial bank? it's the only bank that's not going to fail.
This is one of those absolute statements that is invalid precisely because it is absolute. How do you distinguish between a person who would like a bigger house so his children can each have their own bedroom, and the one who wants it so he can have his own exercise equipment and not have to drive to the gym, and the one who wants it so he can have the model railroad he's been dreaming of since he was seven, and the one who wants it so he can throw big parties and invite all the "big shots" in town which will result in his business booming, and the one who wants it just because his parents were poor and he doesn't want to live like they did even though he doesn't have anything to fill it with? It's perfectly reasonable for a person to envy someone whose children are cleaner and better-behaved, it might motivate him to spend more time with his own; to envy someone who has a safer, more reliable car, goes on nicer vacations, or throws huge parties in his huge house, it might motivate him to get more education or work harder or become more reliable so he can have or do those things. These results of "envy" work to the betterment of civilization. I don't argue that there is not some point at which greed or envy becomes a negative emotion. But that doesn't mean that there is not also a point where it is beneficial and therefore a positive emotion. We're all in this together, and people who don't work very hard (or not at all, and live off public assistance), because they're willing to settle for less, affect the lives of all of us. Balance, dear girl, some balance please. One can be grateful for what one has, and still desire to work harder (or better yet, smarter) to enrich civilization and in the process to acquire more for oneself. The two emotions are not at all mutually exclusive. And other people have different experiences. In fact as a person of faith I hope you're not dismissing the results some of those people have gotten by calling out to one of those other deities or other supernatural thingies. Many of them believe that all gods are one and that the god you're talking to is the same as the god or other spirit they're talking to, and that he appeared to your people in a different form merely because it was a more effective way to communicate with you. I was in that situation, at least metaphorically. I was raised in a household with no religion and didn't even know what the word meant until I was in the second grade. I have grown up to be as content, productive, and supportive of other people as anyone else. Perhaps more so, since our Christian friends call us the perfect examples of why they can't accept the doctrine that people who are not Christians will not go to Heaven. I'm happy for you, for arriving at a space that makes you feel serene, fulfilled and proud of what you've done. But you need to understand that there's more than one way to get there, and they don't all require belief in fairytales.
envy is negative when one can't attain something because of a lack of ability and will not accept their fate. as far as bettering one's life, that would depend on how the economic system works. not everyone can be the one with the big house or throw lavish parties but then not everyone wants that to be happy. there are jobs that must be done that will not pay as much as another. that is the reality that we live with. what's important is that they pay enough to provide so that they can take care of themselves and their family. i'm sure that you have garbage collectors come around once a week to your residence. do you really think that everyone is supposed to leave their work to someone else so that some imaginary other would like to do that while another pursues greater things? maybe they don't need to or want to as they are content with what they are doing or their abilities only afford that type of position. this has been your shpiel all along that everyone should just strive to lift themselves away from blue-collar, uneducated or lower-paying work when it's very unrealistic. it' hard to believe that someone educated and experienced can only see one half of the equation of life. you are completely unrealistic when it comes to economic systems. people also are all not on public assistance for no reason whatsoever. when it becomes endemic or a problem is when society encourages it by giving money to those who would profit by having more children, for example. this is why it has to be regulated but so does any system.
I'm not talking about any specific level of yearning. My point is that if people want more than they have, or wish they could have what someone else has, it's not evil for them to attempt to do what it takes to reach a point where they could have it. Lori seemed to be saying that you should be content with whatever you've got, because it would be sinful to wish you had more. We have twice-weekly trash pickup in the Washington and its suburbs, perhaps because politics is so dirty. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! A trash collector in another state who wishes he could bring home more pay could just move here and put in more hours. He doesn't have to get an MBA. In the long run it's very realistic. It's always the most menial jobs, the work that requires the most physical effort, that becomes unavailable due to new technology. First it was hunting and gathering, obviated by the twin technologies of farming and animal husbandry. Then it was a whole range of backbreaking labor, when our ancestors figured out that domesticated animals cannot only be eaten, but trained to use their massive muscles to carry heavy loads, plow fields, and power mills. The Industrial Revolution replaced both human and animal musclepower by unlocking the chemical energy in fossil fuels. The Information Revolution is adding electronic brains to the mechanical muscles, so that assembly lines and many of the remaining "blue collar" jobs are being automated. Sure we still need trash collectors--this year. How long will it be before your grandchildren put their seventeen kinds of recyclables (Japan already has 23) into individual modular bins that interface automatically with a fully automated collection vehicle? With every new era, life requires more mental work and less physical work. Although today I could say, "with every new generation." Janitors use power tools instead of brooms and mops. Auto mechanics read your engine diagnostics on a computer screen. Even the people who sell you Big Macs have to know how to operate a POS workstation. The guys who deliver newspapers are being put out of work by people like me with Kindles--more work for the software developers. I studied economics while getting my business degree, and I continue to do so. Every Paradigm Shift completely upends the old economic system in ways that the people of the past could not imagine. In the Paleolithic Era, who could have foreseen the surplus food, economies of scale and division of labor of the Neolithic Era? Who in that era could have understood the Bronze Age technologies of money and recordkeeping mandated by surplus wealth and by time-displaced transactions among multiple strangers? Who in the Iron Age could have imagined an era in which 99% of the human race are not doomed to backbreaking careers in the food production and distribution industry, in which most people (in the growing number of industrial nations) have discretionary income, leisure time, the ability to travel more than ten miles from their place of birth, professionally composed and performed music 24/7, and jobs doing things that sometimes even we don't understand? So if you think you can imagine what the economy of the Post-Industrial Era will look like, especially since (starting in the 22nd century) for the first time in tens of thousands of years the human population will be decreasing and "growth" will no longer be a driving force, I'd love to hear about it. Mrs. Fraggle was a social worker for most of her career and for a while I worked on the other end with the social services department's information systems. You don't need to tell me about the complexities of welfare. The system creates its own clients. If a woman has a man living with her it's much harder to collect, and this is a factor in the proliferation of children being raised without father-figures. This gets back to my other rant, about governments growing so big and slow that they can't do anything right, because they're always solving the last generation's problems.
yeah, i see your point about technology but in the meantime, the trash still needs to be picked up and your maid still needs to clean your house. they aren't in a position to be creating new technology since they don't have the education or ability for that. maybe some minor modifications such as new idea like the squeegee or something. the higher technology would be developed by those who are not in those positions. things are built from the bottom up, not the top down. a parent who works a menial job, perhaps has to work several jobs to make ends meet (though this is unfair), scrimps and saves to put their children through college and give them a better chance at life is no less of a person than their children who may rise above them. this is because if it wasn't for that, they wouldn't be in that position. we all started that way or had ancestors in that type of position. also, if it wasn't for all the different people doing what they do, you wouldn't have the clothes on your back, the shoes that you wear, the food that you eat, the shiny buffed floor in the halls of your work etc. perhaps one day, more people will have a chance at a better life through technology and also by more fair income to take care of themselves and their families.
i get frustrated talking to you too sometimes you know, if it's any consolation. as i said, i think that sin causes suffering, and i also think that love annihilates sin. i think people inherently need to receive it and give it to be fulfilled, and if they don't they're broken. i think sin destroys and love heals and restores. we're conditioned by both. the effect is passed down from generation to generation, and shared, and accumulated, and it becomes who we are, individually and as a society. i think that if people truly loved themselves, and others as themselves, we would live in heaven.
All you had to do is answer my questions. Since you have contended previously that this "sin" is "genetic" how does love "annihilate" it? This is without (you'll note) even disputing the veracity of your thinking. More suppositions then.
