Thread: The Everloving God

Originally posted by Carolyn@Oct 22 2004, 02:01 PM
Do you honestly believe that you can hear everything God's telling you in this crazy world around us and in our own heads without getting really confused and possibly misconstruing what he says or where the messages in your head are coming from? I personally have a hard time figuring out who I borrowed a book from, much less trying to figure out the hard moral decisions without any guidance. God speaks to you in different ways. As a Christian, I believe the Bible is the word of God. I wouldn't ignore it when trying to figure out what he wants to do any more than I woud ignore a message left on an answering machine.

We are the most important part of God's creation. We're what he cares about most. However, just like when a parent gives their kids a car, he wants them to take care of what he gives them. He understands when they run down a set of tires because it was neccessary but he doesn't want them to burn rubber.
<div align="right"><{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[/quote]
Yeah, but God gave me a car without even asking if I wanted it in the first place.

Originally posted by Digity+Oct 22 2004, 06:09 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Digity @ Oct 22 2004, 06:09 PM)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-Carolyn

@Oct 22 2004, 02:01 PM
Do you honestly believe that you can hear everything God&#39;s telling you in this crazy world around us and in our own heads without getting really confused and possibly misconstruing what he says or where the messages in your head are coming from? I personally have a hard time figuring out who I borrowed a book from, much less trying to figure out the hard moral decisions without any guidance. God speaks to you in different ways. As a Christian, I believe the Bible is the word of God. I wouldn&#39;t ignore it when trying to figure out what he wants to do any more than I woud ignore a message left on an answering machine.

We are the most important part of God&#39;s creation. We&#39;re what he cares about most. However, just like when a parent gives their kids a car, he wants them to take care of what he gives them. He understands when they run down a set of tires because it was neccessary but he doesn&#39;t want them to burn rubber.
<div align="right"><{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, but God gave me a car without even asking if I wanted it in the first place.
<div align="right"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
[/b][/quote]

You&#39;re right you weren&#39;t consulted. Of course, if you were never created you couldn&#39;t be consulted anyway. Whether you want to be here or not isn&#39;t up to you. And would you really tell someone "no" who was offering you a car. It may not be what it was like when it was first made but it stills runs.

Why exist when you don&#39;t have to? Existence is painful and confusing.

Yeah, it&#39;s kinda like this....next time Christmas comes along...hide the presents. Don&#39;t give anything to your kids. Now, if they get pissed off you should fuck them up. However, if they still love you then surprise them with double the gifts. That&#39;s all God is doing...some might saying he&#39;s playing games with humans...but he&#39;s not, it&#39;s just the way he shows them that he loves them.

Originally posted by Digity@Oct 23 2004, 09:32 AM
Why exist when you don&#39;t have to?* Existence is painful and confusing.
<div align="right"><{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[/quote]

Existence is painful and confusing but it&#39;s more than that. Existence is love, passion, determination, overcoming the odds. How your life turns out depends largely on you and your view of life. If you expect it to be painful, then that is all you see. But if you focus on the good things, they will help you endure the rest.

Frankly, you sound seriously depressed. My advice is go somewhere and be completely immature. Go play on a merry-go-round or a swingset. Doing the things I did when I was little always helps me.

Think about some of the best times in your life. Did you ever pull any major pranks with your friends? Did youever pull anything on your friends? Do you honestly think that it would have been better to never be born, or were those things good enough to sustain you through the harsh times?

Originally posted by Digity@Oct 23 2004, 12:25 PM
Yeah, it&#39;s kinda like this....next time Christmas comes along...hide the presents.* Don&#39;t give anything to your kids.* Now, if they get pissed off you should fuck them up.* However, if they still love you then surprise them with double the gifts.* That&#39;s all God is doing...some might saying he&#39;s playing games with humans...but he&#39;s not, it&#39;s just the way he shows them that he loves them.
<div align="right"><{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[/quote]

I don&#39;t think God tested Job to see if he had faith in him. He&#39;s all-knowing. My belief is that he tested him to give other generations hope and to show them how to react during the bad times. He knew how Job would react. Possibly he did it for the people who lived around him. I don&#39;t know why God allowed it to happen,but I do know that he uses it for good.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

Existence is painful and confusing but it&#39;s more than that. Existence is love, passion, determination, overcoming the odds. How your life turns out depends largely on you and your view of life. If you expect it to be painful, then that is all you see. But if you focus on the good things, they will help you endure the rest.

Frankly, you sound seriously depressed. My advice is go somewhere and be completely immature. Go play on a merry-go-round or a swingset. Doing the things I did when I was little always helps me.

Think about some of the best times in your life. Did you ever pull any major pranks with your friends? Did youever pull anything on your friends? Do you honestly think that it would have been better to never be born, or were those things good enough to sustain you through the harsh times?[/b]

I meant in general life is painful. Personally, I think I&#39;m pretty fucking lucky, because I was brought up with loving parents and got a chance to go to university and pursue what I wanted. I&#39;ve actually had it pretty good when you look at it globally. However, there&#39;s a larger majority of people that are worse off than me and for them, like those in third world countries, life is extremely tough and they&#39;d probably be better off in they didn&#39;t exist in the first place. I have the opportunity to enjoy life more than those people...but even I experience my fair share of sorrow. It&#39;s just part of life...and not recognizing it isn&#39;t right.

Pain and joy, they don&#39;t matter in the long run. Our goal is not to have, necessarily, a mentally, physically or materially pleasing life while we live on earth. Though I would claim that a good relationship with God, a good attitude, faith and hope will make one mentally content if not happy.

But the whole point is our life on earth is relatively nothing to that which we might enjoy in heaven with Christ. If we need toil, be surpressed, endure sufferings before we get there I can assure you it will be worth it.

Yes, people are born into lives where it seems nothing is worth looking forward to, where they are even ignorant of any hope-filled faith like Chrisitianity. But God will surely judge them accordingly, and I believe it&#39;s possible they will all be saved.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

Pain and joy, they don&#39;t matter in the long run. Our goal is not to have, necessarily, a mentally, physically or materially pleasing life while we live on earth. Though I would claim that a good relationship with God, a good attitude, faith and hope will make one mentally content if not happy.[/b]

Maybe so, but no one lives like that. Everyone, it seems, even Christians, want to live the best life possible. That same desire to live a good life in heaven is the same desire that drives us to have a good life in the here or now. Personally, I don&#39;t think there&#39;s anything wrong with that. People need to eat and have shelter. It&#39;s when these desires get clouded by greed that we start to lose balance and do immoral things. If a child comes home to abusive parents or is raped...will a loving relationships with God be enough for that child? Don&#39;t underestimate the value of personal relationships.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

But the whole point is our life on earth is relatively nothing to that which we might enjoy in heaven with Christ. If we need toil, be surpressed, endure sufferings before we get there I can assure you it will be worth it.[/b]

Well, it sounds like you&#39;re trivializing events like the holocaust or 9/11. Are you saying, ultimately, they mean nothing.

Life ain&#39;t always sweet...



I wouldn&#39;t have the heart to tell this person that their suffering really means nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Originally posted by Digity@Oct 25 2004, 07:22 PM
Well, it sounds like you&#39;re trivializing events like the holocaust or 9/11.* Are you saying, ultimately, they mean nothing.
<div align="right"><{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[/quote]

My Opinion:

In a grand scheme of things, and to put it bluntly, they really did nothing for us.. In America, it made us more aware of terrorists, but when did we not notice that "towel head" sitting in the aisle behind you on a 747.. They were always there, and even prior to 9/11 we knew they were always there, so wheres the suprise!?

Sure, for 9/11 we&#39;ve tripled the security at every single airport in the country, while our young men are fighting in Iraq, dying daily.. With the death numbers above 1,000 lives, arent we not climbing to the 9/11 death toll? What significant change HAS happened since 9/11? ..Supposedly were alot more "patriotic"..

The Holocaust was a tradegy to put it lightly, it was a hatred toward certain people that were inferior to their "superiors".. Since the 1200&#39;s the jews were made to wear yellow badges to set them apart from the rest of the English population, another profound way to segregate them from the society, and eventually expulsion from the country as a whole.. But let&#39;s put broad history aside for a moment and focus on the Holocaust. Millions of people were slaughtered on the streets of Poland and Germany as the world sat and watched for a few years.. It was a mistake that we all made, and from this mistake we should have learned..

Instead of learning from our mistakes, we as the world allowed another Genocide to happen in Riwanda, 1 Million people in 100 days. An incredible feat.. Or even take Bosnia for example, ethnic cleansing done by the Serbs, for 3 years nobody gave a rats ass, for 3 years women were raped by dogs, literally.. Apparently NATO didnt know there were people dying, while their own Swedish soldiers were picked off by Snipers..

As you can see, we havent learned much from either of those.. As each generation subsides and another is born, we dont care to point out the obvious. We were made to end our own existance.

9/11 did a lot. It basically changed the face of America. Most likely for the worse. But still, I&#39;m not even talking about that in particular. I&#39;m asking Presence if the lives of all those people meant nothing. You&#39;re talking about the aftermath of the Holocaust or 9/11...that&#39;s not what I was refering to.

Presence, I do see where you are coming from to a degree. I don&#39;t think pain and sorrow is a big deal to those who see it for what it is...something temporary, transitory and so forth. It really has no substance unto itself, but that doesn&#39;t mean it isn&#39;t a great force. It can push us to do some wonderful or aweful things in our lifetime. Even with knowledge I feel like a slave to my desires and I push to have a good life in the here and now. At times I feel like I&#39;m going about things in my life the wrong way...anyway, that&#39;s something for me to figure out.

Originally posted by Digity@Oct 25 2004, 08:22 PM
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE

Pain and joy, they don&#39;t matter in the long run. Our goal is not to have, necessarily, a mentally, physically or materially pleasing life while we live on earth. Though I would claim that a good relationship with God, a good attitude, faith and hope will make one mentally content if not happy.

Maybe so, but no one lives like that. Everyone, it seems, even Christians, want to live the best life possible. That same desire to live a good life in heaven is the same desire that drives us to have a good life in the here or now. Personally, I don&#39;t think there&#39;s anything wrong with that. People need to eat and have shelter. It&#39;s when these desires get clouded by greed that we start to lose balance and do immoral things. If a child comes home to abusive parents or is raped...will a loving relationships with God be enough for that child? Don&#39;t underestimate the value of personal relationships.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

But the whole point is our life on earth is relatively nothing to that which we might enjoy in heaven with Christ. If we need toil, be surpressed, endure sufferings before we get there I can assure you it will be worth it.[/b]

Well, it sounds like you&#39;re trivializing events like the holocaust or 9/11. Are you saying, ultimately, they mean nothing.
<div align="right"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
[/b][/quote]

My friend&#39;s parents were missionaries in Alaska. She was raped when she was a young girl by a guy who didn&#39;t like her parents. She&#39;s had the most terrible time getting past it but she&#39;s one of the most devoted Christians I know. She&#39;s okay now and I think her realtionship with God helped her get past it. I&#39;m not saying that she used God as a crutch, I&#39;m saying that she was able to move past that. Relationships with others are important, that&#39;s why we&#39;re called to fellowship, but nothing compares to God.