Some one broke in my house yesterday

by rhett 25 Replies latest jw friends

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  COMF

  free home bible study

  Define "free".

  COMF
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  Billygoat

  Six,

  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate your passion! I think few exJW's are NOT passionate. It's what's so appealing to me about y'all on this board. You know how to live Life to the fullest because we finally understand what passion is. To many years without it make you forget what it feels like. When you finally find it again, you're like "whoa"!

  You are right...rape and skinned knees are in totally separate categories. But Mozzer's point is a good point. If we had only beauty in this world we would take it for granted. It's the ugly in this world that makes us appreciate the beauty. My experience at 14 makes me appreciate everything about my life that I can. I see beauty more clearly, more vibrantly. Without the experience I would probably take a lot of things for granted. Having been a rape victim, I didn't think his comment was flippant, but I can see how you saw it that way.

  What should we believe? What should we believe? That to appreciate my daughter's relatively innocent carefree existence, it's a good thing that kids/people are suffering elsewhere? Can't have good w/o bad? I ain't buying it.

  I think we are all entitled to believe what we believe...even if it's different from others. That's fine that people don't agree...life would be boring if we all were vanilla-flavored. I can't speak for Mozzer, but I'm not sure that's his point. I believe that God gave us free will to do as we please, with the hopes that we live our lives according to a certain set of rules for our benefit. Along with the free will comes having to live with evil on the earth. IMO, that's what free will is...choosing between good and evil. We just have to live with both the good and the evil. Does your daughter's carefree life have anything to do with the evil on the other side of the world. Personally, I don't think so.

  I wonder, for you, do you think that using "father" is just not a proper analogy for "God"? At least father in the sense that we think of a father?

  My relationship with God is nothing like my relationship with my earthly father, thank goodness! The relationship is much better. But in answer to your question, I think Father is an appropriate name for me to use in my relationship with God. It's a relationship with love, respect and admiration. We do things for each other and show appreciation for each other. I communicate with Him in prayer and in my actions. He communicates to me in many different ways, through nature, beauty, the kindndess of a friend, the hugs and kisses from Neil. I believe God shows Himself differently depending on the person, He doesn't talk to me like He talks to Shelby. I do feel like my relationship with God is a two way street - it's not me prostrating myself in front of his grand throne saying, "Massa, what I do nest massa?" It's much more like a good, healthy, loving relationship like you probably have with your daughter. A good parent does what they can to train a child to make wise decisions, but allows the child to make mistakes in order to learn. Like Mozzer said in his earlier post...

  Would it be better if God protected us from any and all sorts of pain? I think if he did, we would all be rotten to the core and take everything for granted, kinda like those rich kids we all dislike. Mistakes are one of the greatest teaching tools.

  That definitely is true with me. My struggles have taught me better than my victories for sure! I think God allows me to struggle with Life. I don't expect Him to spoon feed me the answers all the time. I don't expect Him even to listen all the time. I'm a big girl and He knows it. He lets me take care of myself, but He helps on occasion.

  This is kind of how I see things...I am a human with free will. I am able to make my own choices about anything and everything. Every choice, no matter how big or small, will most likely have consequences that I will live with. Some are good consequences, some are bad. Sometimes those choices will affect other people, whether I like it or not. When my choices affect someone else negatively, I don't think God has let that person down by not protecting them. I just think my choice has affected them negatively. If I can right the situation and make amends I will do so. But it's not God's fault. We have free will...that is a blessing no doubt. But we must also pay the consequences for those. I don't necessarily think that we pay for all of those in this realm, although sometimes we do.

  At the end of the day, believers in God, agnostics and atheist can all agree that the even bigger question is not "why?", but "what are we gonna do about it?". That is, provided they don't come to some interpretation of their holy book that basically says "do nothing" or worse, "do evil".

  I'm not sure if I understand this as you mean it, so I have a question. You ask "what are we gonna do about it?" Do about what? That we think differently or have different beliefs? If that's the case, why does something have to be done? Why not just journey on our spiritual journeys and let others do the same. If we cross paths on occasion, then great...if not, perhaps we'll find ourselves in the same place. I don't know. I guess I don't understand why you seem to have a need to do something about the differences between Christians, agnostics, and athiests. If I've misunderstood your point, please help me out.

  Sorry for being such a windbag.

  Andi
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  SixofNine

  No Andi, your WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! Well, about that last paragraph anyway , you misunderstood me. I suppose it is hard to tell when I am "getting personal" and when I am speaking of the earth in general.

  Mostly in discussions like these, I am taking a world view, and only care about beliefs to the point that those beliefs will touch this world for the good or bad. And that's what I was talking about when I say "what are we gonna do about it?". "It" being the evil perpetrated in this world. "Why" "it" exist, is not nearly so important as what to do about it.

  I'll have to take some time to respond to the rest of your post, perhaps offline, so the forum can't hear you squeal like a leetle giiirl when I spank you.
  

  Sorry for being such a windbag

  Don't apologize, you have nice lungs!
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  Billygoat

  I'll have to take some time to respond to the rest of your post, perhaps offline, so the forum can't hear you squeal like a leetle giiirl when I spank you.

  Haha! You know, a public Christmas spanking might be just what this board needs to liven things up a bit! Where's Tracy's paddle when you need it?!

  You're right...I totally misunderstood your last paragraph. Evil is not what I was thinking of at all. But you bring up a good point and I agree with you. "Why" isn't as nearly as significant as "what do we do about it." I wish I had easy answers. Public Christmas spankings? Hmmm. we might be onto something here Six!

  Have a good one dear! And Mozzer, don't let Six scare ya off. He's not really foaming at the mouth. Well...depends on the...nevermind.

  Andi

  Don't apologize, you have nice lungs!

  Neil's gonna love this when he lurks tomorrow! ((()))
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  rhett

  Richard - Looks like I'm not the only one that has a great story to illustrate the cruelness of the christian god.

  Julien - Anything else I forgot? Please do feel free to add more as you're right on track. You're great! (I'm being totally honest and not at all sarcastic here even though it may sound like it. I truly did like your post and whole heartedly welcome anything else that you would like to add.)

  To everyone who said we need suffering to know how great we've got it - What a load of crap. I don't need to be gang raped analy by a bunch of hairy midgets to know how great making love to my wife is. I suffered for years a JW and while true, I do have some insights and strengths that I wouldn't have been able to get otherwise, I'd gladly give it all up to just have a normal, not so remarkable, life. You know what, I may not realize how truly wonderful some things are without pain but you know what else, I wouldn't know pain either. Think about it, when you finally make it up to heaven and everything is perfect for millions and millions of years you won't have any pain or anything up there either. Using your own logic won't that get boring and won't you eventually lose your wonder with all things holy up there?

  I don't need to fight
  To prove I'm right
  I don't need to be forgiven.
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  think41self

  ------------->>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>passing the paddle to andi

  BTW Rhett, I thought it was a really good analogy.

  think41self

  Holy Flying Screaming Buddha, Batman!