by AGuest 404 Replies latest jw friends
dear ones. He does NOT. Rather, it is our Adversary who says we will do anything... ANYTHING... to AVOID it. A-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. Even curse God to His face. Sadly, he may be right. Hopefully, he is not. But he isn't going to stop trying to prove that accusation... so long as he exists. Look to the life of the man Job.
To the Household of God, Israel, and those who go with...
May you all have peace.
YOUR servant and fellow slave of Christ,
SA
You and I joined the forum within a month of each other and our post counts are similar, but I'm sure glad we have nothing else in common!
Nic'
May you also have peace, Shelby.
Tammy
We can't blame everything on "Satan", do NOTHING while we wait for Jesus to throw him into an abyss and save us, and ever expect to progress to Oneness with God. Our EGOS cause all of our suffering. The EGO is the adversary. In order for anything to evolve, it has to have challenges.
Let's say Pele and Beckham, two great soccer players, have children that are both born with this latent talent to play the game... Pele's kid practices his whole life against an empty net, and Beckham's kid practices against a world-class goalkeeper. Who's going to be the better player?
I think David Wilcock has it right....
http://www.crawford2000.co.uk/wilcock-spiritual-evolution-god-future-change-cos.htm
...the Oneness essentially got bored or lonely. It needed to do something. It needed to create. It wasn't feeling complete just by having this unified consciousness all the time.
So it conceptualized the idea of breaking Itself up into all these parts, knowing that the parts would be able to evolve by their own free will, making their own decisions. Things would happen that the Oneness was not yet able to understand or comprehend. The parts would have essentially their own creative ability. They would be Co-Creators.
The Great Plan was that at the end, after this entire cycle of universal evolution was complete, all of the parts that had evolved on their own would independently recognize their God Consciousness, renounce separation, embrace unity, and return to the totality of Oneness. The One Creator from that very fact would be highly enhanced, because all of this wonderful creative stuff had transpired in that transition from ''One'' to ''many'' and back to ''One.''
So God is evolving, and not some static Being that just sits there and waits for everybody to catch up. God is experiencing our evolution with us.
~PS
AGuest -- It would have been more JUST for God to have created nothing, to have remained alone, rather than have even a single child suffer, IMHO.
Leavingwt, you shouldn't criticize god just because you are too much of a pansy to be immune to horrors being visited upon children. God up and deal with it like a man.
I mean, I read news stories that leave me curled up crying in a fetal position; like what happened to the 18 month old who was grabbed from his mother's arms by her angry, drunken husband and dropped into a large pot of boiling water. The story is even more horrible because the child lived. For two weeks. But you won't see me blaming god, cuz god's the most beautiful thing that's never been seen*.
*though some say he has been heard.
I'm sure glad we have nothing else in common!
I am almost compelled to say that I "second" that emotion, dear Nic (and peace to you!) but I think that fact that we are both homo sapien would qualify as "something" else. That we live on the same planet, breath the same air, are warmed by the same sun... well, I think you get my drift. That we both love [others]... in another "thing." Yeah, I know what you MEANT, but I would say that we have far more in common tna you give either of us credit for.
We can't blame everything on "Satan"...
Ahhhh, dear ProdigalSon (peace to you, as well!)... you miss my point. Satan only ACCUSES us. So, what? It is we who either refute the challenge... or fulfill it. My point... is that the blame lies with US... and with no one else.
do NOTHING while we wait for Jesus to throw him into an abyss and save us,
You never heard that come from me. Indeed, doing nothing is... foolish (and not the kind I usually refer to). IT is what we do... or DON'T do... that answers the accusation...
and ever expect to progress to Oneness with God.
Yet, that progression, if taken on by ALL mankind, would rid us of every "ill," save sickness and death. And even those, in some instances.
Our EGOS cause all of our suffering. The EGO is the adversary. In order for anything to evolve, it has to have challenges.
I do not disagree with you: ego is very often involved as to some. Not all.
Let's say Pele and Beckham, two great soccer players, have children that are both born with this latent talent to play the game... Pele's kid practices his whole life against an empty net, and Beckham's kid practices against a world-class goalkeeper. Who's going to be the better player?
I personally think it would be the one who better loved the game, as regardless of whom/what they practiced against... and for how long. Because if their HEART is really not in the game, it won't matter in the LONG run. The one whose heart is not will (1) not be as good a "sport", (2) possibly sabotage a game because he doesn't really care about winning anyway, (3) find reasons to sit out, (4) ultimately rebel. The latter, possibly to his own life's detriment. Just because Daddy played the game... and wanted him to... and so created the best practice environment for him... doesn't mean HE loves the game and/or wants to play.
You can use this very same analogy with a LOT of JW kids... one whose parents were Special Pioneers and one whose parents were just regular Publishers. While the first may have had his/her entire upbringing FULLY immersed in "missionary work" so that they know EVERY way possible to place a magazine/conduct a Bible Study, that doesn't mean they'll embrace it when they become adult. On other hand, the publisher parents may have hit and missed at meetings, participated in cursory FS, heck, even come to their senses and got out. Doesn't mean the kid won't fully embrace the religion. In both cases, the child ultimately answers FOR HIM/HERSELF... what it is they do/do not "love."
It would have been more JUST for God to have created nothing, to have remained alone, rather than have even a single child suffer, IMHO.
Then why, dear LW (peace to you, too!)... no matter where we hail from... no matter the conditions under which we exists... do we weep and wail when a loved one dies? Why do we shake our fist at "God" when we're told we have Stage 4 incurable/inoperable cancer? Why do we "curse" God when a loved one dies... rather than THANK Him? Is it because, no matter what our situation (and excluding those who cannot bear THEIR pain of it any longer)... we WANT to live? We WANT our loved ones to live?
I ask you: if the Most Holy One of Israel were to appear to you Himself this very day and say, "Choose, dear LW... life... or death. Right here, right now. You can continue living... or be put right out of whatever "misery" you're undergoing. No pain, none at all. It just all stops. YOU stop. Right now. All you have to do is tell me." What would you choose, dear one?
Life... is a gift. That it is fraught with pains... is how we, as ADHAM'S progeny... KNOW WE'RE ALIVE. We are in Adham's image, not God's. There is NO pain for those who exist in God's image... because pain... is a by-product of the flesh. That is why... when the day comes, there will be NO more pain, NO more outcry, NO more mourning. Spirits... don't experience pain.
The GREATEST of love and peace to you, dear, dear tec!
And peace to you all!
A slave of Christ,
SA
Six - you wouldn't see me blaming God for that either. Or even the devil. You would see me blaming the drunken husband, and the society that has turned a blind eye to all the people who get to that state from childhood on - and yes, that includes blaming myself as well.
We have done this to ourselves - and WE are responsible for what we do - regardless of the reasons behind it. Your story makes me sick inside and there are thousands just like it, and yet we all go about our daily lives (most of us) and ignore it in lieu of our promotions, our cars, our needs... If there is a loving God, then imagine His sadness and horror that He has told us and tried to teach us over and over again how to be with one another showing love and mercy and doing good to one another rather than harm... and yet so few people listen to the one he sent.
(But there are some who do listen - even if they've never heard of Christ but listen to Ghandi or Buddha or whomever else preached the same message of love and mercy and forgiveness. Thank God for them.)
Yet He also gives us free will - and I don't think there would be much point to us if we didn't have that. We would just be robots - unless we subject ourselves to his will and whatever he wants to do with us, for then it has been our choice. He is going to make things right, because he promised it. But that doesn't absolve anyone from working to do the right thing. But if we're not going to do as he says, then I don't think we have a leg to stand on in blaming him when horrific things happen.
Place the blame where it rightfully deserves. On us.
Tammy
Why does it matter? God permits "us" to suffer. While having the power to eliminate our suffering, he allows it to continue. What he "wants" does not seem particularly relevant...
Peace to you Shelby and don't let anyone rob you of it.
