a very good friend of mine is in charge of plant maintenance at a local factory.
there are 300 people working in this factory and two of them are muslims.
the muslims have requested that they require special toilets just for themselves.
Gill
5go - they are born and bred BRITISH MUSLIMS and do not originate from another country so have always had british toilets.
It may be that public toilets are considered unclean and thats why they need to squat by standing on the rim. It's next to impossible to maintain a squat position for more than 3 minutes over a normal toilet and not let any part of you touch the toilet seat.
a very good friend of mine is in charge of plant maintenance at a local factory.
there are 300 people working in this factory and two of them are muslims.
the muslims have requested that they require special toilets just for themselves.
From what I know muslims squat to defecate. It may be that they put their feet on the toilet rim and then squat in which case the new toilets would be sunken ones so that they can then squat to defecate.
edited to add: I'm prolly completely off beam here Gill - well it won't be the first time
sad emo
btw don't take my rantings too seriously. My mind is full of a very sad funeral I attended yesterday - a mother died of sickle anaemia complications leaving 2 children one of whom also has sickle anaemia. On top of that some of the family members are JW's.
At the same time I'm working on an essay about the Roman gladitorial games and one of the issues of course is christian martyrdom.
The good news is that the funeral was very well handled by a Catholic priest who had forged a close bond with the mother. She and her daughter got baptized in the Catholic church 2 years ago. 300 people attended the funeral, there was inscense, tears and laughter. Looking back something happened in that funeral that I have never seen before and that I couldn't even begin to describe.
Also I have just (in the last few minutes) found my way into my essay.
That's life
sad emo
What if they were tuned into their inner selves and decided to call the 'effects' they experienced *God*?
makes sense
And here's another one - where did self sacrifice as an aim in its itself come into the picture? I can understand how it began in our evolution of self awareness - perhaps in the family circle both human and non human as we began to observe one another . But how did we become so self sacrificing as to epitomise it in Jesus Christ? Is it a beneficial quality?
At present in the context of my situation I'm not seeing it as being or having been a beneficial quality.
I guess the context would dictate.
R Crusoe
Now quietly leaving, it is an excellent thought so long as it is not utilized by hidden agandas to perpetuate what literature has already done for the illiterate. I like your thoughts! Alas I wonder whether there is not something in the illiterate silence of a tribal community which transcends all knowledge and understanding - where people are tuned into their inner selves and love each other for who they are. I do not know how to combine these two thingies!
Interesting thoughts - but how can we be sure that the ancient tribal communities didn't also behave just as we do today and that we only think that they were tuned into their inner selves and loved each other for who they were.
sad emo
But isn't that what we should really be doing now QL?! Regardless of whether there is a 'higher power' or not?
Yes, I think so.
Your meanderings fit my other question in a way - is it just that we don't realise the power we have because we're still in the process of learning and developing?
Would we have a 'wireless connection' to the central computer which upgrades our knowledge base or would we merely live and experience whilst the computer develops itself?
Your questions above remind me of the verse in Exodus where Jehovah say "I shall prove to be what I shall prove to be". It seems to me that the writer/thinking of the day was/were intuiting the answer to your questions. And perhaps we are/can do the same today.
If it gave nothing back would we ever learn anything? Would that make the computer a parasite which we should strive to get rid of?
For arguments sake - in getting rid of the 'computer' wouldn't we be getting rid of ourselves. Most of us want to live, we strive to live and perhaps our striving is reflected in the 'mind' of the 'computer' which itself strives to 'live'.
Also when I say 'computer' I don't mean a purely mechanical unfeeling one. Maybe I should use the the word love instead.
Here's a another scenario
What if there's some sort of giant 'computer' that contains all of the 'software/wisdom' that one day we will have the brains to access more and more and use more and more. And this computer/software grows and evolves and sifts as all of us creatures experience living and adding to it. If that were so then maybe as time goes by we can take more and more of what's relevant and perhaps even contratulate ourselves more and more. In that case then I guess the emphasis would be on living and experiencing.
Of course whatever is sacred stands above my meagre meanderings, I hasten to add.
can god's love be demanded?
if so where would grace come in to play?.
can your love be demanded?.
here's another by the same artist.
Religious leaders of his day did not like what he was doing as they wanted their altar pieces to reflect not nature but the relgious iconography of the day. So he was a bit of a rebel.
can god's love be demanded?
if so where would grace come in to play?.
can your love be demanded?.
You guys are becoming all contemplative. Seems to reflect how this artist saw things
Caspar David Friedrich stands at the heart of the German romantic landscape tradition. His works derive from minute observation of nature and are often based on drawings made on walking expeditions in the countryside. The transcription of nature, however, was never his sole aim. He looked, he said, "through the inner eye," and what he saw allowed him to invest his works with poetic feeling and transcendent significance. For Friedrich, landscape painting revealed the spirituality inherent in nature and reflected his Christian faith. The figures seen from the back that sometimes inhabit such paintings yearn for a world beyond (see Moonrise over the Sea, 1822).
beautiful isn't it.
can god's love be demanded?
if so where would grace come in to play?.
can your love be demanded?.
sad emo
Do you know the reasoning behind the OT writers describing God as an eagle who protects us? To get its young to leave the nest and learn to fly (alone!), the eagle ruffles up the nest and the young fledgling either falls or gets pushed out in the process. Then the parent hovers nearby whilst the young eagle goes from frantically flapping to riding on the thermals. ONLY if the young eagle gets into serious difficulty will the parent fly beneath it and catch it before it falls to its death.
That is where the complete dependence and reliance comes in - a certainty that God will catch you when you fall.
I reallly like the above illustration because it allows people the freedom to experience 'franticness' and 'aloneness' which imo is so necessary because it's sometimes an inevitable and unpredictable part of life.
