yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
Do you dismiss the work of relief workers and wealthy donors who may not have experienced commensurate suffering?
Is there a one-to-one relationship of increased compassion from increased suffering? Are those who have endured the greatest suffering the most compassionate in our society?
Of course not, but that isn't the point, the point is that compassion by its very definition can't exist without suffering.
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
Passion = Suffering
Com= With others / together.
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
com pas sion
noun
1. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
PSac - It's getting increasingly difficult to be generous and assume you are genuinely misunderstanding the topic.
All your many words amount to nothing more than, "Suffering can teach us compassion".
So what?
As I have explained to you very clearly at least 3 times this does not even come close to addressing the topic.
It is typical chrristian obfuscation. You answer the question nobody is asking because the actual question is too hard.
Your degree in theology seems to have turned you into a dispenser of facile god-talk.
Actually it DOES address that topic, but in general and specific terms.
You don't agree with it and I respect that, but your agreement or disagreement on whether it address the issue is NOT relevant.
Is there a reason for God to allow suffering? Yes, I should you there is.
You may not agree or think of it a good one or even one that is worthy of a bring called "God", but that is not relevant.
Compassion can NOT be developed without suffering and if suffering is the only way to develop compassion and compassion is a indespensible trait for humans ot have then they must be exposed to suffering.
Again, you may not agree or like that view BUT you can't say it isn't a valid one because it is.
You can't play the "God is love so He can't allow suffering because He is love" card because for that you would have to be able to define, without question, what it means when we say that "God is love" and that is another issue .
Again, I am not personally a fan of this view ( God permits suffering to develop compassion) but I personally can't find a NON-EMOTIONAL argument against it, at least not one that makes it NOT valid at all.
has anyone had this line said to them when there was questioning involved?
did it irritate you because when questioning did happen that line was almost always used as a shut down to keep you from going any further and to make you feel guilty in the process?
because we're just idiotic and feeble minded human beings, so surely we can't possibly begin to question the likes of god.
IF there is a GOD and he is the one that created US and in this creation of HIS, He has allowed/developed in us the ability and desire to QUESTION everything, why not Him?
We may not get the answers we want or need or even feel they should be, BUT we should question since HE made us with the ability to do just that.
Of course when we question we should also be open to the possibility that the answer we get, whether we like it or not, MAY be above our ability to understand at the TIME when we ask it.
We must remember that just because we don't like or agree with the answer, doesn't make it less of an answer or not an answer at all.
ruth 1:16 (nasb) says:.
but ruth said, do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, i will go, and where you lodge, i will lodge.
your people shall be my people, and your god, my god.. .
Its a common misconception that Jesus is urging people to prefer HIM to Family, especially in 1st century Judaisim that was so family oriented.
There have been a few views to address this but, IMO, the issue was simply what does it mean to follow Jesus? what did He stand for? and what would it mean NOT to follow Him?
And of course the context of what is being said, to whom it is being said and why.
Matthew 10 is all about the 12 being "introduced" to service, to go out and proclaim Christ and to whom to proclaim it.
The issue of verses 34-39 is that they do sound very "anti-family" on the surface BUT read the whole context of the chapter in light of who and what Christ is then you see things a bit different.
To go against Christ is to go against the proclamtion of salvation and redemption, to go someone will to dye for Us so that we may be saved NOT based on anything we do TO BE SAVED ( ultior motive) but to be saved by our faith in HIM and what He DID. To go against His love for us, a love that strengthens and empowers Us. Jesus foresaw that He would bring strife, that His message would NOT be accepted by all, that His followers would be persecuted and killed and He states that the rewards for following Him are far greater than simply keeping the peace for the sake of family.
THE problem with the JW's is that they see themselves as the "persecuted" and don't realise that when they shun people that have decided to follow Christ in THEIR way, through a PERSONAL relationship with God and NOT through an organization, that THEY ( The JW's) are the ones that Christ is speaking about when He says :
And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me
from biblegateway:.
jesus forgives a woman taken in adulterythis story, beloved for its revelation of god's mercy toward sinners, is found only in john.
it was almost certainly not part of john's original gospel.
I think the reason it was kept in when it was shown to NOT be in the oldest copies is that it is consistent with the teachings of Christ and inline with the general theology of John's gospel.
There is no "new" or "contrary" theology that is effected by it's inclusion and since there is actually much to learn from that passge, why not keep it in there?
Perhaps the JW scholars viewed it the same ( it was known to be an "add-on" for some time).
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
You assert that the opportunity for a lesson in compassion, made the violent death of a quarter of a million men, women and infants all worth while.
Have I?
I hope not.
I asserted that with suffering comes compassion and that without suffering we don't develop it ( at least not to my understanding, if someone can show that we develop compassion without being exposed to suffering then please do because I don't know that we can) and that compassion is a very important trait, perhaps THE most important in a human.
As a human I have a hard time understanding WHY we need suffering to develop compassion BUT I can't deny that we seem to need it.
Do I think it is worth it?
Now, THAT is a question and a very good one.
I believe God thinks it is worth it, and IF there is a GOD that means He KNOWS it is.
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
Compassion is universally valued, PSac.
Yes, I believe so ( though at varying degrees it seems, not every culture values compassion the SAME way) and it is developed how?
By the existence of suffering, by dealing with suffering.
Compassion doesn't really have anything to do with the golden rule per say, though one can see the GR being motivated by compassion ( but it camn calso be motivated by self-interest).
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
Psac this is important for you to read.
I realise this comment will be buried but I must write it. I find it difficult to not get emotional seeing theists defending god's (lack of) actions regarding the 2004 tsunami. I saw the results first hand in Sri Lanka. I saw the children with stones for eyes. No adult relatives to care for them. I had the snotty nosed kid with cross eyes dragging his useless leg and arm wanting money. He only had grandma left with no income. He was normal before the wave. I saw the train pushed on its side that had hundreds of dead in it, the smashed buildings the obscenely washed open cemetery, the snapped palm trees, the hopelessness. Don't tell me there is lessons for my compassion in this! Bullshit!. My brother was in Phuket when the tsunami hit there. He's a quiet guy just saying it was hard to see and hear kids screaming for their mum and dad at the airport while being evacuated.
Cofty, you seem to be implying that I don't understand suffering and pain, that I don't sympathise with those that have lost people they love, love more dearly than themseves.
Having lost more than one person I truly love, having witnessed my father dying slowly and painfuly from ALS, being the one that found him dead that morning, I KNOW of pain and suffering and tragedy and you know what? So do many, many people.
I have learned that NO ONE speaks for the suffering of others and that NO ONE knows how anybody else "feels like" BUT I also have learned that people deal with pain and suffering in many, many different ways from trying to find blame to simply accepting fate, from extreme rage to serenity and I have learned that compassion unites us all.
Now, you may not think that compassion is good enough of a reason and you may be right, you may think that we don't need it OR that there should be a different way to develop it on humans and you may be right.
What I do KNOW is that this triat of compassion that so many think so little about ( or at least it seems it sometimes) has united and strengthened people over and over and over again, it drive people to fix things, to solve problems to save lives to act in ways that they don't act intheir day-to-day, to care about people they don't know, didn't even know existed.
To me, that means something, it means A LOT, perhaps even everything.
But that is MY view and I accept that it isn't everyone elses.
