About blaming God.

[Koldo]

I realize this is somewhat of a semantic argument, but the connotation of the word "blame" typically carries the sense of assigning guilt, shame, and condemnation with it. "It was his fault", makes everyone blameless, and condemns the guilty. Self-blame is typically self-condemnation. "It's my fault. I'm a bad person", is that inner judge. It's a voice developed in early childhood, where the child assumes blame for things that happen to them, such as blaming themselves for mom and dad's divorce. Adults carry this with them in their lives in different situations, and it operates at a very subtle, hidden level which eats away at one's self-worth.

Taking self-responsibility is actually productive and is different than self-blame. Taking responsibility for one's actions typically does not bring condemnation along with it. It brings self-acceptance, which tends to be realistic and healing. "I made a mistake and accept responsibility for that error", is a very different mental attitude than, "It's all my fault. I am a bad person. Blame me". In reality, the latter is not truly accepting responsibility. It simply misuses it for self-abusive. It's not about taking responsibility. It's about assigning blame and condemning someone still, in this case their own self.

I use the word blame the same way as you, but not the term 'self-responsibility'. My point is more like: Knowing that we had and have agency is not per se conducive to what you call self-responsibility. If anything, I find it more likely to trigger blaming on oneself.

Not exactly. Rather than seeing a direct cause and effect relationship, it also entails indirect consequences. It's much more compatible with chaos theory in this way. Unintended and unforeseen consequences are encompassed by it. But that is not about the universe conspiring against you, as an active agent with yourself the intended target at its mercy. That's very much tied into the Christian notion of a vengeful deity who will right wrongs by punishing evil-doers.

Rather I would think of it more like natural buoyancy in an ocean. If someone carries the weight of wrongdoing in their lives, that affects their buoyancy and they sink lower in the water towards the sea floor where all the death and decay collects. If they get rid of the weight of wrongdoing, then they naturally rise in the water towards the surface to where the light of the sun penetrates and gives life. It's not a matter of the ocean "paying you back", rather it is purely natural consequences. If you put rocks in your pockets, you will sink. God didn't do that to you.

Western thought conditions us to think of these in dualist terms, rather than seeing that we are part of that ocean and we either work with its natural conditions, or we resist it and fail to thrive within it. When we don't, there are consequences. It's just a recognition of what works, and what does not in order to live our lives free from suffering.


One can argue it is in fact a law of Nature, with a capital N. But that's not something the natural sciences investigates. It's more than just examining physics.

You might be using the word differently but generally 'karma' is not merely tied to one's own consciousness or unintended/unforeseen circumstances.

Let me put it this way...Your view seems to be, and please correct me if I am wrong, like this: a serial killer that carries no remorse, doesn't live afraid of getting caught and that never gets caught wouldn't be carrying any weight on their boat and thus would never experience karma (related to his crimes) except by chance because of the unintended consequences of his actions. And in the other hand, if someone steals a dollar and lives constantly in remorse because of that would be experiencing a huge ammount of karma. Is that correct?

The typical usage is like this: That same serial killer would experience karma by reincarnating a lot of times and being killed again and again. Or suffering from some manner of disease. While the guy that a stole would lose a dollar, or something like that and that's it.

 

[Nimos]

1: Why do you mean its dodging the questions?

Because it seems to follow along the lines of me saying something like....

"Suffering is part of our lives, because we are actually Angels created by God, but when we fail we are reborn as humans and thrown here on Earth to be punished and pay for our crimes."

Which is basically me, not bothering to understand suffering, but merely jumping to a conclusion for which no prior investigation or meaning behind such thing have been done. Said in another way I dodge the hard questions, Im simply satisfied by accepting that suffering works this way, because "Why not?"

2: This realm is created for us to actually feel suffering and be able to repay our karma, but we keep making mistakes here too so we create more karma too.

I understand that this is what your teachings are telling you, but don't you require any form of confirmation? or do you just accept it as being the truth?

Wouldn't it be natural to question the system as it doesn't really seem to work? If we keep making mistakes and have for apparently 200000+ years and still haven't learned anything, maybe the issue is not us, but rather that it simply doesn't work.

3: This world (earth) we live in is not the first universe and earth human beings have inhabited. there have been many earths before this one (in my understanding)

I think what confuses me with people saying things like this, most religious people do it, in my opinion. But even most religious people seem to at least base their beliefs on some form of reality in nature. They might deny a lot of it and jump to conclusions, but even the bible in Genesis, despite being completely wrong, at least make sense in the way that its obvious that the writers tried to explain things based on what they could observe and how they thought it might have occured. Whereas your teachings, and sorry if I completely misunderstand it, seems to just be based on what someone think might be cool, with hardly any relationship to reality..

Try to watch this short video, I think that explains it very well.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Because it seems to follow along the lines of me saying something like....

"Suffering is part of our lives, because we are actually Angels created by God, but when we fail we are reborn as humans and thrown here on Earth to be punished and pay for our crimes."

Which is basically me, not bothering to understand suffering, but merely jumping to a conclusion for which no prior investigation or meaning behind such thing have been done. Said in another way I dodge the hard questions, Im simply satisfied by accepting that suffering works this way, because "Why not?"


I understand that this is what your teachings are telling you, but don't you require any form of confirmation? or do you just accept it as being the truth?

Wouldn't it be natural to question the system as it doesn't really seem to work? If we keep making mistakes and have for apparently 200000+ years and still haven't learned anything, maybe the issue is not us, but rather that it simply doesn't work.


I think what confuses me with people saying things like this, most religious people do it, in my opinion. But even most religious people seem to at least base their beliefs on some form of reality in nature. They might deny a lot of it and jump to conclusions, but even the bible in Genesis, despite being completely wrong, at least make sense in the way that its obvious that the writers tried to explain things based on what they could observe and how they thought it might have occured. Whereas your teachings, and sorry if I completely misunderstand it, seems to just be based on what someone think might be cool, with hardly any relationship to reality..

Try to watch this short video, I think that explains it very well.

The way out of suffering is to start doing the right things and not listen to one own ego that tells what we "want" to do, what we want to do is to have fun, feel pleasure all the time, but the right thing might be that we do have to suffer before it gets better.

And I have suffered a lot in my life, but yes I see what the teaching is saying g is true. because when I follow the teaching and cultivate well, the suffering ends, and the pleasure is felt. and i understand what I was doing wrong, that is wisdom. Everything cultivation is, is to let go of every attachment that we hold, so nothing will create emotions either positive or negative but we become neutral to how others are toward us, and how we see the world, but yes we continue to hold compassion and forbearance for every living being.
The teaching in itself is the "tool" we use to understand how to let go.

The observation we can do in the physical world is to see that nothing in it is created to become free, it creates more tension, attachments and so on to see new things developed, people fight about small things, wars are started because of someone disagrees. not a very nice place to live when one realizes what it could have been.

Everything is up to me to realize, so yes I study the teaching and have faith in that what is written is the truth, but I do experience it every day in my life too, so I see it is truth to me.

 

[Sandra Jayne]

I hugely enjoyed tertiary philosophy so I hope you do as well.
Indeed, we can watch the evolution of God across the Tanakh, into the NT and finally to the Trinity in the 4th century. As you're doubtless aware, Yahweh first appears in history around 1500 BCE as an apparently typical Canaanite god and a typical consort Asherah. In the Torah he's one such tribal God out loud eg

Judges 11:23 So the Lord, the God of Israel, dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel; and are you to take possession of them? 24 Will you not possess what Chemosh your god gives you to possess? And all that the Lord our God has dispossessed before us, we will possess.
​

and also Exodus 15:11, 20:3, Deuteronomy 5:7, Numbers 33:4, Judges 11;23-24, Psalms 82:1, 86:8, 95:3, 135:5 &c.

Then from the Babylonian Captivity and after he's a monogod (which is why he says things like ─

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things
​

The argument is available that the most important part of the NT is Paul's abandonment of the covenant, not just circumcision but the idea that Christianity is for all. Christianity got off the ground among the pagans of the Roman empire, and never attained a significant Jewish contingent; and it notably relies on Greek culture rather than Hebrew . For example, the Jesus of Mark is the only Jesus to be born an ordinary Jew and to become the son of God by adoption on the model of Psalm 2:7 (affirmed at Acts 13:33); The Jesuses of Paul and of John pre-existed in heaven and created the material universe, very like the gnostic demiurge (a Greek idea); while the Jesuses of Matthew and Luke were conceived of a god, as happens a lot in Greek story, and were born with God's Y-chromosome.

Then in the fourth century the early church solves its internal political problems by turning Jesus into God by devising the doctrine of the Trinity ─ this despite each of the five Jesuses of the NT separately and expressly denying he's God and never once claiming to be.
But as I said above, God evoives before our reading eyes in the bible.

And in the Garden story, there's no point in which Adam and Eve reject God. The story is greatly distorted in Christian lore ─ just read it for what it actually says and the picture's entirely different. First, God says, 'Don't eat the fruit BECAUSE if you do, you'll die the same say.' He doesn't say 'Don't eat the fruit, because I said so. Second, the snake never says anything that's untrue or misleading. Third, when Eve bites the fruit, she's incapable of sin, because till that moment God has deliberately withheld from her the knowledge of good and evil, so she's incapable of forming an intention to do wrong. Fourth, nowhere is there mention of sin, original sin, the Fall of Man, death entering the world, or the need for a redeemer. Fifth, God states his reason for pitching Adam and Eve out of the Garden and it's set out in Genesis 3:22:

Then the Lord God said, "behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever," ─ 23 therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden [...]​

So I'm not finding the ideas you refer to in the Tanakh. The idea of the Fall is expressly contradicted by eg Ezekiel 18 passim, eg

20 The soul that sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.​

It doesn't arise until the latter 2nd century BCE in Alexandria, where it appears to be the product of the Midrash tradition.

So if I'm the God of the bible, I'm devising new ideas of myself and my job all the time.

I think Adam and Eve were well aware that they were disobeying God by eating the fruit. And God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”The next verse makes it clear that Eve also knew the rule.: "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”" Genesis 3:1-3

The serpent did lie-But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4 Of course from that day they did begin to die.

It was doing the only one thing that God had told them not to do resulted in them gaining the knowledge of good and evil so they or at least Eve believed the serpent so in essence was 'calling' God a liar, so yes they did reject God.
Genesis 3:22: God knows the route humanity is going to take because and all the evil we would do so there was no way He could allow them to eat from the tree of eternal life.

death entering the world-
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned-Romans 5:12

the need for a redeemer-Genesis 3:15 According to this verse, there will be enmity between the individual woman (Eve) and the serpent who deceived her. The word enmity indicates a blood feud. There will also be enmity between his seed and her seed. God promised that eventually the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman. However, the seed of the woman (redeemer) would also bruise (or crush) the head of the serpent. This will be a fatal blow.

I don't think in Ezekiel it is talking about inherited sin but in individual responsibility, if someone has a father who did wickedness the child isn't 'tainted' by their sin but can choose themselves whether to be righteous or unrighteous in the eyes of God.
It would have been interesting to hear what you might have done different if you were God!

I love philosophy, my next assignment is the philosophy of truth in fiction, looks very interesting,

 

[Sandra Jayne]

I think i understand why you say what you do (and I don't say you are wrong)
Christianity and Falun Gong are two very different teachings, so yes, of course, there will be differences in what we understand

The scriptures on this point is not ambiguous, it is quite clear in what it says, it is just a case of whether one believes it or not.

 

[Nimos]

The way out of suffering is to start doing the right things and not listen to one own ego that tells what we "want" to do, what we want to do is to have fun, feel pleasure all the time, but the right thing might be that we do have to suffer before it gets better.

And I have suffered a lot in my life, but yes I see what the teaching is saying g is true. because when I follow the teaching and cultivate well, the suffering ends, and the pleasure is felt. and i understand what I was doing wrong, that is wisdom. Everything cultivation is, is to let go of every attachment that we hold, so nothing will create emotions either positive or negative but we become neutral to how others are toward us, and how we see the world, but yes we continue to hold compassion and forbearance for every living being.
The teaching in itself is the "tool" we use to understand how to let go.

The observation we can do in the physical world is to see that nothing in it is created to become free, it creates more tension, attachments and so on to see new things developed, people fight about small things, wars are started because of someone disagrees. not a very nice place to live when one realizes what it could have been.

Everything is up to me to realize, so yes I study the teaching and have faith in that what is written is the truth, but I do experience it every day in my life too, so I see it is truth to me.

Read a bit about Falun gong and from what I could understand, correct me if I got it wrong. But that it is believed that we were all Gods, but some how lost our way and then through Falun gong method the purpose is to achieve salvation.

But couldn't help wondering, do you believe in a God like a "supreme God" or do you believe that all humans used to be gods? Couldn't really figure that out from what I read?

 

[Spirit of Light]

Read a bit about Falun gong and from what I could understand, correct me if I got it wrong. But that it is believed that we were all Gods, but some how lost our way and then through Falun gong method the purpose is to achieve salvation.

But couldn't help wondering, do you believe in a God like a "supreme God" or do you believe that all humans used to be gods? Couldn't really figure that out from what I read?

The first part of your question about Falun Gong is correct according to the teaching. But to say it like this, Falun gong is not the only true spiritual teaching

Personally I believe there are countless Gods, Buddhas, and other enlightened beings in the heavenly realm. And that every living being is this physical realm once was a part of heavenly realms yes. But just as here in this realm, there are different levels of wisdom in heaven too. so if we would enlighten to the truth and once again enter heavenly realms, we would still only have the wisdom level we were able to realize when we where humans. So for example, if we become the Tathagata level (same as Buddha Sakyamuni) that is the level we also have in heaven.
But the only way to realize this form of truth is though the cultivation of body and mind, in for example Falun Gong.

 

[Spirit of Light]

The scriptures on this point is not ambiguous, it is quite clear in what it says, it is just a case of whether one believes it or not.

I don't doubt that Christian teaching is correct, but the teaching is for those who follow Christian teaching So for others who do not follow the Christian teaching when they follow something else, that is what is saving them if they can realize the truth within the teaching. But that's only how i see it

 

[Windwalker]

I use the word blame the same way as you, but not the term 'self-responsibility'. My point is more like: Knowing that we had and have agency is not per se conducive to what you call self-responsibility. If anything, I find it more likely to trigger blaming on oneself.

I'm not sure I know what you mean here. Having agency means that we don't have to simply be a victim and blame others. It means we are capable of independent action, and bear the responsibility for the outcomes of choice.

Blaming others takes this off of ourselves. It puts it on others. It gets rid of self-recriminations by projection onto others, but at its core remains self-blame. Doing that is actually avoiding taking responsibility for right action. "I'm a bad person" is not actually taking responsibility for choice. It avoids it through self-punishment. It avoids having agency, making oneself a victim of one's own self.

You might be using the word differently but generally 'karma' is not merely tied to one's own consciousness or unintended/unforeseen circumstances.

Let me put it this way...Your view seems to be, and please correct me if I am wrong, like this: a serial killer that carries no remorse, doesn't live afraid of getting caught and that never gets caught wouldn't be carrying any weight on their boat and thus would never experience karma (related to his crimes) except by chance because of the unintended consequences of his actions. And in the other hand, if someone steals a dollar and lives constantly in remorse because of that would be experiencing a huge ammount of karma. Is that correct?

The typical usage is like this: That same serial killer would experience karma by reincarnating a lot of times and being killed again and again. Or suffering from some manner of disease. While the guy that a stole would lose a dollar, or something like that and that's it.

I'm not sure how I would think of those examples. I think when people teach about a karmic cause and effect relationships, in an almost eye for an eye case, those are stories to get people to consider the general nature of how we reap what we sow, but not something strickly how it works. While I'm not versed in understanding how it is understood by those within those cultures that hold those views, I can indulge in my own thinking about it in how I might consider it.

I would not say that I would see someone inflicting a lifelong punishment upon themselves through guilt for a wrongdoing, as a karmic consequence. That's just self-punishment, and that action itself will have negative karma or consequence. It does not pay for other sins, in other words. I don't see karma as punishment, anymore than someone driving drunk and hitting a tree is a punishment. It's a consequence, not a punishment. And consequences can be both negative and positive.

Rather than thinking in terms of karma as punishment, or one's "comeuppance", it's more like living in a garden in nature and working with it, or against it. If you tend the soil, don't neglect it, but follow the order of things as they work and flow together in a balanced ecosystem, then you will reap bounty and beauty. If on the other hand, you mistreat the garden by driving your car over it as spinning donuts on the soil, you'll reap the consequences of little or no harvest, and an ugly destroyed garden.

These are not the garden punishing him for being a jerk. The garden doesn't produce a pickup truck to run over him in turn for his misdeeds. It was just him being a jerk and reaping the harvest of his own actions of stupidity. To him I'd say, "God didn't punish you anything. You totally trashed your own garden, dude!"

Now in the example above, if he upon looking at the ruin of his drunken action, holds his head in his hands in remorse and realises the harm of the thing he's just done to himself by abusing the garden, and vows from this point forth he will never behave like that again, that would not get rid of the consequences, but it certainly would stop from that negative karma from growing.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

I blame God for everything and give credit to God for everything. It helps to relax a person if done right. That is one pragmatic use of the practice of believing God is responsible for everything whatsoever.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

There is little to no evidence that God intervenes in our lives. It is pointless to blame him for what befalls us. Far better to be responsible for our own lives.

I suggest that we are his hand and eyes on this world. it is our duty to look after his creation not destroy it. It is through us that he carries out his work. We should do so with love, without any expectations of reward. None is likely in this life time. None is guaranteed in the next.

What he has given us is the guidance and comfort of the Holy spirit. Which we are free to accept or deny.

 

[blü 2]

I think Adam and Eve were well aware that they were disobeying God by eating the fruit. And God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”The next verse makes it clear that Eve also knew the rule.: "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”" Genesis 3:1-3

The point is that God said "Don't eat it BECAUSE if you eat it you will die the same day." He didn't say "Don't eat it BECAUSE I said so."

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4 Of course from that day they did begin to die.

They were always going to die. The most obvious evidence of this is Genesis 3:22-23, which I quoted to you: "now, lest [Adam] put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life and eat, and live forever; 23 therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden.

It was doing the only one thing that God had told them not to do resulted in them gaining the knowledge of good and evil

And as I pointed out, UNTIL they actually possessed knowledge of good and evil, they were incapable of sin, because they were incapable of forming a sinful intention, and that happens only AFTER they eat.

so they or at least Eve believed the serpent so in essence was 'calling' God a liar

They ate the fruit and did not die the same day, just as the snake said, and showing that God misspoke.

, so yes they did reject God.

First of all, the story is obviously story, not history. Second, the god is a primitive conception of God.

In my view the story is best explained as a tale about mankind growing up, from babyhood and protection and being provided for, to adolescence and the awareness of sexuality, to being told to leave home and get and job and look after oneself.

death entering the world-
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned-Romans 5:12

But that's Paul, writing in Greek a thousand years later. My point is that in fact the Garden story says nothing of the kind, and that the idea that it does appears to come from the Midrash tradition in the latter 2nd century BCE.

the need for a redeemer-Genesis 3:15 According to this verse, there will be enmity between the individual woman (Eve) and the serpent who deceived her. The word enmity indicates a blood feud. There will also be enmity between his seed and her seed. God promised that eventually the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman. However, the seed of the woman (redeemer) would also bruise (or crush) the head of the serpent. This will be a fatal blow.[/quote] NONE of that is in the Garden story. Instead it says, Beware of snakes out there, it contains the purely vindictive and contemptible "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing", and, to Adam, "Go and get a job, you layabout jerk!"

But the overriding point is that what the story says is NOT what Paul says it says (since although the idea is found earlier, as I said, it was Paul's line that a couple of centuries down the track that was seized on. You can only agree with Paul by ignoring the actual story. Find out what Jews make of it these days too ─ it won't be what you're saying.

I don't think in Ezekiel it is talking about inherited sin

May I suggest you read the chapter again? It's not only about individual responsibility, but also the lack of responsibility for the sins of one's parents or of one's children. There is no "original sin" concept in the Tanakh ─ not in the Garden story, not in Ezekiel.

It would have been interesting to hear what you might have done different if you were God!

I'd have set the universe in motion something like 13.8 bn years ago using energy from the metaverse, watched the sun and the earth form some 4.5 bn years ago, noted the spontaneous formation on Earth of self-reproducing cells more than 3.5 bn years ago, gone down to the Celestial Golf Club and when the barman said, How's the project going? answered, 'All done now ─ if I'm lucky evolution will do something interesting.'

But if I may underline something I'm sure you already know, it's this: When approaching any ancient document, let it speak for itself. Never try to force it into a frame someone else thought up. Don't read Genesis in the light of the NT, as one tiny example. Distinguish old Hebrew culture from the Greek-influenced Hebrew culture after Alexander's conquests around 300 BCE. Stay on your mental toes and don't expect, let alone demand, that each author or set of authors will sing from the same songbook. The God of the bible constantly changes over time, and the Babylonian captivity and its sequel are very influential.

I love philosophy, my next assignment is the philosophy of truth in fiction, looks very interesting,

You mean truth in Genesis heh heh? Good hunting!

 

[Thief]

You mean truth in Genesis heh heh? Good hunting!

the truth is there.....
but the flow of it has been tossed about like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle

you do have to sort it out

your post is so close to the mark

 

[blü 2]

the truth is there.....
but the flow of it has been tossed about like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle

you do have to sort it out

your post is so close to the mark

Could be worse, you say? Thanks for that!

 

[viole]

I wonder about one thing.

Why do some people blame God, Buddha, and so on, when something goes wrong in their life, or they do not understand something in a religious/spiritual setting. then they blame God for not doing the right thing for them??

Well, when people say grace and thank God for the food and wine, I feel entitled to blame Him for not having brought Champagne (instead of that cheap stuff).

It did not go too well, last time I was invited at dinner by a very religious family, lol.

Ciao

- viole

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

There is little to no evidence that God intervenes in our lives. It is pointless to blame him for what befalls us. Far better to be responsible for our own lives.

I suggest that we are his hand and eyes on this world. it is our duty to look after his creation not destroy it. It is through us that he carries out his work. We should do so with love, without any expectations of reward. None is likely in this life time. None is guaranteed in the next.

What he has given us is the guidance and comfort of the Holy spirit. Which we are free to accept or deny.

I think most people these days probably believe in a distant or remote deist-like concept like that probably. Sounds good, but a lot of pressure, not sure what it does for the stress levels of people who have about 60 to 80 (rarely 100) years to live.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

Well, when people say grace and thank God for the food and wine, I feel entitled to blame Him for not having brought Champagne (instead of that cheap stuff).

It did not go too well, last time I was invited at dinner by a very religious family, lol.

Ciao

- viole

God filled them with regret and the terrible awareness of having invited you, and having failed in other regards as well, like regarding the champagne or rather the pronounced lack thereof!

They didn't like the revelatory words you had uttered! "God, I am not pleased by the inept hands you placed in charge of this meal set before us, as through them you have led to my suffering" lol great guest.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I think most people these days probably believe in a distant or remote deist-like concept like that probably. Sounds good, but a lot of pressure, not sure what it does for the stress levels of people who have about 60 to 80 (rarely 100) years to live.

Unfortunately living in hope of something that never happens, is also destructive to the mind.
far better to not expect the impossible.. then you are free to enjoy the good things that do happen.

 

[DagonVarunaMitraApolloZan]

Unfortunately living in hope of something that never happens, is also destructive to the mind.
far better to not expect the impossible.. then you are free to enjoy the good things that do happen.

Isn't it an extra enjoyment to feel that it was a gift granted and to be grateful for such and considering such miraculous activity? I just haven't found many people being grateful to themselves for their tastebuds really getting much out of the practice as compared to people thanking God for the food or taste or whatever. "Thank you my feet for carrying me to the store, thank you my arms for picking up the chips, I'd like to thank the whole team for working together and suffering exhaustion as we labor for THE MAN and put something in the bank account which as we see hand is dialing up (thank you hand) the bank right now, I'm going to thank them, oh I'm on hold, thank you ear for letting me know". Actually that might be the way, pronounced "huway", breathily.

I think in a world whether we believe it matters or counts for something or not, we should probably feel free enough to indulge in practices which fatten us through indulgences in comforts and luxuries, because, what good is a Spartan life if every road leads by the rope of Time to the mouth of Death the devourer?

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

Isn't it an extra enjoyment to feel that it was a gift granted and to be grateful for such and considering such miraculous activity? I just haven't found many people being grateful to themselves for their tastebuds really getting much out of the practice as compared to people thanking God for the food or taste or whatever. "Thank you my feet for carrying me to the store, thank you my arms for picking up the chips, I'd like to thank the whole team for working together and suffering exhaustion as we labor for THE MAN and put something in the bank account which as we see hand is dialing up (thank you hand) the bank right now, I'm going to thank them, oh I'm on hold, thank you ear for letting me know". Actually that might be the way, pronounced "huway", breathily.

I think in a world whether we believe it matters or counts for something or not, we should probably feel free enough to indulge in practices which fatten us through indulgences in comforts and luxuries, because, what good is a Spartan life if every road leads by the rope of Time to the mouth of Death the devourer?

I do not understand any of that. I prefer to live in the real world.