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» Ship of Fools   » Community discussion   » Purgatory   » Blessings from a Christian perspective (Page 2)

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Source: (consider it) Thread: Blessings from a Christian perspective
Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784

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It is. And, I am bowing out of discussion of this with you as it is evident you have trotted out your judgment to keep you from having to think about it any more.

TTFN

Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002  |  IP: Logged
mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330

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quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
It is. And, I am bowing out of discussion of this with you as it is evident you have trotted out your judgment to keep you from having to think about it any more.

TTFN

[Confused]

I think that personal beliefs on this topic which are not more widely applicable beyond the individual thinking about it are useless.

--------------------
arse

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Jamat
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# 11621

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quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
It is. And, I am bowing out of discussion of this with you as it is evident you have trotted out your judgment to keep you from having to think about it any more.

TTFN

So, essentially, you are exploring the tension between the bad experience and the good God. You have found a way of resolving it that works for you. How could it not be personal?
Is the relevant scripture Romans 8:28.."We know that all things work for good to those who love God and are called according to his purposes"?

Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged
SvitlanaV2
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# 16967

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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I want to appreciate the value of things I have, and part of that has to be to recognise when people don't have those things that I have. Which is something about appreciation and not taking things for granted.

On the other hand, I recoil from the Christian vocabulary of blessing because I don't want to believe in a deity who blesses some and punishes others in a myriad of tiny and petty ways.

I conclude that the reason I have a relatively charmed life and others have a life characterised by various shades of shittiness is nothing to do with the will of the deity at all.

To my mind, Paul's exhortation that we should 'rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances' (1 Thessalonians 5) says something about the problem that you raise.
Put in self-help, secular terms, it means that we should always be grateful.

It might sound truly disgusting and perverse to praise God in the midst of horror and carnage. But if you can manage to do it it's probably better for the psyche than sinking into utter despair, anger or bitterness.

At this point, I'm reminded of Corrie ten Boom's biography, 'The Hiding Place', in which she depicts her Dutch family ending up in a concentration camp during WWII. Her devout sister gives God thanks for the vermin, which is against human nature almost to the point of seeming utterly wrong. But the vermin keep the guards away, and hence allow the sister to offer spiritual and moral support to the other women - and even to share her vitamin drops with them. They benefit from her perverse sense of God's blessings, and she benefits by knowing that she can be of help to others.

This approach is obviously something that individuals have to choose for themselves, though; it's not something we should guilt-trip others into, especially if we haven't walked in their shoes.

As for blessings, then, ISTM that throughout the Bible, when God offers blessings he does so in different ways for different people. Not everyone ends up rich, happy and pain-free. Paul certainly didn't. But he was gifted with other things.

Finally, the idea that poor people have been somehow abandoned to their 'shittiness' by an indifferent God is somewhat surreal, when you consider that some of the poorest people in the world are also often the most religious. Africans and the African diaspora should be among the most committed atheists! Yet their approach to God is often marked by joy and gratitude, whilst the wealthy, liberated, healthy Westerner finds no end of things to criticise (a non-existent?) God for!

Such stereotypes are problematic, of course. Reality is always more complicated. Still, if I'm going to reject the idea of God's blessings, it won't be because children are suffering in Barbuda or Sierra Leone. Their mothers probably have a greater sense of God's closeness and mercy than I do.

[ 11. September 2017, 22:08: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012  |  IP: Logged
quetzalcoatl
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# 16740

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quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
Why do I need to judge anyone? Judgment is just another way to shield myself from God's creation as it is.

Not my job in any event.

But yes, being imperfect, I do judge people and things. When I allow myself to detach from judgment and just let things be, I do much better for myself.

I keep being late on this thread. That chimes with what I have seen in meditation retreats, where initially, people are full of judgments, and then they begin to die away. Eventually, there is a kind of equalization, or whatever one might call it, that is, that experiences are equally valid and valuable.

As they say in Zen, one moment is like another, or if you are feeling radical, one moment is not like another. That is just Zen nonsense.

It can certainly make people happy, but I suppose most people eventually get back to the ego, and its nonsense. Yet as nonsense it is unsurpassed.

--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.

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