I could break this down on a continuing basis and still just be at the beginning of a journey on the immense sea of that ocean that figuratively represents the love of God for man.
Longest Thread Ever
- Thread starter babe
- Start date
I could break this down on a continuing basis and still just be at the beginning of a journey on the immense sea of that ocean that figuratively represents the love of God for man.
Yeah, about that... I kinda clogged your crapper. Couldn't find a plunger. Sorry.
Nobody really believes in God. Maybe we have some abbreviated concepts, something like a vague intimation of some infinite expanse beyond our seeing. . . . but when it comes right down to it we just don't know what we don't know. . . . and all of our efforts to fill in the blanks with some stick-figure projections of what we do understanding. . . . I'm pretty sure it all fall short of actual comprehension, or specific belief in what God actually is. Some of us try. That's about all we can really claim.
I love my dogs. . . .. even my cats. . . . . and my cows. . . . . . and sometimes I'm not really too sure the way I love my own kids, or my wife, or other people is really all that much better than the way I love my dogs.
The Russian writer Dostoyevsky has had a great influence on me. In the novel Crime and Punishment, for example, he makes the point about how everyone needs someone who can love him/her, no matter how low we can go. And about the human triumph it is for someone to actually care about "the least of us". And Jesus said whosoever shall give even a cup of water to the least of us, will in no wise lose his reward.
I don't think even determined atheism or actual enmity against God can destroy all the positive value that is in man. The tragedy of not reaching for the stars, or hoping and believing in the infinite, is the loss of the opportunity that lies before us today.
Another person influential to me was my great Aunt, who told me "A man's reach should exceed his grasp".
I have a corollary case to the above paragraph.
I don't think a trite or baseless religion crafted with pecuniary or evil designs of any kind can destroy all the positive value that is in man, either. And the tragedy of this case is roughly equivalent to the case above. Both short-circuit people's capacity for comprehension of the infinite, and the respect we ought to have to for one another, with the blindness that mere ideology creates in our minds.
The most difficult thing is to learn how to believe without falling captive to our own minds.
I called "The Smell-Good Plumbers" outta LA. For $99 they will clean out any clogged pipe. They show up on time, and they smell good. I love KFI.
Actually, the beauty of this thread is that there is always a new page just a few posts away. . . . . . and it doesn't even cost $99. It takes about five minutes to clear up any mess in here. . . .
Actually, I think that old version of "Evolution" is going out of style. I listened to a proponent of a new thesis of the theory that incorporates the gains that can be achieved by community coherence between very large numbers of particular species, or groupings of different species, that find some way to solve a problem collectively that would have been practically...... or statistically. . . .. improbable. . . . . without the "community". I think this line of thinking could be used by progressives to promote the benefits of a world order for mankind.. .... or by the believers in what I'd call a familiar God, who has a long record of community action from all indications.
doing stuff for others is the most basic element of love.
Nice video.
And that was my original point. How can you love someone "where there is absolutely nothing in it for you to do so"? For example, if you travel to a foreign country and you see someone on the street needing water/food/money. Do you help that person? You're never going to see him/her EVER AGAIN. So the new revolutionist idea you were referring to in fostering "the community" for your own benefit is thrown out the door.
So why help that person? If the concept of God is not in the mind, and you're purely a living, breathing human being trying to survive, helping that person does absolutely nothing. You can say you're helping that person out of guilt or moral responsibility - but then there must be a "moral giver" who had built that into us as human (animals don't do this kind of thing).
Last edited: