It happened to Job as well. There are no wrong emotions. Wrong applications for them sure, but no wrong emotions.
This is not my personal experience. I’m not discussing my personal stuff. But something almost identical to this happens hundreds of times every day. Why do you need background? You could totally make up any background you like and that situation has happened countless times. If you want to take a crack at it, go ahead.
No discussion of the inherent assumptions of these two premises?
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Why should we assume that a process that requires intelligence to understand must have been intelligently designed?
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Why did you say “science doesn’t discuss this” when science most assuredly does?
All I can do is tell you what I’ve learned from my own childhood experiences. I still sometimes pray for the soul of one of my brother’s classmates who died from leukemia when we were in elementary school. I prayed for my sore throat to be healed miraculously, not to get the flu, skin conditions to be removed–and yes for mountains to be moved. (He who has faith the size of a mustard seed; ask for anything in my name and you will receive…) Some of my friends prayed to pass a test they had not studied for.
Of course not one of these prayers were answered, if ‘answered’ means receiving the wanted result. And I knew very well I had the faith the size of a mustard seed and was so persistent anyone would agree I was a true pest.
Grew up, got stuff, and had to learn how to put much of it together. While I am usually pretty good at following directions, sometimes things did not turn out exactly right. After further struggle and final success I realize I hadn’t properly read or properly understood the directions. One Sunday it occurred to me that perhaps that was my trouble with prayer.
There is nothing in this that I have not heard before. My question remains unanswered. I don’t blame my prayers when God tortures families.
God does not torture, but just as some believe God created the world and all that is in it in 144 hours, some will believe God tortures. For most, neither of these beliefs stop anyone from being very good people.
People of faith believe humans are made up of body, mind, and spirit. We do not expect to cleanse our body by studying for a history test; nor do we expect to learn history by taking a bath. So why do we expect spirit to cleanse our body of illness or magically place knowledge of history into our brain?
It is important to keep holistic health in mind. If we do not take proper care of our body, that can affect our mind and spirit; not caring for our mind may affect our body and spirit; not caring for our spirit can affect body and mind. A healthy spirit can have an impact on the health of the body. No, a healthy spirit cannot cure a break or regrow an amputation, but it can be part of the healing process. The spirit cannot pass a history test on its own, but possibly its health has an influence on learning and therefor the mind.
What interests me is whether or not spirits can reach out to the spirits of others, and if this can have an impact on the spirit of another, perhaps affecting holistic health? I don’t know. But I do know that when I turn to prayer (words (spoken word), meditation (thoughts), contemplation (no words or thoughts) all kinds of good things happen, affecting body and mind as well.
Maybe our expectations of prayer are like an expectation of God blinking six times, and a world popping into place. When we look into creation and prayer more deeply we find both truth and reality.
He allows it. And it’s totally random. You might as well flip a coin.
Keep in mind that it was mankind who wanted to know both good and evil. As the story goes, God warned against it, but we are a people who chose to know. The good. The bad. The ugly.
Great movie!!
Here, you make a couple of assumptions.
Do you see what they are?
They should be staring you in the face. Who is this “We” you speak of?
“Limits” can be overcome. Even many thousands of years ago there were people who broke past these limits.
For instance, in most ancient religions in India, taught prayer and meditation techniques to make that breakthrough. Knowing what that is, also makes Buddhism and Christianity clear and why that is an essential point.
Through religious practice, mortification and expiation, then single-minded prayer and stopping the mind’s chatter, one can reexperience what was called the Akasa or Akasha. or the 8th consciousness. Here a person experience past,present and future in a single moment and the beginnings and endings of all causal phenomena are made very clear. The entry to that middle path, starts with faith.
Passage from the Lotus Sutra where the Buddha, Shakyamuni, reveal something his more intellectual and "intelligent,"disciples, failed to grasp.
The Lord then rose with recollection and consciousness from his meditation, and forthwith addressed the venerable Sâriputra: The Buddha knowledge, Sâriputra, is profound, difficult to understand, difficult to comprehend. It is difficult for all disciples and Pratyekabuddhas to fathom the knowledge arrived at by the Tathâgatas, &c., and that, Sâriputra, because the Tathâgatas have worshipped many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Buddhas; because they have fulfilled their course for supreme, complete enlightenment, during many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of Æons; because they have wandered far, displaying energy and possessed of wonderful and marvellous properties; possessed of properties difficult to understand; because they have found out things difficult to understand.
“The mystery of the Tathâgatas, &c., is difficult to understand, Sâriputra, because when they explain the laws (or phenomena, things) that have their causes in themselves they do so by means of skilfulness, by the display of knowledge, by arguments, reasons, fundamental ideas, interpretations, and suggestions. By a variety of skilfulness they are able to release creatures that are attached to one point or another. The Tathâgatas, &c., Sâriputra, have acquired the highest perfection in skilfulness and the display of knowledge; they are endowed with wonderful properties, such as the display of free and unchecked knowledge; the powers; the absence of hesitation; the independent conditions; the strength of the organs; the constituents of Bodhi; the contemplations; emancipations; meditations; the degrees of concentration of mind. The Tathâgatas, &c., Sâriputra, are able to expound various things and have something wonderful and marvellous. Enough, Sâriputra, let it suffice to say, that the Tathâgatas, &c., have something extremely wonderful, Sâriputra. None but a Tathâgatha, Sâriputra, can impart to a Tathâgata those laws which the Tathâgata knows. And all laws, Sâriputra, are taught by the Tathâgata, and by him alone; no one but he knows all laws, what they are, how they are, like what they are, of what characteristics and of what nature they are.”
Do not slander this Law- most important. The mind can be deceived.
At the Democratic National Convention this week at least two people deliberately omitted “under God” while reciting the Pledge of Alliance.
Seemingly these two are intelligent and omitting God was not random in the least.
How does their collective actions tie into your thread as OP Ed Meriweather?
I am not sure the connection you see with the OP, but here is how I see it tying in with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the view of the Founding Fathers:
These three things are clear that there is a higher power than government, and the governing body is not more powerful than Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness. I think there is a certain component of the Democratic party that wants to be more powerful than the Constitution, etc. allows. So, get a significant number of the population to agree that there is no God, and they become the highest power, and whatever life, liberty, and happiness is endowed to us, is endowed by them. Kind of scary. We have a taste of this by the controls governments has imposed in the name of COVID 19. This will be like nothing compared to what we will see if Democrats get many to agree there is no higher power than them.
Liked.
You have your own hidden assumptions…they permeate the entire post.
Surely you know what they are?
