Question for Gardenfish or anyone?

the deal is that I MAKE CHOICES about the random events, about my role in them, about what I choose to do and how I respond. To do otherwise, which is also a choice - a bad one, is to have no power in my life and to accept the role of a victim.

 

Paul...you make a good point about choices. Isis....I agree that a lot of what happens in life is "random"....not necessarily God intervening. Paul's point brings to light that some things are not just random....they are choices...good or bad that we as human beings make. Sometimes the consequences of those choices cause pain and suffering to not only ourselves, but to others around us. Sometimes they continue on for generations.

Even for those that believe in God, there is a gray area of understanding how much God intervenes in our lives. I agree with Trish that it's unreasonable to claim God chooses who gets to live and who dies in disasterous tragedies. The honest truth is we have a limited capacity to truly "know" why things happen. But when those horrible things in life happen to us.....it's not truly necessary to know why......but to choose how to go forward. Do we need to have someone or a higher power to blame? Not really....and just understanding that can be "closure".

I personally have never felt God is up there pulling strings like a puppet master. I do look to God through my spiritual belief to find answers to lifes challenges. As an adult....it's an extention of that parent/child relationship.....where we look up to the parent that is raising us. If God were controlling, manipulating and making good and bad things happen, then where is the growth for us to learn? We seek wisdom from our elders....from those that have lived life, and even generation before us.....but it's still up to us to discern what is the best choice in certain situations based on what we learn and experience. Without a foundation of stability, we have nothing to be grounded on. For me that foundation is my spiritual relationship with God....and more specifically my very simple and basic belief in Christ.....without all the man imposed rules. Those rules are the puppet strings that confuse us, in my opinion.

This is just my view.....and I continue to grow and struggle with it......but that foundation doesn't change, however the questions change frequently.

 

Paul, I mostly agree with what you are saying here. What I meant, and appparently didn't get across too well was that I don't believe that events happen as a reward, punishment, to teach us a lesson, or to "save" us from a terrible fate. I don't believe that things happen--or don't happen--as a result of intervention of a higher power. For example, let's say I miss my flight, and then the plane crashes. I wouldn't believe that my reason for missing the flight was to be "saved" from death in the plane crash. I would believe that my only "reason" for missing the flight was because I arrived too late to get on the plane. (Then I would be glad I'd ended up running late!)

I do agree that we have choices in preventing some events, but not all events. Getting MM was a terrible thing to happen to me, but it is something that just happened--not something I had any choice in. As far as what anyone knows at this point, there is nothing I could have done--or not done--to prevent it.

And, as Paul mentioned, we do have a choice in how we respond/react to what happens to us.

What I meant by "random" is that the things that happen to us in life happen because they are a part of life. They don't happen because of intervention of a higher power. JMO, of course.

 

Isis...it sounds like a lot of us agree for the most part.

 

exactly
we all have choices we may not like them but we always have a choice
I believe that everything does happen for a reason; whether or not we like it or understand or even accept it...

 

Just want to add a couple of words about what atheism is NOT.

Some people say they are an atheist when they feel let down by God. This is not actually atheism because they still believe in God, but they are mad at him and refuse to worship him. (It's hard to fight that mislabeling when the people being mislabeled are themselves doing the mislabeling.) But in any case being mad at God and refusing to go to church is not atheism, it's some other form of apostasy.

Another thing atheism is not--it is not satanism. The atheist does not believe in God, but that does not mean he worships the devil--he doesn't believe in the Devil either! (In point of fact I've heard Christians explain that the Devil believes everything in the Bible--he just opposes it!)

On a related subject, there are two ways to take the word "agnostic"

1) An agnostic is someone who doesn't know whether there is a God or not.
2) An agnostic is someone who doesn't think it is even possible in principle to know whether there is a God or not.

These are fundamentally very different positions.

 

so atheist believe there is a God/Higher Power just choose not to worship? as agnostic do not believe there is a God/Higher Power at all? I kind of understand and I think I've gotten the two concepts before confused. Thanks for all the answers.

Hugs/Prayers

 

If I don't make much sense just ask me what I'm trying to say. This year's flu is neither kind nor gentle and is keeping me and many in our household on the dance floor. It is hard to think straight sometimes.

Sarita, I don't believe any thing is random although I do admit it often seems that way. I believe there is order in chaos which includes our lives, our world, everything. However, and this is very important to my way of thinking, no one certainly not God is sitting around rolling bowling balls of problems toward any of us. My spiritual belief is much less complicated. My soul is much more important than my body and as such has much to learn in order to grow - mature if you will. While video games, books, and documentaries are part of an important aspect in promoting this growth they don't compare to our having to deal with differing aspects of this "soul growth class" particularly in problem situations: physical, mental, or emotional.

I know of no perfect lives where one and all have lived peacefully surrounded by love and caring, problem-free from birth to death. It may be an idealic dream, but in this existance how would our soul grow and advance? Life itself brings multitudes of problems in varying degrees of complexity. My path instucts me to be aware, to recognize, and to choose how I wish to deal with each one individually. Through these choices I am hopefully maturing and helping my soul to realize and accept the understanding and growth.

I continue to believe we are given the option to preset "our lessons" prior to birth. It is our choice not God's unless our last life was a total waste void of growth or even worse. I do have views and opinions on this aspect, but this is not a subject we are discussing right now.

When my granddaughter was here over the holidays, she asked me if I believed in God. I assured her that I do and told her how much God loves her. She wanted to know how I was sure God existed since we can't see him. I gave her the simplest explanation I could, but I believe it could work for any age. If I walk into the kitchen and see a beautiful plate filled with yummy cookies, I know someone made them. I didn't see them make them, yet I know someone did. If we substitute the universe for the plate of yummy cookies, I still know someone made it. What we call "the knowing" is faith. This part is simple for me, it only becomes confusing as we as God's children believe we can interpret and speak accurately and knowingly for Him.

 

May we discuss your (anyone's) feeling on reincarnation? It seems normal to me, but radical if not down right impossible to many, I know. Since we are all aware the clerics of the time voted on which books to include in the Bible and leaving out hundreds if not thousands in the process, I began to research some of the excluded books searching for nothing in particular other than information. It was a surprise to me to learn several mentioned reincarnation and treated the subject as something common and accepted.

It seems to make sense to me if for no other reason than life has taught me that often good folks struggle while others of questionable repute thrive living the "good life" from beginning to end. I like to think there is a time of reckoning and consequences for our actions and choices made during this life time. If we understood we might be coming back by individual choice or by edicted choice, would that not make a difference in our life choices today? What do you think?

 

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Cee.....what a great post! I think you hit the nail on the head .....something that bothers me to no end is when anyone professes to truly "know" how it all works. We're on such a childlike level in comparison to God.....we simple do not have the capacity to know or understand everything about God and the universe. Faith is the core....not proofs or facts. There is peace in understanding that. Thank you, precious Ceeka! I hope you and your family are feeling better!!!! :-* :-* :-*

 

No, it's the other way around. Some people who believe but refuse to worship call themselves atheists but are incorrect in doing so. Atheists by definition do not believe in a higher power.

Agnostics are the ones who aren't sure, one way or the other. Some say they aren't sure and some say it is impossible to be sure--it's one of those questions you can't know the answer to.

Sorry for any confusion I may have caused.

 

Cee- I agree with you all the way, and I'm very careful in what I do and say BECAUSE of the fact that I might just have to come back and make up for it. AND, I'm constantly wondering just what it is that I'm supposedly making up for this time around.
Loretta

 

I do remember reading that some early Christian sects accepted reincarnation, others rejected the trinity for various reasons... Apparently by the time of Constantine it was quite a muddle.

In all too many cases people only do the right thing when they think someone is looking. (Or more generally, to cover what you, Ceeka are talking about: Many only do the right thing when they think they will suffer consequences if they don't.) If you are doing the right thing only because you are afraid of the consequences, not because you know it is the right thing to do, does that make you a truly better person?

Obviously, that doesn't really speak to the question of whether reincarnation is true or not!

 

You brought up an important fact concerning reincarnation and the trinity. As you say, many of the early Christian sects accepted the first and rejected the latter. I doubt we will ever have definite proof of either, but several incidents in my life have led me to question what I have always believed. I don't believe there is harm in questioning anything nor should fear be attached. If a religion, any religion can not stand up to scrutiny then something is wrong for me. Perhaps this is just my path and I don't recommend it to others unless the desire comes from within.

Yes, I do believe religion can and does help many who might other wise make choices with disasterious results. Do I believe everyone has this need? No, I don't. Discussing the truth of goodness is a difficult concept to address. Bascially, I believe what ever helps a person to improve whether internally motivated or superfically motivated is good. The nature of our species is to congregate ... especially in our melting pot country ... religion and the basic values they teach are important and not that much different from an atheist or agnostic who chooses the higher road.

 

oh - still confused but what's new

xoxox

 

Aladdin, you are a priceless friend and I love you. :-*

 

ditto sweet ceeka

xoxo