JenellYB

Suffering TCPC withdrawal symptoms.... :/ Lots of hours getting back into the flow working again, been getting more hours than I'd hoped for just getting back into it, plus helping my daughter make full use of my laid-off son-in-law to get some repairs around both their place and mine here caught up before he finds another job or the company he's been working for gets a new contract... Jenell

I see a basic flaw in these idea of there being "choice" in matters of heaven or hell, accepting or rejecting god, in that before there can be "choice" there must be informed options frown which or between whuch to choose. And I simply do not see that humans are universally and inevitable informed of such options as "choosing" to accept or reject god, or an ultimate destiny of eternity in heaven or hell. This was a critical flaw evident even to my own young mind as a little child, and it baffled me even then hwo the grown-ups seemed unable to see it. And it seemed there was such incinsistency in what they did beleive and teach...I was taught to sing 'Jesus love all the little children of the world,', but then, that many, even most of those children were doomed to hell because they'd not accept Christ, most for never even having heard about Christ, or Christian ideas about heaven and hell and salvation doctrines. How could god condemn to hell people that never even heard of any of that? Even then such claims by preachers and such that at some point in every persons life, they had the chance to "choose Jesus", are obviously absurd to me! That all makes this salvation thing all about being 'lucky enough' (yeah, God's will crap) to run into someone that will tell them about Jesus and Christian salvation, and 'wise enough' (gullible enough?) to accept it as truth in any of the really outraegous forms it may be presented to them. I could never see god placing such a burden of a 'choice' on everyone without even letting all of them in on what choice there was or even that there was a choice! Jenell

I'd say no, not any particular overall director or guide, other than my inner one, but, yes, I've definitely had and have many teachers, and even mentors that serve to help me along my journey in particular ways at particular times, especially through some rather rough spots along the way. I truly believe the saying, when/as the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear. A friend or other person I can let down and really talk to about such matters? No. This forum is the closest I have, or think I've ever had, to that. Jenell

I agree there are certain basic, core level universals and constants....that is both why a quite different response to one situation is called for than for another, and why what is called for in one cannot be simply applied to another. The difference of context, what's going on, all involved in a given situation, mean meeting those same basic core elements are going to be met differently in different situations. What is the loving thing or the just thing in one matter can be quite different in another. Placed into social/cultural contexts, how any particular one thing fits in with every other element of that cuture or social environment makes signficiant differences in how those underlying principles are best met. Consider such a matter as death penalty, for those determined too dangerous to allow to continue to live in the community. The safety and well-being of all others must be protected, out of love for all others. But cultural and developmental differences present different options for accomplishing that...a relatively primitive society lacking really secure reliable facilities for making sure that person is kept secured from the rest of society presents very different realities than such as our modern environment with secure prison facilities. What could, say, Eskimos or Chukchis or Pacific Islanders really do with a dangeorus homicidal person that threatened everyone's safety, but put him to death? That's at the extreme end of example, but thats the idea. Cultures/societies that allowed no acceptable or honorable and safe place within them for women alone with children, and no man responsible for her and them, had to have in place much different cultural and social practices and constraints on behaviors and actions that resulted in many single mothers within that society. While those measures may seem oppressive and 'wrong' to us today, we are not in that realizing what a vast difference there is here and now from then in the realities faced by single women with children. Even those in that plight through no "wrong" or "sin" of their own, were victims of rape, sexual abuse, or abandonment by husbands/fathers, and without family that might take them in, faced options such as slavery, forced prostitution, or living as homeless beggars at the mercy of the cruelty of any that chose to abuse them. In the biblical story of the Israelites and the promised land, the stage had been set earlier in the story by God having promised that land to Abraham and his descendants 'forever', so their entry after the Exodus was, in the bibical story, a "return" to a homeland....something that could not by any stretch of even religious imagination be applicable and compable to European Christians entering foreign lands and committing genocide on the native inhabitants! I could never see how those european christians possilby came up with that idea! Jenell

I think a really big problem some people have when it comes to this "God's will" thing, using the bible as their 'reference" or "guidance" point, is a common LOOKING FOR validation of something they already want to believe, think something is how it 'should' be, and their own 'feelings' about something, as well as what seems to me quite a silly idea that pretty much God supposedly 'said' to somebody/anybody else in some other situation applies just as well to what God say to, wills for, oneself, in an entirely different situation. Actually, that played a big part in even whole groups of christians very often over history, such as Europeans coming to and colonizing this country assuming to themselves the role and position, even identity, of the Israelites leaving Egypt to enter the "Promised Land', native inhabitants of the Americas to be viewed as and dealt with in the same manner as those occupying the land of Canaan. Jenell

....pursuing her "Mrs." degree.....lol, I noticed a good many years ago how many preachers had met their wives as students at the same Bible colleges, and as you say, of denominations that did not and mostly still do not ordain women. Nor do I think that even might be coincidental or accidental....also notable is how many of them are themselves daughters of preachers, and how many preacher are themselves sons and grandsons of preachers....kind of a "family business" kind of thing, it seems. Jenell

Good thoughts Bill, most of which I'm right with you on. Not to get searching right now, but I now there is plenty of evidence to be found in both the Old and New Testaments to the effect that God does NOT hold children accountable for the sins of their parents and ancestors, yet that os the very core basis for this idea we are all born into sin and accountability for the sin of Adam and Eve. As for your having that woman come to you with that, lol, oh, yes, how well I know, if my own and expereinces of other women I've known and had around me are any indication, that kind of thing is far more common than most might even imagine! The worst of that, at least for us women, may well be that when a man comes at us with that idea, that God has told him we are "the one" God "wills" them to have, it can very easily and does all too often turn into what would have to be called a 'stalking' experience, usually endinng quite unpleasantly, and my own and experiences of other women I've known, even leading to our having to leave an environment, a church community, even move our residence! The classic sterotype of the 'wrath of a woman scorned' is NOTHING compared to that of a man scorned by a woman he has decided, has told, and told others, is the one "God" wills for him! When he HAS told others in that church community this, imagine his 'embarrassment' and publically wounded pride when obviously he must have somehow misunderstood what God was saying to him! A most common reactionary 'defense' such a man may fall back on is that old 'woman decieved poor man' (yeah, Adam's excuse!) whereby he fabricates some scenario in which the woman intentionally 'misled' him, blinded him with her charms and feigned interest, blah blah blah, even when quite clearly the woman never expressed any indication of interest in or even notice of him... the woman kind find herself in an incredibly awkward and uncomfortable situation when the man HAS already told others about this, not only as an idea, but his claiming to know the woman IS mustually interested, when she doesn't even have a clue! i knew a woman that had a really freaky experience, while attending a small community church, had noticed a man there, a widower, that was a deacon as well as an ordained preacher that occasionally filled in for the full time preacher, seemed to be showing 'interest' she didn't welcome or want to encourage. The way he sometimes looked at her, touched her in seemingly casual ways, and often sought her out once she was seated, to come sit beside her, was really making her uncomfortable, and she had even begun such obvious avoidances as either getting up and moving when he came and sat beside her, or waiting until everyone was already seated and a service or class already begun before coming in slightly late, so as to choose a seat far grom him. She was embarrased to say anything to anyone else there about it, because everyone seemed to really like the guy, and she was herself afraiid she might be over reacting. But then when other members started acting in ways, like smiling and winking with "knowing looks", and whispering to her, she didn't have to keep trying to keep it secret, others already knew she and he had become, the wink-wink, we know about the romance going on, she had to stand up and speak out, hey, like whoa, wait a minute, this thing has gotten out of hand! There's NOTHING going on between us! At which point, his having been 'feeding' others hints and even false stories about her and him having mutual interest resulted in it looking like to them she had been leading him on and was now just callously dumping him! Yep, she had no real choice but to leave that church! He even then told her she was going to hell for having defied the will of God which was to marry him!!!! Jenell Ps, I do want to make clear I do NOT see this kind of thing as having anything really to do with the religion or religious beliefs of anyone per se.....I honestly see it as just a different version of a 'manipulattive tactic' some men (an perhaps women, too) USE toward trying to put a person they 'want' but which they suspect (or know!) would be likely to refuse their "proposal" of engagement/marriage...that of both having people around them "primed" to think such a relationship IS developing, and then "popping the question" in a very public way, often with a lot of elaborate and even expensive trouble taken in 'setting the stage'. like the romantic lighted billboard at the homecoming team game, the airplane flying by with banner....lol....ie. putting her on the spot in the most awkward of ways!

Fatherman wrote: was willing to be the true lamb of passover so that our sacrifices for atonement would no long be necessary. 1. but why/how was it (sacrifice) neccessary for "atonement" to begin with? God is the one that set this whole scheme up, why would He set it up that way, and since He's all powerful, why would He have to demand anything? 2. ...so that our sacrifices for atonement would no longer be neccesary....so Jesus, a man, dying, was just about saving a lot of sheep and goats and cattle from being sacrificed? We still kill and eat them anyway, so what was saved? 3. the lamb of passover wasn't a sacrifice for atonement, it was the declaration of being one Hebrew people differentiated from the non-Hebrews in egypt, so as to be spared the angel of death when the first-born of Egypt were killed. The practice of sacrifice of atonement wasn't dictated to the Israelites until after leaving Egypt, and was a once yearly sacrifice made by the high priest in the temple, had nothing to do with the passover lamb. (passover...the angel of death passed over those whose door posts in egypt were marked with its blood).

Sounds a lot like the "trying to bargain with God" stage people sometimes go through in facing something difficult,...such as, "God, if you will just (let my sick baby live or let me get that promotion or whatever) I'll (go to church and tithe every Sunday or cut off my left pinky or whatever) " Still not getting how one's death, a killing, satisfies another's debt or responsiblity or punishment, though. Jenell

Sounds like you've got a pretty good handle on the basic idea. Jenell

Back to topic.. The idea of blood sacrifice of not only animals, but humans, as well, to somehow appease or please the gods was certainly not unique or orginal in the ancient world. There is historical and archaological evidence of it in many cultures around the world. It seems to me at the crux of it, whether as it appeared in the Judeo/Christian traditions or anywhere, any time else, is something in killing, and usually specifically by bleeding, being somehow 'signficant' in the scheme of things, 'cosmic order' or whatever it would be called. It seems also not unusual for the sacrifirce victim to be of special 'value' to the one making the sacrifice, particularly as in those mentions of human sacrifice in the O.T. One was the man's own virgin daughter, in return for God granting him a requested favor, the other, of having to decide if one's firstborn son was worth sacrificing a colt instead. And that is what I can't, but am curious to, understand. What in human thought is going on in that? Jenell

No questions, Guapo. I was raised Baptist. Heard all that stuff before. Never made since before, doesn't now. Jenell

I am just now brought into something of a quandry concerning what to do, say, if anything, as several days ago, someone proudly and excitedly showed me a handfull of little books of children's bible stories they just picked up for their 10, 8, and 5 yr olds, in hopes they will "help them" in some ways they are experiencing some attitude and behavioral problems. It took only the briefest glance through the books to recognize the classic fundamentalist tactic of introducing children to the basic elements of prosperity doctine as a tool for manipulating kids into the behaviors adults desire of them through God's rewards and punishments as the consequence for good and bad behavior, including making sure the kid is made to feel guilty and ashamed of even natural and healthy negative emotions and thoughts about difficulties in life. The basic stuff like, now, be good and do as we say you should, behave yourself and be obedient and do what you are told to, and God promises to always give you good things....misbehave, and God will make bad things happen to you. And, perhaps the most insiduous and damaging of all, since God knows even your thoughts, to even think 'bad things' will bring you trouble, even if you thought the grown-ups didn't see what you did and that you are getting away with it. All demonstrated, of course, through those simplistic versions of biblical events told in a 'moral of the story' fashion, of how God saved a few good, obedient people while mass murdering everyone else, how God empowered people he liked to murder a lot of other people God didn't like so well and who got in the way of God's favored people getting the good things they needed and wanted.... This parent showing me these books isn't a real religious or 'churchly' person, thought I feel is a person of real faith. But she is also not a very educated person, not strongly literate, not a strong critical thinker, and I feel she really doesn't realize just what she's placing into her children hands to read, to take into their minds and hearts. So what do i say, if anything? Already, unfortunately, I've gained something of a repuation as a godless b%$#% to many of my more traditionally religious family and other contacts, for me "attacks" on the beliefs about God they take for granted without critical examination and critical thought. When its kids we personally care about, just what do we do when something like this happens? Anything? Or just leave it alone? Actually, I'm presently thinking of doing some looking into what may be children's bible stories written from a more 'progressive' perspective, giving them to this parent, these kids, without much comment except that, here, I know you are wanting things like this for the kids, and just happended to run across these for you? Jenell

Yummy! I LOVE Crab! The rest of it sounds fun, too, as lonh as I be eating crab while observing it!

"By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who.... Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege. or more recently re-stated and renumbered as Point 7 as who... Commit to a path of life-long learning, compassion, and selfless love" re this change: To me this eliminates the call to "take up your cross and follow me..." Jenell