Shadow,



There is in fact a theological answer to that question. In Christianity I think it goes back to Augustine, who argues in The City of God that God is the ultimate of goodness. So as one moves away from God and from godliness, one is also moving away from goodness. Evil is not the opposite of good, it is the absence of good, just as darkness is the complete absence of light. Evil cannot be the work of God, since evil reflects, to one degree or another, the absence of good, which is the essence of God's godliness.

There's the argument, bro. What say you?

Much love,
Larry

I used to be kind of smug about not believing. (I scandalized my kindergarten class when I announced I was an atheist--don't even know where I got the word from.)

But now, I'm just kind of freaked out that there's this whole part of people's being that I just...don't...get! It's like being color blind and hearing people talk about reds and blues constantly. I understand the ways people talk about God and faith, and I know how the arguments go because I've heard them before. But the words mean nothing to me, and they never have. I don't think they're fools--and I'm not defying some secret belief--I just don't seem to go there.

exactly!you nailed it for me m.v. good response! rr tex ,and chain thanks for your answers and thanks for your acceptence of someone that just trying to understand
." So as one moves away from God and from godliness, one is also moving away from goodness: its stuff like this i dont understand ,is it saying that as an 11 year old i chose to move away from god? sorry probably highjacking the thread

'

God is God to me...not a father figure. I was on a beach on Cape Cod at 14yo...a total mess. Wanted to die. I was the midst of selling myself to the neighborhood jerks back home. Was abandoned by the perp that I felt great affection for and needed in my life.

I was raised Catholic and saw holes in what was being pithed at me. When I met David, (a street evangelist in Hyannis) he showed me the bible and un-adulterated truth. He showed me that I needed to accept Jesus as my savior. A day later, I did. What happened, I can only describe as a miracle. It was as if a 40lb weight was ripped out of my chest. All the hurt and hate and shame were gone! I fell back onto the ground and cried for about 2 hours.

The reasons I strayed in the years to come were MY doing. I chose to stray. But he'll always take me back.

Just one survivor's story about this topic. i hope it does not cause any angst or anger. It just that its happened to me...and that I survived through a lot with HIM by my side. Its hard to explain...but I was a dead-boy walking...and he saved me!

Call it trauma-reaction, call it "nuts," call it whatever you wish. I love the Lord and he loves the hell out of me...and I'm always here to talk more about it with anyone. I already have talked to some of you...and I dont know why we were abused...Why I was beaten by Dad and raped by them...Why I sold myself in later years.

edit: and do I know I'm a horrible witness to a wonderful God...but that's MY doing. You can point to my drug and alcohol use to prove that as true. The wonderful thing is...HE forgives me for being horrible...That my salvation is based upon accepting him as my saviour and nothing more...nothing less! He knows we are human and forgives us if we just ask.

Robbie

Well put Rob.

I wasnt abused by my father. My father was simply absent in my life. My eldest brother got all his love. I never knew the words "I love You" from him. So in terms of my dad I could not draw the connection.

After giving my life to the Lord I started experiencing His love for me as a father. To me the father refers to someone who will love you despite everything. Who will be there, someone you can talk to. In most difficult times I find peace in just sitting and talking to God. Telling Him everything He already knows - but it gets it out of my system.

What helped me most in life drawing the similarities is being a dad myself. I love my children so much and give them everything my father never did and telling them I love them. That changes the perspective as I know that I only want the best for them and bee ther for them. I am not always able to be there for instance when they are at school, I cant protect them from getting hurt. It still hurts me. The same with God. What happened to us hurts Him as well but He can not necisarily intervene in that situation.

"In most difficult times I find peace in just sitting and talking to God. Telling Him everything He already knows - but it gets it out of my system."

Tjaart,

That makes lots of sense to me. I sure can't hide anything from God - actions, pain, whatever. It's foolish to think I can do so. But praying, talking about it to God, when it seems I am all alone and have no where else to turn, makes things better. Not to say that God is the last resort, but that's often how I've approached things.

Tjaart / Andy - That's it exactly for me as well. Very well said.

JUST AS HEALING, even God cannot be reached through the mind, or through intellectual pursuits like reasoning or logic, that is why the way to God or becoming whole, is called the way of the mystics.

A path that remains a mystery for all; and it is revealed to those who are willing to surrender to the mystery and still walk towards it, in faith and reverence, because it is the path to the sacred.

Step by step, leaf by leaf, this mystery is revealed unto us.

Though eventually we might get healed or get a glimpse of the Light Divine, but the full mystery of the nature of God, and the way this Universe works, will remains mostly a mystery even to greatest mystics of all; who spend lifetimes discovering, and stretching their souls to hold the glimmer of the Light divine.

Ultimately it is their longing for the scared, that sustains them through the trials the night, that the sacred put us through again and again, so that they can become worthy vessels to hold the Light Divine, so that it can then reveal to them, moments of great insights to them, when the divine step into their lives and shows them a new perspective to this mystery called life.

That day we realize that if not for the darkness we faced, and humanly unfathomable pathways we traversed, we would have never been able to surrender or given ‘up’ our human or mental or ego-led ways, by asking the Light divine to illuminate our pathways.

It is the dismantling of our ego that takes so long, and the tighter we hold on to it, the slower our healing would be.

In the end it is journey of the heart that cannot be traversed with our mind as a guide and the vehicle.

EVENTUALLY, the mind has to be abandoned by the roadside, if we ever want to enter the Castle of our soul.

We also have to abandon all the facades of ego, the mind, the body and the intellect so that the soul can then use them as its vehicles.

To gain entry into the castle can be utterly empowering and disempowering experience for us, empowering for the soul and disempowering for the ego, the ego will get angry, man and eventually depressed as it will no longer be allowed to have any power over its kingdom, and that is the sign that the old, unreal world the about to collapse and true kingdom is ready to arises, from within.

It is the breaking of this illusion, of being separate from the whole that takes the longest to break, though as always nothing frees us from darkness of ignorance as the truth itself.

So, to enter the castle of our soul; be prepared to stand naked in your soul.

SUCH MOMENTS OF ILLUMINATION come far and in between and to those who learn to wait in patience and in serenity.

But in that single moment, everything that we have gone through starts making sense to us, and then we cannot help but breakdown into tears of gratitude offered up to the divine and to our own soul, who took us through this, the dark night of our soul.

In that one moment all that we have been through, also dissolves back into the light, as if it never happened. That is what is called miracle of healing.

Healing or becoming whole is only possible when we decide to merge back with the whole.

As for us, we once again realize our true nature that of the tiny particle of Light divine; that we once were to begin with, adding our light to the mighty sun that the Source is. That way, we are all on our way to become the tiny sparkles of the sun that we once were, we are on our way back home.

BUT THIS JOURNEY BEGINS only when an individual drops all his knowledge, or the definitions, personal maps of the universe and is willing to step into the dark night with only God as his guide, as God can take us back home.

And so one day we might finally say to our self that now I want discover life on my own, I will let Life guide me through this, and now I want to 'experience' life, healing, and God.

And that is when the miracle happens, of life, healing and of God.

The journey is of a thousand life times, though can happen in a moment too.

Personally, I cannot convince anyone to believe or disbelieve in God for that would quite presumptuous of me to even think. It is a personal journey, each one of us needs to make, on our own, and when we are ready.

Just like, we heal, when we are ready to be healed.

WE HEAL NOT BECAUSE WE WANTED TO; we heal because we allowed love in. Life loves us, unconditionally, for it loves itself. That is why, the greatest gift we can ever give to ourselves, is to allow ourselves to be loved. To believe that we are love is the beginning to healing, and of harmony in life.

To allow, simply means to relax into who we are, to relax into the present moment, and to just be.



Morning Star

Shadowkid said,

"why?why is it that if its bad well it has nothing to do with god but if its good he gets all the credit? if its bad well its free will and mans fault ,if its good well then its god. all the fame and none of the blame? dont work for me"

I have to say that I totally agree with shadowkid. I don't see how there is any truly honest way to get around the fact that, if God (defined as all powerful, all knowing, and all loving) exists, this world, this existence should not be the way it is. Wonderful things happen in life and terrible things happen in live (as all of us know here). Clearly, it is a double standard to apply all of the good to god and all of the bad to humans (especially using the free will "answer" which is refuted by natural disasters among other things). I haven't been okay with this type of thinking/understanding for a really long time. I care about the truth and strive to see what is real and what is delusion in my thinking and in the world. Personally I just don't think that god can be real and if "he" does exist than "he" has a lot of explaining to do. Just needed to add that thanks for listening.

andrew

Andrew

We do not apply all the bad to humans. Christianity teaches us that there is a continuous struggle between good and evil or God and Satan. It further says that Satan came to steal and kill. I truely believe in God as a loving peron. Why do people, and this I have seen in many insidences, blame God when things go wrong but do not honour Him when things are great? There is a constant struggle between bad and good and we need to decide which road we are going to take.

To come back to the original thread. I, as a father sometimes have to allow certain things to happen to my children who I dearly love. If I told them don't do this or that for the upteenth time I sometimes need to allow them to suffer the consequences of their acts. It doenst mean I love them any less if they get hurt and I will be there to comfort them but also to magnify the lesson they had to learn. Sometimes we dont listen to God and we need to learn a thing or two.