NY Times, 1:36 am, 9/1/02, PST message

New York Times on the Web /Forums News Forums/ National/ Religion in America

04:34am Sep 1, 2002 EST (# 16118 of 16118)04:34am Sep 1, 2002 EST (# 16083 of 17030

In response, to Where was God? on Sept. 11,th or even where is he when bad things happen?

The Bible clearly states that the prince of the air exists and influences the earth. I haven't seen the devil but I can see spriritual results, ie. hate, prejudice, perversion, etc.

God doesn't force himself on anyone, and the devil tries but can't. So it leaves us with the reason most of the junk happens in the world. Free choice! As for floods, and earthquakes, well isn't that interesting. They blame God for that but don't think anything about the perfect balance the universe is in. The trees, the plants, the colors on a bird or fish. The sunsets, etc. We say that is from evolution! But earthquakes when they happen and people die then that must be God.

I would suggest, although I am getting tired, physically that is, that people not following the Bible, and following their own way's, have given themselves over to the spiritual influences. I lived in a living hell for years, and one event changed it. I know this, when I neglect my discipline, ie. forget to stay strong in prayer time, reading the bible time, in keeping my renewed on good things, associating with others of like faith, then I can see the resulting weakness and attitude shifts immediately. Slowly at first then speeding up. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places."

If we build up our faith by choice and discipling ourselves then answers come more easily. Pain will still be there. Emotions too! But the spiritual answer will come. Not everything is God's fault. In fact most of it I believe to be our faults. We do good for a time then reverse back to our old ways. Look at how the people in the states if we are to believe the surveys, now 54% from 71% believe we should do something about Iraq. If we discipline our selves to do what we ought then we are not running our lives by emotion but rather by commitment. G.

New York Times on the Web Forums News Forums National Religion in America

tads125 - 05:09am Sep 1, 2002 EST (# 10490 of 10490

Joey ,

" If an ..........is anonymous, how do you know it's............ ? "

someone posted this and it backs up a study I've done for years, that when the shame is met with acceptance, then a new found strength of expression is set free. And since this is a habit of sexual expression, do you begin to see the connection. In other words, many begin to be set free but in the physical and sexual realm. This helps to explain the amount of promiscuity in the behavior and the amount of touching, etc.

And woman who go throught the shame to acceptance, feel a new found freedom and confidence to express not so much of the sexual as that is not a driving force with woman but a deep appreciation and acceptance of each other. A connection and bonding that goes very deep so we don't see the amount of promiscuity but we do see the depression and anxiety when feelings are hurt. Both behaviors because of the believed freedom, are subject to wild swings of depression and other mental conditions, because the freedom is only based on acceptance from a limited group of people. In other words, the majority of the world is not that way, so that is an uneasy thing to deal with, and also, the depth of emotional upsets suggests that they people who practice this behavior are not very secure with themselves. Some researchers have even gone so far to say that on some layer of understanding we know that a man/woman relationship is the correct behavior pattern. The resulting conflicts are sometimes dealt with reaffirmations of worth by others and to a larger degree with sexual expression and sometimes drugs. As you can see, Joey, there is much to say, I hope this helps, but remember that the wall of shame that was encountered and apparently broken through, well remember that what it took to break through that shame, frees one up to practice with a vengeance. I happen to believe that a man/woman relationship is correct as you say too. My main reason is for the simple scientfic reason of the reproduction discussion. Same sex relationships cannot have a child on their own that is. If the relationship was right and normal and a patterned response to growth of the human race over then thousands of years, then there would would be some progess made in the ability to have a child. But there is no evidence to date, that shows same sex procreation. Does this make sense? Read the second chapter again, and see if makes better sense. Time to run, see you soon, cheers,g.