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» Hatrack River Forum » Active Forums » Discussions About Orson Scott Card » Are Humans Worthy of Gods Love? (Page 1)

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Author Topic: Are Humans Worthy of Gods Love?
I Am The War Chief
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I finished reading xenocide and when i got to the part about Warrmaker explaining how the little ones are only capable of accepting Jesus's love
at first i laughed then i started to think
Gods love seems to be in shorter supply these days, not meaning that he doest exist but humans with our free will seem to be picking the wrong choices and theirs nothing g-d can do about it, im wondering if War Maker was right? maybe god has given up on humans and moved on to some other planet, Any thoughts?

[ March 29, 2006, 04:40 PM: Message edited by: I Am The War Chief ]

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Jimbo the Clown
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God (I'm talking of YHWH) give up on humans? That defies omniscience.
Still, I can't help but wonder if right now he's just waiting for a few billion of us to die before he makes any moves.

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I Am The War Chief
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omni science while a very fun word is still a human notion right? is it dogmatic law "what u hold true on earth ill hold true in heaven" sort of thing explain it a bit better

Him waiting around seems plausible as he's not allowed to mess with free will... but is the devil allowed?

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vonk
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in order for god to give up on humans, humans would have to give up on humans. as long as we have hope, there is hope in god. that said, i think i case could be made that human beings are losing faith in themselves.
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Dr Strangelove
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Are humans worthy of God's love?
Quick answer: No. I really don't think there's any way to logically say that we are worthy of God's love, any more than there is a logical way to say that there is a God.

Which is why, of course, it makes the idea of a loving God so much cooler, because if He loves us, regardless of what idiots we are, He must be one seriously awesome dude.

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Vazor
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Is any child really worthy of their parents' love? Not really. Children are selfish and foolish, and in that sense, we are that way our whole life, and yet God continues to love us. It's the unconditional love of the father. Do we deserve it? Probably not. But it's there anyway. All we can do is try as hard as we can to fulfill that love.
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neo-dragon
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quote:
Originally posted by I Am The War Chief:

Gods love seems to be in shorter supply these days, not meaning that he doest exist but humans with our free will seem to be picking the wrong choices and theirs nothing g-d can do about it, im wondering if OSC was right? maybe god has given up on humans and moved on to some other planet, Any thoughts?

Firstly, a character in OSC's book saying something is not the same as Card saying it himself. Second, I think that your view of the world and presumptions of God's reaction to it are a bit short-sighted. Lot's of people seem to think that the human race has gone down the tubes in recent decades; that we're making the "wrong choices" as you say. Do you think that human history up to this point has been all hugs and kisses? Sure, we may have come up with some innovative ways to do harm to each other and our planet, but by and large, people are much less savage now than they were in Biblical days. Choosing not to feed people to lions, stake them to crosses, and keep slaves are the wrong choices?! And how did you come to the conclusion that God loves us any less now than he did in the past?
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BaoQingTian
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quote:
Originally posted by I Am The War Chief:
I finished reading xenocide and when i got to the part about Warrmaker explaining how the little ones are only capable of accepting Jesus's love
at first i laughed then i started to think
Gods love seems to be in shorter supply these days, not meaning that he doest exist but humans with our free will seem to be picking the wrong choices and theirs nothing g-d can do about it, im wondering if OSC was right? maybe god has given up on humans and moved on to some other planet, Any thoughts?

My thought: that's not what OSC is saying at all. Warmaker wasn't exactly an admirable creature, I doubt most readers would consider his ideology in a positive light.


Edit: Errr, what neo-dragon said

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I Am The War Chief
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QOUTE - Neo Dragon

Firstly, a character in OSC's book saying something is not the same as Card saying it himself. Second, I think that your view of the world and presumptions of God's reaction to it are a bit short-sighted. Lot's of people seem to think that the human race has gone down the tubes in recent decades; that we're making the "wrong choices" as you say. Do you think that human history up to this point has been all hugs and kisses? Sure, we may have come up with some innovative ways to do harm to each other and our planet, but by and large, people are much less savage now than they were in Biblical days. Choosing not to feed people to lions, stake them to crosses, and keep slaves are the wrong choices?! And how did you come to the conclusion that God loves us any less now than he did in the past?

So theres no more witch hunts or slavery, congrats. To be fair i doubt if god had anything to do with either of those. But in turn has something so much worse come out of it? Look at the options available to people now working in places like walmart. They get minimum wage no benefits and walmart keeps them on for less than 40 hrs per week so they are not full timers under the law. does this sound much better than slavery? Cause the way i see it people are still getting rich off the backs of the common man, only this time they have the decency not to torture or abuse them

Instead of feeding people to lions we humiliate them GLOBALLY by making them strip and eat disgusting things on TV good call on the quality control.

Im just saying a world where Brittny spears is an icon and people like the pepsi corp can push themselves across the world isnt my idea of an enlightened era

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neo-dragon
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Does working at Walmart for minimum wage sound much better than slavery...? YES! It sure as hell beats working for (barely enough) food, and something that you and I would hardly call shelter. Not to mention being treated as property, and getting beaten on a whim. Until I hear about a Walmart employee getting his leg cut off because he tried to leave work early, I will not entertain the idea that working there is only slightly better than slavery.

People voluntarily eating nasty things on tv in order win money is comparable in cruelty to feeding those people to lions?? No comment.

And what part to idealizing pop stars and guzzling down brand names is as bad as say, worshipping a golden calf and sacrificing people to it?

I say, you need to tone down the pessimistic angst and recognize that the human race has in fact improved in the last few thousand years. Who are you to say that it isn't improving fast enough, or presume to know what God thinks of our progress?

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lisha_rose
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neo what if it is improving to fast though.........
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neo-dragon
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I'm not sure what you mean?
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I Am The War Chief
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lol ive been called angsty and pessimistic their is justice in the world! but seriusly Neo I do prefer a realistic take on the world and if u view it as pessimistic dont, only take that as a rip on society itself. And i may be wrong in this interpretation but in our rush to enlightenment i think we may have left behind some of the values that were once held dear.

As per walmart being little better than slavery i will always believe that, as they may not cut peoples legs what good have they done? Places like Wal Mart and Chapters have put almost all thier competition out of business. Ma and pop bookstores no longer exist because people can simply browse chapters and find what they want at a cheaper price. Too bad the wealthy don't realize that the excess they have equals the the sum total of what the poor don't have... There is enough treasure floating around the planet to give every human a comfortable dignified life.. but a few thousand seize it all, as much and as fast as they can, and hoard it, and use it frivolously, without any concern that there are have-nots...The whole problem is that the human race has lost all respect for the human race... WallMart is just a focal-point concentration of that... we are willing to profit from others misery

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JennaDean
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Well, this could be an interesting thread.

Is there any chance we could insert some capitals into it?

And maybe an apostrophe or two? Please?

*head aches*

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neo-dragon
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quote:
Originally posted by I Am The War Chief:
There is enough treasure floating around the planet to give every human a comfortable dignified life.. but a few thousand seize it all, as much and as fast as they can, and hoard it, and use it frivolously, without any concern that there are have-nots...The whole problem is that the human race has lost all respect for the human race... WallMart is just a focal-point concentration of that... we are willing to profit from others misery

And this is something new to human civilization? At least now people try to make things better. We have wellfare, homeless shelters, charity organizations... Where was all of that a thousand years ago? It's not nearly enough, but it's a start. It's progress, and all I'm saying is that the human race has made, and is still making progress.
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RunningBear
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Humanity today is massively better than it was 100, 200, 2000, or however many years you want to look back. We live better, and give better, than at any other period in history. there is undoubtedly more we need to do to improve the world but it is happening, the third world countries arent quite as third world, and the first world countries are beginning to cut back on waste. The human race is improving itself, with its own immune system weeding out the stalins, hitlers, milosevichs and such. If this system is not sufficient, then there is not, and has not been one before that was either.
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I Am The War Chief
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So in the end i geuss u could say "hey were not perfect, at least were trying and things are getting better"
and Jenna Dean sorry about all the bad grammar and spelling i tend to write how things sound in my head and dont realize it may be a bit long winded while trying to read

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neo-dragon
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quote:
Originally posted by I Am The War Chief:
So in the end i geuss u could say "hey were not perfect, at least were trying and things are getting better"

Eaxctly. [Smile]
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I Am The War Chief
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(shrugs) Why Not, i geuss i could buy into that, but as long as its acknowledged that we still have a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way to go.
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BaoQingTian
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I think perhaps a better question is, "Am I worthy of God's love?" Leaving aside the question of whether it is actually possible to be worthy of his love (or if that's even the right term for it), it might be more appropriate to question ourselves individually.

It's easy to point the finger and broadly indict mankind. What's more difficult is to ask, Have I tried to live up to God's expections for me today? Have I helped someone who dislikes me today? I think if each individual member of humanity did that every day, we'd see leaps and bounds of progress.

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I Am The War Chief
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thats probably a better question but then it would never have made it on to this forum because id be talking to myself lol
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Kagehi
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There are some people that enslave themselves for the cause of constantly asking if they measure up to God. Why? Because they are sure they don't, and strive to constantly do so. But, all they get is a life of hardship, and some promise that if they got it right, maybe they get a reward after they are dead. From my point of view, as someone that finds every existing description of God humanity has ever come up with to be nothing but humans worshipping themselves, and the idea of a God at all unecessary and silly, the best we can do is improve all things for the benefit of all people, so that we and our descendents are better off than we are now. If handing my spare change to someone can do that, fine, if doing so fails to truely address and solve the problems, then @$$$ me for failing to do something better instead. The problem with the sort of people commenting on here so far is that they "assume" that some things will help other people, rarely question if it truely does and can never explain why it fails (if they are even aware of the failure). This is frankly what bugs me about Bush's current BS about faith based initiatives. They have spent nearly a century trying to address problems of hunger, etc. and the only progress they have made in most cases has come from spending maybe 10% of all the money they ever collected on new technologies or better food products, etc., all made in the lab of something that "might" not even believe in such programs.

I present the same question to you as I would to Bush, "On average, do religious organization do more good individually, and not by shear numbers, than secular ones?" Second question, "How successful would 'any' of those things be if the secular people withdrew all the things they make or have invented from those programs?"

Ok.. Maybe that is unfair to some, but also take a good hard look around and how many praisers there are that virtually worship any human endevour with a cross glued to it, but won't lift a finger to appose, or even recognize the failures. I am quite sure I am going to get nasty posts from this, but I do have to wonder, if two people showed up here, one claiming religious connections, the other atheism, both looking for money for a new program to help people, which would get looked at more closely, which would be rejected out of hand by some and which one would, if someone mentioned they had previously failed at something similar, be given a second chance, simply because of what they believe?

There is imho something seriously wrong with a world where the only people as rich as the Bill Gates of the world are priests (or, though I don't see any starving, dressing in rags or driving 10 year old cars, their churches), who all to often wouldn't give you a half eaten sandwitch, let alone help you, unless conversion to their church was a prerequisite. All while thousands of people in their own city may be starving, a few blocks from the construction site of their new multi-million/billion dollar church building.

There is an old joke about schools and the military, which goes, "I hope to see the day when the military needs a bake sale to buy a new tank, but schools get all the funds they want." Here is a correlary, "I hope for the day when priests sit on a stump in the park, while the people they claim to be so concerned about helping are living in houses with stained glass windows, gilded furniture and a near unlimited amount of money to spend on trivialities."

The higher you are, the less worthy you become. Sounds more like the church of Satan, than God, if I believed in either.

Oh, and before someone asks the inevitable stupid question about what I may have done in my life to make such judgements, I am currently helping with a fire someone had in their house. Yes, I will be paid, eventually (its now 5 weeks in and I haven't seen a dime), but probably not what my time was worth. Everyone else, including all her church friends, are no place to be seen, and some of those closest to her are doing nothing to help (and a few nothing but hindering). I am there "alone" trying to see it finished. If not for the fact that I am out of work at the moment, I would likely be helping out, as I could, anyway, without any pay. That certainly puts me higher on the list than half the people I personally know. But I guess it doesn't count according to a lot of people, since I am not *trying* to be good for some imaginary friend. I am doing it because I am human and because what helps someone else "may" end up helping me or someone I care for later.

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miracleasd
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I don't care to ask if we are worthy of gods love, I prefer to ask if god is worthy of ours. Answers on a postcard 'cause I don't see anything worthy. Now the Norse Gods, there's a group of deities you can respect.
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King of Men
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Personally, I would never respect a god who loved people who didn't know where to put apostrophes.

Incidentally, where do we get that word? It would seem to mean 'without postrophe'; does anyone know what a postrophe is?

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BaoQingTian
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quote:
Originally posted by Kagehi:
If handing my spare change to someone can do that, fine, if doing so fails to truely address and solve the problems, then @$$$ me for failing to do something better instead. The problem with the sort of people commenting on here so far is that they "assume" that some things will help other people, rarely question if it truely does and can never explain why it fails (if they are even aware of the failure).

...

Oh, and before someone asks the inevitable stupid question about what I may have done in my life to make such judgements, I am currently helping with a fire someone had in their house. Yes, I will be paid, eventually (its now 5 weeks in and I haven't seen a dime), but probably not what my time was worth.

Here it comes. Brace yourself. Yes, it's time for The Inevitably Stupid Question.

How do you know this is really going to help her? Maybe instead of rebuilding you can just work and donate sprinkler systems to many more people.

Seriously though, your arrogance in telling other people that what they give is not good enough just blows me away.

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Reticulum
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Are we worthy of a beings love that may not exist? Who knows. Perhaps we worship something that isn't really there, and waste away our lives trying to fulfill useless laws that some guy made up.

Or... are people obeying an omnipotent power that holds sway over the universe?

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I Am The War Chief
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I Like SOuth Parks take on it, if it doesnt exist and you still prayed you lose nothing but what if ure wrong its good to cover all ure bases.

Also all the Gods form one team of super friends

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miracleasd
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If god doesn't exist and you still pray you have blown months, possibly years, of your life on a fruitless exercise. I'd rather find my own ways of wasting my life.

And who's to say that God (assuming existence) wants to be worshiped or prayed to. Pretty shallow and insecure deity if it does.

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jeniwren
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KoM, I think you must respect a God who even loves people with a total disgregard for apostrophes. So few others do.

I'm more curious to know what atrophed from the original apostrophe such that he's such a little guy yet ended up with such a long name, likely due to the fact that something fell off of him before he got where he was going. Punctuation leprosy, if you will. Very sad.

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Will B
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Definitely: if a character says something, it does *not* mean the author believes it.
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Kagehi
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quote:
Originally posted by BaoQingTian:

How do you know this is really going to help her? Maybe instead of rebuilding you can just work and donate sprinkler systems to many more people.

Which would do what exactly? Other than destroying the contents of houses, where in this case it was all smoke damage. But seriously, Yeah, I could throw a bunch of money I don't have, can't afford to give away, etc. and do almost nothing, since the real problem is what houses are made from, not whether they have sprinklers, or I can do what I can.

quote:
Seriously though, your arrogance in telling other people that what they give is not good enough just blows me away.
Ok, I made a mistake in projecting the sort of behaviour on people in general that post here, what I meant was that probably 90% of the people I know, the more religious they are, the more likely they are to do trivial things that make them feel good, but don't solve real problems. Kind of like someone standing outside a five alarm fire throwing glasses of water on it, then wanting to get special credit, when what they maybe should have done is help get rid of the brush around the building in the first place. You don't get special credit from anyone for doing things that have little or no long term benefit and only really make you feel more "Christian". And that is "assuming" you do anything all all. I am talking about hypocracy from people that think they can save the world a dime at a time, when the dime only goes to pay part of the wages of the guy flushing society down the toilet. Probably 50%+ of the stuff people donate to or support either a) doesn't do anything useful, save make its donaters feel accomplished, b) can't do what is done in a way that truely matter or c) is being done in unintentional and igorant support of someone else's agendas. Hell yes, given this sort of BS that goes on, I think I have a right to comment on what other people do (or in fact don't do) to help. You call it arrogance, I call in actually *thinking* about what I do, so when I do something I have some idea how, how much and to what extent I actually help them. I agree, its a truely horrible concept. How dare I question the value of people that don't know what the are truely donating to or dare to want to know what happens from my efforts!
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Kagehi
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Oh, and as to how I know this will help... Right now she is living at someone else's house, she can barely pay bills, she can't move back in until she is done, she is getting ideas to solve some clutter problems she had which is making cleanup a pain in the ass this time, this is giving her a chance to fix wiring that might otherwise burn the place down completely next time if not fixed, as well as replacing 30 year old copper pipes that, due to the mineral and sand content here in the water, might burst any time between now and whenever it *inevitably* happens, etc., etc. And, right now she can do "any" of her usual dance instruction or other things at the studio she has in the house either. So.. What #@$#$# criteria do you think exists by which what I am doing wouldn't help her?
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Princess Leah
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quote:
That certainly puts me higher on the list than half the people I personally know. But I guess it doesn't count according to a lot of people, since I am not *trying* to be good for some imaginary friend. I am doing it because I am human and because what helps someone else "may" end up helping me or someone I care for later.
Please. There's a list now? And you get to rate people on their helpfulness? One good deed does not a good person make, nor does a lack of help a heartless inhuman moster make. I think many of the points you make are valid, but you come across as a cold, judgemental, holier-than-thou (well, not technically [Razz] ) @$$.
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Kagehi
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Perhaps.. But no one likes to hear the truth or think about their own views. Everyone is judgemental, hard facts are always cold and people who don't want to hear something always claim the other guy is acting holier-than-thou. All I can say is, sorry that you feel that way. I spent years keeping my mouth shut and dancing around everyone else's ignorance and wishful thinking. All it ever got me was nothing, zip, nadda. And some times it got me backed into uncomfortable situations and problems that I would never have been in, had I told them straight out that I didn't believe what ever they thought I did. So.. I have a choice, I can be attacked for being a rationalist, that everyone calls cold, simply because I don't get warm fuzzies every time I do something I do something, without real thought for the long term effects, real consequences or even basic validity, OR I can be attacked for what I am, which is someone for whom wishful thinking, unproven/disproven phenomena is nonsense and who thinks that **real** solutions come from truely understanding a problem and fixing it, not following a dogmatic assuption about the situation and a made up solution that has been tried 15 billion times in the last 10,000 years, and *never* had more effect than to maintain a more or less consistently unstable, but not entirely broken system. But one in which the people that most believe in it, are "least" effected by its inequities, failures and ignorance of real causes.

I don't consider my view cold, just practical. Some people spend 50% of their day and anywhere from 50% or 90% of their income on things that a) never worked, but just shift the broken bits around, b) they have no true knowledge of the effects of and c) will have no observable effect one their own lives, aside from making them feel that they helped someone. Net result - No improvement at all, or if they put the time and money into the *wrong* group, with an agenda they don't know about, potentially worse.

Want an example? PETA. These are people that have paid millions (and documentation proves it) to the families of people that blew up research labs. If its an animal lab its OK, but if its a caffee in Baghdad its supporting terrorists? I just don't get the difference... They are also on record in claiming that even having "pets" is exploitive and literally stating, on their higher levels, that violence is not a "moral" issue, but purely a tactical one. Why do they still exist? Because there are hundreds of old ladies and gullible people of all ages, funneling money into the organization, or even working for it on lower levels, without realizing the nature of its founders and leaders. They all think they are making the world a better place. And... If you don't know about the sort of stuff that only the inner circle know or pay close enough attention to find out what they believe, it "appears" as though you are in fact doing something to benefit the world. I am not at all cold about these people, I am fiery, angry and sick about them and how many they dupe. Same for people who actually think individuals like Pat Robertson represent good "Christianity" and many other lunatics. But for everyone one of me, their are 10,000 fools that don't understand, to put it in terms those that actually believe in any of it might understand, that they are in bed with the devil and the rest of humanity doesn't have the complimentary thermal underwear they seem to be wearing.

Maybe there "should" be a list. Lists tell you thing, like "what" is realy going on. But I would prefer a bit more empiricism instead, which implies a desire to not just make up some poll to determine where on the list someone sits, but if the list even makes sense and "why not", if it doesn't. The same person that will spend an hour picking which picture they want on the front of their personal checks "probably" spends less than 30 seconds in a month questioning those things they do to "be worthy" of what ever they are trying to be worthy of.

While I think some people here are at least trying by even asking the question, I can't help but wonder if they are asking the *right* questions. And one of them is, "Does my definition of worthiness a) make any sense in the larger scheme or b) mean anything at all?" If the later, then maybe a different focus is needed, one that isn't based on an arbitrary definition of something that 100,000 denominations, never mind hundreds of different living and dead realigions "don't" agree with or even necessarilly think even exists/existed in the first place. On one end of the spectrum, even among the religious, the original question is complete nonsense, and on the other end, the result is nuts claiming that God wipes out infidels with giant waves, won't show up to help people that reject insane creationist BS and that its OK to murder people, as long as they are political leaders you don't like...

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Tresopax
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Whether from God or anyone else, "love" is not a thing you need to be "worthy" of.
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Crotalus
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"There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is 'idiot.'" - Larry Niven

Notice, Niven said that, not me. [Smile]

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I Am The War Chief
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well seeing as i never said OSC said that and it was clearly warmaker i geuss Niven is right, unless its an autobiography
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Wusong101
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No person is worthy of God's love. We have all sinned and fallen short.
The beautiful thing about it is that God first loved us, and His nature is unchanging.
In no way can I comprehend that God is just sitting back and watching. With everything going on in our world... am I the only one that sees the hand of God?
God does, at times, intercede in our free will. I am thankful for that. My own foolish actions have not yet killed me.
Satan? To him has been given power over this Earth. Hey, we live in a misrable world. Better, yes, perfect, never.

Just my views on the topic.

Oh, and Warmaker was hardly the type of character that would be speaking the words Card meant for anyone to embrace. The idea is interesting, but completely incomprehensable when measured against the Bible.

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I Am The War Chief
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Why should anything be measured against the bible, while its a great story, and the all time best seller, its no more sub-stantiated than any other religion
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Jimbo the Clown
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War chief, if I may ask a personal question, what religion do you follow? Don't answer if you don't want to; I'm not trying to be rude.

quote:
Warchief- So theres no more witch hunts or slavery...
No slavery any more? I'm shocked to hear you say such a thing. I'd thought for sure that the intelligent (I say that without sarcasm), genius residents of Hatrack would have heard of the Contemporary Slave Trade.
Take a look: http://www.antislavery.org/homepage/antislavery/modern.htm
SLAVERY STILL EXISTS!!! AN ESTIMATED FOUR MILLION PEOPLE A YEAR ARE TRADED EACH YEAR, AND YOU SAY SLAVERY IS GONE!?! This isn't just international; "Secretary Powell reported that some 50,000 women and children are trafficked annually for sexual exploitation into the United States." http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa061202a.htm

As for YOU, Kagehi, you're right. Many people are corrupt. Many priests need to get off their high horse and help people. Organizations abuse their prestige.
That doesn't mean that they still can't help.
Giving money to PETA might mean that your money is used to blow up an animal research facility. So what? Taxes I pay in St. Louis might go to pay for a million dollar study on whether or not breathing causes cancer (actual study; I'm not sure if that's the actual amount the US paid for it). Does that mean I shouldn't pay taxes?

[ April 01, 2006, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: Jimbo the Clown ]

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Ramdac99
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if GOD gave up on humans than screw him, we don't need abandoning divinity
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Ramdac99
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to quote a Dan Simmons character: "it is time for god to decide to either stand with us as we move forward or get the HELL out of the way and let us do it ourselves!!"
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Kagehi
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quote:
Originally posted by Jimbo the Clown:

That doesn't mean that they still can't help.
Giving money to PETA might mean that your money is used to blow up an animal research facility. So what? Taxes I pay in St. Louis might go to pay for a million dollar study on whether or not breathing causes cancer (actual study; I'm not sure if that's the actual amount the US paid for it). Does that mean I shouldn't pay taxes?

Maybe... Last time I looked, it still said "We the people", on the Declaration of Independence and the law still said the government should work for "us", not the other way around. The fact that it is far more complicated than that makes not paying as simplistic as just handing money out where ever, without paying attention to how is using it and for what. And sure, there might have been such a study, but I have learned to seriously question what people "say" about such studies too. It might have actually been about polution, but you combine a clueless researcher with someone that wants to make them sound like and idiot... I remember some clown in congress complaining about research on earth worm mating. Turns out the researcher might have been a genius, but couldn't have written "See Spot Run", books, never mind a comprehensible title for his research. Looking closer one discovered that the project also had to do with the developmental processes and regenerative ability of the worms. Oops, maybe it wasn't so stupid...

As for PETA.. There are *numerous* organizations with no agenda but the true safety of animals around, so only someone clueless or nuts would knowingly funnel money into one that professes that seeing eye dogs and pet goldfish are being enslaved and who make it quite clear that they would, if they thought they could do it, kill 10,000 people to save one laboratory mouse. The truth is, they only stop at building and property, because doing more would get them closed down so fast it isn't even funny. As long as they can show a "public" face of wanting to make sure your new puppy has the best food, while secretly wanting to make it a federal offense to even own the puppy, they know they can a) keep getting gullible people to give them money and b) continue pressuring politicians to pass laws that might eventually make merely looking at an animal funny illegal.

Yes, corruption is all over the place. A lot of it is dedicated to convincing people that the very groups trying to make things better are our worst enemies. The trick is having "managable" corruption and if 90 out of every 100 people are funneling money into something that they know nothing about, have not control over and whose agenda is wholely self serving, while looking publically helpful, then we are screwed anyway. And when you can go to an environmental rally, like Penn & Teller did a while back and get hundreds of signitures, including the rally's organizer, to sign a petition to ban Di-Hydrogen Monoxide, and the major speaker there can't even articulate a) why she is there, b) why anyone should care about the problem or c) give coherent and valid examples (this was for "endangered species"), then screwed doesn't even begin to cover it.

10,000 people doing what they "feel" is a good thing, when they have no clue, don't understand what is going on and don't even comprehend who their corporate supporters are (and what they really want) can do more damage in 24 hours than the one scientist actually dealing with the problem can in an entire #$#$#! year. Ignorance is not a virtue, gullibility is not knowledge and random acts of kindness only work if you know what they hell you are doing in the first place. When I know I don't, *I* don't jump in feet first and try anyway. Give me 10 minutes down town and I can probably find 50 that would do so, and who would be positively shocked and horrified to discover that I wasn't seriously trying to save the Red spotted Wooping Pidgeon of Lake Havasu. Maybe the people on here are all "not" like this, but I am very very afraid that those of us that don't fit that category are horribly out numbered. [Razz]

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Aryei
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wow. this thread moved so fast and included so much, and what I want to comment about is lisha_rose's thing that's like, wayy back in the conversation...

'what if the world is improving too fast?'

well, if the world's improving too fast, you can either seek your comfort in G-d, who'll call down some apocalypse and end history, that's a great comfort there - or you can get a dystopia where we're ruled by robots, or a utopia where we're, uhm, ruled by robots - or an ecotopia where we turn our backs on further technological development beyond some close point and ditch our chance at immortality and unimaginable mental enhancement. Or any number of futurist predictions, it's plenty of fun and frustration to track them all down - well, all might be quite an exagguration... ah. guess that's for another thread.

As for G-d's Love... how do we know it isn't here in abundance with every horror we suffer? As far as I can tell, our faith in G-d and his/her/its/thems love is entirely a matter of personal perspective - if we need to have faith that an absurdly higher power. Anyway, if we need to have faith that G-d is with us and loves us in these moments of horror and tragedy, then it seems our personal opinions would be the only ones that mattered. i.e, it matters only that we believe in G-d's love for us.

(Edit: I simply wanted to make the point that the faith of G-d's love isn't something that has to go away when you are suffering, in fact it's probably of greater use then. To assume you are loved less, or someone else is loved less, when they need that love more - It just seems wierd to me.)

but, if you want to insist that G-d love all of humanity as a whole - well, the horrors themselves are plenty of proof of G-d's love, there's a very very long precedent for looking at tragedy and saying - G-d caused/let this happen because he loves us, and wants to help us grow, as a people, a nation, as individuals, whatever. So, the next time you see terrible terrible things happening to humanity, more terrorist attacks, greater famine as a result of global warming, the next time you see someone forced into prostitution at gunpoint, or, someday, just remember. G-d loves us all, and all these tragic events - build character. We learn from, and grow from, tragedies. Or we can, y'know, not grow from them and whine about how God doesn't love us anymore, as if we could understand the infinitely unknowable, as if G-d's love, or Love period, as something so measurable as we seem to want it to be.

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opiejudy
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I read the posts and thought about this thread. I believe we were created. I also believe in evolution, so in other words I believe we were created and didnt initially look like we do now. More qualification on my belief before I go ranting. Even though I believe we were created, I do not believe in the Christian god. So here is my answer to the question posted in the subject line....which is of course only a matter of opinion and could not even come close to being construed as fact.

If we were created, the entity that created us would love us no matter what. We would be deserving of his/her/its love in any and all circumstances. We are deserving if we are gay or we are straight or we are muslim or jewish or hindu or mormon or atheist or agnostic or christian or man or woman. Simply being alive grants us love from our creator. It is like a parent-child relationship, no matter what my child does or is my love will not change. It is not conditional, or prefaced by rules, it simply is. While my love is consistent and does not change this does not mean that there arent rules she needs to follow. When those rules are broken she is punished. Hence, our creator has given us Karma. I believe the rule that cant be broken to be harm none. If I break that rule I will suffer some punishment in some form. Now I am human and I have broken that rule. I have been angry with my husband and said things that are hurtful on purpose with the intent of inflicting harm, I have been stuck in traffic and thought things that were innappropriate, for things like this my karma has been changed and I have received some small reminder that this isnt behavior I should exhibit. Now If I inflict harm on a bigger scale then my karma would be affected on a bigger scale. I would like to think that I dont inflict harm on a mass scale. Some do. It accounts for why there is "evil" in the world, we have created it, not the creator, they are simply asking us to take stock in what we have done, much like a parent. But even when the rules are broken the Karma is enacted, the love remains the same and unchanged. Just my 2 cents

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FlyingSpaghettiMonster
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Believe in me for I am the true creator. It was I who created the universe starting with a mountain, trees, and a midgit. In your creation I show my love, in return I ask my children to in turn look upon my undetectable, invisible, noodly appendages and show their love unto me.

Seriously if you need an invisible friend to validate your existence just learn to enjoy being miserable the next 60 years of your life. I'm more up for enjoying the earth, making a few lasting marks, and settling down to raise a litter and instilling a passion for life and discovery so they can go out and do their own thing.

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I Am The War Chief
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Jimbo you asked what religion i choose to follow, I am a practising Reformed Jew, i do believe in the old testament, (most of it anyways) but I dont like to count out any other possibilities because I really cant prove anything wrong or prove my beliefs are right. Supposedly if you dig under the temple mount in Jerusalem their is evidence but currently the Arabs controlling it dont want to dig up a sacred temple.

As for the slavery thing, ure right their is still slavery out there but their is the small advantage that most people recognize it as wrong and its no longer supported by law [Smile]

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VetaMega
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If your Christian then you know that God sent Jesus to save us. If he gave up on us, we'd all die because we have too much sin.
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Flaming Toad on a Stick
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Music to my ears.
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I Am The War Chief
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"we'd all die because we have too much sin. "

I dont know about that, is that actually stated somewhere? or just random?

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