I disagree with most of what you've stated, and all of the quotes make this loving god sound unbelievably petty, and not so forgiving after all...but thanks for taking the effort to make your point.
to which i then replied:
well, imagine if you were in His position.. and everyone that passes by you, spits on you and insults you, and rejects all your good advice that would prevent them a LOT of trouble (even death and hurting others) they never care about you, or do what pleases you.. THEN, when they get in trouble, they come and ask you to get them out of trouble.. no matter how much love you have for them, until they change (which is what got them in there in the first place) you are really not doing them a favor by "getting them out of this one".. and to be honest, if it was me, and this was the case, id have a hard time NOT ignoring them.. id probably just want to lash out at them all.. and yet, because God is loving, He doesnt, and still gives us that chance to change.. but He's not going to "answer" our prayers until we sort our relationship with Him once and for all..
does that help/ make it more clear?
my answer to the question "What good is prayer, really? Don't you think the people who died in the holocaust, died praying - but what good did prayer do them?"
this answer might get rated down, but here goes..
prayer in and of itself is not much, good, except as mentioned above (or below) as a placebo.. it gives people peace, and allows trust to settle where there was despair.
the problem with prayer, is that prayer is invocation of a higher entity/deity for intervention, or just plain communication. the question then becomes, "who are you praying to?" if i pray to the air, that will have no effect. if i pray to a deity that doesnt exist, that will have no effect. if i pray against the will of an existing deity, that will have no effect.
as a christian, i pray to the God of the bible, that same God that says He is love, but the same God that in the hebrew Scriptures (aka the old testament, aka the tanach) says that God does not hear the prayers of those who sin against Him.. this is echoed in the new testament in John 9:31 "We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him." since you mention the holocaust, ill limit myself to quoting from the old testament, which is what jews consider the word of God.
Isaiah 59:1-2 Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save,
nor his ear too dull to hear.
But your iniquities have separated
you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you,
so that he will not hear.
unless we repent from our sins (ie, turn away, or decide to stop sinning) and are forgiven of these sins, we might as well be praying to the wall.. since God does not hear them (ie, He ignores these prayers)
Isaiah 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
the book of isaiah (written 740 years before Jesus was even born), by the way, is one of the most prominent in its promise of a redeemer, the messiah (in greek: "christos"). as a matter of fact, a reading of even just isaiah 53 will leave little doubt as to who it could be talking to, but nevertheless:
Isaiah 65:12 I will destine you for the sword,
and you will all bend down for the slaughter;
for I called but you did not answer,
I spoke but you did not listen.
You did evil in my sight
and chose what displeases me."
God's own people, He says, rejected Him, and chose what did not please Him, not just one or two, but:
Isaiah 53:6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
the "him" here is in reference to the messiah. the "we" is ALL of us.. not just the jews, we ALL rejected Him. the Lord, in other words, God, (rendered YHWH in the original hebrew, usually pronounced yahweh, or jehovah) placed upon this messiah the sins of us all.. this couldnt be just any ordinary human..
Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
this child to be born, this messiah, would have the title of Mighty God, and Everlasting Father.. titles that can only be attributed to God Himself, nobody else
Isaiah 42:8 "I am the LORD; that is my name!
I will not give my glory to another
or my praise to idols.
however, He warns
Isaiah 55:6 Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
we do not have unlimited time to turn away from those bad things we do, and accept that redemption for our sins that he offers through that messiah who carried our sins. we must seek while we can, while He is knocking on our door.. ONCE we do, ONCE we seek the real, living God, ONCE we repent and have our iniquities beared by that promised messiah who came, THEN He will begin hearing our prayers
of course, obviously He will not be "answering" any prayers that go against His will (and that includes logic).. a great many prayers might go "unanswered" because having that mean teacher die of a heartattack or getting a sweet new ferrari are just NOT in God's will.. and a lot is just having patience, that God does things in His time, and we just have to trust Him, since He knows best, and loves us infinitely enough to pay for our sins while we were still spitting in His face..
well, i was working on my own calculations of this, but heres a pretty good article that spells it out nicely:
Now for the important question. How many rape pregnancies are there? The answer is that, according to statistical reporting, there are no more than one or two pregnancies resultant from every 1,000 forcible rapes.
But, does it make sense? Let's look, using the figure of 200,000 rapes each year.
Of the 200,000 women who were forcibly raped, one-third were either too old or too young to get pregnant. That leaves 133,000 at risk for pregnancy.
A woman is capable of being fertilized only
3 days (perhaps 5) out of a 30-day month. Multiply our figure of 133,000 by three tenths. Three days out of 30 is one out of ten, divide 133 by ten and we have 13,300 women remaining. If we use five days out of 30 it is one out of six. Divide one hundred and thirty three thousand by six and we have 22,166 remaining.
One-fourth of all women in the United States of childbearing age have been sterilized, so the remaining three-fourths come out to 10,000 (or 15,000).
Only half of assailants penetrate her body and/or deposit sperm in her vagina,1 so let's cut the remaining figures in half. This gives us numbers of 5,000 (or 7,500).
Fifteen percent of men are sterile, that drops that figure to 4,250 (or 6,375).
Fifteen percent of non-surgically sterilized women are naturally sterile. That reduces the number to 3,600 (or 5,400).
Another fifteen percent are on the pill and/or already pregnant. That reduces the number to 3,070 (or 4,600).
Now factor in the fact that it takes 5-10 months for the average couple to achieve a pregnancy. Use the smaller figure of 5 months to be conservative and divide the avove figures by 5. The number drops to 600 (or 920).
In an average population, the miscarriage
rate is about 15 percent. In this case we have incredible emotional trauma. Her body is upset. Even if she conceives, the miscarriage rate will be higher than in a more normal pregnancy. If 20 percent of raped women miscarry, the figure drops to 450 (or 740).
Finally, factor in what is certainly one of the most important reasons why a rape victim rarely gets pregnant, and that's physical trauma. Every woman is aware that stress and emotional factors can alter her menstrual cycle. To get and stay pregnant a woman's body must produce a very sophisticated mix of hormones. Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain that is easily influenced by emotions. There's no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape. This can radically upset her possibility of ovulation,
fertilization, implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy. So what further percentage reduction in pregnancy will this cause? No one knows, but this factor certainly cuts this last figure by at least 50 percent and probably more. If we use the 50 percent figure, we have a final figure of 225 (or 370) women pregnant each year. These numbers closely match the 200 that have been documented in clinical studies.
simply awesome, im doing some research on an abortion post im about to post, and i ran into this article: is it a life or a choice?
We hear a lot about "pro-choice" on the evening news and sound bites from politicians. We, too, want to avoid "legislating values and claiming there are moral absolutes."
Ethics is a personal choice, not a political or religious concern. That's why we've established "Planned Bank Robbery." Now, we personally don't approve of bank robbery, but we don't want to inflict our morals on anyone else either.
It must be a personal decision of each individual.
Education is the key since our studies reveal that 99 percent of senior high teens know that banks are robbed. But it is shocking the number of teens who don't know how banks are robbed. Or even how to load a .357 magnum, drive a get-away car, or demand, "Give me all of your unmarked, non-sequentially-ordered twenty-dollar bills." Young people need to know the wide range of career options available to them.
And we're also concerned that a lot of young people are robbing banks without proper protection. Personal injury and irresponsibility are much greater crimes than actually knocking over the First National. At Planned Bank Robbery we don't approve of unauthorized withdrawals. But we do want to offer--free of charge--bullet-proof vests, ski masks, and if necessary a get-away car. This is the compassionate thing to do!
And young people who need some extra cash from their local 7-Eleven shouldn't have to get their parent's permission to obtain this protection. If that were the case, hundreds more teens would be needlessly injured by narrow-minded parents who are trying to inflict their morality on their children.
Again, let me emphasize that Planned Bank Robbery does not condone or encourage grand larceny. We only want to stress it is a personal decision. We're "pro-choice"!
If you have a bruise, a muscle sprain, an inflammatory disease or if you take iron supplements, exceeding 100 mg per day of vitamin C may be damaging to your body, according to a study by University of Florida researchers.
That's because all of those conditions produce free iron, which reacts negatively with vitamin C in much the same way that the iron on bicycles and fences reacts with water and oxygen.
But when inflammation occurs -- as it does in muscular injuries and a variety of diseases such as Alzheimer's, arthritis and cardiovascular disease -- the body releases more free iron, which is highly reactive to outside elements -- in this case, vitamin C and NAC. Indeed, the researchers showed that there were increases in free iron following this type of exercise.
“Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious.”
“I’m not an atheist. I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”
his response when asked "You accept the historical existence of Jesus?"
“Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.”
however, before you run off to celebrate that einstein was a christian (or even a religious jew), he wasnt:
“I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”
note to self: strategies for war, politics, and pretty much anything else:
Alinski devised and proved thirteen tactical rules for use against opponents vastly superior in power and wealth ...
1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy.
4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. Major premise for tactics is development of operations that will maintain constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
The real action is in the enemy's reaction. The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength. Tactics, like life, require that you move with the action."
Alinski was hated and defamed by powerful enemies, proof that his tactics worked. His simple formula for success ...
"It has been pointed out to me that no rational adult would make a business decision based on what they knew when they were 14. You wouldn't decide who to marry based on what you knew about love and relationships when you were 14. But lots of us seem satisfied to dismiss religion based on what we learned at 14, and I was one of those that stupid."
In his book On Message, Life Dynamics' Mark Crutcher sums it up best: "The image of abortion workers having to dodge a hail of automatic weapon fire just to get from their car to the clinic door is utter nonsense." Crutcher notes that in the years 1993 and 1994, the worst period of violence in pro-life history in which five abortionists and clinic workers were killed, more farmers and twice as many hairdressers were murdered on the job. (The total number of murders that have occurred since Roe v. Wade passed in 1973 is seven.)
"Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, it's never been more important to protect a woman's right to choose. Last year, the Supreme Court decided by a vote of 5-4 to uphold the Federal Abortion Ban, and in doing so undermined an important principle of Roe v. Wade: that we must always protect women's health. With one more vacancy on the Supreme Court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a women's fundamental right to choose for the first time since Roe v. Wade. The next president may be asked to nominate that Supreme Court justice. That is what is at stake in this election.
"Throughout my career, I've been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.
"When South Dakota passed a law banning all abortions in a direct effort to have Roe overruled, I was the only candidate for President to raise money to help the citizens of South Dakota repeal that law. When anti-choice protesters blocked the opening of an Illinois Planned Parenthood clinic in a community where affordable health care is in short supply, I was the only candidate for President who spoke out against it. And I will continue to defend this right by passing the Freedom of Choice Act as president.
indeed, that is what is at stake.. 1.3 more million deaths per year at the hands of moloch-worshipping barack obamanation that causes desolation.. one lady comments:
It's like "reproductive health." You'd think that if a healthy woman, and a healthy man, get together in a healthy way, and have a healthy baby, that would be reproductive health, right?
But what it means to the Left, is that a healthy woman, carrying a healthy baby, goes into the abortion clinic. The woman comes out empty and weeping, with the baby--- or what's left of it --- coming out in clots.
If that's reproductive health, then strip-mining is mountain health, whale-hunting is oceanic health, and clubbing and skinning makes for a healthier seal pup.
How did we do this? Basically, we "recorded" the "sounds" an infrared remote makes on a PC and then put them on an iPod as songs. Adding a special sound-to-IR converter then turns those sounds back to IR and allows you to use your iPod as a remote control. As an added bonus, it works up to 100 feet. It's a slick all-in-one unit and we're never going back to 6 remotes ever again.
dont worry, i havent forgotten you.. heres a bit of whats been going down, i started fasting on the first of the month, and was planning to go on until i possibly could, then i decided i would just fast till friday, since saturday i would have a lot of walking to do, and sunday im preaching.. so i need to be on all 8 cylinders.. then today i was just feeling too weak, and my head hurt, and since fasting isnt supposed to be at the detriment of our health, i decided to break fast at noon, having a bit of juice.. followed by a bit of chicken.. then i ate some more.. so now im feeling great! :D and thats all!
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