Which religious group?

[Marc Chevalier]

What? Light rain in November? Amazing!!

O ye of little faith ...

.

 

[HoosierDaddy]

I have an anecdote I'd like to share with you folks and this ties in with religion as well as Ramadan.

When I was a student at Iowa State University, my roommate came late in the first semester. He was a 15 year old Egyptian boy majoring in some pretty heady stuff (he was enrolled in graduate level courses at the time). As a practicing Muslim, he observed all customs, etc.

We were roommates for three years. During our second year, while observing Ramadan , I think it was November, I was interested in his practices; I wanted to gain as much knowledge of a new culture as I could. He was always happy to explain Islam to me and he said, "There is a day during Ramadan when the Earth cleanses itself. No matter where you are, there will be a light rain for a few hours. This is one miracle God gives us."

I assure you, as an agnostic raised Catholic, I was not ready for what occurred.

It had been snowing quite heavily that week, Sunday through Wednesday, when, around 9pm central US time, Ahmed nonchalantly got my attention and asked me to come with him to the window. I got up from my book and looked out the window with him, and sure as it had been snowing all day, it was raining very lightly. Needless to say, I had chills run up and down my spine.

The same thing occurred the very next year, during another odd time in Iowa weather. I called it coincidence. He called it Faith. Nevertheless, it was very interesting.

BTW, I cannot read enough of about Jesus in the Gospels. Are there any books written that ONLY have Jesus’ quotes? And I don’t mean stuff about him, or stuff people comment on. I’m just looking for a book of quotes attributed directly to Jesus.

You can purchase a "red letter" addition bible. It has all of Jesus's quotes in red letters.
HD

 

[Undertow]

What? Light rain in November? Amazing!!

If you're waxing sarcasm, take into consideration that those who live in Iowa can attest all too well (much better than my friends out in Sunny California or Wonderful Washington), when it's been snowing hard for three days straight, when it's so cold you have to kick open your car door every time you park, when the school shovels mountains six feet high so you can get into the dorms, when a car accident on slick roads doesn't sound half as bad as walking across campus...

and it starts raining...

and then stops and resumes the blizzard the next day...

I about dropped a yuletide log on the fire a few weeks too soon...if you catch my drift.

 

[Benny Holiday]

What - no Jedi?

Back in August 2002, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that 70,509 Australians listed their religion as 'Jedi' or "Jedi Knight" in the 2001 nationwide census. lol

I'm a Star wars fan, but, oh boy - fiction, people, fiction! lol

Maybe if NSW Premier Morris Iemma was trained the ways of the Force, he could get the state's health system out of its ongoing quandary or make the trains run on time . . .

Then again, maybe not!

 

[Benny Holiday]

Also...my two cents in the form of my favorite quote. I thought it was first said by St. John of Kronstadt, but I double checked...and it's a famous one from Plato. Still...it's the best bit of advice to live by, I think.

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

Athiests, Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindu...let's heed this advice. We may not agree with each other, and indeed we don't HAVE to, but we can be kind and 'live and let live.'

Who could put it better than that? :eusa_clap

 

[zaika]

The same thing occurred the very next year, during another odd time in Iowa weather. I called it coincidence. He called it Faith. Nevertheless, it was very interesting.

What a beautiful story! Thank you for sharing.

sounds good to me, maybe this is but the beginning.... what should we call it?

hehe...you got me. Beingniceism? lol

Benny Holiday-Plato isn't a genius for nothing, right? lol BTW. I love your avatar pic...is that you?

 

[surely]

hehe...you got me. Beingniceism? lol

oooo, that' nice

 

[Benny Holiday]

Thank you Zaika, yeah that's me, at a music festival in Brisbane at the beginning of August. Lots of great So Cal-style rods and 50's customs at
that event, but that's another thread . . .

Definitely a far cry from your lovely smiling face, though!

Yes, Plato . . . What a profound mind! "The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction." To me, Plato was incredibly adept at putting into words underlying principles that we don't often consciously consider.

 

[zaika]

fftopic: Benny, there seems to be a very active community in Australia of people interested in vintage. I've noticed more than a few people here and online. My brother and I are hoping to make a trip Down Under in 2009 *cross fingers* and I think it would be so great to coordinate the trip with one of those festivals!

Back on to the topic...

"The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction." To me, Plato was incredibly adept at putting into words underlying principles that we don't often consciously consider.

That's a wonderful quote, too! It's (as we say in my church when we come across an outside idea or thought that rings similar to ours) a very Orthodox idea. The more I learn about the Greek philosophers the more I lament the lack of classical education in our schools. While I can certainly learn on my own...the young have the distinct advantage of retaining information far better than the old. lol

And...thank you for the lovely comment about my face. hehe.

 

[Benny Holiday]

We'll be sure to give you and your brother a big Aussie welcome! The biggest festival is Wintersun, held at Coolangatta (a bit over an hour's drive south of Brisbane) around the 10-12 June every year. The one that the photo was taken at was Greazefest, which was on August 3-6 this year. Any and all visiting Loungers always have free tour guides when they visit Sydney and surrounds!

Sounds like modern education lacks the same Classical foundation over there as it does here, sadly.

And, you're most welcome. I was only telling the truth anyway!

 

[zaika]

We'll be sure to give you and your brother a big Aussie welcome! The biggest festival is Wintersun, held at Coolangatta (a bit over an hour's drive south of Brisbane) around the 10-12 June every year. The one that the photo was taken at was Greazefest, which was on August 3-6 this year. Any and all visiting Loungers always have free tour guides when they visit Sydney and surrounds!

Sounds like modern education lacks the same Classical foundation over there as it does here, sadly.

And, you're most welcome. I was only telling the truth anyway!

Now that would be fabulous! I'll have to keep you in mind and PM you when we (my brother) finally decide on some dates. I also have to wait and see if these friends of mine are really moving back to Melbourne or not...gotta swing by if they are.

Sorry for getting off topic!!!

 

[HamletJSD]

Undertow your example shows exactly what I was trying to say ...
He perceived miracle and you coincidence. All because you were each seeing the same event through the lens of what you pre-conceived to be true.

I only mean to point out that our own intellects truly make faith very hard sometimes. In any religion or lack there-of.

 

[Undertow]

Undertow your example shows exactly what I was trying to say ...
He perceived miracle and you coincidence. All because you were each seeing the same event through the lens of what you pre-conceived to be true.

I only mean to point out that our own intellects truly make faith very hard sometimes. In any religion or lack there-of.

Oh yes, I agree and to further your point, I think agnostics (or atheists, or those of faith) can use this same concept to challenge the way they identify miracles.

I'm sure we're all aware that some people require a vast and evident change to identify a miracle while others only need so much as read these words. It certainly can be based on faith, as was the case with my roommate, but I believe it can be based simply on one's own awe with nature. If I was less callous, I may see the rain as a miracle.

I think this also raises the point that agnostics (and possibly atheists) may be "godless", or at least not bound within established parameters of current religous structures, but they can still believe in miracles.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Someone once asked me what I would do if Jesus suddenly appeared to me and stated that he was real and I should believe in him.

I said, "I would probably turn myself in to Community Mental Health."

karol

 

[HamletJSD]

I just laugh at myself as is it happened to me ... I firmly believe God touched me once. No other explanation. It was a supernatural experience above emotion, above understanding, above whatever else except Him ...

Yet years later I still find myself doubting.
"I doubt therefore I am," I guess

 

[surely]

Someone once asked me what I would do if Jesus suddenly appeared to me and stated that he was real and I should believe in him.

I said, "I would probably turn myself in to Community Mental Health."

karol

I would probably turn him in to Community Mental Health.

 

[Bebop]

.

I think this also raises the point that agnostics (and possibly atheists) may be "godless", or at least not bound within established parameters of current religous structures, but they can still believe in miracles.

Unless I am missing your point, agnostics are not "godless". They simply are not sure about it. If one believes in miracles, one is not an atheist and atheist are not "possibly goddless", they don't believe in God so "possibly" does not exist. If something happens which an atheist can not explain, the atheist is positive there is a logical explanation. No haunted houses or conversations with the dead here. Possibly does exist to the agnostic. Agnostics are not sure one way or the other so everything is "possible" to them.

 

[Gilbey]

Mankind, due to basic creative design (Romans 8:20), views himself as the center of the universe...how does everything and anything affect me and mine is the question, not considering that a hundred years earlier mankind was certain that the universe revolved around him but he is dead and gone. A hundred years from today we will all be dead and gone and if the Lord tarries, that new era of humanity will be certain the universe revolves around them. Nearly all will earnestly be in the business of consuming and accumulating and success will be measured by he who consumes and accumulates the most.

Isn't it shocking when the dirt factor dawns on you? We were created out of dirt as well as nearly all that you see. Dirt is the common structural building element that God spoke into existence out of the invisible. We in fact are recycled mud. When we were in our mother's wombs, she ate food that was made out of dirt and it became our bodies. When man is born he eats a hole in the earth and when he dies he returns to dirt and fills it up again...just recycled mud. Men strive and will kill for money. The paper money in your pocket is made from cotton and linen and is printed with colored pigments extracted from products of the earth...all constructed out of dirt, water, etc.,...recycled mud.

Unregenerated men strive for power and glory so that they can rule over humanity...large groups of recycled mud...so they can rule over large tracts of real estate...simply mud.

Isaiah, Chapter 40, Verse 17:

All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.

Beauty, strength and youth is ever so fleeting or as God correctly calls it, vanity. Proverbs, Chapter 31, Verse 30:

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

To the natural mind it is rather deflating to recognize that everything deemed valuable is actually recycled mud, created out of the invisible and classified by God as vanity, nothing, void, empty, worthless, untrue, having no substance.

This condition of vanity wasn't always the case but is a result of Eve and Adam rejecting God their father and creator and giving their allegiance and birthright to Satan, the lying spirit of death. At this juncture what was once perfect and eternal became contaminated and temporal or simply vanity...having zero value. Just as this terrible collapse abruptly took place, Jesus Christ and the beauty of salvation can just as abruptly reverse the carnal condition of vanity. The new birth in Christ Jesus is such an utterly marvelous event. We are literally converted from the true definition of temporal vanity to the most valuable commodity in the universe...eternal blood bought souls and saints of Glory. We will live forever. Vanity is vanquished.

Now imagine a condition worse than vanity...less than zero. Psalms, Chapter 62, Verse 9:

Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.

I think of this concept mathematically. For example there are positive and negative numbers. They proceed north and south of zero such as 0, +1, +2, +3, etc., and 0, -1, -2, -3, etc. Unregenerated men who have rejected redemption have negative value. They are not just zero. Their wicked unrepented of deeds will cast them into everlasting damnation which is certainly less than vanity...south of zero.

For thousands of years the Bible has taught the principle of vanity which to many smacks of so much foolishness. For the skeptics amongst us, maybe their unbelieving hearts will embrace the words of science. In the April 2002 issue of Discover Magazine the following paragraph was found:

According to Einstein's theory of relativity, the energy of a gravitational field is negative. The energy of matter, however, is positive. So the entire universe-creation scenario could unfold without breaking conservation-of-energy laws. The positive energy of all matter in the universe could be precisely counterbalanced by the negative energy of all the gravity in the universe.

This also is more than theory. Observations are consistent with the idea, and calculations totaling up all the matter and gravity in the observable universe indicate that the two values seem to precisely counterbalance. All matter plus all gravity equals zero. So the universe could come from nothing because it is, fundamentally, nothing.

The above is the scientific definition of vanity. The earth and its inhabitants equal zero.

Men challenge the credibility of God asking to see real proof...meaning something they can see or touch never realizing that they themselves and the proof they're calling for is only vanity or as science says, "nothing." The word of God speaks in II Corinthians, Chapter 4, Verse 18:

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

At that great judgment day when all stand before God to give an account of themselves...when man's eyes are opened to see the invisible God...the unregenerated will be cast into everlasting darkness into the lake of fire. The terrible laughable truth will be that when they clamored for real tangible proof of God's existence...what they would have called proof was nothing...simply vanity...a mere vapor. The contaminated earth and heavens will be destroyed with a loud sound and a fervent heat (II Peter 3:10) and God will recreate a new heaven and a new earth where no vanity dwells.

GOD SAID in Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1, Verse 2:

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

MAN SAID the concept of God and of course His teaching of vanity is not relevant. Repentance to a God who doesn't exist and the idea of a concept such as sin is simply not relevant. God is nothing and man is everything. Man is relevant.

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

[Samsa]

Isn't it shocking when the dirt factor dawns on you?

I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make, but the theological view that holds the earth in near-contempt seems to smack of Gnosticism, not to mention that it runs contrary to the overt theme in Genesis that repeatedly affirms how good creation is.

 

[Bebop]

Mankind, due to basic creative design (Romans 8:20), views himself as the center of the universe...how does everything and anything affect me and mine is the question, not considering that a hundred years earlier mankind was certain that the universe revolved around him but he is dead and gone. A hundred years from today we will all be dead and gone and if the Lord tarries, that new era of humanity will be certain the universe revolves around them. Nearly all will earnestly be in the business of consuming and accumulating and success will be measured by he who consumes and accumulates the most.

Isn't it shocking when the dirt factor dawns on you? We were created out of dirt as well as nearly all that you see. Dirt is the common structural building element that God spoke into existence out of the invisible. We in fact are recycled mud. When we were in our mother's wombs, she ate food that was made out of dirt and it became our bodies. When man is born he eats a hole in the earth and when he dies he returns to dirt and fills it up again...just recycled mud. Men strive and will kill for money. The paper money in your pocket is made from cotton and linen and is printed with colored pigments extracted from products of the earth...all constructed out of dirt, water, etc.,...recycled mud.

Unregenerated men strive for power and glory so that they can rule over humanity...large groups of recycled mud...so they can rule over large tracts of real estate...simply mud.

Isaiah, Chapter 40, Verse 17:

All nations before him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity.

Beauty, strength and youth is ever so fleeting or as God correctly calls it, vanity. Proverbs, Chapter 31, Verse 30:

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

To the natural mind it is rather deflating to recognize that everything deemed valuable is actually recycled mud, created out of the invisible and classified by God as vanity, nothing, void, empty, worthless, untrue, having no substance.

This condition of vanity wasn't always the case but is a result of Eve and Adam rejecting God their father and creator and giving their allegiance and birthright to Satan, the lying spirit of death. At this juncture what was once perfect and eternal became contaminated and temporal or simply vanity...having zero value. Just as this terrible collapse abruptly took place, Jesus Christ and the beauty of salvation can just as abruptly reverse the carnal condition of vanity. The new birth in Christ Jesus is such an utterly marvelous event. We are literally converted from the true definition of temporal vanity to the most valuable commodity in the universe...eternal blood bought souls and saints of Glory. We will live forever. Vanity is vanquished.

Now imagine a condition worse than vanity...less than zero. Psalms, Chapter 62, Verse 9:

Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.

I think of this concept mathematically. For example there are positive and negative numbers. They proceed north and south of zero such as 0, +1, +2, +3, etc., and 0, -1, -2, -3, etc. Unregenerated men who have rejected redemption have negative value. They are not just zero. Their wicked unrepented of deeds will cast them into everlasting damnation which is certainly less than vanity...south of zero.

For thousands of years the Bible has taught the principle of vanity which to many smacks of so much foolishness. For the skeptics amongst us, maybe their unbelieving hearts will embrace the words of science. In the April 2002 issue of Discover Magazine the following paragraph was found:

According to Einstein's theory of relativity, the energy of a gravitational field is negative. The energy of matter, however, is positive. So the entire universe-creation scenario could unfold without breaking conservation-of-energy laws. The positive energy of all matter in the universe could be precisely counterbalanced by the negative energy of all the gravity in the universe.

This also is more than theory. Observations are consistent with the idea, and calculations totaling up all the matter and gravity in the observable universe indicate that the two values seem to precisely counterbalance. All matter plus all gravity equals zero. So the universe could come from nothing because it is, fundamentally, nothing.

The above is the scientific definition of vanity. The earth and its inhabitants equal zero.

Men challenge the credibility of God asking to see real proof...meaning something they can see or touch never realizing that they themselves and the proof they're calling for is only vanity or as science says, "nothing." The word of God speaks in II Corinthians, Chapter 4, Verse 18:

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

At that great judgment day when all stand before God to give an account of themselves...when man's eyes are opened to see the invisible God...the unregenerated will be cast into everlasting darkness into the lake of fire. The terrible laughable truth will be that when they clamored for real tangible proof of God's existence...what they would have called proof was nothing...simply vanity...a mere vapor. The contaminated earth and heavens will be destroyed with a loud sound and a fervent heat (II Peter 3:10) and God will recreate a new heaven and a new earth where no vanity dwells.

GOD SAID in Ecclesiastes, Chapter 1, Verse 2:

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

MAN SAID the concept of God and of course His teaching of vanity is not relevant. Repentance to a God who doesn't exist and the idea of a concept such as sin is simply not relevant. God is nothing and man is everything. Man is relevant.

Now you have THE RECORD.

Wow......