Grossenschwamm wrote:
This one's pretty interesting, I now think I am the antichrist. In my dreams, I can do anything, and then in the future I enact those events. I suppose when I'm not disracted in a future dream, I can ascend to a super-heroic state, and solve all of the world's problems, until I am struck down by Jesus.
There is no temptation except that is common to man. I was tempted with the same temptation that made Obama realize he could win the presidency. I just didn't act on it. All your dreams mean is that the Anti-Christ is alive. I give the world 50 years before the great woes mentioned in Revelation. Give or take a decade.
Grossenschwamm wrote:
I don't want to go to hell. Do you think he'd spare me?
Repent, Get water baptized and you're done. (Acts 2:38; John chapter 3) The rest is an endurance test. (Mark 13:13)
Charonte wrote:
Calling myself a drunkard and yourself insane doesn't "lower us beneath perfection". Self is perfection; to understand who you are and what you are capable of in all of your flaws, faults and limitations and virtues is to be perfect. The fact that you cannot even see that you are crazy defines insanity in itself, a lack of understanding of core self and a spiritual break of mindblowing proportions. I would attribute that to the mindless brainwashing that comes from putting too much trust in gospel - the idea that you must always strive to be something more than what you simply are in order to appease some otherworldly being; who's presence is so omnipotent that he has an equal interest in everyone to the point where none of us is significant; is naive in the extreme. The sooner you stop concerning yourself with what you should be or the opinions of a rather clandestine society, the easier life is going to get and the less time you have to spend thinking of rebuttals and defenses for when someone dares to call you crazy and defy your morality.
Here's a story that expresses a Christian belief that is in tune with your words:
There once was a man who carried two buckets of water from his well back to his house everyday. One bucket was a perfect bucket carrying all water that was put into it. The second bucket wasn't and spilled water out of its many holes so that when the master arrived home there was little water left for the master to use. One day, the imperfect bucket cried out to the master, "Why or why can't I be a perfect bucket like my brother? Everyday, I fail to hold all the water that you give me, my lord. ... I am a miserable excuse for a bucket. Why don't you fix me or replace me?" Then the master told the bucket to look upon the trail from the well to the house and asked the bucket to tell him what he sees. So the bucket looks and tells his master that along one side of the trail are flowers and the other side, grass. "The flowers," the master says, "are on the side of the trail over which I carry you. Everyday, when I get my water, you leak your water upon the ground where they grow supplying them with the water they need. Thereby you supply me with beauty that your brother does not. This is why I don't fix or replace you." (Paraphrased)
I am not Perfect, but my Master is. For He knows how to use my imperfections whereas I do not. Which brings me to my counter-points:
1) The Christian gospel is about forgiveness and not appeasement. Jesus died because only death would appease God's sense of justice, and with Jesus' death, appeasement is no longer necessary.
2) How can you know what you are capable of unless you attempt the impossible? If the bucket in the story gave up at the beginning instead of trying to carry the water as long as possible, the water would never get past the well and flowers would go unwatered.
3) Perfection, as [b]most[b] understand it, is to be without flaws. Defining perfection to include flaws will only confuse others or have them ridicule your logic. But you are right; it is a good thing to accept my limitations. But how is one to know them without failing?
When Thomas Edison created the light bulb, he did not view what others called "failures" as failures. Instead, he viewed them as successes in the quest to learn what did & did not work. My search for perfection is a search for truth and enlightenment and each failing is nothing more than a teaching moment. Why should I give up when I still have so much more to learn?
Charonte wrote:
At the end of the day though, you can believe whatever you damn well please. My opinion certainly shouldn't matter. Just don't always expect a warm welcome, particularly in places like this "outside of your circle", where ego and pride (and the other 8 sins or whatever its upto now) reign supreme.
I have a circle? Didn't you read my sig? I know so much that by revealing people's ignorance [1], I offend them. Most of the time I rarely even notice that I am going to be giving offense until after the fact. (If I already done so, my apologies.) Pride is the vice of the knowledgable of which I am one.
My point with the post about "beneath perfection" was that I was not offended. Part of my problem with giving offense is that I receive none (or little). Therefore, I fail to notice much of the offense I give (or that I might give). I suppose if I was a bucket, I would be that bucket that fertilizes the flowers instead of watering them.
I believe that your opinion matter. Doesn't mean that I will agree with that opinion, but it does matter. Even if it serves no other purpose than to test the strength of my beliefs. As mine may test the strength of yours.
Note [1] Did you know that American politics are driven by ignorance? What liberals do not know are know to most conservatives and what conservatives do not know are know to most liberals? And the leaders of both groups refuse to educate their followers in order to be able to control them better? The 20% of Americans that are politically independent are probably either those that have listened to both sides or to neither. And if revealing people's ignorance offends them, the only way to unite the American people is offend the lot of them and then let someone else lead them. (?)
