Bring on the whiners! I'll smack them down with a cold dose of reality. No one ever said life would be fair and I wll take anyone down that is whining about their trials and tribulations and the reality of "fair". It has gotten to the point around me, that some people when I ask them how they are doing out of my geniune concern, they reply they are doing pretty well and have nothing to compare to my health battles. In the last 3 1/2 years I have endured mutli-organ failure from sepsys, 7 week coma and ICU stay resulting in the loss of eyesight in my left eye, my right kidney has failed, I am in fairly constant pain from the peripheral neuropathy from the meds that saved my life. and 2 cancer battles in the last 2 years. It's not fair, but that's what I got and I don't complain. It's just readjusting to my new "normals". And I still have never whined about "fair". My sister in Sweden whined that to my wife that it just isn't fair what I am going through and we told her why not me? I have a great support structure, healthy attitude and people truly care about our situation. Next!
Usually the whiners are the people who don't know how much they do have. They could never handle what some face every day. I am blessed to have what I have and glad I don't have the drama or mind set to think I deserve more. We get what god allows. God sometimes puts a lot on some peoples plate. From my stand point it looks unfair for some to suffer the problems of health. But I see strong people battle there problems with a smile of courage and makes me happy to be a child of god....
I don't want to start a holy war but I just can't believe my God hands out cancer to kids or young mothers that have three small children (or anyone else for that matter) for no rhyme or reason. He couldn't possibly be that cruel. God can't be the one that allows the drunk driver to live while the family of 5 in the car he hit all die. My God couldn't be that unjust. The flip side to that I don't believe God gives one person a million dollar salary and another the winning lottery numbers.
The trial and tribulations we go through are a part of what life throws at us not God. God is there for me to lean on, to ask for advice and to give me strength. Sometimes he listens, sometimes he doesn't but hey he's a busy guy.
If anyone, and it could be the poorest of the poor or the sickest of the sick or some snot nose punk that didn't get a Gameboy for Christmas, complains about life being unfair in the U.S. needs to go live in the slums of Tegucigalpa, Honduras for a week. I say Tegucigalpa only because I've been there, but it could be any third world capital. Seeing it gave me a whole new appreciation for where I am from and what I have. No running water and open sewers demonstrates just how lucky we are in a very in your face way. It didn't make me take a vow of poverty or anything but I haven't complained a whole lot about fairness since.
Yeah life isn't fair. The notion that life should be fair is nice i guess, but not reality. It might be pretty boring, what would we strive for? I think it would be nice if there was some sort of baseline that all humans could maintain, like having liberty, freedom, and protections that don't allow the fringes of society to be cast aside. I think the worst is when life is tragic. When you see kids that are suffering from malaria, when prevention is easy, people enslaved, systematic abuse in the name of god or country. It's just depressing when you see people that never even had a chance. Fortunately, there's not many of them here in the states.
Adversity can make us stronger or at least more appreciative of the things we do have and connections we have made, I'm sure that Boater Bill can attest to that.
Not that I've had any type of adversity, but I remember when I was going to grad school, waiting tables, and living paycheck to paycheck. The end of each month was sure to be ramen, canned tuna, and rice, plus a nice 40oz of high life for $1.69 (can't cut everything). Always having to juggle post dating my checks so the bank wouldn't charge me a $30 fee because I was poor. When I look back at how much fun I actually had it's amazing. A bunch of 20 somethings drinking cheap beer, eating crappy pot luck dinners, driving shitty cars, and just having fun. My buddy in Marine Bio used to work in fisheries analyzing different fish tissues. Once that fish was gutted and he had his data, that sucker was on the grill. I think I had the best time of my life. When I saved up $500 bucks and bought my first new surfboard, nothing could rival that. I think the best part too is when I finally got my degree I knew I did it myself (well with the help and support of my friends and family). I've met some other people that have been handed a lot in life, and not that there is anything wrong with that, but I always feel I have a leg up on them. I know if push comes to shove, i can always make do with less. I'm also always looking around when I'm stressed out thinking maybe this is the next time of my life. Your never going to be as young as you are today. To be honest, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure right now is the best part of my life.
You better believe God can be cruel....think of it , he invented / created everything.... he created bad too! He created both for us to be able learn the difference.
You better believe God can be cruel....think of it , he invented / created everything.... he created bad too! He created both for us to be able learn the difference.
Here is where my faith gets tested. If God created everything why did he find it necessary to include pedophilia? According to Genesis we are created in His own image. Since He is cruel; and I was told since a young kid that He does nothing wrong; shouldn't then it be perfectly permissible in His eyes for me to do something cruel? If it is okay for God to be cruel and not me; I would think that would make God the biggest hypocrite in the universe.
If what you say is true I think God has got to be either really bored or has one hell of a warped sense of humor. I can picture a young God sitting in his parents basement its raining outside, there's nothing on T.V. so he decides to get out the cosmic tinker toys that he used to play with as a kid and creates a planet so he can watch its inhabitants run around killing each other, fornicating, lying, stealing and cheating but there are also tender moments a baby laughs for the first time, a young couple falls in love...O my God He invented the soap opera! Why else would there be a need for us to learn the diffence between good and evil if he never would have created evil in the first place?
Thanks for the chat, I try to have these conversations with my wife and she just glazes over and shes a bigger church goer than I am.
My wife is the bigger church goer too, but i`ve had these chats a long time before I met her...as a young kid i`d ask my Lutheran Bishop grand father alot! well, first ,yes God has humor , even twisted sense of humor ,otherwise we wouldnt have it! as you say we`re created in his image...but for us to be able to determine whats good and evil , we first need to know it/them, then we can decide which we want to be , or use...that determines the person. cruelty is part of life , just as love is.....God had one (made one) of his angels 'go bad', become Satan and is to keep a 'balance' in the world....I really doubt people could live in an all loving ,all good world....we`d go nuts! LOL
My grand father used to read a book for me long ago in Norwegian..its finally been translated to English recently...you should read it...it is a humoristic , fun book , but explains alot...its called "The Golden Gospel" by Gabriel Scott...its a great story on the Human life seen by St Peter and God as they take a walk on Earth , where St Peter (the scoundrel, who even gets drunk one night and gets thrown in the slammer , where God has to come and get him out! lol) is always trying to point out Gods mistakes , and how to make things better , just to find out ,that its all created correctly!
heres about Gabriel Scott, plus a link to Amazon where three books are for sale! I bought one a year ago after I found out it was translated....its hilarious and still you can learn some from it! my wife has not read the book, she thinks its blasphemous.LOL ...but it really isnt...
Thanks for the heads up on the read I'm always looking for different perspectives. My blind faith went out the window when I was in confirmation. I have this recurring vision that God is looking down at us, shakes his head and turns to his kid and says, "when are these morons ever going to figure it all out." "I gave them an intellect for a reason but all they do with it is figure out ways to get more plys on a roll of toilet paper!" "That really torques me off."
