Then you need me to help bring the quality back up! đ
It does look like some of the threads have gone off the rails. I can only imagine what the Politics thread is like right now⌠Itâs 500 pages longer than when I last stopped by.
I left. đ
Hopefully Iâll have more time eventually to hang out here, but it doesnât look like thatâll be anytime soonâŚ
A few years down the road, Iâm sure youâll be glad that didnât happen.
Yikes, Iâm sure glad you quit when you did!
Hope you have/had a great day!
Canât wait to hear what you come up with after going through detox. Thereâs a lot to tap into there creatively, I imagine.
I havenât been following many threads lately, but Iâm glad to hear you did that, Possessed! Have you quit drinking altogether, or have you just toned it down?
Yes!!
Not bad!
Glad youâre OK.
The end of fall is nighâŚitâs snowing right now.
Haha, Iâm looking forward to it!
EDIT: I really like that last track, by the way.
I recommend Alterations especially! Thereâs some good stuff on there. (The album art for The Way is pretty good, though. ;P)
i ea i ioie o eaâŚ
Yes.
Not sure what Bible youâve been reading.
Does it make the opposite clear, that faith with nothing else is all that is needed?
It explicitly says the opposite, actually. According to some peopleâs interpretations, it does, but the Letter of James says:
âWhat good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? [âŚ] So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.â
Living according to Catholic teachings is doing a heck of a lot. Take a look at Mother Theresa, for example. For most people, it just means trying to make the lives of everyone else around you better, in simple ways, but even then, itâs only nothing if youâre not really tryingâŚ
Other than not having sex before marriage and just being a decent person in general I donât think living by those tenets is a particularly difficult challenge.
Youâve boiled Christianity down to just about nothing, and if you see it that way, itâs no wonder it seems easy. Even simple things, like being friendly with someone whoâs a jerk to you, or performing random acts of kindness whenever the opportunity shows itself are easier said than done.
Volunteering in soup kitchens; protesting unjust laws; doing every chore, school assignment, and task at your job to the best of your ability; donating a sizeable amount of what you earn to charity; being cheerful even when your day has been crappy; cleaning the toilets so another family member doesnât have to do it instead; sacrificing your time to help an acquaintance â or a stranger â with some difficulty; visiting people in the old folks home or the hospital just to cheer them up; taking the time to talk (cheerfully, sympathetically, and patiently) to that person who just wonât leave you alone and feels the desparate need to tell you their life story; or not getting angry at the guy who cuts you off in traffic are just a few of the things that every good Christian should do consistently, so far as they are able. Do I do them all? No. Most of them, yes, but it is very difficult to take time out of your schedule and visit strangers, or to not be irritable when youâre having a bad day, so as not to make it a bad day for other people.
Being kind to someone who wronged you is hard I admit but that depends on the person. Also âeasier said than doneâ does not equate to âdifficultâ. Itâs only difficult if you have little free time but the acts themselves arenât.
The most difficult part about them is doing it when you donât want to, which is generally most of the time. Many of those things involve sacrificing oneâs free time, which is easy enough to do on occasion, but not all the time.
I donât think youâll find that there are many people who do all, or even most, of those things (Catholics included). I do know several people who do, but the one thing they have in common is that theyâre all Christian (and almost all Catholic). I have yet to meet a non-religious person, non-practising Christian, or someone from another religion who does even the majority of those thingsâthough thatâs not to say there arenât any (and I canât say I know a ton of atheists, agnostics, Muslims, etc. either).
I think even doing 2 or 3 good deeds a day is consistent enough to satisfy Yahweh. 2 or 3 isnât hard at all.
Itâs not about âsatisfying Yahweh,â though, itâs about growing in holiness.
Hey now, this filthy millennial knew 17 of those 50 things.
For comparison, I only knew 15 of these 50:
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/pictures/50-things-millennials-know-that-gen-xers-dont-20131206
Wow, for me it was only 8 and 6, respectively.
^+1
Living according to Catholic teachings is doing a heck of a lot. Take a look at Mother Theresa, for example. For most people, it just means trying to make the lives of everyone else around you better, in simple ways, but even then, itâs only nothing if youâre not really tryingâŚ
Other than not having sex before marriage and just being a decent person in general I donât think living by those tenets is a particularly difficult challenge.
Youâve boiled Christianity down to just about nothing, and if you see it that way, itâs no wonder it seems easy. Even simple things, like being friendly with someone whoâs a jerk to you, or performing random acts of kindness whenever the opportunity shows itself are easier said than done.
Volunteering in soup kitchens; protesting unjust laws; doing every chore, school assignment, and task at your job to the best of your ability; donating a sizeable amount of what you earn to charity; being cheerful even when your day has been crappy; cleaning the toilets so another family member doesnât have to do it instead; sacrificing your time to help an acquaintance â or a stranger â with some difficulty; visiting people in the old folks home or the hospital just to cheer them up; taking the time to talk (cheerfully, sympathetically, and patiently) to that person who just wonât leave you alone and feels the desparate need to tell you their life story; or not getting angry at the guy who cuts you off in traffic are just a few of the things that every good Christian should do consistently, so far as they are able. Do I do them all? No. Most of them, yes, but it is very difficult to take time out of your schedule and visit strangers, or to not be irritable when youâre having a bad day, so as not to make it a bad day for other people.
Being kind to someone who wronged you is hard I admit but that depends on the person. Also âeasier said than doneâ does not equate to âdifficultâ. Itâs only difficult if you have little free time but the acts themselves arenât.
The most difficult part about them is doing it when you donât want to, which is generally most of the time. Many of those things involve sacrificing oneâs free time, which is easy enough to do on occasion, but not all the time.
I donât think youâll find that there are many people who do all, or even most, of those things (Catholics included). I do know several people who do, but the one thing they have in common is that theyâre all Christian (and almost all Catholic). I have yet to meet a non-religious person, non-practising Christian, or someone from another religion who does even the majority of those thingsâthough thatâs not to say there arenât any (and I canât say I know a ton of atheists, agnostics, Muslims, etc. either).
Living according to Catholic teachings is doing a heck of a lot. Take a look at Mother Theresa, for example. For most people, it just means trying to make the lives of everyone else around you better, in simple ways, but even then, itâs only nothing if youâre not really tryingâŚ
Other than not having sex before marriage and just being a decent person in general I donât think living by those tenets is a particularly difficult challenge.
Youâve boiled Christianity down to just about nothing, and if you see it that way, itâs no wonder it seems easy. Even simple things, like being friendly with someone whoâs a jerk to you, or performing random acts of kindness whenever the opportunity shows itself are easier said than done.
Volunteering in soup kitchens; protesting unjust laws; doing every chore, school assignment, and task at your job to the best of your ability; donating a sizeable amount of what you earn to charity; being cheerful even when your day has been crappy; cleaning the toilets so another family member doesnât have to do it instead; sacrificing your time to help an acquaintance â or a stranger â with some difficulty; visiting people in the old folks home or the hospital just to cheer them up; taking the time to talk (cheerfully, sympathetically, and patiently) to that person who just wonât leave you alone and feels the desparate need to tell you their life story; or not getting angry at the guy who cuts you off in traffic are just a few of the things that every good Christian should do consistently, so far as they are able. Do I do them all? No. Most of them, yes, but it is very difficult to take time out of your schedule and visit strangers, or to not be irritable when youâre having a bad day, so as not to make it a bad day for other people.
Those are just simple ways of following the teachings of my religion, and there are of course far more extreme ways, like becoming a fully-licenced doctor, and spending your time treating people in 3rd world countries for free, or selling everything you have and using all your time and money to help those in need, or joining a religious order and devoting your life to the service of others.
Also, comparing praying to asking a teacher for credit isnât very accurate. Itâs more like asking a teacher for help with homework, or to give another student extra help, because they are struggling. I could add all sorts of prayer-related things Catholics should do to the above list, because those can be difficult as well, but you no doubt think theyâre a total waste of time.
Living according to Catholic teachings is doing a heck of a lot. Take a look at Mother Theresa, for example. For most people, it just means trying to make the lives of everyone else around you better, in simple ways, but even then, itâs only nothing if youâre not really tryingâŚ
Lord Haseo said:
The concept of praying is tantamount asking your teacher to give you extra credit for doing absolutely nothing. Itâs cheating.
Hence why Catholics donât believe you can get away with just praying and not actually living according to Catholic teaching (which is not to say that God ignores Protestantsâ prayers).
Yup. I donât offer to pray for peopleâs conversions, LOL.
I wish you all the best, darthrush, however much I might disagree with your choice. I hope your family lives up to the teachings of their religion and doesnât condemn you for not believing the same things they do.
This is interesting.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/when-does-praying-in-public-make-others-uncomfortable/
Thatâs more or less the results I would have expected, though prayer before meals bothered people slightly more than I would have thought.
Out of curiosity, would you feel uncomfortable if you were invited over for dinner and your hosts prayed grace? And if so, would it make you feel more at ease if they explained that they were going to pray grace, and you could pray or abstain from doing so as you wished?
Incidentally, the only person who has mentioned anything when I pray grace before lunch at school (silently, but visibly making the sign of the cross) was a kid from a Catholic family who obviously didnât share his parentsâ religious convictions and who teased me about it. I do go to a Catholic school, though, so even non-religious kids there probably wouldnât think much of it (I got a ton of questions about it in elementary, though).
I havenât been around much, so I only just saw this. You have my consolations and prayers, Warb.