Hey FrGamble!
December 7th, 2020 at 1:58:35 PM permalink | |
FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 | I've been asking you to put God to the test and pray, but for some reason you won't. Don't worry God will never give up on you, He loves you. It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures. ( |
December 7th, 2020 at 4:06:58 PM permalink | |
Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25010 |
Waste of time. Look at Mother Teresa as an example: "If there be God - please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul," she wrote. "There is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead. It has been like this more or less from the time I started 'the work,'" "How painful is this unknown pain - I have no Faith." https://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/mother-teresa-god-abandoned-article-1.236375 So if she can't get thru to god, why would I even bother. He clearly doesn't exist.
That and a dollar will get you coffee at McD's. Or just bring the dollar, it's all you need. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
December 8th, 2020 at 9:17:11 AM permalink | |
Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25010 |
No comment, FrG? Your answer to everything involving god is, pray pray pray. Here's a famous nun who prayed prayed prayed for decades and got bupkis for her effort and whined about it forever. Will you say she was doing it wrong? She wasn't trying hard enough? That she didn't really want an answer? Remember, your Church made this woman a saint. You can pray to HER, a woman who admits that prayer didn't work at all when she did it. Can you see how screwed up this is? Of course not, the Kool Aid you drank is the strongest kind, puts up permanent blinders to truth, it does. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
December 9th, 2020 at 4:00:39 PM permalink | |
FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 | Do you really think she got bupkis from her prayers? Do you really think she would agree with you? It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures. ( |
December 9th, 2020 at 4:58:17 PM permalink | |
Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25010 |
What prayers. She stopped praying privately decades before she died. Waste of time and she knew it. Some who knew her say she was eventually an atheist, her belief in god totally gone. I utter words of community prayers -- and try my utmost to get out of every word the sweetness it has to give -- but my prayer of union is not there any longer -- I no longer pray. Mother Teresa Letters I never liked her or respected her, laying her head down every night on silk pillowcases of some rich follower where she was a guest while the poor people in her clinics lived in squalor. I'm warming up to her now that she might have been a secret atheist. And the fact that people now pray to her, a woman who stopped praying because it didn't work, is kind of delightful in a twisted way. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
December 10th, 2020 at 6:30:59 AM permalink | |
FrGamble Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 67 Posts: 7596 | Before we continue this conversation you need to read a little more about St. Mother Teresa and what was going on in her interior spiritual life. I think you aren't getting the whole picture. Here is a good article for you to read if you really want to have a discussion about it: Mother Teresa's unfelt faith Here is a wonderful prayer of Mother Teresa's that might also help: Mother Teresa's Anyway Poem People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and your God; It was never between you and them anyway. It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures. ( |
December 10th, 2020 at 10:21:48 AM permalink | |
Evenbob Member since: Oct 24, 2012 Threads: 146 Posts: 25010 |
Whoever wrote this article is not familiar with her letters. "the bottom line for the rest of us is this: she never quit trying." Sure she quit trying, she said so. "but my prayer of union is not there any longer -- I no longer pray. Mother Teresa Letters She was on auto pilot for most of her life, just doing her job and soldiering on. Just like 99% of people in the world. Prayer is neither here nor there because all you're doing is talking to yourself and hoping some god is listening. If he is or isn't you still have to pay the rent and put food on the table. That's why people who never pray are just as successful and happy as people who do pray. If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose. |
December 29th, 2021 at 12:06:41 PM permalink | |
missedhervee Member since: Apr 23, 2021 Threads: 96 Posts: 3092 | I never read much of the old Testament in the Bible as I was raised Catholic. My buddy was also raised Catholic and while he's wavering he still has some faith; he just stumbled upon an interesting tidbit in the Old Testament he and I were unaware of: I'll share...he wrote to me the following: _____________________________________________________________ " Lot is sitting at the Gates of Sodom and two angels appear. Being the only righteous man around, he bows down, etc. etc. While in his house, the male population of the town, both young and old, surrounded the house, and caused a ruckus, demanding the angels come out so that THEY CAN HAVE RELATIONS WITH THEM. Lot then steps up and says to the angels---- no no dont go. I offer you my two daughters who are still virgins. The men leave, the angels pulvarize the city , or both, Lot is allowed to flee with warnings. But his wife, against strict warning, turns around to look and is turned to a pillar of salt. WOW, Somehow I missed the whole raping angels part." ____________________________________________________ Whoa, Raping Angels. That would be a good new name for the Washington Football team. |
January 26th, 2023 at 11:30:25 AM permalink | |
DoubleGold Member since: Jan 26, 2023 Threads: 30 Posts: 2476 | "I love dictionaries and use them frequently. But they are shallow and incomplete. What constitutes right and wrong, good and bad? How can one tell?" Nareed, the conscience we were temporarily assigned can do it. But the conscience must be relatively clear. So in theory, an atheist can be more moral than a born-again Christian. A conscience can be more obstructed over time as we grow older. When we were a newborn, it was relatively clear (with the exception of original sin). It must be maintained on a regular basis to keep it relatively clear. The maximum obstruction could be one that a psychopath has (nothing wrong bothers us). If we do something wrong for example, that wrongdoing is stored in our conscience. If our conscience is relatively clear, our conscience can bother us for the wrongdoing. So we should make amends where and when possible to remove the obstruction. If we have a relatively clear conscience, there's a small voice we can sense inside us (conscience) to let us know what is right. The conscience is contained inside our human spirit while we are alive in the flesh. The human spirit is different than the soul. |