Messages From Marilyn Burge
3,201 - 3,220 of 3,324
Purposelessness
I'm still puzzling over what one would DO with eternal
life. Eternity is one helluva long time. Well, we can
always float on a cloud, twaning a harp and singing 'hosannah!'
That's good for maybe 20 minutes. Tops.
And, without sin or sadness, happiness, contentment, and the
like, being the relative terms that they are, quickly become
meaningless.
Then, again, there is no growth without a certain amount of
pain and/or mistakes, so we would remain perfectly static.
Even if
Apology
Lou took the 'aversion cure' at a place that no longer exists.
He took it once, about 30 years ago, and has never touched a drop
since. When we first married, I tended bar with a couple who were
both AA members. They SWORE by AA, but they both drank coffee and
gambled worse than any wino I'd ever served on Skid Road. Betty
still thinks Lou's sobriety won't last because he didn't go the
AA route to achieve it.
A note of thanks...
You were studying their point of view. Studying doesn't necessarily
involve acceptance. Military analysts study the enemy's plans, but
they hardly approve of those plans.
you cut my reply off in midsentence. That's isn't a nice thing
to do, Jim. They were amazed at the answers that he got, because
the questions showed such deep understanding of the issues.
Three days for that particular trip, Jim. That hardly makes it
the only trip that he took, nor does it preclude
Jim Staal LIVES!
From birth.
And, he isn't an apostate. He is SDA from birth.
Apology
I'm very suspicious of any statistical analysis of AA. Since
it is, by definition anonymous, it's impossible for a disinterested
party to gather meaningful statistics. From what little I've heard
regarding this issue, if a person who attends AA meetings drops out
and drinks, the members say he drank 'because he didn't work the
steps.' It is beyond their ken that he might have drank because
the steps didn't work, or because he thought that all that business
about a
Higher Criticism.
We were at a resort right on the Bay. We only went to town once
or twice, long enough to buy groceries.
But, I don't call Nanaimo a city; it's barely a decent-sized
village, by my reckoning. Now, Metro-Portland, Oregon at
1M+, THAT'S a city!
A note of thanks...
Absolute and complete are not synonymous. "George Washington
was the First President of the United States of America."
That's an absolute statement, but in no way is it complete!
Being as there is nothing one way or the other to tell us
whether he 'just knew' that stuff or had been studying elsewhere
that wasn't recorded, it is folly to assume that he 'just knew.'
Oxymoron.
Another word whose definition is a mystery to many who use it
is 'penultimate.' Many times I've heard it used in a way that
tells me the user thinks it means 'the absolute ultimate,' or
some such, when it actually means 'next to the last.'
Okay! B
We are downright phobic about drugs in our society, and
in large part, the phobia is not all that necessary. If
you view drug-taking as self-medication, it puts it in an
altogether different light. What drug a person chooses
to get 'hooked' on is quite often a result of what their
personalities are like. A hyper person is most likely
to get hooked on downers; a lethargic or indifferent person
is most likely to get hooked on uppers. If we
Jim Staal LIVES!
Not so. There's an excellent book that lays out the rationale
for it. My friend's rationale doesn't agree with the book, but
it is also biblical. It goes like this:
The bible says that our bodies are the temple
of the Holy Spirit. Animal fat is not good for
you, and probably shortens your life; therefore
eating it is as much a sin as it would be to
smoke, which is also hard on the body.
The SDA official position
A note of thanks...
He didn't claim to be god; his followers did. And, if he was
god, he was god incarnate. Since he took on the flesh, he
was subject to all the weaknesses of the flesh, including
the weakness of having to learn everything from scratch. THAT
is a big part of the dogma claiming he was god. If he hadn't
been subject to all the temptations and weaknesses that we were,
there would have been no particular big deal about him
A note of thanks...
be
What books are in the Bible was a HUMAN decision one
that was made by the Roman Catholic Church originally,
and later revised by Protestants. Those decisions were
based on what HUMANS decided at the time was needed in
order to keep the masses in church, obedient to the
dictates of the clergy, and contributing their money to
the institution, since at the time those decisions were
made, only the clergy had access to Bibles. It wasn't
until
Another Press Release from Americans United
From: owner-auscs@list.us.net <owner-auscs@list.us.net>
To: undisclosed-recipients:; <undisclosed-recipients:;>
Subject: AU Press Release
Date: Friday, December 04, 1998 4:47 PM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Joseph Conn
December 3, 1998 Rob Boston
FEDERAL APPEALS COURT HEARS ALABAMA SCHOOL PRAYER DISPUTE
GOV. JAMES, RELIGIOUS RIGHT WANT MAJORITARIAN RELIGION
IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, WATCHDOG GROUP CHARGES
Montgomery, Ala.-The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals today
heard oral arguments in an Alabama lawsuit over prayer and other religious
practices in public schools.
On one side were Gov. Fob
Jim Staal LIVES!
Low fat and no fat are not the same thing. Some fats have
a good quality about them, some are just plain bad for you.
Red-meat fat is just plain bad for you. Our bodies are the
temple of the Holy Spirit. It seems to me that is justification
enough. If there any scripture telling you it's a sin to
abstain from eating flesh? If not, it can quickly be regarded
as a personal choice, and that they make that
A note of thanks...
-n (04 Dec 98) JIM STAAL babbled to MARILYN BURGE...
That is iffy. He could be saying that he, among all other
human beings, are a part of God.
Sometimes I know what people are thinking, too. If one is in
the middle of a situation, and knows the people around one,
guessing what they are thinking in a given context is not
always a difficult thing to do.
Then, if he was able to make the same choices we
A note of thanks...
Well, there is no agreement among the different branches of
Christianity as to what those books are, and the Catholics
were the first to make the decision, so why aren't you
Catholic?
When will they ever learn?
From: owner-auscs@list.us.net <owner-auscs@list.us.net>
To: undisclosed-recipients:; <undisclosed-recipients:;>
Subject: AU Press Release Church Politicking
Date: Thursday, December 10, 1998 6:33 PM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Joseph Conn
December 10, 1998 Rob Boston
AMERICANS UNITED REPORTS EIGHT CHURCHES TO IRS
FOR DISTRIBUTING CHRISTIAN COALITION
VOTER GUIDES DURING NOVEMBER ELECTIONS
Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced today
that it has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate eight
churches around the country for intervening in partisan politics by distributing
Christian
Answered Prayer
I've been too ill to participate here, but thought you might enjoy
my latest foray into answered prayer.
My brother called me yesterday to wish me a happy birthday (60th).
I mentioned to him that I was spending nearly every minute in bed
because of some chronic lung problems, which I then shared with
him. He responded that he would pray for me.
Being too debilitated to argue effectively with him, I simply
responded "I appreciate the thought."
He then
Answered Prayer
I don't think there's much chance of my dying of this in the
forseeable future. It is the kind of thing that'll take me
eventually, but I'll worry about that when I'm 90 or so.
I have chronic bronchitis. I've had it since sometime last spring early spring, I think. I was treated for bronchitis then, and
the treatment seemed to work, except I had a real shortness of
breath, and coughed up ugly globs of greenish brown stuff
Small Favor
Marty, I've got a small favor to ask of you. There was a guy on 'Politically
Incorrect' last night who was a 6-day creationist. He was blathering about
some guy named 'Allcock' (one or two l's, I can't say) who was a 'perfectly
respectable geologist' who blah blah blah regarding the Noachin Flood.
I suspect this guy writes for the ICR, and that his name can be found somewhere
on their website. I also suspect that his 'credentials' are the