GreyDestiny

Exodus 22:21 "You must not exploit or oppress a foreign resident, for you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt." I agree that the situation is terrible, but I certainly don't agree that the solution lies within the dissolution of our border(s) as many seem to think. The children should be kept with their parents, outside of our border, as the law is the law and one cannot be here through illegal means. However, as I said, I don't support any kind of hateful or malicious edge to this barring. I have always thought that a good home is a happy home. If one has a good and happy home, what is the point in seeking out someplace else? Many Central and South Americans are very hard working and family-oriented people. Many of them would be more welcome here than certain other undesirables already within our borders, ones who do nothing but contribute to chaos and disorder. That is (or at least should be) the point of the legalizing process; to ensure that good people may enter, while barring those who would only cause issue. All the same, as for my idea of a happy home, I believe a solution lies in assisting and encouraging these people to improve their own native soil. They come here seeking a better life, so I would think that they would have no need to come here if their homes were good. This way, we don't have as many people wishing to come here, and they can live peacefully and happily in their own land. Things are a bit more complex than that, unfortunately... Like how that should really fall on the various governmental bodies down south. Much less the situation with Cuba; we really need to resolve that because it's an old wound and it needs to be bandaged. It isn't going to heal itself, which ignoring the problem seems to be the government's priority at the moment. All in all, it's a difficult situation that I really think would be rather more easily solved if everyone went about things differently. As you say, though, these things are likely simply meant to happen. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be; no use fighting it.

This is a topic that seems to be a mixed bag. Many people advise that a person should turn away from anything that has nothing to do with Christianity. No TV, no books beyong the Bible, only Christian music and even being selective when it comes to that, etc. But what of things that do not contain any complicit material? Say... Someone enjoys jazz music. Would the person need to toss aside jazz music, or is it a grey area? On one hand, I do see the point of putting things aside. You are what you focus on, so having more Christian things in your life certainly makes sense. On the other hand, you still have stuff that isn't expressly anti-Christian. What do you guys think?

I always took the oil in the parable about the ten virgins to be the word of God. The lamp is the body and the flame within is the spirit.

I get that life isn't quite nearly so perfect. I just think the irresponsibility and hypersexuality have spiked dramatically over time. This is also true. There is a fine line between discipline and abuse. I mean, what do you do to a kid if you can't punish them? Just tell them? Hey Billy, you shouldn't punch Jimmy? Like that will do much of anything. People are far too sensitive anymore.

One could certainly see it that way. Problem is, vast majority of people becoming parents are becoming parents because they gave provision to their lustful flesh without regard to the consequences, not because they were ready or planned to. Couple that irresponsiblity with the growth of technology, and you've got tons of careless adults with immature minds who let their children be raised by media that endlessly blabbers on about negative news topics, drugs, sex, and so forth. When I was a young lad, you wouldn't catch me acting up in public. If I misbehaved, my dad would whack my patoot right there in front of everyone. I didn't cry out, I didn't run about, and I certainly didn't cause trouble much after those incidents. If an adult said hello, I would respond, "good morning, sir/ma'am". These kids, you could be minding your own business, and out of nowhere, some 5 to 6 year old girl calls you a derogatory term for a homosexual. Her parents laugh about it. If you say nothing, you permit such behavior. If you say something, you're intruding on their right to raise their own children and are considered poorly. Then when these kids grow up to be common criminals, it's the same tune from the parents "my child would never do that, my child is innocent, they did nothing wrong." We just have far too many people who are irresponsible, inconsiderate, and have no interest beyond themselves.

My new job would be fine. I don't mind the work... But there are a few coworkers I take issue with. As if the work itself isn't hard enough, stupid pettiness (on all of our ends, myself included) gets in the way. As much as I realize one must love their enemies as well, I can't seem to break away from the irritation and anger I feel. They do something to bother me, and I return it in turn. Bad part is, i'm outnumbered; I really don't want these guys to take it up with the boss and see me off simply because we don't click. They like to dilly-dally about because "we get paid by the hour," and all they want to do is sit around and talk about drugs and sex. We worked just fine until they found out I was a "straight edge" who's never been arrested and could easily pass any drug test. I'm the odd man out and it's lead me down a very dark path, one that I don't want to go on but one I find myself on more often than not. So, I ask you, how do you overcome not hating those who hate you? How do you work with people who you don't click with? Bad part is, i've tried being helpful or offering kindness, but they just don't like me. It can't really be salvaged, near as I can tell, but I just don't want to sink to their level.

Matthew 7:6 "Do not give to dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."

To tack on to the previous answers, in my experience, such evolutionists often have a narrow and basic understanding of the theory and science itself. Time is such a complex measurement that no clock within existence is accurate. It goes on and on and on like: 00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00:00, etc. It's an endless sequence of factors that lead up to what we understand to be an hour, many of those factors can be drastically effected by even the smallest disturbance. The fact that planets aren't zipping and zooping and falling out of the space-time continuum is a testament to the fact of the existence of God. It is far beyond our understanding, and always will be.

Many people detest the idea of having children someday. Many of these people, regardless of their desire to not have children, go out and about and engage in funny business anyway. However, there is a growing movement (or movements) where people are basically celibate. No funny business, no dating, no holding hands, no marriage, you name it. The reasons are many. Some are caught up in the divisiveness between the sexes, some claim it as independence and freedom, some claiming to have no sexual desire whatsoever, the list goes on. What I am asking you is, do you think it's acceptable for a Christian to be the same way? Does a person have to get married and have children?

I always figured that was part of why the rent is so high there. Not only the "prestige" of living in LA, but because so much tax goes towards the homeless. You'd think they would realize that taking the price that high only adds to the problem, especially when the places don't get bought and they aren't getting the money that they're looking for. Less money is better than no money, as they say. I live in what I would call a moderately sized town but what most others would call a small town. I don't call it small because i've been in much smaller towns, towns with slightly over 70 people to just slightly over 500 people. Tack a couple thousand onto the latter and you've got a "moderate" town here in the midwest. We really only get the rare homeless person wandering through town every great while. Like, i've only ever seen 2 or 3. However, there's also a larger city nearby that's been growing much lately. Not only has crime spiked up in that town, but near as i've heard, there are more homeless as well. I grow worried because it's only a matter of time before that nonsense spreads to this somewhat quiet and peaceful town. If towns keep growing, where is a small town guy like myself supposed to live? Even the town with a population of 70 won't be safe, given time.

While people can be too harsh, one really shouldn't be too soft, either. When you are too harsh, you not only scare off newcomers, but you make people more likely to not listen to your own point of view. When you are too soft, any particular view (no matter how bad or relevant) becomes acceptable, and so no opinion has any value and thus there are no opinions, no direction. It's a lose-lose situation either which way. To quote Sun Tzu, a great leader leads by example, not by force. We must not strongarm other people into our own views, but we shouldn't just simply allow any or all views. It's a difficult and blurry line one has to walk.

It's pretty much the church. They created and morphed Christian holidays to include paganistic practices in order to try and convince pagans to come to Christianity, and yes, this includes Christmas. It comes down to the individual. Many people celebrate Easter/Passover and Christmas whilst avoiding said practices and instead focusing wholly on the Christian concept. Others like myself don't see such holidays in scripture (aimed at Christians, at least), and for us, there isn't a day more special than the other, a day set aside for prayer, for every day is prayer. So long as one avoids those pagan practices that have been intertwined, I think it should be fine.

Well, one has to realize that everyone makes mistakes, and quite often, you've got a lot of malicious folks, both on and off the streets, who take pleasure in dealing death to people. They care not for a person's health, but rather the steady income that comes with dependency (and yes, many in the medical field fall under this category). Then you look at the health services and it's like 2k for an ambulance pick-up, 2k for a night in the hospital, 13k for treatment, if you wish to go to rehab that's going to be 20k... If they cared about helping people, they would make their services more affordable. They'd rather just spit on a person and laugh at them for either having no insurance or "bad" insurance. That's not to say there's a complete lack of care from the medical staff, it's just more of the ones behind the desks, the ones who get the payment. So you've got practitioners and drug dealers alike who deal death, and you've got people who sorely lack the means to treatment and assistance. There's also a lack of room for people seeking treatment. So many of the sick, but not nearly enough beds. Then, you DO have some addicts who use rehab and other such services merely as a means of skirting prison time. They claim to want help, but in reality, they have no intention of stopping, and they can take up that room that was intended for people truly wishing to receive assistance. However, I like to think of it this way; By helping the growth of assistance programs/availability, you can hopefully extend the reach of said services to the people who truly need it and desire it. Hopefully cut down the cost of it at that. All the while dealing with the insincere folks, cause as walla229 stated, they will more than likely meet that "rock bottom" stage at some point. So, in a nutshell, the only reason ambulances would have to prioritize like that is due to a lack of ambulances. There's no reason why the addict nor the baby should not receive help.

I'm quite new myself, but my advise would be to take your time. It does no good to freak out and rush things. Take it slow. Pause. Reflect. Pray. Mistakes come with the territory, but there's no reason why one should try to avoid them if possible. Not only that, but change is never immediate. I've tried forcing change so much, quite often through willpower and discipline as Gandalf stated, and I ended up just stressing out or burning out. Not that one should be too lax about things, of course, but again, just try and remain calm and take it slow.

When I was a kid, there was a spot of drama in the church over our preacher. He had made a mistake about 15 years prior and the congregation was voting to have him replaced... Except my own family. We liked the pastor and my parents reasoned that everyone makes mistakes. Thus, we were invited to never return. To this day, my parents haven't been to another church. It has taken me quite some time to come back around to Christianity, as with that time, I came to realize that there's a difference between the word and the people. We all fall short, and I know I certainly can't claim to be perfect. The most you can do is just lay it down on the table and see what they do with it. You can open doors, but if they aren't willing to cross that threshold, there isn't much that can be done.