Living our Challenging lives in a sane, balanced manner

Religion and Secularism
1

LIVING OUR CHALLENGING LIVES IN A SANE, BALANCED MANNER.

   It was suggested to me to write about this topic, so, I am writing it, and hopefully, all readers will learn and benefit from the following.  
   I think we can all agree that this world could be better, with a lot more sanity, more love, more understanding, fewer wars, less poverty, etc...
 Yet we live in a world tainted by sin.  This is not the same world God created in the beginning.  If we read in Genesis, we will read the creation account that occurred in six days, and God rested on the seventh, we call it in Jewish circles, "Yom Shabbat"  God called everything he made "Tov" (good).  
 He made man and woman in His perfect, holy, sinless image.  He placed them both in a garden, and there they lived until the day of disobedience, the eating of the forbidden fruit.  We all know the story.  So, long story short, they were cast out of the garden, and sin was introduced to this world.  
 The world in which we live is under the "Second law of thermodynamics"  Everything is going down the tubes, a downward spiral, order to disorder.  Adam and Eve passed on the curse of sin to all of us.  Our bodies are wasting away, yet our souls and spirit,  live on forever.  We are spirits/souls inhabiting finite bodies.  
 So, does it get better? how do we live our challenging lives in a sane, balanced manner?

…One way is looking at the bigger picture, the World to Come. Our lives are like a vapor, we are only here for a fleeting moment, not like the patriarchs of old before the flood of Genesis who lived 900 and some years.
… We have this one fleeting life to get right with God. Some say, “returning to the Godhead” in Hebrew it is called “Teshuvah” from the verb “shoov” or “turn around”. We must realize that we are all sinners, and we all fall short of the glory of God. That is why Jesus Christ, (Yeshua HaMashiach) came and died in our place. He took upon himself all of our sins, past, present, and future.
… All we have to do is turn and accept His free gift of salvation, then follow in HIS footsteps, following His commandments, and living a righteous lifestyle, a new "walk "
Can we make this world a better place? In some ways, we can, with our influence, and following the LORD, we can encourage others to do the same. Yet we still must endure hardships while we are on this fallen world call “earth” Our army drill instructors used to say;
… “deal with the situation” “Improvise” “roll with the punches” and “Complete the mission”
… What’s the situation? a fallen world, a corrupt society dominated by sin.
… Improvise; If we can’t change the whole world, we can start with ourselves and work from there.
… Roll with the punches: "Turn the cheek, if someone verbally assaults us. Words won’t kill us, and returning evil words for evil words will only make the matter worse. If someone physically tries to do harm, well, what can I say, defend yourself and your family, that’s to be expected.
… Complete the mission: Our mission on earth is to get right with God, accept His free gift of salvation, and prepare for eternity in heaven. Heaven is the “Big Picture” when we have that in mind, living in this challenging world will make our lives more balanced.

HaSofer (The Scribe)

2

Eternity in heaven, sounds like the ultimate nightmare.

Why would you want it? Especially, if you haven’t even gotten anything out of living with your amazing body within this amazing Earth?

What’s wrong with living an aware, in the moment life, and then we die and enter the deep dark endless sleep from which none awake.

What’s so difficult about dealing the one’s own ending?

Why not be grateful for the time you’ve been blessed with?

3

“getting right with god” is such a trap. The experts in that field have argued and fought the for as long as this idea has been around.

The situation: We are the result of billions of years of random changes. Each new change is selected for survival, not by a cosmic consciousness, but simply by it being fit for survival or not. Our brains can’t perceive that happening and even our collective perception of the past and ability to extrapolate into the future still only gives a narrow window into what is happening. We perceive our existence as something extraordinary and special because we think 80 years is a long time. We think 8,000 years is a long time.

In terms of evolution, we are about average, unless we manage to overcome our limitations, and it’s not looking so good right now. We rearranged some of the matter on one or two planets in the universe. You can call this the “fallen world”, I call it the imperfect result of the forces that don’t conceive of perfection. You can call it “sin”, but no one has ever supplied a list of sins that makes sense or that anyone, even Jesus, could avoid. The desire to improve, to do better, to flourish is the result of that same survival mechanism, the one that has no reason in itself.

Enjoy the ride.

4

I agree with everything you wrote, but you give me an example of how western thinking remain shackled to Abrahamic thinking, which is too self-centered for its own good.

You can not understand an organism without appreciating its environment.

Organisms are totally constrained by the resources and environments they need to survive within. The fittest of creatures is doomed if it’s particular suite of resources (needed for survival) radically changes or disappears.

It’s right there with consciousness - that is, it’s impossible to grasp so long as it being looked at as an object, rather than a dynamic reaction that results from that particular body/brain configuration and the moment to moment environmental survival challenges it’s overcoming,

5

Well, to answer your statement, there is nothing wrong with enjoying living within our amazing bodies and living on this earth. God wants us to enjoy our life here, take care of our bodies, through exercise, vitamins, healthy eating, It is good to live for the moment, but at the same time, prepare for the future.

About death and enter a deep dark endless sleep… Well, that is not what the Bible teaches us. Paul said to be “absent from the body is to be in the presence of God” when the rich man died, he woke up in Hades, in torment, in fire, so there is no deep dark endless sleep at death, rather a continuation of life, by life absent from the body, either suffering for all eternity in hell, or in happiness and bliss in the company of our Heavenly Father and the holy angels.

This is not my opinion, only God’s truth through His Word. We have to face the facts, many might want to go into an endless sleep, but the fact is that the Bible says; “It is appointed unto man once to die and after this, the judgment”

We wll be judged by God after death, as to how we lived our life, we will ALL be judged, only the wicked and those who rejected Jesus Christ will be judged guilty and thrown into the Lake of Fire for all eternity. I would think THAT would be the ultimate nightmare.

Yes, we should all be grateful for the time we have on earth, however short or long it is.

Thanks for your comment.

The Scribe

6

you mix this up with the Paul quote, so, not sure if you mean Luke 16, but I don’t know of another verse where a rich man dies and ends up in hell. I think you are seeing that as literal when it is not. I think it’s about a common theme in the gospels, of upending the social order of oppression. Telling people they will go to hell is a way to support oppressive social orders.

I don’t make this stuff up, I get it from scholars.

7

So what should I care what the Bible says?

I used to read that stuff and most of it is rather nauseating and very obviously the work of human minds with nothing even close to resembling what a timeless God would share with us.

Your Bible is written by petty people concerned with petty human affairs. It serves a purpose, but the word of the God Creation, that it most certainly is not.

It is internally inconsistent and externally way the heck too anthropocentric .

8

I don’t see how a statement about evolving for fitness could ignore the environment. Everything living is evolving. The weather is changing, but not evolving, so that would be a factor, but not something that I would say “survives” like an organism does.

9

I don’t either, but I see it’s done constantly, in big and little ways, by geniuses and fools.
Treating consciousness as an object, is but one example.