Don't worry Lynna. Please don't read much into the tone of my writing, I personally respect you a great deal. I think you're intelligent, sincere and a survivor (I was aware of your accident) - even though I strongly disagree with you.
You don't have to concern yourself with this thread or apologize. I should have stated when I began this thread that I respect you (even though I find some of your beliefs a bit nutty
).
The vid about the 4 scenarios was to simply to highlight that no matter what happens God is good (like in our discussion), it wasn't related to your personal circumstances. I should have made that clear.
I didn't think you were being cruel by posting that video with the four senarios and didn't really think you were directly applying it to me. Just that it is something that I have been personally confronted with, that people have strange ideas about that. My point in commenting on it was just like I said it shows God neither good nor bad my accident was just that. (In the video and shooting was a random shooting.) It in fact really had perhaps nothing to do with God, except that God gets to see how I act and how others act toward me. How I act about the outcome proves what kind of person I am, how I view life, my health, other people, and what is important to me. So you think some of my believes are a bit nutty
. So you strongly disagree with me on which points? The first video in your signature is that of a Spiritual Atheist. My Sister and i were trying to deside just how that worked. So is it your thought that God is good? No matter what happens to individuals? (maybe I should have done the "g" thing but that kind of means something different to me then it does to some other people but if that's how you do it and it's an agreement. then okay)
Anyhow in that first video of your signature it has a little part about being made of stardust. From the dust of a nebula, the birth place of stars. If I thought the choice was a)heaven or b)hell, I would choose c) stardust also. I wish I would have thought of that along time ago when my daughter was little, but for a different reason. I'll tell you a story just for fun. It's short.
I came down the hall, there stood my 6 year old daughter Cassiopeia with her arms crossed over her chest pouting.
"Dear girl," I say,"What's wrong?"
"I'm not real!" Came her angry reply.
This would cause any mother to wonder. Indeed I did. What would cause my sweet little one such a terrible thought. So I inquired, "What has caused you to think such a thing?"
"Come with me." She said taking my hand and leading me into her bedroom. There the evening sun was casting a sunbeam through the window and we walked straight up to it. She pulled on my arm and I kneeled down beside her. She swept her little hand through the sunbeam as if to catch something. Then held out her empty hand for me to see.
"Look!", She says, "the dusts is pretend! I'm not real!"
I kneeled there watching her watch the dust swirling in the sunbeam. Her big green eyes welling up with tears. She was only six years old, she still thought I knew everything. How would I answer this one, the responsibility seemed almost overwelming.
Then she turned those big green tearfulled eyes on me and said, "I'm not real, Mom. Dust is not real." With more seriousness then her years should have allowed. She sweep her little hand through the sunbeam and looked down at it's emptiness.
I took her in my arms, hugged her to my chest and said, "Of course, you're real. Feel me hold you in my arms?"
She thought about it. She didn't seem totally convinced. She's always been a little subborn just like me. (that's why we fight alot now).So I picked her up and carried her to my desk in my room. I took down my anatomy book. "Jehovah made people out of very, very special human making dust," I started out. Then we looked at all kinds of pictures. How DNA is Jehovah putting down in writing everything about us. How in the womb Jehovah made us in an awe inspiring way. We sat there for along time. She didn't ever worry about not being real again.
But since I watched the video you suggested I will not leave out stardust and a picture of a nebula and a guy named Strangestdude out of that story if I get to tell it again to one of grandchildren.
Thank you for your kind words for the death of the young man. It was a great lose and a shock to every one. We will all miss him dearly. It was very sad at meeting today to see all the young men talking and him not among them. Their conversatioin was still very somber, as well it should be. I was surprise that some of them including my nephew was ill effected by the talk in the community the the young man would go to "hell" because he committed suicide. How dare any one be so cruel as to say such a thing let alone say it to children. The wages sin pays is death and at death we are aquitted of our sins. Even the wrong doer who dead next to Jesus, was given the kind promise of the the resurrection to paradise just for the asking of it.
Perhaps after awhile I will get out of my selfish mode.