Forget Revalations for a minute. The simple fact (well, fact if you’re christian) is that God sent Jesus to be killed in order for us to be able to get into Heaven in the first place. Christianity teaches that if you realize you’ve committed wrongdoing, and you’re sorry, God will forgive you before the Apocalypse presented in Revalations. That’s a huge chunk of the Bible dumbed down into two sentences, to show that forgiveness is one of God’s most prevalent attributes. So from a president that claimed (or maybe still does, haven’t heard about it in a while) to be Christian, this is completely relavant to 9/11. My main problem is that forgiveness is rarely regarded in our society as even being an OPTION in times of great distress.
“Forgiveness is the mental and/or spiritual process of ceasing to feel resentment or anger against another person for a perceived offence, difference or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution.â€
Resentment and anger are emotions that cost us so much strength which could otherwise be used for better causes. “Resentment is an extremely bitter diet, and eventually poisonous. I have no desire to make my own toxins,” declares Neil Kinnock. There is a clear relation between resentment and anger and functional gastric complaints. They increase the risk of many deadly disorders, including heart disease, stroke, cancer, high blood pressure. They increase risk of depression, anxiety, alcoholism, and drug-addiction. There are many other compulsive reactions, such as workaholicism and extra-marital affairs, which are strongly associated with anger and resentment.
Many ancients have known that anger and resentment reduce performance capability whilst at the same time raising performance expectations – we all know how they increase error rates and misjudgements and how we are reduced to reacting and responding rather than following our planned intentions. We become “possessed†by anger and resentment and it rules us.
A Hebrew word for forgiveness means to lift, bear up, carry off or take away a burden. Most world religions include teachings on the nature of forgiveness, and many of these teachings provide an underlying basis for the varying modern day theories and practices of forgiveness. One teaching of Christ suggests the relationship between having been released from an astronomical debt, and forgiving our neighbour a small arrears – a play on our own guilt.
Shalom
Bob, you always amaze me with your widely spread knowledge.
While we’re on the subject of history repeating itself, need we be reminded when that was tried?
I agree. It poisons the soul. But how do we deal with those that have been exposed to this toxicity all their lives?
I heard an interesting sermon this weekend (From a friend who goes to church. I may go myself in the same sense that Robert Price goes, in appreciating the mythology there…) That many moslem in the middle east are having dreams of a man in a white robe coming to them and preaching to them. one imam, has converted to christianity, and is converting others to christianity. He told the pastor (who was over preaching in Sudan) that one of the jihadi’s that was killing christians kept having a dream that the man in the white robe was beating him over the head with a cross. His leaders, decided he was working to hard at jihad, so told him to take a break. Long story short, the dreams of the white robed man beating him over the head with a cross didn’t stop until he converted to christianity.
The fact that this is going on… is very interesting. Both of these converts had visions of christ and left their violent religion for christianity…
Wow… that seems rather violent for the Son of God. I guess it was a dream though.
yeah and it got him to stop slaughtering christians and tribal africans.
And then it was turned into a movie and the merchandising was so successful that it was turned into a show on Broadway.
And after that during the break of rodeo shows one cowboy from the audience would win the chance to beat a Muslim with a cross.
And still it has nothing to do with this thread!
America bombs and terrorizes other countries, I lived with I guy who had been in the CIA for 8 years (Probably still is) His only job was to keep track of world leaders in other countries and assasinate them if need be.
So the question is not should we forgive, in my oppinion the US has had all of its terrorists attacks comming for quite some time. Call it Karma.
The question is:
When will we learn to keep our noses out of other countries Business?
And:
America has many homeless many houngry many dieing on the streets, but in stead of taking care of America, America would rather go to war and try to Force their ways and fix other countries…
Fix America, Then worry about the world…