The “depends” won the day!

It depends on whether the issue in question is trivial or big, some people thought. 

I don’t want to have full knowledge about all the dark doings on the streets of the centre of our city at night, like the police would know. Those terrors would rob me of sleep! I am happy to be ignorant of them. 

However, seeking answers for the big questions of life is another thing. 

Questions like “What happens after we die?” I want to find out what is reality and truth about that!

For that question, many seem to especially use the “Ignorance is bliss” idiom instead. 

Let’s seek for truth and reality!

Self-absorption or self-sacrifice? 

Another way of putting it – serving self only, versus serving others?

If we are self-absorbed, do we recognize it?

Self-absorption is only concerned with self, and the importance of self.

If we are self-sacrificing, do we recognize it?

Self-sacrificing probably is other person-centred, and doesn’t ‘blow its own trumpet’.

Most people chose ‘Both’. That seems realistic. A bit like in a plane. The cabin crew advise us to first put the oxygen mask on ourselves, then on our accompanying child.

Jesus was amazingly different. His actions  showed no self-absorption, but rather self-sacrificing. Ultimately, at great personal cost, he willingly gave his life for us. Three days later, showing the truth of his predictions, he came back to life again.

“… I have not come to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many.”

Matthew 6:33 (NIV)(http://www.laridian.com)

Mention of Hell…? 

That word can confront!

We know that some think they are already living in it. Strangely enough, such people seem to live in the comfortable West, from my observation.

What if Hell would be just in this life? What we do has consequences, so “yes”, it would be self-chosen, according to the choices we make. Or it could be due to circumstances outside our control, such as sickness, weather or accidents.

If Hell will be a reality in the life following this brief one, then what?

What could we do now to stop that being a personal horrible reality then?

Jesus rebuked Jewish religious hypocrites in front of him.

“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to Hell?

Matthew 23:33 (NIV)(http://www.laridian.com)

Jesus spoke more about Hell in the Bible than anyone else and in a way that shows that he understood it to be a real and specific place of punishment away from God.

Someone told me the following…

Hell – Real, Terrible, Avoidable

Avoidable? By just being “good”, or religious?

Not according to the Bible. The only way is to be forgiven by God for the way we have rejected or ignored him in our lives, as well as rejected or ignored the only way we can be forgiven and brought into happy relationship.

That way is through Jesus, taking our shame, punishment, and God’s wrath against us on our behalf. He did that, rescuing us, but we need to fully accept it and then live it.

What do you think?

Surely there is more to my life and identity than just my sexuality? 

We can do better than that, can’t we? 

What if I didn’t live in such an affluent country? Food, drinks, freedom, individualism, and employment as given ‘entitlements’?

What if I didn’t have as much education, and was not able to ‘call the shots’ in my life so easily as I do now? Would that make a difference? 

Is it because of privileges like these that make it possible to have my sexuality as the main defining identity in my life?  

I’m interested in what others think, and how you got there.

‘Pro-Choice or Pro-Life? 

Does being pro-life mean that society is more civilised, or does being pro-choice mean that?

You can see from the blackboard result opposite that the majority of respondents in the market thought the latter.

I do find that difficult to accept

It is hard and inappropiate to call abortion anything other than the process of killing a baby in utero. It cannot be honestly sanitised to an alternative definition. Baby is the special word we have come to call the living human in the pregnant mother. We never hear a pregnant mum say her ‘foetus’ is kicking, or ‘just some tissue’ is starting to move, or has a heartbeat.

Once we know about the process of abortion, and especially if we see it on a live video, there is also no way we can think of the baby as anything other than living, and abortion as anything other than the killing of it. The reality is that the process is truly horrible to watch.

A mother’s love is normally accepted as the most exemplary of all forms of human love, isn’t it? Maybe there should be more forms of support for an expectant mother, so that she is more able to support and carry her baby to its birth?

I like that saying I heard somewhere – “Love them both.” They both have rights.