Good @ MindSay

I may have just read the funniest 8 pages in written history.
Thank  you, David Sedaris.

There are actual tears rolling down my face right now, and I'm only in the 3rd or 4th chapter.  This book might end up killing me...but what a way to go :)

“The Problem of Evil and Le-way”

As an American I am most familiar with Christianity than any other belief system. At the same time, I was not raised in a Christian household like many of my peers. Instead my parents left it up to my brother and I to determine our own beliefs and encouraged us to think for ourselves. As a result I was given the opportunity to be true to myself by thinking outside the box and considering as many angles

as possible.

 

One of the concepts I have long accepted but now choose to do away with is the idea that God is omnipotent. It’s not that I doubt that good will ultimately prevail over evil but rather that the reason for this is that there is more good and a greater desire (or need) for good to overcome what isn’t. The nature of evil is to destroy itself while good seeks to further itself.

 

The hard reality is that there are two forces in the universe, like night and day, male and female, yin and yang, there is good and evil. Understanding this has lead me to solving The Problem of Evil. The Problem of Evil suggests that God can not exist to allow so much pain and suffering in the world.

 

I have previously proposed that the devil was a great angel given the responsibility of guarding over the knowledge of good and evil who was seduced by what it had to offer. This may very well still be the case and in fact may be the very thing that gave the devil his power.

 

God allowed Adam and Eve and the angels under His command to decide for themselves if the knowledge of good and evil was something they wanted. He did this because He is fair. The difficulty is that free-will (which comes from the knowledge of good and evil) is incapable of producing results that are just as fair. This brings us to The Problem of Evil which must be discussed if God is worth believing in.

 

The solution is a war that has lasted for millions of years and may last many more to come. It’s not a question of who will win but only a matter of how long it will take. Good will ultimately prevail over evil for the reasons I spoke of before. It’s not that God did not create the Universe and everything in it. The problem is that God made the mistake of trusting Satan with the knowledge of good and evil which the devil used inappropriately to make war with God and put His kingdom in jeopardy.

 

Ultimately, there are 2 principles at work here. The first being that God is fair which is why He allowed all this to take place. The other is called dualism but not in the most literal sense. True dualism would not allow for justice to be served in its proper context and would therefore produce undesirable results. It may not be that God is omnipotent in the sense that He can do away with evil as He pleases but, maybe, in the sense that evil will be done away with when all is finished.

So after going up and down, for months and back and forth. Its finally starting to level out... Or at least one thing is.

 

I know in the past I wrote about me "questioning" whether I wanted to get back with my ex or not. But everyone knew that I was just angry. Yes I will admit (cause there is no point in lying to my own blog) there were times when I thought that I didnt want to get back with ex cause my ex had  a new girl friend and then i tried to go out on a few dates but non of it felt right, I kept thinking about my ex. And there were times that we were soo nasty to each other and I cried and yelled and just got soo angry. But I realized that I got so upset cause I cared so much. You just don't stop loving someone after 2 and half year. And I know I am not innocent in this whole thing I was a bitch and all that too and her just as upset.

BUT NOW!!!

Things are starting to get better between the 2 of us! We've been talking and stuff and working on us for the last few weeks. And its been gonig well. Then the other night we got back together!! And yes i was told that is was on a shaking foundation BUT I hope we can build a rock foundation. I really hope things work out for us. Yes we both have a lot of work to do, and we both still have growing up to do. But I think if we work hard and communicate we can make this work. I really want it to work.... Well thats it for now.

 

I miss you Boo! I love you and I pray nothing but the best for the 2 of us!! We can do it!!

 

Alex

There is nothing so frustrating as to be ignored or misunderstood. But funny we always are and do with each other. As I go about my life and business I’m often told that it’s all that I must do – mind my own business and leave others with theirs.

Are you sure that’s smart?
Are you sure that’s compassionate?
Are you sure that’s what being human is all about?

Smart is smart when you know that everything a person does stands connected to his neighbor or to the next person beside him, stranger or not. You can’t just go around brandishing your brand of living, speech, or behavior not caring who gets bumped or knocked down by your shadow as you pass it by. The day or moment, or on a larger scale as the world, does not center on you --- alone. It is composed of zillions of other creatures of life which share the center stage with you. They too matter as you do. They’ve got their own stories to tell and deserve to be heard. They’ve got their own ambitions or dreams and deserve to pursue it. They’ve got their desires, passions, and love and deserve to feel or express it. They’ve got their own share of sorrows and pain and deserve to be comforted and cared for. They are so much you – as you are so much them. Understanding this is being smart.

 ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’  So you think that a miserable-looking man in ragged clothes dirty mien, roaming the streets begging for a penny does not concern you. Or a middle-aged guy looking out through the bars of his lonely cell is his just reward and that makes you feel safe. Or when thousands go hungry in a country far away is the fault of their lousy government and not yours. Or that the pedophile pouncing on young innocent victims is alright just as long as he doesn’t swoop down on your territory or your own brood. Oh but that concerns you – everything that is wrong whether it touches you directly or not – will concern you because it has the potential to hurt or harm you. But you have the power to change things if you want to. You may not be the government with all the resources in your hands nor a billionaire who can send off plane loads of food to Africa but you are you with your one voice, pair of hands, and a mind and heart that thinks and feels rightly when the time is come for it. You can with your one voice try to shift the eyes of the world to the plight of your poor world neighbors. You can point your finger to the instruments of evil threatening our families, communities, and the world. You can pack food and clothes and give it to the poor man on the street. It won’t take much to show compassion for another human being. All it takes is a mind and a heart which cares… truly cares. And I think that God made our heart to serve that purpose.

If you think that you are given life to do as you wish, the answer is no. Yes, we do mind our days with jobs we work at from 9 to 5 24/7, get married, raise families, send children to school but that’s not all there is to life and living. There’s more entwined there because you stand connected to the world outside too that will surely engage your fullest capacity, ability, or talent if you look hard and listen well. And that does not simply operate in your own small circle of family or close friends although it can begin there. It’s a huge expanse which covers your community, to people you’ve never seen before in your whole life, and to the world at large. One voice or one small step or one lighted candle can lead to bigger and better things for a greater number of people.

Do what you can with what you are and with what you have to shape lives, to bring hope, to tell your brothers regardless of race, color or creed that you are looking and you see --- that you hear and are listening. That is what being human is all about. And may you be blessed a hundredfold for it -- which I'm sure God is simply waiting to do for you.

Man has but the simple task of balance.  Balance is not the same as moderation.  That balance entails the unique and tumultuous duty of acting in a way that brings neither extreme or fanaticism nor subjugation.  We act in ways that fulfill consumption.  This may be food, sex, alcohol, reading, etc..  Consumption fuels the inner desire we have for something.  Eckhart Tolle discusses the idea of the ego as being the barrier to enlightenment and stillness.  Hannah Arendt would refer to conditioning, but it becomes a quandary of sorts in understanding the function of conditioning (separate from that of influence).  Man produces conditions, yet he is subject to being a product of conditions.  It seems an inescapable dialectic of life.  To what degree, if any, can we escape conditioning without providing conditions by which to escape previous conditions?  Since we cannot seem to escape conditions and conditioning we must work within them to understand their influence and determinism in imbalance.  Balance is our continuous struggle and reward in life.  We maintain an understanding of our consumption as being appropriated in moderation in order to implement balance that is neither starvation nor gluttony.  This process of balance does not only occur within ourselves but also with ourselves and nature, individually and collectively.  There is not centerfold which holds higher regard than the other because in the cosmic illumination that extends beyond our understanding we are but workers.  What are we working towards?  This remains a question of life and a collective question for humanity.  Man has been given the unfortunate ability of emotion, love and hate, which predicates most of his feelings and willfulness to act.  The balance is to not fall into the extremist disillusionment of fanatical love or hate.  A man who has all the love for the world one day can awake with the bitter taste of hate on his lips the next morning.  Man fails to understand balance and partake in healthy emotional consumption.  When man fails to moderate such consumptions he becomes consumed by it and no longer assumes the role as consumer but product.  He becomes a product with extremism and narrowness of thought.  His balance has shifted from one terminal point to another.  If becomes consumed then he may become confused and unable to discern balance fearing that one movement will shift from one terminal point to another.  Perhaps this manic imbalance is why people struggle with life.  They have been conditioned to allow consumption to consume them and thus are no longer masters of their consumption but products of it.  They are oppressed by the ego as they try to fulfill it but it is an unhappy bitch.  It takes what it wants and destroys, sometimes, violently what it discards.  Man's responsibility is to understand that neither peace nor war can ever sustain man.  It is utopian to believe in sustained peace and abominable to believe in sustained war.  Man will always feud.  His feud will primarily be with himself.  He projects his internal conflict outwardly and thus begins the cycle of providing a condition under which others are conditioned.  It is with moderation, compromise, mediation that we can come to an understanding of balance within ourselves and humanity.  As we look for answers to the world’s problems and degradation of humanity, we must look at the consumption of one and the ill conceived product of being consumed.  When you can balance yourself you can project a balance proposition for conditioning and thus retract the ill fated cycle of extremism and teetering form one terminal point to another.

Antonio Garcia

Indiana University