templelady

"boastings" what an interesting way to describe the painful unburdening of womens hearts.......

**gasping, a baby squirrel skids to a stop before the SDFODAT, panting heavily he gasps the following*** "Oh mighty SDFODAT, the rumors are true!! 007, Bond, James Bond, is going to come here. It is unclear what his intentions are toward you, the Borg. But he will be here shortly" **rising from his platinum, jewel encrusted, red velvet cushioned ,soapbox the SDFODAT descends the thee gold steps ( inlaid with silver inscriptions from the ancient desert texts)*** "Summon the Scorpion King!!!! **trumpets blare, the sands tremble and "The ROCK" enters, chamber maids, secretaries, and hand maids fall swooning to the earth*** "Why do you call me? Who summons the Scorpion King??!! **the baby squirral hastily steps over the prostrate form of the serving wench and pours two glasses of Drambuie setting them before the Scorpion King and the SDFODAT** "I have summoned you mighty king of the scorpions, I the SDFODAT. Bond, James Bond, is on his way here. As I know you are aware, the Borg threaten my rule. I need to keep Bond occupied while I thread the best route throught the dunes of this potential catastrophe. **the Scorpion King sips his drink carfully watching for traps or other signs of impending danger** "Occupying Bond is of no great difficulty. Even as we speak the Sheik of Gunnison is assembling all the great beauties of the Southern Dunes in search of a wife for his son. They meet this week in the emporiam of the Auditorium Way. Bond will find much to occupy his mind and time there.......

VPW was a little man living in the farm lands of Ohio. I don't mean in physical size I mean that he was nothing out of the ordinary, no different from thousands of farmboys of German ancestry in that part of the country. But he wanted to be more, oh yes much much more. In and of itself that isn't a bad thing--that's where people who become great in life start from , from that desire. But people who become great whether, in sports, or the arts, or science, or politics or business or any other discipline do so because They have a natural bent for the area they wish to excel in They are willing to put the tiime and energy into learning and perfecting their abilities They understand that life isn't a "gimme" no work or stopping work means ultimate failure. VPW decided he would become a minister. Then he found out that he was just one minister among many small town ministers in Ohio. So he began to think of ways that his ministry could be different. But when you get right down to it, youth groups, radio programs, study groups, bible schools, are pretty much universal in this country especially in Ohio--nothing to make him stand out there. And so it went until finally he was asked to leave his church--his attempts at gaining attention just became too much too outlandish for his church. And so here VPW is, the thoughts in his head I am great, I deserve to be great, People miust be made to see I am great. The goal of being "great" became all consuming. He was a minister--how to turn that too his advantage. Find a field of study that was not often discussed in depth, read everything you could, pick the brains of the greatest minds on the subject, season well with your own extrapolations, publish and print with appropriate stories of the hardships and toil that went into this work---and---voila--- VPW was now somebody--plagiarism, Private interpretation, twisting of scripture--small prices to pay for finally havig the "world" know that he was great just like he'd been telling himself all these years. {kind of reminiscent of Smeagol "it's my birthday present" "nasty hobbitsessss they trickssss us, yesss they trickssss us." "what has it got in it's pocketsss, not fair...not fair..." "it's my precious" } Greatness was his due, he had a right to be venerated, how dare anything or anyone stand in his way, they should be grateful he used their ideas and on.... and on.... and on...... Truly doubt that it every entered his mind that what he did was wrong, or at least not for many years, maybe toward the end when he was reduced to the jester at Martindales court. At least I like to think so, I want to think he had time to make his peace with Heavenly Father, admit his wrongs ask for forgiveness. It would have been better if he had done so publicly and sooner, much better, but deep in my heart I hope he came back to the light--I really do.

Nope, can't handle this thread just yet... at least not today.....too much in my head and heart......

cman you are getting a grasp of the whole picture I think. Adam and Eve's transgression was necessary for us to come to earth in human bodies. For us to live our lives and remain faithful to God. Sacrifice was instituted so that reparation for sin could be made and Jesus Christ was the ultimate and final sin sacrifice.

Sheltered from the swirling sands the SDFODAT pondered what the next step should be. Would the Borg be susceptable to offers of power and money?? Was it true about the collective mind? Could the SDFODAT control that collective?? Or would the collective absorb them all. Inate paranoia, and self preservation urged that the situation be kept well in check. No more would the occasional mighty sand storms of the desert suffice. No, the way was clear, the sand dusters must unite, they must swirl and twirl the ancient sands into steady clouds of never ending dust. Granted the ceaseless dust would cause the sand snorters far more discomfort than the measured snorts they chose to inhale. Constant irritation would become their lot-- but better that than the alternative. As for the squirrels-well they would see the wisdom, the benevolence of the SDFODAT. If not? Well they'd be quicksand pools before midnight. But sand --sand in the machinery of the life of the Borg--yes sand.............. And with the coming of night the sands began to move and ebb slowly, ever so slowly gaining momentum.............

I enjoy esoteric philosophy , enjoy discusiing it-- there is evil and there is good, IMO. Just becuase God can ameliorate, or bring forth healing , or bring forth good after an evil --in no way negates the existence of evil. In fact it confirms it. If there were no evil God would never need to act because all would be good.

genesis 5 comes AFTER the ouster from the garden.

First point The answer about death for animals comes from, in my understanding, the fact that Adam was given dominion over them. He was assigned the job by Heavenly Father of naming all of them. His and Eves "duty" was to tend the garden and everything in it. To me that has always meant seeing to it that the plants brought forth the right amount of seed and fruit with the right nutritional value etc to provide ample food for the creatures and Adam and Eve who lived there. Once ousted from the garden, there was no one left to "tend" the plants. It was at that point that animals were left to fend for themselves and it was at that point that some animals, the carnivoires and omnivoires, turned to eating other animals-- probably driven by resulting food shortages. Thus death entered the animal kingdom, thus reproduction became necessary. Thus we come down to the present day. Animals cannot sin so they are not cutoff from Gods presence --but just as with all sin-- the trangression of Adam and Eve had far reaching consequences. Second point Man lacks the omniscience and omnipresence of Heavenly Father. Man therefore lacks the ability to see the future and what the potential result of an action will be. What a man thinks is good at the time may vary well turn out to be evil. What a man thinks is evil at the time may turn out to be good in the long run. There is no way Adam or any of his descendents can know the ultimate effects of a decision. As long as man was ignorant of the concept of good and evil--he was not accountable for the results of his actions. We don't expect a four month old baby to understand why they shouldn't throw things--its not part of their knowledge--they don't understand all the things that might happen-- they surely don't understand that some of those things will be "bad". So, while they were in garden, it was with Adam and Eve---no knowledge of the concept of "good" and the concept of "evil" meant that they were not accountable and God covered any boo boos. Once their eyes were open, once they understood the concepts it was a different story. Man now had the capacity and the freedom of choice to make decisions that were bad from the onset or would produce bad results, KNOWING that they were bad. Now man was accountable, now evil was a real force on earth not just a concept hitherto held only by God, the Heavenly Host, and Satan and his minions. Man had gained the potential to become as Gd if he were allowed immortality--There can only be one God--Satan had already caused rebellion and schism. No, man had to become mortal, so as to make any evil done by him finite in its nature.

I think that your speculation is right on target. Earth after it has recieved its paradisical glory-- will have in residence all people who have ever lived who have been accepted into paradise along with all animals that have ever lived. There again will be no death, hence no meat eaters.

herbivores with a few exceptions as noted will not resort to a carnivorous diet. No grass on the savannas means dead antelope. Carnivores however all eat grass and herbs with their diets. Cats and dogs are often found munching on grass or plants. The whole issue of meat in the diet could only come about after death came into the world. And that was the wages of sin. When you get right down to the essentials --all of life survives on plant life, whether by direct ingestion or by ingestion of animals who are herbeviores.

Romans 5:12 says that through one mans [Adam] sin death entered the world for all men. Elsewhere the Bible states "the wages of sin are death" Animals cannot sin only man can do that and man could only sin after eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil Thus was death introduced to the world.

Are they still around? Don't know. We are always finding parcles of land, even in this country, that no one ever goes to. Saw a NGC show, last week I think, about a waterfall in Glacier National Park. It was written about in the 1800's--No one had ever been able to find it until just recently, they finally looked in the right place after flying over the park and looking for likely spots. This is a park that is visted by thousands every year, with people hiking camping all over the place. Yet a waterfall, a non living object that doesn't roam around, remains "lost" for almost a 100 years.! So for a herd of animals that has every reason to fear man and keep well out of his way to remain missing in Siberia or even the far north of Canada is not impossible.

He did have a plan--- noo death means no need for reproduction. It was through Adam that death was brought into the world. Not just for man but for every living thing. There is this "urban myth" that circulates in the back of many Christian brains that runs.... If Adam and Eve hadn't "sinned" we would all be living in bliss in theGarden of Eden. It just doesn't work that way-- No fall= No death= no need for reporduction= no us Adam and Eve had it pretty good surrounded in a garden with every type of plantlife on earth and every animal on earth- no worries, no cares. But after 1 or 2 or 3 hundred years I wonder how that life would have been? Would it still have been wonderful--or just a boring routine of never varying exactitude.

If the animals were fruitful and multipled beoire the fall there would be the same problem. The planet would soon be over run with mice, birds, snakes, lizards, and mammals. No death means over population.

Agreed I apologize and accept your explanation of how your marriage to johniam actually works. That johniam doesn't actually physically abuse you is a wonderful thing, but he still believes, if I am to accept what he himself has posted, that physical abuse of a wife can be justified. That is where my problem with him lies. We are talking about the respect due between husbands and wives in this thread --that is the topic. Whether or not we respect other posters is an entirely different issue--an issue that must take into consideration that most of us have never met or spoken to each other --our sole interaction is here at GSC. When you are reduced to basing your opinions of a persons character to a few sentances on a limited number of topics with no other data to go on-- respect cannot be expected. It would be nice -- but most of us grant respect based on a much wider set of variables.

Gen 5 is after the fall--"be frutiful and mulitiply"--while the context appears to be pre fall- the garden is actually an aside indicating before and after written to give context to the instructions. An aside that would have made perfect sense to Jews well steeped inthe traditions of their fathers. You can tell from the writing styles that Genesis was the work of at least two authors--probably more--this was all oral tradition for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, before it was written down and codified into a "book". This means it hops around in the timeline --Children came after the fall. Too think about it another way--If there had been no fall, and therefore NO DEATH, and every species, including man, were happily being "fruitful and multiplying" {aside from being a great boon to the genealogist } can anyone say Global Over Population??? Talking about children leaving and mom and dad letting them go. Nuclear family-father, mother, children, is the building block of all societies. Grandparents , aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings of the parents of a nuclear family may all share the same roof. But they should remain separate nuclear groups come together for the common good. The more family in one space the more vital it is for there to be clear cut boundaries as to who is "in charge" of what and whom. Just as a business will fail, if the employees are constantly being told what to do by different bosses with different goals and agendas, whether by inefficiency or in ability to keep employees-- so will extended families implode if children are answerable to more than one set of parents and grown children are trying to simultaneously honor the wishes of spouse and parents. having been banished from the garden Eve knew sorrow. Having eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil she knew those feeling, emotions and ideas we view as "sorrow'.I agree that in terms of conception a totally new concept of an event had never taken place before-"multiply is not the best word to use for the understanding of contemporary American English speakers. But, we are talking King James English here--this idiomatic way of expressing the idea was understood by everyone. "Sorrow" was multiplied and since we are now in the plural tense "thy conception" referred to the eventuality of multiple conceptions and births. "thou" is God --for it is God who has marked Cain and decreed his punishment. Humanity, then, was not found world wide. We are talking a group of people that were all related by blood within say, three generations at most, if some of Cain and Abels younger sisters and brothers had already had children. They probably covered an area of maybe a hundred square miles all told. I am Cain-- I killed my brother Abel-- every other person living on the face of the earth is either my father, mother, sister, brother, niece or nephew. THEY ALL KNOW-- and they all are, maybe a couple of exceptions, REALLY PO'D wiith me. Murder as an action has been introduced, never been done before, but now everyone knows it CAN BE!!! Yup I'd be plenty worried about running into any of these folks. Even if they actually wouldn't kill me, my guilt would convince me otherwise. **TL returns having forgot to address apoint made by other posters, returns** By this time in history "sacrifice" had been introduced. Adam made an altar to the Lord as one of the first acts after he and Eve were forced out of the garden. The spilling of blood was the highest offering man could give to God. The blood atonement of sacrificed animals was how Adam and all the generation after him until Jesus Christ, became "clean" before Heavenly Father. That being the case-- Cain knew that when offerings were made to God --Animals were appropriate sacrifice. Being a tiller of the ground was not a sin in and of itself. Growing foodstuffs for his family and livestock was perfectly fine with God. But when it came time to offer sacrifice to the Lord--then an animal was required. Abel simply took from his flocks--Cain having raised no animals himself--should have gone and purchased one from Abel. Instead Cain offered as a sacrifice something that was not only not acceptable to God but something Cain knew had no life blood and therefore could not "cleanse". That was Cain's sin-- He tried to make God change the rules just for him. He tried to make a religious rite, to honor and appease God, into a personal competition between him and his brother Abel. God knew Cain knew better. God knew Cain knew it wasn't about whether Cain grew vegetables better than Abel raised sheep but rather about giving God His due. That is why He rebuked Cain saying "if thou doest well...."

How long a period these talks covered isn't known. Knowing human nature I imagine it was a fairly short time span. The Bible records that Adam and Eve had regular meetings and conversations with Heavenly Father. It would not have done Satan much good if Eve were to mention, during one of these conversations, "I have met the most interesting man in the garden, we talk about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil." Nope, that wouldn't have been good for Satan's cause. So one or two days max. Not work like you mean, not labor, building shelters, altars, hunting, etc. Climate controlled, no dangers, food and water always available-- Most that they did was twine a vine around a tree, pick branches off the ground. All at their own pace--no timeline, or due date. No children in the Garden. In the garden they were immortal so no need for children--children are the way the species is preserved. It was after the expulsion, after death entered the picture that children became necessary. Without the expulsion none of us would have existed. The LDS church teaches that Eve's disobedience was a necessary part of God's plan--for without it Adam and Eve would have never left the garden and none of us would hever have been born in human bodies.

Shouldn't this thread be in the "humor" section??

It will be exactly nine days shy of my 87th birthday-- Pray I'm still going to be active and computer savvy at that stage!

Jeaniam When I name names it is because the posters I name have already posted the situation on a public forum. You are upset it appears because myself and other posters have commented on what we have "heard" from YOUR POSTS!!! No one here EVER asked to be privy to the inside workings of your marriage!! YOU POSTED THEM!!! Sorry if the discussion offends you, I really mean that-- I don't go around thinking of ways to deliberately hurt people--it's not my nature. My hope is that maybe, just maybe, instead of you and johniam feeling that you are being forced in a corner where you have to defend yourselves, that you "hear" the concern and love behind some of these posts. My sense is that you and johniam have had an "us against the world" mentality for a very long time, probably at some point it was a very real and necessary survival skill. I don't know why--not asking to know-- but it is apparent to those of us who really "listen" when we read. GSC, and Waydale before it, has a healing power for many. Here at GSC we fight, we squabble we kiss and make up, but above all there is a real and genuine concern about each other. A concern that transcends our personal differences. Just check out the prayer threads when someone is ill. I have received words of encouragement form people that I disagree with on practically everything--but they have been there rooting for me every step of the way during my recovery. Maybe, it's time for you and your hubby to start coming out from behind your wall, stop feeling you have to justify what you believe, stop feeling you have to keep believing and keep doing things the way you always have. There is room for change in all of us. Heavenly Father loves ALL his children, you and johniam are my spiritual brothers and sisters. What ever I feel about some of the things you have posted- I embrace you as another member of the GSC family and as such wish you only the best.

Most Excellent

Thanks for taking the time and caring. Much of the healing I got after TWI came from pastors and ministers who embraced me with non judgemental love. You are clearly one of these most special of Gods servants.

I give-- johniam, it is clear you will always have some reason that physical violence toward a wife is justifiable. Sad, very sad, I'm sadder for jeaniam--sad because she has to live with a man that holds these views and even sadder because she defends those views. Been there, done, that, relegated the t-shirts to the rag bag. Praying

Happy Happy Birthday to you!