Early life difficulties

[dms1972]

deleted by poster for privacy

 

[Press On]

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[Tempura]

Don't apologize for the melancholia. You say it like it is. Honesty is good, especially with depression and these kind of mental health problems. People around here tend to be melancholic.

You are on a good road, wanting to forgive. And the more we get hurt, the harder it becomes. But what we can't do, God can, and I think it's good that you lean on God in this. The more we lean on God with these things, the more we can lay our burdens down. God knows yours is hard to carry, and I hope you learn to give it away. One by one, little at a time.

I'm alone in my apartment a lot too. I get my food, drink and smokes (crappy habit, won't recommend) but that's it. Sometimes I manage to get out more. I know how it is: at the same time it's a comfort zone and a prison. The funny thing is, I have more peace now than I did before. I guess I don't beat myself to submission with my own failings and hurt I have suffered anymore, and I have found Jesus Christ to be a rock to lean on. So much comfort, love and hope in Him. In a way I had to be messed up for years to truly understand it.

I too think that there's too much arguing on these boards, or wherever people come together. It's easy to blame books, movies and such in the search of some self-righteous crusade. I loved Lord of The Rings when I read it as a teen. Anyway, we love to point our fingers as christians, don't we? Not that other people don't do it too, but I guess it concerns me more when it's christians doing it. More grace and hope in the name of Jesus Christ instead of pointless bickering would certainly be a nice change.

About non-christians asking for things. Many of them know how to behave, and are probably a lot better people than I am. But some are just trolling around. Some are looking for fights, for arguments. And some probably to to "convert" people away from their faith. It sometimes bothers me too. But! I have no way of knowing how God's word works in the hearts of people. Someone might be furiously against God and Christ now, but they might believe in the future. I don't go around answering questions, especially demands, but I think it's important to treat everyone with kindness and to speak the truth as we see it, and leave the rest to God. Just another thing to remind us that God is God, and we are just people.

Hope you feel welcome here. Said a little prayer for you. Hoping for comfort, love and guidance to come your way. You are not a lost cause, no matter how you may feel.

 

[dms1972]

[I have thought it best to edit and remove private material]

I appreciate your kind words and supportive remarks, maybe one day I will forgive what happened. Since I have forgiven other things I think I am by God's grace a forgiving person.

But I don't want to have to live through an internet forum for friendship.

 

[dms1972]

Although there are many sincere christians and indeed sincere non-christians on the site

Parts of this site are discouraging for sincere seekers and christians. Its not the task of christians to be answering every question of humanists etc. The site staff will have to answer some of them themselves. Or they should maybe think why they started so many of those forums.

I have pointed out the fragmented theological discussions to those who provide the site - forums are not a good place to discuss theological issues that are steeped in centuries of debate. Yet the staff here seem to allow the same topics to be discussed over and over, by the same people who seem to have an incapacity to see that no theology is complete, and that theological completeness is left to the Holy Spirit in building up the church. Its the ivory-tower mindset that seeks a complete perfect theology apart from christian worship and living.

Forums can provide places to ask for prayer, pastoral support with mental distress (though they cannot provide diagnosis or clinical support), other things relevant to christian living, discussion of common interests in music, books etc. Forums to answer genuine questions about christianity from truth seekers. But fifteen pages of debate just shows a person asking a question is contrarian and not genuinely interested in christianity or perhaps truth at all, and sometimes advancing his own agenda. You can't change, argue such people. You can only leave them to the Mercy of God, who will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and tell them they won't understand the Kingdom till they are born from above.

A Christian Forums should be for truth seekers and Christians only.

I mention it here because when the staff are focusing on non-essentials it is a major source of discouragement.

 

[Press On]

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[dms1972]

I appreciate that and don't take part much myself except once in a while. But my concern (I don't know how many others share this?) is the sort of witness being provided by all these discussions. I should probably mention it in another forum, or maybe someone else will.

Serious inter-church theological debate would hardly ever be done in this sort of forum, or open internet forums. It would require particular influencial scholars (who to some extent understand each other even if they don't agree because they have read each others books) to meet and discuss in a setting that wasn't open to everyone chipping in two cents. So I don't know what people hope to achieve??? Most of the real theological work is done elsewhere. Christians in churches don't spend a tenth of the time spent on these forums in theological debate.

It doesn't provide the same sort of witness that a seeker would get if he went to a church. He/she may not understand things in the church service, and would want to ask the pastor or elders a few questions, then they would be less bewildered than if they read some of these discussion threads.

Christian faith is the faith once delivered and entrusted to the saints - its expressed in theologies, which are true as far as they are a rediscovery of the message of Jesus and his Apostles. But every theology is to some extent part theological reflection on Scripture, part the theologian's piety and part influenced by the times he is living in.

Seekers would learn far more about christianity by buying something like a Handbook to the Bible.

I won't get into those intractible debates, but I think it concerns me to ask what the staff on the site think of the witness of the site? by that I mean how it comes over to seekers, and people of other religions interested in christianity.

 

[Far Side Of the Moon]

I stay from theological debate forums. I used to occasionally read posts that seemed interesting but became distressed at the ugliness that is brought to the surface. I'm too thin skinned, perhaps, but I see no real purpose except as a soapbox for a person who just loves to argue and has to be "right" all the time. To each his own I guess.

I agree.

 

[Press On]

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[dms1972]

Quite awhile back I suggested a topic that has seen some serious debate from genuine educated theologians on a few sites. The response from my very first friendly post: "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Don't come on this forum and post your stupid opinions". (or something very close if not verbatim).

I hope you feel better soon, and a break from forums can aid that. But I know what you mean about wanting to join in a discussion.

For myself I seek to avoid replying to others like that. If I express my opinion strongly its more often because of a rehashed discussion by people who don't seem to read much except critical works of others, and rarely outside their own theology enough to realise that they and the person they are arguing with do not constitute the only two positions that could call themselves christian.

I think when we feel an area of theological discussion a 'can of worms' (and some of them are) however may indicate it may not be the right place to discuss. It may seem like that but then it would indicate to me if I felt that way I was not being given liberty by the Holy Spirit to open the discussion because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth - I don't mean necessarily that you would find agreement and like-minded people but learned, people who would respect that you are quoting from a scholarly source, and who are sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

 

[dms1972]

About non-christians asking for things. Many of them know how to behave, and are probably a lot better people than I am. But some are just trolling around. Some are looking for fights, for arguments. And some probably to to "convert" people away from their faith. It sometimes bothers me too. But! I have no way of knowing how God's word works in the hearts of people. Someone might be furiously against God and Christ now, but they might believe in the future. I don't go around answering questions, especially demands, but I think it's important to treat everyone with kindness and to speak the truth as we see it, and leave the rest to God. Just another thing to remind us that God is God, and we are just people.

Thankyou for saying that, yes its true we can't know why some people start arguments, but I do know I don't have to get involved. So much atheism is failure to accept reality, the reality that there are a variety of religious expression in the world and that this is part of the human condition. Atheism therefore seems to me to represent a less mature attitude to the world we live in. Older atheists were far more resigned to reality, live and let live, and less activistic, and polemic.

Even a psychologist such as Jung who rejected christianity exhibited quite intense religiosity and generated a sort of cult. In fact its religiosity more than religion that is the problem. And the militant secularists by seeking to get rid of true religion and true spirituality, would only leave an empty house ready to be occupied by superstition, for it is true religion and spirituality that keep superstition, and false mysticism from spreading. Atheism hasn't been able to keep new age mysticism from gaining a following. Christianity has however provided an adequate base, supported the good of reason, scientific discovery and provided protection for people from false mysticisms.