Things Are Looking Up

HAHA, you know I've been depressed lately, well guess what? I am officially over this, and back to my old self. So yeah, the arguing continues.Later

Women

"DragonflyBlade21: A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired."

Found on bash.org

nothing against women, just it is all so true.

Its fixed... for now

The fedora computer is working again, I got rid of firefox and then re-installed it, at benrr101's advice. Anyway, computer work is really making me miserable right now, and I am going so far as to say that it is depressing, I think I'm gonna take a break from this for a bit. Talk to you all later I guess.

Well...

Ok, the last post doesn't ring true anymore, enough said. Anyway, someone please help me, I don't want to reformat my other computer again, but I think I'm gonna have to. When ever I try to do anything on blogger, it locks up and the screen turns gray, sometimes gray with colorful lines. All toolbars disappear, and all functions cease. I think it has something to do with java, but I got rid of it. Either way something is very wrong, I wonder if my computer can handle Fedora 8, because I can get it. If not I think I might try slackware. The best course of action is to fix what is wrong now, and not have to start over, so somebody, please give me a hand here.

Thanks

Living the Good Life

Everything has been great lately, so sadly I am just posting to say that I have nothing to argue about (yet).

TTYL

TEC The Ultimate in Life Changing Experiences

OK, to start off, everyone should know that I am a Roman Catholic. The importance of this will be explained shortly. TEC stands for Teens Encounter Christ, and it is a biannual retreat for teenagers like myself. I recently went on a TEC, number 360 to be exact. Anyways, it is basically a Christian weekend away, where people meet and do various things to help become closer to God. Its not like Jesus camp in the previous posts at all. It was a highly fun experience that had some major life changing aspects for me, which I would like to point out here for an potential TEC people in the future.

*Note* I can't say everything because the weekend has lots of twists and turns to help your faith, in other words TEC secrets can't be revealed (LOL most of you know that already)

Well to start off, it wasn't like anything I expected. I went in with a half-way open mind, considering that I was still skeptical. Once I got there, my whole attitude changed, immediately I started to get into what was going on. From that point on it was nothing but pure fun. I ended up meeting some extremely awesome people, and I got so much of my burden in life removed it isn't funny.

Before I truly thought I had no compassion for anything, but after a lot of thinking and some less than comfortable talks about myself, I realized how much I really have grown to see the value in people. Its not to say TEC is the complete cause for this realization, but it sure helped me along the way. I think now my life is back on the right track, and I am happy again. It takes a lot of will to let go, but once you do so much good can come of it.

I also had a change in my definition of friendship. My friends are a lot like my family now, and I am more grateful for the for them than ever before. It took me awhile to realize how blessed I truly am, but now I think I have a relatively clear picture. At this point I would like to thank my friends for putting up with me through everything. Without you guys (and girls) I am pretty much nothing. YOU ALL ROCK!

Speaking of great friends, I have never met people quite like the ones I did at TEC. These guys are awesome, and its safe to say that I think our friendships will last.

I know this is kind of a short summary, but it is safe to say that people really can't describe TEC. All I know for sure is that God has been with us, and remains more strongly than ever before. So if you guys (or girls) ever get the chance, go to a TEC, I strongly recommend it.

Also one more thing before I forget. Thanks very much to a certain group of people who know who they are. I am holding my presence at TEC as their responsibility (if that made sense). If it weren't for you I never would've gone, and I wouldn't be as happy as I am now. This also includes a certain teacher of mine hint hint.

The Situation at Hand

Previous comments taken into consideration I have a few points of my own to express.

First, being a Catholic, I have nothing against speaking in tongues, and I have no evidence to prove it false or otherwise. I agree that it is a mystical thing that I cannot explain, nor do I care to. It was a mis-interpretation, and I wasn't arguing about that, I was arguing about something else that seemed very wrong to me in the "Jesus camp" video.

-That is, children being forced into accepting these kinds of camps and borderline radical practices. The repentance scene is enough to make me want to gag. I feel that children should not be convinced that if they do not beg for forgiveness and "REPENT!" they will go to hell. Furthermore, the video misconstrues the meaning of the word repent, which means to change one's ways (if I learned anything in religion class its that). True repentance takes time, and is not something that can be done on demand as the video implies.

-I cannot accept the man at the beginning saying that we should use everything the Earth has to offer. We don't know when Jesus is coming (btw he made it sound like Jesus was coming to abduct us), and we need to think about future generations, wasting resources has terrible outcomes on the children of tomorrow. The phrase "rape the earth" is wrong, it is a gift God gave us, not meant to be "raped," "wasted," or used up.

-I also do not agree that you have to be jumping around and loud to worship God. Being quiet and respectful of God's presence is my style, if God ignores me because of that, its His fault for making me that way.

-Reading the bible is not out of question for me, in fact I make a habit of reading it. At this point i only have maybe 4 books to go. However, what is out of the question for me is interpreting every word of the bible literally. That is why no one will convince me creation happened the way the bible said. That is a discussion for another day, so don't bring this up if you comment.

-God loves and thinks about everyone, the bowling scene just serves to show the utter level of insanity that these things can be taken to. How would you feel if a little girl came up to you (after asking Jesus to help her bowl (gutter if you look in the background)), and said that God wants you back. I'd be highly offended, or perhaps confused, since it hasn't happened I don't know exactly how I'd respond.

-There are other powers of the Holy Spirit, not just glossolalia (tongues(which by the way have been misused “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men” I Corinthians 14:20)). What have I experienced you ask? Well for starters I am still alive. I'd say its a miracle, since I've been near death on several occasions. Next, the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Knowledge, Piety, Fear of the Lord, and Courage are the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit. All people have these to some extent, however being Catholic I have undergone the sacrament of Confirmation, which is the acceptance of God and the Holy Spirit. As a result, a certain gift is bestowed upon you, mine is wisdom. With prayer and thought this gift seems to evolve within me, but that is again a topic for another day.

-When you say born again I assume you mean the word I am more familiar with "saved." What I have to say on the matter is simple, the bible is open to interpretation. You can argue that its not but for the readers information I feel the need to post this rebuttal "And I heard the number of those who were sealed. One hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of Israel were sealed." Revelation 7:4 So... Welcome to Heaven population 144,000... Somewhere else it says all 144,000 are virgins as well, but I will wait to post more about that until I find the exact verse (even though I know its there because I read it at least 7 times in shock). But before I continue, can I get a show of hands of how many here are Israeli? We aren't descendants of the tribes of Israel, so does that mean we are all damned, certainly not, God would not predestine anyone to hell. As I see it this is conclusive evidence that the bible is not meant to be literal, if it was why should I even try to get to Heaven. In other words, there is no clear undeniable way set out to get to Heaven. Being saved or born again is no exception (it can't hurt to accept God in my opinion, I just choose to believe that no God could possibly destroy anyones' lives by separating them from ones who they loved that didn't get reborn).

"Faith Without Works is Useless"

-You weren't persecuted, you were criticized on what I see as a trivial matter. Seeing the future... I believe its possible, but for a different reason than God's influence. The theory that all time is simultaneous and that it is an illusion. I see this as the most logical viewpoint. If God could see the future free will would not exist. If God knew everything you were going to do in your life, He could pass judgment immediately (the notion of predestination). Also, say hypothetically God knows the future, what if your free will allows you to do something different than he expects, God would be wrong, which is impossible.

Anyways, I appreciate your attitude towards the situation, because I firmly believe that no man has any right to pass judgment on anyone else.

Keep in mind that truth and fact are not always the same thing. The bible is truth (spiritual sense meant for interpretation), science is fact (provable with physical evidence in all cases). Case in point, biblical age of the Earth is a bit over 6000 years, science says billions. Evidence such as the "baby planet" pretty much proves this. Furthermore, dinosaurs came before man, despite the bible saying that man came first (discoveries also indicate woman came before man btw). Carbon dating proves this (go ahead and argue this if you want).

Conclusion: all people are entitled to freedom of religion/beliefs. Criticism and persecution are different, criticism is expressing counter beliefs in this case, persecution is attacking someone for their beliefs, or condemning them. Well argue away, I ran out of time.