Starbucks brought back breakfast sandwiches HOLLA!

I won the new Panic at the Disco CD last night on B93.1 :} Forever i have been caller 2 or 3, but last night after being caller 2, I called back was caller 8! SQUEEEE! You may think I'm lame but I'm above that LOL

In season 2 of Angel when Darla awakes after becoming a vampire (again!) she gasps for air. uh...why? Vampires don't breathe! C'mon Joss, it's your buffyverse, and you still wrote that in the script?!

Starbucks is discontinuing breakfast sandwiches. Why is it all my favorite stuff gets discontinued? At least they brought back the CDL-I wrote so many emails to Starbucks after they tried to discontinue it. They even brought it back with a suger-free syrup. So, here's hoping they will do the same with the sandwiches. PLEASE DONT TAKE MY AVACADO WRAP!!!!!

and while I'm ranting, OLIVE GARDEN BRING BACK THE CHOCOLATE LASAGNA!!!

"War is not the answer. Except for Slavery, Fascism, Communism and Naziism."

"Contention is better than lonliness."- irish proverb. i guess its in my genotype.  

OP said:

I answered:
God is not corporeal-He can't touch this world, He uses us for that, in hopes we will do Him justice. He inspired the Bible to be written, so every resource we need is at our fingers to make this world a better place.

He does what He can do to help this world be a good, safe place. But He can't do it all Himself because when Adam and Eve were made, they were given FREE WILL.

that's right, they were given the choice to love Him and follow Him. Eve chose to break the agreement first, but Adam was at her side when she ate of the tree and did absolutely nothing to stop it. (Original Hebrew interpretation tells us he was "at her elbow" during it all, not off picking berries some where in the forest). We still have that choice today and I'll tell you why.

If you had a slave, that you beat him into submission and told him he had to love you and you made him say "i love you" would that be love? Certainly not! God did not want us to love Him because He told us to, He wanted us to love Him because we wanted to-that is devotional, deep love!
Free will is a special gift, that everyone on this thread is exercising by choosing what we believe:} pretty cool huh?

but with every very special gift, are people who look the gift horse in the mouth, and use their free will to hate, kill, steal, kidnap, rape, and wreak havoc. They did not use their gift wisely, but none the less they used it.

and there is nothing God can do about it, because He gave us that gift and will not revoc it. and I would not want Him to. I dont want to be a slave, I like loving Him because I want to.

That's why it is so important that no matter your personal beliefs, everyone still needs morals and inner peace, with a readiness to make this world a better place, because you're absolutely right, He can't change the world alone.

God is not a FORM or being, He is an essence. We think in completely different ways that He does. We see a cup-we touch it, then we know for sure it is there- WE FELT IT, which is why so many people often steer clear of "religion" because they reached out, couldnt touch anything, and left it for the next person, because they want a cup, a pillow, a blanket-anything to touch- to keep them warm and fuzzy inside.

I have no idea how God made us without using his bare hands-I dont even think He has hands. And I call Him a "him" because I don't want to call Him "it" even though i don't believe He is a "male" essence. He is androgynous-both male and female, but I don't want to call Him "mother" either, I like "Father" because it suggests to me He is powerful, strong, affectionate and protective-things my earthy mother never was. Therefore, I relate to Him better calling him "He/Him/Father."

Nevertheless I believe He made us, however He did (sheer mind power perhaps LOL) in His "image" not His "being". God is not a human sitting on a cloud up in Heaven. He is EVERYWHERE. How can a human do that? Well, they can't. He is not human. We are here to do His will on an earth He can't touch. Is it some sort of game His is playing? To create a world He can't be in? Perhaps, but then I want on a team who is going to play well. It's not about winning-it's about playing in a way you can be proud of.

How can a God watch a baby get molested and not do anything? He is hoping that the mother of the baby, or a stranger passing-by, or the person doing the molesting would give their all-in-all to PROTECT that baby IN THE FIRST PLACE because He gave them what was necessary to do so: free will. If for whatever reason, the mother left her baby in the car, she used her free will (not wisely) the stranger walking by walked by (didnt use his free will wisely) and the person (male or female-let's not get sterotypical, either gender can be an offender) abuses the baby, who threw "wise" out the window a long time ago.

God did everything in His power already to keep that baby safe:
1. A mother to watch it and protect it 24-7.
2. When she left it in the car, tugged on the heartstrings of a passer-by who ignored the tug and thought instead "oh, that's not an emergency situation, I'd rather not get involoved" and walked away (and dont tell me you have not walked by something you felt wierd watching but walked away from before...we all get that feeling from time to time, and i myself, being a five foot tall, 100 pound and often alone female does not want to get involved with someone who looks 6 feet 250 pounds breaking into a car!)
3. Molestations only occur in the presence of a molestor. Could the person have resisted the urge to do the molesting of the baby? Could the person feel the wrongness of it, feel convicted, scared, frightened and DID IT ANWAYS? yep. But God gave the person the emotions to stop themselves, and they gave it up: they used their free will.

Does that suck beyong all reasoning and telling? Does it hurt to even *think* about someone who would hurt a defenseless child? A resounding yes. A painful yes. But WE have control over it, don't we? another painful yes. That above situation could have been fully avoided if we had used our free will WISELY.


And I feel I should state that I dont always use my free will wisely, and that no one does. No one is perfect. Just because you mess up doesn't mean you're a screw up. Just because someone else did something to you, and jacked up their gift of free will, doesn't mean you need to lead a jacked-up life. The thing about God, is He hands out clean slates all the time. He knew what He was doing when He made free will-He knew sometimes we would screw up, and that's why He made it so easy for us to get right again. He knew when He created us how hard it would be for Eve to resist that stupid tree! But He created us anyways-He had faith in us that through all our mess ups we could still do good things and be good people.

OP said:

i have asked permission from Mr. Joel Gonzaga to copy this from a recent blog of his:
"There needs to be a small disclaimer of this blog.  It is a little scary.  For those who ask after reading it, Yes, I am still a Christian.
I went to charismatic church last sunday, and I was overcome with nausea.

There needs to be some quick background first.  My good friend Alexander is making his exodus from this church.  He has been involved in this church for over three years.  Because we are friends, have the same major, I decided to join him in his last day at "The Gathering Place" in studio city.  I wasn't comfortable there for plenty of theological reasons, but that's not what this blog is really about

As my group and I walked in, I began feeling many of similar emotions that I used to experience at the Assemblies of God.  I felt the elevated heart-rate, the slight tingle on the spine, that almost hypnotic sense of entering into a special room where something special is going on.  Formally, these kinds of things would create a sense of anticipation as I walked into a worship service, but today I felt only a sense of dread and discomfort.  Yet aside from that last change, they were the same emotions.

I saw and heard many of the same things I used to see in the AG.  I saw impassioned hands raised to the heaven.  I saw the almost glitzy powerpoint slideshow.  I heard the drums, guitars, and the half-improvised ("led by the spirit") crescendos of praise music.  I heard the people shout spontaneous prayers to God.  I saw their ecstatic faces as they cheered our Christus Victor.  I listened to the message from the pastor.  I heard his impassioned testimony of discerning spirits, how terrible pornography is, and the role of angels.  He harped on the all-importance of knowing and discerning spirits.  I listened to the crowd respond to the admonishments of deliverance –not just forgiveness of—from sins.  I heard the prayers of the worship from everything for our country, our military, pornography and so on.

Throughout all of this, I felt nausea.  It was as if I couldn't get enough air.  I was watching some strangely familiar, but now completely foreign, religious rituals (yes, rituals!) of some other religion.

As weird as this may sound, this happened once before while I was still neck deep in Pentecostalism.  When I was about 19, I attended a worship leader conference at Calvary Temple -Modesto's favorite mega-church.  Along with lectures and other such things, there was a (ritualistic) praise and worship service everyday of the camp.  The worship leader had the congregation standing as he played.  At some point he cut out the instruments and the choir of worship leaders sang on their own.  This then became a simple line from the song's chorus repeated over and over.  Finally, the crowd hummed a steady series of "aw's".  People stood around –eyes-closed hands out wide—moved by the spirit in reverence.  I sat down.  I felt nothing.  Neither and angel nor demon was speaking to me.  I was seeing people like tottering statues singing at nothing and for nothing in an unintelligible vocalization.  This lasted quite a long time.  Did I mention this happened while I was still a dyed-in-the-wool Pentecostal?

--> --> --> -->
What is nausea?  When I talk about it I mean something specific that has helped me understand what happened when I was 19 and in the church service today.  I defer to the book with the same name by Jean Paul Sartre.  The protagonist writes this in his journal:

The Nausea has not left me and I don't believe it will leave me soon; but I no longer have to bear it, it is no longer and illness…So I was in the park just now.  The roots of the chestnut tree were sunk in the ground just under my bench.  I couldn't remember it was a root anymore.  The words had vanished and with them the significance of things, their methods of use, and the feeble point of reference which men have traced on their surface…This veneer had melted, leaving soft, monstrous masses, all in disorder.

--> --> --> -->What exactly does all this mean?  It means that things are merely "objects floating in space."  Consider the computer monitor you are probably reading this on right now.  Is it a monitor?  Well it was built to be that.  That's what you're using it for.  But what if you used it for kitchen plate? A Frisbee? A doorstop?  Would it still be a monitor?  Only as long as people keep calling it that.

From what I've read about Sartre and from him, he believes that objects are devoid of purpose and value until they are arbitrarily assigned some value by human beings.  These things we call a "books" (because, after all, even names are arbitrary) can be used as reading material, fire kindling, weapons, cigarette rolls etc.  Something only has a purpose or meaning as long as we keep giving it that purpose.  Sartre's protagonist sees things without these purposes or meanings and eventually decides he can live with these strange existing things that he can't even name anymore.  That "vision" is the Nausea.  Bear in mind, I don't fully agree with all of Sartre's assessments, but for the present circumstance it was very helpful.

There is something scary about this.  What, if when I'm at a Charismatic church service like the Gathering Place or Bethel Assemblies of God, the same thing is happening to me?  What if I wrote something like this:

The Nausea has not left me.  I was just at church today during a worship service.  I had almost forgotten that it was called that.  The hands were raised and the music was playing.  The preacher was prophesying.  People kept saying the spirit was moving.  Yet all these words vanished and with them the significance, the meaning, of the feverish ecstasy of these rituals.  I saw past the veneer painted on them and saw only the monstrous mass of disorder.

I think things have some kind of meaning.  After all, I think God had some purpose in mind when he built the world (something Sartre, an atheist, couldn't consider), but I think that humans do a lot of the assigning.  When someone is "slain in the spirit," weeping at an altar, dancing in the isles, waving hands, or even speaking in tongues, does that mean God is moving?  I think it means God is moving as long as a group of  people keep saying that it is so.  I don't think God wove meaning into any of these rituals.  But God still works in it, right? Quite possibly so, but only in the sense that God works through everything else.  There's no more need to discern spirits.  It is neither God nor Devil, it is just people.

There is one last thing I should say to you who are still reading.  I can imagine how a Charismatic might read this.  I'm either spiritually dead at best or possessed at worst.  Maybe I made a grave error in recent reading and should dive back into the word of God, or better yet get slain in the spirit at some retreat or something.  The spirit will testify to this in their innermost feelings of their hearts.

I can only say that if such is your starting point, than mine was the same.  Why did God lead your heart in one such direction and then set mine going somewhere completely contradictory?  What if it was God himself who ripped away the veneer for me?  "God told you" is wonderful, but it appears that "God told me" something quite different."

he replied to my request with this: Of course you my cite me in your blog. I'd be honored. However, you do understand that "personal conviction of the Holy Spirit" might be one of the things the Nausea dispells right? I'm not sure what you meant when you posted that.

and i tried to clear it up with posting this:

thank you, i will cite this in its entirety (sp?). i appreciate what you wrote.

well, "personal conviction"...i typed what i meant and meant what i typed. it is something that i believe defines my relationship with Christ-if i have researched in scripture (and i dont mean just cannonical, but for the sake of argument, for the most part) a certain topic, and find it convicting, then obviously i am convicted. that does not mean that some other topic that someone else has researched will convict me either, as i would hope that by my telling someone "thats wrong" would not make them change their ways-i would hope they would find it for themself. its a personal thing-and if my convictions are wrong, then that is something He will take up with me sometime-He and only He can hold me accountable for my actions because He has given me all the resources necessary for me to find conviction (which yes, sometimes He uses people to relay His message though not as often as we believe. I have had so many "prophecies" at certain women's events it makes me sick to my stomache, yet that is a whole other topic, and i have gone astray enough) if indeed i am searching for conviction, then chances are i am already feeling convicted heh heh. scripture is shady at best in many topics that we have to find out whether or not it hinders our obedience for Christ.
that was very bouncy but i hope it made sense, im not a writer. :}

so there you have it, more thoughts on the subject. and Joel has a damn good blog if you ask me.