A charter for a truly free world and why we need it

Dear readers, for those who are new, we like to repeat our aims and about the idea behind our sharing.

Sharing Writings and linking

This website wants to bring an overview of interesting articles which were published on the worldwide internet and present some additional views on how we could come to a better world. Up until now we also wanted to bring additional literature in sight of our readers. For that reason we have, up until a few days ago, included several links into the articles, which opened automatically in a new window. But somehow WordPress changed the way to include url links and made it more difficult or time consuming, not allowing the enclosure feature to remember the previous used url codes and having each link to be separately indicated to open in a new window, instead of remembering it for all links on that page. This means we always have to look again for certain links and have to do much more work to include them. This makes writing our articles even more time consuming. For that reason we regret from a few days ago we did not include so many links any more and from today onwards you shall have to chose how to open the link. Until we do not find a solution to keep the fill in for the links remembering what we filled in previously, we shall have to limit such linking to tags and other articles than those of the particular website (in this instance From Guestwriter).

Secondly, we also received regularly complaints from people that we linked to their website or article and had to undo such links or write a letter first explaining why we included that link and asking what they wanted we did with it. Though most agreed then to have the link staying on the article, we had lost lots of energy writing back and controlling everything.
For that reason we are going to refer less to outside articles, but still use Zemanta for presenting some articles, but this time we are going to choose more those sites we do know and for other sites we are not always going to read them all, before placing the Zemanta link, and will withdraw them directly when a complaint or request for “why linking” is presented to us. (Simple as that.)

Now you know also why one or an other site shall be linked to more than others. Those who would also liked to be linked to, can always ask us to examine their website and to follow their writings, so that we can may have a choice out of their articles as well.

Authors sharing their writings

Concerning the writers on this platform, we still wait for more writers willing to share their ideas. Many who we have contacted wanted money to write or to help this site evolve.

We are very limited in funds and as such can not pay our staff. We also believe not everything has to be arranged by money. A money-free future is perhaps not possible, but lots of things could and should be done without money in the back of the head.

We still can do with people writing about the history of way of living, to show us how our lifestyle changed by the years of technological evolution. We also would love to find an author who want to talk about nature and show the world the beauty of it and/or can let our readers now what is important to look at at a certain moment in the year. (Parks to visit, special exhibitions, etc.)

A political and economical analyst is also welcome.

Because of our interest how human beings should try to make the best out of living with each other, we also could use some more writers who talk about keeping the family healthy, spiritually and health wise. Talks about marriage, brining up children are more than welcome.

Not everything for money

All That Money Wants (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We are convinced there are many benefits for not having everything in return for money. Most reasonable people will have no trouble accepting a money-free where people want to share with each other out of brotherly love. That will give better quality of life for all, less inequality, poverty, crime, greed, corruption, pollution and waste; greater health, education, trust, respect, awareness, sustainability, community values, technological advances, etc. Most people want these things, but are they convinced of the feasibility. How is a moneyless society possible?

I am convinced that there is a misconception about the need of money.

Imagining a world without money usually raises the following objections immediately, each of which is linked to a particular lifelong held belief (in brackets):

1. You need to have exchange (You can’t get something for nothing)
2. No-one would do anything (money motivates people)
3. People would take advantage (greed is human nature)
4. I will lose everything I have (fear of loss, ownership)
5. Chaos and violence would ensue (society requires control)
6. Society would stagnate or regress (markets fuel progress)

The good news is that all of these objections can be overturned quite easily using just plain common sense and basic observations.

Something for something or nothing for something

I do agree that most people want something for something else. For generations we people are brought up with that idea. Even worse, often people consider somebody not right in his head when he just wants to do something, not requiring anything in the place. Naturally we all need something to eat and we need a roof above our head, whilst we can not all have the same skill. Not everybody has enough competence to do the things he need. So we often are for many things dependent on others.

I am a believer in the Divine Creator and I am convinced He created all beings in His image and with the idea that all creatures are there for some good reason and to complement each other. Rabbi Jeshua, better known today as Jesus, reminded his listeners to look at the birds who have no money but manage to have their food and everything they need to live.
The master teacher and the prophets of God asked the people to look at nature where we can see what man came to call “symbiosys“. Everywhere in the creation of the Most High where man did not interfere there is balance. We can see that in nature two species benefit each other (the bee taking nectar while helping the plant to pollinate is the most obvious example), but there is no intentional transaction taking place. Both species are ignorant of the desires of the other. Some look at it as purely an accident of evolution that has caused both species to survive and flourish. In nature we can find many plants or animals which make use of each other, but not really demanding a return as such, and most of all not being repaid by something we can compare with money. We invented that idea of intentional exchanges as an essential ingredient to life or to community, to cope with scarcity in more primitive times, and with more complex needs.

Motivation by money not the best motivation

Serious Money (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The money / value system that we humans operate in has its origins in more primitive times, but which has now made us hell-bent on keeping score and accounting for everything in a numerical sense, and at the expense of common sense and sustainability. It is true that people are motivated by money, and that the communist system failed because of people being too egocentric and not willing to work together for a communal idea, building up a society where everybody could live on the same terms and being considered of equal value. We love to have a hierarchical system and I do agree somebody who is just lazy and does not want to co-operate in the system can not have the same advantages as somebody who works hard.

But like in nature those animals not having money, we as humans also do not nervelessly need a currency to provide payment, which proved not always to bring that luck hoped for.

We all have look at “Money” as a handy tool or a commodity accepted by general consent as a medium of economic exchange. In industrialized nations, portion of the national money supply, consisting of bank notes and government-issued paper money and coins, provides a value or currency. Everybody expects everything  to be “prized” and  expresses the value of things in currencies or in money. In the so called “third world” or among less developed societies, we can see that currency encompasses a wide diversity of items (e.g., livestock, stone carvings, tobacco) used as exchange media as well as signs of value or wealth.

Human motivators Better values

We should come to see and understand that there are much better values than money. Think about the many other human motivators:

• the desire to love and be loved, to meet people, to have children, to help others, to improve ourselves and our surroundings, to look good, to feel good, to learn, to challenge ourselves, to express ourselves, to innovate, to demonstrate our skills, etc.
  Every person alive is motivated by these desires to some degree. Because, after survival, these desires are what give our lives value and meaning.

Nature doesn’t keep score and why should we put everything in figures and balance it out to get even? Do you find it normal that people would seek exchange in their families or in their circles of friends? So why do we seek exchange in others? Among our loved ones, loving people shall tend to help each other out when they can and no-one will keep score.

Permitting exchanges between people having prices

Trying to get everything for yourself is not a natural instinct but a created attitude which can be transformed back to the innocent position we have a s a toddler. At the beginning of life the human being only asks and takes what it needs. Greed is not a basic element of human nature – it is even a deformed desire to stockpile something what the person may consider scarce and which he need to live, or a wrong attitude having come into the personality by the envy looking at others and comparing to others.

Like a squirrel collecting nuts, some may find greed makes good sense – because we don’t know what the future will bring. In a monetary world, the greatest scarcity is money itself, so it makes sense to accumulate it, and, since there is no upper limit to the money and property you can have, there’s no reason to stop accumulating it.

Map of the global distribution of economic and physical water scarcity as of 2006

Price systems may be considered the result of scarcity but for the first time in history, we have the technology to eradicate scarcity (or paucity) and to create an abundance of necessities for all humans on Earth with minimal physical effort. Primarily by coordinating the decisions of consumers, producers, and owners of productive resources people have taken refuge with their monetary system. Prices have become an acceptable expression of the consensus on the values of different things, and every society that permits exchanges between people has prices. Because prices are expressed in terms of a widely acceptable commodity, they permit a ready comparison of the comparative values of various commodities.

Machines to do the work of man

Normally we have enough technology to make work light for man. For lots of jobs the machines could do the work for man. What is going wrong today is that certain people, who do not do much work, can earn more than 300% than those who do the dirty work. And that is too much inequality. Such a difference should not exist. This way not having people being rightly paid according to what they do or which responsibility they take at a reasonable reward, prevents a nice way of living for everybody, as it intrinsically requires scarcity to perpetuate itself.

Ownership

Throughout history mankind has tried out several systems which all failed in a certain way. I as a Christian am convinced no human system can bring the right solution, but until the return of the Messiah we have to find ways to make life as smooth as possible and to have the creation in balance, not demanding too much of nature and not destroying so many things around us, which we have in loan and do not own. And there is the difficulty of it all, too many people think they “Own” and want to possess more. It is their fear of loosing what they “own” which makes them behave this way and often makes them blind for the way others (other humans, animals and plants) have to live.

The whole notion of ownership should be revised altogether.

We all need privacy and a certain amount of exclusivity, right?

Who wants to share their toothbrush, or have strangers walking around their home, for example?

Our normalised belief tells us that we define who uses what through something called ‘ownership’. Our laws define and protect ownership, with the threat of punishment to those who disobey (ie. stealing).

But where does this concept of ownership came from in the first place? Did we own nothing before someone wrote the law?

Given in loan

We think we own something and that the earth is ours. Believers in God do know that it is a gift from the Divine Creator and that we have received this earth in loan. It is not ours, it is God’s.

Growing up we make things our own. We create our personality. Growing up we collect certain things we consider our own. But we should know that once we die, the breath of life goes out of us, and we shall be nothing any-more with those treasures we collected. We can’t take those treasures with us in our grave, to an other life. It shall be of no purpose in our death. We shall just decay and become dust like many of those goods also shall become dust.

The point is that most things in the community belonged to no-one. Whatever items within the community that were not morally or logically entitled to anyone were used and shared by all.

So without ownership, what stops people from stealing? What actually stops people from stealing from each other is that it is anti-social, disrespectful and invasive, and people who do so are liable to become deeply unpopular. This social incentive for certain behaviour is far stronger than any rule could ever be, as it is dictated by how we feel about ourselves and our position in society. Yet we commonly mistake the rule of law as being the only thing that governs this behaviour.

Crimes, violence and Respect, privacy and exclusivity

Value for Money (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If we understand that respect, privacy and exclusivity are, in fact, already hard-wired into our social psyche – not dictated by external controlling forces – then we can begin to move beyond the traditional inefficient limits of ownership and with it, any fear of loss.

Throughout history we can see that it was the desire of power and the greed of certain people that brought misery to others. The last few moths I encountered many who said religion is the base of violence. When they would look closer at what really happened in history they would see that most criminal acts where done by non-religious people for political reasons and on second place or by people who used a religion as an excuse for their war of conquest. Today we see this by ISIS who present a similar war as the crusaders and do the same atrocities as the inquisitors a few centuries ago. Their killing had a duration of more than one century, whilst ISIS is only busy for a few years. Their terror is as abominable as the terror other terrorists bring. They bring fear and terror in the hope increasing their power. But most crime and violence is driven by desperation through lack of basic requirements for living, ie. theft, armed robbery, burglary, etc. and by having a low moral. Almost all other crimes can be seen as the secondary effects of poor upbringing. ie. where parents are poor, over-worked, unemployed, frustrated, depressed or disillusioned, etc. – all factors that can contribute to an unstable and unloving environment for children, who may later turn to crime as a result of low self esteem or maladjustment.

No incentive for crime

When you succeed into taking away the inequality and create a world where everyone will have free access to good food, housing, education and technology, it still won’t be perfect or eliminate all crime, but if everyone has a good quality of life and free access, then crime will have little or no incentive.

Driven by passion

In our commercialised society we are so used that everything is valued by a currency and money. The economists or entrepreneurs look at the system we are used to and cite economic incentive and competition as good for progress. Have you ever wondered with what they compared their luxurious system? Might it not be that because they start of with a false key that they come to false conclusions?

Are we really to believe that all innovators, inventors and artists will down tools the moment someone calls time on money? Obviously not, since we all know so many creative people that never achieve financial success, it shows us that they are not driven by money, but rather by their passions and desire to innovate.

Sharing people

I would love to call onto people to come to think about sharing more.

Often I do meet people who are very much afraid of a sharing system and think we can not do without money, though they themself use lots of tools without paying for them.  We can find lots of people who are using Open Source Applications, which they take it for granted they can use them because everybody is using them. Often they do not see other large scale innovative projects which are becoming the optimum means of production without a monetary incentive.

Lots of people behind the screens try to invent things which can be used by others, and use themselves things others created. Lots of people do forget that many computer programs like Linux, Chrome and Android have been developed freely by enthusiasts in their spare time,. It ware those people who were willing to spend their precious free time to create something for the good of the whole community and not just for them selves or to gain lots of money. The computer industry has led the way on this, but of course, there is no reason why ‘open source thinking’ cannot be applied in agriculture, crafts, construction or education, etc.

Difficult to get people to share something which they consider of their own

The big problem we are facing today is that there has been created a generation of people who mainly think about themselves. Their ego comes on the first place and they look for gaining as much as they can for their own, often at the cost of others.

In the past the economical factor, being of wealthy parents of a having a privileged background was the creating facility for equanimity or for daring taking risks. Comfortable upbringing, access to good food and education, often provided the luxury of time – not labouring for their keep – but spending it on developing their ideas and skills instead. But we also find lots of creative minds who had no financial security, though created masterpieces.

Having money does not mean being smarter. If society can work better without money, then all potential young Einsteins and Mozarts will have the optimal opportunity to exercise and advance their talents.

If we create a society where talents are recognised and stimulated and people can receive equal opportunities, so much more can come off the ground.

Why not believing in a a moneyless future?

You can see that money does not bring that happiness many people hoped for. It is not a bad tool to be used in exchange for things, but we should not put all our hopes on it.

We should go back to the natives. We best dare to look at those living in the Amazon or other not yet by capitalism spoiled places. We too can learn from populations where money is not the key factor to order their way of living.

We should also come to understand that in our society we do have so many things we do not need or do not need any-more. Why not giving that stuff away that is filling your cupboards? If you have certain talents, why not sharing them with others and letting them also enjoy them?

In case a moneyless future seems something interesting to think about or when you like the idea, why not join “a movement of believers”?

Please have a look at the underneath brief introduction to the charter for a truly free world.

You are invited to show your support by reading and signing The Free World Charter.

Thank you.

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Preceding articles

Being ‘broke’ a state of mind

Luxury

Your position about materialistic desires having conquered the world

Learning that stuff is just stuff

Material wealth, Submission and Heaven on earth

Summermonths and consumerism

Less for more

Less… is still enough

Looking on what is going on and not being of it

Misleading world, stress, technique, superficiality, past, future and positivism

The Existence of Evil

Spring playing hide and seek

How to Find the Meaning of Life and Reach a State of Peace

Why “Selfishness” Doesn’t Properly Mean Being Shortsighted and Harmful to Others

Hoarding Relationships and Things

Forward ever backwards never!

Watch out

Stop and Think

A bird’s eye and reflecting from within

We all have to have dreams

Material gain to honour God

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Additional reading:

1. How we think shows through in how we act
2. Greed more common than generosity
3. Capitalism
4. A look at materialism
5. The business of this life
6. Angry at the greedy state
7. Intellectual servility a curse of mankind
8. Detroit, A city not to be understood
9. Catherine Ashton on the EU annual report on human rights
10. Time to consider how to care for our common home
11. Increasing wealth gap of immense proportions in the Capitalist World
12. Democratic downfall
13. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #6 Transport factor of immobilising financial growth
14. A dangerous way of censorship
15. Internet absurdities
16. Changing screens
17. Looking for Free Blogs and blogging
18. Subcutaneous power for humanity 5 Loneliness, Virtual and real friends
19. Inequality, Injustice, Sustainability and the Free World Charter
20. Mortal Soul and Mortal Psyche #5 Mortality of man and mortality of the spirit
21. Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 3
22. Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 4
23. The Question is this…
24. True riches
25. Count your blessings
26. Sow and harvests in the garden of your heart
27. Bearing fruit
28. Good to make sure that you haven’t lost the things money can’t buy
29. The 2014 year coming to its end
30. 2015 the year of ISIS
31. Coming closer to the end of 2015 and the end for Donald Trump as presidential candidate
32. In a world which knows no peace sharing blessed hope
33. 30 things to start doing for yourself – #6 is vital.
34. If we, in our prosperity, neglect religious instruction and authority

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What we do

Man worships many things and often uses their religion to do what they want for themselves, having more power and control.

Temple of Hephaestus, a Doric Greek temple in Athens with the original entrance facing east, 449 BC (western face depicted). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bombs bringing fire and giving the attackers the mythological divinity of fire. They might think to become reborn and having their virgins around them but like Hephaestus, protector of blacksmiths, the Japanese Kojin, which protects the hearths and symbolizes the violence of the elements placed at the service of humanity they will not remembered for long but disappear in oblivion having become dust like their victims who died at this cowardly attack.

But for the living there is light and hands which reach to each other, showing unity which overcomes all sorrow and shows those who try to kill our values that humanity goes on looking forward aiming for a democratic place where many people of all sorts of races, cultures and religions can live together in peace.

Light up a little flame, and make others think, is what many love to do and which gives a sign to those outside who think they can hurt us. >  just think + wonder + ask questions, and maybe read up some author or historical character, or read a new book, or argue, or get angry, and light another flame…  One hopes to make think – and to keep thinking, even in the midst of all the terrible things.

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I significati simbolici associati al fuoco sono numerosi, positivi e negativi: rinnovamento, purificazione, immortalità, iniziazione, sacrificio, forgiatura, distruzione… basta pensare al mito della Fenice che brucia e rinasce dalle proprie ceneri, a Prometeo che ruba il fuoco agli dei per emancipare almeno un po’ l’umanità, alle fiamme che custodiscono il sonno della valkiria disobbediente, alla colonna di fuoco che guida Mosè e i suoi nell’Esodo, al fuoco inestinguibile di Vesta, alle fiamme della dannazione eterna. {Fuoco!}

Bandiera rosso e nera con tre fiammelle gialle al centro (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Read also

Fuoco!

Che Cosa Stiamo Facendo

A darker and stranger place

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• Ancient Secret Knowledge
• On the Myth of the Soul Mate
• The Kingdom of God: Past, Present, and Future
• Easter Retold: Part 1 – Into Jerusalem

Scribblings

I’ve posted something very similar on my Italian blog, yesterday, but I want to do it again here, because…

Well, because terrible things keep happening, and everything seems to indicate that they will keep happening for Heaven knows how long. I was musing about it yesterday, and thinking how small, how inadequate it feels in such moments to sit down and write of history, and theatre, and books…

Then I found on Karavansara a quote of Charles De Lint’s, saying how writers keep shining little lights in the gathering darkness.

And I thought: yes, this is it. This is what I want to do too. Light up a little flame, and hope it will make readers think. Not to make them think something in particular – that readers can agree or disagree with what they read is a given… just think. And wonder, and ask questions, and maybe…

View original post 79 more words

The Mountain: Radical Love

In our second reposting from the paraphrased chronological harmony of the four gospels, by Frank Boulet we look once more at the central message of Jesus which is simply this:

 Love God by loving people, even your enemies.

with From Guestwriters we do want to spread this message of love and want to get enough people to see how we do have to control ourselves first before we can try to get a better world.

Our aim is also that those who come along our site, shall make the effort to read the appropriate Bible text and shall take time to meditate on the material.

Insofar as they convey that message, these meditations may be helpful as an introduction to the complete texts of the New Testament, or for daily devotional reading.

Those who call themselves Christian always should remember that they have to be followers of Christ longing for God’s Spirit to feed them. They cannot be called Christian when they do not keep to the laws and teachings Christ adhered to.

The spirit that God wants reflected to the world by your life is revealed in the law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. {The Mountain: God’s Word}

As believers in Christ we do have to be believers in the One True God and become children of Him.

In order to live as God’s child, you must be faithful to the essential spirit of God’s word. {The Mountain: God’s Word}

It was on a mountain that Jesus began giving examples of the spirit of God’s Word. From that sermon on the mountain we should get to know that our faith needs those works Jesus spoke about.

As a Christians we should not only have a good relationship with Christ Jesus, but also with God and God His creatures.

If you’re about to worship God in any way, and you remember an unsettled dispute with another person, first go & make peace with that person, and then return to worship God. {The Mountain: Anger}

As a Christian we should follow Christ’s teachings and God’s commandments.

God’s law says, do not engage in sexual cheating (meaning sexual relations are to be enjoyed only with your husband or wife). {The Mountain: Sexual Cheating}

This means we have to be faithful to the partner we have chosen to share our life with. That faithfulness demands control and requires acts of love. The keeping our minds focused on the right persons is one of the works we do have to do. Because we should know that we may not even look with lust at a woman, because for God that is considered the same as sexual cheating in your heart!

We also should be careful which words  we use and what sort of promises we make.

It has also been said, ‘Do not break your promise to God.’

But I say, do not even make promises to God.

Yes we are told not to promise by heaven, by the earth, by Jerusalem, not even by your own head, because it’s sinful to try to add emphasis to your promises in that way.

We should not do the wrong things but the right things and as such

Instead of promising to do what God says, just do what God says. {The Mountain: Promises to God}

We also may not seek revenge against any other person, which again shall demand control of ourselves and not getting into anger which would bring us to do wrong.

Jesus gives an indication how in our relation to others we should care for them and even be willing to go with them.

If a soldier demands that you carry his pack one mile, carry it two miles.

Whenever another person asks you for something, give it to him.

Whenever another person wants to borrow something, lend it to him.

Matthew 5:38-42

Also to love your enemies we shall need to be stronger than the first reaction most people get against their enemies or to those they hate.

Jesus concluded:

Instead of being like everybody else, God wants you to love perfectly — just as God himself loves perfectly. (Matthew 5:43-48) {The Mountain: Loving Enemies}

Living for God in this life means you need to have different goals than most people.

For instance, you must love your enemies. {The Mountain: Radical Love}

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We should remember

• things essential to gain all of God’s blessings:

• Admitting + Mourning self-inflicted spiritual poverty.
• Regretting your self-inflicted separation from God.
• Desiring to live God’s way
• Expecting & accepting trouble living God’s way will bring in this life.

• Living for yourself in this life will never lead to God’s blessings in the next life:

Then the author says:

• • goal in this life to be rich => poor in the next life.

• • goal in this life to be full => hungry in the next life.

• • goal in this life to be happy => sad in the next life.

• • goal in this life for other people to speak well of you => no one will speak well of you in the next life.

But with death we have paid for our sins and then there comes an end to our life. When we die it shall be too late to do anything. there shall be no “next life”, except the life we shall continue to live on this earth in this system of things when we have done wrong and do not repent, or after Armageddon and the judgement when we shall be rejected or receive the entrance to God’s Kingdom, being able to live in the restored ‘Garden of Eden‘, the paradise, God’s Kingdom.

It is here, now or never that we shall have to do and make it. Several parables of Christ show us how for many it will be too late for them to change anything for their entrance in the Kingdom of God … they just shall miss it … because they have not done the required works to be saved.

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Preceding articles

Illusion of control

First man’s task still counting today

He who knows himself, is kind to others

Luther’s misunderstanding

January 27, 417, Pope Innocent I condemning Pelagius about Faith and Works

Our life depending on faith

Romans 4 and the Sacraments

Is Justification a process?

Letter to the Romans, chapter 3

Letter to the Romans, chapter 4

Additional comments to the 3rd Letter to the Romans

Additional comments to the Letter to the Romans 4

Comments to James remarks, about Faith and works

The Mountain: Radical Obedience

Restitution

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Also of interest

1. יהוה , YHWH and Love: Four-letter words
2. Creator and Blogger God 3 Lesson and solution
3. Christ’s ethical teaching
4. The business of this life
5. The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
6. Running away from the past
7. Be holy
8. Love for each other attracting others
9. The Greatest of These is Love
10. Unconditional love
11. Love is like playing the piano
12. Agape, a love to share with others from the Fruit of the Spirit
13. Relying on the Love of God
14. No person has greater love than this one who surrendered his soul in behalf of his friends
15. Work with joy and pray with love
16. The Spirit of God imparts love,inspires hope, and gives liberty
17. We love because he first loved us
18. Malefactors becoming your master
19. 112314 – A Peculiar People
20. Be ye angry and sin not
21. She who sows thistles will reap prickles
22. He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger
23. Singing gift from God
24. God does not change

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Further related articles

1. “Week One Reflection” by Dr.J. 2016 Fast Post 19
2. The Difference Between Healthy And Unhealthy Shame
3. God Can Set You Free From Your Shame
4. The Surprising Key to Increasing Your Willpower
5. How to gain self-control & self-discipline
6. Control When It Counts
7. Bible study: Blessed are the meek: For they shall inherit the earth (Mt 5:5)
8. Frank Sinatra quotes from Sermon on the Mount
9. You are the Way Jesus!
10. Who gets your attention?
11. Building on the Rock
12. The Jesus Revolution
13. Class #1: Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount
14. sermon on the mount – an introduction
15. The King’s Sermon (Matt. 4:23, 25, 5:1-2)
16. Blessed are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
17. Sermon on the Mount: Ask, Seek, Knock
18. Sermon On The Mount – Blessed are the meek
19. Blessed are the Meek
20. Sermon on the Mount: In the Eye
21. January 17 Matthew 7:1-14
22. Misreading the Bible: “Judge Not”
23. The Sermon on the Mount (18)
24. The Poor in Spirit
25. Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit
26. Blessed Are They That Mourn
27. Sermon on the Mount: Wisdom
28. The Sermon on the Mount is not a Guide to Christian Salvation
29. God give us grace to face the Sermon on the Mount
30. Sermon on the Mount: Blindness
31. Salt and Light
32. Sermon on the Mount by Vance Stinson
33. The Lord’s Prayer
34. The Third Way: Nonviolent Resistance
35. Loving the Unlovables – Part One
36. Be Different in Your Purity
37. The Poor in Spirit (Matt. 5:3)
38. Like A Bull In A China Shop
39. God is Jehovah Jireh – The LORD Will Provide
40. Thesis of Jesus
41. Be Different in Your Anger
42. Class #3: Three you are statements. Matthew 5:11-16
43. January 12 Matthew 5:21-32
44. January 13 Matthew 5:33-48
45. Borrowed Trouble — Being Perfect, Part 4
46. When Grief is Good
47. Lay Down Your Blessings
48. Teacher
49. Master, teach us how to pray – The Lord’s Prayer
50. James 1
51. Be Your Attitudes
52. beatitude
53. The Beatitudes: Growing into the Kingdom of Heaven. Already.
54. In Search of Eternity
55. Be Different in Your Righteousness
56. Daily Riches: Can One Obey Without Actually Obeying? (James Hannay and William James)
57. A Greater Righteousness
58. Out with the old, in with almost nothing
59. Be Different in Your Influence
60. Rain or Shine — Being Perfect, Part 1
61. Virtue Signaling — Being Perfect, Part 2
62. The Business of Blessing Others

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The Mountain: Radical Obedience

About Faith and works we should always remember that after the works of conversion we do have to keep to the works of command of the self.

Scripture never says that we are justified dia ten pistin, on account of faith. This means that faith is never represented as the ground of our justification. {Faith itself not the cause of justification – Louis Berkhof}

We have to keep grip or control of the things we want to do. Not only do we have to control our temper, we are told in the gospel and letters of the apostles why and how we should demonstrate more self-control.

Too many Christians do forget the parables of Jesus which clearly show how we can miss the entrance to God’s Kingdom if we do not do certain works.

The mountain sermon summarizes the works we have to do. Lets not forget them.

*

To remember

When Jesus started home to Capernaum and Jesus’ mother & brothers arrived, they sent a message through the crowd, asking for him. When someone in the crowd told Jesus,

“Your mother & brothers are outside, and they want to see you.”

Jesus answered with a question,

“Who are my real family members?”

He looked at the people sitting around him and said,

“My real family members are right here. Those of you who follow the Holy Spirit & do what God wants are the real members of my family & God’s family.” {Family Matters}

Then Jesus again taught his students who were gathered there, emphasizing basic themes he had previously taught them on the mountain (64) and continued teaching his students, still emphasizing basic themes he had taught them on the mountain (65).

*

• don’t judge other people => God won’t have to judge you for judging them
• don’t condemn other people => God won’t have to condemn you for condemning them
• forgive other people => God will forgive you => receive a full measure of His blessings
• measure of blessing you give to other people = measure of blessing which God will give to you
• Don’t criticize a splinter in your friend’s eye > you have a log in your own eye = hypocritical!
• take log out of your eye; judge yourself according to God’s standards => be able to help your friend deal with splinter in his eye.
• 
• any person, who says good things & still does bad things = not really living for God.
• hear these words of Jesus + obeys them = like a man who dug deep & laid foundation of his house on rock

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Preceding articles

Illusion of control

First man’s task still counting today

He who knows himself, is kind to others

Luther’s misunderstanding

January 27, 417, Pope Innocent I condemning Pelagius about Faith and Works

Our life depending on faith

Romans 4 and the Sacraments

Is Justification a process?

Letter to the Romans, chapter 3

Letter to the Romans, chapter 4

Additional comments to the 3rd Letter to the Romans

Additional comments to the Letter to the Romans 4

Comments to James remarks, about Faith and works

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Also of interest

1. Signs of the the last days when difficult times will come
2. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
3. Looking for True Spirituality 8 Measuring Up
4. Back from gone #4 Your inner feelings and actions
5. Your struggles develop your strengths
6. Every athlete exercises self control
7. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
8. Angry but not sinning
9. Kindness
10. Inculcate God’s words and speak of them
11. Praying is surrendering in all circumstances

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More interesting articles

1. God Is Working For You
2. Power of Words….
3. When you know better…
4. You Are Rooted As A Tree
5. Start Out The Right Way
6. Self-Control
7. Simple Steps to Self-Control – Start!!!
8. Simple Steps to Self-Control – Continue…
9. Self-control; Is Jesus Pleased with Your Faith Life?
10. Self-controlled faith life in Jesus
11. Allen on Self Control
12. I’m Out of (Self) Control
13. Simple Steps to Self-Control
14. Controlling the Tongue Part 3: The Unstable Tongue (James 3:9-12)
15. Get Your Rest
16. You Can Be Wrong – It Doesn’t Hurt
17. those whose time is up
18. self control
19. Like A Bull In A China Shop
20. Acting Your Wages
21. Happy Thoughts-Prosperity 101
22. You won’t like Me when I’m angry!
23. “Be Angry, and Do Not Sin” (Convictions of honor)
24. The Power of Silence, the unspoken words
25. Proverbs 16:32
26. We can make discipline a bunch of rules to follow and turn into a judgmental ninny or we can use discipline to make ourselves better
27. A New Life
28. Motivational quote for January 25th 2016
29. What Does a believers character Article 9 1-23-16
30. Bible study: It’s loving to warn someone who is about to make a mistake
31. life preserver
32. Secrets Of Developing Self-Control
33. A New Outlook
34. Accepting Forgiveness
35. The Chambers of my Heart
36. Roy Baumeister: Ego Depletion
37. The Flesh Is Weak, But You Don’t Have To Be
38. Not to be too spiritual. . .
39. Don’t Worry; Worship
40. True Love Must Give
41. Responding with Love
42. Patience-Use it before you Lose it
43. What Is God’s Love Like?
44. You Will Have Help By Tomorrow

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Related articles

• Christmas: A Reflection of His Light . . . .
• John 13 & The Distinguishing Mark of a Christian
• How Jesus Talked
• What on earth is the Kingdom?
• God’s Grace
• A Muslim’s Christmas
• Having a Confidant
• “FALLING INTO OPTIMAL” – Dec. 15
• Inner Peace, At Last!
• December 16, 2015 tending

Going on holiday is… silence in your head

An average Westerner lives in his head. From kindergarten until university he is indoctrinated with the idea that there is an answer to every question and a solution to every problem. In this way his need to understand and control keeps the illusion alive that we have a grip on our reality and have everything under control.

But nothing is further from the truth.

In his book ‘De Schaduw van de Verlichting” Eddy Van Tilt speaks about ‘the over-drive of rationality‘.Because we give our ratio absolute status , we have become estranged of that part of reality that is not rational and with which we have lost touch.

The psychologist Van Tilt asks :

” What happened that caused the heads of Westerners to become so hard and their hearts so weak?”

Because he is confronted with the pathological results of too much ego, the delusion of manipulability and rationalising.

The psychiatrist Mark Epstein reacts to this as follows :

‘our thinking mind is compulsive, because it does not want to forget or be forgotten and therefore always has something to do’.

That is why it will not be easy to ” let go of everything” on holiday.
Because as hungry and restless as our mind is preoccupied with the past and the future, it will need other kinds of stimuli, in order not to forget or be forgotten.

We can put our mind at rest.
In the first place by keeping our heart open, by simply observing what happens inside ourselves and by reconnecting with our body, our surroundings, and by accepting …to be moved. When we enter silence, we will experience “now” and  not so much hearing it, but rather feeling it or even better …. experiencing it.
 
To obtain this , it is not necessary to leave your ego or anything else behind, but to look past its borders.

‘By standing still we do not see new things, but we look at things in a different way’,

is what C.G. Jung concluded once.

Or how going on holiday is mainly… silence in your head and heart.

+

Preceding:

Summerholiday season time to read the Bible

Holiday making and dreaming

Home-stayers and their to do list

Written by inspiration of God for our admonition, to whom it shall be imputed if they believe

Dutch version / Nederlandstalige versie: Vakantie is… stilte in je hoofd

Sigmund Freud, G. Stanley Hall, C.G. Jung, A.A. Brill, Ernest Jones, and Sándor Ferenczi posed at Clark University, Worcester, Mass. Photograph first published in September 1909. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Additional reading:

1. Be still and listen
2. Control and change
3. Control your destiny or somebody else will
4. Malefactors becoming your master
5. Patience is the ability to count down before blasting off
6. He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger
7. Know Who goes with us and don’t try to control life
8. A Living Faith #7 Prayer
9. Praying is surrendering in all circumstances
10. Giving cogent reasons to young people why Christian faith is relevant to them

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Further reading:

1. Rationalisation
2. I’m proud of me
3. Day 300: Rationalising Not Buying Anything
4. Day 552 (or 1 Year, 6 Months, and 7 Days of Continuous Sobriety)
5. When We Shouldn’t – And Should – Argue from Authority
6. Hofstadterisms
7. Why imagination is great (and why many evangelicals don’t like it)
8. People focus on what they can see
9. An Artifact of Our Time
10. Are biases deviations from the mean?
11. Do we really live in the Age of Empathy?
12. Excellent. With musings on religion and mass extinctions.
13. Rationality as a Social Process
14. Illogical Rationality
15. Sam Harris’s War on Rationality
16. The Image of Objectivity
17. Looking at the world through the eyes of others
18. Relapse
19. Working toward a new paradigm
20. Does your brain know what’s best for you?
21. Effective Altruism: the global movement that combines your heart and your head
22. Animal rationality
23. Do irrational idiots exist?
24. The Grasshopper and the Ant – a story of economic rationality
25. Maybe Everyone Is Actually Super Rational!
26. Note: Misconceptions on Understanding
27. Too many decisions can be exhausting.
28. How to make the best decisions you can
29. Rationality over the long term
30. Desperate for a “Pause”
31. “Time to take out the trash”
32. It doesn’t always stand to reason

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Related articles

• It’s Okay Not To Be Okay
• 10 Things You Need To Know About Yourself Before You’ll Have The Life You Want
• Secrets of Psychotherapy: Ten Ways to Be More Happy (Pt. 2)
• Inside Inside Out, a review of sorts
• ‘The eyes may be wrong, but the psyche is right’
• Carl Jung on the “Mystic” and “Mysticism.”
• Tapping into God’s Strength by Waiting on Him
• Improving the world by improving the Faith

Illusion of control

Fraser Illusion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To remember:

• illusion of being in control of your own life = an intricate one.
  entertain dreams of kids +  letting them believe => Making them see a perfect illusion of the world > utopian world
• Sometimes perseverance isn’t the key
• Fate = key
• external locus of control

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Additional reading:

1. My life…
2. Your struggles develop your strengths
3. Suffering produces perseverance
4. Just be yourself…
5. Developing new energy
6. Kindness
7. Continuing Paul’s Prayer Requests
8. A Living Faith #5 Perseverance
9. A Living Faith #7 Prayer
10. God’s wrath and sanctification

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Related articles

• Locus Of Control Is Alive And Well In The Workplace (thoughtcatalog.com)
  Locus of control is the idea that people have direct power over events in their own lives. Furthermore, locus of control involves how these events impact, motivate, or empower a person on a multitude of levels. There is a measurable means of pinpointing where someone’s locus of control falls in the grand scheme of things. This brings us to the concept of internal (inner) versus external (outer) locus of control.
• A Hundred Days to Happiness #21: Happiness in the Face of Stress (davidicuswong.wordpress.com)
  Distress, however, is from negative stress or stress that overwhelms us. This can affect us mentally and physically. It can take the form of competing demands from your work, school, home or social lives, an abusive or adversarial relationship, or situations that seem beyond your control.We function at our best when the challenge of our activities matches our resources and abilities. An example would be the perfect job that absorbs all of your attention, engages your talents and provides you with the time and support you need.
• No More Mister Nice Guy (lewrockwell.com)
  Nice Guys take a passive approach to life and relationships. Instead of standing up for themselves, they let others walk all over them. They’re pushovers and perennial People Pleasers. Nice Guys have a hard time saying no to requests — even unreasonable ones. They’re considerate to a fault. When they want or need something, they’re afraid to ask for it because they don’t want to inconvenience others. Nice Guys also avoid conflict like the plague. They’d rather get along than get ahead.
• The one about getting distracted, mean tweets and balance #28daysofwriting (chrisharte.typepad.com)
  Our young people are constantly jacked in to a stream of distractions, from Facebook (which they are all abandoning like rats apparently), to Instagram, the deliberately ephemeral SnapChat and the exponentially exploding YouTube, with 100 hours of new video being uploaded every minute.
• Social Mobility and “Locus of Control” (cato.org)
  Plenty of research confirms that everyone likes to attribute their successes in life to their own virtues, and their disappointments to misfortune.  Only at the end of the article does it float the possibility that the causality may, at least in part, run in the other direction: That believing it’s a matter of luck how one fares in life may lead one to do less well, while believing (even somewhat unrealistically) that your fate is in your own hands is a prerequisite for having the motivation to do as well as you can. Perhaps—and there’s a whiff of paradox here—a belief in that kind of personal responsibility for outcomes is one of the lucky advantages that affluent parents pass on to their children.
• Tremendous Power Lies In Your Hands (kisslesslove.com)
  In order to be successful at any one endeavour we decide to pursue from the depths of our mind, is simply through massive actions. If we were to admit that the outcome of any events because of external circumstances, then we fail to exercise our power as a strong person.Luck then becomes a scape goat for our lack thereof. Therefore, it is dangerous if we consistently push outcomes as a result of luck. In fact, powerful people have been identified with strong internal locus of control. This means that they firmly believe their lives are a result of their actions and inaction.
• Modesty and the Lust of Men (godaslove.wordpress.com)
  Women are told that if they do not conceal their femininity adequately, they will “cause” men to fall prey to the sin of “lust.”
  +
  The temptation to sin comes from within a person, not from without. It is also important to recognize that we can always say “no”: “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure” (1 Corinthians 10:13, NLT).
• Talkin’ About Your Generation (psychologicalscience.org)
  We tend to view our preferences and idiosyncrasies as inherently singular — a unique cocktail of traits that emerges from mixing genetic predispositions with our familial and social experiences. But ever since Karl Mannheim proposed his theory of generations in a seminal 1923 essay, researchers have tried to elucidate the influence of the sociocultural environment — including those influences unique to each generation — on aspects of our personalities and attitudes.
• God’s voice or mine? Knowing the difference, (part 5, reputation) (faithsighanddiy.com)
  Whenever we are deciding what behavior is or is not right for us as followers of Christ, the one thing we mustn’t do is adopt any behavior or give up any behavior in an attempt to appear more righteous or holier than we are. Whatever we decide should be because we simply want to become closer to God. Jesus condemned the Pharisees who used their behavior as a means of appearing better than anyone else, while at the same time treating people poorly. Integrity is more important than image.
• Letters: Teaching Character in Our Schools (rss.nytimes.com)

  if schools learn to teach beyond grit alone, it won’t. The best schools are already pairing grit (or more eloquently, resilience) alongside other character skills like creativity, teamwork, ethics, curiosity and time management.

  When it comes to developing children in this way, we don’t simply want a swinging pendulum; we need schools to function like clockwork.

   

Awordseeker

The illusion of you being in control of your own life is quite an intricate one.
Just like adults entertain the dreams of kids bt letting them believe that they have built an actual castle in stead of a sand one.
We let them feel they can do whatever they want.
Are we making them brave,by having the courage to dream? By letting them believe that dreams do come true? Or are we damaging their sense of the reality . Making them see a perfect illusion of the world. A utopian world which doesn’t exist. Are we building them up for a big heartbreak for their future when the reality of life and the world comes crashing down on them?
The fact is that sometimes no matter what you do, it’s never enough. Sometimes perseverance isn’t the key. Fate is. Sometimes even in moments of utter desperation you know no…

View original post 56 more words

Believe in your greatness

too often a person is not willing to recognise the “I am” in himself or herself, which gets in his or her way to develop in a good way.
when not able to accept the self and not able to place the self in a good position in this world, the self shall be lost in the wide world of selfish persons and in others who have no interest in ‘loosers’ or in persons who do not believe in themselves.
Instead of looking at others and comparing ourselves with others, we first should look at ourself, seeing the “I am” in ourself.

Inspirited Life

 Lacking motivation? Feeling worthless? Friendless? Frustrated? Disappointed? Most everyday we feel something negative about ourselves.  We tend to blame it on the our circumstances. While all the blame my be right there, I’m learning how important it is not to let circumstances alone control you.

Our circumstance will change everyday. Some can be control and some can’t. Instead of focusing on what you can’t control, laser in on what you can. What’s the number one thing you can control? Your thinking.

“The sum of all your thoughts comprises your overall attitude.” -John Maxwell

So I challenge you, write down 100 positive things about yourself. The list isn’t timed, but get to thinking and write them down. Yes 100! This may be challenging. I often find when I think of a positive about myself I’m following it up with a “but I could be better” or “I’m only where I’m…

View original post 181 more words

Misleading world, stress, technique, superficiality, past, future and positivism

I am convinced that in case we try to bend all our negative thoughts into the direction of good thoughts we can manage better. Very important to avoid stress situations simply is avoiding those people who could bring us into such a situation. We best avoid negative influences and associate better more with people who can contribute positiveness in our life.

Eliminative Materialism (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We should be careful not to be taken in, by not be focusing on the distribution of material power because that are the matters which can bring us down.  Materialism in the end always will kill the person. Always being aware that no way we ever shall get a good working system or any political system that can solve everything. For that we shall have to wait until the return of Christ, when the Kingdom of God shall at last become a full reality. Before that the reality of a perfect world is an illusion. The reality that surrounds us is not in itself a product of the objective forces but one of our shared perceptions, ideas, social values and understanding. We would be fooling ourselves if we believed the state and the inter-state systems, would not be artificial constructs, meaning that they are constructed by humans, and they can be changed and developed in new ways in extreme cases leading to anarchy and a huge security dilemma.

We all should work on coming to understand how the world evolves and what for influence we as human beings have on nature. when you look how we treat nature it more seems that we are very good at destroying it instead of living in symbioses with it.

At the moment how people are making a mess of the world they are also putting stress on the whole community, using everything and every one to get as much material gain as they can. Not many people are really interested in the spiritual site of life. Most people are also not interested to come to know or to come to an understanding of the universe and the world around us.

All the things that happened in the past can never be undone. This can be hard to swallow and it can bring much sadness to us. But it has no use to linger on such bad events, sad happenings and to keep facing depressing thoughts. the world must go on, and we with it.

Instead of having people to succeed to push us in a hole, getting us not believing in ourselves any more, we better try to understand why such people became so envious, jealous, and so frustrated that they like to bully others. They would like to kill all initiative others would take, because that would put them in the shadow. Often such people looking to get all the power would not mind putting all those on their path, standing in their way,to not only put them in the shadow, but to get them in the dark, not having to play any significant role any more. it is all a matter of control. And when we lose control we might come into a phase of stress and they think they also would come in a phase of no power any more.

Sharing  control and sharing tasks has not to mean you would or the other would loose control. Together more can be managed than on your own. Often when people start feeling their loosing control they do come in afraid to loose their position in the comfort zone. Some may take on the defence mode and try to suppress the other, others may come in the discomfort zone and feeling stress. at first the one feeling the pressure at work might thing he or she could solve the problem with working harder, giving himself or herself more for the job, but many of such hard-working and optimistically minded individuals have lost their jobs and have come so depressed, taken over by the stress or worries.

We best take care we do not get in a position were we could start dwelling on the negative spiral to nowhere. It leads to nihilism. We too can avoid that others get in a stress situation and loose their optimism. By encouraging others to focus on the positives is an act of ‘brotherly love‘. It also shows a faith in other individuals as well as a faith in what is around you or in the organization you are working for.

Captain Edward Rickenbacker, America’s premier “Ace” officially credited with 22 enemy planes and the proud wearer of the French War Cross as he appeared upon his arrival on board the Adriatic. Underwood and Underwood., ca. 1919  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We all should remember  what World War I ace and aviation entrepreneur, Eddie Rickenbacker said:

“Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in experience and achievement.” That is an attitude worth maintaining and nurturing especially when times are so severe.

A big problem today is that most people are so focused on the materialism they do not see that there are more important matters and they think somebody else can destroy them. Several people consider atheism as being more useful for the development of life forces and the worldly satisfaction of the larger masses of mankind. {“Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit.” Articles by and on Berdyaev, Returning to Berdyaev at the Return to Materialism}

The triumph of the bourgeois spirit led Berdyaev to declare that history was a story of failure. Berdyaev lamented that the will to power and affluence had triumphed over the will to holiness and genius.” (Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century, Paulist Press, l98l.) {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

This world is taken over by materialism, idolatries of power, lust and comfort. Normally you would think all the luxury would bring much satisfaction to the people, but by comparing what others have and what they do not have the  jealousy took them down in a spiral of envy and bring them in a stress situation. Lots of people have created their own god. They do not understand that the for them useful and practically effective god of capitalism cannot be the True God. When you look at their god or gods you might come to see that it is no problem at all to unmask their new and popular gods. We can see that many adore the money and have put away The Only One God of religious revelations far away. For them That God can not be seen nor felt and therefore has no value for them. You could ask them: whenever did you try to look for Him and tried to see Him?

We have become surrounded by technique and many are totally taken by it and also have become very dependant on it. Their relationship with all that technical stuff however did not help to bring them into closer communion with their inner life and soul of nature. they might think it brought them closer together, and has created them having more ‘friends’ on the social networks. But they do not see that many of them are ‘virtual friends’ and have not a real social connection at all. We even see that more people become more isolated in their environment of Linked-in and Facebook relatives. They might have many so called ‘friends’ in their circles but they are very lonely … on their own. They, in their isolation, also seem to loose track of their own possibilities.

The machine sets its stamp upon the human spirit and all its manifestations. Thus civilization has neither a natural nor a spiritual, but a mechanical foundation. It represents par excellence the triumph of technique over both the spirit and organism.

The machine and technique are the product of the mental development and discoveries of culture; but they sap its organic foundations and kill its spirit. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

With all the focus on material goods not much interest can be found for culture. those working in the cultural field may be tampered and losing positivism as well. They have to find a way to earn their living and are persuaded to greater concessions. Many artists having lost the artistic soul, becoming part of the mainstream ‘civilization’ where spiritual matters are discounted and where quantity has displaced quality.

The assertion of the will to “life,” power, organization and earthly happiness, brings about mankind’s spiritual decline; for the higher spiritual life is based upon asceticism and resignation. Such are the tragedy and fate of historical destinies. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

Vyacheslav Ivanov, Lev Kobilinskij-Ellis, Nikolai Berdyaev (standing) and Andrei Bely (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I do not think like Nicholas Berdyaev that civilization as opposed to culture, which is given up to the contemplation of eternity, tends to be futurist. I do agree that machinery and technique are chiefly responsible for the speeding up of life, but that some might have lost the reason why we could make advantage of such tools. and its exclusive aspiration towards the future. the technique should have helped our society to come more at ease and to be less stressful. Many let the machine take over and concentrated more on the material gain it could bring instead of making use or advantage of the time it could make free for them to do other things.

Organic life is slower, less impetuous, and more concerned with essentials, while civilized life is superficial and accidental; for it puts the means and instruments of life before the ends whose significance is lost. The consciousness of civilized men is concentrated exclusively upon the means and technique of life considered as the only reality, while its aims are regarded as illusory. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

Berdyaev may think that spiritual culture is unreal, but for me culture is fundamental for a healthy community. Culture is is not a mere instrument of technique, it is the gear transmission of society. It is the sociological controller and instigator for a good relation between end and means. Culture is also the mirror for man to put everything in perspective and the golden thread in history. Today we may see the loss of any sense of purpose in human life, culture and religion.

All historical tendencies which have striven to create harmony, to overcome the dark premise, to subdue the turbulence of freedom and supersede it by compelled and necesary good, are concerned only with the secondary signs of the unique and primal mystery of divine freedom. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

We as human beings should remember we are only a very tiny element in the universe. We would love to believe that everything turns around us, but we are thoroughly mistaken.

21st Century Materialism (Photo credit: tomislavmedak)

I do agree with Berdyaev that humankind has a solution in front of them, which was already given to them early from the start. And that it is this fundamental moral contradiction we are facing today that invalidates the doctrine of progress, turning it into a religion of death instead of resurrection and eternal life.

There is no valid ground for degrading those generations whose lot has been cast among pain and imperfection beneath that whose pre-eminence has been ordained in blessedness and joy. No future perfection can expiate the sufferings of past generations. Such a sacrifice of all human destinies to the messianic consummation of the favoured race can only revolt man’s moral and religious conscience. A religion of progress based on this apotheosis of a future fortunate generation is without compassion for either present or past; it addresses itself with infinite optimism to the future, with infinite pessimism to the past. It is profoundly hostile to the Christian expectation of resurrection for all mankind, for all the dead, fathers and forefathers. This Christian idea rests on the hope of an end to historical tragedy and contradiction valid for all human generations, and of resurrection in eternal life for all who have ever lived. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

Our habit of breaking up time into the past, present and future does not entitle us to endow the last with more reality than the first. From the standpoint of the present, the future is no richer in reality than the past, and our efforts should be with reference, not to the future, but to that eternal present of which both future and past are one. {Nicholas Berdyaev, Prophet for the Catholic Worker Movement Materialism Destroys the Eternal Spirit}

More people in this world should make the choice on what they really want to focus. Too much we have forgotten the importance of the choices we have to make and on the direction we have to focus our eyes and mind. We should all be convinced how much we ourselves can regulate our own life and how much depends on the focus on what we want is directly proportional to what we can achieve.

To many of us are more concerned to prove ourselves for man, instead of proving ourselves for the Higher Being. How many of us are not willing to change themselves, just for the sake of wining someone’s approval.

Geetika Garg, who is trying to know more about everything around her, writes on her blog:

You don’t have to prove yourself worthwhile by doing what others wish; it’s certainly not your job. Be confident for who you are, for who you had been all those years, stand strong for all the decisions that you have made and have faith in yourself.  You are enough for your ow. {You Matter}

Too many people have forgotten to be their own self and to dare to speak out for themselves.  A lot of people who would have loved to have more affinity for the spiritual have been pressed against the wall by the materialists. they put their own inner soul aside, thinking they would be less than the other. they looked for ways outside themselves to prove themselves by doing what others wished them to do. they should know that is not the right way and is neither to help them nor the ones they are hoping to please.

May I quote the lady who believes whatever we are seeking is seeking us too, and has hopes that the day the two will meet, it will be complete, perfect as it is meant to be!

Be confident for who you are, for who you had been all those years, stand strong for all the decisions that you have made and have faith in yourself.  You are enough for your own self; you are capable of achieving what all you desire and you require absolutely none to tell you how worthy you are. Instead of focusing on what critics have to say why not concentrate on those who praise you.  Those people are the ones with all positivism and happiness. We often tend to forget that they exist and keep believing on all bad about us. They are the people who matter. Let go of rest. Don’t let your ears used to of those cruel words that inhibit your growth, that steal a part of you and things that change your entire being. {You Matter}

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Recommended readings:

1. Social Constructivism and Positivism in the Context of International Relations
2. Put Positivism to Work
3. Returning to Berdyaev at the Return to Materialism
4. Berdyaev on the Nature of Spirit and Reality in Relation to Apologetics
5. The Practice of Philosophy and Modes of Knowing: Hart’s Rejoinder to Zuidervaart?
6. Searching for fulfillment and meaning through own efforts, facing unsatisfaction and depression
7. Depression, Anxiety, Pressure and megachurches
8. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
9. Aligned
10. Malefactors becoming your master
11. Control your destiny or somebody else will
12. Control and change
13. Science and God’s existence
14. Do we have to be an anarchist to react
15. Getting out of the dark corners of this world
16. Value Positivism
17. Patience is the ability to count down before blasting off
18. He who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger
19. To whom do we want to be enslaved
20. Power in the life of certain
21. Know Who goes with us and don’t try to control life
22. God is my refuge and my fortress in Him I will trust

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Searching for fulfillment and meaning through own efforts, facing unsatisfaction and depression

Dark season to cope with

On “Voice, the Christian E-book blog” in Winning the War against Depression and Anxiety: An Interview with Perry Noble is given an interview about Depression and Anxiety is with Perry Noble, founder and senior pastor of NewSpring Church, a multicampus church whose mission is to reach 100,000 people in South Carolina with the gospel.

Mostly the Winter season is marked with people having a lot of difficulty to cope with depression. Spring brings more anxiety to people feeling sometimes pressed in a corner or not able to develop their own talent. Seeing everything coming up  in the parks and fields they become frustrated that nature looked death, but every year can recover so much and bring every time such new beautiful things, whilst they can not.

Today people are not concerned about God and His Creation, but they always will be confronted by that creation. In a way this may become a little bit frustrating for them and for the believers who would like to bring the unbelievers closer to the Creator. By those believers there also may rise a lot more questions when everything comes to live again, and they do not see Spring coming into their life, but see them getting older and less vibrant.

Spring-cleaning

Spring brings also the Spring-cleaning and making us to confront the old things, deciding what to throw away and what to keep but brings also questions, how to continue, and what to do this year. More than the 1st of January people now get wondering what to do and how to succeed in this New Year.

For many, like us it might be the start of trying to meet more  people and getting them to see where they and we are and bringing them to where they and we need to be in a relationship with Jesus and his Father, which should be also Our Father, the Most High God.

People will always get offended—it’s inevitable. The question we have to ask is: would we rather offend religious people or lost people? When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, he offended the religious people at the same time he healed a lost person.  {Perry Noble}

Searching for fulfilment and meaning

Perry Noble thinks people are searching for fulfilment and meaning through their own efforts — jobs, money, cars, kids, hobbies— whatever the next big thing might be. The reality, though, is we’ll only be truly fulfilled when we have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Today we find a lot of people who become frustrated because they can not reach the goals they had set in front of them. Everywhere they seem to see negative elements, blocking their advancement. Lots of people do not feel they get recognition for what they do and having their work not being appreciated they start doubting in the quality of their work or in their ability to bring something others can appreciate.

Man who do not seem to get out of the darkness become struggling with depression. They do not dare to come to others with their problems and do not want to see they are depressed and perhaps need help from specialised people. They need to ask for help immediately.

Elements that can help

Noble who’s first book, Unleash! Breaking Free from Normalcy was a New York Times bestseller, also has struggled with depression. He says:

I was overwhelmed (in an awesome way) with an amazing amount of encouragement and support by my church when I shared my struggle with depression.

For so long, I thought I should be able to pray away how I was feeling or snap out of it and if I did tell anyone what was going on, they would think I was a bad Christian or didn’t really love Jesus. That’s just not true and only by speaking up and asking for help was I able to see this. I don’t think anything is wrong with medication if it’s something a doctor recommends. If you needed medicine to fix your heart you would take that, so why wouldn’t you take medicine to help fix your brain?

Our relationship with our brain and moods

Complete neuron cell diagram. Neurons (also known as neurones and nerve cells) are electrically excitable cells in the nervous system that process and transmit information. In vertebrate animals, neurons are the core components of the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It looks like many people are afraid for their own brain. Certainly when their brain does things they themselves do not like it to do.

It’s often said that depression results from a chemical imbalance, but that figure of speech doesn’t capture how complex the disease is. Research suggests that depression doesn’t spring from simply having too much or too little of certain brain chemicals. Rather, depression has many possible causes, including faulty mood regulation by the brain, genetic vulnerability, stressful life events, medications, and medical problems. It’s believed that several of these forces interact to bring on depression. {What causes depression? first printed in Understanding Depression, a Special Health Report from Harvard Medical Schooll}

We got to know that the brain, and not the heart is the centre of our life and the place for all our emotions. We would love to control those areas of the brain which help to regulate mood, but we do not seem to be always in control of them.

Researchers believe that — more important than levels of specific brain chemicals — nerve cell connections, nerve cell growth, and the functioning of nerve circuits have a major impact on depression. Still, their understanding of the neurological underpinnings of mood is incomplete.

Experts have long wondered why, if depression were primarily the result of low levels of neurotransmitters, people don’t feel better as soon as levels of neurotransmitters increase.

The answer may be that mood only improves as nerves grow and form new connections, a process that takes weeks. In fact, animal studies have shown that antidepressants do spur the growth and enhanced branching of nerve cells in the hippocampus. So, the theory holds, the real value of these medications may be in generating new neurons (a process called neurogenesis), strengthening nerve cell connections, and improving the exchange of information between nerve circuits. If that’s the case, medications could be developed that specifically promote neurogenesis, with the hope that patients would see quicker results than with current treatments.

Depression connections in the brain 5 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Regulating mood

Many of our brothers in our community believe that the ultimate goal in treating the biology of depression is to improve the brain’s ability to regulate mood.

We now know that neurotransmitters are not the only important part of the machinery. But let’s not diminish their importance either. They are deeply involved in how nerve cells communicate with one another. And they are a component of brain function that we can often influence to good ends.

Every part of your body, including your brain, is controlled by genes. Genes make proteins that are involved in biological processes. Throughout life, different genes turn on and off, so that — in the best case — they make the right proteins at the right time. But if the genes get it wrong, they can alter your biology in a way that results in your mood becoming unstable. In a genetically vulnerable person, any stress (a missed deadline at work or a medical illness, for example) can then push this system off balance.

Mood is affected by dozens of genes, and as our genetic endowments differ, so do our depressions. The hope is that as researchers pinpoint the genes involved in mood disorders and better understand their functions, treatment can become more individualized and more successful. Patients would receive the best medication for their type of depression.

But mood is also a lot influenced from outside, the people we meet, the activities we see developing around us, how people interact, etc..

View of the world and influential factors

sympathy|for|the|anxiety|explosion (Photo credit: massimo ankor)

Cognitive psychologists point out that your view of the world and, in particular, your unacknowledged assumptions about how the world works also influence how you feel. You develop your viewpoint early on and learn to automatically fall back on it when loss, disappointment, or rejection occurs. For example, you may come to see yourself as unworthy of love, so you avoid getting involved with people rather than risk losing a relationship. Or you may be so self-critical that you can’t bear the slightest criticism from others, which can slow or block your career progress.

How we look at the world can be influenced by many factors, but for sure the media are not helping to have a positive look on it. Therefore we on this site world love to have an other look at the world and see the positive aspects of the world. Therefore we would like to put some photographs , like the previous one published, more in the picture. When you see all those little flowers coming up and giving colour unto our world, we should also like to give colour to our world we are living in.

Many affected by stressful experiences

In the United States of America nearly 19 million adults each year are affected by depression and worldwide we may find more than 35 million people having problems with it. Many of them do not see any more the beauty of nature and do not see any more what marvellous things this world has to offer.

The depression they got in often followed stressful experiences. The brain interprets events and decides if they are threatening, then controls the behavioural and physiological responses to those events. The brain’s reaction to stress is useful in that it supplies extra energy to help a person act on or flee from dangerous situations. Sometimes, however, brain chemical levels that increase during stressful situations stay at high levels and cause problems such as depression.

Would it not better to avoid such route where we went to far on the wrong (site) track? And can we not see by people around us when they are floating away?

Some may think

This world is becoming More Wicked by the moment: and If We; the older men and women, do not speak up: Then How Will the Young Folks learn anything about history?

Knowing history, knowing how people reacted in the past, will avoid that people go again in the same wrong direction.

Depression is a very real issue and it has impacted everyone—either it’s happened to us or someone we know. I think the church needs to talk about this issue and help people understand what the Bible says about overcoming fear, anxiety, and stress. The church should be a place where people meet Jesus, find hope, and have the courage to ask for help! {Winning the War against Depression and Anxiety: An Interview with Perry Noble}

Having eyes for the other and helping each-other

Each of us can help a person not getting so far that he or she gets into a depression. We should see when people around us get more into a deep well or in a bottomless pit. By being positive ourselves we can radiate ourselves positiveness that can infect others, making them to see the bright site of life.

Depression is dark and lonely, and there is a misconception that Christians shouldn’t struggle with depression; if you love Jesus, you should just be able to pray it away. But that’s just not true!

Many times, if things are messy, the church doesn’t want to talk about it. {Winning the War against Depression and Anxiety: An Interview with Perry Noble}

Churches should also talk about this and other matters people do have to struggle with, also when they are Christian. It is not because we have accepted Jesus in our life that we are free of pain and struggle. Do not believe that. But be sure in our faith we can find guidance and lots of help to be able to cope better with those struggles.

In most cases, people will identify with your pain more than they will your success. Sharing stories of your past and where God has brought you from could help someone take the next step with Jesus. If God can use my pain for someone else’s progress, then I want him to use it! {Winning the War against Depression and Anxiety: An Interview with Perry Noble}

Believers and non-believers, people adhering a religion or not, have to see that depression, anxiety, and fear are very real struggles. They should know that they can help each other to overcome it. Every person in the community should take care he or she is no cause that an other shall come in problems or would feel bad.

To endure

Those who are Christian should remember the pains Jesus and his family had to endure. They should remember how Jesus his mother continued her life and how the brothers and sisters went on after Jesus was killed. One of his brothers got the strength to to continue the preaching of his brother, telling not about the negative point that he had lost his brother Jesus, but telling about the positive news his resurrection for us was.

In Christianity we can see how many overcome the many struggles they had to face. Also today we still can find many living proofs that it is possible to overcome being overwhelmed.

We should stop being held back by life’s everyday struggles, and learn to overcome stress and anxiety. And we should concentrate ourselves on the nice things this world may offer to all living people, religious and non-religious. Those who have faith in the Only One True God, should show others how they are and can be further blessed by the Magical Hand of the Divine Creator. So that others may see the marvellous things this world has to offer and how we may enjoy it all.

We all can do much more than we think. Because all people are created in the image of God theyall have received inner forces from the Creator. When we are willing to look in ourselves for those inner forces, we shall be able to use them. Even when you do not believe in God, you would be better to start looking for those inner forces which are implanted in your being. By opening your mind for the search of those inner forces you might well be able to find that what gets you stronger and shall enable you to recover much faster than synthetic medical drugs can do. Animals in the wild do not have the doctor and medicines with them, but they can help themselves by what nature is providing for them. Start seeing what is in nature to help you live a better and easier life.

 

Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

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Find additional reading:

1. Meaning of life
2. Feed Your Faith Daily
3. My Christadelphian Faith

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• Subjects in Distress

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  “I wanted to kill myself.”Few people want to admit that, and even fewer pastors would.
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