Tag Archives: Divorce

Couples reaching midlife and danger of divorce

Many marriages do not make it beyond their 40s

42 per cent of marriages currently end in divorce

42 per cent of marriages currently end in divorce

In the UK in 2019, 45 to 49 was the most popular age to divorce, with the average age being 46.4 for men and 43.9 for women, so clearly there’s a sea change of some sort happening in this fifth decade.

Relate counsellor Simone Bose comes across many couples experiencing “midlife malaise” at her practice.

“After 10-plus years of marriage, couples gradually make less effort and become complacent towards each other, and often the things they found attractive at the beginning can become what now annoys them. For example, relaxed becomes lazy, or assertive becomes bullying or ­controlling,”

explains Bose.

“It’s a crisis point because you see that life is passing you by and you wonder if you should settle or if you’re still young enough to have new adventures and even meet someone else.”

Marian O’Connor, ­psychoanalytic couples’ therapist at Tavistock Relationships says

“You have to be able to stand outside yourselves and look at what you’re doing to each other, and think about how you can make your life fun and nurturing and not just a life of tasks.”

Read more about: How to avoid divorce in your 40s

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Related articles

  1. Midlife Thoughts
  2. Evolution Revolution
  3. Get moving
  4. The time between breaths
  5. Shelters
  6. The Gift of Unconditional Love
  7. Through The Looking Glass
  8. a proper order 
  9. Life Cost Me everything
  10. New Beginning
  11. Why Not Divorce?
  12. Navigating Divorce
  13. Common Mistakes Divorced Parents Make
  14. Is it possible to divorce and then marry again?
  15. Jesus on divorce … is he harsher than the OT Law? (Mark 10:1-10)
  16. Translating the Bible: Does God Hate Divorce?: Malachi 2:16 does not say that God hates divorce. However, God is not happy with people when they divorce. From God’s perspective, marriage is a commitment that should last a lifetime, “what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matthew 19:6).

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Quiet Heroes

 

Psyche and Spirit/Richard B. Patterson PhD

Hero has become a popular word these days, as it should be. It is being applied to front-line workers battling COVID, to police officers, to firefighters and EMTs, and to our warrior veterans. Indeed these are all people who suit up and show up to jobs that could make today their last.

I have been a practicing psychotherapist for a very long time. Sometimes people will ask “How do you do that? How do you sit for hour after hour listening to terrible stuff?” Well, first of all, I recall what one woman said to me one day when my stress level was apparent. She said “Hey! Us crazy people didn’t ask you to do this job!” Amen to that.

I do know that one thing that keeps me going is that I get to meet true heroes on a regular basis. These are not always people who have saved…

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About marriages and divorces

In the Jeshuaist article “Noahide Laws or Seven commandments incumbent upon all of humankind” we looked at the matter of human beings coming together and having to multiply.

Throughout the centuries people tried to unite with each other, but not always managed to keep fidelity for each other. But in a certain way we, human beings, created in the image of God, having received that ‘order’ to multiply find ourselves in a request to have a ‘set apart’ or holy family. That family unit should be the foundation of human society.

Sexuality is the fountain of life and so nothing is more holy than the sexual act. So, too, when abused, nothing can be more debasing and destructive to the human being.

When having found a partner, one is expected to stick to that one partner for the whole life. “Her Norm” looks at marriage and divorce in terms of numbers and to our surprise, the statistics do not confirm what many think. We can learn a lot about marriage and divorce trends over the years and how the attitudes and behaviours towards marital status have changed.

Things like ethnicity, religion, politics, and even what state you live in can make a huge difference to what part of a marriage and divorce survey you fall into. Age too plays a big part in the likelihood of you ending up getting divorced. Read on to find out whether you improve your chances of a happy relationship the younger or older you marry. {Marriage And Divorce Statistics (2021) – How Many Relationships Last?}

For America the overall trend for the last thirty years is the fact that the marriage rate has gone down by just under 40%. While in some years that rate did increase, by and large, year after year that rate fell consistently. But we also can see how divorce decreases have been a fairly constant occurrence in the United States over the last thirty years. We started the 90’s seeing the crude divorce rate rise to almost 5 in every 1,000 of the population. At the end of 2018, that had fallen to just under 3. 

Please have a look at the statistics: Marriage And Divorce Statistics (2021) – How Many Relationships Last?

Marriage And Divorce Demographics In The U.S.

Countries With The Highest Divorce Rates

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Parenting in changing times

When Pew Research Center started the Fact Tank data blog back in 2013, their goal was to present data that would help people better understand the news of the day. But in looking at their top blog posts of 2015, they realized that the pieces they published often made news, too. From Millennials in the workforce to religion in America, their most popular posts told important stories about trends shaping our world.
In a changing time parents of young kids are more likely than parents of teenagers to think they are doing well. Last century most parents where together, but recently we do find much more single parent families trying to cope.

Pew researchers note that the percentage of children living in a two-parent household, including cohabitating couples and same-sex couples, is at the lowest point in more than half a century.

Black and white image of 2 children at wedding

Black and white image of 2 children at wedding (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Married and partnered parents say they feel more support in raising their children, and married parents are more likely to feel satisfied with their involvement in their children’s education.

The organization also finds that parents’ income affects their experiences in ways that aren’t necessarily surprising, but are nonetheless striking.

On December 30, 2015 wrote the article

It’s no longer a ‘Leave It to Beaver’ world for American families – but it wasn’t back then, either

Photo credit: H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images
Photo credit: H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images

It’s less common today for American children to have a family like the ones portrayed on television in the 1950s and ’60s. One of the biggest reasons is a dramatic rise in kids living with a single parent.

How the American family has changedIn 2014, just 14% of children younger than 18 lived with a stay-at-home mother and a working father who were in their first marriage. This marks a dramatic decline from the height of the postwar baby boom, when these kinds of households were more common.

But even then, what some people hold up as the quintessential “traditional” family type was far from universal: In 1960, just half of children were living in this type of arrangement. By 1980, the share had dropped to 26%. It continued to decline until the 1990s, and has since remained fairly stable, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data.

Photo taken by me as an example of a stay at h...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the biggest changes has been the increase in kids living with single parents – up to 26% from 9% in 1960. An additional 7% of children today are living with two parents who are not married. This, in turn, relates to increases in divorce, as well as higher shares of births occurring outside of marriage; in 1960, 5% of births occurred to unmarried women, a share that has since increased eightfold to 40%. 

As more mothers enter the workforce, the share of stay-at-home moms has also declined. In the late 1960s, about half of mothers with children younger than 18 stayed at home full-time, compared with only three-in-ten today. (About 7% of fathers who live with their kids are stay-at-home dads.)

Asian children most likely to live with stay-at-home mom, working dad

Asian children are the most likely to be living with a stay-at-home mom and working dad in their first marriage. Almost one-fourth (24%) are, due in large part to the high rates of marital stability among Asians; fully 71% of Asian children are living with parents in their first marriage.

Hispanic children are also fairly likely to be living in this type of situation, due in part to the high share of moms who stay at home. Fully 18% of Hispanic children are living in a home with a working dad and a stay-at-home mom in their first marriage. The same is true of 15% of white children.

Black children are far less likely to be living in this type of family than others – only 4% are. This is largely due to the fact that less than a third of black children are living with two married parents at all, regardless of their work situation. Instead, the majority (54%) of black children are living with single parents.

Family arrangements are linked to economic outcomes, which in turn are associated with the environment in which kids are raised, according to a Pew Research Center report. Kids living in cohabiting families or single-parent families are two to three times more likely than kids in married-parent families to be living in poverty. And those kids living with two full-time working parents are better off financially than those living with a working dad and a stay-at-home mom.

At the same time, kids from less well-off families are less likely to be living in a neighborhood that their parents deem an excellent or good place to raise children than are kids from more affluent families. The parents of less affluent children are also far more likely to worry about the physical safety of their children than more affluent parents – 47% of parents with family income below $30,000 worry that their child could get shot at some point, versus 22% of parents with family income of $75,000 or more, for instance.

Topics: Household and Family Structure, Marriage and Divorce, Population Trends, Race and Ethnicity, Work and Employment

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Continued nostalgic Christmas memories

In Christmas in the 1950s we looked a first time at the way we and experienced the Winter holidays and enjoyed watching the movies.

When  had started sixth grade in Gretna, Louisiana to spend the next three years at the same “Grammar School” his life was common to those of his school mates.

Cover of one of the books of the Robert L. May...

Cover of one of the books of the Robert L. May story by Maxton Publishers, Inc. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like in our country he had also real Christmas holidays, and had real Christmas programs at school. When we do hear our grand children and see what is done at schools for the Christmas holiday we do not see such nice activities like we had in school. Though, Today there are more people stressing that this is the Season of the Year, and several Christians are shouting that Christmas should be the Reason of the Season. But when they want to celebrate the birth of Christ, not much seems to remind people to that birth of the Jewish rabbi who is our saviour. On the streets and in the shops the so called Christmas songs do not really mention Jesus Christ but go on about reindeer, Santa(s), jingle bells and present, though not that special present or precious gift you could call Jesus Christ. The winter-related songs celebrate the climatic season, with all its snow, dressing up for the cold, sleighing, etc. and with the years all the pagan elements came more and more to the forefront, new mythical characters created, defined, and popularised by these songs; “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman” both introduced by Gene Autry a year apart (1949 and 1950 respectively).

In the previous century we gathered and special presentations were offered to sing carols.

remembers

We would sing Christmas carols, which included biblical songs. The school would give the children song sheets that showed the words to those biblical songs. Teachers were free to talk to their classes about their church lives. {120714 – Christmas Of Simpler Times}

Today lots of teachers are not allowed to speak about their religious life. They are not allowed to talk about Jesus Christ being the saviour. church live and talks about God are in many schools not authorised any more.

The kids have also nothing to share about church life, because most of them never go to church or just have some periods of church activity to prepare them for the first and/or second communion. they are not really interested in anything to do with church or with religion. The talk of the day is the new smartphone or any other new electronic gadget, plus laughing with one or the other posting on Facebook. Television lost grace in the hand of our grandchildren. The present generation does not watch so much television as we did or do, but have their eyes focused on the computer screen, watching al sorts of postings or games.

Most of my friends watched the same television programs. {120714 – Christmas Of Simpler Times}

writes

We didn’t have cable tv or dish types, so our selection was limited to traditional network programming. The programs were family oriented and were not restricted to “church and state” limitations.The Cleaver family went to church and Sunday School. Andy, Barney, Aunt Bea, Opie, and Gomer were shown in their church, even when Gomer might fall asleep and snore during the “Reverend’s” sermons.
The Christmas programs that were produced and shown by ABC, NBC, and CBS did not hide the fact that “Jesus was the reason for the season.” Television hosts did not omit “Jesus” from their discussions when they were talking about Christmas. Jesus was truly “God with us” during those programs. {120714 – Christmas Of Simpler Times}

Jesus nor God are the subject of this season. It is time that those who call themselves Christian and find that this should be a time to think about Christ Jesus, perhaps should do better to have others thinking about that special man who was sent by God for a specific reason.

In Belgium we listened, behind frosted windows, to songs like the one of Frank Sinatra who sung about the songs for you and me, but were told that this was all about that heathen character the Americans loved so much, because their country had become slave of consumption. Today we in Europe are not better off. Most people are slave of money and consumption. As in the previous article told, they even get so much stress that we have already time spend in the media about that ‘Christmas stress‘.

Of the time when every one falls in love there is not so much to see. In some American writings we hear that it is now fashionable to have a divorce around Christmas. Many have new years dreams of having some extramarital adventures with some delicious unknown and some even think it can be good fun to have some extra sex with somebody of their own gender. Those same gender relations are also promoted extra in this time of year. This week for example we had on television some gays who prepared meals for each other and talked every episode about the ‘Christmas kitsch’.

Merry Christmas (Bing Crosby album)

Merry Christmas (Bing Crosby album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the 1950ies and 1960ies from the States we got Andy Williams and Bing Crosby who be the must haves and must hears at the Winter holiday season. You may wonder what glow it is when snow would appear these days. But even the snow has given it up and Winter does not want to let see her face. Bing Crosby reminded people about what happened in Bethlehem and asked people to remember it not just in this particular season but the whole year through.

Judi Harbin remarked

Just as we cannot benefit from a wrapped gift under the Christmas tree until we open it, so gratitude can be seen as our way of opening the gift of God’s love intended by all the small and big positive events of our lives

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One of the Biggest Christmas hits in several families for years

“White christmas” by Bing Crosby (1942) Original

Later he made a more fluent, faster version, which I like more

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O Little Town Of Bethlehem – Bing Crosby

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Bing Crosby “The Secret Of Christmas”

“The Secret Of Christmas” was written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn for Bing Crosby, and was first performed by Bing in the 1959 film, ‘Say One For Me’. Bing recorded “The Secret Of Christmas” with an arrangement by Frank DeVol for a single that year released by Columbia Records. Bing recorded the song again in 1964 for the album 12 Songs Of Christmas with Fred Waring and His Orchestra.

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It may well be that after World War II our families had to overcome the shocks of the Great War and the last atrocity which showed the cruelty of man and made it so much more important to focus on the better soul of mankind. Perhaps it was truly a much simpler time of Christmas in our nation’s not too distant history.

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Preceding articles

Solstice, Saturnalia and Christmas-stress

Christmas in the 1950s

The Proper Place of Excess

Looking for the consummation of presents

One can buy a lot in the supermarket, but not hope

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Additional reading

  1. Creator and Blogger God 11 Old and New Blog 1 Aimed at one man
  2. Objects around the birth and death of Jesus
  3. Our love for Jesus – A Christian Science perspective
  4. Isaiah 55-56, Revelation 11
  5. God’s wrath and sanctification

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Further reading and listening

  1. Celebrating 365 Days of Legends, Folklore & Spirituality for December 17 – 23 – Saturnalia
  2. Countdown to Christmas 17: Saturnalia
  3. War On Christmas Memes: Saturnalia
  4. Christmas: it’s all about money, not messiahs.
  5. Why Did He Come?
  6. What Really Happened?
  7. He Loves You So
  8. 10 Tips for Maintaining a Healthy, Happy, Glow Over Christmas and Into the New Year
  9. Cancer survivor supports others battling the disease with massive Christmas light display
  10. Giving money for Christmas: When and how to do it right
  11. Carols by Candlelight
  12. “Hush, now listen…”
  13. Hymn, ‘Mary, Did You Know?’
  14. Carol, ‘I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing on Christmas Day’
  15. Joy to the World, Not Just Another Christmas Carol
  16. Christmas Carol Day 17
  17. Jubilation
  18. Manifestation
  19. “For hate is strong and mocks the song”–A Civil war Christmas carol
  20. Celebrating Christmas as a Family
  21. Holiday Decoration: Celebrate Christmas in Style
  22. Dec 18: My somewhere peaceful is Christmas magic
  23. New trending GIF tagged 80s christmas vhs 1987…

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What Does The Bible Say About….Fornication?

In this article is looked at man having his desires expressed in physical actions. It looks at what man does with his body.

The article also warns us that our lives as Christians should be a living witness to others and that we cannot break the laws of God without hindering others from coming to Christ.

We must live our lives in purity before a sinful and wicked world. We should not be living according to their standards but according to God’s standard in the Bible. No couple should live together outside the bonds of marriage.

It reminds us that

As Christians, the goal of any relationship should be to cause the people in our lives to love and know the Lord better.

Today we may find lots of people just living together to have sexual pleasure, living to please their own lust and selfish desires.

This type of life style is destructive and especially so for children whose parents are living a bad example before them. No wonder our children are confused about right and wrong when parents degrade the sanctity of marriage by living together out of wedlock. How can living together cause children to love and honor God when their parents break the laws of God before them because they are lustful?

The dictionary meaning of the word “fornication” means any unlawful sexual intercourse including adultery.

In the Bible the Greek definition of the word “fornication” means to commit illicit sexual intercourse.

The Bible also lists whore-mongers as fornicators.

What constitutes unlawful sex? Whose laws do we live by? Worldly standards or laws many times do not always line up with the Word of God. The founding fathers of various nations established many laws that were originally based on Christian standards and the laws of the Bible. However, through time they have drifted far from these standards and at the present our moral standards are shocking. Immorality is a world-wide epidemic. Societies throughout history and around the globe have embraced sexual standards that are called sins in the Bible.

The Bible must be our standard of what is right and wrong. We must change our standards if we do not want the wrath of God to fall on us.

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Preceding articles:

Part of a great team but also of gender discrimination

Reactions against those of the other sex

Leaven

Purposeful Inspiration

Retrieved from: Christ Unlimited Ministries

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 & 1 Corinthians 7:1-2

“Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.”

The dictionary meaning of the word “fornication” means any unlawful sexual intercourse including adultery. In the Bible the Greek definition of the word “fornication” means to commit illicit…

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Learning that stuff is just stuff

Lindsay Felderman confesses she is a person that likes to shop and buy new things.  Over the years she has accumulated a lot of stuff, from clothes to shoes to hats to Apple products to video games and more, like so many people have gone from one shop to an other or looked at the internet shops to find their liking.

Though many focus on gaining material wealth her eyes may have gone open by two life events that have happened/are happening now that are making her come to the realization more and more, that things are just things, and that what is more important is creating memories with people that you love.

What may be the changing elements that people come to see that they have to live more simply.

She writes:

if we haven’t used/seen/worn something in the past year, it’s out of here.  Going to charity or the garbage.  No need to keep so many physical items around.  I have learned over the years and the amount of times I have moved, that stuff is just stuff, but every time I settle down, it seems I collect more and more.  Well, not this time.  I am getting rid of the clutter and starting fresh. {The Meaning of Material Things}

Today lots of people have lost track of the necessities of real life making issues. Several youngsters are clinging to the idea of having the most recent newest thing brings happiness, and want to do everything to get the new hipe. They have no idea any more that material things are nothing without real people behind it that get their love from those around it.

For many people it takes a lot of time before they come to see what Lindsay came to see and feel when she and ‘her’

Samantha and I’s families met for the first time, Ever, in almost 3 whole years.

She came to feel one of the most elementary things for building up a real ‘home’ and a real ‘family’ and got to see what

transpired that day was truly magical, it was so special,

that she will never forget

Each one of us only brought certain family members to the event for various reasons.  But each one of our family members meshed in a way that I couldn’t have planned myself.  Every one was laughing and joking, and conversations were flowing all over the place.  Every one truly wanted to learn about the other.  There was not one dull moment.  It was honestly the way that family should be.  No drama, no fighting, just pure love, honest and true love.  I know this is really mushy, but if you know anything about the history of Samantha and I, you will know that this was a moment we were not sure would ever come. {The Meaning of Material Things}

It is incredible how many broken families we can encounter today. At school we find classes where there is not one kid who still lives by both its parents. Divorce seems to be the key word of this contemporary society where not many want to take time to talk with each other and to make it worthwhile living with each other instead of living next to each other.

Lindsay Felderman got reminded that family is what you make of it, but also came to see how it is possible for others to be there for you and how valuable this is. This is the most precious treasure so many do not seem to find, though it is so close at their doorstep.

Much more people should be there for each other,  willing to share their love and time for each other, with comprehension and with patience. It is so important

That people who truly love you, will be there for you.  That they will love you no matter what, that they will take you in their arms and hug you because you are special and unique and just You.

But to come to such a position people do have to be wiling themselves to be just their own and not somebody who fits the common trend of homogeneous people, wearing those clothes that shops and fashion magazines dictate.

When a person is really just herself and is willing to give her self openly to somebody else and to share herself with others than the doors may go open to build a good relationship and to build real ‘family’.

It is unbelievable what that lady could gather in whatever time it took to collect more than

The purge18, 30 gallon trash bags, filled with clothes, shoes, hats, purses, and accessories galore.  … They were just taking up space in our closet for no other reason than to take up space.  That wasn’t all we gave away though, just the 1st round.  I would say by the end of it, we had close to 30 bags that we donated, and a bunch of boxes of DVDs and books as well.  It felt great to get rid of so much Stuff.  That is all it was, just stuff, taking up space. {Do What You Say}

She also recognises that this doesn’t even include the amount of crap she had collected by the years and dared (at last) to threw away. We do not know if it would have been wise to throw a way her school projects she did when she was a kid, even to her high school yearbook, because in our country (Belgium) a student has to keep the school material for ten years, because it can always asked a s a proof of studies and work done.

She went with the mantra that,

“I will always have the memories”.

but has forgotten that perhaps one day in history she perhaps would have children and later grandchildren and than she will not have anything to show and to share.
Naturally there is no need to continue to lug around physical items to remind oneself of those memories, as long as they are not destroyed. For the moment she thinks it is impossible that her memories can ever be destroyed, but then she forget that accidents and illnesses are possible to wash away any sort of memory and by then it can be useful to have some materials to bring back the memory. (The writer of this article your reading, speaks of experience, having had a memory loss after a very serious car-crash.)

Though lovely to hear Lindsay Felderman immediately felt lighter as she packed and got everything moved to her new place in one weekend.

But the point of this all,

she writes, is

I did what I said I was going to do.  I didn’t just talk the talk, I walked the walk.  I wrote about how material things aren’t the true meaning of life, that I was going to start to purge the majority of mine and I did it.

We are taught from a young age, that actions speak louder than words.  But many of us still grow up to be big talkers.  We talk about our dreams and what we could be doing.  But very few of us actually act on those dreams.  We let life get in the way, and we let our words speak louder than our actions instead of the other way around. {Do What You Say}

Today we do not find many youngsters with aspirations and when we encounter people who say they want to do this or that, we see that they are not really taking steps to do so. Not many want to do what they say, but it seem Lindsay took the courage to do so.

Can you do it as well?

She concludes

You gain more credibility in life when you just do what you say you are going to do.  Plus it feels better, you say something and you do it.  People around you begin to trust you, they believe that you will do the things you talk about.  When you only sit around and talk about it, you just become a talker, you become noise in their ear.  Much like the “wamp, wamp, wamp” noises that the adults in Charlie Brown made every time they were talking to the kids.  You don’t want to be that person.

Be someone who makes a difference, makes a change, follows your dreams and most importantly: do what you say. {Do What You Say}

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Preceding articles:

Mini-MAX-malism: A Bigger Approach to Less is More

Less… is still enough

Less for more

The Art of Doing Less – Your Time is Finite

Thought of the day: We want more, i want more, but why is that?

Looking at a conservative review of Shop Class As Soul Craft

Material wealth, Submission and Heaven on earth

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Of old and new ideas to sustain power and to feel good by loving to be connected and worship something

Of old, people have been looking for reasons of their existence and how everything came into being. Because there were and are so many things people could not understand they created themselves super beings, called gods, overlooking to go beyond a manifold of gods finding the Most High Supreme Being.

English: religion - composition old bible book...

Religion – composition old bible books from Hungary (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Creating mysterious stories could sooth many minds. Many creation myths can be found and other gods than creating ones were also thought of by man. Around the worshipping of those gods came into existence that what we call religion. For many those religions gave some answers, although somewhat inaccurately and told people how to live and work, and they provided for many a nice and easy way for getting control over people by the stories they fabricated. As such we also find in Christendom leaders who love to control their God-fearing population.

Throughout history we can see that the worship system was used to control people and to create reasons to go against other people. Though to say

“religion has been the leading cause of war and death throughout human history.” {What has religion done for us?}

would be taking it to far. (Much more than one bridge too far.)

In this time several people also get a wrong idea about certain old books. There are even people who think the bible is only 2000 years old, like ‘counter creationist‘ gives the impression in his article “Why? just why?”. The biggest part of the book he is referring to (The Bible) is much older then the two millennia. He also seems to be very confused about the Nazarene man spoken in those books. He considers that man to be a god-man according to those books, which is contrary to everything what is written in that Book of books and Best-seller of all times, about that person, though he is called son of man and son of God. But “son of God” is totally something different than “god son“. We do agree many made that man into their god and made statues of him, where in front of them, they bow before and in certain countries is even food and clothes given to him and to his mother-statues in little chapels along the road.

In certain countries it even has become very dangerously around those religions; In that Old Book of books this is even prophesied. In it we can find it as one of the signs that the third and last World War will be coming. There is written that earthquakes and tsunamis would be more frequent and after children would rise against their parents, religions would come up against each other. Clearly we can see many religions fighting against other religions and in each religious group we can find many subdivisions which go against each other and even are prepared to kill for it.

1 September 2010. During Middle East negotiati...

1 September 2010. During Middle East negotiations, Mubarak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel look at their watches to see if it is officially sunset; during Ramadan, Muslims fast until sunset. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To say it is religion that causes the killing is totally wrong and goes beyond reality. To give one example, just for one country because we know those official cyphers, in Belgium in 2013 there were about 756 terrorist attacks. Of them there were only three by religious people. Of those religious people there was only one attack made on religious grounds, by a fundamentalist (by coincidence a Muslim fundamentalist). This means the majority was made on non-religious grounds by non-religious or atheist people. To generalise that all atheist would be terrorists would be the most stupid fault. Though we see such a thing happening in several countries, like in the United States where everybody shouts that all Muslims are terrorist and bad people.  In the same state we can see that certain people go very strongly, aggressively against people of an other faith or who do not believe the same than they. Several openly agree that they are willing to kill the other if he does not convert. The same aggression and oppression of threat for converting we see in the Middle East, but than for the Muslims.

This growing attitude

“when people disagree you have to either convert or kill them”

is an aggressive approach what led to many their wars, but when we look more closely we see that the main reason of such wars we more to have the power over people, to gain more wealth for oneself, to have a much bigger area or to create a bigger state. We can see that by the present fundamentalist groups like ISIS who do not mind burning symbols which by most Muslims are considered holy, like the Quran or mosques. Though they may not be burned ISIS does not hesitate to put fire on them.

Very few religions say: “you can believe what you want, but I think this is true”. No, they say: “believe what I do or burn for eternity.” This approach allowed rulers to keep control over their population, using the fear of punishment and the assertion that they are right and no-one else is. {What has religion done for us?}

Too many people forget that often religion is just an excuse to bring problems to others or to press ones own power unto others.

The times when people are shunned from families and relationships for having different beliefs. {What has religion done for us?}

is not what cause the majority of problems in relationships with family members or friends. Most problems of bringing cuts in family relations have nothing to do with religion. Just have a look at the many divorces. Where would you think you can find most divorces? In religious families or in families where there is no interest in God or in ethical laws? In what sort of schools can you find most problematic asocial behaviour? In religious or in non-religious state schools?

We can agree that the same as by atheist many may have found delusion, oppression and false hope in that what they believed. And please do not forget that atheists also believe a lot of things. And also by atheists there is much discussion and fighting going on about what they believe. Just have  a look at how atheists professors and scientist often go in heavy debates. In Belgium we can see that very much in the ones who believe in alternative medicine and those who say that is just bullshit and rubbish. Last week we could also see two medical groups in a television documentary about the illness of Lyme going against each other and calling each other names (really not worthy for decent educated people). Very often we can find ignorance by lots of people and mostly by persons who do not want to believe in a Higher Supreme Being. Today we also must say most people are not at all interested in the Most High God of gods and have their other gods from the sports world (mainly football and soccer) and from the moving pictures and television screen. But most of all the new god has become that more tiny screen which brings a majority of youngsters on their own created island of isolation. When you look around on the streets, you can see them walking by thousands, with their heads down and fingers (mostly dumb) going crazily fast from one side to the other of that little electronic tool.

Stephen Shaw captured it so nicely in one of his photographs and his article Format 15 were he writes:

Life is a constant war we are doomed to lose . Thus we worship  science and technology and strive towards new ways of enjoying and prolonging our life ( Cryogenics ,  vitamins , health and fitness , resurrection and downloading our souls ). The mobile phone is like the new Deity people staring into its virtual light on a daily basis like they are memorised by a newfound idol. all reality and dullness of their real life is forgotten as they live their ideal fantasy life through this ever satisfying god who grants their every wish , albeit it be only in their minds. {Format 15}

As usual we can find people looking for ways to escape the earth-life reality and to create for themselves a better life than they really have; As such you may find many presenting themselves very differently on Facebook than they really are in really life. though many want to find more friends at the social media they also seem to get the same illusion like the other religions and finding themselves even more isolated and lonely than those believers in The God and who have their church community.

Many today are also calling out

The Era of the Gods is Over. Face the Truth. Not even the Gods are without Flaws.

Throughout history people have looked for finding reasons of life, ways of life, ways how to behave, ways to construct a better world. Many seem to forget that in those systems there were many irreligious people presenting their system as the best one and forcing it on others; For those who did have to seem to have forgotten the Marxist and Leninist systems, we shall ask them to look into the history books. Lots of people did not survive communist camps, but today there are still enough people form the communist countries alive, so please do talk with them and question about the non-religous solution which was offered as the solution.

Funny thing is that most strong voices against religion come from the United States of America who have a horrible fear of everything that may smell even a little bit of socialism or communism, though those system do not have to be as based as they believe. You see there too we come at the word belief and faith. Those American atheist have also their faith in certain systems. they too seem to forget that they “believe” in other things than gods or the God.

The Three Creators with “The big Struggle of Creation!” thinks:

Greeks (k)*new, where our leaders meet and find solutions. They also found good names we all admire. (* k added by us)

What they did not figure out, is why these individuals became gods. It’s because, they are people with a strong will, fighting for the Good Side. They hate fighting, but have to do it, because there is no other way to stop evil. They are willing to learn from good and evil and keep on learning and fighting, until they find solutions, until they find better ways. They are not perfect, they do not even try to be perfect. They simply know what’s good. {The Era of the Gods is Over. Face the Truth. Not even the Gods are without Flaws.}

If we look at the many gods of today, like George ClooneyTom Hanks, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, just to name only of the most internationally known American actors, we can see that the media plays a very important role in creating idols and would be alike and figures were people want to dream of and have envy of. they are not any more good ones and they not have a good attitude. The opposite can be said of the stars of today. They have not what we would call an exemplary attitude, but do not mind to have an abundant life without borders and without scruples.

People of today prefer the free inhibited lifestyle were sex and fun comes in the first place and have nothing to do any more with real love. Lots of youngsters brag about the many girls they could get into their bed. Women just have become a trophy for many, but idem dito men for women, who have liberated themselves and even got solutions to have kids without the intervention of a male being, which many do not need any more.

People want to play for god themselves instead of having them be guided by something, somewhat or Some One Who they do not understand. Problem is that most people do not want to invest time to come to understand the Most High Being, Maker of haven and earth. they are fast to blame Him for everything what goes wrong in life, but to see all the good things around them and to accept God made them possible is too much asked.

Non-physical relationships can be a real pain to figure out. There aren’t any self-help books on them, and trying to get a communication style that works well can be challenging to say the least. {Gods: More Like People Than You Think}

writes Devo on Twisted Rope whose experiences have shown him that the gods man make themselves are a lot more like humans than we typically want to admit that they are. But that is just because man wants the gods to be like him and have to face the same difficulties like him.

Yeah, they may have more power in some ways than we do. But at the end of the day, they seem to have a lot of the same basic attributes that we do, and I feel like we should be taking a closer look at that. {Gods: More Like People Than You Think}

Lots of people do not feel happy because in the big world of many gods, idols, atheists, non-conformists, egoists, they feel lost and can not find any connection with their inner being nor with some outer-being. This makes them floating in the welter.

All created in the image of God have the possibility to hear the inner voice and to hear the calling of the Most High. We only have to open our ear.

And those atheists who think it are the religious who would make most war should reconsider who are the real religious people and what people would like to do when they have certain ethics and rules for a way of living. Be it Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Jews or religious of an other faith, when they are serious faithful we shall see they mostly will have a more peaceful character than those who do not want to keep to certain ethics. Luckilly by the atheists we may find also a lot of humanists and people who do find it very important to have human ethical rules and to keep to those ethic laws. They too shall try to avoid warmaking and propagate peace.

English: Copied from http://en.wikipedia.org/w...

Worldreligions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Please do find additional reading:

  1. Newsweek asks: How ignorant are you?
  2. Atheists, deists, and sleepers
  3. Being Religious and Spiritual 2 Religiosity and spiritual life
  4. Being Religious and Spiritual 6 Romantici, utopists and transcendentalists
  5. Epicurus’ Problem of Evil
  6. Economics and Degradation
  7. Evil Never Ceases
  8. Caricaturing and disapproving sceptics, religious critics and figured out ethics
  9. Subcutaneous power for humanity 5 Loneliness, Virtual and real friends
  10. A world with or without religion
  11. , Being Charlie 2, Being Charlie 3, Being Charlie 4, Being Charlie 5, Being Charlie 6,Being Charlie 7, Being Charlie 8, Being Charlie 9, Being Charlie 10, Being Charlie 11
  12. It’s beautiful to watch the spread of #JeSuisCharlie across the world,Where do we stand in the backdrop of Charlie Hebdo Massacre ?, Charlie Hebdo, offensive satire and why ‘Freedom of Speech’ needs more discussion
  13. Faith because of the questions
  14. Religion, fundamentalism and murder
  15. Religion…..why the competition?
  16. Shariah and child abuse – Is there a connection?
  17. Why is it that Christians don’t understand Muslims and Muslims do not understand Christians?
  18. Apartheid or Apartness #1 Suppression and Apartness
  19. Leaving the Old World to find better pastures
  20. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #2 Roots of Jewishness
  21. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #3 Of the earth or of God
  22. Collision course of socialist and capitalist worlds
  23. Robertson: God says U.S. will accept socialism
  24. Christian fundamentalism as dangerous as Muslim fundamentalism
  25. The imaginational war against Christmas
  26. Autumn traditions for 2014 – 4 Blasphemy and ridiculing faith in God
  27. Still Hope though Power generating long train of abuses
  28. Europe and much-vaunted bastions of multiculturalism becoming No God Zones
  29. 112314 – A Peculiar People
  30. Maker of most popular weapon asks for repentance
  31. Science, belief, denial and visibility 2
  32. Science, 2013 word of the year, and Scepticism
  33. 2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy
  34. 2014 Religion
  35. Not many coming out with their community name
  36. Truth, doubt or blindness
  37. A Church without Faith!
  38. Inequality, Injustice, Sustainability and the Free World Charter
  39. Re-Creating Community
  40. Daniel Guérin: Three Problems of the Revolution (1958)
  41. The trigger of Aurora shooting
  42. Intellectual servility a curse of mankind

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  • Denial (todayssigns.wordpress.com)
    If you wonder about the importance of evidence to secular people, think about this: A whole world full of people waits out there, lurking to pull all kinds of shenanigans to get you converted to strange beliefs and practices they uphold, or to part with your money, without any kind of demonstrable evidence. The best they have is stories some unknown talebearer told that another unknown person wrote down. You get to choose from actual thousands of those doctrines in all their variations, but most people settle for the one chosen by their family in ages past.
    +
    Once a person attaches dissatisfaction with faith-based beliefs to failure of their messengers to be convincing, and then sees how that failure stems from absence of any kind of real evidence, the importance of evidence becomes clear and the search for evidence-based beliefs begins.
  • An imaginary interview with a Christian… (nytimes.com)
    Honestly, since so many of my friends aren’t religious or conservative, I’ve always taken for granted that being part of their lives meant accompanying them through life choices that belong to a different worldview than my own. (And I’m very grateful that they’ve accompanied and tolerated me.) My family has its share of divorces and second marriages; my friends’ romantic paths are varied; my closest friend from high school just exchanged vows with his longtime boyfriend. I’m going to a party celebrating them next month. If they asked me, I’d bring a cake.
  • Acts of Terrorism Very Rare Among US Muslims, Study Finds (voanews.com)
    After the September 11, 2001, attacks and more recent efforts by militant groups in Muslim countries to radicalize and recruit Muslims living in the West, there have been fears among U.S. authorities and the public of large-scale terrorist strikes on home soil.Such fears, however, have been largely unfounded, because Muslims in the United States have overwhelmingly ignored the calls to militancy, said Charles Kurzman, a researcher with the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security in North Carolina.

    “We have not seen mass radicalization of Muslims in the United States,” he said. “That’s worth taking note of.”
    +

    Although comparisons are tricky, other studies suggest that right-wing violence claimed more lives in the U.S. than terrorism committed in the name of Islam.

    There have been serious attacks, of course.  The 2009 shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas and the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon were carried out by Muslim U.S. citizens who claimed to be avenging American military actions overseas.

    And there were also failed attempts that came close to causing massive loss of life, but the study shows that these attempts were “rare and unsophisticated.”  In 2010, an SUV with propane and gasoline canisters and fireworks, parked in New York’s Times Square, detonated but did not explode. The driver of the car, Faisal Shahzad, had received bombmaking training in Pakistan’s Waziristan region.

    Authorities say large-scale attacks have been prevented because of the extensive security apparatus that was set up nationwide in response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

  • Boston Marathon bomber wanted to terrorize US (rep-am.com)
    As he planted a backpack containing a bomb near a group of children, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev made a coldblooded decision aimed at punishing America for its wars in Muslim countries, a federal prosecutor told the jury during closing arguments Monday at Tsarnaev’s death penalty trial.
  • Muslim Coalition Denounces ISIS for Steven Sotloff’s Murder (pr.com)
    The US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), a coalition of several national and local organizations, today condemns a terrorist and anti-Islam group for a video purporting to show the gruesome beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff.The murder of innocent civilians is immoral, illegal, barbaric, and in direct contravention of the major tenets of Islam and Islamic law. No cause or purpose is served by this heinous act other than a clear manifestation of this group’s cruel and un-Islamic nature.

    “We are outraged that we once again find ourselves in the position to condemn this organization that calls itself the ‘Islamic State’, also known by the acronym ISIS, for killing Mr. Sotloff, especially so soon after its members murdered journalist James Foley,” said Oussama Jammal, USCMO secretary general.

  • DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson remarks on the Quran’s ‘quintessentially American values’ (freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com)
    Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was honored by the Muslim Public Affairs Council last week for “for his dedication to and personal investment in engagement with Muslim American communities across the United States” and this happened during his post-award remarks:
  • Is an independent Kurdistan still possible? (blogs.timesofisrael.com)
    We in the west might have missed a golden opportunity  to back and help establish a new democratic state in the Middle East with strong ties to America and European democracies. It could be a Muslim state set up along the same lines as Israel. Both peoples have had similar experiences with the larger Sunni and Shia populations that inhabit the Muslim world.
  • Construction disputes taking longer to resolve (resene.com.au)
    Internationally, construction disputes are taking longer to resolve, according to UK-based consultancy company EC Harris.The company released the results from a study at the end of last month (May 24), which compared the trend across different regions around the world including the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia.

    Titled ‘Global construction disputes: A Longer Resolution’, the report was the third of its kind undertaken by the London consultancy with research help from ARCADIS Construction Claims Consulting.

    One of the main findings showed that construction disputes in 2012 averaged more than a year in length, which is 20 per cent longer than those in 2011.

    The average length of a dispute was 12.8 months, which was up from 10.6 months in 2011, and 9.1 months in 2010.

  • The Wider Ramifications of the Ukraine Crisis (payvand.com)
    The Ukraine crisis, as well as the broader deterioration in relations between Russia on the one hand and America and Europe on the other, is not taking place in a void. Many momentous events are happening simultaneously, including growing conflict in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Muslim World, increased tension between China and several of its neighbors, and the rise of India and certain other non-Western nations. The reaction of the world outside the West and the former Soviet Union to the crisis in Ukraine has been remarkably evasive. Although Syria and Venezuela have expressed their support for Russia, many other non-Western states have adopted a more neutral stance. Several Middle Eastern governments actually seem impatient with the Ukrainian crisis for diverting Western attention from the severe crises of their region. This issue just is not as significant for them as it is for countries closer to the conflict zone. Nor do they have any desire to get dragged into it.

    Nevertheless, the Ukraine crisis may have wider ramifications. In mid-2014, Russia reacted to European moves to reduce petroleum imports from Russia by signing a deal to redirect petroleum exports to China-reportedly at a very low price. The longer the crisis between Russia and the West continues, the more likely are European-Russian economic ties likely to fray and Russia to become increasingly dependent economically-and perhaps politically-on China.

  • Recognizing and promoting religious bigots against Islam and Muslims (angryarab.blogspot.com)
    It is just amazing how much Zionist US media love to promote anyone who harbors hatred for Islam and Muslims, qua Muslims.  If this woman says about Jews what she says about Muslims, she would be shunned and people would picket all her speaking engagements.  But she speaks against Islam (as a religion) and against Muslims, and that does not in any way cause people to condemn her bigotry.
  • Christophobia, a gift to the Church?
    I believe many pockets of Christianity throughout America today still suffers from this illusion. But there is hope today in the very movement that many take as a grave attack on the faith. The modern day power grab for control over the culture has come dressed in the garb of Christophobia, i.e., that irrational and pervasive fear that if Christians have a voice in the public square the Constitution will burst into flames, civil liberties vanish, women made slaves, gays imprisoned, sea levels will rise, and 7-day young earth creationism will reign in every science classroom.
    +
    The Christophobia of our age is an invitation—no, a demand!—that all who would claim the name ‘Christian’ be truly conformed to the image of Christ. Those who follow Christ in this world were given the daunting promise by Christ Himself that they would suffer persecution in this world. It was a badge of honor for those apostles, prophets, martyrs and saints who came before and who faced down the challenge of their oppressors and won their own souls.

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