Tag Archives: Society

The Necessity of Rest

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To remember

  • time physically away = luxury
  • sabbath in rhythmic rejuvenation sense = regular rhythms of rest > to make space one day a week
  • Our society = a go-go-go society
  • we work best when we take the time to rest
  • choosing to rest one day a week = don’t keep pace with others who are willing to prioritize work over all else
  • life = marathon
  • no end > tasks to be done
  • we are the ones to protect quality of our rest
  • digital world cannibalizes time
  • Freedom =/=  absence of restrictions as finding the right ones > those that fit with the realities of our own nature and those of the world

Grace Begets Beauty

“Now I know that the best thing I can offer this world is not my force, but a well-tended spirit, a wise and brave soul.”

Shauna Niequist, Present Over Perfect

The dust has just settled from some glorious time on a vacation away from my phone. It was the kind of magical family affair out in the forest, miles from town, without cell service. The kind where the windows are perpetually open to let in the mountain breeze, and there was not the same frenetic keeping track of others as we so often have in our perpetually connected society. If someone wanted to go out, they went out – to run, walk, fish, hammock, or otherwise. Or if they wanted to stay in, they read on the porch, played a board game, puttered in the kitchen, or took a nap. There was no checking in, no “where are you’s”, simply …

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Invitation to the news platform that brings a view of the world

Dear Reader,

There is so much news — and too many voices — competing for your attention today.

Do you know that we provide a site where we present news from all over the world and do not mind going deeper into certain facets of facts everyone should know or should receive attention (according to us) .

Some view on the World”  does just that what the title of the website is called. It wishes to bring a view of world affairs. It wants to be a Journal for you and provides unbiased news and perspective to keep you well-informed and entertained.

In addition to general press reviews, you will be able to find articles that deal with environmental issues and take a closer look at how we, as human beings, must take responsibility, not only ethically and politically, but how we must behave towards other living beings and respect nature. Towards respecting other beings, racial discrimination comes to the fore, but also how we in the West sometimes look strangely at other cultures. We believe that getting to know other cultures and religions better can help to better understand and accept “that otherness of those people”. In today’s society, people do not like to talk about religion, but on “Some View on the World” we certainly do not shy away from that subject, and we even think it is important to talk about God and commandments.

As on this overview site, we believe it is important to let diverse voices have their say. Therefore, at that view of the world, you can find reports from several newspapers and writers from all kinds of directions or different political movements.

Today, we would like to invite you to feast your eyes on that website too, pay it a visit and (who knows) also subscribe to it to receive free daily news in your mailbox.

A warm welcome!

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Filed under Announcement, Cultural affairs, Ecological affairs, Economical affairs, Educational affairs, Headlines - News, History, Lifestyle, Nature, Political affairs, Questions asked, Religious affairs, Social affairs, Welfare matters, World affairs

Looking at an Utopism which has not ended

Marcus Ampe wrote a few days ago on WordPressUtopism has not ended” giving more clarification on his way of thinking and about his “Utopian Dreams“. In  a series of articles on his WordPress blog he continues to look at reasons why we should not give up hope for a better world and how some Christians and certain people are too much afraid for matters of social protection.

The Thousand-Year View from N.S. Palmer wants to apply time-tested ideas to the problems of our modern era and also took a look at Mr. Ampe‘s writing. N.S. Palmer preaches that we shouldn’t worry about things we can’t control, but it’s easier to say than to do. On that point we seem to differ. We cannot escape being in this system and having to live in this world at a certain time. But how we live and what we are willing to accept to happen plays an important role in our life. When people, living in this world, believe it could be very well possible to make it a better place for many, to some that might be an unreachable goal, to others it should be something to work at.

Trying to get a perfect society is something which we all should be doing. Though we agree only partly with Mr. Palmer who says

No society ever has been or ever will be perfect. {Utopia’s Biggest Problem}

him forgetting that one day Jesus Christ shall return and install the Kingdom of God here on earth. The Nazarene rabbi his government will be the most perfect governing body and shall give all its inhabitants the most perfect system to live in.

Mr Palmer further finds that

utopians waste their time and cause great harm by rejecting possible goals and pursuing an impossible goal. {Utopia’s Biggest Problem}

It is true that the goal set by utopians might be very unreachable, hence their name “utopists”, or followers of utopian dreams, thinking of utopia (1500-1600) being the imaginary perfect country in the book Utopia (1516) by the English humanist and statesman, chancellor of England (1529–32) Sir Thomas More, from Greek ou not, no + topos place”.

Because their goal can never be achieved, nothing will ever be enough. They think we should keep doing the same things, just do them harder. Spend more money. Take away more freedom. Police more speech. {Utopia’s Biggest Problem}

Such an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens may be presented in several authors their stories. A utopia focuses on equality in such categories as economics, government and justice (a non-exhaustive list), and does not focus on “spending more money” like Mr. Palmer seems to give the impression. Neither do utopians want to take away the freedom of people. Just the opposite they want to secure that there is freedom on all sorts of levels: freedom of life, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, a.o. but most importantly also freedom of choice under the condition not to limit others. That utopians want to have more control on those freedoms and perhaps would want to see more control of having all people receiving the same liberties and same equalities, may demand a controlling apparatus or police, but does not have to mean we have to go to become a police-state or a state of repression. That is the wrong vision a lot of people who are against socialism, utopianism and communism want to send into the world.

There are many debates about what constitutes a utopia. Many who are against any social feeling, what they call part of the “left” consider utopians and their world or societies they want to build, “utopias” benign or dangerous. Concerning utopia fitting or not, or being essential to a Christian world lots of contradictory ideas go round. Many ask

Is the idea of utopianism essential to Christianity or heretical? What is the relationship between utopia and ideology?

One of the leading scholars in the field of utopian studies, Lyman Tower Sargent argues that utopia’s nature is inherently contradictory because societies are not homogeneous and have desires which conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied. Sargent notes that some thinkers see a trajectory from utopia to totalitarianism, with violence an inevitable part of the mix, and we have the impression Mr. Palmer might do so also.

According to Sargent:

There are socialist, capitalist, monarchical, democratic, anarchist, ecological, feminist, patriarchal, egalitarian, hierarchical, racist, left-wing, right-wing, reformist, free love, nuclear family, extended family, gay, lesbian and many more utopias [ Naturism, Nude Christians, …] Utopianism, some argue, is essential for the improvement of the human condition. But if used wrongly, it becomes dangerous. Utopia has an inherent contradictory nature here.

And that describes very well the difficulty of that utopian world for which Mr. Ampe puts his hand in the fire. He as several other Christians believes in the purity man can come to reach, in which innocence is in the heart of that person, enabling people to walk freely in nature naked, without others having bad ideas. In such a free world naturism would for example never be a problem, because all people would abstain from wrong thinking and wrong acts. In an utopian world there is no place for sexual offensive acts to the public sense of decency. There being no place for obscenity by people keeping themselves to pure thought the same as the first people in the Garden of Eden had. It was only after they had done wrong and came to know good and evil that they became afraid of the other and wanted to protect themselves by covering their body. Such covering in an ideal world would not be necessary, the same as it was not a matter to cover oneself in the 1970ies and hippies could share their places freely with others without having to fear something to go wrong. Nakedness was no problem at that time, whilst now we see again a lot of shyness and fear of nudity among many young people as well as some elderly people.

We do agree many of the boom children tried to create a perfect society in the 196070ies but failed terribly. Though we are not ashamed that we tried to stimulate others to step on the wagon with us (dreamers). Many of our generation might have betrayed their ideas, but Mr. Ampe like several others, as a follower of the Nazarene Jeshua (Jesus Christ) believes the teachings of that rebbe are still worth going for.

Utopians just ask people to take the responsibility for others and to respect everybody and everybody around them. They would never stimulate capitalism, like N.S. Palmer gives the impression.

 

At the moment we can grow unto more tolerance by learning to agree to disagree, as well by not being afraid to dare to engage in thoughtful political discussions. Though at the moment we still face the difficulty that not everyone involved is really interested in finding out the truth. An other problem these days is also that lots of people do not realise that disagreement does not imply evil. On that fact Mr. Palmer seems to agree and writes:

Calm, rational debate helps them see the underlying assumptions, strengths, and weaknesses of each person’s viewpoint. That helps everyone understand the issues better. It also helps them understand each other better. Screaming, hysteria, and emotional theatrics do not. {Dialogue Is Not Harmful}

We believe the Bible offers a way to live together peaceful and gives us a nice picture in the Book of Isaiah, what that world can and shall be. We might be utopians or dreamers for many, but Mr. Ampe with his brethren and sisters in Christ do believe those prophesies are going to become true, and as such shall their utopian dream once become a reality, though it still may take some time.

Mr. Ampe also believes we can be united and should try to convince those who hate certain people, to have them to accept them as co-living citizens with the same rights as them. It is for mutual benefit and the common good that people must be rational enough to set aside their differences and come closer to each other with full respect for each other and for other cultures.

Big problem today to come to such an utopian world is the egocentric and egoistic attitude of the present population.

We believe the Bible gives enough directions to come to a better world already now in our lifetime, even before the return of Christ. We do not have to wait until the wars to expect or the Big Battle or Armageddon, before we shall come to think about that better world. Already today, in our lifetime, we can show others fundamental truths of life.

Some might think utopians want all to become “puppets” handled by someone in charge of everything. But that is a wrong thought about the world envisioned by us. We are against any dictatorial system. It is a world whereby people freely agree to follow certain ethics and moral laws. We also do not say everybody has to do the same thing in the same manner. In our ‘utopian world’, there is enough freedom to act freely. Already now we can try to come to agreements to live a certain way, and this without any force or violence.

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Find also to read:

  1. Misleading world, stress, technique, superficiality, past, future and positivism
  2. Subcutaneous power for humanity 2 1950-2010 Post war generations
  3. Are people willing to take the responsibility for others
  4. Baby Boomers reaching retirement age, Demographic trends and New blood from abroad
  5. Lower and middle-class youth becoming tiny cogs in a larger whole that they cannot control
  6. Intellectual servility a curse of mankind
  7. the Bible – God’s guide for life #3 Fast food or staple diet
  8. the Bible – God’s guide for life #4 Not to get the best from our diet– or from ourselves
  9. Determine the drive
  10. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #4 Transitoriness #3 Rejoicing in the insistence
  11. The Scensual World – Mission & Vision
  12. Are Christianity and Capitalism Compatible?
  13. Francis Fukuyama and ‘The End of History?’
  14. The Upbringing of Ideas and the Extrapolation of Capitalism
  15. Utopism has not ended
  16. A famous individual by the name of Jesus of Nazareth

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Further related

  1. Utopia! 
    Utopia basically means paradise. And, in these times of social, political and ecological upheaval, to dream of a utopian world in which these problems cease to exist is completely natural.
  2. Utopia – Thomas More ****
  3. Broaden the Narratives: Mistaken Orders<
  4. Humanities Retribution
  5. Anarchy, State and Utopia
  6. Leon Trotzky
  7. Globalism: a Letter
  8. Money-Free World
  9. Alternative Earth
  10. The Citizen’s Convention on Climate: utopia or step towards change?
  11. Utopia….State of bliss!
  12. Technology, Utopia, and Horizon Zero Dawn
  13. Are We There, Yet?
  14. History Bends Toward Chaos
  15. “How will i get a cappuccino in your political utopia?”
  16. Why Common Sense Is So Uncommon
  17. Nothing Learned
  18. We Can Have Unity Without Unanimity
  19. How to Get a Healthy Society
  20. Rebecca Solnit on Hope
  21. The Blank Slate of Outer Space
  22. The Climate Crisis and the Need for Utopian Thinking
  23. And The Greatest Of These…Is Love
  24. An Ode Of Utopia

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Broken daily routines

How many of us take our daily routines for granted, not looking at everything we encounter and inspecting what we allow entering into our lives?

Today lots of people are facing a world they do not seem to cope with, them presenting more time for themselves, which for some might not be so easy to tackle. Being confronted with oneself is for many not the most pleasant thing. In the ‘previous world’ (some jokingly say BC = ‘Before Corona’), the world when there was no coronavirus, most people had their daily duties away from home, and now they seem stuck at home, many feeling prisoned in their own surroundings. Instead of just feeling free, having more time for themselves and their family.

Others who had already felt in isolation, because they belonged to people who had made their choice to be part of God’s World instead of being part of Man’s world, now seem to have become more isolated. Luckily this time in history they are not accused to be the cause of this disaster coming over man. In the past that has been different. In previous centuries it happened more than once that we, as the People of God, were targetted, as the ones bringing disasters on others. More than once it seemed the more we tried to do good, the more the enemy was and is coming against us.

This Passover we could not come together and as such many of us could have felt even more isolated than at other times. Though we can be pleased to hear most of our brethren and sisters took time again to thank the heavenly Father for His provision and continued their quest of looking for leaven in all their dwellings and in their minds.

We took at heart that the Father is telling the Bride to get rid of the leaven in our lives. If we are to be a bride without spot or wrinkle, then we should start learning how to identify the spots and wrinkles in our lives, for the purpose of getting rid of them.

In the days of our fathers in Egypt, through the plagues, the social system was so disrupted that they certainly experienced it. In this time of age many people do not see how disrupted our society is. Lots of people have become the slaves of this world and slaves of money and gadgets. They are blinded by the things of the world and have lost track of God.

We live widely in the four winds of the earth and the majority of people living in the industrialised world is not bounded by borders and every year take the time on several occasions to go abroad, some even very far away from home, to find pleasure and relaxation. Many even forgetting you can have that at home too. That is why we see so many in distress because they feel bound by lockdown, whilst now they should feel free from the worldly chains.

Until now, we could still choose to celebrate Pesach in the nations or in the land of Israel, but today we are tied to our local territory. The Elohim had asked to go into our inner chambers, and to close our doors after us; to hide for a little while until the wrath passes.  (Isaiah 26:20) This year as our forefathers did at several times in history, (the last time in Nazi-time) we could feel how it must have been, hiding, just being with a few, not able to feel that unity of a people chosen by God.

As in previous times this year we strongly could feel how The Adonai gives perfect peace to those whose faith is firm. Once more we could feel the importance to always trust the Elohim Hashem Jehovah because He is forever our mighty Rock (Isaiah 26:3-4) this year, more than in other years we could fully set our minds on our Divine Creator. Now more than in other times we can feel how it is Him Who keeps us completely whole, steady on our feet, because we keep at it and don’t quit. Enough reason to call others also to believe in The One we do believe and to say

Depend on God and keep at it because in the LORD GOD you have a sure thing. (Isaiah 26:4-5)

Let us in this time of disease not be afraid of that disease to go out in the world, to help those in need. Let us be there for the elderly and sick, and help them by their shopping and by providing for the needs they might have.

Jehovah knew that there would come a time when we must remain in our place and He has provided that we can worship Him in Spirit and in Truth through the Spirit of Holiness that was poured out at the time. Let us also show others why they best come to our Bore, and come to see how Jesus is the way to our God, Who is the God above all gods.

Let us others know that they can trust God and should come to believe in the one He has sent. Jeshua out of the tribe of Judah has given himself as a ransom for mankind and taken over the Scepter and is confirmed as the Firstfruits. We have to let others know that because of Jeshua’s death and resurrection, those who have received faith have, become children of Israel according to the promise. We should show others how the time has come to accept that through his awesome work of redemption, the old has passed and the new has come  (Luke 5).

Let us then letting down doctrines that do not bring us as spiritual firstborns to our goal by those who are not spiritual firstborns. They are of no use to us, because the firstborn learns straight from his / her father and not from the other children in the household. We are banns and should listen to ‘our Man’ instead of people who do not know our Man (Jeremiah 31:9) The firstborn who chose Jehovah over the natural firstborn. Draw the line of the birthright according to the written Word.

Let us make God His Name known but also the name of His son who is the one who carries the Scepter. He is the one who teaches the teaching of the written Word by the outpoured Spirit of Holiness to those named after his name (Jeshuaists).

Even in lockdown we can continue to preach, having enough possibilities by internet and modern technology.

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Additional reading

  1. First time since Nazi-time no public gathering
  2. Importance of Tikkun olam

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Where It All Needs to Start

Uninterestedness, self-centredness, self-assurance, lust are characteristics of all times. But as time goes by, it is important that man pays more attention to how he lives and how he relates to the environment, the other creatures that the Creator has provided for man.

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Read also

“We must think critically…” to check what to nurture and leading yourself towards love – guiding to a place of courage and compassion, generosity and hope, joy and kindness and forgiveness and integrity.

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Preceding

Looking forward to a year full of Kindness

Kindness to Yourself

Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist

You know, this stuff didn’t start with Trump. The greed, the racism, the me-firstness, the bullying, the dishonesty, the corruption, the mean-spiritedness – that stuff has been a part of our society and politics for a long time – the only difference in the last couple of years is that it’s come out in the open – people almost seem proud of their hate and greed and dishonesty now. And to see all of that being played out in front of us – in the open – is disheartening, yes. But… here’s what gives me hope: It seems to me that if there’s been a rise in acts of hatred, there’s also been a rise in acts of kindness in the last couple years – people seem, to me, to be more conscious and deliberate about kindness.

And that’s where it all needs to start, doesn’t it? The healing and…

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Crimes & Atrocities, Ecological affairs, History, Lifestyle, Nature, Political affairs, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, Religious affairs, Social affairs, Welfare matters, World affairs

Stereotypes

Today many focus on social media to find their (fake) mirror-image, all wanting to be better, smarter and richer than they are, plus able to outshine others.

That is what our world makes so crazy and going wrong, having lots of people with burn out and depression, not feeling happy in their skin.

 

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Further related

  1. Stereotypes
  2. Stereotypes for a reason | Happenology
  3. Stereotypes Suck…
  4. Personality
  5. 16 Personalities test
  6. Blank Mind
  7. Superficial Personality
  8. Misandry
  9. Thoughts
  10. How Do I Describe Me?
  11. Kokology
  12. 10 assumptions I have had to deal with
  13. Why Community Awareness is Important

Alive

No one is meant to be perfect, that is why pencils have erasers.

In today’s world of stereotypes, everyone seeks to protrude but ends up as replications of one another.

In the quest of being ‘perfect’, we are losing our originality.

The society is entangled in this web of so-called perfection and is failing to acknowledge the significance of flaws in one’s personality.

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It’s time to build a new system

In certain developed countries they are still far of the idea of helping each other to create a new society.

Great to hear from Chicago in the U.S.A.that institutes are willing to offer an intriguing and loving way to re-design custom things for other people, and that there they are on the verge of inventing free heat, electricity, wifi, and distribution systems for a new way to run cities off of.

Trying to use the energy which is for free around us, Sun, wind, we can avoid nuclear energy and safe on dioxin exits also by trying to selectively manage our waste.

To come to such different lifestyle people have to change their selfish attitude and have to take on a more loving attitude respecting each other and willing to share with those around them.

Would it not be lovely to find a communal place where we can find books, vinyl records, compact disks, magneto-phone tapes, video tapes, clothes we can use for some time and then place them back for others to use as well?

The movement has to grow and perhaps it goes very very slowly, but in Europe we see a lots of experiments and some interesting groups succeeding with the idea in their community.

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

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Additional reading:

  1. Inequality, Injustice, Sustainability and the Free World Charter
  2. Not everything has to be reciprocated with money

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A Global Organic Mindset

At this time, it’s time to leverage a more loving humanity and really start bending and subverting rules to do things for the other people. This means a more loving humanity in which money is not a factor.

You may have heard by now about “the inventions,” as I’m designing them in real time in Chicago. Chicago is providing me with a bit more capacity to finish the parts together that will apply for a lot of houses. We are on the verge of inventing free heat, electricity, wifi, and distribution systems for a new way to run cities off of. This will ideally give a way to live a lifestyle which is not scarcity or different much from what you know.

The institutes supply the storefronts. If it’s something that is important to folks in the area, it will be staffed and made and done for the others. If…

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The Anthropologist in you

In this world we are part of creation and went looking for ways to look at creation and creatures.

A phylogenetic tree of living things.

A phylogenetic tree of living things. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We as human beings went looking for ways to understand our fellow human beings and see how they evolved and what makes them to behave in certain ways. Certain of our species liked or like to study the aspects ranging from the biology and evolutionary history of Homo sapiens to the features of society and culture that decisively distinguish humans from other animal species. Because of the diverse subject matter it encompasses, such study, being called anthropology,  in consonance with the etymology of its name, “study of man,” is the most comprehensive of the academic disciplines dealing with mankind.

In a sense every man can be an anthropologist, if a very humanistic and generous interpretation is accepted.

This is to say that every human being is related to others and has a unique way of life. However, a more generally accepted interpretation in academia is that an anthropologist is one who has attained a Ph.D. in anthropology, teaches anthropology or carries out anthropological field research, and has published literature in a field of anthropology in a peer-reviewed journal, or is widely accepted by other anthropologists as an anthropologist. {Wikipedia}

Diverse areas as language, social structure, aesthetic expression, and belief systems, can be tackled. For that reason it is interesting for us to have such an interested soul, willing to share ideas about the sciences of man which treats man both in his physical and sociocultural aspects. In addition to these fundamental biological and social scientific components, anthropology has a significant humanistic aspect, as shown, for example, in its empathetic search for the bases of aesthetic valuation in the arts of alien people.

Those who are able to study man, according to our opinion, should not keep all that knowledge to themselves. We hope we can find some one who is willing to share his or her knowledge with us and our readers. For the very richness and variety of interests of such field, lead inevitably to bringing people closer together and to understanding different cultures and religions. Such an understanding can only bring more wisdom and acceptance of such other ideas, cultures and religions and taking away the tension which may exist between the different thoughts.

We would love to find a person who is willing to become a contributor to this platform where we want to show the beauty of creation, i.e. the beauty of nature and of species, being the plants, animals and human species with their different cultures which are sprinkled with creativity and richness that can enrich us all.

1: 1=Homo sapiens 2=Neanderthals 3=Early Homin...

1: 1=Homo sapiens 2=Neanderthals 3=Early Hominids Français : 1: 1=Homo sapiens 2=Néandertaliens 3=Premiers hominidés (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We not only can do with an anthropologist, also a historian would be very welcome. Only be getting to know other people, also knowing what happened in the past, what went wrong or how things could be solved can we learn how to tackle the matters in the right way, in our present times. In order to recover the basic facts concerning past societies in regions and for periods in which the written records that constitute the basic materials of conventional historians are lacking, the skills of archaeology combined with other inferential methods, such as the use of oral traditions, ethnological trait distributions, and comparative linguistics, we can come to more insight. And such better insight shall help us to help others to come to terms with what happens around us or to find ways to help solve many problems we are confronted with.

When more people can have more interest in human ethnic diversity, biology and evolution of humanity we can more easily grow to a more peaceful society.

Can you not be that person who wants to help others grow in knowledge and in better understanding of other people?

Please do have the guts to help others to see more and to bring more insight in how humankind is a diversity which is so rich we all can profit.

Present yourself as a contributor and do not hesitate to become an author on this platform.

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Preceding articles about “Sharing Writings and linking“:

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

Showing the beauties of nature

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Filed under Activism and Peace Work, Announcement, Cultural affairs, History, Knowledge & Wisdom, Lifestyle, Political affairs, Social affairs, Welfare matters, World affairs

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

A thermometer in the proverbial mouth of society would measure a high temperature. We are all feverish. Psychiatrist Dirk De Wachter calls our society ‘borderline‘. Are we aware of a kind of collective delusion? ‘Hypermarkets’ , that offer up to 30.000 articles, have increased their turnover from 616 to 4.823 billion euro. A good and strong pupil who perfectly meets our economic model of better, faster… and always more.

The supermarket is a temple of consumption.
File:Supermarket beer and wine aisle.jpgEvery product cries out to be bought . With an agressiveness that borders on hysterical, our advertising boys try to convince us that margarine produces a more harmonious family life and that coca cola creates friendships. They shamelessly use insights of psychology to encourage people to consume. And they do not spare anyone, not even children.

The energy that is required of human beings to produce 30.000 articles, to distribute them and to sell them is colossal. This whole chain mobilises gigantic forces and realises this with such passion, that it betrays the conviction that to produce and consume material things will give us what we are looking for.

Does it still surprise you that we are drawn into consumption with forever stronger stimuli , at the cost of other things ?
 
It is a kind of psychological materialism that makes that we are more preoccupied with ‘having’ than ‘being’. If there even is time for ‘being’. Recently a study with 8000 students at the Catholic University of Leuven has shown that 1/7 has serious emotional problems: fear, depression, suicidal thoughts. Philosopher and author Hein Stufkens said in an interview :

” People that think about suicide, do not really want to stop living, they want to stop living ‘in this way’. They want to live differently. They are looking for real life “.

These are hard facts that in the West we are strongly ego-centric. Isn’t it high time that we look beyond the borders of the ego? One can maybe buy a lot in the supermarket, but you do not buy friendship there, no hope and no trust. Just like it is impossible to buy happiness, which is a good thing!

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Preceding

Dutch version / Nederlandstalige versie: In de supermarkt kan je (g)een hoop kopen

Looking for the consummation of presents

Luxury

Summermonths and consumerism

Your position about materialistic desires having conquered the world

Learning that stuff is just stuff

Fear, struggles, sadness, bad feelings and depression

Material wealth, Submission and Heaven on earth

Family happiness and little things we do

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

Looking at a conservative review of Shop Class As Soul Craft

Life isn’t unfair

Soft values? Needed heart- and- soul!

Watch out

You’re Lighter Than Air~

How do Other People Feel About Mental Health?

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

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

O’ Captain! My Captain!

Just be yourself…

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

Less… is still enough

Less for more

A bird’s eye and reflecting from within

We all have to have dreams

Forward ever backwards never!

“Der Grad der K… De mate van creativiteit – Degree of creativity

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Additional reading

  1. Capitalism
  2. Increasing wealth gap of immense proportions in the Capitalist World
  3. Capitalism and economic policy and Christian survey
  4. Migrants to the West #3
  5. Materialism, would be life, and aspirations
  6. Poverty and conservative role patterns
  7. Forms of slavery, human trafficking and disrespectful attitude to creation to be changed
  8. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #3 Right to Human dignity
  9. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #9 Consumption
  10. Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #3
  11. Message of Pope Francis I for the 48th World Communications Day
  12. société, crise, esprit
  13. From Winterdarkness into light of Spring
  14. Parenthood made more difficult
  15. Living Apart together
  16. Being Charlie 6
  17. Land not an ordinary asset
  18. Securing risks
  19. Reflect on how much idolizing happens
  20. Looking to the East and the West for Truth
  21. Oh god, this is never going to end!
  22. Depression Is and When
  23. What IF you’re only driven by stress?
  24. A little ray of sunshine.
  25. Getting fate in your change to positiveness
  26. Remember there’s a light in the next day
  27. Pieces
  28. Joy: Foundation for a Positive Life
  29. Be an Encourager
  30. Four Pressing Needs in Rural Communities, and How the Church Should Respond
  31. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #2 Instructions and Laws

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Further reading

  1. What I Want
  2. Materialism or Emotions?
  3. Snail
  4. The choice of being “choiceless”
  5. Convenience Store | Grocery Store in Delhi-NCR, India
  6. Gloomy retail outlook for the first quarter
  7. Walmart – World’s Largest Retail Chain
  8. The Supermarket is the Nexus of Existential Dread
  9. Battle Of The Supermarkets
  10. Grocery Chains Aren’t Building New Supermarkets Where Most Needed
  11. there’s more to stacking shelves than you think
  12. These are the dirtiest places in every supermarket
  13. Grass hair clip..?
  14. Russian supermarket slammed for selling chopping boards with photo of Barack Obama as a monkey
  15. Russian store sold ‘monkey Obama’ chopping boards & apologized
  16. Day 7 – An Educational Day at the Supermarket
  17. What’s the Best Way to Sell a Product?
  18. Overhaul the world’s money policy
  19. Intermittent truth
  20. Global economies shape our cities: is it acceptable?
  21. Woes and Watch-out Warnings
  22. Listening to the Web
  23. Please Sir, I Want Some More
  24. I am rich and famous. Now what…?
  25. The truth about Consume
  26. How Much Do I Consume?
  27. Rule #105: Cyclical consumption
  28. Materialistic Wants? Not.
  29. “money is the reason we exist, everybody knows it, it’s a fact, kiss kiss”
  30. Top Risks for a Consumer-Driven Society
  31. Cotton and cocaine
  32. The Culture of Excesses- Losing Humanity
  33. Contrasts.
  34. Contented Consumer?
  35. The foolish man
  36. Being No One One, Precis: Part 2
  37. Turning the Poor into Consumers
  38. Capitalising on Christmas
  39. Lighting up Christmas
  40. Christmas fragment 1
  41. Holiday Shopping For Your Token Atheist Friend
  42. Holiday gift-giving between adults is a needless, consumerist chore
  43. To Save Pandas, We Must Eat them
  44. Things I’ve learned from killing consumerism #13 – We want beauty for ourselves
  45. Obama: Stop pretending you care about Syrian people
  46. Should We Be Scared?
  47. Its 100% OK to offend people in my world
  48. Life..a never ending..
  49. Born Privileged
  50. {quote of the day}
  51. Only to be Lost
  52. Run
  53. Self Harm
  54. My Only Way Out
  55. Ahhhhhh
  56. the curtain comes up
  57. I Have This Urge
  58. Letter Of Departure
  59. The truth about approuachable
  60. Officially Trumped: When “being Real” gets too Real
  61. Contented Consumer?
  62. Magic
  63. First Feelings – Sonnet No. 4
  64. Friends
  65. Universe
  66. 2015/2016

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6 Comments

Filed under Being and Feeling, Bond Zonder Naam, Economical affairs, Food, Lifestyle, Movement Without a Name, Welfare matters

To find ways of Godly understanding

Chad Graham of Onetheology.com is not affiliated with any religious organization, denomination, or church. He thinks

pastors have a responsibility, just as doctors and mechanics do, to become experts in their field for the benefit of society and the expansion of the kingdom of God. {Pulpit Authority}

In his article Pulpit Authority he looks at our world where people try to find specialists in different fields. For him it seems theology, doctrine, or philosophy are essential parts of a church community. It looks like a church cannot exist for him without such leaders who have gone to colleges where they were trained to become specialists in theology, doctrine, and/or philosophy.

He also gives the impression that people are not able to get authority without such an education. Though he forgets for the Word of God, they should not so much receive their education from man but more from God Himself. It seems that a lot of religious leaders, pastors and priests exclude God Himself from the educational field. Too many forget that it is the Word of God as given to mankind in the Holy Scriptures which can educate and edify man. Real knowledge about the True God can come straight ahead from the Bible itself. We do not need lots of theological works to give us an idea about Whom God is and what He has done. All is written down in the Bible. That Book of books is sufficient enough. though we do agree other books may help further to give more insight or to make the way of understanding shorter.

Also when we have several believers it is best that they do come together at regular times. We may not forget one of the tasks Jesus had given his followers was to come together, to  assemble or to gather with like minded, at regular intervals. The followers of Christ had to become part of the Body of Christ and should find unity in that body (the Church). Organising such a system or community demands work and organisation itself. Wherefore certain people can take charge to organise those meetings and to make the arrangements to keep that community of believers alive. Pastors or elders may well be the persons to do such a thing.

Pastors

Pastors (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Church needs pastors and leaders who wield their pulpit with authority. {Pulpit Authority}

writes Chad Graham, who also finds that

We need pastors who see their lack of knowledge and work hard to remedy it. {Pulpit Authority}

For him it looks like everything in the church-community turns around a or the Sunday service.

Next Sunday is right around the corner and congregations will show up to hear their beloved pastor deliver his sermon—with authority. {Pulpit Authority}

He does know that reason is not necessary for, or is even opposed to, faith.

However, this position will be showed to be false and the enterprise of apologetics shown to be biblical and worthwhile through the survey of the theological justification for it. {Is Apologetics Biblical?}

It is not because the Elohim frequently throughout the Old Testament got His prophets use rational arguments and verifiable evidence to justify their beliefs in God, that today we do need people to show up arguments ,by having full proof of they being educated by a college enabling them to reason about those matters.  Those prophets in the past, not all, went to a high school (universities did not exist yet). God also used non-educated people to go out and to throw out the fishnet for man. Jesus his disciples were not all doctors in medicine like Luke, or doctors in philosophy, nor where the apostles or preachers learned scholars like Paul, but were also ordinary labourers, men and women who used their hands to earn their living.

The writer seems to overlook what he himself quotes:

God, speaking through His prophet Isaiah, said,

“’Come now, and let us reason together’” (Isaiah 1:18). {Is Apologetics Biblical?}

Clearly it was the Most High who invited man to reason with Him. Together they had to plan things. Today it is not different. We too, ourselves have to reason with God. We ourselves have to go into conversation with God. We do not need priests any more, other than the high priest Jeshua (Jesus Christ).

The Supreme Being was,

and is, not opposed to reason when it comes to God, the truth, and the Bible. It is even possible that the account in Genesis 1 of creation was written as an apologetic against the mythical creation stories of other cultures in the Near East. {Is Apologetics Biblical?}

As written already in earlier writings, each individual is created in the image of God and has some inner feeling to look for his own being and for that Divine Creator Who made it possible to be, without Him “The I am Who Is the Being” there is no life possible. Chad Graham knows what we all should come to know, that

The stars, oceans, mountains, and planets were not gods nor were they controlled by gods. Rather, the one true God, Yahweh, brought those things, and everything, into existence and continues to sustain them in their existence. This latter element is a testament to the fact that God exists and has a plan and purpose for creation. {Is Apologetics Biblical?}

“The Old Testament does not often dwell on why we need to do apologetics, but rather it simply sets out its apologias for those with eyes to see. {Philip Johnson, Apologetics, Mission, and New Religious Movements: A Holistic Approach. electronic edition (Salt Lake City, UT: Sacred Tribes Academic Press, 2010), 125-26.}

It is handy and best to have some one to encourage people in the community of faith to engage in spiritual warfare and intellectually struggle for religious truth. But it surely do not all have to be people who had a university degree in theology. It is not to have much knowledge about the different gods and about different human theories about those gods and forms of worshipping. We do need people leading a congregation who have sufficient knowledge and belief in and about the Only One True God, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah. Other gods are not really of any importance. Scriptural knowledge must lead in the forefront and not a knowledge about all sorts of human fantasies and human writings around godheads.

From the evidence in the Old and New Testaments, the examples of Jesus and His apostles, and God’s character in wanting Himself to be made known, there is much theological justification for Christian apologetics. Thus, fideism and any other argument against apologetics fall flat. Rather, it is shown to be a duty of the Christian to “contend for the faith” and “give a defense.” And it is also shown to be useful in evangelism since many biblical accounts record people being saved after hearing a reasoned account of the gospel. {Is Apologetics Biblical?}

That reasonable account of the gospel is best given by some one who truly believes and lives according to that faith in the gospel, being the Word of God. We can find many priests and pastors who earn their living by ‘holding church’, but do not really belief in God and some even not in Jesus (the son of God). Also we may find lots of priests and pastors who are as weak as any other man, also elders, who are not able to live up to the faith, Christ and God requires from godly man. The last few years lots of scandals came in the news and many priests, pastors and so called educated theologians became defiled by atrocious things they had done. Church can do without them. Church can better use people who really belief in what they preach and do what they demand from others to do.

In the world of theology we can find lots of different writings bringing words against each other, words for sure which could potentially spark a lot of controversy, but worse, also lots of words which could bring people further away from Biblical truth.

Some theologians do know and

oftentimes think what seminary enrollment would look like if they pose a picture of Dr. King dead on a balcony on their fliers. What if they made a banner of Bonhoeffer hanging from the gallows? What if they Really showed what happened to Paul, Peter, James, and our Lord? What would enrollment look like if they showed us what would happen if we truly allowed our academics to be the impetus for our actions?

They know exactly what would happen.

That’s why our brochures are filled kids playing ping-pong. {The Subversive Scholar: The Danger of Being a Theologian in the 21st Century}

Theology without spirituality is a sterile academic exercise. Lots of countries do have universities offering courses in theology, where more time is spend on human writings about philosophy and theology than on the study of the Holy Scriptures themselves. The spiritual factor is often missed out and mostly the courses are given from the only point of view to be taken, that of the own denomination. As such in Belgium most Christian universities are Roman Catholic and offer theology to form people thinking the Roman Catholic way. In Leuven there is also an opening for protestant thinking, but also there only one way or protestantism is allowed to be the backbone to succeed end of year tests.

Street pastors

Street pastors (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is not so much the words of human beings we do have to study, but we should make sure that we come to know what is written in the Bible, God’s infallible Word and take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Elohim commanded to God’s people. If we want to belong to God’s people we should live up to it and love the Adonai, Almighty God and worship Him as our only One God, walking in all His ways, keeping His commandments. It is not required from any person to be a follower of any other man than Christ Jesus. He is the cornerstone of the church and not a theologian or some one who can proof that he has received a degree in theological studies. We have to follow Christ Jesus and to hold fast to his heavenly Father, Jehovah God. We do not have to serve churches of man, but be part of the Body of Christ serving the only One Eternal God with all our heart and with all our soul.

We should remember Joshua who gave the departing ones from Egypt a word of exhortation,

Jos 22:5 RNKJV  But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of YHWH charged you, to love YHWH your Elohim, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

The writer of etsop95.wordpress.com remarks

You will note in this word from Joshua two important ideas. First, the Israelites were to pay attention to the Lord and do exactly what He said. Second, they were to have their motivation (love) properly in place. This is the idea behind what some people disparagingly call “pattern theology.” Those who do so speak about that which the Lord set in place! {The Pattern}

When people do find God and decide to become baptised, receiving a “new birth”, we and theologians may not forget that it is the work of God and not of us, elder or theologians

since one can’t “join” the family of God (a work of man, presumably), it is a work of God when one is “born” into the family of God. {The New Birth (2)}

Portrait of a pastor at the age of 35.

Portrait of a pastor at the age of 35. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Too many people stay in the tradition of their family and keep to the faith-group they were born into, though they may not believe or not practice their views. Real faith should come from own choices being made by adult thinking and wise decision.

It is not the result of parental descent, of one’s own willpower, or by “any of man’s religious creeds, systems, or ceremonies.” The new birth is of God; it is a miracle and only God can perform it. {The New Birth (2)}

It is by allowing the Power of God come into our body that our soul (our being) can be transformed. It is the individual who has to make the right decision and allowing God to work in him or her. Only then a spiritual birth, not a miraculous one, can take place.

Nothing in nature has been suspended for one to be “born again.” {The New Birth (2)}

It is when one hears God, and is prepared to do what He wants form His creation that one can become whitewashed and be baptised by the Spirit. Those receiving the Spirit of God than can take up the tasks Jesus has given his disciples and go out to the world, to others, so that they too may find God and convert to the true faith.

Without the foundation in place the strength of a local congregation is only perceived (imagined), not real. {Strength in the Local Church}

It is not necessary by an education institute that we shall come to the God of gods. All Christians should recognise that it is Jesus is who is the way. The Bible tells us even more, that he is the truth, and he is the life. Not the theologians are going to be able to give us life.

Thus, if anyone would know of truth, if anyone would know the way, if anyone would enjoy life, then one must go through Jesus.{Strength in the Local Church}

Furthermore, Jesus said,

“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46)

We should believe what Jesus says and not so much what theologians say, certainly not when in contradict with what Jesus says. so, when we go to a church where things are preached which contradict Bible sayings we should sincerely reconsider what we want to do and where we want to stay. Do we want to follow human doctrines or Biblical doctrines?

We should look at those theologians and question their thoughts and remember what some students could say about their college

With so many of our finest finishing up at denominational institutions, however, breathing the air of seminaries and schools of theology and salivating at the feet of theologians, we’ve lost our mettle against the idea of theology. {Harding University, twice}

As members of the Body of Christ we never may forget that in the church “educated” men also make mistakes.

There are numerous instances when you have two highly degreed men on the opposite sides of an issue. Some do not have an understanding of the implications of certain “facts” that they read. For example, if someone says

“Scholars believe that Mark was written before the other gospels.”

Would we question that? Is it even important? Some may teach that Mark was written first and have no other implication in mind; however, there is a large group of religious scholars that do not respect the inspiration of the Bible and the dates of the completion of the gospel is one of their places of attack.{Systematic Theology, Rex A. Turner, Sr.}

Too often in theology the focus is not on the subject we as members of the Body of Christ should worry about. It does not matter when and by whom a certain book is written. We do need to know the content and where to look for. The order in which the gospels were written is not the issue per se. What matters most is what is written between the lines and not a Pharisaical theological explanation and historical facts. Historical facts may help to place everything and to see the truth of it, but are not the main issue.

G.C. Berkouwer said:

“We live in a time when even theology is exploding with new and revolutionary problems. There is a danger that the serious student will be so impressed by all the problems in theology that he will circle all certainties by a ring of questions. When this happens, an inverse Pharisaism sets in. The doubting student says:

I thank thee, Lord, that I am not as certain as those naïve people. Let Luther say it again: Spiritus Sactus non est scepticus. Indeed, the Spirit is not a skeptic.” {Bales: certainty is not Pharisaism}

English: Example of appendix from New World Tr...

Example of appendix from New World Translation of The Holy Scriptures, study edition (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the ecclesia, our Christian community, house church or church-hall or other church-building, we can come together, meeting with brothers and sisters in Christ, having elders, pastors or priest, non-educated and educated people, all together in humbleness wanting to share the same gospel. In that gathered community, the parish, it is not so much the teaching of a theologian, but the teaching of the Spirit which will unsettle false positions and false attitudes,

but it unsettles them by means of truth and not by means of relativism.  {Bales: certainty is not Pharisaism}

It are all members of the ecclesia who have to work together and to share ideas together, not one thinking the other better or worse to give gospel messages. All should follow the task given by Jesus to explain to the lost who the people of God are and why we have to make the right choice to be distinct from the false religions that exist, including those that call themselves Christians but are not, fail to do their duty of proclaiming the gospel of Christ or the gospel of salvation and of the Kingdom of God.

We do not have to have a special platform or pulpit and especially trained people as the only speakers in our community. All people do have to have their ‘input.’ all have to make an effort to help each other to grow in the faith. All have to help the ecclesia to grow and have to make sure that the Body of Christ can continue to grow.

Lets make work of it!

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Preceding articles:

Living in the Wilderness

Getting out of the dark corners of this world

An uncovering book to explore

May we have doubts

Passover and Liberation Theology

Daring to speak in multicultural environment

In Defense of the truth

Looking for a shepherd for the sheep and goats

When believing in God’s existence and His son, possessing a divine legislation

Not making yourselves abominable

Where are the female writers

Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach

What Should I Preach ?

Preaching Christ Is Not Enough

How To Get Started In Sharing Your Faith As a Christian

Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach

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Further reading

  1. The gods or mighty ones
  2. Jehovah God Almighty – greater than all gods
  3. People Seeking for God 6 Strategy
  4. God giving signs and producing wonders
  5. Elohim, Mar-Yah showing His wonders
  6. Necessity of a revelation of creation 12 Words assembled for wisdom and instruction
  7. Being Religious and Spiritual 7 Transcendence to become one
  8. Being Religious and Spiritual 8 Spiritual, Mystic and not or well religious
  9. Church has to grow through witness, not by proselytism
  10. Which Christian sect is the only true Christian church?
  11. Not everyone in the churches of Christ are “ungodly”
  12. Looking for True Spirituality 1 Intro
  13. Why think there is a God (4): And the Rest …
  14. The Presence of God
  15. The importance of Reading the Scriptures
  16. Bible God’s Word – to edify
  17. Looking for wisdom not departing from God’s Word
  18. Bible in the first place #3/3
  19. The holy spirit will bring back to your minds all the things told
  20. True God giving His Word for getting wisdom
  21. Words to inspire and to give wisdom
  22. Eternal Word that tells everything
  23. Bric-a-brac of the Bible
  24. We should use the Bible every day
  25. Feed Your Faith Daily
  26. God’s wrath and sanctification
  27. Bible containing scientific information
  28. The mythical conflict of science and Scripture (2)
  29. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
  30. Atonement And Fellowship 1/8
  31. How Many were Bought
  32. Approachers of ideas around gods, philosophers and theologians
  33. An anarchistic reading of the Bible—(1) Approaching the Bible
  34. An anarchistic reading of the Bible (2)—Creation and what follows
  35. Van Til’s An Introduction To Systematic Theology
  36. Van Til interacting with Bavinck and Calvin on Natural Theology
  37. Christianity without the Trinity
  38. Position of the Bible researcher
  39. Missional hermeneutics 1/5
  40. Missional hermeneutics 5/5
  41. Epicurus’ Problem of Evil
  42. Christendom Astray The Devil Not A Personal Super-Natural Being
  43. Catholicism, Anabaptism and Crisis of Christianity
  44. Some one or something to fear #3 Cases, folks and outing
  45. Theology without spirituality sterile academic exercise
  46. Myth 12: The Hyper-Grace Gospel Makes People Lazy
  47. Pulpit reserved for the pastor
  48. May the Lord direct your hearts to …
  49. Victory in rebirth
  50. Rebirth and belonging to a church
  51. Parish, local church community – Parochie, plaatselijke kerkgemeenschap
  52. Intentions of an Ecclesia
  53. Congregate, to gather, to meet
  54. Meeting – Vergadering
  55. Contribution – Contributie, bijdrage
  56. Faith is a pipeline
  57. Evangelisation, local preaching opposite overseas evangelism
  58. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #17 Sorts of prayers
  59. Being Missional
  60. Missionary action paradigm for all endeavours of the church
  61. Theologians and a promised Spirit to enlighten us
  62. No other god besides Jehovah who gives all explanation
  63. Politics and power first priority #2
  64. Belonging to or being judged by
  65. Writers needed to preach to non-believers
  66. Good or bad preacher
  67. What Should I Preach ?
  68. Determined To Stick With Truth
  69. Oratory Style
  70. 2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy

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Continued reading:

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59 Comments

Filed under Educational affairs, Religious affairs, World affairs

Where are the female writers

When research shows that women, who are more than half of the population, write only a third of the stories, how does it come that not more women are taking up the pen and sharing their thoughts?

"Bon Ton Burlesquers - 365 days ahead of ...

“Bon Ton Burlesquers – 365 days ahead of them all.” Poster of U.S. burlesque show, 1898, showing a woman in outfit with low neckline and short skirts holding a number of upper-class men “On the string”. Color lithograph (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Did women still not become confident enough to have their voice sounding in the air? Or is the human world still being influenced by macho male world?

Media tells us our roles in society — it tells us who we are and what we can be.

The Women’s Media Center (WMC) released its yearly report on the status of women in U.S. media on July the 15th. This new report shows us who people think matters and what is important to media — and clearly, as of right now, for the American citizen it is not women.

Taken together, the 49 studies are a snapshot of women in media platforms as diverse as news, literature, broadcast, film, television, radio, online, tech, gaming, and social media.

In evening broadcast news, women are on-camera 32% of the time; in print news, women report 37% of the stories; on the Internet, women write 42% of the news; and on the wires, women garner only 38% of the bylines.

“We face the same issue here,” Women in Media (www.womeninmedia.net) National Patron Caroline Jones said. “While more than half of the graduates in our sector are women, women hold around 7% of management roles. That’s got to change.” {Media executives to tackle gender equality in Women in Media panel}

How Men Dominate The US Media Landscape

In my ecclesia and for my websites I also ask the female part of our society to contribute to our society, but it seems that they, like human male, keep quiet.

We may perhaps know that men do less than they ought (unless they do all that they can), but what about women?

The list of notable female writers may be huge and many ladies could get me carried away. It were not only story tellers or historicist but also article writers who got me tantalised.

Also looking at several followers of my different sites I am pleased to find several female writers and photographers who offer very nice articles or beautiful series of visual postings. Pity none of them offered them yet to join us and use the opportunity to get more readers to know them and to bring them also to their nice articles.

If you are writing on the net, why would you not share some of your ideas here and share some readings you encountered, when scrolling the many articles available on the net. It would be strange if you would not be able to find at least one article in a year worth sharing with others.  In case that would be the case, not able to find more interesting articles on the net, that others also should read, it would mean that too much rubbish is presented and that by the overload serious articles do not find a chance to be noticed.

When I see on social media, like Facebook and on Youtube what gets most interest and most likes, it either says a lot of the present generation and gives an impression that non-serious and shocking material gets most interest by the present viewers.

Why not distance us form all that under-the-belt material and from the voyeuristic articles, focusing on things which are important for our society?

I am perhaps very conservative and have some old fashioned ideas and gender role ideas, but that does not mean that people can not be conform or of total different vision and would not able to present opposites over here. the nicest thing would be when different visions can stand next to each other (in peace).

I may think women should be best at presenting articles about the female role in our society, and could bring articles on the household but also on women at work or the role of women in our community or in our ecclesia or church. but they also could bring ideas about living and arranging our living quarters, sharing architectural and interior design ideas.

Naturally also men could write articles about those subjects, and they are invited too.

I am still waiting for writers to present themselves? Please when you do feel called do not hesitate, but contact me straight ahead.

I welcome any interested serious writer, who is willing to share his thoughts and interesting thoughts he or she finds on the net.

Do not wait until tomorrow but act today.

+++

 

  • Socialize Your Content Marketing Initiatives (socialnomics.net)
    Whether you write your own content, hire someone to do it for you or are a guest blogger for someone else, writing the content is actually only a piece of the pie.
    An important part of writing content is creating shareable material. Once it’s live, the sharing starts.

    And, yes, you want others to share it straight from the site, but it’s also a smart strategy for you to work on that sharing and promotion as well. Social media, among other strategies, will play a big role in this.
    +
    If people like your content, they’ll want to see more. In your bio, you can include your social media sites and links to other pieces related to the one you’re sharing. Be careful not to link to too much; that can be overwhelming.

     

  • Top 4 Tips for Promoting Your Small Business On Social Media (hiscox.com)
    Most small business owners know by now that they need to have a presence on social media. You’ve probably set up a fan page on Facebook for your business, and you probably have a Twitter account. You may have a LinkedIn account, a Google+ page and even a YouTube channel. Those are great first steps toward promoting your business. Now you have to feed the beast.
    +
    Post a ‘teaser’ or a promotion on each network, than include a link to your most recent blog post. If you have a special offer or promotion, describe it in the blog post as well as the social media posts, in case people come to your blog in some other way.
    +
    Keep the quality of your content to a high standard. You’ll find that consumers are looking for different types of content like whitepapers and infographics. Make sure it’s useful and concise. Content that feature listicles such as our “10 Important Personal Characteristics of an Entrepreneur” piece are a great start. Social media has shortened our attention spans, so you need to grab the reader’s attention and hold it by providing information they can use. Don’t try to extend the length of your posts with ‘fluff’ – you’ll lose your audience.
  • 4 Alternative Social Media Platforms Every Marketer Should Be Using (thesuccess4life.com)
    you can build long-term relationship with your targeted audience .
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    9 Simple Social Media Tips Even Amateurs Can Follow
    The core of a great social media page is not the number of followers, nor the engagement rate. It is all about the contents you share. Quality contents are integral part of social media to generate followers, and improve engagement. People tend to share topics that they find useful, so always provide them with these types of contents. But, keep in mind that you should not limit your updates to your website’s contents, you should also share useful posts from other websites.
  • Associate Yourself with Strong Social Media Initiatives (socialnomics.net)
    You can share news about your association, post pictures of association events, and keep followers updated on everything your association represents.
  • Maddie’s Must Reads for July – Social Media Edition (socialfish.org)
  • Media executives to tackle gender equality in Women in Media panel (mumbrella.com.au)
    The current numbers are bleak and going nowhere fast. And although there is a real and clear business imperative for diversity at the top of business in this country and globally — with compelling statistics to match, we can’t wait and hope for it to be worked out by those whose current self interests are tied to things remaining more or less the same. Quotas are the only certain pathway to gender equity.
  • How Men Dominate The U.S. Media Landscape [Infographic] (forbes.com)
  • Hot 97’s TT Torrez Talks Making It in The Radio Industry (madamenoire.com)
  • Literary Gaps: The Classic Books We Overlook (readerswritersjournal.com)
  • 11 Books By Women That Reached Cult Status (stylecaster.com)
    For some, the idea of reaching for a summertime book means frivolous beachside reading material. But this year, instead of letting the time pass by with fluffy chick lit, why not delve deep into the classic stories by women writers that have made it to cult status?

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Filed under Aankondiging & Introductie, Announcement, Cultural affairs

Holiday making and dreaming

We have entered a time when people go away from their own private environment and go into the wide world to enjoy their free time, hoping to have a marvellous Summertime. There is vacation time which can bring a “staycation” or bringing some time to go here and there or even further away, crossing boarders. For some it may be the maximising time for others the minimizing time.

When away from home many are not afraid to show their other ‘me’ and present themselves to others like they would not do in their daily working life. It is at their holiday time we often can see them more becoming like they really are. We can see then the man or the animal coming out of the person. Holiday time is the time that men can be seen as lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Seeing such people we should know better and from such turn away (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

So rude and crass has our society become that there is little acceptance of personal responsibility for what anyone says to another, or even the sense or feeling that, “Wow, I wouldn’t want someone to insult what is sacred to me, so maybe I ought not approach another (especially someone I don’t even know!) in that manner just because I have a case of ‘screen rage’.” (If anything is thought of as sacred anymore, that is…) That’s like road rage – the perception that it’s OK to curse, or yell at, or insult someone just because you are encased in something the size of a Sherman Tank, so you feel safe. The other person cannot reach through your computer screen or the windshield of your big SUV to strangle you, so it must be OK. Not! {Proverbially Speaking / Chapter 21}

Already in the normal working hours, time at home, many people do not show interest in God, but when away we do hear some making jokes about believers, be it Christians, Jews or Muslims, and mocking at holy scriptures.

It is a time when we can see and hear more people scorn and shun the Bible and openly renounce it, although they have never actually read it.

Within The Holy Spirit looks at those people who do not want to have a connection with the Maker of this universe, and writes:

It would seem to me that they might be at least curious about it – enough to open up a copy and find out for themselves – even if simply from the perspective of a good whodunit, or as something controversial that you might want to check out. {Proverbially Speaking / Chapter 21}

Lots of holidaymakers do like to complain to others about their country, their government and want to let others know how better it is somewhere else.
In case belief comes on the tip of the tongue guests leave or do find a possibility to attack those who have faith in that what is not seen. Many deny the little piece of heaven within themselves which has a sparkle with Divine Radiance itself! Then we can find many who have forgotten that little attic in their own personal life, where many treasures are.

The holiday season may be for many the escape gate to heavenly dreams.

Making intuitive art, as far as I’m concerned, is a means of “dreaming while you’re awake.” The whole process acts like meditation or contemplation – it bypasses all the mental clutter [drifting thoughts,worries, obsessing, anxiety, negative emotions, and so forth] and takes you right into the Heart and Center of your Soul. It’s here that you may meet with your Higher Self, your Inner Creator and all the spiritual and life changing awarenesses you may be looking for. {The ART of Conscious Dreaming, or the ART of Dreaming Awake}

Holiday time is also the time of getting lots of impressions and experiencing lovely explorations. On holiday one is left with distinct impressions and with many different meetings, with perhaps making new friends. Having time to reflect and looking from a distance on the own life and at the house environment, the traveller “sees” his or her own meaning in the art of travelling and in the art of being.

Often these meanings can provide confirmation of such things as where you are in life, or where you need to move forward, or what on Earth is happening to you for “Heaven’s” sake, and other useful answers you may be seeking!  {The ART of Conscious Dreaming, or the ART of Dreaming Awake}

Surprisingly these meanings can be multi-layered, as the person becomes increasingly aware of him or herself as a far more expansive Being than he or she may have ever realized before.

It is possible to practice the art of dreaming awake wherever you may be – on a bus or plane, waiting in the doctor’s office, or just grabbing a quiet moment to retreat to the kitchen table with pen and sketch pad in hand, while the kids are doing their homework or watching their favorite television program.

However, I would recommend that if you desire to commit to taking this inner treasure hunt seriously, that you carve out some “sacred space” for yourself, and at least a half hour per day when you can distance yourself from routine concerns and commitments, and insist upon committing to this on your own behalf! {The ART of Conscious Dreaming, or the ART of Dreaming Awake}

With all the dreaming going on it is not bad to have your mind also going into higher spheres trying to reach higher goals. For this the Book of books, the Bible, the infallible Word of God can help.

Most people are sort-sighted, looking for the treasures on earth and not interested in treasures for much later in future.

There is no understanding or acceptance of the need to be saved, about the redemption through Jesus Christ, or its implications for mankind.

This is simply not a part of the program for so many people who are into “metaphysics” or what they like to call “spirituality”. The preference in these circles seems to be personal power and/or the attainment of what feels good. A birthright has been exchanged for a bowl of porridge! {The ART of Conscious Dreaming, or the ART of Dreaming Awake}

At our usual times, at home, at work, most people do not feel like it to take up the holy scriptures. Lots of people do not know that the Bible is a treasury. In that book they shall be able to find many answers to their many questions. Though often man prefers to ask their questions to other people.

One thing about human beings is that many of us have little natural inclination toward reading the instructions or asking directions. I’ve found this to be true of myself from time to time, I’ll be the first to admit. Although at the end of the day, after enduring a lot of frustration, I may succumb and surrender, humbling myself to opening a set of instructions on some “smart” device which has me baffled. A good example of this is the cellphone or other 21st century inventions which have become the mother of “need”. I may or may not open the book, read, and heed – depending on the degree of frustration I’ve experienced going about things by the seat of my pants. {Insurrectionists And Instructions}

Most people do know and want to do it the Frank Sinatra way, going for ‘my way’.

Humanity seems notoriously hands on when it comes to doing things “my way or the highway”, as we grapple with life and its challenges.

It’s been said that some think they have evolved beyond the “consciousness” where they need any guidance at all from any external Wisdom, especially that silly old Bible or God. No, we’re far too advanced for that. It’s irrelevant for our time, except maybe for the backward. Besides, all we have to do is “go within” where the font of all wisdom is to be found. One has to ask, what is the source of that sort of arrogance? {Insurrectionists And Instructions}

On holiday you may hear several people finding religion a dangerous business. Many think it is the cause of all wars. Others might find that religion is entertainment.

You know – the parlor games crowd. Dabbling with no commitments. Spiritual one night stands. Tarot readings, newspaper astrology, palm readings… reading everything but the Bible. Seances, visiting haunted buildings, dancing in circle under a full moon, spoon bending, retreats and workshops on how to discover or enhance your psychic abilities or see auras. This is the group that objects most vehemently to the word religion for some reason. No, we are spiritual. {Cross Purposes 30 / Reasons For Religion}

Summertime meeting time on the beach (2012 Art Belgian Beach exhibition)

Summertime meeting time on the beach (2012 Art Belgian Beach exhibition)

On the other hand it also a time where we can get others interested in the unseen. Several people do have a curiosity about the “unseen”. Away from home and work some might be more at ease to talk to strangers about those matters we so often do not understand. They might find it not such a bad time to involve themselves in metaphysical research.

The word itself simply means “beyond the physical”. There are many branches of metaphysical science. It’s essentially the study of how the unseen – “energy” – effects the realm of matter, what we can see. It is the study of the interplay of cause and effect of the unseen on the seen – prayer, positive thinking, science of mind, affirmations, and the like. Personally I do not actually regard this as a religion, except to add that paradoxically all religions have metaphysical practices and tools. Metaphysical science observes and theorizes how religious practices work, for example, how does prayer or ritual effect physical situations? Yet it would also include the effects of light or color (art and symbolism), sound or vibration (music), within integrative healing settings. {Cross Purposes 30 / Reasons For Religion}

Leaving behind the mess at home, people on holiday love to have the luxury of waiters and chambermaids taking care of them.

For the spiritual supply they have to take care themselves. They can go see places but next to it they need filling their mind with words from books.

One of the best books to supply necessary food is the Bible and now we can take much more time than at work-time.

… many things are written, spoken, and ruminated on today concerning what we think we don’t have, or what we’re afraid we’re going to lose… or all the awful things someone else is doing which violate our rights and the like. {Upbeat 1}

Lots of ideas are interchanged on holiday. Thoughts from many cultures. Lots of jokes may be made but lots of fears may be shared as well.

Listening to or reading many of these heavy gloom and doom reports, and political agendas, although they may be very informative, can have a real down and outer effect on us – especially if we’re sensitive and caring about what happens to our loved ones, other people in our life, and ourselves as well. I do in fact have to wonder if the propaganda mill has allowed some of the commentators to spill the beans as they do, because of the fearful effect it has on people. Being bombarded with fear tears down good moods, self confidence, creates apathy, anxiety, compromise, and the like. It can make your plate seem more full than it really is.

It really is a mind over matter issue in many ways.

Thus we find that we must really be very cautious about how much of this kind of thinking we partake of every day, or even how much we dwell on our own personal issues and problems. {Upbeat 1}

Summertime is the good time to fill in the absence of God and to take time to operate out of fear or turn to the source of love, the choice is and always has been yours.

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Preceding articles:

Summerholiday season time to read the Bible

Psst! Spread The Good Word!

Next: Home-stayers and their to do list

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Related articles:

  1. People Seeking for God 1 Looking for answers
  2. How we think shows through in how we act
  3. Knowing where to go
  4. Try driving forward instead of backwards
  5. A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses

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Find more about these subjects at other websites:

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Cultural affairs, Knowledge & Wisdom, Lifestyle, Religious affairs, Social affairs, Welfare matters

Looking at a conservative review of Shop Class As Soul Craft

Some might think we are

“constantly striving to develop lives of meaning without any outside recourse. The soul is increasingly insulated from the world outside our heads.” {Against Kant and Consumerism}

but today lots of people strive to enrich themselves with material wealth and consider their live worthwhile when they can be more wealthier and better showing off than others. Lots of people think they miss enough money or enough gadgets to enjoy fully life. For many everything seems to turn around the gathering of as much money as possible.

Lots of people do not look for the depth of meaning of life and are not so much interested in the others around them and the influence or necessity of them for them.

thisissueappearsThe American Conservative in the May/June 2015 article speaks about Matthew Crawford his books “Shop Class As Soul Craft” plus “The World Beyond Your Head” and looks at ‘the subtitle to his latest book which promises a look at our “age of distraction“.

The article says:

The premise of Crawford’s book is that our distractedness is merely symptomatic of a deeper cultural defect, a misrepresentation of the self that has permeated our society. He traces this back to Enlightenment philosophy, especially the thought of Immanuel Kant. Enlightenment thinkers of the late 17th and 18th centuries presented a view of the person that contrasted drastically with medieval and ancient thought: they put unprecedented emphasis on the rational individual as separate from society or community. They posited new theories about freedom founded upon reason and self-determination, with epistemological roots in ideas such as Descartes’s famous claim that “I think therefore I am.” Kant believed that knowledge and ethics must necessarily be situated within the mind—that existence must be interpreted through the autonomy of the individual.

The writer thinks

The soul is increasingly insulated from the world outside our heads.

Whereas in the real world, Crawford writes,

“we are subject to the heteronomy of things; the hazards of material reality,”

and continues

what Kant has given us is our modern identification of freedom with choice, in which choice is a “pure flashing forth” of the individual will.

that identification of freedom with choice has been there already from the period of the beginning in the Garden of Eden. Man had the choice either to follow his Creator His Will or to go his own way. Man choose the latter.

Thousand of years later, many think the world around them limits them and nature is to  block  their leg.

dumb nature is understood to be threatening to our freedom as rational beings, it becomes attractive to construct a virtual reality that will be less so, a benignly nice [reality] where there is no conflict between self and world

How many people do not want to be on their own and have the world turning around themselves. For many it is most important that everything turns around their own “I” so that they can say with proud: “I am“.

The associate editor of  The American Conservative Gracy Olmstead writes:

Consumer culture tries to destroy the discomforts and imperfections that are necessarily part of life.

Is not there one of the greatest problems of our present society, which has put most of its hopes on the material things it can require to make its own. It is not that they want to hoard things, but they love to gather all the newest things so that they can show off against others who have to do with older things.

Though the writer of the article finds that modern cars are designed in an insulating and distracting way, we more see them as copies of each other not having any more the specific personality or difference as the cars had in the 1950ies, when each car looked so specific and really could get its fans for one or another model and each model with its own flashy personal colours. to us it looks like that car owners lost the interest to have a car or any other object (clothes, houses) that look very personal and have their won story to tell. People do want all the same and are willing to cue for the latest gadget. Everybody else has to be able to see that they have this or that brand and can afford this or that mobile or i-pad, which has to be of the latest and newest ‘invention’.

Concerning the cars we could agree with the idea the  critic has

Everything within a car is constructed to give a sense of isolation and ease.

When the author would mean that the person who is driving the car would like to have the feeling to being his own world, having his own little world where nobody else around is being part of it. When the music can play loud it does not matter that others can hear it in their bathroom or are whipped out of bed. It is there music and everybody else should have to hear that is the best music to listen to.

Naturally the cultivation of “me-worlds” extends beyond auto-mobile design, but form men this might still be the thing to make their ‘me’, though the i-pad has taken a lot of that place.

Olmstead finds that Crawford spends a good deal of the book arguing that an Enlightenment approach to epistemology leads to narcissism: an understanding of the world that revolves entirely around the self and writes

The narcissist “treats objects as props” and struggles to comprehend them as objects with a reality of their own. The fantasy of autonomy, when full-grown, results in a “project of open-ended, ultimately groundless self-making.” {Against Kant and Consumerism}

Interestingly, Crawford identifies our treatment of others as the root of online narcissism in the age of Facebook:

“We increasingly deal with others through representations of them that we have,” he writes. “This results in interactions that are more contained, less open-ended, than a face-to-face encounter or a telephone call, giving us more control.”

Automobiles, the reviewer says

“can foster circumspection—literally, looking around for others and regarding oneself as an object for others in turn—or a collection of atomized me-worlds.” Our experience becomes ever more “mediated by representations, which remove us from whatever situation we inhabit directly, as embodied beings who do things.”

Throughout the ages the world has received its many distractions. The tools may have changed but the aim and way has stayed the same. Today “virtual reality” allows many to find back lost friends or schoolmates and gives the opportunity to interact with more, and more diverse, people, not fewer and not more homogeneous.

For American society to emerge from the distractions of consumer culture and virtual existence

Ms Olmstead finds

we must look beyond the symptoms and consider the disease: the shroud of individualism that prevents us from fully embracing the real world.

The individuals looking for themselves to acquire as much material wealth as possible have to come to see that they would be better to work at their social contacts spending more time to be with each other in real life than in chat sessions, never going deep in a conversation. For sure we we must

cultivate an awareness of—and love for—the world beyond ourselves.

The Edge Foundation / Flickr

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Preceding articles:

Material wealth, Submission and Heaven on earth

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

The I Am to explore

little i

Path/Walk/Sink

Comic: The Last Time I Felt Accepted For Who I Am

Be realistic, do not pretend

The world starts with yourself

Believe in yourself!

Believe in your greatness

Find Inspiration and Follow Your Dreams

Wishy-Washy…

There can only be hope when there is a will to be and say “I am”

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Additional reading:

  1. Souls and Religions with Nirvana and light
  2. For those who make other choices
  3. Being Religious and Spiritual 1 Immateriality and Spiritual experience
  4. Detroit, A city not to be understood

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Filed under Lifestyle, Social affairs, Welfare matters

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

To get somewhere it certainly needs not a short-sighted vision. There has to be a plan somewhere in the head, or for sure a will and hope to reach a point, where one wants to strive for.

At first the foundation may be to reach something for the self. Self-interest at the base, does not mean it has to put the interest of others at the side or to ignore it.

Today we may see lots of people trying to pursue their dreams by short-sighted and hurtful means, like trying to shape wood into a beautiful statue by shooting it with a pistol, which is possible but for making a chair would utterly be doomed to failure.

What is wealth? Are we today really so much better off than those people who had no intercom, no telephones, no television, no electronic gadgets to divert their thinking?

It may be very handy to have the kitchen robots, but are there better things made with than the housewife’s did centuries ago?

We would agree that materially we are better off than years ago, but spiritually and socially it seems we are developing to a mess if we are not careful.

Who is willing to present himself to help others? Who is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of others? and would such acts make the person happy? Often we see at the end that the person has become more disillusioned and/or frustrated. Lots of times those who wanted to help the poor, the needy, or wanted to get the crooks on the right path, got so many disillusions that they are not happy and have to confess they could not reach their dreams.

To get a place in life, to make yourself respectable and to build up a nice life, the person has to think about himself and about those around himself (partner and children). There is a need of a certain selfishness, because otherwise the self is shuffled in the corner and will possibly drown in the battle of those around him/her, who want to find a place for themselves in this world. finding a good balance is important. Placing the ‘I’ in a good perspective. Working on the ‘I’ and the ‘I am’ without destroying the other.
As Ayn Rand may have seen that there is another way of life that involves the destruction of no one, we are to try to build a life in respect to all other beings around us (plants, animals, humans).

It would be nice if we could see our society growing to a way of life that enables all good individuals to prosper, with no victims. Lets Go for it!

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Preceding article:

Material wealth, Submission and Heaven on earth

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Additional reading:

  1. Epicurus’ Problem of Evil
  2. Why God permits evil
  3. Fear the battle climb
  4. Subcutaneous power for humanity 4 Not crossing borders of friendship
  5. 2nd Half 20th Century Generations pressure to achieve
  6. 112314 – A Peculiar People
  7. How we think shows through in how we act
  8. Love envieth not
  9. The Greatest of These is Love

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Objectivism In Depth

Carpenter Working with Pencil and HammerThe definitions of the terms we use have consequences for our ability to think and communicate clearly.

Imagine for a moment that your friend told you that he defines “carpenter” as “one who shapes wood by shooting it with a gun.” You’re baffled and you ask him what word he uses for someone who shapes wood by other means, such as a saw, lathe, and/or sander. He says that he really has no word for this. He has a couple of synonyms for “carpenter,” but they also carry the implication that the person shaping the wood used a gun.

Hopefully, you can see that the problem with this hypothetical situation is not merely that you and your friend are using terms differently: shooting wood with a gun is a terribly impractical way of shaping it into useful forms. If the only concepts you have of wood shaping mean using a…

View original post 1,767 more words

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Lifestyle, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs

Summermonths and consumerism

Summertime seems to have difficulties to show her face this year. Over a few days the days will shorten again and we did not have yet some real good nice warm days.

In the supermarkets they feel the consumption of meat not taking off like they want and therefore they are presenting special bargain prices, advertising against other trying to present the cheapest products. If they would be the best products would be an other matter. Also if they would be produced in a decent ethical way is for many of no concern.

We can imagine Middle School teacher Bob James throughout the year has to face his pupils with all sorts of gadgets, disturbed and tempted by lots of consumer products and market activities.

Real teachers do find it necessary to help others. Bob James also is firmly convinced that all of us need to be more proactive in helping others.

We need to help them when disaster strikes, when they are recovering and then when developing their lives to be the people that God intended them to be. We are meant to be independent of all except for God. On Him alone should we be dependent. Thus, as I seek to help others, I seek to move beyond mere relief and am focusing on rehabilitation and reconciliation. We are to be reconciled with God, with our fellow human beings and with our environment. If any one of these is missing, we will have problems. This is a tall order, but I will always seek to bring reconciliation. {About Me}

He, like many teachers are daily confronted with the non-interest for God, is probably also seeing that today the kids, but also their parents, have made new gods and have more interest in the material belongings than the spiritual.

The Human Use of Human Beings

The Human Use of Human Beings (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In previous articles on this blog we pointed out to this behaviour which is destroying our society like CO poisoning, not seen, not smelled, not heard. We are living in a society where eyes are directed on gaining capital, even if we need not to take notice of necessary protection for man or do not mind bringing shortage or harm to others, to get more money.

Our economy is based on consumerism. Ads are designed to appeal to people like me and make me not just want, but Need, the latest thing – whether that be a soft drink or the latest model car. {June 8 – What I Really Need}

In the years straight after the World Wars people seemed to know again the value of the necessities of life. Folks appreciated again the small things. (We remember sitting with three on a bench, having one study book, which we savoured like the best we could have to receive knowledge. We never wanted to have it for ourselves alone and where pleased when we could share things with others.) They were pleased with what they could get. They also wanted to show to others who they were and used their cloths to present their identity.

Today everybody seems to be hiding behind their clothes. They now have to be from one or the other brand, design and colour which is in fashion. All want to belong to the group and hide their own self behind brands which are ‘in’. Everything must be dictated by the market. Nobody wants to go against what the market dictates.

English: RedEye Sailboat Category:Images of Ch...

RedEye Sailboat one of the things people like to have for enjoying themselves and to show off (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In Summer this is made even more clear by everybody wanting to go in the garden and show off with what the market advertises and wants to press on everybody. As such, once it is beautiful weather, we can not sit outdoors without having to smell all the combustion products, from the people who do not know how to use properly those advertised and bought barbecue sets.

Having holiday also became equivalent to travelling. When people to day are saying they go on holiday, they mostly mean and want the other person to think they are going to travel abroad. For many taking a holiday in the own garden or in the own country is not having a holiday any more. The market made them to believe to relax and to take vacation or to take leave has to be going abroad and spending a lot of money at enjoyment, entertainment parks, luxury meals and pampering and health treatments.

People have to believe they only count in this society when they can show that they are using the latest gadgets and are ‘by the time’. All people who have not the newest things are ‘old’ or ‘out of date’. They best are ignored or put aside, as not being the right people to associate with. Or they are laughed at as old fashioned or ‘nerds’.

Bob James remarks:

How easily we buy the latest thing and throw away the old. One of the problems is that we not only throw away things, we also tend to throw away people or relationships if they don’t “meet our needs.” {June 8 – What I Really Need}

Those needs have become very selfish. Everything is directed to the ‘I’ and to the ‘what can I gain from this relationship’. Most people want to associate with other people in such a way that they may be sure others will find them interesting for the knowledge and acquaintances of such people. Most relations are build on the use they can provide for the self. Not the giving away has become important, nor the meaning something for some one else, but the meaning for the person him or herself, has become the landmark.

Clearly the focus of most people came on to the wrong things. This also made many relationships not last and break down. Often we see the other person has become of no real value, when not usable any more. We see that at work. As son as a person gets to ‘old’ or to ‘experienced’ and to ‘expensive because of ‘seniority’ he is made redundant.

But also the material things do not get time to stay in use as valuable. As soon there is a new model, the old one is considered as ‘passée’ .
Most people have placed their mind on things which are disposable.

What we should be thinking about is not “things,” but people. {June 8 – What I Really Need}

writes Bob James.

What we should be focusing on more than anything is our relationship with God. {June 8 – What I Really Need} (Though in his article gives a quote about focussing on Jesus, who is not God but the son of God, but who also deserves our attention.)

Today, we can see that a lot of people who are debtors to the material things of this world. Most have forgotten that their body should be a temple, a place for clean things. Natural products for many are a laugh-stock. Biological products for many are either for the ‘loonies’ or have become a way to show off, because they are much more expensive and a way to proof they can afford it and belong to such a class of people, having enough money to buy such things.

Instead of respect for nature and respect for the Creator of all those things man shows more interest to the highly perishable idols presented on television and more and more on the internet, which brings totally new sorts of idols in the living room. All those living according to flesh, often forget that they too, like anybody else, are going to die, but if in spirit they kill the deeds of the body, and that they have much better prospects. For those who live in the spirit can find real intense worthwhile life.

Part of our problem with this issue is that our desires have been made to seem like needs. If we began each day with a focus on Jesus Christ, many of those things we think are “needs” would be shown to be desires. {June 8 – What I Really Need}

Christ Jesus is the man of flesh and blood who gave the world an example how to live according to the will of the Only One God, Whom we should consider the Most High and the Most Valuable. Jesus knew he could not do anything without God. Jesus never did his own will but always wanted to do the Will of God.  Today most consider God a flaw or useless invention.

Lots of people, having all those modern gadgets still do not feel happy. Having so many things they do not yet feel satisfied. They still have a hunger …

They are starving for the real better thing which they do not seem to see by the mist of consumerism. Lots of people are running into problems when they work so hard to take care of all their desires for material things, that they forget to spend more time to build up good relations.

Most people do not see or forget about what they really need.

Bob James thinks about a strong relationship with Jesus Christ, but seems to forget an even more important relationship, namely that with the heavenly Father of Jesus, the Only One True God.

This world needs to find the way back to God. It has lost connection with the Creator. The world has become strayed. We have to take care we become not astray by the temptations around us.

Keep your eyes on Jesus and as such find the Way to God and the way to God’s Kingdom.

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Preceding articles:

Lonely in the crowd

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

Less… is still enough

Less for more

Contentment: The five senses

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

See the conquest and believe that we can gain the victory

The Cares of Life

The natural beauties of life

Engagement in an actual two-way conversation with your deities

Just be yourself…

A Snippet of Advice on Cultural Analysis

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Find additional literature:

  1. Capitalism
  2. Increasing wealth gap of immense proportions in the Capitalist World
  3. Classes of people and Cronyism
  4. Uncertainty, shame and no time for vacillation
  5. Because men choose to go their own way
  6. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #9 Consumption
  7. A risk taking society
  8. What IF you’re only driven by stress?
  9. Ecological economics in the stomach #2 Resources
  10. How do you keep people from stealing your joy?
  11. 2014 Social contacts
  12. Justififiable anger or just anarchism
  13. Ability for a community to come back from a crisis
  14. Green Claims in Europe
  15. Greenpeace demands scale up of ecological farming
  16. Happy International Happiness Day!
  17. Being Religious and Spiritual 1 Immateriality and Spiritual experience
  18. Being Religious and Spiritual 3 Philosophers, Avicennism and the spiritual
  19. Being Religious and Spiritual 8 Spiritual, Mystic and not or well religious
  20. Looking for True Spirituality 2 Not restricted to an elite
  21. How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
  22. Sharing thoughts and philosophical writings
  23. Lovers of God, seekers and lovers of truth
  24. Fools despise wisdom and instruction
  25. In a world which knows no peace sharing blessed hope
  26. The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places
  27. Cleanliness and worrying or not about purity
  28. Cognizance at the doorstep or at the internet socket
  29. Jehovah steep rock and fortress, source of insight
  30. Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach
  31. Bringing Good News into the world
  32. How should we preach?
  33. Thanksgiving wisdom: Why gratitude is good for your health
  34. Food as a Therapeutic Aid
  35. Remember there’s a light in the next day
  36. It is a free will choice
  37. To know Christ is filling life with meaning
  38. Heed of the Saviour
  39. Songs in the night Worship God only
  40. Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked

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Filed under Economical affairs, Food, Lifestyle, Spiritual affairs

Soft values? Needed heart- and- soul!

Soft values? Needed heart- and- soul!

Is it possible that, in times of taking care of the future, we look in the wrong direction?
Often society resembles a playground, until you listen to the inner side and get to the bottom of what preoccupies and moves people . When people ask me ‘if I have the time to listen to them’, often tears fall. Every human being has a ‘burden’ and there is a lot of hidden pain, more than we want to admit.

Who has the time to listen?

Love and Human Remains

Love and Human Remains (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Very few people. Everybody runs behind their schedule. Couples don’t have time for each other anymore, parents not for their children. More and more relations end in a divorce, less and less people risk a durable relationship and more and more children grow up in a stressful environment, full of conflicts or unsafe.

From figures of a Health Inquiry in Belgium, it seems that 42% of young women between 15 and 25 indicate to have a psychiatric problem. They are unsure of themselves and anxious, but still they are the mothers of tomorrow.

Is love going through a crisis?
If so, the living material that is our society is in danger. If we claim that love is the fulfilment of life, it is of the utmost importance to say it out loud and to choose resolutely for love.
Movement Without a Name wants to make it its business . In all our projects and initiatives the human being plays the central part  and our care goes to those whom we tend to forget.
We do not use many words when doing this. We love decisiveness. To do something concrete for people- that is the motto.

Finally this. He who claims that the economy is the engine of society and that more welfare guarantees more happiness, is greatly mistaken. Not the money – because that is the outside – but love is the deeper motive that keeps us going.

So it seems that the softest value is the strongest engine to keep this world afloat.

Movement Without a Name

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Additional literature

  1. Words to inspire and to give wisdom
  2. Importance of parents 2
  3. Caricaturing and disapproving sceptics, religious critics and figured out ethics
  4. Science, belief, denial and visibility 2
  5. Fruits of the spirit will prevent you from being either inactive or unfruitful
  6. Looking for True Spirituality 1 Intro
  7. Looking for True Spirituality 5 Fruitage of the Spirit
  8. Behold, My mother and My brothers!
  9. Luck
  10. To be chained by love for another one
  11. Loving and having respect for the woman
  12. What Does Love Look Like?
  13. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience
  14. Agape, a love to share with others from the Fruit of the Spirit
  15. Do not forget the important sign of belief
  16. The task given to us to love each other
  17. The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
  18. God loving people justified
  19. What Jesus did: First things first
  20. Observing the commandments and becoming doers of the Word
  21. Alternative four letter words
  22. More-Letter-Words
  23. יהוה , YHWH and Love: Four-letter words
  24. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #4 Mozaic and Noachide laws
  25. The Law of Christ: Law of Love
  26. The Greatest of These is Love
  27. Love and cultivate that which is pure
  28. Love turns one person into two; and two into one
  29. If we love one another, God lives in us
  30. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love
  31. God demonstrates his own love
  32. The Spirit of God imparts love,inspires hope, and gives liberty
  33. Those who make peace should plant peace like a seed
  34. Christian values and voting not just a game
  35. Growth in character
  36. A Living Faith #2 State of your faith
  37. A Living Faith #3 Faith put into action
  38. A Living Faith #5 Perseverance
  39. Work with joy and pray with love
  40. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
  41. Reflect on how much idolizing happens
  42. Self-preservation is the highest law of nature
  43. He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
  44. Unconditional love
  45. Love the Whole Person
  46. “Unnoticed”
  47. Live …
  48. Life and attitude of a Christian
  49. Loving the Word
  50. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #12 Prayer #10 Talk to A Friend
  51. Breathing and growing with no heir
  52. Falling in Love’ as Temporary Insanity.
  53. Moving forward
  54. Overcoming Hurt Feelings
  55. No fear in love
  56. The one who has not had a taste of love
  57. When we love we do not need laws
  58. Love envieth not
  59. Spread love everywhere you go
  60. Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair
  61. Reflection for today: hating your brother
  62. Blessed are those who freely give
  63. God let my compassionate affection be tolerant and kind
  64. Love will cure more sins than condemnation
  65. Love is like playing the piano
  66. A treasure which can give me everything I need
  67. Unarmed truth and unconditional love
  68. 2nd Half 20th Century Generations pressure to achieve
  69. Christian the Lion
  70. Atonement And Fellowship 2/8
  71. Love and forgive this friday

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Filed under Uncategorized

Just be yourself…

The problem with the present society is that most people do not want to be themselves, but try to be like the stars and media personalities present themselves.

Most people want to live in a ‘would be’ or ‘wish it were like this’ fantasy world, were they can enjoy all material luxury, but forget the spiritual values which are more important.

To be oneself is often not appreciated by contemporary society, which already prescribes tranquillisers to babies kids and puppies. Yes the beloved pets do not seem to escape the rage of defining Adhd, Asperger and other syndromes.

Many have forgotten that those who dare to wear their own clothing how they want it, use the gadgets they prefer, because they personally like them, do not run with all the others to follow the mainstream, are those who are the strongest.

They are the ones who may be the strangers in our society, but who are the real individuals with their own value to stand strong in the storms, not changing like the wind blows from one or the other site.

It is by just being yourself, not minding what all the rest may do, that you will be able to go through your life finding satisfaction and getting to the point where you want to be. Getting at the goal is by knowing what you want and what you can achieve, no matter how others may disappoint you or try to get you on other ideas.

Know what you want, where to go, and continue according to your own stubborn ideas, hoping to reach the goal worth aiming at.

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Do you want to face yourself being the one who dares to build up and to destroy the self? Are you willing to accept your independent soul, which may be stubborn and headstrong, trying to live with a self-governance? Are you willing not to loose the sense of self, not having to mirror your preferences instead?

Let yourself be inspired to guide yourself to grow, sometimes blindfolded to the edge of the cliff, where  many may be looking from high up, wanting to laugh with you.

Remind than one of Amy’s texts:

You stood at the edge and watched unaware,

amazed at the efficiency of your plunder of me.

Arms crossed, a smug look of satisfaction

crept prematurely across your face,

and the winds stirred and protested,

the earth shook and groaned,

and a deluge burst forth beneath your feet

and that false security was washed away.

When did the emptiness and despair

that dwelled within burn and crumble

and give way to hope,

a yearning to be free?

– from The Art of Diametrical Opposition

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I hope and think this girl has perhaps found strength in her real ‘me’ that was hidden under the surface. She might, like several other people, women and/or men, have their life been impacted by  insidious, cruel, and merciless terror regardless of their education, finances, ethnic and religious background, gender, age, and sexual orientation.

Whatever happens in our life, how much others would like to destroy us. From the Inner-power we have, all having been created in the image of God, we can find the cornerstone to build on and the Guide to help us through life. All of us in search for the self can find the own inner being and the Helper ready to give His Hand.

Even when other humans may get on your nerves sometimes and you can’t understand why they insist on doing the same stupid things, over and over again, then you shall not have to worry you went your own way willing to follow that inner voice. When you want to give an ear to the Strongest Voice in you, silence shall be broken and light will shine in the dark, a Securing Voice calling you. Then you shall not have to get tired of the repetitive stupidity of human behaviour. Better imagine what it must be like for God. He’s been watching this parade a lot longer than many have.

Thankfully He is infinitely patient and able to see our higher selves far better than we are. Sometimes  people manage to forget we even have higher selves. God never forgets and He is in it for the long haul. { in The World}

Be it a raging misogynist who is grateful but is convinced that some have utopian visions for a perfect society, let us always do hope that if we start in our own little surroundings and by making more strong personalities who keep believing in their self, we can come closer to a nicer world where we can become respected as our own personality, worth being here.

The ‘I AmJehovah God created us. In Him we should listen more to the ‘I Am’ in us.

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  • Lesser-known things about Asperger’s syndrome (bbc.co.uk)
    While there are similarities with autism, people with Asperger’s syndrome have fewer problems with speaking and don’t usually have the associated learning disabilities.They sometimes call themselves aspies for short. In recognition of the fact that their brains are wired differently, people with autism and Asperger’s say that they are “neuro-untypical”. They call people who don’t have either disability “neurotypicals”, or NTs.
  • Democracy, Policy, and the Experts (pacificbullmoose.com)
    The Internet has been accused of many things. It has been condemned as a destroyer of value. It has been reviled as the hiding place of gangsters and perverts. And now, in the pages of The Federalist, self-styled social science and public policy expert Tom Nichols accuses it of destroying expertise.Nichols’ point, brutally summarized, is that by appearing to make everyone’s opinion of equal value, the Internet is slashing the value of an expert’s opinion to essentially zero. That’s dangerous, he says. To kill expertise is to reject knowledge and how we gain it. It is to raise the value of the opinions of people like Jenny McCarthy over those of doctors.
  • Female power, influence, and privileges: 1835 (avoiceformen.com)
    The supremacy of the weak over the strong is a very remarkable phenomenon, and it is as mischievous as it is it is remarkable. Whatever nature or law may have denied women, art and secret sway give them all: they are influential to a degree perfectly unguessed, and men are possessed by, not possessors of them.
  • Had I but a voice…whisperings of Aspergers (aspergersgirls.wordpress.com)
    We believe we are never going to be good enough, right enough, or enough. No matter how much we read, decipher and figure out. No matter the conclusions pondered and information transmitted, the puzzles seemingly solved, or ideas seemingly mastered. We remain somewhat in awe of ourselves and the world. Our bodies and brains, and everything, unwinded and dissected, and nonetheless remaining singularly tangled and unmanageable. Our brains were made to conquer and conquest, and yet, we are the ones conquered in the endless ways in which to surmise our reality and exponential experience in life. Through our ability to mesh objectivity with subjectivity, we are made into a conundrum of possibilities; ourselves delivered to the world through a large scope of outward introspection, as if the audience is the All of everyone, and we the victim of circumstantial evidence.
  • I Am Perfect, Why Aren’t You? (youllsoonbeflying.com)
    Words of I AM first become our armor, eventually becoming our skin, and by adulthood, they are our soul. Every time we hear or say I AM, we become exactly what follows.I was always told from a young age that I am stubborn, headstrong, bold, daring, thick-skinned, strong-willed, precocious, creative, wordy, spacey, disorganized,
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    I began to find that the more I embraced the I AMs I was given as a child, the more confusing it felt to display the opposite characteristics without often questioning their authenticity. One big one for me was discovering that I AM in fact, not thick-skinned, tough or head strong, as I had been told countless times in my youth.
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    Somehow one day, after a time of living the I AMs I thought I was, I woke up and realized that I felt compelled to try something different. I had a need to start listening to the genuine I AMs buried somewhere down in there. The ones I had been ignoring about myself in all those quiet moments with only my thoughts, when my guilt and shame and feelings of disconnect would rise up just a tiny bit and say, “Hey, you know you’re not really any of the things you claim to be by living out right?
  • falling down the same hole (mobilisedbygod.wordpress.com)
    God hates self-righteousness. He doesn’t cause us to sin, but when we do he uses it to remind us our weakness, and to keep us from pride. This helps us to be less judgmental of others and more understanding of their failures.
  • Why can’t I hate you? (astreetnamedworld.wordpress.com)
    The first time I met you I felt wariness because society, etiquette and common sense dictate that when you meet a stranger you treat them with caution and be suspicious of their every word and actions but I decided to ignore the forces that control human thinking and under two days you had spun a web over me and I was all yours.
  • Myths, Lies and Suspicious Minds – Debunking the popular misconceptions that surround the lives of adults with Asperger’s Syndrome (seventhvoice.wordpress.com)
    those living with Asperger’s Syndrome often find themselves having to battle against a sea of erroneous professional and social misconceptions (myths) which leave them wide open to a consistent stream of criticism and suspicion as to who they truly are, their levels of ability, and the validity of their ‘unusual’ ways of being the world.
  • Happy 68th Independence Day (heta1311.wordpress.com)
    The great warriors like Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai and many others fought for our country’s freedom, toiled and went through many difficulties at the stake of their own lives.
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    When is this country going to be free from the caste discrimination! To say, we all are Indians but, there are different castes and religions residing here. We are free from Britishers but, when are we going to be free from this discrimination’s done where one Indian will kill another, in the name of a religion! Where has the humanity evaded. Many accused are still freely roaming outside and in search of their next prey, many victims are still awaiting their day of justice today!
  • Coping with Autism: My Perspective, Part 2 (2yearbackblog.wordpress.com)
    It may sound insensitive to those much worse off than I, but sometimes I’ve found myself wishing that my symptoms were a little more obvious. If they were more obvious, surely they’d be easier to understand? Well, even if that were true, it’s not exactly a healthy thing to wish for. The fact is that people on different points of the Autistic Spectrum face different sets of challenges. One of my personal challenges, for a long time, was the fear that I was lying to myself and others.

Beatriz Esmer

Are we ever going to fully know ourselves? Aren’t we always changing, always becoming someone new? I think when we start to search for categories to fit in and names to call ourselves is when we really get messed up. Why do we need to be anything at all? I don’t think we really find ourselves, I think we create ourselves. You are a collection of everything that you have ever heard, read, seen, felt, thought, touched… There is no finding, only becoming. Don’t grab at things for no reason hoping it will be something that can define you. Aren’t there things that pull at your soul? Anything at all. Go to those things. Try them and look into them and do whatever you want to do. You are becoming yourself all of the time. Accepting yourself is accepting change. It’s inevitable. You will never be one thing. You are…

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Lifestyle, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs

How do Other People Feel About Mental Health?

We all have the choice either to make something in our life or to let life break us.

We better choose to do something and let not fear prohibit us to take further steps. By falling and standing up we get much further than by lying down and hoping we shall get somewhere.

People who feel sorry with us are perhaps not the right people to stay in contact with or to have a nice liaison with.

People are to fast to say a person has a psychological disorder.It is not because you are not the same as the majority that you would be insane or not normal. It also does not say you have a mental illness, and when a person has a mental ilness it does not mean he or she should not have a place in our society and would not be able to do good in our society.

When a person is facing depression and anxiety this may be at a certain point in his or her life, a moment of mental disease, which can pass and should pass when the person can find the strength in making the right contacts and in starting to believe in him or herself.

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Find also to read:

  1. Fear, struggles, sadness, bad feelings and depression
  2. Anxiety’s Hold
  3. Anxiety is the gap between the now and the later
  4. When discouraged facing opposition
  5. It continues to be a never ending, exhausting battle for survival.
  6. What If you’re only driven by stress?
  7. Depression, Anxiety, Pressure and megachurches
  8. Thanksgiving wisdom: Why gratitude is good for your health
  9. Aligned
  10. Some one or something to fear #2 Attitude and Reactions
  11. Some one or something to fear #3 Cases, folks and outing
  12. Some one or something to fear #4 Families and Competition
  13. Fearing the right person
  14. Searching for fulfilment and meaning through own efforts, facing unsatisfaction and depression
  15. Come ye yourselves apart … and rest awhile (Mark 6:31)

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  • Breaking Taboo….. (nocrybabies.net)
    Of all the taboo topics in the world I think mental illness wins first place for the longest running taboo subject of all time.  We have evolved and come around in matters of sex, gender identity and homosexuality but mental illness……that’s still something most people would rather keep locked up in the dark taboo closet because it is just too uncomfortable to get in to.Mental illness is not just the crazy killer type depicted in Hollywood movies or the crazy guy on the corner yelling at the air.  Many times it something more miniscule like anxiety or depression.  Just like back in the 80’s when people thought AIDS was spread by air or touch, mental illness suffers this same ignorance, this same mis-education of sorts.

    Look around the room you are in, look around your neighborhood, look at your co-workers…..chances are at least one of the people you just scanned over has a mental illness.  Surprised?  Many sufferers are high functioning members of society but they are battling internal forces in the way their mind thinks, perceives and feels.  This does not make them scary, this does not make them unpredictable, this does not make them less of a human being, it just makes them people who have struggles the rest of us do not understand.

  • Ideology and Insanity: What is Mental Illness? (rationaloptimist.wordpress.com)
    the whole enterprise of modern American mind doctoring aims at making us a more collectivist society. That’s the import of his saying “mental illness” labeling is a guise for enforcing social conformism. Szasz maintains that for most people in mental institutions, being “treated” for “their own good” is basically a fiction for what is really imprisonment. Moreover, since Szasz wrote in 1970, there’s been a huge shift from putting mentally ill people in asylums to literally jailing them. (See this recent article in The Economist.)
  • Mentally ill people need to be helped, not hounded | Polly Toynbee (theguardian.com)
    mental health would get “parity of esteem” with physical health, but so far there is little sign of it. Instead the government has just cut the tariff paid for mental healthcare by more than it cut the tariff for physical treatments. Norman Lamb spoke at the launch of the Layard and Clark campaign in the Commons, protesting that mental health “was first to be cut and isn’t getting a fair share of attention”. Had he forgotten that he is himself a health minister who could say no?
  • “Time to change the language we use about mental health” – Gary Nunn for The Guardian (thebigmadexperience.wordpress.com)
    We’ve all had a mental, mad or manic day at work. Frustration has driven us nuts or crazy. Affectionately, we may have referred to an eccentric friend as “bonkers” or “as mad as a box of frogs”. Some people might call a day of very changeable weather “schizophrenic”. The Black Eyed Peas invited us to “get retarded”. Mental health is so ingrained in our everyday vernacular, it’s interesting to me how we now unshackle meaning, intent and potential offence caused by reinforcing negative stereotypes. I spoke to Time to Change, England’s most ambitious campaign into ending discrimination surrounding mental health, for guidance.
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    What of media outlets that have misused language about mental health?
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    If you want to be thoughtful in everyday conversation, what does Time to Change recommend? Nightingale says: “The meaning of words can change over time. ‘Manic’ and ‘mad’ are frequently used in informal conversations and, while we accept they have various meanings, they can also cause offence. Using words like ‘psycho’, ‘nutter’, ‘schizo’ or ‘loony’ to describe someone with mental health problem is certainly offensive and unacceptable. ‘Schizophrenic’ is often misused to mean a split personality, or something that’s very changeable, and usage in everyday speech contributes to the misunderstanding and stigma that there is around this mental health problem in particular, so we would advise against that.”
  • Depression in business leaders (bbc.co.uk)
    Clinical depression is an illness. Unhappiness, whether because of something that has gone wrong at work or because someone has died or divorced is quite different.”When I have clinical depression I get no pleasure out of any of the things I [normally] get pleasure out of. I lose all self-confidence and I never believe I can get out of it.”He says it is “presumptive” to think there must be an external factor – such as work – that causes an episode of depression.

    “The big question is what does cause [these episodes],” he says. “The truth is we don’t really know.” He puts it down to a combination of biological and environmental factors.

    But the mental health charity Mind says work can be the root of mental health problems. Recent research from the charity found it was the biggest cause of stress in people’s lives with one in three people describing it as very, or quite, stressful.

  • Talking About Mental Health: A Teacher’s Perspective (blogs.vancouversun.com)
    It is so meaningful for kids to meet a person who struggles with a mental illness who is doing well in life and is very much a full-functioning member of society. I think it does a lot to dispel some of the stereotypes that we have in our society about people who have a mental illness.
  • The Myths that Society Holds About Mental Illness (drdeborahserani.blogspot.com)
    It is an undisputed fact that individuals who experience mental health issues are often faced with discrimination that results from misconceptions of their illness As a result, many people who would benefit from mental health services often don’t seek treatment for fear that they will be viewed in a negative way.  The World Health Organization agrees and says that in the 400 million people worldwide who are affected by mental illness, about twenty percent reach out for treatment.
  • Anxiety – it may catch you unaware but you won’t let it defeat you! Part 2 (naomihanger.wordpress.com)
    Anxiety is not just something you get over, it takes work, time and energy and many times of falling over and having to get back up and try again. Anxiety is something that may remain a part of your life in some shape or form, but I do believe that it doesn’t have to consume your life. Anxiety may flare up from time to time depending on the situations you are faced with and there may be times when it is a daily battle but for those suffering from anxiety now with intensity and regularity I want to assure that there is hope, living a life without the constant suffocating, all consuming, debilitating monster that anxiety is possible!
  • Mental Illness Across Cultures: An Interview with Gayathri Ramprasad (thereseborchardblog.com)
    As much stigma as there lives in American homes regarding mental illness, it’s much worse in other countries. Gayathri Ramprasad grew up in Bangalore, India, where traditional Hindu culture has no concept of depression. There was no doctor to diagnose her anxiety disorder as an adolescent girl nor medicine to treat the condition.
  • Coming Out Of The Bipolar Closet (godisms.wordpress.com)
    Wonderful article from Danielle of BLC. Her strength and courage in stepping out of the darkness and into the light on BP and depression is so inspiring.
    > Coming Out Of The Bipolar Closet
    I have been open in the past about many of my mental health challenges, and yet, I had never publicly discussed the fact that I have bipolar disorder. I was helping so many other people though my advocacy and Broken Light, and yet I was still hiding. I was still afraid of stigma. A few weeks ago, I decided that I was done hiding. I published the following piece on the Huffington Post. A piece it took me over a year to gain the courage to publish. In the time since it was written, I have come to recognize that bipolar is just one piece of my complex mental puzzle, but in that moment, it felt like everything. I know many of our Collective family can empathize with parts, if not all of this piece, so I would like to share it here as well. Keep in mind that this piece represents my experience, and not necessarily everyone’s experience with mental illness. We are all individuals on our own twisting journeys to mental health and wellness.

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Health affairs, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs

Gender connections

Jennifer L Thorpe believes that in order to find true self, we must dig deep into the darkness in order to find the warm, loving light. {Where We Need To Be}

Several people may be lost in the dark and not find themselves any more. It is not that their minds and egos battle with their self, their true being, but because our society has liked to put labels onto them. Many encounter difficulties because they may have friends not liked by others or others seeing more in their relationship than there has to be.

How often our society does want to see men in such roles and women in other roles. Today there is still a gender connection with many professions. But there is also still an idea about how men or women may have an connection with other people, from the same or from the other sex. Still too many  people do want to look for other things behind a close relationship. This makes that people can become very lonely and isolated.

Alysta Lim recognises this this concept society has about masculinity, femininity, and gender roles. she compares it to

mass-produced clothes of the same size and style. It does not matter if they do not fit you. One’s own preference is of little consequence. People give us this pair of shoes, tell us to wear it, and like it. In this subject, at least, man and woman truly are equals. {On Gender Roles}

2004 Chery Fulwin at Shanghai Shi, Shanghai, C...

Woman as sex object or to lure man in buying things. – 2004 Chery Fulwin at Shanghai Shi, Shanghai, China. (Flickr set : Autoshow 2004) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Getting all labels on our ‘being’ this also puts pressure on us and makes us sometimes weary or afraid to go deeper in a relationship because it may be misunderstood. The media do not help much either. They present their twisted idea about relationships as normal standard, by which those who have other standards or a different upbringing at home, are confronted with questions which they should not have. The world of film and television is presented as they world we all should live in and should live accordingly.  But in that world everything seems to turn around sex and violence.

Everything what seems to be sweet is labelled as old fashioned and not strong or not mature.

Alysta Lim rightly dares to ask:

Why do we have to be certain things? Wouldn’t it be better to be ourselves than to be a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’?  {On Gender Roles}

Graham and Megan attempt to reinforce their ge...

Graham and Megan attempt to reinforce their gender roles through performing traditional female tasks. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

She forgets that by the contemporary society it is not liked to see people who are wanting to be their own. It is considered not wanting to be part of this or their society. It is considered that that person who wants to be his or her own does not want to adapt to society. They consider them weak, but they should know those who want to stay and can stay their own are just the strong ones in society.

Those who do not do foolish actions and do not cry like so many who demonstrate a football madness, (now) when there are world-championships.

Why should men go out working and women stay in the house to do only household work for their own?

who’s to say that men can’t take care of babies and women can’t work?  {On Gender Roles}

At moments everybody may do like crazy, cheering for the winning team. But when somebody becomes to enthusiastic about an exhibition or a theatre performance, he or she would be considered as a ‘noob’, a ‘fool’ or an ‘idiot’ and not somebody to talk to or to have much connection with.

People who would like to tackle more serious subjects have become cast out in this world. Lots of young people do chat a lot but it is all about ‘chit–chat’, not serious talk with shortened words or signs, in such a way that a lot of them even can not talk and write reasonably well any more.

Though most of them dream about the ideal figure they want to be at the most high post they can get. They all dream of high positions which will get them richness, lots of things to play with.

English: Roundhouse wipers having lunch in the...

Broken drams. The Hard life of women. – Roundhouse wipers having lunch in their rest room, Chicago & North Western Railroad, Clinton, Iowa, April 1943. Jack Delano, photographer Reproduction from color slide LC-USW361-644 LC-DIG-fsac-1a34808, FSA/OWI Collection http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/boundforglory/ExhibitionItems/ExhibitObjects/WomenWorkersEmployedasWipers.aspx (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Through the years an image is given to all of us, and it seems it is still there hanging in the air. Lots of people still have their picture of the perfect man or woman. By many it has become a chain or like the young Freuddwyn blogwriter notices but would like to see herself it to be something which can be useful

good when used as a handbook, not a prison. We are at heart a man, a woman, a child, and something greater we can’t hope to describe. Why should we strive only for one and disregard the rest, when all of them make us what we are now? {On Gender Roles}

Because of the pressure in schools and at work and still the patriarchal society, women are less self-assured than men. To be able to succeed they need more confidence, because the competence may well be there, but often women have to prove themselves twice more than men.

Katty Kay and Claire Shipman do find that for years women have kept their heads down and played by the rules. Many women believed in fairy tales and were sure that with enough hard work, their natural talents would be recognized and rewarded. They did not count on the many magazines which did everything to present women more as a sex object instead of giving more attention on what women really could manage. all the paparazzi material pushed the serious woman under water and tried the world to believe those who made it in life would be those who enjoy women and show off with all material wealth and all sorts of women they can get. Women were and are presented as a trophy you can use to show off to others and show your success in life.

Friends at Columbia University.American ladies may think they have made undeniable progress. In the United States, women now earn more college and graduate degrees than men do. They make up half the workforce, and they are closing the gap in middle management. Half a dozen global studies, conducted by the likes of Goldman Sachs and Columbia University, have found that companies employing women in large numbers outperform their competitors on every measure of profitability.

Our competence has never been more obvious. Those who closely follow society’s shifting values see the world moving in a female direction. {The Confidence Gap; Evidence shows that women are less self-assured than men—and that to succeed, confidence matters as much as competence. Here’s why, and what to do about it.}

Katty Kay and Claire Shipman write, being aware that as they’ve worked, ever diligent, the men around women have continued to get promoted faster and be paid more.

The statistics are well known: at the top, especially, women are nearly absent, and our numbers are barely increasing. Half a century since women first forced open the boardroom doors, our career trajectories still look very different from men’s. {The Confidence Gap}

In writings of some younger blogger we may find a positive change. Up until now, according to us, women did either try to get on the top the wrong way, thinking they had to crush men, and where willing ‘to go over dead bodies’. They kept showing an acute lack of confidence of what they had in themselves to prove themselves to the others.

spick and span

spick and span (Photo credit: recombiner)

Bloggers like Jennifer L ThorpeCat Lady Its fruitcake weather and the writer of Freuddwyn show with others that they perhaps can look again at the Universe to learn more about themselves {That Pale Blue Dot}, and that they have come to believe that they should not think anyone is better than anyone else, or that anyone is further along or behind.

They may wonder what they are, compared to the greatness of the cosmos in which they have to bring up patience which is limited as with most things. May we believe we in them can come to see a new generation who starts believing that they have all the time in the world to grow, make or break, heal and recover?

All are where they need to be. It’s an individual path at first. Then, it becomes unity. But, each of us develop at our own speed and per our needs. There is not timing or deadline to reach that place we are all going. We all end up there in due time. {Where We Need To Be}

We amount to little more than a speck, but here’s the twist: each of us is a universe in ourselves, and together we make up a world. We make up a home. {That Pale Blue Dot}

It would be nice to come to see again a generation who is willing to accept their limits, not eager to compete with others just to be better, but more willing to go beyond their own limits and trying to grow themselves notwithstanding what other might do or think.

When they start stepping over the gender issue and consider it a priority to know their own limits, being it more important than knowing the enemy’s, that would mean that boundaries would actually help them to grow and become again a generation to bring a turning point.

Alysta Lim, who may bring with her Deviant art some fresh innocent positivist drawings, got to accept that nobody can be perfect!

We shall never be, no matter how hard we try, for the simple reason that we are human. {On Gender Roles}

There are always things we can’t do. So why bother trying if there is no chance of moving forward? Sometimes it is good to know that there are walls, if only to know when to stop and which way to go when it becomes impossible to move forward. After all, life is always a bunch of wrong turns and detours…it is never a straight line. {Our Limit}

Being a man or a woman, both will have to face obstacles, one way or the other. Both shall also find they need other people on their way, to accompany them or to give them a little help or encouragement to continue their way.

Already being aware that nobody can be perfect and that each of us has to try to make it for himself or herself, an intern acceptance of the self can bring more personal growth in the right direction and offer more success. Until now many women, despite all their progress, are still woefully underrepresented at the highest levels. but this seems to going to change. Looking at the attitude of the twenties we may have hopes they will be able to put away the materialism of the previous generations and will start fining more connection to real friends and to nature. Having them becoming aware that all those social media friends are not exactly ‘real friends’ they need in life or will help their life forwards, they will come to understand it is more important to build up right connection in a honest way and by having real friends around them in their own surroundings.

In 2011, half the female respondents to a review about gender position, reported self-doubt about their job performance and careers, compared with fewer than a third of male respondents. We can say that because they were less confident in general in their abilities this led them not to want to pursue future opportunities or wanted them to gain higher positions by getting rid of their male ‘contestants’. In case we can see a new generation, early in the twenties, finding some assurance what they themselves present has its own value, we might find them going into to market for the person they are really,offering honest work, to take or to leave.

With the encouragement they can get from friends and people around them they shall not have to come to think that they are not totally imcompetent in the area, so they would not going to go for it. Today having so many people just standing on their own they do not have to be afraid to fall or to be afraid to end up going into less competitive fields, like human resources or marketing, because they will have found out it is much more important to do what you really want to do, and to enjoy doing what you do. This shall also give again some ‘innocence’ and ‘purity’ in their work, which shall attract the right persons to what they do and to recognise their work.

At the end this would be much more satisfying than those who only have the money-letters in front of their eyes;

Perhaps many may say

 “They don’t go for finance, investment banks, or senior-track faculty positions.” {The Confidence Gap}

but their confidence in what they want to do, shall bring them much further in a life, full of happiness, knowing that having a cosy nice home or lovely family is more important than having all the wealth of the world.

When the woman is willing to see herself not as an other or competitive gender to male, or shall not be willing to just live quietly by the still discrimination of gender, she shall be able to come more forwards and be come more recognised for what she is able to achieve, without others thinking there where some loopholes or something was needed for her to get so far.

Looking at certain blogs of young people we may see an advancement seeing some young women who are not willing to conform to this gender discrimination, trying to scramble on ways to please men, to do it the ‘right’ societal female way.

Living in an Asian country the (female) writer of Purity opulence writes

Females should be much more dignified than men, we bear children for the world, we did that, we did this. In the eyes of traditional beliefs, everything that females have done is considered rightfully legitimate and a strong must. This disgusting trend has led to many women trying to throw away their dignity, distinctly or indistinguishably. {Purity opulence: to love is to respect}

The previous ten years we have seen kids making themselves up like they would be adults. Parents let them dress like adults in mini format. Parents also demanded to get them ‘diploma’s for alls sort things’. It became even so ridiculous that some kindergarten schools are already giving a ‘diploma’ (not a certificate) for the toddlers at the end of the school-year. Our society recently has done everything to have people to impress others. And men had to be on the top, doing interesting ‘male’ jobs or they were not worthy for our society. And women trying to get some ‘male jobs’ where considered ‘wrong girls’, of the wrong sex, or ‘strebers’.

Purity of opulence remarks:

When women are neglected or toyed by men, the first thing that comes in mind is regret. But just a step before it, why do you have to do everything to impress men? The point that I’m trying to make here is to convey the message that, even in the modern society, women are regarded as shameless, can-do-everything-for-anything person. You can’t completely blame the guys. It is you, these kind of women, who sell themselves by sticking and seducing guys, trying to be as girly or demure so that there will be some forces of attraction. Please? Dignity? Therefore, there is this vicious cycle that’s really vicious and irreversible. Ancient society (oppression) –> girls conform –> men think girls are easy creatures –> discrimination continues. {Purity opulence: to love is to respect}

Age-of-Brass Triumph-of-Womans-Rights 1869

Age-of-Brass Triumph-of-Womans-Rights 1869 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It looks at last we have come to see the seed for a new generation, where women are willing to see themselves as women who can do their own thing and have their own value, which should not be less nor more than the value of men.

We may have come to a generation which is well aware that

Gender is how we feel and how we express our selves.

and which is willing to give a voice to their own feeling and not any-more want to pretend.

If my sex is the same as my gender, then people can and will say
“you were born a girl so you must act like one.”
I know this because people who feel that sex and gender are the same do say this. But if sex and gender are different, then people are more accepting of those of us who have a gender that doesn’t match our sex. This is why sex and gender must be seen as separate. {Sex and Gender}

It is nice to find again people who want to be themselves.

The dancer Britany Elizabet writes

The very selfish conclusion that I came to is that I am not willing to sacrifice that much of myself anymore. I have already been there. I did it with dance team, I did it with a relationships. I played an unnatural role that did not fit me. I pretended to be the idle girlfriend who stayed at home, doted hand and foot on her boyfriend (like, literally, spent time cracking his toes and massaging his athlete-foot infested feet), put aside her entire life for him. It didn’t work for me and actually turned out to be quite a disaster/caused me immense anxiety issues. I tried to be the popular girl, who involved herself in trivial affairs, such as reality television and gossip magazines, got her nails done every other week, and shopped on her free time. That was too expensive of an endeavor for a very Dutch person like myself.

So, as my existential crisis rounds out and my Victorian literature class comes to an end, I am comforted by the fact that I am just me. I don’t fit any definite, prescribed gender roles (as someone one told me, “you are kind of like a guy”), and I don’t really care to fit any of those specific gender roles either, because as seen by our characters, it is unnatural, it doesn’t work, and most likely, you will end up in the madhouse. {Gender Roles & Self Sacrifice}

In the light of this:

So women, women and women, you want people to respect you as a woman, but you just keep on doing things that propels people to be more discriminating! We have to love ourselves, love for what we are and not change just for the purpose of trying to please this or that.

Hopefully, in a matter of decades, women can rise to be equal with men. I think, you, have heard of the word, “tigress”. {Purity opulence: to love is to respect}

++

Other articles related to the subject:

  1. The only times you are allowed to be sexist
    Here are a list of times when it is ok to be sexist….
  2. Real Women Have Curves
    Why do we use a competitive term to describe women? There is curvy vs non curve, real vs fake, good vs, bad… All of which are used to qualify a woman, none of which actually matter. (Sorry fellas you are still entitled to your good girl). Maybe one day we will live in a society where the ranking of women as objects would sound like a ridiculous idea, until then here is my two cent on the matter of the “real women with curves”
  3. how women experience clothing
    “You are what you wear”, we’ve all heard this before. The clothes that you choose to wear send a message out to those around you. What you wear affects others perception of you and also affects how you feel. This sounds agreeable right? Of course it does. It happens all the time in the movies.
    +
    I am not whole. I am a divided self. Split. I have two ways of seeing myself. I see myself and I see myself being seen. I am a subject and simultaneously I see myself as an object. I assume the position of the other (the person who sees me) and stand away from my physical self. I try to gain a better understanding of myself through my objectification. The divided self is not particular to how women experience themselves. We all experience ourselves through a split self to build our self and identity. I am not one but two perspectives. The perspective of myself and the other. Who is the other? Whose perspective am I using to judge myself? It isn’t mine. Though it becomes mine.
  4. Mars needs women (and so does the US Congress)
    To lessen the gender gap in political participation and engagement, it is more clear than ever that we need to have more women in political office– an improving trend that has very much slowed.  The problem is not voters, the problem is that we simply need more women running for office.  And that problem is that not enough women want to run for office.  That’s what we really need to change.
  5. Discussion Questions: Interviewing on Race, Class, and Gender
    listening for female same-sex desire in Laura’s interview cannot be only about searching for signs of lesbian identity. It must also take into account the intersection of sexuality with class, race, religious practice, age, and other factors
  6. Finding privilege: class, gender and social justice tourism
    Grow your hair or don’t grow it. Wear a dress or don’t wear one. Play with trains or play with dolls. Pick your pronouns, pick your friends, but if you are not born female in a hierarchy which positions women as less than men, you will never be in a position to experience what gender is and does to women and girls.
    +
    Like wealth and poverty, gender is a hierarchy which allows for gradations of suffering. Due to gender some women are denied an education, denied the right to vote or drive, denied the right to orgasm, denied the right to control their fertility and denied the right to withhold sexual consent. I am not one of these women. This does not make it fair or reasonable for me to trivialize what gender does, just because I can. I can let my sons wear dresses (and I do). I can challenge gender stereotypes in my writing and actions (and I do). I can sit with my five-year-old, drawing pictures of him as Queen Elsa, and we can both delight at the thought of a world in which he wouldn’t be made fun of at school for wanting long hair (which he is). I can do all of these things but it does not give me the right to reduce something which ruins the lives of billions of human beings to a fatuous matter of choice.
  7. Vulnerability and Mindfulness
    I remembered what I had been told time and time again, that to look at another person in the eyes is a momentary glimpse into the mirror of their soul while simultaneously reflecting back into mine. It is a time of intimacy when the world stops for a brief instant when you realize that you are not really separate beings at all, but simply different points of view to the one being that some may call God.
  8. “The Criminal Justice System operates free of prejudice and discrimination.”
    In the modern era of female emancipation and human rights there should be no doubt if our justice system still stays prejudice in the area of gender differences and see us all as equals when we face the law. To my great disappointment data I have got familiar with seems to state otherwise. Is it the fault of the male culture overpowering all the main government bodies and disciplines during all these years of patriarchal control? Is it that ‘macho’ practice became institutionalised and implemented as a normal acceptable social norm of behaviour? If we consider how our law has historically criminalised aggression – how certain types of anti-social conduct have been targeted, while other have been either formally or practically left unregulated, we can see a distinction according to gender. Does it mean that such law is reflecting only male patterns of behaviour and exclusively accepts only male standards of adequate conduct? Let’s take a closer look.
    +
  9. “Fight for your rights: Masculinism as a response against inequality.”
  10. Fathers should stop babysitting
    Sandberg discusses many issues in her book (obviously, because…it’s a book..) and one of the topics I would like to make reference to today, which struck a chord in my heart, is the topic which deals with socialising men to the concept of gender equality and feminism.
    +
    I feel most men personify feminism, turn it into the new f word and give it an unjustifiable persona of a women who fears personal grooming and deodorant. And for this reason, most men, not just those in my circle, are left in the dark because as soon as they have an opinion about it, it gets shut down faster than Thandi’s dream of growing up to become a F1 racer.
    +
    With initiatives such as www.menengage.org and www.unfpa.org socialising men and young boys, I believe gender equality will no longer be a fable, but a real thing. It will be something effective and in the beginning maybe admirable but hopefully in the end, a norm.
  11. Getting Involved with Gender and Enterprise Network
    complicating it intersectionally, and challenging the heteronormative bias of research as it currently exists.
  12. Celebrating diversity by looking the same?
    A lot of schools will have a boys and girls uniform or if you are at a single sex school, more than likely you have one uniform option.
    +
    Uniform does another powerful thing – it defines gender. Go to any public toilet and you will know the sign for female is triangle. Last time I checked I wasn’t a triangle. But I know instinctively that this is the door I choose. It suggests that to be female you must be wearing a dress/skirt which creates the triangle effect. If you are a guy you don’t get to wear a triangle – even if you want to.
  13. Gender Roles & Self Sacrifice
    the Victorian’s fascination with trying to categorize everything caused them to strive to create distinct categories of what is male and what is female.
    +
    human nature can never be defined into two distinct categories. As seen in Victorian literature and Victorian society, it is when we try to fulfill these extreme, unnatural gender roles that people’s psyches breakdown and they go into a perpetual “madness” (and probably get sent to the looney bin, or as the rich people call it, “The Grove”).
  14. Gender roles and inequality
    Gender roles start very early in life where it is defined by the  behaviors and attitudes expected from either sex. Obviously, there are physical and biological differences between males and females and a person’s sexuality also comes into play. But unlike these differences, gender roles are also imposed through external social influences. Little girls are expected to play with dolls while boys are expected to play with cars or action figures. We are all guilty of this.
  15. Pink and Blue
    Apparently, when I was three years old, I informed my parents that “Pink is a girl’s color. Blue is for boys.” My parents, recovering hippies that they were, shared a perplexed glance as if to ask each other, Are you responsible for teaching her that genderist smut?! When neither owned up to it, they decided it must have been the evils of society – no matter how careful they were to shroud me from such ideas, societal roles and expectations were just too insidious.
    +
    What would happen if we accepted each other as readily as we accepted societal norms? be-who-you-areHow would we behave if we did what we knew to be good, instead of what we were told was right? I have wracked my brain to come up with a non-cheesey way to say it, but I can’t, so I’ll just say it, cheese and all: Bare your face, and while you’re at it, bare your soul; speak your truth, and recognize that truth is relative and malleable; don’t worry if you don’t fit society’s idea of you, or even your own idea of you – a person is more than an idea.
  16. Equality Or Feminism ?
    What some misogynists do not understand is that feminism exists not just to fight for equal rights for women on political, social and economic grounds but most importantly to fight for equal rights for women who are in countries that are dominated by mostly men; Women who are helpless and are defined by their fathers and/or husbands and male figures in power, women who are seen as a means to an end. Feminists, true feminists are fighting for humanity as is defined by the present society. Do not take everything regarding equality as a feminist slur, that is pure ignorance. Feminists campaign for women’s rights in voting, property, job securing, contract laws etc. They do this all the while promoting integrity, self-respect, self-worth, and autonomy for women. They work to protect young girls from sexual assault, sexual harassment, domestic violence and any form of discrimination towards women.
  17. Ladies: It’s time for an Evaluation It’s time to look in the mirror – the mirror of history – and reassess the female behavior.
    Throughout history, women have always been seen as a symbol of purity, the representation of goodness, and beauty – the incorruptible creature.
  18. On Gender Roles
    As a child, I have a concept of what I want to be, and it wasn’t a lady. I liked Power Rangers more than Barbie, wore jeans everywhere, continued to climb trees and fight with boys until they suddenly had growth spurts and expanded to twice my size.
  19. Gender roles Seven feet tall, fixated facial features and an ice cream cone for a body.
    That was my figure yesterday as I stood in the frozen yogurt shop where I work dressed as the mascot to take pictures with kids at a party.
  20. Whisper BS Part 1: Body Shaming
    I very recently downloaded the app called “Whisper” and I’ve been collecting some things that have been horrifying me. Whisper is an app where users are completely anonymous and can post all their secrets and fears without repercussions.
  21. It’s A Man’s World (Apparently) I am getting tired of having female characters in movies existing primarily for the bad guy to capture/hurt/kill them so the main man is weakened. Just so he can ‘avenge’ her or whatever.
  22. Oh, Boys Will Be Boys
    My Psychology of Gender (which, by the way, was a phenomenal class – or maybe it was just my way awesome instructor 😛 – that I think everyone should take regardless of what your college major is, but I digress) professor once shared with my class that she, while raising her son, instilled in him the principle of not hitting anybody whether it be a girl or a boy.
  23. Love nothing.
    Frequently I stand staring at the waters seamless expressions of existence and wonder how persistence even exists in a world of hurt hearts.
  24. The War Against Women in Kenya: Sexual Violence
  25. I Don’t Belong In The Kitchen
  26. Biblical Women Smash the Patriarchy
  27. Smashing Patriarchy: Esther
  28. Decline of The Modern Goddess
  29. Dear Miss Madame : Splitting Chores With Your Man? It’s a Dirty Job!
  30. “Attention Whores”
  31. Think About It
  32. Marriage and a bit of Philosophy
  33. A Marriage is Not Easy to Manage
  34. Japanese issues in “Tokyo Sonata”
  35. A “perverted attack”? A difference of opinion? Or a hill to die on?
  36. It’s OK To Cry…

+++

  • Genre Talk: Boys and Girls (paranormalunbound.com)
    On my author blog, I featured an urban fantasy title by a debut author who respectfully requested, on behalf of her publisher, that her gender not be revealed. In other words, by remaining “gender-neutral” and using only two initials and a last name, she is in essence posing as a guy in order to appeal to a broader readership. I went along with her wishes, of course, but it really made me think.
    +
    I’m kind of outraged, and the more I think about it, the more bothered I am. What does it say about our society, and our industry, if the only way a woman can publish a non-romance title and be accepted by a broad audience of both genders, at least in certain genres, is to pretend to be male or hide behind a “gender-neutral” pen name? By following this marketing rationale, is the publisher being smart, realistic, or perpetuating a cultural stereotype we should be well past?
  • Week Four – Image and the Body (ritviscom.wordpress.com)
    As far as encountering someone who was not distinctly male or female, this experience can be a little jarring. Recently at the Jazz Fest in Downtown Rochester, my boyfriend and I crossed paths with a young lady who may or may not have been born a male. I am an extremely open-minded person and never aim to make anyone feel uncomfortable. With that being said, our society is very black and white when it comes to gender. Media images are flooded with either male or female models, images, visuals, etc. This makes encounters with ambiguous gendered bodies seem out of the ordinary. However, I think with the growing popularity and media attention of actresses like Laverne Cox from Orange is the New Black, we might start to shift in this sentiment!
  • What is anti-genderism? (francoistremblay.wordpress.com)
    When I talk about genderism and anti-genderism, what do I mean exactly? How do they work? Since genderism is extremely common, we should probably start there.First, the building blocks of genderism. The most obvious is hierarchy: gender roles form a hierarchical institution, and therefore every principle relevant to institutions also applies here.
    +
    I know it’s fashionable in left-wing circles to be against gender roles or the gender binary but to support gender. I see no point in that whatsoever, and it’s not clear to me how anyone can cogently be against one but not against the other. All I’ve seen were pathetic attempts at rationalization like “gender is sexy!” or “gender is empowering!”, but that’s nothing different from any other woman-hating rationalization out there, so there’s no point in dwelling on it.
  • Demolish: Gender Roles (wreckingballtothepatriarchy.wordpress.com)
    We can only have an hierarchy of gender if we have genders first. So if we want to rid ourselves of gender oppression, we need to get rid of the gender binary as it exists. Seems simple enough, right? Well a lot of people don’t think so. There is of course the good old argument that God made us this way, which of course is all shot to hell when you look at intersex people (and also when you are an atheist such as myself), but there are also social reasons that some people espouse:
  • Genderism, trans theory and the hostility towards radical feminism. (francoistremblay.wordpress.com)
    The concept of genderism, as used in feminism, is usually defined as the belief that certain behavioral preferences are caused by a person’s sex, in general that one’s gender is the result of one’s sex, and therefore that gender is natural (and even desirable).This stands in stark contrast to the view that gender is a social construct. It is also generally held as being the opposite of feminism, because feminists believe that being of the female sex does not constitute an obligation to take on a gender role which is constructed as inferior and subservient.

    What are the behaviors and roles considered appropriate for one’s sex?

    If you are a Feminist (even a Liberal Feminist or a Fun Feminist), the answer to this should be “There are no behaviors and roles considered appropriate for my sex because Females can be and do anything.”

    There is a lot of nuances in definitions here, but they are not entirely necessary. For example, some include within genderism the belief that there are two genders. But the two genders are an artefact of culture; some culture have three genders or four genders, and really, the exact number is irrelevant: all that matters is that some are seen as superior and some are seen as inferior. Genderism would not magically disappear if we added another gender to the list.

  • Gender and Sexual Diversity (dissidentvoice.org)
    anti-transgender prejudice is so deeply rooted and systemic that it is rarely noticed or even considered. Discussions of anti-transgender prejudice, often amongst individuals never directly impacted, are replete with misunderstanding and misused or ill-defined concepts and terminology.
    +
    I would like to disclaim that “transgender” is an umbrella term for many people who defy mainstream expectations and assumptions regarding gender, and can be used to refer to transsexuals as well as people who are gender nonconforming in other ways — for example, feminine men, masculine women, transfeminine, transmasculine, genderqueers (who do not identify exclusively as either women or men), to name a few. There are many different ways to experience and interpret gender as human beings. And there are also several ways to conceptualize gender.
  • Inspiring Australian Women Tackle Workplace Gender Gap (woman.com.au)
    Australian women today can follow any career path they choose, but social norms and organisational structures do not aid their success. That was the key message from the Women In Business 20:20 panel discussion held this week to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Telstra Business Women’s awards.

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Lifestyle, Social affairs

Spring in sight

diddlewelkom

Welcome

 

 

There was not much of Winter in Belgium and signs of the approach of Spring seem sparse.

Quiet keepers in Waiting for spring and in Keeping faith when spring is late let us know that the keepers of time tell us “Spring is here”.

We have passed that notch in the calendar when light and darkness are given us in equal measure. Winter is past and we can breathe a collective sigh of relief and begin to enjoy longer days and the sight and smell of things getting about the business of growing. For now, though, that is only a hope, and what we see is not quite what we’ve been awaiting. {Keeping faith when spring is late}

Wapen van Vlaams-Brabant / Coat of Arms of Fle...

Wapen van Vlaams-Brabant / Coat of Arms of Flemish Brabant (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For us it is like our seed is still in the clay of Flemish Brabant. We do feel the wetness and are eager to germinate. At last the sun has brought some warmth giving us the power and the spirit to come up. The landscape starts changing her palette of various hues of brown into green spots and since a few days the whites, yellows and other fresh colours shout for our attention. The sounds in the air start changing and are willing to come over lord auto-mobile. We also can not wait to bring an other sound.

Absorbed in this state of waiting, many of us are edgy, irritable, and anxious, even as we try to remind ourselves that spring must come eventually. We glance outside and then look at the calendar, counting the days until the equinox. Still bundled in our winter coats and scarves, we gaze longingly at spring merchandise in stores. We rejoice and celebrate the occasional mild day, even as our hopes are dashed by another snowstorm or cold front. {Waiting for spring}

The cold fronts in Western Europe are more brought by the politicians and the materialism people are caught by. Everybody very busy to earn as much as they can or having to work many hours to be able to survive in a country which has so many taxes, people more than half of the year just work to pay for the deficit of their country.

Many could have enough reason to dawdle over their food the government is offering them. Instead of picking at our food we tumble all the garbage of this spoiled world in the wasteland. We would have loved to start with a clean slate, but we are all born with the legacy of our previous generations. Living in an area were the battles of Europe were fought and being conquered by foreign troupes many times, we take an aversion to everything that may smell of trying to restrict us or to modify our free thought. We do not like to be confined to one set of rules or to one set of ideas an do not like to be talked into regulations or was of life. Some may like to be talked round, but we appreciate it that every body can talk freely and may utter different ideas than ours. We are not afraid of possible contradicting ideas or different ways of life. The variation of thought brings colour in life and we do not mind to discuss all those variations if time permits and when it cold be worth to consider matters.

Remains of a canal lock tower, quay and waterm...

Remains of a canal lock tower, quay and watermill in the fields in Weerde, Belgium. Weerde, Zemst, Flemish Brabant, Belgium (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We appreciate the variation in the world and consider it as a richness and not as a limitation or a shortcoming or fault of our society. We are aware of human shortcomings but do not want to be at a loss for words. We do not think words are no adequate to give some spirit and fire to life and give us joy in a world full of variation. We do not want a grey world where every body thinks and feels the same.

Problem for many in our society is that often people might have lots of expectations and being disillusioned not many come through. Then the question may arise “what do we do when life doesn’t work out as we had dreamed it”. We all want to reach a high point in our life. Who does not want to reach the top? But we often become limited because we do want so much to compare ourselves with others. What do we do when our status is inferior to that of others and the community around us including our family point this out to us?

On this site we do hope to have people to come to accept that every body has something good, but also can have something bad, but more important that every individual has his or her role and importance in this universe of variety and trial. We would like to avoid entering ourselves or having others entering a “winter of discontent”. We would love to show the world there is so much beauty in it and so much richness in it for every one to share in abundance.

Many people might also be tempted to cling to stories they heard from their ancestors, the world of their previous and ‘old dreams’, waste their talents on nostalgia, religious feeling, liturgical formalism, institutional activism, fundamentalism, nationalism, rationalism and more. Often they cling on to their dreams and eat their heart out with choking hopes of their ego placed in the centre of the world. By not accepting that others might have other ideas they  become goofy about bagatelles and scowl at mere trifles. Our of fear others might subdue them they go in counter attack.

We would like to offer some small notebook, where some ideas may be scrabbled in and where people can look at without having to look what others would think or without distress. You may find toddling and fluttering here this communal place, a joint property of different minds, people who feel themselves united by the forces of nature and by their open mind and willingness to share thoughts with each other without offending some one, but with concerted attempt to show the world the beauty of diversity.

Undismayed we would like to offer you a lucky bag or a bran tub where people are free to scramble. Any passer-by can rummage in what we do have to offer. Feel free to grope in the lucky dip. We hope every body who comes along shall be able to grope and find something of interest.

United States

United States (Photo credit: Moyan_Brenn)

Those interested in adding their words are very welcome to do so. In case they would like to regularly write some note or thought or would like to share a reflection, they may let us know and we will invite them to come a co-author. Our mother-tongue is Dutch, so do not worry you speak an other language than ours. We have chosen English to be the  language of communication because we ourselves are not so good in the other business languages Spanish and Mandarin. If you would prefer to write in your own language, and this would be one we can understand or speak ourself, like French, German, Afrikaans, you are welcome to write in those languages.

The main joint writers shall place their articles under their and this ‘guest signature’ in the lifestyle magazine Stepping Toes. We also do invite you to come and have a look there and to find also other co-authors.

May we give some incitement to join us, so that you could perhaps reach other people than on your own regular blog and that you with us can give incitement to others to share their thought in a community of people who are not afraid to be together with other minds.

We would like to offer our readers articles on social, spiritual, cultural, political and sometimes economical affairs. All matters could be spoken off here and all sorts of guest-speakers or guest-writers are welcome. If you would like to present us, at regular or irregular times, with some nice prose or poetry, you are very welcome.

We would be honoured to find writers to join us who could write like QuietKeepers, who writes:

Now is a time of preparation for what is to come, to gaze on the stark canvas around us before it begins to burst into color and growth. After all, when it does, life will get very busy, not only in the natural world, but in our lives. Activity will ramp up as schedules swell with graduations, weddings, and ball games. Homeowners will frantically pull out coolers and grills, uncover deck furniture, and fuel lawnmowers for the first of many cuts of the season. Gardeners will feel an urgency to ready their beds and plant even as the local greenhouses warn them to heed the frost-free date. {Keeping faith when spring is late}

With her and others we would love to see everything coming to life again and in full colours. So that we can be

enjoying the cacophony of chatter from a flock of blackbirds or the song of a single robin as the sun amazes … with yet another spectacular rising or setting.

We would love to see that many may join us on between the dawn and the dark of night to walk on the many roads who lead to the same point. As wise men, like closetoeighty can send words in the world, whilst trying to stay young and fresh in mind and share the beautiful pictures of a China Sojourner Randall Collis, who notes:

The wisdom of Jerry Garcia resonates with me as the wrathful fingers of winter turn into the chilly, wet hands of spring.  I search for my path.  A place to watch and dream from afar; to quietly witness the darkness of winter transform into the dawn of spring. {Dreams Between Dusk and Dawn}

It is this strange contradictory nature of dawn and maturity that makes life interesting.  In our youth, we revel in the late night/early morning hours.  Intrigued by the peace of a post-midnight sky and the eerily quietness of the streets and the wilderness.

Breathtaking to feel so alive with energy in the dead of night, as if this moment was created for the young: the world waiting to be explored.  All the action and chaos of the previous day and night comes to a crescendo and slowly unwinds in the peaceful stillness of darkness. {Dreams Between Dusk and Dawn}

Together we would love to take a closer look at

what appears to be nothing and am noticing the winter feathers of the male Goldfinches start to turn yellow, buds on the branches of an Elderberry bush, and the first leaves of Bee Balm at the base of the brown stalks from last year’s growth.

In the belief that anticipation is often the best part of a vacation or a happy event, {Keeping faith when spring is late}

we would like to fill our glasses and bring a toast to drink

in this time and appreciating it in its somewhat awkward adolescent phase because (we) know without seeing that it holds the promise of something quite wonderful that is yet to come. {Keeping faith when spring is late}

We would love to devote ourselves to the cause of allowing ourselves to grow by the wisdom of others and sharing our knowledge and experience, working at bettering others.  We want to find enough reason to be happy with what we have and with what we can share with others, without wanting something in return.

Why should we waste it on pleasurable pursuits alone?  We should be making this world a better place for our children.

In case we could bring other people in the picture who are also willing that we would grow into a world where every body can live next to each other in peace, though they may be from an other race, culture or religion, than we shall be pleased and could find we succeeded in fulfilling some of our dreams, seeing people all over the world united with each other.

May we welcome you as a guest and may we look forward to meet some more guest-writers as well?

Looking forward to sharing ideas and sharing lovely thoughts and love itself.

Peace Love Write

blogger-for-peace-van-2

Join us as Bloggers for Peace

In case you would like to join the Bloggers for Peace
you are welcome to take contact with some of them.

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Note: We do hope the writer of Waiting for spring and Keeping faith when spring is late does not mind we used some of her beautiful writing to bring over our own ideas. It is namely also our intention to bring some good bloggers into the attention of others, so that those visitors and we in our limited time can find something interesting to read and perhaps also can find some one they would like to follow.

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Preceding articles:

Guestwriters for you

Welcome to “From guestwriters”

About Guestwriters

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Additional reading:

  1. A new year with hopes and challenges
  2. 2nd Half 20th Century Generations pressure to achieve
  3. Economics and Degradation
  4. Our political systems and juggling with human laws
  5. Materialism, would be life, and aspirations
  6. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
  7. Time for global change
  8. Words to inspire and to give wisdom
  9. Reframing health
  10. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
  11. Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair
  12. Embracing the Body as a Spiritual Path
  13. Growth in character
  14. Wisdom lies deep
  15. Secrets of Wisdom
  16. Wisdom = Generosity
  17. Wisdom by A Schoonbee
  18. Wisdom from Matthieu Ricard
  19. Wisdom From Above
  20. The Value of Wisdom
  21. A Fool
  22. Live …
  23. A living change
  24. Preparedness to change
  25. A learning process for each of us
  26. A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses
  27. Choices
  28. Always a choice
  29. We have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace
  30. Those who make peace should plant peace like a seed
  31. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
  32. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience
  33. Only I can change my life
  34. Change from within
  35. We all are changed into the same image from glory to glory
  36. Character transformed by the influence of our fellowships
  37. Everything that is done in the world is done by hope
  38. Food as a Therapeutic Aid
  39. Input – Output effects on Physical Health
  40. Every moment, every thing is spiritual
  41. Living With(out) Regret and Negative Feelings
  42. Be happy that the thorn bush has roses
  43. There is no true and constant gentleness without humility
  44. Truth never plays false roles of any kind, which is why people are so surprised when meeting it
  45. Be like a tree planted by streams of water
  46. A time for everything
  47. Better loaves when the heart is joyous
  48. Joy is not in things, it is in us
  49. Joy: Foundation for a Positive Life
  50. Be kinder than necessary
  51. The thought of losing rekindles the joy of having
  52. Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark
  53. Faith is knowing there is an ocean because you have seen a brook.
  54. Faith and trial
  55. A Living Faith #8 Change
  56. Can Faith Ever Be Rational?
  57. Cosmos creator and human destiny
  58. Feed Your Faith Daily
  59. Gloomy Thinking Can Be Contagious
  60. You cannot change anything in your life with intention alone
  61. The task given to us to love each other
  62. Unarmed truth and unconditional love
  63. Love turns one person into two; and two into one
  64. Love envieth not
  65. When we love we do not need laws
  66. Spread love everywhere you go
  67. Agape, a love to share with others from the Fruit of the Spirit
  68. Love and cultivate that which is pure
  69. If we love one another, God lives in us
  70. Love will cure more sins than condemnation
  71. Blessed are those who freely give
  72. Feed the Body and Nourish the Soul this Thanksgiving – Eat with an Attitude of Gratitude!
  73. Who are the honest ones?
  74. Greatest single cause of atheism
  75. What’s church for, anyway? (by Marcus Ampe)
  76. A Bad Reason for Thinking that Atheism is not a Religion
  77. Debating with theologians and preachers and their somewhat constricted views….
  78. #PreachersofLA: As Real as It Gets
  79. Why can’t I warm to street preaching?
  80. “Nicomachean Ethics” by Aristotle
  81. Political Correctness and “Bashing”
  82. Moderates, good deeds and religious fanaticism
  83. Julian Baggini – Can you be too intelligent?
  84. How To Avoid Spiritual And Mental Indigestion – Harold Herring
  85. Here’s to Your Health!
  86. What is the happiest person in the world saying?
  87. Caricaturing and disapproving sceptics, religious critics and figured out ethics
  88. Act as if everything you think, say and do determines your entire life
  89. Remember that who you’re being is just as important as what you’re doing
  90. How we think shows through in how we act
  91. When Your Actions Don’t Match with What You Have Underestood
  92. How To Set Rules for Your Life Without Becoming a Party Pooper
  93. If you want to go far in life
  94. Raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair
  95. People should know what you stand for
  96. “A healthy attitude is contagious but don’t wait to catch it from others. Be a carrier.” — Tom Stoppard
  97. You are not limited to who is in charge

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