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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (21191)	5/1/1998 2:53:00 PM
From: Emile Vidrine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

To X and many others on this thread. A gift that could open your eyes. Every historical period and every era has their own perceptions and prejudices which have been shaped by their unique social and cultural experiences. Each age and each ethnic group develops their own set of values from these unique experience.s In this scheme of things, all values are relative. All values are relative without an established standard. Where will man find a standard to measure moral and ethical values? An analogy may help. It is like a mechanic, a doctor, a dentist, a body man and a minister approaching an accident. The doctor will concentrate on the medical aspects, the dentist on the teeth, the body man on the damage to the car and the minister will concentrate on the persons salvation. Each will remember the accident in their unique way. Their memories of the accident will be conditioned by their professions. Although all the facts about the accident exists, each person is limited in grasping these facts because of their preconditioning. Each person can only recount what "he has seen". This is what man faces when he tries to analyze morality, ethical values and historical events without an accurate universal standard of truth. Without God, man simply lacks an eternal and absolutely accurate measuring stick to measure things. This is the state of man without God and the Word of God. Man can only evaluate and see things according to his social and cultural conditioning. It is not so with the Word of God. God sees all things. He does not possess a limited and relativistic knowledge of events and things but an absolute and comprehensive knowledge of all things. He is both the giver and the keeper of the Universal Standards of Weights and Measures in morals and ethics. This is why the Word of God transcends the prejudices of historical eras and cultures. It is an eternal measuring stick that never varies because it is based on absolute truth and reality. It escapes the relativistic prejudices of eras and cultures. The Word of God gives us eternal truths that transcends all of our cultural and social conditioning. It slices through all historical and Culutural eras and gives us Eternal truths. When you compare the historical and social deviations of the ancient Hebrew Cutlure contained in the OT, you are simply looking at the wrapping paper and not the eternal precepts contained in the Word. The Word of God is always contained in the wrapping paper of culture and transmitted through the vehicle of language, but the spiritual observer-with the aid of the Holy Spirit-- automatically removes these cultural wrapping paper to view the pure Crystal of eternal truths . The Greek and the Hebrew languages were the vehicles and the wrapping paper was the Hebrew and Greek cultures. This principle was clearly evident in Jesus. He spoke His Words while in the rush and anxiety of life. He spoke the language of Greek and Hebrew and was emersed in the Hebrew Cutlure, but look at the Words of Eternal Truth that He always spoke. People were all around Him demanding His attention and distracting His mind, but everyone of His Words are Eternal Truths that transcend all cultures and historical eras. His Eteranl Words clearly identify Him as Divine. It is the same with all the Divinely inspired Word of God. It is Eteranl and True. It transcends all ages and Cultures and speaks to the essence of truth and the heart of man today as it did in ancient Hebrew culture. To prove this principle, isolate yourself in quietness and solitude and try to write one page of words of eteranl truth--words that will transcend your cultural prejudices and your historical era. You will find that all of your words are tainted by your previous social and cultural conditioning. You will soon come to the conclusion that Jesus and the Word of God are Eternal and not the cultural conditioned precepts that you have implied in your writings.

To: epicure who wrote (21191)	5/3/1998 2:36:00 AM
From: Grainne	Respond to of 108807

X, Ireland is a tiny, usually neutral country with a few boats in its Navy and a very, very long history of being overrun. The two predominant invasions since about the sixth century were the Vikings, who raped, pillaged but then stayed and mixed their gene pool up thoroughly with the natives. The British came later, and totally conquered them, cut down all the forests, which gives the green hills their very smooth look, and confiscated land and all the other wealth. There is quite a bit of nationalism in Northern Ireland, in the sense of bad feelings about the Scottish Protestants who were planted in Ulster. That is what the current big argument is about. In the south, many "blow in" hippies and artists from the rest of Europe arrived, particularly in Cork and Kerry, over the last two decades. There are lots of very happy pagans and witches living openly there. Here is the web page of one pagan couple, who are looking for more kindred spirits to join them. Here is their most recent newsletter: synergy.ie And here is the river they live along: synergy.ie I am sort of a solitary person, not a joiner, and would never dream of being a part of any kind of pagan community. I am just showing to you because I think that Ireland is readily stereotyped, but really is a much more diverse country than is usually known. There is a huge colony of Jews in Dublin, and because of recent affluence and wider travel, all sorts of foreign foods are the rage. Many computer companies have their European manufacturing plants in Ireland because of the high quality of education there, producing very good workers. There are pockets of isolation in rural areas, but it is really quite a diverse country, and not particularly clannish anymore. As you may know, there are eight million Irish people in Ireland, but forty million in America. Regarding the Pledge of Allegiance, I feel very uncomfortable with the concept of inculcating anything like that into children. Most small children have no idea what it is they are learning by rote in kindergarten, except that it makes the teacher happy. They don't understand the words, or the concepts. To me, it is like teaching children to pray, another thing they do not really understand but simply memorize because it pleases their parents. I also feel very uncomfortable with the Pledge of Allegiance because of the "under God" phrase. I think a lot of atheist and agnostic children also would feel uncomfortable with this part. I really believe in a total separation of church and state. Curiously enough, this part was not added until 1954. I think the Pledge is a little inaccurate, in that there are Americans, like blacks, Indians, and the Japanese citizens who were interred during World War II, who have experienced quite a lot less than liberty and justice for all. One thing I was not aware of until I looked on the web is that, at least according to one source, the Pledge is not universal, and children say it in only about half our states. I find this a little puzzling. I do know that my daughter's school used it through fifth grade, but since then it is not used in the morning, or at school events and assemblies. vineyard.net I understand what you are saying about not giving children too much negative history of their country, but still I believe in telling the truth in an age appropriate way. Certainly as the children get a little older and learn the history of other countries, that telling needs to be historically true as well, which on balance still makes America one of the better places on earth. I know that when I got to college and found out that much of what I learned about American history was a whitewash, I was very disillusioned, and the net impact was very negative for me.