The Law of Love

Category: Uncategorized

  • why does God allow suffering?

    is it possible for there to be a purpose for suffering? yes. it can help us make progress to end suffering. we are co creators in that sense. it can give people the perspective to appreciate no suffering. as jesus said, the man wasn’t born with health problems because of something him or his parents did, but to give glory to God when he’s one day disease free. 

    also, asking why we still have suffering is like asking why darkness exists. that’s just the way it is. can we have just light? i dont think that is possible in our reality. same way, suffering may need to exist in this reality too. 

    of course, a person can just insist that if it’s possible for suffering not to exist but does, then it isn’t necessary. a person could rationally cling to that principle, but they have to admit that they might be wrong if everything i say is true, and they need to admit that the alternative view that i present is completely realistic.  What if God and heaven exist, and the reality is how i present it? then the skeptic is just clinging to philosophy that has no basis in reality. the words and thoughts, the pointless ramblings, of mere men. 

  • every other country gives universal healthcare, but that doesn’t mean our country can do it successfully

    every other country covers everyone at half the cost, with better wait times. so it can be done here too. the thing is, they started from scratch and built their healthcare systems from the ground up… not trying to redo a country like ours with a third of a billion people in it. what could happen if we tried to make it universal? the most obvious problem would be that the democrats dont do anything to get costs down first, or they cave when costs are contained with a medicare like pricing system. (which sets limits on how much can be spent) and speicial interests complain about it. the republicans could repeal any taxes that are used to pay for a new system. so it’s definitely possible to bankrupt us based on health care… is what i’m getting at. 

    how do other countries spend half as much as we do? they mostly get it down to that level by regulating how much the government is willing to pay for each procedure, they regulate costs. they also minimize the role of insurance, which helps given insurance is a middle man that pays a third just in adminstrative costs instead of the two percent that medicare pays. (some hospitals have more staff to take care of billing than they do nurses, for instance)

    if we’re not doing more of these cost containing things, we’re headed in the wrong direction. 

    if we dont do anything about costs, we could end up bankrupt switching to something universal. we only have ten percent of folks who are uninsured… which means it’s not earth shattering if we didn’t cover those few extra people. it would be earth shattering to borrow money to pay for it. that’s why the emphasis shouldn’t be on universal care, it should be on getting costs contained. 

    sometimes it is wise to be skeptical if a public option or universal plan could work… we’re trying to redo an embedded system, and politicians are good at fucking things up. it’s rational to only focus on getting costs contained…that’s the biggest problem. 

  • students shoudn’t pay loans, they should pay a percent of their income for ten years

    i would think five to ten percent of their income would be sufficient, per year, for ten years.  no loans, just payments in the future. the government can give schools a net present value of estimated future payments, and collect the payments on income taxes. 

    this would incentavize colleges to make their students economically viable grads, which is what the end goal is anyway. they would focus more on practical skills. they might decide that four years and excessive unneeded classes aren’t necessary, making it more efficient again.  (though the government can require some very basic courses, like generic psychology  and generic sociology and generic science etc etc and basic math and reading and writing) this also requires that students dont just get a free ride, but that they chip in on their own education, which would appeal to conservatives.  students with not much intelligence or potential would be saw for who they are, and they would be found to be maximized to their potential by the school. majors that are worthless wont get as much money, and that would cause the system to adapt… maybe only the cream of the crop students should be doing humanities, and their would be a punishment of less money to both the student and school for allowing low skill students to go into the humanities. maybe a philosophy major will end up at mcdonalds, and neither he nor the school will benefit much. maybe the school wont accept stupid kids in the humanities. 

    the well off grads would pay more, who are the most economically viable ones. and the less economically viable ones would pay less. there’s a certain justice to that, if that happens to fit your political ideology. 

    this proposal is an example of the kind of concrete solutions that politicitians should be working on. the beurocrats in washington have lost the policy in politics. 

  • truth is not arbitrary

    some people say truth is relative. well, relative is a relative word. but truth is not arbitrary. 

    maybe there are exceptions to rules, but the rules and the exceptions are clear. killing others for no reason is bad. maybe there are situations where killing others is justifiable, but that doesn’t mean killing isn’t clearly wrong, in general. whether killing is justifiable isn’t subject to just some duede’s whims, it’s not arbitrary. 

    maybe i’m saying truth is objective, i dont know. i dont know what the basis for truth is, other than maybe a higher power or God. well, maybe an objective reality beyond God could exist, that is the basis for objective truth. i dont know if we mere humans can know what all the truths are, but that truth exists shouldn’t be the issue. 

    just some ramblings i had that i thought id see what folks thought. 

  • boarding houses as part of the solution to affordable shelter

    politicians need to stop talking about universal housing. if the corrupt politicians took the path of least resistance they’d probably just start cutting checks to landlords with section 8, more than they do now. they should be talking about affordable shelter, not housing.

    the solution, is boarding houses, that require a waiver of privacy rights when it comes to drug searches. 

    a person gets a room. they share kitchens and living areas and bathrooms. the government lends money to non-profit organizations to build and maintain these boarding houses. that takes out the profit motive and corruption. residents pay a third of their income for costs… if they dont have much income, or no income, they dont pay much. this means the only ones who are homeless… is drug addicts who refuse to submit, and dangerous criminals, and dangerous mentally ill people. maybe these people can be taken care of on a case by case basis, but these guys are their own category which i acknowledge my solutions dont solve. 

    instead of flat out paying people’s rent like the government does now, and doing nothing about affordability, boarding houses bring back economical structures. we probably already spend enough money on housing, to instead lend out money that’s going to be repaid to the government eventually anyway. 

    the highest ranked debater here pointed out that when you put a bunch of poor people together, it causes social ills and stuff like drug problems and destroys the whole cost savings paradigm.  that killed my idea for a solution before… but now my solution to, is for residents to waive their rights to not be searched. drug searches can happen at will, and randomly, and arbitrarily. 

  • salvation seems to be both an event and a process

    protestants like to say they are saved, end of discussion. catholics say you have to work out your eventual salvation… but if you look closer, they are willing to say salvation is both an event and a process. i dont think it’s very standard for a protestant to say salvation can be a process? 

    i think the way to look at this is simply by looking at the question of ‘being forgiven’. when we pray the our father, we ask as christians to be forgiven. we dont say ‘thank you for forgiving me’. it’s a very basic idea of repentance that’s foundational… for that foundation to be off would be a wild accusation. 

    it’s also worth noting, that the bible often talks about falling away and such. like the parable of the seeds and how jesus said some start to grow only to later wilt due to worldly concern. only some seeds grow to maturity. 

    it’s also worth tying the ‘assurance of salvation’ and ‘once saved always saved’ ideas to the idea of salvation.

    -the bible says you can know you are saved, but given all the other examples where it says you can fall away, i would say that knowing one is saved is a special gift for a special person. jesus did say ‘not everyone who says to me lord lord will inherit the kingdom, but only those who do the will of the father’. it’s a lot to read into this that you can’t know you are saved, but we have to at least remember that acknowleding jesus as lord is not enough. i think we can all agree that just thinking you are saved isn’t enough? it does get into murky territory but there’s always a hypothetical mass murderer who is pathologically propensed to think he is saved.

    -also, i think free will is such that a person can always loose their salvation for practical purposes, but for practical purposes some people can know they are saved, and always will be saved, practically.

    to tie into this near death experience philosophy, a person can be loved unconditionally, and in that sense they are always saved, but a person still must face the consequences of their actions. like a mother unconditionally loves her children, she also must let them face their own consequences and actions. it’s like near death philosophy says, we go to where our vibration permits. if we have a low vibration, out soul can be saved by becoming a genuine christian. that’s all that’s necessary. because you will grow into higher vibrations and god has your back. if your words are empty, you wont grow into higher vibrarations. there’s a question about whether hell is eternal given near death philosphy, and most of those guys like to say hell is a prison. i think we can all agree that an eternal hell is possible given our free will, but we have to wonder the open question of if hell is eternal for practical purposes. it very well could be, or maybe not. it is central that hell does exist though. only one percent of NDEs are hellish, and they usually just consider that it was a learning experience. a wake up call. 

    it’s interesting that ‘once saved always saved’, ties into salvation like that. just like how it’s intersesting that ‘atonement’ ties into the ‘justification’ and salvation ideas. and lately i’ve been incorporating NDE philsophy as well. 

  • salvation for nonchristians is probably possible in some situations

    the bible only talks about rejecting the truth as the basis of condemnation. 

    around the infamous john 316, it says the light didn’t come to the world to condemn it, but to save it. the condemnation comes when someone perfers darkness over the light. 

    also in john, jesus also said ‘unless you believe i am he, you will die in your sins.’. this implies a rejection. 

    at the end of mark jesus said, ‘go and baptize the world. he who beleives and is baptized will be saved, he who doesn’t will be condemned’. again, this implies rejection. 

    i think there’s one or two other examples where rejection is implied. 

    there are some references to ‘unbelievers’ being unsaved in the new testament letters, but you have to consider whether John 316 defined unbelievers as those who reject the light for preferring darkness. it is possible to insist these unbeliever references should be taken literatlly and all unbelievers are unsaved, but i think that ignores the context i mentioned above. 

    we also have to consider that NDEs teach us implicitly that everyone can experience heaven, regardless of religion or creed. but i think it’s important to remember that we have free will, and if we prefer darkness over light… that is what we will get. 

  • is it necessary for christians to forgive the unrepentant

    one of the foundational aspects of forgiveness is repentence. or that someone ask for it to receive it. some traditional christians like some catholics say it’s not necessary to forgive everyone, or those who are unrepentent, cause God doesn’t either. if we look at the eastern concept of forgiveness, it also implies reconciliation. you can only forgive those you are reconciled with. it’s about establishing communion, and we can’t commune with someone closed off to us. 

    but Jesus does say ‘the measure you use will be measured to you’. which might indicate that the standard we use to forgive might be the standard God uses with us. at the end of John, he says ‘whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained’. catholics like to say this creates the idea of their confession, but protestants like to say this just means we have the power to save people through our preaching. neither of these ideas really fit that well, but both are compelling. we might say that if we dont forgive, they aren’t forgiven, their sin is retained. between the two of you. but we have to remember that our measure will be measured to us. 

    to incorporate NDE philsophy, everyone can acheive salvation. maybe of legal matters, we are all forgiven. but when it comes to the eastern concept of reconciliation, it is impossible to forgive someone we can’t commune with. 

    so, maybe in the sense that is most meaningful, we cant forgive if we can’t reconcile…. but we can always be open to reconcilation if they repent, or if it’s a matter of looking past brusised egos and letting bygones be bygones… or as saint paul said, ‘just let it slide’.

    but when it comes to legality, but we can forgive but maybe it is up to each person how they want to treat that. but i would think if we use legality against others, it could be used against us. ultimately i think it’s wisest to forgive everyone, not just cause that’s what we want when we are unrepentant, but because it’s the godliest thing to do. 

  • balanced budget amendment – spending as a percentage of GDP

    balanced budget. congress should set every item in the budget, except social security and health care, to be the same percent of GDP every year. like defense spending might be twenty percent of GDP, and it will stay that way every year even as our GDP rises.

    the exception, is that congress can always pass legislation on a case by case basis that deviates from this norm. by having this overall balanced budget approach, we will avoid the yearly debt ceiling fights that we see every year. those are risky, and they’re not sustainable. 

    of course, someone will complain that GDP shrinks during recessions. historically and practically, though, that’s not a big deal. as was said, congress can always pass legislation on a case by case basis to deficit spend even more so. but just as importantly, though, is the fact that GDP doesn’t shrink much during recessions, usually just a few percent. even during the great recession, GDP only shrunk 5 percent…. so, a 5 percent spending cut isn’t that big of a deal. of course, during the great depression GDP shrunk 30 percent… so congress would need to use its case by case power to deal with that sorta situation, cause there are no good options during those times other than to deficit spend to stimulate the economy but maybe not too much, it’s their judgment call. 

    the reason social security and health care are exempted, are because those are expected to change over time, given the government has been borrowing against medicare and SS and currently is trying to pay them back and demographics change over time. the thing is, with these debt ceiling fights, republicans are trying to cut say spending on say food stamps, in order to have enough money to pay social security back. that’s the way our accounting is structured. that choice shouldnt exist… social security should just do its own thing and rise and fall on its own merit. it shouldn’t come at the cost of other programs, such as food stamps. forcing a choice between paying seniors more and paying poor people less (or giving less food to hungry people) shouldn’t be a thing that politicians do. social security can be figured out on its own and congressmen will be forced to reckon given by 2033 the trust fund is going to run out of money and can only pay 80 percent of benefits. maybe taxes on the rich can go up on their payroll tax, benefits for the rich can be cut, retirement age can go up, maybe everyone can chip in a little more on their pay roll taxes. point, solutions are out there, but it shouldn’t be intermixed with other governemnt spending. one of the biggest mistakes ever congress made was borrowing against social security and medicare. and on that point, healthcare spending needs to be tackled on its own just like social security, for many of the same reasons.  

  • how to reconcile eternal punishment with God’s love

    the bible says Jesus said some people will experience eternal punishment. i do still think though that hell can be temporary for some people, or like purgatory. I would think God wouldn’t give eternal consequences for temporary misconduct, so I would think eternal punishment is only for those who eternally separate themselves from God. we do have free will, after all. or, if the possibility for eternal life for all is true, there will always be a stain on our lives for how we act, even if we are redeemed, a stain that could still be eternal even though we’re saved. 

    I also think God loves everyone unconditionally, but that there are natural consequences to our actions. like, you can’t just keep eating a bunch of cake and not expect to gain weight. except, the consequences are spiritual when it comes to the ways of God. if you have low vibrations and are sinful, you will experiences low vibrations and consequences to sin, and a less fulfilled life.