Welcome to Gaia! ::

Agreed. It is really just so mortifying.

May I ask what specifically what issue you had that convinced you to quit?

I can't remember spacific Verses... But Some were against Women in General

saying we girls weren't allowed to teach in the church even though that's what we were meant for... to work with the Children
I mean... I know women arn't supposed to be Preachers or Elders or Decons.

But Someone in another Ex-guild of mine used some Verses in... I think it was 1st Timothy... Twisted it to bacially say that women weren't allowed to do anything in the church, (Whish it was convinced me to leave in the first place)

My response to 1 Timothy

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ~ Galatians 3:28

In 1 Timothy Paul was writing on conduct of a specific church, advising on what was necessary to keep that church peaceful, and possibly also to avoid a pagan practice of priestesses serving as oracles from the gods. This is doctrine as I understand it. This passage of Galatians appeals to the very nature of Christ Jesus and his sacrifice upon which all Christian belief depends. I believe therefore the message of Galatians, which talks about the relation to Jesus Christ to the world, outweighs the message of 1 Timothy, talking about the relation between one congregation and its female attendants.

Granted I am not a biblical scholar, but I have read Scripture and that passage in particular in context with the entire Bible and I see no reason to come to any other conclusion than Paul was writing to the church of 1 Timothy, he did not know his words would then be cherry picked to promote a misogynist atmosphere amongst the church. If he had, the passage in Galatians leads me to believe he would have chosen his words more carefully.

An interesting perspective.

I suppose it is a bit foolish to insist that any one human can know all of God's plans, but I believe that God does, at time, give small revelations by the spirit into features of his plans for us. He never gives us the whole picture, but he does give us answers from time to time that let us deduct tiny parts of his plan.

( I'm not sure if I totally understand your example, Miss Rmc... my brain might be a little broken right now or something. So excuse anything that you may have pointed out in the above example that I may have misinterperated. Or maybe my example wasn't stated clearly enough. Which would be my fault, so I'll do my best with this discussion.)

Alright, but I don't think that these things are going to be presented to you by God, I believe and think that the real way to follow any sort of plan is with that concious that we all possess that lets us know when we are going to do wrong or give us that warm feeling that we are doing right. With my above statement, I find that people use this 'Gods plan' for selfish reasons and as a way to bend others of the believe to their wants or needs. I have no doubt there are divine messangers that occasionally appear to help those who are really straying from their intended path of the overall scheme; but all-in-all I think that those are rare because the overall plan is so vast that one or two billion people doing their own thing won't make a huge difference. I'm not totally sure what you mean when refering to the Stars and Productions in your example; but if I get the main jest of what your saying, then I must disagree with you on the basis that I don't feel that we are on a set in stone course. We have free will to make choices and through those choices is how we play our parts of this production, if we had such a set in stone path, then free will and the ability to choose between good and evil would hold no weight. If we were so ingrained into a production that we had an inclining of Gods true path for things than there would really be no purpose to the choice. It would already be preortained and that would crush the gift that God gave us of free choice.

I'm afriad that you did loose me a bit on the Forgiveness scene example; I assume that your talking about forgiving past actions then moving on with whatever is a head in life. To be honest, I think that the show would move on regardless, Forgiving, as used in your example is a way to make sure that scene's screw ups doesn't follow you into your next act and begin to pile up. Somethings are easier to to forgive than others, and the production moves on regardless of whether one forgives the crimes of the past or not. It doesn't stop at one scene because you refuse to forgive someone of something, it just builds up. Forgiveness is indeed wise and I very much support the action, that I am not debating.

Now I have nothing from any scriptures to back up my thoughts; I guess the best I can say in summary is that God speaks for God, and Gods plans are for God. I have a hard time from my perspective to see why God would bother showing us his plan, No matter how big or small, I don't see how it would benefit him and anyway and the way I see it, it would influence and dampen our gift of free choice.

I think I kinda just went on a ramble rant but I think you got it.

I don't agree with predestination. No it's not set in stone by any means. I guess star of a choose your own adventure story would have been a more accurate analogy.

My spiel concerning forgiveness was focused on the internal state more than anything.
Edit: I was also sharing a little why it's useful for me because I tend to cross the line often from seeking justice to seeking vengeance. It's one of my many flaws that I have to watch myself on.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on your last paragraph. Just because something is revealed doesn't mean you are going to accept it. Let's say hypothetically that God did show you something? The choice is there to test it to see if it really is a message from God, or just discount it as a delusion or hallucination. Even if there's no neurological evidence to suggest that the brain was hallucinating or not, the choice is still there to discount it as such.

Edit: I'm a guy XD. I was seeking the genderbender achievement and haven't changed back yet.

My appologies. xd

As someone who has the beliefs I do, I very much have to agree with you to some extent on the disagreement. However, if God revieled his true path to you, wouldn't you know in your very soul that this is what he wants from you? To have something with that much presence, that much power and importance come to you and say that this is what he wanted- I get the feeling that you'd listen, and you'd listen pretty good. xd Its kind of along the lines of having an angel come to you in my mind. If it tells you something, then your likely to listen after your sure he/she's a messanger of God because of his representation of divinity. I believe in visions, deja vu and what not that show you whats going to happen, but they don't show you how your going to get there, so your actions will remain your own because subconsciously your not being directed down that road. I'm guess I'm just not sure how something like God would subtly tap you on the shoulder and suggest you do something the way he'd prefer and how that would still be your choice.