Ponder the Good and Evil In The World

[Sukerkin]

Whilst the Western world enters it's annual wallow in the pit of crass commercialism dressed up as religious festival, take the time to ponder such stories as this one, where a good woman was slain by the actions of those driven by the baser side of man's nature:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-16200409

It's a year on now and I am still struck with a profound depression when I hear of this vile act - I keep hoping that my species will prove itself worthy to survive, be able to climb above our instincts driven by fear. But I fear that, in the end, especially as resources dwindle, we shall simply rip and tear ourselves into extinction.

 

[ballen0351]

Sorry to be long winded here but Ive had this fight in my own mind for a long time the good vs evil. Sometimes talking about the things ive seen helps me cope. In my job ive seen more evil then any person should ever have to see. Ive often found myself in situation and dealing with people even vet officers with 30+ years on the job have never seen. Bad things seem to follow me. For a while was I nicknamed the reaper because it seemed the only time we would have homicides was when I was working. Ive mentioned it before on here about doing CPR on a toddler that had just been beat by his family member and had that child die right in front of me. Ive interviewed killers and child rapists. Ive been shot at several times and have had to kill to defend my own life. The hardest thing out of all the calls Ive ever been on and a call that to this day many years later still haunts me was a young boy in the 5th grade standing at his bus stop in the morning waiting to go to school like any good kid in America and he was struck and killed by a car. The car pinned his body against a telephone pole. I wasnt even working that day I just happened to be coming in to go to court and stummbled upon it. I was the first officer there dressed in a suit and totally NOT prepared to deal with anything like this. The part that still pisses me off is the people that kept trying to take pics of the kids body as it was still pressed against the telephone pole. I then had to hold the kids mother and father away so they didnt see his body in the condition it was in.
It got to the point where I believed there was no good left in the world. I also having never been raised with religion was positive there could not be a god. Then one day im not sure what happend but I opened my eyes to the "REAL" world. I was at a low point in my life and all of a sudden I kept getting bombarded with messages about faith and God. I started to notice all the good thats really here. I started to remeber all the good things Ive seen and the special people Ive met in my life. I looked deeper into religion and Ive since found a relationship with God and have truly found a new faith in people. I wish I would have opened my eyes a long time ago. It could have saved me from alot of self destructive behavior and long periods of anger and depression. Once you open your eyes to the power of God the world just seems brighter. Sure there are still problems dont get me wrong but I view them in a different way now. I releazied all the times God has been there for me that I ignored before. I know in this day and age people look down upon people that confess a love for God but I just hope someday your able to see all the good thats really around us everyday.
I dont want to come off a "preachy" because that was not my intent I only speak from me and my life and what hads helped me view the world a little differently then I once did.

 

[Cyriacus]

Space Travel.

Resources, Water, and Food. All Problems relating to them fixed, in one swoop.

There is one verified, and various other massive Water carrying Volume in Space, just floating around. With more Water than is in this Planets Oceans.
Food can be Synthetically Grown.
Overpopulation will no longer be a Problem.
Interplanatary Mining fixes Resources.

I know this sounds incredibly Sci-Fi, but think about it.

 

[HammockRider]

You can't control the Evil in The World. Far, far too massive an undertaking. Just do your best to make your little corner of it a little better every day.

 

[Tez3]

Mark, my people have been knocking around for a few millenia now, through good and bad, we're still here because on the whole life is preferably to death. bad things happen, so do a great many good things. And there's always cake.

From Viktor E. Frankel

"What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitudes toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men in the concentration camp, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life -daily and hourly."

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last peice of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficent proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstances, renouncing freedom and dignity to become moulded into the form of the typical inmate"

Have a sabbath, not a religious one, make an evening, a day if you can spare it, do no work, turn the television, the phone and the computer off, take a walk in the countryside or a park, have a luxurious bath, then a long leisurely meal with your loved ones, talk, drink, eat and sleep.

"The world is full of meaning precisely because in it's totality it remains veiled, incomprehensible, a revealed and hidden secret which, if we gain even the slightest awareness of it's existance, fills us with awe and amazement, with an unendurable shudder...without these...the world is nothing more than an oversized slaughterhouse." Hillel Zeitlin

 

[Empty Hands]

You think it's bad now...

As hard as it might seem to believe sometimes, the world is in a much better place than it used to be, at least as it concerns violence, war and evil behavior. Hopefully that will continue.

 

[billc]

Ballen, Tez, thanks for those posts. I completely agree with Empty Hands's post. It must be the season.

 

[Tez3]

Ballen, Tez, thanks for those posts. I completely agree with Empty Hands's post. It must be the season.

 

[Makalakumu]

You think it's bad now...

As hard as it might seem to believe sometimes, the world is in a much better place than it used to be, at least as it concerns violence, war and evil behavior. Hopefully that will continue.

I want to echo this statement with real statistics and analysis. It's not so bad and world has been getting better and better as time goes on. I would rather live now then at any point in the past and if I could time travel to the future, I would do it in a heartbeat. If the trends in the above video continue, the future is going to be great!

That said, here's my path to a better future.

1. Thou shalt not initiate the use of force.
2. Thou shalt not break trust.
3. Thou shall incur an obligation for breaking one or two.

It's a powerful guide for peaceful human action. It's a path to the future, IMO.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

 

[aedrasteia]

Bless you Bill. Tidings of comfort and joy...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem on which this truthful carol is based:

On Christmas day, 1864, the beloved poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow received word that his son, a soldier in the Civil War, had been wounded.
Just two years before, Henry had lost his wife in a fire. As this devout Christian man sat alone with his grief, on the most joyful of Holy Days,
he penned words of hope to challenge his own despair. He called his composition Christmas Bells.
Little did he know that those words would someday be set to music and become a blessing to millions of people around the world.

 

[Tez3]

http://jewishmag.co.il/39mag/soup/soup.htm

Enjoy, no one can feel bad after making and eating this.

 

[Buka]

Ballen - my thanks to you. Because of you, the sheepdog, the flock may live in comparative peace.

 

[Carol]

Suke, thanks so much for posting that.

This story actually prompted some very interesting discussion over the Christmas weekend. The conversation drifted to a mutual friend of ours who is very passionate about achieving a few of his goals. Everything he says he will do, he does with fervour and excellence. He is electric to be around, and is the fellow everyone wants (and has) as their friend.

This was contrasted with folks whose words say one thing but their actions say another. Not so inspiring.

Dr. Woo was a person who fiercely lived her values. It takes a very special person to live their actions the way she did, going as far as putting herself in harms way. I was not as familiar with her story until this article. Now that I have learned more about her sacrifices, she is another person that I find seriously inspiring, as did my friends. Her bravery and courage lives on.