Abigail

Oh jeez, Evan, thanks for clearing that up!! Whew!! I was reading CNN and didn't even realize that was an "onion" article. Not sure how I ended up there!!!

The full story is HERE Okay, I have NEVER watched the Soprano's, so forgive my ingnorance, but the show was fictional, yes? Tony Soprano was a character in a tv show played by an ACTOR, yes? And yet people have been trying to kill him because they don't like the way the series ended??? People are now celebrating his death because that is how the show should have ended???? Am I misunderstading something here or has our society truly gone mad????

WG, you bring up a very important point. I don't know how it reads in the translations of Christian Bibles off the top of my head, but in the Jewish translation of the OT, over and over and over again women went to God themselves, husbands conferred with wives and were sometimes even told by God to listen to their wives. Examples - God told Abraham to listen to his wife regarding Ishmael. When Isaac wanted to marry Rebecca, Rebecca's parents ASKED her what SHE wanted to do. When the inheritence was passed down from Isaac, it was done in accordance to what Rebecca knew was best When Jacob left Laban's land with Rachel and Leah, he ASKED THEM IF they would come with him. The list could go on and on.

"the Way, Living in Love". vpw is telling, in his own words, some stories. Oldies, do you think the above examples represent a man loving his wife as Christ loved the church?

Raf, Best of wishes for a long and happy life together, you deserve it!!

I am with you on this one CowGirl. I would only advocate this method for someone who cannot seem to shed the weight even with diet and exercise (which does happen in some cases) or for a short term use for someone who is very seriously obese and just needs a jump start to get them going on the diet and exercise program (seriously obese people have a difficult time wih exercise).

Actually, it freezes over every winter. You have to come check out a "hell froze over in Michigan" festival sometime

I'm really glad you are enjoying it, Shellon!!!

3.71 Self 3.57 Nature 3.29 Social on the low end 2.57 Spacial 1.43 Math

For the life of me, I cannot figure out what this girl has done to deserve so much media attention - good or bad. I can sort of understand the attention we give the actors - they play a role in movies that touch our lives in some form or fashion, maybe just entertainment, but often their movies will move us emotionally or compell us to think. Many of them are active either in charities or politics (perhaps just a publicity ploy, but still, they are doing something). This girl has done nothing to earn such attention. She was born into a wealthy family, that is all. I don't get it.

ROFLMAO - That is precisely why I drive a mini-van. I have to warn ya, Chas, it doesn't get better as they get older. Mine are 8 and 10 and I still separate them in the car whenever possible. At this age, if they aren't hitting each other because they are fighting, they are hitting each other because they are playing (which undoubtedly will turn into a real fight in a matter of seconds).

Man oh man, Chas. You have no idea how long I have been itching to give up my minivan for a PT Cruiser!!!! Purple would be ideal, and the kids want flames on the sides. Congrats on the minivan! I hope your family enjoys it. Room is a definite plus when traveling with rambunctious little boys!

I'm with you JonnyL! I often pray, "please God, let me live long enough to see my kids happily grown and bounce a few grandkids on my knee." If I can do that, I think I can say I've had a good life. :)

T-bone, I think the "another law" or "different law" is really the heart of what Jesus taught. Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. The laws of the O.T. have the potential to teach us HOW to do that, if we understand the reasoning behind the law - if we do it with love and understanding, not out of compulsion or legalism. That is not to say we HAVE to do them, because again, that goes back to legalism. I don't think God cares so much whether or not I light the candles on Friday night. What is important to God is the remberance of Him, to give thanks to him. What is important is the sense of connectedness with my fellow humans when I light those candles, to remember them too. What is important is that I take time over the Sabbath not just to think on God and my brothers and sisters, but that I take time for me and my family as well. That we rest, enjoy each other and the life we have been given. Again with the wayspeak, WearWord. *Shrug* can you not express it in your own words instead of just parrotting what VPW and LCM taught. Can you say it in God's words, even? If it is that simple. If we really truly have to do nothing more than repeat a verse of scripture and all is well for the rest of our lives and into eternity - why the rest of the book? If God really cares not what "works" we do on this earth, then hy the admonitions throughout the epistles?? Why not simply end the scriptures at Rom 10:9 & 10??

Thought I would add - every single law in the OT had a purpose. We may not understand the purpose for many of them, but there was one. It is for that reason that I have so much respect for the ultraorthodox chabads. They don't practice blindly, the practice with an understanding of the purpose. Again, I cannot imagine myself to ever be that disciplined, but there sure is a lot of depth and beauty in what they teach. Interestingly, too, they do not appear to require that one practice as they do, to be welcome in their centers. They do not label they way most of the rest of us do "reform, conservative, orthodox, ect.", instead to them we all just Jewish and even if you aren't jewish, you are God's child, with your own unique purpose here on this earth.

I will probably die kicking and screaming the whole way. I love life to much to give in to death without one hell of a fight! I must get that from my mother, she fought long and hard too.

I think taking his car was a good start. Look, you can suspend his license, but it doesn't guarantee he won't get behind the wheel of that car and drive again. Drunk drivers do it all the time, WITH suspended licenses. BUT, if you take away his car, it is going to be a little more difficult for him to get behind the wheel of it again.

the phrase "law of liberty" came up in another thread so I started looking at other translations of this phrase. Almost every translation beyond KJV says "perfect law". Interestingly, it is found in James where people are told to be doers of the law and not hearers only.

Sometimes it is useful to look at other translations. Nearly every translation I checked other than KJV translates "law of liberty" as "perfect law". And to the Jews, the law/Torah is perfect and does give freedom. Sounds contradictory I now, but it so.

Interestingly enough, it is because our earth isn't renewed and perfect that Jewish people do not believe Jesus was the Messiah, though many believe he was a great Rabbi.

I think when someone can heal the sick and raise the dead - then they can justify themselves by saying "Jesus did it, so I can too." :)

T-Bone you might like this - it is from the Complete Jewish Bible. I am going to bold face a few of the things that stand out to me: Okay, I'm going to try to pull this together as best I can. First Torah = Law. The laws are good in that they taught us right from wrong. I use the example of infants and toddlers. Infants and young toddlers do not know right from wrong, they only know what they want and need and they will do whatever it takes to get those wants and needs fulfilled. As parents, we use praise and punishment to teach them right from wrong, we make rules (i.e. laws, Torah) as the Torah does as well. However, even as adults we are imperfect, even the best of us have moments of selfishness, etc. The law could not fix that. The law could teach us a certain action was wrong, but it could not prevent us from desiring to take that action. Likewise, we could take an action with the best of intentions and still come out with a bad result. Now Kabbalah (which both Paul and Jesus were well versed in) teaches that all of this world is an illusion. Bear with me, because I am going to have serious trouble finding the words to communicat this and even I only understand it on a somewhat periphreal (sp) level. The idea, however, is that as you work your way through Kabbalah and become expert at practicing it, the illusion begins to fall away. I suspect Jesus and perhaps even Paul had mastered that. In fact, I find it interesting that Paul says he was alive outside the framework of Torah, then inside the framework of Torah he died because through the commandman sin killed him. Hmmmm - - In the old testament there were sacrifices to be made for sin - sin offerings of various animals (life). The ultimate offering of sin would be the death of self, figuratively speaking, or in a sense the death of certain aspects of the ego (damn I wish I could remember my psychology terminology better :) ) Paul goes on to say "Now if I am doing what I don't want to do, I am agreeing that the Torah is good. 17 But now it is no longer "the real me" doing it, but the sin housed inside me. 18 For I know that there is nothing good housed inside me - that is, inside my old nature. " It is something of a schizophrenic statement, and yet it makes sense if you don't take it literally. He is sort of separating out the different aspects of his ego (for lack of a better word). It is quite Freudian in a sense. Again it is here: "God did this in order to deal with sin, and in so doing he executed the punishment against sin in human nature, 4 so that the just requirement of the Torah might be fulfilled in us who do not run our lives according to what our old nature wants but according to what the Spirit wants. " We are not to run our lives according to what our old nature (ego) wants but according to what the spirit wants. It is still a choice though yes, every day, every minute a choice. Am I going to go steal that beer or am I going to pay for it? Well, to make the right choice, we have to kill the ego - the part of us that would argue in our brain somewhere that is perfectly okay to steal it and we have to act according to what God tells us. Much of this we know from the laws, yes. Even within Christianity today they say "though shalt not steal". The laws didn't literally die and go away. They still exist, we still have a choice. And here: "For the mind controlled by the old nature is hostile to God, because it does not submit itself to God's Torah - indeed, it cannot. " Again, even after the age of Messiah, there is still a choice to be made. We can allow our mind to be run by the ego, or we can practice as kabbalah and destroy the go and submit to God. Oy, I am not sure how much sense I am making here. I guess again, the point goes right back to - the information was there all along. Jesus and Paul didn't teach anything new. What they did do, however, was bring the information out to the masses (most of whom were NOT schooled in Kabbalah as that was by and large only for the very well versed in the laws such as Rabbis). The simplified the information so that it was somewhat easier to understand - they said it in terms of the people of their time. I think one of the big differences between today (at least in this country - lol) and biblical times is the freedom for the individual to choose. If you read the OT you will see time and time again where great men of God made choices that were contrary to the law and did not suffer consenquences and were not reproved by God. Abraham lied about Sarah. Moses married a "stranger". Lot's daughers had sex with him. Then there are those who broke the laws and suffered consequences for it. What is the difference? Why is there a difference? Because the laws are concrete and humanity and life is not. Is it sin to steal medication from a pharmacy to save the life of another human being, if that is THE ONLY way to get that medication and save the life???? Well, I guess I'll let God be the ultimate judge of that. But in OT days, and especially in the time of Jesus, the religious rules ruled with a concrete hammer. Thus sayeth the law, no exception (unless of course it was for one of the rulers). Jesus returned our relationship with God back to a personal and individual one (which is what it was intended to be all along). He put it back on the individual - you walk with God, you decide if you will live by the flesh or live by the spirit. The law cannot always give you a concrete answer on what is right and what is wrong, because there are always going to be exceptions to the rules of law. Okay, I realize this is a long and circular post. Take from it what you can :)

Kitchenaide (sp) and Calphalone are both excellent choices according to MR. Snooty Pans.

would you kindly define spiritual justification? I do not understand what the phrase means. Thanks :)

WearWord, I finally finished reading through your posts in the political forum - which I think is what prompted this thread. I am more and more convinced that you and I are on a pretty similar page and it is simply an issue of wording that is different. In anycase, I like what you have to say thus far and I think a large part of the problem is one of communication. I hope you will keep talking and eventually we will come to understand each other's languages better. Peace, love and liberty! :)