posted December 03, 2008 10:55 PM         

I am speaking to everyone who has something to say about what I am about to ask. I know that everyone has their own take on the same story, that is why I love opinions. And the reason why I have decide to question you all.

So I was pondering having children because like most of you know it is a goal of mine to have my own one day. But I was thinking about how God has provided us with everything that we already need, and how things are just illusions. So I started to think, why can't people have children when they are ready? Everyone says how people need to be financially stable, and in love and whatnot. But if these things were so needed, why would God allow broke people to have children? Why would these returning souls agree to be born into situations that are lacking the very things that they need? For if there was no love, the child wouldn't be here. And I know it is not by chance because there have been many times people could have kids and didn't, so I know it is of a higher purpose. So I ask you all, what is really needed to bring a life into this world, when it has been said that these things have already been provided? Why would a person agree to be born if money or love or a home was not available or stable?

posted December 04, 2008 05:38 AM         

I do personally believe that it is each person's responsibility to be at a place in their life where they are mature enough, financially stable enough, etc. to have children before they do so. That is, regarding intent. However, I also believe that not everyone benefits from a traditionally ideal upbringing. That's heresy, I know. Some of the brightest minds and greatest contributors to our world have come from great poverty and I don't think their accomplishments were in spite of their circumstances. I believe many of us place great import on our current personalities and lives, as though this is all there is and all we have. But, for me, this is just one of many rounds on the ferris wheel. Sometimes I'll be at the bottom and sometimes I'll be on top, but, wherever I am, I believe I am where I need to be ... to learn whatever lessons, face whatever challenges and experience whatever my soul needs. Whether that purpose is revealed in this life or another is not of much consequence to me.

I say unpopular because then the tragedies of human suffering seem almost justified by that position and I assure you I don't mean to imply that. There are many ways to learn a particular lesson, imo, and I think people conciously choose in between lives how far they're willing to go for their own growth. Neither do I think all future possibilities are set in stone. Ie, you may decide to experience x,y,z in your next life not fully aware that a,b,c will go along with it because it wasn't predestined and was dependant on other factors/people. That goes back to destiny and fate vs. free will which is an whole other topic.

Nevertheless, I also believe that each child conceived was meant to be, whether or not the parents wanted it or were ready in their own opinions. However short or long, pleasant or unbearable a span of life has been, I simply don't believe it is all in vain. In short, when you're all ready "within" for whatever you need to experience, then a new soul is incarnated and any manner of, say, soul "success" can never be quantified or qualified by our mundane perspectives.

posted December 06, 2008 07:32 AM         

quote:

---

Some of the brightest minds and greatest contributors to our world have come from great poverty and I don't think their accomplishments were in spite of their circumstances.

---

Eleanore, I love, as always, what you wrote. However, I disagree with this quote, as I believe everything we do is a testemony to who we are, which is based on how we are. Some great contributors were wealthy, and yes, some were poor, we're all people who chose our parents and current incarnation. We all choose based on (perhaps) what we can possibly achieve. Some chose for the pure experience. The one note I wish to add to this discussion, is that a "stable" household may attract more "positive" entities because this environment may provide more opportunities. I have found that "unstable" households may have beautiful people, but that their potential is taken awat because they are too busy re-enacting their childhood dramas, or treating people the way they saw their psycho parents seeing people. You can break out of this, or maybe next life, but my point is that an "unstable" family attracts more people that want to experience drama, because they see it in the family. However, if you are stable, then the kids you have aren'y *always* melodramatic and agressive, but instead, will be reflections of the stable parents, and turn into great human beings. My caveat though, is that you don't need money to be stable - you need MENTAL stability and toughness to deal with life. If you let lide overwhelm you, then your kids will see this, and live the same way. I hope this helps.

Heaps of Love,
Dean.

------------------
I realized it for the first time in my life:
there is nothing but mystery in the world,
how it hides behind the fabric of our poor,
browbeat days, shining brightly, and we don't even know it.

Sue Monk Kidd, "The Secret Life of Bees", p79

posted December 06, 2008 09:49 PM         

******

Hello, Sesame. I think you bring up a good point but I don't think it necessarily contradicts what I wrote. I was careful to write "some" and not "all". It comes down to nature vs. nurture and I don't think that's an argument that can be won for either side definitively as either one alone neglects the individual. My point was rather that some people thrive under challenges that would break others. That doesn't speak to the virtues of the challenges themselves as much as it does to the will of the person (and other attributes of their life), imo.

Also, I don't feel the same repulsion to struggle and challenge and even negative experiences that is quite the common attitude today. Maybe a life seems wasted, maybe a person failed to thrive but that's all seen from our perspective here. How can we be sure that that seemingly failed life did not accomplish precisely what it needed? Or that, through its seeming failure, it did not help others in reaching their own potentials? Fact is, we just don't know. So it comes down to belief. Do we believe the poor, the disabled, the sick, the suffering lives all around us are without purpose and essentially without worth? I just can't believe that ... even if it is because I see that those in great struggle often provide an avenue for others to bring about the best in themselves. The rich would have no impetus to be generous were it not for the poor, for example. So, to me, it is quite possible that these souls agreed to experience these struggles, not only to learn their own lessons, but also to help the general evolution of other's admirable soul qualities.

That does not speak to any inherent goodness in all things we consider negative, either. Imo, there is a vast difference between "positive" evil and "negative" evil. A positive evil would be, say, a volcano in the natural world. Sure. It is destructive, no doubt. But it also helps to create infinitely more fertile soil over time. I think human experiences equivalent to volcanoes are, deep within, positive motivating forces in the long run. That does not mean, however, that I don't believe there are also negative evil equivalents in human experience and a discussion on that would lead us far off topic, I think.

Just my opinions.

posted December 07, 2008 03:34 PM         

Your concept of God "allowing" is puzzling to me. Do you really feel that you are not in control of your life? do you feel that God has some sort of bag and dishes out good and bad? If something good happens do you think God has blessed me and if something bad happens you think God has cursed me? That God does not exist for me and I personally believe it to be an incorrect view. We all have choices and our decisions affect ourselves and others. Choose wisely and good will surely follow, choose ego and eventually something undesirable will happen. You can choose to have a child with poor finances and an immature outlook on life and your child will be affected... You can wait til your mature and stable and the child will benefit. The fruit does not fall far from the tree.It is important to know if you are truly not financially/emotionally ready or if you're just not trusting. I know some people who had kids young, but their situation turned around quickly. I think education played a part in this.

posted December 07, 2008 06:44 PM         

great people come from all kinds of backgrounds! perhaps we chose our parents to repay them for helping US in a previous incarnation. perhaps we wanted to see how strong WE could become in the worst possible circs. who knows? those who denigrate the idle rich in countries with aristocracies may not be noticing that a large proportion of the arts were created by people who had the time and money to play with their creativity. also from those with the most trauma to work out...

who has worked out all their stuff before 40? and how many people wait that long to have kids? for me, just having someone who depended on me made me grow up FAST. i was not planning her but did i want her? yes. nothing would have stopped me having that "accidental" baby. of course i believed that i would not get pregnant till it was "time". and i didn't! did i think i was ready? not until i conceived...

i think my point is who are we to say what is a good breeding ground and what is not? it takes all sorts. in the eyes of "god" there is not good and bad, only experience - we learn from our parents' mistakes at least as much as from their wisdom.

posted December 09, 2008 06:39 AM         

Well, first of all, I don't necessarily agree that God should be wholly identified with the universe, or that universal laws are in perfect harmonious agreement with the working of God's love. I cannot be sure, but, I dont think the working of God's love has anything to do with torture, holocausts, and child rape, although I do hope and pray that God can, will, and does turn everything to advantage, eventually.

Secondly, I think procreation is much more complicated than our civilization has suspected. I would go so far as to say that it is presumptuous and immoral to procreate, since, basically, we are bringing souls into this world, with or without their permission (who really knows?), where they will certainly be subject to karmic tests, temptations, impurities, struggles, and, quite often, profound miseries; including both mental anguish and physical agony, followed by a death which may or may not be slow and painful. We claim to be acting on the authority of God, but, then, all atrocities have been committed "on the authority of God". Or, at least, with "His" permission; or so it would seem, since, if atrocities exist, it must be that God allows them to exist, right? Again, we are just making assumptions left and right about the nature and power of God.

There are some who say that there is a law of polarity in the world, which provides a kind of balance:

"We live in a dualistic world, there is a law of the Universe, one of the 7 Laws of the Universe, called The Law of Polarity. This law states that for every up there's a down, for every in there's an out, for every right there's a wrong, what that means in day to day practicality is that if there is anything that is really really great in your life, there is going to be something that really really sucks. That's polarity/duality, it cannot be changed. Quantum physics tells us that for every positron there is an electron that has a negative charge. If we live in this world and we get the idea that we are going to collect all the quarters in this world and we want only the heads but not the tails, then we decrease our magnetism."
~ james arthur ray

But I don't know exactly how all of this works, how everything evens out.. I'm not sure it really does even out for the individual, egoistic soul.. I think duality may compensate for one man's loss with another man's gain, rather than by recompensing the loser. All of these matters are, to my mind, far more intricate, elaborate, and complex that most of us would care to admit. I think we all look for easy answers, and, if they are not forthcoming, we resent being uncertain, or having to consider the matter more fully. When someone indicates the complexity to us, most of us will usually sooner accuse him/her of thinking too much, than suspect that we may perhaps have more thinking to do. "Our minds are lazier than our bodies." (~ La Rochefoucauld) In any case, you can be sure that if an answer is easy it will be in the mouth of every fool, and, since fools are plentiful, you can be fairly certain that whatever so-called wisdom is popular, it is likely to be fraudulent and superficial. And yet, the majority choose their beliefs by this very sign; that the belief is both popular and easy to digest. For many of us, there is nothing so difficult as thinking outside the box.

The world is dangerously overpopulated. Both the population and the danger grow exponentially every day. For this, and for a variety of other reasons, I hold the opinion that procreation is unethical. Adoption is ethical. There are countless children in need of a loving environment, who will grow up in poverty, ignorance, sickness, and possibly war, if they are not adopted into safe homes and communities. If you are determined to have a child, I suggest adoption, but, if you are determined to have a child of your own, I suggest, at the very least, that you prepare the home for this child, and do not simply open another floodgate into the spiritworld, and drag another freespirit down to earth in order to suffer, in addition to all the standard torments, a life of poverty. Sure, we can all speculate on why a soul would choose to suffer, but we dont really know. Maybe the real reason is that souls are masochistic, and believe they dont deserve to enjoy paradise with God. Maybe they got sold on the idea that they weren't good enough, and had to do something.. so now they are trapped in endless cycles of reincarnation because they wanted to be good enough for God, and the harder they tried, the harder they fell. Who knows?! We dont even know that it is a choice, and, by the looks of it, it seems a little ridiculous to think that it would be a choice.

Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things Entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
Re-mold it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

~ Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam (1048 - 1131)

posted December 09, 2008 08:29 AM         

And don't give me no horse poo about the philosophy of the moment... I want to know how you got from point A to point B or if you somehow reconcile them and if you always did (and I am missing something) or if this is something new! and what triggered this something new and what arguments Future Steve uses to prove Past Deterministic Steve wrong because damm, many good men tried and failed on that account. lol Right? hehe
And I could probably carry the torch for past Steve, arguing like a champ. If there is added Knowledge/Research on this subject, I WANT IT!!

posted December 09, 2008 08:32 AM         

"If you want to make God laugh
tell Him your plans."

posted December 09, 2008 08:30 PM         

I always had a slightly different interpretation on that one. Not that God is purposely going to somehow create the opposite of what you want but that your view is so limited that you really have no idea what would be best for you. So you can say, "Hey, this is what I think is ideal for my future" and God will chuckle because "he" sees what your real potentials are and the trials/opportunities ahead of you. But I don't think God actually does any real time "promoting" or "demoting".

posted December 09, 2008 10:47 PM         

That is exactly what I meant... things we think are great tragedies turn out to be blessings in hindsight, or missed opportunities are usually things we would live to regret had we forced them to happen. And there are times when everything seems against you and it is a difficult call to determine if it is a time to "stand up and fight" or if it is just pressure from the Universe to guide you in a different direction, even if only temporarily. It all takes a lot of prayer, mostly when you least feel like doing it.

posted December 11, 2008 02:10 AM         

I dont see God as a personal entity.
I see various energies at work in the universe,
some of which may be "appealed to" or worked with.

I think there are various ways to see and think of God,
but all of these are archetypes, incapable of encapsulating Him.

There is a God who is All.
And a God who is only Love.
These are and are not the same.
They each express some part of the truth,
but neither one encapsulates it, --
and together they produce conflicts, worlds;
not answers, or the harmony of dead things.

There are Buddhas of Power, Compassion, and Wisdom.
There are Creators, Sustainers, and Destroyers.
Each has His or Her own distinct lesson(s) to impart.

I really don't claim to have unravelled it,
or to have discovered some great theological rule of thumb.
I really do live moment to moment and reinterpret everything
in light of whatever seems to apply to the unique present situation,
because, having no dogmatic rules of my own to apply,
the only path left for me is this path of intuitive improvisation.
It keeps me honest, and free from at least one kind of hypocrisy,
but, certainly, it is a path not without its drawbacks.
Like I've said, I think there is a fine line between
conveniently making up our beliefs on the spot,
and keeping our fingers on the pulse of the moment.
This is a very Piscean/Neptunian approach, as I see it,
so, there is equal potential for delusion and revelation.
I just sort of trust that my soul will know what's best,
while equally practicing a fair amount of discrimination.

There is no single answer, or single doctrine, or single God!
You drink when you are thirsty, you sleep when you are tired.
Truth is like that. It is not a drink you never put down,
or a bed that you never get out of in the morning.
So, I do not point to some outside authority and say "Truth",
because there is no truth for all time; there is only nature,
and to be in tune with nature, is to discover the truth of the moment.
And truth, if you try to follow it and make sense of it,
will change form right under your nose --
because, if truth is presently making breakfast,
the next minute, truth will not be making, but eating breakfast;
and after that, truth will be brushing Her teeth!

We need to find the common thread that links these truths,
or we will not know what sleeping has to do with waking up,
or what eating food has to do with brushing teeth.
But the only common thread is the life you want to live.
And the only way you know what you are hungry for today,
is by listening to your gut, and following your cravings.
I think truth is no more, and no less, objective than this.
Truth, like us, is alive, moves, changes, is full of surprises.
It is eternal because it is eternally changing; eternally new.

Again, my spirituality is more Lunar than Solar,
so, people disposed to take a more solar approach
will necessarily see my way as backwards and confused.
But if you seek mysteries, rather than answers, I'm your man.

posted December 11, 2008 09:48 AM         

I don't know if you answered my question but I don't care. You answered another Question. And I do see the archetypes moving fluidly but I only call the One Totality "God" in the real sense because God by definition means "All-Knowing/All-Powerful/ALL Everything" Omni-everything, you Know? There was so much truth and beauty in what you said, and it helped, as it always does. I re-devote our friendship to God every time I am reminded to... God bless you, good sweet man.

I see you posted a quote from that cool book you have... I'll read that next.