green

Green is going in for a fill this Thursday AM. All this talk of food....I realized that I can eat just about anything these days!

Sounds like we are god's golems.:phanvan

But what is the value of belief in salvation without acknowledgement of the value of good works? The Old Covenant offers up the Ten Commandments and the New Testament offers up the injunction that we must love our neighbours as we would ourselves be loved. We are also presented with the spectacle of who Jesus was when He appeared in His fleshly form and how He behaved while He was downstairs and walking about on this earth. All of this is, presumably, part of the package, is it not? (Hitler, by the way, had a belief in salvation and thought that it would be a good thing to scrub out the Jews. This, arguably, was not a good work, eh.)

This is in the way of a debate on matters of theology and belief systems and is not intended to be a support thread. That is why it is found, as others have pointed out to you, in the Rant and Raves forum. Some of us find these discussions passionately interesting and quite intellectually stimulating. You, it seems, do not fall into this category. And that is just something for you to think about.

Yep, I agree with my fellow Canuck. Although I am a non-believer I have been greatly heartened by the goodness of many of the believers whom I have met on this thread. And like TommyO, I have been spooked by those who are close-minded ultra-right wing Conservatives.

I love the bed!!!!

Welcome back! sez Green.

Mandi, do you have Winner's out where you live? You can buy high thread-count king size bed sheets for a good price there.

Come into the cold! We have Teaching English as a Second Language programmes up here in Toronto, Canada.

She who walks 4 and a half miles today Will live to wash her doggies another day.........:clap2: eh

Why should this really matter to you, Cusano, or to your Christian God? These are only outward frills which vary from sect to sect but the basic demands of the Christian faith are the same: faith in the Trinity and an attempt to live a life that is marked by a sustained attempt to practice good works towards those who are often the least loveable. Remember that Jesus did hang out with the working class and with prostitutes. Today these individuals might be those who are out of work and on welfare and receiving food stamps. Some of them might be Black or Hispanic. Some of them might be dealing with drug problems. Do you really think these doctrinal differences actually matter to God or to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit, assuming that this triumvirate actually exists? Lay off the Catholics! A good Catholic is a good Christian, I would suspect, for the demands of a good Christian are belief and the practice of good works.

Amen from Green.

Aw shucks, grrl, it was thanks to all the fine work that the other LBTers have been into this thread for quite some number of pages now but it makes me happy to hear that you enjoyed what I had to say.

But it seems to me that implicit in this package - i.e. belief in God and Jesus, etc - is an acknowledgement of how this individual arrived on this planet and how He chose to conduct His life during His stay here. This was a despised member of the underclass and of an under-race. One cannot be a true follower of Jesus without walking the walk, eh? I spy with my little eye a glaring hypocrisy amongst many of those who are the most right-wing Christians.

When I was very young and briefly a Christian I thought that a Christian was a Christian and that the difference in the sects was merely one of small doctrinal variations and the fit between the style of the church and the individual worshipper. Afterall, I thought, a Christian is a Christian and that is someone who acknowledges and worships the Holy Trinity of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (also known as the Dove/the Holy Ghost). How very wrong I was! Now, although I am now an atheist, it strikes me that if I were to take the long view, perhaps the view of the Ineffable One who might be looking down at us from upstairs, from his celestial post, He might find much of this passionate doctrinal debate, all of this infighting, foolish, sad, retrograde, and offensive. Isn't it true that the broad strokes of the Bible demand its believers to follow the Ten Commandments, to love each other as we would love ourselves, and to believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit? Perhaps the major philosophical shift between the Old Testament and the New was movement from do no harm to Jesus's teaching to do good. An examination of His behaviour while He was alive will bear this out. Indeed, it may be argued that Jesus's arguments with the devil and his minions and His threats of hellfire were mostly directed at those individuals who behaved in an unkind and inhumane fashion towards their fellow men. In tossing out the money lenders, he might be making a comment about such individuals as Benny Hinn (who is currently trawling for donations so that he can buy his private jet which will be called The Dove), Jim Bakker, and others of those so-called Christian pundits who have risen to become rich and powerful. God's argument with Sodom was perhaps based on the city's descent into mindless lust, brutality and social anarchy. A caring and loving same sex couple is the polar opposite from that. One might argue that these days Hollywood comes closer to Sodom, eh. By all accounts Jesus spent most of His life hanging out with the working class. Indeed, he was a working class bloke Himself. And yet in America so many of those who consider themselves the best Christians continue to vote for a party which favours tax cuts which hurt the poor and the lower and the middle middle class. These best Christians are often people who display ungenerous attitudes towards the Hispanic issue and a racist attitude towards Blacks. The most powerfully devout Christian whom I have ever met told me that the Messiah chose to make His first appearance before mankind as a Jew because at that time Jews were regarded with the same distaste as Blacks, Trailer Park Trash, or certain other minorities are today. The point, it seemed, was that the message had to be presented by someone without Hollywood lustre; this is where true faith begins. I was, I must confess, extraordinarily moved when I heard this.

Yep, I miss Carlene, too.

Bad behaviour like this occasionally happens post-band but only occasionally - it's no longer a lifestyle!

I think that it is wonderful that you have written into LBT and that you want to recommit to your band. It sounds like you did have bad luck with the second lapband doctor and with your counsellor. The advice which you have been receiving from other LBT-ers is the same as I would give you: dump them both and find people with whom you are comfortable and who will help you. With respect to your depression, I suffer from depression and I am on medication for this. You may wish to find out whether meds might be an appropriate method of treatment or not. You do have an advantage over some bandsters in that you know from your initial success that the band can work for you. This is a good thing! You were doing well until you were defilled by your doctor. You will do well again. Keep on posting and let us know how you are doing.

Green is green with envy. It looks like she is goin' to have to go to Oz to do her shopping!

I save the daily newspapers and read them during the commercial breaks. This is why commercials don't usually bother me too much. Sometimes I stay up quite late watching TV because I haven't finished reading all the papers. At the end of the evening there they are, thrown all over the floor. The next morning I collect them and any empty water bottles that happen to be lying around and toss them into the appropriate recycle garbage bins. Nevertheless, I did catch the occasional food ad by accident while I was on the liquid phase post-op and the experience was cruel. I do find, however, that the food always looks nicer on TV than it does when you are half-way finished eating it.

I agree with Betsyjane. I was banded last September and I have lost weight thanks to this tool. I simply cannot eat as much and even though I am now retired and thus in close proximity to my kitchen I am eating much, much less. The band won't allow me to eat as much as I used to do. A lot of the success of the band hinges on getting the right amount of fill. And it will work poorly on an oreo and icecream diet. :faint: You do have to collaborate with the band. Because I don't have those big meals anymore I deal with my food obsession by paying more attention to what I am going to eat. I pay a lot of attention to the breakdown of calories and vitamins, fibre, and proteins, etc present in prepared foods, both canned and frozen, and I make a point of trying to add fresh produce to my meals. I also take vitamin supplements because I don't always do a good job.:phanvan And best wishes on your recommitment to your band, rtgirl!

Yep, the original church split into the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church at some point during the third century CE. The Protestant split came a long, long time later - over a thousand years later. Carlene could give you the exact dates and more information, I am sure. She really knows her church history!

Yeah, I was baffled by eD, too. I can sort out Cusano's misspellings but eD was right off the map.

I think that it is more in the way of a NBP - a non-Band Pleasure!:hungry: Enjoy it while you can, grrl.

Thanks for posting this, Devana. I found it very interesting. I was sent to a private school by my parents when I was young up here in Canada. In fact my parents paid a big bunch of bucks because I was a boarder. And then I grew up and chose not to have kids of my own. Although my parents and I have paid much more into the school system than we will ever personally harvest I still believe that a country's investment into the intellectual development of the next generation is best thing that the tax paying citizens can do. As to how this might be sorted out with respect to the demands of a private school over a state school, I am very, very confused.