there is no other approach to queer issues other than to maintain a humble respect for how queer persons experience their own embodiment.
I agree with this because if their choice isn't affecting you, then why should it bother you? People should be able to live how they want in peace. God loves every person and even if some people may think being gay is a sin, every person sins and a sin is a sin is a sin. Everyone deserves respect and equality.
And on this logic—the same logic, by the way, that rightly grounds the conclusion that we should, for example, prefer the term “person living with depression” to “depressed person”—we should not refer to persons in ways that may imply that they are essentially defined by something that they are, in fact, managing.
Being gay and having depression are not the same thing. Depression is a medical problem, while being gay or queer is not a medical problem. It is a choice that people debate within themselves and make.
In gratitude, in ceremony, through acts of practical reverence and land stewardship, in fierce defense of the places we love, in art, in science, in song, in gardens, in children, in ballots, in stories of renewal, in creative resistance, in how we spend our money and our precious lives, by refusing to be complicit with the forces of ecological destruction. Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and dance for the renewal of the world.
This shows that there are so many ways to give back. There is no right or wrong gift you can bring to the Earth. Whatever your vocation is, use it to be a beneficiary to the Earth. Everyone has a calling on this Earth and it is our job to find that calling from God and pursue it in order to reciprocate the gifts of the Earth.
Take only what you need and leave some for others.
I feel like this is a very hard rule to keep for a lot of people because why take only what you need if you can take more just in case. Most people just get richer and don't give to the poor and needy and that can be seen as gluttonous. They hoard their money and God wants them to help. God puts an emphasis on his love for the poor and we can see this in Ezekiel 16:49, "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy." God does not want us to be gluttonous, but to give to others what we don't need. Proverbs 23:2, "and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony."
and it is nothing butthe mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise orobligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk withyour blood.
What I am getting from this sentence is that God is happy to save you from death (the arrow). He doesn't need to save you, but he does. What I don't get is that the paragraph mentions that God's bow is bent and is ready to shoot us. Does that imply that He is getting ready to shoot us, but just doesn't. Like he is trying to taunt us and threaten us to follow him, otherwise he will end us? That just doesn't seem very "Godly" of Him.
Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrathto come. . . .
I am going to comment not on just this last sentence, but the whole sermon. I actually had to read this sermon in my Survey of American Literature class last semester. We learned that this sermon was meant to be didactic. It was meant to teach the Puritans that they must obey God in order to reap the benefits of Him. Another interesting thing I learned is that Edwards is, in a way, scaring the people into following God. He says that if they don't do what God wants, they will perish. So, if you anger God, you will live in misery, but if you follow God, it will set you free.
I imagine if we acknowledged that everything we consume is the gift of Mother Earth, we would take better care of what we are given.
Many people don't think of Mother Earth as often as they should. I had this friend in high school that would post on Instagram on Earth Day a bunch of pictures of her and nature and write a caption about how much she loves earth, but when we would go out she would throw trash in the lake and out the car window and would say it won't make a difference. It is important to stay true to your beliefs and do what you preach especially in this context of that everything is a gift and we shouldn't take Earth for granted.
Gratitude is so much more than a polite thank you.
This is facts. Although thank you can go a long way, it is most of the time very much surface level. People use than you to reply to, "Have a good day," or "Here's your food!" You usually don't say "I'm grateful" to respond to these phrases. It is just a more deeper way of saying you appreciate something.
When we speak of these not as things or products or commodities, but as gifts, the whole relationship changes.
This is a great sentence because it made me think of a similar situation. When we say we "get" to do things, it becomes so much more appealing to us than if we said we "have" to do a task. It's the little things we say to ourselves that make a difference. Having these gifts is a privilege.
To be more specific, both religion and science must preserve their autonomy and their distinctiveness. Religion is not founded on science nor is science an extension of religion. Each should possess its own principles, its pattern of procedures, its diversities of interpretation and its own conclusions. Christianity possesses the source of its justification within itself and does not expect science to constitute its primary apologetic. Science must bear witness to its own worth. While each can and should support the other as distinct dimensions of a common human culture, neither ought to assume that it forms a necessary premise for the other. The unprecedented opportunity we have today is for a common interactive relationship in which each discipline retains its integrity and yet is radically open to the discoveries and insights of the other.
This is the problem with being open, yet sticking to your beliefs. Because sometimes being open goes against your beliefs. This paragraph says to support the other as a distinct dimension. If a Christian doesn't try to show or teach someone about God who openly admits that they don't believe in God, they can be persecuted as not being a true believer and a hypocrite because Christians are told to speak of God's Word and that they will miss the opportunity to save people by showing them God. On the other hand, I can't see a scientist saying "Yes, I get that point," when they are talking to a Christian about a topic like how the earth was created. The people who have the opportunity to speak to each other about this topic are usually highly confident and want to prove what they are advocating for. So, I think it is almost impossible to remain distinct to The Church, and also hear and see the views of science.
In the process we must overcome every regressive tendency to a unilateral reductionism, to fear, and to self-imposed isolation. What is critically important is that each discipline should continue to enrich, nourish and challenge the other to be more fully what it can be and to contribute to our vision of who we are and who we are becoming.
Unfortunately, I think most of the time, people do isolate themselves and only look at their argument and the pros to their side and the cons to their opposition. It is important to take a look at the pros of you opposition and the cons of what your advocating for to fully understand what you are fighting for. This way, each discipline will be able to grow and bounce off of each other instead of attack each other.
Watch for your life's sake. Let not your lamps be quenched, nor your loins unloosed; but be ready, for you know not the hour in which our Lord will come.
Not knowing when the Lord will come had always scared me. In my high school senior theology class, we learned about the end times and it sounded hectic. We learned that there will be natural disasters, people pretending to be Jesus, the dead will rise from the ground, etc. Besides this point, we learned that we need to make sure our faith is secure so that we don't fall away from God before he takes his followers to heaven.
And of these sayings the teaching is this: Bless those who curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast for those who persecute you.
I always found this teaching odd and in a way a hard pill to swallow. When feel hurt by another person, the first instinct is to want revenge against them or to want "karma" to get them back. But, instead, the Lord is teaching that if we are slapped, we should turn the other cheek. It is hard to be criticized and be pushed down and let people get away with it. I think this is ultimately telling us to go with peace, be the bigger person, and to practice staying away from hate.
The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded.
This reminds me of the saying that the people that you hang around with are who you become. I found this to be true as I pick up on my friends lingo and their humor, and vice versa. We have a tendency to adapt and mold into our environment and their views. If we don't expand our horizons, we are arrogant and not open-minded. In order to avoid this we need to learn all point of views and reasonings for them to make an educated conclusion on our beliefs.
student, you’ve never liked hearing this, and you tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim that you needed anybody to teach you how to think, since the fact that you even got admitted to a college this good seems like proof that you already know how to think. But I’m going to posit to you that the liberal arts cliché turns out not to be insulting at all, because the really significant education in thinking that we’re supposed to get in a place like this isn’t really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about.
When I was in high school, I used to think that college in general would just teach more information. For example, my political science class, last semester, did not only teach me about our government system, but government systems around the world and the professor had us ponder and decide which one would work the best. Yes, you will be accumulating knowledge, but obtaining knowledge will help us decide ourselves what is right. Knowledge gives us the power to debate and think for ourselves.