Not_Now_Soon

The Bible has had and continues to have an influence in society today, but did Christianity stop nations from having despotic rulers? Saying that they didn't follow the teachings properly sounds like the excuses for failed socialist states from diehard socialists.

I think the idea of the Ramsay bequeath was to promote the idea that civilisation is an evolutionary process rather than an act of creation.

As an analogy, I have had moderate to severe psoriasis and psoriatic arthropathy over the past thirty years. How should I manage it? Should I take the advice of people who have dabbled in junk science and come up with a theory of how the disease can be cured with all manner of extreme diets and supplements? Maybe I should follow a fellow who claims to have been told how to cure the disease with the advice of a deceased psychic (actually true- the guy is a best selling author)? Perhaps I should dabble in Eastern medicine based treatments, which, despite the claims of their superiority over "Western Medicine" , are often illegally spiked with potent steroids? What I chose and have had success with is modern medical treatment. Why? Because it does not concern itself with a bunch of crackpot theories or hokus pokus nonsense. It is simply a collection of scientifically valid treatments. If improvements are found they are adopted. Imagine if the basis of medicine were a sacred text and any new ideas were seen as heresy? Would we better for it?

Why would God want to make it so difficult for us to live according to his rules ? Why would he make it so utterly impossible for the decent to gain the upper hand ?
That's what I am grappling with.

'Why would God want to make it so difficult for us to live according to his rules ?'

Only 2 Individual. Love God and love your neighbour. Granted a lot harder than rattling off these 2 commandments. Reality is that life is much much harder when you don't live by these 2 commandments. Fences are put their for protection in order to live a fulfilled life.

To Fester.

In the past we had Kings and queens, or some other means of acquiring leadership without the people's say in the matter. The leaders could be alright or despotic in their rule. But it was not up to the people's decision, who gets to rule over them. Somehow that changed, and it can be up to us who rules over us, makes decisions on our behalf, and steers the direction of the country.

With that in mind, who's fault is it if we have a despotic leader? Our fault for choosing him. There's no real alternative to this responsibility. Therefore how to choose a leader should be something of value. And believe it or not, this is covered in the bible! In two letters that Paul wrote, he gave qualifications for how to choose an elder who leads the church, as well as some qualifications for choosing deacons who will serve the needs of the community. If we apply these same qualifications to who will be the leader of the country (qualifications of an elder); and the qualifications for making laws and serving the country in the legislative elements (deacons); then I would think we would have a very different picture of the world and the leaders of the nations. In today's world leaders are an extension of the choices we make, and are an extension of the values and the faults of the people who chose them. It's not the other way around, where the leaders are the evil rulers and the people are the oppressed if the people actually chose them.

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Here are the verses I mean for qualifications for church leadership. Look at them yourself if it interests you, and let me know if you see a fault in applying these elements to the voting of our leaders.

Titus 1:5-9, 1 Tim. 3:1-13, 1 Peter 5:1-4

The only fault I can see in these is that none of our leaders seem to pass the test of not getting into fights and to be gentle. In fact in order to gain votes they do just the opposite and go into the arena of mud slinging at each other, and get the people riled up to not vote for the other guy. Again who's fault is that though? It's ours the voter, because we allow it and vote for them. They do it because it works at gaining more votes.

On the other hand if there are no good candidates to vote from, then don't vote. Don't pick from the lesser of two evils, either be willing to stand by the choice you vote for, or back away from the election as a whole. That's the only way I can think of for changing how the election processes are run is if the voters withhold their votes on the candidates and the issues they disagree with.

To Individual.

We live in an unhealthy world. I would go further and say by the results in it that it is more like a broken world then just an unhealthy one. But how to get better from being crippled is a different approach then how to get better if your unhealthy. One is more severe for the actions you take to get better, and it might be that it's not about getting over being crippled, but to live with it as best you can instead of regaining use of your legs.

For the lets just say the world is unhealthy. An obese person who has trouble exercising, staying on a diet (or just healthy eating habits) and in general preserve through the trials of getting better without giving up. The world is like this unhealthy person. The ailments of their weight are a burden that can cause other health issues like diabetes, heart attacks, or even damage to organs.

The world that we live in likewise doesn't exercise good habits of living a decent life. Those who fall back to get a quick gain by ruthless or dishonest means, might succeed momentary. But the after math is what they and those around them (that are influenced by his decisions) have to deal with the bad health of that decision.

On the other hand, those who do good and are decent, (or at least sometimes make good decisions) act like an obese body will react when it's starting to exercise. It will hurt at first, get tired, and not feel good. If the person keeps it up, then even if they don't get the benefit of making healthy decisions, the world around them can gain the benefits of their actions.

I wish it was easier to live by God's rules. That we can all meet those expectations more often. But it's not the rules fault for us failing to meet them. It's the reality we are responsible for our faults as well as that we are in an environment that makes it difficult to always live up to the rules.