But wouldn't you prefer to buy a T.V. which can be returned and updated or reused as opposed to being broken up at a dump leaving toxins to leach into the soil. I think that the plasma T.V. is particularly toxic.

I am reminded of the Original Tahitians and their encounter with Europeans. Until they had the misfortune of meeting sailors and missionaries, they were a merry, generous, happy, loving and healthy people. Then the missionaries arrived, determined to make them work, accumulate stuff, observe private property rights and generally feel guilty about things. And of course they gave them guns and diseases. "They knew that Europeans were cleverer than them, but they did not envy their skill. So far as they could see, it only made life needlessly complicted. One of them put it neatly when dining on a ship he was told that the Tahitians should work harder. "What for?" he replied "You people need so much. Just to eat you need knives and forks, plates, chairs and tables. It costs work to make these things and eternally wash them. But we eat w/o them so we save work" In the end Tahitians were wiped out not only by disease of the body but also by the destruction of the communal way of life, injecting envy backed up with guns in a once peaceful society.

I think consumerism is a cultural phenomenon encouraged by the Western reverence for private property. Could we turn it around so that our baubles will nourish or enrich someone else when we are done with them. Like the parrot which takes a few bites out of a grape and then drops it on the forest floor.

No...It couldn't be that bad.

Well, I guess I stand corrected.

The Buddhists say material possessions distract us from what is really important. I believe they are correct.

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WARNING: In the unlikely event of an accidental agreement with any or all points made in the above post, contact a clinical psychologist immediately.

The views expressed in the above post are not necessarily those of Joker and/or any of his affiliates.

"You have found the secret message. Do you have too much time on your hands? ...Let it go."

So have I. I'm a liberal only in the 18th century sense, and I'm also pro-life. That last stance has earned me some rather ghastly insults (not that I care).

Apart from the word "arbitrary", how are the two mutually exclusive? Perhaps it would clarify the point if I explained that I am a Christian pantheist (and yes, that is possible). To me, the law and its acceptance are ultimately the same thing.

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"Some people complain about the system. The system is not good, so they can't do anything. It's an excuse. Freedom is in your heart." (Jin Xing)

Uh, you're confusing consumerism with recycling.

Evidence?

I've been to Tahiti and I assure you the Tahitians have not been wiped out.

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Read this post quick before the mods delete it!

The hippies tried this non-consumerist simple life back in the 60's, living on communes. Ah, but what do you suppose happened when one of them got an attack of appendicitis? Used herbs and folk remedies to cure him? I'm guessing they headed straight for the nearest hospital - built by capitalists.

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Read this post quick before the mods delete it!

I am a Christian no different from any non-Christian, other than in having accepted God's grace and His pardon for my sins through the atonement paid by Christ. I also attempt to follow both the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ........because I'm a Christian, not because it earns me Christian status. There is a major difference.

That doesn't appear consistent with Christ's teaching you profess to follow.
My limited understanding of pantheism has me thinking of moral relativism and absence of evil in the world. If that's true, or if we can simply choose our own morals and so gain access to the kingdom of God, then I would have to think Christ went through a lot of trouble and torture for nothing.

I do not seek to earn any status either. Seeking status is simply pride. I seek to improve myself ethically as much as is possible, and I have no doubt that the ultimate source of such improvement is infinitely larger than I am.

On the contrary, I think that good and evil are interdependent and that, while we must always seek to do good, evil will occur nonetheless. Leibniz, who was a Christian and a traditional theist, came to a similar conclusion.

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"Some people complain about the system. The system is not good, so they can't do anything. It's an excuse. Freedom is in your heart." (Jin Xing)

Well then, are morals an individual choice or are they given to us by the Holy Spirit? And I still don't see Jesus' function in your descriptions.

Evil exists in the world, and no one is immune to it's influence. If you believe that evil was tagged for defeat at Christ's resurrection, then good and evil aren't "interdependent." That would mean that evil exists in the Kingdom of God.

As I wrote before, I don't see the choice as separate from God (i.e. "the Word was God").

I am a sinner. Jesus, being God, suffered and died to atone for my sins. The choice I must make is to accept that forgiveness by following His teachings.

Evil as a principle defeats itself, but yes, we have made good and evil interdependent through our free will. I also don't look for a specific time when all will be judged, because I do not believe that God is dependent on time. We will all be judged, though, quite literally by our own actions.

In the sense that the entire universe (the infinite) is the Kingdom of God, evil does exist in it because of our free will, something that will never disappear. It is called hell.

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"Some people complain about the system. The system is not good, so they can't do anything. It's an excuse. Freedom is in your heart." (Jin Xing)

OK. About the only thing it looks like we're agreeing on is that Jesus died for our sins.

I think God will let us choose either to lead our own lives, or let Him lead us......not both. I believe the scriptures that say I must be humble when I come before Him. That means recognizing my spiritual bankruptcy apart from His grace through Jesus, His guidance through His Word and prayer, and His morals, the only true morals as shown through the Holy Spirit. My spiritual growth depends on my desire for His perfect will, not my respect for my own desires or my own ideas about morality. The more I submit to his will, the more I grow spiritually and the better my life gets. In short, it ain't about me, it's about Him.

I have an explanation that's been helpful to others asking my help. I see polarity in the universe everywhere. We only know "white' because we know "black." We only know "up" because we know "down." A magnet must have two absolute poles, as do the planets. There is a polarity of absolute evil (Satan) and a polarity of absolute perfection (God).

If we had a vat the size of a gym of pure white paint, and we added a single drop of red, we know the paint is no longer pure white but an extremelly light shade of pink. There are no degrees of perfection.........things are either perfect or imperfect. I view God as the Perfect. Regardless of His love, if He were to allow any imperfection in His kingdom, it would taint Him and He would no longer be who He is. He cannot allow imperfection around Him.

In our mortal life, we live somewhere between up and down, north and south, good and evil. Because of His love, the perfect sacrificial Lamb was sacrificed for my imperfections.......His blood being the only thing pure enough to negate them. Therefore I am made perfect by the blood of Christ, and have access to the promise of eternal life in the Kingdom of God.

The other absolute polarity is evil. No goodness, righteousness, or truth is there. Since imperfection cannot be in God's Kingdom, it all resides at this "pole." I don't know of any hell that would be worse than being cut-off from all righteousness and goodness of God, if I didn't have the gift of grace through Jesus Christ.

Hopefully, we just use different terminology and agree more than I think. I just can't think of "improving myself" or "chosing morals" in light of the above undersanding.