S.O's feelings with animals/pets

[Shiari]

Buddism is more of a self-indulgence religion than anything. Besides it still isn't what I'm talking about. It's not a god granting grace in spite of their sinful ways...it's a god saying to do whatever the crap they want and just depend on yourself for everything.

Wow. You've never studied Buddhism much, have you....

 

[oneirogenesis]

Let me also throw in that when it comes to seeing an actual relationship the way I see it at work...you would pretty much see a relationship that works 50/50 between the husband and the wife. Both partners contribute equally in decision making, work load, budgeting, and everything else. Marriage is all about having a team, and being of equal worth to eachother. I'm sorry if I've given the wrong impression...but as I've said many times before, I think it boils down to our society having a warped idea of what "leadership" in a marriage is.

So let's try to clarify what it is you mean by leadership, bearing in mind that what you consider ideal for your marriage may still not be ideal for everyone else's marriage.

From what I understand after reading your posts, your idea of leadership in a marriage seems to relate to what you believe God expects of you. It means that when all is said and done, the outcomes of the decisions you and your wife make together are on your shoulders and God will consider you, as the husband, to be responsible for them, even if your wife had equal say in the decision-making process. Likewise, the actions taken together by your family will ultimately, in God's eyes, be your responsibility to answer for. Am I correct in my understanding?

On another note, I'm with Shiari where the comments about other religions are concerned. From my own world religions studies, I have learned that most schools of Buddhism do not recognize a god, and definitely not in the sense that the monotheistic desert religions do. However, many of the values of Christianity and Buddhism are the same or similar (such as compassion, honesty, detachment from the ego and material wealth etc). Like the case for the validity of differences in relationship values, each religion has an equally valid, yet different path that works towards a similar goal (spiritual peace).

 

[EsotericForest]

Wow. You've never studied Buddhism much, have you....

Since I'm willing to learn new things, what is it that I'm missing about Buddhism? I know they're pretty much all about peace, karma, and meditating by going into ones self to find inner peace.

Besides...this is the ONE little thing from my last two posts that you latched onto? Come on

 

[Shiari]

What else am I supposed to say beyond that I find your view of marriage and the capabilities of women to be misogynistic? I already mentioned that, and that while it works for you and your wife, that it does NOT work for the majority of the rest of the world. Which you then ignored.

Buddhism is absolutely NOT about doing whatever you want. That's like saying that christianity is about worshiping satan. About as wrong as one can get.

 

[EsotericForest]

From what I understand after reading your posts, your idea of leadership in a marriage seems to relate to what you believe God expects of you. It means that when all is said and done, the outcomes of the decisions you and your wife make together are on your shoulders and God will consider you, as the husband, to be responsible for them, even if your wife had equal say in the decision-making process. Likewise, the actions taken together by your family will ultimately, in God's eyes, be your responsibility to answer for. Am I correct in my understanding?

Pretty much. Though honestly I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it myself to a certain extent. It's more of a recent understanding for me on what headship really is...so the big picture is still developing for me as well. I'll get back to you when I have it completely figured out . Could be awhile haha.

On another note, I'm with Shiari where the comments about other religions are concerned. From my own world religions studies, I have learned that most schools of Buddhism do not recognize a god, and definitely not in the sense that the monotheistic desert religions do. However, many of the values of Christianity and Buddhism are the same or similar (such as compassion, honesty, detachment from the ego and material wealth etc). Like the case for the validity of differences in relationship values, each religion has an equally valid, yet different path that works towards a similar goal (spiritual peace).

Buddhism is a religion that really doesn't bother me for the most part, because it does have a similar theme to Christianity. Unfortunately in my opinion, they have a lot of the principles correct, with the fatal flaw of where their attentions should be directed. Just my opinion though. I do appreciate the good parts of the religion though. Bit closer to what I believe to be the truth than almost all the others .

 

[EsotericForest]

What else am I supposed to say beyond that I find your view of marriage and the capabilities of women to be misogynistic? I already mentioned that, and that while it works for you and your wife, that it does NOT work for the majority of the rest of the world. Which you then ignored.

I don't really care what the rest of the world thinks is correct. If you haven't noticed, I have a higher authority to answer to...not what culture accept to be true. The interesting point is that for Christians who are involved in their church, and take their faith seriously...the divorce rate is much much lower than the current secular levels. Obviously we must be doing something right, you have to admit. A lot of people say they're Christians, but most aren't living their faith even remotely. People who actually make an effort to follow God and the Bible, get divorced far less often.

 

[desertanimal]

Everybody does need to remember that I am only a 20 year old man, who has more than enough garbage on my own plate.

O. M. G.

No doubt you have amassed a long and storied list of intimate, personal experiences with a wide and diverse array of functioning and non-functioning marriages. And no doubt it is from this position of accumulated knowledge and wisdom derived from years of careful watching and listening that you distill for us the fundamental, unifying qualities of successful marriages, which the myriad unsuccessful clearly lack.

:uhoh:

:bang:

 

[desertanimal]

I don't really care what the rest of the world thinks is correct. If you haven't noticed, I have a higher authority to answer to...not what culture accept to be true. The interesting point is that for Christians who are involved in their church, and take their faith seriously...the divorce rate is much much lower than the current secular levels. Obviously we must be doing something right, you have to admit. A lot of people say they're Christians, but most aren't living their faith even remotely. People who actually make an effort to follow God and the Bible, get divorced far less often.

Not divorced does not equal success in my book. Nor does it in the books of anyone who's spent much time in an unhappy marriage.

Happily married = success.
Unhappily married = FAIL.

My parents stayed married for 20 years and made all of us miserable doing it. I have a good friend who has 4 parents. At an early age, her parents got divorced and, effectively, traded spouses. She has more love and support from happy, stable parents than anyone I've ever met. Her parents all live in the same town. When one of them posts on her FB wall, he or she will say, "We're thinking of you! All 4 of us!"

I think I've finally said about all I have to say on this one. (Yeah, yeah, I know, took me a while. I AM a woman, after all. )

 

[EsotericForest]

O. M. G.

No doubt you have amassed a long and storied list of intimate, personal experiences with a wide and diverse array of functioning and non-functioning marriages. And no doubt it is from this position of accumulated knowledge and wisdom derived from years of careful watching and listening that you distill for us the fundamental, unifying qualities of successful marriages, which the myriad unsuccessful clearly lack.

:uhoh:

:bang:

1 Timothy 4:12 Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.


I'm doing my best. Don't judge me due my age though. There's a lot of people in their 90s who are still very unwise.

 

[Shiari]

I don't really care what the rest of the world thinks is correct. If you haven't noticed, I have a higher authority to answer to...not what culture accept to be true.

Arguing from Authority doesn't work well when to me your God is nothing more than a magical sky-fairy or invisible friend.

The interesting point is that for Christians who are involved in their church, and take their faith seriously...the divorce rate is much much lower than the current secular levels. Obviously we must be doing something right, you have to admit. A lot of people say they're Christians, but most aren't living their faith even remotely. People who actually make an effort to follow God and the Bible, get divorced far less often.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble...but this is actually wrong. Christians have a higher divorce rate than agnostics or atheists. :/

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

 

[EsotericForest]

Not divorced does not equal success in my book. Nor does it in the books of anyone who's spent much time in an unhappy marriage.

Happily married = success.
Unhappily married = FAIL.

My parents stayed married for 20 years and made all of us miserable doing it. I have a good friend who has 4 parents. At an early age, her parents got divorced and, effectively, traded spouses. She has more love and support from happy, stable parents than anyone I've ever met. Her parents all live in the same town. When one of them posts on her FB wall, he or she will say, "We're thinking of you! All 4 of us!"

I think I've finally said about all I have to say on this one. (Yeah, yeah, I know, took me a while. I AM a woman, after all. )

Must you fight me on every single thing I say? You are correct, not divorced doesn't mean happily married. But you can generalize and say that all those couples are just in miserable marriages. If you want to look into it further, you will see those couples are also happier, and more satisfied in their marriages. If you want to really disect statistics, you can. If you want to put in the proper variables you can. I'm just trying to give a rough idea so I don't have to be writing out detailed statistics papers for you

 

[EsotericForest]

Arguing from Authority doesn't work well when to me your God is nothing more than a magical sky-fairy or invisible friend.



I'm sorry to burst your bubble...but this is actually wrong. Christians have a higher divorce rate than agnostics or atheists. :/

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm

I mentioned you having to throw in the variables for a reason. The majority of the United States claims to be Christian...but that couldn't be further from the truth. This is why I said that you have to actually have a relationship with Christ, be INVOLVED in your church...which doesn't mean just going every Sunday. It means serving...hosting a community group, leading worship, something. If you are actually serving IN your church...then the divorce rate plummets. Most people who say they're Christian, don't have a personal relationship with Jesus.

 

[Shiari]

You've not read the whole thing. And I love how people try to trot out the RTC (real-true-christian) thing. It doesn't work because to someone else, YOU are not an RTC.

 

[desertanimal]

I'm not looking down on you for your age. I'm implying that you cannot have the experience I think is critical to forming a broadly and carefully informed opinion on this topic. Your opinion is still rather singularly informed, and I don't find those types of perspectives to be valuable on issues like this one. It is in much the same way that I don't value herp-keeping advice from a 12-year old who's read all the books but never kept a reptile. I do value herp-keeping advice from a 12-year old who's read all the books and successfully kept a bunch of reptiles for 5 years. Once you've added data from a few years of life experience to your perspective, I will give more credence to the "All the marriages I know . . . work like X" examples that you used to support your position. You presented yourself as if your position were informed both by what your church has told you AND by a host of experience that backs up what your church has told you. But you were bluffing on that latter point. Big-time. I discount your position because you have not yet lived to see whether it works as a general rule or it doesn't. I don't look down on you--everyone has been 20--I merely discount your staunch and relatively uninformed position on this particular issue. Your experiences as a 20-year old will be entirely relevant to other discussions, they simply aren't up to what I consider "snuff" for this one.

 

[EsotericForest]

You've not read the whole thing. And I love how people try to trot out the RTC (real-true-christian) thing. It doesn't work because to someone else, YOU are not an RTC.

You can tell the true followers of Christ from the people who claim to know him but don't. There aren't a whole lot of them though, so it's possible you don't even know any. Some people who claim to be Christian have clung to religion, and ruined what Christianity originally was meant to be.

According to what it says in the Bible, I am a true Christian. I'm not following a book of doctrine, I'm following the Bible. I didn't feel the need to write a book in addition to the Bible to make up rules that aren't even Biblical. For example...some branches that claim to be Christian, say that it's wrong to eat meat, to drink alcohol, both of which aren't true.

 

[desertanimal]

Must you fight me on every single thing I say?

??? Indeed not. I have agreed wholeheartedly and entirely un-ironically with you on several of your points. Keep up, or it'll look like I'm leading! :grin01:

 

[EsotericForest]

I'm not looking down on you for your age. I'm implying that you cannot have the experience I think is critical to forming a broadly and carefully informed opinion on this topic. Your opinion is still rather singularly informed, and I don't find those types of perspectives to be valuable on issues like this one. It is in much the same way that I don't value herp-keeping advice from a 12-year old who's read all the books but never kept a reptile. I do value herp-keeping advice from a 12-year old who's read all the books and successfully kept a bunch of reptiles for 5 years. Once you've added data from a few years of life experience to your perspective, I will give more credence to the "All the marriages I know . . . work like X" examples that you used to support your position. You presented yourself as if your position were informed both by what your church has told you AND by a host of experience that backs up what your church has told you. But you were bluffing on that latter point. Big-time. I discount your position because you have not yet lived to see whether it works as a general rule or it doesn't. I don't look down on you--everyone has been 20--I merely discount your staunch and relatively uninformed position on this particular issue. Your experiences as a 20-year old will be entirely relevant to other discussions, they simply aren't up to what I consider "snuff" for this one.

I can give an extensive list of couples I know who this has worked for. I think I have plenty of years of observation at the very least. I have also spoken to many of these couples, and their beliefs gel with mine on this topic. My own parents have been happily married for 30 years. It's not like I have absolutely no experience in being in this kind of environment. I have been with my wife for three years now, and haven't had any serious problems yet. Some marriages don't even last that long. I'd say I'm at least off to a decent start. Give me a little credit at least

 

[EsotericForest]

??? Indeed not. I have agreed wholeheartedly and entirely un-ironically with you on several of your points. Keep up, or it'll look like I'm leading! :grin01:

Haha touche

 

[desertanimal]

I think I have plenty of years of observation at the very least.

You think so. I don't. My position on your position is based on my own entirely subjective experience of having learned a whole lot since I was 20, even though I had a pretty darned good head on my shoulders when I was 20. You won't convince me that your experience is up to my snuff. You won't convince me that your experience is varied enough to be up to my snuff. Not on an internet forum, in any case. I'm only interested in broad patterns of success that cross-cut cultural variation, not the same thing in the same demographic. I'm a firm believer in the comparative method, and from the things you've said, you've had few experiences with people outside your own worldview.

 

[desertanimal]

Let me say, though, that I think you've handled yourself quite well for a 20-year old man throughout this whole discussion. And I really do mean that. That demographic is not characterized by a great deal of self-control, and I think you've done that as well as be earnest and honest.