Is human nature inherently greedy and needy?
I like this online Bible. It's an easy read, simple to link directly to each verse, and I feel it's dependable, as it gives footnotes regularly involving the history and clarification for original wordings used. It also connects the scripture to itself, quoting other verse in its clarification. It looks better in AOL than Firefox, though. I think the web designer didn't realize Firefox treated definition lists differently from AOL -- AOL groups the verses together by footnote, while Firefox treats them as a definition list, line by line.
Genesis 28.20-22:
Jacob then made this vow: "If God remains with me, to protect me on this journey I am making and to give me enough bread to eat and clothing to wear,
and I come back safe to my father's house, the LORD shall be my God.
This stone that I have set up as a memorial stone shall be God's abode. Of everything you give me, I will faithfully return a tenth part to you."
This theme is a recurring one in Genesis. IF God does good things for me, THEN this God I will have/serve.
Is that human nature? I'll trust and obey you only if you do good things for me? There doesn't seem to be any other motivation. Can anyone truly be selfless? Is it possible to do something for someone else's benefit without any thought for yourself? Even Mother Teresa, giver of everything she had, knew she was "storing treasure in Heaven" and that God would reward her.
Even if you know a bum on the street will never pay back the twenty dollars you gave him (yeah, only twenty -- let's be stingy), you still get some sense of self-worth from the deal. "Aren't I so generous? Aren't I kind?" A kind of arrogance from it; you get to feel good about yourself.
This entry is the first time I've stopped to consider a kind of Newton's Third Law, for human action: Every interaction has something reciprocal to it ... (Did I use the colon correctly? or is 'Every' supposed to be lowercase?)
Humans certainly are inherently needy creatures, not just in the basic necessities, but in that we instinctively crave interaction with each other. (Those who don't are antisocial, something bad, and typically they have some mental disorder.) I suppose the Christian perspective states this aspect of life is another of God's treasures, that our frequent necessary interaction is part of what makes live wonderful. The Satanist approach, then, would be that it is a flaw on God's part, making us incapable of being self-sufficient without some form of 'disability', some mental handicap.
I'm hoping to find a Bible Study Group this semester at MTSU. The Catholic Student Center had one in Fall 2005, but they didn't have many show up to the one or two meetings I attended. (They in themselves are not nearly as big as the fun-loving Baptist student centers, but that's to be expected, obviously.)
Genesis 29.30-31:
Jacob then consummated his marriage with Rachel also, and he loved her more than Leah. Thus he remained in Laban's service another seven years.
When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, he made her fruitful, while Rachel remained barren.
God has a goofy sense of humor.
I'm really getting back into AOL. I've used AOL 9.0 VR for the past four hours, and have enjoyed it, although I really miss Firefox's tabbed browsing: having individual minimized windows at the bottom of the browser is a nuisance. AOL Radio is good, and AOL hasn't yet slowed my computer like it normally does, although it is still glitchy.
Genesis 28.20-22:
Jacob then made this vow: "If God remains with me, to protect me on this journey I am making and to give me enough bread to eat and clothing to wear,
and I come back safe to my father's house, the LORD shall be my God.
This stone that I have set up as a memorial stone shall be God's abode. Of everything you give me, I will faithfully return a tenth part to you."
This theme is a recurring one in Genesis. IF God does good things for me, THEN this God I will have/serve.
Is that human nature? I'll trust and obey you only if you do good things for me? There doesn't seem to be any other motivation. Can anyone truly be selfless? Is it possible to do something for someone else's benefit without any thought for yourself? Even Mother Teresa, giver of everything she had, knew she was "storing treasure in Heaven" and that God would reward her.
Even if you know a bum on the street will never pay back the twenty dollars you gave him (yeah, only twenty -- let's be stingy), you still get some sense of self-worth from the deal. "Aren't I so generous? Aren't I kind?" A kind of arrogance from it; you get to feel good about yourself.
This entry is the first time I've stopped to consider a kind of Newton's Third Law, for human action: Every interaction has something reciprocal to it ... (Did I use the colon correctly? or is 'Every' supposed to be lowercase?)
Humans certainly are inherently needy creatures, not just in the basic necessities, but in that we instinctively crave interaction with each other. (Those who don't are antisocial, something bad, and typically they have some mental disorder.) I suppose the Christian perspective states this aspect of life is another of God's treasures, that our frequent necessary interaction is part of what makes live wonderful. The Satanist approach, then, would be that it is a flaw on God's part, making us incapable of being self-sufficient without some form of 'disability', some mental handicap.
I'm hoping to find a Bible Study Group this semester at MTSU. The Catholic Student Center had one in Fall 2005, but they didn't have many show up to the one or two meetings I attended. (They in themselves are not nearly as big as the fun-loving Baptist student centers, but that's to be expected, obviously.)
Genesis 29.30-31:
Jacob then consummated his marriage with Rachel also, and he loved her more than Leah. Thus he remained in Laban's service another seven years.
When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, he made her fruitful, while Rachel remained barren.
God has a goofy sense of humor.
I'm really getting back into AOL. I've used AOL 9.0 VR for the past four hours, and have enjoyed it, although I really miss Firefox's tabbed browsing: having individual minimized windows at the bottom of the browser is a nuisance. AOL Radio is good, and AOL hasn't yet slowed my computer like it normally does, although it is still glitchy.