Is Life Worth Living?

[oldcelt]

I thought this thread was dead for good.
Merci, mon ami. Nicely put, also.

Take all sin from my life and I will sink into a depression from which I will never emerge. I love money, the thought of having money, where money equals having a life I am genuinely happy to live, God condemns the love of money. Sin is one area where I find comfort for the past, present pains, lacks and frustrations, and anxiety about the future. Every point you mention resonates with me.
Agreed.
Not everyone who will make it to Heaven will have been a miserable slave in this life. I’m sure there are loads of people (Heaven-bound) who are well off, have great friends, great careers, a life they are deeply satisfied with, they don’t think of themselves as slaves, why would I have to be miserable, unhappy, tormented, painfully eradicating sin each day of my life, where I live being a vocal Catholic is a social suicide, why would Heaven cost me everything down here while the next guy enjoys his life and has a trusting loving relationship with God? Did Jesus really say that his yoke is easy? What!?!?.

I promise to stop posting on this thread if everyone else does. We have kind of covered the subject.

 

[Aloysium]

When a child is placed in the naughty corner at some point the punishment needs to stop. From the get go (meaning my conception, literally) I’ve been up against a wall, in a hostile environment . . . Thanks for the inferiority complex, thanks for the excessive shyness, thanks for the sense of shame, thanks for the bleak future for all these years, thanks for the heart-expanding loneliness, thanks for the deep-seated inadequacy, thanks for never materializing 95% of my dreams, . . . thanks for prospering everyone who ever thought I was a joke of a human being.

I’m not sure if I’m intruding.
Respectfully, I have to say:
Wow! Powerful stuff!
You are one tough dude, seriously!
But how to beat that serpent of bitterness and hate that is strangling you?
It’s too strong to do it alone.
Joy awaits; let us all pray for each other.

 

[Robertanthony]

I’m not sure if I’m intruding.
Respectfully, I have to say:
Wow! Powerful stuff!
You are one tough dude, seriously!
But how to beat that serpent of bitterness and hate that is strangling you?
It’s too strong to do it alone.
Joy awaits; let us all pray for each other.

You’re not intruding in the slightest. I like your metaphor.

 

[Robertanthony]

I promise to stop posting on this thread if everyone else does. We have kind of covered the subject.

My comment about this thread being dead was not a negative comment. After a few days without any new posts, a thread goes down the list of threads, and dies a quiet death. I’m actually happy to read others’ (name removed by moderator)uts. I like to see what people think about deep issues such as the one raised in this thread.

 

[empther]

Robertanthony,
your post 60

two of your replies to other people:

Take all sin from my life and I will sink into a depression from which I will never emerge. I love money, the thought of having money, where money equals having a life I am genuinely happy to live, **God condemns the love of money :bigyikes: **. Sin is one area where I find comfort for the past, present pains, lacks and frustrations, and anxiety about the future. Every point you mention resonates with me.

God does not condemn the love of money.
The old testament, especially the wisdom books, have many verses observing the power and importance of wealth to giving us a good life.
Jesus said we cannot serve two masters. He means that we can only worship one God. It may be God, or it make be something else which we devote our bodies and souls to. For some people, drugs are their god, their be all and end all.
There is nothing wrong with accumulating money honestly and fairly in a free-competition environment. Warren Buffet had accumulated forty billion, but also turned many of his earliest investors into millionaires. Now he is in the process of giving his fortune away. Was money his god? No reasonable will say that.

Earning money per se has nothing to do with morality. It’s how we get it and what we do with it that matters.

Not everyone who will make it to Heaven will have been a miserable slave in this life. I’m sure there are loads of people (Heaven-bound) who are well off, have great friends, great careers, a life they are deeply satisfied with, they don’t think of themselves as slaves,’
( so far so good )
why would I have to be miserable, unhappy, tormented, painfully eradicating sin each day of my life, where I live being a vocal Catholic is a social suicide, why would Heaven cost me everything down here while the next guy enjoys his life and has a trusting loving relationship with God? Did Jesus really say that his yoke is easy? What!?!?.
( what went wrong? )

Your paragraph starts out on a positive note, but seems to end negatively.

The Beatitudes generally say, ‘blessed are you when you suffer for my sake, for yours is a great reward’.
However,
God doesn’t ask everybody to give up family, friends and comfort, and go be a missionary in Borneo.
Somebody has to get married, raise the kids, and keep the world going. Whether a person is successful and happy at it or a failure at everything he tries, or somewhere between, depends on many factors, some of it luck,
but this has nothing to do with God wanting us to live this way. He wants us to have him as our ultimate goal while doing the best we can we with the realities of this world.

 

[oldcelt]

For reference on money from the Christian Holy Book:

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
But the root of all these evils is the love of money, and there are some who have desired it and have erred from the faith and have brought themselves many miseries.
1 Timothy 6:10

 

[Rhubarb]

Regarding the opening post.

Lately I’ve been thinking not so much. The constant struggle is getting old. I recall some arguments that take it as granted that to exist is better than to not-exist. I question that premise.

 

[cheezey]

That’s not what the thread is about.
The thread is about **whether life in this world, the reality we live with now, is worth it for its own sake, **
not about salvation.
The testimony of the thread shows that for some life is good, enjoyable, worth repeating if necessary. For others, life was miserable and they would NOT do it all over again.
That’s what the thread is about…
…some will consider their lives good enough to look back on with satisfaction,
while others will wish it could have been completely different.

And others wish it could be different and do-able NOW.
Yesterday, in fact…

What are you trying to say, cheezey? I don’t understand.

I wish and pray like hell that my life could be vastly different as of yesterday, for Him and for me.
I wish and pray like hell that my life could be vastly different as of yesterday AND that I could handle the differences with grace and to MAKE a difference with that grace.
Not being able to look forward scares the bleep out of me. It is too surreal.
Not being able to look at what is scares the bleep out of me. Also surreal.
He understands and knows that this is not willfull on my part, but I still hate feeling that I can’t handle this, which then makes me feel that I don’t want to be here. Which is not something I should be feeling in front of The One who gave me this life.
He knows I’d really rather not feel this way, but that I do; and yet He still keeps waking me up in the morning; I am very impatient to know for what. I am not accomplishing much in this life as it is. I’d like to accomplish something for Him, but what is it? I am otherwise painfully floundering.

Floundering isn’t living, so…

“Please show me clearly what You want me to do.”

Maybe that he feels himself stuck in the current geometry of his life?
CXC NIKA

That, I do.
And just for the record, cheezey is a :curtsey:

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Regarding the opening post.

Lately I’ve been thinking not so much. The constant struggle is getting old. I recall some arguments that take it as granted that to exist is better than to not-exist. I question that premise.

I agree that without the friendship of God and the promise of immortal joy, it might seem a toss-up whether life is better than death; except that the animal instincts would favor life, as they almost always do.