Battleground vs. Playground
Martin (therevhead) showed us this quote at a Spiritual Warfare workshop a little while ago. I love it:
People, our parents held, had to choose sides; they could not be neutral.
For them it must be life or death, heaven or hell, and if they chose to come
on God's side, they could expect open war with God's enemies. The fight
would be real and deadly and would last as long as life continues below.
Men looked forward to heaven as a return from the wars, a laying down of the
sword to enjoy the home prepared for them.
How different today; Men think of the world as a playground not a
battleground. We are here not to fight but to have fun. We are not in a
foreign land we are at home. We are not getting ready to live, but we are
living already. And the best we can do is rid ourselves of our inhibitions
and our frustrations and enjoy life here.
- AW Tozer
posted by Dboy @ Thursday, August 25, 2005
29 Insightful Contributions
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29 Comments:
I fixed him :)
Materialism is the new god. I am sad at the state of our world. I definately think people see the world as a playground designed to make them happy. All people do is take until nothing is left. This is why our world is in such decay and we have so many environmental problems. And this is why we have so many people dying of malnutrition and famine. Not because it must be so but because people are selfish adn they'd rather have 3 cars than send money to foreign aid to create self sustaining futures for the world's poorest people who have no means to do this for themselves.
Breathe Megan, Breathe...
I don't know who this revhead is - but he sounds like one hot guy - I'd leave the convent for a dude like that!
Thanks Wanda, personally, I've thought of you as my perfect woman!
Tink. The interesting question is to step back and ask why western reality is defined in terms of the marketplace. How has our world become so commodity driven? Why do even community groups like churches think through a marketplace grid? We do don't we? We are 'needs' driven, product or 'customer' oriented, and everyone 'sells' something.
Even the word 'comunity' has come to mean a bunch of people who like each other and validate each others tastes... but, if the 'like' breaks down, or our tastes vary from the group - commitment and loyalty go out tthe window and we look for a new group that will 'meet our needs', that's researched and sold a better product. Now that is NOT what anthropologists ( or the bible) define as real community. That is something very differnt to do with a common world view and practises and loyalties - even if we are not always comfortable.
Hmmm. But what philosophical shift took place about 150 years ago to birth this current reality.
*adds another hmmmm, and looks serious*
PS. Hey Wanda, babe, you want to go out some time, eh?
*Winks suggestively*
Thanks TRAMADOL, I see you agree about everone having something to sell! Love the way you've engaged this conversation.
*Laughs bitterly*
Thanks TRAMADOL, I see you agree about everone having something to sell! Love the way you've engaged this conversation.
*Laughs bitterly*
Ways to Integrate News Blogs Reviewed
My friend Graywolf, is one of very very few seo/m marketers that i really think understands blogging properly.
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This blog spam in this thread is priceless!!! I wouldn't be suprised if revhead did it just to prove his point!!! HAHA! Talk about ironic! I totally agree revhead. We are all stuck in this consumerism mentality. I think I'm in it much more than I even realise because I have no other frame of reference to see life through unfortunately. I wish I could take off my lenses, see them objectively and get trid of the bits I don't want. Once again I want a quick fix. Our society is built on the quick fix. Life doesn't work like that though.
*sigh*
Wanda!!! You'd leave your convent! Well, that was rather shortlived. As long as you bring youc chai and macrame back with you!
That is a fascanating question, revhead: What change in philosophy about 150 years ago triggered our materialistic society? My guess would be the beginning of modernity: ie. whatever we see is all there is, therefore we should all live our lives to achieve whatever we feel like achieving (just like Peebody said).
Megan, you're absolutely right. Wouldn't it be great to see ourselves objectively and be able to pick out all the bits that were negatively influenced by our society? That'd be great. I wonder how easy they'd be to give up once we knew though...
Hehehe... blog spam proving the whole point. Beautiful.
An interesting book i read recently was" "The Magic Kingdom of God" , by a USA Catholic Social Researcher called Michael Budde.
It talks about how our culture and our needs are manipulated by the marketing industries of our world - the great american(?aussie) dream has little to do with community and faith but everthing to do with consumption. This is a heavier, uni type book, but it's good - here's a summary/review if you are interested:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2096/is_1_49/ai_54482250
here's a quote (from above):
".... Television, of course, comes in for its usual share of justifiable abuse in Budde's book. No matter how many times we have seen the statistics, they still cause a jolt: the average person will spend thirteen years of his or her life watching television, three years of which - twenty-four hours a day - will have been commercials. Budde pauses briefly to consider the content of the squalor that we contemplate with such rapt attention, but he pays much more attention to studies of television's form, the way it seduces and immobilizes people through its manipulation of space and time. Add to television the constant exposure to the Web, junk mail, telemarketing, billboards, logos, radio and the like, and you have a fairly convincing argument that, yes, it really is that bad. In Budde's words, we are in the midst of a flood, not one that lasts forty days and forty nights, but a constant flood with no end in sight (82).
Wow....
That's heavy stuff!
I'm glad I don't watch that much television. I just blog and play games. Thankfully there aren't any ads on these blogs... oh... hang on...
What I meant by 'heavy stuff' is good stuff :) So rich with meaning.
I have heard those stats before, but it still shocks me to hear them. 3 years of ads? ARGH! Although that's probably not so true in my case, ask any of my family, I'm a chronic channel flicker, I never watch ads, but I still fill up that time with other tv. Stupid media influencing my life...
The media can be such a trap! How easy it is to waste an hour watching something that 'pollutes' your mind. Conversely, how hard it can be to spend an hour with the one who cleanses our mind (i.e. God)......
I recently spoke with someone who 'fasted' from all media for a week. This may be more challenging and rewarding than it sounds because media includes T.V., movies, radio, newspapers, magazines, advertising etc. mmmmmmm... Maybe that's a challenge for some of us..... me included...
I'm not sure I could abstain from all froms for media for a whole week! That would be a hard thing to do because of the fact that it is EVERYWHERE!!! You'd have to go out of your way all the time to get away from it. Might be worthwhile though. But the radio is everywhere you go. Shops, there are billboard all over the place, tv is on in the background when you go places. I'm not sure you could abstain from seeing/hearing it at all unless you hardly left your house. That's a sad commentary on society.
Yeah, it is a sad commentary on our society. I think you could do it though, without being legalistic and silly about it (ie. averting your eyes from every billboard - lol).
You just do the thing that are in your power to avoid deliberate exposure to the media, without acting like a paranoid delusional.
Awwww! Acting like a paranoid delusional is so much fun though! You spoil all my fun dboy!
What's a paranoid delusional? - Someone who is deluded about being paranoid, and therefore there REALLY ARE pink elephants watching them; Or someoneone who is parnoid about being deluded and so doesn't TRUST the pink elephants flying around their heads...
Are you looking at me? Huh??
* glances furtively over shoulder and steals off stage left*
But there really ARE pink elephants out to get me! I saw them yesterday as I was getting into my car. I'm actually paranoid anti-delusional. My mum says I'm cool.
You are both so lame. I'm a hardcore paranoid delusional. They call me Pete for short.
And Carrot here doesn't even mind that I grow my pet wart on his favourite patch of glycerine! He thinks I'm a monster.
I think you're something...
Yup, the master has got virtual amnesia again! He's left the site!
'Gone roaming the slums again in his smelly hobo's coat with the bottle of vegemite in the pocket, asking people who he is and if they have a spare aardvark that he can borrow to phone home with, because he thinks he's left the teapot on the cantelope without candles.
! know how it goes. Soon he'll be banging down the gates at Heidelberg town hall warning them about Skynet and judgement day! Curled up clutching his tummy, rocking from side to side saying 'you don't understand, I'm John Connor'
Ah, yes. That's the man I married!
Aw, he sounds soooo sweet and vulnerable. Cute little Overlord!
But he's disappeared again! Danny? Come baaaaaaaaaack!!!! Peebody and Chicken have disappeared too! :(
I am never other than anywise. And don't you forget it!
Sir yes Sir!
Fluff yes n00b!
Or otherwise detention!
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