you can always tell its going to be a bad day when:
This one is a little bit different then the others I've been writing but I hope you enjoy it.
!} You can tell its going to be a bad day when you laying on your couch getting a back rub from a wonderful woman and talking about how each others day was, then the alarm clock wakes you up and you relize it was only a dream'
2]you can tell its going to be a bad day when you get up in the morning and check you blog and see all the wonderful people you missed talking to.
Well I'm only going to do 2 today. Thers something else I wanted to say.
Acouple of weeks ago I read a comment on someone's blog I can't remember who's blog or who's comment but they stated that they don't believe in GOD. Well I can tell you that I really believe becouse if it wasn't for GOD I probably wouldn't be here. I Have been pronounced dead at least once in my life and I really believe GOD bought we back. And also I don't remember how I found this Site but I can say that I had never blogged before and I don't remember ever reading a blog before. But at the time I was having some really bad days.
I would wake up every morning mad becouse I woke up and I would go to bed every night hoping it would be my last.Now I'm happy a lot more becouse I know there are still wonderful people out there. It just took GOD showing me where you all were.
So I'm very glad when I read your comments and see that at least for a little while I make people feel a little bit better.I know you all make me feel a lot better
Hope everybody is having a nice day
PS Hay dickday, you know the other day you called me a sucker well I just thought I'd pass this little story on to you.
about two months ago I was delivering my papers and stopped at the truckstop to put papers in the box. I noticed a young couple sitting at the table outside and the woman was crying. Well nosy me I asked if there was anything I could do to help them. It turned out they were stranded there and had no money for gas.Well the sucker that I am I filled up there gas tank for them. Well to make a long story short today in the mail I got a letter from them and inside was the mon ey I thought I had given away.So now I have two new friends and a renewed faith in people.
Wow, talk about paying it forward. Awesome story, Red. That made my day!
April 7, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Small acts of kindness occur every day! What a lovely story. :)
Peace be with you - every day!
April 7, 2009 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
thank you therap
April 7, 2009 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow!
Imagine that? "Nosey" you.
=D
You're a good man, Red.
April 7, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
thank you bwak not to nosy i hope
April 7, 2009 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nah, just kind, Red.
=D
April 7, 2009 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, we know it's a good day when we can enjoy another terrific post from you.
Thanks for this, certainly brightened my day.
April 7, 2009 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
thats what im trying to do is brighten everybodys day like you all do for me
April 7, 2009 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nicely done.
April 7, 2009 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I don't believe in god, and I think you found TPM by your own intelligence. You are way too smart to credit a magical mystic with your arrival here. YOU found it! If there were a god, don't you honestly think he/she would be a little too busy with Middle East peace, nuclear threats, daily suicide bombings, the collapse of the world economy, HIV/AIDS to send you to TPM for blogging purposes? If god were such a successful micromanager the world would not be in the sucky situation it is currently in. I am convinced that he never would have let the Cheney/Bush administration do the damage they did, so there! I also think you didn't die because your body's immune system went to work for you.
What drives me crazy about those who claim god is responsible for everything good that happens, thereby taking no credit for making good choices, is that they just passively accept the good as though they didn't work to make their lives work in the right way:
"Oh, I passed that test that I studied for over an entire month -- I am BLESSED! " No. you studied, and you earned that great grade.
Oh, and when something terrible happens -- "god never gives you more than you can handle." Tell that to those who commit suicide. Tell that to those who have been tortured by our CIA.
Sorry to break into the sunny blog, with a turd, but I just can't swallow it.
Any thoughts?
April 7, 2009 9:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
yes my pmmune system couldnt have saved me becouse what i almost died from was a loss of blood from a wrist that was cut wide open.
April 7, 2009 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then your platelets saved you.
April 8, 2009 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cville Dem, ya gotta change your name cause "civil" is not an accurate description of someone who challenges the faith of someone else in such an angry, aggressive way, nor does one get snarky when another reveals their closeness to death, a possibly self-motivated death. What a horrible place to be, where one is ready to abandon one's own life out of hopelessness. Your remark was cold hearted and inappropriate, even if you are right. At the end of our lives, we will all find out. No one, IMHO, really knows, not even you.
April 8, 2009 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
thank you gregorzap cville dem was just stating her opionion though everybody has something that gets them reved up I appear to have found hers. as for the neardeath being self motivated I'd have to say yes and no. It was not a suicide attempt but I learned that when I lose my temper a 55 gallon fish tank is not the best thing to hit.
April 8, 2009 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
My wrist was slashed when I was in nursing school when I dropped a glass suction bottle and tried to grab it, so I don't always associate wrist lacerations with suicide attempts. You did not indicate that you were suffering in that way either.
I am out of here.
April 8, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
My name is from the town that I live in: Charlottesville, which is abbreviated to CVille. You are far more judgmental than I am, and so I would invite you to just go and think a little bit, which would probably be a new exercise for you.
Red doesn't need you to defend him from me; I have the utmost respect for him, as my many posts will attest. This cite is here for people to say what they think, and often we learn the most from those who have a different view from our own.
Don't tell me what to say, and don't tell me that I am not civil; at least I put some thought into what I post, which is more than your knee-jerk responses.
You can post your bullying comments whenever you wish, but you might look in the mirror once and a while.
Enjoy yourself; knock yourself out. This is a free-posting area.
April 8, 2009 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the word 'God' cannot reference platelets?
April 8, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. It does not reference "platelets." Sheeeeesh!
April 8, 2009 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
OH! Do you think that children who don't have platelets are being punished by god, so they bleed to death the first time they get a cut? Or how about people whose platelets are "iffy" so that they only die during childbirth, having never been diagnosed with a clotting disorder?
Give me a break!
I rode a bus from NYC to Charlottesville on Sunday. The generator broke down just beyond DC and the bus was taking power from the battery and it almost croaked; just making it into town at midnight. I guess god was watching over our little bus.
Frankly, I would prefer that the bus had broken down and the big "G" spent his time focusing on peace in the Middle East; poverty in South America and Africa, and on and on. But according to people like you, god brought me home to Charlottesville, when my son could have met the bus at any point.
Do You Think At All? Or is it just too hard?
April 8, 2009 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the presence of platelets indicates the presence of God, then why cannot the absence of platelets also indicate the presence of God?
When someone says, "everything happens for a reason," that does not necessarily mean, "everything that happens is part of God's plan." "Everything happens for a reason," can just as easily mean, "the law of cause and effect is a description of the rule by which all events occur."
You say, "I guess god was watching over us." I think that's a logical impossibility. "Watching over" implies "separate from." "Separate from" implies a Cartesian dualistic framework for understanding the world and God's relation to it. As I understand it, God cannot literally "watch over" because God means 'all that is'. If God means 'all that is' then nothing can stand outside 'all that is' and watch over it.
CVille, I understand your concern. The belief in God can make one think dogmatically about the world. But isn't that true of any dogmatic belief? And if that's true, then isn't the belief that "there is no God" also a form of dogmatism?
April 8, 2009 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I agree that belief in god is dogmatic. So is belief in anything else. It is the whole point in getting people to believe in a particular belief system. If it isn't dogmatic, what is the point?
April 8, 2009 9:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
If I hear you correctly, you're saying that belief in/judgment of anything metaphysical--anything which defines 'all that is'--is part of a belief system. A belief system is dogmatic. I would agree with that.
(1) The proposition 'there is no god' is a metaphysical judgment.
(2) Metaphysical judgments are dogmatic.
Therefore:
(3) The proposition 'there is no god' is a dogmatic judgment.
If our objective is to avoid dogmatism, then we ought to admit that the concept 'all that is' is a sensible concept. Then, we ought to admit that 'all that is' is immeasurable, indefinable, and unknowable. To me, a true mystic is one who says, "although I cannot point towards 'all that is' I sure can get a sense of it." That way, we remain open to new input and yet connected to a sense of something greater than ourselves.
April 8, 2009 10:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm glad you came back cvilledem, you should say whatever you want and I will listen everybody has a point of view and a diagreement is not a bad thing. But I do want to clarify one thing I have never been suicidal like gregorzap indicated I use to have problems with my temper. still do but I control it a lot better now.
and I love getting your comments
April 8, 2009 9:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does not or cannot? I have no doubt that--for you--it does not. But that is not the issue. To defend your position, you are forced to claim that it absolutely cannot. You're forced to claim that it is a logical impossibility for the word 'God' to reference a platelet. I wish you luck making a valid and solid claim that ANY word absolutely logically cannot reference ANY object.
April 8, 2009 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
CVille, 'God' is a word. Everyone uses that word differently. What matters is what people are referencing when they use the word. Some people are talking about a guy with a beard sitting in clouds. Some people are talking about the force that sustains movement in the universe. Some people are talking about a presence that is everywhere at once. Some people think it's just a place holder for 'all that is'.
Other than the guy with a beard, none of that has to be mystical. All of it can be totally logical. Flawless even.
When someone says, "God is responsible for this," they aren't necessarily evading responsibility for their own actions. For instance, if you believed 'God' meant "all that is," then through that understanding, God is within you! God would--in part--be your personal Will. So, to say, "I made an A. I am so blessed." does not necessarily mean "some circumstances beyond my control produced this result." It could just as easily mean, "that part of my Will which is intertwined throughout all that is, was what I used to perform well. I am blessed to be connected to such a powerful source."
Red, you obviously have a special relationship with God.
April 7, 2009 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
MBH, I couldn't have said it better and I doubt anyone else could.
I'm agnostic, as you all prolly know by know, and that's because I can't just say I'm a Christian or a Buddhist or any other one thing. My belief is in something intelligent and life-giving, and I leave it at that. What Red wants to think of as divine providence works for me because I know that coming here to TPM has been a divine gift to me and many of my new-found friends here.
I don't wanna look a gift-horse in the mouth...I just want to enjoy the gift and be thankful.
April 8, 2009 12:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Smith said it best: "Thou art God."
I second all the above (and this excellent blog) as a committed agnostic who groks that not everything he sees is exactly the way it is, but that doesn't mean I stop trying to apply some sort of structure.
Like the blogger, something (someone, some mechanism beyond my understanding) was watching my back for the first few decades of my life. Otherwise, I would be quite dead by now.
April 8, 2009 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
thank you MBH I'm not real religious or anything I really didn't know what I really ment by GOD until I read your post becouse I've always thought it was in me. I hate most churches
April 8, 2009 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Organized religion has precious little to do with Faith! God bless.
April 8, 2009 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know! Why doesn't this sap just admit his belief system is silly, and YOU, not GOD, have all the answers?
April 8, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're assuming that YOU necessarily does not entail GOD. You might want to be careful about making concepts opposite if they aren't.
April 8, 2009 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jeeeeez, what a great story. Fairy tales. HA happy laugh
April 7, 2009 9:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Giving to others is its own reward Red. We walk away knowing we did the right thing. And that builds belief in our self. And it lets the helped person know they are worthwhile in the eyes of another human. I think that is the process.
Please keep posting.
pj
April 7, 2009 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you are a sucker, then I hope more people follow your lead.
God is opening day for the Cubs.
April 8, 2009 4:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
As the chicken would say,
You rawwwk, Red!
Fine post.
April 8, 2009 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are the real deal, redneck. Thank you for an inspirational post...
April 8, 2009 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well done, and thanks for being an example.
Have a Coke and a smile.
April 8, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sometimes people crying in the steet out of helplessness really are helpless until we help them. Then, sometimes, they resume their ability to help themselves. Nicely done. Good and gracious.
April 8, 2009 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you're a sucker, I guess I'm that much more of a sucker. I ran into some road shrapnel about 50 miles from my house one day a few years ago on an exit I commonly use, and a woman in a car ahead of me ran into the same shrapnel. We ended up both getting towed to a nearby garage in the town, but she had two shredded tires and I had one. The difference is that she didn't have any money to buy a new tire, and was 400 miles from home, so I paid for her tire as well as mine. Ten days later, I got a check from her for the $129 or so I paid for her tires with a very nice thank you card!
April 8, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice, Red, nice!
April 8, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please keep the blogs coming Redneck. You are a delight to read.
April 8, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
A redneck well read.
April 8, 2009 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink