I do believe in God, I'll throw that out there first. This is also a stoned rambling, but I'd like to hear some thoughts. I've just realized lately that the only context I hear people mentioning blessings in is alluding to relativity. For instance, hypothetically, a lady posts a picture of her new car on social media and proceeds to call attention to the fact that she's blessed. Is she blessed because she has a new car? Was she blessed before she had the money to buy it? If everybody on the planet had new cars, would she still consider herself blessed? I guess the point I'm trying to drive home is it's almost if in modern society we use the term blessed to acknowledge our own accomplishments (and how happy we are to be ourselves and not the less fortunate) publicly with some sense of false modesty that gives God credit, while still proclaiming to everyone "hey, I did this." or "look at what I got". We're blessed consistently throughout life for just having the opportunity to experience it, yet we only bring it up when something good happens (in relation to what's happening to those around us).
Good observation. When people say they're blessed, what they are saying is, "look at how I've been chosen by God over you." Id say no one is blessed and we all get what we deserve due to a logical chain of cause and effect.
This is pretty much how I see it too. They are bragging and showing off how much the baby jesus loves them because he has magically bestowed material gifts upon them. Or when they say they're blessed because their son came home from war, they're saying that their son is righteous and chosen by god to live, while the people who had sons who died, well, they're sinners who god hated so he killed their children. Those are just 2 examples, you can extrapolate gods love/anger in many different ways per the individual situation. At the end of the day though, it's a smug, assholish thing to say, and the people who say it I generally believe are smug assholes.
Well I think there is a god or rather some sort of higher power. If that's true He She or It is far beyond our comprehension. Further I think what you believe in is gonna happen. Look up self filing prophecy. Anyway I think if you believe an afterlife or something like blessing exists it does. I can't prove it and nobody else can but if it is the way I think it is what do I have to lose? If believing in something I can choose to be whatever I want it to be means I'll be in a paradise where beer runs in rivers weed grows on trees ( the irony) and I'll be happily toking with the people I hold dear I think that's a fair trade. On the other hand if I'm wrong in gonna be dead when noticing it and I doubt it'd bother me much then.
"Blessed" is an overused term that has lost all its meaning. You can look at facebook, instragram, and twitter, it's all filled with empty statements like "God has blessed me, I'm so blessed to have this" or whatever bland sentences they can come up with. It's not only smug and self serving but also they take a shit on themselves without knowing. Saying that you are blessed, and thanking some unknown entity for all the good things in your life is just dumb. What about you? How did you get that car? Did god magically drop it in your garage? No. You worked for that car. You got a job, probably several and started working for years and when your credit was decent enough, you went out and brought that car. People need to stop thanking some magical daddy in the sky and look at themselves. It's fine to be prideful. Be proud of your success and fortune.
2 Hands at work are worth more than 1,000 in prayer. Every time I hear someone say they are "blessed", I think how lucky they are to have a creator take special care of them, over the thousands+ kids that are born and literally just starve to death each year. Yes, they are born just to starve to death. But you are somehow "blessed" by a divine being, who would choose you of more importance than the well-being of innocent babies. If they're blessed than that means that others with "less" are cursed? It really comes down to ignorance. It's the same as assuming that anything can just happen, without cause. The ignorance to not know to the reason behind anything, or to choose not to know. Both are a dangerous way to go through life. Ignorance is not always bliss, sometimes ignorance is harmful and destructive.
Let's face it, this topic is layered and mostly one of semantics. On some level, it's ironic. Are we blessed? I don't think so. But I don't know because I can't comprehend the vastness of existence, space, and time. From what I do know, I consider being human to be a most fortunate experience. Is that blessed? I don't think so.... I didn't choose the movie, the reel just started spinning and eventually I caught up. 7 billion people amongst an entire animal kingdom in a universe that seems to be, well, at the most, sporadically populated. I know my dog experiences joy, but he can't articulate the feeling or philosophize joy's conception. The same could be said for other animals, but certainly not all forms of life as WE define it. I don't think the fly buzzing around my bedroom has ever been in love or been mesmerized by the sunset. Earthworms are alive, I don't know if they feel "joy". What makes us unique also predisposes us to a different kind of anguish that often spawns from events and circumstances outside of our control. We organize through bi-directional communication we like to call language, establish social laws, and strive to maximize convenience through advancements in science and application. Beavers can build a fine dam, but they don't gather and discuss best practice as it pertains to dam construction. Could I have been an aardvark? Or a horse fly? An amoeba? Maybe... If that was the case, I wouldn't be discussing this with all of you fine people...so I'll say I'm glad to be human, not blessed. Damn, I'm baked. Hope that made some sense lol.
Words are just containers for meaning they have no real relevance other than to the person using them, to understand what is meant by the use of words you have to look from their perspective/understanding. So are we blessed? That entirely depends on what you mean by 'we' , 'blessed' and your understanding of what it means 'to be' something. If you believe that you are 'blessed' because of some material thing you have, I fear that you have missed the point entirely. The true blessing is a chance for you to be a better person than you were the day before and that choice is free. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The thousands of kids starving to death each year is the fault of humans not God, we produce more than enough food and land to feed the world many times over, pity there is not enough money(a human construct) to pay for it all. God is not choosing some over others, we(humans) are. Until we all realize that the shortfalls you see in the world are really just shortfalls in us as humans, things will never change. That change starts with a change in us. We have been 'blessed' with that opportunity to make that change, the real ignorance is choosing not to. Whose fault is that?
I believe there is no God. People that believe in a creator are ignorant to what we know about this universe we live in. I do think people need to learn to give more and take less. From this planet and each other.
I don't think it's embarrassing to require evidence of something before believing in it whole heartedly.
You said people who believe in a creator are ignorant of some knowledge about the universe. What knowledge is that? Because the very same thing could be said about you...
In the average persons mind, I believe the thought of being blessed is relative. That woman with the new car is blessed she is a position to have such a luxury. Meanwhile, a hungry family in the Middle-East is blessed to have found something to eat tonight and live to see tomorrow. In Hebrew, an old word for blessing is esher. Which is defined simply by happiness. As a Christian myself, I believe I am blessed for many reasons.
Generally speaking I prefer the term gratitude. It's taking me a long time to assimilate the concept but just recently there's been somewhat of a breakthrough due, in part, to my wife's gentle prodding and encouragement to try and understand how lucky we really are, considering some of the stuff we've been through, her especially.
Where is there proof of a creator? The lack of proof itself is reason enough to not believe it. It's not necessary to dig up references or scientific claims in an attempt to prove what can't be debated - you cannot say something exists without some evidence. The responsibility is up to the person who makes the claim, not to whom awaits evidence for it. I simply said "I believe there is no God". I didn't state that there wasn't one. I'm not ignorant to the fact that there's a chance of a creator, despite how miniscule.
The proof is in YOU my friend, you are the only one who can find it...if someone else found it and told you, it wouldn't be proof, you would just be accepting their opinion. But you can't just call people ignorant because of you own unwillingness to look for the truth...the proof is there, YOU just have to find it! Best of luck in your searches
There's this presumption that science and creation must be mutually exclusive. I don't contest evolution, the big bang, or the age of the Earth. I find all these things to be tools of creation. It's pretty easy to see the world works on an insanely technical algorithm. Why would it be ignorant to believe a far more intelligent being compiled the program, hit run, and walked away (or observed without interfering). We could be some alien's science fair project for all we know. One cannot successfully assert either the existence or non-existence of a creator. Only beliefs apply and that just boils down to perspective.