10 things I'm right about, whether you agree or not.

[Lighthouse]

There's not a moment just before you sin that you think maybe you shouldn't?

Nope.

Or perhaps 3 days after you start sinning, but before you've become "bored" with it, don't you stop in the middle of it and ask yourself, "why am I doing this....again?"

3 days? More like an hour. I usually get bored in about an hour or less, if I do sin.

Right now I am on the internet, in my home. I could go find some free porn. I even have LimeWire, so I could download it. But I'm not, because I actually don't want to. Before I recognized my freedom, I would have wanted to. And I would have fought myself over it. But now, no struggle. Because I really have no desire to.

Of course, porn isn't the only sin. But it's the one I had the biggest issue with before I recognized my freedom.

Hello? Litehouse?

Hello? Windbag?

 

[Balder]

How about psychiatrists?

They are not treating "diseases/illnessess", they are treating symptoms. Symptoms that do not have a physiological cause.

Well, as I said, if some psychiatrists believe that all mental disorders can be reduced to a physical illness, I think they're misguided. But there IS often a correlation between physical states in the brain, the production of seratonin or dopamine, etc, and subjective experiences. So, certain mental states or symptoms can be approached and successfully "managed" through physical means (medications), but in my view, such approaches should be part of a larger package of care which includes psychological and spiritual counseling, among other things.

 

[Mystery]

Mystery, the more you post the more you contradict your hypothesis on mental illness. Do you really think I've had sex with a man? More importantly, do you think about it often? Regardless, you had to think about it at least once in order to type it. You're a sick, little man.

You hypocrite. You missquoted me twice on this thread, and when I do it to you, you whine like a little homo.

You're a pervert, and a liar. If you had an ounce of integrity (which you do not), you would respond to the evidence that proves you wrong, instead of acting like turd (which you are).

 

[Lighthouse]

Mystery, the more you post the more you contradict your hypothesis on mental illness. Do you really think I've had sex with a man? More importantly, do you think about it often? Regardless, you had to think about it at least once in order to type it. You're a sick, little man.

Well, you keep calling my dad a homo, and he's no longer a homo. So how is Mystery doing anything different from what you're doing?

 

[Balder]

Look out! Dear God, your children are squabbling again.

They make such a good impression on outsiders when they do.

 

[Mystery]

Well, as I said, if some psychiatrists believe that all mental disorders can be reduced to a physical illness, I think they're misguided. But there IS often a correlation between physical states in the brain, the production of seratonin or dopamine, etc, and subjective experiences. So, certain mental states or symptoms can be approached and successfully "managed" through physical means (medications), but in my view, such approaches should be part of a larger package of care which includes psychological and spiritual counseling, among other things.

I discussed this in the "Mind of Christ" thread, and it is not without merit. However, I think we need to approach the actually problem and not just throw darts.

 

[red77]

Well, as I said, if some psychiatrists believe that all mental disorders can be reduced to a physical illness, I think they're misguided. But there IS often a correlation between physical states in the brain, the production of seratonin or dopamine, etc, and subjective experiences. So, certain mental states or symptoms can be approached and successfully "managed" through physical means (medications), but in my view, such approaches should be part of a larger package of care which includes psychological and spiritual counseling, among other things.

:up:

Exactly, I was about to bring up seratonin and dopamine - both seemingly accepted by medical research to be responsible at least in part for 'mental well being' at the more basic description,

And I can't help feeling that this idea of mental illness being a myth is just semantics, a broken leg is not a physical disaese - but it is a debillitating ailment....

 

[Mystery]

Look out! Dear God, your children are squabbling again.

On Fire is no child of God.

 

[Mystery]

:up:

Exactly, I was about to bring up seratonin and dopamine - both seemingly accepted by medical research to be responsible at least in part for 'mental well being' at the more basic description,

And I can't help feeling that this idea of mental illness being a myth is just semantics, a broken leg is not a physical disaese - but it is a debillitating ailment....

It will be interesting to see if Balder takes your side here, or if he tells you the truth. :think:

 

[Lighthouse]

On Fire is no child of God.

Amen to that!

He gave me a neg rep, and his comment said "fag hag." Which is a bold faced lie.

 

[On Fire]

3 days? More like an hour. I usually get bored in about an hour or less, if I do sin.

You mean WHEN you do sin. But there's NO struggle and NO desire. So why do you still sin?

 

[red77]

It will be interesting to see if Balder takes your side here, or if he tells you the truth. :think:

Well we'll have to see, I'm not really wanting anyone to take my side anyway, at one point though I was suffering from reduced seratonin levels due to stress and outside factors and it sure made a difference in my mental state of health.....

 

[Balder]

I discussed this in the "Mind of Christ" thread, and it is not without merit. However, I think we need to approach the actually problem and not just throw darts.

My training is in "integral psychology." From an integral psychological perspective, you often cannot approach our issues from a simple, linear, 1+1 causal model. You can't neatly separate body, mind, culture, and spirit, except in abstraction. What happens in one dimension influences the others, in complex systems of feedback. A sound approach to health will not attempt to reduce everything to the terms of a single perspective, but will consider all of them -- recognizing that each dimension has its own language, its own metaphors, its own necessary practices and approaches.

An either/or approach is too simplistic.

 

[Morpheus]

I'm sorry you still struggle with your sin. Christ set me free, so I no longer have to struggle. If I sin, I am not condemned. I am forgiven. And knowing that, I no longer fight myself about it. I merely revel in the freedom He gave me.

You're an idiot. I do not have to try not to sin, because I know the freedom I have in Christ, from sin. So when the opportunity arises, I can walk away without ever struggling over it. And I often do. I do not revel in sin, I revel in freedom from sin. I recognize the freedom He gave me, and walk in it. In Him there is no try, there is only do.

Romans 6
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Just threw this in for your benefit elsewhere)
Slaves to Righteousness
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.



Romans 7:7-25
Struggling With Sin
7What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." 8But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. 9Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.
11For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good. 13Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

This is all in the same context. Paul struggled against sin his entire life. What makes you think that you are so special that you needn't struggle against it. You, like Paul, are both slave to God's law in your mind and slave to sin in your sinful nature. But I guess that if it makes you feel good to just accept whatever comes up and never grieve over your sins then at least you feel good. But you will also never mature.



As far as the arguments about the mind and mental illness go, how do these idiots (Mystery aka Sozo) explain that frequently when someone suffers a brain injury it severely affects their behavior. I have seen numerous cases of traumatic brain injury where a loving, compassionate Christian was changed into a screaming, angry, bitter person. I tried to intervene as others started writing them off saying that the accident destroyed their faith. The fact is that those behaviors are predictable from injuries to particular parts of the brain. So it isn't necessarily the behaviors changing the physical structure of the brain, it is far more frequently the brain structure that determines the behaviors.

So if a person has reasonable control of their behaviors and they choose to sin then they are accountable, but if, because of other causes, a person does not have reasonable control of their behaviors then does God hold them accountable for sins that are out of their control? The conditions (whether environmental or physical) may be temporary, or in the case of the physical they may be permanent. That is why we are told not to judge since there are factors well beyond our limited knowledge. God will decide. What those judgemental folks here should be more concerned with is their own judgemental behaviors. Where God, and not man, determines the character of those we have been talking about, he also judges your character. You may be thoroughly convinced that you are sanctified, pure and saved forever, but it isn't your determination that matters now, is it.

Matthew 25:41-46
41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

They will all think that they are saved.

Personal note to OnFire: I like it when we agree on a point. Even in disagreement you show wisdom. Oh yeah, Mystery and Lighthouse have really started down the wrong road. The problem is, that when someone starts down the wrong road, the faster they go the farther they get from their destination.

 

[Mystery]

Paul struggled against sin his entire life.

That is blatantly false.

As far as the arguments about the mind and mental illness go, how do these idiots (Mystery aka Sozo) explain that frequently when someone suffers a brain injury it severely affects their behavior. I have seen numerous cases of traumatic brain injury where a loving, compassionate Christian was changed into a screaming, angry, bitter person. I tried to intervene as others started writing them off saying that the accident destroyed their faith. The fact is that those behaviors are predictable from injuries to particular parts of the brain. So it isn't necessarily the behaviors changing the physical structure of the brain, it is far more frequently the brain structure that determines the behaviors.

I have already addressed (many times, you "idiot") that brain diseases and injuries are a completely different issue then the one that I am discussing.

 

[Lighthouse]

You mean WHEN you do sin. But there's NO struggle and NO desire. So why do you still sin?

Why must there be a struggle with sin in order for me to sin? And when did I say I never desire to sin?

 

[Balder]

Why must there be a struggle with sin in order for me to sin? And when did I say I never desire to sin?

When you do sin, how does it happen? Are you unconscious when you do it, if there is no struggle?

 

[Lighthouse]

When you do sin, how does it happen? Are you unconscious when you do it, if there is no struggle?

I don't struggle with myself over it. It's that simple.

 

[Balder]

So, what you're saying is, sometimes you want to sin and you just sin without second thought?

Does that mean that, at that moment, you just don't care that you're sinning? You don't think about what you're doing? You don't have self-awareness prior to committing the act? What?

 

[On Fire]

Why must there be a struggle with sin in order for me to sin?

There DOESN'T have to be a struggle. Ask Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy. I just want to understand why you don't struggle.