Who could change your beliefs?

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That sounds about right. However, other than a tragedy there's another very powerful interpretation IMO (yes, I'm likely about to offend the heck out of certain people here). Her life story could just as easily be looked at as the miracle of her inner strength/resolve and dedication or it may well show just how vivid her experience was on the train. Not feeling or seeing God - at all - for that amount of time also reflects that she must have been, had to have been, custom fit for the role she played; for the fact that she stuck with it at all let alone became a prominent world figure in as such helping the needy.

Or my interpretation is that the train in question could of benefitted with better circulation from the coal fumes. To live a life of misery for a few seconds of an auditory hallucination isn't exactly what I would consider to be "pious luxury." Though I admit, I don't know anything for sure, but, the book was very lucritive for whomever held the rights.

Life's fuzzy though - people's nervous systems line up differently, as does their motivational circuitry. Things that seem that profound are quite likely a combination of genetic/neurological predestiny and life shaping circumstance as anything else (with of course a marked intervention of either God or just a very strange chemical jolt her developing brain took as it was shifting or settling - I doubt coal as it probably would have had more people sharing her exitement). I guess what I mean by that - I think 'purpose' and getting a sense that your fulfilling purpose offers far more riches than just emotive comfort, whether its real or not. I think that desire for purpose and to 'make a mark' is probably one of the strongest drives many people have and, in that sense, Mother Teresa was a rock star and then some.

You are definately unique, or you need to stop drinking the electric kool-aid.


Nah, I'm a beacon of faith in a different direction. Sometimes if lines run at opposite directions in binding speeds, somewhere they converge. Like in the book of Genesis I think, it speaks of the twelve tribes of Israel. There must always be difference in order for all to understand the Way. We must always be accepting of change and difference no matter how it causes us to question ourselves. It's that question that we truly ask, that we truly understand.

Lol, I'm an agnostic - people can choose to believe or disbelieve that as they like. I think of it this way though Averik - you're exactly who you're supposed to be, I'm exactly who I'm supposed to be, so is Magnus, so is Sand, so was Mother Theresa. I think your concern over Mother Theresa's outcome just tells me that you aren't catholic nun material - as far as I know you're not one so you're in good shape!

If life is really meaningless then purpose is purely subjective which then just boils down to individual idiosyncrasies - those can legitimately send people in all kinds of directions.

I guess I won't tell you of that one time I tried on Sister John's habit then...
Let me just say it was rank.

In all probability the record on Theressa's life comes out on the positive side although I have read comments that were not particularly complimentary. People who live lives with divine conviction may be very helpful to humanity or, to the contrary, history records such individuals totally immune to the compassion some ordinary person might posses in inflicting self righteous horrors on masses of people who merely are attempting to survive in ordinary lives. It is a two edged sword and both edges can be devastatingly sharp.

^Yeah, apparently Ghandi was a racist, who would've thought.

And let's not forget to mention all the evil popes throughout the dark ages. Yuck.

It seems like very few life paths come with an inherent quality check in that regard - just like you have great law enforcement as well as some very dirty corrupt cops or some great teachers and teachers who sleep with their highschool students.

Change of briefs, er, beliefs topic

For me, this is a evolutionary thing, as DW wrote.

As I get older, I rely more on common sense, and analysis, which infuriates my children, as this takes longer than just rewriting a script. You need patience and time to make a heartfelt change for a workable solution. This is not just changing tires, repairing a hole.

The Desiderata Serenity prayer is one I subscribe to, though, without the God factored in. The prayer still works.

Just because you can change something, does that mean you should change it?

ruveyn

Absolutely! If you haven't run through a crowded mall naked or tried jumping from a plane without a parachute you're really missing out on life.

I am perfectly capable of cutting off my right thumb. I hardly think I ought to do it.

ruveyn

When you could take your whole hand it hardly seems efficient