Bill, you say
Originally Posted By: Bill S.
You can discuss these issues until you are old and grey - those who are not, already smile - without getting anywhere.
But in the meantime, if done in the spirit of agape--love, based simply on good will, not the emotions--isn't it fun having dialogues with family and friends? You say
Quote:
It has little to do with economics, or religion. You will never change things significantly until you change the way we treat our children.
I agree: Family life is extremely important. This is why, in 1973, I helped found the Family Life Foundation --flfcanada.com. IMO, family life has a lot to do with economics and religion. Would you like to add more to this?
Quote:
Spend an hour or so in your local supermarket at the weekend, or during school holidays. Listen to the way many parents talk to their children. Notice particularly the lack of respect...
I haven't experienced this kind of behaviour here is Toronto, or even when I recently vacationed in Florida. I have noticed too many obese people filling their carts with too many overly-processed and cardiovascular-threatening so-called "foods". Too many people are digging their early graves with their teeth.
[Pneumatherapy--so simple it can be done over the phone--could help people overcome addictive cravings.]

I'm curious: Were do you do your shopping.I suspect that much of the abuse that goes on in families happens in the privacy of people's own homes.

BTW, as a volunteer counselor with the flf I do a lot of counseling with people in dysfunctional families.

I am happy to report--and I hope I am not boasting--that I was raised in a family--number 7 of eight children--that was, despite a third-world level of poverty, a relatively happy one.

Because we got good educations, my wife and I were able to raise two (daughter and son) well-educated children. They are now in their 50's and raising their own well-educated children. The mother of my son's three children, who he met at university, was born a Muslim (Sufi) in Tehran, Iran. We have no problem integrating Sufism and Christianity. Have you heard of the great Sufi poet, Rumi?

Philosophical outlook

Rumi, like unitheists, was an evolutionary thinker in the sense that he believed that the spirit after devolution from the divine Ego undergoes an evolutionary process by which it comes nearer and nearer to the same divine Ego.

All matter in the universe obeys this law and this movement is due to an inbuilt urge (which Rumi calls "love") to evolve and seek enjoinment with the divinity from which it has emerged. Evolution into a human being from an animal is only one stage in this process. The doctrine of the Fall of Adam is reinterpreted as the devolution of the Ego from the universal ground of divinity and is a universal, cosmic phenomenon.

The French philosopher Henri Bergson's idea of life being creative and evolutionary is similar, though unlike Bergson, Rumi believes that there is a specific goal to the process: the attainment of God. For Rumi, God is the ground as well as the goal of all existence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi#Teachings

Last edited by Revlgking; 04/09/11 04:53 PM. Reason: Always good to do

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