Quote: (08-13-2014 07:36 PM)Suits Wrote:
My personal experience in life has been that happiness is a choice, not something you buy with a lot of money.
Things that will screw up happiness are impossible situations where you feel that you have no control or freedom.
That's why staying single works much better for me.
However, if marriage could be an institution that delivered on certain promises and people surrounded themselves with a community of people who shared the same values and drew happiness from enjoying the relationships in their lives rather than buying expensive cars and paying for HBO, there is no reason why young people couldn't be beginning successful marriages at a young age.
Unfortunately, within my church communities, even Christians have bought whole sale into the commercialistic approach to achieving happiness.
Despite being someone who grew up in a family where our parents modeled a minimalist, non-conformist, non-commercial lifestyle, they still encouraged me to go to "a good Christian university" which, by the time I graduated, had a $28,000 tuition price tag per year. While financial aid packages were very generous and helpful, even with 50% off the sticker price and working 20 hours a week for my entire experience as an undergrad, I still wound up with $50K debt.
By the time that I finished my degree, I had concluded that if the school had been genuinely committed to New Testament ideals, they would have found a way to offer a world class education that didn't land every student (that wasn't from a extremely rich family) in a debt hole so debt that they had no choice but to engage in the rat race until it was paid off.
If these Christians were really committed to serving God, they would have wanted graduates to be debt free and truly available to serve him as well. Instead, while building several impressive, but very expensive new buildings on campus, tuition went up $9000 per year during the time that I was enrolled as an undergrad.
Christians want the comfort of having eternal life, but most of the Christians I meet are making no real sacrifices in how they live their lives. Those born in the Western world continue to live life at a Western standard of living, even where it is unnecessary.
Rich Christians still buy nice cars, even though a more affordable vehicle would do the job just as well.
While there very well may be communities of Christians who do not fit this description and I'd like to find them if they exist, as a whole, this religion isn't in any way actually committed to the same type of sacrifice and values that Jesus clearly was.
They want to have their cake and eat it to and they do.
By my calculations, if churches didn't all insist on having their own church building, most of which only get a few hours of use each week and instead pooled resources with other churches, they'd have enough money left over to eliminate world hunger.
But meanwhile, while kids starve to death all over the impoverished world every day, nice, well dressed Christians are praying for God to "give me a good Christian husband."
While I appreciate the sentiment, simply encouraging young people to get married younger and avoid sexual sin as a result barely scratches the surface on the larger problem, that Christians are more in the business of getting theirs than they are of living the type of sacrificial, giving life that their founder is famous for.
As a Christian, you should know in Jesus' own words that there will always be poor. This fallen world will always have poor and starving child ren. Jesus went so far as to advocate for the importance of a homebase for fellowship (eg a church).
However yes, most Christians have fallen asleep and forgotten the lessons that Jesus preached during his ministry. A lot of people have put their faith in themselves instead of the salvation offered by Jesus. Being able to do this consistantly is incredibly difficult and takes a lot of prayer and soul searching.