Posted on 06/04/2013 6:09:19 AM PDT by Biggirl
Last spring, Frank Turkaly tried to kill himself. A retiree in a Pittsburgh suburb living on disability checks, he was estranged from friends and family, mired in credit card debt and taking medication for depression, cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Do you take responsibility for anything or do you just blame everyone else for your problems?
God can only present His promises to us. He will not supersede our own choices. I agree that God is always there for us, but there are times in life when that simply isn’t enough for everyone.
Again, this isn’t God’s failing. It’s ours. Do keep in mind, we are not perfect. We can try to live good lives, and love God, and respect Him, but there can be times when the human condition is too weak to prevail.
None the less, I do see that failing in this context to be the unpardonable sin.
because they inherited the greatest country in the world and destroyed it?
This was a symptom of selfishness. It’s easy picking for rhetorical games, but the fact stands: Buying a car that you like, that won’t fit your family, had its roots in an overall paradigm.
I never said I had lousy parents. My mom eventually got a mini-van. In fact, I said my parents were/are good people.
Big time BUMP!
Romans 8: 28 & 29 leave no room for human error. Our sin abounds but grace abounds more. I can’t say whether or not a true born again Christian is capable of suicide, but I can say a Christian who has a dynamic relationship with Christ is incapable of suicide.
Interesting take.
Quite wrong of course.
There were numerous attempts to create "heaven on earth" long before the word "Utopia" was coined. And there were a whole bunch of attempts afterwords.
So they were not the first generation nor will they be the last.
Human beings are flawed. They are incapable of being perfect. I do believe in time there is a possibility that there will be humans who do attain perfection through Christ very shortly before the Second Coming, but as a rule today, no.
I only say this because probation closes at some point, and those who will be saved will have their fate sealed. They will have been tested and thereby perfected.
The problem with our flawed nature today, is that you can be a devoted Christian 99.99% of the time. It only takes that one time when you’re devastated beyond sound mind, for you to succumb.
Sure, theoretically you can avoid sin if you’re constantly connected. That avenue is open to us. So far, only one human in history has attained that perfection, a total 100% connection with God and ultimate perfection.
We sin. At the present we cannot ‘not sin’. That’s why we needed and still need Jesus’ sacrifice. It purchased our sinful souls back.
So I hear what you are saying. In theory you’re right, but humans being the frail sinners they are, I’m not convinced you’re totally right.
I’m not talking about sinless perfection. I’m talking about total despair vs saving comfort. Those who abide in Christ will receive saving comfort from Christ sometime before the point of suicide. They can still despair, but not unto death.
You said it doesn’t matter how strong your faith is... I say a strong faith/relationship will overcome anything.
Well, sorry to misquote you. I still think that parents can pick whatever car they want and kids should just suck it up. When I was a kid, I spent most of my time sitting on someone’s lap while driving in too small cars. We didn’t even know there was a problem!
All have fallen short of the glory of God.
Not some...
I am one, turned 60, 6 weeks ago been married for 39 years and have three very "successful" children, all with Gods grace and mercy.
Wait, its just a matter of time until the issue of *disco* is brought up and us boomers are blamed for that too.
Including a few on this thread. I usually avoid generational psychiatry such as this article because it's seldom useful to apply the resulting generalizations to such an individual thing as suicide. Nevertheless, the statistics cited (30% male suicide, 7% female) are a little disturbing if true.
I can think of broad trends that may contribute - we are a vastly over-medicated society, especially with respect to depression, and not only the direct effects of that medication but the effects of changes in dosage, changes in the form of medication, and withdrawal from that medication, are areas where the whole thing turns from therapy to a giant chemical experiment with an unknown outcome.
That, however, does not explain the racial and sexual disparity. The cultural bias against white males that is stoutly denied by the Left even while they're doubling down on it can certainly be a bit depressing, especially if one is restricted to television as a source of cultural input. The real problem is buying into it in the first place, a thing a lot of my generation were far too uncritical about over the last forty years or so. If you have faith, a fair idea of who you are, and a withering skepticism about pop sociology that makes you out the universal bad guy, avoid medication, have participated in your country in the form of military service; in short, if you're stubborn, lucky, and conservative, you're pretty much immune. These days that tends to be a smaller portion of society than it used to be.
I don't think any of this is restricted to the Boomers, either; it's just that many of us in that generation are reaching that retrospective point in life that can lead those who haven't lived one to a morass of regret. That isn't something that is restricted to a generation.
America was destroyed from the 1930s through the 1970s, long before the boomers were old enough to get involved.
Democrats wrote a law to replace the American voter.
From unionizing government, to Vietnam, to the 1965 Immigration Act, JFK was the end of us.
“However, if there is one man who can take the most credit for the 1965 act, it is John F. Kennedy. Kennedy seems to have inherited the resentment his father Joseph felt as an outsider in Boston’s WASP aristocracy. He voted against the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, and supported various refugee acts throughout the 1950s. In 1958 he wrote a book, A Nation of Immigrants, which attacked the quota system as illogical and without purpose, and the book served as Kennedy’s blueprint for immigration reform after he became president in 1960. In the summer of 1963, Kennedy sent Congress a proposal calling for the elimination of the national origins quota system. He wanted immigrants admitted on the basis of family reunification and needed skills, without regard to national origin. After his assassination in November, his brother Robert took up the cause of immigration reform, calling it JFK’s legacy. In the forward to a revised edition of A Nation of Immigrants, issued in 1964 to gain support for the new law, he wrote, “I know of no cause which President Kennedy championed more warmly than the improvement of our immigration policies.” Sold as a memorial to JFK, there was very little opposition to what became known as the Immigration Act of 1965.”
Blaming whole generations of people is pointless. There are many people in each generation who are blameless. What we have here is your predictable decline of a civilization. The cycle is very predictable.
Stage 1: The Rise - Strong work ethic and shared beliefs allow a society to become prosperous
Stage 2: The Golden Age - Society achieves its zenith; people still adhere to common beliefs that created greatness
Stage 3: The Decadence - Prolonged prosperity and leisure cause many in society to forget the practices that made them wealthy. Civic virtue is challenged and morals begin to decline.
Stage 4: The Decline - Prosperity fades. Society begins to pine for the better days of the past. The people corrupted know what to do to stop the decline but either can’t or won’t take those corrective actions.
Stage 5: Collapse and transformation into something else.
The previous civilization is dead. Stage 1 of its replacement has started. Stage 1 may take a very long time.
In the cycle above, the process can be halted or delayed at any stage. It rarely is reversed. That only happens when there is a great awakening. Eventually, every civilization succumbs to this cycle.
I agree with you re: blaming generations.
Don’t agree that we’re nearly back to Stage 1 yet. I’d say we’re soundly in Stage 4.
I never said we were in Stage 1. However, I agree that we are in Stage 4. I don’t see any signs of a great awakening. The Reagan 80’s was a temporary reversal, but the decline resumed with a vengeance after his departure from office.
Ah, sorry—I scanned to quickly and thought the last line of the Stage description was part of your assessment as to where we are. We are in total agreement.
That is not the Gen-X/Y/Z way...........
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