the internet

[seminole]

I was reading about Claudia's trials and got me thinking that the internet is so great for research , communication and many more  things but the porn aspect is so bad. That show on t.v. about internet predators where grown men try to hook up with kids. Many marriages have been killed because of it too. It can be a scary thing that we should all be aware of.

[Kat]

Hi seminole,

Yes porn is an evil of this present age that is all too prevalent.  I think it is destructive to a persons mental well being.  That is why Jesus specifically mentioned how this lusting is from a wicked heart.

Mat 5:28  But I say to you that whoever looks (even on the internet) on a woman ( I think a man or even a child, could fit here) to lust after her (him) has already committed adultery with her (him) in his (her) heart.

mercy, peace, and love
Kat

[seminole]

I saw that show on t.v. about catching predators. Those people must know and have maybe seen the show where they catch them but it looks like that twisted lust is so strong that they will keep taking chances to feed that!
I was talking toa young couple the other day who hasn't been married too long. They were having problems because the husband was looking at porn on the net. He said it wasn't cheating because he was just looking. The wife felt betrayed and rightly so. She saw it as cheating. I don't know if they will be able to make it through this. I can't say their names but just pray for them and that the husband can see the truth of his actions. Thanks,
Nole

[DuluthGA]

I too pray for all those given to be involved in this horrible and tragic regard.  It is not pleasant to listen to the daily news on any day in the week.  Sick sick stories of sexual perversion everywhere that are nauseating, horrific; how can we go on knowing of these atrocities??  I can only ask God the Father to send Lord Jesus on His return.  Let Him come!  I am begging for Him to return!!

With tears, thanks, Janice

[UncleBeau]

Well.. of course I would agree that the whole subject of sexual predators makes me sick....Did no one think that these sick perverted men were being tempted and baited into such an act? We all know that the circumstances God causes dictates our actions, so would these men even be this way without such circumstances? I'm really glad God never decided I would be that way too. It's a twisted world.

[seminole]

I don't think these people are innocent. If there is a "sickness" that causes this type of thing or circumstances that people lived in they still can choose not to act on it. God made them that way? They had to do it? Did I have to be burned by a psycho stepfather? Was that God's plan? Because I was mis-treated in my circumstances does not mean I have the right or excuse to mis-treat anyone else.

[UncleBeau]

If there is a "sickness" that causes this type of thing or circumstances that people lived in they still can choose not to act on it.

CAN they choose? Can those who are accustom to doing evil do good instead? No one said they are innocent. That's like looking at a blue sky and calling it yellow.

[seminole]

They can turn their backs and walk away.

[hebrewroots98]

I think it was Dr. James Dobson that said that "all it takes to become hooked for life, for many people, is to take just ONE LOOK at a pornographic picture."  How addictive!!!!  Satan has his tools and has many Millenia to work on knowing how to trip up human beings into sinning against THE LORD.  It is everywhere and nearly inescapable...I was looking up a 'christian radio station' and I typed in the name plus a 'dot com', and it was a porn site all because I didn't use 'dot net'!  I remember when I was 19 yrs old and went into the bathroom of a relative...I was stunned!  He had two 5 foot stacks of all of these different porn magazines.  I never felt comfortable around him after that, and that was 28 yrs ago!...   I really think that porn is the hook, line, and sinker for too many people; especailly males!!!!  Be careful dear brothers!

[Kat]

Here is an email from Ray that I think fits with this discussion.

http://www.forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,1744.0.html ----

I understand that these things are "spiritually discerned," and that people frustrate themselves over trying to understand spiritual things with a carnal mind. When a man rapes a little girl, IT ASSUREDLY IS NOT GOD!  When one prays to be rich and famous, IT ASSUREDLY IS NOT GOD!  ALL IS OF GOD, but not is all of God directly.  God created man--man SINS, God if free from sin and never sins or MAKES OR FORCES anyone to sin. Neither does He FORCE people to be rich or famous. God created man and man chooses what he does based on the strongest motivation in his heart.
And most people's heart consists of lust, lies, blasphemy and the like.

"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of HIS OWN LUSTS [whether for bad and evil things or for for what we may perceive as good things which may not be good or righteous things], and enticed" (James 1:13-14).

Man has the ability to make choices. He does not have the ability to make choices that are free from any cause. The "cause" of most of our choices is our mind and heart.  And of the abundance of our heart, our mind thinks, our tongue speaks, and in our body we take physical action.  Only God can give us a "new" and pure heart.

God be with you,
Ray

[seminole]

That was an excellent explanation! Choices are made based on causes but the choice is there!

[UncleBeau]

The choice IS there. That's how you go from a CAUSE to an AFFECT! But they cannot choose by themselves not to sin until God makes them not sin. I realize that it seems that this "kind" of sin seems like one of the worst though. I watched a show lastnight about internet predators. It was horrific (and not just the older men seeking little girls)! The police set up fake profiles where the police themselves operate the chat on their end and lure these men into their own lusts of the flesh. I agree these men are doing the wrong thing, but this show tries to get these guys to sin by putting their own weekness in sin right in their faces! True God did not temp them, the cops did. (by the way, there were no minors involved, but these men still go to prison for a very long time) However, God DID put those situations into their hands to reveal their sin to them. Those sick men could NOT choose to do it any other way than what God planned out for them to do.

[cjwood]

I was reading about Claudia's trials and got me thinking that the internet is so great for research , communication and many more  things but the porn aspect is so bad. That show on t.v. about internet predators where grown men try to hook up with kids. Many marriages have been killed because of it too. It can be a scary thing that we should all be aware of.

seminole,
i have been reading some of the newer subjects in this section tonight and was just about to shut off the laptop and go to bed but thought i would read just one more, and it was this post of yours.  the ironic thing is that my daughter (age 28) told me just a few days ago that, "i wouldn't be surprised to see my husband on the t.v. program where they set up the sting operation for internet predators."  i shuddered to even think about it, and told her i could only pray that God would show mercy to my husband and not allow him to get to that point.  thanks 'nole for thinking about me.  every day i have to block, bounce, and delete sexually explicit spam emails that come to our personal email address, and all because he would visit porn sites in the past and he got looped in to so many many many porn sites.  at least 1/3 out of every 10 emails are like that.  it is so frustrating.  and it hurts my heart because it shows me just how much he was looking at porn and i never knew it.  but, of course he says that he doesn't open the emails but just deletes them, but then i wonder, if he did that wouldn't they EVENTUALLY stop coming in.  i did tell him he needs to block them before he deletes them, but he said that wasn't NECESSARY?

oh well, i will be cancelling that particular email address soon.  my husband has his own personal (private...surprise, surprise) email address, and i have just recently set up another email account for myself.  i guess that is just one more change that will come about because of the divorce.

thanks again seminole.
love in Him,
claudia

[Sue Creamer]

Claudia,

I think of all the sins that have affected my life, porn is the worse.  My first husband was so into it, I feared he would eventually make his way around to child porn and end up abusing our daughter, thankfully God did not allow or have any intentions of that happening.   My heart reaches out to you...!!!

Sue Ann

[gmik]

All this talking about choice.  I thought we didn't have a choice, but God's will is ALWAYS done.

If there is no free will. and we are the pottery, then he makes child predators.  Many men may go to a porn site, get shocked, and never go there again ever.  Others get addicted.  Isn't it by the Grace of God tht one does and the other doesn't??

One may take a drink of alcohol, and it doesn't affect them.  Another takes a drink and becomes an alcoholic.  Isn't that God who has decided that???

As Ray has said, we could all be Hitlers or Mother Theresa, so we praise God that he has dragged us here thru nothing that we have done.  Its all Him.

You can't have it both ways.  Its all Him- good or evil.  He sets up whom He will, and brings down whom He will.

[hebrewroots98]

Hi Gena and everyone!  (I've missed you all...so busy planning for this years' school schedule...) 
So true Gena...God has made some vessles of honor and some vessles of dishonor...ALL live out their roles perfectly as they were made to do!  As odd as it sounds to the fleshly peson; it amkes sense in the spiritual aspect b/c in the end, all will come to know HIM and all will become equal then.

[gmik]

Hey Susan.  Have been missing you too!!  We gotta get some "gal-pal" threads going. Ya know, like recipes, kids, food, chocolate, hubbies, etc.....all of course "in the spirit"!

[Shmeggly]

Gena, I really liked your post!  I agree, you can't have it both ways.  That's why I still don't get the whole free will thing....

[Ward]

Claudia:

I just read this post of yours and thought I would share a few facts about what you stated.  I hope that it helps to understand the way these emails etc work. 

...thanks 'nole for thinking about me.  every day i have to block, bounce, and delete sexually explicit spam emails that come to our personal email address, and all because he would visit porn sites in the past and he got looped in to so many many many porn sites.  at least 1/3 out of every 10 emails are like that.  it is so frustrating.  and it hurts my heart because it shows me just how much he was looking at porn and i never knew it.  but, of course he says that he doesn't open the emails but just deletes them, but then i wonder, if he did that wouldn't they EVENTUALLY stop coming in.  i did tell him he needs to block them before he deletes them, but he said that wasn't NECESSARY?

oh well, i will be cancelling that particular email address soon.  my husband has his own personal (private...surprise, surprise) email address, and i have just recently set up another email account for myself.  i guess that is just one more change that will come about because of the divorce.

thanks again seminole.
love in Him,
claudia

'...all because he would visit porn sites in the past...' - Claudia, it doesn't work that way.  Visiting a site on the 'net does not provide your email address to anybody.  If it did, consider how much junk mail you would be receiving from the sites that you go to.  There are more ways to collect email addresses than you can probably imagine.  Visiting a website is not one of them, unless you have a system that is full of security holes.  Even then you don't have to access particular websites.  You just have to be online.  You'll never know it happened.  But if you are using a system that is in that state, this is the least of your worries.  In this state your system may be used to send out the spam.

If you set up a new account and never use it. The email address associated with the new account will start receiving the trash you are talking about within days if not hours.  Even if you never log into the account, much less use it to surf the 'net.

'...and it hurts my heart because it shows me just how much he was looking at porn...' -  I don't have any knowledge about your husband's 'net activities, But the spam email you are talking about can not provide you with any either.

'...then i wonder, if he did that wouldn't they EVENTUALLY stop coming in.' - NOPE! Actually, in some cases opening the spam actually sends back data to the entity sending the email validating that this is an actual and valid email address.  With that validation in place, the spammer will not ever remove the address from their list.  It actually just became more valuable to them. Deleting without opening is the very best response to those emails.

'...i did tell him he needs to block them before he deletes them, but he said that wasn't NECESSARY?' - If he was to do this...  It would not accomplish much of anything.  Here's two of many reasons that it wouldn't do anything:
 

• The email address that you 'block' probably doesn't exist.  Never did.  The sever part of the address, aka the '@yahoo.com' part, probably doesn't exist either. The information in that part of the email is simply keyed in by the entity sending it.  It is never validated.  So you are blocking an address that doesn't even exist.
  
• The spammers you are talking about, practically never use the same 'From:' address twice.  They know that many people try to use the blocking idea.  Its no big deal to them anyways.  They don't want you to reply to their emails.  They want you to access their page somewhere.  And your opening of the email accomplishes that. Ouch!
  
• Now, unless you use a free email account like Yahoo, HotMail, or GMail, many of the spam msgs. that you are receiving may not have even been sent to your email address.  I receive them all of the time. Many email servers are setup so that the msgs. that have invalid addresses are not dropped, but are given to the account that matches most closely.  I've run email servers and list servers, I know from experience.
  

Yeah... I know I said two reasons, but I got on a roll there...  Sorry.

Please understand that I am not trying to support the behavior that you are actually aware of happening.  I just wanted to give you a clue as to how this stuff works.  I hope that what you got out of this msg. is that the porn spam you are receiving is no indication of his or anybody else's internet activities.  It simply doesn't work that way.  The people that do these types of things are very clever and they share their data with each other.  Remember, they make money off of this type of thing.  That's a great motivator.  And it doesn't cost them anything to send out emails to valid, fake, made-up, wrong, etc addresses.  They fully expect that 90+% will never be seen, who cares, its free.

If you really want to stop all of this kind of thing, there is only one way to do that.  (Besides getting off of the 'net.)  Set up your email account to only accept email msgs. from specific addresses you list.  But be prepared to miss out on alot of emails this way.  And there are ways around this, too.

If you, or anybody else, wants to know more, feel free to ask.  Its important to know the truth.

\/\/ard

[pylady]

Hi Gena,

This concept of free will vs having a will but not free is so difficult to understand for me.  Just when I think I understand it someone posts something about it and my head starts to spin!  Oh no! I've got to think this thru again!! 

You said you thought we didn't have choices.  What I think (?) I got from Rays teaching is that we make choices constantly ( we really can't function without making constant choices).  What we can't do is make a choice that is not caused by something.   But, even though all our choices are caused by something, they are still our choices. 

You said you thought God's will is always done.  My recall of what I read and where I read it is not that great, but I'm pretty sure in one of Ray's papers he said noone can go against God's purpose.  But mankind goes against God's will all the time.  He wants us to go against His will.  That is what evil is, and He is giving us an experience of evil.

I am writing this so that if I do not understand this correctly, someone will please correct me.  [/color

Thanks, Gena, for giving me an opportunity to get this straight in my mind!

With Christian love,

               Cindy