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| Author |
Message |
nettie
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The Butterfly
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Oct 5 16:30 UTC 2000 |
A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.
One day a small opening appeared.
He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to
force its body through that little hole.
Then it seemed to stop making any progress.
It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no
further. So the man decided to help the butterfly.
He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the
cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily.
But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any
moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the
body, which would contract in time.
Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life
crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able
to fly.
What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the
restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get
through the tiny opening were God's way of forcing fluid from the body of
the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it
achieved its freedom from the cocoon.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives.
If God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would
cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could
never fly!
I asked for Strength.........
And God gave me Difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for Wisdom........
And God gave me Problems to solve.
I asked for Prosperity.........
And God gave me a Brain to work.
I asked for Courage.........
And God gave me Danger to overcome.
I asked for Love.........
And God gave me Troubled people to help.
I asked for Favors.........
And God gave me Opportunities.
I received nothing I wanted ........
I received everything I needed!
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| 9 responses total. |
rcurl
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response 1 of 9:
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Oct 5 16:56 UTC 2000 |
Leaving "gods" out of it, that process of butterfuly maturation is
an interesting example of complex evolution - that is, if true.
Quaint metaphors of this nature can be very dangerous. What we observe
in nature does not necessarily have an analogy in our human existence.
Observation of such consequences of evolution in nature have been used
to justify very bad social policy, such as basing social policy on
just "survival of the fittest".
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jazz
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response 2 of 9:
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Oct 5 18:10 UTC 2000 |
Unfortunately it's not an accurate metaphor - if you took from this
that sometimes interference with nature, though well-intentioned, can be
disastrous, and most things that have evolved have evolved for a reason, then
yeah, that'd make sense.
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jp2
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response 3 of 9:
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Oct 5 18:44 UTC 2000 |
This response has been erased.
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jazz
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response 4 of 9:
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Oct 5 19:04 UTC 2000 |
What's an analogy in human existence for the non-genetic expression
of Cuckoo children inhabiting the same gente as their mother and not their
father and how this effects the selfish-gene expression of X-linked and
Y-linked traits?
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rcurl
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response 5 of 9:
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Oct 6 05:59 UTC 2000 |
Perhaps "analogy" is not quite the right word, as what was used was a
metaphor derived from an event in nature applied to human existence.
The difficulty in this case is that *many* metaphors can be derived
from any observation. You could, for example, derive from the butterfly
example (whether true or fictional), "Sweet are the uses of adversity;",
or, "But when to mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they find
fit instruments of ill!
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jazz
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response 6 of 9:
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Oct 6 13:46 UTC 2000 |
And those morals have the benefit of rhyming, too. :)
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rcurl
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response 7 of 9:
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Oct 6 15:35 UTC 2000 |
Here's a challenge: derive two *contradictory* metaphors from the same
incident (such as the butterfly metaphor used here). There are many
contradictory adages ("Many hands make light work" vs "Too many
cooks spoil the broth"), but metaphors are more complex.
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albaugh
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response 8 of 9:
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Oct 6 21:54 UTC 2000 |
I thought the man was just waiting for the butterfly to emerge so that he
could step on it. :-p
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wyrefall
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response 9 of 9:
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Oct 7 04:47 UTC 2000 |
Leaving 'god' out of it, there is a good point here; and that is the best way
to get what you want may not e the direct way--in a
the-journey-is-more-than-the-destination sort of way.
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