From: news@cbnewsk.att.com
Subject: Re: anger
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs
Lines: 31

>Paul Conditt writes:
>>In case you couldn't tell, I get *extremely* angry and upset when
>>I see things like this.  Instead of rationalizing our own fears and
>>phobias, we need to be reaching out to people with AIDS and other
>>socially unacceptable diseases.  Whether they got the disease through
>>their own actions or not is irrelevant.  They still need Jesus...

Aaron Bryce Cardenas) writes:
>The first issue you bring up is your anger.  It is "obvious"ly wrong to
>be angry (Gal 5:19-20) for any reason, especially *extremely* angry
>which is on par with hatred.  Jesus has every reason to be angry at us
>for putting him on the cross with our sin, yet his prayer was "forgive
>them Father, they know not what they do."  ...

I don't know why it is so obvious.  We are not speaking of acts of the 
flesh.  We are just speaking of emotions.  Emotions are not of themselves
moral or immoral, good or bad.  Emotions just are.  The first step is
not to label his emotion as good or bad or to numb ourselves so that
we hide our true feelings, it is to accept ourselves as we are, as God
accepts us.  It seems that Paul's anger he has accepted and channeled
it to a plea to all of us to refrain from passing judgement on those
afflicted with a disease and to reach out to others.  Give in?  Calling
his arguments foolish, belittling them to only quarrels, avoiding action
because of fear to give others a bad feeling, he's not forgiving?

Re-think it, Aaron.  Don't be quick to judge.  He has forgiven those with
AIDS, he has dealt with and taken responsibility for his feelings and made
appropriate choices for action on such feelings.  He has not given in to
his anger.

Joe Moore
