Title: If A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, Then What Do These Memes Say? (Parts VIII & I) Source:
The Potters Clay URL Source:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa6ulv9aQno Published:Oct 10, 2018 Author:The Potters Clay Post Date:2019-10-07 12:02:10 by Liberator Keywords:Truth, Memes, Hmmm Views:46023 Comments:340
A little Meme action... If you haven't seen them, checkout the rest!
Get bored easily? No time to watch long videos? MEMES TO THE RESCUE! Short & Sweet.
These are found at a Christian You Tube called, 'The Potters Clay'...
These are REALLY good. Fun stuff. I promise. Spectacular AND clever. It doesn't matter what your core belief is; you will come upon several memes that will stop you dead in your tracks and challenge you.
(STRONG SUGGESTION: To adjust and slow these memes down, go to your YouTube 'Settings', then adjust 'Playback Speed to .75. It will give you more time to contemplate the meme, since they move along pretty fast.)
When you have the time, please give them all a look; I consider them a crash-course in Earth-Science Truth, Logic, and Reason.
For God to be God, he must exist entirely outside the space/time continuum. Those are artifacts of God's creation and he is not subject to them. If he was, then he would be nothing more than another artifact of his own creation.
That is precisely my view as well. Souls, as described in any theological context including Newton's, defy the very laws of thermal dynamics (i.e. energy can neither be created nor destroyed) in that they can persist eternally in spite of them operating. That implies to me that if they exist, they must, by necessity, consist of material that originates outside of our current big bang universe where the laws of thermal dynamics as currently understood do not apply. That would reasonably be construed as an alternate or extra/super dimensional universe, perhaps more real than our own.
Newton's work does touch upon our universe being one of at least several. I interpret the work to theorize that when this universe runs its course and burns out, a new one can be made to replace it. (And we'll all be around to see it when that happens).
But we, as souls, are not a product of this universe. But all physical life, including animals, plants and the human race, is. That is what makes us special. Not our human DNA. It's also why evolution doesn't matter. Christians who are hung up on evolution consider us to be special because of our humanity, which is why evolution is a problem for them.
You must know that hypnotists that claim to recover repressed memories are held in extreme disrepute and have caused demonstrable harm to people, destroying families, driving people into mental illness and suicide, people put in prison based on false memories implanted, sometimes inadvertently, by the therapist or hypnotist.
I agree it is not a precise science, and Newton is/was aware of that as well. He writes of "conscious interference" as a phenomenon when the conscious mind can alter what is claimed to be recalled due to bias. Basically, it's when the degree to which the conscious mind is turned off is just not quite sufficient, and cited memories are not entirely accurate.
What Newton claimed on this score for his general findings, however, is the massive amount of corroboration he has found, and this can be found in his online interviews. He says that of the thousands of people he has regressed they all gave very consistent and compatible information about the basic reality of reincarnation and the existence of a spirit world where we go to between lives on earth. And it did not matter what the conscious religious beliefs or cultural background of the people involved, including atheists. They all gave, he says, compatible information while under hypnosis. That is what he says convinced him that what he found was real, in spite of the accuracy shortcomings with hypnosis. He also maintains that he was not in the practice of asking leading questions about things. I.e. he claims he asked people what they see, not if they see this or that. This is, in my view, in line with the nature of Newton's responses in on-line interviews and also in his written work. His approach appears to be that of a true scientist allowing the information to speak for itself.
Obviously the nature of hypnosis and psychology is not nearly a cut and dry as is something like physics or biochemistry. But it seems Newton did as good a job with treating it as a science field as could reasonably be possible. But even after so many years, there's no credible or substantiated claims anywhere on the internet claiming anything Newton has written or claimed being fraudulent or an outright scam. In my search on that, I did find one online post somewhere claiming to be a woman who's case was cited in one of Newton's books. The comment was favorable to Newton. For whatever that is worth, which is about nothing.
On the negative side, I recall someone attempting to research the name of one person cited in one of Newton's books. A last name was given and a profession of, I think, a prosecutor in some midwestern state. This person committed suicide. The researcher was unable to identify any historic person in that state during that time who fit the description. In that case, perhaps the person recalled the wrong state? Or maybe the historic record simply were not complete. But that's about the most I've ever found that challenges anything about what Newton has claimed.
On this score, I'll also mention that Dr. Brian Weiss is/was in the same doctor field as Newton and came to virtually all the same conclusions as Newton. Both were brought to accept reincarnation as reality through clients recalling past lives, in both cases the past life recall being unsolicited. In spite of their not referring to each other's work in the slightest, the work of Newton and Weiss appear to me to be in virtually 100% agreement on their findings. Though Newton's work does predate that of Weiss and I could in no way guarantee Weiss did not read Newton's books, though it seems likely Weiss wrote his first one based solely on his own extensive experince with a single client, which is quite a read.
I would actually go farther and say that if God created the universe 6000 years ago to make it look like it's 13 billion years old, then it really IS 13 billion years old, and it's completely wrong to say it's only 6000 years old.
No.
Adam appeared to be 30 something but was in fact only 1 day old, so, your logic has failed you.
Who says that the universe is 13 billion years old? Really? The same scientists who are now back-pedaling about evolution not explaining the complexity of life on Earth?
Reincarnation is not in the least bit a new theological concept.
Which brings me to another question...where is this reincarnation taking you? The "spiritual lessons" you learn each time you reincarnate, do they have some end where you reach perfection? How many times must you repeat life before you get it right...then what?
a line about it being appointed to man "once to die"
Have you ever watched anyone die? Do you not feel that the act of dying would be painful enough to learn almost every spiritual lesson there is to learn?
But then again, that doesn't also preclude Christians from kicking it up several notches as well; "study or analysis" of Scripture is exactly how Christian Bible Scholars and Christians have discerned Truth from Genesis-to-Revelation, inexorably reinforcing the foundations of Christian Faith.
Liberator, have you taken some poor Bible scholar hostage and forcing him to make comments for you on the internet?
It sure is a Big-Three, ain't it? (For good reason.)
I have no dispute over what Christian theology says, so I see no need to respond to it, except for....
What they all have in common: NO Accountability, NO Debt Service, NO Death Penalty. NO MATTER WHAT...
Under the Newton model, there most certainly is accountability. Debt service? There is karmatic justice. And there is in fact a possibility that individual souls could vanish into oblivion in some way. Maybe. It's an open question.
THIS strata was created in just a few hours, Look old, doesn't it?
Just because fresh strata can look like old doesn't mean strata cannot be extremely old. There's no word in that photo how hard that strata is. Is it "rock hard" or just layers of packed dirt one could stick a shovel into?
While it opens the door to some strata being young, it cannot possibly prove all strata is young.
One Bible passage can apply: "Seek, and ye shall find". If you set out to prove creationism and evidence of a young earth, you will certainly find it. Everyone with a bias on the subject, which in no way excludes creationists, will find evidence to support their case.
Adam appeared to be 30 something but was in fact only 1 day old, so, your logic has failed you.
I disagree. Isn't God the creator of time itself? According to Einstein, time is really just one more dimension of space. If so, then if God created all space, then it certainly follows God created time as well.
But... this is semantics only.
Who says that the universe is 13 billion years old? Really? The same scientists who are now back-pedaling about evolution not explaining the complexity of life on Earth?
Which brings me to another question...where is this reincarnation taking you? The "spiritual lessons" you learn each time you reincarnate, do they have some end where you reach perfection? How many times must you repeat life before you get it right...then what?
Eventually we progress to the point where further trips to the gymnasium called earth is of minimal value, and we stop incarnating, continuing our growth in the spirit realm.
Have you ever watched anyone die?
Yes, I have.
Do you not feel that the act of dying would be painful enough to learn almost every spiritual lesson there is to learn?
Absolutely not. Not in the least. Not even close.
While our approach to death can be terrifying, even to the point of leaving some scars in the form of phobias on subsequent lives (fear of heights, claustrophobia and such), my perception is that exiting this life and returning to the spirit world is so wonderful that it easily would qualify as the happiest day of anyone's life.
There was one woman who had a near death experience, or claims to, a Dr. Mary Neal, I think her name is. She drowned in a kayak accident and was underwater for maybe 15 minutes or more. She claims an experience quite compatible with Newton's findings, and was so elated upon death she didn't want to come back. At all. And that in spite of having 4 young children in her care. I recall her interview in which she answered a question as to why she took so many years to write of her experience, and one reason she gave was because she was ashamed. Ashamed that she didn't want to come back in spite of having 4 children that needed and depended on her. It was a sentiment that wasn't even in the least bit negotiable, as what she experienced in her NDE was simply that overwhelming. And it seems she was in every way a very good and loving mother.
This woman comes across as very intelligent (she is a medical doctor) and speaks very objectively of her experience. Though I will add in all fairness that she considers her experience to be a validation of Christianity. That in spite of my take on her descriptions as being 100% compatible with Newton.
That's a bit of an aside, but the point remains, that death itself is a wonderful thing. While in the Christian model is it a permanent departure and certainly invokes lots of sadness, under the Newton model, it's simply the end of one chapter in the very long book of the story of one soul's total experience in earthly life. Death does not mark an exit from human life from which we never return. In the words of a certain terminator robot, the expression "I'll be back" could certainly be fitting for someone's dying breath.
This woman comes across as very intelligent (she is a medical doctor) and speaks very objectively of her experience. Though I will add in all fairness that she considers her experience to be a validation of Christianity.
I've had dreams that were just as real (if not more so) than she experienced in her unconscious state, her NDE as you say. I don't think her experience has anything to do with Christianity. We are dead when the spirit leaves the body...and the spirit does not come back. The human spirit either goes to be with Christ, or the spirit goes into Hades, the fiery holding tank for unbelieving humans, to await the final judgement.
Eventually we progress to the point where further trips to the gymnasium called earth is of minimal value, and we stop incarnating,
With so much returning to the earth (6000 divided by 70 = 85.7 potential reincarnations) we are not seeing ANY sign of human progression toward perfection. In fact, just the opposite.
What we ARE seeing is what the Bible describes:
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. 2Tim 3
Look at that passage closely, Ping. You know its true!
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. 2Tim 3
But when have human beings ever been anything else? History reveals that is the fundamental nature of mankind. Even the bible says we're children of the devil and never want to do anything righteous. Everything we find in our recorded history is more of the same things that Paul is complaining about to Timothy, sometimes a little worse or a little better but fundamentally the same as far as human conduct.
Exactly where in human history is this era of the Good Old Days that is the baseline to which we should compare all human life? Name a year or a century and a place where these Good Old Days existed. Give some examples of historical eras and locales where mankind was any different than what Paul was complaining about.
It sounds a lot like some old guy pining for The Good Old Days. And Paul was an old dude when he wrote this to Timothy. Doesn't it sound like the lament of an old man, staring at approaching death, and regretting his choices and the choices of others outside his control?
Normally, when we hear people speak of the Good Old Days, we find those Good Old Days were just the same as the present. The people speaking were just younger and more naive or at least more filled with hope for the future.
I hate to pick at you and make you mad. But that is bullshit, not true. It shows a lack of intelligence to believe such nonsense. I also notice you say it is your current belief system. Which hints at you are not that sure of it. I don't go around saying I'm currently a Christian. Muslims don't go around saying i'm currently a Muslim.
There was one woman who had a near death experience, or claims to, a Dr. Mary Neal, I think her name is. She drowned in a kayak accident and was underwater for maybe 15 minutes or more. She claims an experience quite compatible with Newton's findings, and was so elated upon death she didn't want to come back. At all. And that in spite of having 4 young children in her care. I recall her interview in which she answered a question as to why she took so many years to write of her experience, and one reason she gave was because she was ashamed. Ashamed that she didn't want to come back in spite of having 4 children that needed and depended on her. It was a sentiment that wasn't even in the least bit negotiable, as what she experienced in her NDE was simply that overwhelming. And it seems she was in every way a very good and loving mother.
Oh I see the problem. Like Liberator you watch retards and believe them.
One Bible passage can apply: "Seek, and ye shall find". If you set out to prove creationism and evidence of a young earth, you will certainly find it.
Duh it's true.
You try to prove evolution and it isn't possible because it didn't happen in any matter shape or form. The fossil record is quite clear and it says no evolution.
Under the Newton model, there most certainly is accountability. Debt service? There is karmatic justice. And there is in fact a possibility that individual souls could vanish into oblivion in some way. Maybe. It's an open question.
You keep making shit up that has no basis in reality. Quit pretending.
Exactly where in human history is this era of the Good Old Days that is the baseline to which we should compare all human life?
The Bible doesn't say that there was ever a "Good Old Days" time in human history. God simply says things are going to get worse in the last days.
There is certainly no improvement in the human condition that you would expect to see from all that reincarnatin' and spiritual lesson learnin'. Talk about fail!
Adam appeared to be 30 something but was in fact only 1 day old, so, your logic has failed you.
How do you know he looked 30-something? In medieval art, Adam/Eve were just as often depicted as teenagers, the whole Romeo/Juliet, Blue Lagoon style. For that matter, why couldn't Adam/Eve have looked 100? The bible has plenty of couples giving birth when they were very very old. But no one ever thinks Adam/Eve were old in appearance. I guess it spoils things to think of them as old people.
Who says that the universe is 13 billion years old? Really?
Physicists. Really. How do you not know this? For some years, they said it was 14 billion but they seem to have revised that down based on revised tinkering with Big Bang math that they now claim is more accurate.
The same scientists who are now back-pedaling about evolution not explaining the complexity of life on Earth?
Physicists rarely discuss biology. I'm not sure how many scientists are 'back-pedaling about evolution'. There are a decent number, a minority, that complain that it is inadequate as a scientific theory, that it lacks adequate falsifiability, etc.
I don't think her experience has anything to do with Christianity. We are dead when the spirit leaves the body...and the spirit does not come back. The human spirit either goes to be with Christ, or the spirit goes into Hades, the fiery holding tank for unbelieving humans, to await the final judgement.
That is your belief. But to be objective, we should be examining her experience to determine the model to which it best conforms. There is also much more to her experience. She claims to have learned during this experience that one of her children would die relatively young, which came to pass some years later when he was killed by a drunk driver at age 19, I think it was.
With so much returning to the earth (6000 divided by 70 = 85.7 potential reincarnations) we are not seeing ANY sign of human progression toward perfection. In fact, just the opposite.
In the Newton model, souls are created on a continuing basis so the higher population can generally reflect an average experience/development level that is reduced, which would explain a world with generally deteriorating morals.
The Bible doesn't say that there was ever a "Good Old Days" time in human history. God simply says things are going to get worse in the last days.
But how will they get worse? Compared to when? Compared to, say, all those times in the Old Testament when God killed off so many Israelites or sent them into captivity and slavery as punishment? Compared to the Roman era when the New Testament was written? Worse than Nero and Caligula? Worse than the pagan cults of Rome and the public child brothels and the slavery and so on?
Things have been pretty much the same in terms of human morality since the Greco-Roman period. Really, since the Achaemenid empire (the First Persian empire under Darius, the King of Kings, circa 500BC and which contained 45% of the entire human race).
It makes of Christianity a non-rational belief system, one that can be sustained only by heavily indoctrinating children in it from an early age.
Without the evidence of the miracles, Christianity is precisely that, as are all of the other religions.
What distinguishes Christianity from the other religions is that God actually did leave physical, laboratory-examinable miracles whose informational content verifies certain assertions of some branches of the Christian faith, and thus prove the existence of intelligent divinity itself (as an override to mere mindless determinism), and the affinity of divinity with certain specific Christian beliefs which, because of the concrete veridical evidence, are transformed from myths into facts.
Take away the Shroud, and there's no reason to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected, let alone preferred by God. There's just non- rational belief, which is most easily transferred the way all religion mostly is: through the heavy indoctrination of children from a very early age.
Christianity as practiced, of course, differs widely and wildly from the Christianity that WOULD BE practiced if people actually listened to what Jesus said, but that's a different subject entirely, one that I happen to be more interested in than the various other arguments. To me, Jesus' association with divinity is proven by the physical facts, which are obviously miracles and therefore were acts by which God overrode the physics that would otherwise have prevented such objects from existing.
I associate the power that did that with the power that talked to me and performed similar nature-overriding miracles for me or in my presence. And it is through that vector that I pay attention to what Jesus said.
Because what Jesus says conflicts with some things that Paul says, I reject Paul as binding authority. Because what Jesus says conflicts with some things that James says, I reject James as binding authority. Because what Jesus says conflicts with some things that the Churches (all of them, except the Quakers) have said or done, I reject all of the Churches (except the Quakers) as binding authority.
Of course, what "Jesus said" is really only what Jesus is SAID to have said, by a set of anonymous ancient authors who may or may not be the people whose names we have associated with their gospels. And in places, Jesus contradicts Jesus, which creates a difficult situation as there is no external authority other than God to resolve the tension.
Given the lack of external authority, the final authority must be...well...ME.
And given that God has not only kept me alive and performed wondrous things for me, but talks to me on occasion as well, I gather that he either agrees with my choices on such matters, or doesn't object sufficiently to depart from me, or doesn't care either way.
In any case, that is all that I can do or say about the matter. I disagree with Jefferson's assessment that Jesus was not divine. He was. But then, Jefferson never talked with God, and I have, so Jefferson was lacking facts that I have.
In any case, I think that to make the world better, we have to reform human activity such that it conforms with what God wants of us. And since human beings are unwilling to change even with proof, and the various religions, as they exist, are pretty weak vessels, I have largely given up the field.
The problem with the other religions is that they are made up. The problem with the Christian religions is that they have all (except the Quekers) been horribly violent and evil, and have not yet come to grips with their own evil, making them tainted vessels for learning, and chock full of bullheaded people.
Which is why the Churches are dying out all over the place. People outside of the circle.
Since people won't do right, or accept that there are standards, and Christians are so contentious, I've given up on them and just turned to cultivating my own garden.
You can ban me if you want, and I still won't delete it. You are paying the annual fee for it and I'm providing this as a service for pay. You run it how you wish.
You want to believe the Bible is the Word of God. You want to believe that our total journey consists of a single lifetime of how ever many years, whether 1 or 100. You seemingly don't want to hear that bad people won't be eternally punished. You are not interested in any criticisms that might show life works differently, arguably both better and worse from that. Better as it offers more hope. Worse because we don't get an quick retirements into paradise.
That's fine, but it doesn't mean Christianity should get a free pass from scrutiny. If Christianity is true, then it will stand up to any kind of scrutiny.
Even the bible says we're children of the devil and never want to do anything righteous.
Yeah, it does. And given the transparent falsehood of that statement, it should be an alarm bell for everybody reading it that this book is full of hyperbole and colorful speech that CANNOT be taken literally word-for-word.
Normally, when we hear people speak of the Good Old Days, we find those Good Old Days were just the same as the present. The people speaking were just younger and more naive or at least more filled with hope for the future.
Right!
"Ah, the 50's..."
You mean, when blacks were segregated and women did not truly have equal rights? And the Communists were taking over China and Cuba and Vietnam and Korea?
Pass. I prefer today to then.
"But, they didn't have gay marriage back then!"
True, but people also didn't fornicate with most of their girlfriends back then either, and sin or not, I enjoyed fornicating with my girlfiends over the years, and would rather not live in a time where I couldn't, and where it was not so easy to avoid pregnancy (and irritate the Pope in the process).
The good old days weren't all that good.
Today seems better than then, at least here, at least to me. Sure, there are problems. But Trump is gonna save us from all of them, and it's gonna be GREAT! (He told me so, how can I disagree?)
Yeah, it does. And given the transparent falsehood of that statement, it should be an alarm bell for everybody reading it that this book is full of hyperbole and colorful speech that CANNOT be taken literally word-for-word.
I was disappointed that no one read my mega-post on the Jefferson bible (and my own sleuthing about the possible use of a Baskerville KJV). Jefferson was an interesting Founder, a real Enlightenment kind of guy. Like you, Jefferson focused on the words and moral teachings of Jesus. Like you, he disliked Paul, rather intensely. Like you, he was a church of one and considered himself alone in his beliefs despite being very much a Unitarian most of his adult life. I thought the parallels were interesting.
But you like the accounts of miracles in the Gospels and like relics like the Shroud even more. And Jefferson rejected most of them.
Anyway, it is an interesting exercise, to see what Jefferson created with a razor and a glue pot over the course of a few nights cutting and pasting bits of a couple KJV bibles and a copy of a Greek and French and Latin bible. You have to wonder what other people might create if they chose to engage in a similar exercise. It does highlight what a person actually believes the real message of the bible is, at least to them.
Maybe you should consider publishing the Vicomte bible. I'm sure it would be a big hit down at the rectory. : )
It probably is the single greatest fight over heresy in Christian history.
Yep, and it's a pointless and stupid fight.
It was of SUCH important to Jesus that he spent zero percent of his time on it. No reason to believe he cared, or cares.
But the killing and the ostracism of Christians from each other over it - Jesus forbade that. So Jesus DOES care a lot more about the behavior of divided Christians over the matter than the matter itself, obviously.
Equally obviously, Christians are headstrong and know better than Jesus. Which is why their churches are all dying.
Can a new Church of Jesus be made that puts it all back together again? Not without miracles that overthrow the iron grip of deterministic science on the bulk of minds, no. Existing Christianity will fight the same dull, pointless fights until the last two geriatrics in the pews of the last church die with their backs turned to each other, and without miracles there's no reason to think that God exists, or that even if God exists, he cares what people think.
The existing miracles don't do it. It would take a new prophetic figure doing miracles - preferably great healing miracles (I believe that limb regeneration on live TV would be required to shut up the most stubborn opponents) - to be able to really make the change (if nothing else, every amputee and born blind or deaf or paralytic healed would be a true believer).
It would be more potent if the prophetic figure could both heal the paralytic and blind and CAUSE paralysis and blindness, and raise the dead and strike dead as well, for that would set up an actual risk profile, a probably confrontation with a government, and the sudden dissolution (by mass striking dead) of some major state, which would certainly create a following.
True, but people also didn't fornicate with most of their girlfriends back then either, and sin or not, I enjoyed fornicating with my girlfiends over the years, and would rather not live in a time where I couldn't, and where it was not so easy to avoid pregnancy (and irritate the Pope in the process).
Don't be naive. There weren't very many virgins getting married in the Fifties either. You have to go back to the Victorian era for that kind of thing. And that was a brief period, preceded and followed by eras of lax morals. The Great Depression finished off much of what remained of Victorian morality and WW II mostly extinguished it, outside some very rural areas.
Returning to the Jefferson bible's beginning, we can see that Joseph had a knocked up fiance when he and she traveled to comply with the census and no one said anything about that to them or seemed to criticize them for Mary being pregnant out of wedlock. I liked that Jefferson chose to start his bible with "there was a guy named Joseph and he had a knocked-up fiance named Mary."
BTW, did you know that Tolstoy also produced his own version of the bible?
You could instead argue that the world is a more moral and just place than it has ever been.
Slavery is outlawed in every country. Only a handful of backward Third World nations still tolerate it unofficially.
War is on a general decline in recent decades. And we've had no world wars or nuclear wars.
Poverty is on the decline, healthcare on the rise, economies improving around the world, especially in Third World countries in Asia and South America. Even Africa is finally starting to improve somewhat though some countries are still very backward. Famine and plague are very much decreased. Smallpox is gone and in the next few years, we are likely to discontinue polio vaccinations.
These are all mankind's ancient enemies. And they are receding.
I just gave some examples offhand but I think you know what I'm talking about, being LF's biggest optimist. There is at least as much reason to insist that life is getting better in every way than there is to embrace the gloom and insist that mankind is more sinful and evil with each passing day.
Hey, I AM reading it, in pieces, keep going back to it. I'd love to discuss it piece by piece.
For example, far from disliking Paul, I love Paul. He's the most human of the writers. I get him. I dislike what Christians do with Paul, making HIM God and dethroning Jesus. That pisses me off because it's so ridiculous.
I am natively a pantheist. I accept that there is a THINKING God because he talks to me, and reversed my own paralysis at a moment when death was certain - a true miracle - and raised two very dead animals back to life in my very dead hands, because I asked him. I cannot DENY the existence of an intelligent God, because I know him directly.
I ask him for things, and he tells me no, or ignores me. Other times, I get what I want, in time. So, God IS and I know it. How God relates to the religions - well, my inclination there is to dismiss the religions as human politics, unless God indicated one. He hasn't told me "That one", but one of the religions DOES have miracles that are real (or seem to be) and that religion just happens to be the one that I was born into - which could be a case of bias, or it could be because if God was going to treat me special with contact, etc., he would of course cause me to be born into the one real religion, so that others would not be led astray if I started talking about my experiences with me and hearers started to believe me.
If I published something, it would be called "Just God", and it would be my already existing "Harmony of the Gospels plus", with the mechanically, concordantly translated text, and the Greek and Aramaic and Hebrew right there.
For the Old Testament, it would just be the red-letter/purple letter/golden letter words of Elohiym, YHWH, El Elyon etc. And there would be a synthesis of the legal texts, a "Restatement of the Torah" as it were, that would draw together the various legal strings and reduce it to the blackletter law, and the observation that every other thing that God said in the Old Testament, and most of what Jesus said in the new, went right back to those specific black-letter laws of YHWH,
It would be a ton of work, though, and people would just shit on me after all of that effort, so why do it? Wouldn't accomplish anything. To actually change people's minds, you need miracles. God knows that, which is why he never taught anybody anything new, and never gave any laws, without a bunch of accompanying miracles seen by multitudes.
God knows people, which is why Jesus said that if people come with doctrines, like he was, "You should by no means be believing unless you see signs..."
Of course, that doesn't mean what it SEEMS to mean. He's not giving a commandment, he's observing human nature, but it's just like the "poor in spirit" - a class of creature that Jesus never spoke of - what HE said was "Happy in spirit are the poor", but the Greek writer lined up the beatitudes using alliteration, and thus we get "Blessed are the poor in spirit", creating a new creature - the "poor-in-spirit" by literary device, and touching off endless arguments that weary my soul.
The Great Depression finished off much of what remained of Victorian morality and WW II mostly extinguished it, outside some very rural areas.
It was the World Wars. Draft whole generations of teenage men and send them en masse to go and likely die bloody, with the only leave being in places like Paris or Amsterdam, where poor girls (made poorer by war, and desperately lonely by the departure of the young men) and the desperate soon-to-die guys hooked up for desperate companionship...
How're you gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen Paree?
Can a new Church of Jesus be made that puts it all back together again?
I'll put my hopes in the Vicomte bible. : )
The existing miracles don't do it. It would take a new prophetic figure doing miracles - preferably great healing miracles (I believe that limb regeneration on live TV would be required to shut up the most stubborn opponents) - to be able to really make the change (if nothing else, every amputee and born blind or deaf or paralytic healed would be a true believer).
Well, it would likely bring back all the lapsed Christian types or at least put the fear of God back into them for 20 years or so. Which is about all you can hope to accomplish, judging by history.
It would be more potent if the prophetic figure could both heal the paralytic and blind and CAUSE paralysis and blindness, and raise the dead and strike dead as well, for that would set up an actual risk profile, a probably confrontation with a government, and the sudden dissolution (by mass striking dead) of some major state, which would certainly create a following.
Well, now you're talking! LOL
I think you should have someone able to call lightning out of the sky to smite the unbelievers. Fire would work just as well. Or maybe alternate the tools of smiting for variety and to keep your TV ratings up. : )
For the Old Testament, it would just be the red-letter/purple letter/golden letter words of Elohiym, YHWH, El Elyon etc. And there would be a synthesis of the legal texts, a "Restatement of the Torah" as it were, that would draw together the various legal strings and reduce it to the blackletter law, and the observation that every other thing that God said in the Old Testament, and most of what Jesus said in the new, went right back to those specific black-letter laws of YHWH,
It would be a ton of work, though, and people would just shit on me after all of that effort, so why do it? Wouldn't accomplish anything.
Maybe not. But maybe it would. Maybe it would be worthwhile.
The only way to know would be to do it. And most great things that people have done were done without a lot of hope that they could change the world. But some of them succeeded far beyond their wildest dreams.
Set yourself a timetable to complete it. A week of working spare evening hours. Or a month. Then show it to someone you trust.
Hey, the family's away so you don't have many social obligations at present...
You might be surprised if you approached it as a "what the bible really says to me as a 21st century educated Catholic". Who knows, you could gain a following even. Maybe you could become a big televangelist.
Is it too soon to speak of...dare I say it...Pope Victor III? LOL
Who says miracles can no longer happen anyway?
If I published something, it would be called "Just God", and it would be my already existing "Harmony of the Gospels plus", with the mechanically, concordantly translated text, and the Greek and Aramaic and Hebrew right there.
I hate to say it but the words "mechanical translation", while more technically possible now than ever, just sounds awful to me.
But you know what? Maybe that's why you should do it.
Yep. I really DO think the world is a LOT better than it was. I just hesitate to say it here, because of the Dolorous Chorus of dying Christianity that's going to complain about things that don't bother me (like gays). Yeah, abortion does bother me, but not like you think. The babies don't feel much pain, except for late, and then not for long, then they're with God in Paradise (not the sky - but that discussion is not for now). I don't like the killing of little helpless things (and would be a vegan but for the fact that it doesn't actually save animal lives at all - probably kills more, net net, and it's really unhealthy). But when speaking to Christians, I don't let them hold onto their emotional folderol. No no, if you're going to bring all of those poor babies into the world, you've GOT to then go with the economics of God, fully spelled out by YHWH, which includes debt erasure every few years, the absolute right to permanent housing (at no cost), the right to be fed by the community when necessary, and lots of wealth redistribution and communal economic responsibility - the very thing that Christians decry as contrary to God's Own Capitalism.
Abortion on demand, young, is where the society has compromised. I wouldn't compromise and go with God, which would mean a whole lot of communalism and involuntary wealth redistribution, with which people of God comply with a willing smile.
I know this is the Achilles' Heel of the Christian West (always has been), and I stick my dirk into that heel every time. Christians never wake up and think, they just emote, bark and howl, and I just roll my eyes and recognize that their attitudes are why their church membership rolls are all dropping like flies.
So yes, life IS getting better. Because of science, and because some of Jesus' morality HAS permeated the culture, somewhat, and influenced people over time.
I want to replant the Garden, of course, but we're not getting there with the current blighted crop of religions.
Abortion on demand, young, is where the society has compromised. I wouldn't compromise and go with God, which would mean a whole lot of communalism and involuntary wealth redistribution, with which people of God comply with a willing smile.
Abortion rates are really declining in recent years, largely due to young girls not getting pregnant. Or at least not staying pregnant, by using the abortifacient drugs the day after sex or before implantation of the zygote in the uterus. Whatever the cause, surgical abortion is declining sharply among females in their teens and twenties which is when most abortions happen.
Another area where things are improving. At least they are doing far less harm to recognizable human beings. Also less late-term abortion generally but still plenty of those due to better detection of birth defects and a willingness to abort Downs babies and babies with problems like spina bifida and other very serious conditions.
I think you should have someone able to call lightning out of the sky to smite the unbelievers. Fire would work just as well. Or maybe alternate the tools of smiting for variety and to keep your TV ratings up.
Just the healing power, including the power to raise the dead (even the long-dead - bring their spirits back from Paradise (or Gehenna, or wherever- the-hell else...Valhalla!) and put them in regenerated bodies, and of course the inverse of these things - if you can heal a heart attack and a stroke, you can break blood vessels too.
Note that concomitant with these abilities is the ability to live without food, water or air, or even a corporeal body, since the starving would be healed...without replenishing their food - simply converting air and space and energy into healthy tissue.
This is quite important, because obviously our prophet would be an INSTANT threat to the world order, the economic order - everything - and it would be easiest for the authorities to remove that threat by killing it. But we can't have another Jesus situation. There was one Jesus. If God is going to put this prophet here to remake the world through persuasion to follow the law of God, this prophet is going to have to resilient - can't poison him, can't starve him, can't kill him - and he needs to be able to raise back up all of the "enemies of the state" that the state kills...and the ability to strike dead the TOP of the chain of command, such that the TOPS of the chain of command everywhere forbid their juniors from attempting anything, since in a war with HIM, it's the generals and kings who all die first, and the draftee foot soldiers get resurrected.
The healing becomes the vehicle for "voluntary" wealth redistribution - on a Toranic model. You have hardened arteries and cancer, poor old street woman? Well, now you have a young clean body again. Come along and help me. You have terminal cancer, Mr. Rockefeller? You can have the same vigor and youth as this poor woman, but it will require the redistribution of all of your wealth above the amount we calculate necessary to maintain your family life in dignity, and to maintain the employment of your businesses. You don't need to accumulate more, however, and your purpose now, in operating your businesses, will be to no longer accumulate profits in your own accounts (for you will never rule the world through wealth, so stop trying), but to actually get everybody into a by-right living space (everybody as in, everybody in the world, not just everybody in Detroit), with food, etc.
Oh, and you're all going to garden some. Yes, you're all going to grow food. The price now is hundreds of thousands to insurance companies and doctors for hit-or miss care. The price now is healing is free, but you have to behave in the ways that God intended - and that means tending your own garden - which makes the world green and lovely and fed and healthy.
No, you don't HAVE to do it. You can choose to simply die of cancer if you want. No, you don't HAVE to get your kid killed in an accident back, but if you do, this is coming from God, and the price is that you're going to admit God exists, admit these are God's laws, and pay with change of behavior. If you're good, you'll keep living happy. If you're not, well, that cancer can come back you know (not that the prophet is going to give it to you).
Etc. It's a nice story. But it's not going to happen so why waste the ink. Having "What God Said" right there on the table, with the full synthesis from the actual words, but rejecting ALL outside authority diverting the words...people will just fight like hell over this stuff - look how many millions have already been killed in the name of the "Prince of Peace". Nobody would get killed over my book - the fangs have already been pulled out of Christianity. The only people who fight now are the margin in the dwindling Churches.
Just the healing power, including the power to raise the dead (even the long-dead - bring their spirits back from Paradise (or Gehenna, or wherever- the-hell else...Valhalla!) and put them in regenerated bodies, and of course the inverse of these things - if you can heal a heart attack and a stroke, you can break blood vessels too.
Ah, so your prophet could quietly say, "Death to thee" and smite them.
Then he could bring them back to life. If they still don't obey, he could kill them and resurrect them over and over again until they finally obey!
Kind of like an instant reincarnation cycle. No waiting to live/die/reincarnate. Instant action! Film at 11! Neil should like that. Well, at least a little more than getting bible-bashed here at LF which isn't all that much fun as hobbies go. : )
The healing becomes the vehicle for "voluntary" wealth redistribution - on a Toranic model. You have hardened arteries and cancer, poor old street woman? Well, now you have a young clean body again. Come along and help me. You have terminal cancer, Mr. Rockefeller? You can have the same vigor and youth as this poor woman, but it will require the redistribution of all of your wealth above the amount we calculate necessary to maintain your family life in dignity, and to maintain the employment of your businesses. You don't need to accumulate more, however, and your purpose now, in operating your businesses, will be to no longer accumulate profits in your own accounts (for you will never rule the world through wealth, so stop trying), but to actually get everybody into a by-right living space (everybody as in, everybody in the world, not just everybody in Detroit), with food, etc.
You go on about wealth redistribution a lot. Why don't you ever consider the abolition of money itself? Try to get outside that box we all have lived in our entire lives.
Jesus certainly didn't care much for money. And he did scourge the moneychangers rather memorably. Maybe that should be more your goal. Don't try to get a bigger welfare state by redistribution of money by denomination: just abolish the entire notion of wealth as measured by money. Death to Adam Smith! Pope Victor III could order his books burned, his body disinterred and burned at the stake. Tune in next week!
Oh, and you're all going to garden some. Yes, you're all going to grow food. The price now is hundreds of thousands to insurance companies and doctors for hit-or miss care. The price now is healing is free, but you have to behave in the ways that God intended - and that means tending your own garden - which makes the world green and lovely and fed and healthy.
Again, the medical establishment has its own price. Abolish the price entirely. The obscene profits are driven by greed as are many of the bad drugs. The profit incentive is the flaw, not the products themselves.
C'mon, just try to think far more radically about the abolition of wealth. After all, the bible tells us that a rich man is less likely to get to heaven than a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Of course, you are aware of all the disputes over the proper translation of this particular phrase. Camel? Elephant? Rope/Cable? Passing through the eye of a needle or through a small gate used at night to enter Jerusalem, etc.
Hey, the family's away so you don't have many social obligations at present...
Family's away, but the old homeless guy I have taken in to use the space left open in their absence is very talkative, and has a lot of pain in his heart that he needs to express to somebody, so I find myself going to bed fairly late after listening. Also, I think it's rude to just leave somebody upstairs alone and go sit at the computer.
Mechanical translation is NECESSARY to remove translator's bias. Wherever an Aramaic, or Hebrew, or Greek word appears, that word must be carefully defined and world-listed, and then THAT ENGLISH WORD be used used EVERY SINGLE TIME that the foreign word appears. Of course you conjugate the nouns and decline the verbs. but you must be absolutely consistent - MECHANICALLY consistent, like a computer, so that all of those places where the theological bias of the translator creeps in. For example, either the word "skies" or the word "heavens" will appear in the translation, but not both words, and the word "breath", or "wind" or "spirit", but the translator does not get to pick when a word "means" "skies", or "means" "Heaven", or "means" breath, or "means" wind or spirit. The simplicity of the vocabulary used will remove the layer of distinction that isn't in the original text.
Because the word lists are clear, somebody can always simply mass replace one word with another, but the point is that the words are the words, and the translator doesn't get any choices - to make something theological.
"In origin was the word and the word was with the divine and divine was the word."
The root of "theos" is "heaven" or "bright sky", across many languages - thus, the association of "the divine" with the sky itself (which in the greek is "ouranos" - uranus - which of course was also the name of the original sky god who, with gaae (the earth mother) fathered the original gods.
The Hebrew words for God move around "el" (or "al", depending on pronunciation), which is "mighty one" and is drawn (and called) as a bull's head (the letter "Aleph").
Christians place too much weight on that word "God", because it's not a defined term in either testament, but comes from words in the underlying language that refer to something.
In Hebrew, the word simply means "power", in Greek root, it derives from "bright sky", and means "divine".
Now, a non-mechanical reader with a theological agenda will positively scream that I am "twisting the Scripture", but actually, I am saying what the word really IS, what the words really ARE - if "the heaven" inspired them (the mandate of the sky, so to speak) - perhaps the heaven was revealing its nature in that choice of word. But that's not what theological Jews or Christians want - no, they're quite sure of what "God" is, even though nobody told them but their tradition.
I'm not revising anything. I'm writing the words in their actual meaning. That those words really make firm theological beliefs fuzzy is a weakness of the theological beliefs - the words just are what they are.
"But, but, you're DELIBERATELY making fuzzy what is clear!"
No, I'm deliberately using the clear words to demonstrate that the theology you and your people have believed for thousands of years is ITSELF fuzzy and inexact, and all of the logical exactitude you've built up over the years is built on a fuzzy foundation of states.
"God" is the bright sky - the mandate of heaven, as the Chinese would put it. "God" is the POWER that just exists, it just is. And it's plural in Hebrew.
In the beginning "THE POWERS THAT BE" made the land and the sky.
The Christians go ballistic. But they can't kill any longer, because back in the day, they DID kill, and fatally wounded their own religion such that people pulled its fangs out and deprived it of POWER, so now it can just bark while the caravan passes.
People don't like mechanical things, and they don't like roots, because it puts a torpedo under the keel of firm beliefs and makes you realize that the ancients were dealing with concepts, not simple-minded things.
And yet, the bright sky TALKS. It did to ME. Nobody cares about THAT, but THAT is what makes what I have to say more interesting, to the discerning person.
Why the hell do I care what Pope Sixtus the Seventh said? Did God talk to him? He never said so. Why, then, does HE matter, what does HE know? On the other hand, Jesus spoke to God, and as God, and Amos quoted God whom others could not see (and they hated both of them for it too).
I'm interested in what God had to say, not what men had to say. And anyway, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with the god and the word was divine" is not actually spoken by Jesus or God anyway, that's John. So that whole statement, in both testaments, would not be in my set of scriptures to examine in the first place. Those are theological conclusions of the writer. I'm interested in what GOD said. I'll decide what that means.
Moses and John, respectively, are credited with writing some memorable prefaces, but they are, after all, prefaces by Moses and John, or somebody. They don't say "God said" - what God, or Jesus, SAID is always indicted by "God said..." or "Jesus said..." And that's what I'M interested in.
But I've already read that stuff and thought about it. Others, when I mention it, spend so much time objecting to my method that they don't ever get to the words, so why should I devote my own precious time to carefully (and it all has to be SO CAREFUL) put down words they're going to disregard anyway?
Why FIGHT with the Whigs in 1870, or the American Communist Party today? They're moribund.
Because most of the Torah, and most what Jesus said, focuses squarely on the issue of human poverty and its relief. The Torah gives a comprehensive system to eliminate poverty: birthright to inalienable land, returned in the Jubilee NO MATTER WHAT, cancellation of debt in the seventh year, no interest on loans to believers, no slavery for believers at all.
Every Christian who bays away about some issue like the gays, mentioned in about two sentences of the Torah, or about the SAbbath and sabbath keeping - a rest from work, which INCLUDED a sabbath from planting crops in the seventh year - but who won't engage in the economic logic of God - given how MUCH of the Torah God spent on the matter, and how forceful the prophets (e.g.: Amos) were on the matter, and how Jesus spent his time and so much of his ministry on issues of the poor -
Basically, Christians want to talk about the mind. God talked about economics, since God is interested in making sure that his followers were stewards who alleviated human suffering in a fallen world.
American Christians have incorporated modern Western economic ideas, including things like slavery, debt interest, etc., into their Christianity. And when I just start quoting God they call me an enemy of God because they're enemies of God and don't like to hear it.
God's law of money is like garlic and crosses to vampires. I bring it up because American "Christians" are reliably vampiric, and I like to make vampires snarl and cringe at God. It satisfies my desire to make them rage against the light, since I know that none of them is ever going to reform an inch.
I've GIVEN UP on the Christian religions, because they are so awful. I stick with God and his Jesus, because they're real.
My temporary roommate is deeply Catholic. I want to talk about poverty relief with him. He wants to worry about certain ritualistic things. That I say are unimportant. And so we go.
I'm "marginal", and I'm "arrogant" according to him. I point out that I never burnt people alive for disagreeing with me, but that our church does that.
Also, I never raped any little boys (or girls), but that the Church has paid out over $4 billion in sex abuse settlements in just the US alone. So, is that money going into the coffers to keep up the pretty buildings, pay the clergy, and feed and house and clothe the poor? The first two, then it goes to pay the settlements from all of the boys the priests have raped, all of the coverup. And the poor? Well, if you're just a Catholic guy out of a job or who has lost your home, will the Church help YOU?
No.
Christians like to turn the criticism back on the critic. I simply won't have it.
Christians are headstrong and know better than Jesus. Which is why their churches are all dying.
Can a new Church of Jesus be made that puts it all back together again? Not without miracles that overthrow the iron grip of deterministic science on the bulk of minds, no.
Existing Christianity will fight the same dull, pointless fights until the last two geriatrics in the pews of the last church die with their backs turned to each other...
Actual Christians certainly do readily acknowledge NOT knowing anything more or "better" than Jesus. And ARE "Christian" Churches actually "dying"? Is that your observation or experience? Might be time to change gears, Vic. (Or are these last days simply a case of the wheat being divided from the tares?)
I don't know if it is a case of today's Christians "fighting fight the same dull, pointless fights until the last two geriatrics in the pews of the last church die"; I'm witnessing a lot of passion, fellowship, growth, and commitment by Believers. We're now at the point where we're all personally accountable. And if anyone truly hungers for the Truth and the Word instead of the politics, they'll focus on THAT.
...Without miracles there's no reason to think that God exists, or that even if God exists, he cares what people think.
"Miracles" happen every day in the respective hearts of the broken, the fallen and the disbelieving when they pray to Jesus for His Presence and Belief & Faith in Him. The account of Saul/Paul also testifies to God's existence, hands-on involvement and of personal miracles. And anyway, God's/Jesus' "miracles" are already documented in Scripture (unless you now disbelieve Scripture.)
The existing miracles don't do it. It would take a new prophetic figure doing miracles - preferably great healing miracles.
If that's all it takes, the anti-Christ or counterfeit Savior might fit that bill.
"Narrow is the way." If people demand NT-type "miracles" in order to believe these days, than they are sadly watching too many "Super-Hero" flick and are simply making lazy choices on their respective eternal fate and Salvation.
Basically, Christians want to talk about the mind.
God talked about economics, since God is interested in making sure that his followers were stewards who alleviated human suffering in a fallen world.
God discussed plenty -- including, yes, stewardship of one's brother (materially/spiritually) , the animal kingdom, and planet. But also reaping what one sows -- as well as helping those to help themselves (i.e. teaching a man to fish)...
The Lord was also interested in making sure there was such a virtue as personal responsibility and accountability. He also advocated for charity (for widows, family, and the sick & maimed.)
What God was NOT interested in and certainly did NOT advocate for was/is... Socialism OR Communism.
P.S. -- The alleviation of suffering is inevitable and largely not preventable as a result of (as you mentioned) our "Fallen World."
