Cussing, cursing, oaths, etc sin or not?

I'm not really in a mood to be blogging today on Sunday, but this topic came up in Sunday school and once again I'm dismayed how little people understand both the Bible (the scriptures itself) and the human context/human history and actual usage that God is talking about (directly, through his prophets, or though Jesus Christ).

The discussion starts with the problem of taking the Lord's name in vain, and how that is prohibited. Yes, it is a sin to do so, and a breaking of one of the Commandments.

Here is the problem: thousands of years later, people have come to think that either cussing or potty mouth is what God meant. Now, this is a very recent misunderstanding because as recently as our great grandparents they certainly understood the original meaning of God's word on this matter.

When I was in school, and believe you me, I did not attend some fancy expensive highly accredited school system, they taught a great deal about what life was like through human history, including patterns of speech. Further, Christians used to understand quite a bit about Jewish thought and times (when the Bible took place, duh), but lately even the basics are lacking. So I'm going to share with you a high level gloss of the line of faith and reasoning that is missing today. It all hinges on trusting the Bible as it is and as it was intended by God, including understanding what people actually were doing "back then" when God was addressing them and admonishing them.

Let's start with what they did not do. Neither Jews nor most of the ancient world used "potty mouth." It would not even occur to them to do so. Thus God is not talking about things like scatological or sexual "cussing." (Let's use the word "cussing" to cover the whole gamut of coarse language, including both potty mouth and those that use God's name casually in exclamations). People did not "cuss" the way they do in the last century for a number of reasons, and they most certainly did not do so during the time of Moses (Commandments) up through the time of Jesus Christ, and also into medieval times. We know that because there is extensive documentation, both religious and secular to study.

The basic two reasons that people did not cuss is 1) it would not even occur to them, since poo, pee, and sex acts did not even have that taint by which someone would utter an exclamation and 2) people of all level of society were much less coarse in their speech than they have been in the past fifty years or so of human history. So God did not have to "worry about" telling people not to drop the "f-bomb" or to exclaim "sh**" since it would not even cross someone's mind to do so!
It's like today, would it occur to anyone to potty mouth someone by yelling "flour, flour, flour" at them? I mean, think about it. Back then people had no hang ups about either pooping or peeing and certainly not about sex. They wanted modesty, yes, but it never occurred to them that they could insult or vent by shouting potty mouth cuss words on that subject to each other.

So you cannot claim that scripture refers to either the "f-bomb" or sexual acts, or scatological acts, when the Lord's name being used in vain is prohibited.

OK, got that? Now, the second thing most people retreat to is then thinking, well, if it is not the f-bomb or poo/pee/sex cussing that God is referring to in his Law, well, then using his name in vain must mean any mention of God's name in a casual way, or exclamation, or in any way except to praise him or to discuss his teachings. You are getting closer, but that is still an error. How do we know that? Again, you must look at linguistics and what people were actually saying then. People did not do, for the same reasons I mentioned (both it would not occur to them plus societal decorum) to exclaim in surprise or anger using God's name. What people do today, such as exclaiming using the name of God or Jesus Christ, and which is such concern to many of the devout was simply not what folks were doing in Biblical times at all.

Thus, when someone dropped something, or balled out someone else, they neither shouted "sh**" nor did they exclaim "G-d, you are clumsy!" People's minds and speech simply did not work that way. So yes, while casual usage of God's name is in poor taste, it is also not the sin that God is referring to.

Doubters and haters, ha, I know you are out there so let me demonstrate what I mean so you understand I am not saying this, but simply helping you to recall what your ancestors knew.

Look at the case study of someone who shouts at a co-worker who drops something valuable on the floor, and it breaks, and yells, "God, you are clumsy!" The devout might think that is an example of taking the Lord's name in vain. It is not. Why? Because it is shorthand for what people used to say, which is "As God is my witness, you are clumsy!" Read any literature of previous devout times and you will understand that. When people exclaim using the name God, they are calling upon God as a witness. That is not using God's name in vain. What is it? A lack of charity, ha. The presumably clumsy co-worker does not need you implying that God is also noticing how clumsy he or she was in that instance! It is not "cussing," "cursing," or "using God's name in vain" to mention God, as people most commonly do, in such types of exclamations. It is a shorthand for thousands of years of speech where people frequently exclaimed "As God is my witness....[fill in the blank]...." and now they just yell (or sigh) "God.....[fill in the blank]." It may be tacky and it may be offensive and it may demonstrate a real lack in charity, but it is not using God's name in vain, as it is acknowledging, even casually, God's reality as being constantly in witness of all that is done and said, or thought in one's mind or one's heart.

So how do we know what God really meant by the prohibition of using his name in vain? Whenever one is in doubt, do two things. One is observe what people were actually saying and doing throughout history and then secondly, trust Jesus (the red letters in the Bible) to explain it to you.

What were people doing in the Biblical times when God spoke? How were they either doing so or tempted to take the Lord's name in vain?

1. They were tempted to be false prophets, claiming to speak the word of God when they were not his authorized agents, so to speak, to use a modern term. For thousands of years people who claimed that God spoke or managed actions and deeds through them, but were not genuine prophets or Holy Spirit "guided" were, indeed, "taking the name of the Lord in vain." They were claiming authority in his name that they did not have. This, by the way, is the using the name of the Lord in vain format that the disciples thought the man who was not "one of us" but who was casting out demons' in Jesus' name was guilty of. Jesus then told them that this person was not doing a wrong thing because all he is doing is bearing witness to the authority of the name of Jesus, and thus cannot be against him.

2. They were tempted to combine God's name with other pagan and occult beliefs. That was a tremendous problem then and now. That is taking God's name in vain. (Humorous but serious example for today's times so you understand: "God would not have invented astrology if it wasn't meant to be used.") That, my friends, which I have heard people say, is taking the name of the Lord in vain big time.

3. They were tempted to make solemn promises (also called oaths), for either "good" reasons or bad reasons, using God's name. This is the form of using God's name in vain that Jesus Christ put the serious smack down on, exhorting people to never make such oaths or promises, ever, ever, EVER.

OK, now that you understand the three forms of speech that one might query regarding if they are or are not what God meant by using the name of God in vain, let's look at an actual example of Christian use of God's name in vain through history and how they wiggled around it.

After the death of Jesus Christ there was no more solemn vow that a Christian could make than on the wounds of Jesus (the wounds he suffered in the Passion and Crucifixion). Very unwise to do so, but I am now just teaching history. Prior to Jesus the most solemn vow or oath a person could make was with the most Holy Name of God (exactly what God prohibits). After Jesus died and resurrected, Christians realized that the wounds of Jesus were the most visible manifestation of God's power on earth. Those who are tempted to either vow or "cuss" therefore transferred the object of their temptation from the Holy Name of God to the Wounds of Jesus.

Example (easily found in early English literature): "By the wounds of Jesus I will....[fill in the blank]" and/or "By God's wounds I will.... [fill in the blank]."

You see the difference? These are hair raisingly presumptuous and directly against what both God and Jesus said to do. "God, you are clumsy" is mild (God as witness) compared to "By God's wounds you are clumsy" or "By God's wounds I am going to slay you for being insolent to my sister."

So Christians are demonstrated in English literature and actual documentation as taking the name of God in vain by using reference to the wounds of Jesus Christ.

Realizing that, people started shortening the offensive and sinful reference to "God's wounds" to the expression "'swounds.'" They figured by not actually saying the name of God they are cool. They aren't, but that's what they figured. Again, if you look in someone's heart (which God most certainly can do), saying "God, you are clumsy" today is much less offensive and not a sin of using the name of the Lord in vain than someone in the medieval times saying "'swounds," even though God's name is not actually used in that version! This is because in one's heart and mind one is still profaning the sacred nature of the wounds of Jesus by linking them to one's everyday deeds or speech, even without saying either the words "Jesus" or "God."

Further trying to keep the right to use God's name in vain, but not actually use the word God, "'swounds" became "zounds." You see that a lot, too, in even recent English literature, up to modern times. Do a google search on 'swounds and zounds and you will observe these facts and can read more. You can also find similar origins in archaic expressions such as "egads."

Shakespeare, in Hamlet, I guess, uses the "'swounds" expression.

That, my friends, is taking the Lord's name in vain.

I hope that you have found this helpful.

Malaysia and use of word Allah for God

Harsh language followed by unjust action, the burning of churches, has surrounded the debate regarding whether Malay Christians are able to use the word Allah as a translation for the word God. Some Muslims feel that Allah refers to a different God than the Christian God.

That is interesting because I have decreased some of the prejudice against Muslims among Christians by explaining that Allah is the Arabic word for God, and that with the same roots of Adam, and Abraham, that indeed they are the same God words. Now I see that Muslims unravel that mutual understanding because they confuse a linguistic situation of how to share calling on the name of the one God with specifics of Islamic or Christian doctrine.

One God.

The One God called Allah, The One God called God.

Remember, though, that Christians translate the word God into native languages throughout the world. God is the English language word for God.

Christians don't know they are Christians because they worship the divinity spelled G-O-D.

The tradition language of the Catholic Church, Latin, for example, provides the name of the divinity as Deo.

(example: Deo gratias means Thanks be to God in English. )

Followers of The One God called Allah use the word Allah because the Qur'an was given to them in the Arabic language. Thus Muslims have an official liturgical language, Arabic, just as does the Catholic Church, which is Latin.

Thus to be totally accurate in this argument (if you were having the argument with a Vatican official), you are comparing the use of Arabic Allah with Latin Deo.

Because, despite the translations of the Qur'an into many languages, the translators adhered to the word Allah (Arabic) in each translation (for example my English language Qur'an uses the word Allah), and because the only religious imagery of God that is allowed is the inscription in calligraphy of the word Allah, a linguistic word has become holy to Muslims. That is understandable.

However, being understandable does not mean that Muslims can ignore that a different model was not followed with Christianity. Christians did not make the Latin word Deo the word that must be used in every Bible translation. Further, Christians do not make religious imagery of God using his name Deo. So when a Bible is translated into English, the English language word God is used, not Deo, and likewise in every other language.

Because Christians allow religious imagery, which the Qur'an does not for Muslims, Christians have many sources of religious imagery and thus never sanctified the writing of the name Deo. This is a fundamental difference between the practice of Islam and the practice of Christianity, but it does not mean they are different Gods.

I hope that the religion of peace, Islam, will resolve this problem without disrespect, harming people, threatening, violence and, of course, burning down churches. Where are your scholars, who must surely know as much as I do and have just clearly explained here?

Urgent warning about secret languages/scripts

I’m going to interrupt the discussion I have underway regarding confession and so forth because I thought of a GREAT analogy to explain to you a great danger in modern society. This is especially for you, young readers, because it is essential that you understand the trouble inherent with a way of life that you were all born into and assume, wrongly, that it is beneficial and good.

The way of life that you easily use and could indeed say has molded your personalities and spirituality, and not for good, is the use of acronyms, code words, secret languages, and slang with double and “symbolic” meanings. I am going to explain to you why this is totally harmful to you and to humanity in general. Now, I’m not trying to be a hypocrite or alarm you, since I of course use acronyms such as LOL and others that come from computer or phone language. But because I have a foot in both the old/traditional world and the new/messed up world, I can explain to you the problems so you can recognize them.

I’ve explained to you that human bodies exist as they do today because of both biological processes (such as evolution, natural section, survival of the fittest, and the marvelous complexity of life organisms) and spiritual processes (being created in God’s image, being given the conditions on this beautiful earth that allow life, and the ability to know and understand God on his terms). So the bodies that you have, as humans, are suited for the reality of life. Remember, more than ninety nine percent of the time humans existed they did not know how to read or write! Your bodies and your minds, which house your soul as its temple, became optimized simply by living, just living… not through technology, writing or speech. Modern capabilities such as communications have not done one iota to provide better bodies, minds or spirits. Modern capabilities, such as when humans started to speak and write, are benefits only in the collective (the group) because it gives what is called a “survival advantage.” In other words, families and other groups by speaking with each other can survive better.

Now, here is the problem. Let’s start with the analogy using, let’s say in Africa, a deer and a lion.

Deer, like humans, came into marvelous being without speech and writing or technology. The same is true of lions. Thus when a lion starts to stalk a deer in order to hunt it for food, each one, the lion and the deer, are using bodies and minds that exist and are optimized for survival and thriving without any technology or communications. Deer “know” they are potential prey, and they tend to be alert when grazing or at rest. Lions “know” that deer “know” they are prey, so lions know that they have to sneak up on deer or else the deer will run away. For millions of years this relationship has not only worked well, but thrived, with each population becoming healthier and healthier until as much as the earth can sustain of them exists. They thus become kind of their “optimal” condition.

Now, when the deer is grazing it is not wasting “thought time” thinking about lions or other stalkers. It is able to graze or rest and at the same time be alert. Lions also do not have to remind each other using communications to “be quiet” and “sneak up” on deer. They have both the instinct of their species, and they also learned from their parents and other herd or pride members when they were young. So it’s not like one deer has to keep reminding itself to “watch out for predators,” while one lion has to keep reminding the dummy in the pride to not try to walk up to a deer, but to use stealth and sneaky stalking instead. Animals arrive in a natural and REALISTIC harmonious state with each other and the environment.

What if we waved a magic wand and now imagined that deer and lions had these great “gifts” of human types of communication, but only for the stalking/being stalked circumstances? In other words, each animal does not naturally know its own role and responsibilities, but has to use speech and deliberate cues among each other.

Natural scenario: Lion stalks a herd of deer. Deer sees the lion at some point and run. Lion catches one deer that is unable to flee as fast as the others.

Unnatural scenario: Lion stalks a herd of deer, but he needs to hear in his earpiece coaching from other lions about whether to be fast or slow, stalk to the left or to the right. The old lion nags into the earpiece of the stalking lion that he should “be totally quiet” and “avoid walking through branches that might snap and give him away.” However, the brashest of the lions is also speaking into the earpiece of the stalking lion, “Don’t listen to that old coot. Go through the snapping branches but just be fast about it and you’ll catch one.” Odds are the lion will be so confused that he never succeeds in concentrating on what used to be natural to him. Eventually the lions would die out as the gift of “communications” in stalking destroys their natural and seamless integration with reality.

Now, I have been concerned about the unnatural and artificial means of communications that humans have adopted for a long time. I can actually tell you my “Oh, oh” moment, when I got REALLY worried about this problem for the first time. You can even look up on the Internet what year this was (I’m not online as I’m writing this so I’ll just tell you what to search for). It was when I started reading articles about this new “craze” in a “secret language” that English Cockneys, such as taxi drivers, were using. It’s called Cockney rhyming slang. The way that it works is that instead of saying what they mean, they say words that if you do kind of a inner “word association” process to make a link to another word or phrase, and then substitute rhymes of those words, you can figure out what he or she is saying. It made my head hurt when I first read examples, and the decades have not changed my distaste for that trend. Part of the culture is that there is kind of a smirking smugness at having a secret language that is intellectually challenging being used by people who are often dismissed by society as being “lower class.” In other words, the people pushing Cockney slang often had a subversive political chip on the shoulder kind of agenda.

Now, so you young people can better understand this, it was not a short hand for convenience as are texting acronyms. For example, the acronym BRB means “be right back,” a realistic real action that is written quickly using the first letters of each of the three words. I have no quarrel at all with acronyms, even as your spiritual mother who may not be up to date with every acronym, LOL. They are simply quick ways to state real things and it is parents’ responsibilities to learn the lingo of their kids and modern youth. I’m not a hand wringer that using texting acronyms will cause modern youth to read less of the dusty gems of English literature, LOL. But now let me show you how BRB could be changed into either the Cockney rhyming slang, the forefather of the secret languages that I worry about, or an agenda filled cult tool. First, let’s pretend we are doing smug Cockney rhyming slang. I’m going to figure this out as I’m typing it so you can see the process, and thus the danger.

The first word in “be right back” is “be.” Here’s one way to represent the word “be.” You think to yourself that “be” sounds like “bee.” Bees are associated with honey. Honey rhymes with “funny” so you start your “be right back” phrase with the word “funny.” The second word, “right” can mean quickness, as in the phrase “be right back,” but “right” also means direction (to go toward the right) or politics (conservative), or even degree of correctness (to be accurate about something). Suppose that you are a leftist and hate the right wing of politics. If the conservatives were in power, especially if a woman was the figurehead, you might think of the “right” (politics) as being a “bitch.” “Bitch” rhymes with ditch so you substitute “ditch” for the word “right.” You pat yourself on the back a bit how clever you are and how you got “a dig” (pun) in on your imagined enemy, the “right,” even though politics has nothing to do with the expression “be right back.” The third word, “back,” means to return, since the phrase “be right back” means “I will return soon.” However, the word “back” can also mean the reverse side of the body, where the front is the chest and the other side is the “back.” For example the buttocks are also called in English the “backside.” So perhaps you decide to use the word “rump” to invoke the word “back.” You then think of a word that rhymes with “rump” so you might use the word “dump” or “bump.” You’d probably not use “bump” since it starts with the same letter as the word you are replacing, “back,” and that is not clever enough, so you pick “dump.” Thus in your secret language, instead of saying “be right back” you say to your equally clever friend “funny ditch dump.”

You watched me actually think of this example as I typed. So now we look at “funny ditch dump” for the first time as the oh-so-smartass secret language substitute for “be right back.” Fans of this type of secret language would receive special glee from “funny ditch dump” because notice the irony. Without my planning this I’ve come up with a phrase that actually implies the opposite of what you were actually meaning to say. Does a “funny ditch dump” sound like someone planning to BRB? You can giggle when texting your friend who shares your nutty and damaging secret language “FDD” which stands for “funny ditch dump,” which sounds like you are laughing while dumping your text friend in a ditch while at the same time meaning that you will be right back.

When I first read about Cockney rhyming slang I was immediately alarmed on behalf of humanity, seriously. I realized that this thirst for secretive elitist cleverness was corrosive, like acid, on reality and on human mental and emotional connectivity with reality. And I was correct, even more than I had guessed I would be, for there are now millions of people who speak, perform daily task “scripts,” and who have programmed, without realizing it, their own minds to have totally unreal wiring.

So the lion is now stalking the deer. He hears in his earpiece the old lion shout “fee fade ram!” The stalking lion stops dead in his tracks thinking “What?!” He starts to try to decode. What rhymes with “fee?” Is it “he” or “brie?” If he decides the “correct one,” “he,” what word association is with “he?” Is it maybe “she?” What rhymes with “fade?” Is the correct rhyme “jade” or “made?” If it is “made” what does “made” mean in association with? Fortunately the lion watches a lot of TV detective shows and realizes that to be “made” means that a person being followed by someone else has recognized that he is being followed. A follower who reports back to his handlers that his quarry has recognized that he is being followed states “I’ve been made.” So what does “ram” rhyme with? He goes nuts trying to figure out and never does. Needless to say the deer herd is now long gone. When he goes hungry back to the other lions, they berate him for not figuring out their rhyming slang fast enough. Sure, he got the “she made” part but he never figured out what rhymed with ram. The old lion then admits it was a rhyme followed by an association, not an association followed by a rhyme. They were trying to say “she sees you,” referring to the deer he was stalking. “You” was replaced by “ram” because “you” rhymes with “ewe” and the old lion was born under the sign of Aries so of course he put a little self congratulatory “insider’s joke” by linking you-ewe-ram.

Do you notice that no one freaking cares about actually catching the meal that they need to survive?

This is what millions of people, as best as I can tell from my observation (which is pretty thorough) are doing, as yes that many seem to subscribe to cult beliefs and activities that include such highly symbolic, with often reverse meaning and plenty of weird agenda, secret lingo.

They not only add weird layers to what they are trying to say, but they exercise the “unreal” circuitry of the brain, rather than the reality based circuitry. Whenever they hear individual words or phrases in their secret language they no longer have the original content and meaning of any of the plain words, but they also have infested, like with cobwebs, using weird agenda the simple thing that they were trying to say, presumably, in the first place.

For those of you who are not part of this mess, understand that those who use this weird form of acting out and “communications” have filled much of modern media (TV, films, music) with such secret language, messages and phraseology. I have found that many of them grind to a halt in speech when I talk to them as they are, like the lion with the earpiece stalking the would be deer meal, trying to “decode” what I am “really” saying. Um, but I’m just saying what I am saying. They have reprogrammed their own minds to lose all survival instinct because they no longer actually seamlessly process reality: word=what it really means + word=what it really means + word=what it really means resulting in sentence or phrase=what it really means. Over the years I have routinely knocked people I’ve spoken too off of their scripts and secret language because they actually are flustered trying to have a simple exchange of straightforward reality based sentences. I watch them as their eyes flicker and they look away when they wonder if I meant something other than “Nice day today, isn’t it?” And even if they decide I really mean that I think it is a nice day today, they struggle to use some of their secretive agenda driven symbolic “language” to reply. It would be funny if it was not so awful and so lonely. Part of what I hope to do is to teach people to speak simple words that mean simply what they mean to each other again. It’s pathetic and dangerous when I say “nice” day and they are thinking, “she must mean the spice girls” or, rather, to rhyme and word associate the “spice boys.”

I’ve talked about the dangers to mentality, biology and emotions of these secret languages and their warped agendas. You can also infer that the spirit of the authentic human being is damaged by this. As spiritual director I also have to discuss sin with you. Secret languages are a violation of the Commandment that prohibits false witness. Each use of a secret language is an commission of this sin of false witness. Repent and convert before it is too late to even pick up the pieces, the scraps, of what remains of what humanity should and could have been. Young people: if you don’t do it, fix these problems and reclaim your humanity, no one will.

Why learn "old" languages like Latin or Greek?

Modern students tend to learn current languages for very practical reasons. They tend to select a language because it is one that they are likely to use, through either business or personal travel, or to enable a career, such as translator or working for an international corporation, or for public service or charity work.

But there is a very valuable reason that students for many generations learned what some dismissively call "dead languages," such as Latin or ancient Greek. Learning either Latin or ancient Greek provides a foundation for thought, not a language for day to day usage.

My brother, who is eleven years older than me, went to High School in the 1950's when Latin was still a viable option to select as a language. By the time I was in high school, just over a decade later, only four students in my entire high school were taking Latin (out of hundreds of students).

When I was in high school I did not opt for Latin for two reasons. One is that I already knew a fair amount of Latin by rote, which Catholics would pick up from attending Mass. Therefore I allowed myself to be attracted to the romantic aesthetics of the sound of the French language. I am, however, a very poor student of verbal language because as a second grader I attended draconian "speech therapy" forced on me and one other student (of an Italian family) to get rid of my "German accent," which was picked up from my mother by me. As a result I have a total mental block to learning the verbal component of any new language. I struggled in French (my best friend, a French major, helped me through a test once, thankfully LOL) and then struggled even worse in German in college, as I got my one course requirement out of the way. My brother, who spoke German for the first seven years of his life, and who was thrust into American school having to learn English on the fly, also struggled with German, which he had to master in order to obtain his PhD.

However, I always valued the intellectual stimulation of learning written languages. Therefore when I was in college, even though I was an "Aggie" (agriculture student) and was assumed to be therefore heathen, I took a four credit course in "Ancient Greek Philosophy." It did not stress the Greek language at all, but understanding Greek philosophers is essential to actually learning the language at a later date, not the other way around. I did pretty good in that class, looking at my college transcript here in front of me I earned a B+ in it during the Fall of 1973.

And now, the obligatory message and explanation for the cultists. Just because someone is interested in an ancient language or culture, they are not "blindly grasping" with drool running down their face to "remember" one of those "past lives" "hidden in the misty karmic past." (Here is also my obligatory reminder that reincarnation does not exist). Um, duh, it used to be that every student, even of very modest family station, learned ancient Greek or Latin, as I said, Latin being even as current as fifty years ago. There are many reasons why there is great merit to learning Latin or Greek, or even a more obscure language, such as ancient Chinese or Sanskrit. I will enumerate them in a minute, but first finish explaining my personal explorations of language.

In the 1980's when I was very vigorous with my rare and out of print book collecting, I became interested in learning Chinese written language, and also in studies of what are called the prototype languages. These were studies where just like today's genes can be used to trace ancestry, scholars using computers have learned how through word comparisons and extrapolations, they can trace various languages back in time to their root languages. I found that really interesting and liked cheering the scholars on in that endeavor, if you know what I mean. That is, I viewed it as a very interesting puzzle that humans had set themselves to do and I liked reading about it, so I collected books on that subject.

Eventually I wanted to take a try at ancient Greek and signed up for a class in the New School. I've blogged about this before but basically my old mental block from the botched "speech therapy" continued to hinder me, and the very deliberately insensitive instructor insulted me in front of the class due to my difficulty. I explained the situation to administration dropped the class from taking it for credit (which I was insane enough apparently to think I could handle, but I did not realize that Greek for Beginners would be filled with people who already spoke it on an intermediate level, thus I was totally out of place). I did not punish the language itself by despising it, even though I was treated very poorly (this was in 1995 as I recall), so I continued to collect books, just like my interest in the ancient Chinese language, that were dual language.

Here are the reasons why students have traditionally benefited from learning ancient Greek or Latin:

1. The learning of Latin or ancient Greek guarantees that the student becomes much more proficient and appreciative of the English language, since Latin and Greek are the roots of English. Thus students are inevitably more gifted and find English much easier when they have also learned or are learning Latin or ancient Greek.

2. There is nothing like reading a classic work in the original language, even if you can master only a small portion of it, such as phrases, poetry, parts of plays or a few pages of a book. There is a great insight that students receive when they realize how much nuance is lost when a passage is translated to English, even if it is most skillfully done. I think that is an important component of "cultural enrichment."

3. As I state in 2, this also allows the original languages of the scriptures to be read with fuller understanding and context. Reading parts of the scripture in either the Vulgate (Latin) or the ancient Greek is a very moving experience and works to strengthen faith as to how the authors were actually perceiving and experiencing their "witnessing to" the events of those times.

4. It is mood enhancing in an intellectual way! Here is an example of what I mean. One of my favorite ancient Greek expressions (yes, even more than their many expressions admiring moderation and what they call the 'golden mean,' referring to kind of a sweet spot of equanimity, not meanness as in cruelty, but mean such as in 'being in the middle of the balance') is the expression for "The soul is immortal." In English this sounds so factual, and it does not convey the spirit of what the writer or speaker intends. In ancient Greek it reads something like "Immortal... the soul" or you can also read and thus "hear" it as "Immortal IS the soul." In ancient Greek or Latin what seems like very difficult rules and confusing word order actually breathes much life into each phrase, bestowing what I'd call a poetry of emphasis.

5. Because they are difficult languages they provide students with a way to learn rigorous material and "survive it." Generations of school boys who have had to suffer through Latin and then say how valuable it was after they had made it cannot be wrong! Schools today make things so easy or rather, what they do is segment it to be easily digestible, if only the student pays attention, that many students miss the chance to learn something that is darned difficult to learn, no matter how kindly it is segmented and taught. Suffering through Latin or ancient Greek provides enormous confidence and skill sets, both intellectually and for life itself.

I hope you have found my thoughts on this subject helpful and interesting.

Another exercise in clarity of thought

As always, I have especially the young people in mind, although also those who are older who have suffered at the hands of very poor educational and spiritual formulators in their personal lives and who are trying to correct those deficiencies and errors.

Today I had a thought in which I used the word "fateful" correctly. And so I realized this would be a good time to correct the misconceptions that have arisen over the years around two words and their associated concepts: "destiny" and "fate."

The concepts of destiny and fate are ancient and come from pre-religious and pagan human societies and their effort to understand what hidden powers and forces control all or parts of their lives. Destiny implied a predestination of an entire life, from start to finish. Fate implied a foregone conclusion to a particular event. They have slightly different meanings, therefore. A person would be viewed as having a "destiny" that describes their entire life, while "fate" is like a momentous conclusion to an event or chapter of life which may or may not be the end of the person's life.

Two things ought to have changed human beings' views of so-called destiny and fate. One is that better understanding of science, biology, society and the consequences of freedom of choice have taken the mystery out of ordinary life events. For example, remember that early humans did not understand the origins of many diseases. Now instead of thinking a certain person was "destined" to die young, people understand that a person may have contracted a terminal disease or develop a condition with no cure. People ascribed to "destiny" all sorts of things they did not understand, like hygiene, undetectable medical conditions, droughts and famines, etc.

The second thing that has in fact also improved human debunking of so-called destiny and faith are the understanding of a benevolent one God, who only wishes well for humans and gives them freedom of choice along with guidance. The faithful came to understand that while God knows all and knows what choices humans will make, and what future conditions (such as the weather) will bring, God is not treating humans like pre-programmed game pieces.

In this secular and occult infested modern society, however, I noticed that the old and inappropriate definitions of destiny and fate have crept into common thinking. Sadly, the words are also the tools of those who push anti-religious agendas and who seek to mislead people through pseudo-"spirituality." So this is why I want to help people to understand the origins of the concepts, the reason they should be debunked, and also how one can correctly use the terms (after all, I'm not saying it's "word banning" time!)

One can safely and correctly use the word "destiny" when describing a human laid plan for another human, but you must at the same time recognize how rarely it comes true. See, throughout history people have used the words "destiny" and "fate" not in in the beginning of a human's life, but looking "back" and applying such a label to a life lived to its conclusion. So people would write books and say that someone was "destined" or "fated," but they are "Monday morning quarterbacking" by looking back on what has already occurred and choosing those labels! In truth you can rarely say in advance that someone is "destined" or "fated" to anything at all! Here is an obvious example.

One could say that The Prince of Wales is "destined" to be King of England. He is the heir and his mother, the Queen, will not live forever (though God grant her many years, I hope). So one could safely say that the Prince of Wales is destined to be the King of England as that is his accepted position and those are the "rules." But can you actually say that even in this most obvious and safest of examples of the use of the word and concept "destiny?" Actually, no. In recent years the media has speculated about all sorts of scenarios where that might not actually take place. Life is simply unpredictable (and only God knows for sure what will happen) that even the most obvious human example of "destiny" is dubious at best! So I actually advise against using the word "destiny" simply because it no longer (if it ever did) measure up in the reality based world.

You cannot even say that someone is "destined" to starve to death in Darfur. After all, many agencies and people of good will fight to prevent that from happening. So perhaps a hundred years ago someone unknown (but to God) and obscure in a remote area might be "destined" to starve simply because there were no real alternatives. But now reporters and agencies have a presence everywhere and anything is indeed possible, if only humans put their minds to it. "Destiny" is a bad word, in my opinion, because it saps humans of their God given will power to work hard for the better alternatives to the dire situation someone may be forced to endure.

"Fate" is a safer word if someone uses it properly. Here's how I view it. I never use the word "fate" because of the same objections and reality of freedom of will and choice that humans have. However I do occasionally use the word "fateful" when I express solidarity with a human who has had a momentous consequence or outcome to a routine action or choice. I do so only in that I marvel at how a fullness of effect has occurred, but this by no means indicates that the "fateful outcome" was inevitable.

I was reading the excellent www.latimes.com coverage of the tragic collision of trains north of Los Angeles city and they have a section with basic information and memorials for each identified deceased victim. All of them are so sad, and we all mourn the pointlessness of an accident or tragedy that should not have happened, and pray for the survivors' strength and recovery, and the identification of further safety measures to eliminate at least more of the risk from whatever was the cause. It was while I was reading one of the victim's information that I thought, "How fateful!"

By that I meant I was deeply moved by the routine actions and decisions that resulted in that person being on that train, in that car, and suffering fatal wounds. And so the culmination of all the routine and totally justifiable daily actions of that person culminated in such a fateful outcome. This does not mean that this was the person's "destiny" or "fate!" What it means is that this particular person's life just converged with a separate uncontrollable and unforeseeable event that is fateful in magnitude.

Think of a person's life as being a line that extends into the distance. Another person, and their analogous line of life, intersects. If it is a routine intersection (say you both go to work for the same employer and meet each other for the first time on the job) that is simply "life." Life is the intersection of many individuals and events, day in and day out. But when there is a momentous conclusion, either good or dire, one can marvel and say "how fateful" as a way to describe how momentous that intersection was, as in this train collision. Most strongly, though, you must remind yourself that this is not "fate at work" or "destiny." No one "has to die" or is "fated to die" because someone else misses a red light signal or equipment breaks down. But one can honestly wonder and shake one's head at the fatefulness of the intersection when it does take place with such a momentous outcome.

My deceased cousin's wife was once complaining to me, while my cousin was still alive, how unfair it was that she missed out on a big company downsizing payout. (Turns out she already had tons of money I didn't know about, so I dealt with her complaint with sympathy since I didn't know she was just being greedy for more on top of what she already had). I told her and my cousin that just because she didn't get that check does not mean she should obsess about "injustice." I asked, "What if you got run over by a car on the way to the bank to cash that check?" When I said that I was reminding her that there is no "A" or "B" series of events in one's life. It is all a complexity of realistic possibilities. There is no "safe" or "guaranteed" thread of destiny or fate to detect and follow. All events are both fraught with meaning (because they all contribute to life) and are at the same time insignificant, in the sense that there are not "sliding doors" where if one goes one way your whole life is different than if you went another. That is "stinking occult thinking."

Here's an example. When writing about the train accident the news media routinely reports on other recent California train accidents. The most recent one before this past week's is that guy who decided to suicide by parking his car on the train tracks. So here is an example of where one might think, ah, this guy chooses to suicide, and so he is "selecting that sliding door" (A) instead of (B) which is "not suiciding." But what happens? Um, (Z). He chickens out to not suicide (not A) but is not (B) because guess what? He leaves the car there so that the train rams into it and something like eleven passengers are killed. He's in prison. So there was no (A) or (B) sliding door because people and life are complex, messy and more robust than people give life credit for. Life is not so delicate that it hinges on a series of (A) or (B) choices. That's how you get a (Z) out of an (A) or (B) decision. This guy soaked his car in fuel, left it there on the tracks, ran away and did not try to warn people, maybe he was addicted and under influence or withdrawal at the time he "planned," etc etc... and so there is a sequence of events that are not "foreordained" or "fated" but are fateful in their outcome.

So one can only react, once in a while, as I did, to the complexity of real genuine life and shake one's head in sympathy and say or think to oneself, "How fateful," as kind of a memorial to the culmination of separate events that intersect in such a momentous way. It will be additionally "fateful" if one finds during investigations that chances to avoid this were missed, but not because it was "meant to be," but rather, how great in sacrifice is the reaping of what might or might not have been sown. For example, if someone had voted down a budget for more safety, and then he or she is on the very train that derails. I'm not saying that this would happen, but that is an example of where one might notice a "fatefulness" of the confluence of the decisions and how they intersect. That starts to go into the subject of "consequences" and "implications" of action rather than fatefulness. Fatefulness has more of a random feeling to it because the intersection is so unforeseen and unforeseeable. Consequences is like sending soldiers into battle without body armor; that's hardly "destiny" or "fate."

I hope you find this helpful and a way to exercise clearing your mind of the gunk of occult enabling and dehumanizing thinking, and seeing human life and its continuum of complexity of options more simply and truthfully.

Interpreting subversive language

I'm sorry to bring up what is going to be a crude topic. But so much of our society has become crude that I need to teach this to help people regain discernment in their hearing and comprehension.

When I was in college the word "s***" became very commonplace. But when people started using it, it did not refer to the actual bodily function of defecation, obviously. I say obviously, but I've learned that things that used to be obvious are no longer obvious as people's common sense become diminished and their promotion of hidden agendas (especially if it involves lust) increases.

Likewise the word "f***" became very commonplace. But when people started using it in phrases, it did not refer to crude sexual intimacy of intercourse.

So what did they mean? "S***" was a catch all expression that referred to output in general or garbage. An example of the first definition is that people might say to someone who is moving "get your s***" where they might have used to say in slang "get your stuff" which used to be said as "get your things." So "s***" referred to things or possessions, with an implication of a bit of disorganization (like the stuff is scattered). An example of it meaning garbage was the classic "he's full of s***," referring to the person as being a windbag of low credibility. Obviously in neither case was the slang use of s*** referring to actual poo poo.

The use of "f***" became even more complex. It came to mean both satisfaction AND lack of satisfaction. For example, "That's f***ing great" as in praise, or "No f***ing way" as in rejection (and eventually that became said in a disbelief of admiration as in exclaiming at hearing incredible news "No f***ing way!!"). For that reason it became a word of emphasis rather than sexuality. So someone said "Get the f*** out of here" as a way to emphasis that there is absolutely no pleasure (not sexual) in the person being around. There was a range of vocal tones used to be precise. If the person is screaming it (and grabbing a gun) it is a bad thing to hear "Get the f*** out of here" and it's a good idea to scram (to use a classic 1940's-50's expression!) However, if said mildly it is a way to express disbelief, as in "No f***ing way, get the f*** out of here.")

So both f*** and s*** became adjectives and adverbs totally separate from their original defecating and intercourse slang meaning. I can best describe it as saying they went from being slang to "slang of slang." They achieved a secondary level of being slang.

These word evolutions of expression occurred in conjunction with a huge increase in bottled up societal frustration coupled with situations that totally lack nuance. This was during the Vietnam War era when there was tremendous discontent and social fracturing. Additionally, as people wanted more white collar and academic jobs, well, they got them, but they also got into what would become the pressure cooker of the workplace treadmill. They rebelled against paternalistic workplaces and got cut throat "performance oriented" workplaces instead. People will come to regret that, by the way. The mighty have not fallen yet, but they will, and they will regret the impersonalizing and meanness that overtook the workplace (and schools in a way).

So swearing was often the only venting that people had in a society where the clever turn of phrase with subtle wit and good humor had no meaning or place. And you can imagine how I felt as I saw people turn against God and become demonic maniac perverts killing babies and taking drugs right and left, while kicking the average Joe and Mary to the curb. Thus I had my own reason for using both of those expressions! But I also well understood why so many people of that era also swore, using those terms.

My ex-husband and I often used the expression "f*** s***." So now you can understand what that meant. It meant a situation where it was totally hopeless and pointless. For example, "He does not understand f*** s***" would mean that the person understands neither the emotion or the stuff of a situation. A more up to date variation is "She doesn't understand jack s***." Jack is from the old expression "jack of all trades." To be a jack of all trades meant to have some basic knowledge but not comprehensive expertise, as in the expression "She is a jack of all trades, but master of none." The fact that "jack" also eventually was used in slang to mean a self gratifying sexual act by a man has nothing to do with intimacy; it was a nod to that definition I've just provided, which is "inexpert" "knowledge" now meaning an, um, singular quick act of, you know, "jacking off." But to say "She doesn't understand jack" or "jack s***" meant that she doesn't even have the knowledge of the proverbial "jack of all trades, master of none."

Thus "f*** s***" was used to mean a totally futile situation. The situation lacked both serious content and serious emotional satisfaction. I can safely say that much of the 1980's in western society was "f*** s***."

Now, here comes the crude part. Imagine my surprise that cultists who consider themselves all scholarly, erudite and "spiritual" would (I guess because of excess drug use and drinking) not remember the societal and linguistic evolution that are the context that I just described. They had their noses so much in dope and astrology charts that their hearing actually was warped. So, and here I wish I was kidding, when they spied and overheard me and others using expressions of total frustration as "f*** s***" they imagined that to be code words for approval of, well, anal and defecating sex. I kid you not. These are the same people who dissolve in giggling and tears of doom over "Uranus" because it has the word "anus" in it.

So my point is to explain to you one example of how subversive language is intended for "good" (even though it is coarse) but if one is impaired in one's understanding, then it becomes a smoky mirror for depraved thoughts and the listener never understands the speaker. Cussing was very much a means of venting during very difficult and revolutionary times. Like it or not it was something that many people did, including myself, in totally untenable situations. Later it became a very problematic exploitative use of speech (witness rap) where it is not spontaneously generated by the frustration of the times, as it was for us older folks, but marketed and promoted to vulnerable and imitating kids in order to sell product and stuff bank accounts. But even worse, with the strange cultist double talk mindset that has really made reality out of reach of a lot of people, it is impossible to speak without having phrases even those with a clear legacy that can be studied and documented be totally misunderstood and worse, twisted and distorted as some sort of "playing the tape backwards" diabolical "code" to people who have lost their minds to that kind of thinking. Thus there are actually insane people who think that "f*** s***" was some sort of Good Housekeeping Seal for sexual acts with either piles of poo or the place where poo comes from.

I will end this comment with leaving the reader to imagine what has been going on "behind the scenes" as cultists have willfully misunderstood and made depraved interpretations of just about everything that anyone says, and that is without the extra level of insane evil from anagrams and other diabolical devices to twist words into depraved meanings.