Afghanistan TIME magazine cover

Very sad and shocking about the maimed woman on the cover and what happened to her, which is of course unjust.

However, before lying that the war in Afghanistan is about "saving" and "protecting" their women, consider this.

Perhaps TIME should put on the cover one of the DAILY morgue bodies of an American infant killed by the "baby mama's boyfriend" or even their own father or mother. We'd have many more examples to grace the cover each DAY than you have of honor killings and maiming in Afghanistan. Don't be total hypocrites, please. It brings you no closer to wisdom and justification.

Intrusive thoughts

Just watched a woman's description of shocking thoughts she had about her baby, such as smothering him, as a result of her post partum depression.

The proper term for this is "intrusive thoughts," which is well described in many Internet articles including in Wikipedia. It is a severe problem and is associated with many mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, OCD, PPD and bipolar.

The reason I am mentioning this today is that here is another example of where society as a whole has gone in a totally wrong direction, which harms rather than helps those with intrusive thoughts.

I agree that cognitive behavior therapy is a great help, but CBT is a matter of closing the barn door after the horse is gone. In other words CBT is used to wrestle with and hopefully subdue the intrusive thoughts, yet people remains saturated in intrusive thought stimulation without even realizing it. There are two main weaknesses in society that result in assailing people with intrusive thoughts:

1. Electronic media is a passive means of providing the viewer or listener with thoughts they would never otherwise have had. That's the whole idea of creativity and exposure to new and exciting stimuli, but the problem is that most people have not formed, particularly in childhood, the boundaries of thoughts that people used to have. In other words the past few generations are "thoughts wide open" due to their early addiction and exposure to electronic media. A huge part of normal human development is self awareness and self imposing of not only behavior but also thought boundaries, strong boundaries. The "let it all hang out" generations have damaged this necessary part of normal development. So people who grew up in electronic media times are programmed to have "all channels open to all thoughts, good or evil, wise or foolish, useful or bullshit" and thus are vulnerable to intrusive thoughts.

2. Excessive "spiritual" practices run the same risk, cultivating an undiscipled mind. In fact what passes for "spiritual discipline" in many cults and so forth (and even dabblers in mainstream religion) is actually not discipline in terms of discerning good thoughts and bad thoughts, but being, "open to the universe" and other such bullcrap. Listen, when normal people pray they know who they are and who they are praying to, that being the Almighty God. People who develop excess so called "spirituality" are like lint collectors, opening their minds to whatever crap is floating around out there. Mental crap that floats out there to be collected may be the undisciplined baloney of one's own unconscious mind, the crap thoughts of others via ESP, miasma from the gates of hell, and the urgings of one's own ego to be "special" and to "hear" things that "enlighten" you, but really don't exist. Folks, there is plenty of legit meditation and other spiritual practices, but beware, beware, beware because human ego like a magnet takes you places you should not go for your own good and for that of others.

When I was studying undercover people involved in so called "New Age" and other cult beliefs, I was in horror at the pride many of them had at working on broadcasting their sex thoughts via kundalini and other methods. And you wonder why so many children are beset by victimization. This is just one example of how you should not emit that kind of garbage (it hits more than you intended) plus it prevents you from having natural levees against intrusive thoughts later when YOU need protection.

I hope this helps. Too late, but what the hell.

who is really in jail, on death row, enslaved?

Many people in this world who walk around thinking they are free, yes, even empowered, are actually the ones who are sitting in jail, the ones who are on death row, the ones who are enslaved. It is very easy to identify those who are really imprisoned from those who are not.

The more that one does not believe the truth, whether in religious or secular matters, the more one is actually in jail, on death row and enslaved.

There are those who tell lies and bear false witness, and those who believe and/or obey the lies and false witness. They are equally in jail, on death row and enslaved. Equally, there are those who don't lie but refuse to believe the truth. Unfortunately they too are equally in jail, on death row and enslaved. This applies to both God's truth and day to day worldly matters. I will give you simple examples so that you understand.

Suppose that there is a well known food toxin, something like salmonella, and there are three categories of people who react to that knowledge. Those who tell lies say it is not harmful, and thus no safe food handling measures must be taken. Those who believe and obey the lies therefore pass on the effect of that lie by not handling food safely and cleanly that others consume. Those who know salmonella is dangerous but refuse to think that it can happen to them allow this to continue and thus put themselves and others at risk.

All three of those types of people are in "jail" because they are imprisoned by erroneous actions (or refusals to do good) and thus limit their options for dealing with the situation. It is an apt criminal parallel because their refusals, whichever of the three types, endanger not only themselves but others, via their distortion of truth, denial of truth, or refusal to serve the truth! They are on "death row" because, just to stick with the example, there is a risk to life and health that they are refusing to deal with and thus it will eventually catch up with them, and in the case of a pandemic (just to use the example let's pretend a salmonella pandemic is possible), they and everyone else sit on death row, awaiting that pandemic. They are also enslaved because they are in service to the lie, rather than freed by the truth. The truth expands legitimate options and actions, while lies only cut one down to the chains of the lie's one option, which is inaction on behalf of one's self or others and, if one is part of the lying and enabling, "spreading the chains" for others to wear.

Here is the problem. I had given you just one example, an analogy, (since most do not actually dispute the problem of salmonella in theory, but MANY willfully do not follow hygiene and other protective practices on behalf of others). Put aside the analogy, now, and think of how MANY LIES every single person on earth is now subjected to collectively, in total, on a daily basis. One cannot even tell the originating liar from the enabling liar or the victim of lying because the entire fabric of truth in society and individual honor, morality and conduct has broken down and become in service to power, ego and money drivers. Children are on the third generation of being raised by more fiction than truth, in the home, in schools, on the street and via media "entertainment." Remember, it's not just an outright lie that is the problem, but withholding of actual quality education of truth and discernment that is the almost larger problem.

Back to the salmonella example. How can a child believe or not believe the risk and also the safety precautions if they have not the background education? Think of the list of things that a child must understand in order to do something like wash their hands and be careful not to eat tainted food. They have to understand what "dirt" (germs) is, they have to understand how dirt gets on or in them, they have to understand what being sick or well is, they have to understand that it is not something to immobilize them with fear about but that they can be safe, they have to understand how to clean with soap and water, and they have to understand timing (washing before one gets dirty is not helpful, for example).

So imagine a child that is told, and believes, that salmonella is dangerous and they need to avoid bad food plus wash their hands and for the sake of making a silly extreme point to illuminate what I mean, assume the child's been raised in isolation, not having any education nor have parents raised them with the list of necessary knowledge given above. What is a child to do with hearing "salmonella is dangerous?" Think someone named "Sally Nelly" is dangerous? Think that the salmon fish is dangerous? If the child does not understand you are speaking of dirt/germs, what they are, where it comes from, how it gets to them, how to solve the problem, and when/how to wash, they cannot do anything meaningful with a truth spoken to them at all!

That, friends, is the problem. We have a world that starts children out with cartoons and video games, and nothing about reality of life, and by reality I don't mean code words for the bad parts of life, but I mean all the goodness of how life actually exists. When you do not raise your children, and when you gain money or power through lack of service to truth, you not only enslave yourself and others, especially children, but you are all in jail and you are all on death row.

Even if you do not promote all that is so misleading in our culture, by taking up airspace with crap you are crowding out the opportunities and the motivation for people, especially young people, to learn what is really important and to be liberated by the genuine freedom of truth.

Here's another example. Suppose that a certain local political seat is always filled by people who meet in secret and decide who that candidate will be and fix the election so their person always win. Do those hypocrites go home and tell their children that they can "dream big" and maybe be President one day? They smirk as teachers, both enablers and well meaning ones, teach kids in school about the political process and try to "inspire" the kids, yet they know full well if one of those kids grows up and tries to run for office they are not on the preordained predetermined "win" list. The same with being famous, being made a "star," of "making a difference in the world." If young people don't even know the facts of the world, and how it operates, and how to choose from truthful options and choices in action, how can they "dream big" when they don't really understand the choices and the realities? Society pushes the predetermined winners, pretending it can happen to "anyone." Then for the one it happens to, fine, (except when they find out they now have obligations to the rainmakers), but what about the ninety-nine others out of a hundred who wasted their time, talents, their heart, and their love, to pursuing a dream that was never actually an option to them? If they knew the truth they could have actually done something else, far more satisfying.

Many people in society push "follow your dreams" and "give it your all," knowing that they will "award" that prize to one or two of their predetermined chosen, while letting those who believe this at large wither on the vine. Meanwhile people could have been doing what they have always done, which is to grow up in a truthful and well educated (though not of course pure or unblemished) society where they can always be aiming themselves at valid and authentic targets, instead of manipulated illusionary crap. Crap that enriches the bank accounts and egos of those who are on top of the total life lie pyramids.

Friends, and I call you that, even toward those who have persecuted me, stop thinking that I'm the one being controlled, limited, manipulated and in "jail." It is you all who are in that place, you all who are in jail, on death row, and enslaved. The more you believe the lying crap that is out there everywhere, the more you will lose your pursuit of genuine happiness in life, the more your life is likely to be foreshortened (and those you care about) and the more you have to consider that you may be on the path to eternal death, first as the living social slaves that you are, and after death, to the place where disbelievers and those who did not honestly serve God, in eternal exile from goodness and in torment. I really don't wish that on anyone, but I'm cheering both Darwin and God onward on this one, if you keep asking for it, that's what you are going to keep getting in life and in death.

Care about people, however....

...1 Don't let them lead you to hell along with them, and this especially applies to those who claim they have "saved" anyone from hell.

2 Don't get too attached. Love and like, yes, but do not assume that you know how God will dispense another person's soul (including your own). Saying it so in someone's obituary does not make it so.

EVERYONE has plenty to worry about in their own salvation. Everyone has blood on their hands in this society. Beware of being smug and self satisfied.

Catholic Church sex abuse scandal

I'm going to repeat what I've said before, and I will continue to say this every time that I am asked.

I believe that anyone who mishandled sexual abuse within the Church, sexual abuse being both a devastating crime and a sin, should resign their office, whether as a cardinal, bishop or parish priest. I don't really care about the circumstances of whether it was a "minor" or "major" involvement in the mishandling because all of that corrodes faith, whether by small bits of rust and tarnish or large egregious lack of good sense and/or integrity. If it was mishandling and not actual participation in the abuse, I believe that upon resigning the office that these cardinals, bishops and priests should dedicate themselves within religious orders that are contemplative and filled with prayer.

There is supposed to be no "ego" in serving the Lord God, and thus any cardinal, bishop or priest should be gratified to relinquish their offices and in turn become one hundred percent dedicated to the life of prayer, particularly addressing prayer for both the victims of the abuse and for renewal of the priesthood.

People, listen to me carefully, whatever your faith (or not) or beliefs. For decades humanity has teetered on the brink of a total meltdown into depravity. These priest sex abuse cases are, in the sense of showing the incurable addiction of lust and depravity, no different from what we are seeing in society as a whole. I know you want to say, "Hold on, how can that be? Priests are supposed to be different!" Yes, in an ideal world they are supposed to be different, but look at the world today. Are not mothers "supposed to be different?" Yet every week we read about mothers who sell and trade the sexual innocence of even their infants for money, car payments, access to drugs, or some other trivial transaction. Are not teachers supposed to be "different?" Yet every week we read about teachers with child pornography and those who seduce and/or molest children they have access to, in that position of "trust." Are not "those who have been abused themselves" supposed to be "making sure what happened to them never happens to other children?" Yet we know that many of the most violent criminals use the excuse of their own, often horrifying, suffering of child abuse, and far from being protective, they enact their rage on other innocent adults and children. Are not police supposed to be "better than that?" Yet pressuring sex trade workers is a long going problem among police, so long that it has even been the stuff of jokes.

EVERYONE is supposed to be "better than that" but NO ONE IS anymore.

Catholic priests are just as subject to falling into the pit of depravity and vice as anyone else. I know that it seems out of proportion, but hear me now and believe me later. If you start looking at how many children have been molested by their own parents, or baby mama's "boyfriend," and by purveyors of porn, soon we will have a population that has more saying "yes" they've been abused than "no." Abuse has become the "new normal."

You'd have to be living under a rock to not realize that this society has fallen further and further into filth and depravity, and no "group" is "should be better at being pure" than anyone. I've seen some think that married priests or "more women" in the "church hierarchy" will "help." I'd laugh if this was not such a dire, world and soul killing problem. Yeah, women, such pillars of virtue, as they teach their kids to pole dance, wear thongs, offer them for sex to get themselves money or drugs, seduce their male students, etc. So please do not trivialize a worldwide soul destroying crisis of monumental proportion by suggesting this is a "celibate male" problem.

I marvel that God has not burned down this filthy depraved world already. Then I guess you would not have to worry about those priests, huh?

Victims, I know what you have been through as I've been abused, but not by priests, but by those who mettle with sorcery. But victims, I urge you to not be victimized twice. Do not let the outrageous scandal of the Catholic priest sex abuse problem cause you to also lose faith in the Church and in God. If you do, you will be victimized twice and God will not, I repeat, not understand your abandonment of God and his church.

I am not being harsh but realistic. What do you think was done to the early Christians of the Church? Do you think they were not abused and tormented in every way possible, including children? Yet they hung on to their faith to the end. God and the Church remain, no matter what individuals do, both within and outside of the Church. Running away does not make God go away, nor does it invalidate the Church. You can deny all you want but remember, human beings put to death the only pure and sinless man, Jesus Christ, and he proclaimed God with his last breath on the cross.

I will give you an analogy to help. Suppose you read in the paper that someone drowned while swimming in the ocean. Bad ocean, bad water. We no longer believe in water because it drowned someone. Stop bathing and showering. Stop drinking water. Tell everyone you know that water is "bad" and you "no longer believe in water." What will happen? You die of thirst in a matter of days.

No matter what the pain of life it is simply insane and not at all "understandable" that someone "lose their faith in God or the church." It's an unhealthy coping mechanism to think that because one is a victim of bad human behavior that suddenly the overall truth of the world (God and the Church) "no longer mean anything to you." That, my children, is being victimized twice. God will not nod his head in your meeting with him at personal judgment when you perish and say, "Hey, I know, a really bad thing happened to you, so it's A-OK with me that you 'lost your faith' and 'stopped believing in Me' or 'decided my Church was invalid.' Sure, I know that I, God, and my Church are not worth staying and fighting for, even through the pain."

Children, God is pure Truth. If you get only one thing about God in this particular message, understand that God is pure and total truth. God cannot be anything but the sum total of all that is true, that ever will be true, and ever could be true. When you grasp that you realize that God never changes and that while he cares very much for each person, when a person denies God no matter what the reason, they are in danger of not entering heaven at all, because being God's dwelling place, heaven is also pure truth.

The way to healing and to sanity is by embracing more truth, not less.

I hope that you find this helpful.

How to hit "reset" & start again (3)

3. Stop promoting activities that focus on: over achievement, competitiveness and "you can make a difference in the world-itis" in children.

Children have been deprived of both their proper upbringing and their carefree childhood. This is true of white, black or any other race, boy or girl, rich or poor, advantaged or disabled. Children are pushed by their parents and/or caregivers, schools, peers and society at large to be every increasingly pressured and over achieving. As they grow older (and I'm still speaking of young children) they start to feel the burden (often self generated but as a result of external influences) to be "destined" to "make a difference" and "better the world."

Geez Louise, let's look at the facts. It's been two thousand years since Jesus Christ (who did change the world) and not a single generation of individuals have thought that he or she is "destined" to "make a difference" and "better the world" until the 1960's. Think about it. All of the advances made (the genuine ones, not the false ones) up until the 1960's were done by that vast nameless army of people who led ordinary lives, including ordinary childhoods. They did not have the array of media blaring at them (electronic babysitters and life attitude distortions) from the moment they were born. Most of them participated in the household or at work as children, learning the skills of mommy and daddy as they were still able to be children at play. Most of them realized that Jesus Christ changed the world, and that they did not have to do so again, being little saviors and "touching others for a difference." Children were allowed to be children yet, at the same time, they had worthy and genuine adult participation where appropriate.

It was an entirely different world, that world before the 1960's. Children's heads were not filled with "Baby Einstein" and pre-school "preparation...." if they knew how to count and read before they entered school it's because they read the comics with their fathers. Children did not have dance classes, competitive sports, and the whole spectrum of "talents" that are crammed into them at the earliest of ages. I don't even have to mention how body conscious and fashion conscious children at the earliest ages have been forced to become. Childhood has vanished and it is a pressure cooker instead.

Yet at the same time when children do start to have real concerns about adult family matters, they are not gradually involved in the way they used to, rather like apprentice adults. On the farm they would start to learn adult activities and cares, but at a level they could handle. It seems the only way adults today treat children like adults in training is to 1) sexualize them or 2) make them fend for themselves.

Children are kept in school far too long for dubious reasons. Yes, I agree that high school graduation is essential and yes I feel that college is a key to future success, up to a point. But what used to be a liberal arts education (or in some special schools, a science/engineering orientation) has turned into a combination of 1) social thinking propaganda instead of education and 2) turning out cooperative little cogs for whatever is the popular money making field of the day (does "computer graphics" and "web design" sound familiar?) High school children have far too much homework and not enough solid classroom learning. Parents are unavailable or unwilling to devote time to home study requirements. College has become a strange place of getting "higher" rather than higher education, and part of this is because children are infantalized regarding their participation in the adult world of work and decision making, so they cut loose as adults where they can, which is in going crazy. I graduated a semester early from university because I considered it such a total waste of my time, and I had an actual semi-serious curriculum, yet it was still filled with so much education time wasting. Professors just fill in their own blanks instead of teaching what needs to be taught.

Worse, in surveys conducted year after year, that track what professions or goals (such as being a parent) that children prefer, most recently children no longer "want" to be anything but "famous." So now we have higher education, however shaky its quality, and children increasingly want less of those professions and more to be "rich and famous."

I really want to address education separately, but I mention it here so I can show you the entire pattern of my concern. Pre-school children are raised believing they have to start accumulating talents, wonderfulness, and worthiness through endless activities and works, and that continues non stop until they are in their early to mid-twenties. They are put under great pressure to learn, achieve and even "play hard," and to be popular and "hot," while at the same time they are getting the crappiest education I've ever seen in my lifetime. If I were a young person today I'd want to put on my Doc Martens and kick just about everyone in the behind for this disaster.

I'm sick at heart and sick to the gills of reading about teenagers and younger committing suicide or having mental illnesses that everyone blames on everything but the truth, which is that they were put under too much pressure to "perform," from the earliest age. If you went back in time and spoke to anyone in let's say the nineteenth century, from the poorest person to Queen Victoria herself, and told him or her that you know that "your child will someday make a difference in the world" and that it is their "destiny" to be a great "achiever" and "contribute his or her talents to the world," they would not know what you were speaking of and would think you were mad (as in demented). Even aristocrats of that time did not grow up thinking they would "make a difference in the world." That's something you moderns have to get through your heads. Even the most privileged and influential people prior to this century did not grow up themselves thinking they will "save some part of the world."

Instead, people lived their lives. Some had callings, such as for the military, the clergy, or for professions like medicine. Most wanted and focused on having and supporting a family. No one was running around thinking that they had even a tiny responsibility to "change the world." They were the well balanced ones; what we have today is megalomaniac inflation.

I am not being too strong in that diagnosis. It used to be that an extraordinary person was one who raised a family and was a stable and reliable influence in their local town and community. Ordinary people who, like brick building blocks, form a whole are the ones who collectively "change the world," but change the world not in the sense of being some sort of over achieving superheroes in possession of "enlightenment" or "caring," but of providing the foundation, the grass roots, of children growing into well rounded and educated/skilled and/or able bodied adults.

I continue to be astonished as I see decade after decade of increasingly taking it for granted that someone is "the one," who "can make a difference," and that bull crap being digested by children. It is not a coincidence that this false and grandiose perception increases in direct proportion that humans lose their traditional faith and humility in front of God. Hitler was grandiose and he "changed the world," and was that a good thing? Excuse me for going with the obvious example but it's one that I know everyone from every culture can understand. How many people, really, "change the world," and for those that do, are those good changes? Historically the answer has been "no."

We have an example of a good person who changed the world, but his participation was unexpected, not "destined," and gained through just what I am describing: a normal, though well to do person, leading a well educated and well experienced life, and then responding to the call when his fortitude and commitment recommended him accordingly. That person was General George Washington, who led the Army of the Revolution and then became first President of the United States. He changed the world not because he became a general, or even the President, but because he fathered the ongoing birth of this great democratic republic, when such a deed in such a place was not only difficult but totally new territory. Thus George Washington "changed the world" not through agenda to change the world, but because an average, though financially advantaged, man had the character to step into a role that opened in front of him. He, like everyone else of those times, was not groomed and pressured and clucked over by helicopter parents telling him how he is "special" and "filled with gifts for the world."

Wake up people. Life is life and the world is the world, and it inches forward as the cumulative effect of billions of people simply leading their lives and making their choices. There are not these millions of prodigies, of indigo children, of "destined to make a difference" children, of whatever corn ball New Age label you want to give it, all waiting to give the levers they have been "destined to wield" to "change the world." Most people who think like that end up changing the world like Pol Pot.

So now let's leave the stratosphere and get back to reality. The "greatest generation," those who were adults in the 1940's, each and every one of them grew up thinking they were an average Joe or Mary, but with aspirations. These aspirations were to be well dressed, housed and fed, to have some sort of health care and education, to have a way out of the economic downfall of the Great Depression, and most of all, to provide something even better than they had for their children, and for their country. They did not attend dance classes, or T-ball, or take endless childhood "enrichment" classes (and I'm not saying not to do those at age appropriate times for fun and character building). What I am saying is that they were the greatest with NONE of those supposed "talents" and "gifts" "for the world."

Take the pressure off of children, child by child, home by home, school by school, for the love of Pete. More traditional solid education of liberal arts, faith and reasoning, and the basic skills, and more meaningful play and recreation, less isolation and fending for themselves by lazy, busy or absent parents, and less ridiculous notions that they have some sort of burden to "change the world." They don't and they can't. The sooner everyone regains that humility the better. Heaven is packed with people who did nothing else but live ordinary lives of simple goodness, none of them even saving a "hair" of the world's head, or offering even one "gift" of their "specialness" to the world. Sad to say the most special people alive today are those able to be ordinary Joes and Marys and who can actually raise a child to ordinary, well adjusted and optimistic adulthood.

So many believe false identities

One of the largest and most spirit crushing ways that the past several generations have been cheated and deluded is the growing belief that people are more than what they actually are. By wanting to believe that one is "more" than one's own individual personality, rather than gaining, one only loses what one actually has.

When I say that people believe they are more than they actually are, I am referring for the most part to three false beliefs: 1) they are reincarnated, since there is, as I've blogged before, no such thing as reincarnation, period 2) they are "aliens," which is also totally false and is nothing other than the human temptation to diminish God's creation, humans and animals, by believing there must be something "better" or "more advanced" "out there," and 3) that one has a divine purpose, role, "channel" to the heavens or whatever, which again is simply a temptation of inflation, of trying to be more than one really is.

What is so sad is that such beliefs take away from, rather than enhance, the glory of the individual true life that is genuinely lived.

For example, when I read obituaries of people I suspect have had these beliefs, I think how sad that it is that anything good they did they attributed at least in part to other forces rather than themselves, living in God's creation. They weren't simply a fine sailor or a great adventurer through their own gifts, talents, hard work and merits, they are "channeling" "space aliens." I cannot begin to explain to you, at least not in writing, how sad this makes me and has for many years, since I first realized how widespread these delusions are. I would say it has contributed to making me, a previously joyful soul, mournful, as I mourn all these false beliefs, which poisoned not only the person's life, but those they taught and raised around them.

Do you not want to feel good after engineering a superb project or machinery that you did it through your own merit (and your team's) using God given reality based resources of this earth, rather than imagine that you are some half backed supposedly reincarnated alien alchemist? And if you make a mistake, or something does not turn out as you hoped, how does it actually console you, since it does not, to believe that you are "held back" because of your own "karma" or blame it on someone else's supposed lack of spirituality or "influence" on you? THAT makes you feel better? THAT makes you more successful? Rather than practicing some more, or seeking help, you believe that evil alien spirits tripped you up? How constructive is that? And what a way to raise the next generation... if being lemmings running over a cliff is your intention, for self destruction, that sure is an effective way to do it.

In the 1960's and 1970's I looked at the world around me and became very concerned about not only the level of sinfulness and loss of faith/understanding in the true only God, and the material world as it actually exists, in all its beauty and potential, but also what I viewed as a wave of global neurosis. During those twenty years I watched large groups of the population, particularly in the better developed "West" become incredible neurotics. That was bad enough, and very alarming.

However, during the 1980's and 1990's I watched the world get much worse, and go from global neurosis to global psychosis. Many of the people of the world today are psychotic, and I do not mean in the classic clinical sense of having an individual psychotic illness or break. Since psychosis is by definition an inability to discern reality from fiction, the true from the false, individuals and society as a whole has become remarkably and I often fear irretrievably psychotic. One of the hallmarks of psychosis is the inability to see the harm that comes from abandoning truth and instead, calling manipulation "reality." I could easily tap my microphone here and say "People of the world, you have already surrendered much of your sanity, and have institutionalized and even become enslaved to unreality and psychosis."

Drugs and alcohol have broken the sanity and discernment of many of the people who with their God given genuine and real caring and talents were supposed to make this a better world, who were supposed to be loving stewards, who were supposed to teach and protect their children, who were supposed to be genuine leaders.

Instead they put on their freak show uniforms and pretend to be heroes of epic bull crap that exists only in their own minds, destroying even their own joy in their own genuine achievements. Few things make me sadder than listening to a wonderful piece of music and knowing that it was written by someone inserting depressive and false cult beliefs as he or she mourns or condemns people, actions, events that never ever happened.

Instead of believing in the one true God, the one they will have to face at their time of judgment, they either deny God or appoint themselves as "knowing" the "reality" of "divine forces" and at best they view belief in God or "accepting" Jesus Christ as an insurance policy menu choice.

But this is not a "reality of hell" rant, no, not today, not now. This is sharing some of the decades of mourning that I have in my heart for how people have destroyed their own sanity and thus have no satisfaction in anything in their lives since they attribute it all, good or bad, to false reasons and false influences.

Here's an example, I'm just making it up, of how I've seen this decay happen.

Normal behavior: A kid grows up with some interest, perhaps in sharks, perhaps in model ships. There's no real rhyme or reason why they have that interest, it just is part of how each person has different things and different callings.

Neurotic generations: A kid has interests in sharks or model ships and either he or she or the parents/school system worries about "why" they are interested in such things. Why sharks and not tigers? Why ship building and not farming? Does little Johnny or Susie have "appropriate" interests that will give them lots of money when they grow up?

Psychotic generations: Johnny is interested in sharks because in a past life he was a shark, being "punished" for previous karma imbalance. Susie likes ship building because an alien reincarnated spirit in her years to be free and defeat the forthcoming bad alien menace and usher in the good alien "rescue."

I wish I was joking or overstating, but you know that I am not doing so, by far.

Individual and societal neurosis saps the pleasure from life, and also makes people feel helpless to address genuine failure and injustice where it exists and when it does happen.

Individual and societal psychosis is a total system of slavery that leads to destruction of life and soul, no matter how glistening and gleaming the self delusional world seems because it just simply is not reality. Unthinkable evil is routinely done under the guise of "good deeds." It ends when it is too late and people have ruined their own lives and others, and then are cast into the pit upon their deaths.

Case study: Fort Hood shooting

I'm going to call this a morality case study, even though the Fort Hood shooting is obviously mostly a criminal and a psychological matter. This is because I want to help my readers, especially the young people (Hi again!) to use powers of faith and reason to understand current events and also to discern the best path to accuracy and justice.

My first point is that human nature likes, yes I would say even craves, simplicity. They will naturally want one and only one reason and cause for why the Fort Hood shooting happened. You hear this on the talk shows where certain hosts gravitate immediately to the Muslim connection, while others gravitate to the stress of exposure (even second hand) to war and post traumatic stress. Yet you must understand that this event, like so many others, are the culmination of several factors all at once. This is why I want to do this as a case study for you.

We have not yet heard from the defendant, and I'm not going to put words in his mouth, second guess him, or try to predict what decisions he will make about culpability. I'm going to teach you how to look at the facts and put yourself in the optimal frame of mind for then processing new developments and information as they occur.

Fact one: The defendant is a psychiatrist, one who is focused on treating and also being among the most grievously war wounded. Thus his contact with the military arena is not firsthand, in that he was not in combat himself (yet). Any soldier will tell you that no one understands combat until he or she is actually in it. So one cannot accurately ascribe a combat mentality to the defendant based on experience, but only his second hand information and his imagination of what it will be like when he is deployed. Think about that last point. He is on the receiving end of those who have returned from combat mentally and physically wounded. He's not treating people who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan but are OK. So he is not part of those who greet the returning veterans and active military who are OK and going home. He is treating those who are severely injured and when not treating them, he is immersed in that environment nonetheless. Thus he gets a "sampling" of combat only from those who are the most injured by combat, and that sampling is the totality of his "experience." He then deduces and imagines what combat is like based on that environment of treating and being among the most wounded and injured of the combatants.

This fact, then, is not "the" cause, but "one" cause. Why is it not "the" cause? Because we can imagine that if other things were different that he might have had more perspective and more comfort in dealing with the one sided view he was receiving of combat. I'm not saying that combat is ever great, but here is my point.

Fact two: He was a lonely and isolated individual. The defendant was never married, had no children, and was not part of a tight knit cultural local community. There are two components to this. The first is reality of military life, which is you go where you are ordered. People from strong local ethnic cultures (Native Americans, for example) often have to leave their intimate support network and be very singular when going to college, joining the military, etc. So there is a cultural isolation that is inherent in that profession. The second and more urgent point is, however, that he was not married. Again and again I have warned that not marrying, the breakdown of the family, and "sexual liberation" will only lead to isolation and ruin. Don't believe me?

Genesis 2:18, 22, 24
Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man is alone; I will make him a helper like himself." And the rib which the Lord God took from the man, he made into a woman, and brought her to him. For this reason a man leaves his father and mother, and clings to his wife, and the two become one flesh.

Let's be all grown up here. People are meant to be together, to be married, to be intimate, to have a life partner and to have sex. Society is falling apart and individuals are going crazy because this freak show society has demonized traditional families and created generations of frustrated lone wolfs. Duh. So my point is that even though fact one regarding his combat imaginings and deductions are true, we don't know that he would have had difficulty with that or indeed snapped if he also had been in a traditional loving intimate and, yes, sexual marriage. This is what I mean when I say that these events are rarely "one cause." Do you see what I mean?

Fact three: He is a Muslim and relationships with Muslims can be, but are not required to be, more complex since the reality of September 11, 2001. Further, Muslim attitudes toward themselves and others can be, but are not required to be, more complex since the reality of September 11, 2001. It is a fact that the defendant joined the military and became a psychiatrist before September 11, 2001. The terrorism of September 11, 2001 is also a fact. Thus one must recognize, without excusing, the significance of timing. Suppose he were a younger man and was not ready to either go to college or enlist until 9/11/2001 had happened. Someone of a more timid character might well have decided, "Hey, I'm a Muslim and I'm not sure I can handle entering the military with all the limelight and pressure on any Muslim, so I'm going to go to school or whatever and not enlist." Those Muslim Americans who felt the patriotic call to the Armed Services went ahead and enlisted, during and post 9/11/2001. This guy, had he been younger, might have recognized that he was not cut out to be in the pressure cooker of belonging to the broad "category" of "Muslim" at the height of justifiable suspicion AND draw further attention to one's self by enlisting where one is going to get pressure, either intentional or unintentional. I'm not saying I believe he was harassed. I'm saying that when one is Muslim, or any other minority, one stands out and one must have a certain strength of character to function accordingly and appropriately. So my third point is the significance of timing of global events and the way people's character is tested by the luck of the draw regarding where they were and what decisions they made, and then subsequent events.

Fact four: Isolated and troubled people easily gravitate to increasingly extreme views, in both politics and their faith. When I say "troubled" I do not mean mentally or emotionally disturbed, in this case study. I mean that they are uneasy about something. As a psychiatrist the defendant would have heard disturbing events and feelings expressed by and experienced by his wounded warrior patients, and the others around him, even if he was not actually treating them. This creates an inherent tension that some can handle, while some cannot. Here's an exercise to help you to imagine the situation I am describing.

Suppose that you are a female counselor and all your patients have had violent encounters with females and here I don't mean battering. What if every one of your patients returned from combat where their injuries were inflicted by women soldiers on the other side? Suppose that you are a gay man who is a counselor. Suppose that every one of your patients had issues because they had been beaten up by gay men, and in return had sometimes done some very bad things?

Do you see what I mean? Some people, particularly those who are isolated (as described above) find themselves identifying more and more with a category of people rather than humanity as a whole when they have to deal with repeated examples of unsuccessful outcomes with their "category." In other words, the defendant would feel more and more "Muslim" and less and less "Army officer," less and less "counselor," less and less "American," less and less "humanitarian." The female counselor in my example above would likewise feel more and more "female" and less and less "officer" or "humanitarian" or "American." Also a well adjusted gay guy who is a regular ordinary counselor might start feeling more and more as being "gay" because patient after patient is describing combat or trauma with or at the hands of gays. Again, this is not an excuse at all. I am explaining why members of all groups find themselves more and more isolated and more and more radical if they are exposed to "bad outcomes" in relationships with their "category" of person.

This is different from the phenomenon that many discuss, and I allude to in fact one, where counselors who counsel certain cases of trauma over and over pick up, like second hand smoking, some of that trauma themselves. I don't think that we can conclude that about the defendant based on the facts, beyond what I said in fact one, which is that lacking first hand combat experience, his entire set of information and opinion is based on the trauma of his patients. So what I am saying is that I am skeptical that he is receiving second hand trauma in the classic way that let's say domestic violence counselors often start to pick up residue of trauma from repeated treatment of domestic violence victims. I am saying that based on the facts that 1) he was not in combat himself and 2) all of what he heard was based on wounded and traumatic experience we can deduce that he had a "sampling" of what combat in predominately Muslim countries was like, rather than first hand experience.

Thus when one is isolated (not married, no children, not in a strong local community network) and one receives troubling information about a category of person (in this case, his faith) that one belongs to, one often has the problem of becoming less, instead of more, integrated with humanity as a whole, and often more radicalized in one's perception of one's own category, with potential for feeling part of a one-sided situation with no neutral ground.

We know that some of the most troubling radicalization of Muslim children occurs when they are in dire poverty and the radical groups feed them, clothe them and send them to school, becoming their caregivers and family. This is what I mean that those who are isolated (without family) and/or troubled (in this example, suffering from poverty) are often quite naturally radicalized as they feel either 1) more isolated due to their "category" and 2) "rescued" by zealotry and "belonging."

I could continue with this but I want to wrap up this blogging here because my purpose is a case study, not an analysis with conclusions, since we simply do not know yet, and may never really know all the facts and perspectives. Again, this is by no means a defense of him but, rather, I am taking advantage of a situation to teach you, especially young people, how to understand the combinations of facts and opportunities/situations that mixed together result in a person's actions or an event.

Our society has become so overwhelmingly complex and false that people have "complexity fatigue" and yearn, unrealistically, for "one cause" and "one reason" factors and that simply is not the case for most events. It is usually a progression and a combination that results in such events and they must be understood as such if they are to be reduced or somehow "fixed."

Here is another fact, published in the New York Times. There are just over four hundred psychiatrists to treat a military of over 500,000 men and women. Whether the pressure of such shockingly few counselors for so many military (particularly during several hot wars) is part of the "cause" or not of the Fort Hood incident, I do not have to psychically channel the genius Albert Einstein to tell you that is far from being enough resources, period.

Further, I cannot believe the foolishness of an incredibly sexualized society that while promoting and pushing sex in all ways and forms except long term marriage allows the isolation of so many single frustrated males and females while they are under pressures of career, combat, and whatever. This is why arranged marriages took place in many societies so that people didn't "demand their rights" to "choose their own partner" and then instead drink, do drugs and end up going to bed alone or with "hook ups," all the while being saturated by the media about how "hot" and alluring one should be.

God ordained marriage as a coping mechanism. Life is a miserable drag (and I don't mean cross dressing, ha, no hate mail please) without the majority of people being married. Again, I don't need to channel Einstein to tell you that. People need stable and intimate spousal relationships and access to expression of their normal sexual needs.

Yes, I can hear some of you think, "Yeah, but what about those losers who nearly every day shoot their own wife and children and then commit suicide? If marriage is so great why do these people kill what they have?" This is what I mean by the complexity of real situations. There is rarely "one cause." Often there is a "trigger" or to use the old expression "The last straw" (referring to loading straw on a camel until the final straw added makes the whole load too heavy and breaks the camel's back). When we hear about events such as murder-suicides and the Fort Hood shooting, there is usually a final "trigger" event but that is rarely the "cause." The "cause" is usually an amalgamation of several fundamental facts.

Any good counselor can tell you that there is usually a combination of these factors: isolation, lack of consistent intimacy (love and sex), trauma (first hand or second hand), stress (workload and/or economic), violence (first or second hand, including media exposure) and addictions. What is the tipping point where one "snaps?" It is usually despair.

See, this is why it is so important to have a stable, normal, marriage and children based society. It is the ultimate and only bulwark against despair. Despair can be fleeting, just a moment of pure desperation, in which case if the person is able to be supported through that moment it passes. Or despair can be accumulating and grinding when the person is in a position of having "their back against a wall," such as we see with people who slowly slide into poverty due to years of economic collapse and ruin. An example of that is the many farmers in India who have been committing suicide in despair as they are ruined. So despair can be either "a moment" or "a long grinding path."

It is not enough to have economic governmental "safety nets." The problem is that the safety net against despair has been nearly totally ruined by this freak show modern society. The safety net of neighborhood, community, family, children and committed intimacy (sex is not a commodity to be obtained but part of the overall spousal intimacy) has been almost totally unraveled.

Again, I'm not excusing by any means or condoning any of the tragic and criminal events that we hear about these days. What I am trying to do is finally get your attention that this is a crisis beyond anyone's full comprehension. I come from a heavy World War II generation and I know what I'm talking about: the change from then to now regarding the "despair" safety net is almost indescribably vast.

I don't, however, want to further dilute the case study by going into my general rant about how these "do your own thing" generations have instead of being liberating have enslaved themselves to modern idolatry, isolation and despair. I concluded with those observations so that one can understand the fact finding that I have demonstrated in this case study about the tragic and criminal Fort Hood shooting against the panoply of so many of these "events" that seem to defy having a simple one source "cause" or "reason." Life and human needs and health are remarkably simple; it is the way that humans are tempted to self destruct and self delude that are astonishingly complex. I hope that this has helped some in regaining some reality based comprehension of what is going on.

Who is "trash" and who is "lost?"

The answer is that no one is trash, while many people, if not most people, are lost.

In the Biblical times, and in the time of the giving of the Qur'an, understand that God's word was being preached and given by God to the prophets to people who were, like most people of the world then, very poor. Many starved if there was just one missed harvest in a year. People lived "hand to mouth," as the old saying goes (in other words, what they gathered for food went straight into keeping them alive day to day). So people had no concept of "garbage." Nothing went to waste and there was no such thing as "trash" in the first place. Thus God would never use such a term to describe even the worst of the worst of people since the people he was speaking to would not understand the concept of "trash" or "garbage" at all. Remember people even went "to the bathroom" in agricultural fields and pastures so that it could compost and enrich the soil (not a problem when there were many fewer people than today; today we need sanitation systems both for cleanliness and the environment).

So my first point is that God speaks to people using terminology that is 1) perfectly accurate, as God is perfection and thus is truth personified and 2) is understandable and relevant to the people who lived at the time AND remains truthful and understandable through the ages.

Thus when God chides people, notice that he never refers to them as trash or garbage while they are alive. From this you need to understand that thinking of any person as "trash" or "garbage" is against God's example and teachings. No one, no matter what they say or do, is trash or garbage. What are they, then? They are "lost."

Someone who is lost is someone who does not know where they are. "Lost" does not mean, in scripture, losing a game. Remember, the Bible is not full of modern double speak, double entendres or "coded" messages, or modern slang. Lost means lost. Someone who is lost is someone who does not know where they are.

Matthew 10:5-7
These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Here Jesus is ordering the disciples to seek out those who are lost...not trying to convert others from their beliefs, but to find those who are lost. And the lost at the time of Jesus were the Jews. No one is "trash" or "garbage," they are lost.

Matthew 18:10-14
Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, That is heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. For the Son of man is come to save that which is lost. How think ye? If a man have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the moutains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

Many recognize this as one of Jesus' most crucial passages for all the obvious reasons, but they miss the point that was being made obvious in the cultural context of the times, and which has now come full circle again in modern times. The closest Jews had to "trashy" people were the children. The disciples tried to shoo the children away from Jesus (and not in a cute way) because children were thought to be somewhat valueless when it comes to any matter of importance, such as salvation. So this is the closest that one can find in the Gospels where there is a superior attitude by class (adults over children) and Jesus immediately stomps on that with no uncertainty. He will not allow the disciples to even for a moment view children as kind of bits of trash hanging about. Jesus tells them that the opposite is true: that the children's guardian angels constantly face God himself in heaven.

Then Jesus slides directly into discussing, again, how they are to seek the lost. Children are lost because they have not yet received the word of God. This is why Jesus slides immediately from chastising the disciples for downgrading the dignity of goodness and being of children to telling them how both children and adults must be viewed, as lost sheep. Notice Jesus does not say, "Well, unless of course the lost sheep is kind of a trashy one and then it's OK for it to be lost because it does no good anyway."

Before discussing scriptural admonitions to view people as "lost" and not "trash" or "garbage" any further, let me point out where the "trash" does indeed get "taken out" for disposal. That is at the end of life when each person is judged, and at the End of Times. What is "trash" is the sum total of a sinful life after it has been completed in the living. Until a person dies and is judged they are not viewed as "trash."

What was Biblical trash? The dry husks, the hull, of wheat, which is called chaff.

Psalm 1:4
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

Jer 23:26-32
How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? Yea, they are prophets in the deceit of their own heart; Which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal. The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord. Is not my word like a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Therefore behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words every one from his neighbor. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and say, He saith. Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord.

Both of these passages underscore that genuine "trash" is symbolized as ungodliness and false prophecy. It is the sinful actions, not the human integrity, that is being condemned by God as chaff, which is wispy trash that is either blown away into the wind, or burned in the fire. God is saying, in his very own words, that the words of the prophets who spread lies via their own dreams and other gossipy falsehoods are "light" as in "lightweight" and thus like chaff will be easily dispersed and come to nothing at all in the end, while God's words are heavy, so heavy as to be like a hammer that breaks a rock into pieces. So this gives you understanding of the only context in scripture where something is viewed as "trashy," which are deeds, not the essence of the person. Thus this all leads to the role of Jesus Christ.

Matthew 3:11-12
[Spoken by John the Baptist].
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

John the Baptist prophesies that the Christ, Jesus, will use the fire of the Holy Spirit to purge and retain the good, those who will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and also use the fire to cast into the flames of hell those who do not repent, and that, again, is the image of the chaff being burned as symbolizing people who have misspent their entire individual life and thus are to the eternal fire condemned.

Thus one is to understand two things: 1) only God, and through Jesus Christ to whom this authority is given, will people be judged as "trash" as in chaff and 2) while their deeds in life may be sinful chaff, such as false prophecy, they are not to be given up on until the very end, when they have perished and receive judgment.

Luke 15:7-11
I say unto you, That likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety nine just persons which need no repentance. Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep over the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors together, saying Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

True godliness and being just, whether Jewish, Muslim or Christian, means that one never gives up on the lost sheep or the lost coin, knowing that God's mercy exists throughout a person's life. Thus one should never think of a human being as being "garbage" or "trash." However, one must also recognize that certain deeds are like the chaff, either of no significance to be blown away, or leading one to the fire, and that one must focus on the constant opportunity to repent and stop making one's self eligible to be treated as chaff by God at judgment.

I have to underscore something I alluded to earlier, about one's attitude toward children. Children were viewed as a bit like trash by the disciples only because they did not have the seriousness attached to them yet that comes with age and hence respect. But what do people today view children as? Look at the proliferation of child pornography and, hand in glove along with it, the crass way that young children are sexualized by adults, including their parents. Children were looked down upon by the disciples only because they were viewed as not being appropriately aged to partake in serious matters such as faith (listening to Jesus, for example), even though they were all being raised as devout Jews. Can you see how much more the horror of these times where children are actually treated and expected to treat each other as sexualized trash? Do you think anyone who promotes children as sexualized trash is going to escape the fire? Only if they genuinely repent, which is why the "lost" are the object of God's care and concern.

Notice that Jesus asked God to forgive those who crucified him because they did not know what they are doing (a sign of being lost). He did not point out which people are "garbage" or "trash" after all!

Revelation 14:16
And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

Wheat was harvested by a long sickle, and so this image of the wheat again enters at the end of times, when the whole earth is reaped for separating into chaff and grain. Again, what one must understand in the context of the entire bible is not that one is "safe" until the end of times, duh, but that discerning a person as "trash" aka chaff only takes place at the end of their life. People must and should refrain from categorizing anyone as being "garbage" or "trash" as 1) God himself does not do that 2) his genuine prophets do not do that 3) only certain ungodly deeds and pagan practices are actually viewed as chaff, not the people who do them and 4) God only deems people to be chaff and to be burned when they die, either at the end of their life or when all lose their lives at the end of times.

I hope that you have found this helpful.

Age of youth responsibility/explain & warning

I had it in mind to blog about this already before looking at the news, and what I saw only reinforced what I want to say. This is directed toward young people, for whom as a whole I retain great affection, but also toward adults who have guardianship, character building and safety responsibilities toward the young.

Society has crept into a mindset that the young bear no responsibility for sin or evil, especially if they had a "bad upbringing." Also the idea of what constitutes a "child" in terms of age has undergone creeping upward that is now double in delusion what it is in reality. Here are the facts. Again, I am not speaking legally but spiritually, and I am not talking about jail, but I am talking about hell.

A child is mentally, emotionally and spiritually wired to know the difference between right and wrong at the age of seven. Period. However, a child at that age is still intensely vulnerable to the control of adults around him and her and thus while they are expected by God to know the difference between right and wrong (even if the parents teach otherwise) God understands at that age they have no choice, but a little voice of protest should begin to form silently in their minds. This is why Jesus warned in the most DIRE terms what will happen to adults (including adolescents, remember that adulthood comes quickly spiritually and I will refer to that next) who lead children to sin. Read his words and there is no mistaking that adults who lead children to sin are in for the worst of all punishment.

So my first point is that those of you out there, caregivers, teachers, security people and siblings, cousins and so forth need to understand that spiritually a child knows in their heart right from wrong, and that misleading them is the gravest of sins, warned explicitly against by Jesus. If you know some small child being led the wrong way but you cannot actually act against those who do, in your interaction with the child, cultivate their confidence in questioning the justice of things in areas where you can do so safely.

My second point is even more serious. At the age of thirteen all children are ready to be, and viewed as, adults in spiritual matters. They are not ready to be leaders, of course, and should not be portrayed as such. There are no "child gurus." Because God has wired a child at the age of thirteen to be spiritually an adult the faiths acknowledge that and have rituals accordingly. This is because as I have explained before, it is not to celebrate their "puberty" per se, but because in the days before society infantiles young adults and with birth control, extended schooling, etc., a thirteen year old boy or girl was getting ready to establish his or her own household, marry, and raise their own family. This is how it has been for centuries and was certainly the mindset during Biblical and Qur'anic times, which is when God chose to speak to his people in that context. I mean, duh, how hard is that to understand? When a child is in theory a young adult, at the age of thirteen, and biologically and mentally ready to raise a family (even if society has moved past that early a point) their spiritual development and expectations that are given by God remain the same.

Thus a thirteen year old has embarked onto the rest of his or her life where God expects-and will judge them on-their spiritual responsibilities as an adult, albeit a young adult. Again, this has nothing to do with the circumstances of their family or environment or societal expectations. This is why they are rebellious at that stage in general. It is at that point they are expected to question bull crap anti-God false doctrine that may have been given to them when they were young and helpless. Unless they are locked up in an actual cult compound and/or they are mentally diminished due to illness or mishap, a thirteen year old child is expected to embark upon faithful adult-like responsibilities to God. In the old days, many started years earlier by their own maturity.

So here is the problem. Do not delude yourselves that thirteen year olds and upward cannot go to hell. They can and they do.

Do not delude yourselves that bad upbringing postpones spiritual responsibility. It does not postpone it one iota, except in the circumstances I already mentioned. It makes it most urgent upon surrounding adults, including peer young adults, to speak up and take action as spiritual adults, starting at the age of thirteen, when one encounters the many who are almost feral animals in their lack of spiritual raising by their parents. Again, I am not speaking criminally, though of course one flows from the other. Crime is a matter for the local community and the state.

But here is what you must understand. Because God made all children ready for spiritual adulthood at thirteen, those in these almost feral conditions of either home life or depraved society will proclaim themselves spiritual acolytes of evil, or nihilism, if there is no proper faith formation. In other words, the readiness to be spiritual adults "busts out" one way or the other at that age. They are either ready to embark on genuine faith, learning to be and do as adults in service to God, or they pledge allegiance to chaos, false gods, gangs, worldly idols, and nihilism.

I had already had this in mind because I was thinking of something very sad that happened with a young adult in the family of people who could have been friends of mine, but held back, when I signed onto the computer and read the following. Young friends of the California rape victim (a crime that has received worldwide coverage) have spoken out condemning the lack of proactive security at the dance where this occurred. I applaud the girls who have spoken out because they are exactly at that age I am speaking of. The perpetrators are well beyond that age, being of 15 years and up. I must urge all of you, young people and adults, to understand the facts, not the speculation, of God's spiritual adulthood timeline. At seven one is ready to fully understand right from wrong. At thirteen one is a spiritual adult and one will be judged by God accordingly, regardless of the circumstances, except as I stated above, the most extreme genuine brainwashing, virtual or actual incarceration, and disability due to illness or mishap. Yes, thirteen years olds and upward can and do go to hell. And yes, thirteen year olds and upward are to be uplifted as young spiritual adults and when they speak the truth they are to be praised and heeded.

Understanding God

Reading, as many of you have, about the many problems of suicides, domestic violence, child abuse, murder-suicides and other signs of an increasingly sickening world, I thought of increasing one's understanding of God through the use of an old expression.

In English there is a traditional saying when describing someone who is mentally or emotionally unraveling, saying that he or she is "coming unglued." In that saying there is a tacit recognition that each human is "held together" by something, and that in trouble or illness there is a problem of falling apart.

For you to truly understand God you must recognize that God is the glue that holds individual persons and communities together. Without God (a genuine knowing of God, not idolatry) individual persons and communities as a whole risk coming unglued and falling apart.

Society, particularly relatively affluent Western society, has promoted "coming unglued" because not only is belief in God pushed out of the public square, but more fundamentally, society pushes the fragmentation of the individual and also of the society as a whole.

Let me repeat this. Even if God were still respected in the public square, society would still have tremendous problems because society has taken on a set of highly fragmenting values. Each person is evaluated with a list of scorecard types of attributes, for example, starting in their earliest childhood. Further, families have fragmented (become unglued), forcing even more individual fragmentation as family identity and safety net is lost. The home itself is often a dangerous place, even for the most helpless, the infants. It truly is "dog eat dog" and "every man for himself," even for the very young. With partially occupied residences and frequent moves, plus isolation from the community around a person (not being part of one's community by participation or emotional investment, and trust me, I know that's hard to do as they have become scorecard exclusionary) there is the fragmentation of the community and its social net too. With fragmented denominations even for those who still profess to believe in God, churches no longer have the gravitas to provide their share of glue, of community identity and safety net. Finally, marketers and media only speak to special interest groups, who they identify with, try to get money from by selling their products, and those they advocate and "relate" to, further fragmenting and ungluing individuals, families, communities and faith groups.

When one does not look to God to provide the glue that keeps body and soul together, individually and collectively, that is the wedge for then the lowering and lowest common denominators of society to fulfill the personal and community disintegration. That's why giving an alienated and depressed teenager, for example, information about God is not enough... the social and other environmental factors must also be addressed as a whole. Even a teenager such as this one in our example who values hearing about God, the true God, in their distress is not "cured" of their pain and alienation if the next day they go from their fragmented family to their fragmented school to be judged in the freak show society scorecard meat market.

Every few years or so researchers used to ask what kids want to be when they grow up, and then they'd analyze the results, looking at what occupations or interests raise or lower in popularity. But here is the problem. The past two generations don't want anything except to be "famous" with its twin non-vocation "get rich." That is the scorecard fragmentation I am speaking about. Young people want to be scorecard traits (famous, rich, "hot"), since that's what their parents, teachers, society, media and marketers have taught them, rather than to have occupations or vocations (including professions, clerical, labor, homemaker, parent, clergy, military...) They all want to do something or be something, rather than have an interest or a calling. It is not their fault: it is how society has become unglued, starting in the family and reaching its prime robotic programming in the classroom and the media.

So how does a sad and troubled teen "become famous?" Suicide. How does a teen escape a problem situation, from the most dire to the ones that in hindsight are only painful parts of growing up, when there is no safety net in family and community, and they've never been taught God as the glue? Suicide.

Now we also have the double whammy where a society that is only individual scorecard oriented now deprives individuals of their livelihoods. We no longer are a world where people can survive without a paycheck from somewhere. What do you have when someone lacks God as the glue, there is no church or community cohesion and safety net, and there is an economic desperation? Murder-suicide.

HOW LOW DOES HUMANITY, THAT HAS BEEN SO BLESSED, HAVE TO SINK?

What did anyone think (when they took a break from their hits on the bong) would happen when the glue of God, authentic self esteem, family, community and church was continually removed? What does any idiot think would happen if one removed the glue from any structure that is made up of parts held together by that glue? It all falls down.

Killed for a piece of watermelon

A grandfather who with his wife had custody of their two grandsons shot the six year old dead when the grandfather was angry thinking the little boy had taken a piece of watermelon to eat. Trying to shield the boy the grandmother was gravely wounded. This happened in June. The grandmother died this week.

Anyone else notice the insane perverted violence just keeps escalating? Anyone interested in actually doing something about it instead of making it worse?

And by the way, watermelon jokes in households of the same name qualifies as making it worse. Regular readers know I'm for subversive humor when appropriate, but that kind of "joshing" is just criminal mental voodoo and as I warned YEARS AGO when I was trying to study the insane beliefs of the cultists IT WILL REBOUND ON YOU FOR YEARS AND UNTO THE NEXT GENERATIONS. Clean up your minds and your souls people. You don't fix error and perversion, nor save your souls, with more error and perversion. DUH.

Remember what the Bible says that sinful AND foolish thoughts are SIN. Each time someone either mocks someone else (and when they have the first thought of it), these are individual counts of sins. This is especially true and most certainly not mitigation if one is using the mocking or re-enactment for an occult reason (to "even the balance" or whatever) since that is blasphemy and idolatry. So each idea to do that is a sin, each subsequent thought of planning it is a sin, and each deed that each person does to accomplish the tableau and deeds are sins, and then the actual deed is a sin, and the feeling of the persons who are the object of the tableau and deeds, when they are sad or afraid, is a sin of violence against their spirit. Each time one "techs" or does other voodoo, "evening the balance" of acting out or preparing tableau to "cancel out" supposed "imbalance" seems to have on the average one dozen sins per person newly formed and attached. I have no hope for the vast majority of you as you only make things worse, not better.

For those of you readers who don't know what I'm talking about, be glad. A walk or a talk among the occult of this "New Age" and other "beliefs" is total filth and I don't enjoy a minute of it. Unfortunately true "light workers" seem to have to go to the filth in order to point out the lack of sewers.

DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Go ahead and hate the Catholic Church

Honestly, it does not bother me at all. I'm posting this just to save some time and energy for those who go further and further in their hatred of the Church, trying to get some additional pain or reaction from me, or others. No lie, I could not care less if a billion people hated the Catholic Church as badly as the worst of them (check comments section of any article about religion to see what I mean.) God's truth: I could not care less if one billion people or more hated the Catholic Church just as much as the most despising individuals we see today. Why is that?

You can hate the Catholic Church to pieces, but it doesn't change the fact that there is a God, one to whom everyone, both people who are guilty of abuse in the Church AND haters in general, must be accountable to.

People keep confusing the institution with the reality of God. You know what that is? Darwin at work.

To hate a religious institution because of the abuse of some or even "many" is in opposition to one's own survival traits (terminology I've used before) and thus is "Darwin at work" for two reasons:

1. By hating the Catholic Church you diminish your own faith in God in general, regardless of your denomination and woe especially to you if you are atheist, as it's blinders on top of blinders.

2. By hating priest sex abusers you channel all your presumed "righteous indignation" toward the Church and away from, oh, I don't know, maybe parents who rape their own babies' behinds and mouths, give them drugs, sell (or trade them) for sex, or who have incest with their older children, or pose infants to teenagers for porn. I'm not a statistician but I could make a smart bet that there's much more of that, which ruins generations and destroys intimacy (and murders) many more individuals than all the abuse in the Church, and that's assuming a lot.

By doing any of the above you are diminishing your own survival traits and just fulfilling Darwin, like the clown who says "watch this" while handing a beer to his friend.

So pour on the hate: I am serious. Let's see how much we have to deal with and then the peanut gallery of good natured but uninvolved people on the sidelines will eventually say, just as I explained above, "Hmm. As outrageous as the abuse was, and how grievous, is the Catholic Church really the source of all perversion in the world?" *Glances at the newspaper and sees another "boyfriend" stuck his **** into his girlfriend's infant before beating it to death.*

Sooner or later if people are going to survive at all, they are going to have to get proportional and sane again. If on the way to that road (which may result in the Second Coming, by the way, where there are more disappointed people than joyful ones) you have to reach spittle flying total hatred for the Catholic Church, go ahead, it does not raise my blood pressure, nor make me boo hoo hoo into my hanky. I just think, with a small amount of chortling, how surprised YOU all will be when you discover that you can hate abusing doctors, but that does not mean that medicine is invalid. Get ready for God to pin that medal on your chest (or Satan to pin it on your backside).

And, just for a little theology, let's come up with an awful scenario. Let's suppose that millions of people rose up in hatred against the Church and individual Catholics, oppressing, attacking and even murdering them. Theologically that's an awesome thing, because even those lukewarm cafeteria Catholics would become martyrs, and we all know (if we actually read the Bible) how all martyrs are glorified by God for eternity.

Have a nice day!

The need for truth in music, the arts.....

This is just a personal and philosophical/theological and factual observation, that is follow up to what I've been blogging where I explain that faith is authentically obtained by seeking the truth, the genuine, absolute truth, rather than "the best" "faith for me." Recalling what I've written that if one really cherishes and seeks the truth, one will inevitably find it-and the one true God-because God and his creation are the truth, let me explain my feelings about music.

I totally love music and as I reckon I've blogged before, I was listening to blues and pop music and rock and roll from the cradle (much helped by my much older brother playing the radio.) I wanted to play an instrument-and sing-but was kept from having any music lessons at all until I was able to pay for them on my own when in college. So I have a very clear love of music.

However, my friends, especially those in the music industry, wonder how I have lived for decades without listening to either current music or replaying those I've enjoyed in the past.

It became painfully obvious to me in the 1980's that almost without exception, all popular music, even the most brilliant of pieces, were written and composed by people who did not believe in the true God. Now, I am not saying I wanted Christian music because, actually, I find the same problem in much of Christian music from around that same time period. Since the 1980's the groundwork for the brainwashing and destruction of faith (genuine, factual, orthodox faith) that had been put in place during the 1960's-1970's started yielding their global bitter fruit. Even though most popular songs have absolutely nothing to do with God or faith as a topic, it was still painfully (and repulsively) obvious to me that the songs were all written in a distorted, God less and nihilistic mindset. Even the "happy" songs were clanging and warped, sometimes subtle, but usually very obvious to me. But it was obvious that ALL genres of music had become pieces of production made in in pained, God less and angry/manic depressive music "factories."

Now, young people especially, here is the crucial point I need to make to you, regarding both this topic of music (and art) and of faith and life in general. You must learn to distinguish between and properly manage, and put respectful boundaries around the two completely different mindsets of "truth" and "validity." Your parents (and many of their parents) combined the two, erroneously, in their minds, and have therefore caused their own mental, spiritual and emotional downfalls. It started with "let it all hang out." That is the philosophy that if you feel a certain way, then it is valid, "authentic" and honorable, and must be shared, even if everyone who listens to it then goes off the deep end and wants to shoot themselves. There is a huge difference between being "valid" (which means that right or wrong that is how you think/feel) and the truth, which is reality, a reality which includes the one true God and his role in this world.

For example, someone can write a miserable song because they feel like shit and they think they are evil reincarnated alien spawn. That's "valid," because that's what they think and feel (usually because they were brought up that way, or fell into the hands of sick "gurus"). But it is not the truth, because they would not feel that way if they were taught and came to believe in the truth of the world, a world that very much includes the one true God.

So sure, I am not against someone who has to do a "core dump" in the form of music of their sadness, anger, alienation, addiction, misery, aimlessness, vengefulness, spite, and so forth, since that is "valid...." that is, indeed, how he or she feels.

The problem is that like building houses on sand foundations, instead of bedrock, I noticed starting in the 1980's that virtually the entire music business prompted songs written, composed and produced by people who had totally lost their footing in the truth. They no longer even believed there is a truth, in the world, in their public lives, or in their private lives. They came to think that the current (or past) "validity" of what they think or feel IS the truth, which it most certainly is not.

So even the most inane and harmless of happy songs (those few there were, especially as rap, metal, angry punk and other genres took over increasing market share) were written by people who thought that the truth was to force out something commercially happy as a product, even though they did not believe in the truth. In other words, unhappy people living with perspectives that lacked recognition of truth were writing both happy and unhappy songs. This means that instead of most houses being built on solid foundations, most houses were now built on sand.

I can hardly listen to anything of the past few decades without seeing directly in the souls of those who produced and wrote these pieces and seeing their alienation, their loss of truth and worst of all, their determination that their "validity" IS the truth, and must be imposed as depressive and warped realities onto each new generation of listener. These adults raised children in the business who completely lost truth about life in the world and yet, brilliant as they are, produced brilliant music that is like a poisoned apple, great to eat but it kills you with each bite. We are on the THIRD decade of this disaster. That is why I cannot listen to music, most music, without pain.

I can even tell you the last song I gave a serious listen to as it came out, the version of "What's the Story (Morning Glory)" by Oasis. That is absolutely the last popular song I listened to and heeded and admired as it was released. Why is that? Of course technically it is wonderful, but more to point, it put into words exactly what I have described above: the disaster of being in a world where all your dreams are made when you're chained to the mirror on your razor blade. I pretty much turned off the radio after a few good listens of that, and that's no lie (as my stalkers can attest!) This is why I cannot listen to even the big hits, the really brilliant songs, even those of great compelling validity, of the late 1980's, the 1990's and the 2000's thus far. ALL of them are only "valid," very, very, VERY few of them are written by people with their heads screwed on properly and who believe in any truth, say nothing of the truth, of life, and of God's role in life.

I wish I could give you a real life example, so instead, imagine along with me the difference in a song about the exact same life experience written by a person who is valid, but does not know about or accept truth, and a person who is valid and is writing from a position of acknowledging the truth. So imagine that each songwriter wants to write about the misery of an addiction and ruined life, for example. One songwriter believes freaky things, nihilistic things, and writes about his or her addiction in that context. Even if they never mention their depressive and nihilistic mindset, that mindset, of course, is the well spring and informs their talent, which shapes their song. The other songwriter writes about the same intense valid misery in their, his or her, own life, but the well spring they have is one that still has at least a foundation in the truthfulness of a world that was created good, where there is a God, but where things go terribly astray. They might even come up with very similar words, and/or the instrumentation and music may be similar. But there would be a profound difference. Like I said, I wish I could give you actual examples but the scale is totally tilted with the bulk of compositions being of the "valid" but not grounded in overall life truth perspective. I'm not as able to access, not being part of the music industry crowd, of course, information where I can make such a real life comparison. The best I can do is point out how the blues, the old, traditional blues, were written by often very sad and afflicted people, and they are powerful and valid, but also honest because they were written by people who were still in touch with truthfulness in the world, including at least a nod toward the reality of God and his goodness, even if that did not comprise any of the song. This is why the old traditional blues are truly treasures of validity and honesty, in addition to their musical craftsmanship.

However, when I have a song recommended to me, which happened quite a bit in the early 2000's when people would email me "OMG I can't believe you never listened to this songwriter or this song or this group or this band" and then attach a link, I do listen and there it is again, but no one else understands what it is, since it's so pervasive. Only someone who grew up in the 1950's and listened to music that was still created on the foundation of truth (even if personal valid experience was miserable) can explain to you that there is a very stark "before" and "after." So after I listen to the song I resist the urge to shoot myself, and then research the artist and his or her other tracks. OMG, it is always the same. You can tell in their discography that they are totally into "validity" while living in a miserable, manic depressive, warped lack of truth. I then have to resist shooting myself after just reading the song titles. Good grief, it is a nightmare.

This really is a topic that lends itself more to face to face discussion (imagine that!) and having the help of a DJ who can pull examples of what I mean. But I thought that many of you, since you are questing, alert, and aware that these are disturbed times, will get the gist of what I mean, and have insight not only into how/why I perceive and do things as I do, but think about the facts as I have presented them and examine your own experiences for further insight.

A person can write the most brilliant piece of music ever, and it still be a wrong thing to do. That is a controversial statement, I know. By wrong I don't mean criminal or necessarily sinful or immoral. But just as products should not be subliminally marketed (the old popcorn hidden in the movie film scam), depressive "validity" that is denial of truth should not be deluging people, as it has for decades now, because that is dishonest. Artists, you must understand that it is possible, very possible, to be "valid" and "authentic," but totally dishonest. That is the boundary you must start to recognize, for the well being of not only your audience, but of your individual self.

I hope you understood as best as I could present these words tonight. I still love music, but for decades, music has not loved me back.