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.
Showing posts with label personal message. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal message. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Jack Chick & company should repent
I know people want my opinion about Jack Chick and his company of religious "tracts."
Here is my opinion.
Jack Chick and his employees ought to get tattoos, each of which says "Mark 9:38-41."
And then they all ought to take a life long vow of silence against criticizing ANY faith of the children of Abraham: Jews, Muslims, Christians (especially Catholics.)
I've avoided saying anything about them because unlike them I actually understand the scriptures, so I just ignore them. However, they have done damage, continual damage, eroding people's faith, and this is why they sure could use a daily dose of looking at their tats "Mark 9:38-41."
Here is the scripture, by the way. And Mr. Chick, I won't even "charge you a cookie" for an English language translation of this passage (I don't know if perhaps you have an alien version of the Bible that YOU use, huh?)
Mark 9:38-41
John said to Him, "Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in Your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn't following us."
"Don't stop him," said Jesus, "because there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name who can soon afterwards speak evil of Me. For whoever is not against us is for us. And whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of My name, since you belong to the Messiah-I assure you: He will never lose his reward."
Well gosh, if Jesus says anyone who gives a cup of water in His Name will NEVER lose his reward, I guess it's sure all right with Jesus to give a "magic cookie" (reverent people refer to it as the Communion wafer, unlike Chick & company) or consecrated wine in his name too.
Are not enough people misguided and suffering in this world? Jack Chick and company, please shut up with your total FAIL trash talk of Catholics, Muslims and whoever else you take a dump on because of your lack of faith and understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Message over!
Here is my opinion.
Jack Chick and his employees ought to get tattoos, each of which says "Mark 9:38-41."
And then they all ought to take a life long vow of silence against criticizing ANY faith of the children of Abraham: Jews, Muslims, Christians (especially Catholics.)
I've avoided saying anything about them because unlike them I actually understand the scriptures, so I just ignore them. However, they have done damage, continual damage, eroding people's faith, and this is why they sure could use a daily dose of looking at their tats "Mark 9:38-41."
Here is the scripture, by the way. And Mr. Chick, I won't even "charge you a cookie" for an English language translation of this passage (I don't know if perhaps you have an alien version of the Bible that YOU use, huh?)
Mark 9:38-41
John said to Him, "Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in Your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn't following us."
"Don't stop him," said Jesus, "because there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name who can soon afterwards speak evil of Me. For whoever is not against us is for us. And whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because of My name, since you belong to the Messiah-I assure you: He will never lose his reward."
Well gosh, if Jesus says anyone who gives a cup of water in His Name will NEVER lose his reward, I guess it's sure all right with Jesus to give a "magic cookie" (reverent people refer to it as the Communion wafer, unlike Chick & company) or consecrated wine in his name too.
Are not enough people misguided and suffering in this world? Jack Chick and company, please shut up with your total FAIL trash talk of Catholics, Muslims and whoever else you take a dump on because of your lack of faith and understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Message over!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Catholics may need to "Atlas Shrug"
Ayn Rand is known for her rather goofy opus called "Atlas Shrugged," where industrialists, feeling "unappreciated," eventually "go on strike" and "disappear," until ungrateful society begs them to "return." This was, needless to say, a quite godless and unspiritual book, but generations have found it fascinating, and that's cool.
It occurs to me that the Roman Catholic Church needs to borrow a leaf from "Atlas Shrugged" and simply walk away from many of the social services programs that they have in place. Why do I feel this way? For three reasons:
1. In progressive and anti-Catholic or anti-Christian governments there is pressure on Catholic charities to loosen their doctrine in return for continuing to receive government money. My advice: walk away from those programs totally. Let them give the money to someone else to do their "social programs" their way. It is a blessing in disguise as the Church can concentrate its mission on what is central: the saving of souls and the transmission of solid faith formation.
2. I obviously do not feel this way in the truly needy populations of the world where the Catholic Church provides vital and often willfully invisible (as in pointedly ignored by the media) services to the most dire of the sick and the poor. So shift the resources that Catholics give from the ungrateful areas (that obviously have "other sources") to those who are truly thankful and in need. It only makes sense. If you give the same gift every Christmas to two sons, and one thanks you and the other punches you in the face, I would suggest giving both gifts to the son who thanks you.
3. The world is not starved for social services programs; it is starved for sanctity and prayer. I think the Catholic Church needs to downsize its social involvement, even where it is sad and painful to do so, in order to return to prayerful and dedicated attention to the sacraments, education and overall sanctity. Downsize and refocus the mission. That way all those critics of the Catholic Church will have to change from criticizing the way we conducted our social programs to criticizing us for not having enough social programs. That would be cool, like bonus points, to the main purpose which is to refocus on the sacred work.
Jesus Christ brought God, not a soup kitchen community organizer. Plenty of charity can indeed and must be done through individual, congregation and community involvement, but I believe the time for us to lead large social programs is over when so many don't give a flying you know what if we do AND seek to erode them and use them as ways to whip up hatred against the Catholic Church.
I say, take the money we use in social programs in the higher developed countries and regions and instead reallocate and devote them to the formation of priests and other religious. Hey, isn't that what everyone is saying we ought to do? "Clean up" all those "bad priests?" Save an altar boy?
Not to minimize at all, as my regular readers know, my zero tolerance for sexual and other abuse or emotionally predatory behavior. So don't waste my time thinking I'm not condemning all abuse in the strongest terms, as I have all along.
But it has come to the point where not a single article about anything good, bad, or neutral can appear in the press without hate mongers commenting about sodomy and rape and buggering and whatever. So I say make them happy and withdraw from all social programs ALL of them in the better developed areas of the world and let them find "alternative providers." Use the social services program funding to "clean up all those pedophiles," you know, all the ones who flock to the Catholic Church. Yep, let's do that. Take the money from the social programs and use them for priest and religious formation. Seriously, as we all know the aging population of faithful religious live in great poverty and often in worse conditions than the people they dedicated their lives to serving.
I'd like to see the Catholic Church just walk away from MANY of the social services programs and instead invest those alms that are donated and income that is generated by the church toward inward, prayerful places and people of sanctity.
Ta ta I say. What say you? I think that would be music to the ears of those who demean all the Catholic Church has done. Win-win, then, no?
It occurs to me that the Roman Catholic Church needs to borrow a leaf from "Atlas Shrugged" and simply walk away from many of the social services programs that they have in place. Why do I feel this way? For three reasons:
1. In progressive and anti-Catholic or anti-Christian governments there is pressure on Catholic charities to loosen their doctrine in return for continuing to receive government money. My advice: walk away from those programs totally. Let them give the money to someone else to do their "social programs" their way. It is a blessing in disguise as the Church can concentrate its mission on what is central: the saving of souls and the transmission of solid faith formation.
2. I obviously do not feel this way in the truly needy populations of the world where the Catholic Church provides vital and often willfully invisible (as in pointedly ignored by the media) services to the most dire of the sick and the poor. So shift the resources that Catholics give from the ungrateful areas (that obviously have "other sources") to those who are truly thankful and in need. It only makes sense. If you give the same gift every Christmas to two sons, and one thanks you and the other punches you in the face, I would suggest giving both gifts to the son who thanks you.
3. The world is not starved for social services programs; it is starved for sanctity and prayer. I think the Catholic Church needs to downsize its social involvement, even where it is sad and painful to do so, in order to return to prayerful and dedicated attention to the sacraments, education and overall sanctity. Downsize and refocus the mission. That way all those critics of the Catholic Church will have to change from criticizing the way we conducted our social programs to criticizing us for not having enough social programs. That would be cool, like bonus points, to the main purpose which is to refocus on the sacred work.
Jesus Christ brought God, not a soup kitchen community organizer. Plenty of charity can indeed and must be done through individual, congregation and community involvement, but I believe the time for us to lead large social programs is over when so many don't give a flying you know what if we do AND seek to erode them and use them as ways to whip up hatred against the Catholic Church.
I say, take the money we use in social programs in the higher developed countries and regions and instead reallocate and devote them to the formation of priests and other religious. Hey, isn't that what everyone is saying we ought to do? "Clean up" all those "bad priests?" Save an altar boy?
Not to minimize at all, as my regular readers know, my zero tolerance for sexual and other abuse or emotionally predatory behavior. So don't waste my time thinking I'm not condemning all abuse in the strongest terms, as I have all along.
But it has come to the point where not a single article about anything good, bad, or neutral can appear in the press without hate mongers commenting about sodomy and rape and buggering and whatever. So I say make them happy and withdraw from all social programs ALL of them in the better developed areas of the world and let them find "alternative providers." Use the social services program funding to "clean up all those pedophiles," you know, all the ones who flock to the Catholic Church. Yep, let's do that. Take the money from the social programs and use them for priest and religious formation. Seriously, as we all know the aging population of faithful religious live in great poverty and often in worse conditions than the people they dedicated their lives to serving.
I'd like to see the Catholic Church just walk away from MANY of the social services programs and instead invest those alms that are donated and income that is generated by the church toward inward, prayerful places and people of sanctity.
Ta ta I say. What say you? I think that would be music to the ears of those who demean all the Catholic Church has done. Win-win, then, no?
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
A virtual flower arrangement
Today I made an arrangement, a favorite pastime of mine, particularly Japanese traditional styles, but the one I made today was for possible sale at an ersatz "garage sale" being planned.
I must have flower arranging on the mind because here's a spontaneous virtual flower arrangement. Yeah, I know, if I was really cool I'd be able to Photoshop an actual arrangement and post it here but I have been technically adrift for a VERY long time. So use your imaginations boys and girls :-) I know you young people (Hi!) out there could probably put a shooped arrangement together as fast as I thought of it...
Angelica, Balm, Cactus, Double Daisy, Foxglove, Hollyhock, Wild hyacinth, Iris, Laurel, Myrtle and Reed.
I must have flower arranging on the mind because here's a spontaneous virtual flower arrangement. Yeah, I know, if I was really cool I'd be able to Photoshop an actual arrangement and post it here but I have been technically adrift for a VERY long time. So use your imaginations boys and girls :-) I know you young people (Hi!) out there could probably put a shooped arrangement together as fast as I thought of it...
Angelica, Balm, Cactus, Double Daisy, Foxglove, Hollyhock, Wild hyacinth, Iris, Laurel, Myrtle and Reed.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
NO saved Christian can persecute non Christians
Anyone who calls themselves a Christian, who then persecutes ANY non-Christian (but most especially heinously, one of the Abrahamic faiths) and who thinks that they are either righteous in God's eyes or going to be "saved" when they die is incredibly deluded and totally in error.
Jesus explicitly forbade the disciples from wishing physical harm upon those who rejected his message, stating that he came to save and not to destroy.
You cannot call yourself a Christian on the one hand and then oppress a non-believer, or a believer of another faith, on the other hand.
I should not even have to explain that murder in the name of killing non-Christians is breaking a Commandment AND an unspeakable abomination, but read this article and you will see why I am posting this DIRE WARNING.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill
I have suspected this kind of alleged mindset for quite some time, most particularly after reading the abominable "Left Behind" series with their cartoonish evil foolishness and total dog dirt ignorance about the Muslim faith.
I marvel that God has not struck everyone dead already by now, for the horror that so many have allowed this world to become, a dirt ball of evil and hypocrisy.
Jesus explicitly forbade the disciples from wishing physical harm upon those who rejected his message, stating that he came to save and not to destroy.
You cannot call yourself a Christian on the one hand and then oppress a non-believer, or a believer of another faith, on the other hand.
I should not even have to explain that murder in the name of killing non-Christians is breaking a Commandment AND an unspeakable abomination, but read this article and you will see why I am posting this DIRE WARNING.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill
I have suspected this kind of alleged mindset for quite some time, most particularly after reading the abominable "Left Behind" series with their cartoonish evil foolishness and total dog dirt ignorance about the Muslim faith.
I marvel that God has not struck everyone dead already by now, for the horror that so many have allowed this world to become, a dirt ball of evil and hypocrisy.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Continuing to reach out to cultists
Even though stalking cultists have ruined my life (and those of countless others, either deliberately or through neglect, since the error of their beliefs cause them to neglect people and activities who are essential to good life and ultimately salvation), I continue to sincerely reach out to them through this blog. I blog less than I have because I pretty much have said everything that I can say in this format, and only repeat myself.
However, I mention this today to share with you an example of wrong "Christian thinking." Since my life has been ruined and I'm on the brink of bankruptcy, I've become a housekeeper for a Christian man who has a rental facility in his home. In return for housekeeping I have a free room and food and utilities to meet my needs. He's a good guy and tries to do the right thing.
However, as many Christians I have met, he has a serious error in his logic. He knows about the stalking but rather than this knowledge providing more insight into my service on behalf of God (my witnessing) he actually is confounded why I continue to "spend so much time on the computer" and why I blog and hence communicate with the cultists. He basically said that I am provoking cultists by communicating with them, (thus the old "asking for it" argument that men used to use against women who are sexually assaulted).
The vast majority of the stalking, and damage to me, was done before I was blogging, before I understood that many people have skewed and even insane views of God, the Bible, the Qur'an, etc. Far from blogging being me "engaging with" those who have harmed me in a bad way, I continue to believe that my blogging is helping some people somewhere to regain their sanity and to better understand God.
Too many Christians do not understand that in addition to confessing Jesus Christ, they are also OBLIGATED to correct error (there are Biblical citations on that, of course). I do not do it for obligatory reasons, and especially not because I am in some demented way "asking for it." I continue to blog because I pray that each time that I do at least one person (yes, even the worst of stalkers) asks the right questions, receives comfort, and starts to regain their sanity and ultimately find their true belief and be saved from being judged and expelled from God's presence for all eternity.
Time's a wasting. Every day I read obituaries and while no one can speak for God, believe you me I continue to be alarmed at seeing how many people died unrepentant and unsaved.
Many Christians worry more about who is cheating on who (adultery in particular fascinates them) and even worry about gay marriages (which I am not in favor of however I believe in commitment acknowledgements and I spend zero amount of my time worrying about gay marriage or not) but do not worry at all about having erroneous beliefs about God, many of which border on cultist and pagan beliefs and idolatry.
An example would be a so called Christian who secretly engages in occult practices, such as Scientology "tech." That is a great error and I am alarmed at how many of those Christians think they are "covered" regarding being saved because they "believe in Jesus Christ," yet who participate in anti-Godly activities.
I continue to URGENTLY reach out to those people to keep reading my blog, go back and reread with new eyes what I have written in the past (I tire of repeating myself). "Believing in Jesus" is not coverage from continuing in occult, idolatrous or other obsessive compulsive tech type activities that are a way of trying to have sinful control over others.
However, I mention this today to share with you an example of wrong "Christian thinking." Since my life has been ruined and I'm on the brink of bankruptcy, I've become a housekeeper for a Christian man who has a rental facility in his home. In return for housekeeping I have a free room and food and utilities to meet my needs. He's a good guy and tries to do the right thing.
However, as many Christians I have met, he has a serious error in his logic. He knows about the stalking but rather than this knowledge providing more insight into my service on behalf of God (my witnessing) he actually is confounded why I continue to "spend so much time on the computer" and why I blog and hence communicate with the cultists. He basically said that I am provoking cultists by communicating with them, (thus the old "asking for it" argument that men used to use against women who are sexually assaulted).
The vast majority of the stalking, and damage to me, was done before I was blogging, before I understood that many people have skewed and even insane views of God, the Bible, the Qur'an, etc. Far from blogging being me "engaging with" those who have harmed me in a bad way, I continue to believe that my blogging is helping some people somewhere to regain their sanity and to better understand God.
Too many Christians do not understand that in addition to confessing Jesus Christ, they are also OBLIGATED to correct error (there are Biblical citations on that, of course). I do not do it for obligatory reasons, and especially not because I am in some demented way "asking for it." I continue to blog because I pray that each time that I do at least one person (yes, even the worst of stalkers) asks the right questions, receives comfort, and starts to regain their sanity and ultimately find their true belief and be saved from being judged and expelled from God's presence for all eternity.
Time's a wasting. Every day I read obituaries and while no one can speak for God, believe you me I continue to be alarmed at seeing how many people died unrepentant and unsaved.
Many Christians worry more about who is cheating on who (adultery in particular fascinates them) and even worry about gay marriages (which I am not in favor of however I believe in commitment acknowledgements and I spend zero amount of my time worrying about gay marriage or not) but do not worry at all about having erroneous beliefs about God, many of which border on cultist and pagan beliefs and idolatry.
An example would be a so called Christian who secretly engages in occult practices, such as Scientology "tech." That is a great error and I am alarmed at how many of those Christians think they are "covered" regarding being saved because they "believe in Jesus Christ," yet who participate in anti-Godly activities.
I continue to URGENTLY reach out to those people to keep reading my blog, go back and reread with new eyes what I have written in the past (I tire of repeating myself). "Believing in Jesus" is not coverage from continuing in occult, idolatrous or other obsessive compulsive tech type activities that are a way of trying to have sinful control over others.
Friday, April 3, 2009
One life and that's it
One life, one then dies and is judged by God, and that's it, forever.
Each person has just one life... think about that next time you decide how to spend your day.
Each person has just one life... think about that next time you decide how to spend your day.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Probably my last post
I have endured the ruining of my personal and professional life, and the hindering of my mission from God to comfort and assure people of the accuracy of past and completed revelation, and to testify to God's love and mercy, for decades without any comfort or remediation.
I continued to consider myself God's ambassador regarding explaining his love, his mercy, but also his all knowing and judgment, and worked, often through my tears, to continue to reach out to even those who have so grievously harmed me. I had had nothing but love and fondness for many, many people, even those who had destroyed my life. I was always able to draw upon the Holy Spirit and find a way to continue to teach, even as I was being kicked in the side, stabbed in the back, isolated, mocked and ruined.
However, rather than seeing any daylight, any improvement in my ability to obtain justice and recompense for all that I have suffered for false and cruel reasons, imposing on me of further misery continues. Like others I have received credit limitation letters from banks, such as American Express and Bank of America, but unlike others, since I have been robbed of the ability to support myself, I had relied on credit to continue my teaching mission. Those who control these matters only seek more opportunity to humiliate and ruin me.
Thus I have in prayerful consultation with God come to the decision, with his agreement, that I cannot be his ambassador of love, mercy and charity when I have not received a drop of any of those qualities from anyone living in return.
No matter what I do, and how many people I give the love of God to, and message of his mercy, and how better to know him, I have been mocked and tormented in the small matters of life, and also the large. My health is ruined, I cannot pay my bills, I am not allowed to have any job, my friends all became cultists and destroyed our friendship, and those I loved have demonstrated that they serve Satan, and themselves, and not God. I continued to minister through this blog, and in prayer, even when, for example, I would open the newspaper and see a few days after one of my blogs a satirical reference to that topic, often in a cartoon, or in a crossword puzzle (get it? "cross" word? that is one of their favorite ways to mock me and, much worse, mock God and the work that I try to do on his behalf).
As a result, I can no longer feel any love for any person since all have allowed themselves to be ensnared and enmeshed in my persecution and the much worse implication that God himself is being mocked. I do not bring revelation, I explain the revelation that has been already given. When I am mocked, despised, humiliated, and assaulted (as I am whenever people refer to the photographs of the things that were done to me unconscious in the hospital) these people-you- are doing that to God himself, as I am only here to speak his word as his ambassador. This is why he agrees that I can no longer be expected to suffer through representing his love, mercy and charity when I have received none of it in return.
A day or two before Jett died I knew that someone somewhere will desperately need God's mercy, and I prayed that night that God would extend mercy in the place where because of past deeds, I knew it was not deserved. This is one example of where I see that God does not expect me to love, advocate or pray for those who only afflict me either personally or through their cult or other group support, in "return." Every day I see the signs that God has totally lost patience, but the more I try to help people regain their righteousness, the more I am isolated, ruined and humiliated in return. As I said, I will write of comfort and then see or hear in the media a reflective mocking of that very specific topic in a matter of days or hours.
I have found that all that I can pray for each day is that God will call me home. I know that it is quite possible, as I have a very wounded heart. I truly wish to be gone from life and in the companionship of the saints, who mourn where the world has gone to. Honestly, I will probably be the first person in history who insists on receiving thousands of years of purgatory even when it is not needed, just to be assured that the filth of all that has surrounded my life has been scrubbed off and discarded for all eternity. A thousand years of purgatory would be better than any five minutes I have received from any of you.
And so I obtained release from God that I can no longer be his ambassador of love when I have received nothing but hate, withholding of friendship, and abuse in return, and that it continue unabated so that I even wish to die.
Just so you cultists can have your thrill of victory and little "we won" dance, after I received my release from God I dropped my pants, bowed in the bathroom to the sink near the potty fixtures that you so admire, and washed my feet in the toilet.
I would wish all of you luck and good will, but nothing that you do is done with full truthfulness and clean hearts or hands, which is why my intercessory prayers on your very behalf have not been granted by God, so I won't both to wish you luck when you have "made your own luck" and will seriously pay the price for that "lucky luck luck luck" in return.
In God's name,
Christina
I continued to consider myself God's ambassador regarding explaining his love, his mercy, but also his all knowing and judgment, and worked, often through my tears, to continue to reach out to even those who have so grievously harmed me. I had had nothing but love and fondness for many, many people, even those who had destroyed my life. I was always able to draw upon the Holy Spirit and find a way to continue to teach, even as I was being kicked in the side, stabbed in the back, isolated, mocked and ruined.
However, rather than seeing any daylight, any improvement in my ability to obtain justice and recompense for all that I have suffered for false and cruel reasons, imposing on me of further misery continues. Like others I have received credit limitation letters from banks, such as American Express and Bank of America, but unlike others, since I have been robbed of the ability to support myself, I had relied on credit to continue my teaching mission. Those who control these matters only seek more opportunity to humiliate and ruin me.
Thus I have in prayerful consultation with God come to the decision, with his agreement, that I cannot be his ambassador of love, mercy and charity when I have not received a drop of any of those qualities from anyone living in return.
No matter what I do, and how many people I give the love of God to, and message of his mercy, and how better to know him, I have been mocked and tormented in the small matters of life, and also the large. My health is ruined, I cannot pay my bills, I am not allowed to have any job, my friends all became cultists and destroyed our friendship, and those I loved have demonstrated that they serve Satan, and themselves, and not God. I continued to minister through this blog, and in prayer, even when, for example, I would open the newspaper and see a few days after one of my blogs a satirical reference to that topic, often in a cartoon, or in a crossword puzzle (get it? "cross" word? that is one of their favorite ways to mock me and, much worse, mock God and the work that I try to do on his behalf).
As a result, I can no longer feel any love for any person since all have allowed themselves to be ensnared and enmeshed in my persecution and the much worse implication that God himself is being mocked. I do not bring revelation, I explain the revelation that has been already given. When I am mocked, despised, humiliated, and assaulted (as I am whenever people refer to the photographs of the things that were done to me unconscious in the hospital) these people-you- are doing that to God himself, as I am only here to speak his word as his ambassador. This is why he agrees that I can no longer be expected to suffer through representing his love, mercy and charity when I have received none of it in return.
A day or two before Jett died I knew that someone somewhere will desperately need God's mercy, and I prayed that night that God would extend mercy in the place where because of past deeds, I knew it was not deserved. This is one example of where I see that God does not expect me to love, advocate or pray for those who only afflict me either personally or through their cult or other group support, in "return." Every day I see the signs that God has totally lost patience, but the more I try to help people regain their righteousness, the more I am isolated, ruined and humiliated in return. As I said, I will write of comfort and then see or hear in the media a reflective mocking of that very specific topic in a matter of days or hours.
I have found that all that I can pray for each day is that God will call me home. I know that it is quite possible, as I have a very wounded heart. I truly wish to be gone from life and in the companionship of the saints, who mourn where the world has gone to. Honestly, I will probably be the first person in history who insists on receiving thousands of years of purgatory even when it is not needed, just to be assured that the filth of all that has surrounded my life has been scrubbed off and discarded for all eternity. A thousand years of purgatory would be better than any five minutes I have received from any of you.
And so I obtained release from God that I can no longer be his ambassador of love when I have received nothing but hate, withholding of friendship, and abuse in return, and that it continue unabated so that I even wish to die.
Just so you cultists can have your thrill of victory and little "we won" dance, after I received my release from God I dropped my pants, bowed in the bathroom to the sink near the potty fixtures that you so admire, and washed my feet in the toilet.
I would wish all of you luck and good will, but nothing that you do is done with full truthfulness and clean hearts or hands, which is why my intercessory prayers on your very behalf have not been granted by God, so I won't both to wish you luck when you have "made your own luck" and will seriously pay the price for that "lucky luck luck luck" in return.
In God's name,
Christina
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Identifying vanity, which can be quite subtle
I don't really have a long commentary or case study to provide at the moment, but just a thought that I had while reading some commentary on the Psalms by famed British Baptist Charles Spurgeon. Yes, even though he was a Baptist, John Calvin was, well, Calvinist, and Matthew Henry was Presbyterian, I do enjoy reading their commentaries.
Now, one of the great quarrels that the children of the Reformation, especially the Baptists, have with the Catholic Church is that they object to infant baptism. Spurgeon wrote a treatise condemning it quite soundly.
I have written before (check under the baptism label) explaining that infant baptism is biblical and there is scripture that alludes to its practice among the Israelites, who ceremonially washed infants and birth and wrapped them in new swaddling clothing which, when they are taken to the Temple, indicates their admittance into the faith. This is why the Gospel makes a point of Jesus being wrapped in swaddling clothing (he would have been washed first) and at the right time taken to the Temple.
The Israelites and thus Judaism, from which Christianity springs, had no concept of "waiting" for infants to become adults where they then "declare" for God! Jewish infants were consecrated to God and their faith community upon washing, swaddling, and the Temple presentation with sacrifice. It is from that custom and ritual that John the Baptist obtained the idea to baptize.
That is the greatness of John the Baptist. I often have wondered why more people did not wonder, and ask, "From where did John the Baptist get the idea to baptize people with water?" John the Baptist got the "idea" when the Holy Spirit inspired him to realize that the people needed a new baptism to prepare for the Messiah, the one whose way he knew he was preparing. Thus John the Baptist repeats what people were already doing, but with his strong message of the need to repent and convert. The Jewish people were already dedicating their newborns to God through their washing, swaddling, and infant presentation to the Temple with sacrifice.
It is for this reason that Catholics correctly maintain that the proper Biblical stance is to baptize infants as their entry into the faith community, just as the Israelites had washed, swaddled and brought their infants to the Temple. John the Baptist, through his greatness (remember that Jesus himself called John the Baptist the greatest of men), recognized through the Holy Spirit that the people needed to prepare for a new way, for the Messiah. Thus he "re-washed" believers, baptizing them, just as if they are spiritual and physical infants again. That is why John the Baptist performed "adult" baptism, because he was preparing the way, the new way, the New Covenant, that would come through Jesus Christ. But he used the method that was already firm tradition and the ritual that was part of the Law, which is to wash, swaddle and present at the Temple infants... except now these of necessity were adults who were like infants again, awaiting the Messiah and Savior.
So where does the vanity enter into the point that I am making? With the best of intentions and the most pure of heart, those who are the most critical of the Catholic Church for infant baptism are guilty of vanity. It seems as though no pastors want to give up being "the one" to "lead" and "conduct" an adult to God through adult baptism.
You see, when an infant is baptized one cannot take "credit" for bringing that soul to God, since the infant's parents, and godparents who sponsor the baptism, have made that decision for the child. Thus Catholics are exactly like the people of the Old Covenant, the Chosen People, the Israelites, the Jews of biblical times: they do not "wait" for the child to become an adult and 'choose' God. An infant is washed (baptised), swaddled (the baptismal gown), and presented to the Temple for presentation with sacrifice (brought to the church, blessed, and recorded as a member of the faithful).
My point is not to have dueling scripture or to re-argue the problem and the error of misunderstanding. My point is to help many of you to understand that vanity, personal vanity where one takes "credit" for "bringing a soul to God," is very, very pernicious and subtle, and it hides in even the best and most well intentioned of men and women. The Catholic Church continues what the biblical Temple attending Jews did throughout the centuries and there is no "credit" for doing what is obviously one's parental and faith forming duty, which is to dedicate one's infant to God at the early appropriate time.
Obviously in the early days of the Church, baptism started with adults because it symbolized the break from the Old Covenant and the joining of the New Covenant. But remember this: the New Covenant applies to all, Jesus Christ as Lord brought it for everyone, not just for adults who one day suddenly realize they are "ready." I have observed in people's hearts that one barrier to fruitful dialogue and understanding of the Catholic doctrine-and its origins-results from the unconscious clinging to the vanity of adult baptism, as personal "credit" for "bringing the adult into the fold, "credit" which is pointless and not even part of the Catholic psyche since one is simply doing one's parental duty when one has one's infant baptized.
If you are being honest with me, and yourself, if you imagine and picture the scenario of the truth that I am saying, you will watch your inner screen of emotions carefully and thus detect that qualm of not wanting to give up the adult person being baptized looking at YOU as the one giving them the gift. The fiercely denominational and independent structure of the Protestant faiths is another way to understand this "credit" and baptism "competition" of vanity. Catholic churches don't compete with each other, for example, for being "the one" who "brought that infant to baptism." If anything they have gone too far in the other direction, where it's not as personal a family experience as it used to be in my day. I still remember with horror my godson's baptism was part of something like two dozen families all have a massive baptism event, rather than the personal family experience that it was when my niece was baptized years earlier. Baptism in some parishes have more the whiff of bureaucracy, in other words, than any whiff of vanity. But if one is objective one cannot help but to observe that those who conduct adult baptism and who go out of their way to be intolerant and critical of Catholic infant baptism are, in fact, very strongly tied to the vanity of the taking "credit" for "adding an adult to one's personal flock." Remember, that's God's job and all credit and glory are to him and him alone.
I hope that this has given you something to think about. Vanity, especially in faith, is a very pernicious, subtle, and strong power, one that must be guarded against lest it harm rather than promote humility, sanctity, and giving the true glory to God.
Now, one of the great quarrels that the children of the Reformation, especially the Baptists, have with the Catholic Church is that they object to infant baptism. Spurgeon wrote a treatise condemning it quite soundly.
I have written before (check under the baptism label) explaining that infant baptism is biblical and there is scripture that alludes to its practice among the Israelites, who ceremonially washed infants and birth and wrapped them in new swaddling clothing which, when they are taken to the Temple, indicates their admittance into the faith. This is why the Gospel makes a point of Jesus being wrapped in swaddling clothing (he would have been washed first) and at the right time taken to the Temple.
The Israelites and thus Judaism, from which Christianity springs, had no concept of "waiting" for infants to become adults where they then "declare" for God! Jewish infants were consecrated to God and their faith community upon washing, swaddling, and the Temple presentation with sacrifice. It is from that custom and ritual that John the Baptist obtained the idea to baptize.
That is the greatness of John the Baptist. I often have wondered why more people did not wonder, and ask, "From where did John the Baptist get the idea to baptize people with water?" John the Baptist got the "idea" when the Holy Spirit inspired him to realize that the people needed a new baptism to prepare for the Messiah, the one whose way he knew he was preparing. Thus John the Baptist repeats what people were already doing, but with his strong message of the need to repent and convert. The Jewish people were already dedicating their newborns to God through their washing, swaddling, and infant presentation to the Temple with sacrifice.
It is for this reason that Catholics correctly maintain that the proper Biblical stance is to baptize infants as their entry into the faith community, just as the Israelites had washed, swaddled and brought their infants to the Temple. John the Baptist, through his greatness (remember that Jesus himself called John the Baptist the greatest of men), recognized through the Holy Spirit that the people needed to prepare for a new way, for the Messiah. Thus he "re-washed" believers, baptizing them, just as if they are spiritual and physical infants again. That is why John the Baptist performed "adult" baptism, because he was preparing the way, the new way, the New Covenant, that would come through Jesus Christ. But he used the method that was already firm tradition and the ritual that was part of the Law, which is to wash, swaddle and present at the Temple infants... except now these of necessity were adults who were like infants again, awaiting the Messiah and Savior.
So where does the vanity enter into the point that I am making? With the best of intentions and the most pure of heart, those who are the most critical of the Catholic Church for infant baptism are guilty of vanity. It seems as though no pastors want to give up being "the one" to "lead" and "conduct" an adult to God through adult baptism.
You see, when an infant is baptized one cannot take "credit" for bringing that soul to God, since the infant's parents, and godparents who sponsor the baptism, have made that decision for the child. Thus Catholics are exactly like the people of the Old Covenant, the Chosen People, the Israelites, the Jews of biblical times: they do not "wait" for the child to become an adult and 'choose' God. An infant is washed (baptised), swaddled (the baptismal gown), and presented to the Temple for presentation with sacrifice (brought to the church, blessed, and recorded as a member of the faithful).
My point is not to have dueling scripture or to re-argue the problem and the error of misunderstanding. My point is to help many of you to understand that vanity, personal vanity where one takes "credit" for "bringing a soul to God," is very, very pernicious and subtle, and it hides in even the best and most well intentioned of men and women. The Catholic Church continues what the biblical Temple attending Jews did throughout the centuries and there is no "credit" for doing what is obviously one's parental and faith forming duty, which is to dedicate one's infant to God at the early appropriate time.
Obviously in the early days of the Church, baptism started with adults because it symbolized the break from the Old Covenant and the joining of the New Covenant. But remember this: the New Covenant applies to all, Jesus Christ as Lord brought it for everyone, not just for adults who one day suddenly realize they are "ready." I have observed in people's hearts that one barrier to fruitful dialogue and understanding of the Catholic doctrine-and its origins-results from the unconscious clinging to the vanity of adult baptism, as personal "credit" for "bringing the adult into the fold, "credit" which is pointless and not even part of the Catholic psyche since one is simply doing one's parental duty when one has one's infant baptized.
If you are being honest with me, and yourself, if you imagine and picture the scenario of the truth that I am saying, you will watch your inner screen of emotions carefully and thus detect that qualm of not wanting to give up the adult person being baptized looking at YOU as the one giving them the gift. The fiercely denominational and independent structure of the Protestant faiths is another way to understand this "credit" and baptism "competition" of vanity. Catholic churches don't compete with each other, for example, for being "the one" who "brought that infant to baptism." If anything they have gone too far in the other direction, where it's not as personal a family experience as it used to be in my day. I still remember with horror my godson's baptism was part of something like two dozen families all have a massive baptism event, rather than the personal family experience that it was when my niece was baptized years earlier. Baptism in some parishes have more the whiff of bureaucracy, in other words, than any whiff of vanity. But if one is objective one cannot help but to observe that those who conduct adult baptism and who go out of their way to be intolerant and critical of Catholic infant baptism are, in fact, very strongly tied to the vanity of the taking "credit" for "adding an adult to one's personal flock." Remember, that's God's job and all credit and glory are to him and him alone.
I hope that this has given you something to think about. Vanity, especially in faith, is a very pernicious, subtle, and strong power, one that must be guarded against lest it harm rather than promote humility, sanctity, and giving the true glory to God.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
For church sex abuse survivors who avoid church
I've blogged about this subject before, about this terrible blight of priest or other religious sex abuse in the Catholic Church. I understand the trauma (and have discussed my credentials for why I understand on all levels) and have given counsel, both secular and spiritual, about how to heal and recover one's balance in life, even though the past can never be erased.
Having said that, I need to have an urgent word with those of you who avoid your Catholic devotions, such as going to church and the sacraments, and who may even have stopped believing in God.
There is no reincarnation, and there is no guarantee of "later" in anyone's life. All one needs to do is watch the news and see how suddenly there can be no "tomorrow" for someone. One must be in a constant state of being "alright with God."
If you think that deciding whether to believe in God again or to observe the sacraments and worship him is something that "can wait until you are ready, after you have healed," that is an attitude that is incorrect, and not the attitude that believers of all faiths have had throughout history as they have endured abuse, slavery and even genocide in their lives. It is a survival trait of humans and a reality that they separate belief in God from human induced horror and abuse in their lives, whether the abuse is by a religious or by a secular. If humans abandoned belief in God whenever they were traumatized there would be no religions at all today, and no human society either.
No matter how broken you may feel, refusing to believe in God is simply not a rational option.
As regular readers know, I am not being unfeeling on this subject. It is because I care that I will always be honest with you for your own good, just as I've had to be brutally honest about the physical reality of hell with many who have refused to believe and who have acted accordingly.
It is essential that no matter how one has been abused or harmed that one continue to believe in God and find a relationship with him because you have no guarantee of "tomorrow," because that is the reality of life, where death is unpredictable and certain for all.
Children, those of you who can no longer enter a Catholic church and worship God because you have been sexually abused, I have to wonder if perhaps Christianity is not for you.
(Yes, I hear the thump of good priests fainting or perhaps screaming as they reach this part of my message...)
But I am serious. If you have been sexually abused and can no longer enter a Catholic Church and have lost your faith in God, then I am not sure that you ever really believed, or perhaps were robbed of the chance, to understand Jesus Christ, who was tormented and crucified despite being of total perfection, sent by God, to heal and save, and who committed no crime or fault of his own.
When Jesus resurrected and returned, did he say, "I no longer believe in humanity because they unjustly tormented and killed me? And therefore I will no longer save you?"
Therefore, when humans abuse other humans, why would they then turn to God and say, "I no longer believe in you."
If you in your pain and focus on your own counsel and healing cannot understand that Jesus Christ resurrected and returned for forty days, undaunted, to save humanity and provide the path to God, then I wonder if perhaps Christianity in general just does not resonate with you.
This is a very serious problem, then, because whether you believe or not, God is still there, and will be faced at some point when your life ends, and of course, God wishes to be with you throughout your life.
I therefore wonder if perhaps those of you who can no longer "stand to be in a Church," and question your faith should consider studying Islam.
I would rather see someone who is so wounded and lacking in structured belief in God as a result of their trauma of sexual abuse consider converting to Islam than live a godless life. A godless life is a lie because there is a God, whether you believe or not, whether you are too wounded to believe or not.
Think about it. If you cannot see the truth of what I say, that the entire premise of Christianity is that Jesus loved and saved despite how he was scorned, tormented and killed most unfairly, worse because of his existence only being for the benefit of humanity, then I wonder if Christianity just is not for you.
I am certainly not turning you away. I am talking to those who are keeping themselves away.
Rather than stay in the lie of no longer believing, serving and worshipping the one God who continues to most assuredly exist, even if no human exists at all, perhaps you should consider Islam.
I hope that you have found this something that you will give careful thought to. God cares about each individual and desires their return. But God also continues on in eternity for all time, regardless of what one human believes or not. It is more important that you re-establish your relationship with God than continue to try to make a point about your woundedness. There is nothing that a human can teach Jesus Christ about being unfairly wronged. If that is not your understanding of Christianity, then you need to connect to God nonetheless, and perhaps Islam will be your way.
And who knows, if you realize that you have exiled yourself from the Church in your woundedness, and spend some time looking at Islam, you might miss home after all. But that is not my objective, for you to comparison shop. I am addressing those of you who have unwisely severed your understanding of God due to the trauma of your abuse. I think that you most certainly can reconnect with God through Islam, if you remain immovable regarding your home Church.
Having said that, I need to have an urgent word with those of you who avoid your Catholic devotions, such as going to church and the sacraments, and who may even have stopped believing in God.
There is no reincarnation, and there is no guarantee of "later" in anyone's life. All one needs to do is watch the news and see how suddenly there can be no "tomorrow" for someone. One must be in a constant state of being "alright with God."
If you think that deciding whether to believe in God again or to observe the sacraments and worship him is something that "can wait until you are ready, after you have healed," that is an attitude that is incorrect, and not the attitude that believers of all faiths have had throughout history as they have endured abuse, slavery and even genocide in their lives. It is a survival trait of humans and a reality that they separate belief in God from human induced horror and abuse in their lives, whether the abuse is by a religious or by a secular. If humans abandoned belief in God whenever they were traumatized there would be no religions at all today, and no human society either.
No matter how broken you may feel, refusing to believe in God is simply not a rational option.
As regular readers know, I am not being unfeeling on this subject. It is because I care that I will always be honest with you for your own good, just as I've had to be brutally honest about the physical reality of hell with many who have refused to believe and who have acted accordingly.
It is essential that no matter how one has been abused or harmed that one continue to believe in God and find a relationship with him because you have no guarantee of "tomorrow," because that is the reality of life, where death is unpredictable and certain for all.
Children, those of you who can no longer enter a Catholic church and worship God because you have been sexually abused, I have to wonder if perhaps Christianity is not for you.
(Yes, I hear the thump of good priests fainting or perhaps screaming as they reach this part of my message...)
But I am serious. If you have been sexually abused and can no longer enter a Catholic Church and have lost your faith in God, then I am not sure that you ever really believed, or perhaps were robbed of the chance, to understand Jesus Christ, who was tormented and crucified despite being of total perfection, sent by God, to heal and save, and who committed no crime or fault of his own.
When Jesus resurrected and returned, did he say, "I no longer believe in humanity because they unjustly tormented and killed me? And therefore I will no longer save you?"
Therefore, when humans abuse other humans, why would they then turn to God and say, "I no longer believe in you."
If you in your pain and focus on your own counsel and healing cannot understand that Jesus Christ resurrected and returned for forty days, undaunted, to save humanity and provide the path to God, then I wonder if perhaps Christianity in general just does not resonate with you.
This is a very serious problem, then, because whether you believe or not, God is still there, and will be faced at some point when your life ends, and of course, God wishes to be with you throughout your life.
I therefore wonder if perhaps those of you who can no longer "stand to be in a Church," and question your faith should consider studying Islam.
I would rather see someone who is so wounded and lacking in structured belief in God as a result of their trauma of sexual abuse consider converting to Islam than live a godless life. A godless life is a lie because there is a God, whether you believe or not, whether you are too wounded to believe or not.
Think about it. If you cannot see the truth of what I say, that the entire premise of Christianity is that Jesus loved and saved despite how he was scorned, tormented and killed most unfairly, worse because of his existence only being for the benefit of humanity, then I wonder if Christianity just is not for you.
I am certainly not turning you away. I am talking to those who are keeping themselves away.
Rather than stay in the lie of no longer believing, serving and worshipping the one God who continues to most assuredly exist, even if no human exists at all, perhaps you should consider Islam.
I hope that you have found this something that you will give careful thought to. God cares about each individual and desires their return. But God also continues on in eternity for all time, regardless of what one human believes or not. It is more important that you re-establish your relationship with God than continue to try to make a point about your woundedness. There is nothing that a human can teach Jesus Christ about being unfairly wronged. If that is not your understanding of Christianity, then you need to connect to God nonetheless, and perhaps Islam will be your way.
And who knows, if you realize that you have exiled yourself from the Church in your woundedness, and spend some time looking at Islam, you might miss home after all. But that is not my objective, for you to comparison shop. I am addressing those of you who have unwisely severed your understanding of God due to the trauma of your abuse. I think that you most certainly can reconnect with God through Islam, if you remain immovable regarding your home Church.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Why I don't post my email or allow comments
I've heard that some people wonder why. The reason that I don't allow comments is that when I do, alien believing "rapture" freaks promptly post their garbage. That doesn't fly with me for long!
Obviously my not posting an email address so that readers or potential new friends could ask me questions is related to the first problem. But more fundamentally, here is why. Virtually every email I've received from strangers to acquaintances and even to my "friends" and family are "tests" of me. They are usually a combination of genuine curiosity about the subject, but ruined by a hidden agenda of trying to "catch me out" in some way. Now, I love teaching and I love good conversation, but years of that abuse has ruined it for me too.
They think that it is "OK" to do (not recognizing that it is bearing false witness, as I've explained in previous postings, to conceal or manipulate your identity, or to have undisclosed information about me held "up one's sleeve.") They think it's OK to dissemble and lie because they usually include a "typo" in the email. Among cultists a "typo" is a deliberate "error" placed in the communication, so they think that lets them off the hook of lying or prevaricating within that email, since one "typo" "covers all" and is "fair warning." It doesn't let them off the hook, with neither me or God, and it totally bores me, their lack of grace and sincerity. This, by the way, is one reason I despise $cientology and $cientologists, and only pray that more will realize that everyone who follows them follows Hubbard straight into hell and I'm not joking or exaggerating.
In fact, entire decades of my life (and yours) have been wasted by people who approach me to "ask me" for "guidance," but they are "asking me" about a topic that they already have "secret information about me" regarding, and thus hope to catch me in hypocrisy, sin or lying. I mean, these people will steal millions of dollars from the poor, but hunt down a child who stole popcorn or a candy bar from a store when she or he was poor. (I hung out with a few kids when I was young, who helped themselves and showed me the ropes. I was caught with a handful of "liberated popcorn" by the store owner. To this day the cultists run around gushing I loooooooove popcorn!) They think they are getting a morally superior laugh over me, but I just pity them and their sin. Except they are not such great sources for mercy giving, since they just looooooooooooooooove abortions, lying, blaspheming, and "making a killing" in the stock market by scamming the chumps and charging usury. Well, I hope they just looooooooooooove hell! LOL LOL LOL.
Having said that, if anyone is really interested in emailing me, my email is not too hard to discover, just ask one of about million cultists who know who I am, my social security number, my blood type, the location of all of my birthmarks and scars (they ought to know the scars, as they with their own hands placed them there and photographed me in the hospital), who I've loved and "how far did we go," and, of course, all my addresses, phone numbers, emails and "how to get a message to me."
Obviously my not posting an email address so that readers or potential new friends could ask me questions is related to the first problem. But more fundamentally, here is why. Virtually every email I've received from strangers to acquaintances and even to my "friends" and family are "tests" of me. They are usually a combination of genuine curiosity about the subject, but ruined by a hidden agenda of trying to "catch me out" in some way. Now, I love teaching and I love good conversation, but years of that abuse has ruined it for me too.
They think that it is "OK" to do (not recognizing that it is bearing false witness, as I've explained in previous postings, to conceal or manipulate your identity, or to have undisclosed information about me held "up one's sleeve.") They think it's OK to dissemble and lie because they usually include a "typo" in the email. Among cultists a "typo" is a deliberate "error" placed in the communication, so they think that lets them off the hook of lying or prevaricating within that email, since one "typo" "covers all" and is "fair warning." It doesn't let them off the hook, with neither me or God, and it totally bores me, their lack of grace and sincerity. This, by the way, is one reason I despise $cientology and $cientologists, and only pray that more will realize that everyone who follows them follows Hubbard straight into hell and I'm not joking or exaggerating.
In fact, entire decades of my life (and yours) have been wasted by people who approach me to "ask me" for "guidance," but they are "asking me" about a topic that they already have "secret information about me" regarding, and thus hope to catch me in hypocrisy, sin or lying. I mean, these people will steal millions of dollars from the poor, but hunt down a child who stole popcorn or a candy bar from a store when she or he was poor. (I hung out with a few kids when I was young, who helped themselves and showed me the ropes. I was caught with a handful of "liberated popcorn" by the store owner. To this day the cultists run around gushing I loooooooove popcorn!) They think they are getting a morally superior laugh over me, but I just pity them and their sin. Except they are not such great sources for mercy giving, since they just looooooooooooooooove abortions, lying, blaspheming, and "making a killing" in the stock market by scamming the chumps and charging usury. Well, I hope they just looooooooooooove hell! LOL LOL LOL.
Having said that, if anyone is really interested in emailing me, my email is not too hard to discover, just ask one of about million cultists who know who I am, my social security number, my blood type, the location of all of my birthmarks and scars (they ought to know the scars, as they with their own hands placed them there and photographed me in the hospital), who I've loved and "how far did we go," and, of course, all my addresses, phone numbers, emails and "how to get a message to me."
Friday, December 5, 2008
Comment about OJ Simpson sentencing
The only thing I am surprised about is that "OJ" did not, during his pre-sentencing plea for mercy, state that he should receive little or no prison time so that he can, you know, "Continue to pursue who really killed Ron and Nicole." But oh wait, he never spent a moment doing so, and we know why.
Enjoy "stir."
Enjoy "stir."
Condolences to the Russian Orthodox faithful
Patriarch Alexiy II has passed away.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4B41PV20081205
snip
President Dmitry Medvedev, who was on an official visit to India, hailed the patriarch as "an outstanding religious figure" and canceled a planned trip to Italy to return to Moscow.
"He was a true shepherd, who throughout his life was an example of spiritual fortitude and noble human deeds," Medvedev told state television. "He was always with his flock both in the days of reprisals and in the period of religious revival."
Prime Minister and former President Vladimir Putin, an ex- communist spy who now openly professes his Orthodox faith, said Alexiy was a "great statesman" who had "done a great deal for the establishment of a new Russian statehood."
The Church never commented on Alexiy's health and gave the cause of death as heart failure. But diplomats in Moscow had said the Patriarch had been suffering from cancer for some time.
In a sign of his importance, Russian state television immediately ran a film showing highlights from Alexiy's life, accompanied by the sound of tolling church bells.
Church officials said Metropolitan Juvenali of Krutitsy and Kolomna -- a senior bishop -- may lead the Russian Orthodox until the election of a new patriarch.
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia since 1990, the Estonian-born Alexiy was a powerful and influential figure with close links to the Kremlin but a controversial past and strongly held conservative views on social issues.
He oversaw a major religious revival in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with hundreds of new churches built across the country, monasteries reopened and seminaries filling with new priests.
***
He was clearly a man of great faith, and I'm sure will be received graciously by God.
Whenever a great religious leader dies, it is a reminder that life is, ultimately, short, and that leading or belonging to a particular faith is not assurance of what is to come, or the length of one's years.
It is also a reminder that unfinished business is unfortunate. One of the greatest wounds I witnessed was the Patriarch's coldness to the very kind Pope John Paul II. I had hoped that the Patriarch would make better intentioned progress with Pope Benedict XVI, but live and learn, as I said, take care of one's business before you are called to meet your Maker.
Rest in peace and sincere condolences to his flock.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4B41PV20081205
snip
President Dmitry Medvedev, who was on an official visit to India, hailed the patriarch as "an outstanding religious figure" and canceled a planned trip to Italy to return to Moscow.
"He was a true shepherd, who throughout his life was an example of spiritual fortitude and noble human deeds," Medvedev told state television. "He was always with his flock both in the days of reprisals and in the period of religious revival."
Prime Minister and former President Vladimir Putin, an ex- communist spy who now openly professes his Orthodox faith, said Alexiy was a "great statesman" who had "done a great deal for the establishment of a new Russian statehood."
The Church never commented on Alexiy's health and gave the cause of death as heart failure. But diplomats in Moscow had said the Patriarch had been suffering from cancer for some time.
In a sign of his importance, Russian state television immediately ran a film showing highlights from Alexiy's life, accompanied by the sound of tolling church bells.
Church officials said Metropolitan Juvenali of Krutitsy and Kolomna -- a senior bishop -- may lead the Russian Orthodox until the election of a new patriarch.
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia since 1990, the Estonian-born Alexiy was a powerful and influential figure with close links to the Kremlin but a controversial past and strongly held conservative views on social issues.
He oversaw a major religious revival in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, with hundreds of new churches built across the country, monasteries reopened and seminaries filling with new priests.
***
He was clearly a man of great faith, and I'm sure will be received graciously by God.
Whenever a great religious leader dies, it is a reminder that life is, ultimately, short, and that leading or belonging to a particular faith is not assurance of what is to come, or the length of one's years.
It is also a reminder that unfinished business is unfortunate. One of the greatest wounds I witnessed was the Patriarch's coldness to the very kind Pope John Paul II. I had hoped that the Patriarch would make better intentioned progress with Pope Benedict XVI, but live and learn, as I said, take care of one's business before you are called to meet your Maker.
Rest in peace and sincere condolences to his flock.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Go back to church, synagogue and mosque
Abandon the "New Age" and the occult, like "astrology." Seriously. It is doing all of you more harm than you can ever realize. Far from being "enlightened" and affirmative, it is a depressive set of handcuffs that deny the goodness of God that strives to operate within each person to achieve the greatest goodness, denying that goodness and surrendering one's self to the depressive view of a churning cruel world of "fate."
A spokesperson for such a community who lost two members in Mumbai, killed by terrorists, one a child, said in response to a question from the press regarding what she thought of the terrorists that the terrorists were like "95% of the rest of the world's population."
Friends, that is how cultists view everyone else. Is 95% of the world "just like the terrorists?" You know, the great unwashed unenlighted who only have their eyes, as she put it "on the ground."
I don't think so and neither does the real One God.
A spokesperson for such a community who lost two members in Mumbai, killed by terrorists, one a child, said in response to a question from the press regarding what she thought of the terrorists that the terrorists were like "95% of the rest of the world's population."
Friends, that is how cultists view everyone else. Is 95% of the world "just like the terrorists?" You know, the great unwashed unenlighted who only have their eyes, as she put it "on the ground."
I don't think so and neither does the real One God.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
My thoughts about Mumbia, India situation
No one has official word about who is behind the terrorist attacks, so to give advice I have to make some assumptions. I'll assume that they represent Islamic believers on the extreme end of the faith scale.
India has put itself into quite a pickle with their deliberate ignoring of their own Christians being tortured, killed, raped, publicly paraded naked, and driven out of their homes into the jungle and camps, where they are homeless and sick. Why does this have an impact on the terrorist attacks? Disdain. One cannot negotiate with Islamic extremists if you are demonstrated unbelievers, who persecute other believers. While many assume that Islamic terrorists only consider fellow Muslims to be believers, when negotiating, one still wants to avoid their contempt and disdain that has resulted from showing that you are a persecutor of believers, especially in such an immodest way. The USA learned that to their extreme discomfort in what they did to some Iraqi prisoners, making them be naked and depraved in prison. Remember also that Islam is a belief based on total equality, where there is no class system, unlike the most repressive class system what was ever created, which still exists in India.
So while I am not saying that the terrorists made their action for any reason other than their own cause, I am giving India some cultural diplomacy advice that they have ignored, including in their dealings with me, at their peril. I find it interesting that there are reports of a Jewish prayer center being occupied with hostages of a rabbi, his wife and others. If true, I think the odds of the hostages surviving are best if they are perceived as believers rather than political representatives. You see what I mean? But this is all guesswork at this point, is it not?
My point is that the "land of Gandhi" has no credibility as far as being perceived by those who have devout and even fanatic motivation by their serving God, whether their actions bring credit to God or not in fact. There is no Muslim who would not be horrified at what treatment the Indian government has ignored (and even the police encouraged), when priests and nuns were stripped, sexually assaulted, tortured, murdered, paraded and defamed. Muslim extremists would make note of the weakness and complicity of the police in attacking Christians. Notice that high ranking police were quickly killed in the assault. You are in a difficult position, in both battle and negotiation, if your opponent has total contempt for you. It creates an "anything goes" mentality in achieving one's objectives, one that is difficult to either thwart or negotiate with, especially as they will gladly achieve what they consider to be martyrdom.
Ten years ago I had a job where I had dozens of Indian green card holders working for me. I was fond of them and defended them against those who poked fun at their Hindu beliefs. Yet, my sense of fondness was drained away as I found that Indian occult beliefs (astrology) informed many of those who stalked and persecuted me. Indians, behind the scenes, stalked and persecuted me, making my life miserable, because of their imaginary beliefs in crazy reincarnation, and their ambition at trying to manipulate the future, rather than trusting in God and having any sort of humility.
One must remember that the way you treat your own people opens the door for how extremists will treat you. That is called "escalation." Even if there is no common ground between people your country persecutes, Christians, in this example, and the presumed Islamic terrorists in Mumbai, they watch TV, they read the papers, they do their research, and they observe whenever a country, especially its police, loses the moral high ground due to their own disgraceful behavior. This is why the terrorists will usually fight to the death, since they are confident they have the moral high ground. It is never helpful in fighting terrorism or negotiating if a country inflates the terrorists perception that indeed, they are fighting immoral and corrupt institutions.
That said, it is never right to take innocent life. But again, we look around the world and see those areas where life is perceived as being "cheap." The tone is first set by the home culture, not by the intruder.
India has put itself into quite a pickle with their deliberate ignoring of their own Christians being tortured, killed, raped, publicly paraded naked, and driven out of their homes into the jungle and camps, where they are homeless and sick. Why does this have an impact on the terrorist attacks? Disdain. One cannot negotiate with Islamic extremists if you are demonstrated unbelievers, who persecute other believers. While many assume that Islamic terrorists only consider fellow Muslims to be believers, when negotiating, one still wants to avoid their contempt and disdain that has resulted from showing that you are a persecutor of believers, especially in such an immodest way. The USA learned that to their extreme discomfort in what they did to some Iraqi prisoners, making them be naked and depraved in prison. Remember also that Islam is a belief based on total equality, where there is no class system, unlike the most repressive class system what was ever created, which still exists in India.
So while I am not saying that the terrorists made their action for any reason other than their own cause, I am giving India some cultural diplomacy advice that they have ignored, including in their dealings with me, at their peril. I find it interesting that there are reports of a Jewish prayer center being occupied with hostages of a rabbi, his wife and others. If true, I think the odds of the hostages surviving are best if they are perceived as believers rather than political representatives. You see what I mean? But this is all guesswork at this point, is it not?
My point is that the "land of Gandhi" has no credibility as far as being perceived by those who have devout and even fanatic motivation by their serving God, whether their actions bring credit to God or not in fact. There is no Muslim who would not be horrified at what treatment the Indian government has ignored (and even the police encouraged), when priests and nuns were stripped, sexually assaulted, tortured, murdered, paraded and defamed. Muslim extremists would make note of the weakness and complicity of the police in attacking Christians. Notice that high ranking police were quickly killed in the assault. You are in a difficult position, in both battle and negotiation, if your opponent has total contempt for you. It creates an "anything goes" mentality in achieving one's objectives, one that is difficult to either thwart or negotiate with, especially as they will gladly achieve what they consider to be martyrdom.
Ten years ago I had a job where I had dozens of Indian green card holders working for me. I was fond of them and defended them against those who poked fun at their Hindu beliefs. Yet, my sense of fondness was drained away as I found that Indian occult beliefs (astrology) informed many of those who stalked and persecuted me. Indians, behind the scenes, stalked and persecuted me, making my life miserable, because of their imaginary beliefs in crazy reincarnation, and their ambition at trying to manipulate the future, rather than trusting in God and having any sort of humility.
One must remember that the way you treat your own people opens the door for how extremists will treat you. That is called "escalation." Even if there is no common ground between people your country persecutes, Christians, in this example, and the presumed Islamic terrorists in Mumbai, they watch TV, they read the papers, they do their research, and they observe whenever a country, especially its police, loses the moral high ground due to their own disgraceful behavior. This is why the terrorists will usually fight to the death, since they are confident they have the moral high ground. It is never helpful in fighting terrorism or negotiating if a country inflates the terrorists perception that indeed, they are fighting immoral and corrupt institutions.
That said, it is never right to take innocent life. But again, we look around the world and see those areas where life is perceived as being "cheap." The tone is first set by the home culture, not by the intruder.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
God expects humans to work for the best
I'm interrupting my late evening dinner (pasta with fresh tomatoes and cheese) because I just remembered something I wanted to point out to those who often worry and ponder about the End of Times.
Remember what happened when Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and found himself in Egypt under the Pharaoh. Joseph became elevated due to the Pharaoh recognizing that Joseph received authentic dream interpretation charism directly from God. Most notably Joseph interpreted the dream of Pharaoh to know that seven years of famine will afflict the entire region and that it cannot be survived unless it is prepared for years in advance. Joseph was put in charge and saved the people of the region by putting aside the surplus of the food that was grown each year so that they had enough stored to take them through the seven years of famine. They saved not only themselves in Egypt but also the Israelites who were starved out of their land and sought food in Egypt.
Here is the interesting point that I'm not sure people have properly pondered. The Egyptians were notorious unbelievers. They not only were pagans, believing in multiple gods and idols, but they had an elaborate death cult. Yet two curious things happened. One is that the Pharaoh believed in the message of the one God without converting or being a believer himself. Thus the Pharaoh trusted Joseph and acknowledged God, turning the welfare of the kingdom into his hands, yet God did not choose to force Pharaoh to be a believer or, to put it another way, Pharaoh served God's purpose as he was, where faith in the God of Joseph was enough. A very targeted and narrow commonality of faith was sufficient to please God and bind them in purpose.
The second point is related to the first. Notice that God did not take that opportunity to have Joseph say, "Well, I will tell you what the dream means and what to do only if all Egyptians renounce pagan gods and their cult of death and accept worship of only Yahweh." Why do you think that is? Why would God not "demonstrate his power" and force very superstitious and culture of death prone (even Apocalyptic) mindset people into knowing him and acknowledging him as the one and only God? Remember, this is before Moses and so the Exodus, the theophany, and the Law giving by God had not yet happened, yet God had a clear identity that he could have used the famine to force upon the Egyptians.
There is one answer that can be viewed from a multiple of facets. The one answer is that God gave humans free will, a free choice to believe, love, know and obey him, and God has never reneged on that gift, even when it seems that imposing his will would have been for the betterment of those who lost for that time their freedom of choice. That is the whole point of free will as God's gift to humans, despite how often they use that gift to throw it back into God's face, so to speak.
And so God expected those to whom he revealed the truth of the impending famine to work together without being forced into common faith first, even though the pagan beliefs of the Pharaoh were repugnant. God permitted Pharaoh to have a dream, and gave Pharaoh enough kingly concern for the welfare of his people that the dream troubled him enough to seek the correct interpretation and what warning it contained. Joseph in his demeanor and humility set the example of how pious men and women draw other men and women to God without force, threats, terror or disaster. Imagine the leap of faith that all the people had in order to follow Joseph's instructions to conserve food for years and how things must have seemed very odd and even frightening, yet they all followed Joseph, at Pharaoh's orders. Pious and earnest believers set a continual example without drama, without force, and that is ultimately in emulation of God's true way.
Even much later when God had to send afflictions in order to force the Pharaoh in the time of Moses to release the Israelites from slavery God did not use the force of Armageddon type of terror that he well could have. As bad as each plague was, God never terrorized the people so that they believed that they were in the End of Times where their very country and all the people would be destroyed. Each plague was dreadful, but God, again, did not force people to believe in him, to fall and abase before him, to be terrorized that all will end. God continues to give people their gift of freedom of choice and discernment, even when they continually make the wrong choice.
Too many fundamentalists of various extremes, notably Christians that are not Catholic or Orthodox, openly expect God to terrorize countries or the entire planet as expression of wrath, impatience with sin, and to herald the "Second Coming." As a result these humans with that erroneous mindset are willing to "throw in the towel" at each and every hardship that humans face, thinking these are opening salvos in the times of tribulation and wrath of God before the final judgment. But sheesh, calm down and read the Bible, will you? Is it God's style to just rain terror upon a people, when he did not even do that with the Egyptians who had purchased Joseph in slavery? Instead, God gifted Pharaoh with a dream and the wisdom to seek out Joseph and listen to him. Even later God applied only the pressure in the plagues that people needed in order to finally make the right decision on their own. So why would the troubling times that humans are in now make people only focus on darkly hoping that God is "smiting" (or getting ready to smite in overture for the final judgment?) And of course I am not speaking of those of you who have engaged in occult practices, who have guilty consciences that you now see God brings right back at you the consequences of your occult beliefs and activities. (I'll bet that smiting has finally dawned on you as a possibility, but on a personal scale, not on the worldly context.) No, I wonder why so many Christians for the past twenty years have sat on their hands instead of helping to work in companionship for the best outcome of all human problems. I've mentioned before how dismayed I am at the suffering that has been secretly egged on by those who actually "want" the Apocalypse, particularly in the Middle East. This is exactly why Jesus warned that there will be many false prophets.
Some who anticipate the Mahdi predict that first there will be sixty false prophets claiming to be him. Gosh, can we count Christian false prophets too? We must surely have had six hundred false prophets at least in the past several decades, ugh.
My point is that if you read and comprehend the Bible (I'm addressing these cultists and extreme fundamentalist, dispensationalist Christians) you will observe that God expects humans to work together for the common good right up until the end, and not withholding good will because you somehow have decided that "it's time." Even Jesus did not claim to know the time and trust me, you'll know with absolutely no uncertainty when it is actually arriving. So I hope that this is helpful and once again, read the Bible and stop imposing depressive wishes and delusions onto the clean and truthful prophecy of God. If you understand God and truly follow Jesus, you know that it is mutual good will and charity that is expected until people "drop in their places in mid stride" (just a colorful image, ex-Biblical *wink*) at the Second Coming.
Remember what happened when Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and found himself in Egypt under the Pharaoh. Joseph became elevated due to the Pharaoh recognizing that Joseph received authentic dream interpretation charism directly from God. Most notably Joseph interpreted the dream of Pharaoh to know that seven years of famine will afflict the entire region and that it cannot be survived unless it is prepared for years in advance. Joseph was put in charge and saved the people of the region by putting aside the surplus of the food that was grown each year so that they had enough stored to take them through the seven years of famine. They saved not only themselves in Egypt but also the Israelites who were starved out of their land and sought food in Egypt.
Here is the interesting point that I'm not sure people have properly pondered. The Egyptians were notorious unbelievers. They not only were pagans, believing in multiple gods and idols, but they had an elaborate death cult. Yet two curious things happened. One is that the Pharaoh believed in the message of the one God without converting or being a believer himself. Thus the Pharaoh trusted Joseph and acknowledged God, turning the welfare of the kingdom into his hands, yet God did not choose to force Pharaoh to be a believer or, to put it another way, Pharaoh served God's purpose as he was, where faith in the God of Joseph was enough. A very targeted and narrow commonality of faith was sufficient to please God and bind them in purpose.
The second point is related to the first. Notice that God did not take that opportunity to have Joseph say, "Well, I will tell you what the dream means and what to do only if all Egyptians renounce pagan gods and their cult of death and accept worship of only Yahweh." Why do you think that is? Why would God not "demonstrate his power" and force very superstitious and culture of death prone (even Apocalyptic) mindset people into knowing him and acknowledging him as the one and only God? Remember, this is before Moses and so the Exodus, the theophany, and the Law giving by God had not yet happened, yet God had a clear identity that he could have used the famine to force upon the Egyptians.
There is one answer that can be viewed from a multiple of facets. The one answer is that God gave humans free will, a free choice to believe, love, know and obey him, and God has never reneged on that gift, even when it seems that imposing his will would have been for the betterment of those who lost for that time their freedom of choice. That is the whole point of free will as God's gift to humans, despite how often they use that gift to throw it back into God's face, so to speak.
And so God expected those to whom he revealed the truth of the impending famine to work together without being forced into common faith first, even though the pagan beliefs of the Pharaoh were repugnant. God permitted Pharaoh to have a dream, and gave Pharaoh enough kingly concern for the welfare of his people that the dream troubled him enough to seek the correct interpretation and what warning it contained. Joseph in his demeanor and humility set the example of how pious men and women draw other men and women to God without force, threats, terror or disaster. Imagine the leap of faith that all the people had in order to follow Joseph's instructions to conserve food for years and how things must have seemed very odd and even frightening, yet they all followed Joseph, at Pharaoh's orders. Pious and earnest believers set a continual example without drama, without force, and that is ultimately in emulation of God's true way.
Even much later when God had to send afflictions in order to force the Pharaoh in the time of Moses to release the Israelites from slavery God did not use the force of Armageddon type of terror that he well could have. As bad as each plague was, God never terrorized the people so that they believed that they were in the End of Times where their very country and all the people would be destroyed. Each plague was dreadful, but God, again, did not force people to believe in him, to fall and abase before him, to be terrorized that all will end. God continues to give people their gift of freedom of choice and discernment, even when they continually make the wrong choice.
Too many fundamentalists of various extremes, notably Christians that are not Catholic or Orthodox, openly expect God to terrorize countries or the entire planet as expression of wrath, impatience with sin, and to herald the "Second Coming." As a result these humans with that erroneous mindset are willing to "throw in the towel" at each and every hardship that humans face, thinking these are opening salvos in the times of tribulation and wrath of God before the final judgment. But sheesh, calm down and read the Bible, will you? Is it God's style to just rain terror upon a people, when he did not even do that with the Egyptians who had purchased Joseph in slavery? Instead, God gifted Pharaoh with a dream and the wisdom to seek out Joseph and listen to him. Even later God applied only the pressure in the plagues that people needed in order to finally make the right decision on their own. So why would the troubling times that humans are in now make people only focus on darkly hoping that God is "smiting" (or getting ready to smite in overture for the final judgment?) And of course I am not speaking of those of you who have engaged in occult practices, who have guilty consciences that you now see God brings right back at you the consequences of your occult beliefs and activities. (I'll bet that smiting has finally dawned on you as a possibility, but on a personal scale, not on the worldly context.) No, I wonder why so many Christians for the past twenty years have sat on their hands instead of helping to work in companionship for the best outcome of all human problems. I've mentioned before how dismayed I am at the suffering that has been secretly egged on by those who actually "want" the Apocalypse, particularly in the Middle East. This is exactly why Jesus warned that there will be many false prophets.
Some who anticipate the Mahdi predict that first there will be sixty false prophets claiming to be him. Gosh, can we count Christian false prophets too? We must surely have had six hundred false prophets at least in the past several decades, ugh.
My point is that if you read and comprehend the Bible (I'm addressing these cultists and extreme fundamentalist, dispensationalist Christians) you will observe that God expects humans to work together for the common good right up until the end, and not withholding good will because you somehow have decided that "it's time." Even Jesus did not claim to know the time and trust me, you'll know with absolutely no uncertainty when it is actually arriving. So I hope that this is helpful and once again, read the Bible and stop imposing depressive wishes and delusions onto the clean and truthful prophecy of God. If you understand God and truly follow Jesus, you know that it is mutual good will and charity that is expected until people "drop in their places in mid stride" (just a colorful image, ex-Biblical *wink*) at the Second Coming.
When "soul stealing" is not superstition
This post kind of falls into a “thought for the day” topic, though it is specifically about one of my ongoing subjects, which is how did we get into such a freak show society, to put it bluntly. I decided to write about an observation I’ve made for many years now because I think people are receptive to looking at things differently and more clearly.
Most people know from watching old movies the old stereotype about “natives” who first encounter the “white man” with a camera at first fear the camera because the natives believe that it “steals their soul.” (Again, it’s a sad truth that most of people’s knowledge of culture and history, such as it is, comes from the old movies who inadvertently preserved some truth in addition to their purpose of entertainment and escapism.) So yes, it is true that many native people feared cameras because they did believe that it stole the soul. Have you ever thought about the fact that while superstition is, in general, just false beliefs based on “magical thinking,” that this one example of “superstition” has proved out to be startlingly true??
Here is my standard declaimer: I am not about to bash photography or photographers in general and I enjoy good photography and like to snap landscapes myself. But if those of you who are cell phone with camera manufacturers AND those of you in the mainstream media, both entertainment and news, feel a little uneasy about what I’m going to say, you would be showing good instinct.
Let us first look at photography in general when it first came into usage during news reporting. I’d like to talk about one famous photograph, just to work with a familiar example. There was a famous, heart breaking and seminal photograph taken during the Vietnam War of a small girl, naked from her clothes being burned off by USA dropped napalm, screaming as she runs down the street, burned over her body. This is an example of an outstanding photograph because of its capturing of a pivotal truth in Vietnam, which was the brutality of the collateral damage. It also was outstanding because she became a stark representation of the mostly nameless and faceless civilians, and everyone who saw the photograph was correctly shocked and moved. It also was outstanding by the measure of personal photographer skill and luck in combination, as he or she was in the right place at the right time to take an incredible photograph, and do so skillfully. Just about everyone would agree that the photograph of the girl is one of the most important photographs of the century.
But what about her soul? How would you feel if forever and ever you had been defined as being a naked and burned girl running down the street? So obviously I am not saying that her soul was sucked into the photograph. I am asking you to think about what a slippery slope the camera and media have taken people on, reducing the total identity of both public and private figures to one shot, to one image, to one message. You are probably also thinking of the other famous Vietnam photograph, of the kneeling Viet Cong man being shot in the head by the standing South Vietnamese army colonel or whatever. Again, it was one of the most important photographs of the era since it brought into people’s homes what a battlefield and some would argue a crazed and unjust execution looks like, what it really means to “have one’s brains blown out” by a bullet. (Gore fans, it does not actually show that, but the shocking moment when the impact of the bullet causes his head to move and his face to contort). And now, forever, this Viet Cong guy is preserved in a photograph that summarizes his entire life as the moment the bullet hit his brain.
When such “message oriented” photography first became popular, people had only the mainstream TV news channels and the news papers and magazines for their news. So in a way it was a manageable problem and this is why it never occurred to the photograph takers and publishers that perhaps even the greatest photograph has a problem of distilling an entire person’s life and identity into one visual image of trauma and degradation. People would see such a photograph and be shocked, obtain the news or message from its viewing, and then turn off the TV or eventually throw away the newspaper or magazine that published it. So these first early incredible news photographs, often taken in war, had an impact but they as an object of reduction of the individual’s entire life did not linger. One would have to do some research in order to see that photograph again.
But now everything has changed. First of all, we’ve gone from professional photographers to millions of amateurs who want “the money shot.” Now our children are taking naked pictures of themselves and each others and instantly messaging them to each other. Second, instead of naturally encountering sadness or horror, let’s say on the battlefield, or in a crime ridden neighborhood, our children are staging “beat downs” and “bum fights” so that they can film and photograph degradation. Third we have stalkers who photograph their victims and who have no constraint at all. Young people, those of you born too young to remember the times of the camera that needed development, this was how stalkers and perverts were kept in line. People who worked in development centers, far from getting giggles from dirty pictures would turn such film over to the police. This is how we used to be able to stay on top of the perverts who photographed children, or naked neighbors. Decent people were outraged and that’s why we didn’t really have stalking laws in those days: it was very self-regulated. A pervert who photographed his or her naked neighbor, or who stalked children with a camera, was not able to develop his or her own pictures, in general. So the appetite for such behavior was cut in the bud the first time a pervert took his or her pictures in for developing, and ended up getting a visit from the local police, who would personally know the victims. So now, thanks to both the technology and the prurient coarsening of values, we have just about smoothed and paved and enabled the way for everyone to be a pervert, even cultivating those desires in our children. This sort of stuff was kept under control by the lack of enabling technology and by the personal involvement of the decent citizens who would not stand for having such pictures taken of their children, neighbors, family or even acquaintances or strangers. Therefore we now see that victims of child pornography, both professional porn makers and amateurs, have their pictures circulated for years and years, being reduced to “that child” in “that room” “doing that sex act.”
But I am not done yet in my criticism since I’ve only discussed the problem with photography. We now must look with honesty at the entertainment industry and celebrity “PR.” What a vicious circle of negative feedback that has become, doing nothing as noble as even what the early Vietnam War photographs genuinely claimed to be. Actors and actresses run on a hamster wheel, where they do incredibly stupid surgeries to “enhance their looks,” who when that is not enough have standard use of air brushing, pancake makeup and “lighting” to look as “hot” as possible, only to then “dress down” to “get into role” of looking like, you know, the ordinary freaks of society that they are supposedly portraying in their films. It’s viewed as “bold” if someone in a film looks “natural.” Suddenly being larger than a Size 0 dress is “making a statement,” you know solidarity with the unwashed fatsos. So actors and actresses role model doing sick, depraved and false things to their own bodies to look “hot,” and then they use technology to make the resulting images even more impossible to achieve, and THEN they act like they have talent to look like the “ordinary, unbeautiful people.” If that is not a “loss of soul” due to the slavery of the photographer or cinematographer, I don’t know what is. Even more disturbing, then, is the backlash of now defining the “money shot” as being celebrities in “embarrassing poses,” such as blowing their noses (due to colds not cocaine, LOL), wearing something unflattering, or having an unsightly bulge. I’m not even talking about self inflicted disasters, such as scum boyfriends who make and sell personal sex tapes. I’m talking about the expectations of the viewing public, where photography is used to build up and/or tear down a person by making an image that millions view, that lasts and that “defines them” in the triviality of the real or artificial moment. They teach millions of fans and role model to young people the schizophrenic views of themselves, and also by example tell them “not to mind” and instead “work with it.” And then we wonder when our own children use cell phones to be violent stalkers and perverts. These celebrities and their handlers have taught “how to have your soul stolen via photography and cinematography.” There is, however, a difference because the big money making celebrities outlive bad photographs and their poor choices, while the “average person” aspires to be like them, but having to live with the real coarsening and consequences of their willing or unwilling posing.
So now we must look at the whole problem of the film making industry. The problems are so obvious (the violence, the perversion, the boring dismantling of real families and substitution with hip vampire zombies) that I’m not going to discuss them here except in support of my point about the soul stealing nature of photography. Compare the films of the past forty years with the films of prior to that time. As silly as some of the epic films were of the “good old days,” one can actually watch them without having one’s soul stolen. People “back then” were trying to provide entertainment and that’s why it came to be called the entertainment industry. Sure, they wanted to make money too, but in general, despite the celebrity hi-jinks and personal bad decisions, actors and actresses of those times were moving within a stable set of cultural values and did not have an agenda of coarsening and depravity, of either themselves or their audience. Even an old fashioned horror movie tried to scare the viewer with a specific situation, not an implied depressive impending Armageddon that is inevitable and cannot be escaped. Actors and actresses today have used their faces and bodies to “brand” false and depressive soul stealing scenarios that are repeatedly mass marketed and forced upon the public. Even stinker films make money, either overseas or going straight to DVD. They exploit people’s genuine and normal hunger for escapism and entertainment. But knowing that people are constantly hungry, to use an analogy, they teach them to only accept depressive polluted food.
See, in the really olden days, when people used to go to live theater and vaudeville, if you saw something awful once, it may have an impact, but when you walked out the theater you did not take with you a video and an action toy for your children. The liberal and conservative dummies who defend the depravity and depressiveness of the entertainment industry like to point to violent Greek plays, for example, or the opera (even calling science fiction “space opera.”) They imply that violence and depravity were always strong themes in entertainment. Well, um, yeah, duh, but they did not film and photograph them, since the tech did not exist, and so a one time strong “entertainment” experience did not live on forever and ever. People used to walk to observe a street or a stage performance, view it, and leave. That is why even strong entertainment in pre-electronic media times was valid, authentic and self regulated, because the experience was not created and preserved in order to indoctrinate to coarseness and traumatic (or at best mindless) agendas. For the past forty years I have resisted viewing just about every movie for exactly that reason. Folks, I’m not one of the sheep. I know exactly what has been going on all along, and I hate seeing the damage that has been done to two generations now. The unbelievable explicit violence of “realism” that infects even the most worthy of films is excusable. Just when I think, “Oh, here is a great film about a US President that children could learn from and enjoy,” there is an obligatory “body covered with pox sores” scene or “leg being blow off in navy battle” scene. I have a surprise for you. In ancient theater they did not try to make the awfulness of battle, illness or crime as “realistic as possible.” I mean, duh, think about it. It’s entertainment to get away from the hopefully unlikely viewing of some such thing in reality. I don’t need, and my kids certainly would not need, to see puss sores being carved off of a suffering dying boy when they want to see a film about President John Adams. Even if one staged a strong scene in live theater, at least it’s not on film to hold the viewer hostage again and again.
People need entertainment and they need movies. But people are also broken and prone to coarsening and addiction. I do not understand the soul stealing and soul losing decisions of forty years of film (and TV) makers who have a deliberate agenda of imagining themselves as the Vietnam War era prize winning photographer and who instead codify dehumanizing thoughts, feelings and behavior. It is not exactly a coincidence that many who erupt in violent crime watch reinforcing films over and over again. Defenders of the crap in the media try to argue those instances are rare. That is not the point because the point is not the ones who erupt, but the vast majority of the viewing public that have become indoctrinated to depressive, explicit and negative agenda ridden “entertainment.”
Not a day goes by that local news somewhere does not report a young mother, father or “boyfriend of the mother” who doesn’t sexually abuse or just torture and beat the living shit out of a crying helpless baby. Every time comments are allowed, normal people are, of course, enraged. But there are always those who just focus on the “unfit parent” aspect. Well, duh? These are the generation who view a steady diet of people as being unreal, of pain and rage as works of art, as justifiable. So a crying baby enrages these people, and they beat the shit right out of that crying baby. You have two generations now of young people who have been deprogrammed of normal feelings of restraint, self comprehension and empathy. Liberals want to teach “empathy” in the classroom, while they stir the depressive rage and depravity on the “silver screen” and on the TV. In Boston an aunt has been arrested for beating her niece, including stuffing frozen hot dogs up her vagina. Everyone makes excuses for individual “drowning” such as this without admitting that the past two generations have been already swimming in the tidal tsunami of dehumanizing depressive sewage called “entertainment.” That’s not being “realistic” and it’s not being “edgy.” I don’t even go to the movies yet I cannot avoid knowing the “big scenes,” you know, like sexual ejaculation being in the hair of an actor or actress, and that is in a “light comedy.” Or, are you really so blind and not self aware that you do not see the correlation between endless mortuary, CSI and "slab" scenes of "forensic" entertainment and the ability of a young man or woman to take that stupid demanding ugly crying baby and bash every rib, poke out her eyes, and just get her to shut the hell up? Fill a person with rage and teach them that humans are props, and that is what you have as a result, just look around and stop denying for the sake of your craving of false power and money.
So those unsophisticated and naïve quaint natives were not so far off base when they feared the camera as being soul stealing. It’s been done.
Most people know from watching old movies the old stereotype about “natives” who first encounter the “white man” with a camera at first fear the camera because the natives believe that it “steals their soul.” (Again, it’s a sad truth that most of people’s knowledge of culture and history, such as it is, comes from the old movies who inadvertently preserved some truth in addition to their purpose of entertainment and escapism.) So yes, it is true that many native people feared cameras because they did believe that it stole the soul. Have you ever thought about the fact that while superstition is, in general, just false beliefs based on “magical thinking,” that this one example of “superstition” has proved out to be startlingly true??
Here is my standard declaimer: I am not about to bash photography or photographers in general and I enjoy good photography and like to snap landscapes myself. But if those of you who are cell phone with camera manufacturers AND those of you in the mainstream media, both entertainment and news, feel a little uneasy about what I’m going to say, you would be showing good instinct.
Let us first look at photography in general when it first came into usage during news reporting. I’d like to talk about one famous photograph, just to work with a familiar example. There was a famous, heart breaking and seminal photograph taken during the Vietnam War of a small girl, naked from her clothes being burned off by USA dropped napalm, screaming as she runs down the street, burned over her body. This is an example of an outstanding photograph because of its capturing of a pivotal truth in Vietnam, which was the brutality of the collateral damage. It also was outstanding because she became a stark representation of the mostly nameless and faceless civilians, and everyone who saw the photograph was correctly shocked and moved. It also was outstanding by the measure of personal photographer skill and luck in combination, as he or she was in the right place at the right time to take an incredible photograph, and do so skillfully. Just about everyone would agree that the photograph of the girl is one of the most important photographs of the century.
But what about her soul? How would you feel if forever and ever you had been defined as being a naked and burned girl running down the street? So obviously I am not saying that her soul was sucked into the photograph. I am asking you to think about what a slippery slope the camera and media have taken people on, reducing the total identity of both public and private figures to one shot, to one image, to one message. You are probably also thinking of the other famous Vietnam photograph, of the kneeling Viet Cong man being shot in the head by the standing South Vietnamese army colonel or whatever. Again, it was one of the most important photographs of the era since it brought into people’s homes what a battlefield and some would argue a crazed and unjust execution looks like, what it really means to “have one’s brains blown out” by a bullet. (Gore fans, it does not actually show that, but the shocking moment when the impact of the bullet causes his head to move and his face to contort). And now, forever, this Viet Cong guy is preserved in a photograph that summarizes his entire life as the moment the bullet hit his brain.
When such “message oriented” photography first became popular, people had only the mainstream TV news channels and the news papers and magazines for their news. So in a way it was a manageable problem and this is why it never occurred to the photograph takers and publishers that perhaps even the greatest photograph has a problem of distilling an entire person’s life and identity into one visual image of trauma and degradation. People would see such a photograph and be shocked, obtain the news or message from its viewing, and then turn off the TV or eventually throw away the newspaper or magazine that published it. So these first early incredible news photographs, often taken in war, had an impact but they as an object of reduction of the individual’s entire life did not linger. One would have to do some research in order to see that photograph again.
But now everything has changed. First of all, we’ve gone from professional photographers to millions of amateurs who want “the money shot.” Now our children are taking naked pictures of themselves and each others and instantly messaging them to each other. Second, instead of naturally encountering sadness or horror, let’s say on the battlefield, or in a crime ridden neighborhood, our children are staging “beat downs” and “bum fights” so that they can film and photograph degradation. Third we have stalkers who photograph their victims and who have no constraint at all. Young people, those of you born too young to remember the times of the camera that needed development, this was how stalkers and perverts were kept in line. People who worked in development centers, far from getting giggles from dirty pictures would turn such film over to the police. This is how we used to be able to stay on top of the perverts who photographed children, or naked neighbors. Decent people were outraged and that’s why we didn’t really have stalking laws in those days: it was very self-regulated. A pervert who photographed his or her naked neighbor, or who stalked children with a camera, was not able to develop his or her own pictures, in general. So the appetite for such behavior was cut in the bud the first time a pervert took his or her pictures in for developing, and ended up getting a visit from the local police, who would personally know the victims. So now, thanks to both the technology and the prurient coarsening of values, we have just about smoothed and paved and enabled the way for everyone to be a pervert, even cultivating those desires in our children. This sort of stuff was kept under control by the lack of enabling technology and by the personal involvement of the decent citizens who would not stand for having such pictures taken of their children, neighbors, family or even acquaintances or strangers. Therefore we now see that victims of child pornography, both professional porn makers and amateurs, have their pictures circulated for years and years, being reduced to “that child” in “that room” “doing that sex act.”
But I am not done yet in my criticism since I’ve only discussed the problem with photography. We now must look with honesty at the entertainment industry and celebrity “PR.” What a vicious circle of negative feedback that has become, doing nothing as noble as even what the early Vietnam War photographs genuinely claimed to be. Actors and actresses run on a hamster wheel, where they do incredibly stupid surgeries to “enhance their looks,” who when that is not enough have standard use of air brushing, pancake makeup and “lighting” to look as “hot” as possible, only to then “dress down” to “get into role” of looking like, you know, the ordinary freaks of society that they are supposedly portraying in their films. It’s viewed as “bold” if someone in a film looks “natural.” Suddenly being larger than a Size 0 dress is “making a statement,” you know solidarity with the unwashed fatsos. So actors and actresses role model doing sick, depraved and false things to their own bodies to look “hot,” and then they use technology to make the resulting images even more impossible to achieve, and THEN they act like they have talent to look like the “ordinary, unbeautiful people.” If that is not a “loss of soul” due to the slavery of the photographer or cinematographer, I don’t know what is. Even more disturbing, then, is the backlash of now defining the “money shot” as being celebrities in “embarrassing poses,” such as blowing their noses (due to colds not cocaine, LOL), wearing something unflattering, or having an unsightly bulge. I’m not even talking about self inflicted disasters, such as scum boyfriends who make and sell personal sex tapes. I’m talking about the expectations of the viewing public, where photography is used to build up and/or tear down a person by making an image that millions view, that lasts and that “defines them” in the triviality of the real or artificial moment. They teach millions of fans and role model to young people the schizophrenic views of themselves, and also by example tell them “not to mind” and instead “work with it.” And then we wonder when our own children use cell phones to be violent stalkers and perverts. These celebrities and their handlers have taught “how to have your soul stolen via photography and cinematography.” There is, however, a difference because the big money making celebrities outlive bad photographs and their poor choices, while the “average person” aspires to be like them, but having to live with the real coarsening and consequences of their willing or unwilling posing.
So now we must look at the whole problem of the film making industry. The problems are so obvious (the violence, the perversion, the boring dismantling of real families and substitution with hip vampire zombies) that I’m not going to discuss them here except in support of my point about the soul stealing nature of photography. Compare the films of the past forty years with the films of prior to that time. As silly as some of the epic films were of the “good old days,” one can actually watch them without having one’s soul stolen. People “back then” were trying to provide entertainment and that’s why it came to be called the entertainment industry. Sure, they wanted to make money too, but in general, despite the celebrity hi-jinks and personal bad decisions, actors and actresses of those times were moving within a stable set of cultural values and did not have an agenda of coarsening and depravity, of either themselves or their audience. Even an old fashioned horror movie tried to scare the viewer with a specific situation, not an implied depressive impending Armageddon that is inevitable and cannot be escaped. Actors and actresses today have used their faces and bodies to “brand” false and depressive soul stealing scenarios that are repeatedly mass marketed and forced upon the public. Even stinker films make money, either overseas or going straight to DVD. They exploit people’s genuine and normal hunger for escapism and entertainment. But knowing that people are constantly hungry, to use an analogy, they teach them to only accept depressive polluted food.
See, in the really olden days, when people used to go to live theater and vaudeville, if you saw something awful once, it may have an impact, but when you walked out the theater you did not take with you a video and an action toy for your children. The liberal and conservative dummies who defend the depravity and depressiveness of the entertainment industry like to point to violent Greek plays, for example, or the opera (even calling science fiction “space opera.”) They imply that violence and depravity were always strong themes in entertainment. Well, um, yeah, duh, but they did not film and photograph them, since the tech did not exist, and so a one time strong “entertainment” experience did not live on forever and ever. People used to walk to observe a street or a stage performance, view it, and leave. That is why even strong entertainment in pre-electronic media times was valid, authentic and self regulated, because the experience was not created and preserved in order to indoctrinate to coarseness and traumatic (or at best mindless) agendas. For the past forty years I have resisted viewing just about every movie for exactly that reason. Folks, I’m not one of the sheep. I know exactly what has been going on all along, and I hate seeing the damage that has been done to two generations now. The unbelievable explicit violence of “realism” that infects even the most worthy of films is excusable. Just when I think, “Oh, here is a great film about a US President that children could learn from and enjoy,” there is an obligatory “body covered with pox sores” scene or “leg being blow off in navy battle” scene. I have a surprise for you. In ancient theater they did not try to make the awfulness of battle, illness or crime as “realistic as possible.” I mean, duh, think about it. It’s entertainment to get away from the hopefully unlikely viewing of some such thing in reality. I don’t need, and my kids certainly would not need, to see puss sores being carved off of a suffering dying boy when they want to see a film about President John Adams. Even if one staged a strong scene in live theater, at least it’s not on film to hold the viewer hostage again and again.
People need entertainment and they need movies. But people are also broken and prone to coarsening and addiction. I do not understand the soul stealing and soul losing decisions of forty years of film (and TV) makers who have a deliberate agenda of imagining themselves as the Vietnam War era prize winning photographer and who instead codify dehumanizing thoughts, feelings and behavior. It is not exactly a coincidence that many who erupt in violent crime watch reinforcing films over and over again. Defenders of the crap in the media try to argue those instances are rare. That is not the point because the point is not the ones who erupt, but the vast majority of the viewing public that have become indoctrinated to depressive, explicit and negative agenda ridden “entertainment.”
Not a day goes by that local news somewhere does not report a young mother, father or “boyfriend of the mother” who doesn’t sexually abuse or just torture and beat the living shit out of a crying helpless baby. Every time comments are allowed, normal people are, of course, enraged. But there are always those who just focus on the “unfit parent” aspect. Well, duh? These are the generation who view a steady diet of people as being unreal, of pain and rage as works of art, as justifiable. So a crying baby enrages these people, and they beat the shit right out of that crying baby. You have two generations now of young people who have been deprogrammed of normal feelings of restraint, self comprehension and empathy. Liberals want to teach “empathy” in the classroom, while they stir the depressive rage and depravity on the “silver screen” and on the TV. In Boston an aunt has been arrested for beating her niece, including stuffing frozen hot dogs up her vagina. Everyone makes excuses for individual “drowning” such as this without admitting that the past two generations have been already swimming in the tidal tsunami of dehumanizing depressive sewage called “entertainment.” That’s not being “realistic” and it’s not being “edgy.” I don’t even go to the movies yet I cannot avoid knowing the “big scenes,” you know, like sexual ejaculation being in the hair of an actor or actress, and that is in a “light comedy.” Or, are you really so blind and not self aware that you do not see the correlation between endless mortuary, CSI and "slab" scenes of "forensic" entertainment and the ability of a young man or woman to take that stupid demanding ugly crying baby and bash every rib, poke out her eyes, and just get her to shut the hell up? Fill a person with rage and teach them that humans are props, and that is what you have as a result, just look around and stop denying for the sake of your craving of false power and money.
So those unsophisticated and naïve quaint natives were not so far off base when they feared the camera as being soul stealing. It’s been done.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
A comment about my style of blogging
In this blog I deliberately write as if I am orally conversing with a person. Thus I do not write as if this was a piece for publication. I deliberately use conversational tools, such as starting sentences with "So," "But," "And," and using terms such as "literally" and other less than proper grammar and verbiage. I do this since I often go for days without actually speaking to a person, so I "pretend" I am "speaking" to "you." I have a traditional Ivy League education in writing and retain skills such as sentence diagramming that actually very few moderns have today. There is no reason to be haughty about my writing abilities, and you all look much more attractive when your noses are not so high up in the air.
Monday, October 13, 2008
To answer a question from a cruel "boss"
I was desperate for work and a paycheck, since I was trying to keep my home. And so I interviewed with a man who ran a small software company in the health services industry. He was arrogant and a real putz. He was Jewish and spent all day on the computer looking up Holocaust information so that he could continue to seethe about it, even though he was a young, well off man and one who had a company who depended on him for guidance. He exuded a miasma of hate about what had happened in Germany, and it hung around him like a hateful and angry cloud.
When I first went to his office for my job interview, he asked strange questions. One was "What is your favorite book?" I was totally silent in that matter, somewhat surprised, and I answered honestly that I do not have "a favorite book."
Needless to say he sneered about that and thought all sorts of bad things about me. I got the job but was tortured throughout for several weeks, until being fired, despite my being as humble as possible (I had even dumbed down my resume as much as possible without lying).
He's one of the few people I've encountered that I have spared a few thoughts of wishing that not very nice things would befall him. I saw how the hardworking people in that company were abused, and the customers delayed in receiving their product, all so he could sit in the office and drudge through the Internet, looking for Holocaust information that would maintain his seething and his anger. It apparently was a "family" interest, as a relative of his wrote a book that had much of the same purpose, I guess, from what I read in the book reviews. So he would ignore the business decisions that were needed so that he could sit on this throne and seethe and judge. I could tell he especially enjoyed hurting me, for being a Christian I think, and for other very unwell reasons. God will punish him, no doubt, in his own time.
I wonder what he expected me to answer regarding the "favorite book." Did he expect me to say the Bible? The Bible is not my "favorite book" like some sort of Ellery Queen novel. The Bible is life. It is the Word of God. It is not my "favorite book." Rather, I can attest to the Bible's full authority, as a living witness. And so I could not demean the Bible by calling it my "favorite book."
And if not the Bible then what? Is a favorite book not one that you turn to for constant comfort and enjoyment, one that helps in the search for answers? But again, I do not have a favorite book. At the time I owned thousands of books and enjoyed them all! I consider a book a "good read" if I get even one thing out of it, a beautiful or moving scene, great dialogue, interesting plot, useful information and best of all, ideas for creativity. Having to choose "one book" for me is impossible, as it is for a mom to pick one child over the other. Even more so, being asked what is my favorite book is like if a mom was asked "which of your children mothers you the best?" It is backwards and makes no sense. Isn't a first aid manual your favorite book if you need it during a medical emergency? When you are hungry don't you enjoy your cook book? And sure, Lord of the Rings was reliable escapism reading, and could be turned to frequently when in that mood. But what is a "favorite book?" A crutch? Who needs a crutch, and who needs a "sound byte" interview answer?
And so, mister Holocaust obsessed man, my favorite book is the book of humans being humans, living in God's created world. And who can do better than that? Let me remind you that the holiest humans lived before the printing press was even invented, when no one even owned a scroll of their own, say nothing of a "selection." People were better before they had "shortcuts" to being told how to behave and what to think. People really need nothing more than to live "within" the Word of God, whether Torah/Talmud, Bible or Qur'an.
When I first went to his office for my job interview, he asked strange questions. One was "What is your favorite book?" I was totally silent in that matter, somewhat surprised, and I answered honestly that I do not have "a favorite book."
Needless to say he sneered about that and thought all sorts of bad things about me. I got the job but was tortured throughout for several weeks, until being fired, despite my being as humble as possible (I had even dumbed down my resume as much as possible without lying).
He's one of the few people I've encountered that I have spared a few thoughts of wishing that not very nice things would befall him. I saw how the hardworking people in that company were abused, and the customers delayed in receiving their product, all so he could sit in the office and drudge through the Internet, looking for Holocaust information that would maintain his seething and his anger. It apparently was a "family" interest, as a relative of his wrote a book that had much of the same purpose, I guess, from what I read in the book reviews. So he would ignore the business decisions that were needed so that he could sit on this throne and seethe and judge. I could tell he especially enjoyed hurting me, for being a Christian I think, and for other very unwell reasons. God will punish him, no doubt, in his own time.
I wonder what he expected me to answer regarding the "favorite book." Did he expect me to say the Bible? The Bible is not my "favorite book" like some sort of Ellery Queen novel. The Bible is life. It is the Word of God. It is not my "favorite book." Rather, I can attest to the Bible's full authority, as a living witness. And so I could not demean the Bible by calling it my "favorite book."
And if not the Bible then what? Is a favorite book not one that you turn to for constant comfort and enjoyment, one that helps in the search for answers? But again, I do not have a favorite book. At the time I owned thousands of books and enjoyed them all! I consider a book a "good read" if I get even one thing out of it, a beautiful or moving scene, great dialogue, interesting plot, useful information and best of all, ideas for creativity. Having to choose "one book" for me is impossible, as it is for a mom to pick one child over the other. Even more so, being asked what is my favorite book is like if a mom was asked "which of your children mothers you the best?" It is backwards and makes no sense. Isn't a first aid manual your favorite book if you need it during a medical emergency? When you are hungry don't you enjoy your cook book? And sure, Lord of the Rings was reliable escapism reading, and could be turned to frequently when in that mood. But what is a "favorite book?" A crutch? Who needs a crutch, and who needs a "sound byte" interview answer?
And so, mister Holocaust obsessed man, my favorite book is the book of humans being humans, living in God's created world. And who can do better than that? Let me remind you that the holiest humans lived before the printing press was even invented, when no one even owned a scroll of their own, say nothing of a "selection." People were better before they had "shortcuts" to being told how to behave and what to think. People really need nothing more than to live "within" the Word of God, whether Torah/Talmud, Bible or Qur'an.
A quiz for cultist New Age morons
Please read this article about "Dr. Martin King."
http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-health-news/2008/10/13/birmingham-hospital-sacks-doctor-after-breast-cancer-patient-s-death-65233-22026520/
snip
A consultant was sacked by a Birmingham hospital following an internal inquiry into why a breast cancer patient died just 48 hours after having reconstructive surgery.
University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Queen Elizabeth and Selly Oak hospitals, ended Dr Martin King’s contract on September 18.
Debbie Yardley, of Quinton, was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2003 - six months after a mammogram which showed tissue abnormalities was misplaced by staff, and as a result she was not recalled for further treatment.
Just weeks later, on July 2, doctors revealed the cancer had spread and the 45-year-old mother underwent a double mastectomy. Two years later Mrs Yardley underwent reconstructive breast surgery at Selly Oak Hospital.
But Dr King failed to notice after the six-hour surgery, when staff removed a ventilation tube, that she suffered a laryngospasm which caused the larynx to close, stopping air getting to her lungs, and as a result she suffered a cardio respiratory arrest.
Independent experts later found that Mrs Yardley has been given more than double the recommended dose of Bupivacaine, which is believed to have contributed to her death.
OK, now here is a multiple choice list, please choose one reason you believe that Mrs Yardley died:
1. The doctor and the hospital seem to have performed incompetently and thus caused her to die.
2. She had "bad planets" in her horoscope chart "Cancer" sector.
3. She was a bad or sad lady in a "previous life" and "deserved to die" to "restore the balance."
4. The doctor has the name of a famous black man USA Civil Rights leader, and he was assassinated, and so it is "karma" that the doctor should cause the death of some woman to "make up" for Dr. Martin Luther King beign assassinated.
5. She was infested with "body thetans" left behind by the evil Xenu and she didn't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with $cientology to become "super human" and thus "not get cancer."
6. God is really mean and picked on her for some reason.
7. She was "reincarnated" from the Titanic, and thus having died "under water" she had trouble breathing during the surgery and that caused her larynx to close (never mind it not being noticed or the inappropriate treatment of drug overdosing she is suspected to have received).
8. She had lots of "past lives" as a "man" and thus her "present body shell" was "confused" when she had female breasts, and thus "rejected them."
Readers, I wish I was kidding and exhibiting sick humor but I am not. I have had years of evil people actually wishing that I would get cancer because they believed one of the above answers. Seriously.
Um, the correct answer is of course the first one. Everything else is the product of a sick mind that makes even the genuine Satan blush. God will punish all of you who have thought this way and acted based on those beliefs.
Oh, and just so you know I don't hold a grudge. I've decided that I will resume being compassionate, loving and caring of cancer patients (yes, even the blaspheming idolaters who are going to hell anyway), but just to show "respect" for your "beliefs," I guess I won't actually pray for you and act on that compassion until Pluto ("my ruling planet") enters that wonderful sign of "compassion" "Pisces." Cheerio until then, cancer suffering cultists.
http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-health-news/2008/10/13/birmingham-hospital-sacks-doctor-after-breast-cancer-patient-s-death-65233-22026520/
snip
A consultant was sacked by a Birmingham hospital following an internal inquiry into why a breast cancer patient died just 48 hours after having reconstructive surgery.
University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Queen Elizabeth and Selly Oak hospitals, ended Dr Martin King’s contract on September 18.
Debbie Yardley, of Quinton, was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2003 - six months after a mammogram which showed tissue abnormalities was misplaced by staff, and as a result she was not recalled for further treatment.
Just weeks later, on July 2, doctors revealed the cancer had spread and the 45-year-old mother underwent a double mastectomy. Two years later Mrs Yardley underwent reconstructive breast surgery at Selly Oak Hospital.
But Dr King failed to notice after the six-hour surgery, when staff removed a ventilation tube, that she suffered a laryngospasm which caused the larynx to close, stopping air getting to her lungs, and as a result she suffered a cardio respiratory arrest.
Independent experts later found that Mrs Yardley has been given more than double the recommended dose of Bupivacaine, which is believed to have contributed to her death.
OK, now here is a multiple choice list, please choose one reason you believe that Mrs Yardley died:
1. The doctor and the hospital seem to have performed incompetently and thus caused her to die.
2. She had "bad planets" in her horoscope chart "Cancer" sector.
3. She was a bad or sad lady in a "previous life" and "deserved to die" to "restore the balance."
4. The doctor has the name of a famous black man USA Civil Rights leader, and he was assassinated, and so it is "karma" that the doctor should cause the death of some woman to "make up" for Dr. Martin Luther King beign assassinated.
5. She was infested with "body thetans" left behind by the evil Xenu and she didn't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars with $cientology to become "super human" and thus "not get cancer."
6. God is really mean and picked on her for some reason.
7. She was "reincarnated" from the Titanic, and thus having died "under water" she had trouble breathing during the surgery and that caused her larynx to close (never mind it not being noticed or the inappropriate treatment of drug overdosing she is suspected to have received).
8. She had lots of "past lives" as a "man" and thus her "present body shell" was "confused" when she had female breasts, and thus "rejected them."
Readers, I wish I was kidding and exhibiting sick humor but I am not. I have had years of evil people actually wishing that I would get cancer because they believed one of the above answers. Seriously.
Um, the correct answer is of course the first one. Everything else is the product of a sick mind that makes even the genuine Satan blush. God will punish all of you who have thought this way and acted based on those beliefs.
Oh, and just so you know I don't hold a grudge. I've decided that I will resume being compassionate, loving and caring of cancer patients (yes, even the blaspheming idolaters who are going to hell anyway), but just to show "respect" for your "beliefs," I guess I won't actually pray for you and act on that compassion until Pluto ("my ruling planet") enters that wonderful sign of "compassion" "Pisces." Cheerio until then, cancer suffering cultists.
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