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My Role Model

He was a good man. He did nothing wrong. He healed the deaf, the blind, the lame. He fed thousands. When I needed Him, He was always there.

I was happy as a child. I had good parents. He gave them to me. I had good grandparents. A pool to swim in. Good aunts and uncles. A full belly.

I sat on my Pop-Pop's lap. I watched the birds feed. He gave me that, too. He gave me my Pop-Pop's love. He gave me my Mom's love. He gave me my Dad's love. He gave me my Grandma and Pappy's love. I was full of love.

Then He gave me play. He gave me lots of play. He gave me four good dogs. He gave me piano playing skills. He gave me writing skills. He gave me lots of love. He gave me lots of talents.

He gave me friends. They were good friends. He gave me freedom of speech and religion. He gave me cooking skills. He gave me poems in my dreams. He gave me knowledge of math. He gave me knowledge of history. He gave me knowledge of science. He gave me knowledge of people. He gave me knowledge of English.

What did they do to Him? They took Him. They beat Him. They whipped Him. They scourged Him. They spat on Him. They teased Him. They put nails in his hand and feet. He hung. And then they cut him with a spear.

I didn't do my homework. I got a little crazy. But I passed school. I had work. I have a good brother. I learned to love him.

I made mistakes. I hurt people. I told lies. I got angry at God and told Him mean things. I did what I wasn't supposed to do. A lot of things I wasn't supposed to do. God did a lot of good things for me. And I thanked Him with doing bad.

I played violent video games. I was alone a lot. I didn't like anyone but myself for a while. Then God showed me love. And I fell in love. With who? With Peace. And I loved Peace. And I was bad. But then I knew what was good.

And I loved Peace so much. It was my constant friend. And I took it everywhere I went. It taught me good. It taught me what was bad. I saw lots of beautiful art in school. And then I saw ugly. That sort of taught me good and bad. But Peace taught me what was good and what was bad. And that man on a donkey and colt taught me peace.

I fell in love with good. And I hated evil. So I wrote everything I knew. Every drop of what I knew. I wrote it. When I was sixteen I began writing what I knew. And at age 35 I continue to write what I know. And I know Peace is good. And I know He is good. They killed Him because He was good. They hated Him because He was good. He set an example for me to follow.

I knew what I did was wrong. Whenever I did something bad, I knew it was bad. That didn't stop me. But I think it's the same for everyone. They know it's bad, but they still do what's wrong. But they do it anyway. My friend saves us from that. His name is Jesus. And He is my role model.

He is my teacher. He teaches me everything I need to know. He gives me peace. And when I'm sad, I know He still loves me. I know He loves me because I see it every day. Food on my table. I have a comfortable bed. I have clothes in my dresser. And even if I didn't have those things, I still see what He did for me. He hung on a cross, and bled and died.

What I learned about life is it is not good. It is full of evil and sadness. I cried a lot in my life. I cried over good men dying. I cried over evil men getting rich. I cried over little children being naughty. I cried a lot. I cried because I was naughty, too.

At times, I don't want to go on. But then I think of Him. And I know He would want me to carry on. I know He loves me because scars are on his hands and ankles. That says He loves me. If I get nothing more in life, I know He did a good thing for me. He's good.

Stupidity

I saw the rise on the left,
Great, and gross and illiberal things
That no sane or rational man
Could tolerate--yet it was.

Then, a Beast arose, and squashed it
With his lion's paws, and stripped liberty
Away, while cloaking his decrees:
"I shall set you free!"

I stood flabbergasted.
I knew not which side to 
Ally with, for both were false causes.

The Good Friar Said

The good friar in his sermon on sunday said these things,
And it was true, yet borrowed them
From Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor:

Had Jesus been tempted to turn the stone into bread
He'd simply be a man who feeds the people.

Had Jesus been tempted to throw himself off the ledge
Jesus would simply be a street magician.

Had Jesus taken the world from Satan
He'd simply be a dictator.

Thus, we must know these three core facts:

Christ is not a means to get rich or be fed;
Christ is not a means to perform gross illusions;
Christ is not a means to usurp power.

Tiers of Intelligence

There’s tiers of intelligence. I’m just going to go over them.

1.Reactive. It just moves according to stimuli.
2.Interactive. It interacts with things in its environment.
3.Communitive. It understands how to socialize with other lifeforms.
4.Extra-communitive. It forms into social hierarchies and communities and forms social behaviors.
5.Existential. It has an awareness of self. And possibly a sense of humor.
6.Extra Existential. It not only has an awareness of self, but also has an ego—will look into a mirror is an example of this.
7.Creative. It has cathexis, and needs creative activity to keep it interested. Elephants and Dolphins are the only animals known to have this so far. Not even Chimpanzees. Maybe Rats.

Now above this, only humans have.

8. Reason. The ability to put things together, and build upon them to higher principles, and find things through putting things together in new ways.

9. Judgment. The ability to correctly identify right and wrong.

10. Logos. The ability to not only judge and reason, but correctly interpret patterns and understand them the right way.

11. Prophetic. The ability to construct patterns, and predict them. Which is what Calculus does, actually. You need a Prophetic Intelligence to understand it. (I don’t mean “Prophet” as in a Bible Prophet, but rather someone who can understand and predict behaviors and trends before they happen, by analyzing previous data. Or an ability to form conclusions with incomplete data.)

Some people have high IQs but lack certain kinds of intelligence, and some people have lower IQs but have the higher cognitions. It’s really not about IQ, but your capacity. And unfortunately, having a High IQ doesn’t always correlate with having higher forms of cognition. It really only measures Reason.

I’d also say, some people only come to tier 6. So, there are some animals that are more intelligent than humans. But, humanity has a moral worth the animals don’t. I don’t know how to quantify that, but it’s not necessarily intelligence that makes us human, but God’s image being borne in us. That’s the only thing I can say… and why humanity has a moral worth higher than all other life forms on Earth.

Idiocracy: “Not Realistic?”

As a writer of sci-fi myself, people tend to think something's "Not Realistic" when in fact it follows the proverb, "A bit dog howls."

Unfortunately, this is happening in real time, and the internet is the cause of it. Too many simplistic conversations, and while I don't believe it's caused by ill breeding, what it is caused by is information overload, and moving people from topic to topic.

Just for reference, in the past 3 months, there was an assassination on a CEO which was forgotten instantly, then a Black Hawk Helicopter that crashed into an Air Liner, and then a near disastrous episode where the president of Ukraine and Trump had a violent disagreement on Live TV.

So, just for reference, I think the movie has some extremely prescient thoughts regarding reality, and at the time it was released, in 2005 these problems were nascent, and you have to see the issue through Mike Judge's eyes, that it was spurred on by two people fighting at Disney, with strollers nearby. You have to see the tyranny of the Corporations threatening it with lawsuits for criticizing them... Which should never happen in a free country, as if you can't criticize power--including corporations--you have a real problem on your hand.

The show and all the controversy surrounding it, shows the lead up to what is happening right now. In stark nakedness.

Exposition on the Whole Bible

Genesis (Old Testament begins)
So, Genesis is a collection of stories, from the Patriarchal line, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It details things like the Creation of the World, and gives several Allegorical reflections, through the lens of History. Not much unlike Plutarch or Herodotus would. It’s the tradition, handed down through the Patriarchs of the Hebrews, when they made their migrations from Mesopotamia and then into Egypt. Featured in this book are Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.

Exodus
Exodus is probably the second most famous book of the Old Testament, next to Genesis. It’s the story of Moses. Basically, the giving of the Law, the diaspora out of Egypt and into the Wilderness. The reason why they had to spend 40 years wandering the desert, all culminating into the birth of the Nation of Israel.

Leviticus
Is a book of Law. Basically, it’s all the law of the Old Testament. What the Jews followed. It finds roots in Abraham’s system, handed down to Hammurabi, which is why you find parallels in Old Amorite Law of the same thing as the Bible. Because Abraham was an Amorite, and that law was handed down to Moses through manuscripts probably written by Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph.

Numbers
Numbers is a list of numbers, of the tribes, and various genealogies. It’s really the most boring book of the Bible, but it has some high moments, like Korah and Balaam. Some stories are in here, but not very many, and I’d recommend most people shy away from Numbers altogether, unless you’re a very serious Bible Student already and know exactly what you’re getting yourself into. It can lead to nasty habits like Divination, as you might think the throwing of lots is still a thing—it’s not. It’s a very very boring book. Probably one of the most boring things to read in history, and I’d recommend avoiding it, until you’re no longer even intermediate. It also has some of the Jewish laws regarding the tabernacle. 

Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy is a book like Leviticus. It has the same laws, found in the end of Exodus, and the same ones in Leviticus—Exodus also has some of the Hebraic law, too, which I forgot to mention. It’s more advanced than Leviticus, and probably like all parts of the Bible, it’s repeated through multiple attestations of witnesses, and written records. Which is why everything in the Bible seems to be repeated more than once, it’s because it’s being compiled by two or more sources each, to create a testimony based on multiple witnesses.

Joshua
Joshua was the person after Moses, given command to lead the nation. It’s a story of the wars of Canaan and the justification of the battles, which is that Canaan was sinning and they did all sorts of wicked crimes imaginable. So, Joshua was given directive to conquer the land of Canaan, and give it to the Israelites. Not because of their righteousness, but because of the lands wickedness, so it says in Deuteronomy. Jericho is in this book.

Judges
Is the story of the line of Judges—basically warrior kings who restored order in the land. Israel was called to live only by the Law, and that was their only law. And they had judges who executed the law, and delivered them from their enemies. Gideon and Samson are in this book.

Ruth
Is about the woman Ruth—David's grandmother—and how she fell in love with Boaz, and married him, and basically was made into his wife through a beautiful story. And this shows that a person of a race that isn't necessarily of the law, if they give up their heritage, are grafted into the Nation of Israel completely, like they never were anything but an Israelite totally.

1 Samuel
This follows the Prophet Samuel who picks Saul as king. And 1 Samuel is Saul's story.

2 Samuel
This follows the Prophet Samuel who picks David as King, and David's exploits, which Saul was not a good authority, so he lost it, and was given his kingdom to David. And then David's various sins.

1 Kings
This deals with a block of Jewish history.

2 Kings
This deals with the latter block of Jewish History.

1 Chronicles
This deals with the whole of Jewish History, the first part.

2 Chronicles
This deals with the whole of Jewish History the second part. As a note both books of Chronicles are repetitions of the stories in the books of Samuel and Kings.

Ezra
Ezra is the history after the Captivity to Babylon.

Nehemiah
Is also the history after the Captivity to Babylon.

Esther
Is a history of the Jews in Babylon, and how Mordicai saved them from being utterly destroyed, through his adopted Daughter Esther. 

Job
Is probably the third most famous book in the Bible. It's the book where God brings disaster on a man, who's faithful, and the man has to patiently endure it. It's a dialogue on the Theodicy. Basically, God's God, and Job has to trust in His righteousness alone to deliver him, not Job's righteousness.

Psalms (The middle of the Bible*)
This is a book of hymns sung by the Psalters of the Jewish People. Very popular among Christians. And also full of prophecies about prosperity and righteousness.

Proverbs
Is wisdom literature, giving a bunch of aphoristic sayings that are compiled in an order, to create a theme. Some of the most profound literature in history, is found here.

Ecclesiastes
This is everyone's favorite book outside of the Gospels. It's just a wisdom literature, reversing wisdom, and seeing what's actually purposeful in this life. And it gives a VERY good answer.

Song of Solomon
A book of wisdom on the passion of love, and God's relationship with the Church. Basically, the Shulamite has to choose the Shepherd over Solomon and his gold, And the Shepherd has to come and basically take her away from Solomon's harem. It's basically the plot point of every lifetime movie. The snarky, rich jerk gets put aside for the woman's true love, who is the provincial farm boy who actually can care about her. And the two must spar for her hand.

Isaiah
This gets into the most important part of the Bible. The prophecies. Isaiah is a description of Prophecies regarding fighting back, even though you've sinned. Assyria has captured the Northern kingdom of Israel—both kingdoms split after Solomon, with Rehoboam, and so the Northern Kingdom was conquered by Assyria, due to its sin, and Hezekiah had a revival of the Israelite People's faith, and restored the kingdom to faith so it was saved from disaster.

Jeremiah
Is a little different. Judah is going into captivity, but Jeremiah is pleading with it so it won't. Another good example of the Theodicy, is a good man having misfortune because of a bad culture. Jeremiah has a horrible life, and is thrown in prison, and taken against his will to do what God explicitly forbade him to do. And Jeremiah is a victim of a cruel culture, which ultimately catalyzes in Jerusalem's fall.

Lamentations
A prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem, and a lamentation about sin.

Ezekiel
Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel is prophesying the fall of Jerusalem, and is prophesying the horrid things that will happen to it. It's already going to be destroyed, and he's telling the people who were taken to Babylon to not look back, but to look forward and make their lives in Babylon because they aren't going back to Jerusalem. But a remnant will be restored, and brought back to Jerusalem, at the end. 

Daniel
Daniel is probably one of the most important books of the Bible. It has a ton of End Days Prophecies, and it gets into all the most important stuff. Also Shadrach Meshack and Abedinigo are here, and so is the story of Daniel and the Lion's den. Basically, Daniel is made Satrap because of his righteousness, and it's a story telling us how we're to gain our possession of life, in an unrighteous society, which is not budging on the truth.

Hosea
Talks about the Christian's walk. You either walk as Judah, Israel or Ephraim, and it's a pattern of the Christian's walk, and redemption. It's an allegory through prophecy of the trial of a Christian.

Joel
Joel talks about the ministry of the Two Olives in Revelation, and the War of Armageddon.

Amos
Is a prophecy detailing the sins of all the nations, that leads Babylon to Conquer it.

Obadiah
Is a short prophecy about Edom, which is a principality against Israel. It comes from Jacob's Brother Ishmael, and how they persecuted Israel during their captivity, and this will lead to their destruction. It's probably about Abaddon.

Jonah
Probably the fourth most famous book in the Old Testament, is Jonah, which is just a book about Jonah's prophecy to Nineveh, which caused it to be restored and Jonah was quite mad about this, actually. But, he prophesied, and Nineveh wasn't destroyed through his prophecies. I'm sure God rewarded him after his temper tantrum. He was a reluctant prophet, showing the compulsion of prophecy, that if you have a prophetic burden, God will cause you no matter what to fulfill it. NO MATTER WHAT. God will cause you to fulfill your prophetic ministry if you have one.

Micah
Is about the prophets of the End Days, the two Olive Trees, and their ministry.

Nahum
Is about one of the three end days figures. 

Habakkuk
Habakkuk is too.

Zephaniah
So is Zephaniah.

Haggai
Is about rebuilding the temple, and about doing what's right, and restoring the temple to its former condition, after the captivity.

Zechariah
Is an end days prophecy concerning the War of Armageddon and various curses that will happen, and also various blessings.

Malachi
Is about another of the two Olive Trees.

Matthew (New Testament begins)
Matthew is the first book of the New Testament, and is about The Ministry of Jesus, in the framework of a Jewish Messiah.

Mark
Is another Gospel, about the Works of Jesus, and how good He is. Mark is snappy, phenomenal, and is one of my absolute favorite, if not my all time favorite, book of the Bible. It's just the Gospel in the most simple, and concise, and action packed way possible.

Luke
Is another Gospel, about the Messiah Jesus and His Ministry in the framework of a Savior of the Gentiles.

John
Is a book of Jesus' secret teachings, and His most in depth, and most esoteric sayings, that only John records, but this is probably the most important Gospel of them all, as it tells you, explicitly, salvation is in faith alone, through Christ's work, and the one who Believes on Jesus, that is the one who is saved.

Acts
Is about the Apostles—only some of them, as many of them don't make an appearance—and their ministry throughout the world. And this is where Paul gets introduced. Paul is the replacement of Judas Iscariot. And Paul has a ministry to the Gentiles, and you see Peter, Paul and James' ministry, as well as some of the others.

Romans
Is about the way Salvation works. And some of the Laws not taught in the Gospels, it's found in Romans. It's basically the method by which you're saved, which is much of Paul's writings, is telling you about how salvation works.

1 Corinthians
Is a diatribe against sin in the church, and how we're not to be sinners, or do unlawful deeds. And also how grace works.

2 Corinthians
Is a follow up, where Paul talks more about how grace works, and admonishes the church for its excesses and its lascivious lifestyle. 

Galatians
Is a polemic against the Jewish Law. We're no longer to follow it. At all. Like, all those books of Moses, those are good stories, but our primary Law is found in the Gospel. Nowhere else.

Ephesians
Is a work telling you how Grace Works, and God's election. And also commends you to put on Christ, and defeat the world.

Philippians
Is a book exhorting you to a life of godliness, and good works and charity, while distinguishing you to do what's right. This is probably the one book I've studied least, actually, as I drew a blank with it.

Colossians
Is a book that tells you not to obey the Hebraic laws, again. It tells you explicitly that the Gospel is in Christ Jesus, and the Law in the New Testament alone.

1 Thessalonians
Is talking to the church in Thessalonians, and it's talking about living righteously, and faith.

2 Thessalonians
Is talking about the life of a Believer, and how to identify the Antichrist when he comes.

1 Timothy
Is a book exhorting Pastoral Care, and giving teachings to Ministry, and teaching Church Organization.

2 Timothy
Is another book exhorting Pastoral Care, and giving teachings to ministry, and teaching Church Organization.

Titus
Is another book exhorting Pastoral Care, and giving teachings to ministry, and teaching Church Organization.

Philemon
Is a master class on the Gospel. It tells us how to break the law in love, in order to exhort our fellow members of Christ, and do what's good in mercy.

Hebrews
Is a way of explaining the how the Law prophesied Christ, and gives very unique pictures of how the Old Testament foreshadowed Christ's coming and His work of Salvation, throughout the whole Hebrew Law.

James
Is a book of wisdom, teaching you righteous living.

1 Peter
Is the teachings of Peter, exhorting you to a life of righteousness.

2 Peter
Is another book teaching you righteousness, but he deals with the end days, and makes many prophecies concerning Antichrist in this book.

1 John
Is an exhortation of Christian love and charity, and how we're to work works of righteousness in Christ, and love our brother, and it also teaches us how to identify Antichrist when he comes.

2 John
Is a short exhortation to righteousness.

3 John
Is an exhortation to a good man, to have godly prosperity.

Jude
Is one of the most esoteric books in the Bible, but it deals primarily with living righteously, and letting go of all sin, how faith cannot be mixed with unrighteousness or the fruits of ungodliness.

Revelation
Is a prophecy of John's, dealing with the entire mode of the End Days, which will follow in chronological order of the events it describes. So, it's basically a chronology of the sufferings of this world, created by Antichrist in order to destroy the world, and it's the testing of the Elect's salvation and fruits.

The Sloth and the Jaguar

There was a sloth who could only move slowly. No matter how fast he stretched his muscles, he couldn't but slowly climb up the tree and down the tree, slowly swim across the river, yet always had a perpetual smile. He nourished himself on the sap of the trees, and ate berries, but slowly metabolized his food, and that was why he moved so slowly.

The Jaguar, on the other hand, ran fast, and gobbled up all he could. He blended into the trees with his spots, and was swift, mighty, feared even, for no one could see him coming when he approached.

The Sloth, however, was noticed by him, as the Sloth went about his work slowly climbing, and making steady progress for his meals. The Sloth could do nothing, for it was his nature to move slowly, so he was helpless. But the Sloth did nothing wrong for he did all he could.