On My Writing

The hardest part, was when I was a bit younger, I had absolutely terrible prose. It’s still not the best—so people say, but I have a PA Dutch roll where I poetically inflect things, and use generative syntax.

But, just developing a style people would read.

The Love of Another, took me 10 years to finish. My first drafts were word salad, but I edited that work about 100 times. I just kept editing it, and editing it, learning.

So, I had a short story about the World War IV in my collection. And my other novel was consistently being edited as I worked. And my dad had a hand in editing it, too, but he got Then and Than completely mixed up. But, he did a pretty good job.

But I could see the difference in my short story. It was just rough. A lot of verbosity that didn’t need to be in there, a lot of function words… I edited it about 7 years after I wrote the thing. That one my uncle read, and said it was terrible. And it was… it was poorly written, but I had to come into my style.

Well, I had an English Teacher as a friend, and we argued consistently about my style. Well, to prove her wrong, I wrote a story called The Riddle in the Sea, where I used no Helper Verbs, Adverbs, Pronouns or Conjunctions. In the Dialogue I did. And… lo and behold, that act of rebellion improved my writing style immediately. It made my style more concrete.

So, I’d say finding my voice was the hardest hurdle, as I had the ideas. I was very structured—the English Teacher friend said my structure was perfect—and I had the ideas. I just needed to clean up my language.

I’d say also an 051 English Course, that just went over all the basics of syntax and punctuation, helped a lot, too. It just taught me to use commas, and semicolons, and colons, and em dashes… So I just got better progressively.

And I’d say Hail Britannica helped too. I wrote a first draft, and went over the entire thing, replacing Latin and French words with German and Old English words. Which helped crisp my language a lot. Which, that work I actually dreamt before writing it. So it is the proper Epic Poem, like John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.

Which, funny story about that Epic Poem, I had a vision or something, of a friend who was going to give me a Dream Machine. This shows up in my writing. And I had a conversation about the book before it was ever written. And in the vision, it was a chalice of blood that I had to drink, that I don’t remember drinking (The Cup of the LORD’s Wrath). But, in real life, I walked back through my hallway, and prayed not to receive it. And my friend disappeared. So, I still have this dream spirit attacking me—I think it was a curse—but like John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, it is also prophetic.

Which, the Lord says in Isaiah:

21 Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:

22 Thus saith thy Lord the Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:

23 But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street, to them that went over.

On a Modern Crusade

This would go down as one of the greatest tragedies in history, if Christians actually did this. It'd prove to the world how backward we are, and make the religion die in one flew. People like me would understand, and stand out of it... and just be like Noah or Abraham, one of only a few people in the world who know God... but this is not good lines of thinking. This is bordering on dangerous... and I just got to put my two cents in, as my goal is to see the religion flourish a long time from now. Let us be the victims, rather than the barbarians. As then we'll have the support we need. Like in Rome, we didn't fight Rome, we allowed ourselves to be victims, and that gained the ear of Constantine.

The Force and Knowledge

[W]hat corrupted [Anikin] was acting loose with the force. It’s like knowledge, you can corrupt yourself by finding perverted uses for it. Especially when you abandon what’s natural and pure for what’s artificial and coercive.

Like, knowing psychology and sociology you can use it to get what you want, or build up people. Knowing history, you can use it to undermine peace, or establish it. Knowing science you can build perverted pleasures, or use natural methods to foster cleanliness and peace—Also ties into The Lord of the Rings, is the main conflict is raw power and the waste of industry warring with peaceful authority.

That’s why I’m Christian, is Christ establishes peace, as His philosophy is pure.

Interestingly, the Northern King, the main antagonist in Daniel 11 and 12, worships a God of Forces, which may be prophesying that this king believes in the religion of Star Wars.

Second Reflection on the Wizard of Oz

My faith, personally, sees Wicked Witches, and knows they often get the power structure, and nothing uproots them. So, my faith isn't one that expects life to go swimmingly, or get me what I want. As I know there are real forces, and God's not always going to directly act on someone's behalf. As there can be chariots of iron in the valley. There was one moment while reading it, where I saw the Winkies were freed from slavery, and counterpointed it with Exodus, where the Jews wanted to return to Egypt, and I realized that the latter is the actual state of man, if we're not being sentimental. And that's one reason why the Bible is so credible, is that it actually explains human nature, and really confronts the theodicy without any sentimentality or illusions.

Thoughts on the Wizard of Oz

It's obvious Frank Baum is critiquing religion, and not in a bad way. He's just saying religion is a way to get what you want out of life, but it doesn't do anything real. And he's counterplaying it with the fact that magic doesn't belong in the real world. Basically, elevating scientific materialism over supernatural explanations, but faith is benign, if it gets people what they truly want, as it was always in them to begin with.

Chess

Chess is the most beautiful game in history. All aspects of human intelligence are found over the board. Memory, creativity, tactics, psychology... Like you can go 50 moves deep into an opening, or just blow it on the first five turns, and do some amazing sacrifice, or set up a tactical position that forces your opponent to do something in three turns. It's a brilliant game. And being only 64 squares, and completely visible--both players have complete information--it's truly a meeting of minds.

Truth

Well every lie is made truth by scholars. Guns jammed in Vietnam because of ammunition malfunctions, not dirt. Christians were never persecuted in Rome or Europe. Math is a Western Concept. Truth is your truth, no one else's. Everything we read, we get to say what it means, and nobody's opinion is less valid than another's. And then they enforce this through accreditation processes. Almost to say, if you're going to publish a serious article, you have to do so in bad faith, and lie or disrupt the tradition. Which further gets bolstered, because no new works of literature or important ideas are allowed to get light, and history can only be analyzed correctly once, and all afterward it's plagiarism.

Conversation With a Nietzscheite

 [Sin] hurts people. Even when you don't think it does, it makes people selfish and self centered, and cruel, and less able to form healthy relationships. Makes them like Nietzsche, who I still claim is self evidently wrong about everything.

The fact is, people lose their connection with each other when they sin, and it makes people ultimately have a harder time in the society, and it makes people rude, narcissistic, obnoxious, seedy, greedy, malicious, malefactors, rebellious, thieves, liars, adulterers and that leads to suffering.

{}I just think Morals aren't subjective, God's not dead, and that we don't create our own morality, or will ourselves to any power. I also think cruelty and selfishness are not the road to happiness, but rather community, and God's law is. I also think there's concrete laws of nature, that can be observed objectively, and that reality can be described. Because saying otherwise is just foolish, and leads down a bad road. And I think pleasure is a good thing, and pain a bad thing, and beauty is proof of the good, so is love, peace and joy. At least true love, true peace, and true joy. And I think God's law attains the higher pleasures of life, by restricting the lower pleasures but also giving recourse to grace and it beholds people to an ultimate judgment which moderates their behaviors in this life, where as Nietzsche wants the baser pleasures and elements to rule over man, like it did the Greeks.

I'm positive, if pressed you'd believe in a science to Ethics, and that moral sages and philosophers like Mencius, Christ, Moses and many others have found it. Ethics are objective, they don't change. Observing societies that have bad ethics, does not prove ethics aren't universal. It just proves that societies can have bad ethics. In fact, all the moral sages and philosophers have been in agreement for all of human history on what morality is--of which Christ and the God of the Bible had gotten all of it, which is further proof He's the Son of God.

Yes, societies have had bad morals. That's even more reason to need God. Because many societies have been hell on earth, without the God of Righteousness to guide them. And the ones that had the most beneficial systems, all mirrored the Gospel and Christianity, as well as the Old Testament.

Nietzsche's beliefs are inherently cruel and selfish. It's just the fact of what they are, if he elevates the Greek Ethic above the Christian one, that's selfish and cruel. Just about all of Nietzsche's work are about cruelty and selfishness, and abomination, of willing to power, and trying to set yourself up in power dynamics.

The proof of Christianity is the last 500 years, where people actually believed in it, and created stable societies like no other in history. And then the backslide we're taking without it. Sure, there could be a reversal of that, and some weird Theonomy gets created, but the ethics of Christianity are a science, and universal across all cultures. You can't argue with Jesus. Simply put, His morals would be the highest pleasure and lowest pain. Which is the objective standard, as there's pleasures that far exceed fleshly kinds, such as peace, love and joy, which the LORD Fosters in His law, and that Law is self evident by the effects it produces in people's hearts.

Nuanced in this, is Christ rebelled against the religious authorities for being too rigid in their dogma, too. You have to confront Christ, not Christendom. That will radically change your ability to navigate it.

And science isn't proving God doesn't exist, but quite the opposite, all science is pointing in the direction of the God of the Bible.

I mean, take the Canaanites. Why would a loving God command people to kill them? There's your answer, that maybe they were just too far gone? You understand? They were not innocent at all, and had they lived, we'd be living in hell already.

[I]t's good that God holds the sword, and ultimately holds you and I accountable. The Canaanites were rapists, pedophiles, child murderers, plain murderers, practiced all forms of sodomy... God was just i[n] holding them accountable through the Jews.

Yes, I do deserve to die, but Christ forgave me. As He'll forgive you, but those laws toward the Canaanites apply to both of us, that if we do not repent, He'll return with a sword one day. As He says, "I came not to bring peace, but the sword."

But ultimately, Nietzsche was very cruel. And I see his philosophy over you, that I understand him enough to know what he's saying. He wants a competing moral system, one derived from adventure and prowess, and doing what's needed in the moment.

But generally, I think you don't care to understand what I'm saying. I'm well aware of what Nietzsche is saying--even your quotation about nature hints at it, which is the dominion of the strong--but generally, there's something sociopathic about Nietzsche's philosophy, that Christianity is superior to, and has proven itself time and time again.

People who ultimately confront Nietzsche, come away with a set of false values--of which you demonstrated, by saying ethics aren't universal--when in fact they certainly are. And Muslims have good laws... don't get me wrong, I highly respect Islam as a moral framework, as I do Hinduism or Confucianism, but Christianity is far superior. I'd much rather prefer living under a Muslim world, than a Nietzschean world. As you critiqued the Stoics, but not the Greek religion, which Nietzsche certainly elevated, primarily for its Theseus like qualities. As I'd think Theseus would be a model of Nietzsche's ethics, would he not?

And frankly, scripture gives us Joseph, not Theseus, not Hercules, but rather compassionate characters who are in a sense not world grabbers, just noble herdsman, as the Slave Morality is actually more prosperous than the Master Morality.

As the Roman virtue of power isn't a very noble one. And even in the historians, and the poets, you see the effect of piety on the people. Which has its purely accidental forms that create prosperity no matter who does it. But, you add to that the power of God, and yes the Sword too--you need God to discern when to use it--then you understand the fact that Jesus is superior.

And also don't make veiled threats agaInst me, friend. I recognize I'm not perfect, but I'm not a canaanite. We can disagree, but you don't need to hate me. I'm not hurting you, by having this discussion, but you should use me as a metric that you can be forgiven too. I did everything as a youth, and nothing in adulthood, and even if I did, there deserves to be a second chance. But hasn't been any of those Canaanites for millennia. Like a society of Ted Bundy or Charles Manson would be the Canaanites. You don't understand it, obviously, because you've never read up on history, how awful people can become. You do sometimes need the sword to bring justice, and cause righteousness to flourish, but it's on God's discretion when that happens, and not man's.

Like, "Only have eyes for their social equals," like that's kind of wrong, and prideful. Do you have eyes for me? That I'm your social equal? Because my equal is the homeless man on the street corner, emaciated and begging for a dollar bill, and a car passes by and throws a twenty out the window, just to watch him crawl for it in traffic. Or it's the untouchable whose smell gets in my car for ten minutes, because she hasn't had a bath for months. My equal is the man lowered down by a basket, when a whole town was seeking to kill him. Certainly, I'm not your equal, but your inferior in everything. So, according to Nietzsche, you shouldn't even be humoring me. Yet you do, so why?

And I've read just enough of Nietzsche and dealt with his disciples enough, to know I want nothing to do with him. He's deeply depraved, and doesn't know what he's talking about. Just about every word he makes is a false statement, riddled with abusive narcissism and veiled egoism. I personally despise the man's philosophy, and see why it inspired a holocaust. The Bible, the wars it inspired were just. It's just good versus evil at a point, and Nietzsche even knows he's evil, by calling himself the antichrist. It's fitting, because that philosophy has nothing kind or right about it. It's good for a sociopath, and making yourself a villain. Not much more. I've also met enough true Christians to know who I prefer the company of, and would trust.

Elias C. Sampaio

I was listening to your story
"The King" on Sky's Revival Radio
Yet it was a completely new story
And not the one you wrote.
And I felt an impression,
God telling me, "Use it."
So I did... I was worried it was your story
But it couldn't be, for I heard a completely
New Story, so I wrote it.
I looked over your story
For any mention of an "Emperor"
Or crucifixion on a wall,
And couldn't find it.