I have seen, over my few years
Men destroyed by scripture.
I have seen men go astray
Who were once very good.
I have seen children abused
By preachers, and women raped.
I have seen the sick cast into hell
Because there was no voice of wisdom.
I do not know why some men
Are pursued all their life by truth;
And for some reason they listen.
I do not know why.
And some men, never hear a sound word
Until it is far too late.
I do not know why.
I do not know why,
Those professing to be sound
Believe the word of God
And do not try its wisdom.
They preach a false gospel
That is so popular right now
And try to win souls like a cult
To bring men into the fold
By simply telling them,
"I'll lead and you blindly follow."
I have seen men destroyed by shepherds
Priests, evangelists, even the Holy Bible itself.
I do not know what protects one man
And damns another.
But, I have been bequeathed with a full Gospel
And I know the truths of scripture with my every absolute breath.
I know every moment in history
And have compiled it, and tested it
And seen it's true. I have tested every Word
Spoken by my LORD, and found them faithful.
I do not know how it came to me,
And not to many of you.
Love God’s Law
"Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'"
God's law is self evident. It's the best law, and that's what's going to convert the nations. It is the effects that God's law has on the heart, that's what causes the heathen to convert.
As it says, "The Law Converts the heart." Why? Because it's self evident. Not everything self evident can be understood by everyone. It's difficult. An element in Euclid isn't going to be understood by everyone, but we see the effects engineering has, by holding up bridges and building machines. The same thing with God's Law, it makes a better world for everyone.
But, again, you argue with me, I think that's because you don't understand what I'm saying.
If you don't realize Christ's law is self evident, and objectively better, and observably so, I don't think you can call yourself wise yet, and by contending with me, you strive with the wind to try to convince me of this vanity. As, the only apologetics that is going to work, is showing people the error in their way, and knowing why Sin causes suffering, and justifying God through the Holy Statutes of His Commandments.
As Paul said, "We minister through power." And that power is through the Law of God, and Grace, and its self evident nature, that NO ONE can say it is faulty. They do, you can still show them it's not, through ministering to them by exposing their sins, which they all know are wrong.
You're just wrong. If God's law isn't self evident, then there is no hope for anyone to come to Christ. None. If the Heathen do what's wrong, then you prove to the sheep that the heathen suffer for it, and that they have no love, peace or joy. That's what we minister with.
If the Law is not self evident, then there is certainly no way to convert anyone. The Gospel is to no effect, and is noisy cymbals. It's the fact that God's statutes are true, and everyone knows it, and they do create better people. That's what saves people. Nothing else.
On Mormonism
This is giving me flashbacks to my Messianic Jewish days. Christianity is a robust faith, because it has nothing to do with dietary restrictions, but simply doing what's right. It has nothing to do with Touch not, Taste Not, Do Not. It has everything to do with how you treat other people. It's a religion that encompasses love and compassion, but also discipline. Like Sin to a Christian has teeth. What Paul lists in his letters as sins, are to rational people,---not brainwashed by the culture,---common sense. I've always preferred the faith of Tchaikovsky, Michelangelo, Tolstoy and Hans Christian, to the constipated faith found in Evangelical circles lately. Like this hearkens to Evangelicalism, when Jesus wasn't necessarily a prude at all. He drank wine at weddings, cussed once or twice, and taught His disciples to enjoy their life and one another's company. But there were clear boundaries. And I'm more of a Baptist, Lutheran Catholic than anything else. I learned my New Testament from Lutherans. My Old Testament from Baptists. And my aesthetic and moral judgment from Catholics. I'm not really a protestant or catholic, but a hybrid of the two. I think it's obvious what the faith is, and that's what made it so persuasive, but we've gotten a long way from that.
Plutarch’s Census
320
Myriad Myriads was
Translated into
Latin wrong. How could millions
Die on battlefields with just
Three Hundred Twenty Thousand Roman Citizens?
The Salamander
Oh, it is real, said Bulfinch...
Yet the ecologist says 'tis not.
The brat in college says,
"It matters not, 'tis a fable
"Therefore to be disregarded with the trash."
The historian said the Salamander
Was born from the flames
To ancient imaginations
Because it would flee out of the fire.
I, I do not know, because the world is lying.
Benjamin the Donkey
I am Benjamin the Donkey
And I remember when
There was peace among the peasants
And men were truly men.
I remember when women were very wholesome
And the black man had honor too.
There was malaise and violence somewhere
But it touched so very few.
I remember when the Church was mighty
Like our Public Schools that day---
Now all our institutions have been given to decay.
I am Benjamin the Donkey
But I say it was really nice;
Now all our citizens are frozen in a block of hatred's ice.
Song of the Goober
I am a goober
How 'bout you?
A goober is a fool.
I ain't no wise man,
Ain't it true?
I am a goober,
How 'bout you?
I may have had a thing to say
But mighty fine, I'll make you gay
If you listen and learn and hey
I don't have much, just a pen, this lay.
I am a goober,
How 'bout you?
I am a goober, and a fool.
I ain't no wise man
How 'bout you?
We all just goobers
Through and through.
The wisest among us ain't worth dirt
He's just a fool with some fancy words.
We are all just in a hurt
To find some genius, and with it flirt.
I am a goober
How 'bout you?
I am a goober, such a fool.
I ain't a wise man
And you ain't, too.
We're all such goobers
Loop-de-loo.
I sing the last verse of this song
If I'm lucid and pretty strong
It comes from God not cholesterol
It comes from He, and not my wrong.
I am a goober
How 'bout you?
How do we know a thing is true?
I am a goober,
How 'bout you?
I ain't a wise man
But listen good.
Heaven: As Found in the Bible
That’s generally what Heaven will be. Your beloved pets will be there, for all eternity, whether it’s a dog or a crocodile. There’s no sickness or disease. Everyone feels joys and peace and love unsurpassable, and unable to be understood by us. Every tree, blade of grass, and bush will bear fruit, and the dirt will be gold dust, and the mansions made from gemstones and I’d like to think petrified woods, and the rocks and pebbles will be precious stones; you’ll eat those fruits, and have many new sensations of sight, smell, taste, sound and touch. Our food will be the fruit of life—in many numerous variations—and no one. not even the animals, will kill or eat meat. And where there’s fruit, there’s flowers, and each plant will bear twelve kinds of fruit in their season, and numerous leaves for the nation’s healing. The kine and bees will make many myriads of precious milk and honey. You’ll be clothed in heavenly raiment, that has a unique sense of peace, dawned on you, so others can feel your presence, and many delicate objects in your mansions. And everyone in heaven will have a mansion and be free to walk a city as real as your local town or city, which has towers of gold that look like Jasper that raise from the Earth to the moon. There’ll be rivers, and forests, and hills, and mountains, and in the rivers will be coral and seaweeds and all manner of fish; which you’ll be able to fly and breath under water, as it will be living water which flows from heaven from the temple. Just have to confess Jesus, and live the life of a True Christian. Because only His righteousness can make you able to live for eternity, and never sin. As sin is what causes suffering, and why the world is cursed. As without God, you can have nothing but ire, and bitterness, and grief. But in heaven, you’ll be married to the Beulah Land, and made into nations, and tribes and clans. And all labor shall cease.
A Discourse on Logic in Interpreting
One who studies mathematics--even a cursory understanding--might see a bunch of numbers, and think that is doing math. Well, it is not. It is simply a system that gets you to a number, which you use to help put into something, that you took from different measurements.
However, there's linear math, exponentiated math, and even calculus math. And with a human being, they may wonder to themselves why a thing may seem to contradict. Well, the simple answer, is that there can sometimes be two answers. There's also things, that to find the right answer, it has to be assumed rather than touched--such as a limit with calculus.
So, if you do a quadratic equation, it may turn out that there are two answers--a length and width--where one is negative, and the other is positive. Certainly, this has a function in mathematics. It may also occur, that there's an imaginary number--something like fiction, where we alter the real world, and its laws, to produce what are also true answers.
So, if you study calculus, you realize that every time you solve a calculus equation, you are making an assumption about the answer. It is a true answer--based on the proportions of how the ratios work--but it's assumed, because one cannot actually complete the ratios, and thereby touch the limit. Many things in life are like this, that they have to be assumed, and reached by systems of logic that take leaps out of the absurd and into the obvious.
So with that, not all things are linear. And our linear minds like to describe things, by thinking something only is so, if it goes one of two directions. Whereby, if logic is a system of principles applied to language, then the basis of that language is reality, which we piece together to form new and useful conclusions. This logic can be linear, quadratic or even calculative. It's a matter of necessity that we understand this.
el-Hammam
Trinitite is found in your ancient pottery,
And your sister city is found no more.
Surely, a nuclear blast destroyed you
Or something just like it.
The heat wave expanded over the entire Dead Sea
And burnt down the southern villages
Of Baba Dra, Numera, Fifa, and Conazeer
Are destroyed, and the remains of the Sulfur
Are there, across the entire Dead Sea.
Yet, Safi miraculously survived.