Heavy is my heart,
Only let it fear Thy good pleasure always.
Pray, I sit in Thy Temple and meditate upon Thy Word.
Everything belongs to You.
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.
On Martin Luther
I personally see a man afflicted by parental disappointment, who grew sociopathic under the stress of a conscience worn down by grief. The Gospel does say we are saved by faith--for our own righteousness cannot suffice--but Luther and all protestantism with him abandoned the holy command of love. Which love makes a covering for sin.
Wagner
David and Sierra love each other
Deeply, and fall in love, but David
Becomes adulterous for Kate.
Jonathan then swoops in to marry Sierra
And David Kate, but then memories
Are made fresh, and David dies
Being stabbed in the back by Jonathan.
For David holds the ring of power
And Jonathan covets it, and all are cursed
Who have it, and forsake love.
Brandon and Amaris watch the play
From our dreams, never knowing
When Ragnaroth will happen.
Living with Schizoaffective Disorder
If anyone wants to know what living with Schizoaffective Disorder is like, just imagine you feeling like you're on the Truman Show all the time. Replace actors with spies, kings and queens possessing your friends and family, and then add delusions about mind reading and that, all the shows you watch on television are real, and just in alternate universes... you can see how reality is ripped from you. But then there's no door to a real world, just one far worse than the one you live in now... it's a terrible disease.
My Faith
"Everyone that is of truth, listens to Me." - Jesus.
My mom has no faith, and my dad has a very lackadaisical faith. God is my Father. Mom and Dad are good people, but my faith comes directly from a desire to be righteous, and only Christ teaches it.
I'd say my dad first ministered the Gospel to me, but he's not very knowledgeable of Christ's teachings. I remember him teaching Revelation to my Sunday School class, he did his best, but he never was a Bible Scholar. Nobody in that church was, which is why I made so many mistakes and was such a fool at a young age. Like my Pastor wasn't even that knowledgeable, and thought the faith derived from Zoroastrianism--that as the good pastor, the other was a feminist, and my one Sunday School teacher tried to teach me how to save the world, and ignore the Bible. I don't need to save the world. Christ already did: I should have learned Paul instead of Al Gore.
My Conversion Story
Well, it all started when I was young. I believed in Santa Claus really hard—not being sardonic, this will go somewhere, so stick with it—and I got into a fight with another student at school because I believed in him. And my mom wasn’t very religious, so I guess I was brought up in American Paganism—I believed in Tooth Fairies, Easter Bunnies, Leprechauns, George Washington and the Cherry Tree, Abraham Lincoln Never Told a Lie, Santa Claus and Unquestioning Patriotism. Well, they had to tell me that Santa wasn’t real, and I really believed in it. It gave me such an optimistic view on life, how there was magic and all this other stuff. I lived in such a magical world until about eight years old. And that was a heart break, when I was sitting on the stoop of my stairs and listening to my dad tell me these things weren’t real. But, then I asked, “Is God real?” And my dad said, “Yes, and if you don’t believe in Him, you won’t go to heaven.” And my dad told me about Jesus. He told me that I had to love God above all other things, and that conflicted with my values, because my mom told me that you could love your family more than God. So, I was quite conflicted there. I had the Sunday School and all that other stuff, and learned “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” And I also had an illustrated children’s Bible, which I read. It was called “The Beginner’s Bible: TImeless Children’s Classics.” And I also learned about tall tales and legends.
So, I didn’t really believe, and I kind of was a warped little brat. I did a lot of messed up things between the ages of 8 and 15, and so the next step was Vacation Bible School and Sunday School lessons, where they taught me Jesus’ Parables, and the Sermon on the Mount. And I knew I liked Jesus. That much was certain, Jesus was the best story teller, and had the best morals, so I liked Him a lot. I think that’s generally why I’m a Christian to this day, is Jesus and His Sermon on the Mount. They reinforced in Church, “Build your foundation upon the rock.” So I did. I think that’s what saved me, more than anything else, was walking with Jesus at that time, and listening to Him above all others. And really laying the groundwork for the true principles of the faith. I was still a bratty, snot nosed little kid… but I liked Jesus.
Then I went to Youth Group, around 15 or 16, and had a really positive experience. We played, it gave me a good friend’s group, which taught me how to socialize. My older cousin was the leader of the group, and was an excellent organizer. And I went to the beach, and had a BLAST. And someone did that Ray Comfort thing with me, and so I believed a little more, but not quite.
Then around 17 or 18 I was messing around with my ex girlfriend, but was hungry for a better morality, as backtrack, I knew a lot of Atheists—more than Christian—and even my adult sunday school teachers weren’t really Christian, but were kind of looking for a social club. And backtrack a little more, I was at catechism, and they had to bring in a older Pastor to do my Catechism, because I wanted the true faith, not the “God is Santa Claus” thing that most churches were doing. And so, backtrack a little more, I actually prayed to God to get Saturday Morning detention if I skipped class—which was not the usual punishment—and I got Saturday Morning Detention… God’s disciplined me my whole life, and I’m thankful for that, but that gets to a little further down the line. But around 17 and 18 I was getting tired of my licentious ways, and was craving for a better way. My Ex’s family were kind of a little cold, and so was she, and I craved for the love of Jesus. And my friends also were kind of cold, and a little backward in their thinking, and I grew up my whole life hearing the other philosophy—the Atheist philosophy—and I just didn’t like it. I didn’t like the idea that truth is subjective, or morals are a choice, or the fact that love was disposable and kind of like nitre, just something chemical that when it ran out, so did you.
And then I did something very bad, and I was confronted with my need for a Savior, and then confronted again at a little older age, and realized even more I needed a savior. Like in the Bathtub I was crying out to the LORD to save me. I recognized I was a sinner. So, I stopped Masterbating, Watching Porn, Cussing, Blaspheming, and I actually shut off my phone from being able to look at the internet. And on that time, I kind of swung into a Hebrew Roots movement, and followed the Torah’s law—which was a huge mistake, I just went from licentiousness to Judaizing—and I went to jail for confessing crimes I committed at 14, and while there the Chaplain told me to read Galatians. So I did, and I realized I didn’t have to follow the Torah anymore—although I hadn’t been following it for a while, it was more like a fast.
Before that, I went to about 7 churches, and heard a lot of sermons on the Radio, and studied the evidence for scripture, read the major Evangelists, had good sunday school at a Baptist church, and a grounded teaching in the Old Testament. And I searched out the evidence for the Bible, and I found it all true. At least I’m satisfied that it’s true.
But, generally, the reason I’m a Christian, and what converted me, was the Lawlessness of friends who thought there was no right or wrong, and just being around them I saw something ugly, and it was transforming me and I didn’t like it. So, I wanted Jesus to make me a better person than what I was, so I asked Him to transform me, and I’ve searched for Him and found Him faithful in all things.
The Wizard of Oz
Baum writes in a diction similar to me---
Similar in thought, word and deed---
Wrought with allusions to scores of books
Mark Twain, Edmund Spenser and some Fairy Taled nook---
C. S. Lewis had read it too,
And so had Eiffel 65 it's true.
The Lion is a coward because he's mean
The Tin Man has no heart, because he cannot love she
The Scarecrow has no brains, but has a dull wit
Yet the lion fought back the hordes
And the Tin Man also wept.
Witches do not live in civilized lands
The Emerald City is so green, I understand.
On chapter 11 I half way have finished
Now I see the book and movie are oh so different.
The Tower of Babel
The kings all came in conference
For the Tower of Babel fell---
Men had no common heritage
Or common tongue so all could tell.
They could not understand through context
What a word meant in its time.
They did not know the theory
They did not know the reasons why.
They spoke, then, through emotions
And not through conceptual things.
They spoke to each other through feelings
And not through heady weeds.
A poet was made poor one day
For this was what had happened---
Enthymeme, Calculus and Infinity
Had all been but forgotten.
Thus the kings in genocidal rage
Wished to purge the dull from the Earth.
But a wise poet rose up and claimed,
"No, for they still have human worth.
"Do not kill these poor creatures
"For they have love within their soul.
"They may not understand or know
"But good and bad, they still have in their throws
"Of toil upon this great earth
"They may find thought is a nuisance
"And communicated ideas they may find very truant.
"But recall, they are men, and men are good and wise
"If they know how to love each other, we shall keep them all alive.
"For, they need to know good from woe
"And know God's very law.
"For they know not how to understand the world
"So they need faith more than all.
"They need to push toward God in heaven
"And find Him all the same...
"They need the words of Jesus and to make them their good king.
"Over their lives, they shall reign, and be with blessed thoughts
"Of laws which they do not understand, but follow without fault.
"Love your neighbor, be kind to all, and merciful to a man
"And to turn the cheek to smiters, and not war in other lands.
"And this poet could retire, unknown and not understood
"If all mankind worked together, and loved more than shook
"The leaf of books like bread, they listened to the heart.
"Man could love each other then, and need not be very smart."