The Beauty of Number

Everything has number involved with it, from chemistry, to geometry, to physics. It's just the numbers work in proportion and relation to each other by equalities. Even the imaginary numbers are real, as they represent something, just in a higher dimension.

I can easily show you negative 9. It will plot on a graph, and work inverse in relation to the geometric figure. So, take a leaf, and do calculus with the curve for the leaf's edge, you'll find you need negatives for some of the curve and rate of change, to fully document the leaf, as some of the leaf's structure overlaps with the others in new dimensions of space. Like, you have a square represented on that x/y graph, the numbers are going to relate to actual geometry, and negatives are going to plot different points onto the graph, and create different lines and different dimensions, only equal to the equation.

Money's [also], not imaginary. Without it, you'd have no marker for received debts, or work. Like you need money to mark how much capital you have, and how much you've worked, and keep track of that, because without it, you'd have no way of keeping track of labor or production costs, which is real. Like your entire dollar bill is backed by capital, labor and how much work is invested into the economy, which is why a Banana Republic can happen, when there's nothing real--no labor or capital--backing the currencies, it causes inflation. Which is also why currencies spring up in every society, be it smoked meats, or sea shells, or sand dollars, or beads, or even dollar bills.

Papias is clearly relating the “Elders” to the “Apostles” so when he qualifies “The Elder John” he can only mean the Apostle John, as why include that epithet otherwise, and not for Aristion, whom he calls both “Disciples”. Other Fragments relating Church History show that Papias may have dictated the Book of John from the very same. And Papias also authenticates the episode of the woman caught in adultery.

The Holy Bible

No Santa Clause dawns its pages
But a truth about life, without illusions.
People suffer, and especially the good.
There are very few happy portraits
In the holy scripture, but rather mourning
At every page, and war... even love is strife.
"Vanity vanity", thus let me mourn here
A little while, and hate my life.
So I may enter into a better Earth 
And better Heaven, where I can have
My sweet and fat; and holy laughter.

A Rare Beauty

A rare beauty indeed,
In intelligence, and body and face and form
And in her personality, too.
She makes me question,
When seeing women who pale in comparison
Having to maintain their own looks---
They are not too smart,
They are not too beautiful,
They are not too  good for marriage;
I realize she is superior,
Thus, I will not shame her inferiors anymore.
She talks of her cohort's self deceit
And I say, "Let them be a little deceived
"If you are the standard."

If I Had To Flee

If I had to flee into another land
And could only take what I may carry...
I'd take Six books.
My Mimi's NRSV Bible with Apocrypha
My copy of Martyr's Mirror by Thielman Van Braght
My copy of the Apostolic Fathers translated by J. B. Lightfoot
And Mimi's Hymnal.
Last, I'd take my book of North American Wildlife and my  Bird Book,
Given to me by my Mimi and Pop Pop. 
For nature is God's scripture, too.

Integrity And Foolishness

Better to call yourself a fool, and be called wise by others, than be called wise by your own lips, and a fool by all you know.

But truthfully, I am a fool. I conduct business badly because I put my trust in other people's integrity. And then when someone's honest, I don't know because I've been screwed so many times. I doubt my allies too much, and put my confidence in my enemies. I don't know how to tell the difference. It's a great pain, because I love everyone, but don't want to destroy myself through lies. So I try to be honest, and often that honesty gets me in trouble. Because we have a system that's built to reward lies.

On Calvinism

We're nothing without Grace. We need God's power in order to do good. We can make distinctions about what "Choice" means, but God foreknew what our choices would be. He sealed us according to His predestined election of grace. That's not to say that man has no choice--in fact, pure free will and pure determinism both can exist in accordance with each other--God's divine knowledge is omniscience. He knows everything, and every choice we're going to make. So, He predestined us according to divine election. 

However, "Once saved always saved" is also not true. There's people who taste of Spiritual Fruits and fall away, and they can never be reconciled. There are those who are written into the book of life, and are then again blotted out. There's also lost sheep and prodigal sons, who being blotted out, can be written back into the Book of Life.

But, God knows who that is, already. It's just our desire, to ask and fear God enough to write our names, and seal us, and predestine us. And to him who knocks, it shall be answered.

Which gets to total depravity. We have no power to be good, in of ourselves. Only the situations God creates can keep us out of hell. We'd be steamrolled by Satan if God didn't restrain Him. So, all our righteousness proceeds from Grace, and nothing else. And through our understanding of Christ's teachings, we move closer to Him, but through loss of desire for fear, we lose our reward. But, God knows beforehand who those who walk with Him in truth are.

So... it's hard to say. It's beyond our own understanding, but truthfully, as light and shadow exist, so does free will and determinism.