The Shoe Bomber was a Muslim
The Beltway Snipers were Muslims
The Fort Hood Shooter was a Muslim
The underwear Bomber was a Muslim
The U-S.S. Cole Bombers were Muslims
The Madrid Train Bombers were Muslims
The Bafi Nightclub Bombers were Muslims
The London Subway Bombers were Muslims
The Moscow Theatre Attackers were Muslims
The Boston Marathon Bombers were Muslims
The Pan-Am flight #93 Bombers were Muslims
The Air France Entebbe Hijackers were Muslims
The Iranian Embassy Takeover, was by Muslims
The Beirut U.S. Embassy bombers were Muslims
The Libyan U.S. Embassy Attack was by Musiims
The Buenos Aires Suicide Bombers were Muslims
The Israeli Olympic Team Attackers were Muslims
The Kenyan U.S, Embassy Bombers were Muslims
The Saudi, Khobar Towers Bombers were Muslims
The Beirut Marine Barracks bombers were Muslims
The Besian Russian School Attackers were Muslims
The first World Trade Center Bombers were Muslims
The Bombay & Mumbai India Attackers were Muslims
The Achille Lauro Cruise Ship Hijackers were Muslims
The September 11th 2001 Airline Hijackers were Muslims

**********Think of it: *************
Buddhists living with Hindus = No Problem
Hindus living with Christians = No Problem
Hindus living with Jews = No Problem
Christians living with Shintos = No Problem
Shintos living with Confucians = No Problem
Confusians living with Baha’is = No Problem
Baha’is living with Jews = No Problem
Jews living with Atheists = No Problem
Atheists living with Buddhists = No Problem
Buddhists living with Sikhs = No Problem
Hindus living with Baha’is = No Problem
Baha’is living with Christians = No Problem
Christians living with Jews = No Problem
Jews living with Buddhists = No Problem
Buddhists living with Shintos = No Problem
Shintos living with Atheists = No Problem
Atheists living with Confucians = No Problem
Confusians living with Hindus = No Problem

**********But, ****************
Muslims living with Christians = Problem
Muslims living with Jews = Problem
Muslims living with Sikhs = Problem
Muslims living with Baha’is = Problem
Muslims living with Shintos = Problem
Muslims living with Confucians = Problem
Muslims living with Atheists = Problem
Muslims living with Hindus = PROBLEM
MUSLIMS LIVING WITH MUSLIMS = BIG PROBLEM

**********So, *****************
They’re not happy in Gaza
They’re not happy in Egypt
They’re not happy in Libya
They’re not happy in Morocco
They’re not happy in Iran
They’re not happy in Iraq
They’re not happy in Yemen
They’re not happy in Afghanistan
They’re not happy in Pakistan
They’re not happy in Syria
They’re not happy in Lebanon
They’re not happy in Nigeria
They’re not happy in Kenya
They’re not happy in Sudan

******** So, where are they happy? **********
They’re happy in Australia
They’re happy in England
They’re happy in Belgium
They’re happy in France
They’re happy in Italy
They’re happy in Germany
They’re happy in Sweden
They’re happy in the USA & Canada
They’re happy in Norway & India
They’re happy in almost every country that is not Islamic!
And who do they blame for this? Not Islam… Not their leadership… Not themselves…
THEY BLAME THE COUNTRIES THEY ARE HAPPY IN!!
And they want to change the countries they’re happy in,
to be like the countries they came from where they were unhappy,
then finally they will be get what they want, which they have no idea what that is,
so they are screwed, and so are we if we don’t wake the hell up!!!

************Remember: **************
Islamic Jihad: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
ISIS: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Al-Qaeda: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Taliban: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Hamas: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Hezbollah: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Boko Haram: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Al-Nusra: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Abu Sayyaf: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Al-Badr: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Muslim Brotherhood: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Lashkar-e-Taiba: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Palestine Liberation Front: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Ansaru: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Jemaah Islamiyah: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
Abdullah Azzam Brigades: AN ISLAMIC TERROR ORGANIZATION
AND A LOT MORE!!!!

Thank you Religion of Peace!

Mountaintop Experiences

By TNSr5r@unseen.is, October, 2013

 

I am tired of them. I don’t want to go to them anymore. I won’t participate in them again. I don’t even want to hear from anyone else about them.

What am I talking about? Some people enjoy them as worship experiences. Others value them as mountaintop experiences. I call them Christian pep rallies; the pep rallies that so many churches and Christian groups hold in the name of God.

You know what I am talking about.

These pep rallies often center around top name Christian singing groups, all of which have a strong high tenor or a strong high soprano, or both, whose voices are always very powerful. A song starts out in a normal key so most of the audience can sing along. But each verse transitions into a higher key so that, after four or five verses, only a handful of tenors and sopranos in the country can sing that high and that strong. And then the final chord of the final verse is held so high and so strong and so long that it raises the hair on your arms and gives you goose bumps. When the song breaks, it leaves you so excited that you absolutely MUST shout something. So you shout something spiritual like everyone else around you. And just then the group starts another verse in an even higher key.

After a few of these songs, everyone is so emotionally jacked up that shouting spiritual words and phrases is almost impossible to resist.

And then the worship leader starts a slow, soft song, accompanied by some sort of announcement that “the Holy Spirit is in this place.” The Holy Spirit apparently waits for a slow song before he shows up to these things… At this point, the leader often says something like, “Raise your hands if you can feel the presence of God.” Of course, nearly everyone can feel SOMETHING, so nearly everyone raises their hands. And the worship leader leads the audience through several verses of that slow song so that everyone gets the chance to feel God even more.

And often this whole process is repeated two or three times more, so everyone can go home claiming to have participated in such an awesome worship experience.

But was this truly a valid worship experience?

And if this was a valid worship experience, was it a good thing

And if it was a good thing, was it a biblical experience?

Before I get burned at the stake for asking such questions and raising such doubts, let me make this clear: I LOVE THESE WORSHIP EXPERIENCES!!

I have attended them; I have sought them out on the radio; I own them on CDs and DVDs; I have even led these experiences myself.

But I have come to realize that they are often nothing more than an old-fashioned high school football pep rally with a spiritual emphasis. Pep rallies have a purpose; they aren’t bad in and of themselves. But they are pep rallies. And their purpose, be it at a football game or at a Christian concert, is to get people excited.

I can, and HAVE, reproduced the same sort of feelings in myself and in others by using the same psychological gimmicks, but without any mention of Jesus.

During the fall of each year, the same level of emotional euphoria and near-hysteria is accomplished hundreds of times each week on high school and college campuses all over America.

Okay, I admit, I probably just made it impossible to avoid being burned at that stake by a mob of angry but sincere Christians.

But before I meet that stake, before you strike that match, I really need to ask the question few people ever want to answer: WHY?

Why do we need these emotionally manipulative Christian pep rallies?

Does God need them in order for the Holy Spirit to visit our worship experiences?

Or do these pep rallies primarily benefit the spiritual junkies who need still another “mountain-top experience?”

And is a “mountain-top experience” good for our spiritual lives?

As I said before, I LOVE these mountain-top experiences. I am, to some extent, a spiritual junkie myself. But I have to ask of myself and of others, “Exactly what benefit do we receive from being emotionally jacked-up, even when it is done in a spiritual environment?”

Maybe we should have started this article with a look at the mountain top experience that Jesus shared with some of his disciples. Perhaps we can get some clues as to the value of that type of high by looking at and listening to Jesus

We can find the account of this mountaintop experience in Matthew 17:1-13, Mark 9:1-13, and Luke 9:27-36. All three accounts are virtually identical and all three accounts tell us of the same events preceding this experience: Jesus taught of his coming death; Jesus taught about us taking up our crosses and following him; and Jesus and his disciples took a week off. Then Jesus took Peter, James, and John up a mountain.

There he was transfigured before them. [Matthew 17:2, New International Version]

While transfigured, Jesus walked around with Moses and Elijah for a while. And God put his seal of approval on this particular mountaintop experience by doing his Exodus cloud thing and saying,

“This is my beloved Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”  [Matthew 17:5, NIV]

Can you imagine anything more exciting than this? Think about it! You have witnessed Jesus healing people and casting out demons more times than you can remember. You were hand-picked by Jesus to be in his core group of disciples. And over the past few weeks and months, your role has developed into the primary disciple, Christ’s main man! Then you get to see Jesus transfigured. You get to see Moses and Elijah alive and talking with Jesus. God shows up in a cloud like he did almost 2,000 years ago. THEN GOD SPEAKS TO YOU!

And what do you do?

You propose doing something that Jesus does not want!

Peter may have been well-intentioned but his agenda was NOT Christ’s agenda. In fact, it was so far from Christ’s agenda that Jesus told them not to tell anyone about the entire experience; not even the other disciples!

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” [Matthew 17:9, NIV]

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. [Mark 9:9, NIV]

The greatest mountaintop experience in Scripture led the greatest disciple on record to suggest the wrong thing to do!

Or let’s look at what might be the second greatest mountaintop experience in Scripture; this one in the Old Testament and in this one Elijah was not a secondary character.

In I Kings, we can read the story of the first time Elijah was on earth. Starting in chapter seventeen, we see Elijah introduced and given his first assignment – he was called by God to denounce the most evil king the Jews ever had.

And Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all before him. As if it had been a light thing for Ahab to walk in the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, he took for a wife Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal King of the Sidonians, and served Baal and worshipped him. [I Kings 16:30-31, Amplified Bible]

Not only was Ahab the most evil king the Jews ever had, he married the most evil woman the Jews had ever known! And they both worshipped the most evil god the world had ever seen!

And God called Elijah to denounce Ahab and tell him that God was sending a drought to Israel because of what Ahab was doing. And Elijah did exactly what God asked and actually survived it!

Talk about a rush!

Then God told Elijah to hide in a cave by the brook called Cherith east of Jordan.

After many months, the brook dried up. After all, there was a drought going on, right? So God gave him a new address and Elijah moved to a small town called Zerepath. There he met a woman who was a widow, who had a child and who was starving to death because of the drought Elijah had called down. Elijah asked for some food and she told him she had almost nothing for herself and her son. Elijah told her that if she fed him God would make sure she would not starve. She could have said, “Right!” and walked away. But she decided to trust God and did what Elijah asked. As a result of her faith, God fed her and her son “for many days” until the rains came and everyone had food, as it says in chapter 17.

Then something horrible happened: the woman’s son got sick and died. You know she had to be thinking, “Oh yes, God promised that my son and I would not starve, so he let my son die of a fever.” But Elijah was still walking in the excitement and knowledge of God, and he took the son away to the attic room where Elijah slept. There Elijah prayed and the son lived again. And Elijah lived in peace with the widow and her son until the rains came.

Sometime after raising the boy from the dead, on toward the end of the third year of the drought, God told Elijah to go back to Ahab and tell him it was about to rain. So Elijah and Ahab met, and Ahab was not at all in a good mood.

When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Are you he who troubles Israel?”  [I Kings 18:17, AMP]

I am certain that Elijah responded with, “You haven’t seen trouble yet. But trouble sure is coming!” I haven’t found any translation which includes that comment, but I am sure Elijah said it. Be that as it may (or may not), we do know that Elijah said the following:

Elijah replied, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, by forsaking the commandments of the Lord and by following the Baals.” [I Kings 18:18, AMP]

And Elijah issued a challenge. He told Ahab to gather 450 prophets of Baal (who Ahab followed) and the 400 prophets of the sex goddess Asherah (who Jezebel followed), along with all the people, and bring them all to Mount Carmel.

Once there, Elijah put together a rigged demonstration; rigged against Elijah and his God. The 450 prophets of Baal, assisted by the 400 prophets of Asherah, set up an altar of stone with wood on it and a bull, fully cut up and prepared, placed on top. And then this 850 prophets of foreign gods were given hours, from early morning to late afternoon, to pray down fire on the sacrifice.

And nothing happened.

Then Elijah built his altar and prepared his sacrifice. Further, he asked that four large water jars be emptied on the altar; and again; and a third time. After twelve large water jars had been emptied on his altar, Elijah prayed 63 words. Not twelve hours, but less than one minute. And then fire came down from heaven and consumed everything: the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust, even the water that had drained off the alter and into the trench surrounding the alter.

When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, “The Lord, he is God! The Lord, he is God!” [I Kings 18:39, AMP]

I mean, ya think?

With the people properly motivated (and intimidated!), Elijah had them kill all the false prophets of Baal and Asherah.

And then Elijah prayed for rain, and it rained.

Something that is seldom mentioned in sermons and teachings on this event involves everyone leaving Mount Carmel before it rained. Elijah said something like, “King Ahab, I am about to ask God to empty the clouds and have it rain all over us. You better get down the mountainside before the roads get so wet that your chariots won’t be able to make it down the roads.” So Ahab headed down the mountain while Elijah prayed. After praying, but before the rain started, Elijah headed down the mountain himself. But Elijah was so excited and so motivated by his “mountaintop experience” that he ran all twenty miles back to town and got there before Ahab and his chariot.

How was that for mountaintop excitement?

But no sooner than Ahab told Jezebel about everything, including the loss of 400 prophets of her god that she used as personal servants, than Jezebel sent a message to Elijah: “I am going to make you as dead as you made my prophets, and by this time tomorrow.” See I Kings 19:2.

And no matter what his mountaintop experience, and no matter how excited he was about serving God under miraculous circumstances, Elijah allowed his emotions to continue in control, and…

Elijah was afraid, and ran for his life. [I Kings 19:3, NIV]

So what can we take away from a short review of two important, even awesome, mountaintop experiences? There are perhaps any number of lessons, or conclusions, we can draw from these two experiences, but I suspect that most would make for poor theology. However, I do believe we can draw two valid and valuable principles from these two Scriptural events.

First, mountaintop experiences do not impart spiritual maturity or spiritual wisdom.

Second, mountaintop experiences feed our emotions, and emotions are seldom logical or wise.

I do not believe that I err when I suggest that a mountaintop experience will often lead to a significant spiritual challenge, even a spiritual setback. Think about it.

In both of these biblical experiences, we see the people’s emotions in control of them and unwise, even wrong, decisions that come out of these emotions. Peter wanted to build three temples so he could continue, or repeat continuously whenever he wanted, that wonderful experience. And Jesus not only wouldn’t let him do it, Jesus wouldn’t even let him talk about it. And Elijah was so excited about God’s victories that after seeing God’s fire consume his sacrifice, after facing 850 enemy prophets and killing them all, even after outrunning Ahab’s chariot for twenty miles, he runs and hides from one woman’s threat.

When our emotions are running high, our emotions often make our decisions for us. And emotional decisions are seldom based on the Word of God. When we react to what we see and hear and FEEL, it is our emotions that are in control of us and not the Spirit of God.

We live by faith, not by sight. [II Corinthians 5:7, NIV]

Or even more clearly translated:

For we walk by faith [we regulate our lives and conduct ourselves by our conviction or belief respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, with trust and holy fervor; thus we walk] not by sight or appearance. [I Corinthians 5:7, AMP]

So, are mountaintop experiences, are Christian pep rallies, wrong?

Absolutely not!

But if we NEED them, if we COUNT on these experiences to maintain a walk with God, if the emotional high is necessary for us to feel close to God and stay committed to following Jesus, then we need to recognize the FACT that we are Soil Type Two, from the parable in Mark chapter four. We need to admit that we receive the Word of God with joy and excitement, but it doesn’t take much to stifle our walk with God, or sidetrack our walk entirely. We need to take steps to strengthen our faith and our commitment so we can survive these simple and frequent challenges to our life in Christ. We need to develop the discipline inherent in the word “disciple” and from which the word is derived.

How?

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. [Ephesians 3:14-1 9, NIV]

In other words, USE those emotions.

Use those emotions to drive you into God’s Word, to make you want his Word, to make you thrill at the things his Holy Spirit leads you to learn and apply. Feed and strengthen your heart so that your love is more stable and more consistent. Allow God to turn your feelings into a new creation, a never before existing love for Jesus that is as strong and predictable as God’s love for us.

We need to exchange our natural love for the love that comes from God and is focused on God and points us continuously and forever toward God.

More specifically, we need to move our eyes from our love for Jesus and put our eyes on his love for us. As long as our eyes are on our love for Jesus, we will look for opportunities to feel that love and to express that love. When we cannot FEEL love for Jesus, we will lose sight of the FACT of his love for us. If we don’t FEEL our love for Jesus, we will tend to question his love for us, and to feel distant from him. And then we will tend to seek out mountaintop experiences to help us FEEL our love for God. This will tend to make us dependent on those mountaintop experiences.

But if we keep our eyes on his love for us, then our love for him will be a natural response to his love for us. And a natural response to his constant love for us will be a more consistent love for him.

It is natural for us to be aware of and to experience our emotions. But it is spiritually immature for us to allow our emotions to drive our relationship with God. We MUST keep in the forefront of our minds God’s love for us, and the constant and eternal nature of that love, or we will waver and fluctuate in our love for him. It MUST be his nature that provides the foundation for our relationship with him, and NOT our natures.

A mountaintop experience tends to move our eyes from God’s love for us to our love for him; from his constant and eternal love for us to our fluctuating and temporal love for him. And if our eyes are on our fluctuating and emotional feelings for him, as soon as that mountaintop experience is over, we are particularly exposed to Satan’s deceptions. That makes our mountaintop experiences a danger to our walks with God. Remember, the higher we get, the farther we can fall.

But when God’s love permeates and saturates our hearts, we will see wisdom come from our emotions. When God’s constant and consistent love for us is the “solid as a rock” foundation of our walk with him, we will see stronger and more stable walks with God after all our mountaintop experiences. We will see God change our lives and the lives of others around us. And we will watch God change us from Soil Type Two to Soil Type Four in that parable.

And then we can totally enjoy and benefit from our Christian pep rallies.

Now, when is the next Carman concert?

 

 

---

 

WARNING!!!

Mountaintop Experience Ahead!

Mountaintop Experiences produce high levels of excitement. High levels of excitement reduce our natural sense of caution. Walking on the edge of a sheer cliff does not seem so scary when on a spiritual high. If you believe you can fly, you are not so concerned about falling.

Keeping your spiritual guard up is most important when coming off a spiritual high or a mountaintop experience. Keep your eyes on God and allow the Holy Spirit to guide your steps. Only in this way can you avoid tumbling off the cliff.

Enjoy your mountaintop experiences, but always recognize them for what they are – an opportunity for you to make unwise and emotional decisions or to rely on your feelings in order to walk with God.

Don’t be a spiritual junkie where your feelings need constant feeding. Instead, feed your spirit with the Word of God and the fellowship of the Saints.

---

 

We have so much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s Word all over again. You need milk, not solid food. Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Therefore, let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity… [Hebrews 5:11-6:1, NIV]

Religious Delusions

By TNSr5r@unseen.is, November, 2013

 

One of the many possible examples of Soil Type One in the Parable of the Soils, as recorded in Chapter 4 of Mark, is the intellectual person who is just too open-minded and inclusive to believe in the impossibly confining views and demands expressed in the Bible. And these so-called Intellectuals all tend to look and sound the same.

In psychological circles, one is often labeled as paranoid schizophrenic when one builds one or more delusions, or fictional worlds, within which one likes to dwell, or continually dwells, to the exclusion of what the rest of us call “reality.”

In religious circles, we can see that exact same situation.

Some of the symptoms, or traits, of a strong paranoid delusion include: a clear “we versus they” duality; an obvious but usually undefined set of rules for this delusional world; a tendency to quickly judge those who do not spontaneously obey these rules without explanation, who do not know the rules without being told them, as being deficient or inferior in some way; a developing or evolving story line; few, if any, are on the “we” side and almost everyone is on the “they” side”; “facts” to support the delusion are taken from many sources, even diametrically opposed sources, but nearly always taken out of context so they can be misconstrued or misrepresented easily; underlying assumptions and presumptions – sometimes even the primary beliefs are unconscious beliefs, with the delusional individual often unaware of them.

Unfortunately, a strong religious delusion shares almost all the same symptoms.

The purpose for this essay is not to outline a strategy to change or “convert” these people. The people who maintain these religious delusions are usually quite firm in their beliefs, and seldom open to changing them. Any discussion or debate of the issues is fun for the intellectual exercise, but normally become frustrating all individuals who are involved. In other words, argument is probably a waste of time. Further, argument will almost always degrade to personal insults and subjective perspectives.

Allow me to offer some definitions for the purpose of our discussion:

Christian – one who perceives oneself to be a follower of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, to the exclusion of all other religious leaders; one who perceives the Bible as the primary religious text concerning Jesus

Evangelical Christian – a Christian who perceives himself or herself to be on the conservative side of the collection of individuals claiming to be Christians; one who believes that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are established historical and spiritual facts; one who believes that the Bible is inspired by God in the original texts and TRUTH for all Christians; one who believes that the purpose of all Believers is to live like Jesus as closely as possible

Bible – a collection of writings involving dozens of writers over thousands of years compiled into a document that was and is inspired by God and accurate in the original texts; a “book” that exists today only in translation, which is just that: the result of sincere people performing a careful and detailed translation using what they believed to be the best texts available to them at the time; the major translations today being so similar in text that the differences are more in the depths and nuances of meaning than in actual meaning of the words; does not include some later attempts to “translate” based on a clear and usually stated attempt to change the meaning of earlier translations in order to conform more to the current social and religious beliefs of a minority of people who may not even call themselves Christians (e.g. a certain “modern translation” by a well-known science fiction author to render God either female or gender neutral)

Over the years, I have found myself put in the position of dialoging, even debating, with quite a number of people who refer to themselves as Christians in their earlier lives but later tended to pull back from that description. They have all been quite intelligent and well-read. And they have all tended to embrace the fairly common belief that all major religions teach the same core “truths” and worship the same God by one name or another. Within their ranks, they are not unique but often believe they are.

I have always treasured these discussions, not so much because I saw any victory in pushing or pulling the other individual in any given spiritual direction, but because I valued the refreshing and stimulating thought processes involved in these often intense discussions. One must be an original thinker in order to swim upstream against the current, and I will always appreciate an original thinker. But from these discussions, I have observed some similarities in those thought processes that I thought I might put forth, evidence that not ALL this thinking is original. And I have decided to write about why I believe at least some of those thought processes are inherently wrong, internally inconsistent, and even intellectually dishonest. And these beliefs are all a closed world, are all self-reinforcing, and are all accountable to ONLY their own subjective realities.

I am not saying that any of the individuals were dishonest, but that certain similarities in the thought processes of these people tended toward internal inconsistency and even intellectual dishonesty. In truth, I believe that each of these people were engaged in a spiritual delusion of monumental importance, and most were not aware of this fact.

Allow me to describe and to build a delusion of my own for you to review and comment.

Naturally, there are some ground rules that we must accept for our discussions, or we can go no further. This condition of mandated ground rules is, of course, the norm for all spiritual delusions I have encountered, although normally left unspoken until it was needed to defend the delusion.

First, there is a God, and there is only one God, but this God is NOT like any God or god worshiped in any of the well-known religious traditions; similar to all of them, but different from any of them. Instead, my God is more an amalgam of a number of these traditions. God is, after all, a representation of a particular religious perspective, but in reality the same God is worshiped by all. What you call your God is merely your view of God from the position where you stand. Others are standing in different positions and see a slightly different view. It is pompous and prideful for you to claim that your view from your perspective is correct to the exclusion of all other views and perspectives. God is too great to be limited by any man’s vision and understanding.

Second, God has chosen to reveal himself in many ways and to many groups of people. I accept the Bible and the words of Jesus as authoritative. I also accept other religious writings and other religious figures as authoritative. But we must accept the proviso that the Bible we have today was written by many authors over thousands of years. We must accept that no effort of man is without flaws. We must accept that almost all biblical authors had little or no knowledge of the other authors, or of the other texts, and so had no opportunity to coordinate and cooperate with the messages of other writers. As a result, the collection of stories and letters that is today accepted as the Bible must also be understood to be both incomplete and embellished. Incomplete because there is no reason to believe that God is finished inspiring authors to write; embellished because newer writers and translators over time have added snippets, perhaps entire sections, in order to clarify what they believed was the intent and meaning of the original authors and the original texts.

Third, I accept a long list of authors and teachers as authoritative about God: who and what he is, what he is like, what he wants, and how to get to know him. I quote these authorities often in discussions of God and religious issues, and I expect you to have read these authorities and understand what they believe when we discuss these issues. If you cannot, then we both must accept that you can have very little of importance to add to our discussion or to my beliefs. We both must accept that you are intellectually limited for purposes of our discussion. I will USUALLY listen to what you have to say with some patience, but only with that proviso. I am, after all, a Christian, and Christians are if nothing else loving and open to others of a different belief.

Fourth, the only restriction to our discussion, and this is a major point that cannot be debated or negotiated, is the fact that no author or teacher viewed as a conservative Christian is accepted as authoritative unless only certain claims are allowed and other claims can be dismissed, at my discretion. Any author or teacher who once held a conservative Christian view of God and who has more recently modified his views to be more open and inclusive, is naturally considered to be more authoritative in his more recent views. All honest thinkers must be open to further enlightenment, and those who are not, those who have remained unchanging in their views over time, have limited content to add to our discussions.

Fifth, the actual context of any biblical reference is insignificant. What any biblical author or character has said is at issue; who it was said to, what those listening believed, how they responded, what was going on before or during what was said – all are unimportant factors when it comes to interpreting what was said and what we should “hear” from what was said. What those people intended is never as important as what we conclude. Included in this ground rule is the fact that there is no TRUTH, no absolute, no “fact” that is true under any and all circumstances and for any and all people. Everything in this life is subject to interpretation and to personal application in ways that might vary from individual to individual. In other words, you can never tell me that I am wrong.

And last, it is stipulated by all parties in any discussion that sources and claims which are contrary to those offered by Evangelical Christians are to be accepted as equally authoritative, and are acceptable as a complete and effective rebuttal to any claim or quote made by an Evangelical Christian, regardless of the source or of the beliefs of the source.

So what will our discussion sound like?

Like every conversation I have had with a knowledgeable cynic who had the above perspectives on these issues. Like almost every discussion I have had with a Soil Type One individual.

No matter what is stated, one or more of the ground rules allows for a counter that can pretty much stop the conversation.

And what really is the purpose of those ground rules? It allows me to pick and choose what I believe and who I believe, and does not allow you to offer any argument that I cannot easily dismiss.

In fact, my favorite tactic is to counter a conservative argument with some quote from someone famous, usually someone with strongly stated spiritual views. He or she doesn’t have to have any particular educational qualifications, just strongly stated views that are contrary to some conservative view stated by you. For example, you can make some claim about God and I could rebut your claim by quoting some politician or some scientist, ANY politician or scientist, who disagrees with your claim. And since any claim by anyone is considered a credible claim when it is counter to any claim offered by a conservative Christian, then my claim trumps your claim and you cannot win.

My delusion is self-validating and self-reinforcing. No one can win any argument against me because I am in control of what is and what is not authoritative.

And the real issue is that I am in control. I decide what is right and wrong, who is right and wrong, what is acceptable and not acceptable. And often I do so by claiming that there IS no right and wrong. I get to control the argument. And because I control the argument, I cannot lose the argument. Ever.

AND I GET TO DEFINE GOD!

While I will NEVER admit it, I have become my own idol. I have taken the position of God. I have defined what is TRUTH. My intellect has become the most important and most powerful force in the universe. I can quote more authorities than you. I can reference more books and authors and theologians than you. I can assume without proof that I MUST be right because I CAN reference more books and authors and theologians than you.

He who knows, wins.

And since I control who and what God is, I don’t have to FEAR taking any authority away from him. I don’t have to FEAR making God a creation of mine.

I don’t have to FEAR God!

The ONLY thing I have to fear is for you to understand the presuppositions and the stipulations of our discussion. I cannot admit to them, and you cannot delineate them. All the presuppositions and stipulations MUST remain unspoken. And if anyone points them out, I will deny them. No matter how much I have used any particular item above, I will deny believing that item or using that item.

I KNOW that the presuppositions and stipulations are totally unreasonable, totally illogical, and totally unfair. But my entire peace and confidence, my entire life, depends on those views. And it depends on those views remaining unspoken, so I never have to confront how unreasonable and illogical and unfair are the foundations of my belief system and my life.

As long as you and I remain within the confines of those presuppositions and those stipulations, we can have a profitable and fruitful conversation.

After all, I am open-minded, right?

 

I was raised in a Christian home.   All my life I have been taught that God created all things.  I was also taught that Jesus Christ was His son, and it is through Christ alone that we are able to return to Heaven someday.

God, in all His wisdom, created not only the world, galaxy, and universe, and everything in and on them, but also the laws governing all these realms of existence.  If God created laws to govern the physical world, then it stands to reason that these laws are absolute, and cannot be broken.  We may have only given names to a few of these laws (Law of Gravity, Laws of Thermodynamics, Ideal Gas Law, etc.) but there are other laws God has set into motion such as natural law, as mentioned in the very astute posts “What I Believe,” and “So Called Gay Marriage.”

Another law I would consider to be a “natural law” would be mathematical law.  (1+1=2,  anything that opposes that goes against that natural law.)

I have also been taught, and fully believe that God cannot lie.  He tells the truth, regardless of how that makes us feel.  He tells us what is right.   Isaiah 65:16 tells us that God is a God of truth.

I also believe that because of the numerous references of God, as “Heavenly Father” that we are His  children.  1 John 3:10 tells us we are his children. And that He knows and loves each one of us as any loving father loves his children.  Completely and unconditionally.  And as a Father, God wants to teach us, and wants us to grow, and learn, and succeed.

So if God is our Father, and we are His children, and He only tells us truth, and as children He would want to explain things so we can understand them, and we have scriptures like Acts 7: 55 that describe prophets literally seeing God and Jesus Christ as two separate and distinct individuals, why does so much of Christianity tell us that God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are one being in three bodies? In fact he even re-iterates himself in the very next verse 56 as if to say, “LOOK! This is what I saw, don’t misunderstand what I’m saying!”

Matthew 3:16 documents when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and even describes Jesus being in the water, the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove, and in verse 17 God speaking saying, “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Three separate beings.

John 20:17, after Christ’s resurrection He tells Mary, “touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father.” Why would Jesus talk in third person about “himself” if he is also God the Father?  furthermore why would he have to “ascend to” Him? If He is the being that He needed to visit, talk to, confer with, etc, why would He HAVE to leave in order to do what needed to be done?

When Jesus was a child and he was teaching the elders in the temple Luke 2:49 Jesus directly refers to God as “my Father,” when Mary asked his where he had been.

Why would there be so many references BY Christ himself, to “The Father,” if they were one person?  I know some of you may quote John 10:30  “I and my Father are one.” But I don’t think he meant this physically.   But if he meant that they were in fact ONE BEING, why didn’t he just say it?   Mark 10:8 states “And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.”  But here Jesus is specifically talking about a husband and wife being “one flesh.”  So if he was able to articulate “one flesh” about a husband and a wife, but he only ever spoke about He and his Father as “one,” but constantly talked about the Father in the third person, then to me, that says they are two distinct, individual beings.  Like when my wife and I talk to our kids, if they ask one of us for something, it’s as good as asking both of us.  We are “one in purpose” and as Mark 10:8 says, even “one in flesh,” but that does not mean we are the same person.  I am my own person, just as my wife is her own person, so although we are two individuals, our marriage makes us “one.” Just as The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are “one” it is in purpose, not “one being.”

All this leads me back to Acts 7:55 & 56

“⁵⁵But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,

⁵⁶ And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”

From all this, I know that God is our Heavenly Father.  We are his children.  Jesus Christ is His son. Children from the same father are siblings, so I think it would be fair to conclude that Jesus is our brother.  What an AWESOME thought! And the Holy Spirit is God’s messenger, who speaks to us and gives us guidance.

And that’s what I believe.

-Joseph Forefathers

Christian Fatalism

By TNSr5r@unseen.is, January, 2014

I hear the question/issue almost every day: “What is God trying to teach me by putting me through these circumstances?” Or maybe, “…by sending me to prison?”

First, personally, I don’t believe that God sent me to prison. Second, personally, I don’t think that God sent me to prison because he couldn’t teach me some specific lesson in any other way. Third, generally, I really don’t believe that Scripture teaches that God sends bad things or hard times to teach people lessons. Fourth, generally, God often sends believers into circumstances (good AND bad) to be in place for someone else’s need or benefit.

First, I don’t believe that God sent me to prison. I believe that I started on a path back in 1990 which had the risk of getting negative attention from the IRS. As soon as I started helping others fight the IRS, I was in danger. I thought about that a lot before launching. My wife and I prayed about it a lot. And we both concluded certain facts: that we must follow this course of action; that it was to benefit others who could not help themselves; that it was legal and lawful; and that it was our only option if we wanted to maintain our integrity after studying the issues as much as we studied them. At that time, I believed that the greatest risk was a felony conviction resulting in 5-8 years in prison for me, but no prison time for Bonnie. We decided to move ahead and run that risk back in 1990. It was our decision, and my actions, that resulted in me being in prison. God did not send me there; a dishonest prosecutor and an ineffective defense sent me there.

Second, I don’t think God sent me (or anyone) to prison to teach me (or us) something that he could not have taught me (or us) on the outside. It is an easy thing to predict in advance or perceive after the fact certain actions or behaviors that will result from prison influences, and it would be an easy thing to cling to one or more of them in explanation for my going to prison. It would probably be impossible to choose one of those actions or results and claim with confidence and spiritual authority that THIS is why God sent me to prison, but I could select several of the perceived benefits, or even all of them, and claim that they were why God sent me here. Most people would make a list of all positive results of being in prison, and refer to that list as answer to the above question.

Most people HAVE to have a logical explanation for their bad circumstances in life to which they can point in order to maintain their faith in the love and goodness of God.

But think about it, folks. Job was going through life enjoying EVERYTHING because EVERYTHING was awesome. Then God bumped into Satan at the mall and bragged about Job to Satan. And then Satan set about destroying Job’s life. When Satan was

finished taking Job’s health and everything good away from him, and Job asked God “Why?” God NEVER answered Job and NEVER justified allowing Satan to destroy Job.

Look again at Scripture. There was NOTHING Job needed to learn, yet his life was destroyed anyway. Perhaps the only thing Job learned by going through his horrible circumstances was the fact that God had the right to do anything he darn well pleases with and to any of us. But anyone who points that out to us scares the crap out of all of us, and paints God as being a mean and vicious God.

Of course, we like to remember the last part of Job’s life where things were better than they ever were before. We like that because it allows us to hope that if we go through anything like Job did, well, at least things would be better after all the dust settled and the blood dried.

But there was no lesson for Job to learn; there was nothing God wanted to teach Job that required such destruction and pain. I mean, read the first 3 verses of Job again:

“This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil… He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.” [Job 1:1-3, in part, NIV]

Job was blameless before God, and then Job went through hell.

Most people claim that Job had too much pride and needed to learn a lesson. I believe that such claims are based in ignorance and the NEED TO FIND A REASON. Please notice that it was not Job who claimed “he was the greatest man among all the people of the earth,” which has been falsely claimed by many — it was the narrator of the story who made that claim as he was describing Job. Scripture gives no evidence at all of any sin in Job’s life, and no evidence at all of any need to be taught any lessons.

Third, I don’t believe Scripture teaches that God sends bad things or bad circumstances into the lives of believers to teach them spiritual truths. There may be many good things that believers learn when they experience bad events and bad circumstances, but I see no passage that teaches this as one of God’s teaching tools.

In fact, I see just the opposite. Bad things happen. Period.

“He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” [Matthew 5:45, NIV]

“…for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” [Matthew 5:45, KJV]

“…for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” [Matthew 5:45, NASB]

Bad things happen!

Sometimes those bad things come from God. And no amount of positive thinking or self-help is going to remove a really bad day when that really bad day is sent by God. Further, no amount of lessons learned will take that bad day away.

But most Christians NEED to see a reason for bad things or bad circumstances!

Most Christians NEED to believe that God has a reason behind the horrors of their lives in order to for them to continue in faith, believing in a loving and gracious God! Most Christians today would NEVER survive Job’s experience! Most Christians today would follow the advice of one of Job’s friends to “Curse God and die!”

It is hard, or even impossible, for most Christians to believe that God would allow bad things to happen without making them better. It is even more difficult for them to believe that God just might SEND bad things.

Fourth, God sometimes sends believers into bad circumstances to have them in place for the benefit of someone else. Remember, Paul commented once that it would be better for him to go home to heaven, but it would be better for others that he remain on this earth in bad circumstances. So Paul chose to remain. Remember also, in the Garden, Jesus just plain didn’t want to go through the whole crucifixion thing, including being separated from his Father. Yet he submitted to it because of the unbelievable benefit to the entire world.

I have learned to say each morning as I awake: “I am but a pawn in God’s Great Chess game. I wonder what move he has for me today!” I have learned that living this way allows for each day to be exciting and fulfilling, regardless of being in prison; regardless of ANY circumstances! And I have also learned that sometimes pawns get sacrificed.

But, as Paul said in Romans:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” [Romans 8:28, NIV]

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. [Romans 8:28, KJV]

It does not say that God CAUSES ALL THINGS; it says that God causes all things to work together for our good and his glory. Sometimes that means the Father causes my circumstances to work together for my good. Sometimes that means he causes my circumstances to work together for someone else’s good. No matter what, SOMEONE gains eternal benefits from my circumstances. And I can live with that!

The question here is not “What should I learn here?” but “How can I be used here?”

And God has used me greatly in prison in ways that are very exciting, and I will always treasure my time spent here.

No, I will NEVER like prison! No, I will NEVER believe that I deserved coming here or my prison sentence. No, I will NEVER believe that prison was a good thing for me.

But I will always treasure the opportunities I have had to touch the lives of men who are hurting and struggling and trying to see God in all of this.

And there are a lot of believers here; some preachers, some Bible College professors, some sincere Christians who just don’t know how God could allow them to go to prison when they believe they were innocent, and ESPECIALLY many men who believe that God no longer has a use for them and has discarded them.

And I have the privilege and the thrill and the honor of talking with these men and of helping them to see how God still wants to use them, and of helping them grow in ALL their lives’ circumstances.

There are too many examples in Scripture to mention all of them; of good people going through bad experiences with no clear explanation from God. If we go back to Daniel, we see that he believed God COULD keep him alive, but NOT that God WOULD keep him alive. I believe that Scripture indicates that Daniel expected to die that day, and he was at peace with it. When God finally DID keep him alive, Daniel gave God the credit for his miracle and received a job promotion! Undoubtedly, God keeping Daniel alive got people’s attention. But if you read the entire story again carefully, you will see that it was Daniel’s attitude all through the process (as well as all through his captivity) that so impressed the Chaldean ruler that Daniel was promoted after he partied with some lions and angels.

Something similar happened to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They suffered a death sentence and survived, and that got them attention. I believe Scripture indicates the men believed they were going to die that day, and they faced it with godly attitudes. And a careful reading of the passage shows that it was their attitudes, that day and all through their captivity, which got them promotions and made their lives better.

They were (all 4 of them) in cast in very bad circumstances, and they were (all 4 of them) manifesting an attitude of loving and serving and worshipping God through it all.

And they were (all 4 of them) NEVER given an explanation by God!

God wanted that attitude more than anything. And when they survived their death sentences, did God free them and allow them to go home? No. But God did give them promotions and other benefits.

And God used their hearts, shown by their attitudes, to touch other people’s lives!

I am convinced that God is not situational in his perspective, but attitudinal. What I mean is, God is less concerned about our circumstances than he is about our attitudes IN our circumstances. It takes the supernatural grace of God to face bad circumstances with the right attitudes. And it is those right attitudes that affect the hearts and lives of those around us.

Yes, surviving a death sentence gets attention. But that only sells tickets. It is the heartfelt attitude of “Yet though he slay me, I will still serve him” which Job showed that touches hearts and brings people to God.

God is more concerned that I face each day as his Ambassador, ready for his use, than he is that I am in prison serving an unjustified sentence. I may have to deal with being in prison, but it is in being in prison that I get the joy of touching the lives of these men.

WHERE I am is merely SO THAT God can use me in the life of someone here!