Saturday, June 29, 2013

Discussion on Alcohol

On Tuesday night, I attended a Bible study. A topic presented for discussion was if Christians could drink alcohol. If you were to ask the counsel of the whole Scriptures if it is permissible, and not to say at all times and places in all quantities, but at times if it is permissible, then it absolutely is.

The stipulations on that is that we should exercise caution, in this case for the reason that it has been demonstrated throughout human history that it is an item which is vulnerable to abuse and could incrementally take over a person's life and become his master, whereas Paul says to make nothing (aside from God of course) your master (1 Corinthians 6:12).

One of the things that is understood among those who have delighted themselves in this imbibing is there is a progressive loss of functioning relative to the amount ingested. A person may have trouble enunciating their syllables clearly and distinctly (slurring) at first, followed by problems in balance and coordination. If drinking continues then anything from loss of consciousness to falling into a coma would follow and finally death. That is the physiological result.

On the relational/social level, other things might follow the abuse of alcohol. Several questions should be asked? Is my drinking making me a worse father? Am I not loving my kids as well, raising and disciplining them as well, bonding with them as a father should bond with his kids? Am I a better or worse worker? How would my boss describe my productivity? Am I more productive or has my productivity taken a hit because I'm failing to keep it together? Do I have a quicker temper, less patience, less understanding for the people around me, a more careless attitude, bitterness and dissatisfaction with parts of my life or finding myself more often in a depressed mood than a positive and upbeat mood?

Alcohol can effect the way you handle all of these things: Family, work, friends, even the young woman taking your order over the phone at Pizza Hut.

Pork

But Christians create a very similar dilemma for themselves when they condemn consumption of alcohol but go home and wake up on Saturday morning to eat a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and sausage. It should be obvious that the Old Testament is known to have prohibited eating pork but Christians mysteriously suffer the hermeneutic lapse and say the New Testament overturns that.

The question that should be on the minds of ethicists or someone who is concerned with moral questions is, "Was there anything intrinsically immoral about it during Old Testament times, and if so, what now allows it to satisfy morality in the New Testament period?" And even that is not as accurate as saying, "If it was banned in Old Testament times, and something God was passionate about then, then could it be mistaken when Christians determine that the New Testament overturns it, that is, that our understanding of the relevant New Testament passages is incorrect?"

The Bible cannot disprove the Bible, nor can it testify against itself. It is one of the sounder principles of biblical hermeneutics, and it sits unquestioningly and firmly beside the idea of inerrancy and verbal plenary inspiration. If the God who "breathed" into life His words in the Old Testament, who was pssionate about eating pork, also was the same God who "breathed" the text of the New Testament, doesn't it undoubtably follow from this that He is also passionate for His people to not eat pork in our present day?

Let me save myself time, my readers time, and jump to a similarly weighty issue because I have elaborated on this issue before and it would be redundant to explain again for the nth time why the standard interpretation of Peter's vision in Acts 11 and Yeshua's teaching in Mark 7 are not applicable to the question of unclean meats. And if you really think a guy named Yeshua would try to get you to eat bacon then there's something not right with you. Maybe someone with a Greek name like Jesus, but a Jewish rabbi? Come on.

But the better question to address here is the question of tradition. To frame the problem: Many Christians condemn any drinking of alcohol, even in negligible amounts. They condemn those people to damnation and to burn in Hell for all of eternity. Yet many of them it can be certain have some sort of pork in their refrigerators at home.

Yeshua had several major themes during His ministry but one issue He was as passionate about as almost all of the rest was how the Jewish people of His day had become more concerned with the traditions of the scribes, the traditions of men, and if it were necessary, would diminish the importance of God's law so that they could salvage their own traditions! In other words, it was more important that man's traditions were observed than it was to observe God's law.

It isn't something I pause to reflect on or take any caution in stating: If you, a Christian person, teach that drinking alcohol will lead to death in Hell, yet you yourself have bacon at home, then you are committing one of the great errors, and such a great error, that Yeshua made great effort in fighting against any and all who taught it. He devoted probably more time to this one issue than perhaps any other: Will you choose to follow after man, or will you choose to follow God?

How is it that bacon ws wrong to eat in the OT, it's okay to in the NT? It's said we're not subkect to laws anymore. Then why do they try to add additional laws (man's law) onto us with regard to alcohol? The two are mutually exclusive propositions. These are legalists and they are advocating for tradition, and biblically they are to be held in no greater esteem than the Pharisees with whom the idea originated.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

When Children Die

From video Katelyn with Sarcoma

On my computer, a lot of times I download videos to watch later. Because of a slow download speed it is easier to download the whole video because it doesn't buffer in real time speed, it's too slow.

One of the videos I downloaded a month or more back was about a young girl, Katelyn, thirteen years old, who was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a bone cancer. I really avoided watching the video for several weeks because I knew it would make me very sad. It was about this same time when I downloaded the video she passed away. She had been fighting it for sometime. There was another video of a little girl who was being abused very badly by her stepfather and finally killed by him, and that video made me cry so many times and for so long. I didn't want that to happen again.

I finally watched the video tonight. It was very sad and I came home and cried and reflected on some things. I wanted to raise a few points.

There is an unusual sorrow one feels when looking into the faces of the children like Katelyn who are transitioning from this life to the next. I thought of what could be the reason for why this child died or why others like her had to die? I feel as a Christian that there has to be a reason for everything. But I also think that we have to be able to accept that God has set things into motion and delivered us over to our own devices for a while until we see that we really do need Him. I hate to think this sort of thing happens for no reason at all, but I am open to that being a possibility.

I thought of children who are killed in car accidents. Most people hear of this sort of thing on the news and then go to the next story, hardly pausing but for a second, if at all, to remember the lives lost. But we answer these questions. We say the father/mother fell asleep at the wheel, they swerved to not hit a deer, or other reason. Or an oncoming driver moved into the other lane and it was he who killed the family. When another is at fault it seems even more tragic than the first case. The further blame is shifted from those involved, the more inexplicable it gets.

But when you get to cancer, there is no explanation for it. There is no one to blame, it is just a fact of nature none of us can come to terms with or can accept. There is no one asleep at the wheel to blame, no drunk driver. So it leaves you with a sort of sadness and grief that you wouldn't feel in another case. School shootings for example. Shootings happen every single day. Sometimes, it's 20 year olds, 40 year olds, seniors or children who are killed. Sometimes a baby is hit with a stray bullet. But we understand because of the evil in man's heart, because of gang signs and gang colors, nihilism, and hatred that these things are inevitable. Some of us have even struggled with that feeling ourselves when we were young, of having enemies out in the streets and not knowing if you don't get him if he gets you first. So we understand that.

But with cancer, we see the child continue through treatment, as their face starts to sink in, their skin turns pale, they lose their hair. We see them hang on and fight with everything they have, and we see them when they so desperately want peace, but we know there is no peace for them here but to move on. We are looking at a transition from life to death in real time. It's like we are watching something saying, "No, no!!!"
but it continues and does not stop, and we have no power to stop it. We sympathize with Death when it takes us at a time we did not expect, when it's merciful and abducts us immediately. We have no time to say goodbye and no one has time to notice. They hear about it on the news and then they get to the next story. If death stole from us an old man, our grandfather, or grandmother, it would be difficult but it would be
understandable, that our grandfather saw many good years, had a productive life, and lived much of his life a happy man. When a child is stolen by cancer, there is no mercy. It is drawn out, it is painful, it's a mockery, it doesn't steal the person swiftly and silently, but it sucks away at their very soul slowly and unbearably. This to me cannot be answered.

When those children die in a car accident, or in a drive by shooting, no one reflects on it. It doesn't touch a nation. It might cause a small local church to hold a memorial, but everyone else goes on and doesn't give it a second thought.

This girl, her life, is so incredibly touching to me. But what's also touching is that children die every single day we don't hear about and if we do hear about it no one gives it a second thought. When we sympathize with the death and chalk it up to everyday occurrence, wreck, violence, tornado, we forget about it. But this
 young girl, I can't for the life of me imagine what reason in all of the world could explain why she was taken.







But she is my hero and I know she is with the Father now and she will be reunited one day soon with everyone who cared about her.

Katelyn Norman

1999-2013

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Old lines a lot of us bought

A lot of Christians try to warn their kids about these. Or for the youth they know about them and make pledges to resist it. You know them...

"Everyone's doing it,"

"But it feels good,"

"But the political system just hasn't caught up with the times yet, they still wish they lived in the Victorian era and days of Prohibition,"

"There is no morality. Everything is relative, there is no absolute truth and people get to choose their own way in life. There is nothing outside of ourselves that we have anything to learn from,"

"God gave us magic mushrooms/There is no medical evidence that weed is harmful."

"If you don't do it is just because you're a square."
____

This could apply to smoking weed, smoking crack, jumping off a bridge, asphyxiation games.

Or the Bible.

One that many of you missed was the Law of God. The lie came the same way, same form, just different wording.

"Christ died for you, none of that matters any more, all Christians eat sausage on a stick"

"But this bacon tastes so good,"

"That was Old Covenant, this is new, they live in bygone eras"

"Those who say otherwise are Victorians and Judaizers, living in bygone eras"

"All the dietary laws are expired, we as men get to decide what we eat, when we eat, and how much we eat!"

"God gave us honey glazed ham, everything God gave was for our good, pork in moderation never harmed anyone!"

"Anyone who tries to obey God's laws is just being self-righteous and better than everyone else."

_________________________

You better stop me now before I win some sort of literature prize. I'd say I did pretty good and for the 8 or so of you who read this you might even be impressed. The application of a color system has the effect of lining up the claim of the drug dealer with the claims of the butcher or the Gentile and it adds a dimension to the rhetorical effect.

To conclude, I want to say that many of you have fought against these pressures, taught your kids of what sorts of little demon kids they go to school with, or at least you have faced peer pressure yourself. What makes you think that the same tricks are not used by the devil to get you to falter as his own  children use? his children learned these lies from him. It is those of us who have been trusted with the ministry of the Gospel to lead you into light and show you the truth itself.

It happened many ages ago, in fact it was one of the first happenings that ever happened. It was early on in the garden days when the serpent met up with Eve and said that old lie, "Hath God really said," to not eat of that fruit? He said it wasn't that you would die in the day in which you would eat it, but rather it was because they would become like unto God and God wanted to hog all the power to Himself.

Unfortunately, many of the teachers have come in, and from a very early date to proffer, "Hath God really said," to not eat of the pork-meat?

You have bought into the devil's lies all over again.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Bible is the Most Unpopular Book Ever

The Bible is, by sales volume, the most popular book in history, by sales mind you. Don't forget that Christians also annoy people by giving out millions of free ones that most people just take to be nice and grateful, but they never read it. I'm sure if you printed billions of copies of Mark Twain or some similar great historical author and tried to hand them off to people you could get them to take it too and then you could say, look, Mark Twain is the most popular author on Earth. Okay, enough sacrilege, I will get to my point.

My point is, that this is clearly the most unpopular book in the world, especially among Christians. I say that because virtually no one actually believes it. Let me demonstrate:

I. Millions upon millions of Christians who believe in a pre-tribulation Rapture. That is taught against at Matthew 24:29-31, 1 Thes 4, and 2 Thes 2. Clearly, the Bible is not popular to anyone who believes in this Rapture lie.

II. The Trinity. For all the billions of Christians who believe this particular lie of pagan origin that the Bible no where actually teaches, the Bible is not very popular either. If you want to know where the Bible teaches against it, blindly open up to any page and just look down at the words.

III. Dispensationalism. Another lie millions believe. Nowhere is this lie taught. It's another one of Darby's stupid lies and I'll get to Darby later.

IV. Strange manifestations like gold falling from Heaven, barking like a dog... Seriously? Are Christians so stupid that they believe this or when a guy says if you sow an $8000 seed God is going to send you free money (probably under the table too because all those televangelists are tax cheats and whatever demon god they follow probably is a tax cheat too)?

V. They don't like the part about God saying He hates people ("...Esau I have hated."). They scream, they squirm, and then finally they crawl back into the septic tank or landfill or gutter they crawled out of.

VI. They don't like the part that says not to eat pork. They like the part about getting to go to Heaven and sitting around singing songs and eating good food but they don't like the part about obeying the commandments. They want all the goodies but not have to work for it.

VII. And pretty much ever other stupid lie they harp on that are so unbiblical and anti-biblical that it proves once and for all that no one takes much of anything seriously in this book. If it is not fun and exciting it's ignored, if it's astonishing and uncomfortable it's thrown out, and anything else that anyone decides doesn't suit his liking he will throw it out.

What it boils down to is most of these "Christians" are no different than any of you heathens who are reading this. You all just want to believe whatever you want to believe and nothing is going to change it, definitely not a holy book. If you have a great scientific theory, it doesn't matter only a few scientists agree with you because you can just say that it is years before it is proven. If you are a youth, you can make yourself believe that your parents are stupid idiots who grew up in the naive 70s and fail to understand the modern world and then go about doing what you like. Or you can insist that the police are abusing their authority and the legislators are philosophically incorrect and go ahead and break the law anyway.

Again, and again, and again, I find that most people just want to live their lives, pursue happiness that is tailored specifically for them, to find fulfillment, and not be bothered by someone telling them about the God of all the earth and His plans for them. The Christians are no different. They want to do what satisfies them and be left alone. It is disgusting, it is hypocritical, nauseating, and it is one of the reasons unbelievers who have met some of you would rather burn in Hell than find themselves sitting next to you for all eternity because you're shameful. You are children of the devil, many of you Christians, and this is your doing. You have created an epic, once in a thousand year mess for people like me to have to come along and clean up and I've got to say if it weren't for the power of God, no one would be able clean this up because you truly have made everything FUBAR.

There Are No Bad Christians

There are no bad Christians. You have a choice to either be a good Christian or a good Satanist, but you don't get to choose to be a bad Christian.

In the other sense though, most of you Christians are nothing but bad. Bad morals, bad attitudes and liars. But in another sense, I would just as soon say none of that sort are Christians at all. They're living according to the rules of the devil better than they are the rules of God.

Let's talk about pork and your "apostle" Paul. Many of you continue to eat pork to spite God because of your hatred of His law. And then you uphold Paul as a great oracle of knowledge. Paul said it himself, that you can't partake of God's table and the table of demons. You have to choice which one you serve. I've got news for you "Christians": There ain't no pork being served at God's table. If the devil offered many of you a ham sandwich you would sell your soul for it. You go on doing all sorts of evil, lies, slanders. You have such a deficit of morality and you choose to identify by the name Christian when that is not what you are. You are Satanists as a matter of fact. And many of you are so irreparably stupid I think God will finally have mercy on you because of your outrageous ignorance. But if you knowingly go around cursing His children, including His prophets, and continue preaching Hell then perhaps He will remove His mercy. You cannot be merciless and preach damnation against all but then expect mercy, especially when you have no special merit over anyone else. In fact, you're morally more decrepit than most of those you pass judgment on. And don't tell me I have accused anyone. I just called it for what it is.

Either you obey the law or you do not. That means you are either law-abiding or you are a criminal, a law-breaker. No Epistle can reverse that fact. If you choose to break the Law, then you are practicing Satanism. You are either a good Christian or a good Satanist, but you cannot be a bad Christian.

That Common Hell Question

As I have written here, my belief is that the damned will go into the ground and they are gone. I don't accept an eternal Hell and I might be open to some sort of amnesty policy whereby at least some of the unbelievers might receive salvation, some sort of apokatastasis. Then Christians ask me this question: If unbelievers can make it to Heaven without accepting Christ? Which I accept as a legitimate question. But I ask that you respect that I get to ask legitimate questions too. My question for you is this: If there is no Law, then why do unbelievers need Christ? You who argue that Paul has instituted liberty and grace and that we're free to eat bacon and ham sandwiches, you who say there is no Law, then good for you because now you have made Christ to be useless at best. There is no Law so there is no need for Christ so that we may receive forgiveness and salvation anymore.

(EDIT: Several weeks after writing because some of you are dense: If Christ died because many of you are rebels who eat ham sandwiches and sausage on a stick, but you say that it's perfectly okay to eat sausage on a stick and ham sandwiches, then you're saying Christ died for nothing at all. 'He meant well but he was deluded' in other words. Or some of you will try to be tricky and say He died just so we could eat as many ham sandwiches as we want. Hey that's a good idea, I guess we can all go around stealing from people and killing anyone we dislike too can't we, I mean since Christ already died for everything anyway, right?)




But you want your cake and to eat it too. (That's such a stupid cliche. If it's my cake, then why don't I get to eat it?) Your point is that there is a Law that judges people who reject Christ but then once you get saved the Law flies out the window and you don't have to respect any of it? Wait, I just remembered something. The (false) Apostle Paul said that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law. The Law is no curse, that is a flat out lie. Eating balogna intentionally in defiance of God's Law brings a curse. The German language is cursed too because of cologne, balogna, and colonel, they make no sense whatsoever, learn to spell. Either that, or Americans don't know how to read and we're cursed (I would say in fact this nation is already cursed).

But to get back to the point, why do you say that you sit in special category and don't have to obey the commandments but if an unbeliever does he reserves a front row seat in Hell? So your question is faulty because it uses an inconsistent rule.

Social Issues I: Beyonce and Justice

Justice and Beyonce

Beyonce recently made the point in an interview that there was no justice in the world. That's odd coming from her. Her and her husband, who have made absolutely no contribution whatsoever to humanity except making pathetic and annoying music are worth, it's estimated, about $1,000,000,000 (one billion dollars). What kind of justice is that? You aren't spending much of that money feeding your people in Africa, you're not building houses for Habitat for Humanity that crack dealers can be awarded so they have a safe place to sell drugs from, you're not promoting vaccination in Africa like Bill Gates does that has side effects of causing sterility so that the unchecked reproduction there can be diminished (that's what it's for, check the facts). Or even better than eugenics: a billion dollars could build thousands of schools, supply running water to potentially hundreds of thousands of Africans, and still have money left to build universities and start endowments so that the best and brightest children could see their entire schooling paid for, through medical schol even.

What does she propose to do for us as a society? She takes an interview and sets time aside from her day to lecture us on "justice".

Where's the justice when since the days of Destiny's Child, you've promoted sex sex sex, and nothing but sex, dressing in sexually provocative get-ups, practically expose you ass at the Super Bowl, there's nothing even leftto the imagination, we practically have seen you completely naked, and so a guy at your concert a few weeks ago slaps you on the ass and so you have the guy removed. Wait a minute, you made the business decision to sell yourself off as a sex item, but then someone going the next logical step and slapping you on the ass is the problem?

That is not justice! That is an injustice!

Another reason it's an injustice, not only because you are a hypocrite, but because that concert probably cost nearly $100 just for general admission. The guy to be that close to the stage likely paid more than that. You made how many tens or hundreds of thousands but this guy has committed a capital offense to slap you on the butt?

Or how's this for justice, since you lecture us on justice.

You lip-sync at the Inauguration.

You lip-sync at the Super Bowl.

Then you probably (I don't know and don't really care) go to this concert, make hundreds of thousands that night by charging probably $100 a ticket, you lip sync, and then a guy slaps you on the ass and he's thrown out.

You don't sing. You throw your body out like you are some sort of ideal woman (you're kind of disgusting actually) but then if someone gets a little to close they're thrown out, despite having paid the hundreds of dollars so that you can go home that much closer to making another million for simply prancing around on a stage and moving your lips like you were actually singing.

You lecture us on justice. Go help your people. You saw a black man in office. Now go see blacks in Africa have clean water that isn't contaminated by worms and parasites, living in mud huts and taking baths under urinating cattle. Go fix that and we'll talk about justice. You and your husband may be the richest people on earth who have created actually nothing and offer nothing to society whatsoever. That you lecture anyone on justice is what makes you a terrible person.

EDIT: 4:55 AM, I have the NBC morning news on. Right as I was getting ready to post this they did a story about how in photos for some magazine I guess they photoshopped her body to make her look thinner. What a fake faker... She can't sing, she sells sex, even her photos are faked and she lectures us. And her name is spelled be-yontz. There is no acute accent on the E. Look, you don't get to override rules of language just because your sort doesn't generally agree there are any rules. Ebonics, Tomekas, and I can verify one Squirtisha, it doesn't matter. But it does. If it were pronounced correctly, it would be b-yontz.