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Category: Confronting Darkness

Don’t Be Lawful Stupid – Wesley’s Rules for Life

May 5, 2024 / / 0 Comments

It was Jesus that called upon all Christians to “be innocent as doves and wise as serpents.” Those in games and stories who equate the good guys with being “lawful stupid” don’t really understand good, (and having worked in the gaming industry,) they absolutely don’t understand evil. Equally so many Christians, who have fallen for the heresy of what I call “the Barney Gospel” (the idea that everything is about love and principles and violence is always wrong,) this is totally not Biblical, but the lies are regularly told from pulpits throughout Europe and America. [We will discuss Good and Evil and what I mean by those things in a future article.]

Despite the complete Biblical testimony which is balanced and designed for real life, ideologues from all sides have tried to make the Bible into something it is not. Humans like to follow rules and they want life simple. However, life is not simple, and neither is God. Jesus also said that “laws were made for man, man was not made for the law.” By this he was talking about his disciples being hungry and actually gathering food on the Sabbath when the Holy People said there was to be NO work done. Jesus acknowledged the law but said my disciples are hungry and they need to eat. The rules that the human church had made to interpret what the Bible said as “observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy” were not what God intended. He wanted people to take a break one day a week off from all their work (a radical idea in a world that had no days off except on the New and the Full moon.) God did not want people to go hungry when they were doing God’s work on the Sabbath. As a Pastor I regularly worked on the Sabbath, often more than 8 hours. In fact, some pastors have a problem in their 70-hour work weeks in that they don’t take time off for prayer, rest, and study. Burnout is a regular occurrence.

Many Christians have embraced the “innocent as doves” part but fail to be “wise as serpents.” In fact, some use the “innocent as doves” as an excuse to not have to act because it would stir up controversy. Remember, that “if you cannot say anything nice don’t say anything at all” is not a Christian way of life. It is a coward’s way that advises people to “keep your head down, don’t make waves.” Many call these people “sheeple.”

All over the world people attack the Bible for things either taken out of context or because of what Christians they knew have done to them that have nothing to do with authentic Christianity. They mistakenly use actions of Nominal Christians (people who wear a cross or call themselves Christians but do not know the first thing about being an authentic Christian,) as indicating what real Christians believe. Let me know in the comments if you have encountered this anywhere in your experience.

John Wesley was an Anglican Priest in the 18th Century whose preaching fathered over 185 denominations from the African Methodist Episcopal to the Nazarene to the Global Methodist. He offered three rules to live a Christian Life – 1st Do No Harm; 2nd Do All the Good You Can; and 3rd Attend to the Ordinances of the Church. Now language was used a bit different in the 18th Century – the 1700s, even the late 1700s were a long time ago so lets talk about them.

The first two really aren’t very difficult at first glance. At least they aren’t difficult to explain – they require constant vigilance and effort to accomplish.

First, Do No Harm – God made the world and called it good. Then we began mucking it up. People like to blame bad things on God but most bad things can be traced back to people and their actions or inaction. Science is even identifying that cancer, hormonal imbalance, and infertility can often be placed at the door of industrialists in packaging, pharmaceuticals, and food production who use chemical ingredients not found in nature and that have not been fully tested for their effects on humans.

There is more to this rule than simply doing “good deeds” there is also the requirement to stand for what is right. That is what served to build Western Society in the way it grew. Repeatedly, men and women chose to stand for what was right against the general push of society.

As Saint Paul said, “He who knows what is right to do and does not do it, for him it is sin.” That, if we are honest with ourselves, is an indictment against all of us. We have all, at one time or another, remained silent when we should have spoken truth to power, or truth to massed ignorance.

These are not problems faced in most primitive societies. Rather, they seem to be problems that have to do with our ‘modern’ way of life. As corporations take cheaper shortcuts in order to make more money by using chemicals and artificial preservatives to give longer shelf-life to their already overly processed and artificial foods those chemicals, as well as the hormones and drugs they give to food animals, genetic modification of crops, and pesticides that carry through the crops and into our cereal boxes. It is in the ‘modern’ world that we find a proliferation of cancer, numerous digestion difficulties, clogged arteries, obesity, unexplained pain and bloating, and much much more.

If your father or mother has a heart attack or stroke you may well ask God why. However, perhaps you would be more accurate to blame the foods available and stresses of the corporate lifestyle than to set the blame at the foot of God. Imagine the way life would be if corporate leaders followed this first rule of the Christian life and really and truly “did no harm.”

When we were predominantly a Christian Country with Christian values there were numerous cases of businessmen who refused to take actions that would increase their profits because they were morally wrong. It is so bad today that universities have started demanding that business majors take an ethics class because we increasingly live in a world where no one knows right from wrong. They increasingly believe the lie that everything is relative when, amazingly across cultures, rules amazingly similar to the Ten Commandments have regularly cropped up. Either there is a universal idea of good, bad, loyalty, and betrayal, or we are hard-wired through evolution to believe these things because those who rejected them were banished from society and their genes couldn’t reproduce. Despite that, every generation has its narcissists and psychopaths. But America and the Globalists seem to want to make those traits into virtues.

Christianity used to hold capitalism in some degree of check. The government, corporations, and individuals knew that if they flagrantly defied Judeo-Christian principles the public would turn against them. Even those who denied Deity and Religion had ideas of right and wrong that were based on the Judeo-Christian principles. Indeed, without religion, (as we are finding out today in our society.) There is no check on the potential wickedness, selfishness, and greed of humanity.

Moses was drafted by God to be that check and to carry his message to the people as were and are the prophets. Christ was sent to embody that check upon our wickedness. Without religion the only moral imperative is survival of your own tribe and to hell with anyone else. This is how the world outside of the West operates. Western Civilization built on the foundations of Rome, Christendom, and the Norse/Germanic egalitarian society traditions where their philosophers and the Havamal came to conclusions that were very close to what is found in the Proverbs and Wisdom literature of the Bible. There was an understanding that in Christendom you could basically trust your fellow Christians (whether, Catholic, Amish, Protestant, Quaker or any of over a hundred other ways to follow Christ, to obey the rule of law, to not bear false witness, and to conduct themselves with honor and respect for life even in war.

“Do no harm” means to NOT remain silent when lies are being spread and injustice occurs. “Do no harm” is a rule calling us to dare to NOT look the other way when crime, extortion, or government or corporate power does wrong. “Do no harm” means NOT stepping over the one who is beaten and bleeding and NOT crossing over to the other side of the street as happened in the story of the Good Samaritan that Christ told. It was the Samaritan, the outcasts of Jewish society in the first century, who stopped and helped the man to an inn and paid for his room, bored, and medical care – even though he didn’t know him. While the “good” people looked the other way and didn’t want to get involved. “Do no harm” means acting sometimes even when we are scared to and fear ridicule, rejection, or legal consequences (such as hiding Jewish families in Nazi Germany.)

Indeed, the song Amazing Grace was written by a slave trader (obviously someone who prioritized money over what is right,) in celebration of his encounter with Christ and his salvation. When he became a Christian he gave up his life as a slaver and spearheaded the campaign in England to make the international slave trade a thing of the past. Not because of secular values but because of Christian values. [See: An Amazing Story – ofNaturesGod.com ] One man acting on principle made a difference in the world.

Indeed, you can trace most of the rights, benefits, and blessings of twentieth century Western Society can be traced back to Christianity, Western philosophers, Rome, or the Germanic peoples. It was people who took their own principles, refused to compromise and made a nuisance of themselves that changed the world. It starts with one voice raised and speaking the truth. We make a mistake when we tell ourselves the whole world feels as we do. This is the heritage of Western Civilization, Western Philosophy, and Christianity and the value it places on all people and life itself.

John Wesley’s second rule of life is Do All the Good You Can. Yet, we are not all wise. Indeed, for some Do All the Good You Can meant to bring the teachings of Western Civilization to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, they did not always respect local cultures. Over all, however, if you look at the nations that are doing the best economically, and have the highest standards of living, they are the countries that are still part of the British Commonwealth or who were linked to them historically. That is because colonizers not only brought domination, they also brought respect for law and order, libraries, hospitals, sanitation, and schools to places that didn’t have them.

Most people don’t know but one of the goals of communism was to attack colonialism and use guilt to get the West to abandon their colonies before the colony was ready to take on the responsibilities of a modern society. Then, in the resulting chaos, the Communists could step in and re-order the society. Despite Marx’ predictions Communism has only been able to dominate in societies that were per-industrial or behind on the industrial curve from the West. This is not the only thing Marx was wrong on. [See: Are We the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave? Or Did We Lose the Cold War? – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ; and Admitted Goals of Marxists in America – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ]

For some, deluded by the media and government misinformation, “doing good” was acting in ways that browbeat and isolated people who didn’t get vaccinated. The abandoned the principles of Liberty and America (if schools had taught even a modicum of understanding of Western Liberties – or even if they really believed “my body my choice” then they would have rejected these lies). But, as is so often the case, fear over-rode common sense and people acted in ways that were wholly against American Philosophy by marginalizing people who thought differently from them and who sought to exercise their rights over their own body. But even these natural rights are no longer understood in our society. [See also: Denial of Natural Laws and Natural Rights Endangers Our Survival – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ; We Now Live In A Totalitarian State – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ] (those who understood virology and still were thinking critically as opposed to those driven by irrational fear and ignorance.) Such people tell themselves they are good people but they are really self-interested people trying to cover their self-interest in a cloak of virtue. This is not the type of “doing good” that Wesley was speaking of. He was speaking of doing good in a rational and prayerful manner with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This brings us to Wesley’s Third Rule of Life – attend to the ordinances and disciplines of the Faith. Because you cannot have any knowledge of the outcome of your actions – but God does know and by faithfully attending to the spiritual disciplines you learn those ways (although honestly, many who claim to be Christian don’t – as Father Hoolighan told me once: “Mr. Business went to church. He never missed a Sunday. But Mr. Business went to Hell for what he did on Monday.”

Ordinances and disciplines of the faith include studying the Bible and religious teachings, attend worship services, pray and meditate on the scriptures, seek communion with God, and grow in the faith. [If you want to grow in the Faith I have found the writings of the Benedictine Order to be incredibly helpful in living a godly life. See AUSCULA – Listen With The Ears Of Your Heart – ofNaturesGod.com ] Also, included in this was helping the poor and the destitute as Christ commanded and sharing the good news that we can escape this treadmill and the hell of this world we have made.

Christianity has been dumped on a lot with half-truths and out and out lies a lot in the 20th and 21st Centuries.

However, the world was arguably a better place when the West identified as Christendom. As for the Crusades, that deserves its own article but let me make it clear that Europe and Christian countries had been invaded for almost 400 years by Islamic nations before the first Crusade was launched. That is not opinion it is historical fact! And the first crusade was launched not to conquer Islamic countries but it was launched to defend the Christian city of Byzantium that was under attack by Islamic armies. Spain was conquered by Islam as was all of Northern Africa and now they were battling to destroy the Roman Empire whose capital was in Byzantium. Persia/Iran and Afghanistan were not originally Islamic. They were conquered and converted. Charles Martel turned back invaders in France or all of Europe would have been conquered long before now. Rome had been sacked, Christian Russia and balkans were repeatedly invaded, and FINALLY, Christendom rallied to defend Byzantium and the Eastern Roman Empire. Christians rallied again when Vienna was beseiged by the armies of Islam when an army of Germans and Poles led by Jan and the Polish Winged Hussars saved Vienna and saved Europe from the armies of Islam again in the 1600s.

Today we allow those armies across our border without restraint while Islamic Imams preach that after centuries of trying to conquer the West Jihad has a new form. They should now infiltrate the West have more babies than Europeans and Americans and take over their countries from within. This is not my idea. This is what THEY have said in their temples and websites. Why is it that we repeatedly ignore what our enemies themselves say they are going to do to us. Are we that fragile that we cannnot understand there are people in the world that hate us. That didn’t go well with Hitler and ignoring their aggression and stated intent to destroy America and the West won’t go well today. You can hide you head in the sand but it won’t change the result – it just means that you won’t see the sword when it falls. That is not skepticism that is denial and cowardice.

After the Crusades it was Christians that spearheaded the war against slavery and the international slave trade, not Muslims, not Hindus, not Pagans, but Christians. It was not secular society it was Christian society. Secular society didn’t give a damn about anyone but themselves and they have a long history of violating rights not preserving them. The most educated and advanced society in Europe in the 1930s was Germany and we all should know what happened there. While the Left is eager to distance themselves from the Nazis the more I study them the more clearly that they were, indeed, socialists. However, unlike the international socialist/communist movement they were nationalist socialists and after gaining power they broke the power of the right-wing conservative groups that didn’t toe the line of the national socialist worldview.

Oh, witches? Yeah, history has identified a few thousand witches killed by ‘the church’ which was horrible and wrong. But more witches were imprisoned and driven underground by secular doctors who accused them of practicing medicine without a license than were persecuted by the church and we don’t hear about that very much do we?

Its convenient for society not to mention the tens of thousands of Christians killed by pagans and the tens of thousands of Christians and Jews who are today still being killed in Islamic countries. If they mentioned it they may have to do something about it.

Somehow secular society, which has on its hands the 100 millions killed by Communists and the 6 million jews killed by Hitler. As I have said, Jews, like Christians, are still being killed in Islamic countries today. Israel is literally fighting for its right to exist. Palestinians don’t want a 2-state solution. “From the River to the Sea” means there will be no Jews left alive from the river to the sea, they are very clear about that in their own websites.

Selective morality is no morality at all.

Palestinians want to divest Jews of the lands of Israel and Judah that were theirs all the way back to the days of the Pharoah and the Babylonians. The Jews are the indigenous people of the area and the Palestinians the colonizers. They do not allow any Jews in Palestine but Muslims, Arab Bedouins, and more are allowed to serve as judges and in political office in Israel. Israel follows the values of a modern Western State including having one of the largest gay populations in Tel Aviv in the Middle East – one of the few places in the Middle East gays can live and not be killed.

But all of these facts are ignored or twisted by lying “fact-checkers” and other media magnates and their lackeys because they don’t fit the narrative. It’s easier to lie to people when you have stolen their education. [see also: Who Stole Your Education? Were You Indoctrinated in Ignorance? – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ]

The level of ignorance by the Left leaning political organizations of American campuses are disgusting to me. Universities are supposed to be centers of learning and not centers and instigators of anti-semitism. I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised with all the Marxist professors because Marx was both of Jewish decent and flagrantly anti-Jewish…in fact Communism opposes all religions. I suppose because religious conflicts didn’t kill enough people to sate the blood-lust endemic to all communist states that have ever existed.

[But as I write this evidence is growing that many of those arrested in college demonstrations may not be students but agents of radical Islam and their sycophants.]

The ignorance of history is endemic in today’s society. As it has been for thousands of years. I guess that is why humans do the same things, and making the same mistakes, over and over again.

Fortunately, one of the ordinances of the church is communion. Communion should be taken only after confession and prayer. You don’t need to go through confession in the Catholic sense but before you become one with Christ through the ritual of Communion you must be sin free. For us humans that means we must repent all that we have done, and all that we have failed to do, that for us was sin. The glory of Communion is that when we repent and decide to turn from our failings that God throws those sins “as far as the East is from the West” and remembers them no more. While humans may nurse affronts and wrongs against us, God is able to completely forget transgressions that we confess and repent to God for.

I love Communion because I am a very imperfect servant of the Living God. I make mistakes regularly. Like King David I am not a paragon of virtue, however, I do love the Living God and my experiences and relationship with that mysterious indefinable but loving entity. Every time I take communion I know (from having read and taught the Bible,) that my sins are forgotten and as I take the elements into my body so Christ re-enters me in a special way and I am made new once again. A fresh start. Clean and new as Christ promised: “Behold, I make all things new.”

That is special and unique in human society. You cannot get that through the legal system. You cannot get it from Universities, and you sure as hell cannot get it from Communism and the Left who cancel, attack with law-fare, and imprison, people “at the drop of a hat,” as they say. But Christianity in each communion service offers a fresh start for all who legitimately repent of their sins. Maybe that is why secular society hates them so, because they know that no matter what they do they will never be free of their own past and Christians get fresh starts regularly.

Attend to the ordinances and disciplines of the Church and seek communion frequently. Especially if you are like me and need to make a fresh start often.

Whether you are Christian or not I suggest you consider at least the first two injunctions of 1st Do no Harm and 2nd Do all the good you can, as you journey through life and you will find that, ultimately, it makes a difference in society. Don’t be like those doomed to repeat history due to their own ignorance and stand up for truth wherever you may find yourselves. Don’t run from a “fight” but when truth is called for to oppose evil and falsehood stand in the gap. We don’t put our heads in the sand, or pretend not to see injustice. Draw sabers, ride to the sound of the guns, and cut through the lies to get to the truth, and…

[Edited version, the original was published on Sabersedge.Online another website of SabersEdge Foundation, an educational association that says the quiet parts outloud.]

The Vital Truth of Life

March 3, 2024 / / 1 Comment

Today’s Society and Life is a lie. You can tell it is a lie and that nearly everything is in service to The Lie because it makes you feel empty or anxious inside. It doesn’t call to you. Real life stirs something in your soul and makes you feel alive.

Thousands of years ago Herodotus wrote: “All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all.”

About a thousand years later Jesus said, “I came that you might have life and have it abundantly.” Same sentiment.

You see the Truth does not change over time. Humanity is basically the same as he was thousands of years ago and we react and live responding or not responding to life activating or not activating the emotions, passions, and acts that we are called to do. Our best chance at real living comes when Our Truth most closely aligns with The Truth. The idea that there is no truth is part of The Lie.

The lies they feed you change constantly.

A Marxist radical from the SDS once wrote: “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.” This statement highlights the idea that the apparent cause of a political action—whether it’s civil rights, women’s rights, transgender, or any other issue—is not the true focus. This is what people don’t get as good honest people fight one lie after another and wonder where they all come from. They come from the BIG LIE.

The Big Lie has two radically materialist ways of thinking – both take you farther from the Creator. One Lie is that of Neo-Marxism while the other is Robber Baron Radical Materialist Capitalism that devours everything it touches and crushes the free market under its totalitarian control of the market, crushing all seeds of opposition and competition as its poisons our lives and our environment and defies any hope of Free Enterprise. But, while we are distracted from the Truth by these Lies we see that both lies solely serve the diabolical path of the accumulation of power and resources into the hands of radical materialists underscoring the Machiavellian approach of prioritizing of the means over the end. Flexibility and opportunism is the key to revolutionary agendas and the Lie is that we must choose between the totalitarian Neo-Marxist’s Lies or the totalitarian world-eating consumerism forced on us by Robber Barons and Finance Capitalists.

From one we have a history of over 100 million lives snuffed out in the 20th century on the altar of Marxism and on the other we are handed a marketing triumph by people who are happy to see millions die of complications to a “perfectly safe” vaccine that causes greater instances of myocarditis and blood clots than the disease it was created for had of instances of death. Apparently, all is fine as long as it gives good returns on the balance sheets. And if it kills millions of youth between 18 and 52 – (an age group that was not even at high risk for Covid), apparently that is an idea that the caretakers of Societies Lies don’t feel they need to look into.

I suppose a third lie is the lie of Scientism where Dr. Fauci claimed that even if millions were to die because of a compromise of the security of a lab doing gain of function research the price would be worth it. Well, it did happen, millions did die, and it wasn’t worth it.

The Lie brings Death. God and the true path brings life and vitality.

Neither of these lies are Truth. They are not our only choices. I would call the Truth to be a Vitalist Truth. What I call Vitalism is that very essence which gives society, politics, family, and life itself meaning. The Vital Essence of Life is action and passion; it is fully participating in the life you have been given. Christ did not come and lock himself away in a monastery (although some may be legitimately called to do that, a monastic life if NOT a life of doing nothing but of actively engaging in prayer and the life of the monastery Ora Et Labora – as Saint Benedict would say,) Christ came and lived vitally and fully, The prophets came to call the World back to life; to bring it into accordance with the Vital Essence of Life Itself. As Herodotus said:

Truth does not change with the needs of the Revolution. Truth is Eternal.

There is a Divine Truth embedded in the Creation and science was originally envisioned as a way of learning about the Creator through the study of the Creation. It is only with the assumption that the world makes sense, that it was created with Intelligent Design that the pursuit of Science makes any sense at all. If the creation is random and without purpose then there would be no way to study it and no underlying order to discover. But there is.

By studying the very essence of Creation as a way of getting into the mind of the Creator – just as you can get to the mind of an artist by studying their creations. Now Science has delved deep enough it is leading us back to the Creator as it repeatedly points to an Intelligent Design and the God Hypothesis as the most logical answer to the questions that the cutting-edge scientists are now asking. Of course, that is only the Scientists who are dedicated to finding the underlying truth of the facts and data wherever their science takes them rather than modern science which is enslaved to the monetary donor of the research dollar or simply to the lie of Scientism.

The idea that Science has all the answers is a non-theist religion called Scientism and it is as empty as the Materialistic society that it has co-opted and poisoned against the vital message of Life and the Creator.

America was originally called to be a shining city on the hill, ONE NATION, UNDER GOD! But the lies in our society have warped it away from the vital essence of Life itself. An essence the founders believed in when they said “We hold these things to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Herodotus said it first, but Jefferson and Adams could have just as readily have said: “All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all.” Jefferson, Paul Revere, John Adams, Sam Adams, and Ben Franklin and Washington were all vitally engaged in the actions and passions of their time and as such they are an example to all who have silent in the silent majority.

Do you feel passion in your life? For your life? Do you wake up with a joy to face the sunrise of another day with your children, your dog, and your cats (both of whom are already waiting at the food dish for you!)

Do you feel the joy your dog does at the simple reality of another meal?

Herodotus said all life is action and passion, Jesus said, I come that you might have life and have it abundantly. He wasn’t talking about things that leave you empty inside and fill your house choking your joy of life with clutter or things that keep you too to busy to actually live. He was talking about being filled with the experience of Living! Do you feel it? That is the Vitalist Essence of the message and meaning of life is.

The secret meaning of Life is that you are supposed to LIVE IT;

Tony Campolo said that many of us say the prayer “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my Soul to take.” But, he says, what we should be praying “Is if I wake before I die,” because most of us go through life as if we are half dead already.

Experience it and let it fill you with wonder at the bloom, the wind in the trees, or the toddler taking his or her first step. Interestingly enough Hebrew mystics taught that the orgasm was the moment when we most closely felt the joy that God felt in the moment of Creation the Bible says that the Spirit of Wisdom danced for joy with the Creator at the Creation. Our moment of Creation is a sign of The Creation. Only God didn’t abort it, even in the time of Noah he preserved the seed of new life.

Jesus called us to abundant living. Living each moment to the full! That is so different from the empty and angry existence Radical Materialists like the Capitalist Robber Barons and Neo-Marxist demonstrators that see us only as consumers and the Godless Marxists who see us as tools to bring about the Revolution, and angrily shout down reason and thought.

In Ecclesiastes 9:7-10a we find one of my favorite passages to preach on and which I have never heard anyone else preach on (the lectionary misses it by one verse) – probably because they have a translation that views Ecclesisastes as totally cynical instead of reading it with acceptance for the world God has made.

Now I am not Catholic, but the New Catholic Bible gets the essence of this passage right:

 7 Go forth, then. Eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God long ago approved what you do. 8 At all times dress in white garments and always anoint your head with oil.

9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love throughout all the days of your allotted span of life that have been given to you under the sun, because that is your lot while you live and labor here under the sun. 10a Whatever task your hand finds to do, expend all your efforts on it,

Here is just one example of the lies our society shoves into our lives. Such examples can be repeated by you many times over, pick a search engine. (I won’t say which I used but it is common for both Google, Bing, and some others that the big names have bought up and mutated to serve their anti-life, consumerist, radical materialistic agenda, ignoring what you really want to sell you a cheap substitute even as it offers a materialistic and cheap substitute for life itself. I typed in the search engine “Canva.com official website” (yeah, I should have just used the icon I had saved but I come from a time when Search Engines actually tried to find what you were looking for instead of feeding you more of The Lie. My search came back, and the first page didn’t even have canva as a choice! And, excuse me but I think that “Canva.com official website” is specific enough so that if the search engine actually wanted to serve it could do so.

But, like everything else in this sick society of lies it takes you on it’s own twisting algorithm away from the real life that God is calling you to and into an empty substitute. I got Vistaprint, Ninja Transfers, Lulu.com, RocketLawyer? and Paperculture, but NO CANVA.COM. Apparently, Canva didn’t bribe them sufficiently to be on the first page. NO CANVA.COM when I very clearly asked for it. If you are still using Bing, Google, Yahoo, or any of the conglomerate owned algorithm driven monstrosities you are just asking to be lied to and manipulated. I don’t know. Some people may feel more comfortable in the anti-life because then they never need to address the emptiness that is in them that way they can just stay busy doing nothing all day and not thinking or living. Our society that has been warped and wrenched from the natural world is an aberration and parody of life. It is so antithetical to the one we were created to live in that we don’t even notice there is anything wrong, the lie is too big, repeated too often, and yelled at us daily that we cannot hear the truth.

And too often our churches are empty echo chambers of an empty society that don’t stimulate us to life either. Jesus didn’t come to uphold the institutions and to be an opiate of the masses. He came to call us back to life!

We just lumber on like mindless zombies in a Romero Zombie Movie blindly shuffling back and forth to work or to the mall but understanding no more of what we do in the heartless and mindless shuffle that we never realize that whether we are a zombie or “living” we are existing in an evil construction of the Enemy. We live in An Anti-Life Parody of the true LIFE that God calls us too.

“I come that you might have life and have it abundantly.”

That is what the noise of society is trying to distract you from. Are you living abundantly? Is your life full? Are you living with the wife that you love and among the children of your youth, or old and among your children’s children? Does your job leave you fulfilled and full of life? Do your thoughts? Are your musings something God would welcome?

I had a seminary instructor who said that he liked to call John the Baptist John Hinge because it was like God swung open a door and changed everything with the New Testament. The Old is a God of Judgment and the New a God of Mercy and Grace. BULLSHIT! (He and I didn’t get along very well.) I say the New Testament is the Old Testament for Dummies. It doesn’t change the message it distills it down to the core so everyone who missed it in the original can get it. The Pharisees certainly missed it and, apparently, so have most Christian pastors, since they didn’t notice the continuity between the Old and New. But that’s OK most pastors have never read the Bible all the way through anyway. And if they did they read it with a closed mind thinking they all ready new what was in it rather than in an open mind and spirit guided by the DIVINE.

Have you read about the God who led his people out of Egypt. Before Moses had even received the Ten Commandments and after they had seen the plagues upon Egypt, the Red Sea part for them to cross and swallow up the army that was after them. (They have actually found Egyptian chariots on the bottom of the Red Sea by the way – I don’t think Pharoah put them there just to lend weight to some “Jewish Myth.” Like most things people say they don’t believe in they have never looked at the actual word or evidence themselves.)

They had been led by a Pillar of Cloud by day and a Pillar of Fire by night. THESE people, who had actually SEEN THE PROOF of a GOD who interacts with us. They turned away and built a golden calf and started partying and debauching themselves with one another (no love just sex – like modern society advocates in feminism – “men are horrible creatures who have sex just to satisfy lust” so Feminisms answer to that is to make women equally as contemptable? ) THAT is the way this society of Anti-LIFE works on every level. It is all a lie and calls you to live that lie just as it called the people of Israel to worship a calf of Gold instead of the God of LIFE.

Which will you give your life to? The gold or Life Itself?.

So, THESE people having seen all the proof that you might have asked for in your life, SAW it and STILL turned away. God was pissed. God continued to get pissed at this complaining, whining group, over and over again through the Old Testament. What did he do? He forgave them over and over again, personally I would have lost my temper, crushed them, and started over. So it is good we are not God.

You know a pastor doesn’t understand the Bible if he says that the God who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow is different in the Old Testament and the New. It’s the same message and the same God it is only a superficial reading that makes it seem different. Both the New Wine and the Old are good. Don’t feel bad if you missed it. Jesus came because nearly everyone missed it.

The Shema, “Hear Oh Israel, the Lord Your God is One.”

Nearly everything that Jesus is quoted as saying is a quote from Old Testament Scriptures. I think that the idea that the New and Old Testaments are different is just one more lie that society feeds us and it is just one of many lies that the modern church has swallowed, (along with social justice, and DEI).

Any JUSTICE that has anything else attached to it is a lie. Social Justice is a Lie the American “Justice” system is not only a lie but has been proven in the past few years to be a complete travesty of Justice as people named Clinton can compromise national secrets, and normal people are jailed for taking a tour of the Congressional Building with the guards. Biden can be a senile agent of the CCP bought and paid for and Trump is fined 354 million for non-crime with no victims by a lying New York Court. I am not saying Trump is a Saint by any means but our court system and government has shown its true colors as a totalitarian system leaning toward the Woke Neo-Marxist Agenda repeatedly against Trump because he dares to challenge the BIG LIE that has trapped us all in modern society.

God called us to Be fruitful and multiply, to live life abundantly, to live our lives with joy and enjoy our family and put our whole might into the life that we have while we have it. But our society would rather trap us in a lie as cogs of either a consumer materialistic capitalist wheel or the soul-crushing, life-destroying cog of a lifeless Communist radical materialistic wheel that destroys everything, criticizes everything because EVERYTHING in Marxism exists to serve the REVOLUTION. The current thing is never the thing, it is the revolution.

Feminism is not the issue it is toppling the society to make way for the Revolution, Prayer in schools is not the issue it is toppling the society to make way for Revolution, Transgenderism is not the issue it is toppling the society to make way for Revolution. Trump is not the issue it is the revolution. Justice and bail reform is not the issue it is toppling society to make way for the revolution, queer theory is not the issue it is the revolution, Ukraine is not the issue it is revolution, inflation is not the issue it is revolution, corruption is not the issue it is destroying faith in our institutions to make way for the revolution. As the Marxist said “The thing is never the thing, it is always the revolution.”

So Neo-Marxists are busy destroying our society as well-meaning people try honestly exhaust themselves dealing with the endless issues they raise. Until honest men and women are too exhausted to prevent the revolution from occurring. They don’t realize that none of these issues truly matter to the Marxists they are simply tearing apart our society of the LIE to replace it with the NEW LIE .

Actually, they are the father of the lies in both societies since Neo-Marxists twisted the current society with their agitation since the 1950s. They have been twisting and warping American society for almost 80 years if not more moving it away from God. (Remember Marx was writing before and during the American War Between the States)…of course everything we see feels like a lie. The Lie has corrupted it all. But then Jefferson and our founders foresaw that:

The Constitution is not unable to deal with modern society, that is just another lie. The over-riding and watering down of the safeguards of the constitution and Bill of Rights that we have done over the last 200 years is what has brought us to this point. It is our changing and opposing the Spirit of the Constitution which, in my opinion, was divinely inspired.

Then they raise the LIE again. “You who want to return to the Constitution and want to put blacks back in chains?” The Constitution didn’t make anyone a slave, it just acknowledged the aberration of slavery as a fact marring the free society that was envisioned today there are no legal slaves, and the Constitution doesn’t and didn’t make slaves. That is why Jefferson originally wrote in his draft of the Constitution:

But they didn’t tell you that, did they?

That is because, like everything else they don’t tell you it doesn’t serve the lie.

We live in a hard time. But those who say we shouldn’t bring kids into this world have swallowed another of the Lies and are living according to it. God proclaimed the World to Be GOOD and it is only where we have deviated from the DIVNE PATH that we have sullied it and made it empty of the passion and vital essence of life.

Is this time harder than World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, or when the Mongols swept out of Mongolia to cover a third of the globe, hurling thousands of heads of their slain over the walls of cities to get them to surrender? Is today really harder than that? Every generation has faced the LIE and the ENEMY of their time, but we need to bring forth the vital truth of life with passion and action of our own to live life abundantly and truly; to suppress the Lies with Truth.

To quote a line from G. Michael Hopf’s post-apocalypic novel “Those Who Remain”:

“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

To this Herodotus answers –

“Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have laid dormant in its absence.” and “All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all.

CHRIST CAME THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE LIFE AND LIVE IT PASSIONATELY AND VITALLY. and not to simply exist.

Don’t Feed The Trolls – A Fool And His Folly

January 7, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Have you ever encountered a fool who was always talking but had no knowledge of the issue(s) they were talking about? If you have used social media I know that you have. If you have ever been to a cocktail party or a kegger, or listened to an “ex-pert” on mainstream news I imagine you have as well.

Maybe you have encountered such a fool who dismissed every argument you had because they didn’t understand, or maybe didn’t even care about data. Maybe they only cared that they are right, or just wanted the attention from talking/posting. Have you ever driven yourself nuts trying to deal with such a person?

There is a reason these people are commonly called trolls (in the old days in social circles they were called cads, or fools, or idiots, or worse. Troll is a good name because they stink, they’re rude, ignorant, bitchy, aggressive, impossible to talk to rationally, slimy, unedumicated, and they ruin any nice or beautiful thing they can, and they even seem to regenerate if you try to “kill” them. If you ban them they reappear under a different login.

In fact, many fools (trolls if you prefer,) can actually get stronger and more active if you try to engage them at all.

They are also living embodiments of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. If you don’t know the effect it was from a study by Dunning and Kruger that found the less intelligent a person was the smarter they believed themselves to be. Further, the less someone knew about a topic the more they thought they understood it. In short it essentially showed that the less you know the more you believe that you really do understand the topic. This is because the more you know about a topic the more variables you are aware of and you become aware of the vast body of knowledge that exists on the subject. If you only know a little about the topic you may feel you have a good grasp on it. A person aware of that field of knowledge essentially knows that they do not know while someone who is ignorant of the scholarship doesn’t and may well feel they have a good grasp of the topic.

Further, the smarter a person was the more they reflected upon themselves and second guessed their answers. In the tests they were fully aware of which topics they understood and which ones they knew little about and were nervous about the topics they were tested on that weren’t in their area.

The test showed that the smarter someone was the less smart they rated themselves (because they knew they had a lot to learn,) while if someone was less intelligent they thought they knew all they needed to know on the topic. Such people had a simple understanding and provided simple answers and they were confident they did well on the tests (even when the bombed.) Essentially, any fool could tell you!

As a political science professor Col. Phil Dyer once said in class, “I wish I could have taught this class in when I was a high school student. I knew everything then.”

Apparently, this is not a new phenomena. Thousands of years ago the Jews, Romans, Egyptians and Greeks all knew of these foolish trolls and their Wisdom Literature addressed it. I could write pages of proverbs on this topic and the just the Book of Proverbs in the Bible has dozens of verses about fools. Egyptian wisdom literature, Viking literature, and even Chinese and African literature and proverbs are very similar to the Hebrew.

As a reminder, Wisdom Literature is like early sociology and psychology (although it was less subject to fads and kooky theories.) To be a proverb a behavior had to be proven as relevant to human nature over generations. Sages studied human behavior and noticed tendencies in human nature and they then wrote proverbs to help people navigate through life with a minimum of pain and disappointment. Those who did not learn from such collected Wisdom were called fools because they insisted on living through all of the pain themselves rather than learning from others so that they could avoid pain and disappointment in their own life.

Its what my dad used to call the “School of Hard Knocks.” The “School of Hard Knocks” is that school of lived life where life beats you up and spits you out all demoralized and bruised. He would say, “You can either learn from the wisdom of others or you can learn from the School of Hard Knocks, son. Learning from the lessons of life experienced by others is less painful for you – both physically and emotionally.”

“But things have changed so much!” you might say. True, but people have not. We process our thoughts and emotions bio-chemically and we just don’t evolve that fast. We are genetically the same people as those who built the Roman Empire. In fact, humanity has not substantially changed in over 400,000 years! While our society changes our ability to process events through thought and emotions have not because they are primarily physiologically processed in our bodies. So human reaction to stimuli is often imbedded in us from millennia of experience and through the constant struggle for survival and passing our genes on to future generations.

Every night I would see my father sitting in his chair and reading the Bible for a while before he went to bed and when we were walking in the woods, around the block, fishing, or just sitting on the porch he would talk to me about things or I would ask him about things. Often he talk and explain things and then he would punctuate his point by sharing a Bible verse that summed everything up that he had logged into his memory.

So, what did these ancient sages say about these fools on social media? OK, for them they were just fools in the tavern, in the Senate, or at the social gathering or theater.

“Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you also be like him.” – Proverbs 26:4

I have noticed that answering these trolls online often simply encourages them, sometimes I watch some well meaning person pour out their heart and their best efforts to the troll – perhaps thinking they just don’t know any better – and don’t realize that fools and trolls are only there to cause trouble and get attention. Sometimes, these people get so discouraged they drop off the list because trolls can be so emotionally exhausting. Thus the warning, “Do not answer a fool according to his folly,” because conversing with a fool is a waste of time and energy that you could best spend elsewhere.

Who knows? Maybe they are attention starved because no one in their right mind would want to be with them in real life. I know that in some cases bullies and real life trolls gravitate to churches because people there are often too nice to tell them no. These are people who thought their mothers advice, “if you an’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all” actually came from the Bible. It absolutely didn’t. The Bible is about truth and tells Christians to “Speak the truth in love.” The Bible hates lies and deception and so does God, according to it.

Unfortunately, some of the best discussion groups I have encountered online were killed by trolls and administrators who were too nice, weak willed, or wishy washy with their principles and allowed the trolls to run amuck and destroy what was a good site with world-ending destruction. One by one people would leave because the troll was dominating the list and no one wanted to talk anymore just to be attacked by the troll. I’ve even seen lists break in two because people want to leave the troll behind and the troll shows up on the new list! Sometimes under a false name! If you really want to understand these people you need to read M.Scott Peck’s book The People of the Lie. (M.Scott Peck is a professional psychologist but the book is very readable.)

If you ignore fools many of them will go away to somewhere that they can get the emotional “hit” of attention. However, others get their perverse ‘joy” from wrecking things, crushing real joy, and they delight in watching the list die even if no one even talks to them directly.

The proverbs of the ancient sages also recognize that fools cling to their own ignorance. They simply don’t want to learn! Now change may be hard but another saying my Dad had “It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” However, true to the Dunning-Kruger Effect the fool seems to have no idea that he or she is revealing themself to be either an idiot, a jerk, or both…or they don’t care.

Verse 4 of this chapter of proverbs recognizes that fools refuse to learn and tells you not to waste you time talking to them. It’s like the saying about “Don’t wrestle with pigs. They drag you through the mud and the pig enjoys it.” The foolish troll loves rolling in the mud and causing strife. This is why trolls are on the side of chaos and evil in games.

I used to have the liberal bias that evil, prejudice, and stupidity were due to a lack of education. But some refuse to learn and even when educated will remain a fool. This may be why the Bible repeatedly combines wisdom and understanding and says that learning is not enough. You have to have understanding. My sister was a college professor and so I learned early that some PhD’s were pretty dumb about life and how things really work. Education does NOT equal wisdom.

We saw what turning everything over to a “subject matter expert” did to the economy and psychological distress during Covid. They may have known something about virology but the destroyed the economy, small businesses throughout the country, and the psychological stability and development of millions doing it. We seem to have followed an “educated fool” on that one. OF course Fauci is the same doctor who in the 70s said everyone was going to get AIDS from toilet seats and fast foods. He was wrong on that too. But some other fool promoted him so he could do more damage.

I once had a relative by marriage once brag that she had never read a book after leaving high school! Why would anyone brag about that? Its like saying “I have chosen the path of ignorance ever since they could no longer make me learn.” As you all know I read 2-5 books a month (unless I read novels then I read 2-10 a week. I do read novels a couple times a year but there is so much out there to learn I just don’t have the time.) I thank my sister and parents for that who always promoted life-long learning.

They encouraged me to always carry a book with me (which is even easier electronically.) I encourage you all to learn and embrace the concept of life-long learning. Always have a book with you so if you are waiting in a line you can read and learn. Keep your mind busy because if you don’t use it you lose it and if you have seen the elderly in a nursing home you have a clear picture of what can happen if you don’t keep your mind and body sharp through using them. (Yes, I know some have other complications.)

So, don’t ruin your own enjoyment and energy by letting trolls and fools suck the life out of you. Even if they are related to you. You won’t get any enjoyment out of it and if you fight with them you are just making them happy because they love the mud and the filth.

So, now lets look at verse 5:

Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own eyes. -Proverbs 26:5

Uh-oh! Well, that’s confusing. Yes, the Bible in English frequently is. It was a horrible language to translate it into and worse some people translated it to fit their own prejudices and dogma. (So I also encourage you to learn Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.) Philosophy seems to be so much better in German, Latin, or Greek, in my opinion. English has become a “mushy” language and the left’s attempts to change the meaning of words is making it even harder to understand. Get an old dictionary from 1965 or earlier and use it. Read ten definitions a week open it randomly and picking out words you don’t know for 2 a day at the start of each business day. Write the definitions in a journal or on you calendar if you can and you will remember better.

OK. What gives? Verse 5 cancels out verse four! Greaco-Roman culture likes to pin things down into concrete rules good for all times and places. But in the Bible it recognized that life is more complex and flexible that that. Righteousness in the Bible is not about following all the rules but knowing the right time and right place to place what rule in. In some cases an act would be reprehensible and in another it is laudatory. Murder is bad, that’s why its condemned in the ten commandments but killing is not necessarily bad. Killing a murderer could save your family’s lives. Killing the enemy saves your city. The Bible says there is a time to kill and a time to heal. You need to understand life and know what time it is and what act is appropriate. So the ancient Hebrews wouldn’t have the problem with this that we do. They would have just shrugged and said “DOTS! Depends on the situation.” (OK they probably wouldn’t have said that unless they were also in the US Army.)

Sometimes, a person will use a phrase that is common propaganda but utterly wrong. In that case I respond to them explaining my view and context. There is always the chance they are open to learning and are only repeating what they are told or that, conversely, I may learn something. I have made several friends that way! If a person is open to learning you may make a new friend.

However, real trolls and fools have no desire to learn they simply want to make waves or be right! Even if they are wrong! In that case it does no good to that person to answer them according to their folly. They won’t learn. If the person is just ignorant and they don’t know they will learn. However, there are times when the troll may say something that is a popular take on things and I answer because I want others on the list to know the statement was wrong. I am not engaging the troll I am putting out knowledge to the silent lurkers who never speak.

I have found explaining once gives me the option of making a friend or educating someone on a topic. If they show they are unwilling to learn the response demonstrates to anyone watching that the fool is not correct. I have always been concerned that fools could lead people astray. If no one is willing to speak the truth then how can others learn.

So, I tend to respond once to see if it is just someone who doesn’t know or if I am dealing with a fool. Or, if it makes sense I may respond a couple times until I discover I am talking to a fool or other fanatic and then I stop and I also tell them why I am stopping. They aren’t willing to learn, they are not discussing with an honest desire for knowledge or they are fanatics.

So, as you go through life, whether at a family dinner, business social, or on social media, don’t answer a fool according to their folly unless you think it is a learning opportunity for others.

This is something that your father should have taught you but I have noticed that a lot of people didn’t have a father like mine on hand. Thank you father.

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you also be like him.

Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own eyes.

Proverbs 26:4-5

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