Wednesday, July 2, 2008

                                                                  Jacob and Esau

     Last month, a couple of columns discussed the "Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated." passages that refers to the vast difference in God's feelings about the twins in Romans 9;13 and Malachi 1;3. 

     Some researchers have studied the political leanings of several thousand sets of twins.  They suggest that differences in political leanings may be genetic.  The thought that some people are born "left" and others are born "right" is an intriguing one.

     There is often a similarity in appearance among liberals.  It's hard to define the exact differences, but one can often make a pretty good guess as to whether or not a person is a liberal just by looking.  There are sometimes indications in the way less wealthy liberals dress and do their head and facial hair that indicates their political positions.  Rich liberals are better camouflaged, and have to give opinions before we can tell what they are.

     The difference between the left and the right may be a totally intellectual difference.  Many on the right have come to believe that liberals are actually less intelligent.  They point to a long history of liberal ideas, philosophies, programs, and predictions that simply haven't worked, and conclude:  "Liberals are just plain dumb."

     Liberals have the opposite opinion of their own intellectual abilities.  They usually reply, "Yes, many of our ideas have failed, but only because they haven't been properly implemented." 

     Conservatives usually answer:  "Well, they weren't properly implemented because you people aren't smart enough to do anything right."

      The above conversation, in various forms, takes place millions of times a day.  Telling liberals that they're both stupid and damned does not usually motivate them to want to be nearer to God.  Neither do liberals help in the cause of salvation when they tell conservatives that they are inevitably cursed by their own shallowness and greed. It is futile. 

     No matter where any of us stand within the intellectual bell curve, we each have a mind and a soul.  It's sane to want to save our own soul, and to get credit for helping others to save theirs.    

     A more productive comment may be, "We were each given unique gifts and abilities.  If we use the gifts that we were specially given to get closer to God, we are using our gifts the way He wanted."

Thursday, July 3, 2008

                    Another thought on the difference between the beloved Jacob and the hated Esau.

     It's hard to imagine that God would hate Esau, and, by extrapolation, all those who are like Esau, merely because they were dumb.  All of us are certainly less intelligent than some other people, and, if God loves us, we cannot seriously believe it's because we believe ourselves to be smart.

     It may be that some souls have a polarity that naturally draws them to God.  Other souls may have a negatively attracted charge that draws them to the other side. 

     After we consider "soul polarity" as a cause of salvation, it's almost automatic to wonder if anything can change the polarity of a soul.

     After reading Scripture, it's quite reasonable to assume that the two things we were told to do, love our enemies and do good to those who hurt us, are enough to change the polarity of souls that would otherwise be drawn toward eternal darkness and everlasting pain.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

                                                     Our Debt to Environmentalism.

     1.  If you live in the American West, you may have lost your home to wildfire.  Thousands of homes burned because environmentalists passed laws to keep people from being able to remove brush near their homes. 

     2.  If you live in America, you pay vastly higher insurance premiums because people are not allowed to clear fire hazards from around their homes, dramatically increasing insurance losses.

     3.  If an air conditioner in your car, home, or workplace needs to be recharged, it can no longer be done with a .99 cent can of freon from Wal-Mart.  That can, thanks to environmentalists having been hired by freon manufacturers to publicize the Imaginary Problem of the "ozone hole", now costs over $20.00, and has to be installed by a licensed professional.

     4.  If you live in the country or suburbs, it's nearly impossible to inexpensively install or repair a septic tank, thanks to environmentalists and their manic desire for "cleaning up".

     5.  If you buy fuel or electricity, you pay anywhere from two to four times as much as you did before the environmentalists took control of Congress two years ago.  Thanks to environmentalists, no new refineries, nuclear reactors, offshore drilling, or ANWAR oil is available to give you a better life by lowering your cost of living.

     6.  If you can't find a good-paying job in manufacturing, it's partly because environmentalists have made it difficult for any American manufacturer to do business North of the Rio Grande.

     7.  If a young person's math or language skills do not enable him or her to do well, it's because they were forced to waste countless thousands of hours of class time studying "environmentalism", rather than reading Shakespeare or learning Algebra, Chemistry, and Physics. 

     Some have concluded that Environmentalists are their deadliest enemy that they, their families, and their careers have.  More and more people realize that their institutionalized negativity is deadly.

     Several recent columns have considered the "Esau have I hated, Jacob have I loved" passages.  It seems reasonable that God, Who loves truth and life, puts environmentalists in the "Esau category".

Friday, July 4, 2008

                                                               Independence Day.

     This is a fitting time to consider our lack of energy independence.  We have been enslaved by foreign producers.  Reading a history of Persia, and reinforcing that with reviewing Plutarch, shows us that the Middle Easterners have one paramount skill:  They are good at bribing key legislators in Western Democracies.

     They routinely bribed Greek legislators in Athens, Sparta, and other Greek City-States to keep them from defending Greeks in what is now Western Turkey.  Their bribes allowed the Persians to take over the entire Anatolian Peninsula.

     Today, they bribe legislators in European and American democracies to keep their constituents enslaved to their oil.  "We must protect the environment!" has been an effective cover for their covert operations.

     As long as they provide Western legislators with enough money to run big, effective campaigns, they will continue to keep them in office, and keep us dependent on them.

     One thing can help us fight the energy dependency that has accelerated in the two years since Democrats took control of Congress.  We can each help ourselves and our neighbors to understand two things: 

     1.  A nation's enemies always bribe as many of its legislators as it can to facilitate their goad. 

     2.  Some people take bribes and some people pay them.

     We can tell who's likely to be taking bribes by seeing who votes against more drilling for more oil.

                                                                   Freedom from lies.

     Lies from the left spew out like steam from geysers.  New clouds of falsehoods make us, as intended, forget about the old lies and focus on the new.  We may recall, for instance, how the left lied about the Duke LaCrosse team.  The left rushed, en masse, to judgment.  Rich white males were automatically and universally said to be guilty by the left, the entirety of which rallied to the lie.   Articles and advertisements in newspapers showed the outrage.  Those who believed the lacrosse players were "innocent until proven guilty" were viciously castigated.  Then, Nifong, the District Attorney, was disbarred and removed from office for abusing his powers.  It became apparent that the left had lied.  No apologies from them.

     The vastly larger Global Warming lies (2007 was the coolest of the past 30 years), become more discredited every day.  No apologies from the leftists, most of whom continue to embrace it with greater fervor as it collapses around them.

     All leftist lies have one thing in common:  those who disagree with the latest lie are routinely attacked with vicious name-calling in Western countries, with machetes, guns, and bombs in other nations.  In fact, one of the main attractions of leftist lies is the opportunity they provide the left to destroy those neighbors who disagree with them. 

     The left revels in reviling others.  Attacking those who disagree with them is, sadly, one of the few joys in leftists' lives.

July 5, 2008                                                         

                                                            Lying destroys rational thought.

     Two recent instances of leftist lying call into question their collective intellectual ability.  Most of us now know better than ever that global temperature changes are caused by cyclical differences in solar output from the huge sun.  It's a million times bigger than the earth and only 9 light minutes away.  The sun's rhythmic changes from higher energy output to lower are quickly followed by changes in all the planets' temperatures.

     When the left began to lie about global cooling, the sun was in an upswing of energy output.  Those on the left, frankly, wasn't bright enough to notice.  Soon, the left reversed their lies, and began to legislate against global warming.  Unfortunately for their credibility, by the time they'd gotten their lies all changed around, solar output was peaking, and its energy output soon began to fall.  Earth's temperatures began to drop at the same time.  By that time, the left's "lie inertia" was so huge that they couldn't respond with yet another reversal. 

     Some leftists had enough respect for truth that they couldn't reverse themselves twice in ten years.  We may hope that the tiny amount of respect for truth thereby indicated is a doorway through which light and truth may enter their darkened souls.

     We may hope.

July 5, 2008

                                                                 God as Programmer.

     When we look at any portion of the world, the only things we can only see two things.  First, we can see things that God has programmed.  We see the many Tree Programs, deciduous and coniferous.  We watch His Bird Programs magically zoom through His Air Programs above His Grass Programs below.

     The Water and the Water Dispersal Programs allow the outermost shell of the Earth Program to bring forth the Plant Programs.  They feed the Animal Programs.

     Most of us, looking out a window (A human reprogramming of God's Silica Program) can see how people have been given the skill to combine God's Limestone Program with His Water and Sand programs to make concrete. 

     The only thing we see are programs.  Programs, programs everywhere.  We see them, of course, because our own, individual programs are designed to let us absorb the Light Program.  We take infinitesimally small bits of the Light Program into our minds, and think and think and think.

     The very act of thinking about the Programs that God has lovingly programmed for us is part of what we are programmed to do.

     We do better if we think accurately about them.  Accurate thinking begins with understanding that The Unprogrammed Programmer wants our souls, each of which He has lovingly programmed, to be with Him forever.

     In a mere six days, the Unprogrammed Programmer, and his myriad of Angelic Programming Assistants, programmed everything that we would need to choose to believe in Him and do everything necessary to spend eternity with Him.

     Technically, we are able to move our souls to Heaven all the way up to the very moment that our souls leave our bodies.  It's odd that most of us will buy insurance on the life we know will end, but too few of us are willing to do what's necessary to insure our soul's eternal joy.

July 6, 2008

                                                                   Finding our path.

     Most of us, at any age, wonder if we should be doing something else.  Just like Adam and Eve, few of us have the joy that comes from being completely happy with what we're doing.

     We were programmed, at the moment of our conception, with the skills and abilities that make us what we are.  One of our most important jobs is finding out what those skills and abilities really are.  Just as some horses are meant to pull wagons, some are bred to pull sulkies at much higher rates of speed.  Some race horses are bred to run fast in reasonably straight lines, others are meant to weave in and out so cattle may be roped.  While some are painstakingly bred to run, others are, with equal care, bred to walk.

     There are over two hundred and fifty breeds of horses, most of which were bred (to Catholic Fundamentalists, the selective breeding of horses is how human beings re-program The Programmer's original Horse Program) to do specific things better than other horses.

     Human beings have also re-programmed God's original Dog Program to do an amazing variety of jobs that include guarding, herding, pointing, retrieving, attacking, fighting, and being good companions.

     We may begin our quest for determining what our own, individual, Human Program does best by seeing what kind of dog and horse for which we have the most affinity.

July 7, 2008

                                                    The Main Thing Wrong With Some Faiths:

     The main thing wrong with some faiths is that they encourage believers to kill anyone who says there's something wrong with their faith.   This hatred, especially when it calls on the extermination of others, even for differing with them, is a sign of great insecurity and fear.

     As Catholics, we are used to people saying there's a great deal wrong with out faith.  Our faith is, among those who have not yet understood it, a thing that's often mocked, maligned, and scorned.

     Their rejection of our beliefs is not a matter of great concern, nor should it be.  We, by the Grace of God, have been scooped up in His huge, ancient net.  We are so grateful for the increased chances of salvation The Church provides that we can only pity those who despise The Church whose only desire is to bring all souls closer to the kind and loving God Who made us all in His image.

     As Catholics, we understand that God, Who made Heaven and earth and all therein and thereon, is able to take care of Himself. 

     The faiths that fear criticism do not have their beliefs centered upon such a Being.  The only thing keeping their faith alive is the shared, and required, hatred of all who disagree with them.  They are united only in the institutionalized insecurity that comes from the deep fear that their flaws may be exposed.

     Hatred comes from a lack of confidence.  A lack of confidence comes from believing in the teachings of men rather than in the God whose Church and Word are manifestations of His Love. 

     Those who worship idols know, at some level, that the only thing that makes those idols real is their own embrace of error.  No matter how fervently they believe, the error never goes away.

July 8, 2008

                                              One reason for institutionalized anti-Catholicism:

     Every denomination relies on cash flows to keep afloat.  Professional Protestants know that their groups will pick up increases from some lapsed Catholics.   Often, Catholics find themselves in relationships that The Church deems illicit.  If they value those relationships more than their faith, they will often join a Protestant denomination. 

     At the same time, a few will leave other religions and denominations to become Catholics.  This is not a huge number of their total populations, but they are those who take God and His Scripture most seriously. 

     The result is that the Catholic Church is getting those who love God more than other concerns and the outlying groups are getting a larger number of those who put earthly concerns ahead of spiritual.

     One ongoing attraction of the Catholic Church is in the very being of its priests.  Most people in other religions are dumfounded as they explore the vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience that Catholic priests take.  They see little of those things in other groups.

     The Protestant clergy, mostly married, and struggling to support their own families, may, except in big, popular churches, not be far from poverty.  They are, however, far from celibacy.  And, it is hard to have a great deal of obedience to denominational creeds that, themselves, stem from disobedience to earlier Catholic teaching.

July 9, 2008

                                                                     Revelations.

     Elsewhere on this site is a Catholic Fundamentalism approach to the Book of Revelations.  While working on this, it's been necessary to review other writings on the Book.  Many, many scholarly Protestants wrote on Revelations.  Their desire to interpret that, the most complicated writing in the world, was accompanied by a desire to undermine the credibility and believability of the Roman Catholic Church.  The two desires are utterly incompatible with accuracy, and resulted in reams of obvious pro-Protestant propaganda.

     Newton was one of the most virulent of the anti-Catholics.  He was brilliant in his scientific works, in which he sought truth.  But, when he applied his powerful mind to Revelations, he was so blinded by pre-conceived notions that he simply couldn't do it.

     But, he tried.  Oh, how he tried.  

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

                                                       Vikings, Newtons, & Judases.

     When Viking raiders discovered the wealthy, unarmed monasteries of England, they sacked them.  The monks were murdered, the nuns violated, and the people were either slaughtered, enslaved, or impoverished.  The Church was an obvious target, and seemed to be permanently shattered.

     Over time, the Norsemen became Christians, and The Church grew, again.  Henry VIII was, basically, a brutish, reincarnated Viking in his attitude toward the English Church and its properties.

     Unlike the Vikings, the establishment he left behind had to intellectually justify his destruction of The Church.  So, hired guns like Newton made all sorts of very complicated intellectual justifications for removing the Roman Catholic Church from history, rational thought, and whatever faith threatened their employers.

     Just as history records a plethora of traitors to causes, The Church has often been betrayed from within, as well.  The spirit of Judas resurfaced in a long line of destructive heresies, each propounded by a long line of heretics. That same spirit is still at work.  Liberal underminers have long been destroying The Church from within.  In the last half a century of undermining and sabotage, they caused a despoliation of Catholicism unmatched since either the Vikings or Tudors.

     Still, The Church goes on, recovering from every attack in the ongoing testimony of God's love for Her that would not be as evident were She not under continual attack from within and without.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

                                                         High gas prices hurt.  So. . . .

     A starving man goes to a liberal for help.  "I can see that you are suffering.  You need food.  I do not have anything for you to eat now, but we are working on a new, better kind of food.  We may have some for you next year.  If not then, we will surely have some a year or two after that, unless we run into unanticipated problems.  It is almost certain that our new kind of food will be ready for you in ten years.  Just be patient."

Then, he whispers to another liberal, "He's too fat, anyway."

    For fifty years, we have had nuclear reactors, the best source of cheap, clean energy that have ever been produced.  They produce endless amounts of electricity for less than five cents/kwh.  None are now under construction in the United States, even though energy shortages are making us all poorer. 

     We are fobbed off by fancies of windmills (cost of power generation, over $1.00/kwh), solar power (no one knows how much that will cost to build and maintain, but far more than nuclear), and the usual peripheral nonsense about tidal power, bio-fuels, and cold fusion.

     The process of denying our neighbors' basic needs by saying there's something wrong with the current ways to take care of them is the high point of selfishness.  Vast lies are necessary, and they must believed.  The same people who would deny bread to the hungry deny power to those who are desperate for it.  There is an evil spirit at work in their minds.  It will destroy their own souls, as well, taking them to a punishment far greater than the pain their selfishness causes their neighbors.

Friday, July 11, 2008

                                                         Where's truth?  Rarely in the middle.

     One of the most intellectually paralyzing thoughts and phrases there is:  "The truth is somewhere in the middle."  After saying that, the person usually nods wisely, as if he has said something so intelligent that the disagreement should end.

     In fact, the phrase is usually used when someone, for instance, who's defending abortion, or global warming, or some such fraud, is driven into a corner from which there is no factual escape.  As soon as he feels himself cornered, the old, reliable, "The truth is somewhere in the middle." is brought to bear.

     A good response is, "No, it is not.  The baby is a baby, cyclical changes in temperatures are driven by similarly cyclical changes in solar output, and anyone disagreeing with those facts (or whatever facts are under discussion) is simply unaware of what's going on."

Friday, July 11, 2008

                                                           The cost of voting for Democrats.

     Since the Democrats were voted, mostly by motorists, into Congress, we can see what the price of gasoline has done.  It's gone from $2.11/gallon to $4.11/gallon.

     This graph only shows what's happened to gasoline when those addicted to taxes take power.  Food has gone up by similar amounts.  Electricity has made identical increases. 

     Unfortunately, most Americans have been so dumbed-down by public education and a steady diet of "the most important thing we can do is to save the planet" tripe that many will continue to vote for Democrats.   The poor fools simply aren't bright enough, or self-confident enough, to vote for people who will help them by allowing real oil wells to be drilled and real nuclear reactors to be built.

Friday, July 11, 2008

                         The Democratic Party, and all the rest of us, are being destroyed by its own left.

     The more intelligent moderate Democrats are beginning to realize what's hurting them;  the sheer and utter lunacy of its own left.  Democratic voters, because of high gas prices, are starting to examine the logical, intellectual underpinnings of the environmental movement that has taken control of their Party.   They don't like what they see.

     Once the Party of the working people, the Democratic Party structure is now the wholly-owned subsidiary of its bitterest and angriest.  They are happy to see families suffer, they rejoice at recessions, and regret only that things are not worse.  "It will teach them all a lesson.", they smugly say to each other.

     Few things make people examine basic premises as much as seeing those premises take money out of their pockets.  As environmental fanatics make working people poorer, smarter Democrats are deserting the intellectuals and the elites the way rats leave a sinking ship.

       What's amazing is that it's taken so long.  Some people were able to see this current oil shortage coming a decade ago, but their warnings went unheeded.  Fewer people will support a Party that values blind allegiance to false science and failed ideology more than accurate foresight.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

                                                         Jesse Jackson's comments.

     A few days ago, Jesse Jackson was speaking out of the corner of his mouth while still on camera.  The conversation lasted several minutes, and a small part of it was shown on Fox News' "The Factor", with Bill O'Reilly. 

     The bulk of the conversation was NOT released.  It was said that if the remaining comments were broadcast, "it would destroy Jackson's career". 

     Few of us are quite sure what Mr. Jackson's "career" is, but it seems to consist of shaking down large corporations.  It's a mystery as to why that is somehow deserving of "being protected". 

     So, what was on the rest of the tape?

     The best guess is that Mr. Jackson's unreleased conversation continued to demean others of his race for not being smart enough to see through the flaws in Mr. Obama's campaign for the Presidency.  There's really nothing else he could have said that would "destroy his career".

Saturday, July 12, 2008

                                                 Mr. Obama, Jimmy Carter, and Hillary Clinton.

     Democrats are well aware of Jimmy Carter's disastrous defeat when he ran for a second term.  While Mr. Carter's waning support was evident early in the campaign, polls reflecting actual numbers were not released until a few days before the election.  The size of his defeat was staggering.

     In the past few weeks, Mr. Obama's support has been plunging.  It's dropped over 10%.   Professional Democrats know this, and are worried.  Plans have been laid to replace him with Hillary Clinton if his support continues to erode.  He may get sick, or something else may be engineered, that will leave Hillary as the only viable candidate, riding to the rescue on a wave of "sympathetic understanding".

Saturday, July 12, 2008

                             The Food Pyramid:  How to Undernourish Minds and Bodies Simultaneously.

Copied from the highly recommended junkfoodscience.com

      No cookies.  No candy.  No cake.  No pie.  No ice cream.  No hamburgers.  No hotdogs.  Just the usual minority female racing toward the top while one white boy is about to skateboard into a sure and certain wreck with the pyramid in front him while a white girl is playing the approved, brain-destroying soccer.  There are three children on wheeled vehicles.  Few skateboards, cylces, and wheel chairs are used on grass, but reality means little.  

     This, the latest of the pyramids revered by big, oppressive governments, was produced by the Dept. of Agriculture. 

     It is their only known contribution to our civilization. 

Sunday, July 13, 2008

                                          What's the most commonly worshipped idol?  OPOs.  

     Most of us spend a great deal of time thinking about what other people think of us.  While we do this, we also try to improve their opinion of us.  

     The clothing we select is designed to provide a favorable impression.  We also try to arrange our hair, our homes, our offices, our yards, nearly everything we buy, our reading, our writing, and nearly everything else we think, do, and say to try make ourselves more acceptable to, and admired by, others.

     The name of this idol is Other People's Opinions.  Many of us work so desperately to improve Other People's Opinions of us that we have little time left for thinking and doing things for ourselves.  OPOs will take up as much of our time and energy as we allow.  

     When we consider how important Other People's Opinions are to us, it quickly becomes apparent that OPOs is/are the most powerful idol of all.  All earthly success comes from raising Other People's Opinions of us.  All earthly failures come from lowering Other People's Opinions of us.

     It's interesting to explore, for example, how a woman selects her china.  She may be influenced by Martha Stewart, or another famed Opinion Giver.  "If Martha stopped by, she would approve of my china.", she may say to herself as she's buying it.  "My china was recommended by Martha Stewart.", she will tell any friends who don't mention it first.  Martha gave so many opinions about so many things, and had them taken so seriously, that she had to be put in jail, just to keep her quiet.

     The same thing happens when men buy cars.  "I'm buying (I bought) this hybrid car because its selectively rotational carburetor gives the best gas mileage and its battery pack only weighs seven thousand pounds.  It was recommended by Ed Begley, Jr., Road and Track, and Cars Today."   

     We often let famed Opinion Givers become idols, in and of themselves.  Some will have imaginary conversations with and about such idols, helping to guide themselves toward the belief that their particular idol(s) will help them.

     If such idols become so rich and powerful that they get "uppity", they end up, like Martha, behind bars.

     Where do Opinions come from?  Some come from Marketing 101.  A perfect example:  A few weeks ago, at the beginning of the season for watermelon, an Opinion that "watermelon has the same chemicals (therefore, it was meant to be concluded, the same effect) as Viagra."  Another series of press releases at the same time extolled the virtues of blueberries, also coming into season, as "improvers of memory". 

     Other Opinions are put in place by rich, powerful people who know they need a favorable image to keep from guillotined in some way or another. 

     The Queen of England has one of the most powerful organizations of Opinion Givers.  All associated extol her virtues.  Pro-Monarchy Opinions pop up like mushrooms as soon as negative opinions of the Queen or her family need to be countered.

     Sometimes, Opinions, themselves, crystallize and are turned into an idol.  One such Opinion has taken a particularly powerful form in Global Warming.  One of the most prevailing of all Opinions is that "climate is changing because dangerous amounts of carbon dioxide are being produced by selfish, greedy human beings.  We must get rid of carbon dioxide to save the planet.  The only way we can do this is to highly regulate all human activity. "

     On the face of it, this is insane.  Carbon dioxide is necessary for life.  Fluctuations are common.  This idol was brought into existence to increase the power of government, provide vast tax revenues, and reduce people to slavery.  That's why their idol speaks this great command: "All must believe our Opinion about carbon dioxide, for their own good and for the good of the planet". 

Sunday, July 13, 2008

                                                          More opinions on Opinions.

     Sometimes, when writing these columns, I find myself saying something to the effect that:  "I hope that if St. Thomas Aquinas were reading some of what I wrote, that he would approve."  Sometimes, I find myself modifying my opinions to fit into what he wrote and said.

     St. Thomas Aquinas, in turn, modified his opinions to be in accord with three main things, the teaching of The Church, Scripture, and, where possible, Aristotle's thoughts.  In his opinion, those were the very best guidelines to follow.  

     Many of us also try to make our thoughts, words, and deeds conform to Church and Scripture.  "I hope God will not be mad at me for thinking, saying, or doing __________  ."  We also say to ourselves, "I hope that my thoughts, words, and actions are in accord with His wishes."

     In Rome, many of the emperors were of the Opinion that they were, in fact, Gods.  Those who wanted riches and advancement from those emperors quickly embraced that Opinion.

     Today, idol worshippers do not deify emperors, but Opinions.  Those who most enthusiastically support the deified Opinion become chief priests in the religion of the state.  Their constant goal is to put themselves into a place where they can help themselves to tithes. 

     Deified Opinions change quickly.  The speedy transformation of Global Freezing into Global Warming and then, into to Climate Change, helps weed out those less faithful people who are unable to change their minds quickly enough to be allowed to worship at the altar of the state.

Monday, July 14, 2008

                                                      God judges us on the basis of our opinions.

     Those of the opinion that abortion is a horrible sin have a chance of getting into Heaven.  Those of the opposite opinion have no chance of salvation.

     Few things in the Old Testament are clearer than that God hated those who killed children.  He hated the people and cultures who "passed children through the fire". 

     Each of us is either of the opinion that abortion is evil, or that it is not.  Those most skilled at manipulating the huge idol of Public Opinion usually work for the forces of evil against the forces of good.  Their machinations forced birth control and abortion on a public that was, at first, unwilling to accept either.

     The carefully constructed idol of public opinion has brought many into the sin of thinking that abortion is desirable.  Many are of the opinion that because larger numbers of minority children are aborted, their own taxes are lower.  Others simply do not wish to be bothered with children of their own.  Abortion is a perpetual manifestation of both greed and selfishness that is ever the dividing line between the saved and the rest. 

     The priests of Baal are still with us.  They are elated, both with the death of innocents and the destruction of the souls that accept those deaths with an abhorrent smugness. 

     Faithful priests, who love life, are also with us.  They stand with Him Who Programmed us all with both free will and the hope that we would use it to draw closer to Him.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

                                                             Whose opinion matters most?

     As we explore the idea that God can program particles, compile them into systems and beings with amazing speed, and have them move through time, He becomes more real.  Soon, we may see how reasonable it is that the complexity in the world around us is the result of The Unprogrammed Programmer's week-long Programming Session. 

     This, of course, prompts us to take seriously the operating instructions provided by His Programming Logs and Operating Instructions, what our ancestors in the Iron Age called the Old and New Testaments.  For some happy souls, obeying His Instructions becomes more important than participating in the endless caterwauling that comes from those who have embraced a far more conventional reality.

     It is akin to reaching a landing on a stairway.  When we reach that landing, we suddenly realize that the stairway has an end.  We cannot avoid the notion that there's a courtroom at the end of our stairway.  In that courtroom, everything we did on the stairway is examined, right in front of God and all the saints and angels who helped Him.

     His opinion of how we've done determines where we spend eternity.  The weeds are burned, the wheat is gathered into His storeroom.

     There is a recurring thought among those who study The Program and the Unprogrammed Programmer.  "If we ask The Programmer to pardon our past programming errors at any moment before reaching the end of the stairway, and we don't later turn and go back down, at Judgment we may be pardoned."

     Whichever happens, it is His opinion that determines our eternity.  So, we can answer the question that began today's entry:

                                                                Whose opinion matters most?

                                                          The Father's, Son's, and Holy Ghost's.

                                                              If we don't like it, we'll be toast.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

                                            Democrats, the Party of death, taxes, and poverty.

     The Democratic leader of the U.S. Senate said recently, "Oil makes us sick."  No one knows if that's true, but it is true that a lack of oil makes us all poorer.

     That Democratic policy goes along with death.  They have elevated the pro-abortion position to a near-Sacrament.

     It also goes along with the impoverishing taxes they continually levy to "make things better".

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

                                                             Not solving problems.

     Most problems have easy solutions.  America's shortage of electricity can be solved by building fifty nuclear reactors.  The high prices of gasoline and diesel fuel can be solved by drilling more oil wells.

     Those who do not want such problems to be solved because they profit from shortages.  Many make money from bribes paid by existing suppliers or those who would like to be suppliers.  Politicians are particularly susceptible to taking bribes, often in the form of "campaign contributions".

     For enough "campaign contributions", they are very willing to sell their vote to the highest bidder.  At the very same time, they say, "My vote is not for sale."  Usually, those who say "My vote is not for sale." sell votes most frequently at the high prices their experience shows they can get.

     Even the most incompetent legislators are able to stay in office by amassing enough campaign cash.  The more votes they sell for more money, the longer they maintain their power to divert public funds and preferential treatment to their supporters.

     So, we pay over four dollars a gallon for gasoline.  More Democrats make it likely that we'll soon be paying five.  "It's for our own good."

                                                                  The hating half.

     Several passages in Scripture imply that about half of us, those like Jacob, will be saved.  The other half, like Esau, are hated by God.  Votes in the United States are split 50-50 between Conservatives and Liberals, Republicans and Democrats.  Many of us are puzzled at the motives that prompt many otherwise intelligent people to support hurtful Democratic policies like abortion, extreme environmentalism, and the sure-to-fail programs and policies that tax us into poverty.

     It is especially puzzling how middle-class people can be so easily fooled.  In fact, some of them are not fooled.  They are bitter and angry people who are happy for the opportunities to vent their bitterness on their neighbors. 

     Republican strategies cannot neutralize the hatreds and dislikes of the self-haters in the middle and upper-middle classes.  They can, however, redirect the deep bitterness to the even deeper bitterness of more liberal Democrats who can be shown to have hurt them.  Some conversations may help:

     "Those rich liberals despise us.  The more we support them, the dumber they think we are."

     "Leftists are using our votes to get richer while they're making us poorer."

     "Al Gore made forty million dollars on Global Warming.  He lives in a mansion, lots of mansions, and we're barely able to get by.  He's worse than George Bush."

     "Amazing how much money those Democrats and their friends made by 'helping' the poor."  They sure didn't help you and me."

     "I'm tired of paying over four dollars a gallon for gas while their friends in the windmill and biofuel businesses are making millions."

     "The Prius they wanted us to buy is a joke.  Lousy gas mileage, and now, I have to replace the batteries."

     "Right after Obama got elected to the Senate, his wife's salary doubled to $400,000.00 a year.  They're greedier than Dick Cheney."

Thursday, July 16, 2008

                                                         Can't see these charts often enough.

     This is Global Warming in all its frightening horror.  Moving average global temperatures going down, down, down since 2002.  Last month was, comparatively, the coldest in the past seven years.  This month doesn't seem any warmer. 

     It's important that we pray, "God, please let all of us love truth more than lies."  The poor souls who look at charts like this (and, they do look at them!) before contorting them into Global Warming lies will be lost unless they start to love God and truth more than false idols.

     Our prayers will help.

Friday, July 17, 2008

                         Some religions require believers to love their neighbors.  Some do the opposite.

     Today's title sums up the subject so well that the rest of the column is unnecessary.

Friday, July 17. 2008

                                                   Orb worshippers never go away.

     At many Aztec Temples of the Sun, thousands of slaves, captives, and trouble-makers were sacrificed on special solar holidays.  They were marched up the pyramid, had their hearts ripped out, and their bodies thrown down the steep steps, after which many were butchered and eaten.   All involved were told that the deaths were necessary to keep the sun and earth happy.

     Aztec, Egyptian, and Babylonian Church-States ruled with an iron hand.  Priests and rulers marched in lockstep with armed forces and spies to be sure that everyone else did, too. 

    The early pagans used fear as their control.  "If you do not give us money and sacrifices, the sun will stop shining!  The rain will not fall!  We will all starve!"  They found that most were simple, fearful people who would rather obey than question.   The intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals in those societies, as in ours' were convinced that the pagan priests were right because they could usually predict eclipses.  "Og knows when the eclipses are coming, therefore, he also knows what the gods want us to do."

     Pagan religions still use their governments to take control of people. Today, of course, pagan demand for sacrifice is confined to taxes and donations in the wealthier countries.  "If the level of carbon dioxide increases, we will all die.  We know how to keep that deadly gas at the proper levels.  If you do not listen and obey, life will end.", Dr. Og explains.  Billions believe, convinced that Dr. Og is a "scientist".

     In poor countries, human beings are cheerfully sacrificed.  Millions are killed because Dr. Og keeps DDT from them, guaranteeing death and sickness by malaria.  More are starved to death by tyrannical governments.  The deaths they directly cause are universally ignored by the same Orb Worshippers.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

                                                          Ranking the idol worshippers.

     As a general rule, the farther from earth that its false idol is, the more advanced the culture.  Babylonians, Egyptians, Mayans, and Aztecs all had religions partly centered on celestial objects.  They did better than the cultures around them for a very long time.

     Worshipping stars and planets allowed cultures to develop the skills at math, record keeping, and organization that helped all parts of their societies to function more adeptly.  The same Babylonians and Egyptian skills that allowed them to track movements of the earth, moon, planets, stars, and sun let them calculate precisely how to build pyramids, hanging gardens, great cities, survey fields, and calculate water flows vital for irrigation and food. 

     Pyramids were popular among the astronomically skilled Mayans and Aztecs as well.  Their building and organizational skills, like the Egyptians, came from their obsession with celestial orbs, and made their more primitive neighbors look absolutely incompetent by comparison.

     Today, idol worshippers are more short-sighted.  Their idols are no farther away than the atmosphere about which they worry so excessively.  Tiny, insignificant amounts of carbon dioxide are elevated into an idol to justify raising taxes and increasing their power.  Unlike their predecessors in Babylon, Egypt, and Mexico, they are unable to see as far as the sun.

     In fact, if they were to consider the sun's solar cycles as the source of climate changes, their far lower idol, climate change, would collapse.  We may assume, then, that the global warmers are vastly more short-sighted than the star-gazers of old.

     Therefore, their religion will fall apart more quickly.

Sunday, July 19, 2008

                                                                  Cause & effect.

     God loves those who love Him.  We who do so realize that He is the cause of all effects, the most complicated of which is the fact that He has given each of us the power to freely cause effects of our own, each one being smoothly written into His vastly larger program in such a way that "all things work together for good".  Each thing that we think, say, and do is a cause that has effects among the other programmed entities. 

     We also understand, with varying degrees of clarity, that the worst possible effect of our thoughts, words, and deeds is to have He Who programmed all creation, and us in it, give us what we truly deserve for the bad effects we have caused in the minds and lives of those whom we have hurt. 

     "All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God."

     There are two ways we have bad effects on others, by doing harm and by not doing good.

Monday, July 21, 2008

                                                               Complex frauds.

     Frauds exist because some people want to get money from others without doing honest work to get it.  As automation increases, fewer people are needed to grow, build, and make things.  Many of the otherwise unemployable get into fraudulent activities which generate the money to pay the high salaries they want by making taxes higher than they need to be.

     The more useless the occupation, as many in the Global Freezing-Global Warming-Climate Change frauds know, the more lies have to be told to justify increasing transfers of money from workers to those who feed on them.  The lies are inexhaustible.  Frankly, they are impressive compilations of lies, but no more so than earlier thefts justified by the lies of the New Deal, the New Frontier, and the Great Society.

     Those who embrace the environmental frauds have the same sickness of the soul as all fraudsters.  They want to forcibly take money from their neighbors, and are willing to tell lies to do so. 

     The scale of decreasing eternal agony with which participants are repaid for their participation in the fraud goes something like this:

1.  The very worst punishment goes to those hire people to invent lies to justify taking money from others.

2.  The second punishment goes to those who invent lies for money.  This group distorts facts and figures to justify lucrative false alarms.  Those who publicize the lies and try to convince people that the lies are truths also fall into this category.  

3.  Those who willingly embrace the lies while knowing that they are lies are punished slightly less.

4.  Embracing the lies because of political or personal pressure while knowing they are lies earns slightly less pain in the world to come.

5.  Going along with the lies while thinking they may be lies gets a little less agony in the afterlife.

On the other hand, those who defend truth are rewarded on a scale:

1.  Those who do the hard work of finding out the truth and defending it earn the most Heaven Credits.

2.  Those who respond to the truth and support it earn nearly as many Heaven Credits.

3.  Those who fight for the truth while praying for the weak, corrupted souls of those who participate in the lie earn the most Heaven Credits of all.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

                                                                   Snowballing.

     Energy from earlier lies is often used to support current lies.  An example:  During the "Second-hand Smoke Lies", that were popular a few years ago, a great deal was made of supposed health damage caused by nearby smokers.

     There was, of course, no discernable damage to the health of those who spent time near smokers.  But, many were irritated by the smoke, and eagerly embraced the false science that condemned it.  And, the nannies among us, ever anxious to promote Salvation by Legislation, quickly jumped onto the "Stop Smoking Bandwagon".  Today, the rights to smoke have been curtailed, even for those who aren't bothered by it.

     The same people who could see the fraud in the "Second-hand Smoke Lies" are also able to see through the Global Warming Lies.  Those who believe in the Global Warming Lies often criticize those who expose those lies by saying, "You can't trust him, he didn't believe in the Second-hand Smoke Lies, either."

     It's interesting that those who embrace the many, many frauds launched among us will "trust" those who have embraced prior frauds.  They will mistrust those who debunk frauds, and call them insulting names, like "insensitive" and "hired guns for big ____"  

     Thus, each old lie snowballs, giving mass and momentum to the latest and greatest lie, which will, in turn, provide additional support for the lies which will follow that as surely as the night the day.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

                                                     Why are there so many vast lies and frauds?

     The Programmer programmed all we know with one purpose:  to allow creatures with free will (that's us) to decide whether to obey Him, or not.  The souls of those who obey may be saved, and spend a joyful eternity in His Presence.

     Those who choose to obey one of the many viruses get to spend eternity with them, "cast into the furnace, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth."

     The part of creation in which we live is like a giant strainer, letting those souls who love Him separate themselves from those who do not.  The separation is permanent.  Each of us has exactly enough time to make the choice that determines our eternal destination.

     Lies and frauds exist to give us each a choice.  We can either love God and neighbor, or not.  The most complex frauds are those that pretend to do good.  Those frauds attract the "higher-minded".  They will embrace, for instance, Global Warming Lies to "save the planet".  At the same time, they ignore the pain felt by people who can't afford the gas to get to work.  They have replaced "Love your neighbor" with self-righteousness while replacing "Love God" with this generation's idol.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

                                                                     Dogs.

     Catholic Fundamentalists believe that God had two reasons to provide us with His "Canine Program".  The first reason was so that we could re-program it, with selective breeding, to meet different needs.  In our earliest days, the Canine Program was modified to provide watchdogs.  The few people around at the time realized:  "If Abel had had a watchdog, Cain might not have been able to kill him."  From that, it was a short step to get dogs to attack.

     Other dogs were soon re-programmed to track, point, retrieve, and herd livestock.

     His second reason for the Canine Program was so that we could consider what attributes we valued in dogs. 

     We value obedience.  If a dog makes a mess in the house as soon as we leave, it's not a dog that we want.  If a dog won't quit yapping, we don't like it.  No one wants dogs that fight all the time.  We don't like dogs that lie around all day.  We dislike dogs that chase cars.  We hate dogs that attack other dogs, children, neighbors, or the mailman.  No one wants a dog that destroys their furniture.  Dogs that run away are often gotten rid of.

     If we behave toward our Heavenly Master the way we want our dogs to behave with us, we'll be better people.  And, we'll have better dogs.

Friday, July 25, 2008

                                                     Finding reality by going to the dogs.

     The most complicated dog training results in a seeing-eye dog.  Similarly, the most thoroughly trained of all the clergy, the Roman Catholic Priesthood, provides guidance to help us find our way into the best part of the next world.  Long, long years of training are required before a man is received into the Priesthood.  After that training, more years of sacrifice and discipline are required.

     Most of us have not been called to join that elect group, the most Christ-like of today's disciples.  Or, if we were called, we may have covered our ears and stayed mired in earthly concerns.  Most of us are more like circus dogs, able to do a few tricks that our fellows think worthy of reward.  Some of us fetch and carry things, and we all like to chew on problems as do dogs on bones.  Others of us like to find things, just as dogs sniffing out rabbits for dinner.

    Police dogs are well trained.  They hide their urge to bite with a great deal of training.  In an ideal society, the most aggressive are channeled into defending flocks from more dangerous predators.  Sometimes, the police, and the police dogs, can turn bad.  Such have to be put away.

     No one likes dirty dogs.  Those that roll in various smelly things they find along the road are never welcomed into any but the very worst homes. 

     As we move through life, His Dog Program, and our variations of it, have many lessons to teach.

Monday, July 28, 2008

                                                                  Yapping dogs.

     Lap dogs, it is said, make the best watchdogs.  Since they are completely dependent on their valued place on, or near, the lap of those who feed them, they are quick to sense any threat to their well-being.  They are among the most insecure and jealous of dogs.  Lap dogs are skilled at putting themselves into positions where they can be petted and fed.  Their only skill is to recognize quickly, and complain loudly, when neither happens or either is threatened.

     Like all dogs, lap dogs have their human counterparts.  They are those people whose activities are the most useless, and whose skills and abilities are too limited to maintain their desired standard of living in a free market. When we realize how frequently and bitterly those insecure people, living in the lap of undeserved luxury, complain, we fully understand why they personify the very nature of lap dogs, yapping endlessly.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

                                                               Retrieving dogs.

     The basic nature of a dog is to wolf down all available food.  They look for garbage, waste, and dead animals because they provide the most amount of energy intake with the least amount of effort.

     A retriever has to be re-programmed to control that basic, fundamental nature of dogdom.  When it goes to fetch a downed bird, it is usually bleeding.  Dogs were originally programmed to devour any bleeding creature.  But, the human reprogramming of the basic "dog program" into a retriever is enough to overcome that most basic of instincts.

     So it is with Christians.  We willingly embrace His higher, better program that keeps us from robbing and killing our neighbors for any short-term gain that such actions may provide.

     Just as the faithful retriever knows that it can bring the bleeding bird back to the hunter, and has a vague awareness that its master will ensure that it be given food and housing for the rest of its life, so Christians know that by resisting earthly temptations, we may enjoy the joys of Heaven forever.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

                                                             Pointers point the way.

     A dog instinctively knows that many birds will "sit tight" when threatened.  Dogs have the innate knowledge that birds' instincts tell them that very often, it's better to be very still when something is hunting them.  Pointers are bred to have good smelling ability and keen sight.  They can often find sitting quail, pheasants, and woodcock that think they're safely hidden.

     When they find such a tempting target, a dog will instinctively sneak up on the bird.  When it can lunge faster than the bird can take flight, it does so.  Sometimes, it catches the bird.  More often, it misses.

     Training a pointer involves re-programming that "sneak, flush, and catch" instinct.  When a well-trained pointer finds a bird, rather than creep up and lunge at the bird, it comes to a dead stop, and literally "points" at the sitting bird.

     The hunter, gun at ready, walks up, flushes the bird, and shoots.  If the shot is successful, the pointer turns into a retriever and brings the dead bird back.  If the hunter misses, the pointer knows, and will often give the shooter a reproachful look, as if to say, "You are an incompetent!"

     When we look at goals we want to reach, we may, like the pointer, find what we need, and ask God to help us get it.  Many times, He, His saints, and His angels will help us get what we need far more easily than if we crash into the brush, thrashing around and trying to catch our quarry.