 |
December 2009 |
|
|
|
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 As usual, we'll start the month with an advantage that Catholic Fundamentalism offers us as we make our way to Judgment. We know how confusing things are in every area of intellectual, family, political, economic, and spiritual life. Catholic Fundamentalism simplifies these vast clouds with the simple statement, "God is able to program energies and particles. He compiled them into systems and beings, all with the end of giving every human being on earth free will so that He may separate those who choose to believe in Him and obey His Operating Instructions from those who do not." As we see, with increasing clarity, The Roman Catholic Church as the earthly repository of all that is necessary to know about God, we respectfully suggest that by considering God as a vastly greater version of a human programmer, One Who can program what are basically 3-D pixels and produce the Creation Program with them, we may more easily follow Her instructions and guidance. We see that disputations between competing ideas of reality are confusing. Catholic Fundamentalism lets us burn them away like morning fog, just by exploring in our own minds the notion that God can program in three dimensions, and can download into being everything from stars to dust motes with near-instantaneousness. As we grow in awareness of God's power, things like evolution, environmentalism, and all the other intellectual fads and distractions are understood as nothing more than the elevation of God-shunning human programming errors into belief systems. They first diminish in importance, then, disappear from our minds as we realize that God is powerful enough to have programmed the entire Creation Program and that He loves us so much that He provided His only Son to help us get through it. After the confusion has passed, we can get on with the vastly more important work of saving our souls.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009 Protestants. What's in a name? The name "Protestants" is interesting. Rarely, if ever, in history has such a large group defined themselves by an entity that they renounce. It is almost like a group of people in Japan identifying their most important characteristic as being "Not-Chinese", or a breed of dogs calling themselves "Not-Cats". When a person identifies themselves with what they are not, as do Protestants, whose one universal characteristic is that they are "Not Catholic", we wonder, "Why?" Almost half the Christians in the world spend part, or all, of their lives describing themselves with a word that essentially means "Not Catholic". Not only are they "Not Catholic", but also, they go beyond that, identifying themselves as being among those who "protest" against The Roman Catholic Church, as if She had made some kind of mistake that cannot be forgiven, or that She is in continual error. It is as if they are saying, "I am spending my religious life in protest against a religion whose priests, unlike the professionals in my own religion, in conscious imitation of Jesus Christ, Himself, take vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience." It's hard to pin down exactly what "error" She has committed. When pressed upon the issue, we see that their reasons for their lives in "protest" are few. Some don't like the idea of Papal Infallibility. The old, ever-popular "Catholics worship Mary." is usually accompanied by claims of "idol-worship" by those who mistake veneration of the saints as worshipping God. Oddly, many who make these claims attend churches whose names are preceded by "St.". In a bizarre display of ecumenical weirdness, there's a nearby place of worship called "St. Peter's Lutheran Church." Those who attend are Protestants attending services in a place named for a Catholic Saint in a denomination that follows the teachings of Martin Luther, a former Augustinian monk turned "Protestant". More bizarre, the Saint for which their church is named is the very one whom Christ appointed as the first Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. No one attending St. Peter's Lutheran Church appears to spend a lot of time wondering about the anomaly of being a Protestant attending a Church named for the first Pope while denying his call for "Oneness" among Christians. Even odder, they use the title "Saint" preceding his name, thereby validating the process of canonization instituted by the very Church against which they spend their lives in protest. One wonders what St. Peter, Himself, thinks about St Peter's Lutheran Church. Do the other disciples in Heaven tease him about it? "Peter, what's going on? Why do you have anti-Catholic Protestants using your name and title to give credence to the authenticity of The Church the chose in place of yours?" St. Peter may just shake his haloed head. He could, or course, reply, "You guys are no better.", calling to mind that a great many other Protestant groups have named their houses of worship after others deemed to be saints by the Roman Catholic Church. Their existence points out a level of confusion that embraces the dichotomy without seeming to notice, or to let itself think about, the fact that it is always there. This duality is especially odd when we consider that "God is One.", which is what God's chosen are supposed to believe. Interesting that they apply that teaching to God and not to His Church. It's hard to see how such disparate views of God and His Sacraments can be reconciled without that Holy Oneness. Despite the differences between them, The Roman Catholic Church gives credence to the Sacraments provided by many of the Protestant Churches. The Church recognizes that there are many of good will among the other denominations, men and women who seek to know, love, and obey God.
Protestors and Cash Flows. One of the earliest examples of using Christianity for material ends was Simon Magus, who discovered that money could be made by bamboozling believers. The roll-call of profiteers who gained from the individual protests they organized against The Church began with Simon and went on to include Nestorians, Pelagians, Arians, Donatists, Monophysites. It continued through history to the latest splinter groups of today, communicating with like-minded Protesters over the airwaves. Those behind the protests invariably labor diligently to produce systems that establish cash flows, preferably state-supported. Their duration on earth is directly proportional to the soundness of the cash flows their founders established. As various heresies and funding mechanisms were invented, The Church was learning the values of having its clergy take vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. Dissenting churches didn't, and don't, require such vows. The uniformity with which they avoid pledges of poverty, celibacy, and obedience is so universal that we may think them to be a cause of discontent, not because they are wrong, but because, in the minds of the protesters, they are "too right (for us) " and "too much (for us)". We all live long enough to discover such things. Life is all about using information to make decisions that will provide us with the most happiness for the longest time. Unlike the voluntary games of chance at the County Fair, every single one of us follows the dictates of a Being far greater than a mere carnival barker. He, Who has programmed all Creation, and has programmed us free-will creatures within it, has decreed: "You will pay your money and you will take your choice." We will each make that choice, either by selection or a cowardly avoidance that we may think is clever enough to fool Him. There is absolutely no way to avoid that great "Yes." or "No." That's why we must decide between obeying The Church or aligning ourselves with those protesting against some, many, or all facets of its beliefs. It's important to choose carefully. It's far more important to choose correctly. There's a lot at stake. We may encourage this as an effective beginning: "God, please guide me."
Thursday, December 3, 2009 A common theme among those who begin sects of "protest" against The Church is that "Only those who think like me (then, us) can be saved." The notion that "I have found the truth and all others are wrong." appeals to the vain, whose inclinations are more inclined toward some sector of the created world rather than toward the wholeness of He Who programmed it and downloaded us within that vast program. As a former Presbyterian, it was impossible not to have witnessed a comforting "We are numbered among those pre-destined to be saved." attitude permeating many members, most of whom led comfortable, middle and upper-middle class lives. The idea that our comparative prosperity was all the proof needed that God loved us much more than the unsaved poor, who were denied the blessings given to us "pre-ordained to salvation" by a just God, was well entrenched in our minds. We would actually send our missionaries to other countries, mostly poor and Catholic, to help them achieve the same exalted levels of self-righteousness that we found so satisfying. Some sects began by attracting those who wanted to ignore Church teachings. Others began with very simple, direct connections between man and God. "We believe in cutting out the middle-man. We deal directly with God." has an eternal attraction to those too proud to go through channels. Other protestors attract those who know they are prone to sin and don't mind falling back into it with the attractive notion that "Once you are saved, you are always saved, no matter what you do, afterwards." Most sects provide an exhausting array of active social functions that provide what may be an excess of "fellowship" with like-minded people, providing those who would otherwise be lonelier with friends and a supportive social structure that's strong enough to distract from, and, in some cases, replace the harder work of salvation. Some denominations, like Calvinists and Lutherans, are named after the person who appealed to enough distinct personality types to have institutionalized their beliefs, or personal inclinations, depending on whose opinion is given, in an ongoing system of cash-flow generation. Just as many Catholics leave The Church and join other denominations, many from the outlying sects do convert to Catholicism. They are often surprised to find that there are a great many Catholics who are not interested in being friendly with anyone. They are grateful for the opportunity to go to Church every week, and return home. Most of the "old-line" denominations have been led by several generations of clergy persons who have devalued the "be fruitful and multiply" instructions. This causes their denominations to dwindle while operating expenses increase. There is so much financial pressure on the remaining members that the poor are simply driven away rather than endure the frustration of not being able to help. The smartest thing they can do is consider The Church whose founder came to help the poorest of people.
Friday, December 4, 2009 Bubbles and souls. Bubbles in liquids and our souls are similar in that there's little of the outside that's inside. They are separate from the world around them. Bubbles and souls are delicate. All the forces of nature are conspiring against them. Gravity tries to crush them while other forces try to destroy them. The shimmering nature that surrounds bubbles in the air requires that they be continually turned away from gravity to survive. Still, the soul goes on, a bit of "otherness" within our being and our world. Currently there are about six billion ethereal "bubbles" going around inside our neighbors' bodies and minds, most of them rarely thinking about the most important part of them, reflecting that the ethereal bubble that lives within has been programmed in the very image of God. When we think about how delicate a bubble is, and realize that a human soul is even more ethereal, we tend to watch out for our own and avoid bursting others', knowing, as we do, that what goes around comes around. One wonders if our soul could be better understood as a "piece of God on earth". We are formed in His image, and we have programming skills. Our soul may be considered as a "mini-programmer", bringing our mind and body together out of the collective clay around it in much the same way that The Programmer produced Adam.
Saturday, December 5, 2009 Lots of people are worried about collapse. It helps to consider Pithole, PA. It is true that we are undergoing economic upheavals at a rapid rate. We may put our current dilemma in perspective by calling to mind the rapid change that affected the teamsters whose teams and wagons carried oil from the Western Pennsylvania oil boom-town of Pithole. Thousands of teamsters and wagons carried huge barrels of oil from the forest of new oil wells that sprouted around Pithole to the Allegheny River. There, the oil was loaded on barges and shipped to Pittsburgh. A small group saw an opportunity to cut costs. They obtained financing and built a pipeline to cover the same few miles. Within weeks of the day the pipeline opened, most of the teamsters, horses, wagons, stable-hands, hostlers, wheel-makers, blacksmiths, and wagon-wrights were put out of business. The stores who sold them food and goods, the restaurants who served their meals, the bars who supplied liquor after hard days on the road, the hotels, and the rooming houses that provided lodging all saw their income plummet. After all the oil wells that could be drilled were drilled, they began to run dry. Soon, the entire town disappeared. The only thing that marks the spot is a small, out-of-the-way museum, staffed by a couple of state employees with sufficient political connections to get the only two jobs remaining at Pithole. A handful of isolated, and nearly invisible, oil wells survive. Largely automated, they pump whatever oil continues to seep up from below into a few storage tanks. Pithole was an economic upheaval in miniature. We may see Pithole today on a global scale as all the occupations and industries connected with printing and paper are reeling from their electronic competitors. The internet is acting much like the Pithole pipeline, moving information to end-users faster than ever before. This new pipeline of electrons replaces newspapers and magazines, that, much like the teamsters and their wagons, become more unnecessary with each passing day. Retailers are being replaced with an on-line purchasing pipeline. The vast brick and mortar establishments, from Main Streets to malls, are losing customers to a new, and often more efficient, distribution system. On-line catalogues offer far greater varieties and sizes than any retailer can carry, pumping goods directly to purchasers.
Today, however, societies have large, powerful forces that fight against change. There was no early bureaucracy or zoning group in Pithole to "We must stop the pipeline to protect the environment!" Today, every bureaucracy is desperate to maintain and increase funding. Fearful citizens work hard to keep improvements in anything from taking place than rather than try to make those improvements. If the nay-sayers were as powerful then as now, the Pithole teamsters would have worked until the wells ran dry. Then, they would have gotten two or three years of unemployment before going permanently onto welfare, becoming another powerful group fighting change and improvement. Much of what we need to know about the economy can be learned by simply thinking about what happened in the vanished boom-town of Pithole.
Saturday, December 5, 2009 How to know how smart you are. Now that the Climategate exposure of massive, endemic self-serving lies among the global warming profiteers has thoroughly identified the the whole thing as a mammoth fraud, we can ask, "What do my thoughts about global warming say about my own intelligence?" The answer is simple: If you understood that Global Warming was a fraud ten years ago, you are a genius. If you began to see the fraud five years ago, you are of Superior Intelligence. If you first considered that Global Warming was a crock two and a half years ago, you are above average in intelligence. If you only realized in the past year or so that the whole Global Freezing/Global Warming/Climate Change was just silly, you have an average IQ. If you bought a Prius, installed solar panels, or invested in windmills, you have let everyone realize that your intellectual acuity is either remarkably average, or slightly below. Those who continue to believe are on the far left half of the bell curve, near the "virtual moron" section. The more fervently they believe, the farther to the left they are, plumbing the very depths of mindlessness. The Big Lie:
By looking at the graph, we see the difference between reality and fraud. The "virtual morons" among us include all those minds unable to understand and admit that all but the green line on this graph represents a colossal lie. Wide-eyed believers in the fraud were, of course, not born as "virtual morons". Embracing lies actually destroys the mind, making "virtual morons" out of people who otherwise might be quite intelligent. One of thousands of the Little Lies that have been woven into the Big Lie: Tens of thousands of smaller graphs, illustrating the adjustments of individual temperature recording stations all over the world show the lesser liars at work, providing the warp and weft with which the larger lie is woven: Here we see a red "liar-line" that is said to show long term warming that can be used to show the "grave dangers" that Global Warming will do to the planet. The blue line shows the actual readings of this particular temperature station. The "virtual morons", their poor minds unhinged by a steady diet of lies, still defend the "adjustments" confirmed by the black line, the precise reasons for which are strangely unavailable. The black line shows exactly how much they lied, distorting a hundred and thirty years of facts with a hundred and thirty years of fraud. With every lie, they move farther from truth, their minds progressing ever more deeply into a never-never world of willful nincompoopery, their poor souls following along. We have seen how their lies go through time. They also cover great distances. Similar distortions, equally complex and cunning, have been used at thousands of weather stations all over the world, brought together by the dozen or so "peer-reviewed scientists" who have been orchestrating the entire process while garnering billions of dollars for those who pay their salaries. Another "little lie" that's been woven into the Big Lie of Global Warming: A close look at the green line on the left shows two lies. First, it disappears. The graph's producer wanted readers to think it was there, and that it's upward movement is "hidden" among the spaghetti. The second lie becomes apparent on examination. Before the green line disappears, a close look shows that it's been given a slight tilt to make it look as if it's heading upwards. It's actual path is in the graph on the left, showing why it had to be removed from the Global Warmers' "scientific analysis". Despite lies as obvious as the three examples above make clear, the journalists and broadcast media in thrall to those who wish to have more power over us continue to ignore truth. At the same time, they wonder why their jobs, raises, readership, circulation, and audience are disappearing. With every lie, their own careers become more precarious. Rather than confessing their participation in the fraud, they compound it with more lies, an ever-flowing fountain of which flows from them to the ever fewer who believe anything they say. Respect for journalistic integrity is evaporating as most journalists seem driven to make used car salesmen look like pillars of trustworthiness when compared to the shameless shilling they've been doing for Imaginary Problems like global warming.
Sunday, December 6, 2009 Dis. When reading Dante, the word "Dis" is used frequently. It's a state of mind that leads to the destruction of everything that's good or decent. It's the state of mind in which those on the left are most comfortable. The farther the mind is to the left, the more negative and "dis-ful" it is. Some are so lost that they hate everything. Others are more single-minded in their hate. They may focus on the destruction of a certain group. Serial killers usually select one type of target, women or children, for example, whom they hunt down and kill. At heart, those who prefer "Dis" are angry with God. "If I'd gotten a few breaks, things would have been different.", they say, never realizing that God gives "breaks" to those who ask for them while obeying His operating instructions as their program winds its way to erasure. They are so "dis" enchanted with love, joy, families, and success that they will do everything they can to undermine such things. We see several major denominations of the Dis religions around us. Some work to pervert children. Others try to destroy The Church. Many attempt the destruction of economies and families. All assault anything believed to be good, except the process of undermining. That, they embrace whole-heartedly. The first step to dealing with the endless attacks they launch upon us is to understand that they hate us not because we're worse than they are, but for the exact opposite reason. Do those in the Dis community do any good? They provide a continual test for we who prefer love to hate, building to destroying, and truth to lies. At the same time, they so thoroughly align their souls with destruction that they cannot avoid the eternal consequences of their choices while living their lives in the vastness of the Creation Program.
Monday, December 7, 2009 De-constructors versus Replacers "De-constructing" is widely used as a basis for the philosophy of the left. It involves taking things apart. Those who do the heavy thinking for the less intellectual haters on the left, like Marx, Sartre, and Alinsky, are always in favor of replacing existing structures with ones under their control. Leftist de-constructors prefer communes to families, open marriages to actual marriage, homosexuality to heterosexuality, cooperatives to businesses, and government to the private sector. Their lives are focused on destroying existing structures. As we see with every leftist administration in history, they are not intelligent enough to replace any previous system with anything better, though both pretences, that they are intelligent and have been successful, are maintained with great efforts. Their greatest appeal is to those who are angry about not being genuine intellectuals. They are driven by their vanity to pretend that "We're just as good as them smart people.", and concoct endless reasons as to why that is so. The still-prosperous remnants of Christianity are also under attack by Moslem aggressors. They want more than mere de-constructing. They are Replacers, who want to eliminate and replace every family and political structure with those that most strictly follow the dictates of their own beliefs. Some have compared them and the leftists to the right and left hands of the Devil, pummeling away at love, truth, and freedom. There is never complete unity between the deep hatred that drives the two groups. In some cases, leftist tyrants will fight Moslem aggressors, whose increasing unpopularity with free women and homosexuals has automatically swung votes against them in the remaining democracies. In other cases, Moslem aggressors will wage war on leftist tyrants. Regardless of occasional internecine battles among the two largest groups of Church-haters, their general practice is to help each other destroy the remaining deposits of Catholicism and wealth in Europe and the Americas. Moslem aggressors and leftist tyrants are untied in their desire to remove all that keep them from the confiscation of wealth and freedom in the countries they target. They also keep a wary eye on each other, knowing that the battle between them is just beginning. The difference between Moslem aggressors and leftist tyrants is that the former know exactly what they want to have replacing existing structures. They want to replace monogamy with polygamy, education with ignorance, democracy with theocracy, justice with power, and freedom with slavery. At the same time, they want to enact laws that will exterminate homosexuals, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and all who follow operating systems that differ from their own. Leftists are handicapped in providing the replacement structures. Each one of them knows that every regime they have installed has failed. So, both of them know their union is temporary. As Christians are increasingly reduced in power and wealth, which intentionally devaluating dollars are causing to evaporate with unprecedented speed, the Moslems and leftists will increasingly have to fight each other. The chances are that the Moslems will win. Their hate is old, focused, and has seemed undying since the days that Genesis records "Ishmael set himself against his brothers." Leftists, though more intelligent, lack the discipline and drive to mount sustained, centuries-long attacks. They simply don't hate as much as the hard-core of the Moslem aggressors. In boxing terms, the left is the Devil's "weak left", while the others represent his "hard right". We see in England, which Vladimir Putin currently and correctly describes as "An Islamic police state", that the Moslems gain more power over the left each day. The left is too weak-willed to fight back, and can only fund themselves by accelerating their attacks on the native English people. Many leftists who've taken money to destroy their own country still think they will be able to take their money and run. They are not bright enough to ask "Where?" and find that there is no answer. There's always the chance that a leader will emerge who can unite peoples to stand against the left and the Moslems, but bribes have corrupted Western democracies so thoroughly as to make that nearly impossible.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009 Fixing things in democracies is nearly impossible. Once the political structure is fixed, the only movements allowed are towards greater collectivism. Each person profiting from that process is committed to keeping it in place. Carthaginians found that their government was too paralyzed to fight the Romans. Romans discovered that their democratic institutions kept the only leader they had with the intellectual ability to defeat the Gauls from office, and temporarily lost their City to plunderers. Now, we see the semi-Christian countries of the West under attack by those pledged to our destruction. Our governments, paralyzed by bribes and cowardice, do nothing. When we wonder why He Who programmed us all allows the descendants of those who built His most magnificent churches to be reduced to slavery, poverty, and extinction, we have but to see that He hates the selfish monsters that have become our rulers. We may remember that He used Rome to destroy the baby-sacrificing culture of Carthage, whose graveyards are filled with the tiny, incinerated bodies of their own children. Similarly, He is using the Moslems as a hammer to beat out the life-destroying sins of abortion and birth control in the "liberated" societies. They will beat it out. And, a tiny remnant of believers will survive, thriving over the coming centuries as the divisions between the new overlords tear them apart.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 Some things aren't supposed to be fixed, and we shouldn't try. Every government there ever was pretended to be doing good. Many people justify getting into government with the idea that they will be "doing good". This rarely happens. The would-be doers of good quickly run into the stone walls that have been erected to protect the cash flows of whatever department they're in. They either leave government "service" or they conform to the bureaucrats' universal goal of increasing funding. When we look, for instance, at the Department of Agriculture, we see thousands of employees who have labored for decades to produce, every few years, an improved "Food Pyramid". They're happy doing such things, and it does little good to try to fire them. Attempting to get rid of even the most useless, let alone the most harmful, agencies and departments sends an automatic alarm bell to the others, who increase their ongoing efforts to eliminate whatever freedom mere citizens have to exercise any sort of control over their government meaningful enough to reduce spending. It's better to pray for their souls, a bigger job than most of us are ready to undertake.
Thursday, December 10, 2009 So, we can't fix government? History records endless attempts to "fix" governments". Governments seem to have a suicidal tendency to prefer death to improvement. This indicates the personalities that government attracts. Many of those within governments would rather die than lose their jobs. When we wonder why governments head into destruction, much like the proverbial lemmings racing over cliffs and into the sea, one answer is that they hate their neighbors more than they love themselves. When the Romans surrounded the Carthaginians in the final battle, in 146 B.C., they told them: "If you all leave your city and move sixty miles inland, away from your harbors, we will let you live. If you stay here, we will kill as many as we want and sell the rest of you into slavery." Rather than leave their vast accumulations of programmed entities, their businesses, and their governmental structures, the Carthaginians fought until they were all killed, many of them throwing themselves and their children into the fires, just as they had done with countless children similarly sacrificed for centuries. Their vanity was such that they preferred death to poverty and the hard work of starting over. There are many established bureaucrats in every state who would rather see their nations destroyed than lose their own salaries, benefits, and pensions. Governments, without a rare person like Ronald Reagan, can only be improved by being replaced. Over time, governments accumulate so much dead wood that they, like overgrown forests, can only be helped by fire. There is one healthy way governments can survive to provide more for those dependent upon it, and that's to be sure that those who can lower the price of goods and services through automation and invention are free to do so. As long as production efficiencies can keep up with the taxes needed, a government can survive, keeping ever larger numbers of bureaucrats in positions that they may pretend are useful, even "vital". But, the egos of the worst bureaucrats are then left with the depressing thought that they owe everything to those smarter than themselves, an assault to their vain intellectual pretensions that's so powerful they invariably keep those who can help them from doing so. A perfect example: If our own government, whose country only has about thirty percent of its people involved in making useful things and providing useful services, were to encourage atomic energy, the cost of electricity would be reduced, taxes could be raised, and they could continue taking from their neighbors. But, when the most suicidal among them take over, as is today the case, they will raise taxes while making necessities like electricity incredibly more expensive with flawed fripperies like windmills and solar panels. Then, forces are brought into play that put their salaries, benefits, and possessions at risk. Few of them are enough brighter than the Carthaginians to keep from destroying themselves.
Saturday, December 12, 2009 Leftists Love Lies. And, hate. Older Americans remember Alger Hiss, a Communist who worked for the State Department. Despite overwhelming evidence, the American left refused to admit that Hiss was an active Communist. They still protest his innocence, even though at least one leftist wrote a entire book about him, reluctantly concluding after years of research that Hiss was lying. Truth did not matter. Hiss refused to admit that his lies were lies, and American leftists still look on him as a persecuted martyr. Today, we see that their beloved, and phenomenally complicated, Global Warming Lies are similarly unraveling. Any given leftist will either accept the truth about their lies and renounce them, or, more likely, will enter Stage II of any lie: telling more lies about the original lies so that they may go on believing them. The problem? They don't believe in God, much less that He loves them. Their refusal to believe allows them to avoid the Operating Instructions that tell us not to bear false witness and to love our neighbor as ourselves. They have a particularly hard time with telling the truth and loving their neighbors. Their disobedience, of course, keeps them very, very far away from the Sacrament of Confession, in which they could be forgiven for their embrace of the lies and move toward saving their souls. We may conclude that lies are a, if not the, most important part of their beings. Believing and telling lies separates them from those who seek and tell the truth. Our response is two-fold. First, we must seek and tell the truth. Secondly, we must understand what drives them to lies, and may reasonably conclude that they come from the venomous hatred that dominates their minds. There is a common denominator among those who prefer lies and hate to truth and love. We see that every leftist lie is ultimately centered on taking life, freedom, and money from their neighbors. The world's structures are based on varying degrees of lies and hate. Hatred of neighbors fuels the drive toward collectivism and endless micro-managing of others. Lies justify their hate. Once justified, hate grows and drives more lies. The souls that embrace lies and hate become shriveled, shrunken, and stained by what their vanity does to them. At Judgment, those who chose to love hatred and lies will be separated from those who chose God, truth, and love. It's our job to tell them about that, and to pray that they be enlightened. Some of them may be helped.
Saturday, December 12, 2009 Those who love death support more abortion. Their words reflect the hateful thoughts, minds, and souls behind them. Their thoughts are invariably in favor of "More death." The zeal with which some pro-abortion people approach the destruction of more unborn children reflects the deep, deep hatred that boils beneath the civilized veneer that the worst of liars are skilled at maintaining. They know what happens in an abortion, a tiny, unborn baby is burned alive, or torn limb from limb, or killed in some other manner that they would not wanted to have inflicted upon their own, precious selves. They rejoice when it happens, and praise those who will inflict such awful pain on such innocent people. Their unholy grail is obvious. China's brutal "one-child policy" is frequently praised by those who seek millions more deaths. They would like it imposed on all the world. By their preferences, we may know them. Murderers.
Sunday, December 13, 2009 The left's lies are so frequent that we frequently can't remember them. The National Geographic magazine is a great aid in rediscovering old lies and seeing what new lies are being told. A look through an old pile of National Geographics from the pre-1920s showed frequent repetition of the lies that Communism was helping people in Russia and could not help but continue to do so. A few decades later, issues proclaimed the great dangers of "Global Freezing". After that, they switched to fearing imminent destruction from "Global Warming". In between, they worried about "light pollution", which threatened civilization by keeping astronomers from seeing stars clearly. They're still complaining, despite that the Hubble Telescope, far out in space, is making better observations than possible for any earthly observatory, even with absolutely no ambient, human-caused light anywhere in the world. They worried about national parks, which are never quite large enough, and the "problems caused by irrigation". Lots of articles mention how bad humans are for the world and how "helpless wildlife is endangered by people and progress." Now, that the carbon dioxide lies are being exposed, "nitrogen" is becoming a worry. So is an imaginary "gyre" made of plastic bags that's supposedly covering vast areas of the Pacific Ocean, destroying all sea life around it. Polar bears are invariably shown to be "on the verge of extinction". There is not a single Imaginary Problem about which leftists do not concern themselves. Not one of the millions of babies destroyed by abortions is ever a concern because such people do not concern themselves with truth, love, believing in, or obeying God. They pride themselves on how far they may distance themselves from such things. Sadly, they do not realize that the separation is probably going to be permanent, without some sort of miraculous re-programming of their souls, and that the evil beings who lead them astray do so in order to inflict eternal pain upon their souls.
Sunday, December 13, 2009 Kinds of zombies. The classic zombie is a person who appear to have returned from the dead, wandering helplessly and hopelessly through life. One theory is that people may be turned into zombies, by being heavily drugged, buried alive, then dug up after their minds have been permanently impaired by oxygen deprivation. Others think they are sad examples of retardation or of physical damage to their minds. Another, more dangerous type of zombies, have lost the spiritual ability to love their neighbors. Like the many professional liars chronicled in a couple of the above columns, they wander through life looking for excuses not to seek God and truth. Using the government schools, they work to produce generations of similar "Spiritual zombies" who will, like them, go through life without love.
Monday, December 14, 2009 Since we are programmed with a natural affinity for truth, life is very hard for those who prefer lies. They must ignore the many, many happy people around them, demeaning at every opportunity the mind set that cherish love and truth. They tend to gravitate toward those who share their world view of anger, fueling the flames that they know are destroying them even as they move deeper into the destructive fire. Joy is not part of their lives. Neither is happiness. Their renouncement of love leaves only bitter loneliness, because they even grow tired of associating with fellow haters. Those who sin move deeper into sin. Those who hate find themselves in a process of increasing that hate. Those who dislike their neighbors gravitate toward reasons to dislike them even more. With every step they take, they move farther from the Loving Programmer Who wants them to turn to He Who brought them into being. Their desire for happiness is often assuaged by earthly programmers, who provide no end of alternative programs that promise happiness and contentment. As they investigate the programs developed by their fellow human programmers, they, too, are found to be frauds designed to separate them from their money. The only Program that actually does what it promises is provided in the being of The Roman Catholic Church. All others are corrupted with varying degrees of fraud that precisely reflect their distance from Her.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 Zogby poll: Proof that Democrats are dumber? "Fewer now say they are highly concerned (about global warming) — 20 percent today compared to 30 percent in 2007.
The December 5th column reported on the Global Warming falsification of data, and illustrated concrete examples of cooking the global warming books. We see from the Zogby Poll, quoted above, that Republicans are the quickest to spot fraud and stop taking it seriously. On a bell curve of intelligence, we may assume that the Republicans are on the right side, Democrats on the left, and Independents arrayed around the middle. It's amazing how intellectually unable they are to see through this particular set of media-approved lies. They are, unfortunately, about as wrong about every other position they embrace. Does the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life also indicate that Democrats aren't overly bright? "For example, 21 percent of Republicans report that they have been in touch with someone who is dead, while 36 percent of Democrats say they have done so. Eleven percent of Republicans say they have seen a ghost, while 21 percent of Democrats say so. And nine percent of Republicans say they have consulted a fortuneteller, while 22 percent of Democrats have. As they asked on Ghostbusters, "Who ya gonna trust?" When it comes to health care, the economy, energy production, or changing climate, in light of the above two studies, which group is most likely to be able to come up with the right, or even, the sanest answers?
The Church is an Anti-gravity Device. We don't often think of The Roman Catholic Church as the spiritual equivalent of a science fiction anti-gravity gizmo, but it is. It keeps the souls of the faithful floating above sin, stopping the awful descent into error that ruins the eternities of those who fall. Every single Sacrament is designed to keep us moving toward Him, away from the inanimate energies and programmed entities within which we are intentionally programmed. When we consider our own propensity to sin, and realize that God's grace keeps us from downloading and operating with soul-destroying thoughts, words, and deeds, we can only be thankful to have been spared. The Church encourages us to operate with an upward focus that draws us away from sin and error. Most of the people in the world operate on a horizontal basis, and avoid sin without drawing as close to The Programmer as they otherwise might. As we work to get our individual program in line with His Operating Instructions, we see the advantages of poverty, celibacy, and obedience. The opposites of those things cannot help but distract us from He Who programmed all that there is. Today's reading, from Isaiah, 45, tells us: "Turn to me and be safe, Turning to Him and being safe means moving upwards, not sideways or down. That turn will keep us safe from the relentless pull of the "spiritual gravity" that works to pull us down into the pits of despair and pain. It is not only a turn that we must make once. Many of us must resist temptation several times an hour, struggling to keep ourselves turned upward, and moving upward, toward He Who programmed us and wants us to spend eternity with Him. Nothing on earth helps us to move higher than The Roman Catholic Church. As we watch a bubble shimmering, we see the fluid in it slowly settling toward the bottom, pulled there by gravity. If the bubble is made to rotate, the film is moved toward the top, where it immediately begins to settle toward the bottom. If the bubble continually rotates so that the film-thickness is uniformly maintained, it will go on and on. Our soul, similarly, has a tendency to be drawn into the sin that will destroy it. It must be kept at all times moving toward God, rotating as it does so in order that every part of it may be continually exposed to He Who kindly and graciously programmed it within the vast body of corrupting sin.
Thursday, November 17, 2009 Ishmael vs. Isaac. Again. Always.
The great contest has always been between the sons of Ishmaelite and Isaac. Ishmaelite, it will be recalled was exiled from Abraham's household by Sarah, who wanted the estate of the richest man in the area to be passed on to her son, Isaac, completely bypassing his older son, Ishmaelite The bitterness and resentfulness that this caused prompted Ishmaelite to "set himself against his brothers", which includes all the other descendants of Abraham. The Ishmaelites, from whom most Middle-Easterners are descended, have never been able to capitalize from intellectual endeavors. As a result, they have long survived on money sent from the sons of Isaac in Europe and America to buy raw materials. From the Middle Ages, when raw materials, as for glass, were sent to Europe from the Middle East, generating an annual ton of gold leaving Europe for Mid-Eastern countries, to today, when considerably more is sent there for petroleum products, the West continues to support the Sons of Ishmael with an unfavorable balance of payments. Now, they have successfully invaded Europe, taking over the judicial and educational systems in England, which Vladimir Putin now describes as "An Islamic Police State". At the same time, they are making great strides in other nations. The West seems paralyzed, unable to respond, much less counter-attack. The invasion may be likened to another "Scourge of God". He is using people who are violently pro-life to teach the West that they cannot ignore His Commandments without serious repercussions. This "Scourge of God" is falling upon the sinful. We, who have not done as much as we could to stop the evil from flourishing within our own lands, are seeing the "Scourge of God" descend upon us. Curiously, the left, always those in favor of sin, seem to be helping them, ignoring that they are the first targets the sons of Ishmael will destroy. We should be praying frequently that we be spared His scourging, asking for His mercy, rather than for His justice, which is coming down like a flood.
Friday, December 18, 2009 Another Global Warming Fiasco Ignores Reality. The world's looters (no, not the Somali pirates, but the pseudo-intellectual version) recently gathered in Copenhagen to "solve the problem of changing climate". It appeared that the problem that was actually addressed was defined so that it could only be solved by shoveling more money to the leftist leaders who'd turned their countries into basket cases. Of paramount importance among the group was President Obama and Speaker Pelosi. Both of them had to prematurely leave the blizzard-ridden Danes to return home to avoid being stranded by an even bigger snowstorm that was about to paralyze much of the East Coast. Nearly two feet of snow was about to fall in Washington, and the most important and influential of the Global Warmists had to leave one blizzard in Denmark to miss another at home. The irony, of course, is utterly lost on them and their sycophants in the state-run media.
Saturday, December 19, 2009 Even us peons were inconvenienced by the same global-warming that forced our political leaders to come home from the blizzard-threatened Global Warming Conference in Denmark before the U.S. blizzard paralyzed the East Coast. In flying from the Midwest to Pittsburgh yesterday, one moved through airports jammed with people whose flights were cancelled and delayed because planes could not land between Washington D.C. and Boston. It didn't take much imagination to understand that the problem was affecting airports and airlines all over the world. (Update: Dec 21, 2009-- 80 people froze to death in Poland.) As the back-up caused by the record-breaking snowstorm (22.5 inches in Philadelphia) spread West, flights were delayed all over the country, each one stranding or delaying a hundred or more people. Many of the travelers chuckled among themselves about "How bad this global warming really is." One could sense among the hundreds of thousand of people inconvenienced by the heavy, pre-Christmas, Friday travel that the realization that their leaders were lying nincompoops was becoming more commonplace. The lunacy of worrying about Global Warming in the face of blizzards all over the world does not make prospects look good for Democrats and gullible Republicans in the next election. One voter explained: "It's actually a good thing that the Democrats and liberals took over the White House and both Houses of Congress. Now, no one can help but see how dangerous, incompetent, hurtful, and downright stupid the leftists are."
Monday, December 21, 2009 The shortest day of the year is always a relief. Things are looking up from here for the next six months. In that six months, we have time to enjoy longer days and more light. We need more light, especially in terms of what's going on with the world's governments. Things have rarely looked darker. Health care is going to be diminished at the same time its costs will escalate rapidly. The Western World is rapidly running out of energy, and no new nuclear reactors are planned. We will see our utility bills going through the roof, and those who impoverish us will, in true nanny-fashion, wag their fingers and tell us "We have to protect the planet. It's the only one we have." Catholic Fundamentalists don't see it that way. We believe there is a Kingdom beyond. One way to get there is to love our neighbors, so we can't hate those who will kill with worse medical care and more abortions. Even though dozens of people just froze to death in a European cold snap, and more will die here as heating becomes more expensive, we still can't hate those who inflict misery and death upon us. "'Vengeance is mine'. sayeth the Lord.", and we have to trust Him to take care of them. That trust relieves us of hate, which is a wonderful thing not to have to carry around within. We know, from the Book of Revelations, that the altar before The Throne is filled with souls clamoring for justice. They will get it, and so will those who caused them to be in a position to cry out for it.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009 What are God's scourges today? The destroyers mentioned in the Book of Revelations, War, Famine, Plague, and Wild Beasts (the last includes microbes, megalomaniac murderers, etc.) are used by The Programmer to destroy those who ignore Him and His Operating Instructions. They act much like the cleansing of a computer disc, getting rid of bad programs and making ready for new ones to be downloaded. Such scourges also work to get the martyred faithful safely into Heaven before they are made, or led, to become a part of the disobedient. Today, the two most obvious lashes of His scourge are leftist tyranny and Moslem aggression. Both lashes spring from one stock, and that is hatred of all that is best about humanity. Most of those who choose to become part of the living scourges of hatred are not overly bright. They deal with that by making considerable efforts to wipe out all those smarter than themselves. Similarly, those who are filled with hate are driven to destroy those who prefer love to the hostility they have made the driving force in their own lives.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009 When the MosCom (new word) scourges strike we may remember Pella. That was the town to which the Christians of Jerusalem were miraculously led when the Romans destroyed their city, and everyone in it, in 70 A.D. Today, as His twin scourges of Moslem aggression and Communist tyranny (MosCom) strike Europe, many of the faithful have been moving to the United States, just as earlier escapees did to get away from the scourge of Communist tyranny in Europe. His MosCom scourges are beginning to fall on North America. We witness mass murders of Army personnel by Moslem aggressors and the annual murder of a million unborn babies by unabashed Communists. More death, in the form of unobtainable medical care, is looming large. Birth rates of Americans not on welfare are plummeting, another form of death. The numbers of people guiding children into life-destroying and shortening practices is rising. So far, neither Moslems nor Communists object to the destruction the other unleashes on us. Symbolizing their unity, they have joined together to elect, at great cost, an American President who combines an affinity for both Moslems and Communists. That shouldn't keep us from realizing that the alliance between the Communists and the Moslems is one of short-term convenience. They hate each other almost as much as they hate the Christians whom both groups wish to destroy. So, their alliance will end, sooner, rather than later. Moslems are pro-life. While they don't mind, and delight in, seeing the sons of Isaac destroying their children, they aren't about to let either abortionists or those who support them live to slaughter their own children. Moslems are also violently anti-homosexual. The left holds the exact opposite opinion, and are pro-homosexual. Today, they hide the fact that Moslems hunt down and kill anyone regarded as "deviant" at every opportunity. Soon, outrage caused by the increasing murders will cause most of the homosexual community to abandon the idea that Communists hate them far more dangerously than Christians do. Female Communists are having a much harder time believing that Moslems respect women's rights, causing many to understand that they have a far friendlier haven in Christianity than among the Moslems. In fact, many "enlightened" feminists are already being kept from mentioning their growing concerns about enforced female circumcision, polygamy, arranged marriages with young girls and much older men, and a lack of property rights. The left's self-described "intellectuals" are beginning to discover that Moslems do not believe in sex, music, interesting television, newspapers, magazines, movies, plays, books, or in anything that's "fun". Book-burning, always popular in Moslem countries, has been accompanied by the equivalent of "author burning". Communists like the pursuits that Moslems despise. They have embraced control of what is laughingly called "the arts" to use them as tools with which to destroy Christians and our culture. When those involved with such activities understand that their counterparts have ceased to exist in Moslem countries, leftist alliances with Christians will become more sought after. As those in the Communist wing of God's scourge becomes more threatened by Moslem attacks, they will suddenly discover that "Maybe, those Christians aren't as bad as we thought.", and a great re-alignment will be attempted. Just as Stalin turned to the Russian Orthodox Church in the dark days of WWII to get Christians to help fight the National Socialists, so Communists will soon turn to the Christians to help defend them against Moslem attacks. We are already seeing the signs. It may be that the smartest thing we can do is to ignore any move that either Moslems or Communists make toward allying themselves with us Christians. We may consider that it may be better to let the scourges destroy themselves while we watch from the comparative safety of whatever Pella-like haven The Programmer is sure to provide His faithful and obedient, whether it's in this world or the next.
Friday, December 25, 2009 Merry Christmas. As we each move toward our individual Judgment, we realize that it will take a miracle for our sins to be forgiven. Paraphrasing St. Ignatius, "Our sins are so awful that it's a wonder the earth doesn't open up and swallow us." Thinking about what we think about shows where our priorities are, and our thoughts usually don't indicate that obeying God is uppermost in our minds. Nonetheless, we keep on doing what we do, hoping, if only subconsciously, for the miraculous outpouring of mercy that will allow us to enter Heaven. Christmas is the miracle of God loving us enough to come to earth, suffer, and die for us. So, we know that miracles do happen. It is the mark of some remnant of sanity to have the hope within us that the miracle of forgiveness will be granted to us. It will, if we have sense enough to ask for it. Often.
Saturday, December 26, 2009 This important article was taken from The American Thinker: "A vast reservoir of clean-burning natural gas could be available at reasonable cost in the coming years, freeing us from some of our dependence on imported energy. Yet there are those who consider such a development a threat.
Sunday, December 27, 2009 Dawn is breaking, but not on the moon. As this is being written, early in the morning, the sun is said to be "rising". At some deeper level, we know that the sun does not actually rise and set, but that our portion of the earth is rotating into, and out of, its light. We are no longer in the dark shadow, and will not be returning to it for nearly a dozen hours. The moon, except for the infrequent occasions that it moves into and out of the earth's shadow, has no dawn or dusk, no night or day. It is always blindingly bright there, with no atmosphere to interfere with the light of the sun. Pictures of the astronauts who went to the moon show that their helmets had carefully calibrated sun shades built within, the formulation and making of which had a great deal of thought behind them. One can imagine the unsung NASA engineer who determined how dark the visors had to be in order to let the astronauts see and not be blinded by the brightest light to which any human would be exposed. The incredibly complicated programming that provides the solar system and its movements is an allegory to show how it is with us and God. The souls in Heaven have no darkness, only day. There is nothing to screen them from The God Who made, loved, and guided them to Him. And, they do not want any such screens between them and their Maker. That's why they're there. If we want to join them there, we can only begin by removing the sins that keep us from Him. Like thick clouds, sins get between us and Him. Those full of sin see only clouds, rendering He Who made them nearly invisible.
Sunday, December 27, 2009 Marketing = Manipulating. The Three-pronged attack on sanity. Most headlines driven by marketers/manipulators give us something to worry about. What follows tells us why we should worry. The third stage of this process is to involve each person by outlining things that we can, and should, do to make things better. Successful marketers/manipulators always follow three steps. The first stage is proposing the problem: "Polar Bears are Nearing Extinction!" That's typical of the "problems" spewed into our minds. It demonstrates the fact that all of us seem to have a life-long yen for things to worry about, and all media feeds on this desire. Secondly, the successful marketer/manipulator realizes that all human beings have an endless urge to absorb details. So, headlines like, "What's Really Happening to the Polar Bears." are followed with mindless barrages of the usual "accepted facts" about "climate change", "icecap melting", "food shortages", "carbon footprints", "rising sea levels" and "the breaking down of natural food chains". The absorption of this information leads people to believe that they "are informed about the problem." Most people, after having had their brains stuffed full of such drivel, will then prompt themselves to conclude, "I am a very well informed person on this subject." They will rarely be bashful about sharing their superior "knowledge" with others. Their grotesquely high levels of vanity keep them from seeing how easily they have been manipulated and are being used. That same vanity utterly blinds them to the fact that they are little better than ventriloquists' puppets. Thirdly, there's also a near-universal desire among human beings to do something to "solve" the problem. So, the successful marketer/manipulator provides lots of instructions like "use the lowest watt bulbs you can", "turn down your thermostats", "walk or ride a bicycle", and "park your car and take advantage of public transportation". A surprising number of people will think there is actually a relationship between doing these things and saving polar bears. Boiling it down, we see the typical, three-pronged attack on us information absorbers: First, invent a problem. Second, provide lots of details, the absorption of which will distract most minds from considering whether or not the problem is real. Third, provide ways to let each individual appear to be able to do something meaningful to "solve" the problem. Catholic Fundamentalism suggests that, in an automatic response to any such marketing ploys, we orient our minds to: First, we ask if the problem is real, or if it's been invented to serve whomever is paying for this particular communication from the media. The best way to do this is by asking the ancient question "Who benefits?" As we train ourselves to do that, we are less frequently fooled. Second, we see if the details are in any way meaningful to us, to our families, or to anyone but those who've rented the media space. Third, we realize that every action recommended will either make us less comfortable, less able, poorer, more inconvenienced, sicker, or sooner dead.
Monday, December 28, 2009 Stopping progress is ever the goal of those intellectually unable to handle new things. When government in the United States was limited, we saw railroads, telegraphs, telephones, airplanes, and radios revolutionize lives. People were allowed to invent things and put them into operation, giving us automobiles, tractors, corn-pickers, and the thousands of things that make modern life. Today, those who are established in, and profit from, the generation of electricity, do not want to see the most effective, reliable, efficient power producers in history, nuclear reactors, put into operation. When we see plans of "new" power, mostly rehashed versions of failed ways to gather solar, tidal, and wind energies, we know that they never work as promised. Actually, they never work at all. Nuclear power is only obvious by its absence in endless media releases about "the need for clean power". Though no power is as clean, or as reliable, as that produced by nuclear generators, it has disappeared from most media releases about producing "clean, reliable electricity". In every area of endeavor, the old, failed, expensive ways are protected in order to protect the cash flows of political contributors. It is a rule of thumb that no human need will be allowed to be satisfied in the most effective way, but in whatever cumbersome fashion the givers and receivers of campaign donations desire. Because those who receive funding for their votes never want to rock the boats that bring them their sustenance, we are doomed to grow poorer. Oddly, formerly oppressive tyrannies in China are having dozens of new nuclear reactors built, guaranteeing that their factories will outperform their counterparts in countries whose officials hesitate to disrupt the source of their own funding even as their families have much lower electric bills, thus raising their standard of living. Thus does democracy destroy itself, claiming to be "enlightened" as it circles the drain with increasing speed.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009 The battles that surge around us are as numerous as the number of people in the world. Those of like mind and soul generally form groups to facilitate the flow of money from others to them. The oddest group of people in the world is comprised of those who take vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience. Those who follow such Operating Instructions endeavor to follow Christ's example. He was, after all, celibate, poor, and obedient even unto torture and death. His followers, as was He Whom they follow, are sometimes described to be "out of touch with reality" at best, or, more often as "unnatural". Some reply, "What is admirable about being one with nature? Isn't it more admirable to conquer our nature?" In a broad circle, thousands of times bigger than the core group of celibate, poor, and obedient followers are those Catholics who try to follow the Operating Instructions that these men and women get from The Programmer and pass on to us, their fellow believers. From above, we may be visualized as being somewhere in the grooves of a long-playing record, revolving around the utterly motionless that is at the very center of the spindle. The holy men and women are in the area closer to the center, which, like them, doesn't make nearly as much noise as do we out among the noisy grooves who are less prone to silence.
Another, similarly sized group of people share many of these beliefs. Protestants are not in a unified circle around the Catholics, but have formed groups of their own, each of which was founded by those able to convince enough neighbors that the truth was to be found in their particular view of The Creation Program. They modified, and continue to alter, the Operating Instructions that The Roman Catholic Church provided. Most of them now believe that it's "all right" to use birth control devices, permit abortion, same-sex marriage, and weaken any number of positions about which they claim to be "enlightened". The relationship between The Catholic Church and the others looks from a distance like a bowling ball with hundreds of ping pong, tennis, and soccer balls piled around it. These are all in an ongoing state of shrinkage. Since all battles concern the transfer of programmed entities from outside groups to inside groups, we can see that some groups do better than others. Jews have succeeded in becoming wealthier than most other groups of people. Chinese people who've colonized different countries do very well compared with those in the host cultures they frequently dominate. In fact, organized groups of immigrants usually do better than those already in the countries to which they move. There are two ways to get programmed entities from other people. In a free market, we may provide goods and services of a kind that prompts people to freely pay for them. This is increasingly rare. Mostly, groups try to take money from others by theft. Some, like drug addicts, simply steal what they want. Similar transfers involve what are still called "laws", and they empower the state to make the necessary confiscations which are given to the more demanding groups. When an excessive number of programmed entities are transferred by force, the state becomes a criminal organization, and is soon replaced. The replacement can be from within, as in the American Revolution. More often, it is from without, as the seizure of a large part of Europe by Napoleon. As the criminal nature of his own organization became obvious enough, it was destroyed by a combination of organizations that were slightly less criminal in nature. All groups trying to take from others seek allies. Each of us is frequently approached, either directly or by media pleas, to side ourselves with one group or another. Any time someone asks us to "get involved" in any project that's involved with climate, the environment, or animals, the easiest thing to do is say, or think, "I need to learn more about that.", and go back to what we were already doing. Don't worry about hurting their feelings. They know they'll support, somewhere. When we consider the battles and wars being fought all around us, by billions of people, it's a relief to be a Roman Catholic. It's even more peaceful to be a Catholic Fundamentalist, because we're more immune to pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook like "evolution" and "Global Warming", which typify thought processes that exist solely to lead people away from He Who programmed all there is with us in the very middle of it.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009 Humanity is divided between those who make a conscious effort to love God and neighbor and those who do not. The greater effort that we make to love, the closer to God we are. On the Spiritual Bell Curve, we tend to be moving toward the right, toward a little door we may picture at the bottom right-hand corner of the Spiritual Bell Curve. Those who make no effort to love God and neighbor are in the middle of that same Spiritual Bell Curve. Those who have increasing amounts of hatred in their souls are moving toward the left. Again, we may picture a little door there that leads to a place where hatred reigns. A basic question: "Why would anyone hate the God Who made them?" leads us into an exploration of suicidal, spiritual insanity. According to St. Ignatius, we should use the three powers of the soul, Memory, Understanding, and Will to draw ourselves nearer to God. Those who choose to draw themselves farther from God have chosen to misuse the powers of their soul and draw themselves away from Him. Why? When we think of Pascal's Wager, we realize that the inventor of probability theory quantified that the best bet is the one with the greatest reward. So, we have some mathematical certainty that bears out using the powers of the soul to draw closer to He Who will send our souls to the eternity He decides we deserve. To ignore both faith and statistical probability is to choose everlasting pain over its opposite. From what place in the soul does the choice to prefer and pursue pain arise? It seems to come from souls suffering in pain that they feel may be assuaged by piling up lots of material goods and negative thoughts that are summed up with one sentence, "I'll show them!" We know that these programmed entities cannot be carried into Heaven, where there is absolutely no need of them. But, one can't help but wonder if the lost souls are required to take their idols with them when they exit through the tiny door at the left-hand corner of the bell curve. It's not utterly unreasonable to suppose that the lost soul is forced to take his worshipped idols with him into Hell, and live with them forever. Those who worship idols have those same idols sent along with them, where they must spend eternity, jammed into a hoarder's smelly paradise of meaningless junk. All the idols are there. Rotting caviar, tarnishing metals, fading art, breaking statues, cars that no longer run, old wine forever seeping slowly from decaying corks, and expensive clocks and watches that probably keep on keeping perfect time as a reminder of what was lost. The richest lost souls may arrive in Hell with vast moving vans of mansions, castles, excess homes, land, buildings, jets, tarnishing gold, dim jewels, stock certificates for companies about to disappear, government bonds of collapsed nations, and yellowing pearls. We have but to think of any idol and consider that it becomes part of the moldering trappings of Hell within which the lost souls are ever more cramped. Each new arrival bringing his loads of idols is made painfully aware that he is bitterly hated for adding to the discomfort. The truly vicious and angry, Marxists, Leninists, Stalinists, and haters of neighbors don't worship physical idols. Instead, they bring their sarcasm, hatred, pain, and bitterness that they adored on earth to their new neighbors. All the idol worshippers, and all their idols, are there. There is no way for a single one of those poor, lost souls to escape battling viciously with each other forever in the wretched pit.
Thursday, January 31, 2009 Another year ends, as have thousands. In retrospect, one of the best things about Catholic Fundamentalism is its ongoing focus on God's power. When we see Him as The Unprogrammed Programmer, and understand that He is able to program energies and particles, compile them into systems and beings, and download each one of us within His huge Creation Program, we may feel the same lightness of being familiar to an over-loaded pack horse that's been relieved of its burden. The more we live in the world, the more lies and contradictions we are forced to carry. They weigh us down, depressing our minds and spirits. Once we understand that God can program in many dimensions, we see that things are far simpler than some would have us believe. Everything boils down to the paramount consideration: Each person has one, overriding mission, and that is to join our soul with He Who programmed us. St. Ignatius tells us that our thoughts come from one of three places: They may come from our own minds, they may come from good spirits whose goal is to help us save our souls, or they may come from evil spirits whose mission is to have us send our souls to live forever among them. As we pray, our soul grows closer to God. As we do, His spirits have an easier time getting through the lessening clouds of confusion to help us. But, just as we each have a Guardian Angel who can call upon any number of the Heavenly Host to help us, the other side has assigned an evil being whose job it is to lead us astray. It is made to work harder, and may be given more power from its master, as we move toward He Who made us. Since evil spirits usually pretend to be helping us, we need to pray for guidance so that we may distinguish between the two. As a general rule, the spirits that want to lead us astray will encourage us to believe lies. When we look at lies, we see that some are so widespread as to be accepted as truth. Evolution is the perfect example of a global lie. First of all, it's amazingly widespread. "Educated" and "enlightened" people on every continent embrace evolution to a degree that keeps them from even considering that God is powerful enough to have programmed Creation. Because they do not see that He programmed The Creation Program with enough "evidence" to let lost souls choose not to believe in Him, it's not hard to see why evolution is a very important part of the other sides' catechism. When we suggest that the theory of evolution is a vast fraud designed to keep human beings from seriously considering God's power, the looks of astonishment, even outrage, are almost automatic. As a rule, they increase proportionately with how "well-educated" the hearer believes himself to be. When Catholic Fundamentalism suggests that God, The Unprogrammed Programmer, wrote and downloaded the entire Creation Program out of particles He has the ability to program and compile, simply to give us free will, the intellectual foundations of Babylon are undermined by an alternative theory that gives us a cosmology that's in accord with Holy Scripture. There are not many such ideas around. We know, of course, that believing in evolution does not keep a soul from Heaven. But, believing in the God-distancing theory of evolution does keep us from the amazingly deep joy of understanding that grows within us as we consider all the details that God programmed just to give us beloved human beings free will, the proper exercise of which is the sole purpose of The Program.
|
