in the left column

Featured Link

From Expanding Horizons: Self Existing God  is a great link focusing on the same subject of this blog, the definition of God.  It is a good idea starter in any event to go in your own direction whether one agrees with every dot and tittle one runs into or not. BTW I think aseity, means in the Latin "and self, to dwell within", or immanence. A fine distinction similar to transcendent. 

"If God is self-existent, eternal, and pure, then He is, by definition, transcendent. He’s a higher order of being. It is for that reason that God calls Himself “I AM.” When we consider the transcendence and aseity of our God, we will respond in worship and awe — just as Moses did at the burning bush."  Quoted from Moses and the Burning Bush by R.C. Sproul

edited entries

The longer a posted entry remains in evidence, the more likely that it will be edited for clarity of ideas or correction of inadvertent typing errors. For more complete explanation please notice the paragraph directly below the introduction, the painting Days End, and immediately above the list of other active sites in the Sunset Stroller.

definition of belief

 Belief is not going along with the Pastor. It is not agreeing with someone. Belief does not admit ignorance. 

Belief is accepted before it can be projected. When it is projected belief becomes known.

Do I really think I am 

one with the Holy Spirit? John 17

How do I know? Is there a Holy Spirit? 

How much faith do I have?

The mind thinks but the spirit believes. 

I deliberately do away with doubt. The spirit slips undetected into the seen world from the unseen according to the degree of belief I can exhibit. I have to believe what I am thinking. There is no physical effort because there is no effort of any kind in the spirit. 

I place these ideas into physical evidence objectifying them here. I learn whether they will survive without being propped up with wishful or any other kind of flimsy thinking. I realize results are happening to me. I wait on the Holy Spirit, having made my agonies known.

Bedrock Belief

Without Wavering

No matter what, the spirit persists. Time in the seen does not exist in the eternal unseen. Therefore the spirit of belief never gives up in the face of seeming failures until they disappear unnoticed. I do not sit across the table form God. I can never bargain with God. 

I accept what I am told. I tell what I accept. 

God believes.

This is creation 

God did not create existence. He is existence. How then are things created? He first had the thought, I suggest He did, and then He spoke it into existence, of this I am certain He did. How is all this known? 

He speaks what he believes. It now exists because He believes it and His word does not return to him void. Alongside the Bible, much of what we know spiritually about right and wrong He placed in our hearts. We are first born into the changing physical and then born spiritually... our individual decision.   

Malthus redux

 Malthus was correct in his prediction of starvation, at the time. He did not anticipate any new country could, nor would, produce more food than ever thought possible. It would be all through technical advances he could not foresee under this newly incentivized country across the pond. 

Role of the individual in the group

Sane, for the time being

Ever notice a hedge, or any unpruned tree-shrub with a shoot sticking way up beyond the rest of the shrub? People are like that too. This story has been recounted more than once in more than one country. 

In Hungry, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, after studying the matter of childbirth fever, suggested washing hands would be advantageous.

The reason for doing this was his undoing. Purpose for washing hands was because there was something dangerous on everyone's hands that was  too small to be seen. In France, I think it was, a doctor proposing there was something too small to be seen was dropped from the staff as a weirdo. Sounded sensible at the time. Do the names Pasteur or Lister of Listerine strike any bells here? 

Semmelweis however was famous for saving lives. But he was committed to an insane "asylum" with maybe the early onset of Alzheimer's where he was "beaten by the staff and died from his injuries, it has been reported. 

Time being

In their defense my memory reminds me of the coiner of the most important moral principle of the individual, self preservation,  Herbert Spencer, who maintained that the majority is not always wrong.  Only an individual can shoot beyond the group. Only the group establishes the view of sanity in the group. So if the individual shoot gets ahead of the group too far, they are seen as insane. The group thinks he is insane because they, the group are sane, at least for the time being considered so.

In the this our country, the total wording of the God based Constitution completely defends the individual from the group. This may explain why this country was the first, and to my knowledge the only, government to abolish slavery as well as avoid the "unavoidable" 1800's Malthus view of impending starvation. Correct at the time, but incorrect in time. As for slavery, unfortunately human trafficking today seems to suggest completely abolishing slavery "unavoidable". 

Poor prediction records

Myth and Motive

Our elders as helpless myth believers, 

vs many of today's scholars as full of themselves

Economists are always notoriously getting their predictions wrong, and so are too many historian scholars as well, it seems to me. Whenever someone proves an extraordinary Bible account as quite possibly true, one that no one could prove convincingly before, I am in an unfortunate conundrum. And it suggests to me a motive is in the mix.

The problem vs the premise

If a story can be proved (to one's satisfaction) then this is a blow to belief, since if something is considered proved, then the need for belief is mute. 

The prospect of the Red Sea being at one time in the position of a tidal river from both ends is an example. The tendency of scholars to disbelieve the ancients as not being as smart as themselves is not only embarrassing at the outset, with talk of interfering extra terrestrials, but with time, is repeatedly being debunked.  

I suggest questioning motives as significant in the outcome. Always check the premise is the usual motto. 

Giving no tongue to the devil

I have little patience for the reactionary view. I do not oppose for the sake of opposition either, as that also is giving tongue to whatever I do not speak to, of, or about. That is, I do not repeat or give space to views that are other than mine. For instance, I have next to nothing to say about the devil, so I do not react and by that act give recognition, acknowledgement, or space to his doings. This blog is primarily about God's own definition of Himself, not mine or anyone else's definition. I do not listen to what those who say what others are saying, rather than what they are saying, because it is a just an entanglement of hearsay. 

Still editing

Even months at a time 

Lot of heavy editing all day into this evening, for the Stroller El Speedo. It often goes on for days at a time, until things finally settle into the sunset. Speed isn't the quickest avenue to any destination. 

The strong man is also

 Taking heaven by force

If there is any doubt in anyone's heart, even those of a different pasture who are not drawn by God, then they if they want God, like Jesus says in the scriptures, can take heaven by force.

Faith is forever persistent

This was also alluded to by Jesus in the strong man parable. We know He taught in parables and for my part, I consider them His commandments. So it is the same for the strong man who can also take heaven by force. He is demonstrating his faith, his persistent faith. Everything is based on faith. God is not impressed by our transitory proofs, God wants faith. Faith is the unseen power of the spirit within to believe, most especially the unbelievable. Parables have interpretations, this is why Jesus said understanding them was withheld from those who did not believe. This is merely my view.

Other interpretations: In the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, which does not have the context of the Beelzebul controversy, the parable has been interpreted as merely suggesting that "shrewd planning and careful strategy" are necessary in order to accomplish one's goals.

Definition of an act of God

Everything is blamed on the Boss, that is how it is known who the boss is, as I forever fruitlessly explained to my wife. All the insurance companies also know what God has done. Certainly not them. 

Formerly, as an atheist, I fondly noticed that while  God tells us not to kill, He wipes out entire generations of people with a flood. I was just piling on, as it were, since I was already snared in unbelief by the fallacy of misplaced authority.

Wrong again boohoo boy.

Everyone picks up on this, even last night I heard it on a radio call in talk show. Some excuse God for murdering anyone He takes a shine to by saying, He has a divine right to do everything.

First of all God is Existence, Existence exists and God cannot not negate Himself. God tells us what must be done to avoid dangers in life. If we fail to do it, then it is our decision, not His, for us to suffer the consequences, since we took on free will under the apple tree. 

God knows everything that we are going to decide to do before we even do it. But even though He knows everything before hand, He does not force us to make those decisions. 

God places before us both life and death. He urges us, it says in the Bible, to chose life. God does not choose, we choose, He however knows our choices before hand. 

So God knows everything. But we, every time we learn something, we learn about new unanswered questions we did not know before, thereby learning we were more ignorant than we realized previously.

Jesus said that no one can come to God unless God draws them to Him. He lost many disciples by that saying. Jesus also said there are sheep not of His pasture. What does all this mean? Who am I to judge God? I just know what He tells me.

Predicting the future is a scale evaluating intelligence. God knows the future already while I do not know all. Therefore I cannot judge anything, even justify answers, about any matters concerning God. My only conclusion can be, knowing He gave and wants existence for me, even so as with Job, though he slay me, yet will I trust Him.