I understand from the ancients....

...that God spoke the world into being by breathing His Spirit into Existence. God, being always in the present, is eternity with no beginning nor ending. God is forever loving and forgiving for those who can recognize and accept Him. His thoughts are behind the display in the heavens, his ideas planted in the self-evident words of the prophets. 

A learning experience in the foxhole.....

Deciding between the decaying world of the flesh and the eternal continuous-present world of the spirit should be easy. But it is not. Why? Is it being kicked out of the womb all over again? 

With all flesh crumbling around me, I hold on to it. It is a sin to commit suicide, being a direct insult to God who gave life. God points out to me, choose life.

Do not seek heaven on earth

It was written about Jesus that He said, if we have enough faith, we could move mountains into the sea.  

I believe it! Many believe He was speaking figuratively which is another way of believing only the meaning is true, but not the truth actually, only the meaning.

If I do not eventually get what I ask God for, I do not blame God. I suggest it was rather myself, I did not have enough faith. When Jesus said to a sick woman. Do you believe I can do this? She answered yes and notice Jesus said, then let it be done for you according to your belief. Her faith was in Jesus, and it was so. 

It is easy to believe anything that is easily believable, it is harder to believe something that is harder. What could be harder? Anything like, returning from the dead?

Pumping oneself up...

I can see from my last entry I am conscious, and likely deeply subconsciously as well, that there is a lot I do not know. I am left with a trailing off montage of mostly humous nonsense. 

Considering humor is mostly nonsense, I am most certainly dancing dangerously close to showing off my frustrations as mere maudlin confusion. Only thing is that I'll never know the end of it, so it must have some purpose. After all, if I get it, I must've been looking for it.  

Becoming like Jesus.....

So then, becoming like Jesus and doing greater things? I've heard some say they are here to occupy. Does not sound like a very great trophy to lay down, as the hymn implies.

Think of all the money one could earn if they kept it and put the income to work meeting charitable needs indefinitely. All this knit picking. Only God knows the heart. This is the trouble with writing for the doctrinaire crowd. Too much judgement involved.

Wnen the future becomes the present tense, one is in eternity....

Makes me wonder sometimes. I mean I think of Sarah Young, sick so continually, always present with troubles, ranked as the most financially successful religious writer that ever was. What happened? Dies of leukemia. 

Then there is St Paul himself. How successful can anyone be? He even handled a poisonous snake. There are some, small, but fair amount Christians, quite down on him on religious grounds.

I think it was because he said he explained Jesus to people and if they did not take it to heart, he condemned them to hell. Then the church takes up burning people at the stake. For that they did not like him despite all he did otherwise? 

I've heard about atheists being healed at healing services. We are supposed to take up our cross and follow Jesus. We can't forgive anyone of their sins. I mean if He did it for us, what are we doing? 

And now I come to my view, wobbly as it is, that we are perhaps are not healed because we do not have enough faith. Jesus said if we have enough faith, we could do anything, even greater things than He. 

I'll stick with my personal not enough faith position. And also, Job, who said tho He slay me yet will I believe.

Letting God be God....

The Way It Was

When My Marbles Were in a Row

Once, when I got over the heady thrill of being a university (educated) atheist, I slowly found my foundations were crumbling, and pretty shaky all told at that.

In point of fact (with continuing apologies to Jennifer Jones in Beat the Devil) my entanglement in the fallacy of misplaced authority proved rather embarrassing as I grew older. But as a child it seemed natural for me to think God would be swinging easy with adult church leaders, for the sake of the children.

So, when I found out that God forgave David, since David was "honest" with God, I saw a leeway for me since no one could be more honest than myself. What a mixture I was in! 

I mean really, how could God kill all those people in the flood and then turn around and tell me I couldn't kill even one person yet? It is some strong stuff when one finds they are their own God.           

Quoting Jesse Livermore

The truth cannot be told by those who know.

The Quoteblokes Hall if Quotes....

Anyone not believing in God, has to be his own God.

Anyone who takes offense, is offensive in the act of taking it.

Which man is worse off? The one who tells a lie or the one who believes it?

The more anyone learns, learns that the answer contains more questions they did not know, that they did not know. Therefore, their learning teaches them that they are even more ignorant than previously. 

Once one learns how to teach, they are in danger of losing how to learn. 

No one will ever have enough knowledge to know whether there is a God or not.

All things seen came from the unseen.....

                                                                                      Purpose of this blog is to 

define God the way God defines Himself, which is, as God is Existence in Exodus 3:14 "I am that I am." This is the name God placed into the heart of Moses by sudden revelation, similar to an epiphany. Also, He wanted to be known by this name forever "into all generations." The title photo is of an oil painting by the artist Herbert Randle. All opinions appearing in this blog belong exclusively to the posting party and credited to that party for the moment, for that expressed time only.  

New format old rules.....

Finding a new format risky but we had a good run. I cannot predict what will actually transpire but viewers will see it all work right here in front of everybody. This will be the time to do it. Meanwhile I write for my own benefit and to convince myself only. I guess I am a witness, but I am a witness solely attempting to convince myself. I find many trying to convince others, only to be actually persuading themselves. I am completely certain everyone can only convince themselves. They will just have to take credit for it. Once anybody agrees with something, then they own it. They are on their own ticket.

Next entry is delayed.....

...working on a special notice 

All there is or much more to come....

If ever thing ends here, then this world's existence went to a lot of complicated meaninglessness for nothing.

What visions do the young see, and what dreams do the old predict? For what reasoning can I sense in the sudden revelations that entered the thoughts of the ancients? It looks to me, so far, we get what we believe. But who or what could conceive the patterns in the night sky that attract the wonderment of my eye in the night?

I am extremely thankful for it all, and I do not know what it is all for? 

One Sunday No Dogs in Heaven

Heaven Without Love?    

Pastor centered on, a perhaps ten-year-old boy who wanted to know whether his dog would be with him in heaven. No, the pastor said, his dog would not be in heaven because the dog did not have a soul. I walked out the center aisle. I just could not stand it.

Twain had some choice remarks on this, pointing out that many dogs were more deserving than humans to be in heaven. Dogs are very loving and are quick forgiving. But for this poor pastor, lions and lambs are likely in heaven with or without their souls, but not a dog?

I think the young chap will not likely be very desirous of being in an antiseptic heaven as the pastor himself foresees. I often wondered in my formative years about churches operating on the gas of such doctrinaire drivel, 

Unfortunately, I fell when a child to the wayside, calling God to account for these people. I was a victim of the logical fallacy misplaced authority. I am sure any dog will be in heaven as long as someone wants them there. 

Not Enough Faith

 Too Human for God?

I cannot fathom now in whatever context I meant by that slip shod remark yesterday. Now think I was off base there, so I am willing to step back after from some sleep and reattack a more steadfast meaning.

Rather than repair it I'll go even further out and suggest if we are supposed to be like Christ I need to yet venture even further out. Jesus said we would do greater things than He. That suggests to me that we will have to demonstrate much more Faith than anyone seems to have done so far.  

God speaks and there it is...

 Reason For Our Existence

Reason for our existence is because God spoke us into existence and, we were. That is my thinking, or I should rather say, observing.

I have no more enlightenment, at least in this moment than that. Only what the ancients wrote which was placed in their memories, as if from epiphanies. Sudden revelations are like that and further, they are extremely convincing and instantaneous.

We must remember however, that God is not speaking from the past but rather from the constant present which is to say, eternity. It is hard for us to even conceive of anything outside of time. It is as if everyone each falls into their own memories, and some never get out.

God is reasonable....

God Designed Us for a Reason

In perhaps many quarters it is understood God created us for a reason. But the too easy explanation often is, He wanted company. He just wanted it? He did not need it? Sounds slightly too human for God.

On the other hand, to deny people He creates, knowledge has the slight taste of a tease lurking on the sidelines. No, I think He had to warn them. If not, whatever happened to free will? God already knew about the devil wanting to be like Himself. Since Satan found he could not, he threw a tantrum and overturned the chess table. Now there is the whiff of me starting to slip away from myself again.

Drawn to God....

 Until Enough Faith Can Do Anything

Pentecost is not for today, it is said. So, what else is not for today? Is Jesus rising from the dead not for today as well? Where should I draw my Faith line? 

Mebbe it is that word, translated into English, the word enough. Maybe it should be more instead? I say in for a penny, in for a pound? 

I sense I am in hollow echoing place.

On the wrong tack/?

Pertaining to the earlier Post

It appears to me now that I am putting new clothing on an earlier error in which I am substituting proof, or in my particular case logic, for Faith.

I may be correct in assuming any lack of success is due to not enough Faith. But that is all. This would let me fall into the category of gaining and attempting to gain, enough knowledge, which is similar to the difficulty the rich have in attaining heaven. Why would the wealthy envy heaven if they think they already can afford heaven? 

I know no one is equal with God, so I am already more than satisfied with the joy of worshiping God. In order to lift God up above I have to lift oneself up to do it. This means I should do as it says in Philippians. Whatever is of good report, think on those things.  

Rules for new roads...

Intelligence is measured by predictive success but intelligence is gained thru imaginative predictive efforts where success is often a surprise full of completely camouflaged twists choking the road.

What I do not like about it all is the appearance of almost legal series of justifications required to support whatever target in front of me without stretching believability too far ahead. 

What this means is any progress, especially if recently achieved, may be lost without even realizing it. Hopeful on my part but unavoidable nevertheless.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), in my view, is exhausting itself sooner than expected and is heading largely toward instant series of parallel calculations they may not break beyond. Ethics still is an unsolvable danger. 

It is alright to laugh. After all, it is always done. 

Knowledge a strange curiosity.....

 Why was Gaining Knowledge a Sin?

I think it was because the desire to gain knowledge whether accidentally or by putting the orderly intensity of our minds to, it attracted the struggle for existence between good and evil, between God and the devil. These are the principalities and powers that struggle constantly in motion that Pail mentions.

  I often notice the harmony between languages. Exceptions put color into odd interactions. I remember noticing a sign in a small upscale town while cycling in the country that said dog spelled backwards was God. Of course. The devil can recite the Lord's Prayer backwards as well.

God did not create evil any more than He can negate Himself. Evil came out of good, themselves wanting to be god probably turning the power of knowledge against itself. Evil spirits are many and they have power. I do not tangle with them. It is enough for me to recognize them. They are the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit seen in Galatians 5:22. Believing in those Spirits can overcome the body, as I earlier mentioned my mother testified.

I do know God cannot tolerate even the very presence of evil before Him.  I may not know how all the hows work today. But all that is most likely in the future when I finally get into the present, where eternity is stuck.

Five favorite quotes with the blokes

1. Can someone repeat a lie without telling a lie?

2. Which person is the worse off?

        The one tells a lie or the one who believes it.

3. Anyone who takes an offense becomes an offensive person. 

4. The truth cannot be told by those who know.

5. All things seen come from the unseen.

Trusting the Spirit

Seeing is Believing or is Believing Seeing?

The flesh will not help us, Jesus said, but it is hard to trust, or even understand, the Spirit when all one knows is the flesh up against something not even seen, ever. There comes a time when my age is against me. That means that there is not much time left for me when I'll discover what I really believe beyond any lip service. For those who do not believe in God, I think they will have to be their own God.

A Fine Kettle of Fish

A Crisis in Faith

This life is all I know so far. As for where I came from there is no memory, unless it is just tabla rosa. The best I can do is mostly remember what I was told. 

My flesh grew, prospered, and time spread out before me until it went into a well-documented, undeniable decay glide. Even tho expectations for the future were promising, the foundation for a second birth was rooted in more lip service than not.

As the story goes, when the Sunday School teacher asked the class who wanted to go to heaven, only little Johnny did not raise his hand, because he thought she was getting up a busload for today.

For Now: Not Right Now 

I want to go to heaven but, like Johnny, I would rather be healed to extend things right now. When asked about eventually, I said I wanted to be with Jesus, the only Spirit I trusted. 

If I did not, or will not be healed, then that is because I did not have enough faith to be healed. God healed me by Jesus' stripes before Jesus went up on the Cross. As for persuading God to be healed anew, I was holding God accountable in my error. I even knew this as I read about Jesus as He asked a woman if she believed He could heal her, and she answered yes. Then Jesus said then be it done to you according to your (her) faith in Jesus.

It is better to be born again and be with Jesus, is it not? Little Johnny was ahead of me. If I fear death, then maybe there is not enough faith to be healed in me, or even to be with Jesus as well, because there is no faith in doubt. I once held God in an ultimatum and now it looks like He could hold an ultimatum on me. 

Time does not exist by itself

Time only exists in a comparative state.

When our spirits are finally fully present, we will be outside time because outside time the present alone is, by itself, eternal. Time therefore cannot be measured without reference points outside itself.

The past will always be sad, no matter how bad or how good it was. The future will always be hope. But when the spirit is in the present the present by itself alone is eternity because there is no time.

All things seen came from the unseen....

We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18

Greater Faith and Greatest Faith

Are the Jesus and Jonah 

Stories Possibly True?

Anything is possible but it will be a long way home to probable. No one seems to be annually challenging the Jesus rose from the death story. 

Key Word: Enough

Here we run into the enough faith condition as the roadblock for many in the walking on the moon story.  It is easier to believe the crossing the Red Sea story. But, but only, if we consider the possibilities that the Red Sea was once fed by monster tidal rivers from rising tides at both ends, that being the Mediterranean and the Indian Oceans.

I don't know the how about the hard things, except it is easy to believe the easy things, but harder to believe the hard things. This is why I believe the hard things anyway because I believe the hard things no matter what. Later, the hard things could seem so much more easier than now. 

Faith Cannot Exist Alongside Proof

Proof Only Exists to Our Own Satisfaction

If anyone could actually prove God existed, then it would remove God from all consideration regarding Faith. The ancient writers recorded that God is not impressed with anyone's proof, only Faith.

Therefore, anyone impressed with proofs would know that proofs are new and improved by less than viral facts more often than generationally. Nothing can actually be proved without fail except to one's own satisfaction or the betting odds. 

The next day's rising of the sun maybe a good bet but all chips are off the table if it explodes inexplicably. Write me if that happens, or just send the even money. Don't worry I won't be counting the zeros.    

People, similar to planets, carry weight according to their mass, attracting the lessers like the moon to the earth. Every individual is a witness, and like planets, are in different orbits adopting views influenced by their own orbits.

Time Changes Everything

Then, we have to rewind the time thingie. There are more of these theories than seconds in just one of those "billions of years" predictions. How accurate can one of those billions of trillions of years predictions be? If the world was in ice millions of years ago, how meaningful can anyone be in such a wide and local time frame?  

Meanwhile God is aware of our predictions all the way from the present tense. That is how God knows the future while the reckless among us think He cheats. From my perspective, for me, I catch up to the future as soon it falls into the past pretty much all of the time.

In Your Light we see light

Psalm 36:9

Hard getting ahead of the idea of God  

Why I worship God is because I am stunned by all the evidence and intricate beauty of existence. Who or what some ever even had any concept idea of what existence should be like from the start? Then in this mix, physical scientists say the universe is expanding?

In the light of all the stars, just as in the light of all our growing understanding, I suspect it may merely be that it is because it is we who are expanding. "It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of our own ignorance." That is Thomas Sowell's famous quote.

So, every time we discover the answer to one question we did not formerly even realize existed. we discover within our answer several accompanying questions we had no prior knowledge of whatsoever. In other words, I am merely expanding my own knowledge of my ignorance. So, if the universe is actually expanding, I and everyone else is correspondingly shrinking their understanding of our existence. 

This is why I think no one has enough information on which to make a decision of whether or not God exists or not. So, I am stuck with the idea that if there is no God, then I will just have to be my own God, stuck, essentially, on myself.  

God is a Spirit within

Why do I love God, and why do I worship Him? Because Moses testified that he

asked God, who shall he say to the people told him that he, Moses, should be believed by the people? 

According to Moses' testimony God responded, I am who I am. Thereby He told Moses that He was Existence. Truths were placed in the hearts of ancient writers and prophets such as that God spoke everything into Existence by the breath of His Spirit. 

(Exodus 3:13 and 14, is where Moses was told all this, that God told him, Moses, that He wanted to be known as, as I am that I am, throughout all generations. This I could likened onto epiphanies where the truth of a matter suddenly opens up to persons from within themselves. The truth of any particular matter is so evidently grounded that it is never even thought to be questioned.)

Time fools us all,

Everyone, as I've said before, knows they are not going to live forever. It is just no one is going to die, now. Then too, I at one time thought summers were forever, and I was shocked to find that my mother said I had to go back to school. Seems like time gets us in the end.

I say that because no one wants to leave the life we know any more than we got a kick out of being born. But there came a time when we are born again, that is, everyone is. The flesh as it slowly became evident, there was good no doubt about that.

But after a good spell on the jolly roll seemed to flatten out. Then life pointed in the other direction until there was no way out. No matter how long we live it gets lonely out there alone, without anyone to echo our memories. What great fun is it to struggle to their 100s if that is when one dies? Not much future into continuing to grow old.

I think life in the fading flesh is like an embryonic experience. Then we are born into the spirit, a spirit that we believed in. The spirit is very difficult for many to get a grip on, since there is no time to be born, like now. 

If not one then the other

Differing Exactitudes Form 

Foundation for Errors?

There are many today who are first, will be last tomorrow, and many today who are last, will be first soon enough. Jesus is quoted often highlighting this idea in more than one Gospel manuscript. Some translators are convinced that various understandable discrepancies existing in the gospels indicate major disagreements suggesting a serious challenge to their truth. Next in their thinking? If they instead agree this will parade evidence for collusion? 

I think the lack of collusion is of far greater strength for the Gospel's truth. I understand only one manuscript of Homer's survived the Alexsandra fire. Jesus authored nothing, yet was quoted endlessly beyond counting. Still, some suggest Jesus never existed?

How long Holy Father, How Long?

Church Attendance Continues to Fall, Forever? 

The biggest stumbling block to attending churches for many is that so many people there are hypocrites. The devil does not go to the barrooms, he goes to the churches. If someone believes in Jesus, he lets them. 

Instead, he attacks Jesus' power which is just as good for his line on things. After all, it is all for the sake of the children, since the stories in the Bible are not true, only the meaning is true. This I leaned attending the adult Sunday school, just about the time I was in the middle of wrestling whether Santa was true or not. That is how long they have been teaching the truth in his cemetery any rate. 

The seen world or the unseen spirit?

When one is a child, I myself thought, since they were adults, they had the complicity of God. Faith however, I did not then understand, comes in different intensity levels. There is little faith and there is great faith. Now it stands to reason that anything that is hard to believe requires a lot of great faith. Jesus said that if one had enough faith, they could cast mountains into the sea. So, if something is easy to believe there is little need for Faith whatever. 

What is really hard to believe it that anyone could rise from the dead! Really, no one has done it since, either before after or ever. It was never even copied, because? Well, who could believe it? I think that in order to believe it for starters, is that one has to have in their mind the concept of spirit as directly opposed to the physical world engaged in wholly growing and fading appearances always changing. 

I know it is there, but I have not experienced it yet. On the other hand, around the time, right after someone very important to me has passed, like breath within a breeze, I wonder. I sense something momentarily I must understand later. Like others have put it, by Paul for one. It is all now in a fog, but afterward, face to face. 

Struggle Being born, and Born again?

Beginnings of My Spirit?

Why do many compulsively even gamble about futures, always dreaming about the future. Then there are others, finally concluding there is no God, and if not, then they will have to be their own god? 

As for myself, I often wondered as a child why I dreamed in the night dreams that seemed so real asleep, but then, to be so unreal on reflectively snapping awake. 

Working on.....feet first.....

 When I was in the womb and found I was going to be kicked out: I was shocked to learn I was  going to be hung upside down, smacked on my backside, pay taxes, and then get cold and hungry on top of the entire mess. I wanted nothing to do with it. I said I was doing just fine with everything done for me as I was, thank you.... 

The Algebra of the Unknown

When X will never equal Y

Once my faith survives my final foxhole event, I will know more about myself. It is easy right now to establish that which I do know at present. 

However, I will never know it all in any event. There are many ideas I was unlikely to discover without the direct interference of a source well beyond me. I do think now it could have been an epiphany placed there by God.

How else could the ancients have known that God knew that man, when he thought of building into the sky, could accomplish the moon itself? If I am not amazed then I would have to be my own God. 

There is the tendency to sense if one knew everything that is known at present, actually knows everything that could ever be known, instead of only that which is known at present. 

Halo

 It has been said that the physical brain generates enough electricity, which I understand would power a halo. 

Proof and Faith

Giving Tongue to the Devil

When I set out once again on my biggest beginning ago, I did not anticipate the goal of proving belief in God could supplant faith in God itself.

My proof was based on logic since no one, especially myself, knew anywhere near enough information to prove anything anywhere near close to proving the existence of God.

I delighted in each proof of God that I uncovered, especially the theory that the Red Sea at one time acted as a huge tidal river at the then both Caspian and Mediterranean entrances. The speed of sudden closing tides on tidal rivers was already demonstrated.

If anyone can prove God exists, to their own satisfaction of course, then they have eliminated any need for faith in God, based as it is, in sand. 

No Hope Starting Out

Choosing atheism offers no hope out of the gate