Kingdom Come

“Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.”

Continue reading “Preface: Advance Care Directives”

Let me begin with a disclaimer.

I do not claim to have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I do claim to want to know the truth, and therefore rejecting the religious and social dogma dished out in my upbringing I investigated other options, and have changed many beliefs as additional or contradictory facts forced me to revise, not only my old beliefs, but even my revised beliefs, over the course of my study.

Don’t panic. This blog book is not an evangelical attempt to convert you to Christianity.

Absolutely not.

I grew up attending a Baptist church every Sunday for Sunday School where I memorized the books of the Bible and all the key verses, morning and evening church services where I was indoctrinated into the key beliefs, every Wednesday night for prayer meeting where I took part in the key practice of begging God for what we wanted. The longer I was in church the more I experienced the hypocrisy, outright lies and gross exploitation by narcissistic antisocial leaders of gullible believers.

After tossing out the whole package then realizing I really needed a higher power beyond my limitations in my life, I started to study just what God said. Not the religious leaders. Just God.

And I learned that the Bible conveys the most fascinating account of human history, full of the drama of the human condition – war and peace, despair and hope, agony and ecstasy, love and hate, life and death.

This blog investigates, by comparing and contrasting with other religious, scientific and philosophical sources, the revelation of a Creator-Sustainer God as given from the beginning of time “to infinity and beyond!”

Continue reading “Foreword: Scientific Research Methodology”

When we meet a stranger we want to get to know better, their personal name only distinguishes them from other individuals in a small group, so we ask about their verbs – “What do you do?”

In other words, what describes your accomplishments or activities. For example, when we read about Napoleon, is it the conqueror Napoleon I, or the listless and alienated Napoleon Dynamite?

Let’s start at the very beginning of the Bible.

Elohim

“In the beginning God (English) / אֱ-ל-הִי-ם reading backwards in Hebrew to pronounce “E-l-oh-im)

• created,
• said,
• saw,
• called,
• made,

In Hebrew, ם / “im” at the end of a word serves the same function as “s” in English, making the word plural. This opens the door for uneducated or intentionally biased or subversive translators to claim that there was not a singular creator, but multiple gods involved in creation, such as the Anunnaki.

It is true that “eloh-im” is recognized grammatically as the plural of the word eloh in ancient Ugaritic, referencing the creator’s minor gods, and that in Aramaic ʼĔlāhā and later Syriac Alaha, and in Arabic ʾilāh (“deity”) and Allah in Islam opposing the multiplicity of pagan gods with “The Only God”.

However, the Bible itself clarifies the plural “Elohim” as a single individual with the plurality assigned to his attributes of powers – All Powerful / Almighty God.

• “God / Elohim / אֱלֹהִ֜ים (plural noun) called unto him [Moses] out of the midst of the bush, and said…
• Anoki / אָנֹכִי / me, myself (singular noun), expressing emotional intimacy {Honey, I’m home!) in contrast to the simpler Ani /אֲנַי me, myself (classroom roll call – Here!)
  • The God / Elohe / אֱלֹהֵי֙ (singular root of the plural Eloh-im) of thy father Abraham. The [same] God / Elohe / אֱלֹהֵי֙ of Isaac, The [same] God / Elohe / אֱלֹהֵי֙ of Jacob.
  • “Isaac called Jacob…God / El /  אֵל (singular) Almighty / Shadday / שַׁדַּי bless thee, and…give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee;” (Genesis 28:1-4)
• And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon Elohim.” (Exodus 3:4-6)

Continue reading “SECTION I: Who You Are Is What You Do”

The Enduring Mystery of Light 

Defining light is a bit of a philosophical quandary. Light’s true identity…is unanswerable.

It might be better to concentrate on what light does. Light manipulates matter by moving the charged particles in atoms which make up all substance.

In other words, light’s identity is force, exactly as Einstein framed it as e=mc2: 1) energy / charge = 2) mass 3) with the applied force of m2, which is the speed of light squared which is mathematical notation for infinity.

In other words, the true identity of light is the Creator God of the Bible. 

“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (I John 1:5)

The only philosophical quandary is humanism’s utter rejection of a power or intelligence greater than themselves despite the facts.

Continue reading “1) God Is Light”

“And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

And God said unto Moses…say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.” (Exodus 3:13-14)

According to philosopher James (1890) “Me” reflects self-consciousness observed from a person’s point of view,

“I”, on the other hand, is rooted in one of the oldest branches of philosophy – meta-physics – which simply means beyond what can be observed, examining  the nature of existence and the relationship between matter and mind, therefore is conceptual, unable to be proven by experimentation.

It is profoundly significant that philosophers speculating on the origins of existence correspond to the Creator’s designation of himself as “I am” in stark contrast to physical science whose “Scientists simply don’t know where consciousness comes from, or what it’s made of.”

Continue reading “2) I Am = Universal Consciousness”

John’s gospel’s overwhelmingly Gentile readership is evidenced by his use of metaphorical and euphemistic language understood by Gentiles, and the prominence of Philip, one of the 12 apostles, being mentioned by name 11 times.

Philip’s name alone identifies him as thoroughly Hellenized, undoubtedly by his parents who named their son after the famous father of the even more famous Greek warlord Alexander the Great, predecessor to the infamous Greek warlord Antiochus Epiphanes whose brutal efforts to destroy Judaism reverberate to this day. In the strongest possible repudiation of Jewish identity, this was the equivalent of Jewish holocaust survivors naming their son Adolf. 

The psychological dissonance which that split personality generated may have propelled Philip into hating / rejecting his parents when he chose to follow Jesus as the Hope of Israel, but his upbringing uniquely enabled him to culturally interface with non-Jews – Greek widows, the Samaritans, the Ethiopian eunuch, and outreach in the Gentile city of Caesarea to introduce them to Jesus.

“much people that were come to the feast...certain Greeks among them…came therefore to Philip…and desired him, saying, Sir, WE would see Jesus.” (John 12)

In the brief interview he held with these curious Greeks Jesus used metaphors fundamental and consistent throughout every culture. The currently popular book series made into a television show, Wheel Of Time is a good example of the presentation of universal understanding of good and evil in the world.

“Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light...I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.“ (John 12:12-35)

Light represents and IS the force of good in the world, considered to be “from the Creator,” certainly directly connected to the growth and production of food and therefore life. The antithesis can be nothing else but the Dark which is the direct cause of death. Read “A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race” by atheist Carl Sagan if you doubt this statement.

The Word / Logos was another culturally common Greek philosophical expression.

Continue reading “3) The Word = The Force Of Creation”

The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. These definitions express three crucial truths: (1) the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, (3) there is only one God.

This leads to the blood curdling realization that giving the code name Trinity to the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945, of the same design as the bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, was claiming the ultimate power of God himself.

“I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. [The god] Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.” J. Robert Oppenheimer

The New Testament contains no explicit trinitarian doctrine. However, many Christian theologians, apologists, and philosophers hold that the doctrine can be inferred from what the New Testament does teach about God.

Continue reading “4) The Trinity = The Singularity”

Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord / master being old also?” (Genesis 18:1-12)

The common title lord is equivalent to master, slurred in English to Mister, defines the authority required to fulfill responsibilities to provide for and protect the landlord’s people, especially in times of crisis like war or famine. Everyone needs a person in this role in their social circle to whom they can turn to for help.

To turn this title into slander is either gross ignorance or deliberate defamation.

Most of all, this accusation against the Bible deceives its intended – obviously ignorant – audience regarding the fact that it is the Roman Empire’s culture – LAUDED by humanists such as this American Atheists Organization – which is responsible for slavery for the last two thousand years, including its political control over the nation of Israel when the New Testament was written, and its perpetuation into our current modern era by elitists’ exploitation of the masses.

This sorry excuse of a criticism smears itself, not the Bible.

Continue reading “5) Lord And Master = Provider And Protector”