Before the advent of television, there was radio and in the evenings people who had radios liked to sit together and listen to radio shows as a source of information and entertainment. The radio show Evan is thinking of here is a very famous one called, War of the Worlds, already mentioned before in this story.
War of the Worlds was taken from the work of H. G. Wells who wrote the novel of the same title in the late 1800's. Remarkably Wells wrote about futuristic machines of warfare in his book pitting the (then) futuristic war artillery of man against invading enemy, in the case of the story, it was monster-like creatures from another planet in outer space. But it was as if he had a peek int the future of machines, he could see where technology was going.
In Well’s world there were machines, remarkably like tanks, machines that did aerial bombings much like we see today in warfare and this before planes were even “invented.” His story is filled with laser-like weapons and industrial robots too. It is remarkable to think that he had the insight to write about such things in an age where such things didn't even remotely exist.
Reality TV
Reality TV is real, or is it? Maybe it is only really TV?
And what is reality TV? Well, put four people in a room, people who are not actors, just regular people, and forget the script,. All you need is a scenario or a situation. Then you film what they do and use the results to entertain people. That's reality TV.
One popular “reality” show is called Fear Factor. It is a stunt/dare program where people are put in situations that are unusual in exchange for the hope of winning a lot of fame and money. For example: Two family members would have to take turns using their mouths to transfer stink beetles from one bowl to another. If they could transfer all the stink beetles in one minute, they would win a $5,000 Credit Card.
Amazing concept, isn't it, and amazingly it was done on the show.
While this kind of show may be amusing, there have been many instances on the show where common sense or decency is abandoned in favor of the shock value to the the audience and of course, the financial lure to win. The Associated Press reported in January 2005 that a man in Cleveland Ohio was suing NBC’s Fear Factor for $2.5 million. The reason? They had a challenge in which frozen dead rats were blended in a blender and then put before contestants to consume and they did.
The people on the show drank the blended rat beverage and the man filing the lawsuit claimed it made him sick to watch it. The judge presiding over the Fear Factor case threw it out, calling it “frivolous.”
The public had mixed reactions.
Some people were critical of the man who attempted to sue the TV show producers, saying that the guy was simply “money hungry." They say the man shouldn’t have watched it if it was going make him ill. They claim that it was his own fault and insisted that he could have simply changed the channel or turned the TV off, but obviously, he didn't. Other believe that something needs to be done to keep such things from being on TV, and sueing seems to be the only answer. Howver, the judge made his ruling and the man lost the case. Besides, what's gross about eating rats? Who’s to say, except for a vegetarian, that four-legged furry, mammalian rats aren’t edible?
It was shocking to some for sure, but this wasn’t the first time the Fear Factor producers did something to shock its audience with something that most of America would consider to be gross. This is, you know, the kind of stuff that gives the show its ratings.
But everyone knows that at some point the shock value, say of moving stink bugs with your mouth wears off and you need to come up with something more shocking, like eating an earthworm or a grub and the next thing you know you need a frozen rat milkshake or something. o keep people tuned into the show. You cannot simply keep doing stinkbugs because the thrill wears off. Each time, you just need something with a little more shock and entertainment value.
There was once a time when the Colosseum of Rome hosted their brand of game shows for entertainment and they did some pretty gross things there too. Their venue featured things like fights between animals and people, called beastiarii. For a fee at the gate one could come and watch as animals, beasts like elephants, lions, rhinoceros, camels, ostrich, dogs or bulls would be challenged by some daring soul, killed for sport and entertainment of the crowd, unless of course the animal got the best of the human.
There were other forms of entertainment too. Sometimes people who had committed crimes like murder or arson or Christians who committed blasphemy against the religion of the state, even humiliores (the more vagrant types of ancient Rome) would be put into the arena with wild beasts for the sport of seeing the fear factor of the human beings and even watching what the starved animals would do to a human being. There were also the fierce and savage gladiator games in which both men and women fought, sometimes to the death without any rules of clothes or referees, and there would be a lot of bloodshed. The winner would take the prize of course. It was sport, entertainment, and much like reality TV, it would be shocking and rouse the crowds with excitement.
Fear Factor is no doubt tamer than the Colosseum of Rome. All they do is things like submerge people in vats with snakes to see which contestant will stay in the longest, or count how many spiders a person is willing to eat, or put a frozen rat in a blender to make a special drink. It really just all done in fun, for sport and entertainment of the audience. There’s no comparison really; at least, not yet.
And what is reality TV? Well, put four people in a room, people who are not actors, just regular people, and forget the script,. All you need is a scenario or a situation. Then you film what they do and use the results to entertain people. That's reality TV.
One popular “reality” show is called Fear Factor. It is a stunt/dare program where people are put in situations that are unusual in exchange for the hope of winning a lot of fame and money. For example: Two family members would have to take turns using their mouths to transfer stink beetles from one bowl to another. If they could transfer all the stink beetles in one minute, they would win a $5,000 Credit Card.
Amazing concept, isn't it, and amazingly it was done on the show.
While this kind of show may be amusing, there have been many instances on the show where common sense or decency is abandoned in favor of the shock value to the the audience and of course, the financial lure to win. The Associated Press reported in January 2005 that a man in Cleveland Ohio was suing NBC’s Fear Factor for $2.5 million. The reason? They had a challenge in which frozen dead rats were blended in a blender and then put before contestants to consume and they did.
The people on the show drank the blended rat beverage and the man filing the lawsuit claimed it made him sick to watch it. The judge presiding over the Fear Factor case threw it out, calling it “frivolous.”
The public had mixed reactions.
Some people were critical of the man who attempted to sue the TV show producers, saying that the guy was simply “money hungry." They say the man shouldn’t have watched it if it was going make him ill. They claim that it was his own fault and insisted that he could have simply changed the channel or turned the TV off, but obviously, he didn't. Other believe that something needs to be done to keep such things from being on TV, and sueing seems to be the only answer. Howver, the judge made his ruling and the man lost the case. Besides, what's gross about eating rats? Who’s to say, except for a vegetarian, that four-legged furry, mammalian rats aren’t edible?
It was shocking to some for sure, but this wasn’t the first time the Fear Factor producers did something to shock its audience with something that most of America would consider to be gross. This is, you know, the kind of stuff that gives the show its ratings.
But everyone knows that at some point the shock value, say of moving stink bugs with your mouth wears off and you need to come up with something more shocking, like eating an earthworm or a grub and the next thing you know you need a frozen rat milkshake or something. o keep people tuned into the show. You cannot simply keep doing stinkbugs because the thrill wears off. Each time, you just need something with a little more shock and entertainment value.
There was once a time when the Colosseum of Rome hosted their brand of game shows for entertainment and they did some pretty gross things there too. Their venue featured things like fights between animals and people, called beastiarii. For a fee at the gate one could come and watch as animals, beasts like elephants, lions, rhinoceros, camels, ostrich, dogs or bulls would be challenged by some daring soul, killed for sport and entertainment of the crowd, unless of course the animal got the best of the human.
There were other forms of entertainment too. Sometimes people who had committed crimes like murder or arson or Christians who committed blasphemy against the religion of the state, even humiliores (the more vagrant types of ancient Rome) would be put into the arena with wild beasts for the sport of seeing the fear factor of the human beings and even watching what the starved animals would do to a human being. There were also the fierce and savage gladiator games in which both men and women fought, sometimes to the death without any rules of clothes or referees, and there would be a lot of bloodshed. The winner would take the prize of course. It was sport, entertainment, and much like reality TV, it would be shocking and rouse the crowds with excitement.
Fear Factor is no doubt tamer than the Colosseum of Rome. All they do is things like submerge people in vats with snakes to see which contestant will stay in the longest, or count how many spiders a person is willing to eat, or put a frozen rat in a blender to make a special drink. It really just all done in fun, for sport and entertainment of the audience. There’s no comparison really; at least, not yet.
Person 2 Person
P2P is a glorified telephone in Evan’s world. It's communication in a special personal network a feature, not only of an optional ear piece, but also of a ring worn on the finger, making it easy and very discrete to be notified by his personal network of associates. It alerts him to the necessity of checking his incoming messages hands free, without having to wear his earpiece all the time. and without disturbing other people by a noise. In the real world, P2P is a computer system network where every “peer” is equal and every computer in the system assumes the roles of both client and server.
It’s interesting how when P2P computer systems were first in use they were to be based upon an Internet Provider (IP) address using a Domain Name Server (DNS) where a change in an Internet Provider (IP) address would be considered abnormal or rare. But with the P2P it turned out that system connected clients could pool their untapped recourses for the benefit of the whole system, giving access to “more power” within the group. There was more storage space, more bandwidth and more computing power for everyone.
When computers were new, the concept of having personal computers (one per household, one per person) wasn’t in the picture, but that all changed when the personal computer concept caught on. As more and more people connected to the Internet, the exponential power behind the concept of P2P emerged and suddenly a lot more unused, system resource could contribute to the collective energy/knowledge pool. In fact some space could be tapped to contribute computer power to the system undetected and never even be missed. Thus, the P2P concept made the Internet more accessible to everyone by freeing up clogged systems with networks that worked cooperatively and even made allowance for a greater bandwidth for all. But it still was not commonly known, until Napster.
It was Napster who made P2P famous, for through Napster more than 26.4 million music enthusiasts all over the world could download songs without having to actually “buy” them from the company or the artists that produced them. The artists lost a lot of money as a result, and Napster was formally charged in a court of law with "piracy," putting them in league with men like Edward Teach and Bartholomew Roberts.
Pirates?
Plundering riches from the rightful owners of copyrighted music or movies or software is called pirating, because like a pirate, you take what you want with no regard for the person from whom you are taking it.
But, "wait a minute," you say... there was no crime involved, so one was hurt, it's only fair to share music with people, with friends. You are taking this whole morals and ethics thing, just a little too far. Piracy? Stealing? It's just music and besides, I bought it. I can give it to anyone I Please."
Some people think that morals and ethics are overrated, or that sharing stuff “with friends” is biblical, you know, being a “good neighbor.” But the truth is that when people make purchases of music or videos or software, they make agreements for its use. You either agree with the law and comply with the law, or you are lawless, or a hypocrite that will say you agree with it, and then ignore it and do what you think is best regardless of the law.
It is legal for the purchaser to lend for view, or use, play and listen to together to the item purchased with a friend, even gift the item to friends and family, but the purchaser agrees that they will not give out a reproduction that does not come from legal channels. Only official distributors who have paid for the right to make reproductions may do so. Dispite all this legal mumbo jumbo, Napster reproduced music in MP3 format to lots of people and they did so for a fee. What they did was illegal, and the world had no shortage of people who wanted in on Napster’s plunder.
People who subscribed to Napster were happy to have access to all kinds of music. They could find the latest songs, cheap, and not have to buy the whole “album.” They could find “forgotten” songs that were out-of-print and distribution, even sometimes had access to songs that hadn’t been released yet, as was the case with a song by a band named Metallica. It was "bootlegged” music, (that is, music that wasn’t supposed to be recorded at all; such as from concerts, or unauthorized recordings.) Needless to say, recording companies and musicians lost millions of dollars; Napster became rich.
Like Robin hood, some Napster “pirates” simply convince themselves that they are somehow do-gooders, you know the type, they believe that they are merely “taking from the rich and giving to the poor, ” doing a noble deed of fairness, thinking that those people are rich and do not "need" the money like the less fortunate (mainly "me") do. These “do- gooding pirates” felt justified, in their dastardly deeds pointing to the fact that concerts and merchandise sales were the real money makers for the already filthy rich, elite, and power-hungry artists and record lords. "Pirating, nay, it jest be business ingenuity," on their part.
Some believe that anything anybody produced was fair game to anyone, and why not? These were the more reasonable sorts, those who held it was scientifically legitimate, a “survival of the fittest” mentality.
Others took the position that the Napster “pirates” only stole good stuff and therefore their actions should be seen as an asset to the music producers. They believed piracy actually served a greater purpose… that of showing the music industry the trends of public opinion, a sort of supply/demand kinda thing.
Others, in denial of everyone else's reality, were of the opinion that there is no such thing as pirating. They simply chose to believe that because it was a new electronic world, and everyone had electronics at their disposal, the established copyright laws protecting the artists' rights to their work was now suddenly meaningless and outdated for these modern times.
It was a war of ideas and it was taken to a court of law in 2002 resulting in the shut down of Napster. Napster was put out of the business; but there other P2P file-sharing programs out on the deep blue sea of technology that do continue to operate. Some of them are more “true” P2P’s, that is, they do not use a stable Domain Name System, (DNS) like Napster did. These pirates can store their booty anywhere in a network and be anyone in the network, anywhere in the world and access everyone in the network anytime. Their are still pirates, but even if someone is “caught” as a pirate, they are hard to track down because the sea of technology is so fluid, so vast and so deep, and it is continually changing.
The technological world is varied too, and music is not the only booty to interest such criminal minds. Their is politics and goods and services being plundered and pirates come in all shapes and sizes. There is concern in legal circles about untrackable P2P systems because they could be pirates, and they are hard to track in a system that's continually changing IP’s within their peer-oriented systems.
While P2P systems have a reputation for circumventing established law on purpose and open the imagination to a myriad of possibilities for criminal behavior P2P systems are not “all bad.” In fact, they are even being considered for use by universities and other educational entities as a means to share information in the future. If put to use, medical facilities, labs and research centers, police and hospitals could have immediate records available with a shared peer oriented system. There would be advantages.
In P2P systems, the flow of information would be quicker, the connections, less stagnant. Schools and universities could track test scores on students much easier. Everything from criminal records to disease outbreaks could be tracked and monitored, by professionals, in the blink of an eye, making this a safer world. P2P systems could be put to use in such a way that they would work for the common good of all, the problem at that point would not be pirates, but defectors.
Defectors in a P2P system are like leeches. They make use of the system without really contributing to it or they intentionally pollute or poison the system with things known to be “garbage” or “viruses.” Sometimes called “spammers” they clog the system on purpose. There are those who simply milk everything they can from the system for their own personal gain, essentially using the valuable resource of the network to market their own little business or product that now has to be seen by everyone on the network weather or not they want to.
The virtue of P2P technology remains to be seen and where it takes us, where human ingenuity goes with it depends on the kind of people we are and what we believe as we make use of it. We might be simplymake use of it as people to people, but then we might all be nothing but pirates.
It’s interesting how when P2P computer systems were first in use they were to be based upon an Internet Provider (IP) address using a Domain Name Server (DNS) where a change in an Internet Provider (IP) address would be considered abnormal or rare. But with the P2P it turned out that system connected clients could pool their untapped recourses for the benefit of the whole system, giving access to “more power” within the group. There was more storage space, more bandwidth and more computing power for everyone.
When computers were new, the concept of having personal computers (one per household, one per person) wasn’t in the picture, but that all changed when the personal computer concept caught on. As more and more people connected to the Internet, the exponential power behind the concept of P2P emerged and suddenly a lot more unused, system resource could contribute to the collective energy/knowledge pool. In fact some space could be tapped to contribute computer power to the system undetected and never even be missed. Thus, the P2P concept made the Internet more accessible to everyone by freeing up clogged systems with networks that worked cooperatively and even made allowance for a greater bandwidth for all. But it still was not commonly known, until Napster.
It was Napster who made P2P famous, for through Napster more than 26.4 million music enthusiasts all over the world could download songs without having to actually “buy” them from the company or the artists that produced them. The artists lost a lot of money as a result, and Napster was formally charged in a court of law with "piracy," putting them in league with men like Edward Teach and Bartholomew Roberts.
Pirates?
Plundering riches from the rightful owners of copyrighted music or movies or software is called pirating, because like a pirate, you take what you want with no regard for the person from whom you are taking it.
But, "wait a minute," you say... there was no crime involved, so one was hurt, it's only fair to share music with people, with friends. You are taking this whole morals and ethics thing, just a little too far. Piracy? Stealing? It's just music and besides, I bought it. I can give it to anyone I Please."
Some people think that morals and ethics are overrated, or that sharing stuff “with friends” is biblical, you know, being a “good neighbor.” But the truth is that when people make purchases of music or videos or software, they make agreements for its use. You either agree with the law and comply with the law, or you are lawless, or a hypocrite that will say you agree with it, and then ignore it and do what you think is best regardless of the law.
It is legal for the purchaser to lend for view, or use, play and listen to together to the item purchased with a friend, even gift the item to friends and family, but the purchaser agrees that they will not give out a reproduction that does not come from legal channels. Only official distributors who have paid for the right to make reproductions may do so. Dispite all this legal mumbo jumbo, Napster reproduced music in MP3 format to lots of people and they did so for a fee. What they did was illegal, and the world had no shortage of people who wanted in on Napster’s plunder.
People who subscribed to Napster were happy to have access to all kinds of music. They could find the latest songs, cheap, and not have to buy the whole “album.” They could find “forgotten” songs that were out-of-print and distribution, even sometimes had access to songs that hadn’t been released yet, as was the case with a song by a band named Metallica. It was "bootlegged” music, (that is, music that wasn’t supposed to be recorded at all; such as from concerts, or unauthorized recordings.) Needless to say, recording companies and musicians lost millions of dollars; Napster became rich.
Like Robin hood, some Napster “pirates” simply convince themselves that they are somehow do-gooders, you know the type, they believe that they are merely “taking from the rich and giving to the poor, ” doing a noble deed of fairness, thinking that those people are rich and do not "need" the money like the less fortunate (mainly "me") do. These “do- gooding pirates” felt justified, in their dastardly deeds pointing to the fact that concerts and merchandise sales were the real money makers for the already filthy rich, elite, and power-hungry artists and record lords. "Pirating, nay, it jest be business ingenuity," on their part.
Some believe that anything anybody produced was fair game to anyone, and why not? These were the more reasonable sorts, those who held it was scientifically legitimate, a “survival of the fittest” mentality.
Others took the position that the Napster “pirates” only stole good stuff and therefore their actions should be seen as an asset to the music producers. They believed piracy actually served a greater purpose… that of showing the music industry the trends of public opinion, a sort of supply/demand kinda thing.
Others, in denial of everyone else's reality, were of the opinion that there is no such thing as pirating. They simply chose to believe that because it was a new electronic world, and everyone had electronics at their disposal, the established copyright laws protecting the artists' rights to their work was now suddenly meaningless and outdated for these modern times.
It was a war of ideas and it was taken to a court of law in 2002 resulting in the shut down of Napster. Napster was put out of the business; but there other P2P file-sharing programs out on the deep blue sea of technology that do continue to operate. Some of them are more “true” P2P’s, that is, they do not use a stable Domain Name System, (DNS) like Napster did. These pirates can store their booty anywhere in a network and be anyone in the network, anywhere in the world and access everyone in the network anytime. Their are still pirates, but even if someone is “caught” as a pirate, they are hard to track down because the sea of technology is so fluid, so vast and so deep, and it is continually changing.
The technological world is varied too, and music is not the only booty to interest such criminal minds. Their is politics and goods and services being plundered and pirates come in all shapes and sizes. There is concern in legal circles about untrackable P2P systems because they could be pirates, and they are hard to track in a system that's continually changing IP’s within their peer-oriented systems.
While P2P systems have a reputation for circumventing established law on purpose and open the imagination to a myriad of possibilities for criminal behavior P2P systems are not “all bad.” In fact, they are even being considered for use by universities and other educational entities as a means to share information in the future. If put to use, medical facilities, labs and research centers, police and hospitals could have immediate records available with a shared peer oriented system. There would be advantages.
In P2P systems, the flow of information would be quicker, the connections, less stagnant. Schools and universities could track test scores on students much easier. Everything from criminal records to disease outbreaks could be tracked and monitored, by professionals, in the blink of an eye, making this a safer world. P2P systems could be put to use in such a way that they would work for the common good of all, the problem at that point would not be pirates, but defectors.
Defectors in a P2P system are like leeches. They make use of the system without really contributing to it or they intentionally pollute or poison the system with things known to be “garbage” or “viruses.” Sometimes called “spammers” they clog the system on purpose. There are those who simply milk everything they can from the system for their own personal gain, essentially using the valuable resource of the network to market their own little business or product that now has to be seen by everyone on the network weather or not they want to.
The virtue of P2P technology remains to be seen and where it takes us, where human ingenuity goes with it depends on the kind of people we are and what we believe as we make use of it. We might be simplymake use of it as people to people, but then we might all be nothing but pirates.
Let's Do the Time Warp Again....
It's only speculation about what time is and isn't. We humans see the sun set and rise like clockwork in the sky, we see times and seasons change and are fascinated by it. So much so that we invent clocks and try to keep track of it all the while trying to imagine what it is and what the universe around us is really like and wonder, "What is time?" Sometimes we even speculate traveling through time, from one dimension into another.
Some people think that time is like a flowing river and in such a case, a time warp would be a disruption of the continual flow, a spand or space where things move faster or slower for a period, like a waterfall or a rapid. Others think of time more like a spiral upon spirals. In such a case, a time warp would bend and move between unseen dimensions, between the separation of worlds that are either somewhere else, or in the same place, happening all at once at the same point in space, just at another spiral of this thing called time.
Some people believe that time, like water or like air, is something that can be traveled though, and they imagine that it could happen via the intentional bending or manipulation of mind or matter. They believe it is a possibility, based on scientific fact and human reasoning of course, But there are a lot of people who espouse the notion, it is still only and at best, a theory, and there are many theories. (See: NOVA, The Physics of Time Travel with Machio Kaku, and maybe even Stephen Hawkins Universe at PBS.org.
The concept of time travel, or traveling trough warps in the space time continuum is, no doubt, the stuff science fiction is made of. It has been made popular in recent years, not only by scientists to want to be the first to come up with the theory, but by people who write fition, movies and storybooks like, Rod Taylor’s, The Time Machine; Madeleine L'Engle’s, Wrinkle in Time or Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s, Back to the Future are about traveling in time or into other dimensions of the space time continuum.
We read the books and watch the movies, we see programs like the television series Star Trek, where particles of matter in one space and time can be gathered up, and transported to another and reassembled in the same array from which they came, and think perhaps this will be the mode of transportation of the future. We've been thoroughly educated by science fiction, trained to imagine what time travel is and isn't.
However, there is a form of time travel we do every day. It occurs whenever we are thinking of the past or remembering our childhood, reminiscing the way things used to be, or thinking of the future. Humans have that ability to look behind and beyond, to think about where they are going. Sometimes we even wish we could do life all over again because of the mistakes we think we made. In essence we are time travelers for time takes us through changes, often without much effort on our part and we do see change in us and in our surroundings as time, (whatever time is) carries us along, or perhaps passes us by, and we are always trying to circumvent it.
But people are enamored with their own idea of time travel, apparently every day life is not as exciting as the adventures that could be had if we could create a machine, or discover a way to travel through time the way we would want to. If such a thing were possible, would humans ever have to die? Could you imagine being the one to make the discovery that opens such a door for mankind's future? Could you imagine inventing a machne where all you have to do is think of where you want to go and step inside?
It's fascinating to consider all the possibilities.
It’s fascinating too, to consider the machines we already have that help us travel. Cars, trains and airplanes,really help us save so much time! And the only by product of such amazing forms of transportation is pollution. Is great. It's like climbing inside of a time machine and taking a shortcut or a warp through time; it gets you quickly to where you want to go.
If you stop and think about it, time travel is something we do everyday, and not simply science fiction after all.
Some people think that time is like a flowing river and in such a case, a time warp would be a disruption of the continual flow, a spand or space where things move faster or slower for a period, like a waterfall or a rapid. Others think of time more like a spiral upon spirals. In such a case, a time warp would bend and move between unseen dimensions, between the separation of worlds that are either somewhere else, or in the same place, happening all at once at the same point in space, just at another spiral of this thing called time.
Some people believe that time, like water or like air, is something that can be traveled though, and they imagine that it could happen via the intentional bending or manipulation of mind or matter. They believe it is a possibility, based on scientific fact and human reasoning of course, But there are a lot of people who espouse the notion, it is still only and at best, a theory, and there are many theories. (See: NOVA, The Physics of Time Travel with Machio Kaku, and maybe even Stephen Hawkins Universe at PBS.org.
The concept of time travel, or traveling trough warps in the space time continuum is, no doubt, the stuff science fiction is made of. It has been made popular in recent years, not only by scientists to want to be the first to come up with the theory, but by people who write fition, movies and storybooks like, Rod Taylor’s, The Time Machine; Madeleine L'Engle’s, Wrinkle in Time or Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale’s, Back to the Future are about traveling in time or into other dimensions of the space time continuum.
We read the books and watch the movies, we see programs like the television series Star Trek, where particles of matter in one space and time can be gathered up, and transported to another and reassembled in the same array from which they came, and think perhaps this will be the mode of transportation of the future. We've been thoroughly educated by science fiction, trained to imagine what time travel is and isn't.
However, there is a form of time travel we do every day. It occurs whenever we are thinking of the past or remembering our childhood, reminiscing the way things used to be, or thinking of the future. Humans have that ability to look behind and beyond, to think about where they are going. Sometimes we even wish we could do life all over again because of the mistakes we think we made. In essence we are time travelers for time takes us through changes, often without much effort on our part and we do see change in us and in our surroundings as time, (whatever time is) carries us along, or perhaps passes us by, and we are always trying to circumvent it.
But people are enamored with their own idea of time travel, apparently every day life is not as exciting as the adventures that could be had if we could create a machine, or discover a way to travel through time the way we would want to. If such a thing were possible, would humans ever have to die? Could you imagine being the one to make the discovery that opens such a door for mankind's future? Could you imagine inventing a machne where all you have to do is think of where you want to go and step inside?
It's fascinating to consider all the possibilities.
It’s fascinating too, to consider the machines we already have that help us travel. Cars, trains and airplanes,really help us save so much time! And the only by product of such amazing forms of transportation is pollution. Is great. It's like climbing inside of a time machine and taking a shortcut or a warp through time; it gets you quickly to where you want to go.
If you stop and think about it, time travel is something we do everyday, and not simply science fiction after all.
WimowehWimowehWimowehWimowehWimoweh
Hey, it's a song! Do you know it? It is called, Wimoweh, (or Mbube.) The song also goes by the title, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” You might recognize it better if you were to hear it.
The song was written by a man named Solomon Linda, a black-skinned South African composer who was inspired to write the song because as a child growing up in the African bush, it was his job to alert the family if a lion was on the prowl, and no doubt, a carnivorous lion sleeping instead of hunting you or your animals as it's prey, was something to sing about.
Linda sang and first recorded the song with his singing group called the Evening Birds in 1939 and it was a very popular tune then. It still is, in fact, the song has made millions of dollars over the years for recording companies, but not Solomon Linda. He died penniless from the profits, even though he was the one who wrote the Zulu sounding, a cappella, African “Lion” melody.
In Africa, when it was first produced, this song sold over 100,000 copies. At the time Linda was doing shows as an entertainer in nightclubs in Johannesburg. At the time, the political climate in South Africa was such that black people were “not allowed” to have royalties. That was in 1939, but since then, “Mbube” has been recorded all over the world. It has lined the pocketbooks of many, put millions into their bank accounts, but not Solomon Linda. Gallo Records secured the rights to the song by having Linda sign it over to them in exchange for a a measly sum of money and an offer of employment during Apartheid.
(Apartheid is an Afrikaans/Dutch word meaning separateness. The then-ruling social political policy discriminated between whites and blacks and they were segregated by force until the 1990’s.)
Racial issues exist in ever culture. Apartheid... it was a time when thousands of people were imprisoned, sentenced to death and even tortured for disobeying segregation (apartheid) laws. There were those who vocalized disagreement with policies and injustices by public demonstrations and speaking out against discrimination and party politics, much like we saw in America's history of segregation laws. In South Africa, apartheid was strictly enforced by the National Party government and for this reason it is contended by Linda's family, that Solomon Linda sold the rights to the song under duress. This history of Linda and his song has been called “songwritings worse case of exploitation in history.”
Solomon Linda died in 1962, but the Linda family filed a lawsuit in 2004 to receive monetary compensation for use of the tune over the years, and particularly it’s use in the 1994 Disney movie, The Lion King. The family contended that Solomon Linda was the rightful creator of the music and since the music was his creation, since it had been bargained out of him in exchange for next to nothing, and had been used to make a lot of money, he and his heirs deserved compensation.
They believed that what the record company did was thievery. The South African courts agreed and the family won a huge monetary settlement that applied to the song’s world-wide distribution over the years. Apparently, in a court of true law, when people take something of great value that is not theirs to lay claim on, and then use it for their own personal gain, giving no rightful due to the owner, there can be consequences, particularly when the rightful owner (or the heir) shows up and demands his due.
The process has taken a while, and Solomon Linda never saw the fortune himself, but his heirs have inherited a fair share from the sales and popularity of the song. all because justice prevailed.
Such will be the case when the Lord Jesus Christ returns.... justice.
The earth, like Solomon Linda's song, has been hijacked by people who think that somehow they own it. They think the real owner is dead and gone... and now it belongs to them, but one day Jesus Christ will return and rule and reign in righteousness. Things will be judged under the true law and justice will prevail. The rights to the earth will be given to those who are true heirs.
Mankind, thinking that the Son of God can be crucified and forgotten, and that the whole hearth is simply their's for the taking, theirs for the rule and distribution of goods and services, trademarks, copyrights and all, is simply deceived. Unfortunately such hijacking comes in many forms; look at the work of Satan who's whole point and purpose is deception purposed to dethrone Jesus Christ, the rightful heir, as Lord and King, King of kings, Lion of Judah even.
Did I mention that the song, The Lion Sleeps Tonight was used in the movie, The Lion King, a G rated, made for kids movie, the timeless tale of a father lion who ruled over all the other animals in the jungle kingdom of Africa? This film was alarming to Christians, especially for the parallels it drew between earth based religions and God's truth. The movie was full of occultism.
We saw several key biblical concepts played out, but with the reinforcement of occult teachings about reincarnation, shamanism, animal and ancestral spirit guides, and necromancy, not to mention, the pantheistic Hindu belief that “all is god.” Disney's King Lion, mimicking the real “Lion King”…God’s Lion of Judah.. Jesus Christ, gave tickling ear’s loads of spirituality, without Jesus, and parent's liked it because dispite the spirituality that it taught, it came with great moral lessons.
Christian Parenting, (Summer 2005) magazine published their writer Greg Asimakoupoulos recommending the movie. He said Lion King was one of his “favorite all-time movies, ” adding, “It just warms my heart every time I watch it.”
Tim Stoffel has a critique to share with Christian parents too, at lionking.org.
The August 1994 issue of Parental Guidance, (now renamed as Plugged In, and advertises that it is “dedicated to helping parents and youth leaders guide teens through the world of popular youth culture,”) reported that the Lion King, focuses on “positive themes that can be used to teach children valuable, even biblical lessons." They said, “Despite a few slight imperfections, The Lion King is a wholesome, brilliantly animated picture relating the importance of family and responsibility."
People are more selective when buy food to eat at the grocery store. They go out of their way, to avoid feeding their family food with blemishes or artificial ingredients. One has to wonder about these movie recommendations to Christians, I mean why should parents, Christian parents rush their children to see a movie with voodoo, necromancy and jokes about being dressed in "drag," as is portrayed in the film. God may forgive such deeds of darkness, but he is not amused at Christians thinking that dressing in drag is funny, nor does he think it is cute to teach children ways and means of contacting the dead. Parents, who really care about what goes into their child's mind should teach their children what God’s Word says about consulting the dead and that homosexuality is really not something funny, unless of course you simply laugh at sin.
It’s kinda ironic that the makers of Disney's The Lion King used Solomon Linda's song in the movie and they did so before they had to pay back a fortune for it's use. If they think the Lion of Judah they imitate in the script thinks drag is funny, or that there is nothing wrong with occulting the truth of God for even the smallest of children in film, they would do well to think again. Justice and truth does prevail, and God, never sleeps.
He is watching closely over man, and as the rightful author of this world, (John 1:1-5) He is also the true and rightful King. (Rev. 5:5)
The song was written by a man named Solomon Linda, a black-skinned South African composer who was inspired to write the song because as a child growing up in the African bush, it was his job to alert the family if a lion was on the prowl, and no doubt, a carnivorous lion sleeping instead of hunting you or your animals as it's prey, was something to sing about.
Linda sang and first recorded the song with his singing group called the Evening Birds in 1939 and it was a very popular tune then. It still is, in fact, the song has made millions of dollars over the years for recording companies, but not Solomon Linda. He died penniless from the profits, even though he was the one who wrote the Zulu sounding, a cappella, African “Lion” melody.
In Africa, when it was first produced, this song sold over 100,000 copies. At the time Linda was doing shows as an entertainer in nightclubs in Johannesburg. At the time, the political climate in South Africa was such that black people were “not allowed” to have royalties. That was in 1939, but since then, “Mbube” has been recorded all over the world. It has lined the pocketbooks of many, put millions into their bank accounts, but not Solomon Linda. Gallo Records secured the rights to the song by having Linda sign it over to them in exchange for a a measly sum of money and an offer of employment during Apartheid.
(Apartheid is an Afrikaans/Dutch word meaning separateness. The then-ruling social political policy discriminated between whites and blacks and they were segregated by force until the 1990’s.)
Racial issues exist in ever culture. Apartheid... it was a time when thousands of people were imprisoned, sentenced to death and even tortured for disobeying segregation (apartheid) laws. There were those who vocalized disagreement with policies and injustices by public demonstrations and speaking out against discrimination and party politics, much like we saw in America's history of segregation laws. In South Africa, apartheid was strictly enforced by the National Party government and for this reason it is contended by Linda's family, that Solomon Linda sold the rights to the song under duress. This history of Linda and his song has been called “songwritings worse case of exploitation in history.”
Solomon Linda died in 1962, but the Linda family filed a lawsuit in 2004 to receive monetary compensation for use of the tune over the years, and particularly it’s use in the 1994 Disney movie, The Lion King. The family contended that Solomon Linda was the rightful creator of the music and since the music was his creation, since it had been bargained out of him in exchange for next to nothing, and had been used to make a lot of money, he and his heirs deserved compensation.
They believed that what the record company did was thievery. The South African courts agreed and the family won a huge monetary settlement that applied to the song’s world-wide distribution over the years. Apparently, in a court of true law, when people take something of great value that is not theirs to lay claim on, and then use it for their own personal gain, giving no rightful due to the owner, there can be consequences, particularly when the rightful owner (or the heir) shows up and demands his due.
The process has taken a while, and Solomon Linda never saw the fortune himself, but his heirs have inherited a fair share from the sales and popularity of the song. all because justice prevailed.
Such will be the case when the Lord Jesus Christ returns.... justice.
The earth, like Solomon Linda's song, has been hijacked by people who think that somehow they own it. They think the real owner is dead and gone... and now it belongs to them, but one day Jesus Christ will return and rule and reign in righteousness. Things will be judged under the true law and justice will prevail. The rights to the earth will be given to those who are true heirs.
Mankind, thinking that the Son of God can be crucified and forgotten, and that the whole hearth is simply their's for the taking, theirs for the rule and distribution of goods and services, trademarks, copyrights and all, is simply deceived. Unfortunately such hijacking comes in many forms; look at the work of Satan who's whole point and purpose is deception purposed to dethrone Jesus Christ, the rightful heir, as Lord and King, King of kings, Lion of Judah even.
Did I mention that the song, The Lion Sleeps Tonight was used in the movie, The Lion King, a G rated, made for kids movie, the timeless tale of a father lion who ruled over all the other animals in the jungle kingdom of Africa? This film was alarming to Christians, especially for the parallels it drew between earth based religions and God's truth. The movie was full of occultism.
We saw several key biblical concepts played out, but with the reinforcement of occult teachings about reincarnation, shamanism, animal and ancestral spirit guides, and necromancy, not to mention, the pantheistic Hindu belief that “all is god.” Disney's King Lion, mimicking the real “Lion King”…God’s Lion of Judah.. Jesus Christ, gave tickling ear’s loads of spirituality, without Jesus, and parent's liked it because dispite the spirituality that it taught, it came with great moral lessons.
Christian Parenting, (Summer 2005) magazine published their writer Greg Asimakoupoulos recommending the movie. He said Lion King was one of his “favorite all-time movies, ” adding, “It just warms my heart every time I watch it.”
Tim Stoffel has a critique to share with Christian parents too, at lionking.org.
The August 1994 issue of Parental Guidance, (now renamed as Plugged In, and advertises that it is “dedicated to helping parents and youth leaders guide teens through the world of popular youth culture,”) reported that the Lion King, focuses on “positive themes that can be used to teach children valuable, even biblical lessons." They said, “Despite a few slight imperfections, The Lion King is a wholesome, brilliantly animated picture relating the importance of family and responsibility."
People are more selective when buy food to eat at the grocery store. They go out of their way, to avoid feeding their family food with blemishes or artificial ingredients. One has to wonder about these movie recommendations to Christians, I mean why should parents, Christian parents rush their children to see a movie with voodoo, necromancy and jokes about being dressed in "drag," as is portrayed in the film. God may forgive such deeds of darkness, but he is not amused at Christians thinking that dressing in drag is funny, nor does he think it is cute to teach children ways and means of contacting the dead. Parents, who really care about what goes into their child's mind should teach their children what God’s Word says about consulting the dead and that homosexuality is really not something funny, unless of course you simply laugh at sin.
It’s kinda ironic that the makers of Disney's The Lion King used Solomon Linda's song in the movie and they did so before they had to pay back a fortune for it's use. If they think the Lion of Judah they imitate in the script thinks drag is funny, or that there is nothing wrong with occulting the truth of God for even the smallest of children in film, they would do well to think again. Justice and truth does prevail, and God, never sleeps.
He is watching closely over man, and as the rightful author of this world, (John 1:1-5) He is also the true and rightful King. (Rev. 5:5)
Peace Circles
Peace Circles (also called Sacred Circles) can be simply gatherings of people to hold hands in the shape of a circle, done as an expression of unity. Face to face and hand to hand they join together in an expression of peace between them. Peace circles and sacred circles for the purpose of prayer are common in Christianity as well as rituals done in Gnosticism, witchcraft and indigenous cultures that worship nature. “Peace Circle” and "Sacred Circle.” are becoming more common religious and political buzzwords.
The Global Renaissance Alliance, (GRA) founded by Marianne Williamson, Neil Donald Walsh and Thorn Hartmann is one of many global minded spiritually based organizations emerging on the political scene that is working to create a one world country of the whole planet. Their premise is peace and as the GRA they published a booklet about “Peace Circles” in which they say, “Peace Circles are providing ways for individuals and groups to rise up in glory, power and strength, to change our lives and to change our world. Little by little, we are forming the grid of mystical power that will shield the world from its own insanity, and move through the fear to the love.”
They talk about "the grid of mystical power," that “will shield the world from their own insanity,” but they reject the truth of God and insert their own ideas in their spiritual thinking. They do not realize that they are shutting themselves off, putting up even greater barriers between themselves and God. As the circles form and peace is made on their open concentric, not God's, they are merely building their own kingdom. They are doing spiritual things in their own way, and on the basis of occult practices combined with humanly derived reason. It may be peace that comes their way but it is not heavenly peace, it's at best, temporary, the kind of peace the world gives. They are not shielding the world from insanity; they are outwardly rejecting God until the insanity within breaks like a dam and there is no longer a remedy.
What does a person do in this gnostic, occultic kind of "peace circle"? To answer that question, I looked in the Peace Circle booklet offered by the GRA.
The Peace Circle booklet says, “The circle begins with a simple prayer, followed by the "weaving together" of our minds and hearts. The circle's facilitator says prayerfully, beginning with the person to his or her left and going around in a clockwise direction, ‘We bow before the spirit within ________(insert name of person) and receive into our hearts, our beloved ______.’ (insert name) This spiritual weaving establishes a sacred circle among the members of the group, who then pray and meditate silently for a full twenty minutes. After that, we allow the spirit within us to speak as we feel so moved, to describe our vision for the world we would like to inhabit.” The booklet goes on to say, “We use the power of our imaginations to invoke the world we wish to live in.”
Can you imagine? The reject God and Jesus Christ and invoke the world.
They have their own agenda, their own vision of peace founded on the Spirit of humanity and human wisdom. They simply invent something they prefer. to God and his Holy Spirit.
They cry, "peace and safety, peace and safety", (See: 1 Thessolonians 5:3) but there is none. There are many groups and organizations like the GRA that share in the rejection of God and the vision of a peace on earth and they are co-operatively building.
This group called the Global Renaissance Alliance, was at one time called the American Renaissance and then became the Peace Alliance in 2005. They have evolved, you might say, from being "American" to "Global," and now they are "Peace." With a political agenda more aligned with the Maharishi's of the world than the founding Fathers, they work hard to establish a new "United States Department of Peace."
Working to create a U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence within the American governmental system (when we already have a United State Institute of Peace established by Congress since 1984,) takes a consorted effort of all the “peace” proponents in the world. In addition to big name supporters like Marianne Williamson, and Neale Donald Walsch, their webpages have boasted of supporters such as Deepak Chopra, Willie Nelsen, Tyne Daily, Walter Cronkite, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Paula Abdul.
It is the hope of the Peace Alliance and their members that they will someday be “responsible for developing policies that address issues such as domestic violence, child abuse, and mistreatment of the elderly.” They want to work internationally too and “make recommendations to the President on matters pertaining to national security, including the protection of human rights and the prevention and de-escalation of unarmed and armed international conflict.”
If they had their way, the Department would also have an “Office of Peace Education” that would “work with educators in elementary, secondary and universities in the development and implementation of curricula to instruct students in peaceful conflict resolution skills,” and a “Peace Academy… (note: not a police acedemy) modeled after the military service academies…. to provide instruction in peace education and offer opportunities for graduates to serve in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution.”
They have some pretty big goals. Ultimately, it would seem that they hope to circumvent the already established organizations and put their organization in leadership over the already established United States.
If they have their way, they will teach our teachers, train our military and advise and instruct our president. Should this occur, it’s possible that we will no longer be the USA. We might even end up being annexed into the Global Country of World Peace, run by the Maharishi.
The Global Renaissance Alliance, (GRA) founded by Marianne Williamson, Neil Donald Walsh and Thorn Hartmann is one of many global minded spiritually based organizations emerging on the political scene that is working to create a one world country of the whole planet. Their premise is peace and as the GRA they published a booklet about “Peace Circles” in which they say, “Peace Circles are providing ways for individuals and groups to rise up in glory, power and strength, to change our lives and to change our world. Little by little, we are forming the grid of mystical power that will shield the world from its own insanity, and move through the fear to the love.”
They talk about "the grid of mystical power," that “will shield the world from their own insanity,” but they reject the truth of God and insert their own ideas in their spiritual thinking. They do not realize that they are shutting themselves off, putting up even greater barriers between themselves and God. As the circles form and peace is made on their open concentric, not God's, they are merely building their own kingdom. They are doing spiritual things in their own way, and on the basis of occult practices combined with humanly derived reason. It may be peace that comes their way but it is not heavenly peace, it's at best, temporary, the kind of peace the world gives. They are not shielding the world from insanity; they are outwardly rejecting God until the insanity within breaks like a dam and there is no longer a remedy.
What does a person do in this gnostic, occultic kind of "peace circle"? To answer that question, I looked in the Peace Circle booklet offered by the GRA.
The Peace Circle booklet says, “The circle begins with a simple prayer, followed by the "weaving together" of our minds and hearts. The circle's facilitator says prayerfully, beginning with the person to his or her left and going around in a clockwise direction, ‘We bow before the spirit within ________(insert name of person) and receive into our hearts, our beloved ______.’ (insert name) This spiritual weaving establishes a sacred circle among the members of the group, who then pray and meditate silently for a full twenty minutes. After that, we allow the spirit within us to speak as we feel so moved, to describe our vision for the world we would like to inhabit.” The booklet goes on to say, “We use the power of our imaginations to invoke the world we wish to live in.”
Can you imagine? The reject God and Jesus Christ and invoke the world.
They have their own agenda, their own vision of peace founded on the Spirit of humanity and human wisdom. They simply invent something they prefer. to God and his Holy Spirit.
They cry, "peace and safety, peace and safety", (See: 1 Thessolonians 5:3) but there is none. There are many groups and organizations like the GRA that share in the rejection of God and the vision of a peace on earth and they are co-operatively building.
This group called the Global Renaissance Alliance, was at one time called the American Renaissance and then became the Peace Alliance in 2005. They have evolved, you might say, from being "American" to "Global," and now they are "Peace." With a political agenda more aligned with the Maharishi's of the world than the founding Fathers, they work hard to establish a new "United States Department of Peace."
Working to create a U.S. Department of Peace and Nonviolence within the American governmental system (when we already have a United State Institute of Peace established by Congress since 1984,) takes a consorted effort of all the “peace” proponents in the world. In addition to big name supporters like Marianne Williamson, and Neale Donald Walsch, their webpages have boasted of supporters such as Deepak Chopra, Willie Nelsen, Tyne Daily, Walter Cronkite, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Paula Abdul.
It is the hope of the Peace Alliance and their members that they will someday be “responsible for developing policies that address issues such as domestic violence, child abuse, and mistreatment of the elderly.” They want to work internationally too and “make recommendations to the President on matters pertaining to national security, including the protection of human rights and the prevention and de-escalation of unarmed and armed international conflict.”
If they had their way, the Department would also have an “Office of Peace Education” that would “work with educators in elementary, secondary and universities in the development and implementation of curricula to instruct students in peaceful conflict resolution skills,” and a “Peace Academy… (note: not a police acedemy) modeled after the military service academies…. to provide instruction in peace education and offer opportunities for graduates to serve in programs dedicated to domestic or international nonviolent conflict resolution.”
They have some pretty big goals. Ultimately, it would seem that they hope to circumvent the already established organizations and put their organization in leadership over the already established United States.
If they have their way, they will teach our teachers, train our military and advise and instruct our president. Should this occur, it’s possible that we will no longer be the USA. We might even end up being annexed into the Global Country of World Peace, run by the Maharishi.
Yoga Yoka
The word yoga means "union, “to yoke” or “unite.” Hindus and Buddhists practice yoga in order to yoke the divine consciousness (soul) of the individual, with the “divine” or “supreme” being. (God)
Yoga is said to awaken the spiritual “serpent power” found residing and unawake or dormant inside a person until such a connection is made, through yoga experience of yoking yourself to one who can show you the way, your guru. This serpentine power is known as Kundalini.
Kundalini is believed to reside at the base of the human spine coiled "like a serpent," and when the yogi, (male practitioner) or yogini (female practitioner) awakens their consciousness to this serpentine power through yoga's various contemplative practices, this power is released within them, supposedly giving the practitioner stress relief, renewed energy or energy of a psychic or libidos nature. Most literature on the subject of yoga and kundalini says that before beginning yoga, a person must be “initiated,” by a guru who is specially trained in such techniques. The new initiate then may receive a "mantra" to repeat during meditation or yoga practice.
The sound of the mantra is a special vibration, supposed to cause the new yogi’s thoughts to cease, and allow for "transcendence" into a new “higher” dimension of spiritual consciousness where the initiate may have "spiritual experiences."
Yoga, and in particular Hatha Yoga, is also said to be a system of purification. Yogis teach and are expected to believe that when yoga is practiced diligently and with great dedication, especially over a long period of time, the body, and the soul will be cleansed of impurities. Yoga is more than mere exercise. Yoga is religious, and yoga is spiritual, a way to "remove or free mankind from his condition of "sin."In Ashtanga Yoga, the purpose is to burn away the “six poisons of the heart,” which is believed to then enable "the light of the inner nature to shine forth."
As people in America reject the gospel of Jesus being the only savior, the popularity of yoga and yoga-like classes is growing in America. People are eager to do spiritual works and focus on being a better person, living a better life, receive vitality, renewed energy and peace promised by those who market yoga to the public. In America, yoga is often marketed like a product. It's an exercise, or maybe even meditation, as an addendum to your already preferred religion, and so we see terms like “Christian Yoga” being coined. But Yoga is not intended to be anything “Christian.” It is not rooted in the wisdom of God found in the scriptures or in Christ, it is rooted in the kundalini, serpent power.
It was the serpent who beguiled Eve and caused Adam and Eve to sin against God. The serpent of Eden deceived them and every man born since than day has suffered and died. Plagued by the serpents poisno, what will be our remedy? Kundalini? God's Word tells us that only one man, the son of man named Jesus Christ has ever crushed the serpents head, put an end to the effect of thatsin has done. Jesus Christ was raised from death to life, and he was sinless. Christian Yoga, is a bit of a contradiction. Christians are to be yoked not with a yogi or a guru, but with Jesus. Yoga, is no substitution for the power of Jesus Christ. After all, Jesus, by his death and resurrection crushed forever the sting of the crafty serpent. He crushed the head of the venomous creature whose bite produced death for all mankind.
The clear teaching of scripture that forgiveness comes by God’s grace through faith, and not of our doings or in ourselves. The Christian simply yokes himself by faith to Jesus and what HE did and all one has to do is call on him in truth. It is not a secret mystical mantra, but words spoken in truth, an uttering of the heart from tender lips, to Gods, omnipresent ear.
Yoga is said to awaken the spiritual “serpent power” found residing and unawake or dormant inside a person until such a connection is made, through yoga experience of yoking yourself to one who can show you the way, your guru. This serpentine power is known as Kundalini.
Kundalini is believed to reside at the base of the human spine coiled "like a serpent," and when the yogi, (male practitioner) or yogini (female practitioner) awakens their consciousness to this serpentine power through yoga's various contemplative practices, this power is released within them, supposedly giving the practitioner stress relief, renewed energy or energy of a psychic or libidos nature. Most literature on the subject of yoga and kundalini says that before beginning yoga, a person must be “initiated,” by a guru who is specially trained in such techniques. The new initiate then may receive a "mantra" to repeat during meditation or yoga practice.
The sound of the mantra is a special vibration, supposed to cause the new yogi’s thoughts to cease, and allow for "transcendence" into a new “higher” dimension of spiritual consciousness where the initiate may have "spiritual experiences."
Yoga, and in particular Hatha Yoga, is also said to be a system of purification. Yogis teach and are expected to believe that when yoga is practiced diligently and with great dedication, especially over a long period of time, the body, and the soul will be cleansed of impurities. Yoga is more than mere exercise. Yoga is religious, and yoga is spiritual, a way to "remove or free mankind from his condition of "sin."In Ashtanga Yoga, the purpose is to burn away the “six poisons of the heart,” which is believed to then enable "the light of the inner nature to shine forth."
As people in America reject the gospel of Jesus being the only savior, the popularity of yoga and yoga-like classes is growing in America. People are eager to do spiritual works and focus on being a better person, living a better life, receive vitality, renewed energy and peace promised by those who market yoga to the public. In America, yoga is often marketed like a product. It's an exercise, or maybe even meditation, as an addendum to your already preferred religion, and so we see terms like “Christian Yoga” being coined. But Yoga is not intended to be anything “Christian.” It is not rooted in the wisdom of God found in the scriptures or in Christ, it is rooted in the kundalini, serpent power.
It was the serpent who beguiled Eve and caused Adam and Eve to sin against God. The serpent of Eden deceived them and every man born since than day has suffered and died. Plagued by the serpents poisno, what will be our remedy? Kundalini? God's Word tells us that only one man, the son of man named Jesus Christ has ever crushed the serpents head, put an end to the effect of thatsin has done. Jesus Christ was raised from death to life, and he was sinless. Christian Yoga, is a bit of a contradiction. Christians are to be yoked not with a yogi or a guru, but with Jesus. Yoga, is no substitution for the power of Jesus Christ. After all, Jesus, by his death and resurrection crushed forever the sting of the crafty serpent. He crushed the head of the venomous creature whose bite produced death for all mankind.
The clear teaching of scripture that forgiveness comes by God’s grace through faith, and not of our doings or in ourselves. The Christian simply yokes himself by faith to Jesus and what HE did and all one has to do is call on him in truth. It is not a secret mystical mantra, but words spoken in truth, an uttering of the heart from tender lips, to Gods, omnipresent ear.
Snake
Snakes or serpents have been mysterious to man throughout history. They are known for their smooth, slinky, subtle ways, as well as their venomous attacks on unsuspecting victims. Hailed and honored by some, feared and hated by others, the snake has captured the human imagination since the beginning of time.
In the Garden of Eden, it was the serpent that lured Eve, telling her twisted truths that were nothing more than lies and confusing her about what God hath and hath not said. But apparently, somehow the serpent captivated her and she believed him when he told her she could be as God, knowing good and evil. Beguiled by the snake, she ate the fruit that God told her and Adam not to. Everything changed. Suddenly Adam and Eve were in sin. That snake ruined everything, as was his scheming plan, but not before God had the last word, truth.
Ever since God put Adam and Eve out of the garden, man has had to deal with his fear of snakes. On one extreme, it is feared, despised, used as a symbol of evil and misfortune, but on the other is it revered, given prestige and honor, even used to represent the "wisdom” given to men by “the gods.”
In some cultures snakes have been a symbol of healing. My guess is that it originated with the Hebrews and Moses, for when they were being led through the desert by Moses, (Numbers 21) an incident occurred where the people became impatient, and they were criticizing God and Moses.
The people complained, "Why did you make us leave Egypt-just to let us die in the desert? There's no bread or water, and we can't stand this awful food!" So the LORD sent poisonous snakes among the people. They bit the people, and many of the Israelites died. Then as a remedy, Moses was told by God to put a brass snake on a stick and put it up on a pole, He was told that ll the people who looked upon it would be healed. Moses did as God directed and then all who did look at it were healed.
We read in the New Testament that Jesus remarked one day to his disciples about this event saying, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so the Son of Man must be lifted up.”... from John 3:14.
And for all we know, the serpent on a pole may well have been the model concept As for the Greeks and Romans in their worship of Asclepius,, the Son of Apollo and Coronis, known in their cultures as the god of healing. According to Gerald David Hart, author of a book titled, Asclepius the God of Medicine, it is likely and he notes that many of the Asclepian temple locations in Rome, Athens and Corinth became locations for Christians churches and shrines as paganism died out. The symbol of healing in the medical profession today is still the Rod of Asclepius, a pole with a snake wrapped around it. It is also from Ascelpius that the Hippocratic Oath originated. The Greek philosopher Socrates's last words are said to be a reminder to Crito, to make sacrifice to Asclepius for him.
Worship of and healing of Ascelpius was associated with snakes and snakes can be seen as either good or bad. Interestingly, the snake is associated with the medical profession and the use of drugs, which can be good or bad for like snakes, drugs can be used to help a person, or to harm them.
And isn't it funny, like the serpent on the pole to cure the snake bite, many vaccines used even today in the medical profession are made from the very virus that causes the illness.
Snakes, you either love em or you hate em, they can be good or evil.
Perhaps the serpent in the Garden had it right when he told Adam and Eve that if they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would know the difference between the two. Life, death... here were are kinda in the the middle, having been bitten by the serpent. (All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.)
Anti- venom helps for snake bites, but for sin, there really is only one cure...
Jesus.
In the Garden of Eden, it was the serpent that lured Eve, telling her twisted truths that were nothing more than lies and confusing her about what God hath and hath not said. But apparently, somehow the serpent captivated her and she believed him when he told her she could be as God, knowing good and evil. Beguiled by the snake, she ate the fruit that God told her and Adam not to. Everything changed. Suddenly Adam and Eve were in sin. That snake ruined everything, as was his scheming plan, but not before God had the last word, truth.
Ever since God put Adam and Eve out of the garden, man has had to deal with his fear of snakes. On one extreme, it is feared, despised, used as a symbol of evil and misfortune, but on the other is it revered, given prestige and honor, even used to represent the "wisdom” given to men by “the gods.”
In some cultures snakes have been a symbol of healing. My guess is that it originated with the Hebrews and Moses, for when they were being led through the desert by Moses, (Numbers 21) an incident occurred where the people became impatient, and they were criticizing God and Moses.
The people complained, "Why did you make us leave Egypt-just to let us die in the desert? There's no bread or water, and we can't stand this awful food!" So the LORD sent poisonous snakes among the people. They bit the people, and many of the Israelites died. Then as a remedy, Moses was told by God to put a brass snake on a stick and put it up on a pole, He was told that ll the people who looked upon it would be healed. Moses did as God directed and then all who did look at it were healed.
We read in the New Testament that Jesus remarked one day to his disciples about this event saying, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so the Son of Man must be lifted up.”... from John 3:14.
And for all we know, the serpent on a pole may well have been the model concept As for the Greeks and Romans in their worship of Asclepius,, the Son of Apollo and Coronis, known in their cultures as the god of healing. According to Gerald David Hart, author of a book titled, Asclepius the God of Medicine, it is likely and he notes that many of the Asclepian temple locations in Rome, Athens and Corinth became locations for Christians churches and shrines as paganism died out. The symbol of healing in the medical profession today is still the Rod of Asclepius, a pole with a snake wrapped around it. It is also from Ascelpius that the Hippocratic Oath originated. The Greek philosopher Socrates's last words are said to be a reminder to Crito, to make sacrifice to Asclepius for him.
Worship of and healing of Ascelpius was associated with snakes and snakes can be seen as either good or bad. Interestingly, the snake is associated with the medical profession and the use of drugs, which can be good or bad for like snakes, drugs can be used to help a person, or to harm them.
And isn't it funny, like the serpent on the pole to cure the snake bite, many vaccines used even today in the medical profession are made from the very virus that causes the illness.
Snakes, you either love em or you hate em, they can be good or evil.
Perhaps the serpent in the Garden had it right when he told Adam and Eve that if they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would know the difference between the two. Life, death... here were are kinda in the the middle, having been bitten by the serpent. (All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.)
Anti- venom helps for snake bites, but for sin, there really is only one cure...
Jesus.
Matthew 16:26
“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Matthew 16:26
Nixon's Watergate
Richard M. Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, had interesting mannerisms that people know him well for. One was the shaking of his jowls, while saying, “I am not a crook;” the other was his holding up the “peace” or “victory” hand sign, (a two-fingered letter “V”) using both hands at the same time. Nixon was long involved in politics and served not only as president, but as Vice President under Dwight Eisenhower. He is also known for his involvement in a political nightmare known as Watergate, an event so profound in the eyes of the public that it was continually reported on by all the major television networks.
Watergate, named after the Watergate Hotel located in Washington DC that was home of the Democratic Party’s National committee offices at the time. With the discovery that it had been burglarized, the floodgates opened, revealing to the world all the kinds of things that go on in the struggle for political power.
The world watched as the honorable president of the United States, (who by the way, had the trust of the American people, as he had been voted into office by a landslide, 49 of 50 states, so popular the some feared he would created a one party government. ) stood accused of his involvement in the matter, which included charges of burglary, espionage, lying, and bribery. Threatened with impeachment, the once loved and respected man, 37th President of the United States of America, Richard M. Nixon, felt compelled to resign from office.
Watergate and the events surrounding it, such as the Pentagon Papers, had a dramatic effect on the way the public viewed the US government from that point on. There was greater distrust than ever in the workings of media, the seen and unseen forces involved in political parties. For along time after this scandal, political platforms were more about character that real issues of politics and voters, newspaper reporters, and TV anchormen were quick to find fault with elected officials and doubt their truthfulness.
Nixon's crime, it seemed, was violating privacy right, ordering the wire tapping of telephone conversations in those democratic offices. He eventually publicly admitted that he ordered a cover-up of the Watergate incident even though the Federal bureau of Investigation, (FBI) said he didn’t do anything "illegal." Nixon insisted too, that he "was not a crook," but he eventually resigned from office.
When Nixon resigned, his then, Vice President, Gerald Ford became the president and formally, and fully, pardoned Nixon of all his "crimes."
Watergate, named after the Watergate Hotel located in Washington DC that was home of the Democratic Party’s National committee offices at the time. With the discovery that it had been burglarized, the floodgates opened, revealing to the world all the kinds of things that go on in the struggle for political power.
The world watched as the honorable president of the United States, (who by the way, had the trust of the American people, as he had been voted into office by a landslide, 49 of 50 states, so popular the some feared he would created a one party government. ) stood accused of his involvement in the matter, which included charges of burglary, espionage, lying, and bribery. Threatened with impeachment, the once loved and respected man, 37th President of the United States of America, Richard M. Nixon, felt compelled to resign from office.
Watergate and the events surrounding it, such as the Pentagon Papers, had a dramatic effect on the way the public viewed the US government from that point on. There was greater distrust than ever in the workings of media, the seen and unseen forces involved in political parties. For along time after this scandal, political platforms were more about character that real issues of politics and voters, newspaper reporters, and TV anchormen were quick to find fault with elected officials and doubt their truthfulness.
Nixon's crime, it seemed, was violating privacy right, ordering the wire tapping of telephone conversations in those democratic offices. He eventually publicly admitted that he ordered a cover-up of the Watergate incident even though the Federal bureau of Investigation, (FBI) said he didn’t do anything "illegal." Nixon insisted too, that he "was not a crook," but he eventually resigned from office.
When Nixon resigned, his then, Vice President, Gerald Ford became the president and formally, and fully, pardoned Nixon of all his "crimes."
Transformational Manifestation
Transformational Manifestation is a term to express the idea of using some sort of power of mind, in this case in the story, “creative visualization,” to bring about desired change (or transformation) in one’s life.
Creative visualization is a term that New Ager Shakti Gawain, “a pioneer in the field of personal development,” is happy to tell her readers about. She says, “Almost any form of meditation will eventually take you to an experience of yourself as source, or your higher self. If you are not sure of what this experience is, don't worry about it. Just continue to practice relaxation, visualization, and affirmation. Eventually you will start experiencing certain moments during your meditation when there is a sort of "click" in your consciousness and you feel like things are really working; you may even experience a lot of energy flowing through you or a warm radiant glow in your body. These are signs that you are beginning to channel the energy of your higher self” (Creative Visualization, 1985, p.41)
Gawain, says, not to worry... if you are unsure about what it is you are doing here, just keep on doing it, don't think, keep affirming that you are your own source and eventually, "Click" you will begin to channel the energy of your higherself!. She calls this “Transformational Manifestation,” but it’s really a lot like Transcendental Meditation.
Both Transformational Meditation and Trancendental meditation both even have the initials "TM." She has changed the name but not the initials, or the practices.
Transcendental Meditation is a form of Hindu meditation that has been trade marked, in the US since 1955. It is usually taught over the course of seven paid lessons, after a free introductory lecture, or lesson. This program is trademarked, and a certified TM® instructor is needed to make sure the skills necessary for TM® have been properly learned as TM® is used and taught to others. TM® , by the way, is uniquely distinguished in the world as the intellectual property of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Through Maharishi’s TM® programs he promises the benefits of increased intelligence, stress reduction and creativity to its practitioners. His webpage says, “Anyone can easily learn from an instructor trained to teach the Maharishi Transcendental Meditation® program” however, it “cannot be learned by reading a book or surfing a web site.”
His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, appeared on Larry King Live, in May 2002 to elaborate on his vision for the creation of what he called a transcendental government for all the world. He claims that his program of TM® has been scientifically proven and hthat he uses those “scientific studies” to promote his idea for global government, the Global Country of World Peace. The effect TM® has on the environment and humans (according to these studies) has been dubbed, the “Maharishi effect” (dubbed so by the Maharishi himself) and he believes that under his leadership, and through the use of TM® all across America and the world, violent crimes, hospital admissions and moving traffic violations will lessen. He advocates the world employing “consciousness-based education” for children, and suggests that our military would be trained at his Advanced Center for Military Science.
The ideas behind TM® or Gawains TM are very simular in form and function, if not in name.
Creative visualization is a term that New Ager Shakti Gawain, “a pioneer in the field of personal development,” is happy to tell her readers about. She says, “Almost any form of meditation will eventually take you to an experience of yourself as source, or your higher self. If you are not sure of what this experience is, don't worry about it. Just continue to practice relaxation, visualization, and affirmation. Eventually you will start experiencing certain moments during your meditation when there is a sort of "click" in your consciousness and you feel like things are really working; you may even experience a lot of energy flowing through you or a warm radiant glow in your body. These are signs that you are beginning to channel the energy of your higher self” (Creative Visualization, 1985, p.41)
Gawain, says, not to worry... if you are unsure about what it is you are doing here, just keep on doing it, don't think, keep affirming that you are your own source and eventually, "Click" you will begin to channel the energy of your higherself!. She calls this “Transformational Manifestation,” but it’s really a lot like Transcendental Meditation.
Both Transformational Meditation and Trancendental meditation both even have the initials "TM." She has changed the name but not the initials, or the practices.
Transcendental Meditation is a form of Hindu meditation that has been trade marked, in the US since 1955. It is usually taught over the course of seven paid lessons, after a free introductory lecture, or lesson. This program is trademarked, and a certified TM® instructor is needed to make sure the skills necessary for TM® have been properly learned as TM® is used and taught to others. TM® , by the way, is uniquely distinguished in the world as the intellectual property of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Through Maharishi’s TM® programs he promises the benefits of increased intelligence, stress reduction and creativity to its practitioners. His webpage says, “Anyone can easily learn from an instructor trained to teach the Maharishi Transcendental Meditation® program” however, it “cannot be learned by reading a book or surfing a web site.”
His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, appeared on Larry King Live, in May 2002 to elaborate on his vision for the creation of what he called a transcendental government for all the world. He claims that his program of TM® has been scientifically proven and hthat he uses those “scientific studies” to promote his idea for global government, the Global Country of World Peace. The effect TM® has on the environment and humans (according to these studies) has been dubbed, the “Maharishi effect” (dubbed so by the Maharishi himself) and he believes that under his leadership, and through the use of TM® all across America and the world, violent crimes, hospital admissions and moving traffic violations will lessen. He advocates the world employing “consciousness-based education” for children, and suggests that our military would be trained at his Advanced Center for Military Science.
The ideas behind TM® or Gawains TM are very simular in form and function, if not in name.
The Good News
The Good News, traditionally, and in a religious context, directly referred to the good news of Jesus Christ. The Good News is the fulfillment of God’s plan. It’s the promised gift of his forgiveness for sin made available by faith, deliver to us through Jesus the Savior. But the term “good news” is frequently used out of this context. This is not to say that there isn't other good news, it is simply to point out that people use it generically and sometimes it doesn't even mean "the good news" (“gospel”) of Jesus Christ.
For example, Rick Warren, founder of Saddleback church was on CNN in 2005 talking about a woman named Ashley Smith and the man, Brian Nichols who had held her at gun point and subsequently released her unharmed. Warren was on the world viewed news because Ashley Smith, during the ordeal, had read to Nichols from Warren’s book, the Purpose Driven Life and it was being announced to the world that “like a miracle” Ashley was released from the known killer unharmed. The catalyst for the miracle, as reported by CNN, the thing that changed Brian Nichols life that fateful day, was Ashley reading from Warren’s “best selling book.”
No doubt people thought it was a miracle she came away from her ordeal unscathed for on the day of Ashley’s abduction, March 15, 2005, Nichols had been on a killing spree that caused what was being reported as “the largest manhunt in Georgia’s history.”
As it was reported, Nichols was being escorted to trial for rape charges when upon arrival to the courthouse he overpowered his female escort. Leaving her beaten, he stole her gun, held three people captive then went into a courtroom where he proceeded to shoot the judge in the head, and kill the court reporter. He shot and killed a deputy sheriff, too, leaving the scene calm, cool, and collected. Then Nichols escaped to the streets.
Following his escape he spent the day baffling police for 26 hours. He stole several cars at gunpoint terrorizing and threatening the people he encountered. The whole state was on the hunt for an escaped killer… Nichols. They knew what he looked like, they knew what he had done. He was a dangerous man. Officials offered a $60,000 reward for information of his whereabouts. Later that day, Nichols failed at a robbery attempt and then he shot and killed a random victim and stole the victim’s truck. Shortly thereafter, he met up with Ashley Smith.
The story is that he forced his way into her apartment when she was returning from the store. He tied her up, took a shower in her bathroom and somehow she began to earn his trust. She even accompanied him to hide the truck. Then they returned to her apartment where she made him pancakes and he let her leave to visit her daughter at her aunt’s house, from where she called police.
It was excellent news that day as CNN reported that police apprehended Nichols... even better was the news that the woman he had kidnapped, Ashley Smith, was found unharmed. But the media was especially amazed because Ashley was a Christian and the word she gave police was that her reading to Brian that day about God from a book was what actually saved her life; it made Brian turn himself into authorities. Subsequently, Rick Warren, who authored the book, rushed to the scene to congratulate her.
Regarding the incident, Rick Warren said, “I just wish the message had got there sooner, that maybe Brian wouldn't have taken four lives before he got the good news. But I was thrilled that Ashley was able to have the presence of mind to talk to him. And when he got the concept, it changed his life.”
Rick Warren assured a watching and astonished world, that Nichols got the good news, (too bad he didn;t get it sooner.) Not only that, he got the concept too... it even "changed his life!"
When Nichols went before the next judge on his next court day, there was no change of heart, no remorse. He actually pleaded ”not guilty” to the murder of the judge he had shot in the head in front of witnesses. Later, while in custody, it was reported that Nichols converted to Islam.
Certainly it was “good news” that Ashley Smith was not raped or murdered by Nichols. It is "good news" that Nichols is accounted for, in prison where he is less likely to hurt another person. But “the concept,” was not the "good news" of Jesus Christ. Brian had no remorse for hius actions, he didn’t repent. He didn’t even admit his guilt in court.
It is not every day that CNN gives free airtime to a pastor to tell the world about the book they just wrote and how reading it can really change the world, but we all saw how Rick's not only saved Ashley's life but helped a wayward criminal mind like Brian's understand the truth he never got until that fateful day with Ashley. The world can sleep better now because he knows that his life has purpose and meaning after all.
For example, Rick Warren, founder of Saddleback church was on CNN in 2005 talking about a woman named Ashley Smith and the man, Brian Nichols who had held her at gun point and subsequently released her unharmed. Warren was on the world viewed news because Ashley Smith, during the ordeal, had read to Nichols from Warren’s book, the Purpose Driven Life and it was being announced to the world that “like a miracle” Ashley was released from the known killer unharmed. The catalyst for the miracle, as reported by CNN, the thing that changed Brian Nichols life that fateful day, was Ashley reading from Warren’s “best selling book.”
No doubt people thought it was a miracle she came away from her ordeal unscathed for on the day of Ashley’s abduction, March 15, 2005, Nichols had been on a killing spree that caused what was being reported as “the largest manhunt in Georgia’s history.”
As it was reported, Nichols was being escorted to trial for rape charges when upon arrival to the courthouse he overpowered his female escort. Leaving her beaten, he stole her gun, held three people captive then went into a courtroom where he proceeded to shoot the judge in the head, and kill the court reporter. He shot and killed a deputy sheriff, too, leaving the scene calm, cool, and collected. Then Nichols escaped to the streets.
Following his escape he spent the day baffling police for 26 hours. He stole several cars at gunpoint terrorizing and threatening the people he encountered. The whole state was on the hunt for an escaped killer… Nichols. They knew what he looked like, they knew what he had done. He was a dangerous man. Officials offered a $60,000 reward for information of his whereabouts. Later that day, Nichols failed at a robbery attempt and then he shot and killed a random victim and stole the victim’s truck. Shortly thereafter, he met up with Ashley Smith.
The story is that he forced his way into her apartment when she was returning from the store. He tied her up, took a shower in her bathroom and somehow she began to earn his trust. She even accompanied him to hide the truck. Then they returned to her apartment where she made him pancakes and he let her leave to visit her daughter at her aunt’s house, from where she called police.
It was excellent news that day as CNN reported that police apprehended Nichols... even better was the news that the woman he had kidnapped, Ashley Smith, was found unharmed. But the media was especially amazed because Ashley was a Christian and the word she gave police was that her reading to Brian that day about God from a book was what actually saved her life; it made Brian turn himself into authorities. Subsequently, Rick Warren, who authored the book, rushed to the scene to congratulate her.
Regarding the incident, Rick Warren said, “I just wish the message had got there sooner, that maybe Brian wouldn't have taken four lives before he got the good news. But I was thrilled that Ashley was able to have the presence of mind to talk to him. And when he got the concept, it changed his life.”
Rick Warren assured a watching and astonished world, that Nichols got the good news, (too bad he didn;t get it sooner.) Not only that, he got the concept too... it even "changed his life!"
When Nichols went before the next judge on his next court day, there was no change of heart, no remorse. He actually pleaded ”not guilty” to the murder of the judge he had shot in the head in front of witnesses. Later, while in custody, it was reported that Nichols converted to Islam.
Certainly it was “good news” that Ashley Smith was not raped or murdered by Nichols. It is "good news" that Nichols is accounted for, in prison where he is less likely to hurt another person. But “the concept,” was not the "good news" of Jesus Christ. Brian had no remorse for hius actions, he didn’t repent. He didn’t even admit his guilt in court.
It is not every day that CNN gives free airtime to a pastor to tell the world about the book they just wrote and how reading it can really change the world, but we all saw how Rick's not only saved Ashley's life but helped a wayward criminal mind like Brian's understand the truth he never got until that fateful day with Ashley. The world can sleep better now because he knows that his life has purpose and meaning after all.
Pantheism
Pantheism is the religious belief that the force of the universe and all created matter is God. By such a definition, forces such as magnetism and electricity would be considered “God” as well as dirt, trees humans animals and everything else in between. Pantheists embrace life, the physical body and earth wind and fire, but not any supernatural deities, entities or powers.
A pantheist will spiritually relate to the universe and do so with humility, awe, reverence, celebration and be pursuant of deeper understanding, which in many ways is quite similar to how Christian believers relate to "God," they just like to subtract from it all what they what they call the “groveling worship.” they have no expectation that there is any being out there who can answer “prayer.” All of the natural world as well as the person looking at the world around them is what they have decided as God. "Pan" means "all" and “theos" means "God."
To the ancient Greek culture, Pan was the name of a specific god. He was depicted in picture form as a small half-man/half-beast sort of creature that had horns and a goatee beard His torso and head was human-like, but his hindquarters, complete with animal legs and hooves were beastly. He was believed to have invented a musical pipe, which he carried with him and played as he roamed the forests, fields, groves and hollows watching over them and all the wild things of the earth. Legend says that Pan's greatest conquest was his seduction of the moon goddess. Supposedly he disguised himself as a sheep and seduced her.
The Roman rendition of this Pan was known as Faunus. Like the Greek version he had horns and was part man and beast. He was known as the god who would create sudden fear or “pan”ic in people when they were out in the lonely places of wilderness… even for no reason. He was also a god of rage, masculine virility and sexual power. It is he to whom the Romans worshiped at Lupercalia... whose priests wore goat-skins and hit onlookers with goat-skin belts in a festival they celebrated Feburary 13th at his temple.
But pantheists do not worship in a temple and they do not believe in gods or goddesses. Their focus is on the earth and nature, their interest is in saving the earth rather than saving humanity's souls. in worshiping and serving nature and all created things, rather than what "believers" call, and think of as God.
A pantheist will spiritually relate to the universe and do so with humility, awe, reverence, celebration and be pursuant of deeper understanding, which in many ways is quite similar to how Christian believers relate to "God," they just like to subtract from it all what they what they call the “groveling worship.” they have no expectation that there is any being out there who can answer “prayer.” All of the natural world as well as the person looking at the world around them is what they have decided as God. "Pan" means "all" and “theos" means "God."
To the ancient Greek culture, Pan was the name of a specific god. He was depicted in picture form as a small half-man/half-beast sort of creature that had horns and a goatee beard His torso and head was human-like, but his hindquarters, complete with animal legs and hooves were beastly. He was believed to have invented a musical pipe, which he carried with him and played as he roamed the forests, fields, groves and hollows watching over them and all the wild things of the earth. Legend says that Pan's greatest conquest was his seduction of the moon goddess. Supposedly he disguised himself as a sheep and seduced her.
The Roman rendition of this Pan was known as Faunus. Like the Greek version he had horns and was part man and beast. He was known as the god who would create sudden fear or “pan”ic in people when they were out in the lonely places of wilderness… even for no reason. He was also a god of rage, masculine virility and sexual power. It is he to whom the Romans worshiped at Lupercalia... whose priests wore goat-skins and hit onlookers with goat-skin belts in a festival they celebrated Feburary 13th at his temple.
But pantheists do not worship in a temple and they do not believe in gods or goddesses. Their focus is on the earth and nature, their interest is in saving the earth rather than saving humanity's souls. in worshiping and serving nature and all created things, rather than what "believers" call, and think of as God.
Chandler Wobble
The "Chandler Wobble" is a measurable variation in the rotation of the earth as it spins on its axis. It was named after Seth Carlo Chandler, Jr. who discovered the wobble in 1891 and it is one of several “wobbling” motions the Earth has as it rotates on its axis like a spinning toy top around the sun. There is much scientific discussion over what causes the Chandler Wobble, and what it means (or doesn’t mean) in the big scheme of things but we know that when the earth wobbles, it shakes in its orbit.
NASA reports that the wobble is caused by the fluctuating pressure on the bottom of the ocean, caused by a mix of changes in temperature, salinity and wind. While scientists tend to agree that the oceanic pressure is the cause, there could be other reasons. Another proposed theory is that the wobble is the result of a molten core within the earth. Whatever the cause, the wobble has the attention of scientists who speculate on the physics of our world, who ponder the factors that keep it rotating through space. Besides “wobbling,” the earth is tilted on its axis.
At 23.45 degrees, the tilted earth moves in it’s course around the sun, and light and heat from the sun impacts the earth’s surface in certain amounts, producing each season, spring summer autumn and winter, in different parts of the earth simultaneously. It is remarkable to consider that it takes the 23-degree tilt and 24 hour revolution of the earth for the atmosphere to be heated and cooled, frozen and thawed in perfect form and synchronization. Even scientists who do not believe in a creator, know that it’s miraculous that the earth is suspended, moving, balanced.
It's quite amazing to think that if things were even ever so slightly different or out of equilibrium, it would be disastrous for life on earth.
NASA reports that the wobble is caused by the fluctuating pressure on the bottom of the ocean, caused by a mix of changes in temperature, salinity and wind. While scientists tend to agree that the oceanic pressure is the cause, there could be other reasons. Another proposed theory is that the wobble is the result of a molten core within the earth. Whatever the cause, the wobble has the attention of scientists who speculate on the physics of our world, who ponder the factors that keep it rotating through space. Besides “wobbling,” the earth is tilted on its axis.
At 23.45 degrees, the tilted earth moves in it’s course around the sun, and light and heat from the sun impacts the earth’s surface in certain amounts, producing each season, spring summer autumn and winter, in different parts of the earth simultaneously. It is remarkable to consider that it takes the 23-degree tilt and 24 hour revolution of the earth for the atmosphere to be heated and cooled, frozen and thawed in perfect form and synchronization. Even scientists who do not believe in a creator, know that it’s miraculous that the earth is suspended, moving, balanced.
It's quite amazing to think that if things were even ever so slightly different or out of equilibrium, it would be disastrous for life on earth.
CHANGE CHANge, CHAnge, chaNge caNheg.... What's your name....
The title of this segment reflects David Bowie's song, "Change." Remember the song?
The word change means to become different in essence, to loose one’s original nature or to switch from one thing to another. In case you haven't noticed or if perhaps your mind has strayed into a state of thinking things will always be the same as they are now,please take note: life around us is constantly changing and depending on what the change is, it can be harmful or beneficial
There is a definite change that takes place in a person when they put their hope in Jesus Christ and that is a beneficial change. It's a change that helps you realize there is hope in this world after all. It’s a change of heart, from sinner to saint; a change of relationship towards God, from something disregarded to a friend. It's a change of heart and a change of future,. It's like moving from a realm of gray and black confusion, out of darkness, into light. It is more than simply a few adjustments in your thinking, more than gaining a new perspective of the world; it’s a complete change that begins and ends with Jesus, and it gives an anchor of stability in an otherwise ever-changing world.
It's funny to me that Barak Obama chose to use "change" as his platform for the presidency. "Change?"...(m now there is something you can count on!) It is a constant, but it is not in and of itself something we can depend upon, really sink our hope into or embrace with any lasting results of any substance. Even when change is expected, what transpires is not always the expected results.
Some people have mastered the fine art of changing things. Change agents, they are called and they help people learn to leverage and manage it. Step one in managing change is to make certain you have all the books and tools you need. You will need to pay for training sessions, seminars and workshops too Once you embrace the whole notion of change you are ready for step two. Step two, is to make it happen. Amazingly, you will find that what takes effort is not the change but keeping everything together without it becoming a complete disaster. It's really not the change you are in charge of, but they will charge you a fee to help you...change.
With all the theologies of change, strategies of change, in our cultures and communities of change; it's a wonder anything gets done. The advocates of change are everywhere changing things all the time. It is as if they do not really understand that people generally do better, emotionally and physically when their lives or work are not in a constant state of upheaval, disruption and inconsistency. We humans understand that without some kind of equilibrium, everything will simply fall apart.
In the meantime, we simply have to wonder where change will take us when we see the effect it has and the things it moves and undoes. It could very well be that we will not know for sure where it all will lead us until it happens, and it will happen For the good or for the bad, change will come, because change is a given in life. It's inevitable.
But God, as the bible tells us, is the same, yesterday, today and forever. He does not change. He is called The Rock. The truth of His word is established forever, in the One whom he sent to give us a hope and a future we can trust in, one that is secure.
The rains can come, the waters can rise, the storms and uncertainties can lurk and loom. Death can even overtake our lives, but God is stability we can count on in, even the midst of change. He raised Jesus from the dead and he will raise us too. And raising something to life from death is real change, a change that only God can do.
The word change means to become different in essence, to loose one’s original nature or to switch from one thing to another. In case you haven't noticed or if perhaps your mind has strayed into a state of thinking things will always be the same as they are now,please take note: life around us is constantly changing and depending on what the change is, it can be harmful or beneficial
There is a definite change that takes place in a person when they put their hope in Jesus Christ and that is a beneficial change. It's a change that helps you realize there is hope in this world after all. It’s a change of heart, from sinner to saint; a change of relationship towards God, from something disregarded to a friend. It's a change of heart and a change of future,. It's like moving from a realm of gray and black confusion, out of darkness, into light. It is more than simply a few adjustments in your thinking, more than gaining a new perspective of the world; it’s a complete change that begins and ends with Jesus, and it gives an anchor of stability in an otherwise ever-changing world.
It's funny to me that Barak Obama chose to use "change" as his platform for the presidency. "Change?"...(m now there is something you can count on!) It is a constant, but it is not in and of itself something we can depend upon, really sink our hope into or embrace with any lasting results of any substance. Even when change is expected, what transpires is not always the expected results.
Some people have mastered the fine art of changing things. Change agents, they are called and they help people learn to leverage and manage it. Step one in managing change is to make certain you have all the books and tools you need. You will need to pay for training sessions, seminars and workshops too Once you embrace the whole notion of change you are ready for step two. Step two, is to make it happen. Amazingly, you will find that what takes effort is not the change but keeping everything together without it becoming a complete disaster. It's really not the change you are in charge of, but they will charge you a fee to help you...change.
With all the theologies of change, strategies of change, in our cultures and communities of change; it's a wonder anything gets done. The advocates of change are everywhere changing things all the time. It is as if they do not really understand that people generally do better, emotionally and physically when their lives or work are not in a constant state of upheaval, disruption and inconsistency. We humans understand that without some kind of equilibrium, everything will simply fall apart.
In the meantime, we simply have to wonder where change will take us when we see the effect it has and the things it moves and undoes. It could very well be that we will not know for sure where it all will lead us until it happens, and it will happen For the good or for the bad, change will come, because change is a given in life. It's inevitable.
But God, as the bible tells us, is the same, yesterday, today and forever. He does not change. He is called The Rock. The truth of His word is established forever, in the One whom he sent to give us a hope and a future we can trust in, one that is secure.
The rains can come, the waters can rise, the storms and uncertainties can lurk and loom. Death can even overtake our lives, but God is stability we can count on in, even the midst of change. He raised Jesus from the dead and he will raise us too. And raising something to life from death is real change, a change that only God can do.
Geomancy
A geomancer is one who is involved with geomancy. The word geomancy is derived from a combination of the Greek root “geo,” referring to the earth, and “mantikos,” meaning "of a soothsayer" or “prophetic."
Geomancy is a type of divination whereby the placement of physical structures becomes a spiritual act. It can be as simple as the interpretation of the pattern of tea leaves that fall into a cup, the fall of sand from a hand or some kind of human manipulation and interaction with the geographical formations upon earth. It stems from the belief that “spirit” (or some kind of energy force) integrates with matter in certain geometrical forms and in certain geographical places and at particular alignments of stars, planets and moons.
Geomancers work sensing, (as in dowsing for water) or creating, (such as the practice of Feng Shui) what is referred to as “sacred spaces” upon the Earth. Akin to geomancy is something “new” called Archaeoastronomy, which is the study of such “sacred” (spiritual) places. This would include the study of places and structures like the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge, or the Mayan Palace because it is believed that these are not only marvelous feats of human construction and engineering, but that they were also somehow astronomically aligned, or had some spiritual significance in why and how they are constructed in this way.
Archaeoastronomy is considered to be the study of the celestial lore, mythologies and religious worldviews of human cultures particularly as they relate to astronomy and archeology. It is a field that would require knowledge of physics, astronomy and archeology as well as beliefs of ancient cultures. Such study is known to those who have metaphysical interests, and thus are quick to turn the science of astronomy into astrology and science into religious mythical pantheism.
The University of Maryland founded an international center for such studies called the International Society for Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture, (ISAAC) in 1978. It’s an “independent foundation created to advance research, education, and public awareness of archaeoastronomy, including ethnoastronomy; and to promote archaeoastronomy as a discipline within the sciences, the arts, and the humanities.”
Geomancy is a type of divination whereby the placement of physical structures becomes a spiritual act. It can be as simple as the interpretation of the pattern of tea leaves that fall into a cup, the fall of sand from a hand or some kind of human manipulation and interaction with the geographical formations upon earth. It stems from the belief that “spirit” (or some kind of energy force) integrates with matter in certain geometrical forms and in certain geographical places and at particular alignments of stars, planets and moons.
Geomancers work sensing, (as in dowsing for water) or creating, (such as the practice of Feng Shui) what is referred to as “sacred spaces” upon the Earth. Akin to geomancy is something “new” called Archaeoastronomy, which is the study of such “sacred” (spiritual) places. This would include the study of places and structures like the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge, or the Mayan Palace because it is believed that these are not only marvelous feats of human construction and engineering, but that they were also somehow astronomically aligned, or had some spiritual significance in why and how they are constructed in this way.
Archaeoastronomy is considered to be the study of the celestial lore, mythologies and religious worldviews of human cultures particularly as they relate to astronomy and archeology. It is a field that would require knowledge of physics, astronomy and archeology as well as beliefs of ancient cultures. Such study is known to those who have metaphysical interests, and thus are quick to turn the science of astronomy into astrology and science into religious mythical pantheism.
The University of Maryland founded an international center for such studies called the International Society for Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture, (ISAAC) in 1978. It’s an “independent foundation created to advance research, education, and public awareness of archaeoastronomy, including ethnoastronomy; and to promote archaeoastronomy as a discipline within the sciences, the arts, and the humanities.”
The Cold War
The Cold War, as it has been called, lasted from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the Cold War ended when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
Mikhail Gorbachev was leader of the Soviet Union at the time, leader of what was known in all previous years as a communist regime. It was erected by Soviet leaders, Marx, Leninist and Stalin, but it was believed that this regime needed to modernize a bit, so as leader, Gorbachev was working to create "reform." Known as Perestroika, or Restructuring, his model of reform maintained the socialist ideas of price controls, the inconvertibility of the ruble, exclusion of private property ownership, and governmental monopoly on production. In his own words, "The essence of perestroika lies in the fact that it unites socialism with democracy and revives the Leninist concept of socialist construction both in theory and in practice." ((Mikhail Gorbachev, in his book, Perestroika; 1987) Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his efforts.
The world watched in 1989 as Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan. We saw East and West Germany joined again as the Berlin Wall, a monument to opposing ideas came tumbling down. Then in 1991, came the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It was August 1991, and Gorbachev was on vacation in the Crimea,when opponents to his reform staged a take-over of the country. It was a bloodless coupe; no one was killed, but the attackers placed Gorbachev under “house arrest” for three days. As the coupe was unable to gain support, they were forced to surrender and Gorbachev was reinstated to leadership, but subsequently he resigned... first from leadership of the Communist party, and then as president of the Soviet Union, on Christmas, December 1991.
Since then, the coupe leaders have been pardoned for their "crime against the state" and Gorbechev became somewhat of a hero to the world, not only for his reform, but because with the fall of the USSR, and the end of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were now friends. The Soviet Union disappeared into the annuls of history and became known to the world with a new name, Russia.
Mikhail Gorbachev, ousted from his homeland, moved to America and was given lodging at a closed military based, the Presidio in San Fransisco, California, a place known to the military as the guardian of the Golden Gate. The Presideo, with it's historicity of having been the longest continually run military base in the USA, closed to active military use in 1989. In April 1993, Mikhail Gorbachev was given the privilege of being the Presidio’s first civilian tenant since it's closure.
Lieut. Gen. Glynn Mallory Jr., commander of the Sixth Army, welcomed the former Soviet President, Gorbechev who had come there to live with his wife. In the dedication ceremony, when giving him the keys to his new house, he said, “It is only fitting for the leader of a peace foundation to be welcomed by a soldier, showing that the defenders of the Golden Gate have been a success." Gorbachev left Russia and came to live on American soil.
In October 1994, The Presidio, no longer a military compound soon became owned and operated by the "National Parks and Conservation Association," which is self-described as a "private nonprofit citizen organization dedicated to protect and preserve the U.S. National Park System." It had been closed under the Base Realignment and Closure Act of 1988, and was consequently annexed into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It is described as an outdoors paradise, a paradise now home to Mikhail Gorbachav and to the “Gorbachev Foundation” which "conducts research on global, political and environmental issues."
In 1996 while living at the Presidio, Gorbachev once more ran for president of Russia. He didn’t win, but in 2001 he founded and financed the Social Democratic Party of Russia and served as the party leader till 2004. He has amazingly been able not only to travel frequently between the US and Moscow, but has continued to be a powerful and active political force in the world.
Since taking up residency in the United States, Gorbechev has founded several organizations. He has founded the Gorbachev Foundation, “a non-profit public charity working to the strengthening and spread of democracy and economic liberalization through a program of advocacy, research, and education.” He has founded the State of the World Forum, “to establish a global leadership network across a multiplicity of disciplines and from around the world dedicated to working toward a sustainable civilization,” and Green Cross International, “to help ensure a just, sustainable and secure future for all by fostering a value shift and cultivating a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility in humanity’s relationship with nature.” He is a busy, busy man.
And the world is a much better place now, because the “Cold War ‘ has ended.
Gorbachev has written many books, some by himself and some apparently as a collaboration with other authors. Some of his many titles include: The Search for a New Beginning: Developing a New Civilization (1995) You Can Change the World (2002) Moral Lessons of the Twentieth Century (2005) Earth Charter in Action (2006) Manifesto for the Earth: Action Now for Peace, Global Justice, and a Sustainable Future (2006) Antarctica: The Global Warning (2007) Rediscover Your Heart, Seven Keys to Personal and Planetary Transformation. (2008)
In his 1995 book, The Search for a New Beginning: Developing a New Civilization, Gorbachev wrote: “We must begin to define certain moral maxims or ethical commandments that constitute values common to all humankind. It is my view that the individual's attitude toward nature must become one of the principal criteria for ensuring the maintenance of morality. Today it is not enough to say, 'Thou shalt not kill.' Ecological education implies, above all, respect and love for every living being. It is here that ecological culture interfaces with religion.”
It seems that a broad all-encompassing command that came direct from God (Thou shall not kill.) is simply not enough for Mikhail, let alone “all mankind.” He doesn’t stop there in his rejection of the Ten Commandments. He also suggests we let ecological culture, that is, nature and created things, define our God. And he does not stop there. It’s politics plus pantheistic religion.
In 1987, long before he departed from the USSR, on the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Gorbachev told his peers, “In October 1917, we parted with the Old World, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a New World, a world of Communism. We shall never turn off that road."
November 2, the same year to the Politburo, the political bureau of his Communist state, Gorbechev said, “Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about glasnost and perestroika and democracy in the coming years. These are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal change within the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep."
Mikhail Gorbachev was leader of the Soviet Union at the time, leader of what was known in all previous years as a communist regime. It was erected by Soviet leaders, Marx, Leninist and Stalin, but it was believed that this regime needed to modernize a bit, so as leader, Gorbachev was working to create "reform." Known as Perestroika, or Restructuring, his model of reform maintained the socialist ideas of price controls, the inconvertibility of the ruble, exclusion of private property ownership, and governmental monopoly on production. In his own words, "The essence of perestroika lies in the fact that it unites socialism with democracy and revives the Leninist concept of socialist construction both in theory and in practice." ((Mikhail Gorbachev, in his book, Perestroika; 1987) Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his efforts.
The world watched in 1989 as Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan. We saw East and West Germany joined again as the Berlin Wall, a monument to opposing ideas came tumbling down. Then in 1991, came the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It was August 1991, and Gorbachev was on vacation in the Crimea,when opponents to his reform staged a take-over of the country. It was a bloodless coupe; no one was killed, but the attackers placed Gorbachev under “house arrest” for three days. As the coupe was unable to gain support, they were forced to surrender and Gorbachev was reinstated to leadership, but subsequently he resigned... first from leadership of the Communist party, and then as president of the Soviet Union, on Christmas, December 1991.
Since then, the coupe leaders have been pardoned for their "crime against the state" and Gorbechev became somewhat of a hero to the world, not only for his reform, but because with the fall of the USSR, and the end of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were now friends. The Soviet Union disappeared into the annuls of history and became known to the world with a new name, Russia.
Mikhail Gorbachev, ousted from his homeland, moved to America and was given lodging at a closed military based, the Presidio in San Fransisco, California, a place known to the military as the guardian of the Golden Gate. The Presideo, with it's historicity of having been the longest continually run military base in the USA, closed to active military use in 1989. In April 1993, Mikhail Gorbachev was given the privilege of being the Presidio’s first civilian tenant since it's closure.
Lieut. Gen. Glynn Mallory Jr., commander of the Sixth Army, welcomed the former Soviet President, Gorbechev who had come there to live with his wife. In the dedication ceremony, when giving him the keys to his new house, he said, “It is only fitting for the leader of a peace foundation to be welcomed by a soldier, showing that the defenders of the Golden Gate have been a success." Gorbachev left Russia and came to live on American soil.
In October 1994, The Presidio, no longer a military compound soon became owned and operated by the "National Parks and Conservation Association," which is self-described as a "private nonprofit citizen organization dedicated to protect and preserve the U.S. National Park System." It had been closed under the Base Realignment and Closure Act of 1988, and was consequently annexed into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It is described as an outdoors paradise, a paradise now home to Mikhail Gorbachav and to the “Gorbachev Foundation” which "conducts research on global, political and environmental issues."
In 1996 while living at the Presidio, Gorbachev once more ran for president of Russia. He didn’t win, but in 2001 he founded and financed the Social Democratic Party of Russia and served as the party leader till 2004. He has amazingly been able not only to travel frequently between the US and Moscow, but has continued to be a powerful and active political force in the world.
Since taking up residency in the United States, Gorbechev has founded several organizations. He has founded the Gorbachev Foundation, “a non-profit public charity working to the strengthening and spread of democracy and economic liberalization through a program of advocacy, research, and education.” He has founded the State of the World Forum, “to establish a global leadership network across a multiplicity of disciplines and from around the world dedicated to working toward a sustainable civilization,” and Green Cross International, “to help ensure a just, sustainable and secure future for all by fostering a value shift and cultivating a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility in humanity’s relationship with nature.” He is a busy, busy man.
And the world is a much better place now, because the “Cold War ‘ has ended.
Gorbachev has written many books, some by himself and some apparently as a collaboration with other authors. Some of his many titles include: The Search for a New Beginning: Developing a New Civilization (1995) You Can Change the World (2002) Moral Lessons of the Twentieth Century (2005) Earth Charter in Action (2006) Manifesto for the Earth: Action Now for Peace, Global Justice, and a Sustainable Future (2006) Antarctica: The Global Warning (2007) Rediscover Your Heart, Seven Keys to Personal and Planetary Transformation. (2008)
In his 1995 book, The Search for a New Beginning: Developing a New Civilization, Gorbachev wrote: “We must begin to define certain moral maxims or ethical commandments that constitute values common to all humankind. It is my view that the individual's attitude toward nature must become one of the principal criteria for ensuring the maintenance of morality. Today it is not enough to say, 'Thou shalt not kill.' Ecological education implies, above all, respect and love for every living being. It is here that ecological culture interfaces with religion.”
It seems that a broad all-encompassing command that came direct from God (Thou shall not kill.) is simply not enough for Mikhail, let alone “all mankind.” He doesn’t stop there in his rejection of the Ten Commandments. He also suggests we let ecological culture, that is, nature and created things, define our God. And he does not stop there. It’s politics plus pantheistic religion.
In 1987, long before he departed from the USSR, on the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Gorbachev told his peers, “In October 1917, we parted with the Old World, rejecting it once and for all. We are moving toward a New World, a world of Communism. We shall never turn off that road."
November 2, the same year to the Politburo, the political bureau of his Communist state, Gorbechev said, “Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about all you hear about glasnost and perestroika and democracy in the coming years. These are primarily for outward consumption. There will be no significant internal change within the Soviet Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them fall asleep."
Dimensions of the Universe
Dimension, is a word that comes from the Latin and it means “measured out.” It refers to the measurable limit or magnitude of the spatial extent that an object of matter takes up, usually noted in the length, width and height of objects.
Scientifically minded people love to discuss how many dimensions there “really” are in our universe and have had a lot of fun studying dimensional attributes of objects, a study which has lead some to pursue the possibility there may even be more than three dimensions in the physical world in which we live. Einstein for example, was one to "wow" the world when he added a fourth dimension. He called it time.
Whether or not Einstein was right-about time being the fourth dimension, if you asked most people with they would say that we live in a three-dimensional physical world of length, width and height. These are the obvious ones. A person can move around in three planes of direction, the first would be back and forth, the second side to side and thirdly, up and down.
If you ask most people the parts of an atom, they will tell you, the proton, the neutron and the electron. But nuclear physicists, who work with atoms everyday work with subatomic particles smaller than even an atom, they work with things called quarks, photons and neutrinos.
On a minuscule level, the universe is like a vast jungle for scientific exploration, and with that exploration comes the opportunity for explanation, the one who make the discovery gets to put the complexity of it all into words for our human understanding. Some propose that out there in the vast realms of smallness, things appear large,that is of course assuming you are very very small. Some suggest that there are minuscule compact dimensions that stretch across the universe that we cannot even ever see.
While we more casual observers debate and marvel at our own finite understanding of the universe, others are debating and defining Superstrings and Unified Fields, and the wonderful “Theory of Everything,” (called TOE) Curiously, all the while most of these people, thinking, breathing humans in fact, consider that a whole concept of a multidimensional being called God is really quite obtuse.
But Christians believe in God, sometimes they believe even when they do not see. They can even believe that it was God alone in the very beginning who by the power of his own concepts and by his own definition, created everything from nothing and made all things as they should be. In fact, it's even written in the bible.
Christians can look at Ephesians, chapter three and read, where the apostle Paul writes his prayer, that you,” May be able to comprehend with all saints what [is] the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Funny, it looks like more than three dimensions going on there.
Scientifically minded people love to discuss how many dimensions there “really” are in our universe and have had a lot of fun studying dimensional attributes of objects, a study which has lead some to pursue the possibility there may even be more than three dimensions in the physical world in which we live. Einstein for example, was one to "wow" the world when he added a fourth dimension. He called it time.
Whether or not Einstein was right-about time being the fourth dimension, if you asked most people with they would say that we live in a three-dimensional physical world of length, width and height. These are the obvious ones. A person can move around in three planes of direction, the first would be back and forth, the second side to side and thirdly, up and down.
If you ask most people the parts of an atom, they will tell you, the proton, the neutron and the electron. But nuclear physicists, who work with atoms everyday work with subatomic particles smaller than even an atom, they work with things called quarks, photons and neutrinos.
On a minuscule level, the universe is like a vast jungle for scientific exploration, and with that exploration comes the opportunity for explanation, the one who make the discovery gets to put the complexity of it all into words for our human understanding. Some propose that out there in the vast realms of smallness, things appear large,that is of course assuming you are very very small. Some suggest that there are minuscule compact dimensions that stretch across the universe that we cannot even ever see.
While we more casual observers debate and marvel at our own finite understanding of the universe, others are debating and defining Superstrings and Unified Fields, and the wonderful “Theory of Everything,” (called TOE) Curiously, all the while most of these people, thinking, breathing humans in fact, consider that a whole concept of a multidimensional being called God is really quite obtuse.
But Christians believe in God, sometimes they believe even when they do not see. They can even believe that it was God alone in the very beginning who by the power of his own concepts and by his own definition, created everything from nothing and made all things as they should be. In fact, it's even written in the bible.
Christians can look at Ephesians, chapter three and read, where the apostle Paul writes his prayer, that you,” May be able to comprehend with all saints what [is] the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Funny, it looks like more than three dimensions going on there.
Believe...
“Believe it and receive it” is a concept appealing to most religious faiths. It is the notion that one can be as wealthy or successful or even healthy as they choose to be because of the level of their faith. It's sort of the belief that the level of prosperity one has in this world is relative to the amount of faith they have to receive it or make it happen. The idea is biblically unsound and borders more on New Age thinking than true Christianity.
There are of course courses where a person can learn to manipulate other people in order to get their own way, classes offering "how to's regarding mind over matter, or "mindpower" techniques. Unfortunately such concepts and practices, while they may be appealing to our senses, stand in opposition to the Christian doctrine of self-denial, sacrifice, humility and contentment so such things come to Christians in the form of what is often called, "Word of Faith.”
The word of Faith movement, which is not a denomination but a movement, teaches Christians, that “if you have not, it is because you do not have enough faith.” They also teach that “if you believe it… you will receive it,” whatever IT happens to be.
Much like the New Age movement, the Word of Faith movement is not a formal organization and it has many proponents. Kenneth Hagin is often considered one of the most prominent leaders of the movement. He is joined by names like Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Bill Johnson, Jesse Duplantis, Marilynn Hickey, Norman Vincent Peale, Fred Price, Robert Schueller, Paul Crouch and Paula White. And while there is some truth and biblical foundation to the concept of what they teach on TV, truth is, God did not exactly promise you money and wealth or even power in exchange for your ability to believe. He promised you life abundant, (John 10:10) life to the full, even eternal life and he said that even if you have only the faith of a mustard seed, (Matthew 17:20) you will be counted as one of the faith full.
There are of course courses where a person can learn to manipulate other people in order to get their own way, classes offering "how to's regarding mind over matter, or "mindpower" techniques. Unfortunately such concepts and practices, while they may be appealing to our senses, stand in opposition to the Christian doctrine of self-denial, sacrifice, humility and contentment so such things come to Christians in the form of what is often called, "Word of Faith.”
The word of Faith movement, which is not a denomination but a movement, teaches Christians, that “if you have not, it is because you do not have enough faith.” They also teach that “if you believe it… you will receive it,” whatever IT happens to be.
Much like the New Age movement, the Word of Faith movement is not a formal organization and it has many proponents. Kenneth Hagin is often considered one of the most prominent leaders of the movement. He is joined by names like Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Bill Johnson, Jesse Duplantis, Marilynn Hickey, Norman Vincent Peale, Fred Price, Robert Schueller, Paul Crouch and Paula White. And while there is some truth and biblical foundation to the concept of what they teach on TV, truth is, God did not exactly promise you money and wealth or even power in exchange for your ability to believe. He promised you life abundant, (John 10:10) life to the full, even eternal life and he said that even if you have only the faith of a mustard seed, (Matthew 17:20) you will be counted as one of the faith full.
Of Dogs and Dogma
“Not in Kansas anymore” is a borrowed line from The Wizard of Oz. These famous words were spoken by Dorothy to her little “dogma,” I mean dog, Toto, when she realized that she had entered the world of enchantment, a land called Oz.
With her trusty friend Toto by her side Dorothy traveled the magical land of Oz, endured trials and hardships, even slayed the Wicked Witch of the West when she accidentally baptized her with water. Toto, was the one thing, the one relationship Dorothy loved most, one she would even sacrifice not getting back home for, but (Warning, spoiler ahead) Dorothy makes it home from Oz and wakes from the beautiful, technicolor nightmare in Kansas with her little dog Toto by her side and declares, “There’s no place like home.”
Moviegoers may have felt disappointed that Dorothy ended up back in her drab little black and white reality instead of living forever in the merry ol’, blessed-be land of Oz with her new found friends. They may have been happier if she had climbed into the beautiful balloon and sailed up, up and away into the air into perhaps another universe next door with her personal wizard who had told her that he knew he way back home when he really didn’t know much of anything at all.
But instead, Dorothy held on to her relationship with her little dog Toto, even jumped out of the balloon to retrieve him because she loved him and she wanted to go home to Kansas. It was her real home. Brave little Dorothy and he little dog Toto, through thick and thin she persisted, refusing to remain captive to anything that would keep her from what she loved the most, and knew to be true all along.
With her trusty friend Toto by her side Dorothy traveled the magical land of Oz, endured trials and hardships, even slayed the Wicked Witch of the West when she accidentally baptized her with water. Toto, was the one thing, the one relationship Dorothy loved most, one she would even sacrifice not getting back home for, but (Warning, spoiler ahead) Dorothy makes it home from Oz and wakes from the beautiful, technicolor nightmare in Kansas with her little dog Toto by her side and declares, “There’s no place like home.”
Moviegoers may have felt disappointed that Dorothy ended up back in her drab little black and white reality instead of living forever in the merry ol’, blessed-be land of Oz with her new found friends. They may have been happier if she had climbed into the beautiful balloon and sailed up, up and away into the air into perhaps another universe next door with her personal wizard who had told her that he knew he way back home when he really didn’t know much of anything at all.
But instead, Dorothy held on to her relationship with her little dog Toto, even jumped out of the balloon to retrieve him because she loved him and she wanted to go home to Kansas. It was her real home. Brave little Dorothy and he little dog Toto, through thick and thin she persisted, refusing to remain captive to anything that would keep her from what she loved the most, and knew to be true all along.
Mel Gibson's "Passion"
The movie, The Passion of the Christ, officially opened in theaters February 25, 2004, and it was big news, especially in the religious world. For months preceding it’s release, news and entertainment media were a blur at the incredible financial risk its producer, Mel Gibson was willing to take with the film. Emails abounded in Christian circles,"Support this film" they encouraged. Christians found it amazing that Mel Gibson, known previously for his provocative R rated genre of film productions, financed the religious film himself. The word on the street was that Mel Gibson’s passion was now to expose the world to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Christians were so excited to see Gibson show Hollywood, (who's lack of interest in the production forced Gibson to pay for producing it himself,) just how valuable making religious films could be. Many were even willing to overlook the fact that Gibsons, “extreme” and “shocking” film about Jesus was pretty raw. It was rated R.
Christians, they read the Bible, and the horrors of the crucifiction were extreme, even shocking. It was a fair rating if it was to depict for the world how it really must have been. Besides that, with Gibson behind the film and the R rating, the world would be interested, and therefore the the movie was christened with the tag line, “The best outreach opportunity in 2000 years.” God’s people flocked like sheep to the theaters with their friends in tow, or bing towed by friends to see a Gibson film, a story about Jesus, someone that really had passion. Beaten, bruised, battered and crucified, Jesus was the kind of man who gave everything, even his life to meet his goals.
Gibson met his goals of making a movie that was a box office success. Christians got into line in support of the film. Churches across America bought out whole auditoriums of seating for their congregations to view the film. The world was amazed, not only when they saw Gibson's portrayal of the brutality Jesus endured, the blood and the gore, but that a predominantly Christian film could be such a hit.
One reason may have been of course, its Lenten opening on Ash Wednesday. Catholics everywhere could experience the Stations of the Cross in surround sound, on the big screen and never even have to get out of a chair! The best part though was that finally Protestants and Catholics could agree as they sat back in theater seats and enjoyed, or rather, experienced, a biblical film.
But the truth was, as Gibson told the critics, much of what appeared in the film was not based solely upon the bible. It came from material that had been previously produced by a catholic visionary by the name of Anne Catherine Emmerich. What some people viewing did not realize was that the movie was much more than a “scriptural” rendering. There was not merely deviations from the scripture due to the artistic license given to Mel as the creator and director of the film, but what was before their eyes most of the time was a vivid portrayal of Emmerich’s extra biblical mystic experience. Mel Gibson's movie was a mixture of truth and private interpretation, but to the watching world it was something not only stirring psychologically and emotionally, but something straight from the gospel account.
There are many additions to the true biblical account of Jesus. Incorporated into the story is a scene where a baby carrying devil-like creature is present at the flogging of Jesus. This is not in the Bible account. We have no story of Peter and others going to see Mary for spiritual comfort or calling her “Mother;” we could imagine that they may have, but there is no biblical account. Also, scripture makes no mention of a woman named Veronica offering Jesus her veil to wipe His blood upon it. We are also never told in the Bible that Jesus had only one eye to see with, as he trekked the road to Calvary. These instances portrayed in the film are fine for the theater, moving for a story line and even compatible with the traditions of the Roman Church, but they are all also additions to the scriptures., something the scriptures themselves warn those who preach and teach not to do.
Besides the extra biblical artistry that has been added to the film another notable feature is it's overall goal. “The goal of the movie,” said Gibson, (seethepassion.com by Terry Mattingly,) “is to shake modern audiences by brashly juxtaposing the “sacrifice of the cross with the sacrifice of the altar - which is the same thing.”
So the movie had a goal in mind and it would appear that maybe the goal of the movie was not about preaching the gospel to the unsaved, although in many cases it may have been a by product. It was about juxtaposing the “sacrifice of the cross with the sacrifice of the altar" which essentially means brining catholics and protestants groups together.
There are distinct differences between Protestantism and Catholicism and there has been since what is commonly referred to as the Reformation. They are as different as hands and feet or as moths and ears. Both claim to have faith in Jesus. Either denomination would call themselves Christian and talk about how Jesus died and rose again, but historically Catholics and Protestants have differed greatly on extremely important issues and "juxtaposition" especially of the cross and what the priest does upon the church altar, has never quite been a complete option for the two. Catholics believe in something called transubstantiation; Protestants do not.
They also differ on ideas like: what qualifies a person to be “saved,” or what it means to be a “saint.” They disagree on the Bible’s literalness and interpretation, even the number of 'books" that the bible should contain. They often disagree on exactly who were Jesus’ "brothers" and what the good book means by "sister" too, you see, Catholics and Protestants cannot agree on many issues. This issue of salvation, how exactly a person can be saved, is a rather large one.
The Arizona Republic newspaper, (2-12-04) reported that when Mel Gibson was asked if he believed that a person who was not in membership with the Roman Catholic church, (and subsequently under the leadership of the pope who holds the "chair of Peter",) would not be a recipient of "salvation" he, as any "good catholic" would say, said that that is what he believed. Gibson then went on to say how his wife, not Roman Catholic as Gibson is, even though she believed in Jesus, would not be saved and go to heaven.
"Put it this way, he said, “My wife is a saint. She's a much better person than I am. Honestly. She's, like, Episcopalian, Church of England…. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it's not fair if she doesn't make it, she's better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it."
The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism said that while non-Catholic Christians may not enjoy "full" communion with the Catholic Church, they do enjoy some "degree" of communion, enough to connect them spiritually with Christ's redemptive work. And regarding Non Christian religions and their relationship to the Church, the council stated that salvation is available to non-Christians as well, and this without having to believe the truth of the Church's own faith.
Someone is confused. Which is it? What does a person have to do in order to be "saved?"
The apostle Paul himself taught. “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (Romans 10:9) And in another example in scripture, a jailer asks the apostle Paul what he must do to be saved and Paul simply tells him, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your family.” (Acts 16:31) The essential ingredient for salvation was and always will be only one thing, the person of Jesus Christ, mainly his death on our behalf and his glorious resurrection from the dead.
Interestingly enough, Gibson made a movie, albeit a rated "R" one, intending that the world would finally see and understand this Jesus thing. and with all the publicity, it's possible that the movie was a catalyst for saving faith in someone’s heart and mind, but in the hoopla of advertising for Gibson's Passion of the Christ, it was as if the Christian world forgot that seeing is not always believing. In fact, scripture teaches us that Christians walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7)
Faith does not come by seeing. It comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. In fact, it's the substance and evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
Religious movies, they're a bit of menace to the faith, especially when they are so violent that they have to be rated R, so graphic in their presentation that you would never bring a little child, so graphic that they make grown men want to hurl.
A W Tozer makes a good point when he compares the religious movie to the miracle plays of medieval times when such performances with their religious themes were used for the entertainment of the public and coincided with one of the"most corrupt periods of time the church has ever known." He added, Be it remembered, the instrument God uses to bring the Church out of the darkness was not drama, it was the biblical one of Spirit baptized preaching."
Jesus himself said to Thomas who asked to "see" before he could believe, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Christians were so excited to see Gibson show Hollywood, (who's lack of interest in the production forced Gibson to pay for producing it himself,) just how valuable making religious films could be. Many were even willing to overlook the fact that Gibsons, “extreme” and “shocking” film about Jesus was pretty raw. It was rated R.
Christians, they read the Bible, and the horrors of the crucifiction were extreme, even shocking. It was a fair rating if it was to depict for the world how it really must have been. Besides that, with Gibson behind the film and the R rating, the world would be interested, and therefore the the movie was christened with the tag line, “The best outreach opportunity in 2000 years.” God’s people flocked like sheep to the theaters with their friends in tow, or bing towed by friends to see a Gibson film, a story about Jesus, someone that really had passion. Beaten, bruised, battered and crucified, Jesus was the kind of man who gave everything, even his life to meet his goals.
Gibson met his goals of making a movie that was a box office success. Christians got into line in support of the film. Churches across America bought out whole auditoriums of seating for their congregations to view the film. The world was amazed, not only when they saw Gibson's portrayal of the brutality Jesus endured, the blood and the gore, but that a predominantly Christian film could be such a hit.
One reason may have been of course, its Lenten opening on Ash Wednesday. Catholics everywhere could experience the Stations of the Cross in surround sound, on the big screen and never even have to get out of a chair! The best part though was that finally Protestants and Catholics could agree as they sat back in theater seats and enjoyed, or rather, experienced, a biblical film.
But the truth was, as Gibson told the critics, much of what appeared in the film was not based solely upon the bible. It came from material that had been previously produced by a catholic visionary by the name of Anne Catherine Emmerich. What some people viewing did not realize was that the movie was much more than a “scriptural” rendering. There was not merely deviations from the scripture due to the artistic license given to Mel as the creator and director of the film, but what was before their eyes most of the time was a vivid portrayal of Emmerich’s extra biblical mystic experience. Mel Gibson's movie was a mixture of truth and private interpretation, but to the watching world it was something not only stirring psychologically and emotionally, but something straight from the gospel account.
There are many additions to the true biblical account of Jesus. Incorporated into the story is a scene where a baby carrying devil-like creature is present at the flogging of Jesus. This is not in the Bible account. We have no story of Peter and others going to see Mary for spiritual comfort or calling her “Mother;” we could imagine that they may have, but there is no biblical account. Also, scripture makes no mention of a woman named Veronica offering Jesus her veil to wipe His blood upon it. We are also never told in the Bible that Jesus had only one eye to see with, as he trekked the road to Calvary. These instances portrayed in the film are fine for the theater, moving for a story line and even compatible with the traditions of the Roman Church, but they are all also additions to the scriptures., something the scriptures themselves warn those who preach and teach not to do.
Besides the extra biblical artistry that has been added to the film another notable feature is it's overall goal. “The goal of the movie,” said Gibson, (seethepassion.com by Terry Mattingly,) “is to shake modern audiences by brashly juxtaposing the “sacrifice of the cross with the sacrifice of the altar - which is the same thing.”
So the movie had a goal in mind and it would appear that maybe the goal of the movie was not about preaching the gospel to the unsaved, although in many cases it may have been a by product. It was about juxtaposing the “sacrifice of the cross with the sacrifice of the altar" which essentially means brining catholics and protestants groups together.
There are distinct differences between Protestantism and Catholicism and there has been since what is commonly referred to as the Reformation. They are as different as hands and feet or as moths and ears. Both claim to have faith in Jesus. Either denomination would call themselves Christian and talk about how Jesus died and rose again, but historically Catholics and Protestants have differed greatly on extremely important issues and "juxtaposition" especially of the cross and what the priest does upon the church altar, has never quite been a complete option for the two. Catholics believe in something called transubstantiation; Protestants do not.
They also differ on ideas like: what qualifies a person to be “saved,” or what it means to be a “saint.” They disagree on the Bible’s literalness and interpretation, even the number of 'books" that the bible should contain. They often disagree on exactly who were Jesus’ "brothers" and what the good book means by "sister" too, you see, Catholics and Protestants cannot agree on many issues. This issue of salvation, how exactly a person can be saved, is a rather large one.
The Arizona Republic newspaper, (2-12-04) reported that when Mel Gibson was asked if he believed that a person who was not in membership with the Roman Catholic church, (and subsequently under the leadership of the pope who holds the "chair of Peter",) would not be a recipient of "salvation" he, as any "good catholic" would say, said that that is what he believed. Gibson then went on to say how his wife, not Roman Catholic as Gibson is, even though she believed in Jesus, would not be saved and go to heaven.
"Put it this way, he said, “My wife is a saint. She's a much better person than I am. Honestly. She's, like, Episcopalian, Church of England…. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it's not fair if she doesn't make it, she's better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it."
The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism said that while non-Catholic Christians may not enjoy "full" communion with the Catholic Church, they do enjoy some "degree" of communion, enough to connect them spiritually with Christ's redemptive work. And regarding Non Christian religions and their relationship to the Church, the council stated that salvation is available to non-Christians as well, and this without having to believe the truth of the Church's own faith.
Someone is confused. Which is it? What does a person have to do in order to be "saved?"
The apostle Paul himself taught. “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” (Romans 10:9) And in another example in scripture, a jailer asks the apostle Paul what he must do to be saved and Paul simply tells him, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your family.” (Acts 16:31) The essential ingredient for salvation was and always will be only one thing, the person of Jesus Christ, mainly his death on our behalf and his glorious resurrection from the dead.
Interestingly enough, Gibson made a movie, albeit a rated "R" one, intending that the world would finally see and understand this Jesus thing. and with all the publicity, it's possible that the movie was a catalyst for saving faith in someone’s heart and mind, but in the hoopla of advertising for Gibson's Passion of the Christ, it was as if the Christian world forgot that seeing is not always believing. In fact, scripture teaches us that Christians walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7)
Faith does not come by seeing. It comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. In fact, it's the substance and evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
Religious movies, they're a bit of menace to the faith, especially when they are so violent that they have to be rated R, so graphic in their presentation that you would never bring a little child, so graphic that they make grown men want to hurl.
A W Tozer makes a good point when he compares the religious movie to the miracle plays of medieval times when such performances with their religious themes were used for the entertainment of the public and coincided with one of the"most corrupt periods of time the church has ever known." He added, Be it remembered, the instrument God uses to bring the Church out of the darkness was not drama, it was the biblical one of Spirit baptized preaching."
Jesus himself said to Thomas who asked to "see" before he could believe, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Jesus
Jesus is the central figure of Christianity, believed to be true God, and true man. The story is that he was killed at the hands of powerful men who unjustly crucified him instead of a murderous criminal, one whom the justice system had previously found to be guilty. So Jesus, though not guilty of any crime, not even guilty of any evil deed at all, was crucified in his place. Not even his own countrymen would vouch for him that day, even though they knew his character, knew he was a man of God. Some of them were even glad and took great pleasure in ridding him from the world that day. But little did they know he would be raised to life again the thirds day and in fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures.
The guilty man’s punishment, under the justice system of the day, was death, by crucifixion.. and who would dare to argue with the justice of the law that day? Who would dare to suggest that maybe it would be unjust to let a murderer go and crucify the king of kings instead?
Jesus had become a bit of a political problem for the Roman rulers and the Jewish religious experts too. Mobs were restless, and then as today politicians are quick to do what is best for their own ambitions, and they like to do what best helps keep peace on earth. The democratic mob would get to see true justice served, and Jesus, along with allt he controversy he created by healing the sick, raising the dead and teaching about the kingdom of God, whom he boldly proclaimed to know personally as his father, would be conveniently done away with. Doing away with Jesus, seemed and easy solution, one that those in authority believed would solve a lot of problems.
Those in authority agreeable participated in the injustice being done. They knew they were executing an innocent man. Why did they do it anyhow?
Was it because they wanted nothing to do with his teachings? Did they fear that their power and authority was jeopardized by His remarkable ability to heal the sick, feed the hungry and speak words of comfort and hope to a lost and dying world? Were they fearful of the crowds making their demands for freedom? Were they thinking that they would soon be without a job? Whatever the reason, the man Jesus was brought before the justice of man and there he found no mercy and no love for the truth. Everyone, even his friends, abandoned him.
The story of Jesus is not only how an innocent man died in the place of a guilty one, but the story of how the one and only spotless Lamb of God was given unto men to do with as they choose. Jesus Christ, son of man and Son of God, like a lamb before his shearers, was silent. He complied with all man had in store for him and not just for the sake of Barrabas. He did it for the whole entire world. He let them have their way, let it take him to the very end. He even died. Then Jesus, having fulfilled the law of His Father... the law of love, completely from beginning to the end, set the captives of sin and death completely free. miraculously he took up his life and rose from death, according to the scriptures. A proclamation and a demonstration that God not man would always have the final word.
His story is the story of God’s incredible love in the face of proud and arrogant humanity, and it’s the story of how sinners bound for hell are not only saved, but set-free. We see in Jesus Christ the wisdom of a Holy God and His benevolent mercy and grace bestowed upon sinful humanity.It's the story of all stories, his story in fact. There is only one name under heaven by which men might be saved, and that name is Jesus.
In man’s judicial system the innocent suffer and evil doers get away with murder and the day they crucified the son of God, Jesus Christ, King of the Jews, they may have thought they were getting away with murder, but they didn't. In God’s judicial system, unrepented of sin must be punished and in the end, His grace and mercy as well as righteousness prevails. Jesus is the Lamb of God, provided by God himself to take away our sin. They did not pull the wool over his eyes that day. Jesus himself, dying ion the cross, declared that with his death, payment for our sin, forgiveness for our crimes, mercy for our hatred and our greed had been paid in full.
The scripture tells us that Jesus, the man, was the son of God and he was also the promised seed of the woman, Son of Man, carpenter by trade, miracle worker, rabbi/teacher and Holy One of Israel.
Jesus?
He is that guy who came to save us, you know, that guy who was crucified under Pontious Pilate and ten miraculously resurrected from the grave.
The guilty man’s punishment, under the justice system of the day, was death, by crucifixion.. and who would dare to argue with the justice of the law that day? Who would dare to suggest that maybe it would be unjust to let a murderer go and crucify the king of kings instead?
Jesus had become a bit of a political problem for the Roman rulers and the Jewish religious experts too. Mobs were restless, and then as today politicians are quick to do what is best for their own ambitions, and they like to do what best helps keep peace on earth. The democratic mob would get to see true justice served, and Jesus, along with allt he controversy he created by healing the sick, raising the dead and teaching about the kingdom of God, whom he boldly proclaimed to know personally as his father, would be conveniently done away with. Doing away with Jesus, seemed and easy solution, one that those in authority believed would solve a lot of problems.
Those in authority agreeable participated in the injustice being done. They knew they were executing an innocent man. Why did they do it anyhow?
Was it because they wanted nothing to do with his teachings? Did they fear that their power and authority was jeopardized by His remarkable ability to heal the sick, feed the hungry and speak words of comfort and hope to a lost and dying world? Were they fearful of the crowds making their demands for freedom? Were they thinking that they would soon be without a job? Whatever the reason, the man Jesus was brought before the justice of man and there he found no mercy and no love for the truth. Everyone, even his friends, abandoned him.
The story of Jesus is not only how an innocent man died in the place of a guilty one, but the story of how the one and only spotless Lamb of God was given unto men to do with as they choose. Jesus Christ, son of man and Son of God, like a lamb before his shearers, was silent. He complied with all man had in store for him and not just for the sake of Barrabas. He did it for the whole entire world. He let them have their way, let it take him to the very end. He even died. Then Jesus, having fulfilled the law of His Father... the law of love, completely from beginning to the end, set the captives of sin and death completely free. miraculously he took up his life and rose from death, according to the scriptures. A proclamation and a demonstration that God not man would always have the final word.
His story is the story of God’s incredible love in the face of proud and arrogant humanity, and it’s the story of how sinners bound for hell are not only saved, but set-free. We see in Jesus Christ the wisdom of a Holy God and His benevolent mercy and grace bestowed upon sinful humanity.It's the story of all stories, his story in fact. There is only one name under heaven by which men might be saved, and that name is Jesus.
In man’s judicial system the innocent suffer and evil doers get away with murder and the day they crucified the son of God, Jesus Christ, King of the Jews, they may have thought they were getting away with murder, but they didn't. In God’s judicial system, unrepented of sin must be punished and in the end, His grace and mercy as well as righteousness prevails. Jesus is the Lamb of God, provided by God himself to take away our sin. They did not pull the wool over his eyes that day. Jesus himself, dying ion the cross, declared that with his death, payment for our sin, forgiveness for our crimes, mercy for our hatred and our greed had been paid in full.
The scripture tells us that Jesus, the man, was the son of God and he was also the promised seed of the woman, Son of Man, carpenter by trade, miracle worker, rabbi/teacher and Holy One of Israel.
Jesus?
He is that guy who came to save us, you know, that guy who was crucified under Pontious Pilate and ten miraculously resurrected from the grave.
Da Vinci
Games, books and documentaries all attempting to shed more light on the work of the artist, inventor and scientist of the Renaissance, Leonardo DaVinci, have become quite popular in recent years. There is much interest in DaVinci not only as a artist who captured his world in paint but also as a dreamer and an inventor. Modern man is intrigued by his intuitive imagination as well as his art.
The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown, took the world by a whirlwind when his book titled the DaVinci Code hit the bookstores. Not only was it about the work of Leonardo DaVinci, it was also about Jesus, and it laid a foundation for mystery, intrigue and revelation that few could resist. With an estimated 36 million copies printed it soon became acclaimed as being one of the best-selling books of all times and even made into a movie.
Brown’s tale was so well marketed to the American public that DaVinci and the secret code within his paintings (as now revealed to the world by Dan Brown and associates,) quickly became the celebrated subject in newspapers, coffee shops, bookstores and even churches. Whether people were talking positively or negatively about it, people everywhere were talking. You might even say that , “DaVinci Code” became a household word.
The book had a reputation for being an extremely thrilling, brilliantly written mystery novel, but most of the waves across America came because through the book Brown suggested some extremely controversial understandings of the person of Jesus Christ. Brown, who asserts on his website that he himself is Christian, obviously does not understand that if he is a Christian, he is a Christian of the most unusual kind.
Normally, a Christian is compelled to help others believe in the divinity and sinlessness of Jesus. Instead Brown confuses his readers and stirs up controversy. When asked about this he commented, “Controversy and dialogue are healthy for religion as a whole,” which may have some truth in it, more truth than the fact he claims are true that are in his book. Brown Claimed that his book was full of accurate history and facts, but the fact is; it was a fiction book and it was full of fiction.
Admitting that his book the DaVinci Code, contains contradictions to what has been ”taught in school” as historical fact, Brons said at his website, danbrown.com, “We should first ask ourselves…. How historically accurate is history itself?” Dan believes everything people have taught and written about history is wrong, but with a fiction full of facts he thinks he will set them straight.
That’s the problem with history. People live it and tell about it, usually they tell it as it affected them and it's historical because what they say is validated by other who experience the same thing. You can fabricate history. You know, make it out to be something that it never really was, turn it into something you prefer it to be. We call that fiction, because such things never really happened. That’s the problem with fiction…it’s might have some truth in it, but on the whole it just doesn;t hold water because it simply never happened, except in someone else's mind.
DaVinci was a real person. JEsus was a real person too. The DaVinci Code... that's simply fiction.
The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown, took the world by a whirlwind when his book titled the DaVinci Code hit the bookstores. Not only was it about the work of Leonardo DaVinci, it was also about Jesus, and it laid a foundation for mystery, intrigue and revelation that few could resist. With an estimated 36 million copies printed it soon became acclaimed as being one of the best-selling books of all times and even made into a movie.
Brown’s tale was so well marketed to the American public that DaVinci and the secret code within his paintings (as now revealed to the world by Dan Brown and associates,) quickly became the celebrated subject in newspapers, coffee shops, bookstores and even churches. Whether people were talking positively or negatively about it, people everywhere were talking. You might even say that , “DaVinci Code” became a household word.
The book had a reputation for being an extremely thrilling, brilliantly written mystery novel, but most of the waves across America came because through the book Brown suggested some extremely controversial understandings of the person of Jesus Christ. Brown, who asserts on his website that he himself is Christian, obviously does not understand that if he is a Christian, he is a Christian of the most unusual kind.
Normally, a Christian is compelled to help others believe in the divinity and sinlessness of Jesus. Instead Brown confuses his readers and stirs up controversy. When asked about this he commented, “Controversy and dialogue are healthy for religion as a whole,” which may have some truth in it, more truth than the fact he claims are true that are in his book. Brown Claimed that his book was full of accurate history and facts, but the fact is; it was a fiction book and it was full of fiction.
Admitting that his book the DaVinci Code, contains contradictions to what has been ”taught in school” as historical fact, Brons said at his website, danbrown.com, “We should first ask ourselves…. How historically accurate is history itself?” Dan believes everything people have taught and written about history is wrong, but with a fiction full of facts he thinks he will set them straight.
That’s the problem with history. People live it and tell about it, usually they tell it as it affected them and it's historical because what they say is validated by other who experience the same thing. You can fabricate history. You know, make it out to be something that it never really was, turn it into something you prefer it to be. We call that fiction, because such things never really happened. That’s the problem with fiction…it’s might have some truth in it, but on the whole it just doesn;t hold water because it simply never happened, except in someone else's mind.
DaVinci was a real person. JEsus was a real person too. The DaVinci Code... that's simply fiction.
Spy Cam
Spy cam, refers to a camera that is spying. Like the satellites used by the militry to view the land below, with a spy cam you can really know what's going on somewhere far away.
Spy cams in space have not only made it possible to know what the enemy is doing with troops, they have made it possible for us to view, map, label and measure the entire earth and sea. Every inch of the globe is viewable from space today and we can see it with incredible resolution. You may even be being watched right now from space and never even know! You might be being spied upon.
Spying, or espionage is often associated with governments who secretly gain information about potential or actual enemies and it has always been an advantage to see things below from a birds-eye advantage, especially when at war. Fortunately, the incredible technology that birthed spy satellites has been perfected over the years and has branched out into many other uses. Besides the current state-of-the-art military uses, this technology has made it’s way into free-to- the- public use in the forms of Virtual Globe Internet programs like Google Earth.
Google Earth made its debut in 2005. From your own living room anyone with internet access could now find and view virtually any place on the planet. The photos, available for free, were outdated by several months or years, but still viewers were amazed. The latest technology was magically at their fingertips, and now you could almost fly through the air visiting places like the Pyramids of Egypt, the Statue of Liberty, the Danube River, St. Petersburg Russia or a friend’s residence and see it all from the air. Suddenly, the whole world, was at mouse-click command.
Satellite viewing systems with a real-time functionality have been available for military use for years, and some civilian companies already use such satellite communications extensively. Such systems are used by 911 emergency systems to locate and remotely view emergency callers or emergency situations on the streets. People of the just-a-few-years-ago past would be quite impressed and amazed to know how things have progressed technologically.
Today everyone is spying with camera at the earth. Everything is real-time monitored from the sky.
Spy cams in space have not only made it possible to know what the enemy is doing with troops, they have made it possible for us to view, map, label and measure the entire earth and sea. Every inch of the globe is viewable from space today and we can see it with incredible resolution. You may even be being watched right now from space and never even know! You might be being spied upon.
Spying, or espionage is often associated with governments who secretly gain information about potential or actual enemies and it has always been an advantage to see things below from a birds-eye advantage, especially when at war. Fortunately, the incredible technology that birthed spy satellites has been perfected over the years and has branched out into many other uses. Besides the current state-of-the-art military uses, this technology has made it’s way into free-to- the- public use in the forms of Virtual Globe Internet programs like Google Earth.
Google Earth made its debut in 2005. From your own living room anyone with internet access could now find and view virtually any place on the planet. The photos, available for free, were outdated by several months or years, but still viewers were amazed. The latest technology was magically at their fingertips, and now you could almost fly through the air visiting places like the Pyramids of Egypt, the Statue of Liberty, the Danube River, St. Petersburg Russia or a friend’s residence and see it all from the air. Suddenly, the whole world, was at mouse-click command.
Satellite viewing systems with a real-time functionality have been available for military use for years, and some civilian companies already use such satellite communications extensively. Such systems are used by 911 emergency systems to locate and remotely view emergency callers or emergency situations on the streets. People of the just-a-few-years-ago past would be quite impressed and amazed to know how things have progressed technologically.
Today everyone is spying with camera at the earth. Everything is real-time monitored from the sky.
Hollywood
Hollywood is a district of the city of Los Angeles, California known for its movie making industry. IT is called the "Entertainment Capital of the World and it is the home of people with fast cars, famous movie stars, fashion designers and models. There are movie studios, nightclubs, grand hotels, entertainment of all kinds as well as world famous shopping. It's a land of glitz and glamor and they do make a lot of movies, but what Hollywood is really interested in is making money.
Hollywood producers wanting to make money have discovered that tickets sell best when audiences are wowed with action packed violence, nudity, displays of sex, suspense and other moral depravities. Much like the entertainment arenas of the long outdated and outlawed Roman Coliseums, crucifixions or public floggings, Hollywood has a reputation for giving audiences of people exactly what they want and PG and PG 13 animated films are becoming more popular than the G rated kind.
Part of the dilemma comes as PG rated films with childlike characters and themes are being made with kids in mind. Being as many characters are cute and funny, people find it hard to take offense. Some are filled with sexual innuendos or mild profanity, yet parents take their small children, not seeming to mind that such things in the script or scenery give the films a "not-so-general" audience rating. and it seems the same mentality prevails when it comes to the production of religious films.
Unlike the made for television Ten Commandments, (1956) the latest Hollywood produced religious film is full of blood letting and violent action. Called, 'The Passion of the Christ,' and rated R, it was a box office hit, and churches everwhere were busing people to the big event: Hollywood gone Jesus. Nevermind that it's only Hollywood realizing there is potential to make money wants to market more films to specifically Christian audiences.
But would Hollywood, with all the glitz be able to understand and portray such a thing? Should the church be learning spiritual lessons from producers in Hollywood or from the Bible?
Christian Pastor, A.W. Tozer, (1897-1963) wrote a piece and titled it, The Menace of the Religious Movie. In it he gives reasons why he opposes the “religious movie.” While not everyone might agree with Tozer on the issue, as a man with a reputation of being a faithful preacher of God’s word and man of prayer, one should at least listen to what he has to say. In this peiece, Tozer remarks on how the scriptures say, “faith comes by hearing.” (Romans 10:17) and he notes, “ The movie addresses its message primarily to the eye, and the ear only incidentally.”
In the Dark ages, icons and images were popular, perhaps this was due to a lack of literature and a disregard for human history, but thankfully God has made sure His word has been preserved, and this through the invention of a man created machine, the printing press. Before such time passion plays and statues, were all they had when literature was no more, and even then such things often served only to lead them into superstition, that and believing only the things which they were taught by mere men and only things that they could see.
We know faith does not come by merely seeing with your own eyes. We know, because God told us, "Faith comes by hearing." In Hollywood, maybe seeing is believing, but in the bible, hearing comes by the faithful preaching and deliverance of the Word of God.
Hollywood producers wanting to make money have discovered that tickets sell best when audiences are wowed with action packed violence, nudity, displays of sex, suspense and other moral depravities. Much like the entertainment arenas of the long outdated and outlawed Roman Coliseums, crucifixions or public floggings, Hollywood has a reputation for giving audiences of people exactly what they want and PG and PG 13 animated films are becoming more popular than the G rated kind.
Part of the dilemma comes as PG rated films with childlike characters and themes are being made with kids in mind. Being as many characters are cute and funny, people find it hard to take offense. Some are filled with sexual innuendos or mild profanity, yet parents take their small children, not seeming to mind that such things in the script or scenery give the films a "not-so-general" audience rating. and it seems the same mentality prevails when it comes to the production of religious films.
Unlike the made for television Ten Commandments, (1956) the latest Hollywood produced religious film is full of blood letting and violent action. Called, 'The Passion of the Christ,' and rated R, it was a box office hit, and churches everwhere were busing people to the big event: Hollywood gone Jesus. Nevermind that it's only Hollywood realizing there is potential to make money wants to market more films to specifically Christian audiences.
But would Hollywood, with all the glitz be able to understand and portray such a thing? Should the church be learning spiritual lessons from producers in Hollywood or from the Bible?
Christian Pastor, A.W. Tozer, (1897-1963) wrote a piece and titled it, The Menace of the Religious Movie. In it he gives reasons why he opposes the “religious movie.” While not everyone might agree with Tozer on the issue, as a man with a reputation of being a faithful preacher of God’s word and man of prayer, one should at least listen to what he has to say. In this peiece, Tozer remarks on how the scriptures say, “faith comes by hearing.” (Romans 10:17) and he notes, “ The movie addresses its message primarily to the eye, and the ear only incidentally.”
In the Dark ages, icons and images were popular, perhaps this was due to a lack of literature and a disregard for human history, but thankfully God has made sure His word has been preserved, and this through the invention of a man created machine, the printing press. Before such time passion plays and statues, were all they had when literature was no more, and even then such things often served only to lead them into superstition, that and believing only the things which they were taught by mere men and only things that they could see.
We know faith does not come by merely seeing with your own eyes. We know, because God told us, "Faith comes by hearing." In Hollywood, maybe seeing is believing, but in the bible, hearing comes by the faithful preaching and deliverance of the Word of God.
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