Anthony (aka "Tony") Robbins is a motivational success expert, author and infomercial star with many noted accomplishments. He is, (according to his own website,) a “peace negotiator, humanitarian, philanthropist, strategic adviser to world leaders, successful entrepreneur and honored business strategist, award winning speaker, internationally known and best selling author, authority on Peak Performance, mass media veteran, world authority on the psychology of leadership, innovator on psychology and intervention, and dedicated family man.” There is apparently little that he does not do and do well. He says when world leader have a problem, they come to him. He even claims in his biography that the International Chamber of Commerce has named him one of the top ten Outstanding People of the World."
As to how he does all this, Robbins attributes it all to his "faith," that is, faith in the “science of achievement” and “the art of fulfillment.” Like a philosopher Robbins wants you and I and anyone else to listen to him and learn from him, even adopt his core beliefs. Like a salesman he wants you to buy his beliefs, for his beliefs are his product and Robbins believes he has the ability to motivate anyone to the same level of personal excellence he has achieved; He will even help you “turn dreams into reality,” (a-hem, ) for a fee.
Yes, for a fee. Robbins does not just give free advice, he sells his "expertise," and it is not cheap. His Anthony Robbins Rapid Planning Method , (RPM) "a revolutionary breakthrough in time and life management that will show you how to manage your life instead of your time," is a calendar product that you can purchase from him for a mere $199.00. A 12 hour seminar will cost you about $180.00; or if you prefer. the 9-Day Mastery Program, it runs for about $5,000.00. Yes, for a fee, Robbins will help anyone "Unleash the Power Within."
And what do you get for your money? He advertises his Anthony Robbins' Business Mastery program, that with his program, "The world is yours."
Over the years, Robbin's has taught that Unleashing the Power within is a "powerful metaphor" for what will happen when you learn his secrets to success. While he quotes the Father of Evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, strangely, Robbins also talks about God, and forgiveness but the most incredible thing Robbins can teach a person is how to become rich, or maybe just richer. Not only that, Robbins even teaches his students to do incredible physical feats that they never thought possible, like breaking boards with their "bare hands.”
But breaking boards is somewhat passe' these days. Robbins has a new gimmick. Now, "the ultimate physical metaphor for your newly emerging mastery," is storming "barefoot across a bed of glowing coals--and that is only day one!” Robbins is now into Firewalking.
Robbins, who himself has been firewalking since 1983, says, believes and teaches others to do it. It's the highlight of his seminars all over the world, places like Rome, Singapore...and Atlanta Georgia. Robbins teaches that things like breaking boards with your bare hands, walking on beds of hot coals without being burned by them, is only the beginning. He advertises that after attending his seminar, one will return home....with "a fire in your soul", (one that "can never be extinguished.") This is because of the ultimate metaphor... firewalking.
Fire-walking takes courage for most people to do. It is after all, something far-removed from what people normally do with their time and energy. It's not really "normal" to simply walk upon hot coals. It's not "normal" to do such a thing without being burned. Yet those who have been under Tony's influence do it and live to talk about it. They love to talk about it. It's all over You Tube.
This video examining firewalking, was quite interesting.It tells about how traditionally fiji firewalkers believe walking through the fires will purge them of their sin, and as such ...firewalking, when it is successful, proves the favor of the gods... Other people think there is some scientific reason it can be done. But people all over the world and on fiji, ( thanks to the famous Anthony Robbins and his fire-walking friends,) are firewalking and they do not even need to be superstitious about fire goddesses and gods All that they have to do is attend a corporate management motivational seminar with Tony and learn that they have the power to do anything they simply put their mind to, even the seemingly impossible.
Firewalking done in the corporate world has many effects. It tends to boosts company morale as co-workers see what each other is made of. It it has the effect of building confidence in individuals who can then work as teams knowing they can all do something a bit outside of the proverbial "box." Not only that, people get excited about their own success as they do something they thought was physically impossible, if not downright dangerous. The promise to businessmen is that after a seminar with Tony, after employee have had the experience of walking on fire, they will be rejuvenated and subsequently be able to produce results far beyond anything ever experienced before.
Firewalking does look dangerous, but proponents say it is a "relatively safe" experience. You can see the excitement in the You Tube videos; a lot of people have successfully done it. If someone fails, it can only be because they did not have enough faith or will power to make it happen. At that point, it becomes their own fault, not the instructors. The greatest danger in learning to firewalk appears to be a person's ego, or maybe their wallet, as some instructors charge as much as $500.00 per event. But if you look a little deeper, you may see that it is not really just the wallet or the ego that is as risk, it is.. and Robbins will even tell you this, you wil need to change your belief system.
Advertisers and motivational speakers like Anthony Robbins who promote firewalking like to say that firewalking is a way of “challenging the traditional,” and “going beyond the boundaries.” They say it's about "change," and changing those "limiting belief systems." One might wonder, "Which ones?"
When it comes to firewalking, could this be refering to your parents who warned you as a child, not to play with fire, who told you that if you played with fire, you might get burned? Could it be your religious upbringing, maybe it refers toChristians (and Christianity,) you know, Christians are always warning others to repent of sin or they will face the terrible fire of hell and they put faith in the Bible, and those "thou shall nots" in that Old Testament too.
But then, maybe such firewalking is completely compatable with biblical teaching. After all, some firewalkers, quoting verses like Isiah 43:2 and Proverbs 6:28, say that such practices are not forbidden at all by God. Besides, there are many prominent Christian people that endorse Robbins, ;like Christian businessman and leadership expert, Kenneth Blanchard. Blanchard even “co-authored" Robbin’s book, Unlimited Power in 1997.
Blanchard, who authored his own book titled, the One-Minute Manager, professes publicly to be a born-again, bible believing Christian. Besides partnering with Anthony Robbins, he “partners” with other well-known Christian "celebrities" like Zig Ziglar, Henry Blackaby, Lori Beth Jones, Phil Hodges, Norman Vincent Peale, John Maxwell, Bill Hybels, and even "America's Pastor" Rick Warren who did President Obama's Inaugural address. Blanchard heartily endorses Robbins. , and has been quoted many times saying, "You can't afford not to know what Anthony Robbins in teaching." In the forward to the co-authored book, Unlimited Power, Blanchard encourages readers saying, "use Tony's thinking to unleash the "magic" within you.”
"Magic"? Hmmm...What is this "magic"? Is it something supernatural?
Some people say firewalking is supernatural, spiritual... a way to connect to God.
Tolly Burkan is one of those people.
Anthony Robbins originally "learned" to Firewalk from Tolly Burkan, the man who claims to have “created the firewalking movement” in America. Burkan himself has authored his own book titled, "Extreme Spirituality" in which he teaches people how to do things like walk on broken glass or fire, in order to "make a personal connection to God."
Burkan does not teach traditional Christian beliefs, such as how Jesus is the only mediator between man and God, but he does talk about Jesus. He says, "Two thousand years ago, a revered teacher (Jesus) said all people possess the ability to do the same miracles he himself did… and more.” He also says that by doing these "extreme" spiritual acts, (the ones he teaches in his book,) “You will discover that your spirit is not of human origin, that some part of you is eternal, and as you explore more deeply, you'll be developing an intimate relationship with God… and to be able to access this spiritual power 24/7 so you can use it as a resource. Instead of dogma or teachings, Extreme Spirituality gives you a direct experience!”
It's a new gospel, a new spiritual paradigm....
Burkan insists it's mind and spirit that takes a person over such extremes unscathed. He says, “When people burn, it may indicate that their states of mind have made them more “dense.” A “fluid” mind-state translates into fluidity of the body itself…. After people tell themselves "I can do this and not get burned," and they feel "comfortable" with that certainty, they proceed to walk with "confidence." (Quote from: firewalking.com) The end result of doing a firewalk, (whatever the reason for success, beit the temperature of the burned materials, the amount of time the feet are in contact with the coals, or simply the will to make it happen,) the end result is confidence, self-confidence. Self confidence is the spirit released from within. Anthony Robbins, calls if self-mastery.
It is not the kind of spirit that comes from repenting of sin and believing in the supernatural power of God, but the power that comes from grasping the position of God in your own life, driving your own life, creating your own destiny, finding and fulfilling your purpose as you love those who either help you become wealthy or make you feel good about yourself. It is about creating for yourself, (as Joel Olsteen would say,) "your best life now."
Yes, no doubt there is a power being released, (or rather, unleashed, unrestrained,) but truth is, some people simply do not stop to test the spirits and see what "spirit" they are of. They will learn from men and leave their old limiting belief systems behind to embrace the new spiritual paradigm being offered, a gospel that teaches everyman is God (as if equality with God is something to be grasped.)
Man, created by God and given freewill, may have truly have within himself the power in him to do whatever he wills, even firewalking, but with man, somethings really are impossible. But as Jesus Christ revealed, with God, all things are possible. (Matthew 19:26)
Man, is mortal and as such he will one day come face to face with something he cannot overcome in his own strength. He will one day run out of his inner power, (or money,) and face the ultimate enemy, death. Without repentance, without rebirth into the Holy Spirit of God, man will surely die in his sin and he will be ft eternally walking in the unquenchable fire of eternal separation from God.
We can live our lives on earth believing the words of men who do not believe the words of Jesus, who tell people they can attain their best life now if only they believe in themselves, or we can believe in Jesus Christ and in the almighty power and sovereignty of a God who loves us and cares for us, and seek to serve Him and others instead of ourselves. Truth is, we cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:34) and it's important to wonder, what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? (Matthew 16:26)
Mark Satin
Mark Satin is known as a lawyer, political activist and writer and he enjoys his reputation as a US draft dodger. He is also a New Ager, and has authored the books, New Age Politics: Healing Self and Society (1979) and Radical Middle, the Politics We Need Now, (2004.)
Satin is notable because he is tends to be neither left nor right. In fact, he believes that he takes the “concerns of the left and right – and builds on them toward something new.” He is neither thesis nor antitheseis, but rather, a man of synthesis, and he calls his form of politics “the emerging new politics.”
Satin claims to be the founder of an organization he calls the New World Alliance. which makes the claim that they are, “An Alliance of individuals to encourage ALL of us to look deeply and questioningly at our attitudes and values, our institutions, and the way we live . . . and, together, to create a New -- and better -- World.” At his webpage he states that the members of this organization "are not a political party, nor another special interest lobby, but rather something far more fundamental.”
But what exactly could be "more fundamental than politics? If it is not political, what is it? Religion? If religion, which one?
Does it even matter, and would any in particular be excluded from the mix?
One thing is certain, that is, the concept behind such thinking in one that believes in man's goodwill toward man, something "obviously" evident as we look back at human history... NOT. It's also a belief than man, no matter his belief in God has the superior intellect to justly manage all the affairs of the world, including food production and equitable dispersion of goods and services for all. Thes are lovely aspirations, but where is god in it all. Where is the Bible?
Without God, these ideas are what some people would call that call that socialism, others, who deliberately forget, or do not want to believe that "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," simply call it "change" and they try to be pluralistic in a world of opposites. It's a lovely dream until one awakens to the reality that mankind is not as benevolent a creature as he would like to think he is and totallu lost without God. For some, it never dawns upon then that they are double minded in their thinking as they strive onward to what they call sustainability or perhaps a more "Natural Genesis."
Satin is not an atheist, and he is definately looking for answers as he tries to solve the problems of the world. He says he recently discovered the Bible and now believes the Bible, even believes it to be "the very best tool we have for accessing the complexity, the many-sidedness, and the terrible bitter truths of our world ." He endorses it saying "that the Bible is the one essential social change manual for grown-ups, be they 18 or 81 years of age." He concluded that it is the Master Book for Our Time.
Indeed it is...and it does not come back void. Certainly it has a perspective to lend to our minds about a lot of things... particularly the person of Jesus and those who believe the things he said and did. Sometimes that just takes a while, and time is on God's side.
He might be on to something with that thought.... the answer of course is Jesus.
Satin is notable because he is tends to be neither left nor right. In fact, he believes that he takes the “concerns of the left and right – and builds on them toward something new.” He is neither thesis nor antitheseis, but rather, a man of synthesis, and he calls his form of politics “the emerging new politics.”
Satin claims to be the founder of an organization he calls the New World Alliance. which makes the claim that they are, “An Alliance of individuals to encourage ALL of us to look deeply and questioningly at our attitudes and values, our institutions, and the way we live . . . and, together, to create a New -- and better -- World.” At his webpage he states that the members of this organization "are not a political party, nor another special interest lobby, but rather something far more fundamental.”
But what exactly could be "more fundamental than politics? If it is not political, what is it? Religion? If religion, which one?
Does it even matter, and would any in particular be excluded from the mix?
One thing is certain, that is, the concept behind such thinking in one that believes in man's goodwill toward man, something "obviously" evident as we look back at human history... NOT. It's also a belief than man, no matter his belief in God has the superior intellect to justly manage all the affairs of the world, including food production and equitable dispersion of goods and services for all. Thes are lovely aspirations, but where is god in it all. Where is the Bible?
Without God, these ideas are what some people would call that call that socialism, others, who deliberately forget, or do not want to believe that "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," simply call it "change" and they try to be pluralistic in a world of opposites. It's a lovely dream until one awakens to the reality that mankind is not as benevolent a creature as he would like to think he is and totallu lost without God. For some, it never dawns upon then that they are double minded in their thinking as they strive onward to what they call sustainability or perhaps a more "Natural Genesis."
Satin is not an atheist, and he is definately looking for answers as he tries to solve the problems of the world. He says he recently discovered the Bible and now believes the Bible, even believes it to be "the very best tool we have for accessing the complexity, the many-sidedness, and the terrible bitter truths of our world ." He endorses it saying "that the Bible is the one essential social change manual for grown-ups, be they 18 or 81 years of age." He concluded that it is the Master Book for Our Time.
Indeed it is...and it does not come back void. Certainly it has a perspective to lend to our minds about a lot of things... particularly the person of Jesus and those who believe the things he said and did. Sometimes that just takes a while, and time is on God's side.
In 2008 Satin said, (at his radical middle website,) "I read the Bible for the first time at the end of last year, and I’ve been reading Bible commentaries and better translations ever since. On another level, though, I’ve always been searching for a book like the Bible. For my entire adult life, I’ve been searching for a book – a One Book, a Master Text -- that could show us how to change the world for the better."
He might be on to something with that thought.... the answer of course is Jesus.
Oprah Winfrey
Known as the “queen of talk shows,” Oprah Winfrey is nearly a household name in most parts of the USA. Her talk show, called the Oprah Winfrey Show claims to be watched by 15-20 million viewers each day in the U.S. Additionally it is being broadcast in in over 100 different countries. producers of the show plan to keep it on the air until 2011.
Oprah herself is so much more than just a talk show host; although that is what she is perhaps best known for. She has acted in films, published her own books, and as of this writing she even publishes two magazines, a website, a satellite radio station, and has her own book club for her TV viewers, through which she recommends various books for them to read, politicians to vote for, causes to support, foods to eat and diets to try; and they do. If Oprah recommends a book, it is practically guaranteed to sell over 1,000,000 copies. She was named as America's most influential woman in 2007, by USA Today Magazine. Many authors have Oprah's endorsement to thank for their books sales.
Being influential comes not only from being the hostess of what is perhaps the "most watched television talk show in America," Oprah also has a lot of money. She is named as the wealthiest African American in the 20th Century. (She is a billionaire,) Make no mistake, when Oprah talks, people listen, and as she speaks she is often an openly active and avid promoter of New Age spiritualism and socialist philosophies. This had not always been the case. For a long time and when she first began he talk show... before she was rich and famous, Oprah Winfrey was Christian.
Oprah herself says that she was raised in a Christian environment, where she says she was, “singing songs about Jesus.” She even maintains verbally that she is most definitely a “Christian” and often demonstrates her faith by the wearing of a symbolic cross around her neck. She is happy to talk about Jesus, religion and “spiritual” issues on her television show and she says she does so because she wants to help people “get in touch with the spiritual part of their lives.” However, she’ll be the first to admit that she doesn’t believe that Jesus is the only way to God the Father. She says, and I was one who watched the show air when it did on television, “There couldn’t possibly be only one way to God.”
Oprah dotes over her "spiritually minded" guests like Marianne Williamson, Shirley Maclaine, Deepak Chopra, Gary Zukav, Eckhart Tolle, Iyanla Vanzant, and perhaps most notably, Eric Butterworth whom she claims changed her mind about religion. Oprah says that is was Butterworth’s book, Discover The Power Within You (1992) that changed her life with the revelation that, "God isn't up there. He exists inside each one of us, and it's up to us to seek the divine within."
Butterworth’s book that Oprah has spoken so highly about says, (Pg. 8) “The message of the Gospels has been misunderstood. They have been made to appear to say that Jesus was really God taking the form of man.” Butterworth does not believe in the very foundational aspect of Christian belief, the Incarnation. Sinners repenting and believing God is antithetical to his teaching. Instead, "The Truth of the Divinity of Man,” is what he believes the “message of the gospels.” 'really' is and this is what Oprah now thinks the gospel is as she ministers likewise to her her followers in the TV watching world.
Oprah, in this video with Eckhart Tolle, and with all the world is open and quite frank about her new beliefs. It's not a secret that she embraces what she does. She embraces Obama for President, Eckhart Tolle as a spiritual guide and teacher and rejects the message of the apostles and saints of God throughout history. She may have been a Christian at one time in her life, but she no longer believes Jesus Christ is the Only way to God. According to Oprah, “God is a feeling experience and not a believing experience. If your religion is a believing experience…then that’s not truly God,” or so she said during the web seminar regarding Tolle's book, A New Earth. This may even lead, says Chuck Norris, to redefining not only Christianity, but "Easter."
As for Christianity and it's steadfast truths, we have heard preached to us the good news of the God's salvation, the gospel preached by those true disciples of Jesus who believed that Jesus was the the Word of God made flesh and that being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. Jesus was God, Immanuel, who came to dwell among us.
The apostles, Christ's disciples, believed Jesus was the Promised One of God, seed of the woman.... and they knew him personally, by name. They knew his family, his mother and his brothers. They watched him being Crucified; they saw him after he raise to life again after being dead. These were they who admitted their guilt, repented of their sin and disobedience to God, who miraculously believed the things that God himself did and what he said. They believed the revelation from God that God was God and there was none but him and that God alone could save, heal and restore not only mankind but all creation, with a Word, a word expressed in his very name, Jesus.
It does all come down to who and what a person is willing to believe in. For Oprah, surrounded by fame and fortune, clouded by delusion of the greatest kind it's currently Eric Butterworth... Eckhart Tolle, or anyone who tells her exactly what she want's to hear...that she is willing to believe in. She is not alone in is ubleieve or her delusion; she's a lot like the rest of us, human.
Yes, no matter the color of our skin or the size of our bank account, the book we read or do not read, we are all a part of what we call the human race. Red and yellow, black and white, we human beings are presicious in His sight....(John 3:16) and we are all sons and daughters, not only of life longing for itself, not only our own parents, but of the first humans to grace the Earth, Adam and Eve who were created by special creation of God.
As humans we all also struggle with what we believe; (Mark 9:24) and unfortunately we do not always want to hear the truth nor want to believe in things we have not made up for ourselves. But the truth is that Jesus is real. He really did exist, he really died and he was risen from the dead. The things he said and did have been preserved for us in the Bible, and even Eckhart Tolle teaches his celebrity student Oprah many of the things Jesus said and did that are recorded for us in this holy book.
Like Jesus said, He is the way the truth and the life, He also said no one comes to the Father, (God) except through Him. (John 14:6) He also said that if you do know the truth, (meaning Him and the truth he taught.. (.not some other fancy guru/spiritual leader) it is a very good thing, because the truth will set you free. Oprah, like the rest of us would do much better, would know the truth, if she would simply be humble as a little child, and learn from the real spiritual master: Jesus.
Jesus himself said, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32 (KJV)
Oprah herself is so much more than just a talk show host; although that is what she is perhaps best known for. She has acted in films, published her own books, and as of this writing she even publishes two magazines, a website, a satellite radio station, and has her own book club for her TV viewers, through which she recommends various books for them to read, politicians to vote for, causes to support, foods to eat and diets to try; and they do. If Oprah recommends a book, it is practically guaranteed to sell over 1,000,000 copies. She was named as America's most influential woman in 2007, by USA Today Magazine. Many authors have Oprah's endorsement to thank for their books sales.
Being influential comes not only from being the hostess of what is perhaps the "most watched television talk show in America," Oprah also has a lot of money. She is named as the wealthiest African American in the 20th Century. (She is a billionaire,) Make no mistake, when Oprah talks, people listen, and as she speaks she is often an openly active and avid promoter of New Age spiritualism and socialist philosophies. This had not always been the case. For a long time and when she first began he talk show... before she was rich and famous, Oprah Winfrey was Christian.
Oprah herself says that she was raised in a Christian environment, where she says she was, “singing songs about Jesus.” She even maintains verbally that she is most definitely a “Christian” and often demonstrates her faith by the wearing of a symbolic cross around her neck. She is happy to talk about Jesus, religion and “spiritual” issues on her television show and she says she does so because she wants to help people “get in touch with the spiritual part of their lives.” However, she’ll be the first to admit that she doesn’t believe that Jesus is the only way to God the Father. She says, and I was one who watched the show air when it did on television, “There couldn’t possibly be only one way to God.”
Oprah dotes over her "spiritually minded" guests like Marianne Williamson, Shirley Maclaine, Deepak Chopra, Gary Zukav, Eckhart Tolle, Iyanla Vanzant, and perhaps most notably, Eric Butterworth whom she claims changed her mind about religion. Oprah says that is was Butterworth’s book, Discover The Power Within You (1992) that changed her life with the revelation that, "God isn't up there. He exists inside each one of us, and it's up to us to seek the divine within."
Butterworth’s book that Oprah has spoken so highly about says, (Pg. 8) “The message of the Gospels has been misunderstood. They have been made to appear to say that Jesus was really God taking the form of man.” Butterworth does not believe in the very foundational aspect of Christian belief, the Incarnation. Sinners repenting and believing God is antithetical to his teaching. Instead, "The Truth of the Divinity of Man,” is what he believes the “message of the gospels.” 'really' is and this is what Oprah now thinks the gospel is as she ministers likewise to her her followers in the TV watching world.
Oprah, in this video with Eckhart Tolle, and with all the world is open and quite frank about her new beliefs. It's not a secret that she embraces what she does. She embraces Obama for President, Eckhart Tolle as a spiritual guide and teacher and rejects the message of the apostles and saints of God throughout history. She may have been a Christian at one time in her life, but she no longer believes Jesus Christ is the Only way to God. According to Oprah, “God is a feeling experience and not a believing experience. If your religion is a believing experience…then that’s not truly God,” or so she said during the web seminar regarding Tolle's book, A New Earth. This may even lead, says Chuck Norris, to redefining not only Christianity, but "Easter."
As for Christianity and it's steadfast truths, we have heard preached to us the good news of the God's salvation, the gospel preached by those true disciples of Jesus who believed that Jesus was the the Word of God made flesh and that being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. Jesus was God, Immanuel, who came to dwell among us.
The apostles, Christ's disciples, believed Jesus was the Promised One of God, seed of the woman.... and they knew him personally, by name. They knew his family, his mother and his brothers. They watched him being Crucified; they saw him after he raise to life again after being dead. These were they who admitted their guilt, repented of their sin and disobedience to God, who miraculously believed the things that God himself did and what he said. They believed the revelation from God that God was God and there was none but him and that God alone could save, heal and restore not only mankind but all creation, with a Word, a word expressed in his very name, Jesus.
It does all come down to who and what a person is willing to believe in. For Oprah, surrounded by fame and fortune, clouded by delusion of the greatest kind it's currently Eric Butterworth... Eckhart Tolle, or anyone who tells her exactly what she want's to hear...that she is willing to believe in. She is not alone in is ubleieve or her delusion; she's a lot like the rest of us, human.
Yes, no matter the color of our skin or the size of our bank account, the book we read or do not read, we are all a part of what we call the human race. Red and yellow, black and white, we human beings are presicious in His sight....(John 3:16) and we are all sons and daughters, not only of life longing for itself, not only our own parents, but of the first humans to grace the Earth, Adam and Eve who were created by special creation of God.
As humans we all also struggle with what we believe; (Mark 9:24) and unfortunately we do not always want to hear the truth nor want to believe in things we have not made up for ourselves. But the truth is that Jesus is real. He really did exist, he really died and he was risen from the dead. The things he said and did have been preserved for us in the Bible, and even Eckhart Tolle teaches his celebrity student Oprah many of the things Jesus said and did that are recorded for us in this holy book.
Like Jesus said, He is the way the truth and the life, He also said no one comes to the Father, (God) except through Him. (John 14:6) He also said that if you do know the truth, (meaning Him and the truth he taught.. (.not some other fancy guru/spiritual leader) it is a very good thing, because the truth will set you free. Oprah, like the rest of us would do much better, would know the truth, if she would simply be humble as a little child, and learn from the real spiritual master: Jesus.
Jesus himself said, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32 (KJV)
Life, the Universe and Everything
Life, the universe and everything is a line from a book titled, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The title was first used in reference to a 1978 BBC Radio Comedy that became a TV series and made it's way into computer gaming, more Tv series, comic books, a novel and the movies.
The novel, by the author, Douglas Adams is a story that begins with a brief narrative of human history from the beginning of time; a sort of history of "Evolution," about how mankind previously to what he is today being some form of arboreal ape that "came down out of the trees" (and has been regretting it ever since.) Hitchhikers Guide is in it's totality, a cosmic, albeit comic tale, of a man who is rescued via spacecraft from an exploding earth and travels the galaxies of space via the wisdom of little book and traveling companion... an alien being who becomes his friend, just at the nick of time when Earth is finally, at the very end of what is now known to man, destroyed.
Having been saved from destruction, this hitchiker, Authur Dent, and his new found alien friend, with the help of the guide book, a highly technologically advanced device by which everything aboutt he univerwe can be known, travel, enounter beings of strange origin and have adventures where they trun into things like couches. The guide book, it should be noted, is reminiscent of a bible, but it's not a Bible, just a Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe, which is said to be, (pun intended no doubt by Douglas Adams himself,) a “wholly" (or it is "holy.") "remarkable book.”
From the very intro this evolutionary based, atheistic sci-fi fantasy makes reference to religion and the references to Christianity are not subtle. In preface, the reader is informed that the story about to be read took place just as a girl, sitting in a cafe, was thinking about how some guy got hung on a tree about 2000 years ago for telling everyone that the world would be a better place if everyone would just be nice to each other, an obvious, (or maybe not so obvious?) reference to Jesus Christ.
The girl, as we learn, just then got an idea about how the time was right to make the world a better place... and this was so that no one would have to get hung on a tree. However, (sadly) just before she was able to tell anyone her great idea.... (you guessed it...) the earth was destroyed (except for Authur Dent) and the idea she had, as well as herself, was now lost forever. The reader is then informed that the book, Hitchhikers Guide, is not her story, but rather: “it is the story of the terrible, stupid, catastrophe,” in which she lost her meaningless life and presumably great thought about how to make the world a better place.... and that guy who hung on the tree 2000 years ago.. obviously for nothing, because Earth is no more, and Aurthur is busy making a dent in the galaxy.
Douglas Adams himself never got to see the modern movie. Adams, a professed atheist who no doubt knew a lot about the guy who hung on a tree 2000 years ago, died at the age of 49 of a heart attack.
Throughout his life, Adams emphatically said he was convinced there was no God, (having never seen any evidence to convince him otherwise,) and his work certainly reflects his beliefs. He was however quite amused that "otherwise rational... intelligent people..” who take belief in God seriously, and so, he says, his work is a reflection of that.
The novel, by the author, Douglas Adams is a story that begins with a brief narrative of human history from the beginning of time; a sort of history of "Evolution," about how mankind previously to what he is today being some form of arboreal ape that "came down out of the trees" (and has been regretting it ever since.) Hitchhikers Guide is in it's totality, a cosmic, albeit comic tale, of a man who is rescued via spacecraft from an exploding earth and travels the galaxies of space via the wisdom of little book and traveling companion... an alien being who becomes his friend, just at the nick of time when Earth is finally, at the very end of what is now known to man, destroyed.
Having been saved from destruction, this hitchiker, Authur Dent, and his new found alien friend, with the help of the guide book, a highly technologically advanced device by which everything aboutt he univerwe can be known, travel, enounter beings of strange origin and have adventures where they trun into things like couches. The guide book, it should be noted, is reminiscent of a bible, but it's not a Bible, just a Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe, which is said to be, (pun intended no doubt by Douglas Adams himself,) a “wholly" (or it is "holy.") "remarkable book.”
From the very intro this evolutionary based, atheistic sci-fi fantasy makes reference to religion and the references to Christianity are not subtle. In preface, the reader is informed that the story about to be read took place just as a girl, sitting in a cafe, was thinking about how some guy got hung on a tree about 2000 years ago for telling everyone that the world would be a better place if everyone would just be nice to each other, an obvious, (or maybe not so obvious?) reference to Jesus Christ.
The girl, as we learn, just then got an idea about how the time was right to make the world a better place... and this was so that no one would have to get hung on a tree. However, (sadly) just before she was able to tell anyone her great idea.... (you guessed it...) the earth was destroyed (except for Authur Dent) and the idea she had, as well as herself, was now lost forever. The reader is then informed that the book, Hitchhikers Guide, is not her story, but rather: “it is the story of the terrible, stupid, catastrophe,” in which she lost her meaningless life and presumably great thought about how to make the world a better place.... and that guy who hung on the tree 2000 years ago.. obviously for nothing, because Earth is no more, and Aurthur is busy making a dent in the galaxy.
Douglas Adams himself never got to see the modern movie. Adams, a professed atheist who no doubt knew a lot about the guy who hung on a tree 2000 years ago, died at the age of 49 of a heart attack.
Throughout his life, Adams emphatically said he was convinced there was no God, (having never seen any evidence to convince him otherwise,) and his work certainly reflects his beliefs. He was however quite amused that "otherwise rational... intelligent people..” who take belief in God seriously, and so, he says, his work is a reflection of that.
Emergent
The Emergent Church, is a diverse and controversial spiritual movement of the twentieth century. Some people consider it blasphemous nonsense whole others think that it’s the church of the future. Which is it?
Some notable proponents of the Emergent Church as listed on Wikipedia under this heading are: Spencer Burke, Brian McLauren, Doug Pagitt, Leonard Sweet, Dallas Willard, and Karen Ward, all of whom regularly find their names in magazines like Christianity Today and being talked about on Christian talkshows and webspaces. There are other "big" names as well; these re but a few. According to Wikipedia, The Emergent Church began in what was known as the Willow Creek “Natural Church Development” movement, a movement that “seeks to deconstruct and reconstruct Christianity.” Generally speaking, the emergent model of "spirituality" is a lot like NEw Age thought, in that it is void of a mutually agreed-on set of beliefs. They refrain from doctrine, and seek merely to gather people together to talk about God and Jesus.
Many members of the new movement just plainly reject long held biblical doctrines pertaining to salvation and the reality of hell. There is a real move away from professing that Christianity is true and that God’s word is authoritative. Brian McLauren, one of the more outspoken voices in the movement, said in a 2005 Baptist Press article, “Those of us in the west now ... realize that there were a lot of bad consequences of European and American people trying to tell everybody else how things are.” While being coy about definitive doctrines and biblical beliefs, these people want to remain religious, and of course “spiritually minded,” but they are not into converting people. Placing no emphais on conversion, they do place importance on discipleship.They want people to think like they do. It is as if they want people to follow them, but not Christ.
For example, McLauren, in his book, A Generous Orthodoxy, Why I am a Missional Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN (2004) says, “I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts. This will be hard, you say, I agree. But frankly, it’s not at all easy to be a follower of Jesus in many “Christian” religious contexts either” (p.260).
Like visiting some strange foreign continent from the comfort of your living room via video, the emergent disciple never has to leave his or her false religious system and enter into the Kingdom of God theough the only door there is, the one he has established, JEsus. They can do world missions, participate in great works of humanitarian aid and even make proselytes (a.k.a. disciples) who believe and say whatever they want to believe and say about Jesus Christ and the Bible, not to mention life, the universe and everything, and remain Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem and Jewish. Remaining where they are most comfortable, these people never have to don the proper equipment and this being the case, they may never have an encounter with the very thing that washes them white as snow or dresses them for entry into the real city of joy.
People wear their own preferred religion, their own religious ideas and sometimes they even like it, but a Christian is to put on Christ. A Christian is to share God's thoughts, have the mind of Christ, to be conformed to his image and design and to believe upon the One He sent to seek and save the lost. Religion, like a fig leaf, at least covers us with something, and proves perhaps that we know we have a spiritual need, something to show we are interested in covering our sin, but false religion is not the right attire for God's kingdom.
God made a way to cover our sin, Christ. With that in mind, to remain in one’s man created, works oriented religion, and think you are a disciple of Jesus who is "truth" and "life" is also false. Keeping the old attire is appealing to the earthly part of us, and quite convenient when you think you want to have the best of both worlds. Christianity however is not just another religious leaf to add to one's collection, it's a white robe of God's righteousness, and nothing of your own.
People must be converted.
(2 Corinthians 5:17; .(Matt 13:15; Matt 18:3; Mar 4:12 ;)
Some notable proponents of the Emergent Church as listed on Wikipedia under this heading are: Spencer Burke, Brian McLauren, Doug Pagitt, Leonard Sweet, Dallas Willard, and Karen Ward, all of whom regularly find their names in magazines like Christianity Today and being talked about on Christian talkshows and webspaces. There are other "big" names as well; these re but a few. According to Wikipedia, The Emergent Church began in what was known as the Willow Creek “Natural Church Development” movement, a movement that “seeks to deconstruct and reconstruct Christianity.” Generally speaking, the emergent model of "spirituality" is a lot like NEw Age thought, in that it is void of a mutually agreed-on set of beliefs. They refrain from doctrine, and seek merely to gather people together to talk about God and Jesus.
Many members of the new movement just plainly reject long held biblical doctrines pertaining to salvation and the reality of hell. There is a real move away from professing that Christianity is true and that God’s word is authoritative. Brian McLauren, one of the more outspoken voices in the movement, said in a 2005 Baptist Press article, “Those of us in the west now ... realize that there were a lot of bad consequences of European and American people trying to tell everybody else how things are.” While being coy about definitive doctrines and biblical beliefs, these people want to remain religious, and of course “spiritually minded,” but they are not into converting people. Placing no emphais on conversion, they do place importance on discipleship.They want people to think like they do. It is as if they want people to follow them, but not Christ.
For example, McLauren, in his book, A Generous Orthodoxy, Why I am a Missional Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN (2004) says, “I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish contexts. This will be hard, you say, I agree. But frankly, it’s not at all easy to be a follower of Jesus in many “Christian” religious contexts either” (p.260).
Like visiting some strange foreign continent from the comfort of your living room via video, the emergent disciple never has to leave his or her false religious system and enter into the Kingdom of God theough the only door there is, the one he has established, JEsus. They can do world missions, participate in great works of humanitarian aid and even make proselytes (a.k.a. disciples) who believe and say whatever they want to believe and say about Jesus Christ and the Bible, not to mention life, the universe and everything, and remain Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem and Jewish. Remaining where they are most comfortable, these people never have to don the proper equipment and this being the case, they may never have an encounter with the very thing that washes them white as snow or dresses them for entry into the real city of joy.
People wear their own preferred religion, their own religious ideas and sometimes they even like it, but a Christian is to put on Christ. A Christian is to share God's thoughts, have the mind of Christ, to be conformed to his image and design and to believe upon the One He sent to seek and save the lost. Religion, like a fig leaf, at least covers us with something, and proves perhaps that we know we have a spiritual need, something to show we are interested in covering our sin, but false religion is not the right attire for God's kingdom.
God made a way to cover our sin, Christ. With that in mind, to remain in one’s man created, works oriented religion, and think you are a disciple of Jesus who is "truth" and "life" is also false. Keeping the old attire is appealing to the earthly part of us, and quite convenient when you think you want to have the best of both worlds. Christianity however is not just another religious leaf to add to one's collection, it's a white robe of God's righteousness, and nothing of your own.
People must be converted.
(2 Corinthians 5:17; .(Matt 13:15; Matt 18:3; Mar 4:12 ;)
Pope Benedict XVI
The newest Pope is Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now named Pope Benedict XVI. He is the 265th Pope according to the records of Roman Catholic Church. John Paul, who preceded him died April 2, 2005, and was buried on April 8th.
The process of finding a successor to John Paul...not the first, but the second, began when the College of Cardinals began meeting April 18th to do just that. Many of the Catholic faithful gathered in Rome to see who would be selected as the next head of the church. There would be a srot of election behind closed doors and they would know if a new pope had been chosen by the color of smoke that they saw rise from the Sistine Chapel chimney. It took a while, but eventually white smoke rising from the chimney gave the first indication that someone had been chosen; his name was Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who upon being selected as Pope, then became Pope Benedict XVI.
Ratzinger said he was surprised, but the waiting watching world wasn’t. Many people believed he was a “shoo-in” for the job, as he was not only close confidant to John Paul II, but he had all the credentials to the the next Pope.
As early as November 1981, Cardinal Ratzinger had been summoned to Rome by Pope John Paul II, and named "Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and President of the International Theological Commission." In addition Ratzinger had published several best-selling books which have served to clarify the catholic faith, practice and doctrine for today's Roman Catholic faithful. His works include, The Ratzinger Report, (1985) God and the World, (2002) Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, (2003) Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion, (2005) and God’s Revolution (2006.)Honoring Ratzinger, Catholic publisher, Ignatius Press president, Mark Brumley said, “He staunchly proclaims the universal call to holiness of Vatican II…. He understands the importance of dialogue among Christians and dialogue with world religions and seekers, while he upholds the integrity of Catholic faith and insists on a renewed missionary drive to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world."
Now that he is Pope, he no longer goes by the title of Ratzinger. He has chosen to be named Benedict, like sixteen other Popes before him, who presumable take their name from St. Benedict,the founder of twelve communities for monks which used what is called Benedictine rule. .
You and I may address Pope Benedict the Sixteenth as "His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI," but his official title as Pope is, "His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Providence, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God." And as note, the term "Patriarch of the West" (which also used to be part of that title) has been omitted with no explanation for the change, the Vatican only says that this change made in March 2006 was done at the request of Pope Benedict himself.
The process of finding a successor to John Paul...not the first, but the second, began when the College of Cardinals began meeting April 18th to do just that. Many of the Catholic faithful gathered in Rome to see who would be selected as the next head of the church. There would be a srot of election behind closed doors and they would know if a new pope had been chosen by the color of smoke that they saw rise from the Sistine Chapel chimney. It took a while, but eventually white smoke rising from the chimney gave the first indication that someone had been chosen; his name was Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who upon being selected as Pope, then became Pope Benedict XVI.
Ratzinger said he was surprised, but the waiting watching world wasn’t. Many people believed he was a “shoo-in” for the job, as he was not only close confidant to John Paul II, but he had all the credentials to the the next Pope.
As early as November 1981, Cardinal Ratzinger had been summoned to Rome by Pope John Paul II, and named "Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, and President of the International Theological Commission." In addition Ratzinger had published several best-selling books which have served to clarify the catholic faith, practice and doctrine for today's Roman Catholic faithful. His works include, The Ratzinger Report, (1985) God and the World, (2002) Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, (2003) Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion, (2005) and God’s Revolution (2006.)Honoring Ratzinger, Catholic publisher, Ignatius Press president, Mark Brumley said, “He staunchly proclaims the universal call to holiness of Vatican II…. He understands the importance of dialogue among Christians and dialogue with world religions and seekers, while he upholds the integrity of Catholic faith and insists on a renewed missionary drive to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world."
Now that he is Pope, he no longer goes by the title of Ratzinger. He has chosen to be named Benedict, like sixteen other Popes before him, who presumable take their name from St. Benedict,the founder of twelve communities for monks which used what is called Benedictine rule. .
You and I may address Pope Benedict the Sixteenth as "His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI," but his official title as Pope is, "His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Providence, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God." And as note, the term "Patriarch of the West" (which also used to be part of that title) has been omitted with no explanation for the change, the Vatican only says that this change made in March 2006 was done at the request of Pope Benedict himself.
Purple Haze
Purple lies somewhere between blue and red... It could be magenta or heliotrope, depending on the saturation. It's the color of royalty because in earlier days, cloth made of purple dye was very expensive. Haze, is aa rather meteorological term, referring to an atmospheric phenomenon whereby dust, smoke and other dry particles obscure the clarity of the sky. "Purple Haze" is the title of a song by Rock guitarist, Jimmi Hendrix from an album called, “Are you Experienced.”
Jimmi Hendrix, born Johnny Allen Hendrix in 1942, was famous for his msic, attire and his use of psychedelic drugs. The word, “experience”in this particular album title, may or may not refer to the drug experience and "purple haze" may or may not refer to a particular type of LSD, (also called acid) but truth is that Hendrix was known to experiment with it. When asked if this was the case or not, Hendrix claimed the title to the song had nothing to do with drugs. In fact, he said that the song is said to have an original title of “Purple Haze-Jesus Saves.” He said that he had changed it before it was recorded. Hendrix's story about the song itself is that it is about a dream, not an acid trip.
In his dream, he says that he was walking under the sea, surrounded by purple haze. He became lost and Jesus saved him. So, it’s not about being in a Purple Haze while you are on drugs, or anything like that…at least according to Hendrix. Hendrix died September 18th, 1970, in London, possibly from a drug overdose, but maybe asphyxiated with either vomit or wine as the autopsy showed.
But let's look at LSD...What is LSD anyhow?
LSD, (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) was a popular drug in the 60’s. It is a hallucinogenic drug whose creation was first documented in Holland by Albert Hofmann in 1938. It is derived from a fungus that grows on grains, particularly rye.
During the sixties the drug called acid or LSD became a recreational drug one that Henrdix recreated with. The “experiences” were refereed to as “trips” and have been described by some survivors as inducing mystical, brilliantly colorful, psychedelic, religious-like experiences. The sensory perception of a person who is “high,”on LSD becomes distorted. One of the most famous people in the drug culture and outspokenly that promoted the use of LSD was another man, named Timothy Leary.
Timothy Leary, who died in 1996, was an avid and LSD advocate. He became famous when he was kicked out of Harvard University for using student volunteers in his drug studies. Over the course of his life, he spent time in jail for possession of marijuana and even at one time escaped prison, only to be apprehended by the FBI in Afghanistan. Leary became well-known as a professional druggie, and is considered by some to be an “avatar of the mind,” He is known as a proponent of the “spiritual” use of LSD and other mind altering drugs.
Another LSD expert is Augustus Owsley Stanley III. (not the deceased Kentucky Senator.) It was this guy who was the first “hippie alchemist” to produce very pure LSD in his home which he then sold in mass quantities. His specialties were the legendary Purple Haze, White Lightening, and Orange Sunshine, which he marketed on the streets in San Francisco, California. In 1967, he was arrested when he was found in possession of several hundred thousand individual doses and he was imprisoned for three years as a result. Stanley is thought to be responsible for most of the LSD used in the 60’s when this song wa popular:
Purple Haze... Jimmi Hendrix
(lyrics)
Purple Haze all in my brain,
lately things don't seem the same,
actin' funny but I don't know why
'scuse me while I kiss the sky.
Purple Haze all around,
don't know if I'm comin' up or down.
Am I happy or in misery?
Whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me.
Purple Haze all in my eyes,
don't know if it's day or night,
you've got me blowing, blowing my mind
is it tomorrow or just the end of time?
Jimmi Hendrix, born Johnny Allen Hendrix in 1942, was famous for his msic, attire and his use of psychedelic drugs. The word, “experience”in this particular album title, may or may not refer to the drug experience and "purple haze" may or may not refer to a particular type of LSD, (also called acid) but truth is that Hendrix was known to experiment with it. When asked if this was the case or not, Hendrix claimed the title to the song had nothing to do with drugs. In fact, he said that the song is said to have an original title of “Purple Haze-Jesus Saves.” He said that he had changed it before it was recorded. Hendrix's story about the song itself is that it is about a dream, not an acid trip.
In his dream, he says that he was walking under the sea, surrounded by purple haze. He became lost and Jesus saved him. So, it’s not about being in a Purple Haze while you are on drugs, or anything like that…at least according to Hendrix. Hendrix died September 18th, 1970, in London, possibly from a drug overdose, but maybe asphyxiated with either vomit or wine as the autopsy showed.
But let's look at LSD...What is LSD anyhow?
LSD, (Lysergic Acid Diethylamide) was a popular drug in the 60’s. It is a hallucinogenic drug whose creation was first documented in Holland by Albert Hofmann in 1938. It is derived from a fungus that grows on grains, particularly rye.
During the sixties the drug called acid or LSD became a recreational drug one that Henrdix recreated with. The “experiences” were refereed to as “trips” and have been described by some survivors as inducing mystical, brilliantly colorful, psychedelic, religious-like experiences. The sensory perception of a person who is “high,”on LSD becomes distorted. One of the most famous people in the drug culture and outspokenly that promoted the use of LSD was another man, named Timothy Leary.
Timothy Leary, who died in 1996, was an avid and LSD advocate. He became famous when he was kicked out of Harvard University for using student volunteers in his drug studies. Over the course of his life, he spent time in jail for possession of marijuana and even at one time escaped prison, only to be apprehended by the FBI in Afghanistan. Leary became well-known as a professional druggie, and is considered by some to be an “avatar of the mind,” He is known as a proponent of the “spiritual” use of LSD and other mind altering drugs.
Another LSD expert is Augustus Owsley Stanley III. (not the deceased Kentucky Senator.) It was this guy who was the first “hippie alchemist” to produce very pure LSD in his home which he then sold in mass quantities. His specialties were the legendary Purple Haze, White Lightening, and Orange Sunshine, which he marketed on the streets in San Francisco, California. In 1967, he was arrested when he was found in possession of several hundred thousand individual doses and he was imprisoned for three years as a result. Stanley is thought to be responsible for most of the LSD used in the 60’s when this song wa popular:
Purple Haze... Jimmi Hendrix
(lyrics)
Purple Haze all in my brain,
lately things don't seem the same,
actin' funny but I don't know why
'scuse me while I kiss the sky.
Purple Haze all around,
don't know if I'm comin' up or down.
Am I happy or in misery?
Whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me.
Purple Haze all in my eyes,
don't know if it's day or night,
you've got me blowing, blowing my mind
is it tomorrow or just the end of time?
Martin Luther Kings and Co.
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929- 1968) is named after his father, “Martin Luther King,” who, lived from 1899-1984. Though born as Michael King, the senior King changed his name when he entered his "ministry" career, to Martin “Luther,” King in order to be reminiscent of the famous man named Martin Luther, who posted his 95 thesis on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, October 31, 1517. King senior named his son after himself and his son, junior did likewise to his own son. There is Martin Luther King the I,II, and III.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s son, Martin Luther King III, follows in his father’s footsteps as a political activist. He currently serves as Chairman and CEO of Realizing the Dream, Inc., an organization that says it, “promotes and embodies justice, equality, and the ‘beloved’ community through specific sustainable initiatives in economic development, non-violence and conflict resolution training, and targeted leadership development for youth.... Realizing the Dream, Inc. is a 501c(3) non-profit organization that continues the humanitarian and liberating work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King,” but this article is not about him, it is about his dad, Martin Luther King II.
King II, made it a point to say he was a Negro man, and he lived at a time in history that was in great turmoil, (much like every time in human history.) He lived at a time when people involved in various political, religious, social and economic forces contended for superiority in our human systems.
It was a time of rising tensions between people groups, and rising tensions, as they often do, create an atmosphere of uncertainty. Streets were bursting out with violence over racial issues. People (of every color) lived in poverty and many lives were touched by all sorts of crime. Government offices vulnerable to corruption themselves had to deal with corruption and with issues of war and threat of war. In a time of tension, one voice that rose to the top of the heap was Martin Luther King Junior and he emerged well known as a social-political, even religious leader.
At this particular time in human history, “Christian” America, (a land founded on Biblical principals,) was under attack. Darwinian thought on the issue of evolution was being accepted in the minds of many who thought of themselves as "intellectuals." Some even falsely reasoned that perhaps God did use evolution for a means of creation, and if he did, (at least according to the theory of evolution,) then one could know the color of them that would be the superior race and the color of them that were not, and as thoughts spread like wilfire, so did emotion and fear. In some place, particularly the south, prejudice was growing between races.
Prejudice was nothing new, but since harsh feelings and emotions about slavery and evolution theory had been turned into segregation, Satan had new fuel for his destructive fire. This fuel streamed like a river into American life. King, is honored today because in his day, he was like a firefighter, one who worked to put the racial prejudice fires that raged...out. He did this by organizing people to gather and demonstrate, and encouraging them to have a voice without perpetrating violence.
King Jr. also was a man who stood out as being concerned about “right and wrong” particularly according to Biblical principals, for example, that all people, red and yellow black and white are precious in God's sight. He even said that he believed that it was the Bible that led him to choose the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest over hatred and violence. King rightly declared to believe in an America where all people, regardless of color, would one-day sit together at one table, and where liberty and justice for all would reign.
For such noble thoughts, King was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, after which Martin Luther King Jr was reknown as "a man of peace." Then, one day in 1968, he was assassinated, and for this reason, many people now consider Martian Luther King Jr. a martyr for his faith, but it might surprise you to know that King, "man of peace" that people claimed him to be, didn't believe in the biblical Jesus.
Here in America, we now honor King in January via a National holiday that commemorates his birth.People think of him as a Christian minister, they consider hims a great leader, one incinciting people to non-violent political confrontation in order to create crisis and a platform for change. This angent of change is probably most remembered for a speech he gave August 13, 1963, when he gave the world his vision, saying, "I have a dream..."
King's famous speech, titled, “I have a Dream,” was given to the world during a march on Washington. His dream, he said, was “a continuation of 'the American Dream.' King himself described it as "the dream of a new reality upon the earth where all of God's children, could sit down at the table of brotherhood dispite outward differences, a world where character was what described a person,." He said in his speech, “ black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, would be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
One would think King were a Christian, being a "minister" and all. (After all, he pastored Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama. and even was a promoter of peace.) He attended thological seminaru he quoted scripture he talked often about God, and people even often called him “Reverend.” However as a man of the "Christian faith" Martin Luther King extensively studied not Jesus Christ or the Bible, but the writings and words of other men, like Gandhi.
It is well know that King was greatly influenced by Ghandi's views and philosophies, King even traveled to India in 1959 to learn how to employ Satyagraha, Ghandi’s preferred method of social change. King, it would seem from the words he left behind, preferred the wisdom of a man named Ghandi over Jesus. King also enjoyed the philosophy of Henry David Thoreau.
Thoreau, who believed that Jesus Christ was the "Prince of Reformers and Radicals" even said, "Christ was a sublime actor on the stage of the world,..... he taught mankind but imperfectly how to live; his thoughts were all directed to another world. There is another kind of success than his." (The Writings of Henry David Thoreau)
What “other” kind of success might this be, but earthly?
Like Thoreau recommended, King directed his thoughts, to another kind of success. His thoughts and actions were not directed “to another world” like Jesus, but rather to this one. The man whom angels proclaimed would bring peace on earth, goodwill to men, Jesus Christ, took second placethe mind of Martin Luther King Jr, (or maybe had no place at all).
In a 1949 paper written for a class, (source:Standford University's The King Papers Project, ) King refers to the ‘unscientific doctrines’ of the Christian faith held forth in the Apostles Creed, as "mere myth." Whether he was analyzing the contents of a book or giving his own opinion is not necessarily clear from the paper, but what is clear is that King does not speak in defense of scripture, or in the “defense” of the divinity of Christ. This paper of King's was written in response to a question that basically asks, “What led the early Christians to come up with the doctrines they hold as stated the well-known Apostles Creed?”Listening to King one would think, they had no basis, except for "mere myth," and what they borrowed, (the idea of Logos) from the concepts of the Greeks.
Instead of upholding the Christian doctrines, King not only states that the Apostles Creed is based on myth, but he causes confusion for people about Jesus' divine birth. He suggests to his reader that the origin of the concept of the virgin birth of Christ, is again the Greeks, as he says it is reminiscent of their mythology. King also “reminds” his readers that the term "virgin birth" is absent from the New Testament, and that "most likely" there is some misinterpretation of a term for “young woman,” translated "virgin" in the text. His choice of words indicate he believes that scripture is not true on such matters, and that the Apostles creed is invalid as the beliefs it contains is only "mere myth" as well. All this is enough to rightly question the viability of King being either a Christian or a Christian Pastor.
But wait, there's more:
In a paper titled The Humanity and Divinity of Jesus, archived at a Stanford webpage, (Stanford .edu) King wrote, “To say that the Christ, whose example of living we are bid to follow, is divine in an ontological sense is actually harmful and detrimental".... and "the orthodox view of the divinity of Christ is in my mind quite readily denied.”
In 1977, according to the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Educate webpage, Coretta King granted history Professor Clayborn Carson permission to examine papers stored in boxes in the basement of the King family home. These papers, sermon notes, outlines and sermon texts, in King's own handwriting, reveal that King’s concern about poverty, human rights and social justice, but they also reveal that king had his own beliefs. According to Dr, Carson of the King's Papers Project at Standfor, King believed, “the Pentateuch teachings were written by more than one author," " that the whale did not swallow Jonah,” and “that Jesus never met John the Baptist." King also wrote that he believed that the American Christian church was “the greatest preserver of the status quo” thereby, “one of the chief exponents of racial bigotry.” King also noted in the margin of one of his books that he was "ashamed of Christianity, but not of Christ.".
Was Martin Luther King Jr. Christian or not? A man of peace? Reverend? Pastor? Was he a hero? Martyr? Did he preach Jesus, as a preacher, or simply a social gospel, the message of "change?" You'll have to decide. There is a lot of both true and false information floating around about this man named King.
Here is yet something more to consider:
Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed, apparently assassinated, by a man named James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968. But this is another strange part of his story. There were no witnesses who actually saw Ray kill King, and to this day the whole crime remains shrouded in mystery. Ray, after first entering a plea of not guilty, changed his attorney and then he his mind about wheather or not he did it. He pleaded guilty, but after he was sentenced, Ray insisted he was really not guilty
In 1998, thirty years later, Ray died in prison for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s son, Martin Luther King III, follows in his father’s footsteps as a political activist. He currently serves as Chairman and CEO of Realizing the Dream, Inc., an organization that says it, “promotes and embodies justice, equality, and the ‘beloved’ community through specific sustainable initiatives in economic development, non-violence and conflict resolution training, and targeted leadership development for youth.... Realizing the Dream, Inc. is a 501c(3) non-profit organization that continues the humanitarian and liberating work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mrs. Coretta Scott King,” but this article is not about him, it is about his dad, Martin Luther King II.
King II, made it a point to say he was a Negro man, and he lived at a time in history that was in great turmoil, (much like every time in human history.) He lived at a time when people involved in various political, religious, social and economic forces contended for superiority in our human systems.
It was a time of rising tensions between people groups, and rising tensions, as they often do, create an atmosphere of uncertainty. Streets were bursting out with violence over racial issues. People (of every color) lived in poverty and many lives were touched by all sorts of crime. Government offices vulnerable to corruption themselves had to deal with corruption and with issues of war and threat of war. In a time of tension, one voice that rose to the top of the heap was Martin Luther King Junior and he emerged well known as a social-political, even religious leader.
At this particular time in human history, “Christian” America, (a land founded on Biblical principals,) was under attack. Darwinian thought on the issue of evolution was being accepted in the minds of many who thought of themselves as "intellectuals." Some even falsely reasoned that perhaps God did use evolution for a means of creation, and if he did, (at least according to the theory of evolution,) then one could know the color of them that would be the superior race and the color of them that were not, and as thoughts spread like wilfire, so did emotion and fear. In some place, particularly the south, prejudice was growing between races.
Prejudice was nothing new, but since harsh feelings and emotions about slavery and evolution theory had been turned into segregation, Satan had new fuel for his destructive fire. This fuel streamed like a river into American life. King, is honored today because in his day, he was like a firefighter, one who worked to put the racial prejudice fires that raged...out. He did this by organizing people to gather and demonstrate, and encouraging them to have a voice without perpetrating violence.
King Jr. also was a man who stood out as being concerned about “right and wrong” particularly according to Biblical principals, for example, that all people, red and yellow black and white are precious in God's sight. He even said that he believed that it was the Bible that led him to choose the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest over hatred and violence. King rightly declared to believe in an America where all people, regardless of color, would one-day sit together at one table, and where liberty and justice for all would reign.
For such noble thoughts, King was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, after which Martin Luther King Jr was reknown as "a man of peace." Then, one day in 1968, he was assassinated, and for this reason, many people now consider Martian Luther King Jr. a martyr for his faith, but it might surprise you to know that King, "man of peace" that people claimed him to be, didn't believe in the biblical Jesus.
Here in America, we now honor King in January via a National holiday that commemorates his birth.People think of him as a Christian minister, they consider hims a great leader, one incinciting people to non-violent political confrontation in order to create crisis and a platform for change. This angent of change is probably most remembered for a speech he gave August 13, 1963, when he gave the world his vision, saying, "I have a dream..."
King's famous speech, titled, “I have a Dream,” was given to the world during a march on Washington. His dream, he said, was “a continuation of 'the American Dream.' King himself described it as "the dream of a new reality upon the earth where all of God's children, could sit down at the table of brotherhood dispite outward differences, a world where character was what described a person,." He said in his speech, “ black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, would be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
One would think King were a Christian, being a "minister" and all. (After all, he pastored Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery Alabama. and even was a promoter of peace.) He attended thological seminaru he quoted scripture he talked often about God, and people even often called him “Reverend.” However as a man of the "Christian faith" Martin Luther King extensively studied not Jesus Christ or the Bible, but the writings and words of other men, like Gandhi.
It is well know that King was greatly influenced by Ghandi's views and philosophies, King even traveled to India in 1959 to learn how to employ Satyagraha, Ghandi’s preferred method of social change. King, it would seem from the words he left behind, preferred the wisdom of a man named Ghandi over Jesus. King also enjoyed the philosophy of Henry David Thoreau.
Thoreau, who believed that Jesus Christ was the "Prince of Reformers and Radicals" even said, "Christ was a sublime actor on the stage of the world,..... he taught mankind but imperfectly how to live; his thoughts were all directed to another world. There is another kind of success than his." (The Writings of Henry David Thoreau)
What “other” kind of success might this be, but earthly?
Like Thoreau recommended, King directed his thoughts, to another kind of success. His thoughts and actions were not directed “to another world” like Jesus, but rather to this one. The man whom angels proclaimed would bring peace on earth, goodwill to men, Jesus Christ, took second placethe mind of Martin Luther King Jr, (or maybe had no place at all).
In a 1949 paper written for a class, (source:Standford University's The King Papers Project, ) King refers to the ‘unscientific doctrines’ of the Christian faith held forth in the Apostles Creed, as "mere myth." Whether he was analyzing the contents of a book or giving his own opinion is not necessarily clear from the paper, but what is clear is that King does not speak in defense of scripture, or in the “defense” of the divinity of Christ. This paper of King's was written in response to a question that basically asks, “What led the early Christians to come up with the doctrines they hold as stated the well-known Apostles Creed?”Listening to King one would think, they had no basis, except for "mere myth," and what they borrowed, (the idea of Logos) from the concepts of the Greeks.
Instead of upholding the Christian doctrines, King not only states that the Apostles Creed is based on myth, but he causes confusion for people about Jesus' divine birth. He suggests to his reader that the origin of the concept of the virgin birth of Christ, is again the Greeks, as he says it is reminiscent of their mythology. King also “reminds” his readers that the term "virgin birth" is absent from the New Testament, and that "most likely" there is some misinterpretation of a term for “young woman,” translated "virgin" in the text. His choice of words indicate he believes that scripture is not true on such matters, and that the Apostles creed is invalid as the beliefs it contains is only "mere myth" as well. All this is enough to rightly question the viability of King being either a Christian or a Christian Pastor.
But wait, there's more:
In a paper titled The Humanity and Divinity of Jesus, archived at a Stanford webpage, (Stanford .edu) King wrote, “To say that the Christ, whose example of living we are bid to follow, is divine in an ontological sense is actually harmful and detrimental".... and "the orthodox view of the divinity of Christ is in my mind quite readily denied.”
In 1977, according to the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Educate webpage, Coretta King granted history Professor Clayborn Carson permission to examine papers stored in boxes in the basement of the King family home. These papers, sermon notes, outlines and sermon texts, in King's own handwriting, reveal that King’s concern about poverty, human rights and social justice, but they also reveal that king had his own beliefs. According to Dr, Carson of the King's Papers Project at Standfor, King believed, “the Pentateuch teachings were written by more than one author," " that the whale did not swallow Jonah,” and “that Jesus never met John the Baptist." King also wrote that he believed that the American Christian church was “the greatest preserver of the status quo” thereby, “one of the chief exponents of racial bigotry.” King also noted in the margin of one of his books that he was "ashamed of Christianity, but not of Christ.".
Was Martin Luther King Jr. Christian or not? A man of peace? Reverend? Pastor? Was he a hero? Martyr? Did he preach Jesus, as a preacher, or simply a social gospel, the message of "change?" You'll have to decide. There is a lot of both true and false information floating around about this man named King.
Here is yet something more to consider:
Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed, apparently assassinated, by a man named James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968. But this is another strange part of his story. There were no witnesses who actually saw Ray kill King, and to this day the whole crime remains shrouded in mystery. Ray, after first entering a plea of not guilty, changed his attorney and then he his mind about wheather or not he did it. He pleaded guilty, but after he was sentenced, Ray insisted he was really not guilty
In 1998, thirty years later, Ray died in prison for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Vatican City
Vatican City is an independent state in Rome, Italy where the Pope is an undisputed, absolute ruler. Located in the middle of Rome Italy, Vatican City is not part of Rome, nor is it a city in Italy. it is a country unto itself.
Established since the 5th century, Vatican City is home to more than the Pope, it houses museums filled with antiquities of history, libraries and various other treasures. For example, if you were to visit Vatican City, you would see the Sistine Chapel, once painted by the famous artist Michelangelo and could visit what is believed to be the tomb of the Apostle Peter whose body is said to be buried there is a palace called the Basilica, the largest religious building in all the world.
The ruler of the Vatican is called the Pope,” a man who is known all over the world as the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics call him “Holy Father.” This is because "Pope," in Italian, means father (or Papa.) Priests of the Roman Church are all called "Father" as a title, but the Pope is the main father, the biggest daddy of them all, head of head the church, (They believe the head of ALL the church,) in Jesus’ absence.
Vatican City is, Catholics believe, ordained by God to be the capital of the world, as well as the place from where the Pope exercises his authority. The one who is Pope is not to be considered as subject to any human authority or law whatsoever, he is believed a sovereign and considered (by some) to be a sovereign over the affairs of the whole Christian church, maybe even the world. From Vatican City come many decrees and laws... just look at their website. One needs to be a lawyer or hire one if they are to be certain to do everything right and in accordance with Vatican Laws.
In the minds of many people, Vatican law is believed supreme, and it comes to the ret of us in the form of decrees and bulls as the Pope and his entourage interpret the Scripture. Their revelations are then made "official" for the rest of the world, under the final authority of the one who sits on the Vatican throne, or rather, the "Chair of Peter."
This mindset posses a bit problem in Christianity because history and practice shows us that not all Popes have been impeccable in thier rule and not everyone believes they are to follow the dictates of a man, even one who is and called "Pope,." above the dictates of God in His Word. Some even say that the scripture is of "no private interpretation," (as it says in 2 Peter 1:20-21,) meaning that a person cannot read the Bible without the interpretation of the Pope and his final word on what the Bible means and says. Others believe the Bible to be an open book, waiting for us to read and understand it and simply conform to what it says.
Many who are called "protestants" would not say they are protestant, but that they are Christian, and being Christian, they believe that they are part of the body of Christ, with Jesus as the head. But the Vatican, by papal decree in Unitatis Redintegratio, has formally declared that “separated brethren, whether considered as individuals or as Communities and Churches, are not blessed with that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow on all those who through Him were born again into one body.” In the eyes of the Vatican they are still spiritually dead because they do not recognize the power of the Pope and as protestants they are not receiving Pope sanctioned sacraments like the faithful Roman Catholics.Protestants bear the sin of Martin Luther who protested against such things.
Luther protested, but Luther did not protest either Christ or Christianity,what he protested was the abuse of power within the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and he promoted the reading of the Bible and subsequently the entire concept of grace and faith as a means to sanctification instead of works and paying fees to the pope for God's spiritual protection or even salvation. “Restoring the separated brethren” sounds benevolent enough, a sort of reconciliation, but truth is that restoration to this end really means all are subject to the Roman Pontiff. No matter how benevolent the Roman Pontiff may be or appear to be, faith and salvation is not a matter of believing in any man, it is a matter of believing God, believing he makes good on what he says and taking him at his Word.
The Vatican declares on one hand that protestants are anathema, because they reject Papal rule they are believed to be going to hell even though they profess faith in Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior, even though they live holy lives with a mind unto God. They are believed to be in rebellion, believed to be the problem for unity on Earth.
In the DECREE ON ECUMENISM, UNITATIS REDINTEGRATIO, given in Rome at St. Peter's, November 21,1964, it states that “The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council. Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church only. However, many Christian communions present themselves to men as the true inheritors of Jesus Christ; all indeed profess to be followers of the Lord but differ in mind and go their different ways, as if Christ Himself were divided. Such division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages the holy cause of preaching the Gospel to every creature.” Yet, seemingly benevolent the Vatican says also that it's desire is to reunite with Rome, these "separated brethren." This kind of thinking in Roman Catholic dogma is the base for what has become known as the ecumenical movement between committees of various denominations, with them all of course receiving direction from none other than the Vatican, and the Pope. Such thinking is labeled ecumenical, and it's practice is what we see in the formation of inter-denominational organizations such as the World Council of Churches.
Ecumenism is an interesting word. The word itself is derived from the Greek word, oikoumene, which means “earth” or the inhabited or civilized “world.” It is used in the New Testament many times. (Romans 10:18; Luke 2:1; Hebrews 1:6 and others) The word "ecumenism" is applicable to anything that involves the world’s inhabitants, the entire inhabitable world and even refers to a world system.
While there is no doubt a world system, their is also God's system, and God's systme of doing things is wuite different from that of the world's ways. God's system is ruled by his Word, connected by His Holy Spirit, and put's it's hope and faith in the one whom he sent to seek and save the lost, which all Christians believe to be Jesus. While these are the things that make Christians Christian, some people look at the Christian world and see disunity because they want everyone to be like them and do what they do, to do things only whih they want them to do at all. The reality however is that a true body has manny different working parts and they do not all always look the same.
Christians are to be one in Christ because as it say's in Ephesians, 4:1-6: “there is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Also, 1 Corinthians 12 tell readers, “ For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many….” In contrast the Vatican’s decree teaches that the unity of the Christian faith rests upon looking to the Pope as our Father, the head of the church. They even claim that the unity of Christian faith depends greatly upon believing that Peter is the Rock upon which the church is built, with this rock being the firm foundation that the church is built upon, which causes divisions when some suggest the Rock is Jesus, not Peter and that like Peter, Christians are but little rocks, rocks that rest in the revelation of God unto us about the savior, Jesus Christ and who he is.
What give with all of this? Who is right and who is wrong? Does it even matter?
Consider Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem, of Nehemiah’s day; they detested people doing the will of God and trusting in him instead of in them and their power and authority. These guys despised and mocked Nehemiah, who was doing his bet to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. Adam Clark’s commentary says that these guys falsely "charged Nehemiah with the design of rebellion."
Well, they suggested it was rebellion, but the truth was that Nehemiah had permission to rebuild, permission given to him via letters from the King himself. They would have liked it if Nehimiah would have submitted unto them and their authority instead of God, but Nehemiah was not very ecumenical in his thinking. He was busy working on the wall and leading others to do the same. He didn't need their permission to be about what he was building. He already had the King's personal permission, and ultimately God's.
The Vatican may be a country of it's own, but God's Kingdom is more than merely a place upon this earth or a kingdom of this world. It is everywhere, and it is a kingdom with a true king called God who sits upon a throne. At his right hand, true justice reigns, with mercy grace and love; and the subjects of God's kingdom bow before this scepter and none other. These are they who know a peace that passes understanding, quite different than the peace any ruler of this world can ever give.
Established since the 5th century, Vatican City is home to more than the Pope, it houses museums filled with antiquities of history, libraries and various other treasures. For example, if you were to visit Vatican City, you would see the Sistine Chapel, once painted by the famous artist Michelangelo and could visit what is believed to be the tomb of the Apostle Peter whose body is said to be buried there is a palace called the Basilica, the largest religious building in all the world.
The ruler of the Vatican is called the Pope,” a man who is known all over the world as the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Catholics call him “Holy Father.” This is because "Pope," in Italian, means father (or Papa.) Priests of the Roman Church are all called "Father" as a title, but the Pope is the main father, the biggest daddy of them all, head of head the church, (They believe the head of ALL the church,) in Jesus’ absence.
Vatican City is, Catholics believe, ordained by God to be the capital of the world, as well as the place from where the Pope exercises his authority. The one who is Pope is not to be considered as subject to any human authority or law whatsoever, he is believed a sovereign and considered (by some) to be a sovereign over the affairs of the whole Christian church, maybe even the world. From Vatican City come many decrees and laws... just look at their website. One needs to be a lawyer or hire one if they are to be certain to do everything right and in accordance with Vatican Laws.
In the minds of many people, Vatican law is believed supreme, and it comes to the ret of us in the form of decrees and bulls as the Pope and his entourage interpret the Scripture. Their revelations are then made "official" for the rest of the world, under the final authority of the one who sits on the Vatican throne, or rather, the "Chair of Peter."
This mindset posses a bit problem in Christianity because history and practice shows us that not all Popes have been impeccable in thier rule and not everyone believes they are to follow the dictates of a man, even one who is and called "Pope,." above the dictates of God in His Word. Some even say that the scripture is of "no private interpretation," (as it says in 2 Peter 1:20-21,) meaning that a person cannot read the Bible without the interpretation of the Pope and his final word on what the Bible means and says. Others believe the Bible to be an open book, waiting for us to read and understand it and simply conform to what it says.
Many who are called "protestants" would not say they are protestant, but that they are Christian, and being Christian, they believe that they are part of the body of Christ, with Jesus as the head. But the Vatican, by papal decree in Unitatis Redintegratio, has formally declared that “separated brethren, whether considered as individuals or as Communities and Churches, are not blessed with that unity which Jesus Christ wished to bestow on all those who through Him were born again into one body.” In the eyes of the Vatican they are still spiritually dead because they do not recognize the power of the Pope and as protestants they are not receiving Pope sanctioned sacraments like the faithful Roman Catholics.Protestants bear the sin of Martin Luther who protested against such things.
Luther protested, but Luther did not protest either Christ or Christianity,what he protested was the abuse of power within the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and he promoted the reading of the Bible and subsequently the entire concept of grace and faith as a means to sanctification instead of works and paying fees to the pope for God's spiritual protection or even salvation. “Restoring the separated brethren” sounds benevolent enough, a sort of reconciliation, but truth is that restoration to this end really means all are subject to the Roman Pontiff. No matter how benevolent the Roman Pontiff may be or appear to be, faith and salvation is not a matter of believing in any man, it is a matter of believing God, believing he makes good on what he says and taking him at his Word.
The Vatican declares on one hand that protestants are anathema, because they reject Papal rule they are believed to be going to hell even though they profess faith in Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior, even though they live holy lives with a mind unto God. They are believed to be in rebellion, believed to be the problem for unity on Earth.
In the DECREE ON ECUMENISM, UNITATIS REDINTEGRATIO, given in Rome at St. Peter's, November 21,1964, it states that “The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council. Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church only. However, many Christian communions present themselves to men as the true inheritors of Jesus Christ; all indeed profess to be followers of the Lord but differ in mind and go their different ways, as if Christ Himself were divided. Such division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages the holy cause of preaching the Gospel to every creature.” Yet, seemingly benevolent the Vatican says also that it's desire is to reunite with Rome, these "separated brethren." This kind of thinking in Roman Catholic dogma is the base for what has become known as the ecumenical movement between committees of various denominations, with them all of course receiving direction from none other than the Vatican, and the Pope. Such thinking is labeled ecumenical, and it's practice is what we see in the formation of inter-denominational organizations such as the World Council of Churches.
Ecumenism is an interesting word. The word itself is derived from the Greek word, oikoumene, which means “earth” or the inhabited or civilized “world.” It is used in the New Testament many times. (Romans 10:18; Luke 2:1; Hebrews 1:6 and others) The word "ecumenism" is applicable to anything that involves the world’s inhabitants, the entire inhabitable world and even refers to a world system.
While there is no doubt a world system, their is also God's system, and God's systme of doing things is wuite different from that of the world's ways. God's system is ruled by his Word, connected by His Holy Spirit, and put's it's hope and faith in the one whom he sent to seek and save the lost, which all Christians believe to be Jesus. While these are the things that make Christians Christian, some people look at the Christian world and see disunity because they want everyone to be like them and do what they do, to do things only whih they want them to do at all. The reality however is that a true body has manny different working parts and they do not all always look the same.
Christians are to be one in Christ because as it say's in Ephesians, 4:1-6: “there is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Also, 1 Corinthians 12 tell readers, “ For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many….” In contrast the Vatican’s decree teaches that the unity of the Christian faith rests upon looking to the Pope as our Father, the head of the church. They even claim that the unity of Christian faith depends greatly upon believing that Peter is the Rock upon which the church is built, with this rock being the firm foundation that the church is built upon, which causes divisions when some suggest the Rock is Jesus, not Peter and that like Peter, Christians are but little rocks, rocks that rest in the revelation of God unto us about the savior, Jesus Christ and who he is.
What give with all of this? Who is right and who is wrong? Does it even matter?
Consider Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem, of Nehemiah’s day; they detested people doing the will of God and trusting in him instead of in them and their power and authority. These guys despised and mocked Nehemiah, who was doing his bet to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. Adam Clark’s commentary says that these guys falsely "charged Nehemiah with the design of rebellion."
Well, they suggested it was rebellion, but the truth was that Nehemiah had permission to rebuild, permission given to him via letters from the King himself. They would have liked it if Nehimiah would have submitted unto them and their authority instead of God, but Nehemiah was not very ecumenical in his thinking. He was busy working on the wall and leading others to do the same. He didn't need their permission to be about what he was building. He already had the King's personal permission, and ultimately God's.
The Vatican may be a country of it's own, but God's Kingdom is more than merely a place upon this earth or a kingdom of this world. It is everywhere, and it is a kingdom with a true king called God who sits upon a throne. At his right hand, true justice reigns, with mercy grace and love; and the subjects of God's kingdom bow before this scepter and none other. These are they who know a peace that passes understanding, quite different than the peace any ruler of this world can ever give.
Harry Potter...Witchcraft?
Christians should highly regard the scriptures and what they say. There are thing in there, like, "There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination. … or an enchanter or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard. … For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord;" (Dueteronomy 18:10-12)
Surprisingly many turn a deaf ear to the parts like this, even when it says, “they which do such things...(the above in mention) shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:21) Apparently there is some confusion as to what exactly this means or doesn't mean and if it applies to people today. Take for example, a recent work of literature marketed to kids, the recent publishing phenomena, Harry Potter.
Harry Potter is a story about a boy wizard. It is written by a woman, an English writer named Joanne, (or rather, JK,) Rowlings. The hard cover book sold almost 7 million copies in the United States in its first 24 hours after publication. Saying that the book was popular would be an understatement. People of all ages stood in line to purchase the book hours before stores opened on it's publication date and the gleeful readers devoured it in hours. But the story didn't stop with one episode, there have been many books to follow, all telling tales of Harry's wizardly adventures. and the stories have even been made into movies.
The reason it was popular at the start was not because people read the book and liked it, nor was it word of mouth, (people telling other people about the fantastic book they had just read.) The reason people loved Harry even before the book hit the shelves was the clever advertising. It was as if, right before the public's eyes, the marketing experts from the four corners of the publishing world, cast their spell... and all the interested parties swam right into it barely thinking that perhaps a book about witchcraft and a boy who is a wizard, learning all about how to cast spells and enchanter others into doing your will, would be something to avoid. But with that said, not everyone was plugged-in to the media hype and clever advertising; and not everyone thought the book was the best choice for kids to be reading. The dialogue between the two groups soon began and as such, these Harry Potter books became quite controversial.
In the story, the hero Harry is an orphan boy, and like Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars tale, Harry, (who doesn't know that he is destined to do great things,) finds himself in face to face battle with a villain character who has something do to with his personal history. This is the evil Lord Voldermort.
Voldemort, murdered Harry’s parents who were "magical "and even though his parent passed on the ability to do magic to Harry Harry does not know this. Harry finds himself living with people who hide this information from him becuse they hate magic. Not only that, these are his relatives, his aunt and uncle, and they don;t love him at all, simply control him and treat him badly. Harry does learn of his magic abilities when he makes contact with people from the magical wizardly part of his world, even though aunt and uncle try to keep them from contacting Harry.
Harry's aunt and uncle, horrible, unmagical relatives, who not only want to keep Harry from his magical lineage, but also treat him badly and keep him in a closet are are described to the readers as "Muggles." Eventually Harry makes contact with Hogwarts school and goes off to become a wizard where he has adventures that lead him to uncover a secret, destroy the philosophers/sorcerers stone cause Voldemort's defeat and graduates from the school and heads home for the summer... well, not really.
Some reviewers say that it’s the story of good verses evil, one we have all heard a million times before. They liken the story to the story of any young boy that grows up and goes off to discover who he really is, a boy who loves his parents he never knew, a boy who makes friends and demonstrates courage, self-sacrifice and honesty... "Its good story," they say. REgarding the magic, they call it fantasy and say we should all rejoice because little wonderful Harry, overcomes the dark side of magic with the good, and remind the ret of us that it’s just an old, familiar tale, one with a magical twist no doubt, but on the whole it's a good story about bravery, honesty, and positive relationships, just like all the rest.
This aside, some spiritually minded people remain concerned about the many aspects of the occult that children are being exposed to as they learn with Harry all the concepts of using magic spells and potions, as they are taught to think such things are perfectly normal, even desireable, if, like Harry, one i born to be a wizard, or a witch. They believe that the idea around the rest which is all "innocent enough" would lure them into the idea that the world of dark arts is benign or friendly. And it was not just the books and the movies that they were concerned over, it was the potion kits, magic wands, spell books, games, posters, and action figures from the books, things that would serve to intensify Harry play with things like "familiar spirits." Concern was that children, exposed to Harry Potter would be interested in learning more and more about the dark arts and the occult.
People argued that this kind of fear was ridiculous. They said that such things were harmless to kids, the stuff childlike fantasy is made of. They said, everyone knows that this witchcraft stuff isn't really real, that 'magic' is illusion. Even key information sources for the public, like child psychologist, Dr. James Dobson and his organization Focus on the Family, as well as Christian magazines like Christianity Today, hoping to shed some light on the matter at hand, began commenting on the phenomena of Harry Potter, giving parents and teachers of the Christian persuasion their point of view. They wanted to both warn fellow Christians and dis-spell some of the concerns.
.Christianity Today, (CT) is a well know magazine marketed to Christians and as an authority on Christianity and media they published several articles over the years. Titles included, Most Evangelicals Like Harry Potter Books, Really. (June 2003); Positive About Potter (December 1999); Virtue On A Broomstick (September 2000) Somewhat Wild About Harry (December 2001); and Let Harry Conjure Up Some Gospel Magic, Says Christian Magician. (Dec. 2001) Their January 2000 article titled, Why We Like Harry Potter, stated authoritatively, “We think you should read the Harry Potter books to your kids.”
Christianity Today Magazine even ran an article just before Thanksgiving Day 2001, (when the first Harry Potter movie was first released) titled, Wary About Harry. In it they say the movie is a “big, clever, fast-paced adventure.” The article clearly recommended that parents not participate in what they labeled a “witchcraft hunt” or worry about the influence reading these stories will have on their kids. For many reader of these magazines, this was a far cry from what the scriptures say in Deuteronomy.
Comparing JK Rowling's Harry Potter to CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, Engle's Winkle in Time, and Toklien's The Lord of the Rings, Overstreet, author for Christianity Today magazine, told his readers that Harry Potter, like such tales as these is merely whimsical, whimsical while they express spiritual truths.
What is the spiritual truth about witchcraft? Is it a sinful reality or simply whimsical fantasy. Should Christians seek spiritual insight into such matters from God's word or from man's litterary achievements? The way I read scripture, the early converts to Christianity wanted nothing to do with anything occultic like witchcraft, once they had been converted in their minds and hearts, to the truth. Once they realized spiritual truth, once they believed in God, once the put their hope in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they lived to be pleasing to God and as a result they were even known to have burned all their occultic books. (Acts 19:19) They didn’t see the occult as harmless imaginative fun nor as something to be toyed with.
Is it possible that someone has pulled the wool over the eyes of these Christians today?
Consider the whimsical fantasy of HArry Potter...
In the story, Hogwart’s Arcane School of Wizardry is compared to a magnificent imaginative castle built “away from prying Muggle eyes.” (A quote from pg. 114 of the Philosopher's Stone) “Muggles,” in case you do not know, are the stupid and easily fooled, often mean and controlling individuals in Harry's world, like Harry's Aunt and Uncle, who would dissent to or oppose actually teaching children (like the story's hero, Harry,) such magnificently wonderful things such as witchcraft.
The history of Hogwart’s, School (as the reader learns) is that long ago, “witches and wizards suffered much persecution.” BUT…not to fear, for the wise founders of Hogwart’s, (the quote continues, ) "worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the magnificently imaginative castle to be educated."
You can avoid the books because God said to have nothing to do with such things, or you can read them to your kids and be happy to know that these books will inspire them with great spiritual insight. It really is up to you, but remember, it could be that right under your nose, as if by some work of literary magic, someone has built an magnificently imaginative castle.
Surprisingly many turn a deaf ear to the parts like this, even when it says, “they which do such things...(the above in mention) shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:21) Apparently there is some confusion as to what exactly this means or doesn't mean and if it applies to people today. Take for example, a recent work of literature marketed to kids, the recent publishing phenomena, Harry Potter.
Harry Potter is a story about a boy wizard. It is written by a woman, an English writer named Joanne, (or rather, JK,) Rowlings. The hard cover book sold almost 7 million copies in the United States in its first 24 hours after publication. Saying that the book was popular would be an understatement. People of all ages stood in line to purchase the book hours before stores opened on it's publication date and the gleeful readers devoured it in hours. But the story didn't stop with one episode, there have been many books to follow, all telling tales of Harry's wizardly adventures. and the stories have even been made into movies.
The reason it was popular at the start was not because people read the book and liked it, nor was it word of mouth, (people telling other people about the fantastic book they had just read.) The reason people loved Harry even before the book hit the shelves was the clever advertising. It was as if, right before the public's eyes, the marketing experts from the four corners of the publishing world, cast their spell... and all the interested parties swam right into it barely thinking that perhaps a book about witchcraft and a boy who is a wizard, learning all about how to cast spells and enchanter others into doing your will, would be something to avoid. But with that said, not everyone was plugged-in to the media hype and clever advertising; and not everyone thought the book was the best choice for kids to be reading. The dialogue between the two groups soon began and as such, these Harry Potter books became quite controversial.
In the story, the hero Harry is an orphan boy, and like Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars tale, Harry, (who doesn't know that he is destined to do great things,) finds himself in face to face battle with a villain character who has something do to with his personal history. This is the evil Lord Voldermort.
Voldemort, murdered Harry’s parents who were "magical "and even though his parent passed on the ability to do magic to Harry Harry does not know this. Harry finds himself living with people who hide this information from him becuse they hate magic. Not only that, these are his relatives, his aunt and uncle, and they don;t love him at all, simply control him and treat him badly. Harry does learn of his magic abilities when he makes contact with people from the magical wizardly part of his world, even though aunt and uncle try to keep them from contacting Harry.
Harry's aunt and uncle, horrible, unmagical relatives, who not only want to keep Harry from his magical lineage, but also treat him badly and keep him in a closet are are described to the readers as "Muggles." Eventually Harry makes contact with Hogwarts school and goes off to become a wizard where he has adventures that lead him to uncover a secret, destroy the philosophers/sorcerers stone cause Voldemort's defeat and graduates from the school and heads home for the summer... well, not really.
Some reviewers say that it’s the story of good verses evil, one we have all heard a million times before. They liken the story to the story of any young boy that grows up and goes off to discover who he really is, a boy who loves his parents he never knew, a boy who makes friends and demonstrates courage, self-sacrifice and honesty... "Its good story," they say. REgarding the magic, they call it fantasy and say we should all rejoice because little wonderful Harry, overcomes the dark side of magic with the good, and remind the ret of us that it’s just an old, familiar tale, one with a magical twist no doubt, but on the whole it's a good story about bravery, honesty, and positive relationships, just like all the rest.
This aside, some spiritually minded people remain concerned about the many aspects of the occult that children are being exposed to as they learn with Harry all the concepts of using magic spells and potions, as they are taught to think such things are perfectly normal, even desireable, if, like Harry, one i born to be a wizard, or a witch. They believe that the idea around the rest which is all "innocent enough" would lure them into the idea that the world of dark arts is benign or friendly. And it was not just the books and the movies that they were concerned over, it was the potion kits, magic wands, spell books, games, posters, and action figures from the books, things that would serve to intensify Harry play with things like "familiar spirits." Concern was that children, exposed to Harry Potter would be interested in learning more and more about the dark arts and the occult.
People argued that this kind of fear was ridiculous. They said that such things were harmless to kids, the stuff childlike fantasy is made of. They said, everyone knows that this witchcraft stuff isn't really real, that 'magic' is illusion. Even key information sources for the public, like child psychologist, Dr. James Dobson and his organization Focus on the Family, as well as Christian magazines like Christianity Today, hoping to shed some light on the matter at hand, began commenting on the phenomena of Harry Potter, giving parents and teachers of the Christian persuasion their point of view. They wanted to both warn fellow Christians and dis-spell some of the concerns.
.Christianity Today, (CT) is a well know magazine marketed to Christians and as an authority on Christianity and media they published several articles over the years. Titles included, Most Evangelicals Like Harry Potter Books, Really. (June 2003); Positive About Potter (December 1999); Virtue On A Broomstick (September 2000) Somewhat Wild About Harry (December 2001); and Let Harry Conjure Up Some Gospel Magic, Says Christian Magician. (Dec. 2001) Their January 2000 article titled, Why We Like Harry Potter, stated authoritatively, “We think you should read the Harry Potter books to your kids.”
Christianity Today Magazine even ran an article just before Thanksgiving Day 2001, (when the first Harry Potter movie was first released) titled, Wary About Harry. In it they say the movie is a “big, clever, fast-paced adventure.” The article clearly recommended that parents not participate in what they labeled a “witchcraft hunt” or worry about the influence reading these stories will have on their kids. For many reader of these magazines, this was a far cry from what the scriptures say in Deuteronomy.
Comparing JK Rowling's Harry Potter to CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, Engle's Winkle in Time, and Toklien's The Lord of the Rings, Overstreet, author for Christianity Today magazine, told his readers that Harry Potter, like such tales as these is merely whimsical, whimsical while they express spiritual truths.
What is the spiritual truth about witchcraft? Is it a sinful reality or simply whimsical fantasy. Should Christians seek spiritual insight into such matters from God's word or from man's litterary achievements? The way I read scripture, the early converts to Christianity wanted nothing to do with anything occultic like witchcraft, once they had been converted in their minds and hearts, to the truth. Once they realized spiritual truth, once they believed in God, once the put their hope in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they lived to be pleasing to God and as a result they were even known to have burned all their occultic books. (Acts 19:19) They didn’t see the occult as harmless imaginative fun nor as something to be toyed with.
Is it possible that someone has pulled the wool over the eyes of these Christians today?
Consider the whimsical fantasy of HArry Potter...
In the story, Hogwart’s Arcane School of Wizardry is compared to a magnificent imaginative castle built “away from prying Muggle eyes.” (A quote from pg. 114 of the Philosopher's Stone) “Muggles,” in case you do not know, are the stupid and easily fooled, often mean and controlling individuals in Harry's world, like Harry's Aunt and Uncle, who would dissent to or oppose actually teaching children (like the story's hero, Harry,) such magnificently wonderful things such as witchcraft.
The history of Hogwart’s, School (as the reader learns) is that long ago, “witches and wizards suffered much persecution.” BUT…not to fear, for the wise founders of Hogwart’s, (the quote continues, ) "worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the magnificently imaginative castle to be educated."
You can avoid the books because God said to have nothing to do with such things, or you can read them to your kids and be happy to know that these books will inspire them with great spiritual insight. It really is up to you, but remember, it could be that right under your nose, as if by some work of literary magic, someone has built an magnificently imaginative castle.
Who Rules Over Man? Overman?
Nietzsche, Friedrich Nietzsche, who lived from 1844-1900, was a German philosopher, poet and writer. He was the son of Karl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813-1849) a Protestant minister, who died when Friedrich was only four years old. Nietzsche had a Christian upbringing in his home, but despite his Christian upbringing, Nietzsche went down in history as an atheistic man. His thoughts were recorded for us in writing, popular mostly in non-English speaking countries while he was alive... but today Nietzsche’s writings are translated and read in English and in America. His work has been the influence of artists, novelists, psychologists, sociologists and social revolutionaries everywhere.
Nietzsche is perhaps most famous of all for publicly challenging the foundations of Christianity and the traditional morality that aligns itself with the commandments of God. Nietzsche believed that he had figured this thing call life out.. to a "t." to him nd his faithfu following, the goal of life was to discover self, to listen to self and to be true to your self, NOT God.
The Gay Science (or Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882) is the famous work of Nietzsche. It is in this work that he made his most famous proclamation: "God is Dead!." ( “God, ” defined as a single, ultimate, judge and authority who, being omniscient, knows the begining from the end and knows and sees everyone’s secrets,) It was also in this book that he put forth his doctrine of what he called “eternal recurrence,” that is, the idea that everything has already happened for an eternity in the past and that it will continue to happen over and over forever, a concept akin to the eastern religions when a soul incurs karma and is reincarnated time and time again, perhaps until they finally "get it right." But with Nietzsche, it was not religious, nor karma.... it was to further circumvent submission to this thing known as the Christian God
Realizing than men had some form of weakness, Nietzsche encouraged his readers to become superior humans who, when they learned his philosophy and created for themselves their own values, (instead of the dead God’s ideas of life and morality here on earth,) would be able to successfully overcome the flaws in humanity, (mainly Christianity, which he believed was the equivalent of evil) and thus they would raise above the mundane. He called this model of the perfect man, which he wrote extensively about, “Overman,” which translated is “Superman.” (a.k.a. Ubermensch)
Believing that mundane things, like Christianity, only serves to hamper human potential, Nietzsche’s Overman is one who trusts in his own intuition, who rejects any kind of values that does not come from within his own mind and heart, and who embraces (wholeheartedly) everything that Christianity isn’t. The Overman of Nietzsche's imagination is a little different than the Superman of the 1978 American Movie, but then Nietzsche’s superman is not battling for truth and justice, or the American way.
Overman is not compassionate, not affected by human suffering, and he has little or nt tolerance for the weak. He is a strong man of steel, who can overcome any obstacle put before him in a single bound, because, he himself is ... “God.”
In Nietzsche’s pseudo moralistic concepts, lustfulness is not a sin. It is “an invigoration of the human heart,” and power, (otherwise known as the “lust to rule”) is a gift, a virtue. Selfishness is a character trait of quality, as is rebellion for in his dichotomy of, dare I call it, "Faith," to be rebellious of authority is how one shows their strength and power. It would be weakness to conform. Overman has the power to embrace change and grow, to grow and become whatever he wants to, and the stronger and more powerful one becomes as they become like Nietzsche’s “Overman” the more one can dominate and recreate the mundane world. Nietzsche’s concepts are nearly an atheist’s dream come true.
The musical entity known to the world as Marilyn Manson was supposedly greatly influenced by the philosophical writings of Nietzsche. Contrary to what you might think, Marilyn Manson is not a female, not a singular person, but a band with a figurehead who is a male with the same female stage name as the name of the band. The group hit the pop charts like a bullet in the 1990’s wearing T shirts that read, "Kill God, Kill Your Mom and Dad, Kill Yourself/"
Some people thought it was supposed to be funny.
Following in the footsteps of Nietzsche who called himself antichrist, MArilym Manson has an album of the same title. Their lyrics are lustful, selfish, and often reek of the glorification of flesh, particularly dead things. It glorifies death, reeks of both suicide, and acts of violence and the lyrics has that special flare for exhibiting contempt for God. Marilyn Manson, (whose real name is Brian Hugh Warner) even boasts that Nietzsche, Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud are some of the major influences for his “creative” works.
Mistakenly, Manson (a.k.a. Warner, thinks, that he and his friends are freethinkers and they have all the answers. But the sad truth is that he is in bondage and chains and going nowhere fast. He realizes he is dead, in a dying world and he may not admit it to the rest of the world at least as long as he can make them think he is pretty cool and in control. He kinda tells it like it is and he is in a rut. In his Minute of Decay lyrics he says, “I'm on my way down ...I'd like to take you with me." Manson and friends are wallowing in the squalor of humanities depraved mind with no apparent guilt or shame, or a least a consciousness seared to it all.
Nietzsche, (Nietzsche's Thus spoke Zarathustra, pg.3,4,5, Walter Kaufmann translation,) writes, “…I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go. Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and these sinners died with him. To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing..."
But through Christ, death is swallowed up in victory and it has no hold on the believer. Though man dies, he can have the hope of eternal life, in Christ and he doesn;t have to fear being alone to the point that he will take down with him as many as he can.
Neitche is right, God died, but that is not the whole story. He died not because he had to but because he loved us. He gave his life for ours and then, being God he rose again. Jesus Christ, God and full of power, overcame death and rose to life again.
Jesus is the real God, true God from God and light from light. It is he who rules and reigns on high, over all the earth. In his rightful place as God, he has ultimate rule over everything, even over man.
Nietzsche is perhaps most famous of all for publicly challenging the foundations of Christianity and the traditional morality that aligns itself with the commandments of God. Nietzsche believed that he had figured this thing call life out.. to a "t." to him nd his faithfu following, the goal of life was to discover self, to listen to self and to be true to your self, NOT God.
The Gay Science (or Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882) is the famous work of Nietzsche. It is in this work that he made his most famous proclamation: "God is Dead!." ( “God, ” defined as a single, ultimate, judge and authority who, being omniscient, knows the begining from the end and knows and sees everyone’s secrets,) It was also in this book that he put forth his doctrine of what he called “eternal recurrence,” that is, the idea that everything has already happened for an eternity in the past and that it will continue to happen over and over forever, a concept akin to the eastern religions when a soul incurs karma and is reincarnated time and time again, perhaps until they finally "get it right." But with Nietzsche, it was not religious, nor karma.... it was to further circumvent submission to this thing known as the Christian God
Realizing than men had some form of weakness, Nietzsche encouraged his readers to become superior humans who, when they learned his philosophy and created for themselves their own values, (instead of the dead God’s ideas of life and morality here on earth,) would be able to successfully overcome the flaws in humanity, (mainly Christianity, which he believed was the equivalent of evil) and thus they would raise above the mundane. He called this model of the perfect man, which he wrote extensively about, “Overman,” which translated is “Superman.” (a.k.a. Ubermensch)
Believing that mundane things, like Christianity, only serves to hamper human potential, Nietzsche’s Overman is one who trusts in his own intuition, who rejects any kind of values that does not come from within his own mind and heart, and who embraces (wholeheartedly) everything that Christianity isn’t. The Overman of Nietzsche's imagination is a little different than the Superman of the 1978 American Movie, but then Nietzsche’s superman is not battling for truth and justice, or the American way.
Overman is not compassionate, not affected by human suffering, and he has little or nt tolerance for the weak. He is a strong man of steel, who can overcome any obstacle put before him in a single bound, because, he himself is ... “God.”
In Nietzsche’s pseudo moralistic concepts, lustfulness is not a sin. It is “an invigoration of the human heart,” and power, (otherwise known as the “lust to rule”) is a gift, a virtue. Selfishness is a character trait of quality, as is rebellion for in his dichotomy of, dare I call it, "Faith," to be rebellious of authority is how one shows their strength and power. It would be weakness to conform. Overman has the power to embrace change and grow, to grow and become whatever he wants to, and the stronger and more powerful one becomes as they become like Nietzsche’s “Overman” the more one can dominate and recreate the mundane world. Nietzsche’s concepts are nearly an atheist’s dream come true.
The musical entity known to the world as Marilyn Manson was supposedly greatly influenced by the philosophical writings of Nietzsche. Contrary to what you might think, Marilyn Manson is not a female, not a singular person, but a band with a figurehead who is a male with the same female stage name as the name of the band. The group hit the pop charts like a bullet in the 1990’s wearing T shirts that read, "Kill God, Kill Your Mom and Dad, Kill Yourself/"
Some people thought it was supposed to be funny.
Following in the footsteps of Nietzsche who called himself antichrist, MArilym Manson has an album of the same title. Their lyrics are lustful, selfish, and often reek of the glorification of flesh, particularly dead things. It glorifies death, reeks of both suicide, and acts of violence and the lyrics has that special flare for exhibiting contempt for God. Marilyn Manson, (whose real name is Brian Hugh Warner) even boasts that Nietzsche, Aleister Crowley, Anton LaVey, Charles Darwin, and Sigmund Freud are some of the major influences for his “creative” works.
Mistakenly, Manson (a.k.a. Warner, thinks, that he and his friends are freethinkers and they have all the answers. But the sad truth is that he is in bondage and chains and going nowhere fast. He realizes he is dead, in a dying world and he may not admit it to the rest of the world at least as long as he can make them think he is pretty cool and in control. He kinda tells it like it is and he is in a rut. In his Minute of Decay lyrics he says, “I'm on my way down ...I'd like to take you with me." Manson and friends are wallowing in the squalor of humanities depraved mind with no apparent guilt or shame, or a least a consciousness seared to it all.
Nietzsche, (Nietzsche's Thus spoke Zarathustra, pg.3,4,5, Walter Kaufmann translation,) writes, “…I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go. Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and these sinners died with him. To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing..."
But through Christ, death is swallowed up in victory and it has no hold on the believer. Though man dies, he can have the hope of eternal life, in Christ and he doesn;t have to fear being alone to the point that he will take down with him as many as he can.
Neitche is right, God died, but that is not the whole story. He died not because he had to but because he loved us. He gave his life for ours and then, being God he rose again. Jesus Christ, God and full of power, overcame death and rose to life again.
Jesus is the real God, true God from God and light from light. It is he who rules and reigns on high, over all the earth. In his rightful place as God, he has ultimate rule over everything, even over man.
Man on the Moon
At the time of this writing only 12 men have set foot on the moon, and Neil Armstrong, of the U.S. Apollo 11 space mission, is the man first recorded to have done so. Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin explored the Moon's surface for 2.5 hours. Man's ascent into the heavens and his first steps on lunar soil was broadcast to all the watching and hopeful televisions of the world on July 20, 1969.
For his work in space, Neil Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It signifies his astronomical accomplishments and his contributions to the United States’ space program. But despite this recognition and despite the historical record etched in history books, despite the testimony of Armstrong's fellow Americans who worked on the space program, despite the fact that millions of people watched this incredible feat of human technology via television cameras and screens, some people still claim the US journey to the moon was a great hoax. They even believe the moon expedition never really happened at all.
On February 15th, 2001, Fox television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Another nationally televised program reaching millions of households, this one propositioned the idea that 1969 technology was not advanced enough to actually make such a thing as a lunar landing, possible. Producers behind this program asserted that America, anxious to send a person to the moon and beat the Soviets in the race for space, merely acted out the Apollo landings in some secret movie studio, and this for the purpose of impressing the Soviets and the world. As evidence, the program sights (as proof it never happened,) the absence of star-fields in the sky behind the spacecraft; the waving of a flag in an atmosphere where there is no wind; the curious deficiency of a blast crater beneath the lunar lander where it had just fired rockets and the danger there would have been of traveling through the killer electrons of the Van Allen radiation belt.
( Some believe that the Astronauts would have been killed if they would have passed through this field of radiation.)
Over-all, they believe that the moon buggy rides, the experiment of dropping a feather and a hammer, the collection of moon rocks, the flag ceremony, the momentous “first step into space” and even Al Shephard's golf shot was faked. The premise is that this was all done for tricking the minds of the soviets because they, (who ever THEY is,) believed that reaching the moon first was a sure way to prevent the enemy from dominating the world. Of the millions of viewers, some have latched on to this idea of believing the lunar landing was ahoax, but if the landing of man on the moon was faked, even those who believe it was would have to admit it was indeed a very elaborate one.
Bart Sibrel, producer of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon (1969); Bill Kaysing, author of We Never Went To The Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle (1976) ; Mary Benette and David Percy, co-authors of Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle-Blowers (2001) ; and Ralph Rene, author of NASA Mooned America (1994) have all made it their business to announce to the world that trips to the moon were nothing more than a hoax. It’s an alluring accusation.There is a lot of money to be made if you can tickle people's ears. Not only that, if you believe that USA sent the first man to the moon... you obviously have a lot of faith in your US government, because after all, you didn't REALLY see it. You only saw transmitted photos of something they want you to believe really happened. But, did it?
And, how can you ever really know without evidence?
In Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?, film footage of the moon landing is reviewed with commentary about what is wrong with “that” picture, and several people candidly give their seemingly honest opinion that the United States never “really” went to the moon, leving one to really wonder if maybe they are all right. It quite hard NOT to wonder if the accusations they are making in this film are true. It leads one to ask if it is possible that it all never really happened, except in a remote, obscure and secretly hidden away television studio. You might believe it to be true if uou believe all the evidence they show you.
One problem with this “evidence” that it never happened, (true or false,) is that it is presented as "evidence" before an audience where no one under the current age of 40 can personally remember what took place 40 years ago at the time in history. This little casting of a "shadow of doubt,"is creating a landslide of people who believe the allegation that the moon landing that we all believed to have seen with our own eyes, never REALLY happened. Not only that, but those who actually worked on the space program, those who walked on the moon itself, have now become geriatric or perhaps even slipped the surly bonds of earth themselves in a more permanent way. The legacy of the space program has been left to a skeptical and suspicious world.
Defenders of the moon landing, using the same film footage, most frequently note the untrained observations of the scrutinizers. They have explanations for what is cast as "evidence" and give explanations, point by point, suggesting that those who say we never went there really just want to make a case against the United States or sell a book rather than know the truth- that we were there.
This is the way propaganda works in the media saturated world of this millennium. It seems that anyone with a tongue to wag in front of a camera, anyone willing to lash computer keyboard strokes across the continents, can have a voice if they want to. Their images and words, true or false, are broadcasted for all eyes to see and hears to hear. Like beauty in the eye of the beholder, a person sees, or hears, exactly what they want to. Seeing... is believing, but some never stop to even think that the eye and senses can be fooled.
Fact or fiction is not always so distinct and distinguishable, especially as we live in a digital day. Not only is our media mixed with both real and imaginary images, but people simply love controversy, and like having opinions. We laud people selling books that say what we want to hear, and are quick to forget that cameras, though what they say is word a thousand words, are not always candid.
People who were involved in the space projects from where their paycheck came consider the books and films crying “hoax” to be “nonsense.” They watched the historical event in their living rooms on the TV,. They saw it launch in person, they felt the ground shake when it roared into the sky. They worked on the mission, or stood behind the cameras, they acted as the media, and having lived it, breathed it, seen it for themselves, they simply believe it is impossible for man’s trip to the moon to be a hoax, and some wonder how it is that someone, anyone, could so earnestly assert that all the astronauts, employees of NASA, members of the civil government, the entire Department of Defense, the Russian space program leaders, large portions of the British government, amateur and professional astronomers, journalists, news reporters, broadcasters, investigators, radio engineers, and all the television viewers in that day, could possibly be so deviant so as to foll the rest of us, or so stupid to have been fooled by just a few.
In another related documentary film titled, Did We Go? (2000) Aron Ranen asked astronaut “Buzz” Aldrin, on camera, “Where were you, July 20th 1969?” Aldrin’s response was, “On the surface of the moon.” The interviewer then asked Aldrin, “What kind of proof can you offer us that you were there.” Alrdin replied, “I am an a honest person, and I tell you I was on the moon, if you choose not to believe me, forget it.”
The man who closed the capsule hatch on the astronauts before they departed from planet earth and headed for their moonwalk, Gunter Wednt, is old now. With is his deep German accent, he gave an opinion to the camera on this film. He said, “Of all the people I had been in contact with, may they be reporters, regular people, college eh… students, high school students, there was never a question raised as this was a fake or not. What kind of proof do you require? I mean, can you prove there was a World War II?”
Another man, Bob Tooley, who worked at NASA for thirty years, was interviewed in Rainens film. Tooley, after talking to the interviewer about racial problems he faced while working at NASA, told the camera, “…if there was any kind of problem, if there was any kind of fake thing going on, I would be the first one to expose them people; but hey, it’s true. It’s true; we did it!”
And in another video titled, Did We Really Land Men on the Moon, former astronaut Edgar Mitchell, from Apollo 14 declared to the interviewer, “We did exactly what we said we did.” He later added, “All this attempt to say the Apollo programs were fake is just shear nonsense.” As he was answering the interviewer, it became apparent that the person who asked for the interview asked under false pretenses. The footage also showed the former astronaut’s outrage and insult when he realized he was being interrogated because the interviewer believed it was a hoax! (Apparently Mitchell thought it was just a regular interview.) The camera man and interviewer could then be seen being escorted out of Mitchell’s living room, by Mitchell, as he repeatedly insisted the intruders leave his home. Now the viewer is left wondering, "What exactly did his reaction mean?"
Was Mitchell genuinely mad that he had been mislead and invited unwanted guests into his home, or was he lying to the camera once more and embarrassed when confronted with the truth?
To muddle up the already convoluted tale, (if you are able to follow along thus far) major news sources, including ABC and CNN on August 15, 2006, ran stories reporting that NASA's Goddard Space Center in Maryland had lost the original film footage of the first moon landing! It seems that seven hundred boxes of original transmissions from the Apollo lunar missions are missing and no one knows where the tapes have gone. The article said NASA has been searching for a year, but still can’t find them.
It was Australian news sources, not USA, which first reported that the films were “missing.” Their story said that NASA engineers hope that when the tapes are found they can be transferred to digital technology so that we can have a better quality version of the moonwalk than what we have today; after all, all we have today in circulation is copies of TV broadcasts. Why the films are missing, is a mystery, as is what the original films will reveal if they are ever found.
In the course of human history, as people of the past die off , as films are lost, stolen or destroyed, as pages of our history books turn to threads and shreds, he proof of whether or not man ever went to the moon, or not, may end up not being only a matter of opinion and belief. You might even say that one way or another, depending on who you trust to tell the truth, what you believe ultimately about the matter will take a giant step of faith.
For his work in space, Neil Armstrong was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It signifies his astronomical accomplishments and his contributions to the United States’ space program. But despite this recognition and despite the historical record etched in history books, despite the testimony of Armstrong's fellow Americans who worked on the space program, despite the fact that millions of people watched this incredible feat of human technology via television cameras and screens, some people still claim the US journey to the moon was a great hoax. They even believe the moon expedition never really happened at all.
On February 15th, 2001, Fox television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? Another nationally televised program reaching millions of households, this one propositioned the idea that 1969 technology was not advanced enough to actually make such a thing as a lunar landing, possible. Producers behind this program asserted that America, anxious to send a person to the moon and beat the Soviets in the race for space, merely acted out the Apollo landings in some secret movie studio, and this for the purpose of impressing the Soviets and the world. As evidence, the program sights (as proof it never happened,) the absence of star-fields in the sky behind the spacecraft; the waving of a flag in an atmosphere where there is no wind; the curious deficiency of a blast crater beneath the lunar lander where it had just fired rockets and the danger there would have been of traveling through the killer electrons of the Van Allen radiation belt.
( Some believe that the Astronauts would have been killed if they would have passed through this field of radiation.)
Over-all, they believe that the moon buggy rides, the experiment of dropping a feather and a hammer, the collection of moon rocks, the flag ceremony, the momentous “first step into space” and even Al Shephard's golf shot was faked. The premise is that this was all done for tricking the minds of the soviets because they, (who ever THEY is,) believed that reaching the moon first was a sure way to prevent the enemy from dominating the world. Of the millions of viewers, some have latched on to this idea of believing the lunar landing was ahoax, but if the landing of man on the moon was faked, even those who believe it was would have to admit it was indeed a very elaborate one.
Bart Sibrel, producer of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Moon (1969); Bill Kaysing, author of We Never Went To The Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle (1976) ; Mary Benette and David Percy, co-authors of Dark Moon: Apollo and the Whistle-Blowers (2001) ; and Ralph Rene, author of NASA Mooned America (1994) have all made it their business to announce to the world that trips to the moon were nothing more than a hoax. It’s an alluring accusation.There is a lot of money to be made if you can tickle people's ears. Not only that, if you believe that USA sent the first man to the moon... you obviously have a lot of faith in your US government, because after all, you didn't REALLY see it. You only saw transmitted photos of something they want you to believe really happened. But, did it?
And, how can you ever really know without evidence?
In Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?, film footage of the moon landing is reviewed with commentary about what is wrong with “that” picture, and several people candidly give their seemingly honest opinion that the United States never “really” went to the moon, leving one to really wonder if maybe they are all right. It quite hard NOT to wonder if the accusations they are making in this film are true. It leads one to ask if it is possible that it all never really happened, except in a remote, obscure and secretly hidden away television studio. You might believe it to be true if uou believe all the evidence they show you.
One problem with this “evidence” that it never happened, (true or false,) is that it is presented as "evidence" before an audience where no one under the current age of 40 can personally remember what took place 40 years ago at the time in history. This little casting of a "shadow of doubt,"is creating a landslide of people who believe the allegation that the moon landing that we all believed to have seen with our own eyes, never REALLY happened. Not only that, but those who actually worked on the space program, those who walked on the moon itself, have now become geriatric or perhaps even slipped the surly bonds of earth themselves in a more permanent way. The legacy of the space program has been left to a skeptical and suspicious world.
Defenders of the moon landing, using the same film footage, most frequently note the untrained observations of the scrutinizers. They have explanations for what is cast as "evidence" and give explanations, point by point, suggesting that those who say we never went there really just want to make a case against the United States or sell a book rather than know the truth- that we were there.
This is the way propaganda works in the media saturated world of this millennium. It seems that anyone with a tongue to wag in front of a camera, anyone willing to lash computer keyboard strokes across the continents, can have a voice if they want to. Their images and words, true or false, are broadcasted for all eyes to see and hears to hear. Like beauty in the eye of the beholder, a person sees, or hears, exactly what they want to. Seeing... is believing, but some never stop to even think that the eye and senses can be fooled.
Fact or fiction is not always so distinct and distinguishable, especially as we live in a digital day. Not only is our media mixed with both real and imaginary images, but people simply love controversy, and like having opinions. We laud people selling books that say what we want to hear, and are quick to forget that cameras, though what they say is word a thousand words, are not always candid.
People who were involved in the space projects from where their paycheck came consider the books and films crying “hoax” to be “nonsense.” They watched the historical event in their living rooms on the TV,. They saw it launch in person, they felt the ground shake when it roared into the sky. They worked on the mission, or stood behind the cameras, they acted as the media, and having lived it, breathed it, seen it for themselves, they simply believe it is impossible for man’s trip to the moon to be a hoax, and some wonder how it is that someone, anyone, could so earnestly assert that all the astronauts, employees of NASA, members of the civil government, the entire Department of Defense, the Russian space program leaders, large portions of the British government, amateur and professional astronomers, journalists, news reporters, broadcasters, investigators, radio engineers, and all the television viewers in that day, could possibly be so deviant so as to foll the rest of us, or so stupid to have been fooled by just a few.
In another related documentary film titled, Did We Go? (2000) Aron Ranen asked astronaut “Buzz” Aldrin, on camera, “Where were you, July 20th 1969?” Aldrin’s response was, “On the surface of the moon.” The interviewer then asked Aldrin, “What kind of proof can you offer us that you were there.” Alrdin replied, “I am an a honest person, and I tell you I was on the moon, if you choose not to believe me, forget it.”
The man who closed the capsule hatch on the astronauts before they departed from planet earth and headed for their moonwalk, Gunter Wednt, is old now. With is his deep German accent, he gave an opinion to the camera on this film. He said, “Of all the people I had been in contact with, may they be reporters, regular people, college eh… students, high school students, there was never a question raised as this was a fake or not. What kind of proof do you require? I mean, can you prove there was a World War II?”
Another man, Bob Tooley, who worked at NASA for thirty years, was interviewed in Rainens film. Tooley, after talking to the interviewer about racial problems he faced while working at NASA, told the camera, “…if there was any kind of problem, if there was any kind of fake thing going on, I would be the first one to expose them people; but hey, it’s true. It’s true; we did it!”
And in another video titled, Did We Really Land Men on the Moon, former astronaut Edgar Mitchell, from Apollo 14 declared to the interviewer, “We did exactly what we said we did.” He later added, “All this attempt to say the Apollo programs were fake is just shear nonsense.” As he was answering the interviewer, it became apparent that the person who asked for the interview asked under false pretenses. The footage also showed the former astronaut’s outrage and insult when he realized he was being interrogated because the interviewer believed it was a hoax! (Apparently Mitchell thought it was just a regular interview.) The camera man and interviewer could then be seen being escorted out of Mitchell’s living room, by Mitchell, as he repeatedly insisted the intruders leave his home. Now the viewer is left wondering, "What exactly did his reaction mean?"
Was Mitchell genuinely mad that he had been mislead and invited unwanted guests into his home, or was he lying to the camera once more and embarrassed when confronted with the truth?
To muddle up the already convoluted tale, (if you are able to follow along thus far) major news sources, including ABC and CNN on August 15, 2006, ran stories reporting that NASA's Goddard Space Center in Maryland had lost the original film footage of the first moon landing! It seems that seven hundred boxes of original transmissions from the Apollo lunar missions are missing and no one knows where the tapes have gone. The article said NASA has been searching for a year, but still can’t find them.
It was Australian news sources, not USA, which first reported that the films were “missing.” Their story said that NASA engineers hope that when the tapes are found they can be transferred to digital technology so that we can have a better quality version of the moonwalk than what we have today; after all, all we have today in circulation is copies of TV broadcasts. Why the films are missing, is a mystery, as is what the original films will reveal if they are ever found.
In the course of human history, as people of the past die off , as films are lost, stolen or destroyed, as pages of our history books turn to threads and shreds, he proof of whether or not man ever went to the moon, or not, may end up not being only a matter of opinion and belief. You might even say that one way or another, depending on who you trust to tell the truth, what you believe ultimately about the matter will take a giant step of faith.
Spiritual Awakening
“Spiritual awakening” is a term that is commonly used in both religious and secular society to describe the experience a person has when they come to a new “realization, ”particularly in relation to their concept of who they are or in "self." It’s a generic term, often used describe a religious type of experience, but it can mean a variety of things to a variety of people. In religious circles it is arbitrary as to what exactly that "spirit" is, presumably it is something that is good, but it remains to be arbitray and defined best by the doctrines of the particular religious group.
The concept of “enlightenment” is often used interchangeably with “spiritual awakening.” In new age religions both terms refer to acquiring wisdom or even a new understanding about the spiritual world or worlds as well as self. Sometimes such definitions are intertwined with the Christian concept of being “born again,” making it all somewhat confusing.
Nicodemus wondered about this concept because Jesus called it being "born again." He asked Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?” Jesus answered, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” In the Christian sense, a "spiritual awakening" refers to this odd idea of a man being "born again." Nicodemus had the wisdom to ask Jesus his question.
Being "born again" is not just being spiritual. There are a lot of so called "spiritual" one can be immersed in, but not every spirit is from God. Jesus said that a man must be born of water and of the Spirit.... in order to enter the kingdom of God.
Some think they can enter the heavenly kingdom and spiritual realms belonging to God without going through the proper door. Jesus made it clear... he is the door. No one comes to the Father except through him. In fact, one must be "born again."
For some people, having what they call a "spiritual awakening" means realizing that they are not merely human, but that they are in fact God. To say the least, this is very different thing from realizing you are not and He is. In such theology, self is God. It is a bad theology because eventually, in the passage of time, they will, like those angels who left their first habitation, (Jude 1: 6.) Rejecting true light from true light, remaining in those occult places where truth could remain hidden and unknown, refusing to enter through the door, or to walk in the light as he is in the light, they will leave this world to find themselves exposed when the truth of God is revealed, for it is appointed once for man to die, and then the judgment.... and so we consider how it was that Jesus verily said, "You must be born again."
In some religions, enlightenment, or attaining enlightenment, carries the idea of being filled with “light” and spiritual wisdom. Many begin with the concept that man is divinity, only this divinity is something he has simply forgotten or not evolved into complete understanding such things yet. They hold the understanding that each individual, cloaked in humanity, sees a distortion of who he is until a spiritual awakening where he comes to the realization in his mind of how great he really is and practices the belief that he can attain anything, even acquire anything he so desires, using his own will to make it happen make his or her own reality. This is how he discovers true self, or discovers that he is God. But Christian enlightenment is different.
Christian enlightenment begins with the concept that man is mortal and has disobeyed God and justly deserves this punishment for sin, and the concept that mankind has even been justly removed from that place where man was once created to be and live, Eden. This mortal man, one who actually recognizes he is not God, understands that he needs God and is willing to subject his will to God's and be instructed by God and God's Holy Spirit, is he who can be enlightened, not with the light that is darkness, but with the true light... God.
The truely enlightened individual repents of evil, subjects himself to God. This is the one who is spiritually awakened...or born again. This is the one who is a new creation... and this because he has repented of sin and believes, through the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, (aka Holy Spirit) on the One God sent, Jesus Christ. (John 6:29)
The concept of “enlightenment” is often used interchangeably with “spiritual awakening.” In new age religions both terms refer to acquiring wisdom or even a new understanding about the spiritual world or worlds as well as self. Sometimes such definitions are intertwined with the Christian concept of being “born again,” making it all somewhat confusing.
Nicodemus wondered about this concept because Jesus called it being "born again." He asked Jesus, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?” Jesus answered, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” In the Christian sense, a "spiritual awakening" refers to this odd idea of a man being "born again." Nicodemus had the wisdom to ask Jesus his question.
Being "born again" is not just being spiritual. There are a lot of so called "spiritual" one can be immersed in, but not every spirit is from God. Jesus said that a man must be born of water and of the Spirit.... in order to enter the kingdom of God.
Some think they can enter the heavenly kingdom and spiritual realms belonging to God without going through the proper door. Jesus made it clear... he is the door. No one comes to the Father except through him. In fact, one must be "born again."
For some people, having what they call a "spiritual awakening" means realizing that they are not merely human, but that they are in fact God. To say the least, this is very different thing from realizing you are not and He is. In such theology, self is God. It is a bad theology because eventually, in the passage of time, they will, like those angels who left their first habitation, (Jude 1: 6.) Rejecting true light from true light, remaining in those occult places where truth could remain hidden and unknown, refusing to enter through the door, or to walk in the light as he is in the light, they will leave this world to find themselves exposed when the truth of God is revealed, for it is appointed once for man to die, and then the judgment.... and so we consider how it was that Jesus verily said, "You must be born again."
In some religions, enlightenment, or attaining enlightenment, carries the idea of being filled with “light” and spiritual wisdom. Many begin with the concept that man is divinity, only this divinity is something he has simply forgotten or not evolved into complete understanding such things yet. They hold the understanding that each individual, cloaked in humanity, sees a distortion of who he is until a spiritual awakening where he comes to the realization in his mind of how great he really is and practices the belief that he can attain anything, even acquire anything he so desires, using his own will to make it happen make his or her own reality. This is how he discovers true self, or discovers that he is God. But Christian enlightenment is different.
Christian enlightenment begins with the concept that man is mortal and has disobeyed God and justly deserves this punishment for sin, and the concept that mankind has even been justly removed from that place where man was once created to be and live, Eden. This mortal man, one who actually recognizes he is not God, understands that he needs God and is willing to subject his will to God's and be instructed by God and God's Holy Spirit, is he who can be enlightened, not with the light that is darkness, but with the true light... God.
The truely enlightened individual repents of evil, subjects himself to God. This is the one who is spiritually awakened...or born again. This is the one who is a new creation... and this because he has repented of sin and believes, through the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, (aka Holy Spirit) on the One God sent, Jesus Christ. (John 6:29)
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