They Call It -Irreconsilable Philosophical Differences

Apparently some Ancient Chinese Philosopher once said 'He who asks a question is a fool for a moment.  He who fails to ask that question is a Fool for a Lifetime."  There is an old joke, and I use that term advisedly, about this guy who was asking all these questions about the book of Genesis.  He was asking questions like "Where did Cain get his wife?" and "How do we know a Day was a Day then since the Sun wasn't Created Untill the Fourth Day" and "Well, if God was around since Eternity, then What was He going before he Created the Heavens and the Earth".  The answer goes 'He was creating Eternal Hell for all the Unbelievers like You".   The problem with this filppant answer is that it really isn't spoken in jest.  It isn't a joke.  This is how these people opperate at their Core.  For instance the question arises "Since Christianity was being peddled to a Roman audience- - why have this whole Jewish thing at all?"  The answer is contained in a remark that Walter Martin made a long time ago, which goes to the effect that "First and foremost the thing you start the Gospel message with is that- barring anything else- - everybody is headed tword Hell".  Of course Seid had some interesting comentary on Hell which he says was invented in the fourteenth century by Dante.  And that it was in response to all of the dead bodies that were accumulating during the Bubonic Plague where the Population of Europe was reduced some forty percent.  But due to the high water table in the ground at that time, they were unable to bury these bodies so they just dug a ditch and set the bodies ablaze and kept the fires going day and night to burn away the infection and destroy the bacteria so the disease wouldn't spread further".   Oddly enough if you've read this trilogy- - Dante believed that the earth was round- which puts him one leg up on the people who lived a hundred years later on in Columbus' time.

Jesus told his disciples not to fear so much he could bring about death and kill the body, but afterward had no further power over an individual, but to fear him who had the power to destroy both body and soul in the flames of Hell.  He said this to drive home the idea that "He who denies my name before Men, I shall deny that individual in Heaven before the Father".   My Dad used the saying to convince me at age thirteen that I should become a Christian and it was genuine and real because he said 'Somehow, some way- - the whole thing got going- - and it's been growing for the past two thousand years".   I thought that if a moment was not even afraid of Death itself, then there had to be something behind it.  Unfortunately I found out in the following Decade that most Calvary Chappel Christians were more personally shallow and bigger cowards than I ever dared to believe".  People repeat stuff.  Like for instance- - and this really happened- - there was one old lady, who really was a "Crazy ass cracker" and she lodged complaints against all sorts of the other tennants- - over and over".   So I would receive one of these notices talking about 'Numerous complaints of this or that".  This worried me till this other guy named Perry, who happened to be Black, said "Oh - that's because she complains about nothing over and over again.  I've had all sorts of problems with her myself".  There is this one Story you read in books about "The apostolic fathers" about how Ireneus knew this guy named Polycarp, who said "For 76 years or whatever- - I have served my Lord and he has done me no harm up to now- - so how can I now deny him" just before he was burned at the stake- - sometime around the year 165 or so.   And Polycarp knew the Apostle John - - who according to all of the accounts lived right up to the beginning of the second century so he must have been pushing one hundred".   No other previous Christian writer informed us of this "Apostolic connection".  No other previous Christian writer informed us that John lived so long.  In fact as I have said - - if you search out the names of the Apostles around Jesus in Justin's "Apology I" you will be disappointed.   But the thing is- - Jehovah God did indeed say that the wages of Death were for something- - but it wasn't steadfast martyrdom.  No- - the wage of Death was for Sin.  In fact there is an old Jewish saying that goes "Where there is Life there's hope".

If there are three things I would call the most deadly impediments to being a Christian- - number three would be that honestly searching for the Truth will reap rewards.  In other words this is a person who believes that "There is a Truth out there".   Every so often they announce on the news one artifact or another is roomered to support Christianity.  But they research it and the claim always comes up empty.  The number two most deadly "shortfalling" is - - having a poor self image.  Coming to Christianity from a stratigic position of weakness, and humility if you will.  Perhaps the thing Satan can advise a person that will Damn him more surely than anything else is "Be humble and submissive and open and trusting tword other Christians, who have been in the faith longer".  Oh- - but number one- - the most indicting deadly sin or "personal lacking' of all, and that is - - being Poor.  Being economically poor, being emotionally poor and being poor in terms of how you think of yourself.  Remember Judy's voice tightened once in early 1981 when David Snow suggested I lead a Bible Study, and she said to me 'You should not lead a Bible study because you don't have the Love of God".  Again it wasn't that I didn't practice Love- - but that I didn't - - Have - - Love, and I suggest there is a difference.  Clearly she was alluding to a certain pre-existant condition (like insurance companies talk about all the time) that I couldn't remedy merely by acting differently - -assuming I wasn't behaving right to begin with.  Rush Limbaugh has an abiding hatred of the Poor as a class.  To him and to people like Judy it breeds all sorts of other moral conotations- - like they vote wrong- - and they have lived their lives wrong- - and probably that they are socialists or communist or something and are somehow "Out to steal from the people who really earn a living".   However you define the word "Poor" it is a damning indictment.  Neil Savedra once said that Athiests "Have issues" or maybe it was "Emotional issues", which I learned at the Fullerton Mental Health clinic in late summer of 1999 the word "Issues" was a euphanisum for being mentally unballanced.  But Neil Sevedra goes on to say however (this was to a different caller- ) he said "I don't see why being mentally ill should be an impediment to being Saved" after he had already labored so long explaining why it was.

Conservatives are big believers in the necessity of "Collateral damage".  Neil and all the rest or instance are completely unconcerned about the fate of those who never heard the Gospel, or if the missionary's car broke down on the way to the village or a bridge was out or something.  That is, real things that could and no doubt do happen all the time.  And I raised the issue of troops fighting at the front and one of the two gets killed, possibly the braver of the two men, who stuck his neck out in a time of a need for action.  But then the other guy- - the one who was less bold- - he gets saved while his braver comrad goes to Hell.  This is spiritual "collateral damage".  If course we talked about how the Rev Bill Halliday was a "Spiritual abortionist" because he sure aborted my Christian faith in 1991 and 1992.  It would seem that Rick Perry has a more basic "respect for all life" than either Neil Sevedra or Bill Halliday.  The whole idea of sacrificing the lives of the innocent so that the guilty can continue to live in a lifestyle to which they have become accustomed - - is one that has always bothered me.  On the soap opera "Passions" we were informed by some Priest, that to have this doctrine of sacrificing the innocent - - is a sinful doctrine.  Yet the cornerstone of the Christian doctrine is based on this "Sinful notion".  How can that be?  We are reminded that Abraham did not go through with sacrificing Issac.  But Jeptha DID go through with the sacrificing of his virgin daughter to fulfill some petty vow, that I can't remember what it was- - just as Bob Dylan can't remember why those rednecks in the South killed Emit Till.  And we are also informed that five sons of one of David's wives- - "Hung before the Lord" and I don't mean in picture frames.  I mean that they were sacrificed to Jehovah because some prophet said these five sons needed killing as some 'offering' to placate some wrong.  Of course on the subject of Forgiveness- - this one gets me down because with the Church you seemingly are "Always trying to dig yourself out of a hole" and you may not even remember what the sin was that "got you in the hole' or whether there even WAS a sin that "got you in the hole" all you remember is the impossibility of digging yourself out.  We told you that Jesus forgave the two debtors- - but then got on the one's case because he did not forgive someone who owed HIM money - - and he retracted the forgiveness, which he had previously granted him.  We told you about Shimiai who taunted David.  And King David as he crossed the Jordan in retreat said, "Let him taunt" and went his way.  But later ordered his son to carry out vengeance against him.  And also Joab his general- - and one of my dead friends from the other side- - experianced this one personally- - Joab apparently sometime decades ago killed ONE man unjustly -  (OK I forgot about Absolem, that makes two) - under circumstances where people in the Bible get killed every day and Jehovah never says a thing about it.  But now King David puts out a hit on Joab, who was loyal to David all his life, and fought heading his army when Absolem his son rebelled against him.  It was Joab who said to David after his son was killed "It seems to me that you'd be happier if the whole Israeli army had been wiped out- - if your son came back alive".  I guess the moral of this story is that- - if these cases are not forgiven - - then the Tea Party feels free to hold President Obama's ethnicity against him - - or thinks every Latino immigrant is a violent felon - - or thinks that people who get pensions or health care are getting unjust "Entitlements".  I was going to put on my list of Christian short-fallings - - maybe I'm not as gushy and "stroking of people's ego" as others, but I also don't their burning Hatred of so many groups.  There are times I have almost been tempted to pray to Jesus "Lord, make me a better hater" till I saw the utter folly of that.  Anyhow to sumarize- - these are among the moral problems I have with Christianity.