Friday, April 30, 2010

Poisoning My Children's Well

"Poisoning the Well" is a fallacy wherein one presents the arguments of their ideological opponent's first as well as a response to those arguments.  By doing this they are able frame their opponent's argument in worst possible terms and respond to it in the best possible terms. It might look something like this.  Teacher says: "Your parents are going to tell you that God created this entire world you now live in.  But we now know that such views are antiquated and are nothing more than remnants of an old unscientific way of thinking. Science has now shown that our existence is due to evolution."

My first exposure to this tactic occurred during a prolonged encounter with Jehovah's Witnesses. These poor souls were taught beforehand exactly how Christians would respond to their message.  So when Christians actually responded as predicted, it made their leaders look intelligent, insightful and even prophetic and thus affirmed the cultist's trust in their leader.

Anti-Christ cultural apologists do the same sorts of things by presenting a cultural issue along with a caricatured version of the anticipated Christian response. They then follow that up with a more "reasonable" sounding explanation.  This, in effect, poisons many children's Well against their own parent's teaching. When the parent attempts to teach in contradiction to the prevailing norms being pushed in the schoolhouse, they will be teaching what their children were told they would teach, and the counter to that teaching will have already been implanted in the child's mind. The parents are then seen by the child through the lens of a silly caricature.  

On the other hand, if I am the first to make the world's case to my children, then I can also be the first to give a response to why the world's views and arguments are flawed.

I have come to appreciate this tactic and have employed it in teaching my own children in ways that help insulate them against the lies they're certain to hear.  My goal is one of firsts.  I make it my business to be the first to present the messages of our culture as well as the first to help them evaluate those messages in light of scripture, logic, and objective truth, and also the first to provide a response to those messages. In this way I am the one setting the table for my children's future worldview discussions with others.

Francis Schaeffer understood this problem in the early sixties and had this to say in the book, "Escape From Reason", published in 1968:
"The reason we often cannot speak to our children, let alone other people's, is because we have never taken time to understand how different their thought-forms are from ours. Through reading and education and the whole modern cultural bombardment of mass media, even today's middle-class children are becoming thoroughly twentieth-century in outlook. In crucial areas many Christian parents, ministers and teachers are as out of touch with many of the children of the church, and the majority of those outside, as though they were speaking a foreign language."
C.S. Lewis also, in "The Abolition Of Man", spoke of the school boy who had had the seed of indoctrination planted in his mind early in his life:
"It is not a theory they put into [the school boy's] mind, but an assumption, which ten years hence, its origin forgotten and its presence unconscious, will condition him to take one side in a controversy which he has never recognized as a controversy at all."
Parenting as a Christian in a culture hostile to Christianity requires that one be, among other things, proactive and intentional. If the Christian parent is not the first to introduce the views that oppose the faith that the parent is attempting to instill, he will likely discover later that the very act of articulating those same views will lend credence to those who oppose his views.  The parent will indeed be fulfilling "prophecy".  This makes the "prophet" look really smart and the parent look predictable... even stupid, kind of like the caricature.

When my children are confronted with such opposition, my hope is three-fold. First, that the issue will already have been settled in their minds. Second, that their father's credibility will be enhanced in hearing exactly what he he warned them they would hear. And third, that they will be critical thinkers.

It is naive to think that our children's well will not be poisoned if we do not take action to prevent it. Fallacious arguments against the Christian's worldview, and what we teach our children, are very much an integral part of our culture, which not only includes institutions of education, but also entertainment. Unless the prent is proactive in preventing it, those arguments will take hold. The parents will simply find one day that their children have rejected their worldview and faith.

To avoid the poisoning of the hearts and minds of your children consider a few thoughts:

  1. The younger our children are, the more open they are to an adult's teaching. As C.S. Lewis alluded, we must plant the seeds into our children's hearts early, then be vigilant in guarding against the birds who desire to steal them. Do not teach things that are not true, like Santa Clause, or the Easter Bunny. You destroy your own credibility by doing so. Your child will one day reject them both, and may well throw Jesus into the mix of things that you taught that were not true.
  2. Understand the tools and methods that will be used against your teaching, poisoning the well is but one. To learn how these tools are used, we ought to engage the world; think critically about its messages; and learn to refute the arguments if they are untrue. This will require work and critical thinking on our part. As someone once said, parenting is not for cowards.
  3. There is a temptation to wait until our children are older when they will better be able to understand more complex issues. Wisdom is in order here but do not wait too long.  Many of the concepts are fundamental, like a thing can't be both true and untrue at the same time, or be both black and white.  Develop the means early in simplistic forms while they are still open. God did not design them to always be under your protection and roof. They become their own persons much earlier than this culture and society would have you believe. The world knows this as is shown by the pro-homosexual messages and agenda being carried to elementary schools.
  4. Avoid ad hominem attacks (that is attacks on the character of the opposition as opposed to the merit of their viewpoint) against those who hold differing views. While this is effective when used by anti-Christian forces (because those attacks will constantly be reinforced by culture and society) it is antithetical to a Biblical worldview. Moreover, if you are successful in teaching your children to think critically, it will only be a matter of time before they put what you have taught under that same microscope. Don't discredit your own teaching in the future minds of your children by teaching contradictions and falsehoods.  Study, study, study.
  5. Insulate rather than isolate. Learn to find the hidden messages in entertainment and then teach your children to seek and find the good and bad messages hidden there. Remember one mistake does not determine your child's future, nor does one success. With this in mind, teach your children to interpret movies and literature, to think critically about propaganda/news stories themselves and to keep their guards up.  You should then challenge them by openly playing devil's advocate.
  6. Bring in real life events and issues as they get older. I have found You Tube a great resource for this. A point can be made and examples can be shown and re-shown.
  7. Have fun. Eventually picking out fallacious arguments and assertions can be like egg hunts, and the people who are making them begin to look ever more ridiculous in light of critical thought.
  8. The truth never hurts the truth. Keep in mind that anti-Christian forces are not the sole proprietors of fallacious arguments. Fallacy and truth are mutually exclusive no matter who engages in them. Truth should reign supreme.
  9. Teach and live scripture. This does not mean teach and live perfection. A common well poisoning tactic is to make a strawman attack on Christians as not living what they preach. The Christian knows that this is impossible because he preaches that everyone sins and falls short of the glory of God. So then, when we as parents fall short, we repent and apologize as necessary, including to our children, and according to how we teach. Point out that any time a standard exists, people who hold to that standard will fall short. Inquire as to what standard the person making this accusation of hypocrisy may be falling short of.
  10. Above all, pray without ceasing that our Father in Heaven will guide the steps of our children into His service and into His glory. Pray that He will capture their hearts at an early age. Pray that they would always seek His face, and His will for their lives and that he would make it plain to them what that will and plan is. Pray for wisdom-as a parent-that the wiles and schemes of the Evil One would be plain. Pray for their salvation and for their eternal destiny.
  11. Last but not least, teach the fear of God.

108 comments:

ExPatMatt said...

Hey Dan, great to have you back.

There's some really good advice in this post (I'm not a father yet, but I can imagine how what you've described would be an excellent approach).

I wonder about this point;

"Keep in mind that anti-Christian forces are not the sole proprietors of fallacious arguments."

Did you perhaps have in mind the many Christians who use fallacious arguments despite (in your opinion) being privy to the Truth? It must be an important lesson, I would think, to be able to not accept something, purely because it's coming from someone whose conclusions match your own - they're the hardest ones to spot, the most delicate to resolve but the most important to confront, I think.

Cheers,

Matt

Danny Wright said...

I'm sure I have myself used fallacious arguments. I hope that one day my children will be critical enough thinkers to call me on it should I err.

Good to hear from you Matt.

Craig and Heather said...

Thought-provoking essay, Dan.

I especially appreciate point 10.

ExPatMatt made an interesting observation. It is good to remember that the only source of Truth is God. When we know Him, we are on solid ground even when our own intellect fails.

It must be an important lesson, I would think, to be able to not accept something, purely because it's coming from someone whose conclusions match your own - they're the hardest ones to spot, the most delicate to resolve but the most important to confront, I think.

Indeed it is an important lesson. Placing one's faith in anything or anyone other than Christ is of serious eternal consequence.

Heather

Kristi said...

Wow, Danny, thank you for that. Very thought provoking... this is one I'm going to return to again and again.

Justin said...

Great post. The techniques of misinformation and propaganda used by the Enemy are sophisticated and never ending.

Mary Lee said...

Wow Danny. You hardly ever post but when you do you write a novel! Good stuff.

Anonymous said...

This should be required reading for every Christian Conservative parent.

My wife and I have been raising our children as you describe. Real life provides some excellent lessons, positive and negative.

I also strongly believe in "inoculation" versus "isolation." It is unfortunate, but there is a lot of bad stuff out there, and we have to prepare our kids, and as you say, that includes a lot of prayer and developing a good conscience.

I am happy to say the two older ones are now like having lawyers in the house. They question and probe everything. It can be a pain, but raising your kids to analyze and think logically is the best thing you can do for them besides raising them to love The Lord.

L.G. Robins said...

Woo hoo, and back with a bang! I've been waiting :-).

Something here reminded me of this quote I heard on "Malcolm in the Middle" of all places:

"Some say we're closed minded, but I say there is nothing closed minded about shunning ideas that make you scared and uncomfortable."

LOL, that sums it up for me.

Stan said...

I echo the common thought. Good to have you back! Good stuff!

But ... can it be called "poisoning the well" if you're injecting their minds with truth? ;)

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Dan,

Been looking forward to your return post and you didn't disappoint.

Not much to add, except that i'll suggest for younger children (my boys are 6, 4 and 2) reading the Chronicles of Narnia. They are masterfull works that are full of excitement and adventure, and as you read them, great discussions about biblical truth are present (Edmund and the Turkish Delight and Aslan and the stone table in Lion, Witch and Wardrobe; creation of Narnia and Digory's retreival of the apple versus Jadis' sneaking over the wall to steal and eat from Magician's Nephew just for examples).

Also I hope no one missed your point on training children to send them out. I think we are well served as parents to think of our role as training up men/women not teaching children. Daily devotions so they are in the habit of reading and studying the Bible daily, prayer with each child (and praying for each child by name) are daily staples in our home. I have also found, as you mentioned, that much is learned with humility and asking forgiveness by parents when they have not lived up to the expectations set for the children.

At the end of the day we are pointing our children beyond ourselves to the Lord and trusting Him to pilot them through.

Thanks for the thoughts and look forward to more great work from you in the future. Blessings.

Danny Wright said...

Thanks all for stopping by. Your comments are important to me.

Silver, "having lawyers in your house". There's nothing like having your own children hold you accountable to your own words. They are some of the most ready accountability masters we will ever have, I believe.

Stan: I struggled with this. I had considered calling it purifying the well but that would imply that it had been poisoned. I decided to keep with the premise of the fallacy; fighting poison with poison, so to speak.

Jeremy

Agreed totally. I have read the entire series to my children and now my daughter 10 has reread them many times over. Being a student of Lewis myself I have picked up on an underlying theme in his writings that we often talk about, which is the lost concept of honor. My children will readily tell you that Reep a Cheep is my favorite character because he exudes honor for his king.

Also, you mentioned training our children to send them out. I would add to that to train our children to train their children to train their children.

El Cerdo Ignatius said...

As C.S. Lewis alluded, we must plant the seeds in our children early and be vigilant in guarding against the birds who desire to steal those seeds.

Great reference to Luke, ch. 8, there. And I couldn't agree more.

Anonymous said...

He's back!! Great post. I'll be linking to this in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . .

LTD said...

Interesting post; I am a new parent, and of course I'm scared to death about messing up :) I find the ideas you bring up to be intriguing, but could you give a specific example of how you've "poisoned the well"?

Danny Wright said...

Hi Lane

Congrats on being a new Dad. The role of Dad is one of the most difficult and challenging and wonderful and fulfilling rolls I have ever filled. A good dose of fear is probably healthy. My fear of messing it up remains ten years later also.

Good question. I've been thinking about it and trying to reduce a specific example to a size that would fit into a comment section. I've been thinking it deserves a post.

However, here is a Link to Jonathan Park. Johnathan Park is a radio theater series by Vision Forum that presents the confirmation bias of evolutionary "science", then presents the problems associated with its assumptions. It does so in small bite size lectures incorporated into an adventure.

My children as well as my wife and I love to listen to these CD's when we're traveling. We find that they educate as well as entertain and teach our children also on evolutionary theory and the problems associated with it. In effect, they help us to poison the well of evolutionary thinking by presenting the theory then the scientific problems associated with it.

Take a listen and let me know what you think. Vision Forum has just made this sample available, something that I have been hoping they would do.

Danny Wright said...

My goodness. Note to self, read your comments when you have been interrupted several times while writing them BEFORE posting them so that you don't make redundant statements. DOGH!

Anonymous said...

I raised my son not to be a Christian. His mother is a Catholic and to protect him from her fear and superstition (she uses violence and intimidation on children as she cannot face her inner child) and as you recommend I taught him critical thinking.
God? Prove it.
Original Sin? Does not exist.
Jesus taught to protect the children from the Unconsious Believers (with Guarantee cards of Faith). He did not seek to save the children for Heaven, for all children already have eyes to see the kingdom of god, but to bring people back to their child.
So my son is full of love and living by every word of insight. To not judge or resent.
Only the empty cry out to be filled by someone calling themselves an Apostle of God or Allah.
Call no man teacher.
I raised him to be himself not be guarded but simply not take which is not his and recognise people take what is not theirs by giving each other titles. A rich man will not enter the kingdom of god.

"Above all, pray without ceasing that our Father in Heaven will guide the steps of our children into His service and into His glory". - As meaningless and comforting to beguiled as an Astrologer's forecast. And is nothing close to what Jesus would utter.

Anonymous said...

This concept of presenting a child's mind with "firsts" in order innoculate them is called rape, a mind-screw. Every Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Christian priest knows this and does it for The Cause. For The Cause is greater than the individual.
(Took Jesus 40 days and nights to meditate to focus himself out of the mindtrap of "firsts").
Any child taught Santa Clause is real and later learns the reality of this nonsense is devastated. For when they had faith their annual world was aglowand now they know they were betrayed.

To be an individual, protected and secure, is merely to observe the "Lasts".

The JW/Jew/Muslim/Christian will not listen to outsiders because they are least among them and doomed to Hell, and by associating with them so will they.

You are the Last whilst they are the First. It is an ego-barrier and not one of greater knowledge or insight. Wisdom breaks down their falacies.

All you have to do as a parent is be believable, that means being honest about what you do not know and what you do.
So if you preach a Kingdom of Heaven outside yourself when Jesus taught a kingdom within of the living and not the dead, then you are going find pretenders who can pretend with you and the kids are going to go astray. Because they already have the kingdom and all they needed was a little enlightenment to grow.

Craig and Heather said...

@ Kinderling


It is regrettable that some people work Christianity as though it is any other man-earning-his-way-into-the-favor-of-an-angry-deity religion. While it is true that the Bible says God's wrath abides on those who refuse to obey Him, the misrepresentation of Christianity does not help others see the Person of Jesus as He really is.

The true Christian faith is not a "cause" that simply steamrolls practicing individuals in order to provide a positive corporate outcome.

Jesus Christ was not some ultra-enlightened self-help guru and He did not teach that life is accessible within ourselves if we only get hold of the right information. That has been Satan's lie from the beginning. We dare not attribute such blasphemy to the utterings of our Lord and Savior!

Jesus taught that He alone, as the Man who IS God, is our very source of Life.

While He walked among us, He professed to be Jehovah God of the OT Hebrew scriptures. If a person rejects His singular claim to deity, it makes no sense to reference or follow any of His teaching.

If you don't believe in God Who is "outside" of us, why would you sit under the instruction of a man whose own words would suggest to you that he's either a liar or a lunatic? (I'm borrowing from CS Lewis' contemplation, there) Are you aware that being a crazy liar is exactly what the self-righteous Pharisees of Jesus' day accused Him of? And it was not the Hebrew Law and Prophecy that God Himself gave them which caused the Jews to reject Jesus. On the contrary, it was sinful human arrogance.

The "last/first" discussion provides contrast between ALL human egotism and the true nature of humility before our Maker. Jesus was primarily referring to Himself concerning the "least being the greatest".

God became man so as to rescue His fallen creation from death and destruction. Jesus did what is impossible for us. He pleased God and conquered death, thus interceding on our behalf. Christ's own life, death and resurrection completed all that is necessary for anyone to be reconciled with our Creator whom we are not capable of pleasing on our own. God appeared as the Servant of all. HE is First in the Kingdom.

Christianity is, at it's core, trusting in the finished work of the second Person of the eternally triune, merciful and generous God who became man. Those whose hearts have been reborn by God will desire to do what is right by Him. Because we are not gods, the Lord has provided much instruction on what a God-honoring life looks like and through the centuries, humans have tweaked the simple truth of faith in Christ and often distorted the reality by focusing on "us" instead of Jesus.

It has never been about "us". But those who believe in Christ Jesus have His Life abiding in them.

Erm. Sorry about the lengthy comment, Dan.

Heather

Anonymous said...

Hi Heather,

"God became man so as to rescue His fallen creation from death and destruction."

Not a very successful rescue then - seeing that in the last 2000 years of Churchianity million of children died from famine and warfare. A bit like Jesus discovering after 2000 years that Judaism was a bit of a let down too. That only when people changed to consciousness did the world become a better place and not by those purporting to live by a faith alone.

So here you are, with your whole life to live, doubting your own common sense of how to love and discover truth so you over-love and cling to Holy Texts while worshiping the Sky God and waiting for He-Who-Will-Return to make it all perfect again.

It is like a person targetted for the Offering Bag because she will give the Church a lot to get a lot from God.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

I'm intrigued by the following comments you made:

You said:

"Took Jesus 40 days and nights to meditate to focus himself out of the mindtrap of "firsts"

and

"A bit like Jesus discovering after 2000 years that Judaism was a bit of a let down too."

To begin, my questions to you would be:

Who do you think Jesus was? Are you basing your understanding of who Jesus was on the Bible or on something else?

Danny Wright said...

"Not a very successful rescue then - seeing that in the last 2000 years of Churchianity million of children died from famine and warfare."

Not a very favorable impression from a being that does not, as you state previously, embody original sin.

Craig and Heather said...

Kinderling,

I believe you've confused religion with relationship.


So here you are, with your whole life to live, doubting your own common sense of how to love and discover truth so you over-love and cling to Holy Texts while worshiping the Sky God and waiting for He-Who-Will-Return to make it all perfect again.



I'm not sure what you view as Holy
Texts, but I do treasure my Bible as God's message to us. Since He is the very definition of love and truth, it makes sense to become as familiar with the writings as possible.

Man was designed to have a relationship with his Maker and to rely on Him for provision and direction. "The" original sin is the attitude that man doesn't need God in order to be good. Like it or not, we've all been "infected" due to our Adamic ancestry). Whenever we willfully separate ourselves from God's guidance, even our best efforts at doing the right thing are worthless due to the underlying base crime of thankless pride.


It is like a person targetted for the Offering Bag because she will give the Church a lot to get a lot from God.

God's people are the Church. Sometimes a corporate offering is the best way to steward our finances--but quite frankly, I believe it is too easy to limit our responsibility to God and others to the Sunday offering plate.

Faith in Christ is not a merit badge that people can tack onto their sleeves.

Salvation can't be bought. It is a free gift given to those who believe. You can't get "more saved" by doing things for God but as a believer matures within the relationship, the desire to do things that please God (ie generosity, acts of kindness) also grows.





Heather

Anonymous said...

Hi Jeremy,

Thank you for getting to the heart of the matter: for all read texts that quote the few sayings of Jesus and each person then claims to be able to know him.
People think they do, but if honest about it, they don't, they just kinda hope he is like what they think he is like because something about his teaching kindled them. They became self-aware until the Church snached them away and then retaught to pray and speak in tongues like pagans do.

There have been many versions of Jesus and so to separate man from myth one has to look at context of the writers to discern him.
One great boob in the Bible is Mark 16:18 "...they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."
I'd like to see you try it or get someone to slip you a poison so that 'you don't have to test God'.
The writers are just like us, falable and wishful thinking.
A darker hand took over with St Paul and Rome's editing of the Holy Bible.
St Paul instructed on love when no one can be taught love. Jesus did not teach truth but that it be revealed to you for yourself, the 'upon this rock' realisation. Teaching love means you did not have love in the first place and the enemy will tempt you to love them no matter what perverted evil they do in the Church 'in the name of love'. Parables are for those to understand, not learn.

"Took Jesus 40 days and nights to meditate..." means it took nearly six weeks of starvation to remove all that baggage of being conditioned to being born a Jew (look how long it takes ex-Muslims often a lifetime) so that he could then honestly say the Sabbath was made for man and not for God.
The pain of truth will set you free. And from Jesus' release he started his mission to set others on the path, "The Way" (no other way), to freedom too.
Guru Nanak for the Sikhs made the discovery: "There is neither Hindu nor Mussulman (Muslim) so whose path shall I follow? I shall follow God's path". There is no Christian or Jew, no come first or come second, just back to yourself.

"Who do you think Jesus was? Are you basing your understanding of who Jesus was on the Bible or on something else?"

The lore put upon Jesus was to make him fit into the existing priesthood and Temples of the time and maintain the status quo of slavery as Bramins instructed Hindus into castes of legitimate servitude for a better place in the next life. The Sun has twelve zodiacs that follow it and has been worshiped for thousands of years, myths of virgin births were part of many if not of all the surrounding pagan religions. You do not change a good thing.

Jesus served the living not Followers into Heaven of the Holy Dead. He did not claim to be good.

I hope this makes you look further than the received wisdom of our times, where you can say "I am who I am" "the father are one".

Anonymous said...

Heather, I'll give you a beautiful writing of Mary Magdalene, accused of being a whore, but then that is how your Holy Bible was altered by men to make all women subservient. (Please seek and read the history of the Bible).

The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene:

"5) Peter said to Mary, Sister we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of woman.

6) Tell us the words of the Savior which you remember which you know, but we do not, nor have we heard them."

Mary said she saw Jesus in a vision.

"I said to Him, Lord, how does he who sees the vision see it, through the soul or through the spirit?
11) The Savior answered and said, He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind that is between the two that is what sees the vision and it is [...]"

The Hindu claims to live by Spirit, the Muslim by Soul where they believe women do not have souls. Guru Nanak realised the mind is how we see. The Hindu claims Universal Love, not even eating meat, the Muslim claims Universal Truth killing the Unbeliever. The Hindu has no love because she has to love everyone, the Muslim no truth because he has to truth everyone.

Flowers simply grow in the light.

Jesus came for the sick as these and said do likewise.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

That was quite an eloquent and esoteric muse on some very vague sprititual ideas. However, I didn't see where you actually answered my question.

My question was who do YOU think Jesus was? You referenced lore, Hinduism, zodiacs and pagan religions but you never actually said who you believe Jesus was. Do you think He was just a man? A teacher? A prophet?

I hope you can see why this is important. You are asking me to stop believing in someone and you're not even giving me a description of who it is i'm supposed to ignore. I just need a short and simple answer: who do you say Jesus was?

I appreciate it.

Craig and Heather said...

Kinderling,

I'm sorry you cannot see the spiritual symbolism behind the physical pictures. Women are not "subservient" in Scripture but specifically created to reflect a picture of the weak and helpless for whom Christ selflessly suffered and died.

Feminism destroys the picture we've been given and mirrors the attitude that woman (representative of creation) does not need man (representative of the Creator and Redeemer, Jesus Christ).

Divorce, adultery, unforgiveness and prostitution also ruin the portrait the Lord has intended for us to see concerning His mercy and willingness to forgive and care for His Bride which He purchased with His own blood.

The view that sets forth autonomous human self-awareness is the same ancient deception the serpent used to tempt Eve.

It's a lie from the forked tongue of a master liar. Please reconsider your belief.


We need God.
Always have. Always will.

Heather

Anonymous said...

Jeremy,

"My question was who do YOU think Jesus was.."
I have as much knowledge as I have of Socretes, Thomas Paine or anyone I have read about. The only thing is how they changed my attitude, broadened my mind to perceive the unfolding wonders of the universe as it is. Jesus' teachings took me out of the narrow superstitiousness of Christianity. I don't know Jesus as a personality, but I know what he meant. And that's my accord, that ties me to continue his mission of protecting the children (Hence why I joined this thread teaching you to indoctrinate your children against other indoctrinations, ha!).
Luke 6:20-26 records a fantastic speech by Jesus:
Looking at his disciples, he said:
"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."
Well, if you hold no vanity you are like a child and can see the world of people trying to save their own lives thru Gods when they should lose their lives.
"Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied."
The truth has to be sought, to be fought for. And if you seek it you will find it.
"Blessed are you who weep now,for you will laugh."
And when you find the truth it will cause you pain, but once you repent you will be set free and rejoyce.
"Blessed are you when men hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man".
Yes, the world wanted Jesus to be God so they would not have to be like him (for that would be impossible they are told) but could claim redemption in the Next Life called Heaven. Putting off to tomorrow what should be done today.

No, I don't know Jesus. I know his spirit. As I know the spirit of everyone I meet by their fruit. This is why I know St Paul used Jesus and was not a Jesus.

Was Jesus just a man? Of course he was. His abilty to come out of a Jewish Cult of highly intelligent people who had worked out over centuries every way and method to hypnotise the people from birth was remarkable. His very life-path was and is the way to do it. The only way each of us must take, not to claim a substitute for our lives like watching TV and not going out there and living. Jesus was amazed that the non-Jewish understood his message so easily, but then they had not been programmed from birth so he said only the sick need a doctor.

Jesus was what people said he was. He was not God, he was not a prophet (linked to all the other prophets like Muhammed claimed he was), he was able to be himself. "I am who I am". That is a revolution. Socrates five hundred years before had discovered "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance".

Which means if you don't know something don't pass it on as fact because eveyone else in your group is doing it. It would make you no better than a Hindu/Sikh/Buddhist/Muslim/ etc in blinding your children.

Unless a man is born again he will not enter the kingdom of god. Those with eyes and ears may understand.

Anonymous said...

Heather,

"I'm sorry you cannot see the spiritual symbolism behind the physical pictures."

No one can teach you the truth. If a teacher says "thou shalt not murder" you say "I know that is wrong, you don't have to write it down because it is in my heart." And most often the teacher gets upset because all sense has been taken out of them and they get their learning from a book.

The followers of Jesus were mainly women because at the time they had no vanity, no rights. I put it to you the Church wrote these women out. Jesus said in heaven there are no male and female. So why should I treat you like one? Cannot your mind be equal to mine or does your physical gender make you weak-minded?

Feminism is the resentment of feeling inferior, to then go and act all superior. This is as phoney as a homosexual declaring he knows love when he resents being unloved. They both destroy for a sense of life. This is ego.

Jesus did not purchase your life with his blood, he did it with his teachings. Animals were once used to appease Gods or guilts with their blood and now you bring us back to Abraham slaughtering his son again as if this being a better redeemer than the ram.

The sacrifice is you have to make is die so you will live. Not someone else doing it for you. John 12:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit".

"The view that sets forth autonomous human self-awareness..."

Yes, you become like a living spring

"...is the same ancient deception the serpent used to tempt Eve.

It's a lie from the forked tongue of a master liar. Please reconsider your belief."

I do not have belief. I know what I know.

Craig and Heather said...

Kinderling,

I'm going to address something you said to Jeremy before moving to the comment directed at me>>>

Jesus' claim to be "I AM" is a reference to being THE God of the Jewish Scriptures. He said repeatedly that HE (not just His teaching) is the only way anyone will realize eternal life.

I don't know Jesus as a personality, but I know what he meant. And that's my accord, that ties me to continue his mission of protecting the children (Hence why I joined this thread teaching you to indoctrinate your children against other indoctrinations, ha!).

God is Father. Within the triune Godhead, the Father has a relationship with the Son. We are able to be adopted as children into that relationship by believing in Christ and being indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

While Jesus did say many things about children, there is a spiritual correlation to anyone who is humbled, recognizes that he has/is nothing of value apart from God's Fatherly generosity. Those will come to Christ with the attitude of a child--ready to be not only taught, but also cared for. Anyone who would throw up a blockade to ANY child of God's coming to Christ as Savior is going to be in trouble.

No one can teach you the truth. If a teacher says "thou shalt not murder" you say "I know that is wrong, you don't have to write it down because it is in my heart." ...

Jesus' words in John 6:45 It is written in the Prophets, "And they shall all be taught of God." Therefore everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to Me.

Man is made in God's image, and his Garden grab for autonomy explains why we seem to "inherently" have a sense of right and wrong. When consulting "self" that standard can vary tremendously from person to person.

The truth about God is written on people's hearts when God puts it there. The standard of good and bad moves from "because I think so" to "because this is Who God is".

To say Truth originated with some sort of self-actualization is an attempt to steal glory that rightfully belongs to God. It's plagiarism. Even in the human realm, it is generally agreed that plagiarism deserves punishment.

Jesus said in heaven there are no male and female. So why should I treat you like one? Cannot your mind be equal to mine or does your physical gender make you weak-minded?

Actually, I believe it was Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, who said "there is neither male nor female" Jesus said that at the resurrection, there will be no giving in marriage Jesus answered and said to them, You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in Heaven. (Matthew 22:29-30) And He was saying this as part of a more complete answer to a trick question of the Sadducees, who did not even believe in a promise of bodily resurrection.

I do not see my mind to be less than yours simply because of my gender. There are many incredibly intelligent women around. The "weakness" is a spiritual and often physical one. Women do seem to be more in touch with spiritual reality yet more likely to be led astray when not balanced by a less emotionally-prone man's insight.

It makes sense to me that you do not see this. If the focus is on "mind"/intellect and the soul/spirit is made to be of little account, then it is not likely that the reality of the spiritual realm will be seen.

(cont)

Craig and Heather said...

(got a bit long-winded)

Jesus did not purchase your life with his blood, he did it with his teachings. Animals were once used to appease Gods or guilts with their blood and now you bring us back to Abraham slaughtering his son again as if this being a better redeemer than the ram.

The animals and their blood pointed toward Christ and His sacrifice from the beginning. God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son gives us a picture of how unselfish and loving GOD is. God the Father gave God the Son as a gift to the world. None of us is able to be good enough to enter into God's presence in the state we currently exist. We need the covering of righteousness Christ has offered to share.

He is to be thanked and praised for what He has done for us.

John 12:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit".

Jesus was talking about Himself. Read the context. Jesus said He came to die. He is that grain of wheat.

He also repeatedly refers to Himself as the bread of life. The OT shadow pictures also reference grain and "bread" repeatedly--it is an allusion to Christ, Who is Life.



I do not have belief. I know what I know.

Everyone has belief, Kinderling.

You have placed faith in yourself and information that you can intellectually manage.

Jesus did not come to teach us how to free ourselves from superstitious God-delusions.
He came to fulfill all that the Jewish scriptures said about Him.
He came to show the world what a merciful and unselfish Creator we have.
He came as a man to offer up His life so that men (and women), by placing our trust in His finished work of redemption, can be transformed by God into children who bring Him honor instead of shame.

Again, I ask you to please reconsider your belief.

If I've gotten out of line, Dan, please let me know. Don't want to take over your blog.

Heather

Anonymous said...

Heather, thank you for bringing your perspective to the table so that others who are afraid to question may see how we conduct ourselves.

You wrote:
"God is Father. Within the triune Godhead, the Father has a relationship with the Son".

Again, I say men wrote this who knew nothing of God. They rationalize what they do not understand. If a man wakes up an individual he is a seer, if he wakes up a whole culture he is a Messiah. Jesus asked "who do you say I am?" That is for you to discover for yourself, not to hide behind.

"Anyone who would throw up a blockade to ANY child of God's coming to Christ as Savior is going to be in trouble".
Jesus is quoted to have said as he will only return at the End Days. Yet then how come Saul claimed he spoke to Jesus? The Jews foretell Elijah will return and every Passover he is welcomed in, the Muslims The Mahdi will return to make everything alright.

But you are not alright, no amount of window dressing will fix you. A returning Saviour cannot save you.

John 6:45 It is written in the Prophets, "And they shall all be taught of God." Therefore everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to Me.

Jesus is talking to wind-up Goddists in a language that they would understand. Conversely, spoke to fishermen and farmers in a language they would understand. Anyone with an ear open to the Alpha (beginning, creation) and Omega (end, destruction) will come to Jesus for he lives in the present.

The truth about God is written on people's hearts when God puts it there.
Every child knows, no one has to wait until God puts it there.

To say Truth originated with some sort of self-actualization is an attempt to steal glory that rightfully belongs to God. It's plagiarism.
I would say God had been Plagerized many times from Thor to Allah. If we only know something because it was written in a book by self-appointed Apostles who drew lots then we are like any other faith, and then people faith-hop rather than come out of it of their stupor and face themselves.

"Women do seem to be more in touch with spiritual reality yet more likely to be led astray when not balanced by a less emotionally-prone man's insight."
I do see this every day. When a woman is brought up female (Feminism) or when a man is brought up male (Islam). Neither have their own mind for they were imprinted by resentment of the other to believe themselves superior. It is not that men and women have a spritual relm but more a cultural realm to deal with.

Anonymous said...

(continuded...)

"mind" is not to intellect but the listening of the soul and spirit.

Jews speak of Souls living the after-life, and Hindus the Spirit (Pneuma or breath)rebreathed into new life. Christians loved "The Matrix" (albiet hating the swearing) and the Buddhists "Avatar".

The reality is you die, never to be heard of again, but your atoms are consumed and reformed. The ego however wants the dream and you'll actually pay for it, even though one could assume God would pay his own way, actually go and marry Mary to make her His "Wife-of-God" and bring up his Own Son. Instead he left Mary as a single mother for another to raise his child.

John 12:25 "The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life".

Nothing about voodoo here, only about our attitude to belonging to anything. Any group you belong to?

You set yourself a hard task to pleasing a God you have not seen, for a guilt of Original Sin you did not commit, and using Jesus as your defence from His Wrath. If you were like Jesus, and he said be perfect as he is perfect, you would not have to hide behind him.

For the Jew, Christian and Muslim: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'This is the first and greatest commandment.

For the Bhuddist, Hindu and Athiest: 'Love wholesomeness with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself: for they are the ones living the Matrix or Avatar.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

Forgive me, but it is extremely difficult to wade through your response and get to an answer. I'm going to try to parse together very short excerpts and try to formulate where you are coming from in a more succinct fashion and you can correct me if i'm wrong.

You said:

"I have as much knowledge as I have of Socretes, Thomas Paine or anyone I have read about...

I don't know Jesus as a personality, but I know what he meant...

No, I don't know Jesus. I know his spirit...

Was Jesus just a man? Of course he was...

Jesus was what people said he was..."

Would it be accurate to just say the answer to my question (Who do you say Jesus is?) would be "I don't know." In just that one long comment you represented Jesus as a meaning, a spirit, a man and a proposition of men.

Here's my problem, you don't seem to be able to articulate who Jesus is and yet you are attempting to quote verses here and there through the Bible and fabricate some caricature of Jesus in your own mind. I don't think you and I will get very much further unless you were willing to go to the portions of scripture that deal with who Jesus was and investigate those on the merits.

We can do that if you like. If not, i'll just leave a few comments on a few of your other points and move on.

Craig and Heather said...

Kinderling,

I'm happy to discuss, although I fear we are only talking past each other here. Out of respect for our host, I'm going to try to shorten my commentary.

Jesus asked "who do you say I am?" That is for you to discover for yourself, not to hide behind.

When Simon Peter responded that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus said he was blessed, for flesh and blood (ie human intellect and effort) had not revealed the truth to him. The revelation is a gift from God.

Jesus is quoted to have said as he will only return at the End Days.. Yet then how come Saul claimed he spoke to Jesus?,….

Interestingly, you and I are now communicating without ever having set eyes upon each other. I don’t see why Jesus must physically return for Paul to have spoken with Him.

I would say God had been Plagerized many times from Thor to Allah.

Perhaps this is a deliberate deception, propagated by Satan.

Have you considered that although the devil cannot extinguish God’s truth, he can certainly try to confuse the issue by introducing hundreds of thousands of partial truths in an attempt to “hide” in plain sight the reality of Jesus being God and Savior? If he can get people soured on religion which promotes a misrepresentation of God, then he may well think he has a better chance of holding those souls captive.

God draws people to Himself in spite of the lies, though.

Christians loved "The Matrix" (albiet hating the swearing) and the Buddhists "Avatar".

Not only did I not love The Matrix, I didn’t finish watching it.

John 12:25 "The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life".

Nothing about voodoo here, only about our attitude to belonging to anything. Any group you belong to?


No, there’s definitely no voodoo involved. I’m sorry. I’m not following your point.

For the Jew, Christian and Muslim: " 'Love the Lord your God ….For the Bhuddist, Hindu and Athiest: 'Love wholesomeness with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'This is the first and greatest commandment.

The Lord is the definition of “wholesomeness”, for we are told that God is Love. Unless we love the One whose very nature dictates what wholesomeness IS, we cannot possibly know what we are about. True love for others comes from the overflow of a person’s relationship with God.

Jeremy said:
you don't seem to be able to articulate who Jesus is and yet you are attempting to quote verses here and there through the Bible and fabricate some caricature of Jesus in your own mind.

I'd have to second that observation. A person could create a staggering number of Jesus caricatures by removing verses from their overall context and then cobbling them together in order to make a point. It is essential to consider as a whole what Scripture tells us about Who Jesus is.

Heather

Anonymous said...

Jeremy,

I do not know Jesus. Never met him. Only read his teaching via other people.

Do you know Jesus?

Anonymous said...

Heather,

A child in Borneo meets for the first time a Christian. She learns Christians have been killing each other hundreds of years for the representation of Christ they say they know. Many believe Jesus' body transfigures into real flesh and blood at every Communion.
She know it is to know them by their fruit but she is persuaded that all men are sinners, that she will go to Hell, that the Devil lurks behind every corner.
She gave up her innocence for a peace of Heaven and the Church got a piece of her.

Whatever you get into, you have to get out of.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

I'm so glad you asked me. I do know Jesus as well as any creation can know their creator (that is to say as well as the creator has revealed Himself).

There is too much biblical support for knowing Jesus to list them all so i'll stick to just the gospel of John. I'll list a short list of references and comment on only one here, i'll leave it to you to look at the remainder at your leisure:

John 1:14-18
John 8:25-30
John 10 (the entire chapter)
John 17:20-26

I'd like to mention with comments John 14:15-30. We can all know Jesus because He loves us, is in us if we love Him and obey Him. We can also know this through the truth. I wanted to mention this passage in particular because by your comments you seem to be conflicted by the truth. This passage in particular states, "The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him."

I believe you when you say you don't know Jesus. You don't know the truth, but the good news is you can. Look over just these few scriptures I listed from the gospel of John (with an open mind as you asked specifically if I know God and they explain how that is possible) and you'll see that you can know Jesus as well. Even better is that if you get to know Jesus you'll be a lot clearer on a great many other things as well.

I'll be praying that God will open your mind to the truth as you consider this openly.

Craig and Heather said...

Kinderling,

Jesus did say that false teachers will be known by their fruit and true believers can be recognized by not only their love for one another, but also for their enemies.

It is shameful how many have claimed the name of Christ as Lord and yet horribly misrepresented Him. This does not automatically translate to "Jesus is not God and the Christian faith is a fraud".

Rather, it proves that simply saying "I'm a Christian", joining a religious organization and/or having an emotional or intellectual response to the Gospel message is not the equivalent of the necessary spiritual rebirth which only God can accomplish.

The Bible assures us there will be a final accounting and we all will have to answer for what we have done while on this planet. I trust that God will judge rightly concerning how professing Christians have behaved.

This interaction with you has been absolutely heartbreaking, as I feel you must have at some point experienced a lot of pain due to exposure to empty religion masquerading as true Christianity.

I hope you will consider Jeremy's last comment and also pray that the Lord will show you the truth.


H

Anonymous said...

Jeremy,

You have resorted to what every Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jehovah Witness, Mormon, Wiccan does - return to their True and Sacred Texts.

I have the whole universe to reveal the truths, a grain of sand, the human race and life, and my heart, soul and mind.

"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.”

Whereas I assuredly believe in Jesus' revelations are of his time period and society, because he had no language for psychology, biology or awareness of DNA back to Neadertals and beyond, the message of giving and receiving truth and love without bias is perennial.

Unafraid to speak your truths unrehearsed or scripted.

To look or sound alike is not enough. Only the free can can set others free. Followers only save people into becoming Followers.

Anonymous said...

Heather,

I have tried to reveal to you the real Jesus, not the man-God everyone else said he was.

To teachof a God is outside you, watching your every moment and going to give an account of you, is wicked and should never be put upon children.

Jesus said the truth sets you free and it sure does. And that should be enough. But it does not make a priesthood and they need to beguile you with their doctorates and degrees.

God is within you. With you. Your conscience convicts so you have to follow it. Therefore, if you live by conscience (every word of god)there is no accounting, and so Judgement Day is not as the Muslims teach 'a balance accounting of all the good and all the bad deeds you did'. For how can you forgive everyone but not yourself?

Sin no more.

But that is not enough for many, they need the whole story. No room for 4.2 billion earthly years and 15 billion years of starlight.

This interaction with you has been absolutely heartbreaking, as I feel you must have at some point experienced a lot of pain due to exposure to empty religion masquerading as true Christianity

Dan said he wanted to sharpen his sword, and a blade I brought. To separate wheat from the chaff, life from facsimile.

There is no True Christianity or True Communism or True Socialism or any uptopia. Wherever Catholics go there is poverty, violence and sexual perversion. They teach they are the True Church. The same for Muslims, the same for Orthodox Jews anyone who copies. For you live by spirit not knowing from where it comes or goes.

Some claim they do and have exclusive dibs.

Craig and Heather said...

Kinderling,

Jesus said the truth sets you free and it sure does. And that should be enough. But it does not make a priesthood and they need to beguile you with their doctorates and degrees.


Jesus came to set us free from the condemnation of being sinners who are imperfect before a holy God.

When I say God is outside of us, I don't mean He is unreachable and totally unknowable. I mean that the Holy Spirit comes from without to indwell believers. He is our very real connection to God.
I understand the need to listen to conscience. This is a primary way the Lord directs.


Dan said he wanted to sharpen his sword, and a blade I brought. To separate wheat from the chaff, life from facsimile.

I did not mean that I am offended by your presence, Kinderling. I am just saddened that you do not want to know Jesus.

I'm not Catholic and can't say that I approve of a large portion the official teachings or the many historical maneuvers of the organization.



You have resorted to what every Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jehovah Witness, Mormon, Wiccan does - return to their True and Sacred Texts.

I'm not following the logic that allows for you to quote the Bible to support certain aspects of your view and then reject the idea of consulting Scripture when Jeremy suggests that you examine certain passages.

But, you directed that statement to him, so I'll let you all work it out.

Think I'm done here.

Take care.

H

Anonymous said...

Heather,

I have argued Jesus was a man of his time, a Winston Churchill, who rose to the challenge of setting his people free, well aware of the fate that awaits anyone confronting these Pharases.

I used Bible-text as it would be familiar to you. Of Jeremy I expect the same courtesy of using my language, to reach out to me, especially if knowing Jesus The Lord meant he had spoken to Him like Saul, witnessed husbands and wives dying because they did not give their full tithes, and raised a dead person.

But all he wrote was 'and these people said...'

To wear an outer garment of faith slowly separates the veneer from self to making more and more renewed efforts and rededication of the Lapsed Christian trying to be something better than themselves.
Once you understand something you can't unknow it. You can't slide. It's impossible. You catch yourself because you found yourself. No one's driving your car but you. You don't need speed cameras because you can read the road.

Let me share with you Abu `Afak's words to his people the sons of Qayla:
"Long have I lived but never have I seen An assembly or collection of people More faithful to their undertaking And their allies when called upon Than the sons of Qayla when they assembled, Men who overthrew mountains and never submitted.

A rider who came to them split them in two (saying)
"Permitted", "Forbidden" of all sorts of things.
Had you believed in glory or kingship You would have followed Tubba`. (Tubba a King they had repelled from invading).


This "Permitted" and "Forbidden" was the Halal and Haram dictated to mankind by a man who 'knew' God.

Mohammed the apostle said "Who will deal with this rascal for me?" Whereupon Salim b. `Umayr, brother of B. `Amr b. `Auf one of the "weepers", went forth and killed him.

http://www.answering-islam.org/Green/assassins.htm

This is what the received version of Christianity has done to the West, made it weak before any men who come forth and say they 'know' God.

Every paedophile and homosexual covers themselves with another front and need to find a community doing exactly the same thing being careful to say the right things. Plastic people cannot tell who are Plastic people.

Thank you Heather. Be aware. :}

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

As I suspected, and intimated in my response, your problem is with truth. Which turns out to be a big problem. You see, you say to me:

"You have resorted to what every Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jehovah Witness, Mormon, Wiccan does - return to their True and Sacred Texts."

This is in fact the case, but what does that have to do with whether one of those texts is in fact True? It's no good saying "you're wrong because you turn to the Bible" because the very next thing you write is:

"I have the whole universe to reveal the truths, a grain of sand, the human race and life, and my heart, soul and mind."

To which (if I viewed truth the way you do) I could respond with something like: "You have resorted to what [fill in whatever your belief system happens to be] do, return to the universe, the sand, the human race and life, heart, mind, and soul." Around and around we go, ad nauseum.

The question at hand is not what you or I choose to run to as being true, but rather is their reason to believe what your or I are running to is actually true.

I think you have a real problem here because from your comments it seems due to your view of truth (apparently just being out there) your thought and comments are not really spiritual and deep, but contradictory and incoherent. For example, you entered the blog to state your emphatic revulsion to indoctrination of children. You used phrases like "This concept of presenting a child's mind with "firsts" in order innoculate them is called rape, a mind-screw" immediately after saying "I raised my son not to be a Christian." What is that if not presenting your child's mind with the "first" of disbelief? You contradicted yourself again later in our line when you said you didn't know Jesus but wrote several paragraphs about what He did and why He did it.

Please understand, i'm not trying to be cruel with my comments but just honest with how your responses read and what the problems with your conclusions are. It may help to digress and have you answer another simple question:

What is truth?

Maybe in this way you can better establish an epistemological basis and show me how I might be mis-interpreting your responses and give us a foundation to continue.

Incidentally, you didn't address the passages from John that I presented and I assume that is because you dismiss the Bible out of hand, but I would again ask that you read those passages openly. You asked if I knew Jesus and those passages answer that question and show how you too can get some clarity on the truth and know Jesus as well.

Anonymous said...

Jeremy,

"I raised my son not to be a Christian." What is that if not presenting your child's mind with the "first" of disbelief?

Totally different. I do not lay down a fantasy myth-as truth.
Knowledge is not to be owned or identified with. New discoveries refine or replace the old. There is no "first" present because it is easily discarded. I had not embeded or seered a "first" into his conscience, for today's Christianity is nothing like the Chritianity a hundred years after Jesus' death or what it will be like in another two thousand years time.

You contradicted yourself again later in our line when you said you didn't know Jesus but wrote several paragraphs about what He did and why He did it.

That is not me knowing Jesus, this is my interpretation of the scriptural quotes said to originated from this single man. This person appears to have sliced thru non-sense realising every child could see this before they got dumped on with 'firsts'. Jesus had to get rid of his 'firsts" so that he could make his yoke light. There is no Jew or Gentile, male or female, in consciousness.

What is truth?
You will know it for yourself. Only then can it be truth. It is a realization. For example, "a wall is hard". You walk into it. Now you know the meaning of hard. Now it is useful. The truth sets you free because you won't do that again.

No one can teach you truth, nor teach you love. For if you did let someone teach you truth or love you would become a fascist or a socialist, a Muslim or a Communist. A person living on their sleeve.

You discover for yourself. Seek and you will find.

Maybe in this way you can better establish an epistemological basis and show me how I might be mis-interpreting your responses and give us a foundation to continue.

If you cannot see what is obvious for a child to see I cannot help you. When you walk into a wall enough times you might want to take a good look at it.

Incidentally, you didn't address the passages from John that I presented and I assume that is because you dismiss the Bible out of hand,

No, you showed me you did not have the light inside you, because you would have written them from the beginning and then the scripture would merely be a reference and not the substance.
I dismiss what is dead to be rummaged over for meaning.

I spoke to a Heather, but I do not know you.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

I think we are probably at our end for this conversation. You seem unable to realize the internal contradiction of your position which makes our interaction impossible. Even in this last post you wrote how you just experience truth and knowledge and suggested it is dangerous to do anything but find out for yourself, and yet you did not just let your son just find out for himself, you said "I raised my son not to be a Christian." This is a purposeful act of training your child to disbelieve, that is the opposite of just letting him find out for himself. I'm sorry you can't see that.

My last comment to you is where you said about truth: "You will know it for yourself. Only then can it be truth. It is a realization. For example, "a wall is hard". You walk into it. Now you know the meaning of hard. Now it is useful. The truth sets you free because you won't do that again."

Surely you can see how this thinking if completely unliveable. It seems to work pretty well for finding out a wall is hard, but what if someone were to seek truth for them and discovered their truth to be killing and eating other people? Experience has its place, but it must conform to reality and adhere to at least an absolute moral
law.

I appreciate the opportunity to converse with you. Your interpretations of scripture in no way represent a fair reading, study or understanding of the text. You may not know me because i've challenged your view on things and that's alright. Some day I hope you will, however, come to know Jesus as He has revealed Himself. Again, I encourage you to read over the scripture references and consider them openly as opposed to just dismissing them out of hand. If you do that you may find a real true truth that is not contradictory and will bring your life real love, joy, peace and much much more. I will be praying for you, that you will someday be truly free. You quoted part of the gospel of John when you said "the truth will set you free". Please read on in John chapter 8 to see that when the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Anonymous said...

but what if someone were to seek truth for them and discovered their truth to be killing and eating other people?

Our truth is eating and killing animals, so we try to be a little more humane, shunning the barbaric Kosher and Halal laws. Our truths may be revealled as falsehoods one day by another. Do we then kill them for revealing a much greater truth that convicts like a knife and causing us pain and distress? Cannibalism and sacrificing the first born was once common, only reason, presented with evidence, can shake a person out of their mindset. Fear takes every person out of reason. Which is why you have to lose your life so you are no longer afraid by anyone.

A paring down an arguement from different perspectives produce a rock to stand on, for it is seen unchanged from all sides. Arguing a secret and hidden Authority is employed by those who can only see from one side. It is denial presented as an honour not to look, making one eye blind so they can see the cloud now appears solid.

Those who live by what "Jesus Said" are no more than those who live by what "Mohammed Said" or "Moses Said". And worse, because they say they live by loving and honesty and then they prevent Medicine (Jehovahs Witnesses), Science (Fundamental Christians) and the salvation of consciousness (Catholics) ever reaching their flock... Ignorance is Bliss... but it is not heaven.

What Christianity has taught is that a conscious man can be perceived on many levels, to The Simplon a magician, The Educated a confusion (how can a man come out of his mother's womb again?), The Conscious, nothing more than they already knew, The Sick a blessing and healer of mind and body.
The Simpletons get led into a Church of Magic, The educated a Church of Learning and Study of The Word, the Conscious are walking temples themselves opening new doors, The Sick get well and go and help others receive what the had.

If your own knowledge, love, truths are not understood by you but borrowed, you do not have a personal relationship with yourself, and so you cannot have one with others.
You kid yourself and seek out and attract those seek who kid you.

A man is known by his inner circle of friends and those he will let near the children. For they represent him when he is not there.

John 8 1-11 teaches a falsehood that he without sin cast the first stone.

There is no connection between your's and another person's sin as each is judge accordingly. There is not a shared guilt. As the poor will always be among you the wicked will too. If do nothing to make a poor man self-reliant, or a wicked man self-controlled you will wake up with the poor and the wicked taking over your home.

This is what has paralysed liberals Christians for decades to allow perverted people into their midst and make a home and not be able to cast them out.

Could Jesus have arrived at a stoning of an adulterous woman who was about to bring the Welfare State of single parents into their midst that will ruin the economy and allow the systematic corrupt the young? Possibly. And he would have got the accusers to hear out her story. And one by one they would have left for they would have seen the traps left for fools to follow and love that was missing. "They can't accuse you, and nor can I, go sin no more".
Hear our homosexuals, hear your paedophiles and do do hate them for their journey could have been yours. How they got to their addiction any child could have been lost into. Set them truely free and you set the world free.

Craig and Heather said...

A thought.

John 8 1-11 teaches a falsehood that he without sin cast the first stone.

I'm afraid you misunderstand what Jesus was saying.

Jewish Law required that both the man and the woman who committed adultery be put to death. (see Leviticus 20:10)

Yet, the Jewish leaders brought only the woman, claiming she had been caught in the act of adultery (John 8:4). They were ignoring their own Law's demand for justice.

Jesus was not advocating for the tolerance of evil. He was addressing the underlying hypocrisy and blatant disregard for God's instruction to the Hebrew people.

Spiritually speaking, adultery is basically humanity's unauthorized involvement with God-dishonoring activity which stems from worship of self and/or Satan. The Pharisees in the above scenario were behaving very much like Satan, the accuser of God's people. He never misses an opportunity to point out how often we fail to do what is right. But Jesus recognizes the hypocrisy of Satan's accusations, for the serpent is as guilty of adultery as anyone, as he is the one who initiated the forbidden interaction in the Garden.

As God, He has every right to condemn us. However, He has chosen to forgive. Those who come to Him broken and aware of their own guilt, He will forgive and will refuse to listen to the accusations of our Enemy.

In Matthew 7, Jesus instructs that those who would correct others be humble and aware of their own faults, first. Never once did He say it is okay for homosexuality or prostitution or abuse of children to be allowed among His people. In 1 Corinthians, Paul upholds this same standard.

Heather

Anonymous said...

"and do do hate them" typo error of a high resolution screen. Obviously do not hate them.

Heather,

Yet, the Jewish leaders brought only the woman,

So what? Are our sins ameliorated by a technical default or of others doing exactly the same or one escapes trial. Is an individal in a gang of rapists less guilty than a lone rapist?

Jesus was not advocating for the tolerance of evil. He was addressing the underlying hypocrisy and blatant disregard for God's instruction to the Hebrew people.

Oh My. You got all that.

Mohammed declared Abraham, Moses and Jesus were Muslims and all one billion Mohammedans faithfully believe it's true, each Prophet with 72 virgins; so then it could possible be that Jesus-was-addressing-the-underlying-hypocrisy-and-blatant-disregard-for- God's-instruction-to-the-Hebrew people.

There is no instruction kit to life. Don't look for one. Not even DNA can write a note of what to do with your life. Don't expect God to.

I will call it a day as you do not get it except chapter and verse.

Many thanks for letting me try to not brainwash your kids.

Craig and Heather said...

So what? Are our sins ameliorated by a technical default or of others doing exactly the same or one escapes trial. Is an individal in a gang of rapists less guilty than a lone rapist?

I did not say any individual's sin is to be overlooked due to a legal technicality or because someone else's crime might be considered "worse". All our sins ultimately are against God because what leads us to do evil is a lack of trust and thankfulness for Who He is.

Jesus' life and death provided full satisfaction of the requirement for any human to be able to unashamedly stand before God. And He's unimaginably generous.
As man, Jesus has taken the richly deserved punishment for all of our sin upon Himself and (because He is God and has the authority) has offered pardon to those who ask Him for forgiveness of rebellion against our Maker. If God says a sinner is forgiven, it does not matter what the devil says.

Forgiveness does not mean we continue doing evil things. In fact, if we actually understand what He's done, we will be highly motivated to do what is right--loving others, forgiving personal offenses, caring for the poor etc.

Those who refuse to be humbled and will not ask Jesus to forgive are left without legal recourse before the throne of God, who is the Judge of all. This is not the same understanding of judgment as that of Islam. God has made a way so that we can have our debt to Him entirely forgiven instead of have every good or bad deed weigh for or against us on judgment day.

Oh My. You got all that.

The Lord is faithful to show truth to those who ask Him.

Mohammed was mistaken. Although it is likely that many Muslims are, by blood, related in some way to Abraham.

If the existence of the spiritual realm is denied, it is easy to miss that in the same way the Holy Spirit leads into truth, demonic spirits can deceive.

And really, any human spirit that is cut off from communion with Jesus Christ the Light is left to itself, in the dark. Self-deception is always a potential.

There is no instruction kit to life. Don't look for one. Not even DNA can write a note of what to do with your life. Don't expect God to.

You're right about there being no instruction kit and I'm not a fatalist. Having a living relationship with God is not the same as trying to work out of a religious framework or simply hoping for the best circumstances to blow my way.

I will call it a day as you do not get it except chapter and verse.

Just responding to the previously offered reference and particular interpretation of chapter and verse.

It's been an interesting discussion, for sure.

H

Craig and Heather said...

Forgot to address the thought that prompted me to rejoin the discussion:

To teachof a God is outside you, watching your every moment and going to give an account of you, is wicked and should never be put upon children.

It is wicked to misrepresent God in such a way as to manipulate others for selfish reasons.

It is equally wicked to teach a child that he is accountable to no one but "self".

Love neither actively abuses others in the name of God, nor does it mislead into a false reality that denies the existence of God altogether.

H

Anonymous said...

It is equally wicked to teach a child that he is accountable to no one but "self".

There is a vast difference between being free and being selfish.

The Communist/Goddist plays this trick of confusion. It is called 'demoralise the infants' and then they will doubt and swear loyalty to a State or an Allah for their sense of completion. Their identity comes from serving their masters. They are always claiming the world would be a perfect utopia if a savior took over the earth for them.

Do not belong to the earth.

Don't remove your child's soul or spirit. There will always be bullies and intimidators with high ranks and they need eyes to see such frauds claiming to have life when they have no life but live by the manifesto.

Craig and Heather said...

The Communist/Goddist plays this trick of confusion. It is called 'demoralise the infants' and then they will doubt and swear loyalty to a State or an Allah for their sense of completion.

Interesting that you should appear so opposed to Communism.

Karl Marx also despised the truth that man was created by (and thereby accountable to) a Supreme Being that is beyond our full comprehension.
He also called religion "the opiate of the people" and declared that the recognition of human self-consciousness is the highest divinity.



It seems as though his under-girding philosophy is not so different than your own. Your belief system, however, appears to include something of a New Age flavor in that you have stated that god is "in" everyone. And you seem to promote the concept that we just need to tap into that supposed pre-existing "godness" in order to know truth.


Fascinating thing about the two views, though. They are based on different presumptions but the conclusions are the same. :

Atheistic Communism--"God does not exist". Therefore, I am my own ultimate authority.

In Marx's system it is necessary to resort to an oppressively strong govt because a state of anarchy is created when each person believes he has no need to capitulate to the needs/desires of others



New Age--"God is 'in' everything/everyone. Therefore, I am my own ultimate authority.

If an individual happens to be "god", then it follows he ought to be able to make up his own rules as to what "love", truth and progress look like. There is no standard other than "what I know".


The Bible very clearly contradicts the notion that we can be our own authority.

While I can acknowledge that Mohammed desired to lead people out of a polytheistic, idolatrous belief system, he ended up creating a confused religion and made a serious error in claiming to be "the" final word on truth. Allah is a monolithic distortion of the true triune God of the Bible. And, like communism and New Age, a primary focus of this religion is actually "man", because of the teaching that hinges salvation on human effort.


Jesus Christ is God's final Word to the inhabitants of this planet. What one believes and teaches about Him is of eternal significance.

Please understand that I'm well aware that the world is full of false messiahs. We do not teach our children to follow any mere mortal or mythological deity.

H

Anonymous said...

Heather,

You are now getting to my understanding.

The ant has feelers. There are two. One left and one right so it may travel straight.

Your brain is made to travel the narrow way. The left feeler reaches out through time and space thirsting for righteousness, the right feeler reaches out thirsting for love between everything that exists. As Mary Magdelen said "The Savior answered and said, He does not see through the soul nor through the spirit, but the mind that is between the two that is what sees the vision"

If a child loses a feeler, or is told one feeler should never be used, their perception of the world is based on what they are told and not what they discovered for themselves.

The child with a dumpy left feeler has fear. For they have no perception of time and space but only the constant present. A week in jail would appear a year, a year away a decade. They cannot check the facts of how old the world really is because someone gave them 6,000 years old and almost all life wiped out in The Flood as a "first". Billions is incomprehensible to them. They need a replacement Feeler of Authority to comfort them. A God Salesman gives them just that, a gourd in return for their life. For their God is Truth - it says so in the Torah/Bible/Koran...

The child with a broken right feeler feels empty saying there is no love, no empathy, no intuition. They are open to the Salesmen of Love, that by your actions of good deeds and giving whatever needy people want - is love. They preach sex and perversion between consenting abusers forgiven seven times seventy times is love. "Well if you're always going to keep forgiving me I'd might as well keep carry on and make it acceptable".

You see the two kingdoms forming as we write? Because the children were made blind.

People with grand titles take what is good and noble and then corrupt it to serve themselves.

God is within you. We are connected by our voice of consciousness knocking to be let in. You see a new born baby you see an angel, not a being condemned by Original Sin.

10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven. 11 [“For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.]

So to heal is to convict and forgive so they master own their own lives. They looked for comfort in a Dysneyland, a BibleStory World to rival a Hindu Temple.

You are either at peace with the world and conflict with yourself to have to regularly pray about it, or at peace with yourself and in conflict with the world.

The Bible very clearly contradicts the notion that we can be our own authority.

There you go. Jesus makes you into a Be-er (Be-attitude) and the Bible makes you into a Do-er (Do-attitude). All Bibles teach you to be a Follower for they are written by priests.

Jesus lived by his own authority and you should to. (Psst. That's why the priests killed him).

Craig and Heather said...

There you go. Jesus makes you into a Be-er (Be-attitude) and the Bible makes you into a Do-er (Do-attitude).

Actually, the Bible addresses attitude from the beginning. Everything we do stems from what we are. Jesus taught this truth in a very detailed fashion, but it can be seen in the OT books as well.

By the power of His Holy Spirit, those who believe that He, as both God and man, has completed the work of reconciliation between God and man, may become do-ers from the heart rather than "do-ers" because someone told them to.

Babies are not born "perfect" and then corrupted only by evil intentioned adults. Little ones who have not been told anything about"original sin" are capable of throwing temper tantrums, abusing others, biting, not sharing... This is not simply due to a lack of head knowledge about being able to tap into their own godness. The wrong attitude exists.

That said, I also completely trust that God does nothing that is unjust and handles the souls of all according to His infinite mercy.


All Bibles teach you to be a Follower for they are written by priests.

And all people are followers. You either follow the true God or you follow something else (self, a human guide, fraudulent representation of God etc).

Jesus repeatedly said "follow ME", meaning Himself. It's in the same Gospel accounts you have been quoting to try to prove that He taught people to follow themselves.

The presentation you have made here requires that readers turn from what they currently believe and follow you and your teaching.
In spite of the flowery words about being true to self, this is ultimately what you are requiring.

Jesus lived by his own authority and you should to. (Psst. That's why the priests killed him).

Jesus lived 100% in line with God's nature. He wasn't just some Jewish boy who eventually figured out how to break free from religious boundaries.

You don't seem to see that you cannot pick and choose your way through Scripture, using Jesus' words to try to support your view only when it suits you. The Bible stands as a single unit--a testimony to Who Jesus really is (and what we all are in comparison). Even though many Jews rejected Him as Messiah during His time, their scriptures (our Old Testament) repeatedly referred to Him and prophesied of His coming.

The priests wanted to kill Jesus. God became man and allowed His creation to mock and abuse Him so we can see what true love and forgiveness looks like. We can't even come close to being like Him unless His life abides in us.

He is God. We are not. Yet He loves us and wants us to enter into Life-giving relationship with Him.

The earth and everything in it belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ and everyone has been warned to reconcile with Him before they pass out of this life.

H

Anonymous said...

Atheistic Communism--"God does not exist". Therefore, I am my own ultimate authority.
Atheistic Communism is 'God does not exist, the State is my authority, the individual is criminal'. All their Jesuses died in the Gulag.

New Age--"God is 'in' everything/everyone. Therefore, I am my own ultimate authority.
A spiritual movement that seeks "Universal Truth" and the attainment of the highest individual human potential.

I subscribe to neither because we are individuals and nothing we need to do but realize it for ourselves.

Faith is trusting someone else. You should only trust your conscience. Communism wont let you do it, calling your thoughts a hate crime and New Agers won't let you do it until you find their Ultimate Truth.

It is the sick that need a doctor, and the doctor remove the poison, and the person then heals themsleves. Doctors don't heal. In some cases like with terminal cancer they 'poison the well' but they know very well what they are adding is poison and must be removed before it kills the child.
"Babies are not born "perfect"..."

Oh they are Heather, so trusting so credulous, so loving. Over a billion year of reproduction to produce this next miracle. No wonder a Nation of Jews so enslaved by guilt cried out for a savior. So many Messiahs came to their cause, but the one they overlooked became their stumbling block.

Little ones who have not been told anything about"original sin" are capable of throwing temper tantrums, abusing others, biting, not sharing...
This is much more about the household and not being understood. Little ones copy and mirror the insides of their parents. They speak a wordless language that many adults rejected to cover the pain they had as children.

This is not simply due to a lack of head knowledge.. The head knowledge is how to culturally fit in, as any fox would teach her cub and to not think Hell was commin' up thru them, that ...The wrong attitude exists.

And all people are followers. You either follow the true God or you follow something else (self, a human guide, fraudulent representation of God etc).
You mean they never get to be a spring of living water? The blind need a guide and yet even they get to the end.

Jesus repeatedly said "follow ME", meaning Himself.
Yes you Jews, it's gonna take forty days and forty nights, you Muslims homosexuals and Communist a full year of abstenence. Oh, you child, you've already got it. Jesus only came for the sick.

Jesus was saved by facing his temptations and vices. The only way. A childhood of questioning and learning from priests did not give him the answer and never will.
He died to ego-self and so he could see and made it his mission to save his people. He wavered at Gethsemani, but who wouldn't when your physical life is going to be taken from you.

Heather, if you were a Muslim I would had my life threatened when I first shared my observations of protecting the child. You have not even knashed your teeth relaying to me what you have been taught.

Jesus lived 100% in line with God's nature.
And that is human nature. Animal nature is base, but our conscious nature is a thing the universe should behold. For us, as Dan has written: it is fleeting. But those who come after us may have acquired a gaze much greater than our blink.

Craig and Heather said...
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Craig and Heather said...

You have not even knashed your teeth relaying to me what you have been taught.

The Lord has been good to show me what is important, Kinderling. I have been taught by Him. The lack of animosity you have felt is grounded in Christ's love (which He has placed in me) and genuine concern for your soul.


From where I sit, the purpose of this discussion has been to draw out your perspective and examine it in light of Biblical truth. Because I know the Truth, I'm not threatened by your different view.

No gnashing of teeth required :)

We disagree sharply on several points, but I don't hate you and would much prefer to be used of God to win you to His family than to attempt to destroy you as a potential threat to "my" way of thinking.


While I stand by my previous observations concerning the similarities between your view and atheistic humanism and New Age beliefs, I will accept correction to a degree.

As I've sifted through your commentary in my mind, I was prompted to do a little world religion comparison and now believe that while your understanding might fit into the broader, less tightly defined realm of "New Age", a more appropriate category would likely be Unitarianism.

If you are unfamiliar with this brand of religion, I will highlight a few main points below.

To the best of my understanding, Unitarians:

~Reject the authority of the Bible as God's inspired Word. It is largely believed to be a collection of myths with perhaps a little truth sprinkled in. Consequently, the writings contained within the Christian Bible may be consulted when convenient and rejected at will in favor of some other source.

~Believe "God is one", but tend to see Him as a sort of all-encompassing energy force rather than a distinctly unique, relational Person. According to this system, God is not viewed as One to whom we are all accountable and is not recognized as our source of Salvation from any deserved punishment.

~ Acknowledge Jesus as a special human being--even an enlightened teacher-- but reject His claim to be Divine Creator.

~Reject the Biblical teaching that Hell is a place and that man is born with a sinful nature.

~Deny that Jesus' blood provided satisfactory payment for our sin-debt.

~Focus primarily on this life and and tend to forward the idea that "salvation" is accessible for a man if he lives a moral, conscience-driven life and "does unto others as he would have done to himself".

~Have no firmly nailed down set of beliefs and believe it is possible to glean truth from a variety of sources (including nature) while giving conscience and human reason top billing concerning what is true.

The roots of this religious system can be traced back to early heretical Christian teaching beginning at least in the middle of the second century AD. Some of the aforementioned beliefs are actually compatible with those of secular humanism and New Age (even Wicca), which is probably why those beliefs first came to my mind.

I'll cite my primary reference source here as Fritz Ridenour's So What's the Difference?

A more comprehensive examination can be found in newer editions of Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults

Thought I'd offer this for consideration, because, while you have claimed to be free of religious bondage, many, if not all, of the above points correspond with statements you've made here.

If you were unaware of the similarities between Unitarianism and your own system of belief, it does not surprise me. Satan has a limited bag of tricks and yet does a pretty good job of reshuffling and repackaging them to try to keep people from seeing the Person of Jesus Christ as their only means of salvation.


Truth is found in knowing Jesus Christ, Kinderling. HE alone is the Truth that sets us free.

Take care,

Heather

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Hi Heather,

Please do not seek to label me. I belong to a church of non-belongers, that is, it is my conscience, my temple and no other that I serve. If I do not know something, I admit it. If I agree then there is an accord.
My yes is my yes, and my no is my no.

There are many passages in the bible that I agree with. Many that I do not and can testify to their falacy. Some writers I can say were honestly wrong thru ignorance and quoted what they did not understand, others like St Paul worked their salvation thru others. He used them for his good works in bringing them to God. He was guilty for 'giving for a salvation', and they were more guilty for 'receiving for a salvation'. He circumcised Timothy so they could both go and witness to the Jews. Go figure.

You don't worship God because you want to avoid Hell and Pass Go to Heaven. That is prostitution.

You have to face your hell.

Dante's Inferno (means Hell) has Virgil guide him thru the layers of hell where people are trapped in their vices. You have to go thru hell to get to heaven.

"Blessed are they..." Well I've already quoted the beatitudes.

If you are not true, nothing else can make you true, only appear true, and the kids will spot a phoney a mile off.

Craig and Heather said...

You don't worship God because you want to avoid Hell and Pass Go to Heaven

I don't. The scenario you offer is that worship is prompted by fear or a bribe of personal reward.

I worship God because He is good and has come to me and redeemed my soul from death even when I was blind and hateful toward Him. My worship is in response to His goodness rather than an attempt to get Him to do something for me if I'm good enough.

His Being is the very definition of Love. He is personal and not just a force to be tapped in order to become more self aware.

Dante's Inferno (means Hell) has Virgil guide him thru the layers of hell where people are trapped in their vices. You have to go thru hell to get to heaven.

Jesus already went through hell and has offered to share His inheritance with those who place their faith in Him. God is not only just but also merciful and generous. But unless you recognize Him as being relational, this is not going to make any sense.


He circumcised Timothy so they could both go and witness to the Jews. Go figure.
Timothy was half-Jewish and Paul did not wish to cause offense to the Jews and distract from the Gospel they were sent by God to deliver.

Please do not seek to label me. I belong to a church of non-belongers, that is, it is my conscience, my temple and no other that I serve. If I do not know something, I admit it. If I agree then there is an accord.
My yes is my yes, and my no is my no.


If someone had come here advocating for no less than 6 points of the Communist Manifesto, claiming that he had determined by his own conscience that they are true---and requesting that no one label him as "Communist"-- I see no reason to believe you would simply accept that he is not actually a Communist.

Based on what I have observed here, a more likely response from one of your perspective would be to declare him to be in error because your own conscience dictates otherwise. And he would be viewed in your eyes as falling on a scale somewhere between "tragically deceived" and "hypocritical liar"

You still do not seem to grasp that you are expecting readers here to set faith in God aside and replace it with faith in you and your word in the name of being true to one's own conscience.

At any rate, the evidence is here for anyone to evaluate. I'm okay with admitting to having come to a wrong conclusion about your view if I have missed an essential fact.


If you are not true, nothing else can make you true, only appear true, and the kids will spot a phoney a mile off.

Well, we can agree on that.

I do believe this train has reached the end of it's track.

H

Anonymous said...

He circumcised Timothy so they could both go and witness to the Jews. Go figure.
Timothy was half-Jewish and Paul did not wish to cause offense to the Jews and distract from the Gospel they were sent by God to deliver.

OK. Say, St Paul had travelled and wanted to witness for The Good News to an African tribe, and so to not distract from the Gospel, all the women were circumcised like the tribes women, as you said, to "not wish to cause offence".

If a community are on drugs do you say "only a drug addict can truly understand and witness to drug addicts?" I have heard this spoken in drug rehabilitation units so they employ ex-drug addicts as instructors. And do you know what happens? All they ever produce is people living their whole lives as "Ex-Drug Addicts" afraid that one day they might slip up as Christian Backslider does and starts the process all over again. This is Hell. Not one ever gets saved.

This is the Poisoning of the Well. You give in to the non-conscious people they will then ask you to pray on the Sabbath, then they ask you to eat Halal or Kosher food, then they ask your women to dress in a Burkha, then they ask for you life or you submit.

If you have freedom, you don't ever give it up and then say let's have freedom... for it will never return.

Respect is universal in all languages. It comes by holding your own and earning it.

You still do not seem to grasp that you are expecting readers here to set faith in God aside and replace it with faith in you and your word in the name of being true to one's own conscience.

Jesus was accused of doing exactly the same: to have faith in his ability to think for himself thru the spirit and put jehovah inside, as they strived to know Jehovah outside and put total faith in their Torah.

One's own concience, and the children's consciences, Jesus wanted to save and protect, and commanded you go out with nothing so you could not tempt people to join a cult for rewards in heaven or on earth.

The Tragedy is all those who did seek reward used His Name for profit and piety.

Communism is to soullessness as Islam is to lovelessness. The Blind always claim they can see.

It has been a joy to talk with you Heather. Thank you.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

I had a very busy weekend and am just now getting around to checking back in, so I hope you have not moved on.

I would like to be as agreeable as possible with you and really just ask one question for you. I am glad you are seeking. You also seem to be searching for some kind of peace in this world, which is also commendable. You seem well read and have brought in a lot of ideas from a plethora of religious and non-religious sources.

The question I have for you is this: if you say that truth just exists out there and one must search himself/herself and self alone, how do you know you can trust yourself?

I hope you see the dilemma. You are saying truth only exists within you, but how do you know when searching only yourself that what you find is in fact true? When i asked you before about the case in which some people kill and eat other people, you didn't respond that those actions are wrong and that concerns me. On your view, one person may search inside and find loving other people as true; while another person may search inside and find lying and stealing to be true. Both cannot be correct, the law of non-contradiction holds.

You are right to seek, but there is an object to be sought. That's why you are quoting scripture, but doing so incorrectly. Jesus said "I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me," and, "So I say to you, keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." Jesus is not advocating searching for something out there, He is teaching to ask HIM, to search for HIM, to knock on the door because HE will open. Jesus is the object of the search, He is truth and life. Truth has an objective source, it is only found in Him.

Again, I would ask that you consider honestly, in the proper reading what the Bible is teaching and recognize the internal contradiction of your view on things. There is good news for you Kinderling, there is an objective truth found in the person of Jesus Christ and you can know Him.

Once again, please read and consider the following:

John 1:14-18
John 8:25-30
John 10 (the entire chapter)
John 14:15-30
John 17:20-26

I will continue to pray that your eyes will be opened to the truth of God's Word.

Anonymous said...

how do you know you can trust yourself?

A Cannibal King has Cannibal followers. How does a person know there's a problem? For years there isn't. But persons keep popping up with new discoveries and challenging the main idea and getting the Chosen People to grumble. So the leaders of The Faith kill these Individuals of Insight and take some of their ideas to mold them back into the main story and say he or she was really one of them. And they do this for thousands of years until someone articulates what they all had been saying - live by your conscience - and even he killed molded into one of them. But his words stand out from theirs. Clear and separate.

"You shall drink poisons and be known as one of the True Followers"
"whomever harms one of these children..."
I would like to be as agreeable...searching for some kind of peace in this world

I come with a sword. I am not of the world.

how do you know you can trust yourself?

If you doubt, and do not trust yourself you will be lead by the most dominant force in your home and society - MTV. A pretend personality and as you get to associate with them you will be led back to their poisoned well.

The truth is to realize what is not truth. Love is to realize what is not love. Of yourself, you repent and grieve for the wickedness and harm you had done. For others you forgive, seven times seventy times, for you realize for themselves they do not know.

Five blind women in a room with an elephant they had never known exisited before describe to each other their perceptions. They might realize individually they were all wrong, but their combined analysis brought forth the picture.

This is how we live among a wide society of religions and attitudes. You have only to Google to find out how a woman got herself into adultery looking for love outside herself and not within.

one person may search inside and find loving other people as true; while another person may search inside and find lying and stealing to be true.

No person finds lying and stealing a truth, only a justification that they can because other make themselves so weak. Why else to the priests molest small boys? Because you let them. You put them higher than yourself.

This is why all religions need a second comandment: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."

Anonymous said...

Jeremy,

If you do not know yourself you can never love your neighbor.

You will either be overloving or underloving, a false love, and never perfect in your relationships.

Who do I say I am? - I am who I am.


Jeremy - who do you say you are?

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

I sorry to have to be so blunt, but I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say in the vast majority of your response. I read through what you wrote twice and I just don't understand it. I can't figure out if you are trying to be confusing on purpose, as if talking in riddles and obfuscating language is supposed to pass for some sort of deep spiritual understanding, but as for me, it's just incoherent. Perhaps i'm the only one you've ever met to tell you that, but i'm just trying to let you know how difficult it is for me to carry on this dialouge.

Once again, I didn't really see where you answered my question. I asked: "The question I have for you is this: if you say that truth just exists out there and one must search himself/herself and self alone, how do you know you can trust yourself?" You wrote about what some nameless hypothetical people might know, but I wasn't asking about some possible group. I was asking how do YOU know YOU can trust YOURSELF. More to the point, so that hopefully you can present a short easily understandable answer, do you believe that whatever comes into your mind to believe is in fact the truth? Against what are you comparing the thought so that you can determine its truthfulness?

You also haven't addressed directly my contention that your view is internally contradictory. I gave several examples and you didn't address any of them.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling (cont'd),

You said: "No person finds lying and stealing a truth, only a justification that they can because other make themselves so weak." Are you saying that lying and stealing are objectively wrong? How do you know? Again, you have stated that you cannot begin with "firsts" like "Thou shalt not steal" as that will corrupt a mind; that an individual must just seek and find. What if an individual begins with no "firsts", seeks within and finds lying and stealing to be truth? How can you tell that person they are wrong, on your view? What objective truth, what "first" are you positing that would make that wrong for all people?

Finally, you ask me: "Jeremy - who do you say you are?"

Since I have presented you with passages from the gospel of John several times, i'll respond by saying that I am one of the sheep of the flock of the Good Shepherd. John 10:14-15 "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me - just as the Father knows me and I know the Father - and I lay down my life for the sheep." I belong to Jesus Christ, a child of the King because my life is not my own, it was bought at a price.

Because I know this, I can answer your preceeding charge. You said: "If you do not know yourself you can never love your neighbor." When you come to know Jesus as Lord, then you truly know yourself and you truly have truth, life, joy, hope and love. Knowing Jesus is how you know yourself, and how you can love your neighbor.

I want to end by making sure that you understand I am not trying to be condescending or mean-spirited in my responses and continued questioning. I am sincerely trying to follow you and continue our discourse.

Anonymous said...

"...if you say that truth just exists out there and one must search himself/herself and self alone, how do you know you can trust yourself?"

Because when your mind has cleared from all resentments it becomes balanced.

It returns your mind to as it was when you were a child.

Then, and only then can you see or hear the truth.

Truth is counter intuitive, it is seen from both sides.

But then how do you know if you do not have the truth because you may be blind on one side to knowing it?

Because you live a life with a constant thorn in your side. A constant pain. You tried everything: more Church, more prayers more alcoholic spirit, masturbation, whatever. The problem was not the Devil. It is you.

As you judge, so you are judged, reacting to every wrong word, every offence like a cat on a hot tin roof.

A child says "daddy why are you intoxicated with your church/alcohol?" and you say "get to your room now!"
And they start getting upset and you think 'Born in Sin/stupid brat think you are better placed to judge me". Poisoning the well.

People claim the moral high ground because they get the elixir of a sense of righteousness of being right over the other person. They receive a kindgom for themselves and a hell for the other.
They confound and perplex the naive to feel more clever by their knowledge of scripture.

Socialism depraves the heart so the pervert does not feel ashamed. Fascism dims the mind so the book-memorized do not lose face.

I was asking how do YOU know YOU can trust YOURSELF.

I followed The Way Jesus did. He and I went away and meditated in stillness. I remembered my deepest resentments that tied me to the world. They bubbled up from my subconscience hidden and forgotten by a life filled with righteous denial and distractions. The most important person I appologised to was my father, my child-memory still fearful, and confessing to him, and in that moment I saw him for the very first time, a violent and frightened man posing as a strong authoritative figure. In return I received my inheritance of manhood, and all the homosexuals and bitter older women who had been attracted to me vanished, literally, could not stand me, because absence of the father within me had gone. I likened this to Elisha receiving the mantle from Elijah, that batton every mother and father passes to their children.
I had worshiped at churches looking for the answer from the Super Father God they taught, and now I had found the father within me. I am my father's father. I pass to him what I discover and hope he will see this for himself to forgive those he has resented. He now has bouts of ME. It is hard when a life is just bearable and you are afraid to lose what little you have. Dante's Inferno.

The Way is the same way Jesus taught: "I am the truth the life and the way". No substitute life to live - your own. Are you the truth the life and the way or are you an Ex-Druggie a tip away from going backwards so you plough forwards? To do it thru a God you do not know, change your name, do good works, yet always have a thorn in your side to beat yourself up about?

I belong to Jesus Christ, a child of the King because my life is not my own, it was bought at a price.

Of course you were Jeremy. That is what the church said. Whatever you get into, you have to get out of. There is no separation between you and God except your separation from yourself. Bigger the separation... bigger and Most Absolute the God. No separation, no God outside.
Allah akbar! The most unhealed and separated people on the planet.

Craig and Heather said...

Because you live a life with a constant thorn in your side. A constant pain. You tried everything: more Church, more prayers more alcoholic spirit, masturbation, whatever. The problem was not the Devil. It is you.

Kinderling.

The above quote broke my heart.
Is this you?

I can only imagine the depth of despair such a one would experience. :(

It is true that we are all responsible for our own choices. And yes, we need to face reality of what we are.
"The devil made me do it" is not a viable excuse for making wrong choices when our consciences say otherwise. But Satan is real and he does deceive people so that they believe things that are not true--things about God, Jesus, themselves, and others.

He lies, Kinderling and he's smarter, stronger and been around a lot longer than any of us. He wants you to think you have to overcome the world all by yourself and can even arrange circumstances to make it appear that you are doing just that.

I needed to step out of this conversation, but stopped back in to respond to your "farewell", as I did not want you to feel I was just being rude in abruptly ending our discussion.

Because you have referenced the Beatitudes a couple times in this thread, I wanted to invite you to read my online notes as I'm currently studying through the Sermon on the Mount on my own. It is Bible but I don't "preach" at readers.

You are more than welcome to visit my blog. Honest questions are welcome--but I will say that because I do not run a debate forum, I do not allow argumentative guest commentary such as Dan has permitted.

If you are interested, I'll offer the first post of the series here.

http://onmysoapbox2.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/gospel-of-matthew-sermon-on-the-mount-1/

Just a friendly invitation. No pressure.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

Wow, where to begin.

First, you still have not responded to any of the internal contradiction I noted from your comments. I'm still waiting to hear you address those blatent contradictory views you hold. Since they were not forthcoming, i'll try to ask some more questions based on what you did write.


You said: "I followed The Way Jesus did. He and I went away and meditated in stillness." There is a difference, Jesus went away to be with the Father; and Jesus was the way. You went away to be with yourself to find the way. Once again, going away and being with yourself is totally subjective and therefore fundamentally contradictory. There must be an objective focus. The bible instructs believers to meditate ON THE WORD day and night, because in the beginning was the Word and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and the Word is truth. It is an objective point of reference against which we can measure everything else.

You said: "I had worshiped at churches looking for the answer from the Super Father God they taught, and now I had found the father within me. I am my father's father. I pass to him what I discover and hope he will see this for himself to forgive those he has resented. He now has bouts of ME."

A simple yes or no question for you here. Do you believe you are God?

Finally, you said: "Truth is counter intuitive, it is seen from both sides."

No. Truth is exclusive. Jesus is the truth. Truth is not counter-intuitive, if it were your statement "Truth is counter intuitive, it is seen from both sides" would be both true and false. This is yet another internally contradictory position you hold. I'm afraid you are quite simply (and lamentably) confused. What you see as a freed state of mind is in fact a bondage with which you are being held captive. As I have shared from the gospel of John previously, when the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I pray you will come to know Jesus and be free from your confusion.

Anonymous said...

The bible instructs believers to meditate ON THE WORD day and night,

I know you meditated on the word. I heard that when you first wrote.

The Word does not save but the spirit of the word, the intent. When someone smacks your face you see behind the action: a mistake, anger, frustation, maliciously trying to upset you and you turn the other cheek, only in that you do not resent back. Those who meditate on the word think it means to be a pacifist returned to those who are violent. No, it means as you stop them doing what they are doing with whatever means at your disposal, yet you don't return resentment and stop when the moment is right. You give them back their country. Because you know what happened in their heart even though they did not.

Pacifism is a moral high ground of feeling a sense of self-sacrifice, of self righteousness.

A simple yes or no question for you here. Do you believe you are God?

No. Nor was Jesus.

Finally, you said: "Truth is counter intuitive, it is seen from both sides."
No. Truth is exclusive. Jesus is the truth.


Truth comes from the little ones.

The only confused here is yourself.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

It seems pointless to continue with you on this thread. You seem unwilling to even consider rational thought, and instead set up caricatures of who Jesus is and imagine what is right in your own mind (as evident by part of your most recent comment: "Those who meditate on the word think it means to be a pacifist returned to those who are violent.")

Please consider that you never even attempted to answer to any of the contradictory positions you espoused. You also never made a comment on any of the passages of scripture from the gospel of John I presented throughout our dialouge. I hope you would be open to at least consider those points and see the inconsistancy in your beliefs at the fundamental level.

I am glad to hear you do not believe you are god. However, Jesus is. Again, just from the gospel of John, you can know Him and be saved. I pray you will come to know the Truth.

Thank you for spending your time in our discussion.

Anonymous said...

Jeremy,

Thank you for you discourse and identifying the path you are following. When John writes in I will address his issues.

Just two minutes I ago had a phone call from a professed-Christian woman saying she was addicted to gambling.
I said she could:
- contact a gambling support organisation, (she said she did not want to go to a church organisation because she felt they would rope her in)
- ask her GP for therapy/counselling,
- contact a hypnotherapist to remember her first doubts to needing to fill herself with the success gambling promised and the despair of losing that made her forget her despair of living (gambling is the addiction to losing - like those who cut themselves for a greater pain to the dull pain of life),
- or learn to meditate and find the answer for herself.

My fear for you is that you have taken what is not yours. For any person who is "Saved" believes they do not deserve to be saved.

This secret doubt of not being worthy except 'Jesus ransomed me' means their whole life is affected. They cannot charge a lot of profit in business because they do not feel themselves worthy to charge the going rate. So Christians invariably are poor and unable to absorb dramatic shocks of life, living a hand to mouth existence.

Whoever touches the head of a child should have a millstone put around their neck and cast into the well.

(Then my son would say 'but daddy if the Spartans cast the Persian ambassador into the well, what would they drink from?') OK, the sea

Anonymous said...

Heather,

Sorry I missed your post.

My reference to a person with a 'thorn in side' is to St Paul's thorn in his flesh. He never found salvation from this, but chased a Saviour who can do all miracles so that in Heaven you will find sanctuary.

I will comment on you website if I find the poisoning of children advocated there too.

Otherwise, my work is done.

Many thanks for sharing. Thanks to Dan for opening and hosting the topic of poisoning the well.

Z said...

"The truth never hurts the truth"...what an interesting concept...very good.

Kinderling..NO GOD? Prove it.

As for Paul, he sure didn't mind that thorn and kept putting himself in harm's way for Christ. None of the disciples went home and took it easy after the crucifixion, they who'd seen the death and resurrection all carried on and died martyr's deaths (except John) for Him. They'd SEEN IT, their deaths are historical not Biblical. They could have just given all of that a pass...

Anyway..who's going to argue the Truth on a blog (ya, we do at my place too, sometimes, but..!!) this comments thread was really really interesting to read.

Dan, your post was wonderful, thanks so much.
My husband's sadness was that he and his childrens' mother decided it was best to give their children very little religion and they'd make up their minds when they were adults. He's very sorry they did this; it gave their children no 'rudder', no sense of peace and hope beyond secular peace...he died in October and they're looking to me now, as two people in their late thirties, and asking questions about Christianity..a kind of beautiful miracle.
We have to remember He picks US!

Thanks..such a good post! xx

Anonymous said...

Z

"....they're looking to me now, as two people in their late thirties, and asking questions about Christianity..a kind of beautiful miracle.
We have to remember He picks US!"


The gambler believes God picked them to win. The Muslim/Jew/Christian believes God picked others to die in an eathquake because of their sins.

Life has probabilities and misfortunes and if you find yourself able to help, you do. You were not picked, you were just were able to see the need and rose to the occassion, or not, if your relief will make them ten times worse.

Earthquakes always make the most sinful suffer because sin means 'separated from self', (so it is a sin to make Jesus your God and not have god-in-you as he had); for it is all such people as these who had not prepared for the day because they were hoping for an Imaginary Day, that suffer. And in suffering many may come back to self.

Only children should not suffer. Yet some believe they should for their own good.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

As you presented again, I will continue on to press one point as it continues on and on with your comments. I want you to answer to just two things:

First, your comments are laced with partial quotations and fragments of biblical principles that you have parsed into an amalgem of "spiritual" speech without any relation to the actual biblical context in which they were intended. Do you believe the bible is a credible source for true beliefs? I'm just confused here because you dismiss the bible out of hand when I quote scripture in its intended context as some men just writing things down because they've been manipulated somehow and are out to dupe everyone else, but yet in almost every comment you write you include those snippets of partial verses and twist them to fit whatever case you are trying to present (e.g. the thorn in the flesh, I am who I am, the truth sets you free, etc.). Please help me understand why you so often use a source for your own purposes that you dismiss out of hand when it is quoted to you.

Second, I would like for you to address the systemically contradictory nature of your belief. I have presented several contradictions in your view and you've never answered to any of them, just moved on to more "spiritual" talk and hypotheticals that some other group might think or do. Please answer to my presented contradictions. I bring this up again because you presented the situation of the gambling situation of your friend. Your suggestion #4 was, "learn to meditate and find the answer for herself". I have addressed this with you before and you didn't respond. What if she learns to meditate, to look inside herself, and she decides gambling is true for her? What if the answer she finds is gambling is right for me? What will you say then?

Along the lines of your contradictions please answer to the following:

"you said "I raised my son not to be a Christian." This is a purposeful act of training your child to disbelieve, that is the opposite of just letting him find out for himself"

"Experience has its place, but it must conform to reality and adhere to at least an absolute moral
law"

"On your view, one person may search inside and find loving other people as true; while another person may search inside and find lying and stealing to be true. Both cannot be correct, the law of non-contradiction holds."

"Are you saying that lying and stealing are objectively wrong? How do you know? Again, you have stated that you cannot begin with "firsts" like "Thou shalt not steal" as that will corrupt a mind; that an individual must just seek and find. What if an individual begins with no "firsts", seeks within and finds lying and stealing to be truth? How can you tell that person they are wrong, on your view? What objective truth, what "first" are you positing that would make that wrong for all people?"

Anonymous said...

Jeremy,

Do you believe the bible is a credible source for true beliefs?
No. Any book starts to die as soon as apen is set to page. Life is your source. A book is someone else's experiences, never to be taken literally. Not even the Law. Not even a Book written by Allah Himself can convey what a child can. Only by living in the present can you deal with the present. The Book's Present had been and gone, the language's meaning lost, its intent hidden, but your fruit will always be seen.

"I'm just confused here because you dismiss the bible..."
The Bible is one of many paper bibles written around the world and each has its beauty and dark side. You are the living word, and this is the best book to read for you bring light and understanding where there were once words. I have wept to see little Orthodox Jewish and Muslims boys rock to and fro cramming into their memory so their Rabbi/Imam will be pleased they can recite them in a language they do not understand and a faith they do not know.

...I quote scripture in its intended context...
Why not use scripture to enhance your understanding rather than lower yourself to enhance its overstanding?
"... as some men just writing things down because they've been manipulated somehow
You can tell if someone comprehends what they are saying or parroting it. They look to the side to what ought to be, rather than to what is.
...and are out to dupe everyone else,
Denials of truth are lives filled by distractions or rituals porporting to be of The Truth. Getting there is always preferable to actually arriving there.

... but yet in almost every comment you write you include those snippets of partial verses and twist them to fit whatever case you are trying to present (e.g. the thorn in the flesh, I am who I am, the truth sets you free, etc.).
Yes, I use them as words that leapt out at me when I read them. Jesus was not speaking about keeping the World Order but breaking it on the rock of the child, where father will turn against mother, brother against sister.
Religion had determined how each should be. You can be whatever you want to be.

Please help me understand why you so often use a source for your own purposes that you dismiss out of hand when it is quoted to you.

Jeremy, it is that you do not yet know how to use them. You take a piece, not a chunk to present your view. I have read many of the gospels that recorded Jesus' sayings, but they were not thought 'good enough' by the Emperor Constantine and his self-elected priests to put into the Bible. I do not trust any Church that is not open, for Jesus said let those who do things in my name be allowed. The other voices were silenced. Because even little truths in the wrong hands presented in the wrong way corrupts.

"Your suggestion #4 was, "learn to meditate and find the answer for herself". I have addressed this with you before and you didn't respond. What if she learns to meditate, to look inside herself, and she decides gambling is true for her?"

It is impossible Jeremy. The way the brain is physically made does not allow it. It is a reality machine. Your brain "sees" the world, not your eyes. It makes sense of it, and discards non-sense.
It is a brain that is faulty, thru damage or fear, so that information is reduced or self-suppressed that allows credulity for the miraculous.

Anonymous said...

(Continued)
Meditation removes any filter. For a healthy brain of course, for the damaged mind will always have visions and delusions.
It is to have nothing. So at this point priests have you looking at a flame, or hearing chants, or recanting a sacred word, all distractions to what having nothing really means. Here I go again: Jesus was offered the whole world... and he rejected it.

Removing cultural vanity and facing of your deepest anxieties simply caused by holding judgements, return in stillness like hot coals on your head. This is The Way. Then you will grieve and then you will rejoice.
What if the answer she finds is gambling is right for me? What will you say then?
Will never happen.

"you said "I raised my son not to be a Christian." This is a purposeful act of training your child to disbelieve, that is the opposite of just letting him find out for himself" I was meant it to mean I cannot teach anyone to be anything but I can show them what they are not. He knows of my love for Jesus' teachings and my despising of St Paul to not face his Saul, teaching others to do likewise.
"Experience has its place, but it must conform to reality and adhere to at least an absolute moral law"
That law must be in your heart or else it has no meaning. One child may deserve chastising and another doing exactly the same deed a comforting. It is intent.

No one finds lying and stealing true. For they live in constant fear it will be done to them. Only the righteous sleep well. Only John Lennon advocated "whatever gets you thru the night... it's alright" to pleasure-comfort the lost.

"Are you saying that lying and stealing are objectively wrong?

For yourself you will know it. We steal from the animals and plants, force feed them and ruin their habitat. Are we God-Appointed Lords that we can do this would guilt or are we blind thinking we can see?

How do you know? Be still and know.

Again, you have stated that you cannot begin with "firsts" like "Thou shalt not steal" as that will corrupt a mind;
A person must understand it for themselves. A Muslim told in Islam "thou shalt not drink alcohol" may find it is the first thing he does in the West and then say "Shaitan" tempted him. No he tempted himself. Truth without understanding kills the spirit.

...that an individual must just seek and find. Yep. Only you know the journey ahead, no one can make it for you. The Hindu to find the soul, the Muslim the spirit, the Christian their butt.

What if an individual begins with no "firsts", seeks within and finds lying and stealing to be truth? I hope you see now that personal revelation sheds the light and does things is the open and is not hidden by darkness.

How can you tell that person they are wrong, on your view? because there is an accord or there is recognition of a half-truth or they bring me up on a mistake I did not see. Muslims and Hindus are half right. Christian Followers are inverted and need help to be turned upright into Christian Leaders.

What objective truth, what "first" are you positing that would make that wrong for all people?" That your first is not the same as the first for another. Let them first for themselves when they are ready. I have discussed the human body and sexual reproduction and lived the value of a one-woman relationship with his mother. He asks about sex when he is ready and he knows my opinions are mine and he too should hold his own.
To protect a child from other person’s firsts is to be the one she can always come to when she is made to doubt by some bully who would educate them into being "Good".

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

Thanks for the response to my points. Your response was necessarily long due to the number of questions i asked, so let's take them one at a time; starting with my first question regarding the bible, why you dismiss it when I quote full contextual passages but use fragments for yourself.

You said: "Any book starts to die as soon as apen is set to page. Life is your source. A book is someone else's experiences, never to be taken literally."

Again, you have answered one contradiction with another. You are rendering language meaningless with your position. On your view something like the following would be a legitimate response to your offering concerning your friend with the gambling addiction:

"You don't have a Christian friend, but a pet dog, who listened to the tree and found a chipmunk struggling. She frets even now with a lack of nuts in the forest."

If what is written can never be taken literally then anyone can deconstruct and reassemble anything in any way they choose and communication is rendered impotent.

We must take what is written and look at it for what it is, and how it is intended. That's how you can communicate with me via this blog, and I can communicate with you. What is written may be true or false (based on whether it conforms to reality and is reasonable), but it is incorrect to say that it is always someone elses experience and is therefore never to be taken literally and that then represents a license to take bits and pieces to use however you like. The written word must be taken as it is written, for what it is intended, in its context. There is no other way to communicate. That goes for any type of written word not just the bible.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling (cont'd.),

Regarding meditation with self for truth, you said the following:

"It is impossible Jeremy. The way the brain is physically made does not allow it...

...Meditation removes any filter...

...It is to have nothing. So at this point priests have you looking at a flame, or hearing chants, or recanting a sacred word, all distractions to what having nothing really means. Here I go again: Jesus was offered the whole world... and he rejected it."

What makes my proposition impossible? You are saying that meditation removes any filter from your brain, reduces it back to having absolutely nothing to go on (which is apparently your stance), everything you've been taught, learned, etc. is distracting you from the nothing. Well if you've successfully meditated with yourself, and achieved this your suggested state of mental nothingness, how is the proposition that coming out with "gambling is true for me" impossible? For that proposition to be impossible you have to begin not with nothing, but with "being addicted to gambling is always wrong".

And yes, there you go again, pulling out a piece of scripture and mis-applying it. If you understand the temptation of Jesus in context where Satan offered Him the world, He rejected it with the following: "Jesus said to him, 'Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only." (Matthew 4:10) Satan was offering what wasn't his to give, and offered that which he didn't have on the condition that Jesus worship him. If you don't use the scripture in context you can warp the meaning to anything as you have shown again here.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling (cont'd),

Finally, in rapid fire manner:

You said: "I was meant it to mean I cannot teach anyone to be anything but I can show them what they are not." This is not an answer. Your statement in your first comment was "I taught my son not to be a Christian." This is not showing him what he was not, this is teaching him what to be.

You said with regard to lying and stealing being objectively wrong: "For yourself you will know it", and "That your first is not the same as the first for another. Let them first for themselves when they are ready." This means you believe lying and stealing is subjective to the individual. That confirms the contradiction I presented, and it is plainly unliveable.

Finally, with regard to telling someone else they are wrong on your view you said: "because there is an accord or there is recognition of a half-truth or they bring me up on a mistake I did not see." You said earlier that truth was counter-intuitive and now you say there are half truths. I still hold that your problem is with truth. You are confirming with every response that you cannot even articulate what truth is.

I have tried to be short in my responses and I want to make sure, before sending this last response that you understand even though my responses have been necessarily short I do not intend them to be denegrating or seem like a personal attack. I'm taking up a lot of Dan's blog with this dialouge and brevity of response can sometimes be seen as hatefulness of tone, so please forgive me if i'm coming off too harsh in my criticism. I am criticizing your views, which I believe to be contradictory and largely incoherent, I am not commenting on your character as I do not know you except through this thread.

Anonymous said...

Jeremy,

You say you don't understand. Everything I wrote I hoped to be subtly balanced to point in the central reality that no matter where they are born, what society they grow up in, what time period they live in, that anyone can know love and truth for themselves. But you just go on choosing a God Compilation as your Guide.

Because using Good and The Bible is exactly the same as Bad and The Koran.

Jesus said he was not good yet you say Jesus Was Good.

Christ then became a Force for Good on children as Mohammed is a Force for Bad on children.

Jesus sends children to Hell if they Sin, Mohammed had Sin with them so they will reach Paradise.

One makes the child guilty for thinking of truth, the other guilty for thinking of love.

A Christ for those who submit only to Him; A Last Prophet for those who submit only to Him.

Call no man father, die-to-self, love your neighbor as yourself wasted on those who filled themselves with The Truth and Love that kept them apart and as prisoners.

Prisoners of the mind.

Anonymous said...

What makes my proposition impossible? You are saying that meditation removes any filter from your brain, reduces it back to having absolutely nothing to go on (which is apparently your stance), everything you've been taught, learned, etc. is distracting you from the nothing.

What clouds the brain is the chatter, often cause by suppressed resentment. 'He said this and she said that and next time they say this i'm going to say that...'. People may distract themselves. The real reasons are buried, mediation simply is an exercise to focus to face the illusions used to kid yourself. To recognise that the freedom you wanted is not to run into the arms of a saviour but to face the things that enslave you, those reactions rather than responses to false-authorities and intimidators, the drug addiction, the guilts, the superiority, the highs and lows.
If you can stand and watch a person angry with you trying to get you upset, and you do not hate back, they go mad and they might catch themselves in the mirror.
This is consciousness.

My work with head injured people revealed to me that with half a brain can live but have perceptions that lean either to rigid Truth or free Love. They should actually be tempered by the other and the Executive Function make the conscious decision. This is the mind, a marriage, wholeyness (not the fake Holiness people wear).
People with left brain damage often hear voices, no Adam to tell Eve to put the apple down. Those with right brain damage hear everything is literal, no Eve to tell Adam to get a life. They then turn to their carers to explain the voices or to explain the scripture. The carers become the priests and they take care of it, never waking them up.

If your religion leaves you still empty when the singing and dancing is over, it is time to be still and let the small voice of consciousness return to convict you, and listening, find the truth that sets you free.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

You didn't answer to any of my charges respecting your beliefs again. You don't seem willing to focus on the points long enough to really consider what i'm bringing up carefully. Your views are contradictory and cannot be true.

You said: "Jesus said he was not good yet you say Jesus Was Good." Why do you insist on doing this? I went to great lengths in my last comment to logically present why you cannot take the liberty to mangle the written word, whatever it is, as you do. You are taking Mark 10:18 and Luke 18:19 and using it incorrectly. The scripture actually says,

"18A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 19"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. 20You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother." (Luke 18:18a-20) Jesus did not say he was not good (as you contend) but asked a certain ruler why he was calling Jesus good, because only God was good. In effect, Jesus was asking the man, "Are you then saying I am God?" This is why the ruler was troubled, he knew Jesus was God and should be willing to give up all he had to follow Jesus, but he was unwilling to part with his wealth. Jesus, in a master stroke, was getting to the heart of the ruler's idol, that which was keeping him from God. Jesus is good, because He is God. You must look at any text as it is written, Kinderling, you may not reserve the right to do with the text anything you wish.

You said: "People may distract themselves. The real reasons are buried, mediation simply is an exercise to focus to face the illusions used to kid yourself." You didn't answer to my charge here. I understand what you are trying to say, and it doesn't work. You are saying meditate on yourself and rid your mind of all distractions so you can become a blank slate and just experience truth. However, if you are correct in that thinking, there is nothing that would eliminate the possibility of someone determining, after arriving at the blank slate, that lying and stealing was true for them. For that to be false, they would not be starting from a blank slate, but from an objective truth, namely "Lying and stealing are wrong for everyone". Your view on this is contradictory.

Finally, you say: "If your religion leaves you still empty when the singing and dancing is over, it is time to be still and let the small voice of consciousness return to convict you, and listening, find the truth that sets you free." You are operating with a caricature of Christianity here, Kinderling. I do not have a religion that leaves me, I have a relationship with my Lord. You already asked me if I knew Jesus and I referred you to several passages in the gospel of John. My Savior will never leave me or forsake me. There is no let down with the true God of the bible. You take a portion of scripture for your own purposes and talk again about the truth that sets you free; again I refer you to John 8:36 "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."

I encourage you again to be set free from your confusion and contradictions and come to know Jesus. Please read the passages in John with an open mind and you will see that you can know Him, and yourself be free indeed.

Anonymous said...

"Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 19"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. 20You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother."

Almost got it Jeremy, just get to the punch line of this text: "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven."

Have nothing. An attachment to nothing. And after you have done this...

"Then come, follow me".

Likewise, Jeremy you are attached to Jesus and scriptures. Go sell your books and speak not as "what would Jesus say" but as though you were poor without any script to guide you, and you will see the kingdom of heaven.

This is The Way. And all early christians called themselves Followers of The Way, until pride in themselves let themselves be called Christians-by-association as holders of The Truth without truth, The Holy Spirit without spirit.

Meditation does not make you a blank slate. It is a desire to remember. If you notice you cut yourself you want to find out where you did it, the pride before the fall.

People are very successful at forgetting, putting off for tomorrow things they should do today. Heaven is in the sky when heaven is here.

Anonymous said...

Please read the passages in John with an open mind and you will see that you can know Him, and yourself be free indeed.

With an open mind I found John and all his expectations of a Jesus he created and desired to serve for his salvation. John only brought me to John's needs, of his use of Jesus.

It is like a school crush, to make someone your everything, to love and idolise them while all your friends think you are nuts, to only one day actually go and speak to them and discover they were merely human after all, or become a martyr forever waiting for them to come to you.

There are Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians all in love with their Great Leader, waiting on every word. Each one believing that they, and only they, have received The One Truth to Heaven.

You cannot love anyone thru the eyes of another. You cannot know anyone thru the ears of another.

This is a Jesus we are sharing about. The one who said be perfect like him so you will do more than him.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

You said: "Likewise, Jeremy you are attached to Jesus and scriptures. Go sell your books and speak not as "what would Jesus say" but as though you were poor without any script to guide you, and you will see the kingdom of heaven."

This is something you are making up for yourself, not an idea based in scripture. Just before that statement, you included Jesus' saying, "Then come, follow me." He did not say to throw away the scriptures and all truth and go on your way with nothing to guide you. That is not a fair reading of the text, and you may not reserve the right to mis-apply at a whim.

You said: "Meditation does not make you a blank slate. It is a desire to remember."

More contradiction. If you remember something, then it is a "first", which you have said you must eliminate to be free. No "firsts" just experience. To remember something means you had to have known that something previously. You can't remember a name if you were never told in the first place. This also does nothing to refute my challenge. If what is "remembered" is subjective, then there is nothing preventing a person from meditating and "remembering" that lying and stealing are true for them. If that cannot happen, then there would have to be an objective truth, namely "lying and stealing are wrong for everyone" to begin with.

Finally, you said: "There are Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians all in love with their Great Leader, waiting on every word. Each one believing that they, and only they, have received The One Truth to Heaven."

This is correct, just like you believe that you have the truth (albeit that on your view there is nothing objectively true, everyone just finds out what is true in their own experience). Truth is exclusive, as I have said before, so the question is which one is actually true, to the exclusion of anything contradictory?

I've taken up a lot of Dan's blog interacting with you, and I have appreciated the opportunity. I don't think there is much further we can go as I believe I have pressed the points of contradiction in your view well enough. If there is any specific question you have of me (as I have been questioning you to this point) i'd be glad to attempt an answer. Otherwise, I will be praying for you, that you will come to the know the truth, that you will come to know Jesus; that the Son will set you free so you will be free indeed.

Anonymous said...

This is something you are making up for yourself, not an idea based in scripture.

100% absolutely made up-by-me without a ruler or rule book.

The same way children tell it as it is. Bless them for that, encourage them to question so that in the question, and the way they question, sits the answer to be full or tempered to meet their needs.

They have a natural naive bubble, do not puncture it so others can't get in first. All that sex-education has done in The Name of Good, has to corrupt them first. To doubt why they don't do the perverstities that everyone is saying is natural and healthy. The practicing Homosexual knows that, how do you think they were first made to be upset to be open to perversion? By exposure and their innocence violated. Pornography dressed as Education.

So do not violate the young with the firsts of the knowledge of Good or Evil. Let them observe how you deal with those who wear the mask of the Good Man and the mask of the Evil Man.

Good Cop, Bad Cop. Neither has the child's interest at heart. A Good Man cannot function without people to be better than so by comparison he believes he is good; an Evil Man cannot function without people cursing him to give him a sense of righteous provocation.

Call no man good or better.

You do not need to be saved or justified. Just let go and return to be born again.

Anonymous said...

Jeremy, I don't want you to do something because the Bible told you so, but because you know it so.

While it is "scriptual" to point out to someone to give up something that prevents them entering the kingdom of god because Jesus did, it is not to be done mechanically and applied by those who make Jesus into God. For all they do is make out that all rich people are evil, when really the rich are the ones who know how to handle wealth and wherever settled they make a country prosperous.

By applying the literal to what is spiritual all one finds is the 'contradiction loop': How can a man be born again?

I can't make scripture my authority because it isn't my authority. My conscience is my authority. I'll forget much more than I ever learn so it best that I look always to this light of love and truth, of reason,rather than a dead 'do-this don't do-that' because scripture says kingdom of a Mohammed.

The cruelest things done to children are the birch and the naughty-step. You observe a child slip out of the moment and you catch them to bring them back to themselves. To 'teach them a lesson' only shows what power you have and what powerlessness they have, and will scheme for the day the tables are turned. You have lost them just as the priesthood loses the laity.

Anonymous said...

From the start of our discourse I wrote:

"I raised my son not to be a Christian".
I raise him to be nothing more that to be himself. To discover and unfold like flower. That way he will never be a slave to any doubt. Doubt leads people to a leap of faith called the Holy Ideal of a Communism or an Allah. For the walking-hypnotised are outraged and offended (appeased by a politburo full of sodomites or priesthood full of paedophiles).
Jesus is a king but not by any ways you know. An offender to awaken, par excellent.

Anonymous said...

Last night my son was wearing a new baseball cap and he was talking as though it made him pretty cool. Like a woman in some new finery has it go to her head or a man with an ear ring.
So I took his cap off and said "there you are" and put the cap back on. The nonsense stopped.

I've simply been trying this with you.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

OK, since you continued and posted two more comments. I'll ask you once again specifically to address your continued contradiction.

You said: "I raised my son not to be a Christian".
I raise him to be nothing more that to be himself. To discover and unfold like flower."

Why can you not see that this is a contradictory position on its face? You are not raising him to be nothing more than himself. You are raising him to not be a Christian. What if your son was presented the gospel message (even after you introduced the "first" of disbelief) and accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior. Are you saying that this cannot be who he really is? Are you saying he can be anything except a person believing in God?

You speak of being open, and allowing a mind to be opened like a flower; but at the same time you specifically exclude even the possibility of belief in God. Why do you persist in this contradiction? You are not completely open, you are closed specifcically to God as even a possibility. It seems you are not nearly so "open" as you make out.

Why, if one is supposedly free to explore and discover and open like a flower, should they specifically be precluded from belief in God? Further, in your opinion, is this disbelief in Christianity objectively true? In other words, do you believe the only (exclusive) true belief necessarily deny the gospel message of Jesus Christ?

Anonymous said...

Hi Jeremy,

I read tonite the Gospel of St Thomas, (hidden from the Canonical church and discovered in 1945)

"3. Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is within you and it is outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.""

Whereas in this real world the Communists keep their subjects blind to truth while keeping them open to the God of Love (via The Socialist Party of Truth).
Islamists keep their subjects blind to love while keeping them open to the God of Truth (via The Islamic Religion of Peace). Psychiatrists and priests dabbling with the minds of children.

My whole point is a balanced child's mind would not find Communism or Churchianity attractive or believable. Only doubt and fear can make them see themselves as inferior needing to be saved. Any 'firsts' in this respect come from the minds that are Eve-ill or Adam-ill.

Muslims are Adam-ill. Communists are Eve-ill. Jesus-as-God are inverts, no different from homosexuals looking at life backwards. This is why they flock together. Know them by their congregation.

You ask "Why, if one is supposedly free to explore and discover and open like a flower, should they specifically be precluded from belief in God?

Because the awe and wonder of God is already in the children, and do not need the poor representation from a few books to ever replace theirs.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

You said:

"My whole point is a balanced child's mind would not find Communism or Churchianity attractive or believable. Only doubt and fear can make them see themselves as inferior needing to be saved. Any 'firsts' in this respect come from the minds that are Eve-ill or Adam-ill."

You did not answer my question, or answer to the contradiction with this response, only reinforced the contradiction. You are stating, objectively by the way, that no child would find Christianity attractive or believable and that anyone sharing Christianity is operating only on doubt and fear and making the child feel inferior in order to coerce them into belief. This again is a terribly inaccurate caricature of the gospel message and of Christian parenting. You do not have any way to back up those assertions (which is all they are). You are making those assertions with the a priori assumption they are true, and then using your self-conceived conclusions as proof. Further, you again have contradicted your position of letting children's minds to be open. You are assuming no child would find the gospel message truthful, even when presented in a biblical way as opposed to the caricature you presented in your response, and so you determine they should never be exposed. Refusing to allow exposure is the opposite of completely open, which you claim to espouse. Your position is contradictory on its face. Either the child is open to decide, or they are not. You are specifically excluding Christianity, in agreement with your very first statement which contradicts what you have been trying to set up as your better system of belief.

You said: "Because the awe and wonder of God is already in the children, and do not need the poor representation from a few books to ever replace theirs."

Which god are you speaking of here? You have stated your disbelief in the God of the bible, so which god are you stipulating is already in the children?

Also please remember my original question: "Why, if one is supposedly free to explore and discover and open like a flower, should they specifically be precluded from belief in God? Further, in your opinion, is this disbelief in Christianity objectively true? In other words, do you believe the only (exclusive) true belief necessarily deny the gospel message of Jesus Christ?"

My questions still hold. Are you advocating a mind being open to anything as you are trying to posit with your opening flower illustration, or are you saying that religion should be singularly be rejected from consideration (you actually taught your child not to be a Christian); and further is that position objectively true for everyone or is it your subjective opinion.

I would respectfully ask for a simple direct answer to those to challenges. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

This again is a terribly inaccurate caricature of the gospel message and of Christian parenting. You do not have any way to back up those assertions (which is all they are).
Yes I can back it up with today's link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1279110/Now-thats-gratitude-Big-Issue-seller-robs-Christian-gave-cash-job.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Devout Christian lawyer Richard Rawsthorn "...gave McConnell and his girlfriend jobs as cleaners at his country home. McConnell repaid the kindness - by plundering the property".

I have stopped many times to enquire from such people and discovered why they were there. Richard Rawsthorne was 'playing Christian', blind to see the truth in front of him. Rawsthorne looked one way, McConnell the other. No eye or heart contact. If there were children in the house I'd hate to think what would have happened to them.

My son goes to Catholic school so he gets indoctrination in the Biblical Way and two years ago I stood up to the choir master who wanted to know him in the Biblical Way. He no longer comes around. I can hear the wordless word within people of what is missing.

Which god are you speaking of here? You have stated your disbelief in the God of the bible, so which god are you stipulating is already in the children?

Taoism: Submit to a thousand cuts.
Hinduism: Submit in decreasing circles of submission.
Confucianism: make peace in return for submission.
Buddhism: submit in denial.
Zen: submit in silence.
Islam: Submit to the Will of Allah and his Last Prophet.
Jehovah's Witnesses: Submit to anyone who asks.
Atheism: Submit to the world.
Agnosticism: Submit to The Weekend.
Protestantism: Submit to the King.
Catholicism: Submit to the Pope.
Judaism: Submit to a Moses-Hitler.
Televangelism: Submit within an envelope.
Rastafarian: Can't submit to anyone. From down here everything is up.

The god in the children is submitting to their conscience not to one of the above.

In other words, do you believe the only (exclusive) true belief necessarily deny the gospel message of Jesus Christ?"

Revelations of insight and intuition must be your own, not somebody else's. If you can hear the many Bible-authors' voices, you can hear each has a message; and between them, Jesus' message.

I spoke to a 93 year old lady today who said she followed Quakerism, a bit of Buddhism and who practiced Hindu meditation for many many years on the word "Ram". I said meditation is to bring you to a realization so you do not need to meditate any more. Jesus never needed to fast anymore.

My father was a hypnotherapist who brought people to a relaxed state of mind to their childhood to remember when they first smoked, the time they first became addicted, remembering the traumatic 'firsts' that altered their whole lives to live a denial of reality like a Richard Rawsthorn; and with realization they forgave themselves and their actions were set free. He said it only took three sessions. The first to learn how to relax, the second to remember and forgive, the third to make closure and move on. He said he could not believe that so many went to hypnotherapists for years unsaved. Or to Church and Church.

To this woman I said 'once you understand something you can't go back and then un-understand it.'
She had gained no revelations but an illusion of peace, a dreamstate for a while on a tape, and then went back into the world still short-tempered and frazzled.

Mary Magdalene's snippet of a Gospel, St Thomas' Gospel, are the best disertations of Jesus' teachings I have read to date.

You said: "Because the awe and wonder of God is already in the children, and do not need the poor representation from a few books to ever replace theirs."

The Bible says all living creatures celebrate God without having to be taught. So why would you have to teach your borrowed version when they have their own?

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

You still haven't answered the challenge.

Your internet link was a story about a person who was behaving in a way NOT consistant with what the bible teaches. As difficult as it is to see stories of people claiming to be Christian and behaving in ways so clearly opposite to Christian teaching, you cannot judge Christianity (or any other belief) based on its abuses, but on its actual content. You are simply viewing Christianity by what SOME people who claim to be Christians are doing. I am proposing to look at Jesus and the gospel message as it is presented in the bible. That is what I am advocating, the true gospel message. You need to support your assertion with something from the bible that would support your allegation.

You said: "The god in the children is submitting to their conscience not to one of the above."

That is not an answer. You still haven't said what god you are referring to, just that which you are not referring. Which god are you stipulating is already in the children.

You said: "The Bible says all living creatures celebrate God without having to be taught. So why would you have to teach your borrowed version when they have their own?"

I'm sorry, Kinderling, but this is simply more contradiction from you. You tell me what the Bible says and then ask me why I look to the Bible for understanding God. I am saying that I know God because He revealed Himself in the Bible and I find the Truth in that revealed Word. You are using the Bible for some general idea of ultimate innate understanding in children and then immediately turning around and discrediting the Bible as a source for belief. Either the bible is trustworthy as a revelation of God or not. You quote from the bible and then deny it in the very next sentence. My view is consistent, yours in contradictory at the most fundamental level.

I will continue for you to provide an answer for those two simple, basic questions. I would ask again for a short, concise, simple answer. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

You still haven't said what god you are referring to, just that which you are not referring. Which god are you stipulating is already in the children.

You ask for a Name, when the Bible teaches there is no Name you can place upon God, you ask for a sign when I give you the children where you can see God everyday, you ask for how I know, when I tell you what Jesus discovered.

The first commandment is to love your God, not submit, the second is like it, to love your neighbor, not submit.

The first prayer taught to a Christian is to submit to God and invite Jesus into their lives to guide them. The children already had god and their own mind to guide them, so they are then told they were corrupted by their parent's original sins which made them unworthy for everlasting life for eternity.

To seek and find truth sets you free, this is the narrow way; or to fear God (which is not love, just as need is not friendship) and be told that only a blood sacrifice of an innocent person is great enough to cover your sins so you can enter the Kingdom of God with a back door pass. This is the serpent's way to arrive with self-appointed titles from God, flatter in describing Heaven you haven't seen but as you want it to be, and say by faith alone in what they tell you, you will surely never die.

Big Liars provide santuary for little liars. For believing the Big Liars makes all the little liars feel a righteous light about themselves in the shadow of this darkness.

President Obama called himself Black and made all those who felt bad about their Blackness now feel good about their Blackness by believing they have being saved. There are no Black or White in the kingdom of god.

Jeremy, I have given you my personal revelations and you have given me diddly-squat except:
I am proposing to look at Jesus and the gospel message as it is presented in the bible.

I have done this fully for you until your cup overflows, but you could not hear. I feel as though I have been writing to a person with a thorn in his flesh, a St Paul, when I wanted to meet the Saul so you would to.

Either the bible is trustworthy as a revelation of God or not.

The bible is full of errors. This is human. The Koran is full of errors even though Allah faithfully told it to Mohammed. The sun does not go around the earth and set in a marsh as it says. Every Holy Book or compilation like the Bible is flawed. This is why they must be read with the spirit, for the author's intent, the translators' intents, the compilers' intents, and not just what is printed, for text is a value so poor that fundamentalists would rather see a child die than they blaspheme it.
People are known by their deeds.

The Intellectuals muse on words, the Blind on the emotional romance of the heroic deeds, for they have no soul nor spirit and only seek to be entertained by distractions. It is better to pretend to search than to arrive to sacrifice and the pain of truth.

The kingdom of God is like a treasure found in a field, once you found it you buy up the land. Many never glimpse it, so instead they buy a book and read about it.

Jeremy D. Troxler said...

Kinderling,

It appears we are again at an end. I have tried diligently to focus on just one issue and you either cannot, or will not provide a simple answer to a simple question. I believe that it is abundantly clear that you cannot say what god is in children from the beginning because you don't know. You have asked if I know Jesus, and i've shown you that He can be known because He has revealed Himself. Your view is full of contradictions, which you are unwilling to even address. I have patiently described how the contradictions are manifested in your writings, i'm sorry you can't see them.

Let me say in closing, that when I re-read you last series of comments, I did feel sorrow for what you have experienced (your son at Catholic school, in particular). I will be praying for you, that the cloud of confusion would be lifted, that you would come to know, in no uncertain terms, the God who exists, and whom you can know in a personal relationship as your Lord and Savior.

Thank you for the discussion and your patience with my questioning. I did appreciate our time. Thanks also to Dan for allowing me to take up so much space on his site over these last weeks.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Jeremy for the discussion.
You have shown me that life is how we experience it. To the full, or via a proxy where much prayng is needed.

christian soldier said...

the propaganda machine has been working in our education system for a loooooong time---some of us woke up --thus-the homeschooling movement and its exponential growth---GREAT POST -my friend!!!!!
C-CS

Anonymous said...

When Jesus was born the humans around the world were involved in their own lives.
- In Peru at Tiahuanaco was an advanced culture.
- In Europe Roman Emperor Augustus established a form of government to rule for 300 years.
- Yueh-chi from Central Asia conquer Bactria in India.
- Yamato kingdom in Japan evolves.
Source: http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html

What this says to me is Jesus was simply dealing with Jesus's problems. Not the world's.

Some say: 'Jesus was Jehovah's son sent to save the world.'

I say he discovered the faults of a half-brained culture and set free all those with ears to hear. A courageous man with a key that turned your tumblers, to awaken to what you already knew but were paralyzed and afraid to think in the Political Correctness of culture.

The Timeline of Jesus is revealing:
30 AD. Christianity –Jesus Christ
50-100 AD. Gnosticism-
150-250 AD. -Modalism (Monarchianism)–Sabellius, Praxeus, Noetus, Paul of Samosata
325 AD. -After being persecuted for almost 200 years Constantine made the Church becomes a legal religion, compromise begins to enter.

Why did Gnosticism spring up immediately after Jesus died? And then as time moved on Christian Literalism became the norm? Because the first was of spirit and the second a cult of the living dead:
http://www.letusreason.org/Cult11.htm

Danny Wright said...

"When Jesus was born the humans around the world were involved in their own lives."

You state this as fact and it is quite a robust and broad truth claim; especially given the communication capacities 2000 years ago. Before I read any further may I ask how you know this to be true?

Anonymous said...

Dan,
You state this as fact and it is quite a robust and broad truth claim; especially given the communication capacities 2000 years ago. Before I read any further may I ask how you know this to be true?

The question was so astoundingly skewed from one who claims to-know-Jesus when I claim to-know-life, that I did not know where to begin but a chace encounter with a practicing Hindu today gave me some insight.

I have only second-hand out-formation about Jesus. For all I know he could be a compilation of myths and Legends. So I need in-formation, to know what it would be like, to walk in his shoes, to say what is revealled like: "Oh that's what my parents said to me and now I do it to my children, now I understand".

This might be why the word 'now' and 'know' at so similar. Because to really know, is to be in the now, in the knowledge of the present moment.

The Hindu from Sri Lanka said he was taught that Vishnu was reborn into Ram (Righteousness) and later into krishna (Love) and he believed they were real people and not Gods as other Hindus on the mainland taught.

I said some Christians believed Jesus-is-God and others the Only Begotton Son-of-God. Neither claiming that they can be perfect like him but comforted that by belief and good works they will be Saved on the Last Day of Judgement.

I said as Ram and Krishna are the same person, are we not therefore ourselves to able to produce righteousness and love rather than go blindly thirsting for Truth and Love into the arms of any peddler of God? He said yes, but only if you become a Vishnu or become a Jesus. For if we did, we would know what to say and do at the right time and right moment without any script or rehersal set before us.

This how I know people were eating and drinking around the world when Jeus was alive and oblivious to the need of a Jewish-saving-servant-king; because they had folklore of their own servant-kings before them, and within them.

Danny Wright said...

How was it a skewed question? Looks simple enough to me.

Anonymous said...

Dan, You have read 0.000001 % of Jesus' life yet say you know it and ask of what I know of; that which my whole life I had been living.

What I see today is what was seen yesterday. If magic does not exist in the present it cannot exist in the past.

Danny Wright said...

"If magic does not exist in the present it cannot exist in the past."

How do you know this to be true?

Anonymous said...

If magic were true, the disabled would walk and the priests would be poor.