Dale's Blog

30. EARLIER MUSLIM EFFORTS TO CONQUER EUROPE

 

THE BATTLE OF TOURS – 732

 

After Muhammad’s death in 632, the Muslim armies moved into the Byzantine and Persian Empires.  They conquered what is now Iran and Iraq.  They penetrated deep into Central Asia.  They moved across North Africa, through Spain, and into France where they were finally stopped in 732 at the Battle of Tours near Paris.

 

Muhammad plundered his conquered enemies.  His successors plundered the areas which they conquered, which were very rich compared to the sands of Arabia.  Conquest by the Muslims was uniformly a catastrophe.  The existing civilizations were destroyed.  They were wiped off the map, leaving hardly a trace of their former existence.

 

THE DESTRUCTION OF BAGHDAD – 1258

 

In 1258, the Mongols destroyed Baghdad, which was the capital of the Muslim empire.  This greatly weakened the Muslim Empire and ended Arab domination of it.

 

THE CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE – 1453

 

The Ottoman Turks became the dominating power of the Muslim Empire.  In 1453 Constantinople finally fell to the Muslim armies.  Fifty thousand inhabitants, more than half the population, were taken away as slaves.  All the leading nobles, officials, and citizens were beheaded.

 

THE BATTLE OF VIENNA – 1683

 

In 1683 at the Battle of Vienna, the relentless advance of the Ottoman Empire into Eastern Europe was finally stopped.

 

The history of Islam clearly demonstrates that the violent teachings of Islam, with the brutal example of Muhammad – shocking as they are to the tender ears of Western Civilization with its Christian background – are in fact believed and practiced by Muslims, from its founding, throughout its history, and up to and including present time.

 

ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF CONQUEST AND DECEIT

 

In 732 the Muslim advance into Europe from the south was stopped near Paris.  In 1683 the Muslim advance into Europe from the east was stopped at Vienna.

 

Muslims have been doing this for 1400 years.  They will never stop.  Why not?  Because that is what their religion is.  That is what Muhammad told them to do.  That is the example which Muhammad set for them.  That is what Allah commands them to do, according to Muhammad.  Islam is a religion of conquest and slavery – definitely including the slavery of women.

 

Part of their religion is to lie to the unbelievers so as to more easily conquer them.  So the Muslims, and more particularly Saudi Arabia, use their trillions of oil dollars to buy up university departments and lots of professors and experts who swear in the most lofty and pompous language that Muslims are sweet lovable teddy bears, not significantly different from Christians.  These same well paid experts also denounce anyone with a different idea as “bigoted”, ignorant, stupid, hate-filled, and unworthy of consideration or respect as a decent human being.  They are also working very hard to make it a prosecutable offense to say anything negative about Islam.  This is best illustrated by the two-year prosecution of the leading Dutch politician Geert Wilders – a great and heroic freedom-fighter.

 

This is all completely false.  There are many honest scholars, and they easily discover the grim truth about Islam, which is very lightly sketched above.

 

INVITING MILLIONS OF MUSLIMS INTO EUROPE

 

Now we are inviting millions of Muslims into Europe.

 

The residents of Constantinople in 1453 could never have been persuaded that less than 600 years later, Europeans would be so insane and so suicidal that they would open their borders and invite millions of Muslims to come and live with them.

 

Muslims of any age would laugh uproariously at the gullibility and stupidity of the unbelievers.  They would praise Allah for blinding the unbelievers and giving the faithful such an easy victory.

 

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29. BREXIT – WHERE IS THE PASSION FOR LIBERTY?

 

On 23 June 2016, Britain will vote on whether to remain in the European Union or to exit.

 

Exiting the European Union is called “BREXIT”.

 

THE U.S. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE SETS THE EXAMPLE

 

The U.S. Declaration of Independence says, “When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.”.

 

It is not only a right, but a duty.  It may be the easy course to allow oneself to be “reduced under absolute Despotism”.  But it is morally wrong to allow it.  It is dishonorable to be so weak, so cowardly, and so lazy.

 

The Declaration continues, “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”.  Then follows a long list of tyrannical actions by the King.  Notable among them is this:

 

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.”.

 

Do we not now have “a multitude of New Offices”?  Do we not now have “swarms of Officers”?  Do these officers not “harass our People, and eat out their substance”?

 

Is this not “a long train of abuses and usurpations, [which] evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism”?

 

The Declaration ends with these ringing words:  “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”.

 

Are people today willing to commit their lives and their fortunes to the cause of liberty?  Do people today think that honor is sacred?

 

THE ROAD TO 1984:  HOW DO YOU BOIL A FROG?

 

How do you boil a frog?  Slowly.  If you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, he will jump out.  But if you drop a frog into a pot of cold water, and then you gradually warm it up, he will not realize that he has a problem, and he will soon be thoroughly cooked.  That is what is happening to us.

 

Where we are heading is toward the thought-controlled police state described by George Orwell in his novel “1984”.  We are going there slowly, not rapidly.  We are not being conquered suddenly by foreign invaders.  Our own leaders are doing it to us.  Each year, year by year, we have a greater “multitude of New Offices”, and more “swarms of Officers” to “harass our People, and eat out their substance”.  We have video surveillance everywhere.  We are told constantly by our leaders that this is necessary and valuable and important, and it is all for our own good and for our safety and security.

 

In 1775 revolutionary Patrick Henry warned against the “insidious smile” of the King’s ministers.  He said, “Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet.  Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss.”.

 

THE LONG AND GLORIOUS HISTORY OF ENGLISH LIBERTY

 

The long English tradition of equal rights for all men starts with King Arthur.  The meaning of King Arthur’s Round Table is that no man has any special rights.  Then Alfred the Great.  Then the Magna Carta.

 

The Scottish with their kilts and bagpipes are a symbol of the struggle for liberty which is recognized around the world.  The most notable Scot is William Wallace, who was immortalized by Robert Burns in his poem “Scots Wha Hae”, and later by Mel Gibson in his movie “Braveheart”.  The Scots were fighting English tyrants.

 

The Americans of course were also fighting an English tyrant.

 

To vote to stay in the European Union is to throw it all away.  To fail to vote to leave the European Union is to throw it all away by inaction.

 

LIBERTY VERSUS MONEY

 

If you are debating liberty versus tyranny, you do not ask:  “Which one pays better?”.

 

There is the old story of Judas, who sold out his leader for 30 pieces of silver, and betrayed him with a kiss.

 

The signers of the U.S. Declaration pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.  In other words, their conviction was that no price was too great.

 

People today have the very false belief that their liberty is safe and secure.  So they give no importance to protecting and defending it.

 

All the empires of the past have disappeared, almost without a trace.  Egyptians.  Persians.  Greeks.  Romans.  Muslims.  The British.  All that remains is shifting sand.  New wars have been fought on the graves of the old empires.  New empires have risen and vanished.

 

Why should our civilization be any different?

 

Can liberty survive?  If liberty has no public support, if no one wants it, if no one cares, then no, liberty cannot survive.

 

People today trust their own leaders.  How foolish!  How deadly!  Cicero, the great Roman, said, “A nation can survive its fools.  . . .  But it cannot survive treason from within.  An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city.  But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys.  . . .  He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.  A murderer is less to be feared.".

 

DEGRADATION – THE INEQUALITY OF MEN

 

The reason why it is important for all men to have equal rights is that men are not equal.  If all men have equal rights, then those who have superior ability can rise up and prosper and do great things.  And in the process they will bring prosperity and well-being to the entire civilization.

 

It is very important that a vigorous man – with intelligence, honor, and hard work – should be able to prosper and succeed.  It must be possible for him to deliver his bright idea or his better mousetrap to very large numbers of people.  If everyone is locked into a fixed pattern of existence, then the potential and the beauty and the fun of life are lost.

 

The quality of the citizens of the American colonies was very high.  They were not primitive or illiterate.  They were trained and experienced in self-reliance and independence, and they were proud of this.

 

Our present population is far below this level of vitality.  A very high percentage of the population is crippled by illegal drugs.  Another very high percentage of the population is crippled by medical drugs and by psychiatric drugs.  Debt, which is very much like a drug, is very strongly encouraged.  The government passes out money with wild abandon to very large parts of the population, which strongly tends to destroy the urge to work and produce.  Schools are getting worse and worse, and turning out graduates who are supposed to be adults now, but who have little or no ability to read or write or do arithmetic.  They are also indoctrinated with government propaganda so they think only politically correct thoughts – thoughts which have government approval.

 

The Declaration of Independence would fall on deaf ears today.  People today are high on marijuana.  Or they want more money and more “rights” for blacks, or women, or homosexuals, or immigrants, or ordinary working people.  Who is there who still cares about the survival of liberty?

 

Who wants to make a world with liberty for all men everywhere?

 

Perhaps there are some.  If so, then those people must work doubly and triply hard.

 

HITLER COULDN’T DO IT, BUT BRUSSELS IS DOING IT

 

Hitler had his great war machine.  But he failed to conquer Britain.

 

Now Brussels is doing it.  They are doing it not with armies and airplanes, but with red tape and regulations.  They are doing it with swarms of officers who harass us and eat out our substance.

 

It is not being done by invading armies.  It is being done by our own leaders.  Why do we trust them?

 

THE ELITE ARE CONSPIRING AGAINST US

 

The word “Conspiracy” is frowned on.  The word “Elite” is more acceptable.  Same thing.  There is a small number of people who have enormous wealth and power.  And they control or have enormous influence on almost everything.  “Bankers”.  The “Super Rich”.  The “Rulers”.  The “Powers That Be”.  “Insiders”.  These are the people behind the scenes.  These are the people who control the puppets that you see in public.

 

If you trust these people, then vote to stay in the European Union.  If you believe what it says in the newspapers, if you believe what politicians tell you, if you think the Bank of England is working for the good of the people, if you believe someone who says “I’m from the government.  I’m here to help you.” – then vote to stay in the European Union.

 

These people are trying to create a one world government which they control.  In this “New World Order”, you will be completely obedient, and you will think only thoughts which have government approval.  For more details, read George Orwell’s “1984”.

 

The European Union is a very important step in this direction.  That is why the European Union is so important to these people.  And that is why it is so important for you to oppose the European Union.

 

If people are on drugs, if people are in debt, if people are firmly convinced that the government owes them a living – then they are much easier to control.  So the elite and hidden rulers promote these things intentionally.  They pretend to be good people who are working for the good of the common man.  They are lying.

 

THE PRESENT MUSLIM INVASION

 

The present Muslim invasion of Europe and Great Britain is a demographic invasion.  That means they are coming not as an army, but as a very large number of individuals moving into the area.  No particular individual looks like a threat to the civilization.  But when hundreds of thousands or millions of individuals arrive, and when they all think alike and are dedicated to the destruction of your civilization, that is a very real threat.

 

The “Elite” – the “Conspiracy”, the “Hidden Rulers”, the “Powers That Be” – have created this demographic invasion.  They have created the conditions in the Middle East where large parts of the population have become desperate for a place where they can go.  So now we are supposed to welcome large numbers of them, even though they hate us for what we have done to them, and even though they subscribe to a bloodthirsty religion which is dedicated to our conquest and enslavement.

 

The reason why the elite is causing this chaos is because the chaos and civil war and riots and general misery will make us much easier to control.

 

TURKEY WILL BE THE CONDUIT FOR MILLIONS OF MUSLIMS

 

They are working hard to get Turkey to become a full member of the European Union.  If and when that happens, the doors will be wide open for millions of Muslims to come into Europe from or through Turkey.  And if Britain is part of the European Union, they will also come into Britain.

 

Do you really think the culture and the civilization of Europe and Great Britain can survive this?

 

Great Britain has a very great need to divorce itself as severely as possible from the European insanity which has invited in millions of people who are dedicated to the destruction of Europe.

 

ELECTIONS AND ELECTION FRAUD

 

This is a matter of great importance.  Therefore, if you can, you should very definitely vote for Britain to exit the European Union.  You should not consider it too unimportant.  You should not consider that your vote does not matter.  And you should get your friends and family to do the same.

 

Election fraud has become a routine part of modern elections – especially with computerized vote counting.  It is extremely easy for the vote counters to cheat.

 

However, they are hesitant to cheat a whole lot.  That makes it too obvious.  So even if you think fraud will nullify your vote, it still matters.  Maybe they won’t dare to cheat enough to nullify your vote.

 

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28. TO BREXIT OR NOT TO BREXIT

 

On 23 June 2016, Britain will vote on whether to remain in the European Union or to exit.  Exiting the European Union is called “BREXIT”.  Staying in is called “Bremain”.

 

What can we really know?

 

Both sides have been scaremongering and much of the political agenda is hidden.  And as we know, politics is usually an unethical thing these days.  So how can we really KNOW how to vote for our future and for the future of our children?

 

Well, one way to look at it is this:  What do the Powers That Be want for us?  Are they for us, the regular people, or  are they for their own interests?  As most of us know, they are for themselves.  Whatever they say, they are really for themselves, and  really at the expense of the rest of us.

 

So one easy way to make this decision, is to see what they are voting or pushing for, and then vote to oppose that.  Simple, eh?  Simple yes, and true yes.

 

So if George Soros (a rogue only out for his own good and his Elite friends) is saying “Vote Brexit.”, then vote to stay in.  And if Soros says “Vote to stay in.”, then VOTE BREXIT!

 

Similarly, whatever the Bank of England says, don't believe them.  They are the Big Bankers (independent, not part of the government at all).  They are only in it for themselves.  So if they say “Be scared that the pound will drop, if Britain exits.”, know that they are trying to scare you away from doing the right thing.  So the right way to vote is BREXIT!

 

So what of Boris Johnson, who is for Brexit and who is also an Insider?  Quite simply, he has his own personal agenda right now to become the next Prime Minister.  So opposing the current Prime Minister, David Cameron, is a sign he can stand “for the people against Cameron”.  And this would mean “against the Insiders”.  There are so many people who are tired of Cameron and want a change.  So Boris Johnson can present himself as that refreshing change, still within the Tory party.  But also know that he can very cleverly change that position after the vote, if he really wants to.  In other words, at this point he is just saying what he thinks people want to hear to advance his own career, and that does not tell us what he is really going to support in the future.  Since he is an Insider, he will very likely support the European Union.

 

Notice too that Brexit is being reported in the media as being the stronger side right now.  Clever tactics, to make Brexiters think we are already winning, so we don't need to actually vote. But that is a BIG MISTAKE.  WE DEFINITELY NEED TO VOTE.  Every single vote is needed this time.

 

So seeing the strong push to Bremain coming from the many Powers That Be, one can know that the inner hidden plans to subjugate the world, are to be enacted through the EU.  Don't be a part of that plan.  Oppose Bremain with all your ability.  And let your friends and family know:  YOU NEED TO VOTE TO HAVE ANY WIN AGAINST THE BIG NASTY PLANS OF THE GLOBAL ELITE.  VOTE BREXIT or you will have only yourself to blame.

 

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27. DISCORD AND MARXISM IN THE CONCERT HALL

 

Grant Gershon

Artistic Director

Los Angeles Master Chorale

135 N Grand Avenue

Los Angeles, CA  90012

 

Dear Sir,

 

GUARDIANS OF OUR CULTURAL TREASURES

 

You are, in a very real sense, one of the custodians of the cultural treasures of our civilization – the crown jewels, one might say.  You are not only a purveyor of beauty, a promoter of beauty, and a producer of beauty.  You are also a guardian of beauty.

 

I am a big fan of the Los Angeles Master Chorale.  I have been a subscriber for the last season, and I have renewed my subscription for the coming season.

 

I think you are doing a splendid job.  Your enthusiasm is infectious.  It is a pleasure and a delight to watch you work.

 

BEAUTY IS CLOSE TO GOD

 

Beauty is close to God.

 

No doubt that is why so much beautiful music is religious music.

 

Handel’s Messiah was a joy.  The St. Matthew Passion was magnificent.  Verdi’s Requiem was stupendous.

 

But I wish to comment on the recent performance on 6 March 2016 of “Anthracite Fields” by Julia Wolfe, subtitled “Music of the Coal Miner”.  In my opinion, this was not up to the usual standards of L.A. Master Chorale.

 

I am a writer on politics, religion, and philosophy.  I have a blog, “Dale’s Blog”, at http://www.dalesblog.com/, where I discuss the decline of our civilization.  I am posting this letter on my blog, as Article #27.  It seems to me that this performance was a degradation of the culture of our civilization.  Additionally, it was a vehicle for the covert dissemination of radical left propaganda, hostile to free enterprise, which is what made America great.  This propaganda was hidden under the pretense of high art and culture.  So it seems very suitable as a subject for commentary on my blog.

 

Thus I have two purposes in this letter.  One is to communicate to you my thoughts on the matter, as a fan and as a subscriber.  The other is to post my thoughts on my blog as an article of social and political commentary.

 

I hope you will forgive me if I speak plainly.  In my writing I try to speak plainly in a manner which is easy for many to understand.

 

DISCORDANT NOISES

 

Commenting on the aesthetic value, it was, in a word, a disaster.  If we envision a scale of artistic merit, perhaps we can put “elevator music” at zero.  Then we could put Handel, Bach, and Verdi at 100.  On this scale, “Anthracite Fields” would rate at minus 100.  To the same degree that Handle, Bach, and Verdi are beautiful and inspiring, “Anthracite Fields” was ugly and revolting.  It was a very long string of harsh discordant noises.  There was no trace of melody to be found anywhere.  There was rhythm, but it was an unpleasant violent pounding.

 

After a little while, I observed a couple walking out.  I admired their integrity in refusing to tolerate this atrocity.  I considered doing the same, but I wanted to see the rest of it, and see if it got any better.  It did not.

 

The name of the group performing with the Master Chorale was “Bang on a Can All-Stars”.  This name is appropriate in that “bang on a can” is an apt description of the quality of their music.

 

I am not saying that only old classical music is good.  I love the Beatles, Janis Joplin, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, and many others.  I sometimes wonder where the composers of great classical music have gone.  I have a theory.  They are composing for movies and television.  Like Hans Zimmer, who did the music for the movie “Peacemaker” and many others.  Like Christopher Franke, who did the music for the sci-fi TV series Babylon 5.  In my opinion, Christopher Franke ranks right up there with Beethoven.

 

RADICAL LEFT PROPAGANDA

 

The most important part of the script is a quote from a speech by John L. Lewis (1880-1969), head of the United Mine Workers of America, to the House Labor subcommittee in Congress.  He says, “If we must grind up human flesh and bones in the industrial machine that we call modern America, . . . you and I who benefit from that service because we live in comfort, we owe protection to those men and we owe security to their families if they die.”.

 

This is a plain statement that America is a machine that “grinds up human flesh and bones”.  Hardly a pretty picture.  There is no date given for this speech.  One can reasonably guess that it was in the 1930s, 80 years ago.

 

We are given a recitation of hundreds of names of people who died in mining accidents in Pennsylvania from 1869 to 1916.  That was over 100 years ago.

 

We are told about a “poor little boy” who is forced to do some kind of work without gloves.  This boy has no fingernails, and the ends of his fingers bleed every day from this work.  There is no date on when this happened.

 

The picture is plainly drawn that the coal mining business “grinds up human flesh and bones”, kills hundreds of men needlessly, and tortures little boys.  No date is given for this.

 

The concert program has on its cover a picture of happy smiling coal miners.  This picture does not match up with the description of slavery and torture given in the script.  This description is entirely not believable.  I don’t believe it is even faintly true.  Maybe a hundred years ago, there was some of this happening.  But not now.

 

There is no shortage of very real cruelties and atrocities in the world, many far away, and some closer to home.  And Americans are commonly too complacent.  Enumerating these just causes for righteous indignation is not my purpose here.  My question is:  Why choose this wholly imaginary cause for righteous indignation?

 

The power of labor unions is vastly too great.  It is hardly controversial to say that the grossly excessive power of the United Automobile Workers has done a great deal to destroy the American automobile industry.  Why go back a hundred years and get all filled with righteous indignation over problems that are long gone?

 

MARXIST LESSONS

 

John L. Lewis spells out for us what the point is:  “We owe protection to those men and we owe security to their families if they die.”.

 

This is the message of Karl Marx, of communism and socialism.  The government should take care of everybody.  People should not be expected to take care of themselves or to provide for themselves.

 

The inevitable result of expecting the government to take care of everybody is that the government owns everything, and we all become slaves.  This is what happens in communist countries.

 

America at the time of its founding firmly adopted the opposite policy, the policy of liberty, the policy that people provide for themselves.  The result was that America became very rich and very powerful.  Now America is in rapid decline, both in wealth and in power.  The reason is that America is abandoning the policy of liberty and self-reliance.  Too many Americans have been persuaded by Marx and his followers that the government should take care of everyone.

 

So I don’t like it when I find this message being presented very forcefully under the pretense of being high level art and culture.

 

SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES

 

Part of the show was a large screen showing a continuous stream of printed words and pictures.  However, in front of the entire screen was a semi-transparent curtain.  This curtain had many waves in it, and these waves were constantly moving.  The result of this was that the words were mostly impossible to read, and the pictures were largely unintelligible.

 

The result was that many ideas were suggested, but not clearly, and not with certainty about what was being suggested.

 

This is completely anti-intellectual.  The audience is not supposed to state or think or formulate in words, the ideas that are being promoted.  The ideas go in as dogmas, as things “everybody knows”, as certainty.  But there is no awareness of it as thought or proposition or doctrine or theory.  To formulate it as a stated proposition is to make it possible to doubt or even disagree.  This must not be allowed.

 

Thus these are “subliminal” messages.  They go into the mind as indoctrination which is not even recognized as messages or as indoctrination.  The person is not aware that he is being brainwashed.

 

If it were explicitly stated, if it were clear, then it would be easily recognized as the revolutionary Marxist propaganda which it is.

 

MARXISM:  BEAUTY IS SINFUL

 

The primary idea of Marxism is that no one should be allowed to have anything if there is someone else, somewhere in the world, who does not also have it.

 

A corollary to this basic doctrine is that it is sinful to enjoy beauty.

 

One of the pictures on the screen which I was able to make out was a picture of a beautiful lady in a beautiful dress.  This was followed immediately by a picture of a group of poor boys, wearing caps.  These were presumably the children of coal miners.

 

The plain meaning of this, in the context of a long presentation about the slavery and suffering of coal miners, is that this lady is the “capitalist oppressor” and the children are the “downtrodden and exploited workers”.

 

In other words, this lady has no right to make herself beautiful or to wear fine clothes while there are poor people in the world.  It is morally wrong for a lady to dress in a beautiful dress, while some people are poor and suffering.

 

If that is true, then it is also true that it is morally wrong to produce or to attend shows like the Los Angeles Master Chorale.  You, as the Artistic Director, are the ring leader of this orgy of capitalist decadence.

 

If you feel a burden of guilt because you are producing things of beauty and encouraging others to enjoy and delight in things of beauty, then perhaps it eases your conscience to produce a show in which you condemn yourself and your audience for your shameless indulgence in the immoral capitalist decadence of art and beauty.

 

If beauty is sinful, then this performance was certainly not sinful.  There was no beauty in it.

 

If beauty is close to God, then ugliness is far from God.  Karl Marx was an atheist.  He hated God.  If religious music is often beautiful, then it makes sense that Marxist music is ugly.

 

If freedom is beautiful and slavery is ugly, then again, it makes sense that Marxist music is ugly, because it promotes the direct route to universal slavery.

 

WHY ATTACK THE COAL MINING INDUSTRY?

 

Why this attack on the coal mining industry?  Perhaps it is to support the broad attack on the coal mining industry being done in the name of “global warming” – now called “climate change” because people were not buying the theory of “global warming”.  The Left is trying to pass heavy restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions.  The purpose from the viewpoint of the Radical Left is to disable American industry by depriving it of its main source of power – namely coal.  If the coal industry can be eliminated, that will be very bad for American industry in general.

 

“ANTHRACITE FIELDS” IS NOT “FOLK MUSIC”

 

The subtitle on “Anthracite Fields” is “Music of the Coal Miner”.  I simply do not believe this.  There is no evidence given in the performance or in the program to indicate that this so-called “music” is in any sense “OF” coal miners.  It was composed recently by Julia Wolfe.  It was not created by common coal miners a hundred years ago.  It is not something coal miners sing, either now or a hundred years ago, because they like to sing it and it gives them pleasure or satisfaction or relief or joy.

 

This is hard core, heavy-handed Marxist propaganda.  Coal miners are involved simply because they have been selected as suitable victims to highlight.  The Far Left is always and everywhere looking for people with a grievance.  They are told that they are victims.  Their sufferings are greatly exaggerated.  And the call is made for revolution – in Marx’s words, “the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions”.

 

The opening act for “Anthracite Fields” was a selection of real “folk music” – music sung by many common people over a long period for their own entertainment and pleasure.

 

These folk songs were religious.  You (Grant Gershon) are quoted in the program saying that in selecting these songs, “I started gravitating toward the ones that talk the most eloquently about our journey to a better place.”.  How are joyful religious songs anticipating spiritual salvation similar to “Anthracite Fields”?  Marx’s “journey to a better place” goes through “the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie”.  This is a dark and evil perversion of religion.

 

THE ROLE OF THE MASTER CHORALE

 

The program says that “Anthracite Fields” won the Pulitzer Prize in Music for 2015.  Hm.  The name “Pulitzer” is associated with news and politics.  Perhaps “Anthracite Fields” won the award because it was the most Marxist and revolutionary thing that could be passed off as music.

 

The emperor is not wearing any clothes.

 

You are mixing ambrosia with sewage.

 

The highest aesthetic in the civilization is embodied by the Master Chorale and similar organizations.  Such organizations are the carriers of the culture.  They carry the culture forward into the future.  Or they fail to carry it forward, and the culture declines, degrades, and possibly dies.

 

Beauty is close to God.  Beauty uplifts people and gives them joy.  Beauty makes life worth living.  You have a great responsibility to protect and defend and preserve great art, great beauty, and great music.

 

Respectfully,

 

Dale Samson

 

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26. I AM BECOME DEATH, THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS

 

J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) was the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bomb.

 

The website http://www.atomicarchive.com/Bios/Oppenheimer.shtml states:  “When World War II began, Oppenheimer eagerly became involved in the efforts to develop an atomic bomb, which were already taking up much of the time and facilities of Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley.  He was invited to take over work on neutron calculations, and in June 1942 General Leslie Groves appointed Oppenheimer as the scientific director of the Manhattan Project.  Under Oppenheimer's guidance, the laboratories at Los Alamos were constructed.  There, he brought the best minds in physics to work on the problem of creating an atomic bomb.  In the end, he was managing more than 3,000 people, as well as tackling theoretical and mechanical problems that arose.  He is often referred to as the "father" of the atomic bomb.”.

 

The website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer#Trinity states:

 

The joint work of the scientists at Los Alamos resulted in the first artificial nuclear explosion near Alamogordo on July 16, 1945, on a site that Oppenheimer codenamed "Trinity" in mid-1944.  . . .  Oppenheimer later recalled that, while witnessing the explosion, he thought of a verse from the Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad Gita (XI,12):

 

If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one.

 

Years later he would explain that another verse had also entered his head at that time:  namely, the famous verse:  . . .  (XI,32), which he translated as "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

 

In 1965, he was persuaded to quote again for a television broadcast:

 

We knew the world would not be the same.  A few people laughed, a few people cried.  Most people were silent.  I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and, to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”  I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.

 

He traveled to Washington on August 17 to hand-deliver a letter to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson expressing his revulsion and his wish to see nuclear weapons banned.  In October 1945 Oppenheimer was granted an interview with President Harry S Truman. The meeting, however, went badly, after Oppenheimer remarked he felt he had "blood on my hands."

 

The website http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer gives a selection of quotes.  They show that he was a very good, thoughtful, and caring person who gave a lot of thought to philosophy and to the well-being of the world.

 

This 53 second video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb13ynu3Iac shows Oppenheimer in 1965 quoting the Bhagavad Gita:  “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”.

 

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25. INTO THE NIGHT OR INTO THE LIGHT

 

INTO THE NIGHT OR INTO THE LIGHT

 

Do not go quietly into the night.

Do not give up without a fight.

Freedom is the goal that’s right.

The truth will take us to the light.

Liberty is a beautiful sight –

Our glorious vision shining bright.

We work for that with all our might.

 

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24. MONEY AND SEX ARE THE PRIMARY DRIVES

 

PEOPLE WORK FOR MONEY AND SEX

 

Mystery stories – Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, and the like – are entertaining largely because they portray life in an intense way.  Usually somebody has been murdered.  And that happened because somebody had strong feelings about something.  Almost always, the motivation is either money or sex.

 

Most people spend most of their productive time working for money.  Usually this is a job.  Sometimes it is a business of some kind.  And most of the rest of their time they spend trying to find or maintain or enjoy a romantic and/or sexual relationship.  That’s what people do with most of their time and energy.  This is true both for men and for women.  If a woman marries and keeps house and raises children, then that work is her exchange for financial support from her husband.  That is her “job”.  Raising children is also an important part of sexual activity, broadly understood.  Both men and women feel very strongly about their children, especially mothers.

 

SEX REQUIRES MONEY

 

Money is sexy.  Poverty is not sexy.

 

The usual basic exchange between a man and a woman is that the man provides the money, and the woman provides beauty and sexuality, keeps house, cooks, and bears and raises children.

 

If the man is not able to provide money, then he cannot do his part.  Why would the woman be interested?  It requires money for the woman to maintain her own beauty and her own attractive clothes.  Maintaining a house and raising children also require money.  A woman wants to be confident that she and her children will be well taken care of by her man.

 

A man who wants to have a woman needs money for his own clothes, for his own home, and for his own car.  If a man wants to be attractive to a woman, then he should not be overweight.  He should be physically fit.  He should be clean.  He should be well dressed.  He should have a sense of style.  In other words, he should have some idea about what clothes look good and what clothes look bad.  And if he does not know, then he should pay attention and learn.  He should have a nice home and a nice car.  If he cannot provide these things for himself when he is alone, how can a woman expect him to provide these things for her if she marries him?

 

At this time it is not uncommon for people to have a disdainful and scornful attitude about looking good.  People think it is somehow “cool” or “with it” to look like a slob, and to dress in cheap ugly clothes.  Even if your friends think this way, this is fundamentally false.  It is a degraded state of mind.  It is a reflection of our degraded culture.  It goes along with idealizing poverty, idleness, ignorance, apathy, and indifference.  Why would any sensible woman want to marry a man who is poor, idle, ignorant, apathetic, and indifferent?  Why would any sensible man want to marry a woman who wants that kind of man, or who herself holds it as an ideal to be poor, idle, ignorant, apathetic, and indifferent?

 

No doubt the great prevalence of drugs in our society at this time contributes greatly to making everyone poor, idle, ignorant, apathetic, and indifferent.  Drugs are deadly.  It is a great folly to become, to be, or to remain a druggie.  This applies both to illegal drugs and to legal drugs.

 

The normal courtship activities, when a man is attracted to a woman, are that he takes her to dinner and a show.  Fancier is better.  This of course costs money.  An occasional trip or vacation is also very nice.  And also costs money.

 

FREUD:  SEX AND AGGRESSION

 

Freud said the two main drives that motivate everyone are sex and aggression.  “Sex and aggression” is very similar to “money and sex”.  You can find a lot about Freud’s ideas by googling “Freud sex and aggression”.

 

Money, sex, and power are the usual worldly pursuits of most men.

 

One might say that the word “aggression” includes both money and power.  When a man is doing well at making money, then he becomes more interested in power, as the next step in his self-advancement.  If a man becomes very rich, then he tends to start buying politicians and governments.  Thus wealth leads directly into politics, which is a primary form of power.

 

AGGRESSION AND HONESTY

 

The big problem with Freud’s theory of sex and aggression is that it leaves out the honesty factor.  If a man is pursuing money and power, does he do so honestly or dishonestly?  Does he go out and rob people at gunpoint?  Does he swindle people with fast talk and legal trickery?  Does he conquer his neighboring countries with cavalry or with artillery and airplanes?  Or does he produce and exchange honestly and deliver good products as promised?  Does he deal truthfully with all his trading partners?

 

Honesty is the indispensable key to happiness and prosperity, both for the individual and for the civilization.  Honesty means you have liberty and the right to property, and accordingly you have peace and prosperity.  Dishonesty means you have slavery and no secure property, and accordingly you have perpetual war and suffering.

 

Freud lumps it all together and calls it “aggression”.  Thus the critical factor is omitted.  We wind up with a moral vacuum.  All behavior is equally valid.  All behavior is just people pursuing the instinctive drives of sex and aggression.  This is very much like the materialist who says that all behavior is just the laws of physics operating on the neurons.  There is no responsibility.  There is no right and wrong.  We are all just leaves being blown about in the hurricanes of fate.  There is no happiness or unhappiness.  There is no free will.  There is no creating your own future.

 

RELIGION AND POLITICS ARE THE SECONDARY DRIVES

 

The secondary drives that motivate everyone are religion and politics.  These drives are often in conflict with the drives for money and sex.  Strong interest in religion or politics often gives a person a very negative attitude about money and sex.

 

Monks and nuns, who take religion very seriously, take vows of poverty and chastity.  This is a total renunciation of money and sex.  Any interest in money or sex is completely disavowed.  They are regarded as fundamentally in opposition to the religious desire to please God.

 

The great 19th century Hindu saint Ramakrishna spoke against the desires for “women and gold”.  Information on this can be found by googling “Ramakrishna women and gold”.

 

Similarly people often feel strongly about politics and are willing to sacrifice money and sex to a greater or lesser degree for the sake of the glorious political cause.  People who go to war – and there are many of them – are willing to risk their lives for their political goals.

 

And that is why it is a rule that in polite society one should never talk about religion or politics.  The primary drives are money and sex.  Normally one is working to advance oneself in terms of money and sex.  Bringing up religion or politics puts oneself severely at risk of running into some disagreement with one or more other people.  And this disagreement might cause major difficulties with money and/or sex, that is, with one’s business and/or romantic pursuits.

 

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23. LIBERTY REQUIRES TYPE 1 RELIGION

 

MAN MUST KNOW THAT HE CAUSES HIS OWN FUTURE

 

The basic principles of politics are religious and philosophical.  The most important basic principle in politics and religion and philosophy is this:

 

MAN IS A SPIRITUAL BEING WITH FREE WILL AND WITH THE ABILITY TO DO GOOD OR EVIL BY HIS OWN CHOICE.

 

Your own future liberty and happiness and the future liberty and happiness of civilization depend primarily upon whether this principle can be established and agreed upon by a great many men and women.

 

RELIGION AND POLITICS ARE INSEPARABLE

 

Religion and politics cannot be separated.  A person’s politics come from his values.  And his values come from his religion (including “materialism” as a “religion”).  A person’s future well-being depends on what he does.  And what he does depends on what he believes.  His personal happiness or misery depends on what he does and on what principles he lives by.  And the freedom, peace, and prosperity of his civilization, or its descent into slavery, war, and hard times, also depends on what he does and on what principles he lives by.  Those principles come mainly from his religion or philosophy.

 

The Great Conspiracy of the Super Rich is working hard to create a global slave state based on total government and total thought control.  Christians, and more specifically Bible believing Christians, are one of the primary barriers to this enslavement of mankind.  That is because Bible believing Christians think that God’s laws are more important than governments.  And that is why Christians are heavily persecuted by the government and by the Left.

 

This is the same problem that the Christians had with the Romans.  At that time, the Christians did not agree that the Roman Emperor was the highest authority.  They thought God was a higher authority.  And today they still think that God is the highest authority, not the government.  This conflicts with the drive by the government and the Left for total government control of everything.

 

Millions of Muslims are being allowed to move into Europe.  They bring with them their bloodthirsty religion dedicated to conquest, slavery, deceit, and brutality, based on the Quran and on the role model of Muhammad himself.  This is an insane act of cultural suicide by Europe, and is part of the Conspiracy’s plan for the destruction of civilization and the enslavement of the world.

 

Western Civilization is largely based on Christianity.  The Ten Commandments say “Thou shalt not kill.” and “Thou shalt not steal.”.  These two principles alone contribute enormously to the well being of a society.  They establish with a firm foundation the Right to Life and the Right to Property.

 

Karl Marx hated Christianity and declared that Communism is “scientific materialism”.  Thus Communism is based on materialism, and on the idea that man does not have a soul.  Man is only his body.  Accordingly, Marx disavows the Christian Commandments against killing and stealing.  On the contrary, he advocates stealing everything from rich people and killing everyone who objects.  The battle between Communism and Western Civilization is largely a battle between materialism and Christianity.

 

Like Christians, Muslims also believe that God is the highest authority.  But their God, Allah, commands Muslims to conquer and enslave the rest of the world, and to deceive them as a means to that conquest.  Thus Islam is entirely incompatible with Western Civilization.  The principles of Islam are diametrically opposed to the principles of Western Civilization.  A Christian could very properly call the principles of Islam “diabolical”.

 

TYPE 1 RELIGION SAYS THAT THE SOUL IS GOD

 

Type 1 religion says that man is an immortal and eternal spiritual being.  He can raise himself into a higher awareness of his own divine nature.  He can also reduce himself into a deeper state of degradation and suffering.

 

Type 1 religions include Hinduism and Buddhism.  The Hindus say “Atman is Brahman.”.  This means, the Soul is God.  If you google “Atman is Brahman”, you will find a lot of material on the subject.  Type 1 also appears very heavily in Christian mysticism, even though Christianity is not Type 1.  Christian mystics talk at length about achieving “union with God”.

 

In Type 1 religion, the objective, the goal, the ultimate purpose of life, is to achieve “enlightenment”.  “Enlightenment” is full awareness of one’s own divine nature.  It is “realizing” one’s own “oneness with God”.  The great Hindu saint Paramahansa Yogananda spoke both of “God-realization” and of “Self-realization”.  These two are the same thing.  In other words, “Self” is the same as “God”.

 

The theory is that when you achieve enlightenment you do not “become God”.  Rather, you realize that you already “are God”, and that you have been God all along.  You were simply forgetful of your true nature.

 

Buddha said, “I am awake.”.  In saying this, he is describing the relationship between an ordinary person and an “enlightened” person.  The enlightened person has awakened from the sleep of delusion and unawareness.

 

Sir Edwin Arnold (1832–1904) wrote a poem about the life of Buddha, called “The Light of Asia”.  It ends with the line:  “THE DEWDROP SLIPS INTO THE SHINING SEA!”.  (http://www.bartleby.com/236/154.html)  It has also been said that the shining sea slips into the dewdrop.  This is a description of the soul returning to God.

 

It is commonplace that people achieving a high level of awareness speak of seeing themselves in everyone they meet.

 

IS TYPE 1 POLYTHEISTIC?

 

It is sometimes said that Hinduism is “polytheistic”, meaning they worship many Gods.  Well, according to Type 1 religion, every individual person is God, or “a god”.  So that makes it very “polytheistic”.  Hindus have lots of statues of various “gods”.  Well, Christians have statues of Jesus and Mary and numerous saints.

 

Hindus believe that God can be worshipped as Father, as Mother, as Lover, or as any such dear and beloved identity.  It is a warm and loving and beautiful thing.

 

CHRISTIANITY IS NOT BELIEVABLE

 

Type 2 religion, including Christianity and Islam, says that God is the only creator, and that men were created by God.  All you have to do is obey God’s rules in this lifetime, and then you’ll go to Heaven.  So you really only need to worry about this lifetime.  If you can get through this one short lifetime without too much “sin”, then you’ll be safe in heaven for the rest of eternity.

 

Christianity says that God is Love.  That’s very nice.  But this supposedly loving God is going to torture most people for all eternity.  Saintly persons of other religions will also go to Hell.  This is not believable.  Good hearted Christians have a hard time talking about how their friends who are not Christians are going to go to Hell.

 

According to the Bible, First Corinthians Chapter 15, everybody will be resurrected up out of the ground on Judgment Day.  This is not believable.  It also raises the question of whether bad people go to Hell when they die, or not until much later, on Judgment Day.

 

Christianity is a large part of the foundation of Western Civilization.  But with the advance of science, the doctrines of Christianity have become less and less believable.  As a result, people have largely abandoned the idea of God as described in Christianity.  Materialism has replaced Christianity as the dominant philosophy in Western Civilization.  And as a result, people have abandoned the moral code of Christianity, with the principles of not killing and not stealing.

 

Even most Christians have given up actually believing most of the classic and historical doctrines of Christianity.

 

Many Christians believe that Jesus Christ will “come again in glory”, and will take care of all the problems in the world.  Therefore we don’t need to worry about the bad state of the world or do anything to try to improve the situation.

 

According to Christianity, man is basically a sinner.  He is basically bad.  So whatever he does is naturally bad.  Therefore he should not do anything at all or try to improve his own life or to defend and protect Western Civilization.  Anything he does will just make things worse.

 

MATERIALISM IS NOT BRIGHT

 

Materialism is the third of the three philosophies of mankind.  It could be called “Type 3 religion”, although materialists think they are rejecting all religion.  According to materialism, you are in essence a rock.  You are a bunch of fancy organic chemicals.  And when you die, that’s it, brother.  End of story for you.

 

The materialist proves his theory by pounding his fist on a table or kicking something.  But he can do that just as well in a dream.  So what does it prove?

 

Materialism offers no motivation to be kind or loving with others, and no motivation even to be honest.  Why not kill and steal with reckless abandon?  He who dies with the most money and power wins.  You are just a body, so all that matters is your sensual gratification.

 

According to materialism, you have no life after the death of your body.  So nothing will make any difference to you.  As long as you can get by for now, there’s no sense worrying about the future.  The only thing that matters is what you can get for yourself, right now, by any means, including killing and stealing.

 

Good hearted materialists have a hard time talking philosophy, because they have no explanation for their own spiritual and ethical inclinations.

 

According to materialism, a man’s actions are determined by the laws of physics operating on his nerve impulses.  So no one is responsible for anything.  If he kills one man or a million men, he has no guilt.  Killing someone is just rearranging his molecules, so it doesn’t matter.  Everything is caused by the unthinking and uncaring laws of physics.  And nothing anyone can do will change that.

 

CHRISTIANITY SAYS THAT MAN IS DUST

 

The Bible says, in Genesis, Chapter 2, “God formed man of the dust of the ground”.  In Chapter 3, it says, “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”.  The materialist, in his hatred of Type 2 religion, has failed to notice that he still believes the greatest lie of Type 2 religion – that HE HIMSELF is the cause of nothing, is not important, and has no value.  He is not a spiritual being.  He is dust.  He is matter.

 

COMMON SENSE PHILOSOPHY

 

Without a strong philosophical basis, liberty cannot have a solid foundation.  Christianity does not do it.  Materialism does not do it.  Christianity and materialism are socially acceptable.  If you contradict a Christian, he will consider you sinful and wicked.  If you contradict a materialist, he will consider you stupid and superstitious.  Neither one is actually a sensible philosophy.

 

Granted, it is not obvious that man is basically God.  But surely it is very obvious that man is a spiritual being.  Psychic phenomena and out-of-body experiences are actually very commonplace.

 

The materialistic scientist puts all his attention on matter.  But what about the observer?  What about the desires and loves that every person experiences?  Where do these fit into the equations of quantum mechanics?  These are the elephants in the room which are studiously ignored by the materialist.

 

If a scientist chooses to believe that he, being conscious and aware, is a spiritual being, and not just a collection of neurons, that will not make him unable to study Einstein’s equations or to do experiments with cyclotrons.

 

It is entirely common sense to say that existence includes both material phenomena and spiritual phenomena.  Only blind dogmatism can say otherwise.

 

Without the common sense which is Type 1 religion, liberty is built on the sand of lies which offer no stable foundation for the knowledge of right and wrong, and good and evil.

 

THE WORLD IS GOD’S DREAM

 

Hindus like to say that the universe is God’s dream.  Everyone has dreams.  In his dreams, he creates a world with time and space and objects.  Then he wakes up.  In his dream, he had adventures.  At the same time, he was the dreamer.  When he wakes up – like Buddha – then the time and space and objects in his dream disappear into nothingness.  He realizes that he was just dreaming.  When he was in his dream, doing whatever he was doing, it seemed very real.  He did not realize that it was all just a dream.

 

Thus we see that an ordinary man can create a whole universe of his own.  Perhaps the so-called “real universe” is built the same way each of us builds our own personal dream universe.  Perhaps the “real universe” was just “dreamed up” by somebody.  Or a bunch of somebodies.  Maybe one day, long long ago, somebody had a bright idea, and said “Let there be light!”.

 

On that long ago day, God decided he wanted to have fun and play games.  So he assumed numerous different identities.  And these many different characters said “Let there be light, and space, and time, and stars, and planets.”.  That’s us!  We did it!  And boy did we ever get ourselves in the soup!  It’s not so much fun anymore.  Speaking as a divine and no-so-God-like being, I can say, “Gee, I wasn’t so smart, was I?”.  I could also say, “God wasn’t so smart.”.

 

GOD IS NOT PERFECT

 

And this is the solution to “the Problem of Evil”.  How can evil exist in the world?  God did it to Himself!

 

Most people who talk about God insist that God is “perfect”.  And yet the world is such a mess.  It seems obviously false to think that God is perfect.  This persuades people that materialism must be the truth.  This is a mistake.  It is not true that all is matter.  The truth is that God is NOT perfect.

 

God wanted to have fun and play games.  So he had to make himself NOT perfect.  He had to become NOT all knowing, and NOT all powerful.  God has been very successful at doing this.  And you and me and other people are the end product of God making himself NOT all knowing and NOT all powerful.  God has been all too successful in making himself NOT perfect.

 

Christians have the doctrine of “Original Sin”, according to which all men are born with a huge burden of guilt.  The Type 1 religious person who says “I am God!” is not claiming exceptional virtue or wisdom.  On the contrary, by assuming the role of God, he is taking responsibility for the whole world.  He is assuming the burden of guilt for all that is wrong in the world.  At least theoretically.  In fact, he is claiming to be the cause of everything that is wrong in the whole universe.

 

THE PROBLEM WITH HINDUISM IS PACIFISM

 

Hindus and Buddhists have a pacifist attitude toward the world.  This is based on the idea that this world is just a delusion anyway, and so nothing in this world matters.  This is emphatically false.  It matters, because we are in it, we are stuck here, and we are suffering in it.  And so we had better work hard to make it a decent place to live.  Otherwise, evil men will rule and they will make everyone miserable.  If you don’t take care of yourself, who will take care of you?

 

Christians are taught to “have dominion” over the world.  (Genesis 1:26.)  They are taught to “teach all nations”.  (Matthew 28:19.)  This is a much more constructive attitude.

 

GOD IS AN ACTOR

 

Somehow this all-powerful being has fallen into a very serious state of limitation and unawareness.  Like an actor, God has decided to be a separate individual.  Unlike an actor, he has forgotten that he is just pretending.

 

It is as if an actor has been playing Hamlet.  And for a time he forgets that Hamlet is just a part he is playing.  Then he remembers who he really is.  He is no less Hamlet than he was before.  But now he can also be Macbeth, or King Lear, or just be himself.

 

This is the relationship between the soul and God.  It isn’t even really an analogy.  It’s the actual fact.  Laurence Olivier plays Hamlet.  God plays you.  Hamlet is really Olivier.  You are really God.  God is an actor playing you.  You are God playing yourself.

 

GOD HAS MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER

 

There is a condition called “Multiple Personality Disorder”.  This means that a person has several personalities.  He is sometimes one personality and sometimes another.  But each personality is unaware of the other personalities.  Multiple Personality Disorder is remedied by getting each separate personality “reintegrated” with the “core personality”.

 

This is what God is doing.  God is you.  God is me.  God is the drunkard in the street.  And each individual is unaware that he is also the others, at the same time.  “Enlightenment” is when the individual person, who has been subject to the veil of “maya”, delusion, gets “reintegrated” with the “core personality”, which is God.

 

I AM GOD.  YOU ARE GOD.  EVERYONE IS GOD.

 

The world is “imaginary”.  It is a “delusion”.  But it is nevertheless true that it can be very grim.  We are stuck here and we cannot get out.  The pain in this “imaginary” world seems very real and very painful to those of us who are stuck here.  Man is basically good.  But men can be extremely cruel to each other.

 

Harmful acts, cruel deeds, “sins”, cause a being to get farther and farther into undesirable states of hatred, pain, rage, suffering, stupidity, and alienation – all the bad parts of human experience.

 

Hell is a state of mind created by the individual for himself by his own harmful and foolish acts.  It is also a state of the world in which slavery, war, starvation, and cruelty are the usual and ordinary way of life.

 

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) argued that all we really know about is the appearance of things.  I don’t really know what’s across the room, because I am here and it is over there.  How do I really know anything about “the thing-in-itself”?

 

It is true.  Matter is only an “appearance”.  There is no “thing-in-itself”.  There is only the dreamer – God, you, me – dreaming and playing with his imaginary toys.

 

SOLIPSISM:  YOU ARE THE ONLY REAL PERSON

 

“Solipsism” is the theory that you are the only person who is real, and everyone else is just a figment of your imagination.  Nobody takes this seriously, because there are a lot of us, and we can’t all be the only one.

 

According to Type 1 religion, solipsism is actually the real truth.  God is the only being who really exists.  I, being God, am the only being who really exists.  You, being God, are the only being who really exists.  We pretend that we are separate beings.  We pretend that there is something “over there”, on the other side of the room.  Kant’s “thing-in-itself” does not exist.  The appearance of something is all there is.

 

Every individual is God.  Every object is God.  Everything is God.  There is only the appearance that there is something other than God.  There is nothing except God.

 

If a madman says “I am Napoleon!”, that is foolish and absurd.  He is claiming to be a very special person.  But if a Type 1 religious person says “I am God!”, that is a factual statement about his true spiritual nature.  He is NOT claiming to be a special person.  He can and should say equally that “You are God!”, and that “The man in the street is God!”.

 

WE ARE STUCK IN DELUSION

 

The essential critical fact about existence is that we are stuck in this delusion.  Maybe we are “really” God, but we are stuck anyway.  In theory, we can just wish it all away, and poof!, it’s gone.  But it doesn’t work that way.

 

If “Self-Realization”  is the same as “God-Realization”, if “Atman is Brahman.” (The Soul is God.), then that means that you are God, and I am God, and so is everyone else – with the very important qualification that we are stuck in delusion, and we have no easy way out.  We should be able to turn it off, like a television set.  But we can’t.

 

It may be a delusion, but it’s real as a delusion.  Maybe it’s a lie, but it’s the lie that is being told.

 

If you are being bombed or tortured, it is small consolation to be told that it’s all just God’s dream, it’s not real, it’s just a delusion.

 

If you are suffering in the many travails of this world, it’s real to you.  And it matters to you.  If you have a child, then his suffering matters to you.  And if there are any “higher beings” around, and if they have a heart, then they should care too.  If they don’t care, then one can reasonably call them “heartless” and “cruel”, no matter what their supposedly higher state of awareness is.

 

ONE BEING OR MANY BEINGS

 

Some people who believe in Type 1 religion think that in the final analysis, there are really many beings, not just one.  Others believe that when you strip away all the delusion, every last bit of it, then there is nothing left at all!  So in the final analysis, there are no beings at all!

 

The point which is agreed upon by all in Type 1 religion is that man has an inner spiritual nature, and that this inner spiritual being can be improved and made better.  He can release himself little by little from the veils of delusion and the sufferings of life.  He can gradually discover and release his true nature as a spiritual being and recover his native abilities.  And this is accompanied by great joy in the awareness of his true self.

 

MAN NEEDS TO KNOW HIS TRUE SPIRITUAL NATURE

 

Type 1 is the true “brotherhood of man”.  All men, regardless of their present condition, share in the nature of God.  They have, deep within, the “Higher Self”, which is God.  They in fact ARE the “Higher Self”, which is God.

 

According to Type 1 religion, you have an endless future of time, in which your condition will depend on what you do.  You do have free will.  What you do does makes a difference.  So you are highly motivated to do something that will make your own future life a good one.

 

Type 1 gives strong motivation to do everything possible to take care of your own future life, both in this lifetime and in future lifetimes.  It also gives strong motivation to take care of your civilization, not only for your children, but also because you are probably coming back to it.

 

Type 1 remedies the loss of morality in Western Civilization, which happened because of the loss of Christianity and its replacement by materialism as the dominant philosophy of Western Civilization.

 

It is important for you to know this.  Then you can decide that you care about your own future life.  And about the future lives of your sons and daughters.  You can decide that you care about all men because they are your spiritual brothers.  Then you can take action to improve your own future life.  You can take action to protect and defend civilization, to improve civilization, and if necessary, to rebuild civilization.

 

Without such action to create your own future, your life in endless future ages will be ruled by chance and by others who may not have your best interests in mind.

 

People need to be taught the truth.  Then they can do the right thing based on their own understanding and on their own intelligently guided self-interest.  If you yourself know the truth, then you can teach them, at least to some degree.

 

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22. LET’S HAVE A DEAL MAKER FOR PRESIDENT

 

DEAL MAKERS ARE THE SOURCE OF PROSPERITY

 

Donald Trump brings business success and a “can do” attitude.  This is essential for a country to survive and thrive.  Each of us should have an ability to “better his lot”, so for those who work hard, they can make good money and get to keep it.  A healthy country is one in which free enterprise can exist.  People are encouraged to start businesses and to expand existing businesses.  That’s where jobs come from.  That’s where prosperity comes from.

 

I spoke with someone who told me Trump is a “deal maker”, like this is a bad thing.  No.  Leaven makes the bread rise.  Deal makers make the economy prosper.

 

Deal makers are the top of the scale of enterprise.  Workers get a job.  They work.  They get paid.  That is honest and honorable and worthy.  But workers are not the ones who make things happen, despite Karl Marx saying that only the workers deserve to get paid.

 

Managers are the ones who tell the workers what to do, so that their actions are coordinated and result in some kind of useful product.  Managers are like officers in an army.  Without officers, the soldiers would be a confused mob.  They would be easily defeated by any enemy.  Without managers, the workers in a business would be wasting their time.

 

Entrepreneurs are the ones who create a business where there was nothing before.  An entrepreneur says, “Hey!  If we take this stuff here, and process it through our machinery, then we can make millions of better mousetraps!  Everybody will want one!  We will get rich making our customers happy!  Everybody wins!  Wow!”.

 

A deal maker is even better.  He looks around and he sees opportunity everywhere.  The world is his playground.  He is surrounded by profit potential.  Why?  Because of his superior ability to perceive.  Area A is short of clams.  Area B has tons of excess clams.  All we have to do is ship clams from B to A as fast as we can, and we’ll be a huge success!  The essence of deal making is finding a need, and finding a product or service that will meet that need.  You put the two together.  And that’s the “deal”!  This creative activity is the source of prosperity.

 

Deal makers and entrepreneurs are the ones who create the prosperity that we enjoy – the houses, the cars, the food, the entertainment, the thousands of toys that we use every day.  Liberty is what has made America great.  Free enterprise.  The ability to start a business, and to run a business, and to expand a business.  Then people are motivated to work hard and to produce lots of things that other people want.  And they are allowed to keep what they earn.

 

The government’s job is to keep everybody honest.  That’s all.  Karl Marx and his followers have taught people that the government’s job is to take care of everybody.  More and more people are believing this.  That is why America is presently collapsing.  People are less and less motivated to work hard and to produce things of value.  And they are allowed to keep less and less of what they earn.

 

Trump is a deal maker, famous for “The Art of the Deal”.  He will bring “The Art of the Deal” to government.  He will be positive for business.  For your business.  For your son’s business.  For the business you work for.  For the business your son works for.  America will be richer because there is more wealth.  There will be more wealth because people will be motivated to create wealth.  This will make you richer.  A rich country makes everyone in it richer, whether you are young and creating your first business, or getting older and retiring soon.  It is better for all of us.

 

Wealth is not created by the government.  Wealth is created by entrepreneurs and deal makers.

 

DO YOU WANT A MILD-MANNERED WIMP?

 

No, he is not a warm friendly “nice” man like Ronald Reagan.  He is a tough brash business man.  But this time, he will be on your side against the slave makers – the Establishment.  You don't need to entertain him in your sitting room, but he will give you a better life for your family.

 

Trump wants a strong America for himself and for all of us.  You will have the big tough guy fighting for a better America for you!  Nice, eh?

 

In choosing, we should remember what job we are choosing him for.  Is he to be our “kindly grandpa”?  Or is he to be our knock-down drag-out tough uncle who will shoot up our enemies – not make friends with our enemies in a secret deal under the table?

 

We should not choose the one who we would like as our best friend to take to the movies, or to go on a family picnic.  We want the biggest tough guy, with the biggest snarl, who will sock it to the big opposition guys, both domestic and foreign.

 

This time, the big nasty tough guy is the only one who will fix it up for you to have a better life – and you don't even have to chat with him over dinner!

 

WHAT DOES THE ESTABLISHMENT WANT?

 

“They” (i.e., the Global Elite) want to make us poor, so the few at the top can have all the wealth.  The rest of us will be poor.  We will be virtual slaves – with no choices, no ability to take vacations abroad, no fun fancy cars, no big homes for our kids, and no big toys for grownups.  Just a dreary life, a bare existence working in a factory, with no options to have a fun or profitable or fulfilling life.

 

Who wants a dreary existence of endless work in a factory from birth to death?  That is what they are intending for us.  They are making us into slaves.

 

So the Establishment wants a “puppet” president who will make all the wars they want.  That makes the military industrial complex richer, themselves richer, and us poorer.  They do not want Trump.  He cannot be controlled!  He cannot even bought by the big industries such as Big Pharma, or Big Monsanto, or Big Halliburton.

 

So we, the regular man in the street, and even some regular professors and small business owners, will have our chance to make a real life, under Trump.  There is no hope under Establishment people.

 

Some people think that because he is a big deal maker, he must be dishonest and unethical.  Nonsense.  Some businessmen are honest.  Some businessmen are dishonest.  You have to look and see.

 

In contrast, the Establishment, the Great Conspiracy of the Super Rich, is at a far extreme of criminal dishonesty and evil.  They are bombing many small innocent countries, and working hard to impose the total surveillance slave state on us, just as described in George Orwell’s 1984.  Is that who you want running the country?  That is the hidden agenda behind the pretty smiling faces of the “respectable” Establishment politicians who are hoping to be the next Establishment puppet hanging us out to dry.

 

How do you know when a politician is lying?  His mouth is open.

 

To vote for anyone else, will be voting for someone who will be pushed and pulled to the tune of the slave masters.  We want to stave off the slave-making Establishment.  They just want more wars and more financial crises to make even bigger $$$ for themselves and to grind us even farther into slavery.  Only the bankers and their friends win.

 

Don’t you love a guy who is not afraid to speak his mind?

 

The strongest indication that Trump would make a good president is the degree to which the Establishment and their controlled media are doing everything possible to make him look bad.  If they hate him, he must be good.

 

You never found people full of vitality in areas where everyone is living on government handouts.  Karl Marx is the one who said that the way to make everybody happy is for the government to take care of everybody.  This idea never even occurred to the American Founding Fathers.  Their fierce spirit of independence and self-reliance is what made America great.  Now we are losing that attitude.  And our prosperity and freedom are rapidly fading.

 

You find vitality in those areas where people are winning at their games, at their businesses, and at their lives.  If you want a piece of the pie, vote for a breath of fresh air.  Vote for someone who speaks his mind.  Vote for someone who does not bow down and cringe before the “authorities”: who tell us what it is OK to think and what we are allowed to say.  Vote for someone who thinks business is a good thing.  If all businessmen are driven out of business by politically correct fanatics, where do you think you are going to get a job?  We need some fresh air before we are all hunkered down in more foreclosures, more bad health plans, more job losses, more terrorists, and more wars directly coming into our homes in the U.S.

 

DONALD TRUMP AND RON PAUL

 

Ron Paul ran for president in 2008 and in 2012, loudly advocating liberty, the “secret” of American greatness.  He was and is a brilliant analyst of world and economic affairs.  He was and is very solidly dedicated to the principles of liberty.

 

Ron Paul brought out tremendous energy and vitality in the American people.  He would make campaign appearances and be greeted by many thousands.  His pale and anemic  Establishment competitors would appear and be greeted by a few hundred.  It was a beautiful testimony that the spirit of liberty is not dead in America.

 

Donald Trump is no Ron Paul.  He has no conscious analytical dedication to the principles of liberty.  He does not know that much about what is really going on in the world.  This is not to say his competition knows any more than he does.  And if they do, then that does not help us, because they are working for the enemy.

 

But Trump is a breath of fresh air.  He is energizing young people and old people alike.  People love him because he says what he thinks.  He is boldly defiant against the Establishment.  There are millions who wish they could do it too!  You can see that he has energized the country to this point.  Wouldn't that be great for four more years?

 

The Establishment is trying to hard to get rid of him.  That is the most positive sign in his favor.  They are not sure they can control him.

 

People are generally apathetic.  There is a lot to be apathetic about.  But we have someone, larger than life, who the Establishment has not been able to squash, despite their best efforts.  This is a very hopeful sign.  He will be very hard for them to bulldoze.  He is in their face.  He is a loudmouth.  If you are sick and tired of the status quo, let’s try someone the Establishment does not want.

 

Obama was a total Establishment candidate.  He was brought up from nothing.  He started as a radical left organizer.  He sold his soul to the Establishment.  And they raised him up to the top.  He campaigned promising “hope” and “change”.  After eight years, there is no hope.  And there has been no change, except more of the usual – more bombing of innocents in far away places, bigger government, bigger deficits, more surveillance, more police brutality, and less freedom.  Obama’s greatest accomplishment has been the nightmare of “Obamacare”.  This is a “change”, but it is a change in the usual direction of vastly increased government size, power, and income.  It is a giant leap toward Karl Marx’s vision of total government ownership and control of everything.  It is a giant leap toward the destruction of liberty in healthcare.

 

Do you want another Establishment puppet?  Or do you want somebody who thinks prosperity is a good thing?

 

Let’s have a deal maker for president.

 

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21. LOOKING FOR A CONSPIRACY

 

CONSPIRACIES SMALL AND LARGE

 

The wrong thing to do is to go looking for “a conspiracy”.  The wrong thing to do is to make a list of “conspiracies”, and then ask “Which of these, if any, is true and can be proven?”.  That’s the wrong concept of what we’re dealing with.

 

That’s the wrong order of magnitude.  What we are dealing with is many times larger and many times worse.

 

When the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan swept through Asia in the 13th century, it would not have been appropriate to ask, “Are there some bandits running around loose here somewhere?”.  If we answer “Yes!”, then it would appear that what is needed is to gather some men together and hunt down the bandits, and that would handle the situation.

 

When Hitler’s tanks swept through France to Paris in 1940, it would not have made sense to speak of outlaws in the forest.

 

Every bank robbery, embezzlement, swindle, and con job is a “conspiracy”.  People plan their evil actions together and in secret.  That’s what a “conspiracy” is.  “Con-spire” means “together breathe”.

 

The conspiracy we are talking about is the Great Conspiracy of the Super Rich.  The age of this conspiracy is not clear, but it goes back at least to the founding of the Bavarian Illuminati by Adam Weishaupt in 1776.  They created the American Civil War, World War I, and World War II.  They created the Federal Reserve Bank and the Great Depression.  They are far advanced in the process of creating World War III, with Russia and China versus the United States.  George Orwell’s vision of a totally thought-controlled police state in his novel “1984” is rapidly in the process of creation.

 

No doubt each city and state and small nation has its own crew of bandits, criminals, swindlers, and dishonest politicians.  In our modern age, the most ruthless cutthroats wear the most expensive business suits.  But they have been combined and organized into an enormous octopus of evil, secrecy, and fiendish plotting.  It has branches and tentacles in all important parts of society.  It has circles within circles within circles.  Only a few at the top have the whole picture.

 

This is not to say that Russia and China are controlled by the Great Conspiracy.  This does not appear to be the case.  But for the most part, the Western World is pretty thoroughly dominated and controlled by the Great Conspiracy.  This Conspiracy can be called “the Establishment”, or “the Powers That Be”, or “the Elite”, or “the New World Order”, or “the International Bankers”, or “the Globalists”, or any of many other names.

 

HOW TO FIGHT THE DESTINY WHICH IS PLANNED FOR US

 

Russia and China have been set up by the Great Conspiracy as enemy powers so as to create World War III.  America in the Middle East right now is making itself deservedly hated by the whole world.  This is also in preparation for World War III.  The main product of World War III will be to reduce America to slavery in a thought-controlled police state as part of the New World Order.

 

The only way to avoid this evil destiny is for many people to stiffen their spines, summon all their inner resources of courage and honor, and face the bitter facts of our awful situation.

 

The Great Conspiracy can only exist behind the mask of secrecy and ignorance.  And that is why people who observe and talk about the plain facts of this subject are condemned and ridiculed.  They are called “conspiracy theorists”, “nuts”, “crackpots”, “crazy”, and all manner of vile and aggressive slander.

 

Therefore, the only way to defeat this diabolical plan is to tear aside the mask and reveal the true intentions to destroy our lives under the twin hammers of war and slavery.

 

The greatest protection for the secret is that it is so evil that very few can believe it.  People think “It can’t be that bad!!!”.  I am sorry to have to tell you, but it is.  And that is why you need to summon the reserves of heroism that you may have read about in childhood stories, but which you never thought you would personally need.  The world is just not the sweet, charming, gentle place that you may have been led to believe.  Think, rather, of the inside of an active volcano.  Think of the hot plasma at the center of the sun.  We are talking about extremes of heat and force and uncaring violence.

 

GETTING THE FACTS

 

It is really of no relevance what minor “conspiracy” may have occurred in Chicago 20 years ago, or whenever and wherever.  It can be very instructive to read up on the inside story of what really happened in South Africa, or Iran, or Nicaragua, or Rhodesia.  There are many fascinating stories of how some particular nation was subverted and brought to ruin.  But they are details.

 

If you are asking yourself whether this whole subject of “conspiracy” should be taken seriously, don’t be sidetracked into silly little details.  Ask yourself whether this picture of monstrous evil afflicting the world might really be true.  America and the world are like a man who is near death with a horrible disease.  Is this really true?  Or is this a paranoid fantasy with no foundation in the facts?

 

Many important books giving large quantities of hard factual evidence for this unpleasant description of the real world are outlined at:

http://www.thedestructionofcivilization.com/

In particular, for specific books, see Chapters 3, 28, 39, 44, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, and 54.

 

For the source of the best analysis of world affairs, see Chapters 42 and 43.

 

The destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11 in 2001 was an inside job, done by the dark side of the American government.  The evidence for this statement is massive and overwhelming.  There is no brushing it aside by any person honestly looking at the evidence with a sincere desire to know the truth.  Sources of this evidence are listed at:

http://www.thedestructionofcivilization.com/2014/01/9-the-correct-order-of-magnitude.html#sources911

 

Yes, it was an “inside job”.  Our own government destroyed the tallest buildings in New York City, murdering thousands of innocent people.

 

That may sound crazy to you and to your friends.  But that is the inescapable conclusion when you examine the facts.

 

There is data that I give you in those chapters that you can read to see exactly how this has been concluded by scientists, architects, and engineers.  These are rational, methodical, level-headed people working at the top of their professions.

 

Yes, it has been proven.  This is the scientific conclusion.  This is the conclusion of forensic investigation.  An apple falls under gravity to the ground.  Similarly, there is enough evidence to prove that it was an inside job.  Far more than enough.  I am not asking you to “Have faith!”.  I am not asking you to “Believe me!”.  If you are not persuaded – if you are not totally and completely convinced beyond any doubt – then take some time to read some of the references and watch some of the videos referred to.

 

The realization that there is a Great Conspiracy which is in the process of bringing war and slavery to us all can be very stressful.  You need to ask yourself:  Is it better to be cheerfully ignorant?  Or is it better to suffer the stress of knowing what the situation really is?

 

Even if you decide in favor of actually learning the unpleasant facts, if this is new for you, you still need to realize that you are putting yourself under a new and unfamiliar kind of stress.  You may get angry.  Some people get hysterical.  You might want to take a break right now, and come back later after doing something relaxing, or perhaps on another day.  You need to take care of yourself.

 

HIDING THE TRUTH

 

The Great Conspiracy of the Super Rich cannot allow people to know the truth.  Therefore, people who discover the truth, or even some small part of it, are heavily condemned and ridiculed for being “crazy”.

 

Evidence is ignored – by the public, by the media, by the universities, by public officials, and by all others who should be sounding the alarm.  The mass media are 99% controlled by the enemy.  Evidence is buried.  Those on the inside who dare to speak out are often punished very severely.  This goes up to and sometimes includes the murder of family members of the whistleblower.

 

People refuse to look.  It is so unpleasant.  “What about my wife (husband) and children?  What about the happy future that I am looking forward to and working so hard for?  I don’t want to hear about war and slavery and treason in the government!  I’m busy!”. 

 

The illusion of harmony and prosperity is so powerful.  Those who think differently are severely condemned with ridicule, arrogance, condescension, and social rejection.  They are also subject to business rejection, with severe financial penalties.  Remain silent or lose everything.

 

“Disinformation” is false or partially false information which is “leaked” or publicized with the purpose of misleading and confusing and deceiving the public or whoever is the target audience.  “Disinformation” is the Public Relations version of making the enemy think you are going to attack at Point A, when you are really going to attack at Point B.

 

The quantity of “disinformation” is enormous.  Agents spread absurd stories which make serious investigators look stupid.  There are silly claims.  There are false conspiracies.

 

It is a sea of lies.  And half of the lies are coming from people who claim that they are exposing the lies of the Conspiracy and revealing the truth.  But their version of the truth is just another lie.  And that confuses almost everybody.  And they look just like the very smart, very courageous, and very good people who really are exposing the lies and revealing the truth.

 

How can you sort all this out?  It’s not easy.  And those who can do it well are extremely valuable.

 

EMOTIONAL STRESS

 

Before you talk with others, you need to study until you really are certain about it yourself.  You can’t persuade others if you are not confident that you know what you are talking about.

 

If you start studying this seriously, and you get a lot of information that you didn’t have before, it may be an emotional shock to you to discover some of these bad things going on around you that you didn’t know about before.

 

One solution is to “run away” mentally.  “This is all so negative.  Somebody else will take care of it.  It can’t be that bad.  My friends and my wife (husband) won’t want to hear about this.  I’m too busy at my job to deal with this.”.  There are a thousand ways to make excuses so you can avoid this mental stress.

 

On the other hand, if you summon your courage and say, “I really want to know about this!”, then you may get into a frantic and hysterical frame of mind.  “It’s all so overwhelming!  What can I do about this?  Oh my!  Oh my!”.  If this happens, don’t feel too bad.  It’s very normal.  It’s a normal reaction to getting bad news.  The thing to do is to shift your attention to the joy of discovery.  Your insight and understanding of what’s going on is so much better than before, and so much greater than your friends.  “Wow!!!  So that’s how things really work!!!”.

 

You must never lose hope.  Even if everything seems hopeless, you need to stay calm and do the best you can.  No matter how bad things get, they are not going to get better because you give up.

 

It is best if you can be light-hearted about it, or even playful.  People in a very bad situation, such as on a battlefield, can still maintain a sense of humor and make jokes.

 

No matter what else happens, the most important thing is to keep your sense of honor and self-respect.  And the way to do that is to do what is right, in your own estimation, no matter what.

 

There is hope.  You are not alone.  There are many who know what’s going on.  There are many more who know some part of what’s going on.  And they don’t like it.  And they want to do something about it.  They are all potential allies.

 

TALKING WITH OTHERS

 

If you are thoroughly convinced that there really is such a conspiracy, then you will perhaps recognize that it is your duty as a lover of freedom, peace, and prosperity, to tell others what is going on.  Otherwise, you are guilty of remaining silent.  You said nothing, while evil was running wild.  What will you think of yourself when you look back from the future?  Will you approve of yourself if you do nothing and say nothing, knowing what is really going on?

 

You will not be believed at first.  Your friends and family will be polite, probably, but will also brush you off.  You are now informed, far beyond most people, about how the world really works.  But no one believes you.  No one pays any attention.

 

Your potential importance is very great.  You don’t have to be a sheep and remain silent like all the other sheep being led off to slaughter.  It only takes one light bulb to light up a whole room.  If there is a great secret, it only takes one person to tell the secret, and then it’s not a secret any more.  You can be the one who tells the secret.  The reason the Great Conspiracy works so hard to ridicule anybody who talks about it is because talking about it is so important.  The fact that they work so hard to make you shut up is the greatest proof that it is very important and valuable to open your mouth and tell what you know.

 

The first rule of talking with others is to never never never get upset.  If you do you can accomplish nothing.  Your credibility is gone instantly.  No one will take you seriously.  Keep cool.  Be calm.  Stay rational.  This does not mean you can’t express your feelings.  Be human.  Be enthusiastic.  Be playful.  Don’t be serious.  Yes it is serious.  We are talking about the fate of the world.  But if you get all solemn and grim, nobody will want to talk to you.  And it’s no fun anyway.  Being gloomy and depressed is not going to do any good for anybody – not you, not the people you’re talking to, and not the world.  Don’t do it.

 

Find someone who is interested in knowing more about what’s really going on in the world.  Find someone who is not afraid to disagree with the crowd.  Find someone who can think for himself, someone who can think “outside the box”.

 

In a work environment, you may need to be extremely cautious and just drop hints now and then.  Wait to see what people say.  Wait to see who wants to know more.  Maybe someone will come to you several weeks later and say, “I want to know more.  Please tell me what I can read to find out.”.

 

You can educate some of your brighter friends.  You don’t have to save the world all by yourself.  But you can do a little bit.  Help spread the word.  Tell the Great Secret.  And then, later on, regardless of what happens, you can still respect yourself.  You can still say, “I did my bit.”.

 

BEFORE EVIDENCE AND REASON

 

Be ready to be condemned as a “conspiracy theorist”, “crazy”, and “insane”.  Don’t be surprised.  Take it in your stride as one of the usual and ordinary responses you get.  Act bored.  It really is boring.  Say, “Oh yes, many people think that way.  Contact me when you decide you would like to look at some real evidence.”.  Don’t pick a fight.  That would waste your valuable time.  Find someone more interested and more receptive to the truth.

 

You will find that most people are not actually willing to look at real evidence and to think rationally.  People willing to base their opinions on evidence and reason are few.  People will simply avoid thinking about it, for any of a hundred different reasons.  People will respond with some commonplace cliché.  “Politicians are all crooks!”.  “Rich people should all be killed!”.  “Americans are the bad guys!”.  “Muslims are the bad guys!”.  “I don’t have time for politics!”.  “White people are racists!”.  “I’m too tired to think about politics!”.  Ho hum.  Yawn.

 

A sane person values what is true and what is good.  He wants to believe what is true.  He wants to do what is good.

 

It is said that society has been “dumbed down”.  This is very true.  But it goes beyond being unable or unwilling to examine evidence and to think rationally.  Even the very idea of truth is under attack.  Religions are considered to be “myths”, and are studied with the idea that no sensible person would ever be so foolish as to actually believe any religious or philosophical idea.

 

The idea that some things are right and some things are wrong is under attack.  It is very true that all men are created with equal rights.  This is altered to say that all moral codes are equally valid.  Thus a moral code which says that unbelievers should be killed is considered just as valid as a moral code which says that murder is wrong.

 

The first necessity is to be secure in your own personal belief that some things are true and some things are false.  And that some things are right and good, while other things are wrong and bad.  If you have no personal conviction that some things are good and others things are evil, then you will not be able to summon the moral courage needed to face the evil which is at our door.  You will not be able to find the motivation necessary to resist the tide of evil which is washing over the world.

 

If you are certain that there is an important difference between truth and falsehood and between good and evil, then you are ready to undertake an honest examination of the evidence.  And then you can make a sincere effort to sort out truth from falsehood and good from evil.

 

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20. BRITAIN FOUGHT FOR POLAND TO SAVE RUSSIA

 

THE UNNECESSARY WAR

 

Herman Wouk wrote a novel in 1971 titled “The Winds of War”, about World War II.  In 1983 this was made into a seven part TV miniseries.  It is a great story and an excellent production, produced and directed by Dan Curtis, starring Robert Mitchum, Ali MacGraw, and Jan-Michael Vincent.  It has lots of romance and adventure.  The book is easily found on Amazon.  The TV miniseries is easily found on YouTube.  It is a great history lesson.  It gives lots of insight into what was going on, and into what it is like to be involved in such a great war.

 

It does not give any unusual ideas about what was going on or why.  It presents the usual ideas.  Hitler was the ultimate bad guy.  Britain and America were the great heroes, riding in on white horses with shining armor, saving the world from the great German evil.  Not that there is not some truth in that idea.  But there is more to the story.

 

History is written by the winners.  Those who hold the power in your own society write the books which are used to educate your children, and which were used to educate you yourself.  Maybe they have a hidden agenda.  Maybe they are not telling you the whole truth.

 

Patrick Buchanan wrote a book in 2008 titled “Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War”.  This is available on Amazon.  There is discussion of the book on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill,_Hitler_and_the_Unnecessary_War

 

HITLER AND ALEXANDER

 

Hitler was both brilliant and psychotic.  When I say “psychotic”, I mean totally dedicated to death and destruction.  His career is like a gigantic fit of rage, bringing a tidal wave of destruction to all of Europe.  This is similar to Alexander.  Both Hitler and Alexander came to power where there was an already existing strong military establishment.  With enormous daring and boldness, both went off leading their armies in meteoric careers of conquest, murder, and destruction.  Both died quickly at the end of their careers of conquest.

 

HITLER AND STALIN

 

Buchanan says that there was no ethical difference between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.  The point is that the Soviet Union was just as bad as Nazi Germany.  So why were Britain and America allied with Stalin in fighting the great evil of Hitler?

 

This argument highlights the central role of ethics in politics and war.  The great justification for war is that we are fighting a terrible evil.  So why are we fighting one terrible evil – Hitler and Germany – but protecting another – Stalin and Russia?

 

The prevailing idea is that Hitler and Nazi Germany are the ultimate extreme of evil.  An absolute.  This idea is so strong that any suggestion that there might be something about them less black than the blackest night meets instant denunciation and condemnation.

 

Actually, Stalin and the Soviet Union were much worse than Hitler and Germany.  Hitler was a flash in the pan.  A meteoric flight of death and destruction, but mercifully short.  In contrast, Russia is still with us, has been creating war and chaos around the world all along, and is now working hard preparing for World War III.

 

POLAND IS EAST, BRITAIN IS WEST

 

Look at a map.  From Germany, Poland is east.  Britain is west.  They are in opposite directions.

 

And farther east is Russia.  Poland is in between Germany and Russia.

 

From west to east, it goes:  Britain, Germany, Poland, Russia.

 

Britain declared war on Germany to defend Poland.

 

How crazy is that?

 

Poland is on the other side of Germany.

 

Hitler did not expect Britain to declare war over Poland.  Hitler did not really want to fight with Britain.  At least not at that time.  Hitler was someone who wanted to fight with everybody.  But Hitler really wanted to fight with Russia.

 

Given that both Hitler and Stalin were towering and monstrous evils, the obvious strategic solution was to sit back and let Hitler and Stalin fight it out, and hopefully destroy each other.

 

Then the good guys could come in and establish liberty for everyone.  “LIBERTY FOR ALL MEN EVERYWHERE”.

 

That is, if that’s what Britain and America really wanted.

 

After World War II, General Patton wanted to take the army which was already in Germany, and go east, and take out Stalin and Russia, then and there.  Get the job done.  And save oceans of future grief.

 

Even better.  BEFORE World War II.  Let Hitler take out Stalin.  Let the two evil empires destroy each other.

 

STALIN’S RUSSIA WAS THE CONSPIRACY’S BABY

 

The Great Conspiracy of the Super Rich created Communism to serve as the Great Enemy to be feared and hated, and to create many wars, both small and large.  Stalin’s Russia was the political embodiment of Communism, a great achievement in the strategic master plan of the Conspiracy.  Therefore, the preservation of Stalin’s Russia was a very high priority.  In 1939, Stalin’s Russia would have been very vulnerable to attack from Hitler.  Like a much loved baby child, the precious and fragile new Communist empire needed to be defended from any and all threats.

 

Rather than allowing this very desirable war between two evil empires to proceed, Britain declared war on Germany, with total support from America.  And Britain and America allied themselves with Russia, defending and supporting it.

 

How crazy is that?

 

Is some other explanation possible for this strategic absurdity?

 

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19. THE TRUE FOUNDATION OF RIGHT AND WRONG

 

GOD’S COMMANDMENTS

 

Christians think that they have the true foundation of right and wrong in God’s Ten Commandments, as given to Moses 3,000 years ago on Mt. Sinai.  They believe this is a very secure foundation.  What could be a more solid foundation than the Commandments of God?

 

Actually, this is a very weak foundation for right and wrong.  It depends on belief.  One has to believe the whole Christian belief system.  Otherwise, who cares what Moses did or did not do on Mt. Sinai 3,000 years ago?  Maybe someone does not buy the theory that he’s going to live forever in Heaven after he dies because some wandering preacher upset the authorities and got himself crucified 2,000 years ago.  This skeptic probably also does not buy the theory that, because he does not believe this story about going to Heaven, this allegedly merciful God is going to torture him forever after he dies.  This supposedly merciful God claims that “justice” requires that the unbelieving skeptic must be tortured throughout all eternity because some other guy ate an apple in some garden, thousands of years before this wandering preacher was executed.  So our skeptic is not going to believe that he needs to pay any attention to any so-called “Commandments” coming from this so-called “God”.

 

Our unbelieving skeptic sees preachers threatening their congregations with eternal damnation and with the fires of Hell unless they do what God commands them to do.  And he is not impressed.  He is not even slightly worried about the fires of Hell.  The Catholics had their Inquisition.  The Protestants had their Puritans.  Both were fanatics and zealots.  Both specialized in demanding obedience to highly questionable rules.  Both specialized in stamping out any deviant thoughts not approved of by the authorities.  Both were killjoys and delighted in making people miserable.

 

MAN IS MUD

 

Our unbelieving skeptic declares loudly and indignantly, “There is no God!!!”.  He is an atheist.  He is a materialist.  He says, “Only matter is real!  All this religious talk is just superstitious nonsense.  It is only taken seriously by people who are stupid, ignorant, and gullible!”.

 

He worships Newton and Einstein, as the saviors of mankind from the foolishness of religion, in favor of the solid, reliable facts and laws of physics.  He embraces Darwin’s Theory of Evolution as the obvious explanation of human nature.  Human beings have evolved from apes.  And apes from lizards.  And lizards from mud on the seashore being hit by cosmic rays.  Ah!  That explains everything!  Primordial soup bombarded by cosmic rays!  And from this we get consciousness, awareness, free will, love, hate, joy, suffering, ambition, war, and enterprise.

 

But where in this glorious explanation of life is there any basis whatever for ideas of right and wrong?  There is none.  The materialist says the mind is just a computer.  There are no spiritual beings, no souls, no God, no gods.  A human being has no love or joy which is different from a computer program which plays a recording of the words “I love you!”.

 

The materialist only looks at dead things.  At planets and stars.  At atoms and molecules and test tubes.  When he looks at a living being, he kills it first, and then he dissects the dead body.

 

Modern science has made it possible for us to kill each other with much greater efficiency.  Is there more wisdom?  More good sense?  More love?  More happiness?  Killing others efficiently is consistent with Darwin’s idea about the “survival of the fittest”.  Whoever can kill others the most efficiently and in the largest numbers is the most “fit to survive”.

 

Is this moral code going to bring happiness and prosperity to the individual or to civilization?  Is this theory of right and wrong going to bring the individual to a higher state of divine awareness and joy?

 

KANT SAYS WE ONLY SEE APPEARANCES

 

In 1781 the philosopher Immanuel Kant said that all we can ever see is the appearance of things.  The “thing-in-itself” can never be known.

 

This is hard to argue with.  What appears is the appearance of the thing.  What is experienced is the experience of the thing.  Kant raises the question, what is the actual thing, the “thing-in-itself”, as contrasted with the mere appearance of the thing?

 

How do I really know what’s going on “over there”.  All I know is the “appearance” of the thing, which I am experiencing “right here”.

 

How do I really know that there is anything at all “over there”?  Maybe it’s all just imaginary.  A “delusion”.  What if the “appearance” is all there is?  What if there really isn’t any “thing-in-itself”?

 

This brings up the similar question of solipsism.  How do I know that anybody else really exists?  “Solipsism” is the theory that everybody else is just a product of my imagination.  I am the only real person or being.  Everyone else has been invented by me.

 

This all starts sounding like Type 1 religion.  Type 1 religion says that the physical universe is a dream, a delusion, nothing more than a product of God’s fertile imagination.  Type 1 religion also says that “The Soul is God.”.  Each person, the soul of each person, is really the same as God.  It would seem that any individual could say, “I am God.  Everybody else is a product of my imagination.”.  And according to Type 1 religion, in some sense, in some way, this would be true.

 

Type 1 religion says the world is a “delusion”.  Kant says all we can know about the world is an “appearance”.

 

When you dream about a table, is there a “thing-in-itself”?

 

THE TREATY BETWEEN CHRISTIANS AND ATHEISTS

 

Christians and scientists had a very real conflict.  In 1633 Galileo was condemned by the Christian church for looking at the moons of Jupiter.  Why did they care?  Because heaven is supposed to be up in the sky!  If the sky is filled with planets and moons and stars, where is heaven?  It ruins the theory!

 

Then in 1781 Kant said the “thing-in-itself” can never be known.  Only the appearance of a thing can be known.  Problem solved!  Religion deals with “things-in-themselves”.  Science deals with appearances.  Religion knows by faith.  Science knows by evidence.  And never the two shall meet or have any relationship whatsoever.

 

Thus a great treaty came into existence between religion and science.  Each has its own territory.  And each will stay out of the other’s territory.  Religion deals with God, with all spiritual matters, and with all questions of ethics, morality, good and evil, and right and wrong.  Science deals with material things, with things that can be seen and touched and weighed and measured.

 

People could be religious and scientific at the same time.  There is no relationship between the two.

 

The price of this reconciliation of religion and science was great and terrible.  Religion abandoned any claim to having any basis in observation, evidence, or reason.  Science abandoned any claim to relevance to the mind and spirit of man, or to any questions of right and wrong.

 

Thus we come down the centuries to the present, and there is still almost universal agreement that there is no scientific, rational basis for right and wrong or good and evil.  Right and wrong, good and evil, have nothing to do with evidence, sanity, reason, or good sense.  They are just superstitions.  They are in the same category as religions, fairy tales, and old wives’ tales.  At best they are preferences, like “Chocolate ice cream is good.”.  Or they are just – “God said so!”.

 

What a dreadful, horribly destructive idea to have dominating the moral and ethical thinking of a civilization.  This is the evil heritage of Christianity, which is still very much with us.

 

Saint Paul says, I Corinthians 1:19, “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”.  And sure enough.  Here is “God” destroying wisdom and bringing understanding to nothing.  How can there be wisdom or understanding if we start with the premise that evidence, sanity, and reason have nothing to do with right and wrong, or with good and evil?

 

In Genesis 2:17, God says, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”.  Here it is again.  God does not want man to have any knowledge of good and evil.  This is so important that trying to have knowledge of good and evil – based on one’s own understanding, rather than on God’s commandments – is such a bad thing that it is the “Original Sin” for which all men of all future generations are condemned to eternal torture.

 

Materialists who believe this nonsense about how reason and evidence have nothing to do with right and wrong, with good and evil, with spiritual beings, with mental and spiritual phenomena, have fallen victim to the Christian God’s fiendish plot to destroy wisdom and understanding.

 

MAN IS A SPIRITUAL BEING WITH FREE WILL

 

Free will is the divine spark in each man.

 

Type 1 religious philosophy provides the only solid foundation for thinking about right and wrong, or good and evil.  If there is no free will, then there is no responsibility.  There is no right or wrong, no good or evil.  No virtue, no guilt.  There is no difference between the saint and the blood-drenched killer.

 

Type 2 religion, including Christianity, says that man’s duty is to obey and to do what he is told.  That is the totality of the Christian theory of right and wrong, of good and evil.  And when people stop believing, they have no ideas of right and wrong to guide them.

 

Materialism, or “Type 3 religion”, says man is just a rock, a machine, a computer.  The important truths of existence are the Big Bang Theory and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.  There is no theory of right and wrong, or of good and evil.  Such things do not exist in any real sense.  And if they do, they have no importance.

 

The truth is Type 1 religious philosophy.  Men, and women too, are spiritual beings.  They are spiritual brothers.  They have a common connection with God.  A very strong connection.  Even evil men have this same connection with God, although it is more remote.  There is a scale.  Some men are closer to God.  Others are farther from God.

 

Good is what helps a man get closer to God.  And to do that, a man must be honest with other men.  Otherwise, he buries himself deeper into his own personal Hell.

 

WHY PHILOSOPHY MATTERS

 

And this is why philosophy matters.  This is why religion matters, why different religious theories matter.  This is why it matters what happened at the beginning of time.

 

Yes you need to be concerned with paying the rent and with keeping your girlfriend happy.  But it is also very important that you know that you are a spiritual being, that you have the potential of higher divine awareness, and that you are spiritually connected to everyone, even your worst enemy, even the most diabolical fiend, whether from this world or from some other world.

 

Without this knowledge, you are adrift on a sea of confusion with no valid moral compass.  With this knowledge, you can have some hope of achieving harmony with yourself, with God, and with other men.  You can pursue happiness with some hope of success.

 

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18. TRUTH OUTRANKS LOVE, VISIONS, AND MIRACLES

 

LOVE FOR GOD

 

One of the primary features of religious experience is very intense love for God.  In comparison with this divine love, physical pain of the body just doesn’t matter.

 

Jesus expressed a preference to avoid pain.  In Matthew 26, Verse 39, Jesus says, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”.  Verse 42:  “O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.”  Verse 44:  “… he … prayed the third time, saying the same words.”.

 

Saint Joan of Arc also preferred to avoid pain.  She was intimidated into “recanting” what she had said.  Then her “voices” told her that she had done a very bad thing.  So she reaffirmed her original statements and was joyful in doing so.  Then she was burned, while she repeated the name of Jesus.

 

Suffering is just not important compared the love of God.

 

St. Catherine of Genoa, quoted in Rudolf Otto’s great classic, “The Idea of the Holy”, said, “O that I could tell you what the heart feels, how it burns and is consumed inwardly!  Only, I find no words to express it.  I can but say:  Might but one little drop of what I feel fall into Hell, Hell would be transformed into a paradise.”.

 

Such statements are commonplace in the literature of saints and mystics.

 

And not just among Christians.  Paramahansa Yogananda, the great 20th Century Hindu tells the story in his book, “Autobiography of a Yogi”, about the Temple of Kali in Dakshineswar, India.  Ramakrishna, the great 19th Century Hindu prayed there to Kali, which is to say, to God as Mother.  And the statue of Kali came to life for him.  Yogananda also went to Dakshineswar and prayed to Kali that she would come alive for him, as she did for Ramakrishna.  And she did!

 

One might choose to believe that this did not actually happen, either for Ramakrishna or for Yogananda.  But the point is that intense love for God can bring stone to life.  The power of great love is greater than the ordinary laws of matter.  Yogananda tells this story, and many other marvelous stories, as true facts.  For those who believe in God, and who believe that matter is not necessarily as solid as it usually appears, such stories are easy to believe.

 

The Christian theory of Hell is that those who are not Christians cannot be saved.  Thus Hindu saints, such as Ramakrishna and Yogananda, whose love for God is so intense that it can bring stone to life, are going to be condemned by the Christian God to eternal torture.  Surely this is a ludicrous absurdity.

 

IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT JESUS SAID

 

A lot of people say that Christians and Hindus are actually in great harmony.  All religions are basically the same.  Different religions are just different roads to God, to enlightenment, to achieving divine awareness, to God-Realization, to Self-Realization.  This idea was strongly promoted both by Ramakrishna and by Yogananda.

 

This is not true.

 

Saint Paul wrote many letters which are included in the New Testament.  These letters are quite clear in stating the Christian theory.  Those who want to say that Jesus Christ was really just like a Hindu have to say that the teachings of Saint Paul were entirely different from the teachings of Jesus Christ.  But Saint Paul was totally dedicated to Jesus Christ.  Why would he proclaim a Gospel that was entirely contrary to what Jesus really taught?  He lived at the same time as the direct disciples of Jesus.  How could he get away with teaching something entirely contrary to what Jesus taught?

 

More importantly, it really makes no difference what Jesus said.  The doctrine is in the story.  And the story existed in prophecy, long before Jesus actually arrived on the scene and played out the script that was already written.  Jesus says, Matthew 26:56, “all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.”.

 

What is the story?  Jesus was crucified.  This proves that He was a sacrificial lamb.  Jesus was resurrected.  This proves that He was God – the Lamb of God.

 

What does the story mean?  It means that Jesus was sacrificed to appease the wrath of God.  He was sacrificed to earn forgiveness from God.  Forgiveness for what?  For the sins of men.  For their crimes against the laws of God.  To earn salvation for men.  And what are they being saved from?  From God’s punishment.  The sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, has earned for men, for the faithful who believe in Him, salvation from eternal torment in Hell, which they rightfully deserve because of their sins.

 

That’s the basic theory of Christianity.  It is the essential outline of Christianity.  This message is contained in the story itself.  It is contained in the prophecy.  It doesn’t matter what Jesus actually said.  We know what the message is.

 

And the message is not Hinduism.  It is not similar to Hinduism.  The message is radically in contradiction to Hinduism.  If the message of Jesus is that men need to attain a higher state of consciousness and achieve divine awareness and approach a state of personal union with God in order to rise above suffering and achieve happiness – then why is He offering Himself on the Cross as the Sacrificial Lamb of God to appease an angry God and earn forgiveness for sinners?  Why would Jesus do that, if not to promote the false message of Christianity?

 

In Hinduism, the goal is a higher state of divine awareness, which liberates the individual from the endless cycle of birth and death.  In Christianity, the goal is God’s forgiveness, which allows the individual to live forever in Heaven after death, rather than living forever in Hell after death.

 

The Christian doctrine is a lie.  In fact, it’s a damn lie.  It is very destructive.  People in Christian societies do not even know that there is such a thing as a higher and better state of existence.  And when people get tired of believing in a vengeful God who tortures people forever, they disavow the Christian God, and all that remains is human beings who are only bodies.  They still don’t know that they are spiritual beings.  They still don’t know that higher awareness is desirable.  They don’t even know that higher awareness is possible.  The idea of a higher state of existence does not even exist for them!  What a terrible state of oblivion!  That is the product of Christianity.  That is the purpose of Christianity – to create and maintain this state of ignorance – so that man has no faintest clue about his own true nature.

 

WHO IS DOING THIS AND WHY?

 

Jesus Christ is supposed to be this super duper divinely good person-god-being.  He healed the sick.  He raised the dead.  He preached about love.  He did a wide variety of miraculous things.  And his Grand Finale was his own personal Resurrection.  So why does he make himself the central character, the title character, in this huge operation, lasting well over a thousand years, the product and purpose of which is to promote this terrible lie?

 

Furthermore, why do major Hindus like Ramakrishna and Yogananda give total endorsement to Jesus Christ, claim Jesus as a spiritual brother, and say that the teachings of Hinduism and the teachings of Christianity are fundamentally the same?  That’s another damn lie.  If they are so wise as they are supposed to be, if they are so connected to divine love and wisdom as they are supposed to be, why are they supporting this evil Christian deception?  They should be denouncing it as the great and evil falsehood which it is.

 

It’s a plot.  It’s a conspiracy on a high level.

 

Maybe they are aliens.  We should keep in mind “Clarke’s Law” – written by Arthur C. Clarke – “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”.

 

Maybe they are powerful spiritual beings from some higher plane of existence or some parallel universe – angels, demons, archangels, devils, or gods from Mount Olympus or Valhalla.

 

We know that politicians lie to us with enormous skill and with the most earnest and convincing sincerity.  It strongly appears that religious leaders, whether from this world or from some other world, also lie to us with enormous skill and with the most earnest and convincing sincerity.

 

VISIONS AND MIRACLES PROVE NOTHING

 

But religious leaders – Jesus Christ, Ramakrishna, Yogananda, and the like – do things political leaders don’t do.  They provide miracles and ecstatic visions.  Moses – acting as God’s agent – definitely interfered with Egyptian history.  Joan of Arc – acting as God’s agent – definitely interfered with French history.

 

The case of Saint Joan of Arc is of particular interest to skeptics who are inclined to say, “None of this nonsense ever happened!”.  This is by far the most conspicuous and undeniable case of “divine intervention” in history which has ever occurred.  Moses was 3,000 years ago.  Jesus was 2,000 years ago.  It’s not hard to say that they didn’t even exist.  But Joan lived from 1412 to 1431.  Not that long ago.  Her place in history is indisputable.  George Bernard Shaw wrote a play about her.  Mark Twain wrote a biographical novel about her.  Two of the greatest skeptics in history found her story to be fascinating.

 

How did Joan, a teenage peasant girl, single-handedly rouse the French nation and turn back the English invaders, who were on the verge of the complete conquest of France?  Surely the simple straightforward explanation is to take Joan at her word.  She was guided by “voices”.

 

Clearly someone somewhere did not want the English taking over France.  Joan thought it was God.  Certainly she was filled with immense love for God, so much so that she joyfully embraced death by fire.  The theme of immense love for God combined with a painful death is commonplace in Christianity, starting with the Crucifixion of Jesus.

 

Such divine love and such visions are not that uncommon.  In 1858, the Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Bernadette of Lourdes in France.  In 1917, she appeared to three young girls in Fatima, Portugal.  From 1961 to 1965, she appeared to four young girls in Garabandal, Spain.  These three cases all promote Catholic doctrine.

 

Clearly there is a lot of weird and wonderful stuff going on.  Clearly immense love for God can be found among Christians and among Hindus – so much so that ordinary laws of physics are ignored from time to time.  Equally clear is that Christianity is a great lie.

 

So who is doing this?  And what are they trying to do?

 

Christianity is a great lie.  The effect of this great lie is to bring about and to maintain total ignorance of the spiritual nature of man, and of man’s need to increase his spiritual awareness and to progress, however slowly, toward realization of his own divine nature.  Therefore it is clear that the founders of Christianity – whoever they are – do not wish us well.  This is true despite all the experiences of divine love, the miracles, and the ecstatic visions.

 

And why do great Hindus support Christianity by falsely claiming that it is fundamentally the same as Hinduism?  The basic idea of Hinduism is the truth.  Man can and should advance himself toward higher divine awareness.  But these religious leaders bring suspicion on themselves by not denouncing the lies of Christianity.  Are they supporting these lies on purpose?  Or do they honestly not know what they are doing?  Who knows?

 

One thing is certain.  Just because someone can walk on water and raise the dead, and just because he has ecstatic visions and is full of divine love, that does not mean that what he is telling you is the truth, even if he himself believes it.

 

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17. THE SPIRITUAL BIG BANG THEORY

 

THE ASTRONOMICAL BIG BANG THEORY

 

Astronomers, physicists, and materialists have a theory called the Big Bang Theory.  Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and the Big Bang Theory can be thought of as the three principal dogmas of modern day materialism.  No so-called “scientist” can be considered “respectable” if he admits to any doubt whatsoever about any of these “scientific” theories.

 

The Big Bang Theory is the theory that the universe began in a great explosion about 20 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since then.  The main evidence for this is that galaxies are moving away from us at a speed proportional to their distance from us.  So if galaxy A is twice as far from us as galaxy B, then galaxy A is moving away from us at twice the speed of galaxy B.  This is called “Hubble’s Law”, after Edwin Hubble, who discovered it in 1929.  Thus it appears that the universe as a whole is expanding, like a balloon that is being blown up.

 

If you stand beside a railroad track, and a train goes by which is blowing its whistle, the sound of the whistle will appear to go from a higher pitch to a lower pitch.  This is called the “Doppler effect”.  The sound as it leaves the train is at a constant pitch.  But because of the train’s motion, when you hear the sound, the frequency of the sound waves is higher when the train is approaching, and lower when the train is moving away.

 

When something gets extremely hot, it gives off light waves with various different frequencies.  Different chemical elements give off different patterns of light frequencies.  Light can be analyzed based on these patterns to determine what elements are emitting the light.  This is called “spectral analysis”.

 

Light coming from distant galaxies shows the usual patterns indicating various elements.  But the frequency patterns are at slightly lower frequencies than usual.  Red light is lower frequency than other colors of light.  So the spectrum light patterns are shifted toward the red end of the spectrum.  The shift of light patterns to lower frequencies is called the “red shift”.  This is caused by the Doppler effect.  The red shift indicates that the light source is moving away from us.  How much red shift indicates how fast the light source is moving away from us.

 

So based on the “red shift” in light from remote galaxies, it appears that the universe is expanding.  And they calculate backwards and estimate that the universe started from a single point in a big explosion approximately 20 billion years ago.

 

And that’s what makes these “scientists” so certain that the universe started 20 billion years ago.  There is nothing about a creator.  There is nothing about anybody creating anything.  In this picture of the totality of existence, there is no God, no gods, no souls, no minds.  There is no consciousness, no awareness, no free will, no responsibility, no right and wrong, no good and evil.  No “scientist” can speak of such things and still be considered “respectable”.

 

Are you willing to accept the claim of these so-called “scientists” to be the supreme and undeniable authority on the nature of life and existence?

 

A UNIFIED THEORY OF MATTER AND SPIRIT

 

The theory that an omnipotent goodness rules the universe is looked on by many as plainly absurd.  The theory that a merciful God is going to torture vast multitudes of people forever because of trivial offenses is rightfully scorned by many.

 

On the other hand, the arrogance of so-called “scientists” in asserting that men are nothing more than rocks is rightfully ignored by sensible people.  Sensible people have no problem observing that they have consciousness, and that they have free will and the power of choice, in sharp contrast with rocks.  Scientists have to be respected for the gadgets and machines and bombs which they know how to build.  But they deserve scorn and contempt when they arrogantly ignore and deny the existence of mental and spiritual phenomena, including love, joy, suffering, right and wrong, good and evil, love for God, psychic phenomena, and mystical phenomena.

 

What is needed is a unified theory which explains both matter and spirit.

 

An old form of trying to reconcile religion and materialism is to say that God is the same thing as the physical universe.  This is called “Pantheism”.  One modern form of this idea says that the astronomical Big Bang is God expressing and expanding and realizing Himself.  Such absurdities are nothing more than groveling before the false god of so-called “science”.

 

THERE ARE SPIRITUAL BEINGS AND MATERIAL OBJECTS

 

What is plainly observable?  It is plain to see that there are material objects.  It is equally plain to see that there are spiritual beings – you and me and many others – who are conscious and aware, who perceive these material objects, who think and decide, and who do actions with these material things.

 

There is no such thing as a spiritual being, if by “thing” we mean material object.  Spiritual beings do not exist, if by “existence” we mean the same kind existence as material objects.  Spiritual beings exist in a different way from material objects.  It is a different kind of existence.

 

But plainly both exist.  And plainly spiritual beings and material objects have many complex interactions with each other.

 

What is the basic relationship between these two fundamentally different kinds of existence?  The basic relationship is shown by the fact that spiritual beings create time and space and matter effortlessly and routinely in imagination and in dreams.  When you dream, you have material objects which move around in space and through time, all in your dream.  When you wake up, the material objects disappear, and the space and time in which they existed also vanish into nothingness.

 

It may be obvious that you and I are aware and that we make choices and that we do actions.  And it may be obvious that we can imagine and dream.  But it is not at all obvious that we have somehow created the entire physical universe, which seems so big and mighty compared to our pitifully weak power and strength.  And yet that is precisely the theory of Type 1 religion.  The physical universe is God’s dream.  It is our dream.

 

WE ARE IN HELL NOW

 

Christians sometimes say that Hell is separation from God.  That’s a fine idea, but that’s a Type 1 idea.  The Type 1 theory is that the soul, the spiritual being, is fundamentally the same as God.  The Hindus say, “Atman is Brahman.”, which means “The Soul is God.”.  But because of having fallen into delusion, the spiritual being has become separated from his true nature and has forgotten who he really is.  Man is separated from God by the veil of “Maya”, delusion.  The soul cannot see the Ultimate Reality, which is God.  According to Paramahansa Yogananda, the great 20th Century Hindu, “Self-Realization” and “God-Realization” are the same thing.

 

Thus we are right now in Hell.  We are doomed to eternal suffering.  We go through countless lifetimes, as the endless ages pass, living forever on the “wheel” or “cycle” of birth and death.

 

Buddhism says that life is suffering.  Hinduism says that the purpose of life is to seek happiness.  Both say that the solution, the remedy for suffering, the way to find happiness, is to work toward higher awareness, to achieve enlightenment, to discover and know one’s own inner divine nature.

 

THE SPIRITUAL BIG BANG THEORY

 

Type 1 religion is basically a Big Bang Theory.  But it’s a Spiritual Big Bang Theory.  Spiritual beings have fallen under the spell of delusion and forgotten their true divine nature.  To remedy suffering and find happiness it is necessary to reverse this, to penetrate the delusion, and to rediscover one’s true divine nature.

 

This means that long ago, a very, very, very, very long time ago, these spiritual beings had not yet fallen into delusion.  There was a Beginning.  It was an unimaginably long time ago.  But there was a Beginning.  The Astronomical Big Bang Theory envisions that about 20 billion years ago the physical universe started with a single point.  And that point exploded and continues to expand as our present physical universe.  The Spiritual Big Bang Theory envisions that at the Beginning, there was a single Spiritual Point.  God.  Godhead.  The Prime Mover Unmoved.  The Supreme.  The Absolute.  But it was Spiritual in nature.  And it had no complexity whatever.

 

But it had an impulse, an urge, a desire, a compulsion, a wish, a will.  And the wish was to create, to do, to cause, to play, to have a game, to have adventure, to do something, to do anything, to get something happening, to get some action, to get some life.

 

So God the Absolute Ultimate said to Himself, in a God-like Cosmic sort of way, “I’m going to do something!”.  Well, if He’s going to play games and have adventures, He’s got to have company.  Being very God-like and creative, He assumed many personalities simultaneously.  Sort of like putting on a production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and playing all the parts at the same time.

 

And if He’s going to do something, He’s going to need some time and space to do it in.  So, being very God-like and uninhibited about such things, no sooner does He think the thought, than He does it!

 

And that’s the Beginning!

 

Time has started.  And how long do you suppose it takes to get from that lofty omnipotent condition down to the lowly and pitiful condition of being a mere human being?  A really really really long time, that’s how long.

 

But why does He have to go down at all?  Well, if He’s going to play games and have adventures, He has to pretend that He doesn’t know what He’s doing.  Otherwise, what fun is it?  Where’s the adventure?  If you know what the other guy is thinking and if you know how it all turns out, that’s no fun!

 

And that’s why there is evil and suffering in the world.

 

God has gotten Himself into a lot more trouble than He bargained for.  He has been all too successful in creating adventures for Himself.

 

God has done it to Himself.  We have done it to ourselves.

 

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16. CHRISTIANITY DENIES MAN’S SPIRITUAL NATURE

 

REJECTION OF OMNIPOTENT GOODNESS AND OF HELL

 

Many people look at the theory that a good, loving, and merciful God condemns very large numbers to eternal torture, and they declare this theory nonsensical.

 

Many people look at the theory that God is omnipotent and entirely good, and they declare this theory obviously false.

 

Enormous gains in scientific and astronomical knowledge make these doctrines much less believable than they were two thousand years ago, or even one thousand years ago.  If we look up, we are not looking toward Heaven, but toward planets, stars, and galaxies.

 

So educated and intelligent people reject Christianity.  They reject the idea of God as described by Christians.  They reject the stories of miracles told by Christians.  They become materialists.  They deny the existence of any spiritual component to life and existence.  All is matter.

 

The theory of a merciful God condemning multitudes to eternal torture is blatantly absurd.  And it is a transparent attempt to intimidate people who are ignorant, superstitious, and gullible.  So all religions and all ideas of spiritual things are thrown out as “superstitious nonsense”, in favor of the good, solid, reliability of material objects and gravity.

 

This is throwing out the baby with the bath water.  This is just another way of falling for the trickery.  Thus the materialist enslaves himself with a different variety of dogmatic ignorance.

 

The materialistic anti-Christian denies his own existence as a conscious aware being.  He denies his own free will and power of choice.  He dogmatically asserts that love for God and mystical experiences are “mental illnesses”.  He refuses to hear about any evidence of telepathy or miracles or memories of earlier lifetimes.  He denies out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences.  He has no philosophical basis for good and evil, for right and wrong.  He lives a dry arid existence with no hope for divine love and joy.  Everything is just atoms and electrons and the laws of physics.  How horrible!  How sterile!  How hopeless!

 

TWO TYPES OF RELIGION PLUS MATERIALISM

 

Type 1 religion says that man is an immortal and eternal spiritual being.  He can raise himself into a higher awareness of his own divine nature.  He can also reduce himself into a deeper state of degradation and suffering.

 

Type 2 religion says that man has been created by God.  God reveals himself to man.  Man’s duty is to believe the revealed doctrines and to obey the revealed commands of God.  Belief and obedience are rewarded after death by eternal life in Heaven.  Disbelief and disobedience are punished after death by eternal life in Hell.

 

The third type of “religion” is materialism.  Only matter exists.  There is no God. There are no gods.  There are no spiritual beings.  When you die, that’s it, brother!

 

THE THREE MAJOR TYPE 2 RELIGIONS

 

The “major religions” of the world are commonly listed as:

Christianity

Islam

Hinduism

Buddhism

Judaism

 

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are Type 2 religions.  Hinduism and Buddhism are Type 1 religions.

 

Judaism is nothing more nor less than the advance publicity for Jesus Christ.  From Moses to Jesus there were a thousand years of “prophets” announcing the Big Event that is going to happen – the arrival of the “Messiah”.  Immediately after Jesus, Saint Paul wrote his letters explaining what it all means.  Jews are the people from that Hebrew tradition who do not recognize or acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

 

Islam is essentially parasitical on Christianity, rather than something really new.  Muhammad lived 600 years after Jesus Christ.  He was a bandit who proclaimed himself the last and greatest prophet of the same God worshipped by Jews and Christians.  He demoted Jesus from Savior and Son of God to just another prophet.  Thus Muhammad outranks Jesus.  He was a bloodthirsty killer and conqueror.  He promised paradise to those who die fighting in his wars.  He said that God commands all Muslims to conquer all non-Muslims by force of arms.  Conquest has always been the main way in which Islam has expanded.  He said that anyone who leaves Islam should get the death penalty.  He reduced women to the level of property.  Muhammad claimed to be a prophet of the same God worshipped by Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.  So this forced him to claim that the teachings of Islam are the same as the teachings of Christianity and of Judaism.  And this forced him to say that all points of disagreement are forgeries by Christians and Jews.

 

So the big Christian Public Relations operation, from Abraham to Jesus, is really a unique event in Earth history.  The Jews are a precursor.  You might call it “Act I”.  And Islam is a cheap and very bloodthirsty imitation of Christianity.  But Islam is very similar to Christianity in talking about Heaven and Hell and Judgment Day.

 

JESUS IS THE TITLE CHARACTER

 

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are called “Abrahamic religions”.  This is a recognition of the common background which they share.

 

So we can say that all the major Type 2 religions on Earth have their roots in this great drama.  God, using Moses as His spokesman, violently liberated the Hebrews from Egypt.  Then he fed them in the desert for 40 years.  Then came the great climax in which Jesus did many miracles, followed by the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.  What a show!!!

 

Matthew Chapter 26 describes the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane.  Jesus says “(Verse 53) Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?  (Verse 54) But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?”.

 

Verse 56 says “But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.”.

 

Thus Jesus plainly states that he is following a script which was written long before.

 

Jesus is the title character.  He is the “Christ” in “Christianity”.

 

GOD’S PURPOSE IS TO IMPRESS PEOPLE

 

God is preoccupied with His image.  Saint Paul describes this in Romans Chapter 9.

 

“(Verse 17) For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.”.

 

“(Verse 22) What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction (those who are damned):  (Verse 23) And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory (those who are saved),”.

 

God’s purposes, as listed here, are:

 

#1.  To show His power.

 

#2.  To get His name declared throughout all the earth.

 

#3.  To show His wrath.

 

#4.  To make His power known.

 

#5.  To make known the riches of His glory.

 

This let’s the cat out of the bag.

 

The whole show, from Abraham to Jesus, is a big Public Relations operation.  God wants people to be really intimidated.  And He wants to be loved at the same time.

 

For a tyrant, being feared is good.  Being loved and adored is much better.

 

THE MOVIE “STARGATE”

 

The great 1994 movie “Stargate” portrays an alien race starting religions on Earth and on other planets.  This theme is continued in the 1997 TV series “Stargate SG-1”, which ran for ten years.  These aliens use their advanced technology and weapons to keep the local populations on each planet intimidated, ignorant, and obedient.

 

Leaving aside the details, the basic concept appears to be correct.  This is what the founders of Christianity were doing.

 

THE PURPOSE IS TO STAMP OUT TYPE 1 RELIGION

 

According to Christianity man is material.  He was created by God, which means he does not have eternal and immortal existence apart from his body.  He goes to Heaven or Hell with his body.  Genesis 2:7 says, “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground”.  Genesis 3:19 says, “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”.

 

A vital point of Christian theology is that man does NOT share the same nature as God.  Jesus is the “only begotten” Son of God.  Jesus as one of the Trinity shares the same nature as God.  Other men are metaphysically sharply different from God.  They are not “creators” like God.  They are “creatures”, things which have been created by God.  Those men who are saved are children of God by adoption.  They are not “begotten”.

 

Any mystical talk of “union with God” is heresy in Christianity.

 

All these points are sharply opposed to Type 1 religion.

 

Type 1 religion is the truth.  Man is not his body.  Man does share the same nature with God.  Man, like God, is a creator.  Man can advance in spiritual awareness and become gradually more and more similar to God.  Man is a spiritual being.  Man, like God, is immortal and eternal, and exists outside of time and space.

 

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15. SUFFERING IN THIS LIFE AND IN HELL

 

CHRISTMAS OPTIMISM

 

Some of us grew up singing Christmas carols, and we still like singing Christmas carols.  We hear a lot about how the birth of the Savior has brought salvation, peace, love, and joy to the world.  God comes to us as a baby.  This presents God as the opposite of intimidating.  The baby-God is endearing and sweet and lovable.  So is His mother.  The mother just happens to be a virgin!  Can’t find fault with her!  And this baby-God is sleeping in a manger in a stable.  There are no lavish surroundings demonstrating wealth and power.  Again, this is the opposite of intimidating.  But this baby in the stable is actually God, and is being born as a man to bring salvation to the world.  Sounds wonderful!

 

However, we can look around and read about what’s happening in the world.  The world still looks pretty short on salvation, peace, love, and joy.  Maybe these Christmas carols are overly optimistic.

 

These cheerful optimistic songs highlight what is called “the problem of evil”.  The problem of evil is with us all year long.  But at Christmas we sing these songs about how the birth of this child-God is supposed to bring peace, love, joy, and salvation to the world.  And, sorry, it doesn’t look that way.

 

The Christmas season is also the most popular time for suicide.  Many experience the loving warmth of Christmas with friends and family.  Others feel that God’s grace has left them out.

 

THE BASIC THEORY OF CHRISTIANITY

 

The basic idea in Christianity is that God is all-powerful, good, loving, and merciful.

 

But man is a sinner and is in need of salvation.

 

So God demonstrates His goodness, love, and mercy, by arranging for men to be saved.  He sends His Son – His “only begotten” Son – to be born as a man and sacrificed like a lamb – the Lamb of God.  This sacrifice is then counted as balancing out man’s sins, so man can go to Heaven after death instead of going to Hell.

 

There is a catch, however.  You have to be a believer.  John 3:16:  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”.  Romans 10:9:  “… if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”.

 

It is a matter of some debate how many are saved, and how many are damned.  But we can simply look around, and we can ask this question:  “How many of the seven billion people in the world are Christians who sincerely believe that they have been saved by the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God?”.  It seems very obvious that the correct answer is:  “Not very many”.  So we can say that few are saved, and many are damned.  Those who are saved are a very small percentage of the population.

 

SUFFERING IN THIS LIFE AND IN HELL

 

The question “Why does God allow suffering?” is called “the problem of evil”.  But the problem of evil relates to this life.  The theory of Christianity includes another parallel problem – the question “Why does God condemn most people to eternal torture?”.  And with respect to Hell, God is not just allowing suffering.  He is the entire cause of eternal suffering, because it is God’s judgment against them that they should be damned, and condemned to eternal torment.

 

Why does God allow suffering in this life and, for many, forever in hell?

 

There is a saying, “Life is hard.  Then you die.”.  Christians could say, “Life is hard.  Then you go to Hell.”.

 

ETERNAL TORTURE IS NOT MERCIFUL

 

The Christian theory is that God has shown His goodness, love, and mercy by sending His only begotten Son to be sacrificed as the Lamb of God, thereby earning forgiveness and salvation for those who believe in Him.

 

A few are saved.  Most are condemned to eternal torture in Hell.  How is this merciful?

 

God first arranges for all men, through all of history, to be tortured for all eternity.  That’s billions of people being tortured for billions of years.  Then He arranges for a small minority of them to be pardoned, so they can escape this grim future of endless torment and suffering.  This is supposed to prove that God is merciful?  One might say instead that God so hated the world that He has left the vast majority still condemned to eternal torture, even after the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.  That’s torture forever.  That’s torture that never comes to an end.

 

One might say that God is a sadistic and bloodthirsty brute.  So much so that he feels a need to find excuses to torture vast multitudes of people, not just for a day, a week, or a year, but for all time.  If any human being did this, we would certainly say that it is “inhuman cruelty”.

 

Is someone on Judgment Day, when he finds himself sentenced by God to eternal torture, supposed to be impressed with how God is so loving and merciful?  If we observe God condemning sinners to eternal torture, are we supposed to admire God’s love and mercy?

 

God damns everybody to eternal torture.  Then He lets a few off.  And we’re supposed to be impressed with how great and good and merciful and wonderful He is.

 

One might say that God not only allows suffering, He delights in it.  He revels in it.  He must!  He causes so much of it!  Both in this life and in the next!

 

PRINCIPLES OF PUNISHMENT APPLIED TO HELL

 

The proper purpose of punishment is not vengeance.  Vengeance is the desire to cause pain and suffering to others because of some offense, real or imagined.

 

The proper purposes of punishment are three:

 

(1) Restitution.  If possible, the criminal should make up for the damage and harm done to the victim, preferably with something extra added.  The victim should not only recover what was lost.  He should also be reasonably compensated for the time he has lost and for the trouble and stress which has been caused to him.

 

(2) Deterrence.  Punishment hopefully will deter the criminal from doing further criminal actions.

 

(3) Removing the criminal from society, by imprisonment or execution or exile.  This makes it impossible for that criminal to do more criminal actions.

 

Using a small offense to justify a very heavy penalty is not right.

 

These principles can be applied to the Christian theory of Hell.

 

Most obviously, eternal torture is a very great punishment for a minor offense.  If we say that the reason for eternal torture is Adam’s sin long ago, that is an even more extravagant punishment for a minor offense.

 

There is no question of restitution.  One might say that Hell is supposed to be a deterrent.  But a deterrent needs to be a credible deterrent.  God has done very little to make Hell a credible deterrent.  Essentially there are only some very questionable rumors to persuade people that there is such a gruesome penalty after death.  Removing the criminal from society is not a factor, because he’s already dead.

 

Thus it strongly appears that God is being angry, vindictive, and hate-filled, demonstrating a vast appetite for causing pain and suffering to others.  This is the opposite of being good, loving, and merciful.  Hell is God’s very extravagant vengeance against men for trivial offenses.

 

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

 

Premise:  God is all powerful.  Everything that happens, happens that way because God willed it to happen that way.  God is “sovereign”.

 

Premise:  God is entirely good.  Nothing bad or evil, even in part, is caused by God, even in part.

 

Conclusion:  Nothing bad or evil exists.

 

But the conclusion is obviously false.  Therefore one of the premises must be false.  Either God is not all powerful, or God is not entirely good.

 

There is even a word for this subject.  “THEODICY” – defense of God's goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil.

 

The problem of evil can also be called “the problem of suffering”.  Why does God allow suffering?  God is all-powerful and entirely good.  How can this be?

 

EXCUSES FOR EVIL AND FOR HELL

 

Various excuses are given to explain how it is not God’s fault that there is suffering and evil in the world.

 

First and foremost of these is that God has given man free will.  Then man does the wrong thing.  And so man causes his own suffering and is the sole cause of evil.  But a mother who loves her child will carefully educate and train her child about how to live rightly and how to grow up into a happy and successful life.  If the young child might run out into a street with traffic, the mother recognizes the danger to the child and takes strong measures to prevent any such thing from happening.  God’s education and training of man is so weak as to be almost non-existent.  God plainly does not care.

 

Another excuse is that man inherits guilt from the “Original Sin” of Adam.  This supposedly justified God in condemning all men of all future generations to eternal torture.  Because Adam ate an apple.  Talk about a bloodthirsty lust for torture!

 

A third excuse is “Justice”.  God is said to be merciful.  But all this torture and punishment is required by “Justice”.  This is a good talking point.  In ordinary affairs, when someone does something wrong, there is some penalty.  But eternal torture is uncalled for, to say the least.  Calling it “Justice” is just using verbiage to cover up an unbridled craving to torture those who are helpless.  It would be sickening in a man.

 

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14. CHRISTMAS CAROL THEOLOGY

 

Oh come, all ye faithful,

Joyful and triumphant!

Oh come ye, oh come ye to Bethlehem;

Come and behold him

Born the king of angels.

Oh come, let us adore him,

Oh come, let us adore him,

Oh come, let us adore him,

Christ the Lord.

 

We should be joyful.  We should adore him.  He is the king of angels.

 

Joy to the world!  The Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King.

Let every heart prepare him room,

And heaven and nature sing,

And heaven and nature sing,

And heaven, and heaven, and nature sing.

 

We should be joyful.  He is the King of earth.  We should take him into our hearts.

 

Hark!  The herald angels sing

"Glory to the newborn King!

Peace on earth and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled."

Joyful, all ye nations rise.

Join the triumph of the skies.

With the angelic host proclaim

"Christ is born in Bethlehem."

Hark!  The herald angels sing

"Glory to the newborn King!"

 

He is heralded by angels.  He is a baby.  He is King.  He brings peace and mercy.  He reconciles God and sinners.  We should be joyful.

 

O little town of Bethlehem,

How still we see thee lie.

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

The silent stars go by.

Yet in thy dark streets shineth

The everlasting Light.

The hopes and fears of all the years

Are met in thee tonight.

 

He is born in a small town, but he is the everlasting Light.  He is the focus of the hopes and fears of all men.

 

In short, there really is not much philosophy or theology contained in Christmas carols.  The music is very beautiful.  But the thought content is not very much.

 

There is emotional content.  Joy.  Love for a God-baby who brings forgiveness, and who is destined to share the sufferings of mortal man.

 

However, the forgiveness is actually overstated.  The words say “God and sinners reconciled”.  But only some sinners, not all sinners, are reconciled.  John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”.

 

It would not be so warm and fuzzy to sing “God and certain selected sinners reconciled”.

 

But the basic ideas in Christmas carols are pretty simple and straightforward.  God has come and been born as a man.  He has sent His Son.  Jesus is both man and God.  Jesus is a baby, but also King and Lord of both Heaven and Earth.  Jesus has come to bring forgiveness and salvation to men – some men, at least – all men who believe.  Thus this is an occasion for great joy.  God as Jesus is going to experience the sufferings of men.  This demonstrates God’s compassion for men and his understanding of men.  And more than that, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is going to be crucified, to bear the penalty rightfully deserved by sinful men.  Jesus Christ is baby, King, and God.  He is born of a virgin.  He sleeps in a manger in a stable.  He is the sacrificial Lamb of God, offered for the forgiveness of the sins of men.  And this shows the tremendous love of God, that He goes so far to bring salvation and pardon to sinful undeserving men.

 

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13. PEACE AND LOVE CAN BE OVERSOLD

 

At Christmas we hear a lot about peace and love.  And joy.  These are certainly very fine things.  The U.S. Declaration of Independence says we have the right to “the pursuit of happiness”.  Hindus say that the purpose of life is to seek happiness.  Certainly if we are living a life filled with peace, love, and joy, then we have been successful in the pursuit of happiness.

 

But peace and love can be oversold.  We hear much about “God’s mercy”.  Mercy is another fine thing.  Sometimes.  But there are times when force is needed, when war is called for, when mercy is not the right thing.

 

In 1775, Patrick Henry, the great American patriot, spoke to the Virginia legislature.  He described how petitions and supplications to King George had been spurned with contempt.  He said, “In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.  There is no longer any room for hope.  If we wish to be free … – .we must fight!  I repeat it, sir, we must fight!  An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!”.

 

Jesus Christ certainly gave us a very strong example of being “peaceful”.  He allowed himself to be arrested and tortured and executed.  He offered no resistance.  He did not allow his disciples to defend him.  Thus if we really want to do what Christ did, we can never fight anybody.

 

This is a very bad example.  Giving yourself to your enemies to be tortured and killed is not a survival characteristic.  This is not going to bring peace and justice to the world.  Instead, it would allow evil men to rule and to enslave everyone and to create universal misery.  This is not love.  This will not bring joy.  This will not bring peace to the world.

 

The plain fact of the matter is that people are not equal in virtue.  The Declaration of Independence says that “all men are created equal”.  This is not true.  All men are created with equal rights, which is what Jefferson really meant in writing that “all men are created equal”.  But men are conspicuously not equal.  Some are intelligent, honorable, and hard working.  Others are stupid, dishonest, and lazy.  In short, some are very good and others are very bad.  And all shades of gray in between.

 

Evil men need to be treated differently from good men.

 

It is a common theme in novels and movies that the hero has someone in his environment who is blatantly criminal and deceptive and who works only to further his own wealth and power.  And a major feature of the story is all the trouble which the hero gets into because he fails to identify this low-life dog and to label him as extremely dangerous and to take effective measures to make certain that this bad person can do no damage to himself or to anybody else.

 

It is very true that such deceptive and evil and dangerous people really do exist.

 

To be lavish with forgiveness and to allow such people to operate without restrictions, and even without being closely watched, is extremely dangerous.  Being merciful to such a person may cause great suffering to many people, depending on the situation.

 

Trust given to someone worthy of trust is a fine thing.  Trust given to someone not worthy of trust is stupid and self-destructive.

 

It is often said that in an argument, one should not criticize one’s opponent.  This is called “argument ad hominem”, that is, “argument at the man”.  It is true that discussing the honesty and motives of the opponent is a slightly different subject.  But if we are discussing national defense, and if we discover that the opponent has been hired by an enemy nation, then that is extremely relevant and extremely important.  In general, it is very important to know what a man is trying to do.  What are his motives?  What is his purpose?  Who is he working for?

 

A call for universal peace and love, with no allowance for the fact that some men are good and some men are bad, is a call for chaos, anarchy, and misery.

 

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12. INFILTRATING WITH ZEALOTS

 

The best way to suppress a group is to be a zealot.

 

A zealot can condemn anybody around him in the group for not being dedicated enough, for doubting or asking questions, for not being fanatical enough in any direction.  And nobody can criticize the zealot, because he hides under the shield of being “holier than thou”.  The zealot is the most dedicated to the group, to its leaders, to its doctrines.  Anyone who opposes the zealot appears to be opposing the group.  So the zealot can make endless trouble for others because superficially he is only advocating what is good and right according to the principles of the group.

 

The best way to attack a group is to send in agents to be zealots.  This is so commonplace that there is a word for it.  Such agents are called “agents provocateurs”.  This phrase is French for “provocative agents”.  Their mission is to make trouble by being zealots, by being more extreme than other group members, by advocating actions which will cause trouble.  One way this is done is by advocating criminal actions, which then justify counter attack by the police and then prosecution.

 

One example of this which is very common these days is that the FBI sends in agents to be Muslim zealots.  The agents target young Muslims and encourage them to take some “terrorist” action.  The FBI agents provide training, guidance, and weapons.  Then the young Muslim targets are arrested and prosecuted.  Then the FBI can claim success in “fighting terrorism”.  The primary purpose of this activity is to fan the flames of public hysteria and fear of “terrorism”.  This makes it possible for Congress to pass more laws eliminating traditional Constitutional rights.  By this means, among many others, the government is gradually building up the fascist totalitarian police state which is rapidly closing in upon us.

 

Zealots, whether homegrown or sent in by outside enemies, destroy thought within the group.  People are afraid to think because any thought which is not 100% standard, pure, certified, kosher, and government-approved, will get you into trouble.  No other thoughts are allowed.  It is a form of brainwashing which is applied to the whole society.  This is vividly described in George Orwell’s great police-state novel “1984”.

 

One example of this is Germany under the Nazis.

 

Another example of this is America in present time, where numerous “politically correct” dogmas are being enforced more and more severely, little by little, in a gradual destruction of free thinking.

 

If one is still free to be a group member or not, intelligent group members who are able to look and observe lose interest and walk away.  Non-members who observe the zealots in the group are repelled.  The zealots discredit the group.

 

This is true even if the group has a lot of truth and goodness in it.  Anything no matter how good and wonderful can be sold with exaggerations and lies.  One example is the Christian Church in the Dark Ages.

 

When evil men are in power, good men are made powerless or killed, and evil men hold all positions of authority.  This applies to zealots.  Evil men become zealots and zealots become evil men.  Truth, facts, and honesty become less and less important.  It becomes more and more dangerous to talk honestly about truth and facts and observations.  It becomes dangerous even to know about things the group, the state, the government does not want you to know about.  Every imaginable crime, deception, and lie is justified in the name of “national security” or security of some kind.  Fanaticism, dogmatism, and violent attack against any “enemy of the state” become standard and usual everywhere.

 

Everyone lives in terror.  No one cares about truth anymore.

 

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11. ZEALOTS ARE THE ENEMY

 

A zealot is a member of a dedicated group which has a belief system and a goal and a plan of action.  A zealot is such a strong supporter of the beliefs, the goal, and the plan, that he perceives any questioning of them or any doubt about them as extremely hostile and extremely evil.  Such questioners and doubters are regarded by the zealot as enemies who should be suppressed, put out of business, and perhaps even killed.  Above all, the questioner should be silenced, so as to prevent questions and doubts from infecting other members of the group.  The zeal and enthusiasm and energy of the group members in pushing forward the plan of action need to be protected from these hostile questions and doubts.

 

Thus a zealot regards thoughtful inquiry as a great evil.  A zealot does everything possible to suppress, stamp out, eliminate, and prevent thoughtful inquiry.

 

The mission of the mind of man is to discover the truth about things and to use that knowledge to accomplish its goals.  The truth includes true facts, both small and large, true principles, and true laws of nature.

 

The method used by the mind to discover truth is thoughtful inquiry.  Thoughtful inquiry includes asking questions – lots and lots and lots of questions.  It includes thinking about things.  It includes gathering evidence.  It includes comparing ideas with other ideas and observing whether or not they contradict each other.  It includes figuring out who is honest and trustworthy and reliable.  It includes figuring out who is dishonest and who cannot be trusted or relied upon.  It includes figuring out who is working to make others free, peaceful, prosperous, and happy and who is working to bring about slavery, war, poverty, and suffering.

 

The zealot claims to have the truth but works hard to stamp out thoughtful inquiry, which is how truth is discovered and confirmed.

 

Tyrants and absolute rulers of every kind love zealots.  The tyrant unleashes zealots among the population, and the zealots terrorize the population with rigid thought control.  Any unauthorized thought puts a person at risk of losing his livelihood, his friends, his family, his liberty, and maybe even his life.

 

Both religious and political groups do this.  Thousands of years of history include many examples.  Nazis.  Fascists.  Communists of many kinds.  Roman emperors.  Persian emperors.  Christians a thousand years ago.  Muslims throughout their history including in present time.

 

The truth will set you free.

 

If you love the truth, you must love thoughtful inquiry.

 

If you love the truth, you must regard zealots as mortal enemies of truth, freedom, and happiness.

 

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10. THOUGHTFUL INQUIRY IS A PRIMARY VIRTUE

 

The mind of man is a great and wonderful thing.  It is his mind which distinguishes him from animals.  More importantly, it is his mind which distinguishes him from inanimate material objects which are strictly material, and which contain no mental or spiritual component.

 

The mind of man enables him to make plans in which numerous small actions, apparently unrelated, add up to great achievements.  This is true for individuals.  It is even more true for groups.  Individuals can have great ideas.  But to get something big actually accomplished in the real world requires a group, in which many individuals work in harmony with an overall plan to bring the great achievement into reality.

 

The mind of man enables him to create objects of fantastic complexity, in which a very large number of small parts work together to do things which one might consider impossible and absurd, if they were not actually there and visible and operating and often familiar.  Like automobiles.  And television sets.  And computers.  And refrigerators.

 

The mind of man makes science possible.  Through careful examination of the material world, and through experimentation – what happens if I do it this way? – a great number of technical skills have come into existence.  These skills are made possible by the theoretical knowledge of how things work – knowledge of the natural laws of the material world.  And this knowledge, put into practical application, brings about the vast number of technical marvels which we take for granted.

 

Scientists, great scientists at least, are thoughtful people.  Einstein, Newton, and other great heroes in the history of science, have given their attention thoughtfully and with curiosity to things they observe in the world around them.  They have wondered about things.  Could it be this way?  Could it be that way?  How can I find out?  Who can I ask?  What test can I run?  Where can I get more information about this?  How can I sort out what is really true, from what is only believed without reason by ignorant and foolish people?  Does this theory that Joe tells me really make sense?  Does that theory that I came up with yesterday really explain things?

 

This is thoughtful inquiry.

 

Thoughtful inquiry is a very great virtue.

 

Who said so?  How does he know?  What is the evidence?  Is this salesman lying to me?  Is there any reason to believe what this politician is telling me?  Is there any reason to think this newspaper article has any truth in it?  Is this professor being well paid to teach me a bunch of lies?  Does this political group have a hidden agenda?  Is this government official saying the same thing this week that he said last week?

 

And yet where in the traditional lists of virtues is there any mention of thoughtful inquiry?

 

Saint Paul (I Corinthians Chapter 13) talks about faith, hope, and love.  No thoughtful inquiry there.  In fact Saint   Paul is plainly opposed to thoughtful inquiry.  He says (I Corinthians Chapter 1)  “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.  For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”.

 

“Faith” means belief, and “dogma” means what is believed, without evidence, reason, or intellect.  Faith opposes any systematic, rational, and intellectual effort to find truth and wisdom about the nature of life and the universe.  Faith is knowingly and intentionally irrational and anti-intellectual.

 

The Ten Commandments give rules against killing, stealing, adultery, and false testimony.  These are fine principles.  But there is nothing about thoughtful inquiry.  Instead, four out of the ten – and they are the first four – are concerned with ensuring loyalty to the purported “God” who is issuing these Commandments.  What if we want to ask questions about this alleged “God”?  Who is Moses really talking to?  What is this God up to?  How can we get answers to our questions?  If we believe that this God has killed a lot of Egyptians, and that He has fed the Hebrews while they were wandering around in the desert, then we want to treat Him respectfully.  But we still might have some questions.  Lots of questions.  Let’s have some thoughtful inquiry here.  Or is this alleged “God” demanding that we be stupid and ignorant?  If so, this is not an admirable God.  One might want a change of management!

 

Absolute rulers of all kinds are uniformly opposed to thoughtful inquiry.  Persian emperors.  Roman emperors.  Zulu kings.  Hitler.  Stalin.  Mao.  These tyrants love to have dedicated followers.  They tell their followers what a great virtue it is to believe and to obey.  But thoughtful inquiry?  It is an almost certain death sentence.

 

Political parties?  Democrats?  Republicans?  Socialists?  Well they are probably not going to hang you on a meat hook for saying the wrong thing.  But political party meetings are consistently places where anything deviating from the customary ideas for that group is heavily frowned upon.  Political party meetings are a lot like church services.  Unbelievers are not welcome.  If you want a discussion of ideas – not just worship services affirming the faith – then political party meetings are not the place to go.

 

Jesus Christ said (John Chapter 8), “The truth will set you free.”.  This is very very true.  And how is one to find out the truth?  Through dogmas?  Through blind belief?  Through refusal to look?  By believing the one who can lie in the most convincing manner, the one with the greatest appearance of sincerity?

 

You have to remember that power and wealth come through religion and politics.  What people believe dictates who they will follow and support.  So if you want to rule the world, you want to persuade people that what you are telling them is the truth.  And even better, you want to persuade people that anyone who doubts what you are telling them is vicious, evil, and wicked, and deserves to be cast out of civilized society and preferably killed.  That’s power.  And it comes from persuasion.

 

The point is that evil men are highly motivated to be very very persuasive in lying to you.

 

So you need to be equally motivated to find out what the real truth is, even though it may be well hidden by an ocean of lies.

 

How do you find out the truth?  By thoughtful inquiry.

 

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9. THE U.N. DECLARATION OF RIGHTS IS A POISON PILL

 

How can anyone oppose a ringing Declaration of the Rights of Man?

 

It’s not easy.

 

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights was officially adopted by the United Nations in 1948, right after World War II.  Visions of Hitler and of the tyranny imposed on Europe by the Nazis and the Gestapo were fresh in everybody’s mind.  Human rights had just been trampled on, viciously and brutally.

 

And now, 70 years later, one can look around and find many examples of tyranny, cruelty, and brutality.  One can find many forms of slavery.  Surely the Crusade for Human Rights is as much a burning issue today as it ever was.

 

Indeed it is!

 

But the U.N. Declaration of Rights is a booby trap.

 

Whether it was booby trapped intentionally is a separate question.  Did the people creating this booby trap do it intentionally, with malice aforethought?  Or was it done through stupidity and foolishness?  This gets into questions of Conspiracy.  Who were the “world leaders” really behind creating the United Nations?  And what was their real purpose?  Here we are only considering the plain fact that the U.N. Declaration is a booby trap.

 

There are many details about the U.N. Declaration which could be examined and analyzed.  But let us strip it down to the bare essentials, which are simple.  There are two main features.

 

First is Liberty.  Liberty is the right to believe, to think, to speak, and to act, as you choose, without any force or any orders compelling you to act or forbidding you to act in any specific way.  Liberty is the ideal of civilization.  Liberty is glory of any civilization which has it.  Absence of Liberty is the shame and the disgrace of any civilization which does not have it.

 

Second is the nonsensical idea that people have some kind of “right” to be taken care of.  This is often sold as “freedom from want”.  This makes it sound just like ordinary freedom, which is the same as Liberty.  But this so-called “right” to be taken care of is the opposite of Liberty.  It is inconsistent with Liberty and contrary to Liberty.  It makes Liberty impossible.  Any civilization which adopts this idea as an actual practice will destroy itself and cease to exist.

 

In the U.N. Declaration of Rights, this so-called “right” to be taken care of is stated particularly in Article 25.  The Declaration is here:  http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

 

If Joe has the so-called “right” to be taken care of, the government gives him money.  And where does the government get the money?  From Bill, who worked for it, who earned it, and who would very much like to keep it for himself.  But the government sends in tax collectors and police officers carrying guns, and they take it from Bill, despite his opposition.  Thus Bill’s Liberty is destroyed.  Bill is not free.

 

Thus, in the name of kindness, love, and charity, Liberty is destroyed, prosperity is destroyed, and civilization is destroyed.

 

The Founding Fathers of America had no such nonsense in mind.  The U.S. Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”.

 

The Founding Fathers did NOT say that all men are endowed by their Creator with the unalienable right to be taken care of by their hardworking neighbors.

 

On the other hand, this was the central principle of Karl Marx.  In the Communist Manifesto, he says, “The proletarians (workers) … have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.”.

 

Marx says “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence:  Abolition of private property.”.

 

Marx says “You reproach us with intending to do away with your property.  Precisely so; that is just what we intend.”.

 

Marx says “The abolition of bourgeois (businesslike) individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.  By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.”.

 

Marx says “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.  They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.  Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution.  The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.  They have a world to win.  Proletarians of all countries, unite!”.

 

In short, Marx is the ultimate advocate of the so-called “right” to be taken care of by others.  Those who oppose having their money and things taken by others should simply be killed.  The government will take care of everybody and tell everybody what to do.

 

The Communist utopia is a slave state.

 

And this is the poison hidden behind the sweet-sounding words of the U.N. Declaration of Rights.

 

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8. THE SIMPLICITY OF GOOD AND EVIL

 

Millions of speeches and oceans of ink have been used to discuss and argue about what is good and what is evil.  Saviors and tyrants and philosophers have told us what we urgently need to do, to promote what is good and to fight what is evil.  And now in our supposedly “scientific” age, we have another chorus, claiming to be smarter than the others, telling us that there is no such thing as good and evil.

 

One might think that this is a complicated subject.  But it’s not.

 

Good is taking care of yourself.

 

Evil is getting others to take care of you.

 

Good is creating things of value and doing valuable actions.  Evil is creating nothing, destroying things of value, and taking things away from others.

 

Good is outflow.  Good is giving.  Good is helping others.  Good is serving.

 

Evil is inflow.  Evil is taking.  Evil is harming others.  Evil is being served.

 

Of course if you take and give, that is a balance.  That is exchange.  The best exchange is an exchange where both parties like it.  Both parties think they are better off than they were before.  A trader is someone who gives and takes and gives and takes, and everybody is happy, and he makes a profit while he is doing it!  That is a very valid form of creating and giving and serving.

 

There are many many ways of stealing, of taking things from others against their will.  But the essence is that you took something from someone without his consent.  You took.  And there was no exchange.

 

The essence of Communism, the essence of the teachings of Karl Marx, is that everyone should be taken care of by the government.  Anybody who owns anything should have it taken away from him and it should be given to others who did nothing to earn it.

 

This doctrine has been very heavily promoted all around the planet since at least 1848, the year of the Communist Manifesto.  Almost everybody believes it now, at least to some degree.  Health care should be free.  Education should be free.  Poor people should be supported by the government.

 

Yet this inflow with no outflow is the essence of evil.

 

Good is creating.  Creating is putting something there, where there was nothing before.

 

Evil is destroying, using up, consuming, with no creation.  Of course every human being has to consume things just to stay alive.  To be good, he balances this consumption with creation, with production, with work.

 

That is the simplicity of good and evil.

 

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7. THE STATUE OF LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD

 

The actual name of the Statue Of Liberty is “Liberty Enlightening The World”.

 

In French, it is “La Liberté Éclairant Le Monde”.

 

It was a gift in 1886 from the people of France to the people of the United States.

 

What a magnificent gift!  What a magnificent symbol of liberty!

 

It has been for over a hundred years, and it remains, the greatest symbol of liberty in the world.

 

The American flag has been a symbol of liberty.  But in recent decades the American military has been guilty of numerous abominations around the world.  The civilization of America is in a state of free fall into a police state.  Traditional American rights and liberties are rapidly disappearing with the universal tyrant’s excuse of “national security”.  The American flag is no longer a great symbol of liberty.

 

But the Statue Of Liberty remains as a universal and unmistakable symbol of liberty.

 

Politicians don’t like to use the word “liberty”.  The great hidden agenda is to destroy liberty.  Other things are promoted and advertised and campaigned for.  Prosperity.  Peace.  Democracy.  Tolerance.  Love.  People are told they have the “right” to government money because they are poor, or sick, or unemployed, or any of a thousand other excuses for taking money earned by others and stolen by taxation.  “Liberty” is not mentioned.

 

But liberty is the fountain from which flow peace and prosperity.  And then art, science, and philosophy.  Liberty is the road to a golden age.  Liberty as idealized and fought for by the American Founding Fathers.  Liberty as symbolized by the statue of Liberty Enlightening The World.

 

Is she holding a gun?  No.  She is holding a torch – a universal symbol of wisdom.  In her other hand, she is holding a book.  On the cover of the book is a date – July 4, 1776, the date of the Declaration Of Independence – which is actually titled “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of   America”.  Thus the book is a symbol of the principles of liberty as laid out in the Declaration Of Independence and the other writings of the Founding Fathers.  The book symbolizes the ideas, the teachings, the theories, the doctrines, the ideology of liberty.

 

And part of the teachings of liberty is that those who love liberty must be willing to fight for it.  After solemnly declaring the independence of “these United Colonies”, these are the final words:

 

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

 

This is putting it all on the line.  Who is there, today, willing to do this?  Not many.

 

It is fashionable today to attack the very idea of truth, to believe that there are no eternal truths, to believe that no idea, no belief, no doctrine, can be held firmly as a safe guide to what is true and good.  “Good” just means good for me.  “True” just means what I want to believe, or what I want other people to believe.  And I might change my mind tomorrow.

 

But “Liberty Enlightening The World” is doing something.  She is enlightening the world.  How?  With the torch of wisdom.  And with the book of liberty.  She is not shooting and bombing.  She has a message.  She is persuading and teaching.  She is bringing truth as the road to liberty, and liberty as the road to happiness.

 

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6. SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE IS A BLOW FOR LIBERTY

 

Mel Gibson’s 1995 movie “Braveheart” is my nomination for the greatest movie of all time.  It tells the heroic story of William Wallace (1270-1305) and his battles against the English under Edward I.  Edward was trying to conquer Scotland, and Wallace was opposing him.  The Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796) wrote a famous and stirring poem celebrating this valiant struggle for liberty and independence.

 

 

SCOTS WHA HAE

 

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,

Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;

Welcome to your gory bed,

         Or to victory!

 

Now's the day, and now's the hour;

See the front o' battle lour;

See approach proud Edward's power—

         Chains and slavery!

 

Wha will be a traitor knave?

Wha can fill a coward's grave!

Wha sae base as be a slave?

         Let him turn and flee!

 

Wha for Scotland's king and law

Freedom's sword will strongly draw,

Freeman stand, or freeman fa',

         Let him follow me!

 

By oppression's woes and pains!

By your sons in servile chains!

We will drain our dearest veins,

         But they shall be free!

 

Lay the proud usurpers low!

Tyrants fall in every foe!

Liberty's in every blow!—

         Let us do or die!

 

     *     *     *     *     *

 

 

Thus it is traditional for Scottish people to fight the tyranny of the English.  On 18 September 2014, Scottish voters will vote on the question:  Should Scotland be an independent country?  This is a historic moment.  Polls show that the YES votes favoring independence have been gradually increasing, and the NO votes have been gradually decreasing, until at this point, shortly before the referendum, the YES and NO votes are very close.  Scottish people are excited.  They are being energized with new hope for good government, independence, and liberty.

 

The Establishment in Britain is uniformly campaigning for a NO vote, to keep Scotland under control of the government in London.  This alone gives you a strong clue that independence would be a good idea.

 

The trend, in Europe, in America, and around the world, is toward ever greater power for central governments in far away places, and toward reduced power for local governments.  It is not true that local governments are always more honest than central governments.  But it is true that those who love liberty should be strongly biased in favor of small local governments over large central governments.

 

The ultimate in decentralized government, and the ultimate liberty, would be anarchy – no government at all.  This would be the logical extreme of favoring small local governments.  Each citizen would govern himself.  Unfortunately this is not possible, because many people do not respect the rights of other people to liberty, life, and property.  Therefore governments are necessary to enforce these rights.

 

However, the ideal of little or no government remains.  In the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson, “That government is best which governs least.”.  The way to make less government possible is to persuade and teach people that the road to happiness is to be honest, thoughtful, and industrious, so that people do the right thing voluntarily and naturally.

 

But the trend is toward large, remote, central governments.  In Britain, political power is being given more and more to the European central government in Brussels.  In America, the federal government is getting larger and larger, and the arrogance of federal officials and police forces is getting more and more oppressive.

 

Thus the clear trend is toward a global police state.  Independence for Scotland would be a marvelous breath of fresh air in contradiction to the collapse of civilization into global tyranny.

 

Thomas DiLorenzo has written a book titled “The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War”.  It is available here:  http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Lincoln-Abraham-Unnecessary/dp/0761526463.  In it he reveals, with meticulous research, the truth about Lincoln, which is very much the opposite of his glorious reputation.

 

Among other things, DiLorenzo reveals that the main purpose and the most important result of the American Civil War was to destroy the right of the states to secede from the Union.  Until that time, this right was universally known and recognized.  Destroying this right made possible the unlimited growth of the federal government which still continues today.

 

The ability of a state to secede puts an enormous brake on the rapacious lust for power demonstrated by the central government, both in America and in Britain.  Independence for Scotland would be an enormous achievement for liberty.

 

Government spokesmen advocating a NO vote are mainly arguing that the Scottish people will be at risk of losing various government subsidies.  Government spokesmen are going around making vague promises of future government money.

 

That’s how slaves are made – they are bought – with government money.  If you vote for government money, then you are voting for tyranny.

 

In modern times, chains and slavery are more subtle than in the time of William Wallace.  Many battles are won and lost with words and with votes.

 

The Scottish people have a wonderful opportunity to strike a blow for independence and liberty simply by voting YES.

 

It may or may not be a smooth road.  But the question is not how independence will affect your bank account.  The question is whether you will be the master of your fate and the captain of your soul.

 

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