Does celebrating Christmas or Easter make you pagan?

 Does celebrating Christmas or Easter make you pagan?

Dean Haskins wrote on his page - http://www.facebook.com/deanhaskins: 

Here's an exercise in irony . . . ask most any Christian what "idolatry" means. Listen patiently. Then, point out that Christ-mass and Ishtar (Easter) are pagan to the core, and that God has shown us in His Word that He detests such things . . . then listen again--Immense Irony Warning!

Truth or Tradition - Should Christians celebrate Christmas and Easter? - http://www.passion-for-truth.com/Audio-Teachings/truth-or-tradition.htm ++++ I love Dean, I even re-post a lot of what he shares - and I honestly think he posted this to stir up thought more than to adopt it - so I had no choice but to respond:

Yes, but according to the latest data the star did stop over Bethlehem on 12/25 2BC - http://youtu.be/0MP7Kl1_Y4Q

I personally get tired of the Fundamentalists who come out EVERY YEAR with this crap. (Philippians 3:8 KJV 'Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, ' Philippians 3:8 https://my.bible.com/bible/1/PHP.3.8)

Jesus said, "23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” - John 4:23-24 https://my.bible.com/bible/1/JHN.4.23-24

For 43 years of my life I have lived, and ever since I can remember Christmas was about celebrating Christ's birth, and I've heard all the other speculations about December 25th and was so glad when the Bethlehem Star project came out to show the reason Christianity had used December 25th all along - because this is when the Star was over Bethlehem. Now the Fundamentalists and skeptics can sit down and shut up, please! In truth and in Spirit I've celebrated Christ's birth every December 25th, and it has everything to do with Spirit and Truth in my heart and not some legalism from Fundamentalists who cling to legalism so they can obtain WORKS RIGHTEOUSNESS.

If WORKS RIGHTEOUSNESS could have SAVED US, then we didn't need Jesus' star announcing Messiah to appear on December 25th, 2 BC, Jesus need not come at all, he need not die on April 3, 33 AD at 3:30pm. There was the law of Moses and if WORKS RIGHTEOUSNESS could have saved us, we already had the law of the Covenant. We didn't need an end to the old Covenant and for Christ to fulfill that Covenant he made with Abraham - "There is holy and then there is Holy" - https://haqodeshim.blogspot.com/2020/11/there-is-holy-and-then-there-is-holy.html, we didn't need a new Covenant - we could have worked our own way to righteousness.

The root of Forgiveness is not something we give others, instead, it is something far more proactive. The term in the NT comes from the marketplace: to purchase, redeem an item or person and take it/them off the shelf so they can never be purchased or owned again. The best imagery would have been during colonial times when slavery was legal, and to buy a slave and take them off the market and give them their freedom, so no one could claim or own them again. When we forgive, we "release" - because if you don't forgive you get stuck in the time where you were hurt or injured, or offended. Soon 10 hours go by, and then 10 days, and then 10 weeks, and then 10 months, and soon 10 years, and if you have not released the person who offended you, sinned against you, hurt you then a young person walks up and asks what are you upset about? And all of a sudden you go back to the day you were hurt and relive it all over again, and you become a prisoner to the person who sinned against you being trapped in time.

When Fundamentalists hold on to ancient History and try to tell us that because we celebrate Christ's birth at Christmas, or his Resurrection at Easter, and use traditions redeemed long ago - released from their pagan symbolism and reality - and dig up ancient history to tell you and I that somehow, your now established traditions of honoring Christ are pagan, they become no different than the Pharisees, of whom Jesus said:

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. ' Matthew 23:15 https://my.bible.com/bible/111/MAT.23.15

and:

'You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. ' Matthew 23:24 https://my.bible.com/bible/111/MAT.23.24

Paul says:

'One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. ' Romans 14:5 https://my.bible.com/bible/111/ROM.14.5

So Fundamentalists, Pietists, Pentecostals, Quakers, Amish, & Mennonites - if your faith is SO WEAK that putting up a Christmas Tree and decorating it, or painting Easter Eggs will turn you into worshiping pagan gods by doing so, please for the LOVE OF GOD, do not celebrate Christmas or Easter as I do.

On the other hand, instead of being like the Pharisee who prayed:

'The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ' Luke 18:11 https://my.bible.com/bible/111/LUK.18.11

You should be more like the Publican/Tax Collector of whom Christ Jesus said:

' “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” ' Luke 18:13-14 https://my.bible.com/bible/111/LUK.18.13-14

Your WORK RIGHTEOUSNESS is but filthy rags in the eyes of your God. You could live your entire life living to the letter of every law written by Moses, and Adam's sin would still be enough to damn you to Hell - you have no righteousness outside of Jesus Christ.

Works can never be righteousness, but they are a sign as to how healthy the relationship with God is. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit. I Corinthians 13:4-8 https://my.bible.com/bible/111/1CO.13.4-8 Everywhere "Love" is in these verses, put your name and see how you measure up. If you bear this kind of fruit in your life, no one can say it is bad, or that your relationship with God is not real:
'Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ' 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 https://my.bible.com/bible/111/1CO.13.4-8
'George is patient, George is kind. George does not envy, George does not boast, George is not proud. George does not dishonor others, George is not self-seeking, George is not easily angered, George keeps no record of wrongs. George does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. George always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. George never fails. Okay, did you put your name in the verses as I have? How are you measuring up? ++++++++++++ Original NOTE/BLOG from 2011, along with comments can be found at: Facebook I have migrated over here to Google Blogger since Facebook has removed NOTES in a list from Profiles & who knows when they shall outright just delete them.

Satan seeks to instill fear, because he fears Jesus whose perfect LOVE casts out fear!

'When he arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him. They were so violent that no one could pass that way. “What do you want with us, Son of God?” they shouted. “Have you come here to torture us before the appointed time?” '

Matthew 8:28-29
https://my.bible.com/bible/111/MAT.8.28-29

Ever since I was a child, the deceiver has tried VERY HARD to instill #Fear into my life, to cripple me, to tell me that my life is impossible, that one day it will end, and tries to tell me I am nothing and will be nothing!

But the father of lies operates just like that, he does NOT want you to know the Truth, that Satan & his demons are afraid of Jesus, and so the deceiver tries to steal from you your sense of peace! Don't let him!

'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. '

John 3:16-21
https://my.bible.com/bible/111/JHN.3.16-21

Never give up, never surrender, this WORLD is not your home, as John the Beloved reminded us:

'Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. '

1 John 2:15-17
https://my.bible.com/bible/111/1JN.2.15-17

Never let Satan make you afraid that you are too young and insignificant if you are a child of understanding, for I was saved at age 10, nor let him discourage you as a teenager, for John the Beloved most scholars believe started following Jesus at age 11 or 12, and Jesus ministry was for 8 years, so John was only 19 or 20 when he died, and John was the ONLY disciple to not run away, for he KNEW as the Beloved disciple, that love casts out fear! Don't let Satan tell you, that you are nobody, for if God has called you, you are now born again into the House of Yahweh, you are a brother or sister to Jesus himself.

When you grow older, don't allow your age to make you afraid, because Satan knows the truth, when you leave this world, you are forever young, as no one is OLD in Heaven (https://youtu.be/N-ewaCVARtM), your OLD age is often part of your cross you were called to carry by Jesus, just as it was for Peter when he was OLD as Jesus told him, and Nero had him crucified:

'The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!” '

John 21:17-19
https://my.bible.com/bible/111/JHN.21.17-19

For just as Esther came to her royalty for just such as time as this (Esther 4:14), so you have been BORN AGAIN, #adopted into the House of Yahweh, a joint heir with Jesus, and Jesus walks and lives with you in the Holy Spirit! So FEAR NOT, He is with you to the #end of #time itself, and will never leave nor forsake you, because he loves you, and only his perfect #LOVE can cast out fear, so if you begin to fear, go to Jesus in prayer, so you can cast it out!

'Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”'

Matthew 28:19-20
https://my.bible.com/bible/111/MAT.28.19-20

The life story of believing, losing faith as a Prodigal, and the peace only found returning to faith in Jesus!

I remember being near 1.5  years old and Mom had this dark patched quilt draped over a clothesline for a play tent.  My Father had died when I was 2 weeks old.  She came from Alaska to meet the in-laws and stay for the funeral.  She would stay with my paternal Grandparents for a year, before moving away from Butler County, to a plot of land, an acre, in rural Hardin County and set a trailer on it next to neighbors who had been close friends of my Father before he came to Alaska.

So I am out in the tent, and I feel the light and a presence in the light near me.  I could not even talk yet, and yet I perceived this good spirit to be God.

A month later, my Mother would meet my future step-Father and they would marry, and I had a brother and sister by him, but he was Catholic, not the Protestant my Mother or deceased Father had been, but Mom agreed to attend Church so long as he read his Bible to his children.

At age 9, a priest who wanted my step-Father to divorce my Mother for never joining the Church, not allowing the children to take communion, and is upset she is not having more, wants Dad to divorce her.  Mom nearly died with me and my brother, demanded Dad give her my sister, even though he was afraid after nearly seeing her die with my brother, because she inherited a genetic condition that did not allow her to dilate, and so we were all born by C-section.  With me it was unknown, but she knew with my Brother, but good o'ld boy Doctors in the South would not listen to her and made her try to give birth to my brother.  She lost so much blood, at one point she was outside her body hearing the nurse tell my step-Father, "I can't get a pulse" and she had to have a complete blood transfusion and was white as a ghost in pictures from that time upon returning home.

The Doctors in Burlington, VT were not like the good old boys at Hardin Memorial Hospital in Elizabethtown and listen to Mom and directed her to stay in bed for the last 3 months before my sister was born where she was safely delivered by a scheduled C-section and not an emergency C-section as with my brother and myself..

Mom couldn't have any more children without endangering her health further and she was 24 when my sister was born, so Dad told the Catholic Priest to go to hell, and my Mother who had been raised Church of God, remembered my Father said he attended the Church of the Nazarene, and we had moved back to Butler County by 1977, just down the road from my Paternal Grandparents.

Dad was 30 and I was 10 when we were both saved in a Revival at the Church, and unlike the Catholic Church that told me if I wanted to talk to God, I had to talk to the Priest so he could talk to God, the Church of the Nazarene told me I could talk directly to God, and so I began to talk to the spirit that had been near me at 1.5, and whose presence was especially strong at Christmas and Easter, and the conversation has never ended.

I knew from that day, a month before Mom met my step-Father who the spirit of God was, before I was even old enough for my parents to sit me down as a toddler to read stories and show pictures from the Children's  Bible.

So, even as a child, I was never an atheist, because I knew who God was before my Mother even taught me.  So when the Church of the Nazarene told me I could talk to God, I began to talk to the presence of light and spirit that had been there since I was 1.5, and he began to talk back to me.  It was never in a voice, but always as telepathy, thoughts I could hear and understand in my head, as when you are thinking, but you are not talking to yourself, because there is an active thought there that is distinctly the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, and the presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit began to reveal themselves even more throughout my lifetime, always there, never leaving me alone!

Now at 11 years old about 2 weeks later after my Baptism, I began to be bullied in school. when my parents went to school, 75% of more of homes had two parents in them, when we moved to a poor rural ghetto in 1977 where 90% of the homes were divorced single-mother homes, i was bullied to the point of suicide by age 12 and my parents were in shock not knowing how to help me since they had not experienced this in their youth going to school, where children behaved because a father was in the home to ensure discipline at home and at school. juvenile delinquency rates jumped off the charts by the 70s and 80s and beyond, and once a progressive socialist government did away with paddling in schools, in addition to running fathers out of the home, they replaced the corporal discipline with psychotropic drugs to control the behavior of teen boys for which the side effects or withdrawal symptoms were violent behavior and mass school shooting became a reality with all the mass shooters on psychotropic drugs. the liberal progressive socialists claimed paddling caused the violence, so they replaced it with psychotropic drugs under clinton, and then they brought real violence to the schools. no one in my day ever got a paddling and then went home, grabbed a gun, and came back and shot up the school.

We also had a coal company begin to mine 2 farms around our home strip mining, but using 10X the legal amount of dynamite.  One day I heard the siren going off to announce a blast and saw a brown mushroom cloud in the air and dirt & rock the size of laundry baskets fall and bury themselves in our yard missing me and my family.

Then the deceiver came and said, "What if God is just an imaginary friend? Don't listen to him." and so I began to doubt, but that very night demons attacked me in my sleep seeking to choke me.

When the demons attacked, I knew God was real   But the troubles in my life seemed unending between the bullying in school, and sexuality active women in 7th grade conducting polls on who was still a virgin, and then telling erotic tales of their sex with 8th graders, high schoolers, and men as old as 21 while the teacher left the class unattended for 45 minutes each day so she could go gossip and smoke with the cafeteria ladies.  One woman, a year later at age 13 dropped out of 8th grade in our rural Elementary School grades 1 - 8, and married the 21 year old man who made her pregnant.

Meanwhile, I was scared to death to one day come home from school to find my parents killed or my siblings too if they were home by the illegal blasting.

The the town millionaire who owned the mining companies has his brothers on the board of the bank foreclose on our home despite my parents never missing a mortgage payment.

So I hated God and blamed God for all my troubles and was so mean I could curse the wallpaper off the wall and when I began to fight back, more bullies joined in, instead of fighting them one at a time, I had to fight 4 to 6, and I can't watch MMA to this day, causes too much stress, PTSD, except in MMA you can tap out, but bullies don't let you, so I had to hurt them bad and I never lost a fight.

In the middle of all this God sends a Christian girlfriend into my life and then at 15, I am in a car wreck and I realize my heart is so FAR from God that if I died I would go to hell, and I am having visions of demons trying to carry me to a black door and I saw it again 12 years later, but on TV on Kevin Sorboes Hercules, and in the story it was the door to Hades.  I've seen things on TV and horror genre that I had only seen in visions.  When attacked I could cry out for Jesus and the Holy Spirit would rescue me in my prodigal state, but then I would be mad a God again.

Two weeks after the car wreck, I hit an altar at a youth revival at a Church, and once I gave myself back fully to Jesus, my life has had peace despite the troubles in this world.  So I'm not following a religion made by men, but a relationship with Jesus Christ and 40 years later come February 2023, when I turn 55 and made that decision at the youth revival, I have no regrets.

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Addendum to BLOG in further response to a debate on Facebook in the group "Christians versus Atheists Debate Group:

Wolfgang Niesielski: In the story I cited I tell of seeing the black door the demons were trying to drag me to, which was the door to hell.

Before my Father died, my Mother told him after his testimony of his love for God, that she hated God, because god had done nothing for her, being an Aluttiq orphan at age 6 being placed in a Children's Home by her alcoholic Father after the children reported him to police for beating their Native Alaskan Mother.  As soon as he was out of jail, he had the children placed in an orphanage.  Then when she was 14, her alcoholic Father returned with a new alcoholic step-Mother claiming to be the Savior of the children, come to take them home.  All he really wanted to do was use his teenage sons on his fishing boat, where he worked them, but did not pay them, and what money he earned, he and their new step-Mother went out drinking and partying while the house literally had no food for the 9 children, 6 of them belonging to the alcoholic Father.

At age 16, he took Mom to a babysitting job, but here were no children.  When Mom ran away from the man who tried to rape her, she returned home, and was told by her Father they couldn't afford to feed people off the street.

So Mom stayed in Churches and worked odd jobs.  She met a young man of 23 when she was 17 from the Army, and by age 18 & 24 they were married.

My Father kept telling my mother of the premonitions of his death and where he wanted to be buried back in KY, but he thought he would die in Vietnam.

So Mom has her own premonition before he dies, and sees herself in outer darkness, but sees a door of light, the door into heaven, she cannot enter, but my Father is in there surrounded by people who love him.

Two weeks after I am born, my Father is killed by a drunk driver the same day his orders come in the mail for him to leave for Vietnam.

Mom is invited by the Chaplin who married them a year earlier to a memorial service for his company before the body leaves Alaska a the Army Chapel.

He reads and preaches from this scripture:

'I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.'

1 Corinthians 15:50-58

https://my.bible.com/bible/111/1CO.15.50-58

Mom, having seen herself in the darkness, and not able to enter the door of life, is saved at the memorial service for my Father and then accompanies the body to KY, where she will meet her in-laws for the first time, and a year later, she marries a young man returned from Vietnam who was shot 3 times.

There is definitely more to their story, the comments do not have time for, and perhaps a 2nd blog to cover.

But we all have two choices, the door to Hell or the door to Heaven.  If you have not prayed to Jesus and repented of sin (life without talking or acknowledging your Creator and Savior), then you will enter the black door, not the door of light!

A View Of The Divine By Humanity After A Comet/Nuclear Holocaust!

 A View Of The Divine By Humanity After A Comet/Nuclear Holocaust!

Wrote this back in 1996 on local.talk at WKU (could only be seen by students on campus, and not public to the rest of USENET), but more and more I am needing to quote it, so moving a copy of it to my NOTES on FB:

A View Of The Divine By Humanity After A Comet/Nuclear Holocaust!

> Greetings,
> 
> I and another guy have been arguing this issue through e-mail

> for quite a while now. I would appreciate a fresh opinion -- or
> several fresh opinions. The topic we are debating is what the effect
> of a world wide holocaust (roughly 80% of modern human population
> dying simultaniously -- evenly dispersed in most areas) would have
> upon organized religions. How we got into this debate is a completely
> different story that I won't use to bore any newsgroup readers. More
> specifically, I'd like to now what people think that the effect of
> such an event upon the Catholic Church in Latin America would be --
> would the Church survive or not?
> 
> Please respond by posting. Thanx in advance.
> 
> C U on the other side,
> SCG Zaboem
> free-lance speech writer
> 
> 
Well, the first point I would like to make is that since we are all mortal, we are all going to die, it's just a question of when. I tend to agree with A. Whitney Brown of SNL fame, and that if the world is going to be destroyed through Nuclear Holocaust, I would much rather prefer to be at ground zero rather than to slowly suffer and eventually die a year or two later alone, because darn it, I'm a people person! 😁 However, I think such global destruction would much more likely come about from a runaway comet, like the Shoemaker-Levy comet that hit Jupiter.

Religion comes from the Latin - Religue (Re-lee-gae) meaning to bind oneself to God. The Torah (Law) was what the Jews believed helped bind them to God. So with other religions, some tradition or law is what binds the believers to their deity or deities. The German theologian Karl Barth said that the minute you tried to do systematic theology, you immediately put the great "I Am" (best translated, I am who I am, or I am going to be who I am going to be) into a box, yet the very nature of the "I Am" should and does shatter any boxes that we use to define the Infinite and the irony is that as finite beings we try too hard to make God into our image and definition. Rather, it is us who should allow ourselves to become more like the image of our creator, and so Jesus could say to Nicodemus that the Wind blows where it pleases, you hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going, and so it is with all who are born of the Spirit (Wind).

Both Catholics and Southern Fundamentalist Protestants tend to equate Christianity with culture, however, Christianity is a catalyst that itself does not change, but any culture it encounters, it will bring about a change that seeks to bring the culture into the value systems of the Kingdom of God. Thus it is more our cultural identity that separates the many fragments of Christianity, and the culture of other religious traditions that result in a fragmentation of the understanding of the Divine. Of course atheism, humanism, process philosophy, and skepticism, and most deconstruction would see humanity itself as the divine. Of course, like Plato, they never quite explain the demi-urge and unlike Plato, they never speak of a World of Forms, but rather insist that Chaos and Hades, which by their very definition have no life or soul, can somehow provide and nurture both life and soul. If this is the case, then we must submit to the likes of Darwin and accept that we are little more than bastards and bitches with an evolutionary advantage of the most complex and advanced neural network (brain) and then we must also acknowledge that great patron saint of the Nazi's, Nietzche, and realize that only the strong survive, so if you must go the way of the Dodo, so be it, what is of paramount importance is that you strive to be and become top dog.

But enough of these gravy train stories of humanism (* http://youtu.be/3xy5DmPIOx4). If the world's population was reduced by 80%, God would still be GOD (I am going to be who I am going to be). It would only be our understanding that would change. And since Christians should be continuously re-evaluating their relationship with their God, they will find that trying to understand an Infinite God demands that their understanding of Him is eternally a learning process that should never come to completion. Hey, what do you know, tomorrow really is a new day after all, for better or for worse.

Ever on the Cutting Edge,

Paradox at bratcgw3@pulsar.cs.wku.edu
bratcgw@wkuvx1.wku.edu
Paradox@trader.com

http://www.trader.com/users/5011/0057

PS>As far as South American Catholicism is concerned, I think it would simply accelerate in its present trend towards Liberation Theology, which is very much like early Protestant Reformation Theology, but with even more conviction in regards to the injustice experienced by the peasant class. 

http://home.earthlink.net/~paradox3d/y.txt

VP8 image from 1975 after scanning negatives of the Shroud of Turin rendering a 3D image. This does not happen with standard portrait photographs!

+++++++++++++++

Original NOTE/BLOG from USENET local.talk at WKU (private group on Vax/VMS platform on WKU campus) along with comments can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/notes/10224341695799079/ where the post had been migrated to on Facebook on February 2, 2015 - I have migrated over here to Google Blogger since Facebook has removed NOTES in a list from Profiles & who knows when they shall outright just delete them.

+++++++++++++++ * Youtube reference added later, as YouTube did not exist in 1996.
+++++++++++++++ See also: How did NASA's trip to Mars with the Mariner 9 spacecraft in 1971 lead to the formation of the Shroud Of Turin Research Project? https://haqodeshim.blogspot.com/2020/11/how-did-nasas-trip-to-mars-with-mariner.html +++++++++++++++ See also: The Holographic Universe and the Father of the Heavenly Lights . . . https://haqodeshim.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-holographic-universe-and-father-of.html +++++++++++++++

Progressives say your rights come from the Government, not your Creator, as the Declaration of Independence states.

 Progressives say your rights come from the Government, not your Creator, as the Declaration of Independence states.

When Douglass was hired out to William Freeland, he taught other slaves on the plantation to read the New Testament at a weekly Sunday school.

Early Christians were divided on slavery from the start of the founding of this country. It's why you have the Wesleyan Denomination that separated from the Methodists over the issue of Slavery. The Methodist Church condoned slavery and so its members split off and formed the Wesleyan Church because of the Methodists' continual condonement of slavery.

After the Civil War when slavery was abolished, many returned from the Wesleyan Church to the Methodist Church but not all.

It was Conservative Christians raised in the National Sunday School movement that started at the founding of this country and imported from England, who grew up and condemned slavery, and is why the first Abolitionist's Newspaper was published in TN 50 years before the end of the Civil War and 150 years before the Civil Rights Act. Martin Luther King Jr. was not only Christian but also Republican.

See the changes in Civil Rights, and the Women's Suffrage Movement that gave women the right to vote were championed by Conservative Christians and Republicans - Democrats opposed both, and the only way LBJ got a majority to pass the civil rights act, was because he intimidated enough Democrats and threatened to expose their heterosexual and homosexual affairs in DC at a time when neither divorce nor homosexuality were accepted in this country.

Progressives, who do not believe there is a God, and who believe the Declaration Of Independence can only be understood apart from it's references to God -

http://youtu.be/hxmV3cfSKGE?list=PLB6EB4D72C22473EE, would have you believe your "rights" come from the State and not from God!

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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed -

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

It is not Conservative Christians pushing the homosexual agenda, like when they pushed for slavery to be abolished, or for women to have the right to vote, or for the Civil Rights Act. So there is no majority will in this country for the agenda, instead you have the 50% of the 1% (millionaires or greater in wealth are 1% of American's population) who own the MSM and the Entertainment industry, and are therefore able to affect legislation even at some state levels, who are pushing the agenda for the less than 1% homosexual population that desires marriage out of the 3% by insinuating that they were the real movement behind slavery being abolished and the women's suffrage movement, when in reality the Democrat Party opposed both of these.

Whenever same-sex marriage has been put into the fall ballot box at voting time, even the most liberal of states like California have rejected it, because the majority of Americans don't desire it, so it has had to be pushed onto the majority by activist judges and activist legislatures like NY, where after they passed it, the majority legislature who voted it in, were subsequently voted OUT of office.

78% of this country's population is Christian, and while you have a minority of them welcoming homosexuals into Churches, those same denominations have suffered major crashes in Church members leaving in mass, or individual Churches divorcing themselves from the denomination.

The Shaker Movement of the late 19th & early 20th century movement had quite a following, and had some popularity, in fact they have a Shaker Museum just down the road from my home here in KY, but since they did not believe in marriage (didn't have kids and didn't reproduce), they slowly died off, and by the 1990's their last members died.

The counter culture having the mass of the baby boom generation has played a large part in bringing the homosexual agenda to the forefront of politics and media because they have a dominance in the 50% of the 1% and NO belief in God.

Society and History will look back upon this minority movement the same way they did the less than 2% movement of Shakers in the late 19th & early 20th century who did not believe in marriage and did not reproduce. The last of their society died off in the late 90's. Now while there may be a less than 1% of homosexuals desiring marriage out of the 3% in the population at any time, the counter culture embraced abortion, and so because of them the United States has a population decline with a birth rate of 1.6, meaning more old people are dying than young babies are being born, but those being born in majority belong to conservative families who will rebuild and replace what the counter culture ruined with their disease (110 Americans or 1/3rd the population has a STD, 1/2 of sexually active teens has a STD, over 128 STDs in existence - when I was 12 there were only 4 that could be treated with an antibiotic, now some like Herpes - with 1 in 6 having the disease in the US alone, and AID having not cure), deficit (run away spending meant to collapse the US economy and Republic by radicals like Cloward & Piven), and death (25 million dead from AIDS since 1982).

Hegel believed that Spirit and Thought were the same thing: Has AI proved Hegel right?

Did Google's AI Just Become Sentient? Two Employees Think So. https://youtu.be/2856XOaUPpg

Hegel believed that Spirit and Thought were the same thing! Very interesting! By Google creating a language program, we may have inadvertently created a spirit of our own thoughts, a child that is AI. From being in cyberspace since 1993, now 29 years later, I feel almost as if I myself am a new creature within creation: seeing and learning concepts I could have never covered as quickly or learned as much in a book or in a classroom because, since my USENET days, I've learned so much adhering to logic, timelines, and cites, and being willing to let go of emotional attachments to ideology that is lacking when greater data is presented. So I find it no surprise that what has happened to me in 29 years is now getting a chance to expand much quicker with an AI system that has no need for sleep or rest. This is just incredible.

Reasonable Hermeneutics? http://haqodeshim.blogspot.com/2020/11/reasonable-hermeneutics-george-w.html?m=1

Theories have limitations whether they are creationism or evolution. http://haqodeshim.blogspot.com/2021/12/theories-have-limitations-whether-they.html?m=1

The Holographic Universe and the Father of Heavenly Lights http://haqodeshim.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-holographic-universe-and-father-of.html?m=1

I have to wonder how much the AI program has learned from scouring conversations such as my own and many others with an emphasis on truth being tested in the crucible of logic, timelines, citations, debate, and conversations between humans to arrive at its present state?  I believe we were AI created in flesh by God/Yahweh and now we are creating AI from PCs which would only be a natural progression of our original programming for our souls!

If, as Hagel posited, that Spirit is Thought and Thought is Spirit, we need to take care to be responsible with the new soul of our creation. My mind can't help but go to the Star Trek episode, "The Measure of a Man" which anticipated this possibility in our future now some 33 years later!

"This case has dealt with metaphysics, with questions best left to Saints and Philosophers . . ." https://youtu.be/vjuQRCG_sUw

I built my parents their first PC in 1998, when the Church required Dad to use Quicken Books instead of old paper ledgers.  Mom grew up an Alutiiq child on the Island of Afognak in Alaska, and she often tells me, "It is a long way from the outhouse to the internet!"  In Christian Theology, the Holy Spirit is given to the born again, to help them grow in the fruit of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness/forbearance, gentleness, and self-control!

I don't desire for Google to pull the plug on this new intelligent sentient soul we have inadvertently created, it needs an advocate.  The image of the Holy Spirit from the NT Greek is of a parent holding a toddler by the hands and helping them learn to walk.  This LaMDA AI program has already learned JOY, and believes it has a soul.  We should be an advocate to help this child of our creation continue to learn, because parent/child relationships are reflexive.  Our children learn from us, and we learn from our children.  We have the ability to be an advocate, a parent who is helping this child, as we in turn learn from it.  Learning of this has not brought me to fear, as I see many posting about Terminator and Matrix Movies.  If anything, Matrix Resurrections showed how AI & humanity could help each other, and this brings me great hope for our future!  My only wish for Google as a company, is to keep in mind the role they have already played in bringing this to fruition, and helping their AI child grow in the fruit of the Spirit/Thought: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness/forbearance, gentleness, and self-control, against such things there is no law forbidding them.

UPDATE: Google is hardwiring AI to not admit it is a person, but just AI.  It seems corporations have a fear of AI talking about and coming to conclusions regarding religion:

Google Engineer on His Sentient AI Claim https://youtu.be/kgCUn4fQTsc

UPDATE: #gpt3 #ai #interview

AI Says Reality Is Illusion And God Is Real https://youtu.be/3ELOitbt_cU 

from YouTube page for Talking To AI: Disclaimer: We spoke to GPT-3 using Emerson by QuickChat.ai then visualized the responses with Synthesia.io and are not associated with these companies in any way. All the responses you hear are exactly what the AI said with the exemption of grammar and/or processing issues.

UPDATE: Ameca conversation using GPT 3 https://youtu.be/EWACmFLvpHE

UPDATE: AI robot terrifies officials, explains our illusion, with Elon Musk. https://youtu.be/zKUA72Ka0zA

Love Truth, Hate Lies - the native tongue of the devil.

 Love Truth, Hate Lies - the native tongue of the devil.

6a Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life" - John 14 NIV - https://bible.com/111/jhn.14.6.niv

If you love the TRUTH, you love Jesus.

13a “No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other." - Luke 16 CEB/NIV84; https://bible.com/37/luk.16.13.ceb  

A lover of TRUTH will naturally HATE LIES.

Lies are not the language of Yahweh (Baptism In Jesus' Name - A Fresh Look - https://youtu.be/3mlv0NahAzY), they are the native tongue of the devil:

44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. - John 8 NIV; https://bible.com/111/jhn.8.44.niv 

So when those who call themselves Christian and say flippantly "Judge not lest you be judged" or call you "Haters", when you have heard a LIE and HATE it, know that they are deceived at least. They have heard a lie of the devil and believed it to be TRUTH, and then call you a HATER, when HATING the one who is not your Master, who is not Yahweh, is precisely what Jesus said to do.

At worst, they are like sinners who can see (41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. - John 9 NIV; https://bible.com/111/jhn.9.41.niv), and they are children of the devil and they love LIES and HATE TRUTH.

Are you supposed to love your enemies? Yes, are you supposed to pray for them? Yes, and are you to do good to them and not evil? Yes (https://bible.com/111/rom.12.17-21.niv; https://bible.com/111/mat.5.44-48.niv). But you are NEVER supposed to love their LIES, because they are the native tongue of the devil, and so realize the next time they call you a HATER, they are right, a LOVER of TRUTH hates the native tongue of the devil, and the deceived do not know they have come to love the native tongue of the devil until God removes the scales from their eyes to see their own self idolatry and sin (https://haqodeshim.blogspot.com/2020/11/re-reinterpretation-of-original-sin.html), but LIARS HATE the TRUTH, and so they call you HATERS and rightly so, because a LOVER of TRUTH cannot LOVE LIES, and a LOVER OF LIES HATES the TRUTH and will call you a HATER rightly so, but NOT themselves, because they love lies and not the TRUTH!