Still Alive

Like I said, a life lived in fear... I trust the Lord. It's important to note two things: 1. They were actually there. 2. Only a fraction of those that went were actually arrested.

But, but, what about this!:

You illustrate the problem. A life lived in fear is a life half lived. Why should I be afraid of "them" for merely wanting to go to a political rally where the actual president of the US is going to show up. It reminds me of being reprimanded for, in early 2020, calling Covid the "china virus" in an email title at work. It is the name the leader of the free world gave it. After that I quiet quit and retired 18 months later. I don't need that aggravation and, fortunately, don't have to play the corporate game any more. I had no idea the sense of freedom I would get from that, and enjoy to this day. I should have done it when I was 20, but I suppose I was not financially prepared. It's kinda weird, but now that I no longer pay taxes and own everything free and clear, I don't take any of the nonsense our government is spending our money on seriously My cost of living is literally 1/3 of my monthly SS payments. And if we ever find ourselves in a world where those stop, well, money will be the least of all of our problems...

For me the big tell was J6. There is no there, there, yet people have been incarcerated without trial. And some were tracked down to their homes and incarcerated as political prisoners simply because they were there. My wife wanted to go but I said no, because there is no way I'm going to DC unarmed, and it would have been illegal to do so, so we stayed home. What? Should they arrest me for wanting to go to a rally? Ridiculous. At least, it is in a sane world, not governed by despots.

There are two things that have eaten at me since I initially was saved and started studying the bible: 1. ECT. The more I read the bible, and became aware of the personality of God and how he deals with his enemies, the harder it was for me to adhere to that teaching. I eventually left it for CI. 2. The indwelling of the holy spirit. I've never "felt" it. They say we all have it, but I suppose I don't feel it in the same way a fish doesn't feel wet as it swims. It is simply in its environment, in the same way that I don't feel air pressure, though I'd definitely feel its absence if I took a space walk without a suit. Frankly, the Holy Spirit is quite literally the most mysterious thing about Christianity, at least for me. I "feel" its indwelling the same way I feel air pressure. i.e. I don't. And, frankly, I've never met anyone who could clearly quantify/qualify the spirit's indwelling. It seems to be one of those things that we all just say is real without tangible examples. In fact, my wife and I have experienced several miracles, including hearing God's audible voice and healings. But the holy spirit thing, regarding personal experience, baffles me. I honestly sometimes wonder if it is one of those things that was strictly a beginning of the church age things, to get it jump started. Kinda like pentacost. There was only one. It doesn't happen every week somewhere. It happened once.

According to the bible it will get worse than it ever has. And, frankly, I can imagine ways it can get a LOT worse. Imagine, for example, the whole world being run like Nazi Germany, or East Berlin in the 1960's. Or the days of Pol Pot. The rioters I see in the news every day remind me way too much of the Nazi brownshirts, if only in their attitudes.

Like I keep saying, 2024 is going to be one for the history books.

Yes. There are three important things: 1. It's an irrelevance if he did. 2. There is overwhelming evidence that he didn't. 3. A lot of the public believes he is guilty of ALL the charges, even running a "sex ring" in college. The bible mentioned this about the end days: He'll send a strong delusion. The amount of delusion coming from the left the last ten years is truly remarkable. It was bad in the past, but it has become, quite literally, insane. These are not reasonable people. You cannot even have an honest debate with them. They literally don't hear what you are saying and will try to shout you down. I've seen it and I've experienced it. We are in a huge cultural divide today the likes of which I've never seen in my lifetime in the US (70 years). I've even been cancelled on a couple of forums because of things I said back in 2020 that have turned out to be absolutely correct. "May you live in interesting times."

I'm seriously concerned that if they do stop trump we're going to have a shooting version of the Bundy Ranch standoff. And it probably won't be in just one geographical location. Sure, a lot of Christians support Trump, but a lot of stoics that are NOT Christian also do. They are not as well constrained as we are. When it is this obvious, they may push a lot of those people over the top, and there are a LOT of gun people in that group. And a lot of them are in our military. If trump runs and wins, then it's the "city burning" left we have to worry about. Like I said in my other post. We are living in historic times. 2024 is gonna be one for the history books.

I don't think he'll do any jail time. I don't think he'll get tried. As I hinted at in a previous post. The left focuses on the courtroom of public opinion. That's how they got Russel Brand cancelled without any courtroom shenanigans. It's just accusations. Yet here we are. But that doesn't work with Trump and, on a side note, I don't think it's going to work in the long run with Mr. Brand either. The DC case against trump depends on them convincing a jury that he knew the election was NOT stolen. But that's silly. It was stolen and he knows it and believes it. That case is dead. The only one they have is the documents at his home, and that one is so flaky as to be laughable. It's a parking ticket. The thing is, "they" no longer control the press. ALL of the popular talking heads on CNN are gone, and when Fox got rid of Carlson it created an uproar. What is comical is that EVERYONE was shocked by it and talked about it nonstop. Yet on the same day Don Lemon was sacked and nobody said anything. The reason? It made total sense. And Carlson is all over youtube, twitter and Rumble, but who is aware of what Lemon is doing? We live in interesting times.2024 will be one for the history books, Kinda like September 1, 1939 is a day for the history books. Buckle up.

I was talking to someone else about this whole thing and I realized it played into something I've said for decades: If the powers that be had a video recording of everything everyone did their entire life, we'd all be in prison. It appears they are digging for anything they can find to stop this guy, at all costs. The first example of it I actually saw was when they tried to block Kavanaugh because he tried to "feel up a girl"* at a party in high school, many decades ago. News flash, any guy that DIDN'T try that probably just never got the opportunity. The male teenage mind is a fascinating thing. Dinging him for it when he's in his 50's is just stupid. *I put that part in quotes because that is exactly how my female manager in her late 50's put it.

Yeah, it's just one of those "bad lip reading" videos. On your last sentence, have you seen the movie, Jo Jo Rabbit? It's a compelling comedy drama about a little boy that aspires to be a first class Hitler youth during the war in Berlin, and his mom is hiding a Jewish girl in the house. He also has an invisible friend he talks to all the time that we get to actually see. It's Hitler.

Maybe they are arguing that "he changed". Which causes me to recall a conversation I had about 30 years ago in the hot tub at the Turtle Bay Inn on the north shore of Oahu. It went on for about two hours (the hot tub wasn't all that hot). He was an ex-Hitler youth. And WWII history is one of my hobbies so I got to ask him a lot of questions about what it was really like. At the end of that two hours it was pretty clear that he was very sorry that they lost and thinks it would be a better world if they had won. But he had come to grips with reality.

It's time people debunk the debunkers. I've discovered that when someone says something has been debunked, they need to offer evidence. Too many times it has not been "debunked". Rather, someone just made a case against it. You might as well say the defenses case debunked the prosecution's case. i.e. it might have, or it might not have.

I normally vote "against" a candidate in presidential elections. There are only two years I voted "for" a candidate. 1980 - Ronald Reagan 2020 - Donald Trump. Notice 1984 and 2016 are not on that list. I'm hoping I get a chance in 2024 to vote "for" a candidate again, but I honestly believe there is surprisingly reasonable chance that we won't get to - vote at all, that is. I read an article about the hong kong mayor vote once. The jist was that the powers that be don't need to "control" who wins. They only need to control who is nominated. Think Bernie Sanders. I was no fan, but I think the powers that be simply wanted Hillary. And I suspect they wanted Jeb Bush, but Trump sorta nixed that.

When I used to argue this stuff a lot I used to say the problem with evolution is for them, life is like space aliens seeing a '57 chevy rusting away in a field, and saying the rust is what created it. The car is vastly simpler than even a single cell, yet we know it was created because we know the creator (man). It would be preposterous to say the tubes in the radio evolved from rust. Of course, if you don't know or believe in the creator, it's all you got.

With that I completely agree. Well said. BTW, that's why I'm not a fan of pure democracy, AKA mobocracy.

Are they smart, or are they just educated? Then again, everyone has biases and even smart people can let those biases get the best of them. Of education, knowledge and wisdom, the least is education and the greatest is wisdom...

It always cracks me up when someone defends their position with phrases like "we know so much more in modern times". Every time has been "modern times" - at the time.

That's good to know! I'm going to ask them about it when they come to visit us here in Kentucky. I confess that though I had a hard enough time with the "ever virgin" Mary teaching, this one was way over the top for me.

I used the phrase, "true Christians" only because I'm in "conversational mode". If I were writing an article about it, I'd be a lot more careful in my choice of words. And yes, my daughter and her husband are almost "pre-vatican II". She always wears head covering in church and attends mass 7 times a week. I am not "anti-catholic" but just like baptist, it's not for me. But I think it's exactly what she needs - something highly structured. She's a bit autistic and this gives her something to sink her teeth into. Frankly, her new husband is the same way. They say opposites attract, but in this case they are two sides of the same coin.

This is "coincidental". I'm reading through Luke this morning and that very chapter was part of it. And those very verses gave me pause. I sort of felt like Jesus was telling them to "lighten up and don't be so danged judgmental". 😉

Oddly, my "super catholic" daughter, once thought it was a cult, and I thought she was too hard on them. But as I discuss with her and her husband what they believe, I realize I've been convinced now that it is a cult - if only because they consider Catholics to be the only "true" Christians. Kinda like Mormonism.

My daughter and her new husband are now hard core Catholics. I mean "pre-vatican II". He used to be Greek Orthodox and she used to think the Catholic church was a cult. Anyway, I've discussed some of their odd beliefs with them, like the eucharist and Mary being ever virgin. But when I was visiting them in Seattle a month ago I was floored by another belief they have: The earth is the "literal" center of the universe. i.e. everything PHYSICALLY spins around the Earth, and the earth is solid, stable, and doesn't move. It's like talking with flat earthers and moon landing deniers. I honestly thought they were joking at first.

What you bring up is something that is very hard for people to discuss - that different people actually have different rewards, depending on how "good" they have been in this life. I agree with you regarding the Bema seat vs great white throne. Interestingly, I was a Christian for at least 10 years before I even realized there were two different "judgements". It was simply absent from any teaching I received and had to discover it for myself. The whole thing brings up the belief that there are two issues regarding the afterlife: 1. Salvation - which is all about his sacrifice. 2. Where you fall in the "pecking order" in the afterlife, which you CAN control by your actions in this life. And honestly, even wording it that way makes it hard to accept. That is, the idea that your condition after death really is partly controlled by you in this life. It makes "being good" almost a selfish act. Like working overtime to be able to afford that boat. BTW, you may have noticed by my tagline that I'm not an advocate of ECT, but fall in the CI camp... I think that if someone accepts Jesus free gift out of fear of hell they are doing it wrong. It completely misses the point. I think the fallacy of it is summed up here, and why it can be difficult to convert non believers with such a belief: