Adam Revisited

Before French philosopher René Descartes wrote these famous words: "Je pense, donc je suis" [1], "I think, therefore I am," there was Adam from the Garden of Eden. Would these words have entered Adam's mind?  Possibly, but not in that order.  Instead, Adam's words would probably be these: "I am, therefore I think."

Adam was God's creation.  He came into being in the flesh, conscious that he was being made but without awareness of who he was.  Adam could simply be without thinking, since he was provided with everything he would ever need, even though Adam was given the gift intellect and could think. However, at no time did Adam's cognitive ability precede his being. Therefore, he could not, unlike Descartes, first think, then conclude that he was.  Adam simply was, before he could even think.  Neither could Descartes think, in the literal sense, before he was, for if Descartes had never bothered to think, he still would have been a being of God's creation.

Perhaps Descartes' assertion, "I think, therefore I am," ought not to be taken literally; perhaps it went deeper.  Perhaps he was not saying that he was nothing but a heap of cells lumped together in some random fashion until he thought, when as a result of his own thoughts, he came to realize himself.  Perhaps he was saying that did not know who he was, what he was, how and why he came into being until he thought.  That would be a reasonable interpretation of his words since Descartes was educated in, among other disciplines, metaphysics. [2], [3].  Regardless of how Descartes intended his famous words to be read, literally or metaphysically, they did not apply to Adam.  Based on this blogger's assumptions, Adam did not have to think to know that he was Adam (God called him by that name), that he was made of flesh (he could feel it), that he came from God (he was given consciousness at some point while he was still in the making) and that he was made because of God's love (Adam's connection to God was so close that he knew instinctively why God created him).

Although Adam did not have a need to think, God nonetheless gave him intellect at some point after his creation.  It is possible that Adam did not use his intellect for quite some time.  In the Garden of Eden, time was irrelevant because it was timeless.  Adam could have been roaming around for centuries in the Garden of Eden, a place that could have been earth before it was riddled with pests and pestilences, enjoying life and spending time everywhere without being aware of time, his intellect and his sexuality, before he finally became bored, before Eve was made for him [4] and before he experienced the Serpent.  Because Adam was sinless at the beginning, he did not age nor did he know death.

All Adam needed to do as a human being in the perfect environment of Eden was to drink when he was thirsty, eat when he was hungry, rest when he was tired and carry out the remainder of his bodily functions and needs when necessary.  All of this is instinctual requiring no thought. With no worry and no stress, Adam had no reason for thought.  The Garden of Eden was the perfect vacation spot where the mind could be at rest.  Perhaps thought did not enter Adam until he was made to think about disobeying God, to be just like God, perhaps even better than God, in order to create a better Eden, as if he could.

Adam did not live long enough to create his Eden, but his descendants have not stopped trying to surpass God's natural perfection in the Garden of Eden, by filling the flip-side of Eden with artifices and modified substances.  If planet earth is Adam's Eden, it is a disaster in the making.

Man can only see so far--his lifetime and not much beyond, a moment in the course of eternity.  Therefore, his plans are necessarily short-sighted.  Even if they seem good, they only seem good to him during his lifetime, leaving behind by-products such as garbage and toxins for those in the next to clean up [5], until nothing can be done to dispose of generations of hazardous e-waste [6] that may never biodegrade and to neutralize higher and higher concentrations of toxins that are poisoning the air, the waters and the grounds.

New thoughts in a new generation do not solve problems created by the previous.  They only create new problems for the next, but thought, however defective and deceitful, however motivated by greed, power and profit, is here to stay.

Thought, driven by intellect, is the foundation of Free Will. Without thought, Free Will could not exist.  Free Will matters only when options are available.  Ironically, it was the Serpent, a creature of deceit, that gave Free Will its first option, whether or not to eat the Forbidden Apple, thereby perfecting God's gift of Free Will but forever tainting pure innocence

The death of natural innocence gave birth to unnatural thoughts.  It is possible that unnatural thoughts went into Adam's head after he sinned.  That was when René Descartes' words began to apply to Adam metaphysically when he would have to first think, before he was, because after he sinned, he realized that he had choices to be who he wanted to be, to do whatever he wanted to, to create whatever he wanted to create and think whatever he wanted to think, often times disrespecting Creation and destroying it as a result, without seeing any need for accountability, not in the spiritual sense.  Modern day adherents to those profound words of Descartes are Adam's descendants, including those who are transgender, who think; and therefore, they are.


[1] http://home.wlu.edu/~mahonj/Descartes.Bio.htm
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics/
[4] There has been some controversy as to how Eve was created after "biblical professor Ziony Zevit [suggested that] God made Eve from Adam's baculum, or penis bone" rather than Adam's rib. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3377487/God-Eve-Adam-s-PENIS-not-rib-claims-religious-academic.html
[5] http://listverse.com/2013/01/27/10-ways-recycling-hurts-the-environment/
[6] http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2013/e-waste.aspx

Before Genesis

From the Book of Genesis:

"In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth [,]...the earth was without form or shape, with darkness over the abyss and a mighty wind sweeping over the waters[.]  Then God said: Let there be light, and there was light.  God saw that the light was good. God then separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light 'day,' and the darkness he called 'night.' Evening came, and morning followed the first day." [1]

And so on ...

Genesis established that God was there at the beginning, but what was there before?

This entry attempts to reach back into the amorphous space before Genesis.  In it (more accurately, in this blogger's imagination), there was an indescribable love unknown to man.  This blogger calls it the Spirit of Love, an entity separate and apart from the Holy Spirit.  It was the Spirit of Love that gave existence to God and it was God that gave it its existence.  It does not matter if God came first or the Spirit of Love came first--for God could not be God without it and it would not have been nor would it want to be formed without God.  God and the Spirit of Love exist simultaneously for each other and indistinguishably from each other.  In this respect, these are the three most important words in the Bible: "God is love." [2]

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, perhaps the most erudite of all the popes, found those the three words to be so profound that he entitled his first Encyclical DEUS CARITAS EST, or "God Is Love," [3] in which he succinctly and eloquently linked the New Testament with the Old:

"Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Saint John's Gospel describes that event in these words: 'God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should ... have eternal life' (3:16). In acknowledging the centrality of love, Christian faith has retained the core of Israel's faith, while at the same time giving it new depth and breadth. The pious Jew prayed daily the words of the Book of Deuteronomy which expressed the heart of his existence: 'Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might' (6:4-5). Jesus united into a single precept this commandment of love for God and the commandment of love for neighbour found in the Book of Leviticus: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself' (19:18; cf. Mk 12:29-31). Since God has first loved us (cf. 1 Jn 4:10), love is now no longer a mere 'command'; it is the response to the gift of love with which God draws near to us." [4]

Pope Benedict XVI's paragraph above talks about different kinds of love but not the kind that is coextensive with the Spirit of Love, which is a living love, for lack of a better description.  Nowhere does the Bible mention this "living love" because it is imagined and beyond what man can comprehend.  In contrast, the kinds of love Pope Benedict XVI cited are the basic kinds of love that man supposedly knows, except that he really does not (besides self-love), and that man can act on, except that he will not.

First, he pointed out God's love for man, by citing the Gospel of John: "'God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should ... have eternal life' (3:16).'" [5]  How can man understand a love that requires a man to made just so that he can be sacrificed for the salvation of souls?  How does man know what response to give to a love that he cannot emulate?

The Pope then turned back the clock from the time of the New Testament and referred to the Book of Deuteronomy in which it asked man to love God with all  his heart, mind and soul. [6]  Is man willing to express that love (even if he knows how to) without leaving a portion of it for himself and his sins?

Not only was man asked to love God in Deuteronomy, but he was also asked to love his neighbor in the Book of Leviticus. [7]  When Jesus came to speak to man in the flesh and in his language, He affirmed the words in both books in the Old Testament, but stopped short of asking man to love as God loves.  In other words, man's love for God has been limited only to what man has, namely, his heart, mind and soul; likewise, man's love for neighbor has also been limited, to what man knows--how to love himself.

Expecting man to love in ways he is capable of and knows how to, to the best of his abilities, is reasonable.  To expect more would be impossible.  That impossibility does not apply to God.

Pope Benedict XVI did not say whether God's love for man is the full extent of God's love.  He only cited the Gospel of John describing how great God's love for the world was, by giving to the world God's only Son so that whoever believes in Him could have eternal life. [8]  That single act of love, great by any human standard, is not the limit of God's love.

God's love has no limits.  It is encompasses unconditional love but is not confined by it.  It extends to man, of course, but it also extends to things that are inanimate, such as a single rosary bead, whether it is a gemstone or a knot made from a piece of string, and things subatomic [9], or tinier, or bigger and abstract, like time and space.  It is also vast, as vast as the boundless universe.  And it is inexhaustible, for it is after all a "living love" that replenishes itself in abundance.

This overflowing love is in God but at the same time, it is a spiritual energy, a force of endless love that provides momentum to the creation of things functionally perfect and aesthetically pleasing (in God's eyes).  It is not God, and not a god.  It is what God is, and God is what it is: love.

It was this love that led to the creation of the universe described in the Book of Genesis.  It was out of this love that man was created in the image of God.  It is from this love that man derives meaning for his existence.  It was this love that joined seamlessly with the Holy Spirit to conceive the Son of God.  It was this love that kept burning in the Sacred Heart of Jesus that repelled all of Satan's temptations.  It is this love that has saved man from eternal death.  It is because of this love that creation is continuing, with new lives, new species [10] and new areas of the universe [11] being born.  And it is in this love, in God, that every question from before Genesis to beyond the present has an answer, even if irrational, for perfect love defies logic, and is above it.


[1] http://usccb.org/bible/genesis/1
[2] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+4:16
[3] http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20051225_deus-caritas-est.html
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] http://www.explainthatstuff.com/atoms.html
[10] http://earthsky.org/earth/top-10-new-species-of-2016
[11] http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-s-hubble-finds-universe-is-expanding-faster-than-expected

When Is Armageddon?

John Ramsden, writing for biblemagazine.com had an answer to the question: "So when will Armageddon Occur?" [1]  His answer was: "To be frank, we do not know!" [2]

Nor does this blogger know what day and year Christ will return but guesses that it is the day when every being, those who are capable of making choices, has chosen definitively whether to accept or reject God.  Is that day near?

This entry concludes that it is not because many have not quite made up their minds, including those who say that they are "spiritual" but do not care for any organized religion, Abrahamic [3] or not, Messianism [4]-based or not, and those who are generally good people who do not seem to have any time or need for God, at least not yet, as well as many more, like the scientifically-minded, who remain undecided, who are still looking for empirical evidence that God does not exist.

How difficult can it be to choose between (a) God and everything that is pure and holy, and (b) Satan and everything else that is tainted by sin--there is no (c).  Why vacillate?  It is so simple.  Pick either "a" or "b" and be done with it.

The people who are "on the fence" between good and evil, trying to pick between the two or, quite possibly wanting both, have just as much Free Will as anyone else.  Free Will allows one as much time as needed to reach a decision.

Whether the choice between God and Satan has to be made during one's lifetime up to as late as the moment of death, this blogger is not certain, not at this writing, even though the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: "Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification or immediately, -- or immediate and everlasting damnation." [Emphasis  added.] [5]

Can a spirit that has left the body be undecided?  If so, where would these beings go before Judgment Day, "[w]hen [Christ] comes...to judge the living and the dead?" [6]  They cannot be in Heaven because they have not accepted God, nor will Hell admit them because they are not sure if they want to be with God.  They cannot be in Purgatory since Purgatory is a place of purification and if they choose ultimately to reject God, then they would have committed a sin that cannot be purified.  Maybe the Catholic Church was right, maybe the deadline to choose is  at the moment of death, not after. [7]

Perhaps God will decide for those who cannot decide (and those who have not thought to decide as in sudden and early death cases) since Free Will expires at the moment of death, and that very last moment is too short for anyone, in particular, procrastinators, to reasonably make a fully-informed consent, especially when one's mental capacities are compromised by a combination of old-age, sickness and medication.  In arriving at a decision, perhaps God will take into consideration the totality of the person's goodness in life, looking to see if that person always had the inclination to love God but did not quite know how to go about expressing that love besides being generally kind and loving. That maybe enough to land one in Purgatory, for actions that are close to God-like are just as clear indications of acceptance of God as vocal professions of faith in God which could at times be hypocritical.  In contrast, those who had done evil deeds and refused to repent could mean that they had by will turned away from God and gravitated toward Satan, in which case, Heaven would likely be closed to them, even though they had not consciously rejected God in life or at death, and had always considered themselves to be "Christians."

God's decisions are swift, because God precedes time and knows beforehand what time and Free Will do not know. Therefore, there would not be a need to put undecided souls in transitional limbo while God reviews their records before rendering a judgment.  Maybe the Catholic Church should revise paragraph 1022 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church [8] to read: "Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment after (instead of "of") his death" since logistics does not even become an issue with God.

This minor change could just be semantics with no consequential effect.  Nonetheless, the change would seem to allow Free Will to be exercised up until, and including, the very moment of death.  That would be consistent with God's intention to have the gift of Free Will be maximized to its fullest extent.  Moreover, that would be consistent with God's patience and compassion which ought to encompass the very moment of death, thereby allowing Free Will one last chance to make its call before God steps in and makes the final call between eternal life and death immediately after, rather than at  the moment of death.

Satan, however, is not so nice.  It wants to have people reject God sooner than later.  It realizes that an overwhelming majority of people in the world are capable of making a final choice between good and evil.  For Satan, that is good enough.  It does not care about a relatively small number who are incapable of making such a choice, including infants and very small children, and those who are mentally handicapped, drugged-out, delirious and so on.

If what have been imagined above are true, then Armageddon will take place after those who have the ability to choose knowingly and irrevocably between God and Satan have all chosen.  Perhaps there would be a time when they would be forced to make such a choice by a supreme ruler, the Antichrist perhaps, with the ability to block access to anything electronically based, such as bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards, ATMs, fuel stations, health insurance and health care, cell phones and the internet, everywhere, until all those who can choose have made the choice, (a) or (b) (above). After that, the line can be clearly drawn between those who radiate truth and light and those who hide behind deceit [9] and in darkness.  The battle will be a spectacle as brightness and darkness collide, without ever resulting in any shade of grey.

The question that remains is when, exactly, will this final battle occur.  Only God knows [10].  This blogger nonetheless concludes that the day of Armageddon was ever so slightly further in the future when he was born than today.  If people continue to drift incrementally further away from God, then Armageddon will be incrementally closer to the present, unless people change, and that potential is always there, for people to return to God, their Creator.



[1] http://www.biblemagazine.com/magazine/vol-9/issue-1/armag.html
[2] Ibid.
[3] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religion
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianism
[5] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm at paragraph 1022.
[6] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c2a7.htm
[7] Maybe that was how the word "deadline" originated, or how it ought to have originated, being a line that separates eternal life from eternal death, the living from the dead, Free Will from no-Free Will, a line that is alive for the living but dead to the dead--a line that "dies" with death and cannot be revived--ergo "deadline."
[8] http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm
[9] Deceit here includes deceit of others and self-deceit.
[10] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24%3A36&version=NIV

Satan Not Taking Sides In The ISIL Fight

Satan does not care which side one is on in the ISIL conflict. So long as it keeps unfolding with suffering and death, Satan is happy.

ISIL killing other Muslims, as reported:

"ISIS and Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on Westerners is evil. 

"And as a white American from a Judeo-Christian background, I am repulsed by the fact that ISIS is targeting Christians in Syria and Iraq with brutal murder … including crucifixion. [And these crimes are invariably not reported by the Western media.] 

"But most victims of ISIS, Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorism are themselves Muslim.
"The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center – the United States government organization responsible for national and international counterterrorism efforts – reported in 2011 (page 14): 

"In cases where the religious affiliation of terrorism casualties could be determined, Muslims suffered between 82 and 97% of terrorism-related fatalities over the past five years." [1]

ISIL killing Christians, Yazidis and Shi’a Muslims, as reported:

" On March 17, for only the second time in American history, the secretary of state officially designated an ongoing genocide. Secretary John Kerry declared that Christians, as well as Yazidis and Shi’a Muslims, are suffering genocide at the hands of the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (also known as ISIL, ISIS and Islamic State). 

... 

"Two years ago, in the summer of 2014, ISIL stormed Nineveh and established its so-called caliphate, driving out, killing or capturing its entire Christian population, along with the Yazidis and other minority groups. Within ISIL-controlled territory in Iraq and Syria, all churches have been shut, desecrated or destroyed, all clergy have been assassinated or driven out, and no Christian community has been left intact. 

"Collectively numbering about 1.4 million before the U.S. invasion in 2003, Iraqi Christians now count only about 250,000, most of whom are in the Kurdistan region, with most of them deemed Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) living as refugees. Two-thirds of the Syrian Christian community, who numbered 2 million in 2011, are displaced. Both Syrian and Iraqi Christian survivors can be found as refugees in surrounding areas, in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, as well as in Kurdistan. 

"The Christian communities of Iraq and Syria are ancient ones with ties to the earliest Church. Some still pray in Aramaic, the language of Jesus of Nazareth and trace their religion to Thomas, one of the twelve, and to the Pentecost. Most of these Christians are Catholics or Orthodox but Protestants are also represented. The Eastern Catholic Churches – of the Chaldeans, the Syriacs, the Maronites, the Greek Melkites and the Armenians – are in communion with Rome. ISIL’s attacks are aimed at destroying all the Christian church communities." [2]

Two Muslims murdered in the United States, as reported:

"A gunman shot and killed an imam and his assistant on the street near their mosque in a working-class corner of Queens" on August 13, 2016, in New York. [3]  A suspect was later taken into custody. [4]

A scapegoat killing in the United States, as reported:

"Khalid Jabara,  [a 37-year old] Lebanese-American Christian man, was killed in Tulsa, Okla[homa, on August 12, 2016].  His alleged assailant was ['his 61-year old neighbor'] who repeatedly harassed his family with anti-Muslim, anti-Arab language." [5]

ISIL using civilians in retaliation against coalition forces, as reported:

"Islamic State fighters are reported to have abducted hundreds of Kurdish civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo, in retaliation for an offensive on its territory in a nearby area.
... 

"[S]ome of those taken captive have been forced to dig trenches in Isil-held areas while others are imprisoned in a detention centre. ... [A]ll captured males above the age of 12 were sent against their will to the front lines to help fortify Islamic State positions. 

'The terror group is sending civilians to the battlefronts in northern Syria in order to use them as human shields to claim that the western-backed SDF troops are killing innocent civilians...'" [6]

Russia bombing ISIL, as reported:

"Six Russian strategic bombers (Tupolev Tu-22M3) have conducted air strikes against a major ISIS camp and ammunition depots in Syria, the Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) reported on July 12[, 2016]." [7]

Russia bombing US-backed rebels in Syria, as reported:

"Russian aircraft on June 16 dropped cluster bombs on a New Syrian Army unit garrisoned at a base in al-Tanf, a remote desert outpost where the borders of Iraq, Syria and Jordan meet.   

"The New Syrian Army unit is a product of the American-backed train-and-equip program. Its mission is to fight Islamic State militants in Syria and to avoid confrontation with forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad." [8]

Chechen suicide bombers in Istanbul airport, as reported:

"Three suspected Isil jihadists from the former Soviet Union have been identified as being responsible for the attack on Istanbul airport, which left 43 dead and 230 injured." [9]

ISIL militants killing Nigerian soldiers, as reported:

"ISIS militants are shown conducting raids and killing soldiers with African government forces." [10]

 US airstrikes against ISIL, as reported:

"US-led coalition aircraft waged a series of deadly strikes against Islamic State around the city of Falluja on Wednesday, US officials told Reuters, with one citing a preliminary estimate of at least 250 suspected fighters killed and at least 40 vehicles destroyed." [11]

US airstrikes against Syrian civilians, as reported:

"A US air strike killed nearly 60 civilians, including children, in Syria on Tuesday after the coalition mistook them for Islamic State (Isil) fighters." [12]

The reports above are just a sampling.  New ones will be written.  They do not seem to end, but this entry has to end. The fight continues and the only one winning is Satan.

With Satan winning, does that mean God is losing?  No, God is not losing.  God is merely allowing man's Free Will to run its course.  God certainly has the power to end all wars by creating conditions so that jets cannot fly, weapons do not fire and plans to kill cannot be carried out, and to remove all conflicts by taking away man's Free Will, giving man no choice but to obey God.  If God intervenes like that, then man would be like robots, no longer a creation in the image of his Creator.  If a robot was what God wanted, Android, instead of Adam, would have been made.

Absolute obedience to God would have made perfect sense if God's will is to be done perfectly, but that is not perfection. Perfection is a paradox: it can only be had if it can be rejected.

[1] http://www.globalresearch.ca/muslims-are-the-victims-of-between-82-and-97-of-terrorism-related-fatalities-us-government/5516565
[2] http://www.copticsolidarity.org/2016/07/26/genocide-of-christians-in-the-path-of-isil-an-interview-with-cardinal-theodore-mccarrick/
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/13/nyregion/queens-mosque-shooting.html?_r=0
[4] http://religionnews.com/2016/08/13/muslim-cleric-and-associate-shot-to-death-on-new-york-street/
[5] http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/in-arab-christians-murder-some-see-deadly-american-cultural-tensions-53040/
[6] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/25/isil-kidnaps-900-kurds-and-forces-them-to-fight-for-terror-group/
[7] https://southfront.org/syrian-war-report-july-13-2016-russian-strategic-bombers-strike-isis/
[8] http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/2016/06/23/why-did-russia-bomb-american-backed-syria-rebels/86289354/
[9] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/30/chechen-islamic-state-fighter-named-as-one-of-istanbul-airport-s/
[10] http://heavy.com/news/2016/08/new-isis-islamic-state-daesh-amaq-amaaq-news-pictures-videos-abubakar-shekau-boko-haram-isis-video-west-africa-full-uncensored-youtube-video-mp4-download/
[11] http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/ISIS-Threat/WATCH-250-ISIS-fighters-killed-in-deadliest-ever-US-airstrikes-against-the-group-459148
[12] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/19/us-air-strike-in-syria-kills-up-to-85-civilians-mistaken-for-isi/

The First Sculptor And Artist

While human artworks depend on the use of, for the most part, the static natural resources of earth provided by Creation, God the Creator, the first sculptor and artist, works with matters that change biologically and chemically with the progression of time and with every disturbance affecting the natural and delicate equilibria of Mother Nature on land, in the air and in the sea.

The photographs below were taken by Mark Watkins and Corey Donohoe [1]:

FACEBOOK/ MARK WATKINS

FACEBOOK/ MARK WATKINS

FACEBOOK/ COREY DONOHOE

"Mark Watkins, 36, was out fishing with his dad south of Perth when they spotted the alien-looking pink sphere.

"The pair originally thought it was a capsized boat, then maybe a fallen hot air balloon.

"But once they got closer they were surprised to see it was the swollen corpse of a dead whale." [2]

With documented reports and images such as these, how can anyone think that life on earth can be the result of a "big bang," [3] leading to a series of random occurrences giving rise to the first signs of life on planet earth [4], a speck of dust in the entire universe [5], followed by a Godless evolution of natural selection [6]?  How can the sun and the earth be so perfectly formed and aligned so as to provide all the sustenances necessary for all the species to claim their existences on this planet?  Science has no answer.

The insufficiencies of science to provide satisfactory explanations have not deterred man from continuing to rely on science to theorize on existences, such as the universe's, the earth's and his own, even though all those theories are flawed.  The more man sees, the less he knows.  Using whales as an example, man has seen and identified various different types [7], but when the photographs of a dead whale were published (see above), there must have been questions, such as, why did that whale die, when did it start swelling, why did the swelling stop short of bursting, how many dead whales become swollen until the skin is stretched to reveal a pink color [8], why is the stretched skin pink, why can it not be grey or any other color and why are dead pink-colored whales floating in the ocean not as common a sighting as beached whales, to which man has no answer.

Therefore, it would be reasonable to conclude that human knowledge remains primitive and human intellect continues to be partially blind, with man's sight restricted by what he is able to observe objectively, which does not extend beyond the limits of his past and his future, unless his Creator has permitted him to have a glimpse of his beginnings and his endings.  Even then, he remains confounded by the immensity and complexities of what lies in the realm of humanly undefinable time-space continuum and more so by the purposes and meanings behind all of it.

Perhaps man's life is not meant to be fully known, regardless of how many apples man continues to eat from all the trees of knowledge everywhere, and understood, but to be lived simply, guided by his instincts to love and be loved, as it was with Adam and Eve at the beginning, before they sinned. Perhaps man, having received his gift of Free Will, had developed the desire to go full circle under the Serpent's temptation, to experience what lies at the opposite end of the Garden of Eden [9], in order to verify for himself what he had been given was perfection.

Perfection is not a concept, but a reality.  This world is not perfect, but Heaven is, and so is Hell.  Heaven is a perfect place for those who love God; Hell is a perfect place for those who reject God.

Heaven, as was the Garden of Eden, is, in this blogger's imagination, a living and dynamic timeless and borderless sculpture of ineffable beauty that changes perpetually. Unlike the artworks of man, it is to not to be hung on a wall or placed on a pedestal and dwelled upon, but rather it is for one to enter into, to dwell in fulfillment, peace and happiness that God provides continuously with an abundance of love.

Hell is also an artistic creation with an unassuming but dreaded entrance into eternity with countless mutations of death and decay.  Those in it have to confront their own inescapable past and suffer torments beyond imagination, or, are deformed down to a complete void, with a total absence of hope in varying states of painful non-existence, to Satan's endless delight.


[1] http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/694952/Fisherman-Mark-Watkins-Australia-Perth-dead-whale-corpse-bloated-pink-ball-sharks-eating
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html
[4] http://phys.org/news/2015-03-chemists-riddle-life-began-earth.html
[5] http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/610004/Largest-star-in-universe-Earth-and-sun-scale-image-red-hyper-giant-VY-Canis-Majoris
[6] http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_14
[7] http://marinelife.about.com/od/vertebrates/tp/typesofcetaceans.htm
[8] https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1524651/confused-fishermen-spot-alien-like-creature-floating-in-the-ocean-being-eaten-by-sharks-off-the-coast-of-australia/
[9] God never created the flip side of the Garden of Eden.  It is in the making, by man himself, as he continues to fall deeper and deeper into sin, by being oblivious to God's existence, and living in a constant state of moral turpitude sanitized by self-righteous, secularist moral relativism.

The Consummate Politician

These are the words from the consummate politician and bureaucrat, the pope: "'the Church doesn't need bureaucrats and diligent office workers but impassioned missionaries consumed by the ardour of bringing to all people the consoling words of Christ.'"

Like all deft politicians, the pope of course did not mean what he said.  The Church needs its bureaucrats and office workers.  It could not function without them.  In fact, the Church is full of bureaucrats that run the various departments within the Holy See [2], and workers are needed to perform chores that are perfunctory.

Telling the world what the Church does not need, bureaucrats and office workers, is only the first part of the pope's loaded statement from the pope's convoluted mind, and it is already problematic.

Then the pope wanted all his staff be be "impassioned missionaries."

The Vatican bureaucrats, many of whom are men of cloth, are supposedly trained to become missionaries, but they are probably so consumed by work and internal politics that they do not even have time to pray, let alone act as "impassioned missionaries."  And if they are truly passionate about certain issues, they are not all in agreement. [3]  Does the pope want his "impassioned missionaries" with opposing views to preach to the same flock?

The last part of the pope's statement is equally twisted. What did the pope have in mind when he referred to the "consoling words of Christ?"  Indeed, some of Christ's words are consoling, but some are not.  Should "impassioned missionaries" only focus on Christ's words of comfort and forget about the rest?

In a secular and permissive world, only words of comfort are heeded, and therefore only such words are spoken.  This pope, being a street-smart politician, is only concerned with what people want to hear, the words of Christ that console, but not the words of Christ that people do not care to hear, words that are preachy.

For example, Jesus said, "'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.'" [4]  The first part is reassuring, as if "rest" can be had just by relaxing on a sofa with snacks and drinks in front of a television, but before one can even sit down comes the difficult second part which states the conditions to finding "rest."  Jesus made them sound easy: "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart." [5]  And He made sure everyone understood how easy they were by saying that "my yoke is easy and my burden is light." [6].  That may be true for one who is truly a saint, but for the common sinner, it is not so easy being "gentle" and "humble" like Jesus carrying His "yolk" at the same time.  Is not His "yolk" His heavy wooden crucifixion cross that he had to drag uphill to Golgotha?  Is not His metaphoric "yolk" His crucifixion?  [7] Who wants to hear about carrying Jesus' "yolk?"  Not many--even less who actually wants to and can carry it--and this pope is not about to bring it up anytime soon.

Jesus also said, "'[D]o not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" For the pagans [i.e. the modern "secularists"] run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.'"  [8]  Here, as in the previous example, Jesus had initially comforted all by telling everyone not to worry about what to eat, drink or wear, for example, when inviting friends over for a party.  That sounds great but then in order not to worry, one must "'seek first [God's] kingdom and [God's] righteousness'" [9] (as opposed to submitting to and embracing the self-righteousness of the "highly evolved" secularists of the world). [Emphasis  added].  Seeking God's kingdom and God's righteousness first before  throwing a party in order not to worry about what food and drinks to get and what to wear?  Who does that?

Hardly anyone thinks about God these days.  ISIL is probably on people's minds more often than God.  If Jesus were here talking about ISIL, His words could be the same as those He said during His time: "'Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul,'" [10]  Jesus then asked, "'Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?'" [11].  And concluded, "'Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.  And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.'" [12]  Before that, Jesus said this: "'[B]e afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.'" [13] Although the first words Jesus said about killers who could not kill the soul could be reassuring (even though it may be not all that comforting for those being savagely maimed or killed), the words that follow, talking about "the One" who can "destroy both soul and body in hell" certainly do not sound like words that console.

When the pope said the Church needed "impassioned missionaries" to bring the "consoling words of Christ" to all the people, was he deliberately striking out the "not-so-consoling" words of Christ?  If that is the case, he is no different than the seasoned politicians who only say things their supporters want to hear, and omit the difficult and unwelcomed realities.


[1] http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/08/14/pope_at_angelus_church_needs_missionaries_not_bureaucrats/1251347
[2] http://www.vaticanstate.va/content/vaticanstate/en/stato-e-governo/struttura-del-governatorato/organigramma.html
[3] https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/vatican-website-miquotes-pope-francis-on-communion-for-the-divorced-and-rem; and
http://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/pope-francis-no-communion-for-divorced-and-remarried
[4] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+11%3A25-39&version=NIV
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Jesus said, "'[M]y yoke is easy and my burden is light.'" Ibid. Is this statement inconsistent with the actual weight of the cross Jesus had to carry and the burden of pain and suffering He had to endure?  The answer is no.  The betrayal, the arrest, the false accusations, the scourging, the crown of thorns, the carrying of the cross, the crucifixion and the piercing taken together is the "yolk," but not the "yolk" of Jesus, but the "yolk" of man.  Man's "yolk" is heavy because of the weight of Original Sin and all its variations.  In contrast, Jesus own "yolk" is easy to carry because He is sinless, and therefore His "yolk" is correspondingly weightless.  When Jesus said that His yolk was easy and His burden light, He was talking about His sinless "yolk" and not the "yolk" of Sin. So when Jesus said to learn from Him, to be humble and gentle like Him, then one would have taken His "yolk" which is light (actually weightless) and easy to carry (actually there's no need to carry it for Jesus does not have a "yolk."
[8] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6%3A22-34&version=NIV
[9] Ibid.
[10] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+10%3A21-30&version=NIV
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.

A Photograph Of A Woman With The Pope

"Pope Francis meets with former prostitutes assisted by the Pope John XXIII Community in Rome Aug. 12, 2016. Credit: L'Osservatore Romano." [1]

Seeing the pope caressing the face of a woman in the photograph above had initially evoked a combined sentiment of love, kindness and compassion.  That wonderfulness vanished after reading the article that followed, quoted in part: "On Aug. 12 [the pope] met the 20 women, all of whom have suffered severe physical violence  and live under protection, who are cared for at the 'Pope John XXIII Community' in Rome. Pope Francis has met with members of the community at the Vatican on several occasions." [2] [Emphasis added.]  It is "a special community for women freed from prostitution and violent abuse." [3]

Call this blogger a cynic, an unrepentant sinner, because in his subjective opinion, what the pope was doing was not done with a heart of absolute purity, the Heart of Jesus.  He hopes to be wrong, and would be glad to change his opinion. At this time, however, he is somewhat troubled because he had sensed that something Satanic had overcome the pontiff.  May the Lord forgive him if he had sensed wrong, and forgive the pope if he had sensed right.

Above is a photograph frozen in time, not a video.  Whatever the woman's movements were before and after the picture was taken, only those present at the scene would know for certain.  This blogger will speculate, rightly or wrongly, that all of the things that could have been been going through her mind when the pope approached her and touched her, none of them, in his opinion, was gratitude.

If this blogger could be so impertinent as to create a fiction (a silent soliloquy if there is even such a thing), inspired by the photograph, and manufacture words that have never existed, these would be the words (from his deranged mind): "I do not need your pity.  I have gone through a lot and I have managed to survive.  Why do you feel me in this way? Is it necessary for you to put your head right next to mine?  I do not care to smell your body odor and feel your body heat. Why can't you simply just touch my hands, and communicate to me nonverbally the sort of kindness and unconditional love that Jesus communicated to 'Peter's mother-in-law [who was] lying in bed with a fever'? [4] Yours is a touch I had felt many times before.  It is not a touch of unconditional love.  It is a touch of desire, a desire I have no interest in fulfilling.  It is a touch that is disgusting to me, but I cannot defend myself, like I was unable to defend myself so many times in the past, when I had been sexually abused, so I will shut off my mind and my feelings toward you.  I will remain motionless, as if I were an object for you to get as close to as you please, to touch as you please, to caress as you please, for as long as you please.  Whoever you are, whatever your clothing represents, I am not impressed. You are but just another dirty old man.  Must you betray your conscience with this unwelcomed embrace?  Do it quickly and be gone, and leave me alone."  This blogger apologizes to this woman if his fictional non-verbalized soliloquy inspired by the photograph above offends her in any way.  However, if this "art" of imagined words that had been put together did in some small way turn out to imitate life, then the time spent in creating it would not have been a total waste.

While dreaming up such a fictional soliloquy, this blogger kept wondering why the pope found it important to meet with members of the community of women (now supposedly protected from sexual and violent abuse) "on several occasions" at the Vatican, as reported.  This pope seemed to have quite a bit of spare time on his hands to meet with a specific category of victims multiple times.  Were there no other groups of victims to meet, such as victims of pedophiliac priests, so that pictures of him hugging those victims in the same manner as he hugged the woman in the photograph can be taken?  Did he not have time for them?



[1] http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/former-prostitutes-get-special-visit-from-pope-francis-81221/
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+8%3A14-15

How Much Is A US Penny Worth?

A United States penny is worth at least its face value of one cent unless it is a 1792 silver cent which on August 10, 2016, was sold for $352,500 at an auction. [1]  Another penny, "a 1792 Birch Cent," went for $517,000. [2] See photos below [3]:

"The 1792 Silver Center Cent. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions."

"The 1792 Birch Cent. Courtesy of Heritage Auctions."

The number of people on the planet, like the number of United States pennies, although not as many, are numerous. There are "somewhere between 200,000,000,000 and 250,000,000,000 pennies in circulation." [4]  "As of March 2016, [the world's population] was estimated at 7.4 billion, an all-time record high," [5] about 33 times less than there are pennies.

It would take a stretch of the imagination to draw parallels between coins and people, but then many of the entries in this blog had been written with the imagination stretched to its limits, sometimes even beyond, if that is possible.

A coin may be rare, but it is usually never the only coin produced.  Michael Phelps' athletic abilities are rare, but there could conceivably be someone, at some point in time, who could match or break his impressive record thus far, even though it may take another 2,168 years [6], or more, to happen.  Such rarity is prized, and is often measured by dollars, as in the case of two rare pennies, fetching a combined sum of US$869,500. [7]  Likewise, Phelps' abilities can also be expressed in dollars.  "Phelps' eight gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics launched an array of endorsements. His net worth is estimated at $55 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth." [8]  It would likely be a whole lot more after his record breaking event this year at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. [9]

Olympic swimmers of every nation, unlike some professional athletes [10] are not traded like rare coins that are being bought and sold in the marketplace [11] or (for comparison purposes only) sold like the slaves in the present age [12], but after their Olympic careers are over, they too, would be like everyone else who has to find a way to earn a living [13]. Humans, like their rare coins that can fetch money in the marketplace, can resort to their youth, beauty, talents, intellect, knowledge, abilities (to do good things and bad), skills [14] and so on to make money.

A person is not a commodity, and is not "rare" as if there exists a few more of the same one.  Every single person ever existed is unique.  Even identical twins are not identical. [15] That uniqueness spans across time, from the beginning of time, if time even has a beginning.

Uniqueness is the fingerprint of Divine Creation.  Each person created is unique even though each person is created in the image of God, although not identical to God.  Each snow flake that falls from Heaven is also unique, given the almost-zero possibility that two would be identical. [16], [17].

Granted that there could be non-divinely created mass-made items, and not-so-mass-made items such as the rare coins mentioned above, when examined under a microscope, because of imperfections, in which no two are alike, but then from where do these man-made items come from, something entirely man-made, or God-created?  Is there anything on earth that does not originate from earth's non-duplicable natural resources given to man by God so that he may have life?  This blogger cannot think of any.  Even man is from dust [18], with trace minerals [19] appearing in the living body.

Earth's natural elements can be found in the dust and in mines around the world, but the supply is finite.  As they are being continually exploited and consumed, each element will dwindle and become increasingly rare.  If rarity can command a high value, then uniqueness ought to be priceless.   Perhaps the rare coins that were auctioned off recently were mispriced. Perhaps they ought to be priceless just like anything that is made out of the earth's resources, including the billions of common one-cent pennies that are in circulation.

Anything, however plentiful, that has been made with unreplenishable raw materials, ought to be revered, put to good use for the good of mankind, and not be transformed chemically or biologically, so as to make unnatural what is natural, or exploited for the sole purpose of profit.  That, of course, is only something to be imagined, for not in this age, at least not in this blogger's lifetime, will Divine Creation be respected, let alone adored, for it is continually being secularized, monetized and traded, just like the very gift of life that has been taken for granted, cheapened by money, measured penny by penny, as if it is even worth that much in the eyes of some, especially those who are in accord with Satan's view that all humans are worthless (with the exception of themselves in their minds--not in Satan's), even though in God's eyes, each life that has been created from Adam onward is special, unique, loved and irreplaceable.


[1] https://news.artnet.com/market/heritage-auctions-sells-two-18th-century-pennies-870k-603899
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] http://www.gotcents.org/pennyfacts.html
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
[6] http://www.sbnation.com/2016/8/9/12419516/michael-phelps-gold-medal-record-leonidas-of-rhodes
[7] https://news.artnet.com/market/heritage-auctions-sells-two-18th-century-pennies-870k-603899
[8] http://heavy.com/sports/2016/08/michael-phelps-net-worth-salary-endorsements-house-sponsorship-deals-medals-career-stats-olympics-rio-how-much-money/
[9] http://www.sbnation.com/2016/8/9/12419516/michael-phelps-gold-medal-record-leonidas-of-rhodes and http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/12/sports/olympics/michael-phelps-200-im-ryan-lochte-leonidas.html
[10] http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2108800-athletes-who-were-traded-for-absurd-things
[11] https://www.blanchardgold.com/market-news/the-longview/rare-coin-market-looks-strong-in-2016-and-beyond-heres-what-to-collect/
[12] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-sex-trafficking-slaves-torture-crucifix-table-lebanon-a7167576.html
[13] http://www.sportsmanagementdegreehub.com/olympic-athletes-salaries/
[14] https://www.hrbartender.com/2013/recruiting/the-difference-between-knowledge-skills-and-abilities/
[15] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/identical-twins-genes-are-not-identical/
[16] https://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/alike/alike.htm
[17] Quoted from the article cited above in [15]: "Some things in Nature are exactly alike.  For example, our understanding of elementary particles indicates that all electrons are exactly, precisely the same.  This is one of the cornerstones of quantum physics, and if you think for a bit you will see that this is a profound statement.  Electrons are true elementary particles, in that they have no component parts; thus they are all exactly alike."  That is a conclusion, not a direct observation and as such, it is not identical to a fact which is an inalterable truth. This blogger has never studied quantum physics, and has never seen a electron, and probably nor has anyone seen it with precision to come to any definitive conclusion that all electrons are identical. Indeed, they could have infinitesimal differences that make each of them unique.  "We can never see the subatomic particles directly, but can only infer from observation of such indirect effects like tracks.  If there are many of them and they are emitting some radiation, and also if we shine some radiation on the[m] and receive back the response this will also constitute a kind of seeing."  See
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_it_possible_to_view_any_sub-atomic_particles_like_electron_proton_or_neutron  Such kind of "seeing" is seeing what one thinks one ought to be seeing but not actually observing a fact and seeing its truth. In other words, one can "see" anything the brain wants one to see, including identical electrons, identical neutrons and identical protons without absolute proof that any of them are, in their respective group, truly identical.
[18] https://.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2:7, and http://www.catholic.org/clife/lent/story.php?id=32254
[19] http://www.traceminerals.com/trace-minerals/why-you-need-ionic-minerals

Middlesex

This entry has nothing to do with "a county in southeast England" [1] called Middlesex but everything to do with the "'annihilation of man as image of God.'" [2]  "The Williams Institute says there are nearly 700,000 people living publicly as transgender in the U.S.  Each one is unique, and their journeys are personal.  Some say they are the opposite sex of what they were assigned at birth.  Some feel they are both male and female. Still others don't identify as either gender." [3]

Whether one considers oneself as "the opposite sex," "both male and female" or neither male nor female, this blogger considers them all to be "middlesex," a gender somewhere along the continuum between male and female, although not necessarily positioned right in the middle--in that way, the term used here is somewhat of a misnomer.

Indeed, every man and women exists along this continuum in terms of how they behave and how they look.  Men who have a hint of feminine features have been called "cute" and women with a dose of masculinity have in some cases chosen fighting as their profession.

Neither men who are "cute" nor women who make their living by fighting were the people the pope was addressing.  He was talking about the middlesexers who do not agree with their biological anatomy announced by the delivery room doctor who when "a child is born, ... says, 'It’s a boy' or 'It’s a girl,'" [4] except that nowadays, pregnant mothers can find out the gender of their babies when they have their ultrasound. [5]  Even then, the ultrasound technician is not going to tell an expectant mother that her baby is a middlesexer as opposed to a boy or a girl because "middlesex" is a state of mind, not an immutable physical characteristic that will show up on the ultrasound, but that is not stopping some people from wanting their birth gender reassigned and/or mutilated.

"[The pope on August 3, 2016,] said: 'Today, in schools they are teaching this to children – to children! – that everyone can choose their gender.' Without specifying, he blamed this on textbooks supplied by 'persons and institutions who donate money'. The pope blamed what he called 'ideological colonizing' backed by 'very influential countries', which he did not identify." [6]

"[The pope] argued that any attempt to cancel our differences in the two genders is merely an indicator that society 'no longer knows how to deal with it.'  He [also] deride[d] any ideology that 'denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family.'" [7]  "[H]is predecessor, [Emeritus Pope] Benedict XVI ha[d] labeled [gender alteration] 'the epoch of sin against God the Creator.'" [8]

Both popes are right.  It is by no mistake that God created man to be male and female and not any other gender.  To reject the gift of Creation is to reject Creation itself.  In a letter, the pope "state[d] that 'the young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created' since believing we have 'absolute power over our own bodies' might lead to the belief that 'we enjoy absolute power over creation.'" [9] In fact, it is Satan that truly wants to have power over God's creation, to destroy God's most beloved creation of all, man.

Stating the obvious does not explain how this phenomenon has arisen.  Could it be a genetic mutation, a psychological imbalance of some sort, or a Satanic possession that occurred at some point?  This blogger does not know, but he does know (restating the obvious) that Satan wants people to reject themselves who bear the image of God, thereby rejecting God and all of creation.  Therefore, not only those who are middlesexers, but also those who endorse gender alteration, are doing Satan's work, by supporting conversions from human, in a natural state of being, to mutant, in an unnatural state of existence.

Rejection of Divine Creation means the acceptance of a substitute creation, made possible by the replacement of biologically organic life and naturally derived freedoms with artificially-constructed realities and legislation-enforced rights.

Gender is part of Divine Creation.  It is not a cancer to be excised or a birth defect to be corrected, or some kind of physical handicap.  Middlesexers can hold a job just like any male or female, and they can do things in life just like their non-transgender relatives and friends.  Perhaps they can even do things that would make this world a better place for everyone, things that neither males nor females in their traditional gender roles would ever think of doing, because middlesexers have unique mental states that are inaccessible to others, and they can do them without having to alter their physical characteristics (sometimes, it is out of suffering that the best of human's potential can be known and realized).

Why, then, are middlesexers given so much attention?  And where do the supporters of middlesexers come from?  Two middlesex parents?  Can they even procreate after their sex-change operations?  Are middlesexers so disordered that they ought to be relegated to the fringes of society?  This blogger thinks not: they are part of society's fabric as much as anyone else.  Within it, every person is different with unique hardships to endure and pains to suffer.  Many understand that to be life, and do not call attention to themselves and are not given public attention, unlike people with gender conflicts.

The middlesex bell has rung, however, and it is still ringing. The clarion call has been heard by governments, in schools and churches.  Have middlesexers benefited from all this attention?

Life for them would probably not be any more pleasant with the attention than without it, for self-hate is a personal burden that cannot be lifted by society.  Most people are likely not responding well to their demands, perhaps not even their most ardent advocates (only in private, of course, especially when extra costs have to be incurred by their businesses to accommodate the special needs of middlesexers, and having to deal with those who simply do not like being in the presence of middlesexers--and there are many more of these in the world than there are closet-racists).

Perhaps middlesexers are merely pawns of those who are liberal and radicalized, secular and Satanic, using them as ammunition against those who are centrist or conservative, religious and God-loving, to irk them.  If there is a war that is undeclared, this is one. [10]

Middlesexers ought not to be caught in the middle of a political a war among centrists, leftists and rightists.  If middlesexness is a mental disorder, then middlesexers ought to receive care.  If not, then they ought not to be given any special treatment, from the use of washrooms [11] to having books in school that encourage gender deviance and choice.

This is not draconian.  Of course middlesexers feel pain in their lives, like some others who also do not feel like they fit in, and are suffering deeply, a kind of pain that nobody in the secular world cares about or understands since it is spiritual. Because their pain stems from the longing for the love of God and are not aligned with the values of a permissive, increasingly radicalized, secular, liberal and hypocritical [12] society, these sufferers are invisible and therefore politically mute.  Nobody actually suffering under this kind of spiritual pain has come to this blogger's mind but he hopes that some do exist, for their very existence gives hope to mankind.


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesex
[2] http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/08/pope-francis-denounces-transgender-people-annihilation-man/
[3] http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/transgender-what-it-means
[4] Ibid.
[5] http://www.parents.com/pregnancy/stages/ultrasound/ultrasound-accuracy-is-it-a-boy-or-a-girl/
[6] http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/08/pope-francis-denounces-transgender-people-annihilation-man/
[7] http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/04/pope-francis-kids-should-accept-their-own-body-as-it-was-created/
[8] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/pope-its-terrible-children-taught-they-can-choose-gender/2016/08/02/cf04b14c-58cf-11e6-8b48-0cb344221131_story.html
[9] http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2016/04/pope-francis-kids-should-accept-their-own-body-as-it-was-created/
[10] Quoted from an article dated August 9, 2016: "Pope Francis made comments last week that reveal the most important single thing you need to know about the modern world: The most dynamic religion of the last hundred years has been leftism. Not Christianity, and not Islam, but leftism. Leftism has taken over the world's leading educational institutions, the world's news media and the world's popular entertainment, and it has influenced Christianity (and Judaism) far more than Christianity (or Judaism) has influenced anything."  See
http://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/dennis-prager-pope-francis-and-the-decline-of-he-west/
[11] http://www.hrc.org/resources/restroom-access-for-transgender-employees
[12] If a person "feels" that he/she is more canine than human, would he/she be permitted to wear nothing but his/her own skin and perform bodily functions in a restaurant, a legislator's office or while on a stroll anywhere on the planet?  From the previous post, "the shrewd, petty, unloving-of neighbor and do-anything-you-want-so-long-as-you-don't-step-on-my-rights people" would never allow it, not because any waste-matter would magically levitate and "step on" their right to keep their squeaky clean shoes clean (matching their conscience) but because they want to have the right not to step on any of it.  Would the passage of legislation prohibiting these canine-identified individuals from expressing their "true character" in every way not be a form of prejudice and intolerance so despised by this "highly-evolved" righteous, secular, non-judgmental, permissive and non-hypocritical society?  What kind of law, if any, would human rights advocates pass for them?  Are canine-identified people not humans too who deserve human rights?  Of course an argument could be made that being canine-identified is different from being middlesex and that canine-identified persons are not sanitary in their behaviors, but then neither are real dogs.

War Of ISIL

'''This is war,' said the pope" on July 26, 2016 [1], a day after two ISIL attackers killed Fr. Jacques Hamel, an 85-year old priest in Rouen, France.  "When I speak of war," he continued, "I speak of real war, not of a war of religion, no. There is war for interests, there is war for money, there is war for the resources of nature, there is war for the domination of peoples: this is war. Someone may think: 'He is talking about a war of religion'. No. All the religions, we want peace. Others want war." [Emphasis added.] [2]

Then the pope asked, "'Do you understand?'" [2]  No one has been heard saying: "Yes, I do!"

What "real war" is ISIL waging exactly?  Is it a religious, a psychological, a cultural, an economic, a political and an empire-building war all wrapped up in one?  No one seems to know for certain, or is willing to say it.  And what will the outcome look like?  Nobody is predicting, except for ISIL (see map below).

In trying to learn a little about what is going on, this blogger has pieced together some facts that he interspersed with his opinions that could be disagreeable to some, yet he writes.

ISIL, a radical offshoot of the Sunni tribe ("[m]ore than 85 per cent of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims are Sunni" [3]), had "[i]n 2014, after taking control of territory in the Sunni heartland of Iraq...proclaimed itself a caliphate, calling other states illegitimate and placing itself as the exclusive authority over the Islamic world." [4]

"A caliphate is an Islamic state. It [is] led by a caliph, who is a political and religious leader who is a successor (caliph) to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. His power and authority is absolute." [5]  "The caliphate - a state governed by Sharia law which ISIS plan to claim - covers areas from Spain in the west to China in the east." [6]  Below is a map [7] that delineates its ambition.



This could just be stage one.  Stage two could include the whole of Europe, but nobody seems to care, perhaps it is too unrealistic, and everyone is too complacent.  "[BBC reporter Andrew Hosken] said, 'Once they have their caliphate, they plan to turn against the rest of the world. They envisage the whole world being under their rule.

'They have 60 nations against them, including the United States and Russia, so one would think that is pretty unlikely.

'But one would have thought the first steps were unlikely as well.'" [8]

Since those first steps were taken in Iraq, leaders of the free world with some of the most powerful weapon systems have been unable to stop the advance of ISIL.  Instead, they opened up Syria and Libya for ISIL to enter when they had no business in destabilizing those countries, nor had (in this blogger's opinion) the ignorant and coward invader [9] of Iraq any business in changing another country's regime.

While it is no use recalling the prophetic phrase "mother of all battles" made famous by the late Saddam Hussein of Iraq, there is nothing to look forward to either, because the major world powers do not quite know what to do about the spread of ISIL and its random killing tactics other than being remorseful and taking in refugees to compensate for having created havoc in the region, and being needlessly preoccupied with matters such as race, sex and weather while occasionally dropping bombs here and there so that now and then an interim victory or two can be claimed.

Meanwhile, most of the rest of the world live a life of Godless, self-centered  secularism.  The unfortunate fate of others would just be another forgettable headline.  In denial of ISIL's momentum outward from the Mideast and EVIL's momentum inward into man's soul, the shrewd, petty, unloving-of neighbor and do-anything-you-want-so-long-as-you-don't-step-on-my-rights people exist everywhere, in envy of those who have been given much by God.  To make sure that their rights are being guaranteed, some would run for and be voted into office by their like-minded supporters.

While in office, some of the self-proclaimed Christian politicians would stir up patriotism and instill fear in the hearts of people under the cover of intellectual dishonesty and rationalization in order to obtain their consent to sacrifice the livelihood and lives of others for their own glory, in hopes that their legacies would endure and be respected, and that the doors to wealth after they leave office would continue to remain wide open for them.

The ambitions of a politician in the west may vary from those of a caliph of ISIL, but their modus operandi are in some ways quite similar, although the latter tends to rely more on force and less on words to make a point.  Instead of patriotism, an ISIL caliph resorts to fanaticism to compel those under him to give their lives in battle to gain territory (natural resources and strategic positioning) and to change regimes (barbaric power grabs under the false pretense of religion rather than the guise of Mideast peace), and instead of telling lies, an ISIL caliph orders trained killers to kill and suicide bombers to bomb to instill fear in and force obedience from those yet to be conquered.

Admittedly, the caliph of ISIL's style and approach is not identical to western leaders but in at least one way ISIL's caliph is indistinguishable from some of the world's most powerful figures: they all pick out the weak and defenseless to invade, kill and defeat.  Chivalry is lost on them.  What differentiates the thuggery practiced by the caliph of ISIL from the collateral damage caused by "justified" bombings by those with power and might is that the caliph of ISIL does not have complex, big-budget, cutting-edge weapons whereas those who had contributed to the rise of ISIL have always had a technologically-advanced and well-funded military under their command, no matter how misguided.

A "real war," however, does not necessarily require high-grade weaponry and sophisticated tactical maneuvers. For example, "Hamas and other, more radical Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip have built up an arsenal of basic rockets which over the years have steadily increased in range[, ...but] [n]one of them are particularly sophisticated[,]" [10] compared to Israel's "most precise weapons in its arsenal: missiles launched from an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV)-the latter more commonly known as a drone." [11] For the Palestinians, rocket "[r]ange...is crucial. Bringing the population of major Israeli cities under threat, however inaccurate the weapon, causes huge disruption and fear." [12]

Nor does a "real war" have an end date.  Aside from the seemingly endless one between good and evil, the Israeli-Arab conflict "has roots dating back to the man Abram. Abram of course was later renamed Abraham by God, (Genesis 17:5) and is a man greatly revered by both Jew and Arab, and Christians as well." [13]  The period covered in the Book of Genesis was a very long time ago, and ISIL, it is assumed, is part of Abram's saga [14] which is on-going without a final chapter in sight, and ISIL's war merely adds a new layer of complexity to it.

The war ISIL is fighting, is real, and is not limited to a specific geographic location.  If ISIL members and its sympathizers were situated on one continent, it would be easy for a military powerhouse to wipe it out with a couple of hundred or so of megaton nuclear bombs [15], [16], but bombing does not work when a battleground can erupt at any time, any place anywhere in the world against anyone who is considered an infidel [17].  It was July 26, 2016, the day a Catholic church "in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy" [18] became a battleground.  The combatants were two teenage "Islamic State 'soldiers'" with a knife and an unarmed 84-year old priest [19] who, unlike the Knights Templar in the 12th century with "hand-to-hand combat skills" [20], was defenseless.

This war of ISIL seems to be fought with relatively inexpensive weapons such as knives, trucks, AK-47s [21], IEDs (improvised explosive devices) [22] and the new VBIEDs (vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices) [23].  While ISIL has not won the war, it has not yet surrendered.  In the process, it has essentially neutralized the budget-busting and penetrating power of self-guided precision warheads, making them impotent in places where ISIL terrorists had recently gone to kill: a concert hall (Bataclan, Paris) [24]; a nightclub (Pulse, Orlando) [25];  a street (Promenade des Anglais, Nice) [26]; an area outside a bar (Eugene's Wine Bar, Ansbach) [27]; a Catholic church (Église Saint-Étienne, Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray) [28], venues that are part of day-to-day life around the world.

These and other attacks appear to be unstructured and spontaneous, carried out by individuals who are/were, or who imagined that they are/were, part of ISIL.  Whether the caliph of ISIL officially recognizes them and approves of their actions are not nearly as important as the degree of emotional distress inflicted upon those whose lives have been affected by such acts of terror while leaving behind a vague sense of uneasiness in the communities nearby.

Therefore, it can be said that the form of warfare ISIL is engaged in is more psychological than large-scale conflagrative.  On this basis, it would be reasonable to assume that ISIL's real goal is not to engage in the mass murders of "infidels" (it would have to kill at least 77% of the world's population based on 2010 figures [29] if that were the case) but to convert them to Islam.  A war that forces people to adopt ISIL's version of Sunni Islam is a religious war against Catholics, Christians of other denominations, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and believers of other religions and of no religion, as well as Shia Muslims and other non-ISIL Sunni Muslims.

If ISIL's religious beliefs are not entirely consistent with Mohammad's idea of Islam but represent a rather restrictive lifestyle based on its unique version Sharia law that nobody seems to know and most everyone seems to fear (to read more about Sharia law in general, see [30], [31], [32]), then ISIL is waging a war against a self-righteous (and hypocritical) modern culture that it cannot accept and will not tolerate, one that is technologically-addicted, secular and morally permissive but is also plagued by sharp differences of opinions on issues of race, gender, transgenderism, homosexuality (gay marriage, adoption and surrogacy), abortion, drugs, sex, global warming and so on.

If on the cultural side, ISIL is battling the modern society, then on the economic side it is taking on the world's financial structure by having its own economic system that is so convoluted that even scholars found it "difficult to compare the revenue to the expenditure needs since expenditures will depend on a multitude of unknown factors, in particular the group’s military strategy. " [33]  Ironically, even those who wish to contain ISIL need to be supportive of its hybrid monetary-bartering system, according to scholars who recommended that the "Iraqi government salaries to employees living in Daesh-controlled areas could be paid in-kind with goods which are less fungible than cash; perishable foodstuffs, for example. This would make it harder for Daesh to turn taxes on salaries into resources to pay fighters or purchase weapons." [34]  With such a messy hybrid system in place--a cash and goods-only economy, banks (and taxing authorities) would simply be unable to track the flow of currency (the exchange and accretion of wealth), thereby making the international monetary system dominated by big central banks and the local tax collection agencies impotent, in much the same way the international military allies have been made impotent by ISIL's messy and inexpensive military plans.

Despite being poor and inefficient, ISIL does not seem to be doing badly.  History has shown that neither poverty nor inefficiency nor both will wear on people until they become extinct.  For example, still in existence today are "different types of political organization...defined by Elman Service. These are the Band, Tribe, Chiefdom, and State." [35]  In other words, although ISIL has fantasized about an area of the world it would like to see itself controlling, nobody said it has to be a state, under one caliph, or that those adhering to ISIL's version of Sharia law and Islam cannot be small groups of self-governing nomadic tribes that reject all other religions, modern culture and its economic system.  In fact, small bands of ISIL terrorists are already well spread out. Besides France, Belgium and Turkey, "[i]nvestigation records show that [ISIL's] foot soldiers have also been sent to Austria, Germany, Spain, Lebanon, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia:" [36]  They are also present in the UK [37] and in the United States [38].

Should a decentralized government unified under ISIL's Islam and Sharia-based laws continue to extend its reach, then ISIL is waging a war against the established and corrupt political systems of the world in which large populations subjected to them can at some point be bombed out of existence by an enemy state and in retaliation, large populations in the enemy state can also be bombed into oblivion.

At that juncture, ISIL with its ready-to-die, nomadic soldiers around the globe would have won without having to wage a war to expand its empire because a world that has virtually been annihilated would not have functioning armies, and the remaining survivors would not have a government that could print money and provide assistance.  It would be everybody for himself.  All of them would be refugees and migrants, seeking help wherever they could find it.  In such a inhospitable environment where the instinct to survive overrides all religious cultural, economic and political differences, ISIL's Islam and Sharia laws may not seem so repugnant.

The scenario just described is unlikely to unfold, and ISIL is probably never going to simultaneously rule over all 193 countries, the Holy See, the State of Palestine, Taiwan and the rest [39], although it has to an extent affected some, and that, in this blogger's opinion, is already a major victory.

*   *   *

ISIL has brought the world terror and uncertainty.  Its victory is over nations and individuals.  Although some distance away from recent terror attacks, this blogger has been affected.  The world he lives in today stands in stark contrast to the relatively innocent and care-free place he had grown up in, in which people are able to board airplanes and enter buildings without having to pass through security, to go about their daily lives without being monitored by surveillance cameras and to attend an event or a church service without ever wondering whether it would be safe.  In other words, it was a world where life could be lived with a certain "je ne sais quoi," abandon perhaps, that can only be had when the mind is at peace and the heart is filled with childhood's joy.

That era, although not perfect, was as close to an existence in Heaven as life on earth could imitate.  From the present vantage point, an apartment ensconced in perhaps the most liberal and hedonistic city in the world, the antithesis of what ISIL wants to see under its rule, it looks like life in parts of Europe could one day become hellish like parts of the Mideast [40], [41], an unwanted potential brought upon by those on all  sides of this "real war" who sold their souls to the Devil, those whom It carefully hand-picked (more accurately, pitchfork-lifted [42]) to be used as disposable predecessors [43] of the Antichrist.


[1] http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cnsnewscom-staff/pope-francis-war-not-war-religion
[2] http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2016/july/documents/papa-francesco_20160727_polonia-volo-andata.html
[3] http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/what-is-the-difference-between-sunnis-and-shias/article8065425.ece
[4] http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/the-sunni-shia-split-at-the-heart-of-regional-conflict-in-the-middle-east-explained
[5] http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/06/what-is-an-islamic-caliphate-and-why-did-isis-make-one/373693/
[6] http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/597254/ISIS-Map-Europe-Terror-Organisation-Andrew-Hosken-Caliphate-Abu-Musab-al-Zarqawi
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] This blogger believes that he was ignorant because whatever degree of intellect and goodness God had given the creature he had freely given up in exchange for what Satan had to offer him: a  fleeting satiation of his desire for vengeance, appetite for greed and lust for power, fueled not by the oil in Iraq that he desired but by arrogance, pride and deceit that are characteristics of Satan, and that he was timid because he invaded Iraq with phantom WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) when he could have invaded countries like Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea, all known to have nuclear capabilities but dared not.  This blogger also believes that Satan cannot successfully tempt those with unyielding faith in God but can easily manipulate those who believe in themselves and who bring God (or Allah) into the conversation only as a means to achieve their unscrupulous ends.  Ignorance and timidity, however, did not disappear from the seats of power--they were inherited, and the offsprings are Libya and Syria.  On the other hand, Libya and Syria could have been an outcome of a lethal game of political one-upmanship.  The rules of this diabolical game require the power players to treat humans as pawns to be expensed.  Regardless of the number of human lives that will be sacrificed, if one side has invaded one country, the opposing side has to invade at least two to "win."  If the deadly sins of greed and wrath gave birth to a destabilized Iraq, then the deadly sins of envy and pride produced Libya and Syria.  All these deadly sins can be grouped together and expressed another way: "haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush to evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community."  See
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+6:16-19
[10] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28245343
[11] https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/06/30/precisely-wrong/gaza-civilians-killed-israeli-drone-launched-missiles
[12] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28245343
[13] http://focusonjerusalem.com/TheRootsoftheIsraeli-ArabConflict.htm
[14] To document a chain of events dating back countless millennia to the time when God created the universe and man to the rise of ISIL is beyond the scope of this blog and the lifetime of this blogger.
[15] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2101508/Want-know-effect-nuclear-bomb-home-town-Theres-app-that.html
[16] http://www.globalzero.org/blog/how-many-nukes-would-it-take-render-earth-uninhabitable
[17] http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/isis-urges-supporters-kill-named-muslim-infidels-west-rep-ellison
[18] http://www.inquisitr.com/3356183/isis-releases-video-of-killers-who-slit-throat-of-priest-during-mass-in-france-shows-duo-pledging-allegiance-to-terror-group/
[19] Ibid.
[20] http://hubpages.com/education/Secrets-of-the-Knights-Templar
[21] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47
[22] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improvised_explosive_device
[23] http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-created-a-new-type-of-bomb-2016-7
[24] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/20/bataclan-witnesses-recount-horror-paris-attacks
[25] http://time.com/4365965/orlando-shooting-bataclan-paris-copycat/
[26] http://time.com/4407755/nice-attack-witnesses/
[27] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/24/one-dead-and-ten-injured-after-restaurant-blast-in-german-city-o/; and http://time.com/4421119/bomb-bar-germany-ansbach/
[28] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/world/europe/jacques-hamel-85-a-beloved-french-priest-kil7ed-in-his-church.html
[29] http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/04/02/397042004/muslim-population-will-surpass-christians-this-century-pew-says
[30] https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia_law
[31] http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/beliefs/sharia_1.shtml
[32] Those who wish to continue to learn more about Sharia can go to SHARIAsource at http://ilsp.law.harvard.edu/shariasource/.  "SHARIAsource is a new initiative of Harvard Law School’s Islamic Legal Studies Program. Built with support from Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, SHARIAsource will provide an online portal of resources and analysis on Islamic law, in cooperation with scholars of Islamic law and policy in the United States and around the world." Ibid.
[33] http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/450/html
[34] Ibid.
[35] https://www.quora.com/What-is-definition-of-primitive-societies-and-their-characteristics-in-anthropological-context
[36] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/world/middleeast/isis-german-recruit-interview.html?_r=0
[37] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/26/open-borders-allow-isil-sleeper-cells-into-europe-and-uk--capabl/
[38] http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/wrjp255a.html  The chart shows that attacks coded "islm" has become frequent beginning in 2014.
[39] http://www.worldometers.info/geography/how-many-countries-are-there-in-the-world/
[40] http://yalibnan.com/2016/06/05/iraqi-civilians-fleeing-fallujah-drown-as-life-in-the-city-has-become-worse-than-hell/
[41] http://aranews.net/2016/06/12000-isis-militants-fighting-mosul/
[42] Souls that have been "pitchfork-lifted" are too wicked to get close to, even for the wickedest of creatures, Satan. As this blogger has always maintained, Satan despises all sinners.  He believes also that Satan despises most those who reject God's love to obtain what It has to offer which It knows is nothing.  Of all the creatures of God, this blogger thinks that Satan appreciates God's love most, having once been Lucifer, the most beautiful and most loved of angels but as Satan, It has to suffer without it.
[43] After these sinful, shameless and sycophantic souls are done with Satan's assignments, they are completely worthless.  Even Hell does not quite know what to do with such nothingness.  An eternity of suffering would be wasted on them.  To be forgiven by God for their bloody atrocities and the hardships they have created would require a constant overflow of divine love so intense and so abundant that is beyond this blogger's ability to grasp.  Perhaps these worthless souls just evaporate into nothingness that they had become, as if they never existed in any form.  That, perhaps, is the most dreaded eternity of all, especially for those who desired so much in life, except for the love of God.