Words from the Kingdom of Heaven

(music by boneman)

Learning from Ardlair

In returning comment to Ardlair, I realized that there is a major flaw in the direction our country, as well as many other countries.
That is the hatred of another nation, based usually on the government in place at the time.

Well, simple put, there are no evil nations. bush junior was as wrong as rain in the desert. There are NO EVIL NATIONS. Only governments that bend towards evil intention to accomplish purely selfish deeds.
England, France, Spain, the Dutch all filled this country with their evil greed.
They swarmed over the natives of this land, some with religion on the tips of their tongues, calling for the conversion of these people's simple ways, or passing out death. Or gold or land...
Later, the new country, fresh born of new power and its own sense of greed would swarm over what was left of any real freedom and drive out, murder, or otherwise imprison the populations within. Gold, land, and that elusive quality of FREEDOM, a yet to be described thing for which we supposedly fight for.
How 'humorous', eh?
Murdering people to attain freedom for all?

And then continuing the hatred through divisive measures designed to keep all at odds with each other. Through hatred, political 'leaders' call out their righteousness, singing their own praises, and denying rights to those who would stand up against their evil intent.

No, it is not the nation that is ever evil, for the nations are filled with people like you and me. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, all people trying to make their way through life.
.
.
.

Ah...Sweet Breath of Truth

(and such a nice picture, too)

There is LIFE!

Well, most folks like fresh fruit, I think.
I mean, canned fruit usually includes some kind of sugar water added, and frozen is...well, frozen.
By the time it gets thawed out, one almost needs to add sugared water to it to bring back some sweet and flavor.

But, wait.
The bible was written some three and a half millenium ago. Like canned fruits or frozen,
3500 years ago when the Jewish nation was just learning how to write at all.
And this after the Egyptians showed them the rough concept of recording stories and information....

Now, I remember some of the drivel I wrote when I first learned how to write. Probably not unlike most folks, it contained a greater hair of fiction, though quite true to each of us when we wrote it, and to each of us, the greater truth was that WE wrote it.
Don't you suppose that's what the first writers were doing?
They passed down what was important to them...their parents' words. And those words came from their parents before them, and word of mouth sent bits of information down and down and down...
Was there ever a slice of truth in them?

Well, personally, I look at the Genesis and see evolution laid out plainly.
The light, the waters, the greenery and land coming to...this sounds like the era of amoeba and bacterias becoming coalesced into more complex systems and organisms. Slowly, over many thousands of years, and sometimes painfully so. A "DAY" is like the day of the dinosaurs, or the day of industrial revolution....not 24 hours.
Made from 'mud'?
Yeah...perhaps so.

Even the 'great flood' has historical significance. About every five to seven thousand years flooding is a major factor in the Earth's cycle. The poles melt, the magnetism changes, earthquakes and volcanoes....Ah what a sight it must be!
Destroying all that putrid, crap-ridden man-made bullshit of ours!
This time will be some serious destruction involved, too.
Nuclear power, oh so safely tucked away in caves and rock havens through-out the world (Australia! Don't give in to the begging of the world! Don't accept the waste materials that nobody else wants to store!) and this will be torn apart and spent across the lands.
Radiation poisoning is somewhat painful, though not as quick as governments would have us believe.
Sorry.
I, for the most part, don't believe in the sign carrying doomsday salesmen from the cartoon pages. "The end is near?" Sure it is. So what?
The end comes "in a time and times and half a time".
So says a flock of prophets in the bible.
And that still translates to simply, "sooner or later"...

So, since we are destined to see it through, with or without the mechanics of modern man, how about this....
Help each other, now and through the times coming, and as long as possible.
The bickering of nations will come to an end, as it damned well should! And it will get down to just people.

And that's a good thing. Because with or without a religion, there is life.
And that is more important when there is love.

Only now do I understand it....
Even with the end of the world coming?
With all the evils of mankind rested on our backs?

Even so, come quickly!

Is That an Island Out There?

OK, did I mention that I'm NOT the new prophet? (or, in the shoes of Pat Robertson , Profit)

Nope. Just one side of me is very much a believer of the greater thing that made us all, but, just smart enough to NOT use the name "god" to describe the CREATOR.
In fact, that I capitalize all the letters of that word kind of makes me a hypocrite, doesn't it?
Creator.
There. Is that any better?
No? Why not?
Oh, I see the capital first letter, eh?
Well then, just to show you I'm serious about this, the creator doesn't give a rat's behind what word you choose.
Be it Allah, God, Father, Divine Being, I Am, Shiva, Calvin Klien...well. Wait a minute. Not being a grand designer doesn't count so much.
Maybe, though.
I mean, If I was the creator, you can bet your ass I would come down here to see how everything is going.
But, if that were so, there's some real problems brewing here.
Two (count them,...1, 2) islands of floating garbage in the Pacific.
It appears that now our ill brained scientists are considering that indeed, we are NOT the major cause of global warming. So, a lot of morons have gone back to pissing in our streams, rivers and lakes, throwing garbage and trash down wherever they happen to be, and, a whole lot of people are making a huge fuss about helping the poor.
Dang!
You do remember that the creator turned a woman into a pillar of salt for just looking the wrong direction, right?
Hail fire and brimstone on a sex crazed town in the desert?
Do these events strike anyone's memory chords?

So what do you think the reaction is going to be if it's found that we, as mankind, spit and spurn the poor, greedily demand gluttonously obscene wages (plus bonuses) for our sinful ways, and also kill others for not believing our way is the one and only right way?
Well, for a good answer, if you have kids and came home to find they strangled the cat for no reason, threw the dog in the dishwasher (I'm sure not going to look after seven cycles) and used mommie's good make-up to draw all over the walls, threw their feces on the ceiling, and smoked all of dad's cuban cigars?

If my parents had come home to that, I wouldn't have made it to the next grade, I'm sure.
(of course, maybe there's the case of giving us enough rope to hang ourselves comes to mind, too. After all. As official 'children' I suppose we're loved, no matter how nasty dirty we are)

But, you're in luck. Not only am I not a prophet,
I'm NOT that being.

But, don't trust to hope that the creator won't eventually come back,
and I believe the razor strap is still hanging in the wood shed out back!

http://www.humortimes.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=130

Does the USA Really Practice "FREEDOM of RELIGION"?

I think not. The United States practices prude behavior and wants the rest of the world to follow their lead.
I beg of the world...."Don't follow us!"

In the USA, it has become proper to diminish Islam, another religion, as well as ridicule other religions such as Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, and any of dozens of others.
The previous religions of the Indians were trampled under, and most left behind, forgotten or having nobody left to practice because of the rampant genocide practiced upon Indians.
Freedom of Religion would include freedom to marry same genders to each other, should they wish.
Freedom of religion means not having an un-named god pressed onto the coins of the nation.
Freedom of religion means if the proper practice is polygamy, then it is left to that group to decide its course.

No....the USA is NOT a country where 'freedom of religion' is observed. They are too afraid.

the END of DAYS

Two things that bug me a bit.
Islamist radicals saying this is the Jihad....yet rioting because some newspaper posted a picture of Mohamed, the last prophet of God.
OK, first, only the prophet could say if this is Jihad. Maybe even he would not know.
and, in America, we have a joke about how hard one looks for a thing. We say, "You'll probably find it in the last place you look," and sure enough. It's ALWAYS in the last place we look.
If Mohamed was the last prophet...it's only because the next one hasn't come forward.
Well, except here.
Pat Robertson, Benny Hinn, Earnest Ainsley, and the circus that is called television evangleism are just cock sure they have the answers, and they got them from the bible. (just like the Millerites before them)
But it does plainly say that no man will know the last day till it is upon them.
(let's go over that just one more time for the stupider evangelicals and such)
No man will know when the last days are here until they are upon him.
When the dragon bites your ass, it's on you.

Here's a truth most will like.
Jesus's answer (and in Revelations we see it again) the end will be a time and times and half a time.
Folks...in today's English that would be:
sooner or later.
.
.
.
.
.