Appendix a.
Why it will be hard to follow Jesus
and Why it will be easy to follow Jesus
The reason we will all have to suffer greatly, and will all have to make great sacrifices, to receive rewards that God will give to Jesus’ followers, is that it is very hard for us to ask God to forgive us. It is hard for us to ask God to forgive us because it is hard for us to admit that we need to be forgiven: We are afraid to admit that we need to be forgiven, because we are afraid to admit that we are evil, And we are afraid to admit that we are evil, because we are afraid that God will give us our just rewards, and will punish us for our evil.
If we do not ask God to forgive us, this is exactly what God will do. And as our evil is great, so also will our punishment, also, be great. If we do ask God to forgive us, though, Then God will show us mercy, Then God will forgive us our evil, Then God will give us all that we ask of Him. If we ask God to forgive us, then following Jesus will become easy for us.
Jesus tells us this, when He says, “Ask, and it will be given you, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. (Lk 11:9-10 & Mt 7:7-8).
If we ask for God’s forgiveness, we will receive it, and once God has forgiven us, God will give us all that we desire.
Often, though, we won’t ask for God’s forgiveness. And if we do not ask for God’s forgiveness, we will not receive God’s forgiveness. One reason we often won’t ask for God’s forgiveness, is that we fear that God will only give us good things if we are good. The good news that Jesus tells us, sounds too good, to us, to be true.
Another reason we refuse to ask for God’s forgiveness is that we do not want to forgive other people who have hurt us. It seems easier to us, to pretend that we are good, and to imagine that God will reward our goodness.
Jesus tells us, clearly, and often that we are not good, And because Jesus tells us this, we know that if God shows us justice, then justice will lead God to punish us all severely. When we do not want to forgive other people, though, we will try to forget what Jesus has told us, and we will try to forget what Jesus has taught us.
Jesus knows that often we won’t be able to ask God to forgive us. Jesus tells us this when he says, “The World hates me, because I testify that its works are evil.” (Jn 7:6-8).
And Jesus tells us this, again, when He says, “The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their works were evil. Everyone who does evil, hates the light, and stays away from the light, for fear his works will be reproved. But one who is doing the truth comes to the light that the works of God may be manifested in him” (Jn 3:19-21).
When we are doing good we will come to Jesus’ light, but when we are not doing good, we will fear and hate Jesus’ light.
Because Jesus has told us that all people do evil, we know that Jesus is saying that all people will hate the light He brings to our world, and that all people will stay away from that light. Even the most faithful follower of Jesus, will seldom come to Jesus’ light, because even the most faithful follower of Jesus, will fear that his or her deeds will be reproved. People who follow Jesus, hate Jesus when Jesus testifies that their works are evil, just as all people hate Jesus when Jesus testifies that their works are evil.
Though we will all fear God and hate Jesus, If we dare to hope that Jesus is correct when He tells us that God will show us mercy if we see our evil, and if we show mercy to other people who are evil, as we are evil, Then we will sometimes come to God, in spite of our fear and hate, And then we will sometimes ask God for mercy.
Only if we do this, will we receive good things from God
If we can sometimes make ourselves come to Jesus’ light, we will learn that its heat will warm us, not burn us. If we can overcome our fear, we will see that God truly will show us mercy, instead of justice, And all we desire will be ours.
When we are willing to admit that we are evil, and When we are willing to forgive other people the evil they have done us, Then we will ask God to forgive us the evil we have done Him.
Everything that is hard for us for us to do in following Jesus, is something that we must do to make ourselves the sort of people who will ask God to forgive us. If we can ask for God’s forgiveness, then following Jesus will become easy for us. This is why Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Mt 11:30)
How we will treat other people if we have forgiven them.
Each of us will often say that he or she forgives people who have done him or her harm, when he or she has not truly forgiven those people. Jesus helps us guard against doing this by telling us how we will treat other people if we have truly forgiven them.
Everything that Jesus tells us to do is part of forgiving other people, as we need God to forgive us. And everything that Jesus tells us to do is one of the ways we will treat other people if we have truly forgiven them.
Jesus also teaches us how we will treat other people if we have truly forgiven them, by telling us how God will treat us when He has forgiven us.
When God has forgiven us, He will give us all that we ask Him for. In the same way, If we forgive other people, then we will give them all that they ask us for, whenever we are able to do so.
Asking for God’s forgiveness is not something that we can do once, It is something that we must do always.
If we are doing what Jesus tells us to do, at any moment, Then we are asking for God’s forgiveness, at that moment, And If we are not doing what Jesus tells us to do, at any moment, then we are not asking for God’s forgiveness, at that moment.
If we have asked God to forgive us, then we will not ask God to make other people stop doing evil to us,
because if we have asked God to forgive us, then we will forgive other people for the evil they do to us.
Jesus tells us again, that if we ask for forgiveness we will receive it, when He says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you will, and it will be done to you.” (Jn 15:7), And Jesus also tells us that if we ask for forgiveness we will receive it, when He says, “All things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. (Mt 21:22)
While God will give us all that we desire, if we ask for His forgiveness.
Even after we ask for God’s forgiveness and receive God’s forgiveness, other people may continue to do evil to us. The reason for this is, that if we have asked God to forgive us, then we will not ask God to force other people to stop doing evil to us. If we have asked God to forgive us the evil we do Him, then we will forgive other people the evil they do us.
If we have forgiven other people the evil they do us, then we will try to help other people whenever we are able to do so. And if we have asked God to forgive us the evil we do Him, then we will see that we only asked God to forgive us because we had seen some of the evil we had done.
If God had forced us to stop doing evil before we had seen that evil, we might never have asked for God’s forgiveness. And if we had not asked for God’s forgiveness, we would not have received God’s forgiveness. If God were to force people who do evil to us, to stop doing that evil, before they see that evil, then the same thing might happen to them. If we have truly forgiven people who have done us evil, we will want to keep this from happening to them.
God lets us all do evil so we will be able to see our evil, and so we will be able to then ask Him to forgive us the evil we do. If we do not ask God to forgive us our evil, then we will not forgive other people their evil, and God will not forgive us our evil.
If we do not forgive other people their evil we will also not be able to become one with all people as God and Jesus want us to become one with all people.
If we have truly forgiven another person, then we will be compassionate as God is compassionate, and like God, we will not want a person to stop doing any evil thing until that person has seen that evil thing, and until that person has learned to ask for God’s forgiveness for that evil with all of his or her actions. Evil that another person does to us, may cause us great suffering by human standards, and we will always hope that other people will stop doing evil to us. Still, we will never want a person, who is hurting us, to stop hurting us, until that person sees the evil that he or she does to us, and then asks for God’s forgiveness. One reason we will never want this, is that we know that any suffering that another person’s actions may cause us, will be small in comparison to the rewards that God will give us if we forgive, as we need be forgiven, and will be small in comparison to the suffering that God will shield us from if we forgive, as we need be forgiven.
If a person did ask God, to force another person to stop doing evil to him or her, that person would be trying to resist evil by asking God to stop it. Because we want people we have forgiven to see the evil they do, to repent the evil they do, and to ask God to forgive them the evil they do, We will not try to resist evil, that people we have forgiven do to us, either by asking God to stop this evil, or by trying to stop this evil through our own actions.
We might try to show people we have forgiven the evil they do to us, And we might try to show people we have forgiven how it would benefit them to stop doing evil to us, and to ask God to forgive them, But we would never want a person we had forgiven, to stop doing evil to us, unless he or she had seen that evil, and unless he of she had asked for God’s forgiveness.
We will also remember that if we resist another person’s evil, then God will resist our evil, And that we would be doomed by God’s resistance.
God wants evil to continue until it is transformed into good.
God gave each of us life and God continuously chooses to sustain our lives. God wants each of us to be alive and who are we to question God.
Though we seldom do God’s will, God never wants us to doubt that we should go forward with our lives. By going forward we may be transformed into what god wants us to be. If we stop going forward, if we give up on our lives (on our selves) then we will never become what God wants us to be.
Even if we never do become what God wants us to be, maybe by going forward we will help someone else become what God wants him or her to be.
True, if we fail to become what God wants us to be we will pay the consequences for this failure, but we will pay more painful consequences if we give up on our lives (on our selves) than the consequences we would pay for any evil that we might commit as we go forward.
God does not want a world that is free of evil. If God wanted such a world He would not have given us free will. Instead God wants a world in which evil continues until it is transformed into good. If evil is killed then that evil can never become good, and if all evil were killed then there would be no good. There would then be nothing. Good must come from evil that has been transformed. Good is transformed evil.
Our world is an oven in which ingredients that are not good in themselves (our individual selves) are combined (baked) into something that is good. Our greater self in which we are all parts of a whole. There may be macro certainty in this process: (God may know that something good will come of it), but there is no micro certainty in this process (no individual person knows whether or not he or she will become a part of the good thing that is being created. Our evil may hold us back from doing this.) If we join with other people in becoming something greater than ourselves, then we will know joy. But our evil may keep us from doing this.
I have wanted to kill evil when I have seen it, instead of wanting to transform it into good. Because of this I have wanted to kill myself.
Good can only come from evil. Good is transformed evil. If there were no evil there could be no good. All that is good was once evil. Evil is a stage that we must all pass through. It is the infant that can grow into good. As a stage evil is natural, and there is nothing wrong with it. Evil only becomes evil when it continues beyond its proper time: when it does not transform itself into good.
We all begin our lives as beings who pursue only our self-interest, and who live in competition with other people. In this stage we see our world in terms of confect, and we seek out conflict. We believe that we can only get what we want if we keep other people from getting what they want. We think that for us to win everyone else must lose. This is simply how we are when we start our lives. There is nothing good or bad about this. It just is. The only way in which we can eliminate all the evil that is in us at once is by killing ourselves. If we go on with our lives, then we will do great evil. The best that we can hope to do is to transform parts of ourselves from evil to good, while as a whole we continue to do great amounts of evil.
We cannot immediately become good. Becoming good is a long process, and it will take us a long time. If we want to kill evil when we see it, then we will want to kill ourselves, and we will never be able to continue to try to become good anywhere close to long enough, to actually become good.
There are two ways in which a person who feels like this will stop trying to be good. The first way is by simply ending his or her life. The second, and much more common way is by telling him or herself that he or she has become good and is no longer evil. While less dramatic, this way of giving up on the attempt to become good is just as destructive to our selves, and is often more destructive to other people. This is so because only people who think that they are good can commit truly great acts of evil.
To receive all that we ask for we must truly follow Jesus
Jesus tells us again, that if we ask for forgiveness we will receive it, when He says to people who follow Him, “If any two of you agree on anything, and ask for it, It will be done by my Father in heaven.” (Mt 18:19). Jesus also says, “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments.” (Jn 14:14-15), And Jesus says, “Truly, whatever you ask the Father, He will give to you in my name.” (Jn 16:23)
Of course, God will only do whatever people who ask in Jesus’ name, ask Him to do, if those people truly follow Jesus. Jesus tells us about people who say they follow Him, but who do not truly follow Him, when he says,
“Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them,
“I never knew you, leave me you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
Jesus tells us, that He cares much more, about what we say about His teachings, than He cares, about what we say about Him, when He says, that
“Whoever speaks against the Son of Man, will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Ghost, will not be forgiven.” (Mt 12:32 & Lk 12:10).
The Holy Ghost is Jesus’ teachings, and the help that God will give to people who follow Jesus’ teachings. Jesus cares much more about what we say about His teachings, than He cares about what we say about Him. This is so because Jesus knows that following His teachings will save us from great suffering, but that saying good things about Him will not help us at all, if we do not also follow His teachings. Jesus only cares about what we say about him, or what we think about him, if what we say or think about him leads us do the will of his Father.
Appendix b. Our Faith
Jesus tells us of a businessman whose business had done well and had earned him a great deal of money and many possessions. This man then sat back and thought about all the money he had, and about how long that money would support him and about how happy all of his possessions would make him. God then said to this man, ‘You fool! Today your soul shall be required of you. Then whose shall all of those things be?”
So it is with all people who are rich in things of man but who are not rich towards God. Sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven: treasure that will not grow old and that moth and rust shall not corrupt, and that no thief shall come near to. (Lk 12:16-21 & Lk 12:33)
….. Why do you think we do not do as Jesus says and sell all that we have and give to the poor? …….
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Jesus tells us often that if we do what God wants us to do, we will receive great rewards. Because we want to receive the rewards that Jesus tells us of, when we believe Jesus, we will do what Jesus tells us to do. If we could always believe Jesus, then we would always do what Jesus tells us to do. Our human nature keeps us from doing this, and our inability to have faith is the part of our human nature that keeps us from doing this.
The main thing that Jesus wants all of us to do is to admit that we are sinners. Jesus wants us to admit this because if we admit that we are sinners, and always remember how great our sin is, then we will forgive other people as we need God to forgive us. If we admit that we are sinners then we will not say that we have faith in Jesus. Saying that we have faith is just another way of saying that we are good, and saying that we are sinners is just another way of saying that we are faithless.
Jesus often calls us “You of little faith.” When the phrase “You of little faith” is translated from Greek to English the literal translation is “little-faiths”. Jesus calls us little-faiths because the smallness of our faith is a part of our human nature. The smallness of our faith is the part our human nature that most saddened Jesus, and is the part of our human nature that most set us apart from Jesus. It is Jesus’ faith that leads to all that He is able to do, and it is our lack of faith that leads to all that we are unable to do.
When Jesus’ disciples asked why they had not been able to heal a man who was only healed when they asked Jesus to help, Jesus answered, “because your faith is too small. If your faith were as a grain of mustard seed you would be able to tell that mountain to move and it would move.”
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It is important for us to understand our faith, and for us to learn what faith we are capable of, and what faith is beyond our ability. It is important for us to learn these things because it is important for us to see ourselves as we truly are, so that we will see how much we need God’s forgiveness, and so that we will forgive all people who trespass against us, as we need God to forgive us our trespasses against him.
In order to understand these things we must ask ourselves questions about our faith, and we must try to answer these questions. The first question we must ask is, “what leads us to believe that Jesus is correct when He tells us what God wants us to do.” There are many good reasons for us have faith in Jesus. These reasons should give us great faith in Jesus. Because we are not capable of great faith, though, we will all often doubt Jesus. The strongest reason that we should have faith in Jesus is the evidence that we see in our lives whenever we do what Jesus tells us to do. Whenever we do what Jesus tells us to do we see that we are rewarded, and whenever we do not do what Jesus tells us to do we see that we are punished.
Another reason that we should have faith in Jesus is that Jesus tells us that we will have to do things that are often hard for us to do to gain God’s favor. If anyone tells that we can gain God’s favor by doing things that are easy for us to do, then we know that, that person is lying to us: because we know that nothing worth having comes easily.
Jesus tells that in order to gain God’s favor we must receive God’s forgiveness, and Jesus tells us that God will only forgive us if we forgive our brothers and sisters who trespass against us. Often this will be hard for us to do. Still, when we have faith in Jesus we will be eager to forgive people who trespass against us because we want God to forgive us our trespasses against Him.
Rewards Jesus promises to people who will follow Him
While Jesus tells us that God will give us great rewards if we follow Him, Jesus also tells us that if we follow Him we will know great suffering, and that we will have to make great sacrifices to follow Him. Jesus assures us, though, that the rewards God will give us if we follow Him, will more than make up for the suffering we will have to endure, and the sacrifices we will have to make to follow Him.
Jesus tells us this when He says to his disciples, “Beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake.” “And brother will deliver brother up to death, and the father the child: and the children will rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all men for my name’s sake: but he who endures to the end, will be saved.” (Mt 10:17-18 & 21-22), and when He says, “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, the daughter against the mother, the daughter in law against the mother in law. he who loves father more than me, is not worthy of me. he who loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. he who takes not his cross and follows me, is not worthy of me. he who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake, will find it.” (Mt 10:35-39, Mt 16:24-26, & Lk 9;23-25). Jesus tells us that if we follow Him, God will give us all that we need when He says, “Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water I shall give shall never thirst. The water that I shall give shall spring into everlasting life.”(Jn 04:13-14), and when He says, “I am the light of the world. One who follows me will in no way walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (Jn 08:12).
Jesus tells us again that if we follow Him, God will give us all that we need when He says, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt 6:25-33 & Lk 12:22-34).
Jesus tells us that if we suffer now, we will receive rewards later, and that if we receive rewards now, we will suffer later when He says to his disciples, “Blessed be you poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now: for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now: for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men will hate you, and when they will separate you from their company, and will reproach you, and cast out your name as evil for the son of man’s sake.
Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy: for behold your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did Likewise to the prophets.
But woe to you who are rich: for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full: for you will hunger. Woe to you who laugh now: for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men will speak well of you: for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” (Lk 6:20-26, see also Mt 5:3-12).
Jesus says, “There is no man, who has left house or parents, or wife or children for the kingdom of God’s sake, who will not receive many times more in the present time, and in the world to come, life everlasting” (Lk 18:29-30). This tells us that God will give people who follow Jesus, rewards that will more than make up for their suffering and their sacrifices, both in this life, and after this life ends.
Jesus tells us this because He knows that our faith is so weak that most of us cannot believe that God will give rewards that will more than make up for the suffering, that Jesus’ followers will know, and for the sacrifices that Jesus’ followers will make, both in the present time, and in the world to come. Many people, though, can believe that God will give rewards that will do this, either in the present time, or in the world to come. Jesus tells us about both rewards in the present time, and rewards in the world to come, so that each of us will believe in whatever rewards he or she is able to believe in. All that matters to Jesus and to God, is that we do what Jesus tells us to do. If we do what Jesus tells us to do, then Jesus and God don’t care what rewards we believe we will receive. Jesus told us this when, while He was speaking to a crowd, He was told that His mother and His brothers waited outside, seeking to speak to Him, And He responded by asking the person who had told Him this, “Who is my mother? and who are my brothers?”, and by then stretching His hand out toward His disciples and saying, “Behold my mother and my brothers: For whoever shall do the will of my Father, who is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mt 12:50, & Lk 8:21).
Some people can believe only in rewards in a life after this life, because, though they cannot believe that anything in this world could more than make up for the suffering they see, they can believe that rewards in a world to come could more than make up for the suffering they see.
While other people can believe only in rewards in this world, because, though they cannot believe in things for which they cannot see evidence, they can sometimes see evidence of rewards in this world, and when they see a person who they think is following Jesus suffer, but do not see evidence of rewards that more than make up for the suffering they see, they can believe, either that they are failing to see rewards that exist in this world, or that the person who they see, is not truly following Jesus.
Just as Jesus says to us, “O you of little faith” (Mt 6:30, Mt 8:26, Mt 14:31, Mt 16:8, & Lk 12:28), and just as Jesus tells us that unless we can make a mountain move by telling it to move, we do not have enough faith to fill a grain of mustard seed (Mt 17:20), Jesus also knows that we will never be able to have faith in more than a small portion of what He tells us.
Jesus does not want us to claim to have more faith than we have.
When we cannot believe something He has told us, Jesus wants us to freely admit this. If we say we have faith in more than a small portion of what Jesus tells us, then Jesus will know we are lying. A person who lies about his or her faith in Jesus, will offend Jesus, because this person will be making Jesus the cause of an evil lie.
When we say that we have more faith than we actually have, we do so because we are trying to make ourselves look good.
Jesus never wants us to try to make ourselves look good.
Jesus never wants us to do this because people who try to make themselves look good, often come to believe that they are good, and then often reject God’s mercy, because they think that they don’t need God’s mercy. People who try to make themselves look good, will also commit acts of great evil in order to silence anyone who shows that they are not good: Just as the scribes and pharisees of Jerusalem had Jesus killed because Jesus showed that they were not good.
Jesus tells us that God will punish people who try to make themselves look good, when he says to the Pharisees of the temple of Jerusalem, “You devour widows houses, and make pretence of long prayer. For this you will receive greater damnation.” (Mt 23:14 & Lk 20:47).
These Pharisees said long prayers to try to make themselves look good to people who heard these prayers, and to try to make themselves look good to God. And by doing this, they increased the punishment that God gave them.
Jesus doesn’t want us to talk or think at all, about how much or how little faith we have, and Jesus doesn’t want us to talk or think at all, about how much good or how much evil we will do. Jesus tells us this when He tells us to “Judge not.” (Mt 7:1, Lk 6:37). When Jesus tells us to “Judge not”, He is telling us both not to judge other people, and not to judge ourselves.
Instead, Jesus wants us to see that however much faith we have, our faith will always be small, that however much good we do, we will always do little good, and, that however much evil we do, we will always do great evil. Jesus wants us to see these things so we will ask for God’s mercy, and so we will forgive as we need be forgiven.
Though God does not force us to do what He wants us to do, God does encourage us to do what He wants us to do by giving more to people who forgive as they need be forgiven, and by taking what he has given, away from people who do not forgive as they need be forgiven.
Jesus tells us that God will do this when He says that, “Whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever has not, even what he seems to have, will be taken away from him.” (Lk 8:18, Lk 19:26, Mt 13:12 & Mt 25:29).
Our Creator will give more to whoever has, because people who have been given the ability to do what Our Creator wants us to do, will forgive their brothers and sisters, as they need Their Creator to forgive them, and Our creator will take what they seem to have away from people who have not, because people who have not been given the ability to do what God wants us to do, will not forgive their brothers and sisters, as they need God to forgive them.
God will take into account what we have been given if He judges us. Jesus tells us this when He says, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48).
God’s rewards can be hard for us to see.
What is truly a reward, will often seem to us to be a punishment, and what is truly a punishment, will often seem to us to be a reward. Jesus told us this when His disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth and asked Jesus, “Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus then answered, “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents. He is blind so that the works of God may be made manifest in him.” (Jn 9:1-3). What Jesus’ disciples had thought was a punishment, was actually a preparation for a reward.
The greatest rewards, that God gives, are things that help a person do His will. People who do not live by Jesus’ teachings, will not see that these things are rewards, at all. The more often we forgive people who do us evil, the easier it will be for us to forgive people who do us evil even more often. This is the greatest reward that God gives to people who forgive other people who do them evil.
Though none of us will ever be able to do more than a small part of God’s will, just as none of us will ever be able to have more than a small amount of faith, God sometimes gives, some people the ability to do some of His will.
One way in which God does this, is by leading people away from temptation, to deliver them from the evil they would do if they were tempted. (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 1:2-4). God also sometimes, gives some people the knowledge, and the strength they need to have to be able to do His will. Jesus tells us that God expects people who have been given more, to be able to do more of His will, when He says, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48).
Jesus tells us again that God expects people who have been given more, to do more of His will, when He says to the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida, “Woe to You Chorazin and Bethsaida. If the mighty works that have been done in you, had been done Tyre and Sidon, Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you at the judgement: and also for Capernaum.” (Lk 10:10-16). The people of Chorazin and Bethsaida had been given the gift of hearing Jesus speak and of watching Jesus work. The more any person learns about Jesus, the more God expects of that person. Jesus also tells us that, because only people who have been given the good fortune to avoid temptation, and who have been given the ability to do what God wants them to do, will be able to follow Jesus, Only these people will receive the rewards that God will give for following Jesus. Jesus tells us this when He says, “Whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away from him.” (Lk 8:18, Lk 9:26, Mt 13:12 & Mt 25:29).
Jesus tells us these things so that if we follow Him, we will not think we have earned a reward from God. Instead, Jesus wants us to see that we sometimes follow Him because we sometimes use gifts that God has given us. Jesus says to us, “When you do all that you are commanded to do, do not expect thanks, but say instead, “we are unprofitable slaves. We have only done what we ought to have done.” (Lk 17:9-10)
Rewards that Jesus promises to people who believe in Him
JN 03:14-15 Whoever believes in the Son of man shall not perish but shall have eternal life.
Jn 6:27-35 Labour not for the meat that perishes but for the meat that endures into everlasting life that the Son of man will give you.
… I am the bread of life, he who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
What it means to believe in Jesus.
When we believe in Jesus we will do everything that Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus tells us that God will give us rewards if we follow His teachings that will more than make up for any suffering that following Jesus will bring us. When we believe Jesus we will follow Him because we will want to receive the rewards that Jesus tells us of. If we could always believe Jesus, we would always do what Jesus tells us to do: to ensure that we would receive these rewards. When we do what Jesus tells us to do. Then we believe Jesus, And when we do not do what Jesus tells us to do. Then we do not believe Jesus.
Jesus tells us that our faith is small each time He says to us, “O you of little faith” (Mt 6:30, Mt 8:26, Mt 14:31, Mt 16:8, & Lk 12:28). And Jesus tells us that we will only be able to have a small amount of faith when He says to His disciples, “If your faith were as a grain of mustard seed, you could tell that mountain to move, and it would move.” (Mt 17:20). This tells us that unless a person can make a mountain move by telling it to move, that person does not have enough faith to fill the smallest seed that Jesus knew of. (Mt 13:31-32)
Appendix C. Why Atheism is logically impossible
While all people are sometimes agnostic, it is logically impossible for any person to be an atheist. This is so because we can only understand our world in terms of cause and effect, and because every effect must have a cause. Everything that happens must have a cause, including the fact that life exists at all, and the fact that our world exists at all. What caused life to come into existence? What caused our world to come into existence? What keeps living things alive?, and what keeps our world in existence? If we are very agnostic we will say that we don’t know much about the force that causes these things, but it is simply nonsense to say that there is no force that makes these things happen.
In its most basic sense the word God is simply the name that we give to the force that created life, and that created our world.
While every person who thinks about God believes different things about God, everyone who uses the word God uses the word God to mean the force of creation. These people all use the word God because the using the word God allows us to speak efficiently about a force that is very important to all of us.
Even people who say that separate Gods created different parts of our world, believe that these separate Gods have enough in common with each other that calling them separate Gods really means the same thing as saying that they are different parts of one God. Whether we call God one or many does not matter very much. What matters is what we think God is like.
What we can decide and what we must learn
God has made us in such a way that certain actions will bring us joy, and certain actions will bring us sorrow. If we want to know joy instead of sorrow we must learn what these actions are, and we must then perform these actions. Just as God has made our bodies so they will function best when we feed them the nutrients they most need, when we give them the ideal amount of exercise, and when we give them bodies medicines that they need. We can often decide what we will eat, we can often decide what exercises we will perform, and we can often decide what medicines we will take, but we cannot decide what foods, what exercises, and what medicines will make our bodies function best. The foods, exercises, and medicines that will make our bodies function best have already been determined. We can only try to learn what these foods, exercises, and medicines are. In the same way God has made us so that our entire selves will function best when we are guided by the thoughts and emotions that are best for us. We can often decide what thoughts and emotions we will be guided by, and we can often decide what actions they will lead us to take, but we cannot decide what thoughts, emotions, and actions will make us happy. We can only try to learn what thoughts, emotions and actions will make us happy.
Both health and happiness are very hard for people to talk about because people will often say that they are healthy or happy when they are not healthy or happy, and because people will sometimes say that they are ill or sad when they are not ill or sad. Though a person may say that he or she is healthy, If his or her body is not functioning as it should function then that person is not healthy. In the same way, though a person may say that he or she is happy, if his or her intellect, emotions, and will are not functioning as they should function then that person is not happy.
Though we can often not tell if a person is happy, just as we can often not tell if a person is healthy, both health and happiness are real, and both health and happiness can be measured, if we know what to look for, and if we are able to observe a person closely enough to measure these things.
Of course it is much harder to measure happiness than it is to measure health because happiness is much more complicated than health is. It is also much harder for us to learn what thoughts, emotions, and actions will bring us happiness, than it is for us to learn what foods, exercises, and medicines will bring us health.
The more strongly we believe that we know what actions will bring us happiness, the more confident we are that we know what thoughts, emotions, and actions God has determined will bring us happiness, and the less agnostic we are. No person is wholly agnostic, because all people believe that certain actions are more likely to bring them happiness than other actions are. If any person did not believe that certain actions were more likely than other actions to bring him or her happiness, then that person would never choose any action over any other action, and then that person would never act at all. Our actions show what we believe God will reward.
Jesus can teach us how we can be happy.
God created us so that the thoughts, emotions, and actions He wants us to think feel and do will bring us joy and contentment. This is how God rewards us if we do His will.
Jesus tells us what God wants us to do. Because of this, if we do what Jesus tells us to do then we will know happiness. We can see the joy and contentment that following Jesus will bring us most clearly in our own lives. In our lives, we can see that whenever we have done what Jesus teaches we have received great rewards from God (though we have also often known great resistance from people who are opposed to God) and we can see that whenever we have not done what Jesus teaches we have received great punishment from God (though people who are opposed to God have often helped us defy Jesus commands).
Over time the rewards that God will give us for doing what Jesus teaches will be greater than the resistance that other people show us for doing what Jesus teaches, And the longer we persist in following Jesus patiently and in living in the spirit of His love the more often the resistance that other people show us, will be transformed into love for us and into love for Jesus. If we forgive our brother seven times seventy times, as Jesus tells us to do, then our brother’s hatred will become love.
If some people patiently and persistently follow Jesus’ true teachings, then over a long enough time the resistance of all people who are opposed to God will be transformed into love and all people will become as one in Jesus. We cannot know how long this will take to happen, and to us it will seem to take a very long time. If we are constant in our love for Jesus, though, and if we faithfully follow Jesus teachings, then eventually all people will become as one in Jesus.
Physical sciences describe part of God’s creation, but physical sciences tell us little about even that part of creation.
Physical sciences describe some of the ways in which God develops parts of His creation. But the physical sciences tell us very little even about the physical aspects of God’s creation, and the physical sciences tell us even less about God’s desire for His creation. To learn about God’s desire for His creation we must search in places other than the physical sciences.
For example the theory of evolution describes some tools that God sometimes uses to develop parts of His creation. These tools are ‘genetic mutation’ and ‘natural selection’. The theory of evolution describes how lower life forms can change physically when a genetic mutation that helps an individual survive is passed on to future generations in greater numbers than other genes are passed on.
We see how little this theory tells us even about our physical world, though, when we see that it does not describe how beings that can change in this way first came into existence, and when we see that it describes very little of the physical change that occurs in human beings, and describes none of the spiritual or moral change that can occur in human beings.
This is so because ever since people have lived in societies, genetic differences between different people have had very little to do with determining which people will be most likely to survive and to have children.
What does determine these things is how well different people learn to live in harmony and cooperation with other people.
Genetic differences are important in animals because animals cannot cooperate to build societies. Among people it is behavior that allows one to live in harmony with other people that is important. This is so because if people work together then people can build societies that will help people in that society much more than a genetic difference ever could help those people.
The fact that God rewards people for living in greater harmony with each other tells us much more about God’s desire for our universe, than any description of the role of genetics in changes in lower life forms could ever tell us.
Appendix D.
More on not thinking of things of Man
1.)
Jesus makes great efforts to teach us not to think of things of man, and to teach us not to seek the favor of men. Jesus does this, because pursuing things of man, seeking the favor of men, will keep us from learning how we can get things of God.
Most of us spend most of our lives pursuing things of man, and seeking the favor of men. And by doing this, most of us keep ourselves from learning things of God.Most of the things that we buy, are things of man that do nothing to help us learn how we can get things of God. These things keep us from seeing God, both while we are paying attention to them, rather than paying attention to things of God, and while we are working at jobs, to earn money to buy them. In the rare instances in which working at a job helps us learn how to get things of God, the time we spend at that job is not wholly wasted. Very few jobs help a person learn this, though. Instead, working at most jobs causes a person to become more and more caught up in things of man: things that pull that person further and further away from God.
Some jobs help people learn things of God indirectly, by helping those people stay alive, or by helping those people maintain good health, so they will have more time and energy, that they can use to study things of God, if they choose to do so.
We spend far too much time working to get things of men, and we spend far too little time working to get things of God. People who see this will try to avoid working forty hours a week. If most people in our society saw this, then most jobs in our society would become part-time jobs.
Only a very small fraction of all jobs in our society today help people learn about God. Even if jobs that only help people maintain abilities, such as life and health, are counted as jobs that help people learn about God, far fewer than one fifth of all jobs in our society today could be counted as jobs that help people learn about God. If we saw the worthlessness of all other jobs, and if we eliminated all other jobs, then the remaining jobs could easily be completed by people working one day a week, and these remaining jobs would still be done much better than they are done today.
Time that most people now spend at jobs that teach them, and that teach people they work with, to pursue things of men. Most people would be able to spend that time doing things that could help them, and that could help other people learn to pursue things of God, and doing things that help them, and that help other people learn to get things of God, If they did not have to spend that time at jobs that pulled them away from God. Today though, because most people in our society do not see this, most jobs in our society are full-time jobs (especially most good jobs). In this situation, it is hard for anyone to avoid working full-time because it seems to most of us that we need to work at full-time jobs in order to survive.
Jesus tells us not to concern ourselves with getting things we need to have to survive, when He says, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear; Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt 6:25-33 & Lk 12:22-34).
Though Jesus tells us this, Most of us will not be able to take no thought for our lives: because if we cannot see how we will get things that we need to have to survive, then all of us will fear that we will not be able to get these things at all (even if we seek for God’s righteousness, as Jesus told us to do). When we cannot see where our next meal will come from, we will doubt Jesus, and we will be strongly tempted abandon his teachings.
Jesus is far away from us, and we can only be certain that we are learning his teachings, when we read those teachings in the Bible. Though Jesus may speak to us in voices and signs, we can never be sure that voices we hear, or that signs we see truly come from Jesus. These voices, and signs might also come to us from powers other than Jesus: from powers that want us to mistake them for Jesus.
People, on the other hand, are often close to us, and we can often speak to people and be certain that we know who we are talking to. This makes it seem as if we can know people we are close to, better than we can know Jesus (and maybe we can know people we are close to better than we can know Jesus).
Whether or not this is true, though, Because this often seems to be true, we all want to believe that men can give us things that only Jesus can give us. This is why we pursue things of men, instead of pursuing things of God, And this is why we all try to please men, instead of trying to please God. We will only stop doing this when we see that Jesus is telling us the truth when He says that pleasing men will bring us woe, and that only pleasing God can bring us joy.
We cannot do what God wants us to do and because God created us we should do what God wants us to do.
God has given us every ability we have. Every time we use what God has given us to do things that God doesn’t want us to do we are stealing from God. God will only forgive us for the evil we do to Him when we refuse to do what He wants us to do, if we forgive other people for evil they do to us. We cannot always forgive other people who do evil to us. Often we cannot even forgive people who have done us no evil but who instead make us feel afraid that we will not receive God’s favor. This fear can be good for us if it does not drive us mad, but still we hate people who make us feel it. When we can forgive people who do us evil, then God will forgive us. When we cannot forgive people who do us evil, then God will not forgive us. The more often we forgive people who do us evil, the more often we will be forgiven.
The more often we forgive people who do us evil, the easier it will be for us to forgive people who do us evil even more often. This is the greatest reward that God gives to people who forgive other people who do them evil. Could we ever be able to forgive all people who do us evil? In this life the answer is no. Every time we feel anger towards another person we have failed to forgive that person.
In another life maybe we could forgive all people who do us evil.
We can only get any thing if we first admit that we do not already have that thing.
Though this seems so obvious that we would think all people would always realize it, sadly this is the primary obstacle to people gaining knowledge and wisdom in our world. People often try to pretend they already know things they do not know, but that they could easily learn if they admitted they needed to learn those things. At times we will all do this because telling ourselves we already know a thing flatters our vanity and seems to allow us to avoid whatever work would be involved in learning that thing. Into every new situation we enter each of us comes knowing nothing, but with the ability to know a great deal, and possibly with the ability to know everything, if we would only try to learn. Each of us has the potential to learn so much more than any of us actually does learn that it is pointless to try to measure human potential. All we need to know is that each of us has so much potential that we can learn anything we will ever try to learn in this life. If we ever come close to learning all we are able to learn, then it might make sense to try to measure potential. In today’s world, though, none of us can stat to imagine even coming close to learning all we can learn, because our reality is so far from this.
One sign that most of us do not see this, is the fact that the word “ignorant” is an insult in our society.” Instead of seeing ignorance as the necessary first step to knowledge that it is. Instead of seeing ignorance as the opportunity to learn that it is. (How sad our lives would be if there were nothing we could learn). Instead of seeing ignorance as a sign of focus. (I have focused my studies in other areas, so I am ignorant of what you speak of). Instead of all these things we see ignorance as a thing to be avoided, and we try to avoid it by pretending to already know things. We all do this when we believe that knowledge and ignorance are permanent states, when we believe that some people have knowledge, that some people have ignorance, and that these things cannot change. This is only an evil lie, though. In truth ignorance is the father of knowledge. Knowledge can only come from ignorance. If a person were not ignorant first, then that person could never become knowledgeable. People who try to pretend they are not ignorant in the beginning of every new situation they enter, will gain little knowledge , and most of what those people think they learn will be incorrect. Just as we have the potential to learn a great deal, we also have the potential to learn very little, and to learn falsehoods instead of truths. When we imagine that we know anything before we have actually learned that thing this is exactly what we will do.
The fear we have that ignorance is a permanent state, is the same fear we have that we will only be forgiven if we are good. This fear leads us to claim false knowledge and false goodness and, by doing so keeps us from obtaining true knowledge and true goodness.
Appendix e.
The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their works were evil. Everyone who does evil, hates the light, and stays away from the light for fear his works will be reproved (Jn 3:19-21)
Most of the time most of us will refuse to see anything negative in ourselves, because we believe that most of the good things we want will only come to people who are as good as we imagine ourselves to be. If we admitted the truth about ourselves most of us would not be able to believe that we would enjoy the good fortune that would allow us to receive things we want. We believe this because we do not believe that Our Creator will forgive people who only sometimes follow Jesus’ command to forgive people who trespass against us, so we tell ourselves that we forgive people who trespass against us much more often than we actually do this, and we try to ignore this command so we can look at ourselves as little as possible, and we try to pretend that the only things Our Creator expects of us are things we are able to easily do, and already do. We do not believe Our Creator will show us the mercy we need, but we believe instead that Our Creator will show us the justice we fear when we hear Jesus say, “if you do not forgive people who trespass against you then your father will not forgive you.” and when we assume this means we must always forgive people who trespass against us. For those of us who have been given the most in terms of the abilities that make us able to forgive, maybe Our Creator does expect something close to always forgiving people who trespass against us. Jesus tells us, though, that Our Creator only expects each of us to do as much good as the abilities we have been given allow us to do, when He says, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48). Jesus tells us that if we try as hard as we can to forgive people who trespass against us as often as we are able to, then we will do all that Our Creator demands of us, when He says, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt 6:25-34 & Lk 12:22-34). If we do not try to judge ourselves, we will be able to look at ourselves as we truly are, be able to see our weakness, and then work more effectively to strengthen those weakness, and we will be able to devote our thoughts and energies to trying as hard as we can to forgive as often as we can, instead of devoting those thoughts and those energies of to trying to judge ourselves, and then we will have a much better chance of being able to do what Our Creator expects us to do. Because we try to judge ourselves though, and want to judge ourselves positively, we refuse to look honestly at ourselves because we are afraid of what we might see. This is the primary reason that most of us do not guide our lives with rationality or logic - because rationality and logic require us to look at facts in as unbiased a way as we can, and make it hard for us to believe what we want to believe about ourselves. This mental handicap we inflict on ourselves does more than anything else to make us unlikely to do what Our Creator expects us to do. Trying to judge other people clouds our ability to think clearly about the world outside of ourselves almost as much as trying to judge ourselves clouds our ability to think clearly about ourselves, because whenever we try to judge we will try to see what we want to see rather than trying to see the truth of a situation whether or not that truth is what we want to see. When we do this we go on believing what we want to believe until we are forced to face the truth, and by that time the truth we will face will be much more negative than it was at earlier times, and may be too negative for us to remedy. Unfortunately for us we can often go for very long times without facing up to the truth because most other people also want to avoid seeing the truth and because we join with some of these people in a common delusions that we help each other maintain. Usually the groups of people who join in common delusions are very large, and often they include nearly all of the people who live in a given society. This is the phenomenon that allows people in different societies to have radically different views of our world, and to all feel certain that they are correct and that people in another society are wrong. This delusional groupthink fuels the wars and conflicts that we all tragically take part in at some time. Though few of us actually fight in wars, we all help to foster the delusion that makes other people eager or willing to fight in them. Nearly al of us contribute to the society-wide belief that wars sometimes make our world better, and most of us argue that wars that our society takes part in during our lifetimes are some of these necessary wars, at least while these wars are going on, or at least argue that wars our society takes part in during our lifetimes have great redeeming value. We should be warned that we are heavily biased in this opinion, by the fact that many of us will say that most wars of the past were tragic barbaric events that made our world a much worse place, and that we would have opposed those wars if we had lived in those societies, but that most of us will seldom say this about our society’s present wars. We forget that people in societies involved in wars have usually felt just as frightened of their enemies as we feel of our enemies, and have usually felt just as justified in fighting their enemies as most people in our society feel. Jesus and most of the people he spoke to probably felt even greater fear of their enemies than we feel of our enemies, when Jesus said, “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who abuse you; so that you may be sons of your father in the heavens. For He makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Mt 5:42-48). At least there was much greater reason for Jesus and his listeners to fear their greatest enemy (The Roman empire) than we have to fear our enemies, as their enemy had done great evil to them, while our enemies only did evil to us after we attacked them, and before we attacked them were only people who we imagined might do evil to us in the future. When we are frightened we will always imagine that a person we are scared of might do evil to us, and we will all often be frightened. If we fight whenever we are frightened we will become one of the most belligerent societies in the history of our world. Sadly, though, many societies in the history have our world have also gone to war simply because they were frightened, while our world will only be healed if some of us have the courage not to go to war even if the war would be an attempt to resist evil that is done to us. “ Do not resist not evil: If a man strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him your left. If a man judges you and takes away your coat, offer him your cloak also. If a man compels you to go a mile, go with him two.” (Mt 5:38-41)
Jesus tells us about a very similar situation to this when He says to the scribes and pharisees of Jerusalem, “You decorate the tombs of the prophets, and you say, ‘If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have partaken in the blood of the prophets.’ By saying this, you show that you are children of those who murdered the prophets.” (Mt 23:29-31). By saying they would not have killed the prophets, these scribes and pharisees showed how they were like their fathers who killed the prophets. They were like their fathers who killed the prophets, in that they wanted to see themselves as people who would not kill prophets, in that they wanted to see themselves as people who were good. It was the desire to believe that they were good, that had led their fathers to kill the prophets; because the prophets had shown their fathers that they were not good. It was the desire to believe they were good, that led these scribes and pharisees to partake in the blood of the greatest prophet.
Like these scribes and Pharisees we will all want to say we would not have partaken in the blood of the prophets and we will especially want to say we would not have partaken in the blood of the greatest prophet: in the blood of Jesus. If we say this we will be showing that we are like the people who killed Jesus, because like those people we want to believe we are good, and like those people we will try to silence anyone who starts to make us believe we are not good. If Jesus came to us as He came to them and criticized us as he criticized them, we would also try to silence Him, though we might not try to help kill Jesus as they did, because it is clearer to us than it was to them, that killing a person one wants to silence will often lead a great number of other people to say what that person had said, and to say it in a way that is harder to ignore. If Jesus comes to us and any of us does not try to help silence Him, we will only do so if we have been given the strength to follow Jesus’ command to deny ourselves. We will all want to silence Jesus when He criticizes us, but we may remember that Jesus says, “If any one will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily.” (Lk 9:23 & Mt 16:24), And we may have been given the strength to deny our desire. If we say we would not want to help silence Jesus, we only show that we are like the people who killed Jesus: we show that spiritually we are those people’s children.
By judging we greatly harm our ability to think clearly and for this reason we often doom ourselves to ruin. This is one of the reasons Jesus says to us, “straight is the path and narrow the way that leads to life, and few enter therein” (Mt 7:14) If we follow Jesus’ command not to judge, our mental abilities will increase so much that we will see our current state as the stumbling and shuffling circus of errors that it is. Of course will only be able to stop judging if we also try to do everything else Jesus tells us to do. If we do not try to always forgive people who trespass against us it will be very hard for us not to judge those people, and if we do not see that Our Creator is so eager to forgive us that he will make allowances for us based on what abilities we have been given, then it will be very hard for us to stop judging ourselves. If we try to resist evil we believe another person wants to do to us then we will almost always judge that person negatively, and if we refuse to give to a poor person who needs our help we will again almost always judge that person negatively to justify our treatment of them. Of course not judging will also help us do all of these things. Everything Jesus tells us to do will help us do everything else Jesus tells us to do. If we try to do only a small part of what Jesus tells us to do we will almost certainly be unable to do these things, but if we try to do everything Jesus tells us to do we will be able to do so much of what Jesus tells us to do with so little effort that we will truly experience what Jesus means when He says to us, “Come to me all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Mt 11:28-30). Whether we do the things that will make it easiest for us to follow Jesus, or whether we do the things will make it harder to follow Jesus, though, Jesus’ yoke and His burden will always be very easy and very light compared to the yoke we would have to wear and the burden we would have to carry if we did what we want to do. “Everyone who sins is a slave of sin” (Jn 08:34). If we do what we want to do, instead of what Jesus tells us to do, we will serve the harsh master of sin, rather than the gentle master that is Jesus
The initial delusion that opens the floodgates for all subsequent delusions we fall prey to is the delusion that arbitrary events that we devote great energy to, matter to Our Creator. This is very easy to see with regard to sports, entertainment, and advertising. This is why it is so important for us to remember that Jesus says to his disciple Peter, “, “Get behind me Satan. You are an offence to me because you do not think of things of God, but think instead, of things of men.” (Mt 16:23). Anything that people have produced is a thing of man, while anything that God has created is a thing of God. Things of man are worth nothing to us by themselves. They only have value for us if they help us get things of God. They do sometimes do this by helping us develop abilities we can later use to follow Jesus more closely. This sometimes happens and then things of men contribute to our something Our Creator does care about, but in and of themselves things of man mean nothing to our creator. Sports provide us a clear example of this. Sports can do the most to please Our Creator when as many people involved in those sports do as much as possible to develop the abilities God has given us. Especially the ability of disregarding harmful emotions that are associated with sport so we can more fully develop the mental abilities that are the greatest key to success in sports just as they are the greatest key to success in all parts of life, but Our Creator does not dare at all about what person or team wins a sporting contest. We show that we do not understand this when we care about who wins a sporting event. If everyone involved in a contest performs close to as well as they can perform, then we should also not care at all about who wins that contest. We should only want to win sporting events if victory is a sign that we have performed well. Of course we can usually find better signs of performing well than victory, though, and if these signs tell us that we have performed well and we lose a contest then we should be happier than if we had performed poorly but won a contest. We all sometimes lose sight of this to such a greet degree that we actually want our opponents to perform worse so we can win a contest and try to make our opponents perform worse so we can win that contest. This sickness is most widespread and most extreme in people who watch spectator sports. People who are actually involved in a sporting contest and who are successful usually spend most of their energy focusing on making themselves perform better rather than on making their opponents perform worse. Even people who focus on defense in sports, who are most successful do not want their opponents to fail to score when they have good opportunities, but instead dedicate themselves to keeping their opponents from having good opportunities to score. There is also always the danger that people involved in sports will forget that they can only please our creator if they are tools that help us develop things of God, and that those people will treat sports as an end in itself. If this happens then sports like all human pursuits become false idols that distract us from focusing our energies on doing what Jesus tells us Our Creator wants us to do, and by doing this makes it much harder for us to receive rewards our Creator will give to people who do what he wants us to do. Jesus tells us that this can happen when, in the parable of the sower, He says, “And some seed fell among thorns and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it.”, and when He then explains this parable, saying, “In this parable The seed is the word of God, and those seeds that fell among thorns are people who, when they have heard the word, go forth and are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of this life.” (Lk 8:4-15 & Mt 13:18-23) “The one who receives the seed among thorns is one who hears the word, and the anxiety of the age, and the deceit of riches chokes the word, and it becomes unfruitful. Though Jesus tells us to think of things of God, instead of things of men, Jesus also tells us that we will need to understand both things of God and things of man. Jesus tells us this when He says to His disciples, “I send you forth as sheep among wolves. Therefore be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.” (Mt 10:16). In order to deal with the wolves who surround us we will have to understand those wolves and their things.
When things of men distract us from trying to develop the things of God that are abilities God as given us, and distract us from trying to obtain the things of God that are the rewards God will give to people who do what he wants us to do, then things of men become hateful activities that offend God, and force us to say to people who try to spread their destructive obsession with things of men, “get thee behind me satan’ just as Jesus said this to Peter when Peter tried to spread his destructive obsession with living even at the expense altering Jesus’ ministry in ways that would cause Jesus to abandon the commission God had given Him, when Jesus’ death came near. Peter’s words sound harmless to most of us when we read that when Peter heard of Jesus’ impending death, He said “Lord, be it far from you”, but Jesus knew that to put His death far from Him He would have to abandon His commission. By refusing to do this Jesus helped us all immensely because if Jesus had preached just as He preached, but had not died on the cross, we would not take His words seriously. We would say that talk is cheap, and we would think that Jesus was asking us to do things He wouldn’t do. In fact, because we all would have felt this way about Jesus, people who lived when Jesus preached, would not have preserved and passed on Jesus’ words, and people alive today, would not even be able to hear or read Jesus’ words. Jesus knows this about us, and this is why He died for us: so that His teachings would come to us, and so that we would take His teachings seriously.
Jesus tells us to eat His body and to drink His blood (Lk 22:19-20 & Mt 26:26-28.), and Jesus tells us that we cannot live unless we eat his body and drink His blood. “Truly, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” (Jn 6:53)
When Jesus died, His blood flowed down from the cross to form the words of His gospels. Every time we read these words, and live by them, we are drinking Jesus’ blood. Every time we read these words, and live by them, we are eating Jesus’ body. Many people think we can drink Jesus’ blood, and eat Jesus’ body, by drinking either wine or grape juice and eating bread in a religious ritual in a church. This is entirely incorrect, and Jesus never taught this, or anything like this. Jesus told us to drink wine and eat bread in memory of Him. This means that when we drink wine we are to remember that we must also drink Jesus’ blood if we hope to live, and that when we eat bread we are to remember that we must also eat Jesus’ body if we hope to live. Living by the words of Jesus’ gospels, is the only way we can drink Jesus’ blood, and living by the words of Jesus’ gospels, is the only way we can eat Jesus’ body. And forgiving other people, as we need Our Creator to forgive us, is the only way we can live by the words of Jesus’ Gospels.
While we can see the danger of treating things of men as ends in themselves more clearly in sports than in other things of men, all things of men can lead to this same danger. All things of men can also be used to help us develop things of God. The potential for helping us develop things of God, is probably greatest with regard to music because music can help us develop both the mental abilities God has given us and can help us learn to control and use effectively the strong emotions that often prevent us from effectively pursuing things of God. Music that does this best, though, is not music that aims to immediately calm our emotions by being soothing and relaxing. Music that does this best, instead causes us to feel strong emotions but then shows us how these emotions can resolve themselves in positive ways that can help us achieve the emotional state that is most conducive to the mental focus we need. Music that shows us the relationships between complex patterns also helps us by directly helping us develop our mental abilities, and a certain amount of complexity is also required for music to make us feel strong emotions and to show us how these strong emotions can resolve themselves into an emotional state conducive to mental focus. For both of these reasons the greatest evil in music, as in all human activities is oversimplification. When we oversimplify any activity we take part in, we develop the habit of oversimplifying in our thinking in general and we prevent ourselves from understanding the complex world we live in. We often do this though, because oversimplifying our thoughts helps us always be prepared to fight at a moment’s notice, and because we all want to be prepared to fight at a moments notice. If we saw the true complexity of our world we might feel indecision when we want to fight, and this indecision might make us hesitate when we want to act quickly. The desire to always be ready to fight does as much to cripple the mental abilities we need to have to be able to follow Jesus as judging does to cripple these abilities, and this is part of the reason it is so important that we follow Jesus’ command not to resist evil. If we are committed to not resisting evil then we will not try to always be prepared to resist evil by trying to oversimplify our thoughts, and then we will stop crippling the mental abilities Our Creator has given us.
Because we are afraid that if we see ourselves as we truly are, we will see so much evil in ourselves that we will not be able to transform into good, that we will see that Our Creator will not forgive us but will instead punish us for our evil, most of us try to avoid seeing negative things about ourselves by trying to act like people we identify with most of the time, (we try to live without asking ourselves if this is how Our Creator wants us to act) and by then trying to surround ourselves with these people as often as possible so we will almost always hear only good things about ourselves. This includes most people who call themselves Christians most of the time, including most of the time they spend in church. Most people in most churches focus almost solely on hopeful things they enjoy hearing and almost entirely ignore anything that would show them negative parts of themselves, including Jesus’ teachings when Jesus tells us to do things that are hard for us to do or that we do not want to do. Some clear examples of this are that Jesus clearly tells us not to resist evil, but that most of those of us who call themselves Christians do not try very hard to follow this command and that people in the united states who call themselves Christians are actually more likely to work for police and military forces than other people are, and that Jesus clearly tells rich people to sell all that they have and give to the poor, and clearly tells all of us to give to every one who ask of us and ask for nothing in return from people who take from us, and that most of those of us who call ourselves Christians do not try very hard to follow these commands, and that if we even consider giving to all who ask of us and asking for nothing in return, we also separate ourselves from most people who need our help as often as we can so we will seldom be asked to give. If we were trying to follow these commands most of those of us who call ourselves Christians would live as close as we could to the poorest people we could find. To distract ourselves from things Jesus tells us to do that we don’t want to do, many people who call themselves Christians pretend that Jesus wants us to do things that are easier for them to do that Jesus never spoke about, (things such as avoiding homosexuality). Pretending this helps us ignore what Jesus actually told us to do. When Jesus was asked about divorce, He said, “A man shall leave his mother and shall cleave to his wife. And any man who divorces his wife, save for fornication, commits adultery.” In these words Jesus was telling us that men who marry should not divorce their wives. He was not saying that all men must marry women. This is the only thing Jesus says that could possibly be misunderstood as command against homosexuality. If homosexuality had mattered to Jesus or to Our Creator Jesus would have told us so. In areas that Jesus does not talk about, we are free to do whatever we want to do, but in areas that Jesus did talk about we must choose between serving the gentle master that is Jesus ” (Mt 11:30), or serving the harsh master that is sin, for “Everyone who sins is a slave of sin” (Jn 08:34). When Jesus says , “My yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Mt 11:30)., we must remember that though it is much easier than the yoke that will press down on us if we are enslaved by sin, that it is still a yoke that we will sometimes have to wear if we want to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness, though we will often wish we did not have to wear any yoke, for a yoke is A yoke is a wooden collar that oxen wear around their necks, and that a farmer presses down on an those oxen’s neck to make them plow his field., and just as an ox will often to be free of all yokes, so we will also often wish to free of all yokes.
People who want to pretend that Jesus wants us to do things he never spoke about imagine that Jesus wants us to obey every passage of the Old Testament even though many passages in the Old Testament contradict Jesus’ teachings. Especially passages that that do not condemn war and fighting and that encourage us to make war and to fight. When Jesus says, “Do not think that I came to destroy the law of the prophets, I came not to destroy but to fulfill.” (Mt 5:17), we must remember that not all of the Old Testament is the law of the prophets. The law of the prophets is only a part of the Old Testament. Without Jesus’ teachings it would be hard to tell where the law of the prophets ended, and where false teachings began in the Old Testament. Jesus corrects the errors that had contaminated the law of the prophets. The Old Testament, and the Jewish history it records, is a process of growth that reached its fullest development and perfection in the teachings of Jesus. In any process of growth there are certain traits that are found during the growth process that are not present when that growth is finished. For example when a plant reaches full flower it will have lost many offshoots that had been important parts of that plant in its youth. So it is with many parts of the Old Testament. Now that Jesus has come, we should not forget the growth of the society which, though it’s leaders helped kill Jesus, also produced many people who followed Jesus closely and with great energy. (In most other societies Jesus either would have been ignored, or would have been killed and then would have been forgotten.) We should remember the Old Testament as we remember our youths, and we should see any part of the Old Testament that does not reinforce what Jesus teaches, as an error that we should learn from and should try to avoid, as we should learn from and try to avoid errors of our youth.
Jesus often does tell us hopeful things that we enjoy hearing when He tells us that if we try we will be able to follow His teachings often enough to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness and receive the rewards that will come with that forgiveness. If we focus only on the hopeful things Jesus says, though, and ignore teachings that show us how much we need to change in ourselves then these hopes will never become realities for us. Most of our attempts to avoid seeing negative things in ourselves come from the fact that we do not believe Jesus when He tells us we will be able to change enough of these things to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness. If we believed this then we would be eager to see negative things in ourselves because we would see this as the first step toward changing these things, and toward receiving the rewards that will come to us if we receive Our Creator’s forgiveness. The sign of a life well lived is trying to always improve oneself, and trying always to learn about faults in oneself that can be improved. We would know this even if Jesus had not devoted His ministry to telling us how we should change ourselves. Because Jesus does devote His ministry to telling us about things we need to improve in ourselves to be able to receive rewards from Our Creator and avoid punishments from Our Creator, Jesus knows we will all try to ignore most of what He says to us
Jesus tells us we will be able to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness and receive the rewards that will come with this forgiveness when He says, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” (Jn 6:35), and when He says, “If any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes on me. Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (Jn 7:37-38). Of Course if we believe Jesus we will also believe Him when He tells us what we must do to receive these rewards and we will try as hard as we can to do everything Jesus tells us to do so we can receive the rewards He tells us of. Jesus tells us that if we do what He teaches us to do, then Our Father will give us all we need, when He says, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.”, And Jesus tells us we will receive all we ask for, when He says, ““Ask, and it will be given you, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, it will be opened.” (Mt 7:7-8 & Lk 11:9-10), “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.” (Jn 14:14). How can this be true, though, when Jesus also says, “If you do not forgive men their trespasses, then your father will not forgive you.”? What would happen if a person who did not forgive enough people who had trespassed against him or her? What would happen if such a person asked? Would that person receive all he or she asked for? The answer to this question is that a person who did not try to forgive all people who had trespassed against him or her, would not be able to ask. This is true in the same way that a person who had no throat and no mouth would not be able to speak. Forgiveness is the voice that allows us to ask. We know this because we know that if Our Father has not forgiven a person, then Our Father will not give that person all that he or she asks for. Jesus says these things to tell us that if we follow his teachings forgiving people who trespass against us will be how we will ask Our Father to forgive us. Jesus can make this promise because if we always try to forgive as we need be forgiven, then we will ask for very different things than we would ask for if we did not always try to forgive as we need be forgiven. If we did not try to always forgive as we need be forgiven then we would ask for things that would do so much harm to so many people that Our Creator would never give us all that we asked for. asked for.
Because we seldom believe Jesus, though, we try to ignore most of His teachings. Jesus tells us we will do this when He says, “The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their works were evil. Everyone who does evil, hates the light, and stays away from the light for fear his works will be reproved” (Jn 3:19-21), and Jesus says, “The World hates me because I testify that its works are evil” (Jn 7:2-8). None of us ever wants to hear things that show us our evil, and this is why we will all hate Jesus. Still some of us will sometimes follow Jesus because we know that things we like even less than this will happen to us if we o not se the evil in ourselves and correct that evil. Still we will all wish for an easier life in which we did not have to do anything that was even a little bit hard (The kind of life we try to imagine we are living when we refuse to see ourselves as we truly are, and when we try to ignore most of what Jesus says to us), and we will all be angry at Jesus for telling us that we have to do things we don’t want to do. If we are wise, though, we will also be grateful that Jesus tells us that we have to do these things and by doing so gives us a better chance of receiving rewards and we want to receive and of avoiding punishments we want to avoid.
A part of the reason we avoid seeing negative things about ourselves, though, is that most times in our lives when people have told us our works were evil, those people were not trying to help us but were instead trying to hurt us as other people have hurt them. The primary example of this is parents who without thinking about their actions assume they should do to their children what their parents did to them. After tolerating what their parents did to them, they now feel it is their turn to take out their anger on weaker people who cannot resist them. Jesus, though, makes it clear that He is telling us about evil we do in order to help us, makes it clear that we can change enough evil in us into good, to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness and receive the rewards that will come with that forgiveness, and makes it clear that if we do not do what He tells us often enough to meet Our Creator’s demands, that we will suffer greatly for this. “There will be great wiling and Gnashing of teeth.” (Mt 25:14-30 & Lk 19: 12-27)
We are still in the process of being created. In this world we are individuals who are coming together to form something greater than ourselves. Our creation cannot be complete until we have come together as one with all people.
Everything that Jesus teaches us is something that will help us come together with other people. If we do all that Jesus tells us to do, harmony, brotherhood, and unity will come to us as easily and as certainly as water flows down a mountain when snow melts on that mountain’s top.
We are like molecules of flour, egg, and, water, and we are like grains of wheat that are coming together to form a loaf of bread, and this world is the oven in which we are being baked. Often, though, we will refuse to come together with each other by refusing to live as Jesus tells us to live. Often we will do this because in order to come together with each other we must forgive people who trespass against us, and because often we will not want to forgive people who trespass against us.
In this world we are able to join with some people in small groups. The pleasure this brings us is short lived, though, because these small groups are usually hostile to each other (and under difficult circumstances are nearly always hostile to each other). These small groups keep us from coming together with people outside of these groups. Because of this the pleasure joining in small groups brings us will soon turn into pain and loneliness, when these groups isolate us from people outside of these groups. Our joy can only last if we make small groups stepping-stones to coming together with all people. If we do this then once we have joined together with all people we will forget that we ever belonged to smaller groups. These smaller groups will have served their purpose, and we will honor them by forgetting that we had ever belonged to them. The small groups we currently belong to are usually based on common traits such as belonging to the same family, the same race, or the same sex. Once we have joined with all people we will forget that we ever belonged to different families races and sexes, because these differences between us will have disappeared. Jesus tells us part of this when He says, “in the resurrection people do not marry, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” (Mt 22:30).
Jesus tells us little about the resurrection because the purpose of His preaching is not to describe the resurrection, but to show us how we can be resurrected. It doesn’t matter whether or not we know what the resurrection will be like, so long as we are a part of it. Knowing that we must come together with other people to be resurrected, helps us understand why Jesus tells us to forgive people who trespass against us, but we will not need this understanding if we dedicate ourselves to following Jesus’ commands. If we forgive people who trespass against us, it doesn’t matter why we do this, so long as we do this.
Both while we are individuals and after we have joined together, Our Creator wants us to develop the abilities He has given us. We will only be able to develop these abilities if we live as Jesus teaches us to live. Cruelty, ruthlessness, anger, and hate are not abilities. They are the negation of abilities. Kindness, compassion, and love facilitate the development of abilities (both in ourselves, and in people we show kindness, compassion and love to). Because of this, they are proto-abilities. They are necessary for the development of abilities Our Creator has given us. We know that Our Creator wants us to develop these abilities because everything Jesus teaches us will help us develop them.
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Even though everyone involved in war loses that war, the lesson of large wars throughout history is that people in whichever nation attacks first, lose even more painfully than people in the nations they are fighting against. This occurs because nations that attack first always have fewer and weaker allies than their opponents. (In the history of the west this has been clearly shown by the two world wars, the Napoleonic wars, and the wars of Louis the Fourteenth, all of which followed almost exactly the same pattern. While nations that attack first always claim they were unfairly provoked by their enemies and while sometimes this may be true, there is little doubt about the fact that the nations that were the greatest losers in each of these wars started each of them, and if this lack of doubt is based on the lies of their enemies then either these histories are based on such colossal lies that they would long ago have been exposed, or all history and all human communication is so dishonest that our only choice is to believe no one and nothing, but to instead all live the isolated lives of hermits. This is the only way large lies about events so many people watched so closely, could ever become accepted history, though I am sure that smaller lies about more isolated events often become accepted history, even though most of us are usually honest because we fear being caught in our lies.). We will have to wait for the history of the future, though, to learn from history the far greater lesson that all resistance is folly. History will only teach us this lesson when a nation follows Jesus’ command not to resist evil, and when we see that nation become the greatest winner in all aspects of international affairs.
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When we realize how hard it is to follow Jesus, we realize that the rewards Jesus tells His -followers they will receive, (while they make it a good choice to follow Jesus), are not ridiculously out of proportion with sacrifices those followers will have to make to follow Jesus, as they would be if the lie often told in Jesus’ name that following Jesus is a matter of saying we follow Him, were true. The fact that this is so obvious a lie is why most intelligent people currently do not follow Jesus. The way in which so many people who call themselves Christians try to promise these rewards in return for mere words, is the most obnoxious form of cheeky and false salesmanship people have ever engaged in, because it has perverted the most honest and forthright promises ever made: the promises Jesus made to his followers. This is why I am working so hard to expose this lie for what it is. I am trying to brush away the clouds of smoke that surround Jesus’ teachings, so Jesus’ light can shine through. I, like all people, fear that light as Jesus told us we would all fear the light when He said, “The World hates me because I testify that its works are evil.” (Jn 7:6-8), and when He says. “The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their works were evil. (Jn 3:19-21), but I fear the consequences of not following Jesus even more, so I am trying to follow Jesus, (though like all of Jesus’ disciples I may betray him at any moment.
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Many people mistakenly believe Our Creator is opposed to homosexuality because when He was asked about divorce Jesus said, “A man shall leave his mother and become as one flesh with His wife. And any man who divorces his wife save for fornication commits adultery. (Mt 19:3-12). We know this is not a command that all men must marry women, though, because immediately after saying this Jesus’ disciples say, ‘If this is true isn’t it better not to marry?”’ and Jesus answers, “Not all men can receive this saying because some men are born eunuchs, some are made eunuch’s by people, and some make themselves eunuch’s for the kingdom of heaven’s sake .” We know that Jesus is using the practical definition of the word eunuch meaning a person who does not have sex that can lead to new life, because Jesus seems to be saying that making oneself a eunuch can help some men enter the kingdom of heaven, and because if Jesus were using the physical definition of the word eunuch this would lead many men to physically mutilate themselves. The way Jesus uses the word Eunuch reminds us that any activity that cannot lead to new life should not even be called sex and reminds us that it is only a weakness in our language that leads us to even call homosexuality sex.
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The motivation behind racism is simple. We all would like to believe we are better than other people for reasons that are unlikely to change, (and race is a reason that will never change), and we will only avoid believing this when we appreciate how much more exciting our world is if we see how easily and quickly it can change and if we see how easily and quickly we can change. It is important to realize that racism is only one way of doing this. Often people feel that they are better than people from certain other places, and even more often people feel they are better than anyone who does not share some superficial trait or way of speaking that is the fashion for them, and that many other people are unlikely to even know about. These things are often seen in modern America in the attitudes of some people toward people they call rednecks. Believing that one is better than other people for any superficial reason can be just as harmful as racism can be, because it can lead to a just as hostile an environment that fosters just as much exclusivity, and that hurts people who are subject to it just as much as racism does. People who create hostile environments that foster exclusivity, are usually called haters in today’s society, whatever the reason for their hatred. It is important to recognize hate whatever rationalization is used to justify that hate, so each of us can recognize the hate that exists within us, and remind ourselves how much better our lives will be if we renounce that hate.
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Appemdix F.
“As you would have men do to you, do you likewise to them.” (Lk 6:31, & Mt 7:12)
When we see unequivocal examples of a person doing evil, that person will often be doing evil to us. Though Jesus tells us not to resist evil, we know that if we are victims of evil we will all often resist that evil. When Jesus tells us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 11:2-4). Jesus is telling us to pray that we be delivered from the evil we would do if we were led into temptation. It is this evil we truly need to be delivered from. Evil we do does us far greater harm than any evil other people could ever do to us. If we hope to follow Jesus, and receive rewards He promises, we must try as hard as we can not to resist evil, and if we do resist evil, we must try as hard as we can to end our resistance as soon as possible, and we must try to, “Agree with our adversary quickly; lest he deliver us to the judge, the judge deliver us to the officer, and we are cast into prison. If this happens we will not come out until we have paid the last cent.” (Mt 5:25-26 & Lk 12:58-59). And we must try as hard as we can to forgive people who have trespassed against us so Our Father will forgive us (Mt 6:9-15). We must also remember, that however hard we try to follow Jesus, if we are led into temptation will all often fail to do these things, and when we resist evil that is done to us we will all usually want other people to help us resist that evil. Because we will all often want this, we must also help other people resist evil when they are victims of evil we would want them to help us resist if that evil were done to us, in order to follow Jesus command to do to men as we would have them do to us. (Lk 6:31, & Mt 7:12), and we should not help other people resist evil if we would not want those people to help us resist if that evil were done to us. If we were able to follow Jesus we would never want other people to help us resist evil, just as we would never resist evil, but because we are often not able to follow Jesus, then we must also often help other people resist evil that is done to them. When evil is done to other people we will all be tempted to say we would not resist that evil and would not want other people to help us resist that evil if it were done to us, so we do not have to help those people. If this is not true, though, we will be disobeying Jesus and we will be displeasing Our Creator. We must also treat people who are doing evil, as we would want to be treated if we were doing the evil they do. Whenever we do evil we should want other people to stop us, but often we will not want this but will instead want other people to help us in our evil or want them to allow us to do evil without hindrance. If we see one person do evil to another person and if we would want other people to help us resist if we were the victim of that evil, and would want other people not to resist us if we were doing that evil, then we cannot follow Jesus command to “Do to men as you would have them do to you”, (Lk 6:31, & Mt 7:12), until we change ourselves so we would not want both of these things. If we are honest with ourselves this will often happen to us and when it does all we can do in the short term is to beat on our chests, hang our heads down, and say, ‘‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner .’ (Lk 18:10-14)
While resisting evil on other people’s behalf whenever those people suffer evil that we would want other people to resist on our behalf, will sometimes lead us to resist evil when we might not otherwise resist evil, overall it will lead us to resist less evil than we would resist otherwise, because if we are obligated to resist all evil that we would want other people to resist on our behalf if we were the victim of that evil, then we will see the folly of resistance when we might never see that folly otherwise, and then we might truly become people who will not resist evil that is done to us. And in truth this is the evil we all do the most to resist. Most of the time if we say we are resisting evil on another person’s behalf we are only saying that to justify joining a fight that we want to join for reasons of our own. If we see the folly of resistance, though, we will usually see that we can help people who are the victims of evil more in other ways, than we can help them by helping them resist evil, just as when we are victims of evil we can help ourselves more in other ways than we can by resisting evil, and we will often see that resisting evil hurts the victim of that evil more than it helps the victim of that evil. Because Jesus tells us not to resist evil, we know that resistance will always hurt a victim of evil more than it will help that victim, and we know that the more people who join in that resistance the worse off the victim of that evil will be. If this were not true Jesus would not have said, “Do not resist evil.” (Mt 5:38-48). The benefits that will come to us from not resisting evil will outweigh any suffering that comes from not resisting evil because if any significant number of people in our world resist less evil than they currently resist, then the positive results of their non-resistance will lead other people to join them, and after a certain amount of time has passed we will all live in a world free of war, police, military forces, and violence of all kinds. It may take a long time before our world is completely free of these things, but any person’s refusal to resist will lead to enough progress in this direction that our lives will improve greatly every time any person does not resist evil, and will especially improve every time we do not resist evil. What Jesus tells us to do is what will work for us, and is what will make our lives better. Not resisting evil is one powerful example of this. This may sound like wishful thinking, But that does not mean it will not happen. Every positive thing that has ever occurred sounded like wishful thinking if any person predicted that thing would happen before it did. If we continue to resist evil as often as we now do, I do not believe that any of the positive changes I am talking about will occur. I am only saying that if we resist evil less often and less forcefully these things will happen. I am stating a cause and effect relationship similar in form to the statement that if a person drops a lead ball from a tower that ball will fall. As more people resist evil less often and less forcefully our world will be healed in many ways that sound like wishful thinking today.
Resisting evil on other people’s behalf whenever those people suffer evil that we would want other people to resist on our behalf, will often lead us to act unrighteously. Jesus tells us that we should sometimes be willing to do this when He says, “Use unrighteous mammon to make friends, so that when it fails, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” (Luke 16:9). Jesus is telling us that we will try to live by unrighteous mammon, that when we try to live by unrighteous mammon, unrighteous mammon will fail us, and that we will only be received into everlasting habitations if we have used the fruits of our unrighteousness to make other people our friends; If, instead of trying to avoid other people because we fear their evil would corrupt our goodness, we see that we are evil, as they are evil, and we befriend them because their evil, like our evil, causes them to need help, as we need help.
We will all resist whenever great evil is done to us, or whenever we fear that great evil will be done to us, and if we do not resist, we only do so because no one is trying to do great evil to us. Jesus tells us that our ability to refrain from evil depends mainly on the circumstances we are placed in when He tells us to pray to Our Heavenly Father, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 11:2-4). Jesus is telling us to pray that we be delivered from the evil we would do if we were led into temptation. It is this evil we truly need to be delivered from. Evil that is done to us does us little harm, compared to evil web do; which does us great harm. Jesus tells His disciples that, though they will try to follow His teachings, they will do evil when they are tempted, when He says to them, “Pray that you know no temptation Indeed the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mt 26:41 & LK 22:46).
Knowing that we will not be able to follow Jesus in difficult situations we must work especially hard to follow Jesus in easier situations. Following Jesus in easier situations will lead to a world in which fewer people are placed in the difficult situations that will lead us all to do evil. For example It will be easier for us to follow Jesus’ command to sell all that we have and distribute to the poor (Lk 12:33, see also Lk 18:18-25, & Mt 19:16-24), than it will be for us not to resist great evil, and doing this would lead to world in which many fewer people will be put in a position in which they will be the victims of great evil. Jesus gives this command to a young rich man. In material terms the vast majority of those of us who live in wealthy societies today, and great number of those of us who live in poor societies today are rich. (probably at least 1 billion people in all). Chances are if you are reading or hearing these words you are one of these people. This command does not refer only to material riches, though, but also refers to every ability we possess, to every bit of energy we possess, and to our lives themselves. We are to sell every thing we have for the poor. One person may be able to help the poor most by accumulating material wealth and then selling that wealth and distributing to the poor, while another person may be able to help the poor most by dedicating his or her life to the service of the poor. Selling all that we have means that we are to develop whatever abilities in us are most valuable, and then use those abilities to help the poor. otherwise we will only have sold part of what we have. Many people can help the poor most by creating new things that will help the poor and by giving these things to the poor. For example creating a high quality free library near where poor people live, can often be the way in which a person can give the most to the poor. So also can writing a book that helps poor people learn how to live wisely and giving copies of this book or internet access to this book to the poor, or creating a work of art that helps poor people learn how to live wisely. Protecting our natural environment is another way of giving to the poor. These ways of giving to the poor will often also help people who are not poor, because the elements of a good life are the same for all people. If they do this, then this is an added benefit. They must help the poor, though, if we hope to follow Jesus’ command, and if we hope to receive rewards Jesus tells us of, and avoid punishments Jesus tells us of. Whether or not this is the way in which a particular person can give the most to the poor depends on the abilities that person has been given, and depends on the circumstances of that person’s life.
Selling all that we have and giving to the poor will still be difficult for us, though, because we fear that if we do this we will not have things we need to survive. Jesus knows we have this fear, and this is why He says to us, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow will take thought for itself. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.” (Mt 6:25-34 & Lk 12:22-34). If selling all that we have and giving to the poor, and giving to every one who asks of us and not asking for anything in return (Lk 6:27-36, see also Mt 5:42-48) are still more than we can do, though, then each of us should try to give as much to the poor as he or she can, and hope this will be as much as Our Creator expects him or her to do. Jesus says to all of us, “Sell your possessions and give alms. Provide yourself with wealth that will not grow old, an unfailing treasure in the heavens that no thief will come near to, and that no moth will corrupt.” (Lk 12:33, see also Lk 18:18-25, & Mt 19:16-24). When Jesus says, “Judge not lest you be judged.” (Mt 7:1-2, & Lk 6:37) Jesus is telling us not to try to determine how often Our Creator expects any person to follow Him, and a part of why Jesus tells us this is because we could not accurately judge this even if we tried. When Jesus says, “To whoever much is given. Much will be demanded of that person.” Many of the things that are given to some people and not to other people are things we cannot see or measure. People who are treated well as children, and who are taught wisdom as children will be able to do much more of what Jesus tells us to do than other people will be able to do. These people have been given the ability to follow Jesus more easily than other people, and for this reason more will be expected of these people. Even if we tried, though, we could not identify who has been treated well as a child and who has been treated poorly. Though we cannot judge, Jesus tells us that “There is one who judges.” (Jn 8:50). This one is Our Creator and we are to leave all judgement to Him.
Appendix g.
Two of the most significant ways in which we can give to all who ask of us, (as Jesus tells us to do in Lk 6:30 (27-36). see also Mt 5:42- 48), are to give people who want to live near us, our assistance in their efforts to move near us, and to move near people we think we can help most. The first of these ways of giving to all who ask of us, is the way we should try hardest to practice, primarily because, given the smallness of our faith, (Mt 6:30, Mt 8:26, Mt 14:31, Mt 16:8, Lk 12:28, & Mt 17:20), the weakness of the flesh this lack of faith leads to in us, (Mt 26:41, LK 22:46, Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 11:2-4, & Lk 16:9), and our consequent inability to do much good (Lk 18:10-14), we must always try to do whatever good we can do most easily first, and only if we succeed in doing good that is easy for us to do, then try to good that is harder for us to do, and because it is much easier to help someone move near us than to move near that person. Often we should also try harder to help people who need our help move near us, than to move near them, because often we can give more to other people if we and they are living in whatever place is more conducive to human growth, and for those of us from whom much is demanded because we have been given much, (Lk 12:48), being placed in an environment that is more conducive to human growth is often one of the things we have been given, and is one of the things Our Creator demands we share with other people. Sadly, though, we are often prevented doing this by governments that create laws that prevent people from moving freely across national borders (and we are especially burdened by these laws if we are some of the fortunate people who have been given the good fortune to live in wealthy countries, and because of this are some of the people from whom more is expected). Governments we live under also do us great harm by leading us to do violence by encouraging us, and by sometimes trying to force us, to become members of their military and police forces, even though Jesus tells us not to do violence even when violence is done to us. (Mt 5:38-41). These are only the two most obvious ways governments hurt us. Even if governments only harmed us in these ways, though, they would do much more harm to us than could ever be made up for by any good they might do in other areas, and this shows us that we would be better off if there were no governments. For much of human history the vast majority of us have assumed that governments would always exist and would always be powerful, and for this reason have not even considered trying to significantly reduce the power of governments, and this, along with the widespread denial of the fact that governments do us more harm than good, has prevented us from doing much to reduce the size of government because no one can make a change unless that person can first imagine that change and envision that change. These things have been changing recently, though, and for this reason, at this point in history we can significantly reduce the power of government if we are willing to work to do this. At any time we are capable of little good, and what good we are capable of is partly determined by the nature of the cultures and societies we live in. At this point in our history this is part of the little good we are capable of. While Jesus teaches us how we can live wisely under the yoke of governments, He does not tell us that we will be doomed to always suffer under governments, on this earth. While not living as Jesus tells us to live will do us much more harm than governments can ever do to us, governments also do us harm, and we should live without governments as soon as we are able to. If we try to lessen the power of government by resisting governments, though, we will do more harm to ourselves than governments do to us. There are many things we can do to lessen government power without resisting governments, though. One important way is to try to persuade people in governments to stop doing evil to us by speaking out against their evil. Jesus tells us to do this when he says, “If your brother trespasses against you, first tell him his fault in private. If he will not hear you, then go to him again and bring some witnesses with you. If he still will not hear you, then tell it to the church. If he will not hear the church, then let him be as a stranger to you.” (Mt 18:15-17). Jesus also tells us not to resist governments, but also not to give governments undue power over us, when He says, says to a person who asks if it is lawful to pay tribute to the romans by holding up a coin and asking whose image is on that coin, and after hearing the answer, ‘Caesar’s’ then says “therefore give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and give to God that which is God’s.” (Mt 22:17-21), a part of what Jesus is saying to that person is that when he chose to use Caesar’s money he gave Caesar power over him, so it is foolish to try to fight Caesar when he uses that power. Maybe governments will take whatever we have from us even if we don’t use their money, but if we don’t use their money it will be much harder for them to take from us, and this will reduce their power over us. If we use money, we should try not to use money created by a government. It might be better, though, for us not to use money at all. We must remember that money is a thing of man, and as such it only helps us if it helps us get things of God. If any thing of man does not help us get things of God then it does not help us at all, and then it should be discarded. Jesus tells us never to pursue things of man instead of things of God when He says to Peter, “Get behind me Satan. You are an offence to me because you do not think of things of God, but think instead, of things of men.” (Mt 16:23), and when He says, Do not lay up treasure on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves dig through and steal. Instead, lay up treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and where thieves do not dig through and steal.” (Mt 6:19-23 & Lk 12:33) In order not to give governments the added power over us they gain when we use their money, we must either establish a money supply not controlled by a government, or must live solely by barter and trade so we will not need money. While this will require some effort on our part, it will be worth the effort it will take because of the great harm it will prevent governments from doing to us. There are also many other ways we can stop giving governments undue power over us, without resisting those governments. In most instances these ways will be different forms of not going out of our way to help a government exert control over us. No one form of not helping governments will be necessary for us to make significant moves away from government, but some significant effort will be required of us. Otherwise the momentum that has created governments will lead governments to continue and to grow more powerful, even if most of us wish there were no governments. For example if we do other things to reduce the power of government , then we may be able to move toward eliminating government while still using government money, and we might only move away from government money when we are very close to having no government, by then transferring the control of the money supply to non-governmental groups, or if our government has become a non-governmental group by no longer sponsoring police, military, or penal forces, and no longer uses force or coercion in any way, we might continue to use the same money that had formerly been controlled by a government, and we might never have to establish an alternative money supply. But stopping our use of government money as soon as possible, would help us move away from government. This might also be true of other things governments do, that would help us more than they would hurt us if they were not done by governments. These things might be able to continue unchanged, while government power is reduced in other ways, and eventually they might be transferred to organizations that do not use the force or coercion that all governments use or they might continue as a part of an organization that is no longer a government because it no longer includes police, military, or penal forces, and no longer uses force or coercion in any way.
One of the primary reasons we have a better chance of reducing the power of government now, than people have had in the past is that the idea that we would be better off with no government is much more common and widespread in our society than it has been in the past. This idea has been widespread in our society at least since 1971, When John Lennon, and Yoko Ono made us all realize that the first step toward doing this was freeing our minds from bad habits that led us to assume that governments had to always exist. (While Ono did not perform musically in the song Imagine, the lyrics of that song were taken from poems she had written in the early 60s and had published in her 1965 book, ‘grapefruit’). We must always first be able to imagine a thing before we can do that thing, and if we can imagine living without governments, then with hard work we will be able to live without governments. When Lennon and Ono also urge us to ‘Imagine no heaven’, though, they are not talking about something we can change, regardless of what we imagine. They are also talking about something Jesus knows we will all imagine, because by heaven they only mean a place in which some people will receive rewards after they die, but they are not talking about rewards people can receive in this life. Lennon and Ono showed that they strongly believed in rewards in this life, by making great efforts to act morally by opposing war. Jesus knows that many of us will not believe in rewards after we die, so He also tells us that rewards will come to his followers in this life when He says, “There is no man, who has left house or parents, or wife or children for the kingdom of God’s sake, who will not receive many times more in the present time, and in the world to come, life everlasting” (Lk 18:29-30). And most often Jesus only tells us we will receive rewards for following him, without telling us when those rewards will come. Because He knows our faith will be small, Jesus only cares that we believe enough of what He says to do what Our Creator wants us to do. Jesus tells us that what matters to Him and to Our Creator is what we do, not what we say, when he says, “Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. On the day of judgement, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you. Leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46). Now that over 35 years have passed since Lennon and Ono encouraged us to imagine a world without government in memorable words that I am sure the vast majority of us have heard, and that a majority of us probably heard when we were young and were most open to considering new ideas; Now we should be able to easily imagine a world without governments, and now we should now be able to start moving toward such a world.
While governments sometimes try to do things that would help us more than they would hurt us, if those things were done well, governments will not be able to do those things as well as non-governmental groups, because government actions will be poisoned by government association with military and police forces. Many people who would actively work with, and enthusiastically support non-governmental groups that tried to do the same things, will not work with governments that try to do these things because they know that anything that is done by force will lead to more harm than good. This is the primary reason Jesus tells us not to resist evil. If governments reduce their activities, many of these people will form non-governmental organizations that would do more good and do less harm than governments do. If there are enough well-intentioned people in any society to get a government to do any good thing, then those people would be able to get that thing done, and done much better without government. It is often impossible for an individual person to chose to work outside government, though, because as individuals we usually do not control the resources necessary to establish alternatives to government, but if we work together we can establish these alternatives. Sometimes we imagine that money governments get through taxes allow governments to do more good that non-governmental groups would be able to do. When we do this we underestimate the strength of the support that would come from people who realize that programs that strengthen communities would help us all, if programs that strengthened communities were not associated with government force and violence. We must also realize that tax revenues come at the terrible price of making ourselves subject to government force and coercion, and that this will outweigh any good governments do. When we want to make ourselves feel better about our world, without having to work to improve our world, we also tell ourselves that government sponsored violence sometimes prevents violence from other sources,. We must always remember though, that any use of force will do more harm than good. If this were not so, Jesus would not have said, “resist not evil.” (Mt5:38-48)
Some parts of large nations will inevitably move away from government more quickly than other parts, and because of this large nations will break up into separate nations with more or less government, as a step toward government disappearing throughout that nation. The issue of helping people who want to live near us, move near us, will probably be the issue that will lead nations to break up, because people in some parts of any nation will realize just how harmful national borders are sooner than people in other parts of that nation. Nations are things of man, not things of God, and when we realize they are not helping us get things of God we will discard them as bad habits, our society has outgrown. Throughout history steps toward this have often happened as people have moved from more oppressive governments to less oppressive governments, and every time this has happened doomsayers have predicted that people would wither and perish without the restrictive governments they have abandoned, and every time this has happened history has shown these people have been wrong. Now we are close enough to living freely to foresee the end of all government and to start to move toward that end.
Appendix H.
Our world’s culture of violence originates in the interactions between parents and children and the interactions between teachers and students. Most parents expect children to be irrational beings and treat them as such allowing their primary mode of interaction with children to be rules, intimidation, yelling, threats, and violence, (all the tools of the jailer), and most teachers treat students in the same way. Then most people meet the expectations parents and teachers have of them by allowing themselves to become irrational beings who will respond only to rules, intimidation, yelling, threats, and violence, and this sort of person becomes the rule in our society rather than being the exception such people would be in any society that was contributing to the advance of human development and to the realization of human potential, and then most people will only be prevented from hurting other people by the tools of the jailer, when in a society that advanced human development most people would treat other people well for reasons they have freely accepted for reasons they discern through rationality, and only a small minority of people who deviated from that society’s norm would only treat people well when controlled through intimidation, yelling, threats or violence. Most people in a society based on force rather than rationality, (including most people in most if not all societies in our world today), will see the world as an irrational struggle that often erupts into violence, in which most of these people will only chose to refrain from criminal behavior because they know that engaging in criminal behavior makes them more likely to become victims of violence, but will instead engage only in the government sponsored violence of military and police forces, rather than believing that the legal code their society has chosen should be followed because they believe that code fosters human development and the realization of human potential, and because they believe that code is the result of a process that is designed to change and improve it whenever it does not promote these things. Currently our society is caught in a destructive cycle that will only lead to ever greater human suffering until eventually all our descendants either flee that society, kill -themselves, or enact a difficult revolution that will reverse the basic foundations of society, that will be much easier for us to enact today if we do not shirk our responsibility to create a society conducive to human development for our descendants to live in.
Jesus warns us not to create a society based on force rather than rationality when He tells us not to resist evil (Mt 5:39-48 & Lk 6:27-38), and when He tells us to use persuasion but never to use force by saying to us, “If your brother trespasses against you, first tell him his fault in private. If he will not hear you, then go to him again and bring some witnesses with you. If he still will not hear you, then tell it to the church. If he will not hear the church, then let him be as a stranger to you.” (Mt 18:15-17), and these are just some of the negative consequences we suffer from not living as Jesus tells us to live.
Our failure to live in this way is in part a result of the fact that raising children to be rational beings requires more time, energy and mental effort than yelling at those children, and because most parents are overburdened in a society in which both parents in most families work at least 40 hours a week and are forced to spend most of their “free” time preparing for their work, or traveling to and from their place of work, and in which most teachers are forced to spend most of their time baby-sitting a large number of (between 10 and 40) unruly students who because they are used to being yelled at, intimidated, threatened, and sometimes being the victims of violence, will cause serious trouble if an adult does not regularly do these things to them. All people will always be faced with obstacles to happiness though, and if these obstacles disappear new ones will arise. If we overcome these obstacles, then we will be remembered as the heroic first generation that in a meaningful way tried to give their children a better life than they had. We all know this is true because we all know that only changes within a person can truly give that person a better life in any meaningful way, and we all know that the material advances that people in the past have often claimed would improve the lives of their children, have not given those children better lives unless those children have also lived more wisely than their parents did. In spite of the great material advances that have taken place in our world there is no evidence that people alive today are any happier or any more content than people who have lived in the past, and in fact it is likely that at many points in the past people have led much happier lives than most people lead today.
Appendix I
One reason Jesus tells us not to engage in violence, even when evil is done to us, is because violence always begets more violence. One example of this is the violent response of Osama Bin Laden to violence from the United States government. Bin Laden took violent action against people who support the United States government because for well over 20 years the United State government has given overwhelming military support to the undemocratic government of Saudi Arabia, that he has lived under, and by doing this has allowed this government to successfully use force out down efforts to change it. When we gave Military support to the Saudi Government, we joined every fight it takes part in,. and we made the enemies of that government our enemies, and we did not show love to our enemies, as Jesus commands. Knowing that we have done this it is unreasonable not to expect similar actions to be taken toward us. For many yeas we have been attacking Saudi people, who opposed the government we supported militarily, and then we act surprised when some of the people we have attacked respond in kind and take violent action against us. We should have expected to be the recipients of violence from the moment we first gave military aid to any government, and for every moment since. That violence will beget more violence is a law as certain as any law of physics. We cannot predict exactly when or where this violence will occur, or exactly what form it will take, but we know it will come. In this way violence is like an earthquake or other natural disaster, and if the underlying causes that lead to violence are not changed, them violence is just as inevitable as any natural disaster. If we had wanted to avoid being victims of violence, we should not have initiated violence to begin with. It would be nice for us if Bin Laden loved his enemies because we have made ourselves his enemy, but we cannot ask any one to love us, if we show our lack of love for that person by violently attacking that person, as we have attacked Bin Laden. , If Bin Laden had learned how to live wisely from Jesus he would have acted differently than he has, but the same is even more true of the United States government because Bin Laden’s violence was only a response to United States violence.
In order to encourage early Christians he wrote to, not to resist violence that governments were doing to them, did to them, Paul said that governments that did violence to them had been ordained by God. When Paul said this he was also saying that governments that were practicing this violence were ordained not to have Christians working for them or with them, and that people in these governments were probably also ordained to suffer great punishment for not following Jesus. Many people misunderstand Paul’s words to mean that they can follow Jesus and still take part in government-sponsored violence. This is not an honest mistake, though, because even if a person misunderstands Paul, we all know that Jesus tells us not to resist evil, and we cannot misunderstand this command from Jesus. Treating people other than Jesus as authorities equal to Jesus often leads us to misunderstand Jesus when we misunderstand those people. We should also never treat anyone other than Jesus as an authority equal to Jesus because only Jesus is always correct and anyone else can be in error. Paul, Any of the disciples, or any other writers of the new testament are only people like us who are trying to understand Jesus, and in order not to be misled by them, we should only read their words in conjunction with Jesus, words, and we should only follow their teachings if we can see how they resonate with and reinforce what Jesus says. To imagine that any person other than Jesus could be an infallible authority like Jesus, is to tempt our faith in a dangerous and unnecessary way. It is hard enough for us to believe that Jesus is always right, (whenever we do not live as Jesus tells us to live, This is because at that moment we do not believe Jesus when he tells us that following Him will bring us greater rewards than suffering.), that to try to believe that anyone else is always right is simply to encourage ourselves to lie and say we believe what we do not believe. Though we will also sometimes lie in saying we believe Jesus when we do not believe Him,, this is more than made up for by the benefits that will come to us if w try to follow Jesus’ true teachings because trying to follow Jesus gives us our best chance of doing what Our Creator wants us to do. This is not true of anyone else.
Appendix J.
We can only get any thing if we first admit that we do not already have that thing.
This is most important to us with regard to our attempts to obtain the goodness that comes from truly trying to follow Jesus’ teachings. We can only obtain the goodness that comes from truly following Jesus’ teachings if we first admit that we do not already have this goodness, (if we first admit that we are evil beings, not good beings.) Though this seems so obvious that we would think all people would always realize it, sadly this is the primary obstacle to people gaining goodness or wisdom. It is even more important that we admit this about communities we belong to, than it is that we admit this about ourselves as individuals, because most of the evil we do, is done because we follow commands given to us by people who belong to the same communities we belong to. And this is most true of nations and states we belong to. Because I belong to the nation, ‘The United States’, I have a special desire for people who belong to the nation the United States, to see their nation as it truly is and to admit the truth about their nation. The most important truth about the United States of America is that from the time the United States became deeply involved in Vietnam up to and including the present time the United States government, and especially the United States Military, has been a destructive force, which has done great evil in our world.
Since the United States became deeply involved in Vietnam, (In the mid 1960s), The United States has been the aggressor in every fight and conflict we have been involved in. This is easiest to see with regard to the fights the United States is currently involved in. For over 20 years before September 11, 20001, the United States had been giving overwhelming Military support to the undemocratic government of Saudi Arabia, which this government then used to suppress any popular attempt to create a government responsive the people of Saudi Arabia. Osama Bin Laden came from a powerful Saudi family, and if not for the United States, would certainly have devoted his energies to matters closer to his heart, as would most other members of Al Qaida. So it is clear that by giving overwhelming military aid to the Saudi royal family The United States started its fight with Al Qaeda, just as the United States has used similar methods to start many other fights, all around our world.
Most of the evil committed by most Americans has come from support most Americans have given to the United States government, and especially to the United States Military. I try to love every member of the United States military, just as I try to love all people, and I pray for every member of the military just as I pray for any member of a violent gang. That is one of the reasons I speak honestly about the dangers of the activities that the United States government has sponsored; for the sake of all the people who take part in United States sponsored evil, as well as for the sake of their victims. I am also honest about this because I am always honest; even when I cannot see how being honest will help people, because I have faith that honesty will always help people who are honest and people who are affected by their actions, more than it will hurt those people, in the same way that I have faith that trying to follow Jesus will always help people who try to follow Jesus and people their actions affect, more than it will hurt people.
So should we ignore the United Stats as a land hostile to Jesus and try to establish a Christian society elsewhere. No we should not do this for a number of reasons. First because over 300 million people, (including me), live in the United States, and if we do not live as Jesus teaches us to live, our suffering will be great and our rewards small. Second because like the United States, all nations are evil because all nations are based on coercion and for this reason are hostile to Jesus. and because all people are evil and are hostile to Jesus. And third and fourth because The United States due to it’s great power should be able to become the first nation to overcome the fear that keeps all of us from following Jesus’ command not to resist evil, and due to it’s great wealth and it’s location, is the place where the different cultures of our world will be most likely to come together to form a new culture that will be stronger than any currently existing culture, and that is the pinnacle toward which all human history has been building.
The only difference of any significance that currently exists between eastern and western cultures in our world is that western cultures have developed religions (including Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Islam) that focus more on ways in which Our Creator is separate from our world by focusing on commands Our Creator gives us, while eastern cultures have developed religions (including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto), that focus more on ways in which Our Creator is a part of our world by focusing on more closely observing our world , and by assuming that all we need to know about our world will be discovered in this way. Each type of religion focuses on one important aspect of the reality of our world, and both of these focuses will be needed in the culture that will be represent the highest progress of our world. Joseph Campbell taught me about this difference between religions. What our world most needs is the combination of these two focuses, and the realizations that will come from this combination that the closest observation will only be of value to us if it helps us learn what Our Creator wants us to do, and that we will only be able to earn what Our Creator wants us to do through close observation that will almost certainly require us to stand in fundamental opposition to the culture of whatever society we live in when we most want to go along with that culture, because the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth will almost always be fundamentally opposed to all human cultures, and are without a doubt fundamentally opposed to all cultures that exist today, and are most clearly opposed to these cultures in their frequent practice of violence and of intimidation that will often lead to violence because the subjects of intimidation will inevitably sometimes resist that intimidation and then intimidators will fight with their victims, and in their emphasis on getting as much as one can for oneself instead of on providing ourselves with treasure in the heavens by selling what we have and giving alms, and on giving to all who ask of us and not asking for anything in return. (Lk 12:33, see also Lk 18:18-25, & Mt 19:16-24) and (Lk 6:30 (27-36), see also Mt 5:42- 48).
The oldest cultures in our world were established in East Africa, and the oldest cultures with writing in our world were established in what is today Iraq, and since this time most civilization in our world has spread out from this point in opposite directions forming related but slightly different cultures that will come together on the opposite side of our world to form a culture that will be stronger than either eastern or western cultures are separately, and that will be the crowning achievement of our world’s history.
The dividing line between historically eastern and historically western cultures is the line that we currently call 67 degrees east longitude. Areas west of this line have been the birthplace of religions that have focused on how Our Creator is separate from our world by focusing on commands our Creator gives us, while areas east of this line have been the birthplace of religions that have focused on how Our Creator is part of our world by focusing on more closely observing our world , and by assuming that all we need to know about our world will be discovered in this way. This line may be one of very few lines that can accurately divide our world into western and eastern hemispheres, because Balkh, (The home of Zoroaster), lies just west of this line, and because Karachi, (a city that is clearly part of the South Asian civilization that Includes Bangladesh and includes most of India and Pakistan), lies just east of this line. This line should be used to divide our world into eastern and western hemispheres. One reason this should be done is that this line would come as close as possible to dividing our world into two hemispheres with equal populations, while still respecting the traditional borders of historic civilizations. (And if current demographic trends continue then about 100 years from now this line may actually divide our world into two hemispheres with equal populations due primarily to projected population growth in Africa, (while the line we currently use to divide our world into hemispheres, will never in the foreseeable future divide our world into hemispheres of equal population but was instead chosen as a way of pandering to British conceit.)) Because there is some debate about where Zoroaster lived, it may be possible that the line that best divides historically eastern and western cultures is slightly west of the line we currently call 67 degrees east, but under no circumstances will this line lie west of the line we currently call 61.75 degrees east, because east of this line we find areas that are so fully a part of Persian culture that they must be considered a part of the western section of our world. The reason we should change the way we make maps, is that using the line we currently call 67 degrees east longitude (or a line just west of this line), as our Prime Meridian will help us see where eastern and western cultures will be most likely to first come together to form the culture that all history has been building toward: a culture that will be stronger than either eastern or western cultures are separately. While these cultures could first come together in any part of our world, geography and distances do show us where they are most likely to first come together. The most logical place to look for this to happen is close to 180 degrees from the line that best divides historically eastern and western cultures, at a point that is equidistant from the historical centers of eastern and western cultures. Because the historic centers of western culture are more northerly than the historic centers of eastern culture, and because the historic centers of both cultures are located in our world’s northern hemisphere, the historic centers of western culture are closer to this line than their eastern counterparts. To find a city that is equidistant from historic centers of eastern and western culture we must go to a point approximately 9 1/3 degrees west of the line that is 180 degrees from the historic dividing line between eastern and western cultures (the line we currently call 67 degrees east longitude), and that is slightly south of most of Europe, and is north of most of Asia. Here the city we find that is equidistant from the historic centers of eastern and western culture is Seattle, U.S.A., (Though Los Angeles and Vancouver are also extremely close to being equidistant between the historic centers of traditionally Eastern ad Western cultures. And all large English speaking cities on the pacific coast of north America, Tijuana, Mexico, and inland cities up to 150 kilometers from this coast, are close enough to being equidistant from east and west, to be very likely locations of the point at which eastern and western cultures will first come together. Because of a greater historical percentage of settlement from the east than Seattle or Los Angeles have had, Vancouver may be even more likely than Seattle to be the center of the first coming together of the now separate cultures of our world. In truth all of these cities will probably be important centers in the coming together of eastern and western cultures, and the Salish Sea (also known as Kh Whulch, and as the Whulge), which borders both Seattle and Vancouver, will probably also serve as a mixing bowl in which the currents of eastern and western culture will come together.) History indicates that Honolulu, though it is much closer to the historic east than to the historic west will probably also play a leading role in the coming together of eastern and western cultures, due to the fact that it has been settled by large numbers of people from both east and west.
One of the greatest sins of the United States government has been the restrictive immigration policies directed especially at people from Asia, and the long history of other anti-Asian actions, that have kept millions of people of Asian descent away from Seattle, and away from the rest of the United States, and that has led to our current condition in which only approximately 10% of the people living in the Seattle Metropolitan area are of Asian descent. The fact that this problem can be ameliorated is clearly shown by the fact that just 200K away from Seattle approximately 25% of the population of the Vancouver metropolitan area is made up of people of Asian descent. If all people had been allowed to move freely, on average we would expect that as a whole the metropolitan areas that are so close to being equidistant between the historic centers of western culture and eastern culture would be populated roughly equally by people with western ancestors and people with eastern ancestors. And this will probably happen through the normal course of people freely moving about our world as they choose to move, as soon as barriers to movement raised by governments, are removed. It is important to remember that for any group of people to be able to contribute to fruition of world history that will occur when historically eastern and historically western cultures come together, that group of people must be eager to come together and work together with all people with clear minds and good hearts, regardless of what culture those people come from, and regardless of what part of the world those people’s ancestors have come from. A part of the reason this is so important is that the inclusion of people from many different cultures will help all people in any organization, see beyond superficial differences between people, and focus on the common goal of that organization. People in organizations in which most people share superficial cultural similarities will be more easily distracted from the goal that initially brought them together, by these superficial similarities or by superficial differences between them and other people, and such organizations will be more likely to deteriorate into mere social clubs in which people focus on superficial traits. Organizations without cultural diversity may sometimes be able to contribute to the advancement of civilization in our world, if people in them overcome this tendency and stay focused on the goal of advancing world civilization, but it will be harder for these people to do this.
Most of the cities that are closest to being equidistant between the historic centers of eastern and western cultures, will truly start to become centers of the realization of the stronger culture that will form when eastern and western cultures come together, as soon as the United States government stops restricting immigration from the rest of the world. Our great wealth makes the United States, a beacon that attracts people from the rest of the world even more strongly than the wealthiest part of Europe, (most of Europe north of 42 degrees, and west of the line we now call 17 degrees east, and just east of this line most of Sweden and all of Finland), and more strongly than Canada, though this is starting to change because of the evil of the United States government. The lack of Asian settlement in the West Coast of the United States is a measure of how hard people of European descent have fought to keep people of Asian descent out of this region. Thankfully though, this area is still sparsely settled because advanced societies have been in this area for only about 150 years, (or for less time in many areas), and for this reason, the dearth of settlement from Asia in these areas can still be reversed. This problem is not only a problem in Seattle, but is instead a great problem everywhere in the United States. Even in the San Francisco Metropolitan area people of Asian descent make up just under 20% of the population. In Los Angeles and San Diego people of Asian descent make up approximately 10% of the population, and everywhere else in the United States, (except for the New York City metropolitan area which also has about 10% of it’s people being of Asian descent), the percentage of people of Asian descent is even lower.
Most of us have a very poor sense of distances in our world, because we usually see a distorted projection of our world in the maps we use. It is important for us to correct this because a large part of the story of our world’s history is determined by the geography of our world, with certain cultures spreading to certain areas, in great part because they were closer to those areas, than other cultures were. In spite of the great advantages in mobility that traditionally western and especially European cultures enjoyed in the historic period in which they spread their culture through colonization, The spread of their culture was still greatly influenced by the fact that Europe was closer to most of the areas its culture spread to, (including South America, Africa, and most of North America), than were areas of traditionally eastern culture, including especially the area of Northeast Asia, which is historically most analogous to Europe, because with regard to written civilization, and with regard to organized religions that have many followers today, it is the youngest area of historically eastern culture in the same way that that Europe is the youngest area of historically western culture, and it has inherited these things from people from the older area of historically eastern civilization, in the same way that Europe has inherited these thing from the older area of historically western civilization. The greatest exception to the rule that most areas settled by people from western cultures, are closer to historic centers of western civilization, is the cultural area of Australia and New Zeeland. Though it is important to remember that Australia and New Zeeland are extremely far away from the historic centers of east and west, as on average Northeast Asia is located nearly 8,000 kilometers from Australia, (a distance almost as great as the average distance between the historical centers of eastern and western cultures). In the area that is nearly equidistant between the historic centers of east and west we again find settlement more from the historic west than from the historic east, so far. But it is important to remember that both Australia and New Zeeland, and northwestern North America, are still sparsely settled compared to most of the world, and that the trends of settlement to this point in history could still be easily reversed.
We should not try to make distances on our maps accurate by making directions inaccurate on those maps, though many people have tried to do this. We should instead make both distances and directions accurate by using sinusoidal equal-area projection maps with longitude lines drawn on them. These maps can be accurate because they will not try to show the surface of our globe as a rectangle, (a practice that will always lead to inaccuracy), but will instead show the circumference of our world becoming smaller the farther we get from the equator until it finally becomes 0 at the poles, and in this way will show our world as it truly is. This is achieved by sinusoidal maps because this narrowing is described by the sine function (hence the name sinusoidal), as the circumference of our world does not get smaller at a constant rate as we move away from the equator, but instead gets smaller at a slower rate at first, with this rate increasing as we get further from the equator. If we want north and south to be straight up or down on our maps, as often as possible, more than we want maps that show our world as being as connected as a flat map can show it, we can achieve this by making our maps interrupted projections that show blank spaces between different sections of the map, though we will not need to do this to see what direction is north or south at any point, so long as we draw enough longitude lines on our map, and always remember that north and south follow these lines, and that on our map north and south follow curved lines, just as most of these lines will also be curved if our map is an uninterrupted projection. The desire to straighten these curved lines is the desire that has led us into the error of drawing rectangularly shaped maps.
World maps should usually be drawn with the line that we currently call 113 degrees west, (or a line just west of this line), as their center line, to focus our attention on the point 180 degrees from the line that best divides historically eastern cultures from historically western cultures, that should be near the place where these cultures will first come together to form a new culture that is stronger than either eastern or western culture can be separately. If we choose to make our maps interrupted projections of our world with the line that we currently call 115.785 degrees west as their center line, then the first two interruptions we make should occur at the lines we currently call 33 degrees west and 163 degrees west, because these lines pass through oceans and through sparsely populated arctic areas, and because they come closer than most other lines that do this, to dividing our world into three parts of equal area.
Our world can best be divided into younger and older regions, (as defined by where civilizations were located that first developed writing, and that developed the religions that are practiced by most people in our world today), by measuring distances from either a point between the lines that we now call 63 degrees east, and 65 degrees east, and between 17.325 and 19.23 degrees north, or from a point between the line we now call 117 degrees west and 115 degrees west, and between 17.325 and 19.23 degrees south. Distances from points between these lines, that are located the same distance from the equator as each other, and that are located 180 degrees longitude from each other, define exactly the same areas by choosing areas closer than a certain distance to one point, and further than approximately 20,000 Kilometers minus that distance from it’s antipodal point. This will be true of any two points that are antipodal to each other. Antipodal points are pairs of points that are located farther from each other, than any other point on the surface of our earth. And they can be found by finding two points that are located the same distance from the equator, and that are located 180 degrees longitude, away from each other. If we move from one of these points, we will be moving closer to it’s antipodal point, regardless of what direction we move, so long as we stay on the surface of the earth. This is so for the same reason that a person at the North Pole cannot go north, but instead will be heading due south, if that person stays on the surface of our earth. The North and South Poles are a pair of antipodal points. And this helps us see why we cannot move further away from our antipode, unless we leave the surface of the earth. Any point is located almost exactly 20,000 Kilometers from it’s antipode, and the average distance of any point from it’s antipode is exactly 20,000 K. This is no accident. The length of a kilometer was chosen so that this would be true. One meter is exactly equal to one 10 millionth of the due north-south distance between the equator and either pole. That is how a meter was defined when it as created shortly after the French revolution, by some of the people who took power through this revolution. And a Kilometer is defined as being equal in length to 1,000 meters. If our world’s equator were the same length as the due north to south distance from one pole to the other and back again, then our world would be a perfect sphere, and then every point on our earth would then be exactly 20,000 k from it’s antipode. Because the length of our equator is a little longer than this, though, these numbers are not exact, but instead sometimes these lines and these points are a little bit closer to their antipodes than 20,000 k, and sometimes they are a little bit farther away.
I am uncertain of exactly which points are the points from which distances, best divide our world into older and younger regions, but I believe the exact points that best do this, are the point that we currently call 64.215 degrees east, 19.23 degrees north, and the point that we currently call 115.785 degrees west and 19.23 degrees south. I believe that these are the exact points from which distances, best divide our world into older and younger regions, because these points are exactly the same distance from two cities that have been especially important in the development of civilization in our world, and because these points are nearly this distance from two other cities that have also been important in the development of world civilization.
The two cities that are the same distance from these points are Beijing and Roma. Both cities are just over 5,459 K from the point that we currently call 19.23 degrees north, 64.215 degrees east, and are just under 14,541 K from the point that we currently call 19.23 degrees south, 115.785 degrees west. The two cities that are nearly the same distance from these points are Djakarta, and Harare. With Djakarta being located just over 5,441 K from the point that we currently call 19.23 degrees north, 64.215 degrees east, and just under 14,539 K from the point that we currently call 19.23 degrees south, 115.785 degrees west. And with Harare being located just over 5477 K from the point that we currently call 19.23 degrees north, 64.215 degrees east, and just under 14,531 K from the point that we currently call 19.23 degrees south, 115.785 degrees west. No other places in our world are located so close to the same distance from these four cities, and very few places in our world are located so close to the same distance from any four major world cities. The line that is 500 Kilometers from the point that we currently call 19.23 degrees north, 64.215 degrees east, is also very important because approximately half the people in our world live inside this circle and approximately half the people in our world live outside of this circle. And based on current demographic projections, this will continue to be the case. Approximately half the people in our world, will live less than 5500 k from the point that we currently call 19.23 degrees north, 64.215 degrees east, and approximately half the people in our world, live more than 5500 k from this point. I hope that we always call this point 19.23 degrees north because changing this would mean that we would have to change where we place our equator. What I believe we should change, is our name for the line that we currently call 64.215 degrees east. I believe that this line be the prime meridian of our coordinate system. In other words I believe that it should be called the line of 0 degrees and should be used to divide our world into eastern and western hemispheres. This line would come as close to dividing our world into two hemispheres with equal numbers of people in them, as is possible without separating areas that are parts of one historic cultural area. The only line that would come closer to dividing our world into two hemispheres with equal populations, would be a line that is less than 10 degrees east of this line, that would separate area that have historically been part of the South Asian culture. Regardless of religious differences, Nearly all parts of India and Bangladesh, and most parts of Pakistan, are part of the Desi culture. Using this line as our prime meridian also puts areas that are most similar culturally in the same hemispheres. There are only minor differences between different cultures in our world, but what few differences there are between cultures, occur primarily between cultures east of this line, and cultures west of this line.
Not only does the line that we currently call 64.215 degrees east longitude, come much closer than our current prime meridian, to dividing our world into Eastern and Western hemispheres with equal populations, but the line that we currently call 19.23 degrees north latitude, also comes close to dividing our world into northern and southern Hemispheres with equal; populations. And if current demographic trends continue, then at some point in the future, this line will divide our world into northern and southern hemispheres with equal populations. At present significantly more than half the people in our world live north of this point. This line also does a better job than any other line we could choose, of dividing our world into regions of historically northern and southern cultures. While the Equator divides our world geographically, culturally, a line drawn at 19.23 degrees north, is for all of these reasons, much more meaningful.
The distances that best divide our world into older and younger regions are the distances, 3,750 Kilometers, 5,500 K, and 9,500 K from the point currently defined as 19.23 degrees north, and 64.215 degrees east. The oldest civilizations of our world, with regard to the development of writing and the development of the religions that are practiced by the largest number of people today, are located less than 3750 k from the point that we currently call 64.215 degrees east, 19.23 degrees north, (Nairobi is just inside this line). (Exactly the same area can also be defined as the area that is more than a distance nearly equal to 16,250 k from the point that we currently call 115.785 degrees west, 19.23 degrees south). Distances from these two points define areas that are the home of the oldest civilizations of our world, with regard to the development of writing and the development of the religions that are practiced by the largest number of people today, with fewer exceptions, than we would have if we divided our world by distances from any other points. The next oldest area of civilization in our world is the area that lies between 3,750 and 5,500 k from the point that we currently call 19.23 degrees north, 64.215 degrees east. The third oldest area of civilization in our world lies between 5,500 and 9,500k from this point, and the area of our world with the youngest civilizations is the area located more than 9,500 k from this point. Maps that we use, will be most helpful to us as tools that help us understand human history, if we draw these lines on these maps. This is easy to do on the intrernet by using a free service provided at the web address http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/calculators and by then using the feature entitled, “draw range rings around a point”, that is located at the bottom of this page.
Because civilizations in older areas, (as defined by distances from these points), are older in terms of the development of writing and of religions that are practiced by large numbers of people today, these civilizations have been able to support denser populations from an earlier date than civilizations in younger areas. These developments allowed these civilizations to support denser populations than other areas, because these developments allowed people to work together more effectively than people could work together without these developments. This difference between areas is still evident today in the fact that the older areas, as defined by distances from these points, still have significantly greater population densities, than younger areas, (as defined by these distances), have. This difference is especially great between areas closer than 5500 k from the point we currently call 19.23 degrees north, 64.215 degrees east, and areas further from this point. Areas closer than 5500 k from this point include less than one sixth of the surface area of our earth, but contain over one half of the people living on our earth.
Knowing which of these regions any area falls in, will tell us much more about civilizations in that area, than knowing whether that civilization has been more influenced by traditionally Eastern, Western, or Southern cultures, will tell us. Older civilizations, whether they are historically eastern, western, or southern, are more like each other, and younger civilizations, whether they are historically eastern, western, or southern are more like each other, than younger civilizations from either east, west, or south, are like older civilization from the same area. When look at regions of older and younger civilizations, and see that Western Europe, most of Northeast Asia, most of Africa, and nearly half of Indonesia all lie within the region of younger civilizations, we realize that civilizations in these areas generally share the characteristic of producing people who are much more willing to take part in rapid and fundamental changes in their societies, than are people from the older civilizations of our world, while people from older civilizations are more likely to focus their thoughts and energies on truths and principles that are slow to change, and especially on truths and principles that will apply in all times and all places. A part of this focus is the unquestioned assumption that rapid and fundamental social changes will seldom occur, while people from younger civilizations expect rapid and fundamental changes to occur much more often in any society . And when we see this, we realize that this difference does much more to determine the nature of life in these societies than do any differences between historically Eastern, Western or Southern civilizations. The fundamental desires of all people are the same, and the ways in which different people try to fulfill these desires are determined primarily by whether they live in younger or older civilizations. In younger civilizations, people are much more likely to try to satisfy these desires by taking part in rapid and fundamental societal change, while in older civilizations, people are much less likely to take part rapid and fundamental societal change, and are much more likely to resist such change if people from outside their society try to impose it on them. The failure to see this fact has led to the worst foreign policy mistakes in the history of our world. In the recent history of the United States, two prominent examples of this, are mistakes the United States government has made in Iraq and Vietnam. People in older civilizations are also generally more resistant to rapid and fundamental change, whether foreign governments cause that change, or whether economic factors cause that change.
While most of those of us raised in younger civilizations will never be able to develop a sense for what would feel comfortable to a person from older civilizations, and while the converse of this is also true, we can all avoid great mistakes by taking this difference into account, when we make decisions.
To this point in our world’s history the area of the youngest civilizations in our world, (the area that is more than 9500 kilometers from the point we currently call 19.23 degrees north, 64.215 degrees east), has been more influenced by western civilizations than by either eastern or southern civilizations. This may change in the future, as this region will be a region of coming together of these cultures. These civilizations share more similarities than differences, and this is especially true because these civilizations become more similar as they are transferred to this youngest part of our world. Most of the differences between East, West, and South, are superficial differences, and these superficial differences are left behind in older areas, because these superficial differences depend more on place, than the similarities between these civilizations, do.
Growing up in places that experience great changes in the amount of time between sunrise and sunset, throughout the year, or in places that regularly experience other great climactic changes, further increases a person’s expectation that fundamental change will occur often, and further increases a person’s willingness to take part in fundamental change, while growing up in places that do not regularly experience great climactic changes, increases a person’s tendency to seek out and focus on things that are either unchanging, or slow to change. The most significant example of the effect of the amount of time between sunrise and sunset, on personality, is the example of Europe. This is so because Europe is located so much further from the equator than all other densely populated lands. The cold weather that usually exists this far from the equator usually prevents these lands from supporting dense populations, but the warming effect of the Atlantic Gulf stream, makes Europe an exception to this rule. This effect accentuates the effect of Western Europe being a younger civilization, and lessens the effect of Eastern and Southeastern Europe being older civilizations.
The points between the lines that we now call 63 degrees east, and 65 degrees east, and between 17.325 and 19.23 degrees north, or from a point between the line we now call 117 degrees west and 115 degrees west, and between 17.325 and 19.23 degrees south, are also close to being equidistant between corresponding centers of historically eastern and historically western cultures, and are also close to being the same distance from corresponding centers of historically southern culture, but no large cities that might be sites for the coming together of these cultures can currently exist near these points because these points are located in the oceans of our world, far from land. (They are located respectively in the north Indian Ocean, and the southeast Pacific Oceans). That these points are close to being equidistant from these historical centers of culture, is illustrated by figures presented after this text.
Whatever line of longitude is determined to be the exact line on which the point is located, distances from which best divide our world into areas of older and younger civilizations, This line of longitude will be very close to the line that best divides our world into civilizations that we have historically called either eastern or western (the line that we now call 67 degrees east), and thus will be very close to the line that we should use in the same way that we currently use the line that we call the Prime Meridian. This is the primary reason that a point on this line, is the point from which distances best divide our world into older and younger regions.
Most importantly, we should use either the line that we now call 113 degrees west or a line just west of this line, as the center line on most of our world maps, and should use the line of longitude located 180 degrees from this line, as the line of 0 degrees in our spatial coordinate system, in the way that we currently use the line that we call the prime meridian. It should probably not surprise us that the line that we currently call the Prime Meridian, was chosen to pander to British conceit, rather than to reflect significant historical divisions in the cultural development of our world, because this line was chosen by British geographers, and because most other people would also have probably pandered to local conceits, if they had been in their place. We should change our maps and spatial coordinate system now, though, so that these systems illustrate significant facts about world history, rather than being drawn to pander to the conceits of any people.
Other than changing the line that we use as our prime meridian, no other change in our spatial coordinate system, will help us to better understand the history of people in our world. It would be easier to use our spatial coordinate system, if this system were a decimal system, with the total number of degrees that make up our world, adding up to some exponent of ten, instead of adding up to 360 as they currently do, but we would only want to make this change if we made a similar change in our mathematical systems, and because so many people have used our current system for so long, we may not want to do this. This change would be very similar to the change that most of our world has made to the metric system. This system is easier to use, but does not help us better understand the history of people in our world.
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Also
-15.65, -110.595, 12,778+ k from Tokyo, London, and Lagos, 13,677.498 k from Kinshasa
15.65, 69.405 also equidistant from Tokyo, London, and Lagos. Very close to just under 7,222 k from.
Pts equidistant from Cairo, and Dhaka include
app. 22, 60.57, app. 3059 K from,
a bit northeast of this a pt also equidistant from Khartoum. (Al Khurtum)
A pt. probably a bit southwest of this pt. is equidistant from and closer to Addis Abeba, Yerushalayim, and Kolkatta.
-- Pts. Equidistant from Shanghai, Rome, and Harare include app. 66.4+, 19+, (also close to the same distance from Lusaka – slightly farther from)
Pts. equidistant between Tokyo & London, located between the lines that we currently call 40 degrees west, and 175 degrees west.
49.2805, -122.775, 7,592+ k, dt V , 49.2805, -123.12564,
47.611, -122.21, 7,722+ k, dt S 47.611 -122.337, app. 12,008 k to Lagos, app. 13,736.378 k to Kinshasa
45,5, -121.545, 7887+ K
45, -121.4, 7927- k
39.9, -120, app. 8,332 k +
37.8, -119.5, 8500 + k
35.6875, -119.01 app. 8671 k
34.05101, -118.648, 8804- k, - dt L.A.. to Lon 8783.233 k, L.A.. to T 8832.92 k, , dt L.A.. to Lag 12430.835 k, dt L.A. , 34.05101, -118.254355,
32.7, -118.365 app. 8913 k
6.4524, -113.906, 11,057- k, 12,928.699 k to Lagos
0, -112.955, 11,574- k, 12,933.94 k to Lagos
-10, -111.475, app. 12,353 k, 12,861.922 k to Lagos, 13,924.494 k to Kinshasa
-15.65, -110.595, 12,778+ k from Tokyo, London, and Lagos, 13,677.498 k from Kinshasa
-21.5, -109.635, 13200 k
-23.015, -109.38, app 13,306 k from Tokyo, London, and Kinshasa
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1.) Do you try to help other people?
2.) If you try to help other people, why do you do this?
3.) Most of us only try to help a small number of other people who we believe will help us in return.
---- Jesus Christ teaches us that we are very unwise to do this.
4.) What can give most of us the best chance of changing this in ourselves
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I have come here because our world suffers greatly from most people in our world not understanding Jesus’ teachings, and not trying to follow Jesus …
For this reason …
I have come here because the ills of our world will only be ameliorated if a large number of people try to live as Jesus tells us to live.
(even if these people learn to try to live as Jesus tells us to live from someone other than Jesus. Jesus’ teachings, though, give us our best opportunity to learn these things.)
For this reason …
I have been called to preach Jesus’ gospel. I cannot do this alone though. I need to be a part of a team of people that preaches Jesus’ gospel, and I want you to also be a part of this team.
Jesus says to us, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow will take thought for itself. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.” (Mt 6:25-34 & Lk 12:22-34). I try to follow this command. When Jesus sends His disciples forth to preach His gospel, He says to them, “Do not put gold or silver, or copper in your belts. Nor a bag for the way, nor two tunics, nor sandals or staves, for the workman is worthy of his food. In whatever city you enter, find those who are worthy and stay with them until you leave.” (Mt 10:9-10).
There are so many people who say they are preaching Jesus’ gospel but who do not truly preach Jesus’ teachings, though, that I do not expect you to believe that I am a true disciple of Jesus, until you hear me talk about Jesus. People who say Jesus’ name most loudly, and who quote scripture most often, generally do not follow Jesus’ true teachings. This is easy to do by twisting the meaning of some things Jesus says, and ignoring other things Jesus says. If we can see through the cloud of lies that are told about Jesus, then His words are clear and easy to understand. Lies that are told about Jesus, will sometimes confuse all of us, though. The main goal of my preaching is to dissipate the cloud of confusion that makes it hard for us to see Jesus as He truly is.
I want to now read to you the beginning of a speech I have written about how we can follow Jesus’ teachings,. After I read the beginning of this speech to you, I want to answer questions you have, and hear your response, and in the course of doing these things, we will help each other understand Jesus better.
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Do you try to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth?
(If Yes)
I’m glad to hear you say that.
Most people who think that they try to follow Jesus of Nazareth do not truly try to follow Jesus, though, because most people misunderstand Jesus’ teachings. This is a great tragedy, both for these people, and for our world as a whole. This is why it is important for all people to make sure that they understand Jesus’ teachings. Because of this I try to help people learn the teachings of Jesus.
(if no)
Well, that may be for the best.
It’s important that all people try to follow the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, but most people who think that they try to follow Jesus, do not truly try to follow Jesus. This is so because most people misunderstand what Jesus teaches us. This is a great tragedy, both for each person who misunderstands Jesus, and for our world as a whole. So if you do not try to follow Jesus, then you may not have learned a lot of errors about Jesus that you will have to unlearn. It is important, though, that you now start to learn Jesus’ true teachings, and that you then start to try to follow Jesus’ true teachings.
Because it is so important for all people to try to follow Jesus, I try to help people learn Jesus’ teachings.
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I have also been called to found a new church that will bring existing churches together as they follow Jesus’ true teachings. It is important that we help each other see through the cloud of confusion that surrounds Jesus’ teachings, before we do anything else. The best way in which we can start to do this is by discussing the beginning of the speech I told you of.
The church of human weakness is a new church that is designed to help people understand and follow Jesus’ true teachings, and to bring different current churches together.
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We can do more to improve our lives and our world by trying to follow Jesus more closely, than we can do in any other way, and we must all come together in order to truly follow Jesus. Most of us, though, do not try to follow Jesus’ teachings, because most of us do not know or understand Jesus’ teachings. (Including most of those of us who call ourselves Christians). I want to change this. I want to help as many people as possible follow Jesus more closely, and I believe you can help me do this.
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I have written an essay about how we can try to follow Jesus more closely, and about how we can try to come together with all other people. I am sending you the first two chapters of this essay. I would like to hear your thoughts on this essay, and I believe you will want to help spread the ideas I discuss in this essay.
I would also like to ask you what you have learned from Jesus that has helped you most in your life, and I would like to ask you, without knowing me, what you think I could learn from Jesus that would help me most in my life. In other words what could most people learn from Jesus that would help them most in their lives.
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You pretend to respect the importance of evidence in reaching conclusions, but you do not even try to find evidence in the most important area of your life. You want to believe that you can learn Jesus’ true teachings from the church you belong to, but you refuse to look at Jesus’ words to see if this is true. You are setting yourself up for a fall, and that fall will be hard, and there will be great wailing and gnashing of teeth.
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Jesus tells us of our evil often; (Jn 3:19-21 and Jn 7:2-8, Mt 26:41, LK 22:46, Lk 16:9, Mt 6:5-15, Lk 11:2-4, Lk 14:26-33, Lk 9:23 & Mt 16:24)
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For differences between Nestle - Alland -Westcott- Hort, and the received text see Matthew 5:22, Matthew 17:21, Matthew 18:11, Matthew 21:44, Matthew 23:14, Mark 7:16, Mark 9:44, Mark 9:46, Mark 11:26, Mark 15:28, Mark 16:9-20, Luke 17:36, Luke 22:44, Luke 22:43, Luke 23:17, John 5:4, Acts 8:37, Acts 15:34, Acts 24:7, Acts 28:29, Romans 16:24,1 John 5:7. -all
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Scientia Crescat, Vita Excolatur
Knowledge Grows, Life Improves
Rerum Cognoscere Causas
To Know The Causes of Things
Alma Mater Studiorum
Fiat Lux
Lux Sit
Lux et Veritas
Mens Agitat Molem
Mind Moves the Mass
In Lumine Tuo Videbimus Lumen
In Your Light Shall We See the Light
In Lumine Tuo Videmus Lumen
In Your Light Shall We See Light
Let there be light, and let light lead to wisdom
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app. 1.618033989
1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, - red, yellow, green, - 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597
sinusoidal equal-area projection with lines of longitude
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Appendix K.
Almost 1/6th of all people in our world live in India, and most people in India never eat meat. The only way we can imagine how we appear to these people is to imagine a society in which nearly every person did something that is morally repugnant to us. For example to imagine a society in which nearly every adult had sex with children, or to imagine a society in which nearly every person ate other people. Some one from India must be horrified by our society in a similar way to the way that we would be horrified by these two societies. (A person from India is probably more horrified by us than we would be by a society of adults who had sex with children, but is probably less horrified by us than we would be by a society of people who ate other people.)
Just as our emotions tell us to do every thing in our power to stop cannibalism, and tell most of us to do everything in our power to stop adults from having sex with children. So must the emotions of a person from India who does not eat meat tell that person to do everything in his or her power to stop people from eating animals.
We can all agree, though, that treating people well is more important than how we treat animals. Keeping this thought in mind might allow a person from India who does not eat animals to see past this issue, and to become friends with people who eat animals. If this happened people from India who do not eat animals, and people who do eat animals might work together to make our world a place in which all people treat each other better.
We should all often use this way of thinking to allow ourselves to work together with people who do something that we believe is wrong.
We may never stop feeling horrified by what certain people do, just as a person from India may never stop being horrified by us. We must ask ourselves, though, “Is the thing that horrifies me a violation of the value that is most important to me?” If it is then trying to stop this action will be more important to us than working with a person who performs this action to achieve any other goal. If it is not a violation of our highest value, though, then it will be more important for us to work with another person to attain our highest value than it will be for us to try to stop the actions this person performs.
If we do not think in this way then we will never achieve the goals that are most important to us, because we will seldom work together with other people to achieve these goals. Just as people from India who do not eat meat would refuse to work together with meat eaters, so also would many people from outside India refuse to work with any person from India who perpetuates the caste distinctions that have great force in India and that seem to violate the principle of judging people on the basis of their own actions that is cherished by many people (especially by many people in western societies.)
Whenever any of us feels horror at any other person’s actions we must remember that each of us does many things that horrify many other people.
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I support what you have done. I see it as an attempt to bring about changes that are needed in our world. If I am correct in this, then you will want to join your work to my work by supporting The Church of Human Weakness. If we all work together then we can bring about the changes that our world needs. If we work apart, our efforts will bear little fruit.
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I can be reached at gpelly.bosela@gmail.com. I may also be able to be reached at (440) 647-5182. If you get an answering machine try leaving a message. I may get it, but I may not be able to get it. I may also have to go for weeks at a time without getting to a computer to check my email, but I will probably be able to check my email every day or every few days. One way or another I will probably receive all emails sent to this address within a few weeks.
Refer everyone you know who might want to help heal our world, to this web page.
When you want to print this speech you may have to press the paper feed button on your printer periodically.
I have recently become aware of some of your work and that work leads me to believe that you may want to help heal the wounds of our world. For this reason I am sending you the first part of a speech I have written, that talks about how we can do this.
Our world is being torn apart by greed, violence, and self-righteousness, and each one of us is being torn apart by greed, violence, and self-righteousness (both by greed, violence, and self-righteousness in ourselves, and by the effects of other people’s greed, violence, and self-righteousness). Our world will only be healed if a large number of people try as hard as they can, to live as Jesus tells us to live, and any one of us will only be healed if we try as hard as we can, to live as Jesus tells us to live. (Even if we learn how to live as Jesus tells us to live, from someone other than Jesus, who does not talk about Jesus, and who does not try to follow Jesus, and even if we do not say we follow Jesus.) At least for those of us raised in western cultures though, and probably for all of us, Jesus’ teachings give us our best chance to learn how to do this. We know that following Jesus will heal the wounds of our world, because we see that the more we try to live as Jesus tells us to live, the more healing we experience in our lives, and the more healing we see in the world around us.
Jesus tells us that what matters to Him is that we live as He tells us to live, not that we say we follow Him, when He says, “Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. On the day of judgement, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you. Leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46).
Everything Jesus tells us to do is something that will bring us together with other people. If we do all that Jesus tells us to do, then we will come together as one with all people as certainly as water flows down a mountain when snow melts on that mountain’s top. And then all people will live in harmony and brotherhood. We can all do more to improve our lives and our world by trying to follow Jesus’ teachings than we can do in any other way. Most of us, though, do not try to follow Jesus’ teachings, because most of us do not know or understand Jesus’ teachings. (Including most of those of us who call ourselves Christians).
The first part of the speech that talks about how we can heal our world, that I am sending you, is an attachment to this email. This speech and the ideas outlined in it will be at the heart of a movement that will help heal our world. Some ideas may have to be added to this speech for it to be able to do this, and some modifications in its presentation may have to be made. If either or both of these things are needed, I believe you may be able to help do them. Whether or not these changes are needed, the movement this speech must lead to, is desperately needed by our world, and our world needs you to be a part of this movement. Read this speech, think about how you can best help heal the wounds of our world, and contact me as soon as possible. I can be reached at gpelly.bosela@gmail.com. I may also be able to be reached at (440) 647-5182. If you get an answering machine with my voice on it, try leaving a message. I may get it, but I may not be able to get it. I may also have to go for weeks at a time without getting to a computer to check my email, but I will probably be able to check my email every day or every few days. One way or another I will probably receive all emails sent to this address within a few weeks. The full speech that I am sending you the beginning of, can be found at http://howwecanheal.blogspot.com . Also forward this email and the first part of the speech attached to it to everyone you know who might also want to help heal our world. When you want to print this speech, it is better to print the attachment I sent you than to print from the web page that has this speech on it, because the attachment I have sent you includes print formatting I was unable to put on the web page. To print this attachment you may have to press the paper feed button on your printer periodically.
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The words, “God, Gott, Bog, Chuv, Dieu, Domine, Theo, Yaweh, Allah, Brahman, Omazd, Ekam, Shang Ti, Ameratsu, Molongo, Tangaroa, Taiowa, and Adanvdo
Parsee, Tamil, Chinese, Japanese, a Bantu language, Tahitian, Hopi, Cherokee
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Jesus says to us “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt 6:25-33 & Lk 12:22-34), and Jesus says to his disciples, “Do not put gold or silver, or copper in your belts. Nor a bag for the way, nor two tunics, nor sandals or staves, for the workman is worthy of his food. In whatever city you enter, find those who are worthy and stay with them until you leave.” (Mt 10:9-10).
These commands give Jesus’ teachings a great deal of the strength they have, because they allow us focus on what is important to us, learning how to forgive people who trespass against us, when without these teachings we would otherwise almost certainly be distracted by material concerns. My life is a perfect example of this. I have had to spend a great deal of time and energy learning what I have learned about Jesus and about how to follow Him, because the ideas I learned when I was young were hostile and antithetical to all Jesus’ teaches. I have had to change all of my habits ands tendencies and have had to fundamentally reprogram my personality to be able to live well at all. These commands, along with the rest of Jesus’ teachings have allowed me to do this. Not without effort, though. This effort has required so much time and energy and concentration that
I have been unable to earn much money or establish a career. This, along with the fact that I have been betrayed by people I thought I could rely on, has led me to a state of extreme poverty in which I have not been able to feed myself adequately and as a consequence I am now suffering from malnutrition and from general poor health. Still I am better of for doing this, because now I have learned what I must do to live wisely from Jesus, and because now I have learned to do some of the things he has taught me. One of the things I know I must do is help other people learn from Him without having to make the sacrifices I have made. This is now the overarching goal of my life. Because of my poor health, though, I am now in dire need of help to b able to do this. If I can eat well, sleep well, and get a little exercise, I will be able to become healthy enough to spread Jesus’ teachings. I now need help to be able to do this. Once I put the speech I have sent you on a web page will show up on search engines, and get traffic for word of mouth, and that will allow me to take donations to the church I will establish over the internet, I will probably be able to eat well enough to improve my health. Right now I cannot do these things, though. In other words I need both intellectual and financial aid to be able to establish the church of human weakness. I also need to move to a new place and probably establish the headquarters of the church of human weakness there. Because I have devoted my energy to personal transformation rather than earning money I am now so poor, that I am forced to live with people who hate me, hate Jesus, and persecute me for trying to follow Jesus. I could have earned a great deal of money in my life, but doing this would have required me to live with the personality I was given in my youth, and I would have become a part of the evil that is tearing our world apart. This is probably true of many people, and these are the people I most want to help. Many of these people have probably tried what I have tried, and many of these people have failed because they have become so poor that their health has suffered more than mine (especially if they have become homeless and because of this have become malnourished and have not been able to sleep well.) When these things happen to a person, that person’s productivity declines greatly, especially if that productivity is dependent on writing. I know because this has happened to me. For this reason, this letter is not written nearly as well as the speech I have sent you, (most of which was written when my health was better), and that speech is not written nearly as well as it would have been had my health been better. To a point my malnutrition may have helped me gain focus as fasting sometimes helps people gain focus, but I passed that point long ago, and any gains in focus have been more than outweighed by losses in energy in recent times. When we think of the causes of evil in our world it is easy to see that people who find themselves in this predicament, (the predicament of having learned evil at a young age, and having to earn money instead of reprogramming themselves, is the primary cause of evil in our world. Most of us want to be good, but have not learned how to be good, but have only learned how to be evil. The only way to change this fact is to help people learn how to be good. We can do that by helping people understand Jesus’ true teachings. That is why I sent you the beginning of the speech I have written, and that is why I am writing to you again now. I just want to let you know that while this church will be able to help great numbers of people understand Jesus, right now it I\s in danger of not being started because of my health problems and residential problems. This is when it is especially important to remember Jesus’ command to his disciples, “seek out whoever is worthy and stay with them for the workman is worthy of his food. I have not tried very hard to seek out whoever is worthy in the past. Now that has changed.
Again you can contact me at gpelly.bosela@gmail.com, and you may also be able to reach me at (440 647-5182)
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Even those of us who are not following twisted and perverted versions of what Jesus taught us, usually do not focus nearly as much as we should on understanding and following Jesus’ true teachings. This is the weakness I see in many churches that call themselves Christian churches. Helping people focus more clearly on the teachings that will bring us happiness if we follow them, is the aim of the Church of Human Weakness,
and is what I want to help all people do. I see a great desire to learn how we can be happy, in all people, but most people make great errors that prevent them from doing this. From what I have seen, you and most people in your church seem to have avoided many of the greatest errors that many people make, and seem to have a strong desire to learn about and avoid other errors that prevent you from finding happiness.
I am sending you this essay because I hope and believe you will want to help heal our world and will want to help spread the knowledge of what actions will hurt us and what actions will help us, and because I believe we can all do more to help accomplish these goals by living as Jesus teaches us to live, and by helping to spread Jesus’ true teachings by joining or supporting a church of human weakness, than we can do in any other way, (even if we learn how to live as Jesus teaches us to live, from someone other than Jesus, who does not talk about Jesus, and who does not try to follow Jesus, and even if we do not say we follow Jesus. Other teachers often teach some of the same lessons Jesus teaches, and people who follow other teachers often learn and do more of what Jesus teaches us, than do those of us who say we follow Jesus. This includes teachers we call religious teachers.) I tell why I believe these things in the essay I have attached to this email. I believe that after you read this essay you will agree with me.
When you have read enough of this essay to understand a good part of the meaning of the church of human weakness, and when you want to either join this church, help this church, or learn more about this church, please email me at gpelly.bosela@gmail.com, or telephone me at (440) 647-5182. I will probably be at this number when you call, though for reasons beyond my control I may not be, but I will almost certainly be able to receive all emails sent to this address shortly after they are sent, and I will try to be at this telephone number because I especially look forward to telephone calls from anyone who is interested in the church of human weakness.
I have sent this essay to you as an attachment to this email. This attachment contains many formatting commands that make this essay easier to read, that would have been lost if I had copied this essay into the main text of this email. Many of you may be reluctant to open this attachment for fear of viruses. Let me assure you that this attachment has been checked for viruses by a highly respected anti-virus security program that google mail uses to check all attachments that are sent with it’s mail service. If this program finds any cause for concern in any attachment it simply won’t send that attachment, so there is no reason to fear that there might be a virus in the attachment I have sent you.
This essay can also be found along with later sections that are not included in this email at http://howwecanheal.blogspot.com . At this website these later sections are included as a separate blog entry. Refer everyone you know who might want to help heal our world, to this web page. When you want to print this essay either from this attachment or from this website you may have to press the paper feed button on your printer periodically. Again the attachment has formatting commands that the website version does not have and will print in a way that will be easier to read.
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