Sheep and Goats

Author: tomsheepandgoats

  • Why do Bad Things Happen?

    The gist of this article does not start for several paragraphs….I first must set the stage with a cute (but true) story. You might not like the dopey story. Should you want to skip it and cut right to the chase, scroll ahead till you reach the paragraph that, like this one, is in bold print.

    Carpooling to work, Bill was pounding me into jelly with non-stop drivel about, of all things, pornography. I was not feeling well, had insufficient sleep and the beginnings of a headache. Jake was either snoozing in the back seat or wisely playing possum. I pretended to be deaf, but Bill was wise to it and kept talking! I considered piercing my eardrums so as to actually be deaf, or breathing in exhaust so as to die, but did not have the nerve.

    It seems there is a certain woman who has forsaken the arts, at which she was successful, to make hard-core pornography, at which she is astoundingly successful, and she has become wealthy. This has caught Bill's attention and it is the subject of the day

    . ….Tom, she was a concert pianist and she was successful. Now she makes hard core porn and she is super-rich. I don't understand how she could do it. I mean, she was not just some loser, but she was a concert pianist. I just can't understand how a concert pianist could give that up and start a new living making hard core pornography. (Jake and I have no trouble understanding it) I think these people in Hollywood are so super-rich and powerful that they just laugh at all the rest of us, with our quaint and backward little bourgeois notions of morality. I mean, maybe this is just the capitalist system…maybe this is just free enterprise. Where's the harm, anyway. I mean, if it doesn't hurt anyone, what is wrong with it, anyway? Why not, if it makes people happy. But what I don't get is how she, who was a concert pianist……now, Bill is very predictable and I'm sure you can fill in the rest for yourself and not be too far off

    Of course, I don't want to imply that Bill is a regular consumer of hard core porn. I've no reason to believe that, and I don't believe it (I don't think). It is simply today's topic. Actually, the three of us ride together a lot, and women are a frequent topic of discussion. Not obscenely, of course, and not specifically, but just generically, as a species. Both of these guys defer to me, since I have been married forever, so they assumeI know a lot.

    On the job, I resolve not to put up with the same drivel on the drive home. How much can a guy take? But once back in the car, my headache, held at bay during the workshift, returns with a vengeance, and I also begin to feel carsick. Bill, of course, never doubts that I am eagerly awaiting the next phase of his harangue, and picks up where he left off! Desperate measures are called for. 

    …..Hard core porn. I mean, where's the harm in it? Isn't it just our petty ideas of morality, which the super-powerful rich people in Hollywood just laugh at? Tom, I think they just laugh at us. And where is the harm in it?……Without warning, I hit him hard with a right punch: "Bill, don't be an idiot! Of course it's harmful! It interferes with a normal relationship with a woman, because all your thoughts are tainted!“ He is not fazed! He keeps coming at me!…Yeah, but…if people don't mind, I mean if they find enjoyment…how can it be harmful? What is really wrong with it? …..I land another hard right! "Damn it, Bill, we just came from the job, where about half of the folks are women. You go back and explain to them how wonderful hard core porn is…see if you can persuade them how it doesn't hurt anyone"……Yes!! If only for a moment, he is stopped. Jake, from the back seat, explodes in laughter….he is beginning to sense a good fight, and he perks up.

    But Bill is far from down and out. He regroups! ……a concert pianist, who used to play the concert piano in front of a concert piano audience! What I don't understand is….

    I feign with my right, but this time I hit him hard with my left, out of nowhere and completely unexpected! ….."Bill, what really upsets me is that we should die! Why should people die after only 70 or 80 years, when there are some turtles that live 150 years. I'd like to live forever and never die. What do you think of that!!??" (Now, this has nothing to do with anything, but if we must talk, it is going to be on my subject, not porn) ….He staggers! He looks for the gutter, but he has lost the thread of conversation…….After a pause: I don't know why the hell a person would want to live forever, or even just five more minutes on this crappy earth! The way life is today it is not worth living! [He's not a joyful guy, this Bill.] Is this life just some kind of a joke that God is playing on us? I think he must be laughing at us. I mean, what's the purpose of all of this?

    With the right combination of moves, I could dominate this fight. I take a gamble:…..

    "Bill! I could explain it all to you, but I'm not going to because you'll interrupt!" ……Bullseye!!!  Jake splits his sides laughing. "I could explain it to you, but you'll interrupt," he mimics. Bill is speechless. He stumbles a bit, even briefly goes back to the porn star, but it is no good! The subject has been changed. By and by, he asks what is this explanation about the purpose of life.

    Could it be? Is he really going to shut up? Gingerly, I lay down a foundation. "The first thing that you've got to understand is that God did not put humans on earth because he wanted them somewhere else. The earth is not a proving ground from which to launch people into heaven or hell. It was meant to be a permanent home, and people were created to live forever on it." Silence. It looks like I may really have his attention!

    "Secondly, Bill, while I am explaining some things, you are going to hear things that you disagree with, but you cannot say so! For example, I will speak about Adam and Eve. You are going to want to say: "I don't believe in Adam and Eve." You cannot say it! You must wait until I am done, see if it hangs together, and then afterwards, if you still want, you can say: I don't believe in Adam and Eve." Again, not a word. It really seems like he is listening, and Jake too, for that matter.

    And with that, I lay out the following scenario for them. And not just for them, but also for you, the reader. Perhaps it will seem reasonable to you, and perhaps not. Let me know. Having prepared the earth to support physical life, God creates all life we see, including humans. As one perceptive person put it: "As almost a selfless act, to the extent of….I have life, perhaps I will create more life, so others can enjoy it as I do." In a nutshell, you couldn't explain it much better.

    Still, happy living will depend on their recognition of their Creator's authority, his rightness, the need for obedience to him regarding questions of how to live & how humans should govern themselves as they grow in number. Not that God's going to control every minute aspect of their lives. Indeed, he has granted them free will. He has not programmed them as one might program robots…they can choose their course. And while that allows a wrong course, it also makes a right course so much more meaningful. After all, how meaningful is someone's love if you know they are programmed so they can't behave any other way?

    To some extent the obedience that Adam rightly owes God parallels that of a child toward it's parents. The child for many years will encounter situations with which it is unfamiliar, but not the parents. Assuming the parent holds the child's best interests at heart, obedience is therefore a very good thing. Now, the child will one day become the equal of the parent. Humans will never become the equal of God, so with God the need for obedience never disappears, even though God wants us to continually gain wisdom from experience.

    You may know that the Bible account, in the first three chapters of Genesis (If you haven't read the Bible, fear not. Few people have) says that God puts a tree, called the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, in the garden of Eden, and tells Adam and Eve not to eat from it. And, in no time at all, they do. Now, what does that mean? Does it mean that before eating off the tree, the first humans couldn't distinguish between good and bad, right and wrong? Plainly, that cannot be. How would they know it is right to obey the command and wrong to disobey? Nor does the fruit have anything at all to do with sex, as giggling people imagine.

    Back to the prior illustration, one might say that the child looks to the parent for standards as to what is good and what is bad. It is good to eat veggies, to wash, to learn to read, to be in bed not too late. It is bad to play in the street, to eat only candy, to run with scissors, and so forth. But, if the young child were to absolutely rebel, one way to put it poetically would be to say that the child will now decide for itself what is good and bad….it will no longer look to its parents.

    It is in this sense that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad serves to illustrate those first humans rejecting God's right to decide what is right and wrong, good and bad, in favor of making their own rules. By eating from the tree, they are saying that they don't need God telling them what to do, they will decide for themselves! It is a rejecting of God's sovereignty, his right to rule, his right to set standards. Now, what is God going to do about it?

    Of course, he can flatten all them and start over, or give up on the whole notion of creating humans. That shows who's stronger. But that question's never been in doubt. The question that has been raised is: who is correct? God or those first people? Can they really govern themselves successfully so that neither God nor anyone else ought interfere, or is self-rule an ability they do not have? Better to settle this question and thus salvage the original project.


    Essentially, God says: Alright…. I say you cannot rule yourselves. You insist you can. Try it.

    I will give you this much time (hold our you hands about one foot apart, a distance that can represent the time God allows) It will be all the time you will need to make good on your claim. During that time, as you increase in number, you are free to organize and govern yourselves, divide or unite yourselves any way you see fit and can manage. Accept or reject standards I offer, devise your own ways of living, your own economies, your own religions. In time, discover science, and see if you can harness it to improve your lot. I will not interfere. At the end of that time, we will see if you have been able to make good on your claim of independence.

    Now, as the Bible presents matters, we are nearing the end of that time. We don't have a precise timetable, but we do have many indications that point to this general time period. And, not to deny that there are a few bright spots here and there…people have learned to clean up after their dogs, for instance…but I don't think anyone can point to the overall human record with pride. It's been one long chronicle of butchery and suffering, injustice and poverty, hatred and selfishness, climaxing so that today the question is seriously asked: will humans destroy themselves. We all know of people who choose not to bring children into the world, so inhospitable does it appear.

    So there comes a point when God can say: Enough. Case closed. The question has been answered. He can bring about his own kingdom rule, he can remove those opposed, and he can see his original purpose toward earth come back online. All this without negating the free will he has endowed his creation with, (among the things most people cherish is freedom of choice) and without any permanent damage to those who have suffered in the past, since there is provision of resurrection.

    Furthermore, the issue, once settled, becomes a standard for the future, just as a Supreme Court decision becomes a precedent. Should some future whiner make the same claim about self-rule, the experiment does not have to repeat. In time, since everlasting life is the object, the time spent in self-rule and human suffering recedes and comes to represent an insignificant amount of time, like a bad dream of long ago.

    And then there is some stuff about how conditions will change under kingdom rule, and a little etc, and thus ends my speech.

    Silence. It, or at least parts of it, has struck home.

    But, by and by, Bill cranks up again.

    Now you must understand that, physically, I feel horrible. My headache has gone migraine, and the ride has made me nauseous. When I am later dropped off at the meet spot, I don't get into my car, but instead walk a few laps around the parking lot, trying to steady myself before the drive home.

    The next scene is straight from the movies! How often, after the hero has beaten the foe and has turned his back, exhausted, does that foe…..gasp! Look out!….somehow rise up for one last blow, which will surely find its mark except for the completely unexpected intervention of some third party….say, the woman in distress, or a bad guy just turned good, or an up-to-this-time ambiguous character. And so it is that way in the car!

    ……What I don't understand, Bill says, is what is the purpose of all this suffering…. how can God allow all of……

    Jake comes to the rescue!!! "Bill, Tom just explained all of that!! he says. Weren't you listening?" ….Bill next says something about evolution, and again it is Jake: "Wait! he says. This is something I can chime in on. I used to believe in evolution but I don't anymore…not because of religion, but because of science. Evolution doesn't make any sense because of"……and he starts into a discussion on DNA and some other science things. Thus the two of them talk for awhile, while I try to nurse my head and stomach, hoping I do not die. [I did not]

    There is an epilogue. A week or two later, about ten of us were at another jobsite. From the other side of the room, I can hear Bill complaining to someone: …….What I don't understand is what is the purpose of this life. Is this some sort of joke that God is playing? Is he just laughing at us…….."Bill! I interject, I explained all that to you…you shouldn't be going on as if you don't have a clue!" My ally, Jake, roars with laughter." He did!" Jake says. "It made sense, too! Don't worry, Tom, I believe you!"

    So I'm batting 500. It could be worse.

     

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    More here

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    ******  The bookstore

  • A Happy Ending

    When I heard Clayton was giving his first public talk, I was happy. When I heard he’d done a great job, I was not surprised. Last year I would have been.

    Last year, snowboarding, he hit a tree. Force of impact shattered his helmet.

    Airlifted to Strong Hospital, doctors removed part of his skull to relieve brain swelling. Friends rallied around the family. His parents, siblings, and young wife made Strong their home for days and weeks. His head swelled up like a basketball. Would he live? Would he regain consciousness? Would he ever speak?

    An early sign that all would be well came when Kelly, a pal who works at the Saab dealership, came to visit. “Clayton, Kelly’s here,” whispered his dad. “Remember, you test drove a Saab at his….”….Clayton filled in the rest…. spewing a long list of Saab specifications. The young man always knew fine cars. His dad is one of those Midas brothers, forever dabbling in business. Everything prospers.

    The first clue I had that Clayton had such a background came when we took the boy, then 10, along with us camping. I was setting up the camper or taking it down or something, and the precocious kid starts chatting about high taxes and how tough it is to do business in New York. “His dad is self-employed,” I said to myself. It takes one to know one.

    He recovered quickly and his unique personality reappeared. “You know, I’m a certified snowboard instructor,” he’d tell hospital personnel. “If you’d like lessons for your kids, I’m available.”

    They fitted him with a temporary gadget while his permanent skull awaited reattaching, and he was able to get around. With a half-shaved, misshapen head, he visited Scott Miller Salon, where he does web design, and asked if he could get a half-price haircut. Clearly, he pointed out, he only had half a head. The unsuspecting receptionist did the only reasonable thing she could do…she panicked. “I…I’d be glad to check for you, sir,” she stammered, before Clayton let her in on the joke.

    So today he is intact, restored and well. And giving his first public talk. Not all stories end so happily. But we are grateful for this one.

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    Tom Irregardless and Me     No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Some Stay and Some Leave

    Last week, Birdness Buck got canned at Metro Megacorp. This week, he is starting a website entitled My Life at Metro Megacorp….the Real Truth.

    Question: Will the new website be kind to Metro Megacorp?  (Hint: Not a snowball’s chance in you-know-where.)

    Last month, Bob Slickbottom quit Metro Megacorp. The next day he started a website entitled My Years at Metro Megacorp….the Real Scoop.

    What about the Bob’s website? Will it be kind?

    This one’s harder to call. People job hop today. They aren’t necessarily steamed, they just move on. Still, if someone goes to all the trouble of webbing, odds are he won’t be too nice. We all know it’s much more fun to lambaste something than praise it. But it could go either way.

    However, when grandpa Slyster Slickbottom quit Metro Megacorp 50 years ago, people didn’t job hop. You worked at a place straight from school and stayed until retirement. So Sly was steamed, otherwise he would have stayed. When he started his website Twenty years a Metro Megacorp Slave,  he was not kind to his former employer.   

    In fact, his site set the pattern for the Birdness Buck site, and was far more impressive, since there was no web then.

    It’s like that when a person leaves Jehovah’s Witnesses. Its organization represents a faith and a way of life. Like the lifetime employer of former times, people don’t enter to stay a few years before moving on. If they leave, it’s likely because they’re peeved over something. Otherwise they would have stayed. And if that person finds the web, he may not be kind.

    As for Birdness Buck, Jehovah’s Witnesses are among the few faiths that will expel a person for serious misconduct, when persistent and unrepentant. Watch out for any websites started in that wake. There is a fair number of sourpuss websites authored by former JWs.

  • You Got a Rotten Attitude and You Better Straighten Out!

    My Bethel pal reflected on how frail people are today and how the old-timers must scratch their heads in wonder. Back in their day (the good old days) a person might be counseled this way: You got a rotten attitude and you better straighten up!

    And they would straighten up! And they’d say thanks for the counsel! Or maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d decide to go elsewhere in life. But they wouldn’t crumble.

    Today, erring ones get counsel sandwiches. Take one thick slice of bread. Place a small slice of counsel on top. Cover with another thick slice of bread. The bread, of course, represents gushing (but genuine) praise, needed to cushion counsel’s blow to the ego.

    I’ve heard them called brotherums….. Brother, um…that was a fine so and so, this or that, but, um, did you ever consider that…..

    How did people get so fragile? To be sure, the blockheads of the past didn’t have a bit of tact, and it can only be good that they finally get some. But the fragility?

    All of us are raised in increasingly uncertain times by families who, as a result, are increasingly dysfunctional. It takes its toll. Too, every generation is one generation further from mankind’s perfect start. That too, must take its toll.

    It’s good to remember that when we interact with others. Cut them some slack.

     

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    Tom Irregardless and Me             No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Gospel of Judas and the Breakaway Sect

    April 2006, the National Geographic Society surprised us with the Gospel of Judas, (not to be confused with the Gospel of Howard) found in the 1970’s Egyptian dessert.

    Background on gospels: the Bible has four of them, each named after its author: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Gospel means good news. Did Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, write the Gospel of Judas? If so, he had to write fast. Jesus gave him secret revelations only days before Judas took his own life.

    No, Judas is not supposed to have written the gospel himself, but even so, when would he have told anyone his inside information? He was busy around that time, handing Jesus to the authorities, then feeling remorse over the deed, then taking his life over it.

    Like different newspapers covering the same events, gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke overlap a lot. The Gospel of John, written many years afterwards by the nearly 100 year old apostle, contains about 90% new material. You shouldn’t be surprised at that. The needs of the Christian community would have changed in 30 years, and so John highlighted different deeds and teachings of Jesus, more relevant to Christians of his time. He acknowledges in his final sentence that there is no end to material he could have drawn on. 

    The Gospel of Judas was written long after this time, and thus the connection to Judas, who lived only a few days after Jesus gave him his claimed secret revelations, has to be shaky. The content is heavily mystical, not at all like the other writings.

    Elaine Pagels of Princeton University says texts like Judas are “exploding the myth of a monolithic religion” in favor of Christian diversity. Nonsense. It explodes nothing that the Bible canon itself doesn’t explode.

    Below are 5 separate scriptures from the New Testament. Look them up if you like. The statements make clear that the authors were indeed striving for monolithic unity, and not Christian diversity. And why not? They were the apostles after all, the same fellows in the Last Supper painting. They knew what Jesus had done and said, and they wanted to keep the record untainted, a fight they ultimately lost, at least in the short run. Do you really think, for the sake of diversity, that they would welcome a new gospel, written years after their own deaths, by someone who couldn’t possibly be in position to know anything?

    The Gospel of Judas is useful if we keep in mind what it represents….the view of a breakaway sect, not Christianity itself. Unfortunately, you know and I know that next years’ Christmas or Easter sop from the TV networks will be the “real” story of Jesus, based on the Book of Judas.

    2 Pet 3: 15   Furthermore, consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given him also wrote YOU, 16 speaking about these things as he does also in all [his] letters. In them, however, are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unsteady are twisting, as [they do] also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.

    1 Tim 4:1   However, the inspired utterance says definitely that in later periods of time some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to misleading inspired utterances and teachings of demons, 2 by the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, marked in their conscience as with a branding iron; 3 forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be partaken of with thanksgiving by those who have faith and accurately know the truth.

    Acts 20:29   I know that after my going away oppressive wolves will enter in among YOU and will not treat the flock with tenderness, 30 and from among YOU yourselves men will rise and speak twisted things to draw away the disciples after themselves.

    1 John 2:18   Young children, it is the last hour, and, just as YOU have heard that antichrist is coming, even now there have come to be many antichrists; from which fact we gain the knowledge that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of our sort; for if they had been of our sort, they would have remained with us. But [they went out] that it might be shown up that not all are of our sort.

    2 John 9   Everyone that pushes ahead and does not remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God. He that does remain in this teaching is the one that has both the Father and the Son. 10 If anyone comes to YOU and does not bring this teaching, never receive him into YOUR homes or say a greeting to him.

     

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    Tom Irregardless and Me               No Fake News but Plenty of Hogwash

  • Oh No! Politically Correct Ancient Scribes!

    Elihu listened to days and days of speeches, enough to make anyone antsy. When he’d heard all he could stand, he spoke himself. As it turns out, the young man was the only one who knew what he was talking about.

    A short summation of the Book of Job, the ancient exploration of suffering: Job, the account goes, was a wealthy and honored man, deservedly so. But he ran into very hard times. In short order, he lost possessions, family, and health. He exiled himself from the city and waited to die. Only he didn’t die. He just suffered.

    News gets around, and Job receives three visitors who, rather than empathize, keep watch vulture-like for days. When they finally speak, it’s not to console the sick man, but to condemn him! Job has only himself to blame, they point out, because he’s been such a skunk, and so God is getting payback.

    Only, Job has not been a skunk. He’s really been a good man. So he defends himself. Vehemently. He has to, because his visitors become more and more vicious, furious that their words should not be taken to heart. They keep goading him, by degrees, till Job, too, shoots off his mouth: Nobody’s ever been more worthy and free from blame as he, and  nobody’s ever suffered more at the hands of an unjust God, who must be unjust to pick on him this way, when He surely ought to be able to find better things to do with His time.

    This is when Elihu, up till now silent, speaks. He’s steamed. But who is he steamed at?

    Everyone.

    Against Job his anger blazed, because he justified himself rather than God; and against his three friends too, his anger blazed, because they had found no answer, and yet they had pronounced Job wrong.    Job 32:2,3 Berkeley Version

    Most Bible translations agree with the last phrase: …they had pronounced Job wrong. But the New World Translation and a few others, render it that God is the one who’d been pronounced wrong!

    That’s a significant deviation. What accounts for it?

    Since papyrus and vellum, like paper today, disintegrates over time, and yet the scriptures were preserved for centuries, someone had to have copied and copied and copied. Before Christ a class of scribes called the Sopherim were charged with this work. They did nothing but reproduce manuscripts, maintaining accuracy. After Christ, a class called the Massorites did the same thing. The latter made copious notes in the margins, mostly things to ensure correctness, for example counting individual letters per line to make sure their maunscript didn’t vary from that they were copying. But there’s a few places where they note that the earlier Sopherim had tweaked the Scriptures a bit, to improve readability.

    Job 32:3 is one of those tweaks. It apparently says, originally, that God was pronounced wrong. But scriptures were read aloud in the synagogue on Sabbath day, and the notion of God being made wrong struck those scribes as so offensive that they changed the subject to Job, who could be wrong as rain without causing any harm! The Massorites note the substitution and give a margin footnote: this is one of the 18 emendations of the Sopherim. [Google the expression] Only, after they recorded the number, they found a few more, so the 18 emendations is really more than 20. They are scattered throughout different manuscripts.

    Thus, we have political correctness way back in ancient times!

    Which rendering really fits: Job or God?

    Sometimes when translating, and there is a genuine choice of terms, you use context to determine which one fits. Oddly, for Job 32, both renderings will do.

    Job fits, for his pals clearly accused him of vileness, without giving any evidence. They did pronounce him wrong. If you’d read Job only up to this chapter, you might prefer this rendering.

    But God fits too, and seems more likely in view of what Elihu goes on to say….he speaks up in defense of God, not Job. And the three pals did level wrong charges against God, for example, telling Job that his goodness was meaningless to God, since there was no pleasing Him anyway. 

    At any rate, writers of the New World Translation concluded that, since over-pious scribes took out the subject God, they should put it back in. The large print edition explains the decision in appendix 2B

    Job 15:15;  42:7

  • Who to Blame for Human Suffering…Katrina

    Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans last year. People lost everything and they asked, some of them: where was God?

    Fundamentalist preacher Pat Robertson had the answer right away. God destroyed New Orleans, he declared, because of abortion and homosexuality. But the mayor, Ray Nagin, disagreed. Sharply. And at his own news conference, he set the record straight. God did not destroy his town because of abortion and homosexuality.

    He destroyed it because of war in Iraq and disunity among black residents. That’s what steamed God, Nagin said, not abortion and gays.

    Either way, God is the heavy. But is he really the one to blame?

    After Katrina, for a few days in the ministry you could focus on the theme of humans ruining the earth. You could use Rev 11:18.…..God will “bring to ruin those ruining the earth.” You could ask: “do you think human activity is causing the destructive weather?” Even those who thought not would listen, out of respect for Katrina.

    I used this scripture in the 1970s when only means of ruining the earth anyone could imagine was nuclear holocaust. That was then. Today, there are so many ways humans might be fouling the nest. Global warming, global dimming (a new one), pesticides, air pollution, water pollution, ozone depletion, contamination of food supply, species extinction, deforestation. All debatable to different degrees, but all plausible.

    It’s as if a man runs his automobile without concern for maintenance. He doesn‘t care about oil changes. He doesn‘t care about brake shoes. He doesn‘t care about tune-ups. Little does he know the consequence of his ignorance, but if it comes, he can hardly blame the manufacturer.

    And it’s the same way with earth’s manufacturer. God knows the right maintenance for the planet. Plus, the Bible account tells of His Son walking on water and silencing a violent storm….in other words, showing mastery of the elements. Adam gave up a lot when he rejected God’s rule. For God’s rule would implement knowledge and ability that humans don’t have.

    And we won’t even mention the smarts of building a city next to the sea yet below sea level. Hardly God’s wisdom, it barely passes for human wisdom.

    So you can’t blame God when human shortsightedness brings suffering. Moreover, the real answer, his kingdom rule, is approaching. Best thing to do in the meantime is clean up the mess, and alleviate human suffering.

    In our own organization, volunteers have arrived from across the country and even outside. They report, strangely, that not too much is happening with rebuilding. Being volunteers who travel at their own expense, they focus on our own family first. The June 2006 Awake! tells of 3200 homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses destroyed by the flood. Half were renovated by February. It would be about two thirds by now.

    They don’t blame God for their inconvenience.

    Prov 1:31,31, Mark 4:37-41, Matt 6:9,10

     

    ******  The bookstore

  • Who Has Fought the Fine Fight?

    When they hauled James Copp in for sentencing, he got to make a speech, which he enjoys doing. Copp, you’ll remember was the fellow lurking in the woods outside Dr. Bernard Shlepian’s Buffalo home, who fatally shot the man through his kitchen window, in full view of wife and children. He’d shot at other doctors, too, but Shlepian was the first one killed. Dr. Schlepian worked at an abortion clinic.

    Copp compared himself to the apostle Paul.

    I have fought a fine fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. — 2 Tim 4:7

    These words, Copp supposed, applied to himself as much as to Paul.

    There is a similarity. The apostle Paul, like Copp, had taken life, and also like Copp, he had been motivated by religion.

    There is also a difference.

    Paul’s killing stopped when he became a Christian, whereas Copp’s began when he assumed his version. Paul’s violence was directed against the newly formed Christian congregation, and it was fully sanctioned by that days’ religious authorities. He hated the new faith and he meant to stamp it out. So he spearheaded a group of thugs, hauling Christians off to jail, and, at least in Stephen’s case, presiding over a vigilante death.

    The 2006 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses recalls the history of our people in Romania, Eastern Europe. And it awards Paul’s "fine fight" words to someone who merits them. Martin Magyarosi for 45 years spearheaded the Bible education work of Jehovah’s Witnesses in that country, which was continually afflicted by oppressive regimes. Hence, the work was always underground. Its weapons were words only, declaring the Bible’s good news to any who would listen. Martin endured lifelong assaults by first Nazis, then Communists, and always religious opponents. "Many and great have been his sufferings for the sake of the truth," said a report at his death in 1951, "especially since his arrest in January 1950. Now these sufferings have come to an end."

    Like Stephen, Martin was persecution’s target, not its perpetrator. He never lurked outside anyone’s window with a rifle, looking to take life.

    The way it works with judging is that the congregation has no authority whatsoever over those outside. It’s authority is only over it’s own members… to ensure, to a reasonable degree, that such members adhere to Bible standards. This is how it is with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Thus they are no threat to anyone, even those with whom they disagree. But with religions ever ready to thrust, and even enforce, their convictions on others, its no wonder that many people view them as a threat to society. Copp typifies that dangerous version.

    Acts 7:58-8:4; 2 Cor 10:3-5; 2 Tim 2:24; Matt 24:14

  • Like No Evangelist I’ve Ever Seen

    I am a writer for the City! newspaper in Rochester. Only they aren’t aware of it. (Thank you, Garrison Keillor)

    A published City! article and unpublished response.

    Ding-Dong, heaven calling “Hello, my name is Angelina and I’m telling all your neighbors about the New Millennium.” She was young and unlike any door-to-door evangelist I’d ever seen: black leather jacket, sunglasses, thick black hair unbound, tight checkered shirt. What kind of little angel is this, I wondered. She was sexy. But in a dulled, dim sort of way. Not like live bait dangling, bright and glittering. She was definitely not hot-wired into God’s dynamo. “Do you know how you’ll spend the next millennium?” she asked, in a far-off voice

    They usually come in pairs, trudging up my street together, somnambulistic, slack-faced, dulled by the endless repetition of come-on lines and the emotional hardening of all those doors slammed in their faces. Angelina gave me a single-sheet bi-fold tract, like a flimsy Sunday school flyer. Bad colors and cheap printing. Thin apocalyptic images on one side. Soldiers, red dragons, fighter planes. And those weirdly tepid New Millennium pictures on the other. A kid with a lion, a basket of fruit, beautifully bland landscape. If that’s paradise, I thought, I’ll stick with my suburban bunker visited once a year by sexy evangelistic girls. “What does the future hold for you?” her tract asked. She gave me a wan smile, bored as a Wal-Mart checker, and bid me to “have a nice day.”

    Was she a renegade evangelist? An end time angel doing a little last-minute soul-trawling? Did she represent some new wrinkle in the door-to-door salvation biz? No, I decided. She’s an anomaly. Doing her duty, her own way. But if the elders knew what kind of ripples were spreading out behind her, they’d yank her off the street in a minute.

    My unpublished response:

    Somnambulistic, slack-faced, dulled, trudging and emotionally hardened. ("Ding-Dong, heaven calling,") With a single-sheet bi-fold tract…a kid with a lion, a basketful of fruit, depictions of paradise. That sounds like me. Flat nosed from all those slamming doors. And Angelina must be one of my co-workers. Not a flattering description. I might choose different adjectives to describe myself.

    Why did she visit? What motivates her? Why does she volunteer her time? Does it require courage? What would she say if given opportunity? We don't know. The writer shows no interest in these things, but can take time to drool in City over what a hot chick she may be.

    Many people have Bibles, but few know the contents. So I, as Jehovah's Witnesses do, along with Angelina, (who I don’t know) make calls on people to discuss Bible promises. People are busy, involved in many things, have their own views, and I usually come without appointment. So I appreciate when folks are hospitable for a few minutes. They are not required to speak with me. Some do, some don’t. But if they do, I hope they will remember what I said and why I came, and not just if I seemed sexy or not.

  • The Gospel of Judas and Howard

    The folks at National Geographic are all abuzz. April 6, 2006 they gave us the Gospel of Judas, found in the 1970’s Egyptian desert .

    The Gospel of Judas (I kid you not) asserts things found no where else. Judas was not Jesus’ betrayer. No. Instead, they were the best of chums, and Judas betrayed Jesus only because Jesus asked him to. Not only that, Jesus gave his special friend inside tips that he kept secret from the other eleven.

    Of course, this gospel contradicts everything else in the Bible, but no matter. Research is research.

    Intrigued, I went down to the desert and poked around. Sure enough, I too found an ancient gospel, the Gospel of Howard. My hands trembled as I leafed through the crumbling pages, and I gasped at the new truths I learned

    According to this exciting new find, Howard, like Judas, was Jesus' favorite, and is affectionately called 'Howie' throughout the gospel. Howie was the only disciple whom Jesus bowled with, generally every Wednesday night, until, discouraged at the Master's continual 300 games, he sold both his shoes and ball.

    Next, and this revelation took my breath away, the mark of the beast never was 666! That was only an accident! Turns out that a scribe had left his copying briefly, likely to use the bathroom, though we can’t be certain of his exact reason. While he was gone, his wife came in to dust, just as my wife does, and inadvertently caught the corner of the original with her feather duster, spinning it completely around. Not noticing, the copyist upon returning, resumed his work, and copied 666, when it should have been 999!

    I took my find straight down to the authorities so that they could include it in the Bible canon. So far, though, the soreheads only want to fire it from a cannon. But I’m patient. Attitudes change.

    What do you mean, you don’t believe it? You got something against advancing knowledge?