December, 2006

It has been over a year at least since I have heard from MikeC in Australia. He mentioned the following to me as a new direction in his own study and I wanted to see what it does as a topic of discourse.

[Given that we are God’s creation (which I accept):

1. What is our purpose in this life?
2. What are the actual warnings that we are given about belief, study, and faith?
3. Were the miracles performed by Christ accomplished through faith or by divine power?

continue reading "Soul Searching Focal Points"

continue reading "Image Worship and Dualism"

continue reading "The Good Samaritan Revisited"

Now we are coming up to the time of New Year's Resolutions, which almost everyone seem to regard as matters of will power. And most are happy to make them while being sure they won't be able to keep them. Making New Year's Resolutions work is not a matter of will power. It's a matter of technique, the results of which look like magick. Here's an overview to help those who want to do it again, but this time without failing miserably after a week or so.

continue reading "Make Your New Year's Resolutions Work this time"

Though Christianity is currently plagued by sin in the West, it will never die out in the World completely until Christ’s coming. Wherever true bible based Christianity arises in great numbers, that society will be greatly blessed by God. Wherever Christianity is rejected or made into something else, God will withdraw His covering. So while the west is busy taking God out of everything, God withdraws. We in the West are foolish because we know we are getting hot, but in general we as a people run to the flame for relief. There are Christians in the world that are not as foolish and the blessings that were once upon us will be upon them as they draw close to God through His beloved son. God is not the God of the West alone, or are we blessed in the West because of anything to do of our own selves. God is God to those who serve Him. Those who serve him through Christ are His children. God's children get God's blessings.

continue reading "Will Christianity die if it dies in the west?"

Prof Dr Colonel (Retired) K Prabhakar Rao

Theologians in the world are of the opinion that world today is passing through greatest crisis such as materialistic pleasures, sex, corruption, vanity, fashion, glamour, ego, power and money. People are engaged in fruitless and worthless controversies over various unnecessary issues and are deviating from the true path that leads to God. Peter Kreeft and Ponald Lacelli in great anguish have stated, “Western civilization for the first time is in the danger of dying. The reason is spiritual degradation. It is loosing soul and life. That soul was Christian faith. Our century is marked by genocide, sexual degradation and money worship. Church of Christ would never die, but civilization would definitely die. We are not only in civil cultural crisis, but also in philosophical and intellectual one. Our crisis is crisis of truth. The very objective truth is being ignored, abandoned and attacked not only in practice, but also in theory too, directly and explicitly and especially by the educated men , educational and media establishments who mould our minds. The deepest level of crisis is spiritual. Our civilization may last century or a little more but not you. Better learn love now. Now days, it is out of fashion to say these facts that say volumes about the spiritual sanity of our ostrich like age” (1).

continue reading "Christianity At The Crossroads"

At the risk of committing what to some is sacrilege, and to others utter foolishness, I want to ponder the question: What is God? While this is a question that many know cannot be answered, and still others know is already answered by anthropology, I am coming to accept that the process of questioning and answering is an important part of the definition of God. What do you think?

continue reading "What Is God?"

One of my favourite areas of Web exploration is foreign languages. Google Logos Languages to find hundreds of sites and hundreds of dictionaries and language aids. From those sites I offer this little list, which could be increased in size many times. See you again next year. For those who are into the old magickal language:
Bendithion o'r Duwau Hen arnoch chi.
For all rabbit's friends and relations:

continue reading "Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...many ways."

One of the interesting features of the stale doctrine of Inerrancy/Infallibility is faith (trust) in the concept of God having revealed what eventually came to be written down by men. 'Theopneustos' existed at one point in time, but according to I/I the breath of God has ceased for a Dispensational period.

This accounts for the backward looking theological viewpoint of fundamentalism, and the lack of vision for the future (other than to sit and wait). It also accounts IMO for a tremendous lack of interest among the postmodern populace. A God who is distant and silent but for his spokesmen and interpreters today does not tend to hold relevance to people who question such things.

continue reading "Continuing Revelation"

One of my favorite fantasy movies, in which just about all of it is unhistorical and quite fantastic is The 13th Warrior. It’s a great adventure yarn if you can forget everything you know about history except the fact that an Arab writer did once encounter the Vikings, and wrote about these amazing people, ‘tall as palm trees’ for the Arabs. The number thirteen has an archetypal ring to it. Viewing the movie for about the fifth time started a train of thought about a real thirteen that has been ignored in favor of a mentally constructed twelve. Here’s the train.

continue reading "The Thirteenth Sign of the Zodiac"

Please don't post copyrighted material. It's against the law.

However, the law does allow us to quote a percentage of the material in a review. And if the original material is on the web, then merely linking to it is a good way to help other readers easily find and read the original, then come back to your post for comment.

If the original is not on the web, well then, just use old

continue reading "Can I re-post copied news stories or other copyrighted material?"

continue reading "This is an interesting article by CNS news Staff writer Monisha Bansal"

Previously, I have mentioned that ancient writings were preceded by oral tradition, and predating that, was ancient symbology. The "Tree of Life" comes to mind as one of the earliest forms of this development. The import of such study is the realization that there is a great deal of the history of lore that is hidden to the naked eye in ancient literature, particularly Jewish writings. One might guess at the reasons for this, but suffice it to say that time has a way of affecting concepts that were very clearly understood at the outset.

continue reading "yhwh the origin of the tetragrammaton"

Many people know about using the rosary to keep count of prayers. Indian swamis are frequently pictured using what looks like a necklace of beads, running it through the fingers of one hand. What looks like a necklace is called a japa mala. You can buy them now all over the Web made of everything from sandalwood beads through every kind of semi precious and precious stone. But even the cheapest one is a very efficient machine to enable the seeker who meditates to get on with seeking. My first one was a loop of cord with 27 knots in it.

continue reading "Mantras, Malas, Rosaries and Such"

I've been busy trying to finish getting out all of my Christmas cards. Almost every card that I am sending this year wishes the recipient peace in the new year. However, while we call Jesus the Prince of Peace, we hardly ever explore in our churches what that might mean for us. During a time of war we may spend a little time expressing our wish that our troops will be safe, that innocent Iraqis won't be killed, and that we hope for the war to end soon. These are worthwhile wishes, but peace extends much further than a hope for the end of war. Peace is not the absence of war; it is the presence of a different way of living. Peace is a state of being of total welfare, security, and justice. There is no real peace without justice. There is no real peace without welfare for all. Peace is a relational word and it implies that we are concerned not only with our own security but the processes that we use in order to safeguard it. It implies concern and care for others. And it implies a state of rest and community with the Divine.

continue reading "progressive christianity and the prince of peace"

Should civilization show clemency to those who have shown time and again their well developed talent for using these very traits of civil society (such as trust, mercy, forgiveness) against us? What happens to an advanced civilization when it is subjected to decades or centuries of tyrannical rule by terror? What can be learned from India's decades of struggle with terrorism, both on her borders and within?

continue reading "Do Captured Terrorists Deserve Sympathy and Mercy?"

I recently had a question about using a pendulum from someone who was fed up with nearly all her friends being able to talk to guides, totem animals or the more popular angels. She was in dire need of something to talk to in the non material world and had heard about the possibilities of communicating with the extensive data bank of the subconscious using a simple pendulum.

Taking it for granted that there are other people out there who have heard of pendulum work but have never done it, I thought to go through some basics that always seem to work well so that an investigator has something to go on, and can continue to walk the path if it seems interesting.

continue reading "Very Basic Pendulum Magick."

The aspect of God being omni present and omni potent is accepted by all the religions. Buddhism however refused to discuss the issue of God and it felt it was of no relevance. It neither rejected nor confirmed. Every religion has its own prescription for the God. Man has evolved on this earth over many years and originally he was a cave dweller and aboriginal. He lived by hunting animals and birds and as time passed, man learned to live in societies or tribes. From the beginning, man was fascinated by the powers of the nature such as fire, thunder, Storm and winds, stars, sun and moon, rain, earth quakes, volcanos, ocean waves, powerful wild animals, fearsome serpents, fearful monsters in sea and rivers, disease and big mountains. He had no control over them. He could not explain birth and death. Thus he believed that there was something highly powerful than him on this earth which could not be overcome. He revered all these forces of nature. Thus worship of powers of nature began. These powers were called Gods and were depicted in variety of forms as the imagination grew along with capacity to depict, paint and carve as civilization progressed (1).

continue reading "God is Omni Present, Omni Potent, and Merciful; the Religions of the World Confirm"

In this short work by C. H. Dodd, he outlines what he means by the subject title above. Near the end of his work, he writes:

["The real problem for the student of the New Testament is not whether this or that incident in the life of Jesus is credibly reported, this or that saying rightly attributed to Him; nor yet whether such and such a doctrine. in Paul or John can be derived from Judaism or the "mystery religions." It is, whether the fundamental affirmations of the apostolic Preaching are true and relevant. We cannot answer this question without understanding the Preaching, nor understand it without painstaking study of material which in some of its forms is strange and elusive; but without answering this question, we cannot confidently claim the name of Christian for that which we preach. To select from the New Testament certain passages which seem to have a "modern" ring, and to declare that these represent the "permanent element" in it, is not necessarily to preach the Gospel. It is, moreover, easy to be mistaken, on a superficial reading, about the true meaning of passages which may strike us as congenial. Some of them may not be as "modern" as they sound. The discipline of confronting the Gospel of primitive Christianity, in those forms of statement which are least congenial to the modern mind, compels us to re-think, not only the Gospel, but our own prepossessions.]

continue reading "Apostolic Preaching and Its Development"

Now Christmas is even closer and you may be counting the dollar bills left in your rapidly thinning wallet to see if you use cash or plastic to buy gas. Don’t use all your dollar bills. Take one home and examine it with care. It’s full of secrets. Some of them are here. Others you can find by contemplation along the lines indicated.

In 1776 the designing of the Great Seal of the United States was put into the charge of three remarkable people: Thomas Jefferson, John Adam and Benjamin Franklin. Since the publication of the Da Vinci Code and the movie National Treasure a great many people have become more aware that they have taken for granted many things in their lives that are in fact loaded with interest and mystery.

continue reading "Tarot, Alchemy and the Freemasons on your Dollar Bill"

What so you think? Is it time for religion to put up or shut up?

continue reading "Infallibility/Inerrency Doctrine Is a Red Herring"