Unhearing (The Abyss, Four.)

 The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God’s hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell. ~Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God, Jonathan Edwards, 1741

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Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

I keep seeing stuff like this.

Trump s mad because he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump thinks if he does the right amount of "Good Works" he'll go to heaven, and so on, and somehow these two things seem tied together.

A few things about that:

Believe in Jesus, and you have to actually be sorry for all the shit you did. Repent, For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, or nothing. While "Good Works" are naturally, good, and faith without works is dead...the Lord's Word is a double-edged sword, and that's the point.

Eternal Life comes through Compassion, not Greed, by love of neighbor, not love of Self. One gets there through love, not hate.

You can dick around with this stuff all you like, but basically all the Holy Books, of all religions, in effect say the same thing through doctrines and laws of differing words but similar import. Buddhism has its Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path, Christianity has the Ten Commandments and the Sermon On The Mount, Islam has its Five Pillars, and so on.

In the Abrahamic faiths, to one degree or another it boils down to submission to God as a choice that must be freely made by an individual.

The Truth is simple. Man makes it complicated because he does not want to obey it.

Love God, love your fellow humans, be sorry for it when you do wrong and try to make amends.

Is that so hard??

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;

And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? ~Revelation 6, King James Version.

And I'll note a lot of these same people who don't want to do the most basic shit that the Bible and the Lord Jesus Christ tell them to do love to talk about the End Times, as if they think they can bullshit God into not putting them in the "Goats" section automatically??

I said it before and I'll say it again, Peter Theil is closer to being an Antichrist than to fighting Antichrist, and if you do not see this...it's because you do not want to.

The Kingdom of Heaven is not a fucking Tax Shelter. I don't even know why I have to say this.

When the shit really does hit the fan, these fucking people will raise up temples to Dis Pater and Mammon and worship literal Demons rather than obey the Lord's Word.

All the Demons would have to do is present as somehow Something Something Gazpacho being vaguely "Conservative" and maybe talk shit about Barack Obama.

And you know it as well as I do.

Look, I posted the bits from the Campus Crusade for Christ spiel for a reason. I was taught, literally trained on this stuff when I considered going into ministry myself.

I've heard countless variations of the whole bit, and given the same spiel myself many times, right or wrong.

My initiation into the "End Times" narrative was, as a young Senior Airman, listening in as two Senior NCO's were discussing this stuff while sitting at the same table as me in the chow hall at KI Sawyer Air Force Base. And I, having a (mainstream) church background and already being familiar with Revelations, started asking questions.

Especially if somebody claims to be a conservative Christian Republican, there's n excuse not to know this stuff. I don't give a damn how cafeteria-ized your personal beliefs or how privileged you personally are. Right or wrong this shit is everywhere.

On a global level, you pretty much have to be blind, deaf, not have internet, radio or TV and live in a remote cave in Antarctica to not have heard some version of the message of the American church in particular whether you ever wanted to or not.

And all these rich guys supposedly don't know this stuff?? This level of Unhearing-ness, of sleepwalking into the Abyss, requires deliberate effort.

Whether I want it or not, a lot of these words are engraved on my soul. And the knowledge of them is and always will be as basic and natural to me as breathing is.

And it will be that way, unbidden in my mind, for as long as I am alive even though I have rejected organized religion and I'm not a Born-Again anything anymore.

Because it's what I read.

My partner is in a similar boat, and also bisexual, but her Catholic and conservative upbringing still weighs heavily on her, too.

Things like that are why people who teach this stuff have a duty to try and get it right.

Your words affect other people.

And believe it or not we have a duty to seek and try to understand the Truth, to check what people say against the Word.

So why not do it??

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. 

~Matthew 25:31-45

So what the fuck is These Fucking People's excuse??

If you believe in the Truth, if you care about any of that stuff, and you want to keep believing in it? If you wish to retain that right it's going to come down to a fight to do so.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

I suspect when push comes to shove we're going to find out that the American Right is as Atheistic and violently anti-Christian as any Chinese Communist Red Guard at the height of the Cultural Revolution or Soviet Gulag jailer from Stalin's purges, or worse.

Слава Україна!

Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
~Daniel 3:14-18

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

Three

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco