How to Find Him

Go to a church meeting where there is speaking in tongues. Pray like mad beforehand that God will give you the Holy Spirit. He only gives the Holy Spirit, as far as I know, to people who believe that Jesus is the Christ so exercise yourself and ensure beforehand you do indeed believe. If you aren't sure, hunt down whatever it is you need to convince you (for me it was partly a matter of understanding thoroughly the New Testament Gospel accounts and comparing them, via some decent TV programs, with the relevant archeology). Go to a meeting at this church. For me it meant going with someone who had been able to assure me that those in the church did have the Holy Spirit, as manifest in the speaking in tongues (this person would have probably recognised it if there had been anything spurious or pretentious about it). If God gives you the Holy Spirit and He comes on you at the meeting you might feel an awesome sense of heaviness weighing on you or awareness of something like that. For me, all this resulted in me being in the congregation as the 'pastor' came to the front and spoke in tongues. Because, I think, the Holy Spirit had already come upon me, I was able to spiritually 'hear' the words spoken as if they were in my own language even though my ears recognised that the words were in an angelic 'tongue' (spiritual language). Ideally, the speaker should ask that God will let him interpret too or that someone else will interpret too so that you have it confirmsed what was said, in comparison to what you 'hear'. (Some have to rely on this interpretation if the Spirit didn't make them able to 'hear' it themselves.) Strictly speaking this is how to find the Spirit of God but indirectly this amounts to finding Jesus, the Christ because it is the way this Spirit proclaims Jesus to you as the Christ, the Lord, the one to hope in and the one to trust and to love that amounts to much of what it means to find Jesus Christ. It is this experience which can impart that trust and hope to you (hopefully love too, but it is resulting actions and obedience which will confirm this).  To find Jesus Christ Himself is a matter of Him revealing Himself to you. To find the God and Father of Jesus Christ is a matter of Him revealing Himself to you. This can be in dreams and visions and open encounters. Rather than you finding Him, He finds you! Take the testimony and proclamation from The Spirit and add that to the revelation of God and Jesus Christ to you and know Him, whom to know is, in Christ words, eternal life. If this all seems strange to you I can only say 'of course'. You really do need to believe for yourself though; for your own sake and for the sake of His Name.

He

We can say to Him 'You are the One. You are God. You are Supreme.' as we pray. But what is that actually saying? Is it enough? I think not. There is still something in reserve. Of the Christ, the Son of God, we can say that He is the Supreme King over all God's creation. We know that there has to be One ruler in the Universe who is the ultimate ruler under whose rule every other ruler must submit; this seems logically inevitable if you believe in some kind of order throughout the Universe by which the laws of physics and other science are maintained (unless, like some scientists you just think the laws of physics and other science maintain themselves or are immutable and pre-existent). In reserve there is another accolade we seldom admit to, the proclamation 'You are He'. 'He' is such a small word with such a huge meaning to us. It is that inner awareness I (and I assume other people besides myself) have of a person not only above all others but such a person on whom we can all put all our hope. To be a ruler and to be powerful more than any other other and to be worthy of the submission of everyone and everything is one thing. To be every person's ultimate hope is quite another. Such a person has more than just power. They have something I cannot describe by my psyche knows is surely there in somebody. This ultimate person my psyche calls 'The HE'. I don't know why. I have an awareness, perhaps from society, perhaps from something greater within me, that others too reserve a word, a concept in their hearts they too would perhaps call 'He'. Reserved for the One person who really deserves their trust and all their hope when all other hopes and trusts fail. Reserved for the One person who lives up to their hopes, even their feeblest hope and pulls them through despite all the setbacks, failings and weaknesses, despite even the worst sins and shameful acts and activities. I had the feeling and when I think of it I recollect that feeling of such a person when I remember it - I had this feeling that I had met that person when I experienced the existence of Jesus Christ some years ago. I related this in a previous blog post, describing a walk through deluging rain to a river near my home and how on my way back, still aware of the power of God to send floods on helpless people in punishment for failing to live up to His standards, suddenly the compulsion came on me almost like an audible voice yet more primal and powerful than that (as it were communicating directly to my spirit almost circumventing my mind, perhaps only those experiencing it would understand this description) 'saying' to put down my umbrella. I had a big golfing umbrella up, in all the extreme downfall of rain, but as I put the umbrella down not a drop of rain, it seems, touched me since the rain stopped so suddenly at that exact moment. I immediately became conscious of the person I could only believe was Jesus, the Lord. I asked for a certain sign as proof later when I got home and (though the sign was a bit embarrassing to relate here) I got that exact proof in the middle of the night such that it had to be Him. I cannot easily say to any 'god' or powerful entity of any kind 'You are Supreme' but I cannot say of anyone except this one person I met that day 'You are HE' (referring to that ultimate person on whom all our hopes are placed). I do have it in my heart that that accolade goes to no other person except this One who made Himself known to me that day. So, yes, very thankfully and with due fear in stating it, Jesus Christ is HE. Ultimately though, I suspect that the reason people have this hope in the ultimate One who will not disappoint their hope is that they have the testimony in their psyche that God Himself has given about the One called the Christ down the ages, even from most ancient times. This testimony is seen in ancient texts purporting to originate from times as early as the times when writing itself first developed and this testimony focuses on the Christ as the Elect One of God, the Son of Man, the Righteous One who was originally at the right hand of God and was foretold to eventually come from God to the Earth so that all could put their hope in Him. So it is certain now after the coming of Jesus that He who so many call Jesus Christ is indeed this One who was to come. As one of His apostles and first teachers worded it "we have the testimony of the prophets made certain". So we can all be thankful - but let's not forget what was done to Him, perhaps by people like ourselves, prone to jealousy and evil influence: Let's not forget He was executed in such grisly fashion by crucifixion under Roman rule and the same system of government as did this is to some extent still part of the system we have today. There is no escaping the truth of our heritage in this world that we have folly to the heart of society and even the Christ, Jesus, took the sharp edge of it and died, all the while submitting to God, His father's will. He is an example to us all of submission unto death to the will of the One God He called 'The Father', our father and His, the same God who raised Him a few days later from the dead and seated Him once again at His right hand until that time He comes again to rule a thousand years and afterwards to judge the living and the dead.

He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. This is He.

What is in a name?

Wrote the 'Bard': "A rose by any other name would doubtless smell as sweet".

What is in a name?

I long mused about the mystery of 'names'. I saw the Narmer tablets of ancient, predynastic Egypt where standard bearers sport 'noms', symbols held aloft on poles as standards. Today in Bristol children parading with their schools in the St Pauls Carnival were carrying numbers on poles. 'Names', 'noms' and 'numbers' all sound like they have common ancestral meanings and visual imagery. The numbers carried by the children, the noms carried by the ancient Egyptian men, each have a purpose. The children are judged in their schools for their carnival parade garb and dancing and the numbers they are given and display allow judges to distinguish schools by something other than their usual name (perhaps so they are not prejudicial in their judging by the opinions of or links to the schools). Always throughout history, I believe, there has been importance given to a symbol held aloft by a person or party. This symbol can carry special power - the power of a 'name' ('nom', 'number').

So we find from most ancient times a special meaning ascribed to important names (names of rulers) and especially to one particular name, the name of the Elect One, the Son of Man, in heaven, ruler under God of all the Universe over all other rulers (whether man or angel/spirit). The Lord of Spirits gives this one Son of Man the most special of all 'names' and the greatest power of all is given to the name of this most chosen one, the Elect One. In fact, this name was so powerful that it was given to angels that they could use it to overcome the evils of the fallen angels. Later in history it was given to humankind to allow them to be saved from their own evils and the evils around them which could cause them to sin against each other, against themselves and against God. Mysteriously this Son of Man took flesh in the first century AD and was given a verbally manifest form of this spiritually supreme name, the name meaning The LORD saves, the name 'Jesus', 'Yeshua', ''Isous'. Believe in this name for salvation and use it to ask God for the saving Holy Spirit. Only having the Holy Spirit from God as He gives to believers only can lead to true immortality beyond death. This is the outcome of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name alone people can be saved.

What is in a name? Everything we really need.  

Jesus Christ is God's Emblem

The Christ is God's emblem. People use emblems for quality assurance and for branding. Christ Jesus is the One of whom God said publicly "This is my son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him."

Then when Christ was killed, crucified by evil people, it was impossible that this emblem of God could stay dead so God raised Him from the dead.

Two thousand years later, He having appeared to many in special ways since He rose from the dead, He made Himself known to me too. One day, years ago, I was in a somber mood walking up Blackswarth Road in Bristol, UK, up from the river where I had been contemplating the very high water level at a time of quite severe flooding in the UK. It had been in my reading of the Bible that day from a Psalm, I think, to "go see the desolations He has wrought", the judgements on mankind wrought by God and the fact that prophets had foretold much flooding as part of God's judgements against nations. I had looked at the effect of UK floods on the river and considered the misery to people affected and the fact that this judgement is so real and vivid. Then as I walked back up the hill He made me know the other side to things. He showed me His powerful mercy which triumphs over judgment. He compelled me as I walked to put down my umbrella. The rain had been coming down as a terrible torrent. Within the time it took me to put down the umbrella it stopped so suddenly it was as if not a single drop landed on me. (Must have looked strange to drivers driving past me up the Blackswarth Road at the time.) I suddenly realised 'it is Him, Jesus Christ' and I remembered how the Gospels recorded that disciples of His said this to themselves when He appeared to them after His resurrection "it is the Lord". Later that night I specified a sign I asked Jesus to give me if indeed it was Him who had made Himself known to me like that and He did it precisely. At the moment He did so (in the middle of the night) I understood it was in fact Him who had done this.

A while later, I was waiting meditatively for something to say at a church I was attending (where they let ordinary, 'lay' folk like me speak) and a spirit I believe was God's spirit 'said' to me "Israel has sinned". He showed me a vision of a condor (eagle, vulture) of war flying over the House of Israel. I saw many generals talking war. The vulture-like bird of war would be evidenced as a sign a bit later when the Americans started sending spy planes over Iraq (back before the more recent wars - this was some years ago now) and in the first use of police helicopters in surveillance over my home town of Bristol (they even called it Operation Vulture). Then the word came "shout from the mountain top 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your...'" and as those last words came there was an overriding "all your VOICE". So now I do. This is God's command still, like it was when He gave it to Moses for the nation of Israel thousands of years back. Maybe Israel is different now; more people regard Israel as broader than just the nation and that since Christ's coming it has included all those of faith. Maybe all these now have sinned. Maybe many have become hardened against loving God this way. Yet still His command is there to all people, to you too, to Love Him. And to love Him with not just heart - all of it - but body, mind and soul and lastly with your voice too, as much as you have one. Use it in love for God - love for this God whose Son Jesus Christ is His emblem of whom He said "This is my beloved Son, Listen to Him."  

To those who love Him, He has promised through Christ to make Himself known.

The Race to Become Poor

So following my earlier reasoning, I would say we are in a moral race to become poor... and to do so quickly before the world persuades us to seek to become rich and before we die, when it becomes too late.

I reckon this follows on from my reasoning that God exists, is personal, is love (purest love) and has sent Jesus Christ as His most faithful and true representative (see earlier postings for how I came to these conclusions). It follows the last deduction in my series of deductions, that Jesus most faithfully and truly represents God's wisdom and message to humanity (especially those who believe Him): Christ Jesus, in my understanding, according to the testimony of those who heard Him firsthand, clearly taught that to have good after death, a human being must first have 'their bad things' before death.

Those already poor get a head start but need the patience of His grace to endure it and the evils that go with poverty, I reason. Those now rich need God's grace to become poor, without foolishly voiding their reward by making a fuss about what they give up in the process of getting to poverty. There is the need taught by Christ's Apostle Paul, to do all this in love. "If I give all I have to the poor... but have not love I profit nothing... The greatest [way] is love." If my blog postings end on that note, I'm happy: Let us love because love comes from God; God is love (to quote the 'other' apostle, John). The Apostle Peter made it clear when he wrote: "Let us make every effort to add to our faith goodness and to goodness knowledge and to knowledge self-control and to self-control perseverance and to perseverance godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness love. If you possess these qualities in ever increasing measure they will keep you from being unproductive in your knowledge of God... You will never fall..."

Revelations of God

So I have looked into the existence of God and found that He does indeed exist, and is a particular person, 'a personal God', who has interacted with people on this planet in the past and present and has made Himself known on a more general level through well known and not so well known religious manifestations. Some of these manifestation are so well documented that almost everyone on the planet has heard of them and many revere them; to Abram, changing his name to Abraham, to Moses when He freed Israel and gave them the Law, to the prophets in Israel over hundreds of years prior to the coming of the Christ, to the Apostles when they spent several years following Jesus Christ and heard God say of Him through the voice of an angel "This is my beloved Son, listen to Him", to the Apostle Paul on the road from Palestine to Damascus when the blinding light accompanied the voice of Jesus from the heavens, to the Apostle John when He gave Him the Revelation of Jesus Christ and to Mohammad when He spoke to him through an angel. In all these occasions the hallmarks of God's identity have been apparent uniting these visitations so that many are sure the same God has been behind them all: The same God though by different Names. In between those times many other events have happened like these but less well known and probably many never known except to those who witnessed them and some which maybe even the recipients might have forgotten such as in dreams. (I've dreamt appearances of God or Jesus Christ at least once but I it might have been more and I might have forgotten before I woke up.)

Always, throughout history, the same God makes Himself known and His hallmarks are clear; the acknowledgment of His Son, Jesus Christ, come from Him with human body, the prominence of His great mercy on one hand and His awesome power on the other, the righteousness of His judgments and His responsibility for having created all things. Say we don't like what He has said or commanded; we still, to be right, have to acknowledge that it is He who has said or commanded it. Some object to His commands and things He has said on particular subjects such as special commands about women or teachings about what is right and wrong sexually or on the rightness of obeying Governments (as long as it doesn't mean disobeying God), etc. Yet it is God who has said what God has said and we are human and He is God. In Christ that divide closed somewhat in that the Christ became human too, yet the Christ, Jesus Christ, more than any body made the special point of reverencing and obeying God, even to death and even to death by crucifixion. "Therefore", it is written, "God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name above every name, that through the Name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess to God" just as through that Name and the authority of that Name of Jesus all of Creation fulfills God's will - trees bloom and planets orbit around stars. This is the way and the power by which God will bring all things together ultimately under the dominion of His Christ, this same Lord Jesus Christ who God has raised from the dead two thousand years ago. And the meaning of that Name is this: "The Lord Saves."

Spirits and Loyalty to God

That 'God' exists is evident from people's reaction to His word - commands, teachings and promises - and His personified Word - His Christ; past and present.

This 'God' has revealed Himself. This is seen especially in His Christ whom he sent, called on Earth 'Jesus of Nazareth', but it is also seen in the giving of the Law to Moses and in miracles and prophesies given throughout the history of humankind. God has revealed Himself to be a 'spirit' and so at least one spirit exists but many believe that spirits other than God also exist and that humans have a spirit along with their mind and body, even though it might be dormant in many. Spirits are of various kinds and called various names according to their kinds and according to various local customs and beliefs too. Some spirits are loyal to God and in ancient writings God is called 'the Lord of Spirits'. Some spirits have abandoned loyalty to God.

All this is evident in the believing response of people to teachings from God (and evident most in the loving nature of the works of such people). It is especially evident in the teachings of the Christ and the believing response of so many to those teachings and to the Christ Himself.

A region surrounding the planet on which we live, Earth, demarcated by the clouds and stretching upwards above them is a region especially associated with spirits loyal and obedient to God. It is called 'Heaven' and 'the heavens' (or the equivalent in other languages). It is distinct from a region below the clouds and above the ground of this planet which is called 'the air' and which is associated with spirits disloyal and disobedient to God. Other spirits are also known which are called ghosts. (When I say 'known' I mean known to exist in 'folk' and personal knowledge, though not as yet in what is called 'scientific' knowledge which is collective and depends on physical methods of observation and deduction and academic methods of peer review and refutation.) Ghosts are believed to belong to people now deceased and these spirits are often associated with the ground region of the planet, particularly believed to wander lonely places and to haunt houses, especially otherwise uninhabited buildings. Some especially troublesome ghosts are called demons and are associated with illnesses they are believed to cause in humans and animals.

The teachings of the Christ emphasised the need to escape eternal death by becoming loyal, obedient and trusting towards God and His teachings and so to become associated so much with the region and Kingdom of Heaven that you are called a child of God and one born of God, born of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is a special spirit known from ancient times to prophets of God who has been sent be God after the departure of His Christ. This Spirit is the means by which a person is made sufficiently loyal to God that they are called a child of God and a citizen of Heaven, just as spirits loyal to God are associated with Heaven too.

Loyalty to God which comes to people from God's work in them by His Spirit means two things in particular; loyalty to God's teachings and loyalty to others loyal to God. To experience the Spirit of God is a means of progressing along this path towards eternal life. It is therefore essential to identify any spirit you experience as to whether it comes from God or whether it is a spirit disloyal to God. This is mainly by the teachings of the spirit with regard to the Christ, whether it acknowledges the Christ truthfully. Allowing the Spirit of God or spirits loyal to God to work in you helps you progress towards God's will and to be transformed mentally into the kind of person who can inherit God's rewards of eternal life. This is the only way to become such a person. Human endeavour alone is really insufficient, though it may be noble and may bring a person into a place where they are ultimately blessed by God so He gives them His teachings and His Spirit causes them to believe. So it is worth every effort to work towards the Kingdom of God but in the end it is only the work of God's Spirit that creates a true believer: A true believer is a new creation of God. Hence the term 'born of God'. "Flesh gives birth to flesh but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." The spirit of a believer can be brought to life by the force, the influence, coming from the Spirit of God when He hovers over that person. I've had some experience of it myself and of course it is awesome in the extreme and in my case resulted in a coming alive in me of a power I had never known before. That was probably actually on several occasions, as far as I can tell with different effects each time. One time in particular resulted in me being made aware of truth I had not known before which led me eventually into a sublime knowledge all kinds of other truth, some of which eventually resulted in my writing what I write. This fulfills all sorts of promises from throughout history made by God through prophets and the Christ. And all because Christ fulfilled God's will by dying and rising to new life, buying for God a people fit to do His will. So, if you haven't already then take to heart the Apostle Peter's exhortation, "Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus and you will receive the promise of the Holy Spirit." The promise is to everyone far and near, to all whom the Lord our God will call, both Jew and Gentile, slave and free, rich and poor. Take the Lord's Word to heart: "Now that you know these things you are blessed if you do them."

The Philosopher Stone

Looking back at my last few blog posts, I tried to prove first the existence of God, then the existence of Heaven.

The place called Heaven can be defined as the region around the Earth above the clouds and including the clouds, as distinct from the 'Air' which is the region between the clouds and the ground. These regions are not disputed since all know that the clouds exist. It is also historical fact that they have been described in literature as 'Heaven' or 'the Heavens' and the lower region as 'the Air' (or rather they have been described with words translated into these terms from other, ancient languages).

Now since Heaven is merely a part of what we today call the atmosphere you would think there would be no dispute as to its existence. The dispute and disbelief centers of course around the association between the region and the Creator, God, and those loyal and obedient to Him. In this sense Heaven is regarded as a domain, a Kingdom; 'the Kingdom of God', 'the Kingdom of Heaven'.

To be associated yourself with this kingdom is to be associated with being loyal to God and obedient to His commands, holding to His teachings and His promises, trusting in Him for His salvation.

The Christ described this association and this state of belonging as a state of being to be so much sought after as for the richest treasure; 'the pearl of great price', as He described it. Like being found too, since His parable descriptions of this state included stories about a father seeing a lost, prodigal son return home. A more topical, modern description might be 'the Philosopher Stone'. 

Heaven

If you think I have evidence from the cosmos that Heaven and the afterlife exist you might be disappointed to find I claim that the evidence is only really there in the mind of a believer in God.

I think believing in God leads to believing in an afterlife and a Heaven because the belief itself involves suffering in this life. I explained before how believers get pressure from society because they themselves as believers become the evidence others need in order to believe. Add to this the bad behaviour of people who don't quite believe but recognise faith in those who do and get in that faith a glimmer of what they are missing and possibly need. They might also get a feeling that the faith proves that they will be judged and this means they might be all the more inclined to take action against believers. So there is curiosity from others as soon as your belief is enough to be noticed. And noticed it must be because it is evidence of God's existence.

Now this suffering does not make sense, given that the faith is not only that God exists but that He is good and He is love. Something is missing: This logical conclusion is taken as proven by the believer because it rests on certainties about God. God rewards faith and is good and is love. Faith does not get rewarded by the world around the believer because it results mainly in suffering (even if just the suffering of extra, perhaps unwanted attention and some ill-feeling along with it, from those who don't believe). So the believer concludes that it is proven therefore that believing in God MUST result in reward in life after this world and its life are gone - after death and outside of this world. 'QED' (QED is a statement made at the end of some ancient Greek mathematical proofs). But QED to a believer. The Apostle Paul wrote to the effect "if there is no resurrection and we are rewarded in this life only then we are of all men most to be pitied". It isn't as rewarding, given that God does exist and does reward faith, sufficiently in this life alone to believe.

Once it is accepted that God is proven to exist and, by the same evidence of His existence, that He is good and loving (as testified by the Christ and seen in the Christ's coming two thousand years ago), then it follows that if there is no reward in this life there must be another life for the reward; hence Heaven, the afterlife ... and even the Resurrection. The Resurrection follows particularly from the testimony of Jesus which is believed and held to by many a believer in God. It is based on the belief that Jesus was Himself proven by God to be the Christ, God's Anointed One, by His resurrection from the dead after He was crucified around 25AD and this after He had promised to many that He would also raise from the dead all who believed in Him. This would be at some point in the future when He returned to Earth in power, "coming in the clouds of Heaven".

Heaven as a place is a bit different. It was often understood in Scripture as a region somewhere above the clouds of the Earth. The region below the clouds was called 'the Air' (of course that is just an English translation) while the region containing the clouds and above was called 'the Heavens' or 'Heaven'.

Note: Some regions within the heavenly region were described a little, for example the Book of Enoch describes a place whose appearance was like an immense hall of crystal (crystal appearance - my interpretation) through which lightnings travel back and forth. Some mention in prophesies is given to a throne of God surrounded by light like an emerald rainbow. To me the descriptions allude to something like the northern and southern lights, something near earth but cosmic in splendour. I would conjecture such descriptions might point to a special part of the outer atmosphere of Earth and some possible candidates seem to exist in the science books, mostly recent findings. I wouldn't discount these candidates adding that angel beings inhabit places above the clouds just as ghosts inhabit deserted places on Earth; if you accept the existence of spirits in general and believe the prophesies and Jesus' testimony.

So the clouds themselves are associated in Scriptures with 'Heaven', especially the space above them, immediately above them. Hebrew Psalms illustrate the use of the term translated 'the Heavens'. "Oh that You would rend the Heavens and come down... send forth your lightning and scatter my enemies." "The Heavens were opened." The Christian Gospels illustrate terms translated 'Heaven'. "A voice came from Heaven 'You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased'... Some said that it thundered." "He went up into Heaven and a cloud hid Him from their sight." "'This same Jesus will so come in like manner as you have seen Him ascend into Heaven.'" The 'atmosphere' is a modern term which is probably equivalent but there was no sense in which what we call 'outer space' was necessarily excluded from the region called 'Heaven', it was merely emphasised that Heaven was from the clouds and upwards. 

The fact that terms existed for this region around the Earth (whether or not those using the terms knew the Earth was a sphere) above the clouds and a separate term existed for the region between the clouds and the ground (sometimes translated 'the Air') is not really in question, I would guess. Rather the association is made over thousands of years of religious expression between these regions and spiritual beings and their domains - their Kingdoms. This is where some believe, others doubt and others don't believe at all.

The testimony of those who have believed such as prophets and psalmists has much emphasis on associating the region of the clouds and above with the domain and territory of the Creator of all the regions.

Observations Prove God Exists

Here I was in a bus today, noticing how fast the double-decker was driven under some trees overhanging the road: It proved to me that the tree branches were not growing low enough to smash into the windows because I knew how likely it was that the bus driver knew that road and knew those trees. I was surprised at how those simple pieces of knowledge, combined with a simple observation, resolved in mind into proof of a fact with quite strong certainty.

Then it dawned on me (I'm a bit slow with understanding some things others might find so obvious) that this was similar to how I had also believed with strong certainty that God exists.

As we went on in the bus I saw the human behaviour of other road users and I saw the traffic control systems in place on the road, such as signs which showed the speed of the bus as it approached the sign (and turned either red if it was too fast or green if it had slowed down sufficiently). If I wanted proof of the existence of a government being in power, I could see it by observing the obedience of people to the law (in certain situations where the law was obvious). In general they slow down when faced with the traffic control signs, proving the existence not only of laws (laws and road signs alone would not cause them to obey) but of governments enforcing those laws (the fact the would get a fine makes them think twice about disobeying these special kinds of road sign).

The same way human behaviour regarding well-known laws proves the existence of a government, the existence of God is proven by the fact that so many believe His word and fear Him and behave accordingly.

Now it is more complex than this because social factors are at work which muddy the picture a bit, in that there are many who flout laws despite the risk of punishment. If I were to base my observations regarding peoples' behaviour towards traffic laws on how many cyclists in the UK stop at traffic lights I would not be so well convinced. There are more complex factors. There are 'grey areas'. For example, cyclists might perhaps be governed differently by traffic laws in the UK than the way motorists are: Does the Highway Code fully apply to cyclists the way it applies to motorists? There is perhaps a lack of prosecutions against cyclists in the UK for flouting traffic laws. If I cross the road at a traffic light I have to look out for cyclists and also the occasional motorist disregarding red lights. So some might say the proof of the existence of a government is less clear if you look at some behaviours than if you look at others. In general though there is ease in finding situations which do prove the theory that a government exists such that the grey areas are not a sufficient hindrance to warrant rejecting as unproven the theory that government does exist and does punish illegal behaviour. Fine.

Now with God it is perhaps equally 'grey' in some cases of what might be considered as evidence. However there are still so many who fear to go against what is well-known as being His historically given word (such as adherence to the Sabbath, avoidance of blasphemy and the turning away from idolatry) that the evidence is pretty good on the whole, enough, I would say, to consider it proven. It is made less clear by complications in society such as different interpretations of the word 'Sabbath' (for some it is Saturday and for others Sunday). It also gets complicated because for many there are so few around them adhering to God's word and commands that it is easy to not notice the evidence.

I might sit in my room each day, never go out, never watch TV or hear the radio and to stay alive I can just order take away (that's 'take out' for you Americans) and I can effectively cut myself off that way from evidence that governments exist. This way I might forget or never find out there is indeed any law or government to enforce it. That is a social factor. It doesn't mean it isn't proven or that there is no evidence for the existence of a government, just because I can be hidden from it and remain ignorant. Social factors are at work which can for some, I conjecture, make well-known facts unknown and maybe unknowable.

There is pressure on those who do know and believe regarding God because they themselves and their behaviour are the evidence by which others can find it sufficiently well proven that they too will believe. This pressure has bad side-effects. People watch you to see how you will react so that they can be sure of the same things of which you are sure. They need to know and your behaviour is the way they can know but they behave badly sometimes in the process of coming to that knowledge. That might be because they resist it so hard because it has such ramifications for them and they are afraid they might get it wrong. They may find the very notion of God's existence abhorrent to them, a reminder of the possibility they will be judged and at the same time they feel they have insufficient evidence to believe enough to obey and escape death.



So there are factors against belief, such as the suffering that ensues on believing and the implications regarding judgement making belief painful. Plus factors such as counter-evidence which is not a strong as the evidence but adds to the confusion and requires that we weigh the evidence 'for' and 'against'. The evidence 'for' does, I feel, prove the existence of God. People behave towards God's commands in a similar way to their behaviour towards their government's laws. The second of these behaviours proves the existence of a government and in this same way the other behaviour proves the existence of God.

Yet both have counter-evidence in that some do not obey and there are other complications such as lack of clarity over what the laws of a government are (as in the cyclists example above), just as it isn't always clear what are the commands of God (as with the matter of which day is actually the Sabbath - Saturday or Sunday).

Yet the belief doesn't just come from observing believers, as that would be a little weak on its own and the pressures against believing are great. It mostly comes from personally hearing the commands and promises of God for yourself and combining this with the other evidence.

I think the evidence in science is compelling even if you do not believe in evolution. The notion that mankind is on the way to having power to do greater and greater feats even in space and that mankind may be around for many millennia is almost incontrovertible. The idea that mankind alone would have such power in the vastness of the Universe is so unlikely to be true. The idea has to follow that other beings already can do what mankind might be able to do in thousands of years time. That these powers NOT include building planets and building creatures like those on earth seems unthinkable too, given what we know of human progress over just a few thousand years. To say that planets like ours would not have been purpose built anywhere is against what we know. It is simple to extrapolate and say that planets must exist somewhere which are not only like ours and inhabited like ours but purpose built by beings greater than us. Then it seems irrational to dismiss the possibility that our planet and indeed the human race has been purpose built too. It really just follows from what we know of human progress and the age of the Universe. To say that one being on 'its' own did it is just the same reasoning taken a step further in that there must be beings able to do it so why not assume that one was over all the others in building us and building Earth. Of all the beings with power there must surely be one most powerful and able to be in charge of the particular effort that seems so likely to have built this planet and us. Why not call this being God? Why wouldn't that being make himself or itself known to us in the fullness of time? Then why not accept the testimony in history that this being has made himself known in the giving of the law to Moses and the coming of the Christ? Yet all this is not enough alone to make us believe: Not until we actually hear the words of our Creator and accept this word in the testimony of Jesus Christ.

So maybe the argument I have given is enough to 'prove' on its own that science should be able to support a model of the Universe in which planets like the Earth were created by more advanced lifeforms than we are today, in view of what we should believe we could ourselves become over the coming millenia. I hope I have shown that it is more reasonable to include in our science the power of human beings now and in the future and the almost inevitable extrapolation that before humans had these powers it would be nonsense to believe that no other being had such powers already which we probably will one day have. Yet this very model exposes its own weakness in that such a being would reasonably be expected to be able to reveal itself and if it did then this would add to our knowledge new facts beyond the reach of our present science. In fact there has been revelation and that revelation is far better than the model. The model does not include the possibility of the creator of this world being 'uncreated' and being the creator of all worlds including the Universe. Revelation since the time of Christ does suggest these things are true, "through Him all things were made and without Him nothing was made that has been made" (The Gospel according to John). I rest my case.

The Mystery of Spirit

Will the world of science and scientific method ever understand and describe spirit? The ultimate spirit is God and the 'sevenfold spirit' which comes from Him. Is The Spirit of God only ever to be known to those who believe? Even scientists who believe must surely be frustrated by not being able to describe the Spirit of God to scientists who do not believe. One outcome of work of the Spirit of God is the existence of believers, yet it seems to me that they cannot expect to be able to explain their own existence as believers or the work which resulting in their faith to unbelievers, no matter how well educated those unbelievers. This is a both mental torment and a delight. It gets a little easier to bear it when scientists find evidence of what I would like to call 'spirit', such as when their experiments reveal the reality of phenomena like precognition. This allows educated, intelligent, reasoning thinkers to ask questions like: Does everyone have 'spirit' and 'soul' as well as 'body and 'mind'? Can 'spirit' exist outside of body and mind? Can inanimate entities have 'spirit'? Does 'spirit' link points in the space (and time perhaps) not linked by physical forces or entities such as photons and subatomic particles? Can 'spirit' allow an affect to take place across time and space without the need for such particles or physical forces (or string theory entities, whatever they might be)? Does this mean the future can affect the present? Can the future be known? Some eminent scientists like to rubbish such questions but the questions remain and the surely answers will be one day fully known.

My favourite line in lyrics

From a song by Jimmy Owens called 'He Came in Love':

[referring to the crucifixion death of Lord Jesus, the Christ (God's Anointed)]

"But the blood that flowed to the earth below brought forgiveness to the world that had treated Him so."

Understanding those words is pretty much it.

Sing!

"They also serve who only stand and wait" said the famous poet. I beg to differ, to some extent.

Humans clearly aren't the only creatures with the ability to sing but maybe they are the only ones with such reluctance to use that ability. Humans, Catch up with nature! The birds sing, why not humans? Yes there is much singing heard around the world but mostly a few people singing and everyone else listening. Why doesn't everyone sing? Some like to sing in the bath. (Maybe they want to be heard so that nobody charges in on them unaware they are there.) Some like to sing in church. Some like to sing in karaokes. Why is it then that when I walk down the road I'm afraid to sing aloud because of people thinking I'm peculiar or demented? Why do I have to sing in my head or keep my singing to my own apartment? What is it with people and other people singing? Singing is natural. More than that, it can be spiritual and noble, especially to sing the praise of the Creator, glorifying Him as one of His creatures.

If they also serve who only stand and wait, how much better they might serve - serve their Creator - if they sang (His praises) too.

The Lord's prayer

Although the Lord's prayer is probably the greatest prayer known to Mankind, the Lord clearly didn't intend it to be recited. "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. They Kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth as in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread..." He evidently worded it as an example of HOW to pray, not as the literal words to be used: Succinctly and briefly, remembering that God is in Heaven and we on Earth so that our words should be few. In other words, don't show off before God when in prayer, and don't pray to make a good impression with those around you. Better to pray with few words to God in secret than many words in public for the sake of impressing humans listening. Remember who you are addressing: You are addressing the One who has power to know what you will say before you say it.

When He gave the example of asking for daily bread - "Give us this day our daily bread" He was telling His followers to keep on asking for a daily dose, as it were, of the Spirit of God, which is to be His disciples 'daily bread'. He followed on to say how it is that God gives His Spirit to those who keep on asking just like a parent or neighbour gives bread to a child who asks or a friend who asks.

When He says in His example prayer "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us" He followed it by commanding His disciples to forgive anyone they hold things against at the time they are praying so that God will see it and forgive the sins of the one so praying and forgiving. They aren't to be a mere recital of words but a genuine act of giving others forgiveness while there praying before God. Then God also forgives the one praying but He cannot be mocked. He forgives the forgiver and He gives the daily bread which is His Spirit to the genuine believer; not merely to the one only vainly reciting the words.

Keep it real, but the words of the Lord's prayer do teach us how to do so, if they are used in genuine faith, by the help of God's grace.

And when praying for another individual or group of persons, don't waste many words for no reason just to be praying; far better is just a few words you are sure God will hear and answer - a few words with faith - far better than many words in pretense and vanity. It is the outcome not the impression which counts. Be careful what you ask for in faith because if you ask in faith you will get what you ask, provided it is according to God's will. This is just as well because He wills what is good and what on the whole saves people, even though sometimes that involves a certain degree of evil, as when it is a prayer for justice or vengeance from Him against an enemy. Yes He does answer such prayers too, especially when the aggrieved one keeps on praying and praying for justice from Him. That also Jesus taught. But He did warn that people should bless and not curse because those who curse are liable to be cursed but those who bless will receive blessing. Be careful not to wrong anyone whose prayers God hears because their prayers might be for justice against you and God is unimaginably powerful. He is unimaginably loving too and unlike most people He has a special love for the poor and the wronged and all the more for those who belong to Him. They are bought by the blood of His Son, the Christ, so He will give them pretty much anything else they rightly ask for too. That might be justice against you, especially if you have caused them to to do wrong against their God. How we live our lives is a very serious matter with very serious consequences, whether we believe that or not.

If you do all this and He gives you what you asked for, remember to thank Him for it. If you asked half you life for something and He gave it you at last, all the more reason to spend the rest of your life thinking Him for it. Ask that your joy may be full. Giving genuine thanks to God for His answer is so fulfilling and one of the highest things in life, like caring for others. "Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all you mind mind" and that includes loving Him with your voice, in giving Him credit and thanks for His love in what He gives to you.

The demise of the rich and famous

When it comes to fame, who is it you want to remember your name? God or humanity? It might be there's a choice to be made.

Who gets left behind in the race for fame? Maybe those who prefer the fame given them by humanity, by the academic community, the business world and commerce, the general public, the media, the world of politics. In short: Those who look for such fame and not fame in Heaven.

They might at the end of their days cry out: The world will remember me but God might forget me. That's just sad but perhaps it's inevitable if you make the choice to be famous in the world but not to be famous in the eyes of God.

Do we, the public, impose on our scientists, our musicians, our politicians that they forget their souls and their spiritual well being as they find us unkown facts and top ten tracks and votes? Then when they have done that all their lives and cry out for the faith and hope they have missed, do we turn a deaf ear and say: To late for that now! You've already had what you originally wanted but you missed out on what you would want in the end.

Even in churches and mosques, do we force the attendees to impress us with their adherence to our own rules and traditions and frown on real righteousness? Better to find a church or mosque where you can stand at the back and beat your chest and look at your feet and say to God in Heaven: Have mercy on me the sinner. Save your soul rather than save face. If you can't do that then just stay at home and pray like that in secret.

The Orderliness of Time and Space

This week was one of those weeks where the scientific news (going by Google News - Science / Technology section) gets dominated by the famous physicist Stephen Hawking commenting on his lack of certainty about God and this time his belief that Heaven is a fairy story. I guess I find that forgivable given the subject of his chosen scientific career, the vast entity which is the Universe in time and space and the mathematical laws which seem to govern it. I reckon even a mind like Stephen Hawking can get kind of lost in trying to fathom it and yet completely bowled over the apparent consistency throughout the Universe in the behaviour of its components. We tend to assume that these behavioural consistencies are down to some kind of overall something - that there is something at one end of the Universe (if it has ends) which is also 'there' at the other. In Hawking's case, as with most conventional scientists, he sticks to this something as being 'law' - the 'laws of physics', or, to his thinking, 'science' - science itself. It is as if the only thing which could be at both ends of the Universe and at every point in between has to be the most vast thing your brain can think of, something which can sit between any two points in time and space and at the same time can stretch across billions and gazillions of light years and billions of years of time and yet never change. To him that vast thing can only be science itself. I reckon for some they cannot think that it could be anything more than whatever it seems to be and that something they call 'science' or some kind of governance, hence the term 'laws' of nature. What is strange is that people like Stephen Hawking do not take a little further logical step and say that there could just be one single entity whose existence is so powerful that it has as much affect at one point in time and space as it does at any other point zillions of light years and billions of years away in pace and time. This step is entirely logical because the existence of a single entity with immeasurable power stretching like this and covering every point in between is as close, if not closer, to the concept that scientific law could be an entity so vast that nothing is outside its reach. Why would laws be like that unless there were something or someone driving them - a law enforcer. Laws are nothing unless they are enforced and they are still only as great in their reach as is the power of their enforcer. The idea that laws can exist without an entity which (or who) enforces them is a bit silly to me when I really think about. Jesus Christ's prophets and apostles said it is Jesus Christ himself and the power of His name which enforces the laws of nature in the Universe, and God the Father acting through Him. Hence Jesus Christ is called The Lord Jesus Christ, ruler over God's Creation. There is nothing illogical about just accepting this. His miracles while on Earth around 25AD and His resurrection and ascension prove it to the mind of one who believes. Nowadays He still proves it personally to some, to those who love Him, and even to me. Still mindblowing though - awesome. And to think that this One was on Earth for a time 2000 years ago in flesh and that He was crucified by 'us' and yet the night before that happened he was to be found in secret washing the feet of His disciples to teach them that they too should be able to humble themselves as much toward one another. Wow.

I guess Stephen Hawking and others are not perhaps so much discounting the possibility that the laws of physics and science are enforced by something or someone, so much as demanding the proof - and proof through scientific methodology. Here they seem on one hand to exalt science to being the ruler of the Universe and on the other imply that it is human methodology which is also called 'science' which should be the only methodology by which the enforcer of the Universe's laws should prove itself or His self to them the 'scientists'. Sorry but I don't quite buy it that the human method of discovery called 'science' is the same as the 'science' which is the 'laws of nature' so I cannot go along with asking that the one be the only means to prove the other. Yet He did indeed prove to one of His disciples His human body existence after His resurrection using the methodology dicated by that disciple. Thomas said 'unless I put my finger in the holes in His hands I won't believe He is alive again' (Jesus having had His hands punctured by nails during crucifixion and His disciples having said He had appeared to them alive from the dead) and Jesus when He later appeared to Thomas said 'Here put your finger in the inprint in my hand... stop doubting and believe' so yes I must accept that Jesus' humble character is such that He might indeed prove to the scientists who follow Him that He is the Lord over nature according to their own scientific criteria. I cannot discount it. Maybe the scientists such as Stephen Hawking need to be following Him first though.

Quran 3 : 45

Quran 3:45 (according to the translation of Sahih International) reads:

(start of verse)

[And mention] when the angels said, "O Mary, indeed Allah gives you good tidings of a word from Him, whose name will be the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary - distinguished in this world and the Hereafter and among those brought near [to Allah ].

(end of verse)


I find this translation of this key verse of the Quran thoroughly delightful. To me it shows that it was indeed a Spirit from Allah = God who inspired Mohamed. 


Not all translations make it so crystal clear, mind, so I get disheartened that some translations seem to obscure the truth enshrined in this verse. I'm happy, though, that in this translation here it is so clear that Jesus was announced by the inspiration given by God, by Allah, to Mohamed and that Mohamed bore witness to this testimony so well that it when the words are translated they bear this stamp of divine authenticity: The testimony clearly shows Jesus to be the Messiah, born to Mary "distinguished in this world and the Hereafter". To this the Apostles of Jesus, the Messiah, preached that although not every spirit of inspiration should be believed because some spirits have gone into the world which are not from God, not from Allah, yet those spirits which bear witness that Jesus is the Messiah and that He has come in the flesh that these spirits are indeed of God and are to be believed. So Christianity from its earliest times has given witness that proves that Mohamed too is God's (Allah's) prophet. Lets all of us, Christians and Muslims, love one another as surely as we are those who believe the testimony given to all of the true apostles and prophets from Jesus onwards (and eventually leading back to Jesus, the beginning and the end of our faith) that Jesus is the Messiah who will one day judge the living and the dead. Let us show each other and tell each other that we believe this testimony; then we can devote ourselves to love of each other with trust, in confidence that we love those He loves.  

Are there other numbers?

What a mysterious marvel that the introductions, at various times in history, of special numbers have had so much affect on mathematics, science and technology. There was the number we call pi; a ratio between a circle's circumference and diameter. There was the natural logarithm number called 'e'. Then most revolutionary of all, perhaps, there is zero, '0', the space left by empty decimal digits turned into an entity in its own right. I remember a question I had as a teenager, What if there is still a crucial unknown number? What if that number too had a major impact on mathematics, science, technology, even theology, if we only knew it? I postulated it might be so small as to not be noticeable by its absence, yet once included in the equations of physics it could be the difference between order and disorder. I called it, for want of any particular name (since it is unknown to me, though perhaps not to God), the 'blob' factor. Maybe it would explain all sorts of things we find mysterious, such as why certain calculations, weather forecasts, etc fail. Soon we might find it and have to throw out our current models of the laws of physics and other scientific 'facts'. What might it tell us about the Universe? We always think we know it right now but then we always tell each other: "They thought they knew it all back then and they didn't". Maybe most of what we think we know is stuff we will one day throw out as erroneous, silly and inaccurate, just as we do with old-fashioned ideas from yesterday. Today's science is tomorrow's nonsense, n'est-ce pas. In other words, I feel that today scientists exert effort and resources and make many sacrifices in producing mistakes which get called facts until they get called mistakes. Even dogma centuries old gets proven false eventually. What is happening is that as the better knowledge comes the lesser knowledge is discarded. "But some things remain: faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love." (Paul the Apostle of Christ, 1st Century AD).

The Mind of God?

How mysterious that numbers exist in the mind of God. There was that famous question: Does God throw dice? I would ask: Does God not do maths?

I find supreme fascination in the mystery of God incarnate. The one who, as the Apostle John wrote, was God and was with God, the one called from very ancient times 'The Son of Man', took human form and became a man. Then around 25 to 30 AD, after dying (crucified) and being raised by God, the Son of Man returned to glory He (the capital H 'He') had with God since before the world began.

Now some see much mileage in debating and thinking about the thought divide between science and religion. I see more mystery and intellectual satisfaction in pondering the overlap between theology and both mathematics and philosophy (which are themselves intimately intertwined). Leibniz wrote much about the concept of the mind; the mind of God and, more familiar to us, the human mind. This philosopher and mathematician developed, hundreds of years ago, many of the ideas behind computing today, continuing the vision for a system of maths, science, ontology and logic pioneered by Aristotle thousands of years ago. Today computer scientists and mathematicians still largely adhere to that system. I wonder if this adds weight to the bases of the concepts which encapsulate the notion that mind is a reality shared by humans and God, that we all take certain concepts as a given, such as that an entity continues to be an entity and a person continues to be that person; that in the mind of God are all possible histories and worlds (not to be confused with the idea that multiple parallel universes actually exist) and that He knows which of these is best. But there are assumptions in these ideas we take for granted that God thinks of the universe in a way which includes the concepts we too have, about existence, people, mind, matter, etc. 

How sure are we that God's mind, although orders of magnitude greater than ours, of course, shares concepts with those we have in our own minds, such as numbers? God's persistence in using the number seven, for example, in determining periods of time between special, ordained, predestined events. (This is even evident in the existence of the period we call a week, is it not?) We have enough in common between our minds and God's mind that we can count with the same numbers and communicate with the same words. That is astounding. Then to find that there is so much similarity that the 'Son of Man' - God from the beginning with God (what mystery is those words) - this Son of Man could become a human man, die, rise again, and then return to 'sit at God's right hand', effectively elevating our humanity to the heights of His divinity. The mind Christ Jesus had had in Heaven He brought to Earth. The mind He had on Earth He took to Heaven. He and the Father (the one we call God or Allah) having always been one with each other (in spirit and 'mind' as we can be ultimately one with Him and with each other in believing in Him) in divine, supreme love, can give us who believe that same mind and spirit and we can all be in harmony though we have been created human from the start.  

A History of Religion

When we look back at very ancient history and prehistoric times we might find that there were times when a person could hardly sleep peacefully without fear of another person harming them in their sleep. When was it that there was first a person who nobody needed to fear this way? We like to think the so-called stone age people were savages, hunting and gathering, killing their enemies and maybe even their friends. Religion may have been animistic and in some places, such a the earliest cities, polytheistic and based on mythologies. There were clearly times and places where people had moral fibre and virtue and worshipped with knowledge the Creator known to them by visions and dreams. There was the great scientist, wise teacher and priestly prophet of God known to us today as Enoch, one of the pioneers of religious writing and author of many scriptural, scientific revelatory books who possibly introduced the first version of the solar and lunar calendars. He and some of his early descendants were known ever since for being righteous and just, above and beyond their contemporaries. This was apparently some 5000 years ago. It must have been a striking thing to have around righteous people who could be trusted and revered at a time when government was perhaps basic and primitive, mainly based on tribal heads and respected people with some early forms of public administration revolving around temple worship of a few cities' adopted Gods or gods.

Roll forward and history doesn't tell us things ever changed away from this very much over the following thousands of years when for most people religion was about idols and myths and dutiful righteous behaviour mainly concerned adherence to laws and religious temple-based rituals. The occasional person whose righteous behaviour went beyond the norm through a special personal faith in and knowledge of God, perhaps through dreams of revelation and other gifts of prophecy was exceptional so that such people were noted as having the spirit of the Gods within them and they were revered as prophets. The majority just conformed to laws and rituals or didn't and were considered righteous or wicked on that basis rather than because of their faith and their faithfulness to a known God. For most God was unknown and unknowable.

Then along came a special time when the first person some 2000 years ago received not only special revelation of God, in this case of the Christ, but also the means to bring many others previously oblivious to God to a true righteousness by faith and personal knowledge of God Himself. This extended religion to the masses as the means to reach them was at last revealed. Who was this? Paul. What was this means of reaching the pagans? Preaching of the Christ and of Him crucified. The Christ had appeared to Paul (then called Saul) on the road from Palestine to Damascus giving him the first taste of that preaching as the Christ proclaimed to him "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting". Paul became an apostle of this preaching, proclaiming to both Jew and Gentile this Christ, Jesus, once crucified by evil people, now risen and all-powerful and able to save those who turn to Him, believing. Religion had changed for ever and now salvation could come by preaching to those who believed the message: The message of the persecuted, crucified Christ Jesus, raised again by God, soon to return to Earth to judge the living and the dead and to give to believers eternal life.    

Who hounds the Hound of Heaven?

Living as I do in Stokes Croft, well-known as a center for anarchism, I have ambivalent feelings on anarchism. We recently had recurring riots yards from where I live - something to do with the opening of a supermarket despite objections from 'locals' (not sure whether or not they are locals or just people who make the Stokes Croft area a focus for their activist efforts). On one hand I bemoaned the attacks on that recently opened supermarket I had quickly come to love. On the other hand I appreciated the way the riots focused attention on the area and its community voice as distinct from the society that surrounds it and sometimes seems to suppress that voice. In fact I relish the way it gave me more reason to identify myself with my neighbours rather than the national government. You see I regard national government as a mixed blessing. I love the protection it gives me as a tax paying citizen and I love the police officers who have now and in the past stood up for my welfare out of a sense of decency and duty. Yet I know that the times in history when there are persecutions against people for their beliefs it is often as a result of the combination of people and their government. This toxic mixture can result in terrible times for the victims of persecution, whatever the government at the time. So I ask the question: Who hounds the Hound of Heaven? The Hound of Heaven being in my view the One above the clouds who seeks and saves those who believe but who so identifies with them that any action against them is action against Him. Hounding Him is persecution against His followers. Governments persecuted Him when He was on the Earth because the people of the time stirred them up against Him. They even killed Him but in so doing they unwittingly participated in the sacrificial slaying of the Lamb. That slaying, the flesh and blood offering satisfies believers' hunger for salvation and stays our hearts and souls as we face the certainty of our sins and future judgement. Yet that in no way lets off the hook the governments who are often so readily led by the jealous masses against us. Now He is raised by the One who sent Him, He tells us, urges us, to come out and be separate from the people and governments who so easily turn against us and to no longer live by their standards and wisdom because He ever lives to save us and judge those who are against us and we should not share in their judgement. Desist from hounding Him, from hounding His believers. Turn to loving Him and loving His believers.

Bizarre

The Liberal Democrat political party in the area just got me delivering their leaflets round the block of flats I live in. I hate doing it because I have to walk along inhumane walkways, part of the flats' ultra-modern design, perched in the open air above the dizzy heights of the sixth floor in a roaring gale of a wind with nothing but glass keeping me from falling to my death! I don't do heights. Seems like us Brits are meant to do democracy though.

Anyway, it got me thinking that if I actually knocked on doors and asked if anyone actually wanted one of the leaflets before delivering them to my poor defenceless victims I might be a bit less like a spam-mailer (sorry, should I say 'mass-mailer' though that sounds more like 'mass-murderer'). Then again, it might make me more like someone acting in competition to the 'Lib-Dems' since I'd be trying to get people to trust me, their neighbour, rather than trying to get them to trust the political party the leaflets represent (I'm not even a member).

Now say a real politician went round the doors and people took them for a postman and said, after they'd gone, things like 'funny, we didn't think the postal services did things like canvasing for votes'. How bizarre that this kind of thing really happens when people think about not politics but religion. I'd be thinking to myself: When the Christ came from God telling people to love one another and love their neighbours as themselves it was plain as day what He was saying and who could deny that really happened in history (during the Roman occupation of Palestine some two thousand years before this blog). Then I have to remind myself that if I ever mentioned it to someone here in the UK (or perhaps anywhere in the Western World) I'd be most likely to get a response consistent with the kind of reaction of people thinking a politician was really the postman or pizza delivery person. It would be a reaction something like this: But we don't think Jesus actually was from God telling us what to do, surely (they'd say) he was a reactionary rabbi of such-and-such a tradition or just a concoction of a few extremist breakaway religious-nut sectarians. Bizarre. This bizarre society we live in needs to get over ridiculous unbelief and start thinking about and discussing how to actually do what God told us to do.

Where do I live?

For anyone who asks where I live (not that anyone would): Apparently I now live in the People's Republic of Stokes Croft. Cool!

Ever met God?

Have you ever met God? When you have done you tend to believe in Him.

Same goes for Jesus, the Christ: When you've met Jesus you tend to believe in Jesus (that He exists and that He is just what His name says He is, the Christ, the One who was with God and was, from ancient times, foretold as the One who would come from God to Earth to save us) and to believe in God (who sent Him).

Musing: Yin and Yang, En-men-dur-ana and Yeshua

Notice how nature is so mysteriously balanced at the metaphysical level; the yin  and yang - with a little yin in the yang and a little yang in the yin. I wonder what is the relationship between the mathematical constants 'e' and 'pi'; do these constants actually exist in nature (in the Universe) or are they a product of the mind, of psychology if you like, or is the mind just a part of nature or is it a part of God? The mind looks at a perfect circle and assumes it exists in nature because it exists in Maths then it thinks there is a special significance of pairs of points on its outside - the furthest points apart which form a diameter - and a special point on its inside which is the centre - which forms a radius with any point on the outside edge. Then it thinks the edge itself has some significance and tries to divide the length of it by the diameter: And then we get 'pi'. Is that human activity actually part of a psychology which even exists in the mind of the Creator of the laws of physics? Are laws of physics in the mind of God, the mind of Man or both?

I think the mystery deepens when we consider that the mind of Man and the mind of God are linked like the yin and yang - some of the one in the other and so much of the other in the first. Why do I think this? Consider the man who went to God at the start of the history of Mankind - En-men-dur-ana - history had it the angels/gods took him to heaven and there taught him all the mysteries of Creation and the laws of the Universe. Then consider at the other end of history the Elect One, Messiah, Christ - Yeshua - who came from the right hand of God in Heaven to the Earth as a lowly man - the Son of Man - and, having taken human form, suffered the death of crucifixion in order to become the High Priest forever of Mankind. Now these persons take special place in a Universe where the thoughts of a man have risen to the height of God and the thoughts of God have descended to the realm of Man and man and God are united to rule even the angels.

What a mystery.

En-men-dur-ana

According to Wikipedia, En-men-dur-ana was a Sumerian king living before 2900 BC who has been identified by some with Enoch, the ancient patriarchal prophet of God / Allah, to whom is attributed the Book of Enoch. Enoch is chronicled in the book of Genesis and recorded in two books in the New Testament as 'seventh from Adam'.

Well this got me thinking, if this historically attested person, En-men-dur-ana, is linked to Enoch in the Bible, and even Wikipedia has it that he was in history recorded as "7th name in a list of ante-deluvian patriarchs with long lifespans" then maybe the first in the historical list of such patriarchs is actually identifiable with the man known as the first man, namely Adam. Cool!

OK so who was the first in this list of patriarchs, in the list of kings of Sumeria in the centuries before, what, 2500 BC? I'll have a look at the Wikipedia links ...

... En-men-dur-ana's first predecessor is En-sipad-zid-ana (the king of Larsa)

The predecessor of En-sipad-zid-ana = Dumuzid ('Shepherd' of Bad-tibira) - these guys were all kings but that term might just be what we sometimes call 'patriarch' or a head of tribe or family

Predecessor of Dumuzid = En-men-gal-ana (again of Bad-tibira) - these guys can have very similar names in Sumerian, the archetypal language

Predecessor of En-men-gal-ana = En-men-lu-ana (again of Bad-tibira)

Predecessor of  En-men-lu-ana = Alalngar (of Eridu - which makes sense because Eridu was one of the first cities, it seems, and sometimes identified with part of the site of the Garden of Eden, where the tree of life was situated, as attested in the Epic of Gilgamesh who sought the tree of life from the then flooded area around Eridu where the tree had given the water healing powers)

...
I think we are getting warmer since I have it from Sumerian lexica that Adam is also written in Sumerian as Alam or even Alan and does indeed match the Biblical meaning of 'statue' related to his having been formed by God as a moulding from clay or mud (does the prophesy in the Qur'an say 'from a clot'? I think it's something like that, but it's the same kind of imagery of some matter formed into a statue-like object before being given the breath of life by God)
...

Now here we are:
predecessor of Alalngar = Alulim (again from Eridu and again a little like the name Alam equating to Adam so the kind of phonetics is consistent with scriptures) and there we have it - the first in the list and possibly the historical Adam (alias Alam, alias Alulim) and even Wikipedia reports the historical account regarding this person's predecessor as "new creation". Wow. Adam a historical person for real! Whatever next?! I love it!

An Aside: A Human Argument for, well, you'll see

How long might humans continue to exist? Long enough to eventually develop technology for terraforming and even for creating asteroids, even planets? Why not? Doesn't science already, after just a few thousand years of scientific progress, offer hints that given even just a few thousand years of further progress (aside from a possibility of human life coming to an abrupt end on Earth) humans might find ways to create cosmic matter or change planets. There is string theory offering possibilities that matter or energy can spontaneously appear out of nothing at all and unimaginably quickly go back to nothing. Humans might find ways to capture it before it goes back to nothing and so harvest energy on ever greater and greater scales. Then there is dark matter which might be with us, around us, permeating this planet, available perhaps in the distant future to harvest and mould. Just move the harvesting and moulding process further out into space and scale it up more and more and why not believe that in as little as ten thousand years mankind would probably harness all this. Extrapolate from the scientific advances of the past, add the possibility of further evolution of brain and spirit, consider further learning from interactions with more advanced beings. Add the need to survive cataclysms and over, say hundreds of thousands of years, hypothetically at least, being able to make a new planet as a home would seem an inevitable and likely future for humankind. It might even be achieved through development of the spiritual side of humans - mind over matter or mind over space and time. It seems that the longer the human race or the races of its descendants continue the more and more likely it will be that building asteroids, planets, even stars would eventually be achieved.

Now some scientists believe there are unavoidable reasons to consider that other, probably more advanced beings exist in the Universe. So surely, by extension of that same line of reasoning, some of these advanced beings are almost bound to already have the technology to make planets like ours and be using it. Given the size and age of the Universe, even by our present knowledge, there must be finite possibilities that some of these beings are able to make pretty much endless stars and planets just because if you can make one then surely given enough time you could scale that up to huge proportions. So can we really exclude the inevitability that our own planet could have been so formed? Now you see where this argument leads. If similar arguments are taken as proof of the existence of life on other planets, the same reasoning followed through leads first to the likelihood, even inevitability that some beings can and do make planets and then to the likelihood, even inevitability, that this very planet we live on would have been so formed, given that with almost infinite room and billions of years of time for technological advancement by beings somewhere in the Universe, it is impossible to discount this probability. Given the size and age of the Universe, surely it is a deduction from present knowledge that there must somewhere in the Universe be at least one being who could have made this planet and all that is on it. Surely the belief that, given other evidence for design too and historical hints that people such as Jesus, the Christ have manifest unworldly power in relatively recent recorded history and that miracles happen in his Name even today, who can say that it is unscientific to believe in creation and creator or creators?

Now I have presented this line of reasoning to prove that scientific thought itself may lead quite naturally, following conventional modern lines of deduction, to a belief that creation of the Earth and life on it is very plausible and not to be discounted. This is a human argument. It is, in my own opinion, a follow-on from a relatively enlightened, modern understanding of the power of technology via the human brain and the collective learning of many such brains working together over thousands of years. I offer this as a kind of proof which uses what might be called natural or philosophical theology. It is based on what we know of the human being and on the powers of deduction of the human brain enlightened by science and philosophical thought. Now it seems to me that following through with this same line of reasoning leads to the distinct possibility that the religious prophets of Judaism, Christianity and Islam might actually have been telling the truth about the creation of the planet and the nature and character of the one or ones responsible for its existence and nature. Here comes a bit of a paradox though, because those teachings give a slightly different account than the aforementioned deductions. From the religion that came from Jesus Christ we have it that the Creator being, Beings yet One, God, His Elect One and His Holy Spirit, is not one of many, many creators throughout the huge Universe but actually alone in Power and wholly responsible for the existence every other kind of being in the Universe. Moreover, Earth and its human life were not the inevitable result of the scientific advancement of creative technology of beings here or there in the Universe but rather the deliberately planned and possibly first full-blown planetary 'geosystem' (is that a word?) and ecosystem in time and now possibly still the only such system until the Creator chooses to complete this work and start another. Yet further, the idea of evolution is not foremost in the explanation of our existence and that of life but rather the next stage in human natural history is to be a resurrection of believers in the Christ as the culmination of the ultimate upgrade from Human 1.0 to Human 2.0 giving us what seems similar in concept to the famous 'X-Men' of the comic strips; beings able to communicate with animals, establish world peace in supreme love, rule with unimaginable powers and stand side-by-side with the Christ as God "makes all his enemies a footstool for his feet". Now I reckon we have properly and reasonably progressed from philosophical to biblical theology. The thought journey started hand-in-hand with science and reason to have a stab at what could be true until finding the teachings of the Christ and His followers, when it let go and held to those teachings in order to know what is true. I reason that it is in the act of letting go and believing the teachings Christ that many in society impose their allegations that we have not been scientific but up until that point it is no less scientific, I reckon, than the ideas behind the search for life on other planets. This is how I think it is that faith overcomes the world and where many fall at the hurdle and few make it through. I had (and have) quite a struggle of it myself but it's like breaking a world record when you make it through to faith, by faith. A big hint to others who want the same: "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God." 

I set out a human argument to refute atheistic scientific arguments and I believe I have shown that even scientific reasoning, classed by some as proof of the existence of life elsewhere in the Universe, can be extended to 'prove' that the Earth and lifeforms COULD have been created. However this paints a picture of God modelled in the human mind and therefore almost inevitably it has to be set aside in preference to the revealed picture God has actually given of Himself. My human-generated picture paints a 'God' who is merely another being from somewhere else in the Universe, perhaps a being which evolved within the time the Universe has been expanding or whatever else science says it has been doing. The next time the scientists change their view of the history of the Universe, this 'God' might have to 'change' too. God has actually made Himself known to His creatures and there is nothing in that revelation I can think of which suggests He didn't exist before all things, au contraire. So having formulated a model of the existence of a Creator and to demonstrate that science should be able to support a model in which the world is created (more so than one in which it isn't), I now have to deprecate that very model in favour of divine revelation which is better by far.