The Almighty

Atheism is labelled so because Atheists do not have Almighty God, the Theos, as their God. Hindus believe in many gods but not the Almighty God, the Theos, from which we get Theism. They are without this Theos in their religion but do not call themselves Atheists because they identify with their gods, not with their absence of God Almighty. Strictly speaking, polytheism is not belief in many gods existing but putting many of them in top spot. Monotheism is not belief in only one god existing (not in it’s truest original sense) but belief that only one is Father and Almighty Supreme God. So strictly speaking Trinitarianism is polytheistic since Father and Son and Spirit are regarded as Almighty God. In contrast to Trinitarians, the Apostle Paul admitted there are many gods but confessed the monotheistic faith that only one God and Father exists who is over all these many gods and Father to them. He confessed the faith that Jesus is Son of this Father and is Lord over all gods and all of the rest of us too. Trinitarianism gets around the charge of polytheism by its insistence on unity between Father and Son and Spirit even though they somewhat polytheistically regard all as Almighty God. So in this sense they differ from Paul who is truly monotheistic by only believing the Father is the Almighty God. I have suspicions that Trinitarian dogma was introduced like Sunday rest day, to distance Christianity from Judaism and keep Jews out of it on pretext the Jews were Judaizers. A strict Jew obeying the Ten Commandments would be unable to embrace Trinity God because it puts God Father and Son together as the Almighty God. Similarly they could not stop keeping their Sabbath just to obey the Gentile church councils such as Council of Laodicea. Paul, however, did not hate his own people like that nor God and God’s truth and God’s commands. Paul did not in any way believe in any multiplicity of God Almighty. Only the Father is God Almighty in Paul’s beliefs and dogmas. Trinitarian dogma that Jesus is both Almighty God and man in the same body was invented, I think, to force Jews to break the commandment not to have other gods before God. Just like the Council of Laodicea tried to force Jews wanting to join the church to break the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy for rest. They do not have to persist anti-Semitic dogma any more. Laodiceans used Judaization as lame excuse but the threat is no reason to force anyone to break commandments of God. Forcing people to sin only brings the word of Christ that it is better to have a stone tied around the neck and cast into the sea. Jews, likewise, need not break any commandments of God to be acceptors of their Messiah, their Salvation. It is the Father who is Jesus’ God and Father, the Father who is Almighty God, the Most High. 

A message to Atheists

ATHEISTS ASK: WHY DOESN’T GOD PROVE HIMSELF TO EVERYONE?

The wisdom of God seems to me to be to focus on those who believe from the testimony they have received and miracles they have seen and God seems to put to one side for a bit the needs of hardened unbelievers. God loves the inner circle of believers who are becoming a family around Him. Others take time to get to this position of believing but God does provide space and some help in which they can take their time to work things out. It is a balance. At the moment the believers are sinning badly, perhaps too much influenced by Atheist dogma. This is uppermost in God’s mind it seems. The command to love God supremely needs to be put up high in view of these believers. But if your Atheism is a condition you want addressed by God then try showing willingness to cooperate and try all you can to get a glimpse of what God has sent so far to help faith, then reach out to the unknown God and maybe He will make Himself known to you too. Christ died for you.

Placeholders

The concept of a ‘placeholder’ applies well to religion. I grew up in religion with a lot of mental placeholders in my head, like scaffolding keeping my brain intact until some real believable facts could be put in place. I longed for the day the placeholders could go and hard facts replace them. It made me search and search for truth and assurance of truth. I wanted to stop having to convert myself to believing God exists before getting up each morning. I thought nobody understood this about me in my religious circles. I started hunting down facts related to God and Christ so I could be sure I had real faith, not pretend beliefs. John the Baptist was a great fact to help belief in Jesus being the Christ. His historic existence dawned on me. The facts of the mentions he gets in the New Testament gospels and how those refer back to Old Testament prophecies about someone levelling things to prepare for a Messiah did convince me genuinely of Jesus being this Messiah. The facts stacked up. Still I needed more. The NT foretold the Holy Spirit being given to believers. Why not to me? Perhaps God did not think me a real believer. The beliefs I thought I had might be still those placeholders and God is no fool. Then I saw Him.

To Find Meaning in Life

Be like Nature. Keep doing over and over, ever and ever, what you are given to do. Without wavering. Even dying like you are given to die in hope of living again like you are given to live again if you are worthy of resurrection. Believing that the goal is to be children of the Creator of it all, ever lovingly serving Him, together with the Father and the Son. Becoming the next creation. 

Missing the Point

Theists and Atheists debate whether logic in nature shows God really must exist, yet all these debates about the existence of God are missing the point a bit. It is like debating the existence of the mobile phone company when the mobile phone bills are going unpaid and you about to get your phone cut off. Better to debate the duty to love God and believe in His teachings: The teachings of God coming to us through the likes of Jesus Christ and others. Like doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Like being like the ‘Good Samaritan’ when people nearby need emergency kindness. Like being so loving towards beloved friends that you lay down your life for them. Like asking over and over for justice from God against enemies rather than taking vengeance into your own hands. These teachings fill the social psyche around us and inside us. We need to believe into these teachings instead of getting hung up on logic and existence and what is real or imaginary. 

Normalised Miracles

Just look at galaxies. Their arms defy science. Their arms move around the outside of the galaxy at the same speed as the galaxy turns. This is miraculous because it runs counter to scientific reasoning. It is happening every day so it is unusual to call it a miracle but God must be involved for it to happen. A hidden power makes it happen. It defies the Standard Model. A normalised miracle. Then consider that these normalised miracles happening day after day are everywhere in Nature. The growth of plants. The movement of planets. A hidden name drives it all. A hidden God’s power. We just struggle to acknowledge it. We need to change our thinking.  Once we realise there is truth like this which we just need to accept into our thinking then we can behold the wonder of Nature like in the workings of living cells and think how God has made it so. These natural things such as living cells are normalised miracles. In their daily workings they display miraculous power granted to all things which obey the teachings of the Son of Man in their daily behaviour. So it is normal for healings to happen too in the name of this Son of Man.

Paid Worship of God

The word for idolatry in Revelation 21:8 means idol worship which is paid for - worship for money - idolatrous = idol + latris where latris means a hired worker. People, you would think, should not be encouraged to worship God the way they worship idols - as hired and paid staff. On the other hand the word latris does occur many times in scripture in reference to the worship of God. https://biblehub.com/str/greek/3000.htm So worshipping God as a hireling is still acceptable enough. Over time servants progress to friends as they learn the Master’s will and willingly do as He wills.

Ongoing Creation

God does work mysteriously. Overall the outcomes tell us the ways of God are predominantly good but there is some “nature red in tooth and claw” evidence of a scary, darker component to what God does. Even though we might intelligently dismiss the idea of random events creating us, the concept of God creating us is itself hard to grasp correctly, truthfully. We might think God just dove in one day and made us then got out of there quick. That seems to be how Genesis implies it happened. Yet there is truth to learn about God that tempers this understanding. He can work in chance events like the proverb says “the dice is cast but God determines the outcome”. So making us might have been by a series of tailorings of events and might not yet be finished. God might be constantly adding touches to the creative work. Jesus turning water into wine is the closest miracle to a demonstration of God’s creative work as He did it through Jesus. Plus it shows He still creates. We lose our skin and hair and even shed our bones repeatedly and constantly through our lives without noticing and they are replaced many times over and God has plenty of constant opportunity in all that to work in chance events creatively. So we see Creator in creations.

The Meaning of Life

I never thought I could find meaning in life and in the natural living world until the Holy Spirit of God found in churches started teaching me to do so. Over decades I started learning the meaning of living things. They start minuscule, microscopic, and very gradually grow without any leaps or jumps, gradually doing their bit of growth for each day on that day, none in advance, none in arrears, just a day’s growth for a day’s life, until they fill the space around them with wondrous living matter. The Lord of life grew this way and will fill the universe having become a tiny cell and baby and having even died but then arisen to live and grow and fill and master all things forever and with His way we can be like that to some extent too.

Before the Advent

I recommend a look at the Parables section (middle chapters) of the Book of Enoch for an understanding of the Son before the advent. Throughout those chapters He was called the Son of Man, the Elect One, the Anointed. The chapters were not added by Christians as some suppose. Many scholars agree the chapters predate Christianity and personally I accept they are original work of the prophet Enoch. Then in chapter 105 (R H Charles translation chapter numbering) God calls the Anointed one His Son “I and My Son ...”. Daniel follows closely on from Enoch (even though, in my belief written thousands of years later but in prophetic continuity) and parallels passages such as the one where the man (actually this Son of Man before the advent) is led into the presence of the Ancient of Days. Ancient of Days or Head of Days is the phrase for the Father in both prophecies. Revelation likewise follows on from Daniel. Closely like Daniel follows from Enoch. The passage in Rev 1 describing the appearance of the Son of Man after the advent exactly follows the wording of Daniel’s description of Him before the advent. So the continuity is there from beginning of prophetic scripture to the end.

The Name of the Lord Jesus the Christ

God the Father fills the universe and was before the universe and is forever and ever and ever and ever, ever blessed. His Son became flesh and then grew from an embryo to a young adult, to a dead, sacrificed young adult to a resurrected adult to the Lord who will go on forever to fill the Universe together with His Father, His God. This is why we call the Christ, Jesus, ‘Lord’. He is not only the lord of what is very big but what is very small too, having Himself become the very microscopic perfection of the small in the perfect will of God the Father and grown in full view of Mankind to become a perfect young adult. Then in that perfection He died on a wooden cross like a tree, as a sacrifice raised up in front of all to purify all those who regard Him and keep His teachings. The Son of Man. The Christ. Ha Mashiach. ‘Mash’ in old Sumerian meaning a sacrifice that settles debts, Mash being the Sumerian symbol written as a cross. Then He rose from death to become a perfect, living resurrected human, growing to become so great that He will fill heaven and earth. Master over all things. The Lord. Lord being translation of the Greek word kyrios, the root of which means one like a cloud who starting very small grows to fill the whole vessel, and is normally used of the head of the household, growing from a child as son to become master of the house. The son who becomes the Lord. His personal name Jesus means salvation, deliverance. He became all this in full view of mankind so that mankind can see it because it is this name Lord Jesus Christ that is given among human beings by which we are perfected and purified from sin as we see this example of perfection and He purifies us who see Him and believe in Him. This is to save us and He ever lives to perfect that salvation of us. Nature adheres to this lordship quality of His name in how a tree grows what starts as a tiny bud and grows to become a fully grown leaf or branch. He grows to fullness organically. He does not jump ahead but does it the long way, the hard way, that adheres to the will of God. He does it obediently and shows us this obedience that we would live this way too and so be saved. As we do so, meanwhile behind the scenes He has endured crucifixion so as to purify our state before God in terms of the sacrifice our failings needed to bring us into the right standing with God, His Father, our Father, His God, our God. So we too can be sons of God. 

Can good education coexist with faith in God?

Understanding the evidence for the existence of God and gods requires a certain amount of good quality education. One of the greatest proofs or matters of evidence for God’s existence is the calendar but understanding this is an education in itself. Children can be taught it by parents but only with clarity of thought and good grasp of reality. The Moon can be explained to children with regard to its four phases of a week each all completing a 28 day cycle. This explains why there is a week and a weekend break. A 28 day lunar cycle happening thirteen times approximates to a year but is not quite accurate. If people had only used the Moon to determine the year the seasons would gradually shift in timing in that 364-day year. This too could be explained as part of educating children or adults well. The harvest times require a better year understanding. Only the Sun can enable it. This explains the importance of the Sun to the proper functioning of any society. The solar and lunar calendars can be combined and both Sun and Moon used to keep farming in sync with nature. Otherwise you start life with a year beginning in spring and end it with a year beginning in autumn. Evidence of God: How on Earth did humans work it out? Who helped?

Is Jesus a historical person?

ATHEISTS ASK WHETHER JESUS IS HISTORICAL
There are two possibilities. Either time travellers took artificial intelligence back to the first or second century and used it to generate a clever set of fake news stories and distributed these stories by smartphones handed out and later destroyed a century later. Or He is the Son of God who became flesh just before the first century AD and grew from an embryo to a young adult, to a dead, sacrificed young adult to a resurrected adult to the Lord who will go on forever to fill the Universe together with His Father, His God. If it is the second possibility which is true it would explain why He is called the Christ, Jesus, ‘the Lord’. The first century Greek word for Lord has roots in something that starts small then grows like a cloud to fill everything. 

Adapa and the Whereabouts of God

THE ANCIENT TEXTS OF ADAPA

There are ancient texts of an account copied either from an oral account or perhaps even an originally written account from the lifetime of Adapa (biblical Adam) called Adapa and the South Wind which might come from the time of the writings of Enoch. They were discovered twice in archaeology from separate times so appear to have been preserved for many centuries. They might provide evidence corresponding to passages in Enoch about the whereabouts of the Throne of God. The account tells how Adapa (Adam), one of the seven sages, a line of patriarchs possibly those listed in Genesis and elsewhere as being the first seven in Adam’s genealogy up till Enoch, was able to enter some kind of tunnel into a mountain guarded by two contemporary sages, leading to the Throne of God where he went to give account of his actions. This corroborates the Book of Enoch and possibly the Epic of Gilgamesh on the whereabouts of God’s dwelling place and court. This would place it within a mountain in the Middle East accessible to Adapa who lived in Eridu, now Southern Iraq.

In a world torn apart by religion, hope remains

Not all of the world is torn apart by religion. Becoming part of the bit that isn’t is your best hope. It is not called the world though. It is called the body of Christ. Within this body its members are united by a Holy Spirit which is like a web extending from the throne of God to every believer keeping us all united to one body. Christ is the head of this body which belongs to Him. He owns it because His blood was shed for its sins. The baptism into His teachings keeps its members in this body, receiving the Holy Spirit with signs, miracles and gifts of grace, because they believe.