No, Not Judeo Christian, just Christian

 Of course we all hear this all the time, that tyhe WWest is founded on Judeo Christian principles, thouh every now and then someone will leave out the Judeo art, because in fact the West was ofounded on Christianity, and the Judeo is not part of the picture at all.  People ignorant of theology , unblievers, atheists, talk about the three Arahamic religions and that forsort of thing, and use the term Judeo Christian beause they have no idea what any of it means in reality.  Likewise they coplain about the history of religious wars with no understanding what4ever of what the causes were and why it matters, even matters to the whole human race who wins i the end.They may be hhonest scoars who have studied the history of the west carefully and yet because they just automicatically dismiss the theological thinking involved in it they miss the reality of it all.

Anyway, no, in a way the very idea of Judeo-Christian is a contadiction in terms.  They have the idea bthat since the Old Testment is the Hebrw sriptures and the New Testament is in Grek and is all about Jesus which the Old Testmeanment as far as they can tell is not (theough i fact it is) ythey hyphenate the two together since christains also make use of th Old Tesyament, Hebrw origins notwithstanding.  To a Christaian it's all one religious testxt the Old Testament pointing to the coming of the Messiah, and the New reporting on His having come and what he accomplished.   The Jews deny that Jesus is their Messiah so they have a religion that is in fact false for that reasaon.  They still practice it as a religion but a Christain shouldn't recognize it as legitimate because it denies the main point of it, to give the historical and theological frame of refernce for god's ffgift of the Messiah who was to come to save the whole world from our sins.

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew because that was the language of the peopl for whom it was written.  By the time of Jesus the world had experienced the sucession of four major empires and the third empire, Greecxe under Alexander the Great, stamped the Mediterranean world with its language.  That is why the New tsygament was written in Greek, it's the language that was common to all the peoples in that region in Jesus' time.  The Jews spoke Grek like everyone else and even had their own originally Hebrew scriptures read to them in their temple andsynagogues in the Greek translation called the Spetuagingt because they could no longer understand the Hebrew.   Later, when the final Bible was compliled in the Eurpropean world the original Hebrw tesxt was used for the Old Testament rather than the Greek Septuagint, but what would we know anyway, since we get the Bible in our own language, which in my case is english, both testaments.

The Jewish trligion simply had no influence on the development of the ewest at all, or whatever could be legimiantely called by that name was so much a part of Christainity that it was no longer Jewish anyway.  The ten MCommandments are given by God to the whole world, not just to the Jews.  They reflect God's univerasal Moral Law.  The Messiah was given tot eh whoel world.  The Jews were chosen to be His people or family ut HJe came for the entire world, to save the entire world, that was how the Jews were to be a blessing to the whole world, ads God promised Abraham would be the result of His faithfulnesess.

Even in Jesus' day the Jewish religion was not what God had originally given, as Jesus kept telling them.  They had substituted their own traditions for much of it.   But then after the fall of Jerusalem and the temple in seventy AD they no longer hadf the blod sacrifies of aniamlsa which had always foreshadowed the sacrifice of th Messiah for sin and had to make up a bloodless form of their own religion, wo that it grew further wayy from its orignal teacings from then on.

That last point I learned recently from listening to some of Tucker Carlson's programs.  I recently found a way to listen to him that made it easy to do so I've been listening to some of them, wanting to get some sense of what all this furor is between him and MaRK lEVIN FOR INSTANCE    .   orry, just noticed the all caps light was one.  Sigh.   I haadn't known much about that uproar except through Levin and really wanted to hear it from the othet sinde to make up my ownmind but until reently didn't have an easy way to do that.  Now I've listented to enough of his programs to have sonem sense of it at least.

The guest he had on to talk about Christain theology was very good at desribing the Zionist versus the Coverant forms of Chrsitain theology, the Zionist form being the one that most stronhgly supports America's support of Israel.

I've generally stayed out of this dispute though no w and then I do have to point out that Chrsitains are the rightful heirs of the Olds TRaraMWEN Ppromises becaus we are followes rs of the Mesisah.  But that doesn't mean I don't think there is some realsson to see the rise of the Jewish state as a prophetical fulfillment of scripture in some other sense than theological.  I don't know how to gput it all together but while I don't see them as God's chosen people as they used to be I don do think in terms of God's having some plan  to deal with them in a focused wY AT THE VERY END, which seems to be very close.  Their reinsatement to the land does seem to me to be a prophetic fulfilmment and it has also seemed to me that God is proecting them and has blessed their being there in many ways.  That doesn't really make me a Zionist if what that means is that they are theologically superior in anyway which is what the anticizionists apaprently make of it all.  Ethnically God seems to have some plan to bring history to a close by finishing some unfished business left over bfrom Old Testament times.

The Book of Revelation seems to me to be , and not just to me, to be a very Old Tesament flavored writing.  It clearly refers back to the images in the book of Daniel that foreshadowed the coming of the Roman Empire, and the coming of the Messiah in the famous presentation of the Seventy Weeks the angel told Daniel would mark the time from the ending of the Babylonian capitvity to the coming of the Messiah, but it is clearly shown that only sixty nine of those weeks, meaning weeks as seven years, that only sixty nine of those were actually fulfillmeed, coming to an end on the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalemn on the donkey to announce His coming as King.  A wek later He was crucified, but that occurred after the sixty nine weeks had come to an end and there had s been o no period since then that could fulfill those seven years, so we understand thjem to be yet future.

Many belive that last week of years is continaed in the seven wseal s of the Book of Revelayion.  After struggling with it for simeome time I'mve come to the conlusions, at least so far, that it encoupasses only the seventh seal, that egins with Revelation Eight.    In the book of Daniel it does seem to apply specifically to the people of Israel as an ethnic group.  The CHursrch doesn't seem to be rpresent as we've been encountering it throughout the rest of the New Tesaemtns although there is some question about that in some people's minds.  There is still the idea that the Church may be reaptured or taken out of th world before the vents of this last seven yar peoplexd and I can see how that makes sense, but I've been uanbel to decide for sure how I think all that is oging to play out.  All I belive to e fairly certain is that the seventieth eweek of daniel is yet to play out and it's going to be a horrific peoperiod in which the Anctichrist rules the world for a breief peierio and the wrath of God comes dowqn in veneance befotre the return of Jesus.

I also disagree with the prevailing idea that the Antichrist is an iunkhown figure who will arise at the last minute, or e revealed at the last minute.  I believe hse is the Antichrsit identified by the Protpestant Reformers, the Pope, and I've made that case many times here.

Although I think Tucker Carlso's guest who presented the theology was ery good, overall I've been dsocvering that Carlso n seems to be off the raisls in some way that makes no sens to me.  Some of his other gueses seem to e raging paranoids about Israel an Carlson doesn't contradict them.  They seem to have some idea that Israel is practically running the world all by itself, running the Uited States, running Donal d Trump, it's asurd tut that's how they are talkiong.    It astonished me but it doesn't persuade me.  They do hammer away at the supposed atrocities commityed by Israel against the Gazans for instance enogh to make me wonder if thwre is eomthing to it but I generally hold to my impressed that I've had for years that all that is a fabriacation by the Palestiniahsns, so called since there never were any Palestinians before the state of Israel was established and then they conveniently materialized out of the eher to e a thorn in Israel's side.  

There's a lot more to say about this but I'll have to come back to it.

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YIKES Revisited

 Yes I realized soon after I posted it that it's still bribery even if it's paid for privately so I repent in sackcloth and ashes.  I was trying to give Trump the enefit of the doubt that he merely wanted to motivate people who would ordinarily fvote for him to actually get out and do it, but wrong is wrong and I repent.

However, I did have another bright idea, oh help us.  Thinking of the problem I write ahout in the post below about how we can get some conservative sense into liberal heads it occurred to me that maybe we could pay them to learn about it.  Maybe collect donations for it, maybe Elon Musk would like to contribute.  

There isn't eough time to do a bgood job of it before the midterm election but the idea would be to collect a body of information that we can see is most needed to be heard by liberal s who never hear any of the truth and get it into reasonable sized chunks and pay them to listen to it.  To ensure honesty I think conservatives should nominate their own liberal friends and family to be the recipiebnts of this.  They won't talk to us and they wouldn't have to this way either, but maybe they'd be willing to hear a few things if they would earn some money doint it.  I listed a few things I had in mind for the information in that post but I'm now thinking of adding segments of talk show hoests like Mark Levin and Sean Hannity and so on and parts of the free courses given by Hillsdale College, and of course parts of Thomas Sowell's nook and so on and so forth.  

Well, why not.  I guess it's bripbery of a sort but it doesn't coerce anyoe's vote, it's just an attempot to solve the problem of liberal ignorance.

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The Copatibility of God and Science

 Not that there's any questio in my own mind, there isn't, but atheists offten pclaim that science and religio are incopatible so it's good when soeone comes up with an answer to that.  hich is what Steven C. Meyer has done in his book, Yhe Return of the God Hypothesis, which I've been listening to.  I'm not very far into it but it's in the first couple of chapters where he lays out the history of science and shows how science as we know it could not have existed without Christianity.  So I want to recommend the book.

I was very surprised to find out that in his own time Newton was regarded as controversial with his theory of gravity of all things.  Mayer describes all that very nicely.  They really were in a completely other mental set back in those dats.  We take a lot of r granted about what science is in our day and have little appreciation of how hard won it was.

I gather that he's oing to go on to show first hoiw we got from a Christian frame of reference for science to the atheistic claim that no God is needed to explain how the physical world works and even the biological world, and then he'll; get to what he sees as the return of scientists to the recognition that an intelligent Designer is needed, and particularly the BGod of the BBible.  But it's a big book and I'm not there yet.

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YIKES!! No, you can't brige voteres, Mr. Trump

 No, you can

t use paxpayer money to ge votwers to suport the cause of your own party, no no no no no.  I'm not sure evwen if you used your own money or money fro donors if you could jusgify bribig voters, but there is no question that you cannot use government money for that purpose.  Good grief.  We desperaely need to win this midterm but we need to do it ithithe right way.  

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winning the midterm?

 Surely there are enough sane liberalsout there somewhere who would change their minds about their libral views if they got hold ot f the struthm but the proble has always been how to get the truth to them.  They follow only the esablishment press, TV or internet, often because they don't have tine for enythihg else, and all they are going to hear there is the liberal lies, or in Thomas  Sowell's words, The Vison of the Anointed.  Qhen a sane liberal does hear the truth it can knock him off hs feet for a while.  That happened to the guy who founded the Walkaway movmeent some yhears back.  He had to realize when shown it by a firnedm that the eida had been tlying to him about Trump, specifically in ths particular case, about Trump's supposedly mocking a reported who had a wphysical disability of some sort.  The truth is that Trum0 was mocking something he said, which was evidenced to this ma by his friend by a series of videos showibg im mocking many others for their views.  The man was devastated and it took him a few days to recover but then he got up and did his own research and found out that the media were lying about Trump all the time.  Then he started the walkaaway movemetnt of people who were seeing tghrough the lies and leaving the Democratic party.   I hoe his website is still out there.  

One of those who contributed her stort to the walkaway moevement was a Georgia H who did a very articulate video about her echange of mind.  I hope she is still out there too.

It seems to me that there is enough information that could and should change the mind of a sane liberal that it is well worth whatever it takes of our time and ingenuity to get the medssage out to thej.  How has always been a problem, but a blitze of You Tube and Faceookk and Xh and Instagram and others would be good and when the message get s taken tdown put it back up ovr and over again.  And give URLs to private websites where the information can be found, websityes you can start yourself.  I ca't do any of this but surely there are some who can.

Recewntly Mark Levin pread some of an articulae by Ayaab Hirsi Alli about the true nautre of Islam hat ought to wake people up to the impossibility of every  ever chaging their minds and winning them to the western mindset.    I forget yhe title of her article unfortunately ubut he said it was on an internet magazine called Tablet, I think.    Islam is one of the ways the country is going down, and could very well be the one that defeats all the others in the end because of its energetic implacability and conviction that it is God himself who wants them to destroy us.    

It is stupidity of the sort Thomas Sowell writes about in The Vision of the Anointed that has allowed Islam to get as far as it has in America abd before us in Europe where it has been menacing them for a long tme.    The idea that nineleeven was the work of eople who were merely victims of western discrimiunation , of lack of economc opportutyies and that sort of thing Sowell identifies as lies basred on nothing but the ideology that is sconteradicted by facts and reality wherever it is put to the test.  Nopne of it explains our own domestic problems of poverty and criminality and it doesn't expplain Islam either.   

But in the same of Islam it is a murderous ideology that truly inspires its adherents to kill those who oppose it and aims to take the whole world for Allah in tghe end that we're up against and that has been idgnored and pooh poohed for decades bnow.  The evidence is right there in eheir holy books which are unholy but anyway, it's right there but still its ignored.  As Swowell makes clear, those with the Vision nof the Anointed are impervious to facts and reality.  

Alyaa  Ayaan is an ex Muslimwho kows what she is talking about so she should have ore credibility than anyone in my position could ever have.  But I got my own knowledge of these things back before nine eleven when I read by  a boo k title Philistine by Ramon Bennett who documented the acttitudes of all the Muslim contries around Israel to make it clea rr that they are not in the slightest open to ay kninkd of negotionatio and we are fools to think they ever gcould be.  Ww'vw bewen fools for many many years wbile Islam has bgrow in power in the west all the while.    

I did some posys on Bennett way back on this blog I'm sure, and maybe on one of my other boogs so if you put his name in the search box at the upper left they may come up.   

But that's ust abojtut Islam.  Marxism and COmmunism are just as big a threat ad  liberals need to get inoculated against those too.  Mark Levin is a course as are all the standard conservative talk shows, but I remember the testimony of Yuri Bezmeov that I also posted on years ago and hope is stil out there because he made it plain that the Soviets were systematicaly working to undermine the west by introducing scertain ideas into oyur public mind which have unfortunatelysucceeded  to the extent that they are a real threat now to the survivial of the nation.   I may have a post on him that can be found through the search line with Yuri Bezmenov or just by looking for ghim on You tube.  

I also remember the shocking fact that the great foundatons such as Rockefeller and Cearnegie had been prooting Ommunism in America.  There was an interview with a I htink a senator at the time I think something Todd, I wish I could remember, about all that and if I can find it I'll try bto come back aand put the information here.  Of course 

Of course Thomas Sowell's book would go a long way if anyoe would read it.    Too bad about hte  title. Anyone coming on it cold isn't going to have any idea what it's really aboutut just from that title.  

I'm sure there are lots of other sources out there too and if just a few people would make use of whatever social media or other internet outlets they have avaoialable to them as soon as possible maybe we could save this contry.

Oh, Bret and Heather, just remembered.  I happened to hear an old podcast of their from before the elecyion in 24, titled The Caste  The Case fo Trump.  They are liberals bugy sane liberals and hey do a bgood mjob on that pocast of laying out whow the left is destroying the country and trump has the better agenda.    Their podast is called Dark Horse podcast.    

If anyobody got into any of these people beoeyond just these particular recent productons that would be good too .  Ayaan for sre is full of good stuff, and although sometimes ret and Heather bore me they also have a lo of good stuff in betwen as well..  

I've been positing from time to time about how we're under God's judgment, wgich swems apparent to me from the very fact that these destructive leftist ideas have been fagaining in power over the last decades.  When it's hard to overturn something evil it's likely to be because it''s comeing from God as judgment ainst us.  On the other hand He's obviously also have mercy on us since Trump has been making a lot of headway as well and the information I post above is out there to help us.  It could all be blown away in one midtern election however, an certainy with the election of one more liberal Predsident.   I had another blog about the daeth of America but it's een a long proloned death and we're still brearthing shallowely at least so I ope we can still be revived but i's going to take a lot of commitment.

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Thomas Sowell again; the arrogant stupidity of the Left and how it's destroying Aerica and reality itselgf

I've been reading Sowell again.  The VIsion of the Annited is a book I think everybody should read,  every American anyway.  It might inoculate some against the stupidities tyhat are taking the country down.  H covers every facet of the thinking, or nonthinking, of the left in this book, mosly throygh how the left misuese statistics to buttress what is othig more than a vision or daydream, utterly without fats or vidence to suport it.  It souold make everybody with a shred of rationality mad and up in arms to save ys from this miserable assault on everything that matters.

The book is thirty years old but it's just as relevant now as it was then, unfortunately, only of corse all of it is much worse now though the same thining patterns are still the same.  It could use an updating just to get the latest insanities on record but otherwise it can be read for our time quite easily.

It ay be in audible form on You tube, I meant to check so if I find out that it's there are I write this I may come back to say so.  

Read the last chapter for starters, or just the last line.   Never have so ......  Never ....  Never beore have so few done so much damage to so many.  If that's not an exact quote it's very close, off by only a word or two at most.    This recognition needs to become familiar to us with all its evidences as Sowell presents them so that we can make use of them when needed, against an enemy that is so often hard to piin down because of the verbal slight of hand that is part of the problem   

Then read the whole last chapter where he summarizes the book with plenty of examples.  All the evids we've had foisted upon us as laws and public policies that have done damage to the soecity and to individuals in the millions.  Liberalism is not just a political point of view, it's a mental aberration and a threat to civicilization.

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Later:  Yes there is an audio version of The Vision of the Aointed at You tube.

I also want to mention that I did aother post on this book back in April, Thomas Sowell Nails Liberalimsms to the Wall...  where Isaid mor about the content of the book than I did in the above.

thoughts about art again

Later, Wednesday:  After listeing to the post I realized I'd had my habnds on the wrong keys for the first couple of paragraphs, but that was just about how my eyes are bad so it's hard to see art, whch youd think might prevent me from writing about it.  But the thing is I can see some things sort of, just that it's blurry and I miss details.  My biggest loss is not being able to read.   However, over the last few days trying ro find out more about Bell's Significant Form I've had to realize that I can't see pictures well enough to talk about them either.  Yes I can make out the general scene usually, but trhat's not enough for this kind of inqurty.  

But I did run across a book I wish I could get in audible form, a monography by an American Professor of Philosophy written in the seventies, titled Clive Bell's Eye, whic sounds like exactly what I've veen needing to brig this topic to a close.  It's pretty clear that Bell himself didn't want to, or couldn't, say more than he did to expplain his concepts because he regarded them as pointed to something beyond words, that all he could do is int a person to the art tiitslef and advise looking at it many times to learn for oneself what he meant.  But he also said he thinks not everyone has this ability.  He likesns it to mystical experience or an xperience that seems to give access to another world.  

*********************

 It's odd of me of course, to write something about visual art when I'm now legally blind and         can see images in a distorted way.  It's pt o,[pssob;e tp see tje, bit tjeu are b;irru amd O cam

t a[[recoate tje, as O ised tp/  O cam ,ale ,u eues rpa, arpimd om a [ocitre amd ,pre pr ;ess et tje pvera;; semse pf ot bit ot

s mpt tje sa,e as ot issede tp be/  O dp jae tp sau. jpwever. tjat O cam see [ocitres a ;pt better tjam O cam read/  Redomg os kist abpit o,[passob;e amu ,pre. evem wjem O dp ,u best tp ,ale tje ;etters bog amd bp;d amd as meat as O cam ,amage/    Amuwau wotj a;; tjat soa dO jave beem tjomlomg abpit art agaom amd as isia; O dpm

t ;ole ,pst pf wjat O fomd [ep[;e sauomg abpit ot/  I don't like being in this possibility because it's like saying I'm oh so uch more sentsitive to art than all these people whose opinions I diaslikw and here I am a nobody who can claim any special aythijg about arty.    

Qwll maybe I can claim a little.  Some paintings could stir min me someting I think is what Clive Bell meant by the aesthetic emption, and I've always wanted to understand more BOUT IT AND     discover how to find it more often, even be able to say just what exactly it is or if not exactly then at leas a lot better than I've vever heard anyone destcribe it.  Including Clive Bell who is annoyingly speechless when it comes to making clear just exactly what he means by the terms he uses.  He says art is that which rovokes the aesthetic emotion and then he says that in ppaintings it's the  sense of signficant form which provokes the aestheitc emotion and he defines signifiant form as the way lines and colors and three dimensional spacew are arranged in a painting that provokes that emotio and so on.  I can't find even an example of a painting to which he might point to illustrate what he is taling about. Whewn shen I look up the concepts and find others talking about them I'm very sure they haven't a clue what he is taling about.  They may be artistics and teacghers of art butg they haven't a clue.  If I know one thing from reading Bell it's that he's trying to define what is a direct experience he himself has had, so that if a teacher says he got such and such an idea from Kant I know he's blowing smoke.  

The aestehtic emotion at its strongest I'm sure is a sense of leasure that just grtaps you when you lookl at something that provokes it to an intense degree, a ppleasure that makes you groan.  Something about how the lines and colors and three dimensional speace come together, okay fine but those things sodcome together in one way or another in every paintibg don't they, and very very few of them provoke that aestehtic emotion.  And in some of them that do it amay only be in one part of the picture, ot the picture as a whole.  This much I got from reading Bell.  

I've had flashes of that feeling and I would like to have found out how to have it more, and Clive Bell is one of the few who could have pinted me toward it and he did not.I thin I have a btter grasp of what he meant thab the people I've been listening to, enevertheless, yes I am that much of a n arrogant snob about it I guess.  

I have a smiliar reaction to the concept of Notan which is a concept I think originated in Asia ssomethiwhere to desdribe the relation of light and dark party s of a painting or image to each other.  I came across someone one who seemed to think he understood it and put a huge dark shadow in his painting of a street that I absolutely nknow had nothing to do with Notan.  There is a book about Notaln that I read years ago.  I may even have it somewhere in a box but I've got too many boxews I'll just never go through.  There was one little illustration in that book of a picture that provoked in me what I would call that eaestehtic emotion Clive Bell talks about, just a little drawing that held no interest for me in whatevr it was a bout, an animal of some tsort I think, but the way the light and dark were situated in the picture is what provoked the emotion, a larger amount of white with smaller areas of black but the arrangement was somewhow extremely ppleasurable and I couldn't say how.     now I'm fdining examples at you tube that purport to illustrate the concept and while they are much more truly examples of the meaning of the term, there is nothng anywhere neart that concept in any of the illustrations to what I saw in that book.  Peopele just don't seem to get it.  Even when they sort of get it they don't get it.

Theis relates to a larger subject .  All my life, not always with any particular awareness of it, I've felt myself surrounded by ugliness, or a dearth of beauty.   I have no ability to create beauty myself, it's something I have to find, and I ca't arfford to collect tyhe thihgs I finsd so my personal life ahs also always been withouit the luxurry of beauty.  I'd acceppt prettiness at time even but that isn't to be found anywhere in this modern world either.  Oh in nature yeas but that's a different kind of beauty or orettingss, not the prettiness of art or human doing which is what this is all about.    Things are ugly , buildings are ugly , the walls of my apartment are uglyg, nothing has a sens of proportion, it's all utilitarian, empty, nothijbnglessness.  i think this is vwerty hard on our human souls and not ood for us at all.

Tge iuht abiyt Bitab us tgat uts a cibceot if art as aesteutc exoeruebcem bit hyst sine jubd if firnyka fir darj abd kuggt as a cibvebtuib if sinetgubg kuje tgat,  

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