Jordan Peterson and His Version of the Story of Abraham

 Lessee, according to Jordan Peterson, Abraham was just lolling around eating peeled grapes, living the soft life of luxury, when God called him to go to another country.  How Peterson got that idea about the life Abraham was living I have no idea, there's nothing in scirpture to incidate such a life, and as a matter of fact we get a glimpse of the family life he came from later when his son and grandson are looking there for wives.  And it's not a lazy life at all, it is a life of taking care of animals at least, and tat's not an esy life.  Jacob spends years tending Laban's flock.  this soft life Peterson imagines is just that, imagined.

Then he explains god's reason for calling Abraham out of his family as a great adventure that is intended to develop him as a human being, to save him from the indolence of his current life presumably and get him living with more purpose and meaning.  Something like that.  He then goes through many adventures and trials as part of this process of growing up or something like that, including the call to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac.   And when he is tring to define God later on in the interview god turns out to be kind of a sum total of all the trials and adventures and their lessons or something like that.  Sorry if I'm getting this too far wrong, I do have a memory problem and I do have a problem just processing the kind of thinking Peterson does.

Does he know what the orthodox Christian view orf these things is?  I really don't know.  God calls Abraham because God wants to make a people for himself, a people of his very own, separated from the idolatrous life Abraham's family lived, in which he grow up.  God wants him to himself and he wants a gret people who will come from him as His own people.  this isn't the story of a man learning life's lessons, this is the unique sotry of god's calling people to His own pirposes.  god doeass the calling, God does the plannjing, god does the training, all for His own purposes.  And He promises Abrhama great rewards, the main reward being Himself"  I am thy exceeding great reward" He tells him.

And then there is supposed to be some psychological meaning to the story of the sacrifice of issaac too, which I'm afraid has escaped me entirely, but it's a life trial for the sake of Abraham's growing to manly maturity I gather.  odes Peterson know that Isaac is regarded as a type of Christ sacrified on the cross for our sins?  does he kno that the place God has Abraham build the altar of sacrifice is in fact the very place where Jesus Himself will be sacrificed on the cross almolst two thousand years later?  Mt. Moriah.  Has he run across that in his studies?  Isaac is a picture of the daeth of the Messiah, but of course since he isn't the Messiah god substitutes a ram in his place so that he is there as a picture and Abraham is spared the tragedy of his oloss.   but later in the book of Hebrws we are told that Abraham had come to the conclusion that God would raise him from the dead if he was killed, and that is abraham's own recognition of the menaing of the sacrifice as looking forward to the cross of Christ.

Almost forgot that the symbolim of this site on Mt Moriah continues in the time of King David when it belongs to Ornan the MJJebusite where it is a threshing floor, another interesting symbol in itself.  David buys the site for sacrifice.  Jerusalem is partly built by then, by the Jebusites, a thousand years before Christ.  

And surely Peterson doesn't recknon with any of this orthodoxy.

I wonder if the time will come for him when he gets it.

Later:  Continuing to listen.  Oops, he just said You don't get things you don't deserve.  Woopsie.  But Protestantism says the exafct opposite.  Did he really read the New Testament?

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He's talking about the devil's telling him to turn the stones into bread.  then he goes on to the devil's telling Him to throw himself aoff the temple and says So you want god to rescue you from your stuidity?  No, not happening.  HUm, but of course that's what God always does.  Not that sins can be rightly reducced to stupidity in most cases but in a way it's fair to call them that.    I've been rescued from ots of stupidity.  And go read Psalm one hundred and seven for an example of how god rescues us from all manner ot stuff we get ourselves into.

True we shouldn't pray for these things but not for the reasons he's giving.    And then he goes on mentioning his interpretation of how we see through a glass darkly as if it's just a matter of our own personal clouded vision rather than a condition of the fallen world and our fallen condition, because it goes on to say we will "then " see "face to face."  We can't see God knnow but we'l;ll see Him "then."

People give Peterson a lot of slack becaue he's so smart and says such sophisticated ethical things.  But he makes a mangled mess of the scriptures and should b ecalled out on it because he's bound to influence people to the wrong way of understanding the Bible.

NNow on to What is prayer and he says thinking is secularized prayer.  Thinking opens you up to revelation.  Prayer gets you revelation.  gut nowhere in that does he mention that we pray TO somebody.  The world means to request basiclaly.  I ask God for something.  I may ask Himt o give me revleation, that's a good thinkg to ask Him for, but I'm asking HIM, I'm not just thinking to myself.  peterson does make a good point that we do just seem to get thoughts coming into our heads that answer a dilemma we're having and what is thta but revelation as he thinks of it.  It's an interesting observation but it's not prayer.

Could go on and on and on.  Jordan, stop thinking.  "Lean not unto your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge HIm and He will direct your paths."  Sto ptring to understand things, address yoruself to Him, yes, as if He is there, as if He hears you , as if He has the answers you need and they may not be the same as the ones that come to you as revelations as you think of them.  try it sometime.

Funny how God is sort of real and sort of not real to Peterson at the same time.    What if at some point he suddenly realizes tht He is really really really real.  What then.  What if it suddenly hits him that God hears his every thought, that God sees him, that God knows him.  What then.  He warns against treting God as a butler to give us what we want but in a way that's how he is treating Him.  He's not quite personal to him, not quite a Person.  I would hope if it ever hits him that God is indeed a Person that at that point he'll be afraid to think any more of his thoughts about the bible, what the Bible raelly means and all that, cuz he's awful;ly kj wrong about tall that.

Matt Walsh Again

 Last night he was talking about a website he had found where parents vented hatred for their children, and he had some advice for them about pretending to be in charge because the kids don't respect them when they are wishywashny and a fe other ideas he had.  I thought some of his thinking was more or less in the right ballpartk but that he was overall too hard on the parents who just seem to bme to have no way to deal with parenting since they'd never been taught anything useful about it.  reminded me of the parents in the Supernanny episodes who start out in mayhem and chaos until Supernanny gives them effective methods for turning things around.  Without being too hard on the parents, although there are some cases where the parents need her to be hard and she is.    So I was thinking Walsh might benefit from watching a few Supernany episodes.  I tdont' think everything she does is great, but then nobody is perfect, and a lot of what esje teaches is very useful if the parents can learn to be consistent and stick to the script.  I think Walsh himself could find some of her advice beneficial since he seems to be sucking up a lot of frustration of his own.  Doing OK with it but probably bettr if he had some her methods for organizing things better.  

Hyst a tJust a thought.

Dawkins, evlutin and God

 How to answer  someone like Richard Dawkins who is so absolutely certain tht evolution is a fact and religion is false.  I say evolution is not a fact, it's full of holes scientifically , and I say that Christianity is absolutely THE truth that everyone should know whether they believe it or not because it's the only hope for their immortal souls after death.   

What does he mean by saying evolution is fact?  What proves it?  The fossil record?  Oh dear, as i said below that is a joke, quite silly when you think through the physical properties of the strata in qhich the fossils are embedded.  Radiometric dating?  Well, if true it would prove an ancient earth which really isn't proof of evolution as such, and i am not able to prove it wrong but I believe there are scientiest who can show that it is unreliable and shouldn't be trusted as it is anyway.

But I think he may just mean to appropriate some things tht are facts, the obvious variations in living things from generation to generation for instance, but that's not evolution at all.  They nevertheless say it is.  It's merelyu variation built into the genome of a given species.  That species can vary in many ways, but that's not the same thing as changing from that species into another species, which I've argued in my own way is genetically impossible.  Genes have two forms which is what allows their expression in the animal to vary as they can be sexually combined in many different ways, especially if there are many genes that govern a particular single trait as I think is the case.  But that's not evolution, that's just built in variation and it can happen only within the genome, it can't go beyond the genome.

I thihnk that is all he means.  It's what Darwin thought after all.  He could get some dramatic variations on the pigeons he bred and the fact he made use of in formulating evolution by natural selection, transferring the selective power from the human decion to circumstances in nature.  But even his own experiments came to an end, would reach a point beyond which they couldn't vary further.  Surely he noticed that fact.  Surely.  You can get pigeons with a great range of differences between them but you can't get anything that even remotely begins to look like something other than a pigeon.  Same with the finches he stsudied, their great variety of beak sizes and shapes, each suited to the gathering of a particular kind of food which became the identifying characteristic of a finch with a particular beak type.  Lots of different beaks, but nothing ever even remotely suggestive of anything other than a finch.  Not remotely.  Same body plan, as I argue elsewhere.

But he goes on believing these things and imposing them on all of us and doesn't want to take seriously objections made by creationists.    And on the other hand he doesn't want religionists to impose their beliefs on anyone because we can't given him satisfactory evidence for what we believe.  

what what what what what

I'It's so not a fact and yet they've got themselves convinced.

As for proving the realiy of god to someone like Dawkins, I hiknk i's probably imjpossible.  God Himself would have to prove Himself to him, as He does with all of us, there really isn't much anyoof us can say or sdo to make the case otherwise.  Wdee can try of course.  I can only go to the bible in the end because that is where god reveals Himself in the clearest way, and that is the purpose of the bible.  It is God's self-revelation to us.   We are fallen, having lost our ability to recognize God , which is a spiritual fuhnction we lost at the Fall, and that abolity beying absent Dawkins can't recognize God hismefl either.  But the Bible ws given to persuade us.  Many read it and still are not persuaded but the evidence is there nevertheless.  

And by the way, no other religion than the religion founded on the bible even makes an effort to prove the reality of God.  they assume god, they don't try to prove His existence.  The Bibble offers the testimony of hundreds and miracles and a coherent story line, a coherent plan of redemption, it all hangs together, it's all there.  

Probably tyhe best I can do.

One thing I like about the bible as evidence is that it knows us so well.  "The fool hasth said in his heart, There is no God."  Yup, that's what the fool says in his heart all right.  And it knows that it is hard for us to believe.  "Lord, I believe, help mine unbelief."  And it knows that a lot of us "stand in the path of sinners": an "six in the seat of the scoffers"  and even glory in our sins.  And how about the second half of the Ten Commandments where we are commanded not to mistreat our neightbor.  love thy neighbor as thyself.  Well that turns out to mean in the simplest terms what the second hafl of the ten commandments tell isus not to do:  don't murder or harm your neighbor, don't lie to your neighbor, don't steal from your neighbor, don't commit adultery with your neighbor or his spouse, don't covet his property.   We can all recognize those violations against our neighbor.  And right now they are particular rampantly violated in the world or so it seems.

Then there is The fear of God is the beginning of widsdom.  And maybe that's a more fruitful place to start if you want to try to prove the existence of God.  beause it is possible to noti ce, ans the proverbs tells us to notice, that there are consequen es for our sins that come in the form of events that nobody in particular could orchestrate, so have to gcoe from od.  And that is a sort of proof of god.If we fear God we will avoid doing the things that would call down his wrath on us.  that's wisdom.Proves there is something in the unicverse that acts.

Olympics Woke Craziness

 I hadn't watched the Olympics for decades and wasn't expcting to watch the event in Paris either, especially after hearing about the blasphemous opening ceremonies, the mockeriy of the Last Supper painting by Da Vinci.  But then some of the performances started showing up on my You tube page and that got me into some of it, mostly the women's gynmanastics but also some ice saing and diving and very brief loks at a few others.  Of course gymnastics is still very popular, ever since Nadia Comaneche's Perfect Ten score back in nineteen seventy six, and it's my favorite too.  Today's heroine is Simone Biles and she's certainly impressive, extremely strong and does some awfully difficult moves, a lot more difficult than Comaneche did back wehn.  

She won a ton of medals, motly gold, and I tghought it was ver nice when she and a teammate took silver and bronze and decided to bow down to the Brazilian girl to got the gold.  I just thought it was a nice gesture, very sportsmanlike.  Of course Biles has so many medals such a gesture doesn't cost her anything, as it would if she were still strugglineg for her first or second, but still I thiought it was nice.  

Then Llast night I heard some of Matt Walsh's program on the radio and he has very diferent take on it.  I think he is wrong but I can't know for sure.  Because there is a controversy about the transgeneder stuff at the Olympics he sasw it in that same light, I'm referring to the incident where a biolgoically male transgender female hit a biolgoical woman and it was of course too threateneing because men are stronger than women but these days such simple realities are ignored.  I was watching the Olympics in spite of all that, figuring that most of the atheletes are innocent of what the powers that be are doing to destroy reality.Anway

Anyway, Walsh knew that Jordan Childs, the bronze medal winner on the US team was not originally in line for a medal, but then their coach put in a complaint with th judges because there was a question about how part of her performance had been scored and he thought it should be a higher score.  Everntually the judges agreed and moved Childs up into the thred place to get the bronze medal.  of course that was a great disappointment ot the Rumanian girl who had believed she had that medal up until tht point, a badly timed decision.  But I had no reason to think it was anything but a fair correction of an error they had made in scoring Jordan Childs' perofmrance.  I still have no treason to think otherwise.

Somehow Walsh got the idea that the upgrade in Childs' score was something like affirmative action, that she hadn't earned it.  I don't know how he got that idea.  She is black, as is Biles and so is the Brazilian girl who won the gold, and he thought there was some big deal being made about there being three black girls on the winers' podium.  I had heard it mentioned but I ddint' hear any big deal being wmade of it, and I can't imagine how on earth anyone could think a gynmnast's score would have been upgraded for anything but legitimate

 reasons, that she deserved the upgrade and her erlier scorre was the injustice.    

I can't see what I'm typing and this page soedoesn't look right now but I have to keep going because I have no idea what I would need to do to set it right if it is wrong somehow  Oh well.

Anywya Walsh just has to be wrong about why Jordan's score was changed.  To strange to think it was because ehshe's black.  

And then there was what I thought was a nice gesture as the two American medalists bowed down to the brazilian girl.  Biles said only that it was to recognize her achievement because "they work just as hard as we do."  And I have no reason to think anything other than that.  But Walsh seems to think the gesture had to do with the racial situation somehow.  I guess because the Brazialian girl is also black and if she had been white they wouldn't have made that gesture.  Well, I don't know but my guess is they might well have, I don't see why they wouldn't have if the whole point was just to demonstrate sportsmanship in a hard won battle for the gigols.  

Oh well.  there's weenough of this woke craziness going on without adding to it where it's not warranted.    

But maybe he's right.  I doubtg it, but if h e is I sup[ose I'll eventualy find out.

Dawkins blindness to godand Piers Morgan

 Richard Dawkins interviewed by Piers Morgan says nobody knows what existed at the very beginning but that it's rong to postulate a god to explain it.  But we don't postulate god, who says we postulate God?  Only Dawkins and other atheists I suppose.  The God of Christianity, and Judaism, reveals Himself in the Bible which is the history of His doings on this planet and in relation to His favorite creation, us.  Ham beings.  Nobody is merely postulateing God.  We are convinced of the reality of God as He has revealed Himself to us in His Word and it holds together very well so we keep[ confirming His reality the more we read it and understand it.  Dawkins has no clue to any of thta.  And even if you are talkinga bout the other gods known to humanity none of them was postulated, they were experienced.  Nobody merely postulates gods.  Or angels or demons.  There is alays some kind of evidence, some of it erhaps rather questionable bvut  nevertrheless it's evidence.  Novodsy merely poyustulates these things.  

So Dawkins claims we have no evidence.  Axctgually we have a lot of evidence, he just doesn't klike our evidence, it doesn't convince him.  Nevertheless there is a lot of it in tghe history of humanity as described int the Bible.  If you let your own unbelief reject it all as some kind of fiction then of course it becomes useless for evidence, but if you take it at its word, on its own terms, then there's a ton of evidenece in it.  

And as I keep saying here, Dawkins can't appreciate evidence of this sort.  He's like doubting Thomsas you hwas to see it to believe it.  Jesus chidend Thomsas for his rejectionjof what he'd been told by his ffriends about the reality of Christ's having bee raised from the dead, and so we can chide Dawkins but of course he will go on believing in his own unblibef because he needs a kind of evidencde tthat is simply tnot avilable for the kinds of things he wants eivdnece for.  You have to trust the testimony of others abut of course those others are just stupid in his eyeseveryone int eh Bible itself and all the millions of us who believe it, all stupid.  

I couldn't believe either, until I was in my mid forties.  Then I just believed what I was reading in books written by Christians.  They were convfincing.  But I was also having supernatural experiences \, of a demonic sort as I came to understand later, but supernatural for sure and that has its own compelling power.  

Now I think it wvery strange tht people don't recognize God in a million ways in nature and reality, but I myself didn't recognize Him so I know it doesn't happen even if it should.  I also think it's obvious that evolution can't possibly have happened, simply by contemplating the nature of living things, without even bothering with any of the arguments I spent so much time thinking out, but again apparently it's easy for all of us to ignore tall that too.

I don't like how Piers Morgan deals with the quetion either thought, or how he deals with Dawkins.  He's not the right person to bge interviewing him, he makes it all more confusing and actually rather unpleasant than it needs to be.  And he seems to be relying mostly on some sort of reasoning instead of on revelation.  Well hisr source is Catholicisim I gather and he really dones't know what he belives just that there is  God and there is an eternity we're all going to live in and it's all bliss or something like that.  Based on nothing.  In this case I'm with Dawkins, where's the evidence for any of that?    Piers isn't saved, judging by what he's saying, so if anyone is boing to be surprised upon death it's going to be Piers, and not happily surprised.  Now I have to pray for him too not just dawkins.  

More Peterson, Bible mangling, Evolution Noah, Flood etc.

 pETERSON IS GIVING A VERYNICE ADRESS TO THE GRADUATING CALSS AT hILLSDALE COLLEGE AND IT IS VERY GOOD i THINK, FOCUSING THE STUDENTS ON HOW TO THINK ABOUT WHERE THEY GO FROM HERE AND CRITERIA FOR DECIDING HOW THEY WANT TO CONDUCT THEIR LIVES AND SO ON.  aND IN THE PROCESS HE REFERS TO SOME OF HIS PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF THE bIEL WHICH OF COURSE MAKE ME CRINGE ALOTHOUGH THE POINT HE'S MAKING IS NEVERTHLEELESSS A GOOD ONE S FAR AS MOTIVATING THE GRADUATES GOES.

tHE fLOOD CAN'T BE REAL TO HIM OF COURSE BUT HIS WAY OF PSYCHOLOGIZING IT KEEPS ESCAPING ME TO SUCH AN EXTENT i CAN'T EVEN KEEP IT IN MIND.  wHAT?  wHAT?   i CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER IT NOW BUT IF i COULD i WOULDN'T KNOW WHAT IT MEANT.  i GUESS THAT'S BECAUSE THE fLOOD IS REAL TO ME, A REAL PHYSICAL CATACLYSM THAT HAPPENED TO THE WHOLE PLANET SOME FORTY FIVE HUNDRED YEARS AGO OR SO.  i JUST CAN'T PSYCHOLOGIZIE IT.  i LOOK AROUND AT THE PHYSICAL WORLD AND THINK i SEE THE PHYSICAL EFFECTS OF THAT fLOOD IN ITS TUMBLEDOWN WRECKED APPEARAND WHEREVER THE BARE GEOLOGIY OF IT IS APPARENT, WHERE THERE ISN'T A LOT OF BEAUTIFUL GREEN FOLIAGE TO CAMOUFLAGE IT.  aND OF COURSE THE STRATA, THE LAYERS OF SEDIMENTARY ROCK CALLED THE gEOLOGICAL cOLUMN, THAT IS SO PATENTLY not WHAT SCIENCE CALLS IT, IF YOU GIVE IT SOME THOUGHT YOU'LL HAVE TO SEE THAT, REALLY GIVE IT SOME THOUGHT, AND SO MUCH MORE PLAUSIBLY THE RESULT OF A WORLDWIDE FLOOD  i CAN'T PULL IT DOWN TO THE CONEXT OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY.

tHEN, AND THIS IS KIND OF A SIDE NOTE HERE THAT'S NOT CENTRAL TO THE POINT, HE QUOTES THE PHRASE THAT SAYS nOAH WAS PERFECT IN HIS GENERATIONS AND GOES ON TO GIVE THAT A PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION ABOUT WHICH HE SOUNDS ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN.  i CAN'T IMAGINE WHERE THAT CERTAINTY COMES FROM.  pERFECT IN HIS GENERATIONS ISN'T EXACTLY A COMMON WAY OF DESCRIBING ANYTHING THAT i KNOW OF.  i PUZZLED OVER IT FOR A LONG TIME, AND i DON'T KNOW HOW pETERSON THINKS HE KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS AND RATTLES IT OFF IN SUCH A GLIB WAY.  i FINALLY DECIDED ITHAT IT MUST REFER TO THE EVENT EARLIER IN cHAPTER sIX WHEN THE "sONS OF gOD WHO ARE THE FALLEN ANGLES, TAKE THE DAUGHTERS OF MEN TO BE WIVES AND EGET GIANTS WHICH WE KNOW S KNOW AS THE nEPHILIM.  tHOSE WERE LITERAL GENERATIONS THAT WERE DANGEROUS BECAUSE ANGELS CAN'T BE REDEEMED SO THE HYBRID OFFSPLRING CAN'T BE REDEEMED AND IF THE MIXING OF THE TWO CONTINUED EVENTUALLY THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE WOULD BE CONTAMINATED AND COULDN'T BE REDEEMED.  sO ALTHOUGH THIS could BE WRONG i THINK IT'S PROBABLY RIGHT, THAT nOAH'S BEING PERFECT IN HIS GENERATIONS MEANS THAT HIS GENETIC LINE WAS NOT CONTAMINATED BY THE GENETIC INHERITANCE FROM THE FALLEN ANGELS AND REMAINED HUMAN AND THEREFORE REDEEMABLE.  sINCE THE GIANTS SHOW UP AFTER THE fLOOD SOME HAVE SUGGESTED THAT ONE OF THE WIVES OF ONE OF nOAH'S SONS DID CARRY THAT CONTAMINATED SEED, WHICH MAY BE TRUTH.. TRUE.  bUT nOAH'S BEING PERFECT IN HIS GENERATIONS PROBABLY MEANS THAT HE HIMSEOLF AND HIS OTHER FAMILY  WERE NOT CONTAMINATED AND COULD BECOME THE PROGENITORS OF A TRUE HUMAN RACE. THAT COULD BE SAVED BY THE mESSIAH WHO WAS EVEN WAY BACK THEN BELIEVED TO BE COMING.

iT'S HARD FOR A HUMAN BEING BORN INTO THIS FALLEN WORLD TO BELIEVE IN gOD.   aS SCRIPTURE SAYS THE FLESH IS ENMITY WITH gOD, THAT'S WHY WE MUST BE BORN AGAIN SO GIVE US THE PSIRT THAT CAN KNOW AND LOVE gOD.  THE FLESH MUST HATE IM AND REJECT hIM BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY FOR FLESH TO APPREHEND hIM AND THE FLESH IS ATTRACTED TO SIN WHICH IS AT ODDS WITH gOD TO BEGIN WITH.  sO ALTHOUGH pETERSON IS ATTRACTED TO THE BIBLE HE'S ATTRACTED TO ITS MORAL IMPLICATIONS OR PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS TO HUMANITY AS HE'S ABLE TO MANAGE TO MISINTERPRET IT TO BE SAYING, BECAUSE HE CAN'T DETECT gOD SO gOD CAN'T EXIST AN THAT IS THAT.  aND CERTAINLY THE fLOOD Can't have happened in reality, nor the miracles and so on and so forth.  They must all be reinterpreted and psychologized.  And it says something that the world word pscyhne means or is translated soul in the Bible, not spirit, although there are some teachers who try to make the spirit the funciton of the soul and they are able to make some sense using that idea although I think it's wrong so I'd just say I think that thoelogy best comes from the recognizition that we are tripartitgite, body sould and spirit in three separate components.  

I do think there are plenty of clues that the Bible is referring to a real God and real Flood and real miracles and all that but it is nevertheless true in the end that you can't reallyget it unless you are born again.  I also think all it should take even if you are merely a fallen creature to realize that the science of the fossil record is laubhable is just actually think about what it's based on.  Just look tat the layers of rock stacked unup in the Grand Canoy where you can see them to quite a depth and think about the claim that each represents millionso f years of time and pursue the physical properties of those tstrata until you graps that it's simply imposisble and then you'd have to see that a wrold wide Flood is really a reasonable way to explain them and time period s are NOT a reasonanlr way to explain them.

I do like Peterson's message, and I think in my own way I'm trying to live something like what he is recomiending out in the way I write my posts.  I 'd like my posts to help him recognize the truth and give up his certainty that there is no God in the sense that the bibvle says there is.  That god must be some kind of psychological construct.  Give it up.  It's false.

aND nOW A mUSING aBOUT bEN sHAPIRO

 aND NOW i HAVE A COMPLAINT TO MAKE ABOUT bEN sHAPIRO.  aLL THESE PEOPLE i'M WRITING ABOUT RECENTLY ARE PEOPLE i LIKE, THAT i AGREE WITH ON MANY THINGS AND LIKE TO LISTEN TO, AND THAT INCLUDES bEN cHAPRIRO.  bUT HE REALLY PUSHED MY BUTTONS WITH SOMETHING HE SAID ABOUT cHRISTIANITY.

hE'S HAD A COUPLE OF INTERVIEWS WITH jOHN mACaRTHUR AND IF HE COULDN'T PERSUADE HIM TO cHRIST i CERTAIN LY DON'T EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT, BUT HE ISN'T JUST A NONBELIEVER IN cHRIST HE'S GOT A PRETTY OFFENSIVE IDEA ABOUT hIMJ THAT i DIDN'T KNOW HE HAD.  hE MENTIONS FROM TIME TO TIME THAT HE'S READ THE nEW tESTAMETN SO HE KNOWS THE GOSPELS AND THE BASICS OF cHRISTIANITY, AND IT WOULDN'T BE HARD TO UNDERSTAND IF HE NEVERTHELESS DOESN'T BELIEVE IT ALL BECAUSE THERE ARE MANY PEOP[LE WHO KNOW OF IT AND DON'T BELIEVE IT.  bUT WHEN ASKED WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT IT HE SAID HE BELIEVES WHAT MANY jEWS BELIEVE, WHICH IS THAT jESUS WAS A jEW WHO LED A REVOLT AGAINST THE rOMAN EMPIRE AND GOT CRUCIFIED FOR hIS TROUBLE.  

nOW that IS OFFENSIVE.  fIRST BECAUSE IT IS THE COMPLETE CONTRADICTION OF THWHAT THE nEW TESTAMENT ACTUALLY PRESENTS ABOUT cHRIST, IT TURNS IT ALL UPSIDE DOWN AND BACKWARDS.  jESUS SAID hIS KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD AND hE WAS ALWAYS DEFLECTING THE DISCIPLE'S EXPECTATIONS OF hIS BEING THE mESSIAH THEY EXPECTED TO RESTORE iSRAEL OUT FROM UNDER THE DOMINATION OF rOME.  yOU HAVE TO DENY EVERYTHING YOU KNOW cHRISTIANS BELIEVE TO HAVE SUCH AN IDEA ABOUT JESUS AS sHAPIRO HAS.  i DON'T KNOW HOW HE ALLOWS HIMSELF TO THINK SUCH A THING.  hOW COULD HE MAKE SENSE OF WHAT THE nEW TESTAMENT ACTUALLY SAYS.  dOES HE THINK A FEW FISHERMEN AND AN EXpHARISEE COULD HAVE MADE IT ALL UP?  REALLY?  really?

hE SAYS THE jESWS WERE EXPECTING A DIFFERENT mESSIAH THAN THE ONE jESUS PRESENT HIMSEDLF TO BE, AND THAT'S CERTAINLY TRUE.  tHE DISCIPLES OF cHRIST THEMSELVE ES HAS D A DIFFERENT mESSIAH IN MIND.   THOUGH IT'S NOT REALLY CLEAR WHY SINCE THE oLD tESTAMENT IS PRETTY CLEAR THAT THE mESSIAH WAS TO BE gOD hiMSELF, "gOD WITH US" gOD TABERNACLING AMONG US.  hE WAS TO BE CALLED "wONDERFUL, cOUNCILLOR, aLMOIGHTY gOD, eVERLASTING fATHER, pRINCE OF pEOACE.    HAT'S RIGHT THERE IN THE oLD tESTEMTNA.  sOMETHER IN iSAIAH i THINK.  naND WHEN i SAY IT i HEAR IT SUNG TO THE MUSIC hANDEL WROTE FOR IT.  "sAY UNTO THE CITIES OF jUDA bEHOLD YOUR gOD"    hE CLAIMED TO BE goD.  THAT'S WHAT THE mESSIAH WAS SUPPOSED TO DO.  HE WAS TO BE gOD.  wHY DIDN'T THEY KNOW THAT?  wHY DOESN'T sHAPIRO KNOW THAT?

aNYWAYU.