Sam Harris, Another One Who Makes It All Up

Oh good grief. I just heard a Glenn Loury show with Sam Harris and at the very end they got into the question of God and religion and Harris, being a famous anti-religionist, gave his remarkably ignorant take on the subject. I don't think I've heard him before, but from what I know of his reputation I would have expected something more knowledgeable from him.

He starts off objecting to religions of a personal God which he seems to think are multiple although the only one I know of is Christianity. Muslims don't have a personal relationship with Allah. Harris speaks of "books" that represent the religions, that claim to be the word of the Creator God, and that claim to be the truth, condemning believers in other religions to Hell. Huhn? I don't think the books of Buddhism or Hinduism or Lao Tse or Confucius could be described in such terms at all. What books is he talking about? Buddhism doesn't even believe in God, and the God of Hinduism is distant and not personal. They have millions of little gods but I don't think any of them are personal either. So what is he talking about? Obviously he's just making it all up, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

He says "we know too much" about how we got these bos to believe the claims of inerrancy. What he's doing is projecting Christian doctrine onto all the other religions. Only Christianity claims its book, the Bible, is the Word of God and is inerrant. Kind of after the fact Islam bestows that concept on the Koran too but it's not intrinsic to the Koran as the divine claim is to the Bible. Also the idea tof a personal relationship with God is Chan and doesn't exist in other religions. Judaism would come closest and they are a gion of the Bible after all, but although ey should have a personal relationship with God it doesn't seem to be the same thing as it is for Christians.

As for sneding people to Hell who foloow other religions he must also be taking that from Cht it's a distorted idea in any caseCteaches that the whole human race is fallen, which means sinners, which means i of God's Law, and that's what sends people to Hell. It has nothing to do with their religion.

My conputer is acting up. I have to stop.

Sometimes Success is Failure and Faiure Success

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By the way, 121 is too a prime number. LATeR: Oops, no, you're right. 11 x 11. Didn't obsess far enough. . Now I've got to rethink that earlier post and I'm too tired. Sigh. *************************************************************

Only this morning I was recounting the failures of my life to God, a long list of them, failures and gaffes and ugly behavior and the like, telling Him there's no point in someone like me continuing to go on living. What good am I doing anyone? Shouldn't You just take me Lord? I never expected to live this long, age eighty this month. Wow, that's crazy, especially as I survey the monumental uselessness of this life. I was amazed to reach age sixty, but eighty is utterly inexplicable.

A few hours later I was listening to some Christian videos. I'd discovered that C. S. Lews' books are online as audio books, or some of them anyuway. I listened to a few chapters of "Mere Christianity" as well as "The Abolition of Man." I'd read them originally over thirty years ago when I was still in the kindergarten as a Christian. I've outgrown them both and yet I can appreciate their appeal still. Not enough to want to finish listening at the moment. Restless to find something truly inspiring. Notices that Tozer's "Pursuit of God' is also available as an audio book at You Tube, one of my all time favoriteite books, and this time as I listened it did not diminish as something I'd outgrown but ifrather overwhelemeed me with its importance and relevance .

My useless failure of a life took on a new meaning. I saw God in it, stripping away all occasionans of pride and ambition, occasions of self-satisfaction turned into bhumiliation, the pursuit of worldly or even sinful desires become blighted reputation. Loss of friendships, loss of reputation, loss even of physical property on more than one occasion. All these things I now suddenly saw as blessings of god to separate me from the world and self. Here I was complaining about these things as marks of a failed life, showing that they hadn't succeeded in killing worliness or self, but suddenly I wanted them toMe: and "die to yourself." y wordliness to die, my selfcenteredness to die. "Take up your cross and follow Me" "Die to yourself." THAT is the recipe for the kind of life that GOD wants of us, THAT's the succesful life in reality. It's not as if I haven't been here before. Many times as a matter of fact, but I'd slid away again and Tozer's book hit me like a revel I'm a slow learner.

I was feeling hopelessto do anything about the se world for starters. I could post many links on the political situation. I wanted to die... OR be given something truly useful to do. Since hearing Tozer's book again I realize I needke a break and see if I can learngdie to myself for real and draw nearer to god. Finally. And then if ng useful for me to do it will come out of that renewed life.

Another Deception from the Fertile Minds of OUr Demonic Deceivers: "Negative Spirits"

Heard Coast-to-Coast radio again last night. Sigh. Sometimnes I think they must be trying answer my blogs about them. Guess that's qa pretty megalomaniacal thought but it's interesting how the topics they air lately seem related. Anyway, last night's guest was someone who works with demons ahnd "netive spirits" to help people protect themselves from them.

He believes that negative spirits abount "out there" in the universe and that they are the souls of dead human beings. He thinks demons are not so numerous. Asked if he thinks demons are fallen angels he said yes but he doesn't seem to have much of an idea what a fallen angel is. It's the usual situation we're in these days in which few understand that this is a fallen world, that we are fallen human beings, and that fallenness is the condition of being a sinner againt the Creator God and His Moral Law.

A third of all the angels fell when Satan rebelled against God, taking that many of the angels with him. that many angelss are thought to amount to billions. I don't know how it is calculated but that's the idea I usually hear. That's not the few the radio show guest has in mind. Surely what he is calling negative spirits that are really dead human beings are also demons, up to their usual masquerate as human beings. Sometimes they haunt houses, sometimes they show up in seances etc. AThis radio show guest believes they are human beings who exert a lot of "negative energy" or anger, against living people and he considers it his job to help people get free of their influence.
He says he believe in God, as so many do who certainly do not have the God of the Bible in mind bu5t rather a god of their own imagination. He says it helps people to protect themselves from these neatie spirits and from the demons to have a religion and use the energy of their rightoues teacherrs to help protect them or something like that. So much for the all-powerful Jesus Christ who alone has power over the demons.
A biblical view of what happens to people when they die does not have them roaming freelly around the universwe or hanging out in houses or cemeteries or whatnot, or coming back to communicate with loved ones they preceded into death. If the story Jesus told of the rich man and the poor man Lazarus can be taken as a model, there are two places people go after death, to Hell or to Paradise, in that teaching known as "Abraham's bosom" for the Jewish poor man Lazarus. The rich man is depicted as suffering the flames of Hell. The one exception in scripture is the appareance of the prophet Samuel to King Saul which Saul had request of the Witch of Endor. The real Samuel appeared to Saul in that case to rebuke him for calling him from his rest. THAT WAS A SPECIAL EVENT ORDAINED by God, not to be taken as typical. What mediums normally cal up is demonic impersonaltions.

So this man who claims to be psychic and deals with demonic spirits though he thinks mostg of them are departed human beins, is deceived about this spirit world he is dabbling in as they all are. A man called into the show though who claimed to be a Christian and praised the man as having his psychic gift from the Holy Spirit to serve humanity, an astonishing claim. How on earth did he maintain such an idea in the context of a church which he said he belonged to? Was the church totally apostate or was he a rebel against its teachings, in which case they should have excommunicated him. You can't have the Holy Spirit unless you are a born again believer in Jesus Christ.
T

A Post About C.S. Lewis

Hre's one of those posts where I mainly want to preserve something I enjoyed and hope anyone reading it also enjoys it. this is a play about the life of C.S. Lewis ("Mere Christianity" and Narnia books among others). I'm not a fan of rht eacting style but I always enjoy Lewis' story and this covers the main events. The last half is about hi brief marriage to Joy Gresham which is very romantic and very touching.

I think I read all of lewis' books during my reading binge about religion which finally led me to Christ, and Lewis was a big part of what turned me to Protestantism. I'm really not a fan of his children's books but Mere Christianity and The Abolition of Man are I think my favorites. How he became a Christian is an interesting part of his life story and this play touches on it:


then I watched an interview with his stepson, Douglas Gresham, about whom I had known nothing until then, and what's particularly interesting to me about it is that When his mother Joy was diagnosed with bone cancer and given a few mweeks to a month to life, Douglas who was ten went and prayed for her to be healed, telling God that he couldn't live with out her. And that day she went into remission which gave them all some happy years. He was ten at the time.


tgeb U found the movie "Shadowlands" about Lewis' life with Joy and I've watching it. But I'm disappointed in it. The character of Joy doesn't come across as the vibrant witty genius Joy Gresham was in reality, which does come across more in other accounts of their life together. By the time they fall in love I don't see that much ground for it has been established. In life she was a tr4ue genius who had written poetry and books herself, someone Lewis later described as his intellectual equal in a way he hadn't found in any of his men friends. In the movie she comes ac5ross as ordinary and a bit forlorn, at least in the first pat of it. I'm hoping for better to come from the point of his marrying her during her hospitalization and the cancer's going into remission. the movie has also left out the boy's praying for her which is no doubt the reason for the remission. I love the actors, Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger, but although Douglas Gresham recommended it I'm not happy with the movie yet. Nevertheless here's the link:


Well, I finished it and it didn't get any better. She spends most of her time in the movie sick. What about those almost four years of remission we'e heard about in which they had a passionate happy marriage. What about the endless wit at the dinner table they exchanged wsith each other according to her son> What about their happy trip to Greece just beffore she died, when she behaved "impishly" in the restaurant, flicking pieces of bread at the members of the very bad Greek band. No no no. This movie is not what their lives as they've been recounted elsewhere would lead us to respect. Not this unrelieved sadness. No no no.

More on Delusions About the Afterlife and Other Things Occultic and Paranormal

If I hadn't become a Christian I suppose I'd be in the same position these people who get deep into the paranormal and the occult. If I'd had similar experiences anyway, otherwise I'd just have remained an atheist assumjing death is just a lights-out and all the other supernatural claims aren't to be b4eleived. But they've had experiences that congince them of life after death and supernatural events and whatnot. All entirely without AGod or any religious implications at all.
At least not the God of the Bible, mayube a sort of generic God. It distresses me to hear people carry on about their experiences that have proved to them there is an afterlife, of course a happy afterlife, or that they are in communication with loved ones who have died and so on. I want to warn them, I want to make them look at the Bible and realize it's not just another metaphysical text but the actual word of the God who made them, but even finding quotes from the Bible has become almost impossible for me these days. and they'd dismiss it anyway, or most of them would.

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There certainly is an afterlife. We' re immortal souls. Once conceived we live forever in one state or another. And there are only two states, 4either in Hell or in Heaven. And the only way we can get to heaven is through the death and resurrection of Jedsus Christ. That's it. That's all. But that had to be revealed, there is no way fallen humanity would ever come to such a view of things. All that is possible to fallen humanity is impressions from our broken spirikt that was broken at the Fall, and the exertions of demons in their neverneding plots to dec4eive us and lead us away from the truth. they can fabricate lovely visions and otherworldl.yl places, all sorts of strange machinery that they make us bvelieve come from other planets or galaxies or maybe other dimensions to "help" us or the like. theyh impersonate people who have diedand show up in seances to reassure their families that they are in a good place, or they haunt houses or whatever.


Gosh what a downer al these realities are though. tHEY'D MUCH RATHER HAVE THEIR PRETTY IDEAS, THEY WANT TO BE ENCOURAGED THAT THEY WIKLL HAVE A HAPPY AFTERLIFE, THAT THEIR LOVED ONES WHO DIED BEOFRE THEM ARE HAPPY WHERE THEY ARE AND SO ON. iT SEEMS ALMOST CRUEL TO TRY TO DISSUADE THEM FROM SUCH IDEAS. lET THEM BE HAPPY, THEY'LL BE UNHAPPY ENOUGH EVRDNTUALLY.

bUT TBut that doesn't give them a cvhance to find the true happiness of eternal life in Christ. They may reject it but shouldn't they begiven the chance? Would they really prefer the primrose path the demons concoct for them if they had any idea that it's all a deception that is only going to lead them to a miserable eternity?

It's all "doctrines of demons,

Well, what the world's general descent into evil of all sorts these days, the insanities and absurdities we're being told are realities, such as that a biological male is really a female if he so wills it and tht sort of thing , it's all piling up around us and a massive increase in occultic and paranormal interest is just another trend toward total breakdown of all the structures of life we depend on. Surely this must mean that Jesus is coming back soon. I hope. But I suppose it's going to have to get worse before that.

Prayers Against a Radical Leftist Getting a Seat on the Supreme Court Are Bearing Fruit So Far

Been praying my heart out that a radical leftist would not be confirmed for the Supreme Court, that the interrogators woujld be focused on her record with determination to expose her lack of qualifications for the job, that they wouldn't be wishy washy but focus like a laser on the issues. Mark Levin on Monday came on strong about the need for the Republicans to fight hard against her and that got me praying. I prayed with the biblical fervor we're told "avails much" and I keep praying in the same vein.

And this morning Dan Bongino is reporting that the hearing isn't going well for her with all kinds of examples. Thank You thank You LORD. He cautiously says it may not change the owhich are expected to be in her favor, but that just means I'm praying harder about that. Let Tthe two Democrats who have been fighting Biden's economic position come through on this one with the same sanity, and let the two or three RINO Senators who to9o often go with the Democrats come through on the sane side this time too. tHAT'S HOW i'M PRAYING.

Don't give in, sane people, and let the frequently insane wake up.

I hope there are thousands, even millions, of us praying along these lines.

Paranormal One Last Time I Hope. ESP and Mental Powers.

OK one more and there isn't a lot to sy agout it. This is the cat4egory of paranormal things that has to do with human mental abilities such as psychic powers, knowing things about somebody or a situation simply through your mind without other evidennce for instanc4e, moving or affecting physical things with yuour mind. There are other powers but those two should get the category across.
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ESP or Extra-Sensory Percep5tion was the topic on last night's cvoast-to-oCoast radio show. Affecting things in the world to suit yourself seemed to be his main interest, or making things happen to suit your desires and wishes by simply thinking about them or wishing for them or something like that.

Of course whatever the mental power he's talking about he isn't thinking of God in relation to it, may not even believe in God, which is the case with most of this p[aranormal and occultic pyhenomena. Near-death experiences tell people there's this happy place they can expect to return to when then die, there's no mention of God involved.

In the case of mental powers the Bible doesn't have anything to say about them that I know of, but the Chinese preacher Watchman Nee wrote a book titled "Soul Power" in which he talked about them as most likely powers the human race had before the Fall, that wree among the first things to die after the Fall. They didn't completely disappear and can sometimes show up in individuals in a distorted form. And although they aren't demonic doings in themsevles there is reason to think the demons who also have such powers can influence them in people, can insinuate their own thoughts into a person's mind for instance. Nee said he himself had a psychic ability that was probably the result of being born again or regenerated or "quickened" as the King James Bible puts it, and at first he thought it was a gift of God, but then realized God didn't want him to hae itso he suppressed it.
These powers are not safe for us to have in a fallen world though they will no doubt be restroed to God'xs own regenerated belivers in the future life.

My perspective is the biblical perspective as well as I can make use of it, or the biblical Worldview. I know the Bible to be the only reliable source of informjation about "the other side" and it doesn't say mucyh about it, just enough to provide evidence of its existence, which is what all these people into the occult and paranormal are so concerned to prove. they won't accept the bible' s testimony, however, they will jusdge the Bible by their own experiences rather than judge their experiences by the Bible which is the rational thing to do. So I present this point of view as far as I understand it and hope it might persuade some away from the p paranormalist's version which is dangerous. There seems to be quite a large interest in these things these days to judge just from this one radio show. It's so big and populare infact it is probabhly best understood as one of the signs that we are very close to the biblical end of days, as so many other phenomena in today's world also indicate.

jesus Christ can save a person from these things. A genuine belief in Him as the Son of God and just calling on His name to deliver a person from some demonic entanglement will deliever you. I was attac ked by a demon twoce in the early days of becoming a Christian and just declaring myself a child of jesus Chrfist ahnd covered with His blood made the demon disappear. S cripture says "those who call upon the LORD will be saved" and that means saved for eterminity but it also means saved from demons. Again, ESP and the like are not always influenced by Demons though they may be, but as Watchman Nee wrote, they are not safe to use in this fallen world. Get saved and look forward to their legitimate restoration in a future life.