God is Only a Theory

Before that... My grandfather died. He was Unitarian/Universalist... while married to my grandmother. I got off work and drove 12n Hours straight to Geogia... and got there about 4 AM. Went to the service for my grandfather later that same day. All of the JW Elders were there with their sour pusses. The looked the part of a death squad,,, and wouldn't hardly associate with the rest of the family.
 
And BTW... I had a mother and father that raised me... that loved God very much. They would be considered pagan in your eyes... but I KNOW they knew YHWH... much better than you do!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Oh... BTW again Don...

I was told after my grandmothers funeral,,, by other family members,,, that my grandmother could be a very unforgiving and vindictive person. So again... how does she fit in your "magic book".

Let me ask you something.

Have you ever sinned??? Because if you have... that disqualifies you from being one of the 144,000, (let alone one of the 1200). So by your own beliefs... you'll be stuck on the "new earth",,, supposedly here with me. Only thing is... I know YHWH too by voice,,, (just as the parents that raised me did), so I won't be on YOUR new earth. That doesn't mean that my parents or myself will rule over you. We will be too busy enjoying the presence of YHWH.

http://www.gotquestions.org/presence-of-God.html

Question: "What does it mean to be in the presence of God?"

Answer: Adam and Eve had intimate fellowship in the presence of God before the fall (Genesis 3:8). Since that time, sin has prevented our ability to be in the physical presence of God (Exodus 33:20). Now only the holy, sinless angels are in the physical presence of God (Luke 1:19). But Christians have the presence of God within us by virtue of His indwelling Holy Spirit (John 14:23; 15:4), and that indwelling presence comes only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are aware of the reality of this presence from our obedience to His Word. “We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praise of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). Note that Peter says that “we are chosen people . . . belonging to God.” If we belong to Him, will He not be present among us? We never lose the reality of God’s presence, no matter how badly we fail; we never sin so much as to lose our salvation; we never sink so far as to banish the Holy Spirit. We can anger God because of our sin, but true believers never lose the presence of the Holy Spirit. While we will never lose the reality of God’s presence, we might lose the “sense” of His presence.

Every child of God invariably goes through this feeling of losing God’s presence from time to time, like a landlord who has left his house and gone away on business for a while. He has not left the house completely empty, for, if he had, he would have taken all his belongings with him. But because he has left all his furniture and belongings in that house, does it not mean that he will return once again? Any believer knows that there are times of spiritual leanness when perhaps the Lord determines to test our faith. Does He not push us through the winnowing flames of affliction that we might be all the more pure (Job 23:10; 1 Peter 1:7)?

But the practical result of being in God’s presence is joy! Many Christians seem gloomy and dejected because they lack this sense of God’s presence. The fellowship is sweet for those who walk with the Lord in obedience and faith. But the sweet fellowship that comes from obedience and trust in the Lord is not a passing feeling. It sustains us, especially during trials, for “the joy of the Lord shall be your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). James, the Lord’s brother, writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2) because trials produce faith and develop perseverance. When we persevere through trials, proving to ourselves and to others that our faith is real, our sense of God’s presence increases, as does our joy.

David speaks of a joy that only the righteous can know (Psalm 16:11)—a joy that is but a foretaste of a far greater and everlasting joy when we see the Lord’s face in the glory to come.
 
So Wrm... there you go.

Another clue to to my life,,, and I have actually heard the voice of THE ONE TRUE GOD. Don may accuse that I heard from some other "not so divine being"... but Don better be careful of who he accuses. I don't care if he accuses me,,, but beyond that... he may bring a judgement he doesn't want.

PM me if you want to know the story Wrm... or look at the "other" thread if you have found it.
 
Oh...

SD,

In contrast to my Theocratical ideologies:

https://www.britannica.com/event/Enlightenment-European-history

At least it's not "wiki" again... but I think it makes the point. Locke was one that influenced the "enlightenment' movement... and it has been resurrected since the 60's,,, and has been part of "higher education" facilities such as Gutzman went to.

Darn it... I'll find that Jefferson letter yet. He believed in God more than people realized... and acknowledged Jesus for His suffering and what HE did for us. Jefferson definitely appears as more than a Deist,,, but despised religion.... and it's authorities,,, more so than the government he left.
 
Found it!!!!

While making my last post... I remebered Jefferson calling the priesthood "necromancers", (or something to that respect).

http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-08-02-0181

Hopefully... you can properly translate "Elizabethan" English into modern form.

Another reference:

https://books.google.com/books?id=e...age&q=jefferson mentions necromancers&f=false

To me... this does not sound like a Deist's thinking,,, nor one who wishes to keep God out of government. Rather the opposite.
 
SD,

Sooooo... to finally include my full response:

SD,

If you can't see how the Judicial system of this country, (and how the Supreme Court was set up), was based off the Theocracy of the Old Testament,,, then I don't know what to tell you.

As far as John Locke... the first red flag for me was "natural law".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law

"Natural law is a philosophy that certain rights or values are inherent by virtue of human nature and universally cognizable through human reason. Historically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze both social and personal human nature to deduce binding rules of moral behavior."

- - - - -

Natual Law... says that "man decides",,, rather than "God said" (which is Theocratic Law)... or that God had our better interests in mind,,, despite the plans of man. Locke was a philosopher that studied the Greek pagan ideologies of Plato. Might be a link through a Google search... but for most part "Wiki" is pretty reliable for facts.

Been down this road already a couple years ago,,, but what the heck...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus

all of this is a form of humanism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism

"Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over acceptance of dogma or superstition."

- - - Of which John Locke seemed to ascribe to. So Locke was a Humanist,,, because of his Deistic beliefs,,, and his study of Greek pagan philosophies... which says that man can become as a God himself. If you don't believe this... go back up to the link about Neo-Platonism,,, and go deeper into the study of "the One". If done properly,,, you will find that this has nothing to do with "The One True God"... but in fact is about the attainment of the individual to become as a god,,, similar to other false religions.

Again... I mentioned a book by Karen Armstrong in a previous post... called "A History of God". She is much smater than I am,,, and I had to use a dictionary and the internet (Google) to properly grasp the some of the ideas she was talking about. But in the end,,, I understood that what she mentioned about Greek Platonistic ideas of "the One"... was similar to Bhuddist beliefs about attaining Nirvana,,, which again is another human belief than man can attain his own state of ecstacy... and in a sense,,, become as God.... "all knowing".

Continuing on Locke...

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/

In the above link you will find these:

Locke - - - "is among the most influential political philosophers of the modern period." - - - (his modern period,,, but it seems that his thoughts have perpetuated into our "modern period"... and possibly influenced Gutzman and others.

--- Notice that the article says political "philosopher". Doesn't say anything about how his beliefs, (or lack of), in God... influenced any of his decisions. Kinda describes Gutzman too.

"where people in the state of nature conditionally transfer some of their rights to the government in order to better ensure the stable, comfortable enjoyment of their lives, liberty, and property."

--- This is a secular idea that Locke had,,, based on his non-thoelogical beliefs. Locke was definitely a Deist. Again,,, Deism is the belief that God set everything into motion... and then let man decide his own course,,, and fate.

Under the title in the Link:

1. Natural Law and Natural Rights

"The natural law concept existed long before Locke" (and this came from the pagan philosopher Plato). <<< This part in parentheses,,, is my own additional comment based on lengthy sutdies of how Plato has influenced todays society... both past and present.

"Natural law is also distinct from divine law in that the latter, in the Christian tradition, normally referred to those laws that God had directly revealed through prophets and other inspired writers. Natural law can be discovered by reason alone and applies to all people, while divine law can be discovered only through God's special revelation and applies only to those to whom it is revealed."

--- So natural law is made through man-made philosphies, ("reason alone"),,, and is separate from Divine Law, (the 10 Commandments),,, which is based on Theocratical beliefs.

Continuing...

"As we will see below, even though Locke thought natural law could be known apart from special revelation, he saw no contradiction in God playing a part in the argument, so long as the relevant aspects of God's character could be discovered by reason alone."

--- Reason alone??? Again... this is man made philosophy. I could keep going,,, but I'll skip to the next part of the web-page.


2. State of Nature

"Locke's concept of the state of nature has been interpreted by commentators in a variety of ways. At first glance it seems quite simple. Locke writes “want [lack] of a common judge, with authority, puts all persons in a state of nature” and again, “Men living according to reason, without a common superior on earth, to judge between them, is properly the state of nature.”

--- This defies the existence of the Supreme Court, (which as I said before was based on Theocratical beliefs). The Supreme Court was founded in 1789... which was after Locke's time on this earth,,, but the idea of the Supreme Court seems to fly in the face of what John Locke personally believed.... I.E. "human reason"

I could keep going on about Locke and the above website I used as a reference... but I don't see the point. You will see what what you have come to understand... from what you have been taught by the modern world view.

The rest of the article gets into a deabateable argument about other subjects.


On another link:

http://www.bartleby.com/218/1413.html

Read the whole link,,, but the commentator/historian goes on to say about Locke:

"At the same time, his work belongs to the history of liberal theology, and was intimately connected with the deism which followed; it treats religion like any other subject, and interprets the Bible like any other book; and, in his view of the nature of religion, he tends to describe it as if it consisted almost entirely in an attitude of intellectual belief—a tendency which became more prominent in the course of the eighteenth century."

- - - Locke's wiews were "luke warm" when it came to Christian influences in the founding of this country,,, because he was a Deist. But it does seem that Locke was a Capitalist,,, when Jefferson wasn't.



Contrast this with Jefferson's beliefs:

Insert post # 259 here


So it appears that Jefferson and Locke had disparate beliefs about God,,, and the influence that God should have on the government... and on our individual lives. Lockean Natural Law... was not derived from Chistianity... it was derived from Locke's study of the wrtings of Plato.

In contrast... let's take a look at Divine Law,,, which is in part what a Theocracy is based on... and maybe contrary to what you think,,, is actually what this country was founded on... ,,, ... but in a different way from what the settelers of this country came here to escape. From the majority/all of the states that formed the Nation State of the U.S. ,,, 200 plus years ago they came here to practice "religios liberty",,, while still adhereing to "Divine Law".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_law

If you know the Bible well enough,,, specifically the Old Testament... then compare the above link to the Old Testament... and the basic laws this country had at it's founding. I'll give you the fact,,, that the "witch hunts"... and "stake burings" were heretical... but eventually,,, as the influence of the Church of England lost it's influence on this country... those things were resolved, (though one form of "religion" has alot to repent for).

Notice the above link says: "Unlike natural law, which is independent of human beings," So... the majority of people that fled here from Europe,,, to escape religious and political persecution... came here to establish a country where Christianity could be practiced FREELY,,, with out any specific church dictating whaty a person should believe... or the political laws of the government or church dictating how a personson life was to be lived... or how God was to be worshipped.

Notice also... the last link above,,, says:

"Divine laws are contained in sacred religious texts such as the Torah, the Holy Bible, and Quran."

Soooo... if PROPER study was done about the foundations on which this country was founded,,, a person would "In Truth" discover... that this country was founded on "Divine Law".... Which is based on Theocratical beliefs.

No offense meant... but you are a few years behind me on this study,,, and it has NOTHING to do with Barton or WALLBUILDERS. While they are not incorrect... I went on my own study a few years ago,,, when the church I left decided to go down the path of Universalism... following the teachings of George MacDonald.

That... is a separate study... of and within itself,,, which is also heresy.

At this point... I ask you, (without condemning your thoughts and ideas),,, to reconsider what you are thinking to be true by the "reason of man"... an beseech you to look for the truth, “all the life and power of true religion consist in the inward and full persuasion of the mind”

IIRC... I was quoting Jefferson there.

So SD,,, if you trust Gutzman and Locke,,, (since they both appear to be "liberals")... maybe you need to do the same study on Empiricalism/Materialism that you accused Wrm of ????
 
SD,

I want to apologize to you,,, for getting snarky with you in my last couple posts. It was late/early and I was tired. Plus the mosquito in this thread was being annoying. I didn't mean to take it out on you. I'm sorry.
 
04_Sport_LS said:
So SD,,, if you trust Gutzman and Locke,,, (since they both appear to be "liberals")... maybe you need to do the same study on Empiricalism/Materialism that you accused Wrm of ????
Click to expand...

The more you try to write off Gutzman, the more you shoot your credibility in the foot. It is embarassingly ignorant to think of him as "liberal" in the modern sense (and that seems to be the only sense you are aware of). I have a political science degree and have read numerous writings on politial philosophy, constitutional law and a few other areas. Natural law, as you characterize it, is something I have never encountered before. That is not to say that I have not encountered the idea of natural law, it is in fact a very foundational thing; explicitly laid out in the Declaration and the basis for the Constitution and the reigning worldview in America at the time the Constitution was ratified. However, the caricature you offer of it in your effort to write it off, is not at all representative of what natural law is. That says a lot.

That fact, along with others suggests to me that you are rationalizing and looking to fit ideas beyond your knowledge into your own predjudices and very inaccurate worldview of a theocratic america that has never actually existed. Cognative dissonance is a bitch.

Bringing in other irrelevances like Divine law and whatever other flights of fancy show a lack of focus and clarity in your thought process.

I see no reason to engage you further. Have a good day.
 
04,the Bible says `There is no man that does not sin' yet God will take 144,000 future kings and priests from the Earth to be Jesus's brothers.
The statement you made is false and I THINK you are purposely trying to mislead people that are lurking here.
Everyone sins..........read James.

don-ohio :)^)

Quote 04:` Have you ever sinned??? Because if you have... that disqualifies you from being one of the 144,000.' end quote.
 
No Don... I'm not trying to mislead anybody. I'm trying to help people think. I also noticed you haven't answered a single question I have posed to you in this thread!!! I'm sure other people have notced the same.

As far as the 144,000:

http://www.gotquestions.org/144000.html

Question: "Who are the 144,000?"

Answer: The book of Revelation has always presented the interpreter with challenges. The book is steeped in vivid imagery and symbolism which people have interpreted differently depending on their preconceptions of the book as a whole. There are four main interpretive approaches to the book of Revelation: 1) preterist (which sees all or most of the events in Revelation as having already occurred by the end of the 1st century); 2) historicist (which sees Revelation as a survey of church history from apostolic times to the present); 3) idealist (which sees Revelation as a depiction of the struggle between good and evil); 4) futurist (which sees Revelation as prophecy of events to come). Of the four, only the futurist approach interprets Revelation in the same grammatical-historical method as the rest of Scripture. It is also a better fit with Revelation’s own claim to be prophecy (Revelation 1:3; 22:7, 10, 18, 19).

So the answer to the question “who are the 144,000?” will depend on which interpretive approach you take to the book of Revelation. With the exception of the futurist approach, all of the other approaches interpret the 144,000 symbolically, as representative of the church and the number 144,000 being symbolic of the totality—i.e., the complete number—of the church. Yet when taken at face value: “Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel” (Revelation 7:4), nothing in the passage leads to interpreting the 144,000 as anything but a literal number of Jews—12,000 taken from every tribe of the “sons of Israel.” The New Testament offers no clear cut text replacing Israel with the church.

These Jews are “sealed,” which means they have the special protection of God from all of the divine judgments and from the Antichrist to perform their mission during the tribulation period (see Revelation 6:17, in which people will wonder who can stand from the wrath to come). The tribulation period is a future seven-year period of time in which God will enact divine judgment against those who reject Him and will complete His plan of salvation for the nation of Israel. All of this is according to God’s revelation to the prophet Daniel (Daniel 9:24–27). The 144,000 Jews are a sort of “first fruits” (Revelation 14:4) of a redeemed Israel which has been previously prophesied (Zechariah 12:10; Romans 11:25–27), and their mission seems to be to evangelize the post-rapture world and proclaim the gospel during the tribulation period. As a result of their ministry, millions—“a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Revelation 7:9)—will come to faith in Christ.

Much of the confusion regarding the 144,000 is a result of the false doctrine of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that 144,000 is a limit to the number of people who will reign with Christ in heaven and spend eternity with God. The 144,000 have what the Jehovah’s Witnesses call the heavenly hope. Those who are not among the 144,000 will enjoy what they call the earthly hope—a paradise on earth ruled by Christ and the 144,000. Clearly, we can see that Jehovah’s Witness teaching sets up a caste society in the afterlife with a ruling class (the 144,000) and those who are ruled. The Bible teaches no such “dual class” doctrine. It is true that according to Revelation 20:4 there will be people ruling in the millennium with Christ. These people will be comprised of the church (believers in Jesus Christ), Old Testament saints (believers who died before Christ’s first advent), and tribulation saints (those who accept Christ during the tribulation). Yet the Bible places no numerical limit on this group of people. Furthermore, the millennium is different from the eternal state, which will take place at the completion of the millennial period. At that time, God will dwell with us in the New Jerusalem. He will be our God and we will be His people (Revelation 21:3). The inheritance promised to us in Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14) will become ours, and we will all be co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).
 
Quote SD:

"..... and the reigning worldview in America at the time the Constitution was ratified."

"Bringing in other irrelevances like Divine law and whatever other flights of fancy show a lack of focus and clarity in your thought process."

SD,

Only from the point of your secular "worldview". Divine Law is not irrelevant to the discussion. You only choose to make it irrelevant because your viewpoint is that Faith, and "religion", and Belief in God... had absolutely no bearing on how this country was founded.

Obviously... you and I have very disparate beliefs about the grounds on which this country is fouinded.

I've been mentioned Karen Armstong a couple times in this thread. She is a prominent Religious Scholar... with a long line of literary works throughout her life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Armstrong

While Armstong is not the "be all end all" on God or religion... she does have a lot to offer if a person has an open mind.

Once again... I did a quick Google search,,, to see if she has mentioned John Locke at any time in her past. It seems she has in her most recent book... part of which is quoted here.

http://www.charterforcompassion.org/index.php/peace-building/the-myth-of-religious-violence

4 Paragraphs in...

"But perhaps we should ask, instead, how it came about that we in the west developed our view of religion as a purely private pursuit, essentially separate from all other human activities, and especially distinct from politics. After all, warfare and violence have always been a feature of political life, and yet we alone drew the conclusion that separating the church from the state was a prerequisite for peace. Secularism has become so natural to us that we assume it emerged organically, as a necessary condition of any society’s progress into modernity."

Then... Under this heading in the article:

The Myth of Religious Violence

You will find this:

"Before the modern period, religion was not a separate activity, hermetically sealed off from all others; rather, it permeated all human undertakings, including economics, state-building, politics and warfare. Before 1700, it would have been impossible for people to say where, for example, “politics” ended and “religion” began."

- - - Hmmm... when was the first English settlement of the U.S. ??? Isn't 1607 before 1700??? But lets jump to the heading titled:

Dawn of the liberal state

"By the late 17th century, philosophers had devised a more urbane version of the secular ideal. For John Locke it had become self-evident that “the church itself is a thing absolutely separate and distinct from the commonwealth. The boundaries on both sides are fixed and immovable.” The separation of religion and politics – “perfectly and infinitely different from each other” – was, for Locke, written into the very nature of things. But the liberal state was a radical innovation, just as revolutionary as the market economy that was developing in the west and would shortly transform the world. Because of the violent passions it aroused, Locke insisted that the segregation of “religion” from government was “above all things necessary” for the creation of a peaceful society.

Hence Locke was adamant that the liberal state could tolerate neither Catholics nor Muslims, condemning their confusion of politics and religion as dangerously perverse. Locke was a major advocate of the theory of natural human rights, originally pioneered by the Renaissance humanists and given definition in the first draft of the American Declaration of Independence as life, liberty and property. But secularisation emerged at a time when Europe was beginning to colonise the New World, and it would come to exert considerable influence on the way the west viewed those it had colonised – much as in our own time, the prevailing secular ideology perceives Muslim societies that seem incapable of separating faith from politics to be irredeemably flawed.

This introduced an inconsistency, since for the Renaissance humanists there could be no question of extending these natural rights to the indigenous inhabitants of the New World. Indeed, these peoples could justly be penalised for failing to conform to European norms. In the 16th century, Alberico Gentili, a professor of civil law at Oxford, argued that land that had not been exploited agriculturally, as it was in Europe, was “empty” and that “the seizure of [such] vacant places” should be “regarded as law of nature”. Locke agreed that the native peoples had no right to life, liberty or property. The “kings” of America, he decreed, had no legal right of ownership to their territory. He also endorsed a master’s “Absolute, arbitrary, despotical power” over a slave, which included “the power to kill him at any time”. The pioneers of secularism seemed to be falling into the same old habits as their religious predecessors. Secularism was designed to create a peaceful world order, but the church was so intricately involved in the economic, political and cultural structures of society that the secular order could only be established with a measure of violence. In North America, where there was no entrenched aristocratic government, the disestablishment of the various churches could be accomplished with relative ease. But in France, the church could be dismantled only by an outright assault; far from being experienced as a natural and essentially normative arrangement, the separation of religion and politics could be experienced as traumatic and terrifying.

During the French revolution, one of the first acts of the new national assembly on November 2, 1789, was to confiscate all church property to pay off the national debt: secularisation involved dispossession, humiliation and marginalisation. This segued into outright violence during the September massacres of 1792, when the mob fell upon the jails of Paris and slaughtered between two and three thousand prisoners, many of them priests. Early in 1794, four revolutionary armies were dispatched from Paris to quell an uprising in the Vendée against the anti-Catholic policies of the regime. Their instructions were to spare no one. At the end of the campaign, General François-Joseph Westermann reportedly wrote to his superiors: “The Vendée no longer exists. I have crushed children beneath the hooves of our horses, and massacred the women … The roads are littered with corpses.”

Ironically, no sooner had the revolutionaries rid themselves of one religion, than they invented another. Their new gods were liberty, nature and the French nation, which they worshipped in elaborate festivals choreographed by the artist Jacques Louis David. The same year that the goddess of reason was enthroned on the high altar of Notre Dame cathedral, the reign of terror plunged the new nation into an irrational bloodbath, in which some 17,000 men, women and children were executed by the state."


- - - This was in part due to the philosophical and Deist views that Locke had. So shortly after the original Christian founding of this nation... Locke and others change the course of things... and because of this,,, is in a sense why we are where we are now.

- - - Armstrong goes on to speak about other things... and does mention Jefferson in a not so positive light. The article then finishes with:

"After a bumpy beginning, secularism has undoubtedly been valuable to the west, but we would be wrong to regard it as a universal law. It emerged as a particular and unique feature of the historical process in Europe; it was an evolutionary adaptation to a very specific set of circumstances. In a different environment, modernity may well take other forms. Many secular thinkers now regard “religion” as inherently belligerent and intolerant, and an irrational, backward and violent “other” to the peaceable and humane liberal state – an attitude with an unfortunate echo of the colonialist view of indigenous peoples as hopelessly “primitive”, mired in their benighted religious beliefs. There are consequences to our failure to understand that our secularism, and its understanding of the role of religion, is exceptional. When secularisation has been applied by force, it has provoked a fundamentalist reaction – and history shows that fundamentalist movements which come under attack invariably grow even more extreme. The fruits of this error are on display across the Middle East: when we look with horror upon the travesty of Isis, we would be wise to acknowledge that its barbaric violence may be, at least in part, the offspring of policies guided by our disdain. "

- - - Just wondering how this lines up with Gutzman???

The biggest problem I see with you and I diagreeing... is that I am to a degree,,, a fundamentalist, (but not stodgily anchored in that mindset)... while you appear to be a progressive.
 
I found a radio broadcast transcript with Gutzman... on the internet. The interview is with Mike Church. In the interview, (regading the Second amendment), Gutzman takes his usual stance... saying:

" The word “state” is in the Second Amendment, so of course it applied against the states. "

However... as you are well aware of,,, I disagree with this... and said it regards the whole of the United States as a nation, (or Nation-State.

I offer this as a refutation for Gutzman's definition:

http://volokh.com/posts/1181941233.shtml
 
Quote Don:

"yet God will take 144,000 future kings and priests from the Earth to be Jesus's brothers."

Well then you better hurry up Don,,, because those 144,000 spots are already taken by Jews.

Also... both of the parents that rasied me,,, died decades ago... so they are already in Heaven with God.

The story about the mom that raised me... is very interesting.

Easter weekend 1990, (a pagan holiday to you)... my sister was in town for the weekend. Later,,, after she left... my mom and I went to put flowers on dad's grave at the cemetary. As we were walking away from the gravesite... mom said calmly, "Well, it won't be long now." I gave her a funny look, and then dismissed it. The next day I went to work,,, and got a call from the local hospital. Mom had driver herself to the hospital while having a heart attack. I called my sister,,, and headed for the ICU.

Mom was in very bad shape,,, and although the doctors and nurses were being supportive... they knew the prognosis wasn't good. Things were "touch and go" with mom for a few days... and all of a sudden she bounced back. There's alot more to the story... but I'll get to the point. Mom recovered,,, and was waiting to be released the next day. She had her suitcase packed,,, and was in her normal clothes.

As we all were sitting in the hospiltal room talking,,, I told mom to spend some of the money she had saved... and to go on a cruise and buy a new car,,, and to enjoy life a little. Momlooked at me and said: "No... I won't be needing it." I asked mom what she meant by that... and my sister asked the same thing. Mom shooed me away,,, and told me to go to work, (evening shift).

Next morning,,, still sleeping... I got a call from the hospital saying that mom had had some problems overnight. In my half awake state,,, and the hospital not saying it was urgent... I thanked them and hung up. My sister wanted to know what was said... so I told her,,, and my sister went to the hospital. I got a call a couple hours later from my sister saying that I had better get up there. I did... and mom died a couple hours later.

So... by the TRUE story above,,, God told mom that HE was "calling her home"... and mom hinted that to me twice,,, and to my sister once. If my Faith is so pagan,,, (and I am following the Faith of the parents that raised me)... then why did god give my mom that revelation?????????????

And trust me,,, mom "literally" closed the doors on many JW's... and other false religions. She KNEW who God was/is,,, and always trusted Him. The dad that raised me did too. We are a family of FAITH... not religion.

So there is another question for you... that you won't answer,,, and CAN'T answer. Running back to your Elders won't help either... because they won't be able to give you an answer,,, because all of that evidence has been wiped out of your NWT!!!
 
SD,

After my last post,,, can you understand why I take a Fundamentalist approach to things??? Our lives are God given. Our Liberties are God given. Our laws,,, used to be accepted as God given. Faith is God given,,, but it's only a gift if accepted by the individual. I guess the same could be said for the other things I mentioned.
 
Hmmm...

Now as I am digging through Mike Church's stuff,,, I find my way to his Project '76 website:

http://www.mikechurch.com/shop/prod...s-james-madison-confronts-john-adams-monster/

Buy the 9 minute video for $4.99 and you can learn everything. This crap is what turns me off. If what they had to say was so impotant,,, then why not just offer it on a web blog for free.

I did however, (free), search for the 1798 alien and sedition acts,,, and found this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts

Seems like it had it's place in history throughout the centuries... though maybe not always used properly,,, but I wasn't around then... so I can't say for sure.

However... this also seems like something Trump might use if elected,,, and the outcome of that might depend on the Supreme Court,,, and, (depending on who gets elected), who gets appointed.
 
SD,

After further study... it appears we may have another divide betwwen us. I appear to be an Originalist,,, and you appear to be a Textualist when it come to the documents that defined this nation (state).
 
SD,

So once again... I did a Google search on Karen Armstrong and John Locke. It went back again to her most recent book, "Fields of Blood."

http://www.newstatesman.com/2014/09/lambs-slaughter

Ironically... I laughed,,, when I read the line... "For many people the result is a condition of cognitive dissonance."

Wrm,,, you may actually like and agree with what Armstrong is saying. Take a read of the above link.
 
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