Called a Heretic

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Over the past month, since my last post, I have been called a heretic for my religious beliefs several times. Each time has been from other Christians. From time to time irreligious people will also criticize me, but I find it ironic that my greatest oppostion comes from those who claim to follow Christ. Is that what Christ would have us do? Slander each other with denotations? No, He taught us to use gentleness, meekness and love unfeigned. Periodically, "believer" friends cut ties with me because we differ on interpretations of scripture, but that's usually because they want to treat the doctrine as a buffet and only adopt the parts they like. Meanwhile, Kanye West is out there claiming to be God. I know that's crazy, but I'm the heretic. Perhaps this is a sign of the times, a separation of the wheat and chaff. It is certainly a call to arms for Christians to bind together and live like Christians, particularly towards each other. After all, we have far more in common with each other than with people who despise us just because we aspire to Christian values.

Christians Must Bind Together

I am struck sometimes when Christians attack one another. On my recent trip to Europe, I realized that it's little short of a standing miracle that Islam (or whatever beliefs the Huns and Mongols followed) didn't already overrun Europe. History is rife with petty infighting between Christian kingdoms of Europe who didn't understand that they need to hang together or they will hang separately. I take issue with other Christian denominations, but my Faith's leaders do not, and now i know why. They know that if we work together to bring people to Christ, we'll do more good for more people than if we look for the motes in each other's eyes. I don't have to agree with them in their dogma. I don't have to wage war against them for it either.

You don't hear as much about heresy in other religions as you do in Christianity because we are probably the most self-righteous group of believers. It's a heads I win tails you lose world where we are always competing it seems to eradicate each other rather than resisting wickedness and the world. The whole point of a congregation, besides authority to administer the sacraments of Faith, is to provide us with the opportunity to surround ourselves with people who will uplift and inspire us. Instead, it seems we gather together to tear down and disparage one another. I too am guilty of this, reproving betimes with sharpness without afterwards showing forth an increase in love towards those I reprove lest they esteem me to be their enemy. I don't feel TOO bad about this because I'm just a Sunday School teacher. Most people don't take my reproof too seriously. However, I think it might please Christ more if I apply the Pollyanna Principle and look for the good in them expecting to find it. That will bind wounds, even the wounds I opened. I think we need to bind together, to bind each other, to bind ourselves to Christ, to bind up the wounds between us, and focus on the Christ we all claim to revere and Follow Him.

Christians Must Speak of Christ More

My father shared a thought with us one Sunday night as we met together over Skype to discuss the chapters we were supposed to study and consider that week. He made an interesting observation which helped me immensely feel justified about my belief system and reject the notion of heresy. He pointed out that the scriptures are not really about the people in them at all. Those books feature those people, but the story is really the Saviour's story and His dealings with His children. Is that the response of a heretic? Heretics are usually anti-Christ. How is our belief system, our dogma, our narrative anti-Christ when it leads men like my father to distill all the doctrine down to this simple synopsis? You see, he's right. It's not about Sam or Nephi, Samson or Napthali, Paul or Baalim. It's about people who were either denying Christ or drawing closer to Him.

How do I know I'm not a heretic? Because I speak of Christ, I rejoice in Christ, I prophecy of Christ, and I write according to my prophecies that my childen, if I ever have any, may know to what source they should look for a remission of sins. Yes, sometimes I talk of other things. Money, politics, romance, but if you look at my videos, my blog, or my life, you will find Christ there ad libitum. Two years ago, a student walked into my office and was surprised to see a Greg Olsen calendar hanging on my wall where my "yay me!" wall (with my diplomas and awards) would be. The painting hanging for March is of John the Baptist baptizing the Christ. She could not believe that her Chemistry professor was a Christian. I asked, "Why can't I be both?" Yes, it doesn't come up much in class, and when it does it's the doctrine without mention of the Master, but when I can I talk of Him and how I pray and worship and read and believe, because I know many of them do but are too scared to admit it in academia because the rest of my colleagues are clothed in the black robes of a false priesthood and worship the devil over the divine. I'm tainted, but I'm trying.

Christians Must Live as Christ Would Have Us Live

The trick with this is twofold. First, the world competes with distractions. It wants to keep us too busy to "have time" to do the things that matter most. The second is that the world competes with din that drowns out our ability to receive and act on inspiration. A man I revere once taught "You want to be good and do good? That is commendable, but the greatest good that can be attained in this world is to be completely under the influence of the Holy Spirit. He will tell you what is truly good and necessary for YOU to do" (F Enzio Busche, emphasis added). We need to live as Christ would have us live so that we can maintain Christ in our lives.

Our world's problem is not one of stone and steel, of specie or equality. Our problem is that people have drifted away from Christ. We took Him out of our schools. We took him off our buildings. We removed Him from our worship services. We don't speak about Him or to Him enough in our homes with our families or on our knees. We trust in the UN to restore "Human Rights" and ignore the inalienable rights bestowed on us by our Creator.  For the past four years, the world has driven full speed ahead to a life devoid of Christ and distracted us with vaccines, war, and government largess. In our time it will not be possible for us to survive, either the spiritual onslaught against our souls or the mortal onslaught on our livelihoods without a significant and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Only He knows what your purpose is. Only He knows what's truly good and necessary for YOU to do. Only He can speak to you in a way that you will understand. Only He won't be able to speak to you if you don't want to listen. That's what a Christian life is all about. It's not about a scale of your good versus your bad or getting into heaven with works. It's because when you live the commandments you qualify for the presence of the Holy Spirit who guides, comforts, teaches, directs and sanctifies you. No matter what happens then, if you were guided by the Spirit it will be counted for good, at least to you and God the Father.

I am blessed to have time, opportunity and discipline to kneel by the couch each morning and pray before I leave work. Often the prayer is the same. However, it is a prayer all the same. It is time I take every day before I go into the world to do things of the world to ask the God of the World to protect me from the World. I don't say it like that, but I think I'll start doing it that way. To ask Christ to protect me, guide me, forgive me, and make my work useful to someone somewhere. I begin my day with my dog and with Christ, and I don't feel bad about the Dog, because he's the best approximation of what I think God would be like in my life if I could see Him. And because the Dog is a reminder that God has neither forgotten nor forsaken me. So I should not forget nor forsake Him.

We are too proud to pray I think. We don't need Christ. We don't want Christ. We don't acknowledge Christ's hand in our lives. We don't want Him in our business. We know that we are proud and that makes us ashamed to invite Him. But that's exactly the right recipe for redemption. Maybe I'm not right about some things, but I know that if I encourage people to come to Christ, I'm giving good advice. If I inspire them to turn to Him, I'm setting a good example. And if I teach about Him I'm passing on a good message, the only one that really matters. Nothing heretical about that unless of course you are a closet Christian, a jacket Mormon, who puts on his faith only when it suits him.

We need to support one another better. We need to love one another better. We need to be better about making Christ the centerpiece of our homes, our hearts, and our honour. Then, even when we err, for Christ knew we would, we are centered on Him, and a house built on that foundation cannot fall even when it gets damaged or neglected or assaulted. Christ is the only sure foundation. It is all the rest that is truly heresy.

How I Became a Republican

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At the age of 12, I inherited $2000 from a distant relative who shall remain nameless. I invested that money in a mutual fund. At the age of 13, I discovered that, because I earned money in capitol gains, I had to pay capitol gains tax. I was 13. I didn't have a job. I wasn't even old enough to legally earn any money, but I had to pay the US Government $40 at the age of 13 because they taxed capital gains at 15% regardless of your income as a way to "tax the rich" who were using "loopholes" to avoid paying taxes on investments since they had no income from jobs. I will never forgive Bill Clinton for that.

Denying The Christ

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People say we cannot judge them because they are sinners without realizing that our endeavors to call them to repentance are not about the sin. It’s about the lifestyle that results if you continue in sin. Sin is at its core simply missing the mark, but if you persist, you are not missing the mark, but you are deciding to go somewhere else, to follow someone else’s commandments. Sin is situational; lifestyle is about choices that we make about what we do with information we gain and challenges we face. You deny Christ essentially by remaining in your sin, and that’s why we go out to rescue them. And they deny Christ in one of three ways. They can first deny Christ by refusing to turn to Him and remaining in their sin. Secondly, they can deny Christ by persisting so long that they believe that Christ cannot save them, which denies His power and divinity. Finally, they deny Christ because they are trying to redefine the terms of our mortal probation, and that is usually the reason why we reach out to reclaim them.

Much of the aberrant and abhorrent doctrine preaches that fallen man is the natural state of man. It is not The nature of man is as a son or daughter of the Almighty God. God is not fallen, and so a fallen state is not our natural state. It is a state to which we are subject and towards which we are drawn because of the conditions of the crucible in which the human experiment occurs. From abortion to promiscuity to drug use to LGBTQ doctrine, all of these deny the Christ because they deny the relationship between God and man and render the man unrescuable by the atoning sacrifice of the savior because they cannot or will not feel after Him. They are past feeling when they persist in these lifestyles. Men are not animals, even when they behave like them, but some natural behaviors are animalistic and establish enmity between man and his Father God.

The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was not their sin. It was that those cities embraced a lifestyle, a lifestyle that justified the natural and instinctual urges of the mortal man so that it denied the very definition of who man was and why God would want to redeem him. When men came to Lot and his family, they demanded pleasures, and they had neither shame nor hesitation in so demanding it. That is why pornography, pedophilia and the LGBTQ movements must be condemned by every Christian. They destroy shame and see no fault in demanding the pleasures and preferences of the flesh on the auspice that man is simply a beast, that he was “born that way”. If he was born that way, then he CANNOT overcome it, and God would not create a man who could not follow His commandments. The lifestyle of Sodom is what drove God to destroy them Himself. Lot could not even find 10 people who were repentant, who were inclined to consider that man might elevate himself, not out of pride but out of recognition of his true eternal identity.

Men and women were created in the image of God, after the manner of His body and put here to glorify Him. The baser animal instincts glorify master Mahan who seeketh that all men might be miserable like he is. His enmity towards God leads him to a desire to deny Christ access to as many souls as he can possibly steal like a player denies another a successful shot in the championship. Make no mistake. They are playing for keeps, and he seeks to drag all men DOWN. The unrighteous lifestyles decried by prophets and scripture and the faithful do not elevate anyone. Notches in your belt from the number of people you bed might be a stat in which you can rise, but it is not a stat that improves anyone it touches. Contrariwise, the gospel of Christ is preached as the “good news” because it shows that any man who turns toward Christ and allows Him to save them can be saved. Christ comes to uplift and lift up as He was lifted up. Lasciviousness and licentiousness always ultimately drag civilizations down. Just as in Noah’s time, we are approaching a time when men follow the admonition of Cain and take what they like, who sin not only because they drag down and kill their brothers but because they are destroying the souls of God’s children. You cannot long offend a God and expect to live.

In America, we see an ever increasing effort to embrace the lifestyle of Sodom, passing such laws to not only protect but to ensconce animalistic behaviors. This cannot long endure before our nation, and the civilization of which it is currently the keystone, collapses under the weight of our own unrighteousness. It is not sin that we are decrying, for we all have them, but the notion that legalization is license for licentiousness. Making a thing legal does not make it moral any more than banning a thing renders it immoral. Men who do this are simply essentially begging the rocks (or stone tablets as they were known in antiquity since that is the medium on which laws were published to the masses) to fall upon them and hide them from the presence of God.

The common thread of all civilization collapse came when those countries legalized and rendered as mainstream a lifestyle which is contrary to the true identity and destiny of man. Gender is an eternal characteristic. Fidelity and chastity is an eternal requirement. Temperance is an eternal practice. The innocence of children is an eternal responsibility. Modesty is an eternal attitude. Every nation that abandons these things is punished by God. Even when that nation was ruled by a king anointed by God Himself. Saul, David and Solomon in turn all essentially allowed a lifestyle among their people that denied Christ by denying Him access to people to save their souls, telling a man that whatsoever he did was no crime and leading the way with their own lifestyle that embraced sin over the Savior.

As Christians we cannot accept such lifestyles that deny the nature of man, his identity and his relationship to his Creator. We can love the people, pray for the people, reach out to rescue the people who persist in these notions, but we can never allow them to direct the dogma of the church. It is not our dogma to change. It is Christ’s. We cannot deny Christ by rewriting His teachings, His laws, His words, and His requirements to satiate our own selfish and self-serving sociopathy. Church leaders who say to embrace and tolerate and ensconce their lifestyle are no longer in service of the Master Jesus of Nazareth. And for God sake, we should not incorporate their practices into the sacraments and services of the church. TO them we say, “come and worship with us and repent as we all must of our sins as well”, but we cannot allow them to set the standard for what Christ’s church does. It is His church, and I will not deny Him that leadership.

Are Visitors Really Welcome?

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On the outside of most church buildings in my Faith you can see the phrase "Visitors welcome". On 17 December 2023, I attended church in Gerasdorf bei Wien (Formerly the Vienna V Ward) in which I served as a missionary for 12 weeks back in the beginning of 1999. Granted, I don't remember many of the people from that time, and I was only there briefly, but it was telling that, for the most part, people only came to talk to me because I sing. The service opened with "Es ist ein Rose entsprungen" to which I not only know the tune and words but for which I also sang the Tenor part, and they have zero tenors in that congregation. It was immediately evident to people who had not noticed me, most of which because I arrived ten minutes early and was already seated in the rear of the chapel, that there was someone behind them who is not normally there. I am still not sure if I felt welcomed by the congregation.

Who greets you tells you a lot. Neither of the missionaries assigned to the ward ever talked to me, despite the fact that they were standing in the entry when I walked into the church. I don't know if they decided since I knew my way around and the language better than they that I must be a member already, albeit from a different congregation, but even after learning I was a visitor from the United States, they still didn't speak to me. Maybe it was because they were female. THe first person to greet me was Brother Hegedusch, whom I don't remember, but whose name I remembered. A counselor to the bishop, who was absent, came to greet me; turns out I did know him, but he was 16 when I was there (I was 19 at the time) so we didn't recognize each other (Brother Mayrl). A few other people greeted me and shook my hand, but they did not give their names.

Who talks to you afterwards tells you a lot. No women said anything to me until afterwards. THe choir director tried to rope me into coming to choir practice, but since I was going to be in Berlin on Christmas Eve that made no sense to me. She wanted to hear the Tenor part to the songs they were singing. Most of the women were obsequious with their praise of my voice as well as my pronunciation and vocabulary, which I know to be pretty much a load of bullshit actually. I even told them I have unlearned much, but I think they are just so shocked that after 25 years I know what I know when I clearly don't speak German to native speakers on a regular basis. My accent is atrocious, but I participated, and I was a single male. THe woman beside me was first; her husband had been in the ward, but she was a convert, and she was very interested, having been baptized only shortly after my departure. I mentioned some members I knew by name, several of whom were dead and others of whom were absent, and then one man proclaimed to one name, "That was my father." He invited me to dinner with his family and has since kept in contact with me even though he remembers Elder Dodge (the Zone Leader) and not me (at all).

Who remembers you tells you a lot. During the meeting, a man across the aisle kept looking at me. I remember Brother Schmuck well, but he didn't stay for Sunday School, so I didn't get to talk to him. He is the only person there that I recognized immediately. Some were grown up from the children I had known, and some were individuals I knew by name, but nobody who stayed seemed to remember me. Granted, twelve weeks isn't very long, but apparently I made no inroads with them at all, at least not with those who were there. Maybe if the Husz family had been there or the bishop himself I might have had a better experience, or if I had been there in 2017 instead when others were still alive. Too late now in any case.

I attended church in this congregation because it took as much time from Wien HBF to Gerasdorf on the S1 train as it would to get to any other building using the buses, and because there was a chance I might know someone. It was disappointing to not "come home" as it were to a ward in which I had lived once upon a time. The other places in which I served, excepting Neumarkt am Wallersee, are too inconvenient to be easily reached on vacation for church, and so I didn't go there; most of them were pretty small congregations anyway. Innsbruck had barely 30 members at the time. I felt welcome, I just didn't feel "welcome back" let alone "welcome home". I might as well have attended any congregation in Vienna and had similar experience, since the members in attendance either didn't remember me or didn't want to. I still wonder why Brother Schmuck looked at me because he said nothing. The Dospils, who invited me for dinner, invited me back, which was nice, but I really knew his late father better than he, which is a shame. I guess I put the work first rather than the relationships. I don't know that it was a mistake, but it definitely made me just another visitor, albeit one who rode the train to the end of the line to attend where visitors probably rarely ever attend.

God Gives Only Good Gifts

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Sometimes I complain about blessings disguised as trials. One of the speakers on 17 December 2023 during church in Gerasdorf Austria made a comment about how some gifts come "batteries not included" and it made me think. As a child, I was never disappointed about a gift that didn't come with batteries, because I knew it COULD be fun as soon as I had them, and I knew that my parents would buy me batteries because that's the kind of parents they are. If we truly believe that God loves us, even if he gives gifts that don't seem to be the gifts we like, we know that he will make sure that the gifts will eventually bring us joy. Whether they are ready to use or not, He only gives good gifts.

Sometimes batteries are not included. We often have to put energy into things on our own before they can rise to their full potential. Maybe God gives you a talent or an opportunity, but you don't get the job if you don't apply and you don't learn a piece of music if you don't practice. Sometimes the blessings God gives us require our own effort.

Sometimes assembly is required. Not everything we receive is ready right out of the box. Maybe we need other pieces from other people or other experiences in order to fully assemble it. Not everything can be assembled with an allen wrench; not all of God's blessings can be found in an Ikea. However, like the Good Father he is, God will also help us put things together if we ask, especially if we are working to make it so and putting in the work required to show we value the gift.

Sometimes gifts are not immediately valuable. Jogging shorts make less sense in the winter than flannel pajamas. Savings bonds take time to mature to their face value. Sometimes God's gifts are not something that we can use right in the very minute that we get them. And of course they come when we actually need them.

Sometimes the gifts are not for us. An emergency gift may not be something you ever use. First aid kits may not be exciting, and you may never use them, but it is better to have one and not need one than need one and not have one. You may never have to use it for or on yourself, but you can be a blessing in the lives of other people. In fact, a plurality of God's gifts are given for the edification of others. Tongues, healing, teaching, etc., are all gifts of the spirit that are used to bless OTHER PEOPLE. But you get to be a blessing, to be God's hands in their lives, and other blessings come from that too.

In rare instances, blessings are conditional. You may have to qualify. We know from reading about tithing that God will open the windows of heaven and pour you out blessings, but if you don't pay tithe, don't expect God to shower you with blessings. We know from Shadrach Meshach and Abednego that if you don't eat what God prescribes you can't expect to live a healthy life with a perfect body. Every blessing is predicated on obedience to the law on which it is predicated, which means God's blessings come most often to those who are obedient to God's law. He typically doesn't bless wicked people over those who would have him to be their God.

A gift from God is always something that can bless us and bring us joy. Just because some assembly is required or batteries are not included does not make the gift unworthy. These kinds of gifts are invitations to make them everything that we are willing to make of them. God is willing to make everything of us, and we will get out of his gifts what we are willing to get out of them. We may receive some, or we may receive few, but everyone receives at least one gift and nobody receives all gifts. The gifts are to improve our lives and help us improve the lives of others around us. And sometimes God blesses us so that we can bless others in his name. Whether you wanted flannel pajamas or not, if God gives you them, it's because he knows that in some way at some point it will be for your good. And eventually God will give you the batteries too.

Looking to the Stars

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While traveling in Europe last month, I ended up having to change my accomodation in Vienna and ended up in a mixed dormitory room with five strangers. The second night, we got involved in a discussion, and we ended up talking about the stars. Some of my roommates were critical of particular belief systems that rely on or draw reference to the stars, which prompted some unexpected thoughts from me. It has always been a human thing to look at and to the stars, religiously or not.

As soon as men began to travel, men began to use the stars for guidance. At least in the Northern Hemisphere, constellations, in particular Ursa Minor, were used in order to orient yourself for travel. Ursa Minor contains the North Star, which is used as a major reference point. Even if you didn’t have that or couldn’t use that, you could orient yourself and know your direction and in some cases your location based on what time of year and what constellations appeared respective to your position. From Odysseus to Magellan, explorers in all ages used the stars to find themselves and to find their way.

In cultural practices, including religion, men use the stars for guidance. Visiting any of the Mayan ruins, you can plainly discern among the stele still extant that the Mayans used the stars and the celestial sphere as a guide. From planting crops to calendar events to religious rites, the positions of the stars relative to stones on the plaza told the Mayans where they were and when they ought to act. For many cultures, the stars are representations of their deity. Even Paul the apostle spoke of bodies celestial in his letters.

Today, we still use the stars for guidance. Unfortunately, too many of us turn to movie stars for guidance, but religion and navigation still play a part in the lives of many people. Religious or not, we watch the skies for eclipses, meteor showers, and other celestial events that inspire us and help us mark the passage of time. Of course the stars appear each night and disappear during the day, which helps us mark each day of our lives. Some of us still find inspiration in the heavens and look to the actual stars.

No matter how you look at it, the stars have always shown people their place in the universe. One star in particular, Sol, which you call “the sun” gives us the light and heat necessary to maintain our existence on this planet. Minor shifts in our distance from the star would snuff out life as we know it. The rest of us use the stars as a reference to move ourselves from where we are to where we would like to be. Whether religious or not, we look to the heavens to find our place. Stars help us to find our place still and find our way to where we would like to be.

Men: Their Own Worst Enemy

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We live in a world where men are under attack for existing. It started long ago. By 1985, Madeline Kahn spoke this line in the movie "Clue": "Men should be like tissues- soft, strong and DISPOSABLE" (emphasis added). Men are competing with and fighting each other, and not for any victory. We have become like crabs in a bucket pulling down the whole group to avoid any of the others from escaping the trap. It's no longer acceptable to be a man or you are referred to as "toxic". It's no longer enough to just be a good person, because men are throwing attention and money at women in order to stand out from the wallpaper. Worst of all, men are corrupting each other, competing with each other, and misleading each other to get access to the women they find worthy of pursuing.

For the past 20 years, the world has gradually escalated its war on men. Gen Z is full of emasculated men who eschew manly behavior. In order to placate the complaints of men about "toxic masculinity" and the shaming language concerning the "sins of the patriarchy", many men in the rising generation are avoiding work and dating because they feel like they are not appreciated as anything other than an ATM. Some of them see it as out of reach given inflation both economically as well as ecumenically. Women consider men only if they are 6 feet tall (15% of the male population), earn more than $100K/year (15% of the American population) and also are willing to work all day and then clean and cook and take care of the woman, who often does nothing during the day but shop and post to tiktok. Many men have decided that it's not worth the effort to stand out from the background. It's not worth it to just break even.

Other men complicate the issue by lathering women with undeserved attention and money. Many men, regardless of generation, simp for women. Women are given money so men can watch them talk or react to videos or play video games. Twenty years ago Gary Larson mocked this in The Far Side, but now there are women who show up and are showered with compliments and cash. This inflates the egos of the women who get paid who believe that because they are showered with attention and money that they are high value or valued by men. Simps lead women to believe that they are above average, and now they are not looking for a quiet, simple life. "What makes Christina Christina is instagram". But most of what we see on social media is fake, and so is the perceived value of the women who post to it.

Worst of all, men engage in behaviors that corrupt each other. Pick up artists encourage men to just use women for bedroom fun. Some men discourage others from dating or give them bad advice so that they are not competitive. Right now there is a "black pill" ideology that preaches enmity between men and women. Men are out there corrupting men, encouraging them to engage in behaviors that are regarded as universally repugnant, teaching men to commit the crimes for which women now punish them. Men used to mentor each other, but now they are encouraging men to engage at things in times or to degrees that make them unfit for long term relationships, especially healthy ones. There is nothing healthy about an obsession with your career or the gym, but men are encouraged to "get on their purpose" and that this will somehow lead women to be interested in them or to treat women like they don't care and that this will bring women into their lives who make healthy partners. It's amazing how men are now eating each other for access to the women that remain appealing to men as wives and mothers.

Only the top shelf men will benefit from this. They will continue to get the great share of attention, wealth, and respect, not because they deserve it, but because the rest of men are showing to all the world that none of them are worthy. Whether we defraud each other or shame each other into doing things contrary to our nature, whether we undermine other men by helping their women cheat with us or by pumping up their ego by giving them money and attention for free, men are losing no matter where they turn. In the information age where we are bombarded by information which is shared based on popularity rather than virtue, the most prominent channels and advice actually come from sources that undermine men. Men are making decisions that will make them single. And children will suffer most.

Sidewalk Food Trucks

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On the way to work, I pass at least three separate places where you can buy tamales. In each case, the tamales are being sold out of a cooler in the back of a truck. Some of them are in vacant lots. All of them are on private property. Why can these people sell food without a food card, a business license, and on someone else's private property, but if I want to open a business, I need a license, a food handler permit, and an actual establishment?

Until a few months ago, there were two food places on the sidewalk alongside a church building I drive past on the way to work. One of these was also a tamale truck, sold out of a cooler in a van under the shade of trees in the church parking lot. The other was a fruit and drink stand on the other side of the church, in the shade of the trees on the sidewalk. Apparently, someone from the congregation finally confronted them, but why do these people think they can use other people's property to purvey their wares? I would have to get a building. Sometimes I get hit up to buy tamales in the grocery store parking lot or walmart, again out of the back of a truck and out of a cooler. Doesn't seem like these businesses should be allowed to use that property, or does this set a precedence for ME to start a business (car wash, oil change, food stand, etc.) in the Walmart parking lot and let them pay to clean the pavement, light the lot and secure it?

Some of the mobile food trucks probably have licenses, because they at least have license plates. Many of the people who own them park them on private property when they are not working, but at least those people have established a legitimate business. Who gave them permission to sell anything? I get hit up by people trying to clean my windows, refresh my headlights, sell me (knockoff probably) licensed merchandise from Disney or the NFL, or food constantly. I doubt very much that these people have an actual business license. This also means they are not PAYING TAXES on their business. Even legitimate business owners I know admit to preferring cash jobs so they don't have to report it as a sale or a job. When I do things for people, I always tell them that I'm not a licensed contractor and that, especially since I typically do the work for free, they got what they paid for.

Safety is my primary concern as a scientist. Last December I bought a burrito at a food truck in Barcelona and got food poisoning. Who is vouchsafing the tamales for safety? I don't know how they were cooked, I don't know how long they have been there, and I don't know about the health habits of those purveying the food. There is a reason they require a food handler's card for places like McDonalds. You will be giving food to PAYING CUSTOMERS. So what's your recourse if you get sick? Probably none. What if you catch Trypanosoma gondii? Too bad. Tape worms? Too bad.

I'm not usually a fan of government, but I am also not a fan of anarchy. I recently watched "A Knight's Tale" again and noticed them selling cat meat and hot wine at the joust and thought that was disturbing. There are tons of parasites out there. There are tons of diseases out there. THere are tons of criminals out there. I don't see how we're doing people a favour by turning a blind eye to some because it's "too much trouble" while requiring others to comply. The IRS is requiring some companies to report if you earn $600 in income; I earned $611 on ebay this year, so I'll get to pay taxes. Maybe I should be selling tamales out of my garage instead, because I could probably make more money and have zero consequences. But that's not how I roll.

Social Media and the Spirit of Jezebel

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Years ago in Austria, I met my first Jezebel woman. We volunteered to do service to assist in collecting, sorting and packing clothes for refugees in Tibet. At the time I didn’t even know where Tibet was, but we were happy to be of service, at least until we discovered the truth of the grift. The woman behind the project was bringing the clothing to Tibet, coming down out of the sky in an airplane, distributing the clothing, and then CLAIMING IT WAS FROM HER. She ascribed no credit to the Austrians who donated clothing; she did this to set herself up as a God to the people of Tibet who worshipped her as a god who came down from the heavens and gave them food, clothing, water, and other sundries. Upon discovering this, we refused from that time forth to assist in idol worship. Imagine how much more expansive her work might be today with the help of social media scams!

We know the story of Jezebel from the bible, usually because of the contest between Elijah and the prophets of Baal who ate at Jezebel’s table. At its heart, the story of Jezebel is a story of idol worship. She even managed to manipulate King Ahab into doing her will and joining her. She was manipulative, and that’s what idols almost always create- a circumstance wherein people are manipulated into obedience and malfeasance. Today, we don’t see many people worship Baal, but we do see a lot of idol worship, and it is spread, by the spirit of Jezebel, through the influence of influencers and social media. We have false Gods, and now we carry around their portals in our hands and call them forth by logging in and checking our feed. Whether it’s false fame, false esteem, or false validation, all of these are false gods who can never save us, but will quickly drag us down to hell in the end. Social media is the cathedral of our modern idol worship in which people come together to fashion their own golden calf or to be fashioned a god themselves.

Social media has propped up false fame.

Most social media ranks users based on their interaction with the community. People get likes or subscriptions or comments, and the algorithms use these measurements of appeal to decide what it shows to users. People will do nearly anything for their “15 minutes” and some of them have done so for a lot longer. Whether we’re talking about Logan Paul, who filmed an incredibly inappropriate and irreverent clip in the Japanese forest where people kill themselves or SSSniperwolf who stole another user’s identity AND content and monetized it, these people have become popular because people watch them. It has nothing to do with the quality of the content but with instead its popularity and how much money the algorithm can generate by showing advertisements to users who try to keep up with the trends. The successful content creators change content to keep up with trends and keep making money, and so people have a bloviated sense of importance based on how many people like their posts, pictures, and content and now how many people send them money to make it. It’s now no longer based on the algorithm. You can pay your tithes directly to these false prophets of fame. 

Social media has established a false currency of value and esteem.

In order to get any money on social media, you have to meet certain thresholds. My content, for example, despite the fact that advertisements are shown when you watch my channel, earns me nothing at all because I don’t have subscribers or views sufficient for youtube to share profits with me. Instead, it feeds profits to its own prophets, whose content engages and includes sufficient people who like, comment and subscribe. Some people will delete content that is not monetarily valuable and then create content, not because they believe in it, but because they can make money talking about it. There are many charlatans of content, who make videos on topics, not because they care, but because they know YOU do. RomaArmy for example is a “men’s rights advocate” who donates no money to champion men’s rights but who does include links in her comments and videos to her “spicy content” where people can pay her tithes directly to don skimpy outfits (or so I assume; I have not subscribed). Popular channels are the channels that pay the social media company the highest return, and so people who enrich the false prophets of information receive more time at the bully pulpit and are considered more valuable. The community esteems them and roasts, downvotes, and even reports content creators who claim the counterpoint. Some channels, despite having few followers and subscribers (like mine) get hate mail and censorship despite the fact that we have no reach. Silenced, we earn no money. Some like BetterBachelor leave for other platforms where they can make money; others simply disappear and post no more and remain unknown to new generations of users who do not esteem or value them because they never see their shadowbanned content and because nothing new appears in the feed to challenge the prevailing prophecy the idols espouse.

Social media has enriched many who conclude that because they are popular they must be correct.

Since the algorithm suggests creators and channels based on engagement and not on the veracity of the content, people who publish falsehoods must conclude they are correct. Several of my videos have been taken down by youtube because I am “not a verified subject matter expert on the matter”. Yet, Greta Thunberg, who is a high school dropout from Sweden, is permitted to preach whatever she likes because she is POPULAR. Her videos and posts persist (unless she deletes them herself) despite a lack of demand that she prove her credentials. Even Jordan Peterson, a credentialed psychologist from Canada, is being censored because his views counter the narrative favored by those who prefer validation over information, because Peterson does not preach in conjunction with “the message”. People are paid for content, whether they believe it or not, whether it’s reliable or not, whether it’s true or not, and as they find financial success, they continue to do so and may even begin to believe in the false doctrine they spread from their own pulpits.  The platforms do not value a post's value or worry about verification; they care only how much the post can enrich whatever platform hosts it.  Popularity equals profit.

What is the allure of idols? Idols please people, because people face no consequences from worshipping a false deity. A fake God will not punish the people. He may not reward them, but there is no cost either, particularly if you stop sacrificing or if you glean of the sacrifice of others to slake your own lusts. Idol worship typically includes ideas that are pleasing to the carnal mind, that teach “eat, drink and be merry, for God will save all people”. And idol worship more importantly often comes with financial rewards for the false priests of possibility and promise. Through all time, people have turned to “wizards that peep and mutter” to tell their fortunes and promise them their hopes, and because people like to hear what pleases them, they continue to enrich the sayers of sooth and the salesmen of salaciousness. We all know that people prefer comforting lies to discomfiting truths, and people like to be told there is hope and joy. Truly God promises that too, but not in exchange for specie or numismata. He asks for a broken spirit, a contrite heart, and selfless service to the unfortunate, particularly those who do not yet know Him. A widow’s mite suffices as tribute if your heart is true to a God who is also.

You see, God does not rely on social media to spread His message. He relies on people to minister to each other one on one, in our homes and in our synagogues, one of a family and two of a city, wherever there are those who are willing to take up their cross and help others lift theirs. God’s message is usually unpopular. It is not monetized. Christ chose mostly men of little means to follow Him because the wealthy usually worship their possessions and refuse to be parted from them to draw closer to God. If an organization’s leaders are enriched and made wealthy by the donations of the practitioners, those practitioners, however zealous their belief, are actually worshipping or enabling their leaders to worship idols. Jesus was born in a stable. He does not require opulent surrounds in order to enlighten and uplift the soul. Those who do worship false Gods in the spirit of Jezebel and are trying to manipulate you. Beware when politicians, pundits, and even priests talk in sweeping terms about righteousness and virtue. They often do so, not because they subscribe to those notions, but because they know you do. True followers will sacrifice for Christ and give to others as Christ gave to us, and that is true religion.  To be carnally minded is death, which is what the spirit of Jezebel promises.    Spiritually minded work is life eternal, and that is usually done by those without purse or scrip who only care to get enough money so that they can render to Caesar while they devote their time, talents and everything with which God blessed them to build His kingdom rather than their own.

Why You Should Train Your Dragon (Dictate)

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Back in 2015, I had this student who was completely deaf. As part of the university's accommodations, he came up after the first lecture with his dragon dictate so that I could train it to recognize my voice. I had to read excerpts from a fairy tale so it would recognize consonants and pronunciation. From then on, as I would lecture into a microphone, the dragon dictate would transcribe lectures for him (with a slight delay) so that he would know what went on as well as have written notes with which to study.

At first I was afraid. I was petrified to find out what strange, silly, and perhaps inappropriate things I might say. To the credit of this student, if I ever did, he never reported me for it or complained to anyone. I had never before had anyone come away from lecture with a verbatim transcript of everything I said. I was not sure how to feel about it, and at length I started to regret training his dragon.

Then, redemption arrived. One day, a student contended that I had promised them extra time for an assignment, which I did not recall ever saying. I suddenly realized I had a dragon in the corner and went over and said, "Let's check the transcripts" as I scrolled back using this gentleman's dragon dictate to what I had actually said at the beginning of the hour. I then reread what the dragon dictate recorded me saying, which countermanded the young lady's contention and quieted her contestation of the terms and said, "Don't try to put words in my mouth. I have a court ordered reporter." The dragon's transcript vindicated me and refuted the young lady's claim.

At this time, the student had caught up with what happened in class as the dragon dictate, which continued to transcribe the entire conversation, including the young lady although with some errors since it was not trained to recognize HER voice, and he laughed hysterically. It was entertaining and enlightening.

Why do I mention this? Very few people are important enough or say things important enough that anyone bothers to write them down. I try to be a diligent shepherd of things I hear and report them as verbatim as I am able. Sometimes the person speaks so quickly I can't keep up, so I give the "gist" as it were. For most people, this is a good thing. We don't know everything you say, everything you think or everything you do. In the social media age, however, with every young person (and some elderly ones) recording every asinine thing they do and posting it to instagram or tiktok, people are finding out that what they say or do comes back to haunt them.

It supports the scriptural argument that our words and deeds and even our thoughts will be used against us at the final judgment. Matthew 12:37 reads "For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned". Elsewhere in Alma 12:14 we can read "For our words will condemn us, yea, all our works will condemn us; we shall not be found spotless; and our thoughts will also condemn us; and in this awful state we shall not dare to look up to our God; and we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence." What we say, and what we plan to say, can and will be used against us. It already is online. Why would we expect otherwise from an omniscient God?

So, train your dragon. I got a new phone Monday night this week, and it's already learning what I'm likely to type. Train up whatever records what you say and think and do to record the things you want people to know you say and think and do by only saying and thinking and doing things that you are ok having other people record. Samuel Adams didn't write things down, and so most of what we know about him is anecdotal, but you no longer have that luxury in our modern world. What we do (and say) will define us. Either say things worth hearing or write things worth reading. And then when your words are dictated back to you by worldly judges or an Eternal One, they will have no choice but to give you what you deserve.

**This post is not sponsored by Dragon Dictate. It was an actual product used by an actual student in an actual chemistry class, and I like the pun of "training your dragon" based on the movie franchise of similar nomenclature.**