Defining Perfection Downward

You know, the feminists are upset because of a doll that when you pull the string says, "Math is hard". This is somehow supposed to be a putdown of women. It isn't really. The big things that are really worth doing are going to be challenging. John Kennedy said upon deciding upon our space program said, "We're not going to the moon because it's easy; we're going to the moon because it's hard". Enter Jesus of the K F I show. Some of these people who talk about the "original Hebrew" can't always be relied upon. We are told the original Hebrew in the injunction "Thow shalt not kill" is in fact the word for murder. This would certainly make it easier for people to follow. It would have all sorts of implication about making war and such. Let me now squash this whole theory like squashing a bug on a wind shield. Isaiah 7 says "A young maiden shall conceive in her womb". Nobody translates it that way even though that's what it says in the Hebrew. The word in just about every translation you'll see is pronounced "Virgin". Christianity would collapse like a house of cards, otherwise. Jesus spoke this morning of war being necessary. This doctrine of necessity seems to pre-empt Jesus' thinking. In philosophy they speak of a necessary or essential attribute of something. It would seem that war, according to Jesus, is a necessary attribute of Christianity. Gobles or someone once said "The extermination of the Jews isn't a necessary evil, it's just necessary". John Lennon said, "Make love not war" but Jesus' doctrine distilled down seems to be "Make war not love". Jesus then went on this morning to talk about "turning the other cheak". Once Ghandi said this meant that is the Nazis entered England the people should engage in the same passive resistance his people engaged in in India. I remember when Chuck Smith once spoke of having vengence and the people applauded and I thought "Well, this is neat. A religion that supports vengence. This was different from the liberalism I'd been exposed to in my own church. Jesus says "turning the other cheak" means that if someone is verbally insulting you you don't escalate the conflict into physical violence. He says "smiting on the cheek" is an "insult" and nothing to do with any kind of physical assault. Jesus has defined perfection downward. The yoke Christianity imposes on people is a heavy one. In the Bible it says broad is the way that leads to Hell and many go there but the road to rightiousness is narrow and few there be that find it". Jesus also weighed in on the line "He who lives by the sward shall die by the sward". Jesus said that he told the deciples to pick up swards. But Jesus left out the scene later on when Peter drew his sword in self defence and sliced off the right ear of Malchis or whoever. The real Jesus said "Put away your sword". It would seem Jesus had "set Peter up" to make a point about non violence. In fact the real Jesus was so non violent he was prepared to see the whole nation of Isrial destroyed at the hands of Rome rather than take up arms in self defence. Jesus on KFI says "War is necessary" no doubt thinking of the current Iraq war. But in some ways George Bush and Pontious Pilate are alike in that they both occupied far away countries and used military force to "Keep the peace" and keep the land "safe from agitators". Jesus doesn't seem to be against war if it's an oppressor doing it. There is a Yoco Ono song called "There may not be much difference". There may not be much difference between Charles Manson and Pope Paul VI, if we press their smiles. There may not be much difference between Ghandi and Marolyn Monroe, if we bottle their tears. There may not be much difference between Pilate and Bush, if we look at their Imperialist asperations. Every time non violence is even hinted about with Jesus on KFI, Jesus goes into a major eulogy for War and it's virtues. He has defined perfection downward. There are no more Ghandi's allowed.

Jesus was asked by a middle age lady about mental illness. Here you really find out what is on Jesus' heart. The lady said she could understand almost every other malody but not mental illness because mentally ill people can't receive Christ. Jesus chimed in with his usual stock answer. "Mentally ill people have just as much an oppertunity to reveive me as anybody else has". Not so. Jesus also has said "If you're an athiest there must somehow be something wrong with you, you must have issues that are warping your mind", his point being that no "normal person" could possibly be an athiests so if you were one there had to be something "wrong" with you. What Jesus said next was amazing. He spoke of mental illness giving glory to God. He said "If you're a surgon you get glory from the pain and suffering of others in putting them right". His policy seems to deni the idea "Adversity is something that produces greatness, it just reveals it". According to Jesus, evil has to exist for Great people to be great. Otherwise they'd have no purpose. But from there Jesus says, "Therefore God gets glory out of other peoples' imperfections. I am great in that my glory is shown in other peoples' mental illness". It was at that point he totally lost me but his Terry Shibo remarks had been similar. He said "Why can't some people just be allowed to exist as they are". His point was that God gets glory out of someone else living as a helpless vegetable. Whenever there is a choice Jesus will always opt against doing a healing, despite how this flagurantly violates scripture. Jesus said something about "I originally made everybody perfect". His rationalle I guess is that since he's not responsable for their imperfection he's not inclined to do anything about it. Let's look at original sin. We are to believe that when Adam and Eve ate that apple it put the "seeds of evil" in nature. If this is so, why do most depictions of "The Fall" show nature all at once going to pot before the "seeds" even had a chance to work. Here's one for you. Adam and eve lived six thousand years ago. Dinasaurs lived 65 million years ago. They were destroyed by an asteroid that struck the earth. How did "origional sin" get into that asteroid in outer space 65 million years into the past as a result of Adam eating the apple? Romans 8 tells us "All of creation was subject to futility, not of its own will but the will of the one who subjected it". I take this to mean Satan. Satan predestined the Cosmos to evil. Indeed whoever has the power to predestine the Universe is Lord of it, and Satan is called "The lord of this world". So it would seem predestination is Satan's doing, and if it is, it's something we should logically fight and not go along with. Jesus seems to say "If sin caused something, it isn't my problem". This really is defining perfection downward. Jesus then asked the woman if she herself was mentally ill. This made me mad because these people don't believe you can be concerned about others. They assume you're as self obcessed as they are about themselves.

Churchmen define perfection down in another way. Jesus taught "Do not refuse one who would borrow from you". He also said "If someone sues you and takes your coat, give them your cloak as well". This sets the bar mighty high. However in the ditike (?) or apostolic teaching it says "Let the money you plan to give another sweat in your palms till you are sure whether they really deserve it or not". This writing teaches if you're a prophet and decree that a meal be prepared, and if you yourself partake in that meal, you are no prophet". This isn't even Biblical. Elijah came to the widdow of Zaraphath and she was about to eat her last meal before she died, and Elijah had the stones to say "First prepare me a meal, and whatever you have left you can eat". Today the in thing among Christians is to speak of "tough love". And don't give to another because they might be a "swine". Perfection is defined downward. Also when it comes to preaching the Bible scripture says "Be instant in season and out of season". What does Jesus of KFI say? He says don't preach to another unless your own life is perfect and your neighbor can see that. Basically he says to "put on a good act" for your neighbor. According to Jesus- - if you just walk up and start preaching- - - you should stop and seccond guess yourself to death.

In terms of that fraternity where a pledge died of a water overdose, this is just another reason why I hate fraternities. You go through all this humiliation and sometimes your life is in jeopardy if you drink too much alcohol or whatever. And what does it buy you? The loyalty of people who are jerks to begin with. I have at times wondered why God was ignoring all his promises to me in scripture. I thought that maybe I was in some "initiation phase". Of course that wasn't true. But O D ing on water illustrates that you can indeed die from something that's normally good for you, like water, like religion. As the Dylan song says, "I bargained for salvation, she gave me a lethal dose". Fraternities are supposed to be about friendship and fellowship but those brothers wern't showing much of that.

Progress and Retrogression

They say that we are progressing at an ever faster rate but I'd like to cast doubt on that assumption. Back in the Civil War they had two competing pattents for the machine gun. They never could decide as the years passed. President Abriham Lincoln wanted the machine gun but the army wasn't sure. I think it's perhaps divine providence that Lincoln didn't get his way or there would have been a bigger holicaust than there was in the Civil War because medical procedures hadn't yet caught up. Less than a year after the War was over the government approved the Gattling gun to use on the Indians. The time interval was very short. In 1879 Edison invented the light bulb. During the Cleaveland adminestration lights were installed in the White House. Cleaveland was elected in 1884, and I believe by that time Edison had already electrified Manhatton. In 1903 the Wright Brothers invented the airplane. It was just over ten years latrer they were using fighter planes in World War I. Did you know the first television was invented in 1929 by Farnsworth or somebody? The first TV stations came on in 1946 or seventeen years later. When I was in first grade they talked about "electronic ovins". Well, it was nearly twenty years before they were in widespread usage as microwaves. In the song "What do you want from life?" microwaves were seen as relitively new. Skipping ahead, the first computer was invented in 1944, the Mark I. The first computer you could buy was assembled from a kit you put together yourself, the Apple I in 1975. Are you starting to see a trend here? Computers really didn't become a household word till the early 1990's. In the early 'sixties they used solar cells for space satalites. Soon people thought these would be household items. We're still waiting and it's been over forty years. Certain inventions take longer and longer to reach the public. The pace is slowing down. Five years ago the fastest speed was about two gigahertz. Now it's perhaps three gigahertz, but even at that the machine "runs hot". We are reaching an upward limit of speed. We're still traveling at the same air speeds we were traveling in the late 1950's when jet air craft were first used commercially. Back when I was a kid it took over six months to go to mars or venus. It still takes that long. Certain things don't change. Darwin came up with the theory of evolution in 1859. Today this theory is running into more resistance than it did a hundred years ago. Instead of getting closser to our goal, we are getting farther from it.

It was the middle of June 1967 that Ronald Reagan signed the abortion bill for California. This bill was pretty much abortion on demand like we have today. I think abortion is less fashionable now than it was then. In those days we were in the "sexual revolution" I remember one time in October of 1967 when Hippies came to our church and they were praised by the congragation for their alternative life views. Also in June of 1967 we sent a craft to Venus. We really don't know a whole hell of a lot more about Venus now than we did after that mission in 1967.

On June 25th. the Beatles recorded "All You Need Is Love". This was done for a live sattalite program on a Sunday night. The only things that were changed were that John re-did the vocals, and Ringo did the drum roll introduction. The song was being played on the radio July 1st. or so. In those days the Beatles or other group could "get out" an album in a couple of months. This was certainly the case with "Rubber Soul", "Beatles for Sale", and even "Magical Mystory Tour". Today the average group seems to work a year and a half on an album, and often longer. So much for progress. I was hoping when Anthology II of the Beatles came out they'd show how they "layered" the recording of "All You Need is Love" but as it turns out they didn't even seem fit to include this song though John Lennon has said that this song would have made a good "last song" before the Beatles should have broken up.

What we really need is Love now. This was kind of a calling card of the Christian fundamentalists in 1970. It was a way we could identify them that they imotated what the hippies were doing. How different things are from today! Today when you think of a fundamentalist Christian you think of George Bush, or worse yet, Larry Elder or Anne Coulter. Today love is seen as a bad thing. Back then we said "make love not war". Today Christians say "Make war not love". If you have love you almost have to apologise for it and call it "tough love". Back then when Newark and Detroit were in flames we thought of it as "just as a natural part of the natural process in the liberation of the Black man". Today if you sit around and fanticize about something like blowing up buildings, the government arrests you and you're the trial of the decade, you're the Miami Seven. The only Al Kaida terrorist in the group was the government FBI agents prodding and pushing the group to admit they'd like to see something blown up. I don't know but I'd guess the minimum wage nation wide is about half of what it was in 1967. And so things have changed

It was a couple months ago that the roomer started that Iran would have the Bom in sixteen days. I guess we can thank God this isn't the case. It gives us more time. I guess we can see if the ABM system we have, aka. "Star Wars" or Stratigic Defence Initiative, works at all. Perhaps we can use it to shoot down a South Korea missile. If it works, perhaps we don't have to worry. In terms of other scientific developments, now they use mercury lights indoors, and yet I think the basic concept was pioneered in the late 1890s. Tessla is said to have done fantastic experimentations over a hundred years ago but I think his work was supressed. When my Dad was in college some teacher told the class that we had twenty-five years left of fossil fuel. 38 years ago when The Population Bomb hit the book shelves we were given dire scenarios of what would happen if the population growth of the planet went on unabaited. The problem isn't any less severe today; we've just decided we don't want to think about it. The same goes for Social Security. We have seen the danger signals for ten years but now it's not "politically wise" to even address the problem so we don't think about it. The first nucliar submarine the Nautelus was comissioned in 1954. Yet we have such a phobia of nucliar power today we can't wean ourselves away from gas and coal to produce electricity. There are times when you wonder whether solutions are being kept off the market. I think it's absurd that we still have these freeway traffic problems. We were talking about congested freeways fourty years ago but are seemingly able to do nothing about it. I think it's obvious we have got to get people to give up their cars in commuting.

Magic Mountain is 35 years old this summer and you've heard about how they are planning to sell it and turn the area into another real estate development. The Park was built to get people to move out to Velencia and Saugus but now that they're there the Park has proved too successful. Can you imagine they're going to bulldoze a theme park with seventeen roller coasters? But they say the land is now worth too much to use for something as frivelous as an amusement park. That's progress for you. Who would guess the song is true "These are the good old days"?