"Smarter" Than God

How do people think they can "judge" God? I'm not asking "why do they think they have the right". Rather, I'm asking "why do they think they have the ability". God is omnipotent and omniscient. All are created by God. The implication is that humans are then, naturally, less powerful and less intelligent than God.

In what scenario would human beings rise above the moral code of God, that we could say to Him, "HEY YOU! WHAT YOU'RE DOING ISN'T RIGHT! THIS WAY IS BETTER"? The only way we could do that is if God permitted it. (There are debates about whether God actively upholds every event in the universe or if He simply allows them to happen, but that's not relevant here. The point is, God has the power to control what happens. Sometimes things aren't always what we think they should be, and we don't always know what He is planning, but omnipotence remains constant.) God's moral code has no flaws, but even if we entertain the idea. If God's moral code has flaws, why would He ever allow us to know abut them? Why would He allow ordinary people to just realize one day that He was wrong all along? Wouldn't He, instead, keep us all in the dark (INCLUDING NON-CHRISTIANS, BECAUSE AGAIN, GOD IS OMNIPOTENT) and not allow any of us to ever know about those flaws? It doesn't make sense for "an omnipotent yet somehow flawed God" to coexist with "less powerful and less intelligent beings waking up one day and realizing that their moral codes are better than God's". So then, it doesn't make sense to claim one's moral codes is better than God's. And yet many people do just that, yelling at God for being "wrong" about so many things.

So where does all this come from, then? It seems to be caused by one of two things:

1) Misconceptions. Somebody doesn't fully understand God's intentions, or reads some faulty interpretation of a verse, etc, and thus gets an incomplete picture of God's morality. This seems to happen most often with people who rush to conclusions and make assumptions, but can absolutely just be a sincere misunderstanding.

2) Pride. We all disagree with things God does. There is no Christian in history who has watched a loved one die a slow, painful death from disease or injury; no Christian who has heard of an injustice being done to vulnerable people like children or the elderly; no Christian who has lived through or learned about some natural disaster like a tornado, hurricane, earthquake etc; ............. and felt no compassion about it. No Christian who simply thought to themselves, "Eh, God's smarter than I am, so I'll just go about my day." We all disagree with decisions that God makes from time to time. Babies don't know not to play with sharp objects. Babies don't know not to shove crayons up their noses. Babies cry a lot when their parents make them stop doing things like that. In a similar way, God does things we don't understand. The difference is, when the initial anger/confusion subsides, those who know God, or wish to know God, seek to learn from the experience, and use it to grow. Meanwhile the prideful just throw their hands in the air and go "NO!!! YOU'RE WRONG!!! BECAUSE YOU DISAGREE WITH ME!!! AND I'M RIGHT!!! IF MY OPINIONS WERE WRONG, THEN WHY DO I THINK THEM???"

We need to try harder to remove these things from our lives. They're based on falsehoods and logical fallacies.

May God bless and guide you all according to His perfect will! In Jesus' name. Amen.

More Lyrics

Ideas I've had sitting around, but haven't used yet. They're not listed in any particular order -- just the order I happened to find them as I was making this post. All songs are untitled.

I

The world looks without
Look within
Until the center point
Then continue further
Thus leading back out

You think these are negative values since you went beyond zero,
When in reality, you went from the negatives into the positives

With new perspective
Reborn
Washed
Cleansed
Carry these new values out
Evangelism

II

God is the only one who can process infinity

For one like me, there aren't enough galaxies in the universe to contain this: a longing for infinity

Expansion means nothing
Finite is finite
Matter will end
The universe has an edge
Beyond that is only the beginning
Only the beginning

And think, how much more is God capable of creating?

How many "creations" with entirely different building blocks are in the infinite arsenal of God?

The multiverse? Conceivable, but illogical -- fantastical and self-contradictory. (For example, a universe where the inhabitants find a way to access and destroy the entire multiverse, cannot coexist with a universe where the inhabitants find a way to make the multiverse last forever.) Yet even then, God is still capable of creating things even greater than the heights of our imaginations...

Infinity.

III

Dark storms, cold blasts, and cloudy nights
Creaking trees reaching the sky
Faint dimness on a fullmoon night

All are a gift of God

Snow-covered mountains and howling wolves
Frozen lakes reflecting stars that shine in the cold
The fields wrapped in snow, and the trees, icicles,

All are a gift of God

We do not fear, its Creator is with us
So rest with us here in the moonlight so bright
Overcomers, in armor of the Spirit,
By the grace of the Lord, we shine in, we are...
We shine in, we are, THE BLACKEST LIGHT!

IV

The search for physical gratification is in vain

It is always fleeting
And has no meaning

You will always end up wanting more and your flesh will never be fulfilled -- the very world which promotes these lusts will be unable to meet your demands
Other people will be unable to meet your demands
You will be unable to meet your demands

Therefore it is better to seek real purification through Christ

The search for the Lord will not end with vanity, for truth does not run empty; truth can always be found; truth will not leave you, only for you to crave it again later.

Physical desire is fleeting, and the devil will always manipulate your thoughts to make you want it even more.

"It is healthy biology."

It is sin. Kill it in your heart.

V

Through subjectivity yield objectivity
Subjectivity ∴ Objectivity
Speak to me through this aesthetic essence
Crumble the immaterial darkness through omnipotence

Transgression becomes so through divine will
And through divine will transgression to kill

Cutting 5/7 of the points of the heptagram
To bring forth a 7 away from the damned

777
1 ∵ 3 ∵ 1

When an end is a beginning
If the wish is that none go to Hell,
Then don't let me fuel its flames.

Losing to the world is winning
Speak to me in the toll of a bell,
Through subjectivity yield objective ways.

Modern ""Philosophy"".......................

""Philosophy"" nowadays is nonsense. There is no deep thought in it now. It's as simple as that. All you have to do is add a twist to some popular thought or phrase, add a few words like "beautiful" or "wonderful" to make it sound nice, and boom! Philosophy!!!

Below are a few examples I crapped out off the top of my head this morning. Obviously I don't actually think these things, they're just demonstrations.

What if material things are nirvana? What if this ultimate state of knowledge and bliss was right here in front of us the whole time, in the beautiful things in our everyday lives? 

People always talk about learning from Buddha... but what if Buddha actually wanted to learn from you all along? How wonderful is it to think that such a wise teacher as Buddha actually based his whole spirituality and philosophy on learning from the common people around him?

People talk about spirits. Some people say human beings have spirits. Some people say animals have spirits. Some people say that even inanimate objects like the dirt beneath your feet have spirits. But what if the true "spirit" in this world comes from the "spirit" behind our actions? The "spirit" of looking forward and pushing through our boundaries? The "spirit" of motivation to always have an open mind? What if these things are what "spirit" is all about?

Do these sound like meaningless ad-libs to you? Do they still sound nonsensical if I tell you I didn't actually invent these quotes, but took them from famous author Deepak Chopra? ......... Do they still sound nonsensical if I tell you Deepak Chopra didn't actually write any of these, and I just said that right now to trick you, and I actually did just crap them out today?

Yes, every quote above is something I made up...... NOT because I actually think them, QUITE the opposite, but rather by following the same formula all of these crappy ""deep"" quotes follow. They have no meaning. They have no substance. They're just nicely-worded things, with an unexpected "twist" to make it sound like a lot of deep thought went into them, and because they're so simplistic in nature, they can appeal to the absolute lowest-common-denominator. Anybody who wants to look smart, but doesn't want to actually take the time to think about the world around them, can just take these thought-free LIES and apply them to their lives. And frankly I'm sick of seeing them!

And I'm sick of seeing people take this stuff seriously!

Stop letting nonsense like this get into your life and dumb you down all the time! It's not "philosophy"! Stop pretending that it is!

May the TRUE AND LIVING God bless and guide you all, according to His perfect will! In Jesus' name. Amen.

"Gentlemen, Speak Up!"

Hey, so for those who don't know, I have a blog called Unblack Archives. It's meant to catalog/archive unblack metal bands that don't meet more popular metal sites' criteria.

Anyway, I was doing research and found an old -core EP that I wanted to document, but doesn't fit on my other blog, so I just decided to document it here instead.

[Here's the page where I got the info]

"Gentlemen, Speak Up! - Running From Their Lives EP"
Released as a free digital download from Erlösung Distribution (aka "Erlosung Distribution")
Somewhere around the year 2011?

"Finally!  Our new e.p. 'Running From Our Lives' is finished and now available to download for free! It's been a long road, and sadly it's coming to an end.  After this month, we will no longer be together as a band." -Luke, Guitarist of Gentelmen Speak Up

The tracklist, in the correct order, is:
1 Take It... Or Don't
2 Second Star to the Left
3 Don't Leave Your Bags Unattended
4 Moss Always Grows There
5 Adjust Question


Unfortunately, it seems the download link didn't make its way onto archive.org? So I don't have audio yet.

"The Spider"

The following was not written by me, but taken from [thedefeatofsatan.blogspot.com]. I just wanted to share it here. [Most of the text below was translated in Google Translate.] The original Portuguese version, "A aranha", can be viewed [here].

Once a man was being pursued by several evildoers who wanted to kill him.
The man, running, turned on a shortcut that led off the road and entered through the bush, and in despair raised a prayer to God in the following manner: "Almighty God, make two angels come from the sky and block the entrance of the track so the bad guys don't kill me!!!"

At that moment he heard the men approaching the trail where he was hiding and saw that, at the entrance to the trail, a tiny spider appeared.

Then the spider began to weave a web at the entrance to the trail.
The man began to make another prayer more and more distressed: "Lord, I asked you for angels, not a spider. Lord, please, with Your powerful hand put a strong wall at the entrance of this path, so that the men cannot come in and kill me..."

Then he opened his eyes, expecting to see a wall covering the entrance, and saw only the spider weaving the web. The evildoers were entering the path where he was, and he was waiting only for death.
As they passed the trail, the man heard, "Come on, let's get on this trail."
"No, don't you see it has cobwebs? Nothing came in here. Let's continue searching for the next tracks."

Faith is to believe in what you do not see, to persevere in the face of the impossible. Sometimes we ask for walls to be safe, but God asks us to have confidence in Him to let His glory manifest and to do something like a web, which gives us the same protection as a wall.

Never get discouraged in the midst of the struggles; move on, for God said, "Tell the weak that I am strong."

It is in the most difficult moments that we find in God our strength.

Astral Projection

I've mentioned this on this blog before, but seriously, DON'T astrally project.

There is no wisdom to glean from it. Everything you experience is entirely subjective and open to interpretation. Any beings you meet that claim to have explanations are unreliable.

It seems way too common for people to think of spirituality as this mostly harmless thing that's just fun to dabble in. That's not how it works. There are not only benevolent beings beyond the physical plane. There are also innumerable demonic forces that are far too happy to lead you by the hand into complete lies and confusion. And no, it's not a matter of "how" you project, or "where" you project "to". It's all the same. The so-called "higher" and "lower" planes are the same thing, dressed up differently. There is Heaven, there is Hell, and there is the physical universe. Everything "in between" is merely part of the exact same spiritual battleground we live in here in the physical plane. You can't "project" to a "plane" where evil forces cannot exist. The alleged "benevolent beings" you encounter in these places are almost definitely the same demons you would encounter in a so-called "lower plane" -- again, just with different appearances.

"Satan disguises himself as an angel of light."

Also, let's be clear about something - the places you project to are also, almost certainly, not real. There are those who claim to project into their own houses, and can look at their own bodies while they project. Make no mistake, you shouldn't try to do this, either, but we'll get to that. The point right now is that you are leaving yourself open to any information at all. Information that could be spoon-fed to you by a demon, just as easily as it could be seen by your eye, or felt by your skin. The spirit is not limited to the five senses as the physical body is, but allowing the spirit to wander outside of the physical body is dangerous, because your knowledge is limited by what you've experienced. There is no way any person on Earth has enough knowledge about the spiritual to wander through it responsibly. With the physical, you have, not absolute certainty by any means, but a reasonable amount of certainty that what you see is what's there. The spiritual does not work this way. You are being led blindly through a place you don't know. You're entirely at the mercy of whatever spiritual force first happens to reach you. And do you think they wouldn't possibly use that ignorance to put illusions in front of you? Do you think they don't have the ability to do that? If you can hear a song in the physical, and be moved to a certain emotion; if you can see an optical illusion where a still image appears to be moving; do you really think the same thing can't be done in the spiritual? Although not limited to the five senses, you can still just as easily be deceived by another spirit that is wiser than you. If a song can evoke an emotion or atmosphere, how much more can the same illusion be created by a spirit that has abilities beyond those of the human body? The places you see; the planes you visit; all of these things are, more likely than not, more illusions created by deceitful forces looking to take advantage of your lack of knowledge.

Going back to the "projecting into your own room" thing, this is still something you shouldn't practice. Even if you aren't leaving earth, you're still leaving your body. You're leaving it open to supernatural influence - the same supernatural influence that you would experience in the so-called "astral", just without a spirit to help struggle against it. It's nothing more than a danger to your body.

Make no mistake, the body is not perfect, and on a personal note, I can absolutely, 100% understand one's desire to leave it. Life would be so much better if we didn't have to deal with hunger or thirst, or carnal desires like lust and gluttony. These are abhorrent, unnecessary, do not yield any wisdom, and are impure. But leaving the body is not the way to go about avoiding these things. The way is simple: Jesus Christ. Because through Jesus, we have the strength of the Creator behind us, working alongside us. And just as you return to your body after projecting, and have to deal again with these carnal things, so does the Christian life also still involve struggling against sin. But Jesus presents a safe way to struggle against these base things, to go beyond basic survival and psychological reward systems. God, triune and holy, guides us so long as we seek Him, and helps us to improve over time. And it's true that God has appealed to reward systems at times; this, however, is simply to convey a complicated message to us in a manner that's easier to understand. It's not to say at all that God is limited to reward systems as our minds are. Quite the contrary, in fact. And of course, for many, the desire to "escape" will still be there. I didn't project in the past just because I wanted wisdom - I did it because I hated living on earth, and wanted to escape to somewhere else. I still often want to escape to somewhere else. But there are ways to go about this without putting your body, mind, and spirit at risk. Escape into a book; escape into art; escape into writing; heck, escape into a TV show, if you can find one that isn't mentally poisonous to you; etc.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever. Wisdom cannot be reliably gleaned from astral projection, as all so-called "wisdom" is hopelessly intertwined with lies and deceptions that can't possibly be picked apart by oneself. And even then, astral projection still presents other kinds of dangers that should be avoided anyway.

May God bless you all and guide you according to His perfect will! In Jesus' name. Amen.

"Hated Because of Me" - Matthew 10:22

In Matthew 10:22, Jesus says the following:"and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved."
This verse is a message both of warning and comfort for Christians. Warning us that we will face persecution and hostility in our lives. Not all Christians will be martyred like most of the disciples were, but we will, inevitably, face persecution. However, it seems people sometimes stretch the meaning of this verse. We need to remember, and emphasize, "for my name's sake". 

I once saw a clip of a few KKK people at a meeting, reading the above verse from a Bible. One of the guys says, "Sounds like Jesus is talking about us!" The problem there is, the beliefs of the KKK do not line up with the beliefs taught by Jesus. Jesus taught a parable where someone, from a country the Israelites didn't like, was portrayed as the "good guy", while two Israelites were portrayed as the "bad guys". Again, to understand the full meaning of the "Parable of the Good Samaritan", we need to remember that the Israelites viewed the Samaritans in a terrible light, much like how modern groups like the KKK view those of African or Mexican descent. 

This creates a problem. On one hand, it's true that the KKK are hated, almost universally. But see, that does not mean they're living the calling Christ calls us, and them, to live. Quite the opposite. And it's not just them, either. There are a lot of people living lives that run contrary to God's commands. And I don't mean everyday sinners, either -- I mean people who aren't even trying. They would simply rather live their own lives, according to their own views, than learn from God. But these same people will attempt to justify themselves with Matthew 10:22, saying that because they face persecution, they're living good lives. 

Everybody faces "persecution" to some degree in life. Everybody has to deal with hostility, with disagreements, with people who just lack civility. That's the consequence of living in a world with so many different viewpoints. Just because one experiences that persecution, doesn't mean they're saints. And "enduring to the end", sticking with one's beliefs until they die, doesn't mean one is a saint, either. Those who are persecuted "FOR MY [Jesus'] NAME'S SAKE" and endure to the end, will be saved. 

In short, the verse should not be read to mean, "being hated by people means you will be saved". Rather, it should be read as, "believers will be saved, but will have to deal with persecution in the world first."

Take some time and think about this.

May God bless you all and guide you according to His perfect will! In Jesus' name. Amen.