Maurice, you write much faster than I! I was getting ready to shut this cyberspace transponder down, and !! there is the long response from you! Divine help? Can never deny, always acknowledge divine help, since "in him we live, and move and have our being." I wasn't a Christian when I was 18 years old, but it must have been divine help that inspired me to buy a typewriter from a pawnshop and check out a book from the library on typing.
You must be a 10 fingered typist, too, more or less.
You "use valium, alcohol and dope with heroin injections"? Well, I'm relieved that at least you aren't using that most dangerous of drugs, tobacco. It must be the most dangerous, because teen-drug use is skyrocketing here (according to statistics) but Clinton is ignoring that and cutting back on drug enforcement, even shut down a radar that was used for drug surveillance. Instead of concern about those things, he recently issued an executive order declaring tobacco to be a drug. The bottom line is, tobacco companies are going to have to give the government billions of dollars or the government will allow people to sue and harass them endlessly. Two years ago, I decided that if Clinton was making such a push against tobacco, while overlooking drug operations in Mena, Arkansas (his home state), tobacco must be relatively harmless. He only seems to oppose what is good.
The name, Saint Maurice, does have a nice ring to it. Maybe one of these days you can find out what Mr. Maurice was famed for. I tried, just now, looking it up with one of the search engines, but a few minutes search only turned up a "St. Leonard of Port Maurice," an 18th century Italian who was known as one of the "three greatest evangelists" of those days and that area. Saint Maurice - maybe you will have more success.
You can't remember what you wrote? Well, I wasn't merely quoting you, when you said "I don't choose to believe in no God.", I was copying and pasting it from your message. Yes, "I don't choose to believe in no God" is a double negative. It is my opinion that your subconscious, the "dreamweaver" part of you, really does believe in God. "Freudian slips" are not without significance. You need to unshackle your subconscious, set it free.
With regard to reading the Bible, you said, "Haven't read more than a dabbling. Not enough pictures. Your comments sound fair enough. Maybe the good ones could get a star tattooed on their forehear or something."
Not enough pictures? You can get profusely illustrated Bibles, with pictures on every page, if you wish. Generally, they are intended for children, but Jesus did say to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a little child.
Stars tattooed on foreheads? No thanks, the Nazis already did that to the Jews and it went downhill from there. Besides, one of the lesser known commands in the Bible is that we should not put any marks upon our bodies.
Yes, perhaps those who burned witches claimed to be Christians, but I wonder even about that. Do you know? I don't even know if those who were burned were really witches and but I have every reason to doubt that those who burned them were Christians.
I can understand that you might be uncomfortable with the concept that those who burned accused witches were not Christians. After all, if they weren't really Christians, they probably didn't really believe in God, which would mean they were actually .... well, it would mean that agnostics and athiests would be guilty by association with the burnings, then.
In your response to what I told you of a Christian who was speaking in tongues and the Indian who heard him, I detect strains of cognitive dissonance on your part, garbed in humor.
I don't think you understood what I was saying about the incident during the jail visit. The prisoner who tried to speak with me waited until after the jail service was over. A Navajo Indian named Joe and I had conducted the service. Joe was a Nazarene. I was his sidekick, helped hand out the hymnals, but Joe did the preaching.
The prisoner who tried to talk to me didn't speak or understand any English. When I spoke to him in English, it could have been any other language for all he understood it. He persisted in trying to talk to me (he hung back, behind the other prisoners who filed out) and acted very worried, agitated, concerned. I asked Joe if he understood any Spanish. Joe said no, all he knew was Navajo and English. The prisoner seemed so distraught, and I felt compassion for him, so I sought quickly in silent prayer for what to do to help the guy, instead of just pushing him out with the rest. The thought came, to speak to him in tongues. I spoke what seemed like two or three sentences, judging by the pauses. His expression immediately changed from one of agitation and worry, to one of peaceful comprehension. Then, I started to get a little agitated (but not much) because I didn't know how much to say to him, since I didn't know what I was saying, which is a quality of speaking in tongues. The mind doesn't understand, but the spirit does.
He said, "Si... (which means yes)" at least a couple times, and nodded his head. I stopped speaking in tongues, because he looked like he had his answer, whatever it was. Then I said, "No comprende Espanol" and he smiled and walked out with the rest of the inmates.
I didn't, as you said, "come in babbling weird stuff" at him. Joe visited the jail every Sunday. Sometimes I went with him, sometimes someone else. Sometimes Joe went alone. This Sunday it was Joe and me. Attendance was voluntary, with all of us locked in the jail cafeteria after the guard left. Joe did all the preaching. I passed out the hymnals and asked if any of the inmates wanted to choose a hymn to sing. I didn't "babble" except for a few seconds after finding no other way to communicate with the man. To him, it wasn't babbling. I felt more amazed than he looked. I don't think he knew I'd just spoken to him in a language I didn't understand, so there was nothing for him to be amazed about.
Well, I hope you have started thinking again, so that you will have returned from your ommm... trip. You do have a lot of faith in Descartes!
Free will sorted out? Should I ask about that? Last person I talked to about free will, we got to talking about God and Jesus' message to mankind, and he said he didn't believe there was such a thing as free will, therefore he could not choose to believe. A few days later, he showed me a passage in a book, which he had underlined, which in essence said that people are mere robots with no free will and whatever they do was predestined and is unavoidable, etc.
This man, who said he didn't believe in such a thing as free will, was a former college teacher, was fluent in Russian and German, and read math books for entertainment. A few weeks ago, he strangled his wife, and stabbed himself to death. Perhaps he was out of control, though - I mean not in his "right" mind, because he had been taking Prozac to control his anger.
So... poof! Where is he and where is his wife now?
John
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