Thou Shalt Not Kill: missed the translation on that one!

I've been trying to read through the Bible about once a year, but it usually ends up taking me a little longer than a year, or has so far. I'm on my third reading right now...and behind schedule, I think. Its the journey, not the destination, so I'll be OK no matter how long it takes.

For some reason, I seem to be seeing references to the 10 Commandments quite a bit lately. I think they've been there anyway; its not something new where its all of a sudden in front of me more often. However, I am seeing more reference to it around me. I believe that God does that for me to get me thinking. I don't always know exactly why, but it shows up somewhere, every time.

So I'm reading the Old Testament now, and have just completed reading the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. They've been settled for a little while now; ballpark they've been there 150 years total. The whole history of the 40 years in the desert and the events of that time are all in there. Its not been a terribly long time that Moses brought the 10 Commandments off the mountain.

And here's what strikes me about them: the 6th Commandment can't possibly be translated correctly. In both of my Bibles, a New American Standard and a Revised Standard Edition, both use the word "kill": Exodus 2:13, "You shall not kill". But read the rest of the Old Testament and that word can't be right...unless its a word being used that has multiple definitions. If it was simply killing that was prohibited, then God would be going against his word, which does not happen. Killing can't be wrong in and of itself. A couple of examples: as Israel is being set up, God commands them to set up "safe cities", where a man who causes the death of his neighbor by accident can go until a trail can be held; sort of protective custody where he's sequestered away from the family of the deceased. This only applies in accidental deaths, which I think we call manslaughter now. Then there's the entire peoples that were "delivered into your [Israel's] hand." What's that mean? It means God not only sanctioned, but ordered Israel to kill off an entire people. That's what "put to the edge of the sword" means: quite literally putting the edge of the sword with force and extreme prejudice on a body and taking it's life. So "kill" can't be the right word.

Replace "kill" with "murder". Now it makes a lot more sense. Dictionary.com says "murder" is defined as "Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder)  and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder)." It also says that the word's origins come from between 1300-1350, which means that "kill" would be the only word available at the time, and that's why its translated that way. 

It's clear to me, though, that there is such a thing as righteous killing, and that "some people just need killin'" is also true. I don't think I need to go into a big explanation of how murder and killing are different; both the readers of my blog should already get that, and it'd make this post a lot, lot longer. Suffice it to say, not all killing is murder, and while murder is against God's law, killing isn't. As distasteful as it is, sometimes it's the right thing to do, is righteous, and needs to be done.  

The big scare, or Heck Yeah, God Answers Prayers!

I spent a decent amount of money on some Flexon eye glasses frames, that were billed as "unbreakable". Well, it turns out that they're not unbreakable. I had my arm up on the armrest of The World's Worst Couch, and when I moved my hand, I hit the temple or arm of my glasses. Near as I can tell, that's all that happened, except what came of that was my glasses breaking at the bridge. One minute I had a pair of glasses, the next minute, I had left and right monocular lenses.

Since that was both sucktastic and unacceptable, I went to the Vision Center and made an appointment for an eye exam. I found out once again that I have an unusual prescription, in that my astigmatism, which usually runs up and down or side to side, runs at an angle, and a different angle on both eyes. When I had a root canal last year, I found out that the root of that tooth was unusual, too, and only .5% of the people in the world have that. I don't know what that means, other than that all this stuff probably costs me more in the long run.

Upon getting my eye exam, complete with dilating my eyes and making the whole world blurry, I was informed by my new optometrist that I potentially had a retinal detachment. That was not welcomed news. Knowing how expensive that is, and how crappy my insurance is, I was dreading that being the case.

So, I called my brother back from his Birthday message for me, and told him what the what's up was. He promised to pray about it, and I certainly was. I know it sounds like I was jobbin' the prayers, but that's not the case. I have always been a believer in prayer, as I've seen God come through for me and for others time and time again.

Today was no exception to that rule. I met with an excellent eye surgeon, who it turns out is also into shooting and hunting. He took some really cool photos of the inside of my eye-I'm always fascinated by those kinds of things-and took a look in there with some really blinding white light. In the end, he informed me that I would be needing surgery, but not for the detached retina that I feared. I do have a cataract, and it's growing, so it's gonna have to be zapped. But, it doesn't have to be done right away, which means I have some time to get some funds together (of note, I do take donations at hajipaypal@yahoo.com).

How I'm gonna get that deductible rounded up is another question altogether, but at least its not a detached retina! I may still go for the pirate eye patch. God answers prayer.

The Toughest Man that Ever Was

I've been a Christian most of my life. I didn't realize that I was supposed to keep track of the date, or I would have. I think I was about six, maybe seven when I got saved. I come from a Christian family, my Dad being a Chaplain and pastor since before I was born. I grew up in the church, and have read the Easter story many, many times.

The description in the Bible of the beating that Jesus took is fairly graphic, but the written word sometimes doesn't convey the reality of what it was. I just watched The Passion of the Christ (I know, I'm slow on getting to things sometimes). I think Mel Gibson did a very accurate portrayal, in terms of the description in the Scriptures, of what Jesus had to endure for his task to be completed.

Historians have good records of how things were done in those days. The cat-o-nine-tails is well documented (and far more brutal than popular culture depicts it), as well as there being a pretty good idea of how crucifixion worked and was done. Caning is still done in some parts of the world, but with limited numbers of strokes because it's so painful and damaging. And there was more.

The point I think I'm trying to get at is this: I'm a 6'6", 300 pound gorilla who can take a shot. I've had bad injuries that hurt big time. I used to be an athlete, and I used to actually train at raising my pain threshold. Yeah, I was a weird young man in some respects. But there's no way I could have taken all that Jesus did and made it all the way to the cross. He fell and got up when I don't think a single man ever on the planet still could have. He was near death when the Romans were done beating, whipping, and tearing him, and yet he still managed to carry His cross most of the way to Golgotha. He lived through being nailed to the cross, and was still able to talk coherently to the criminal who asked for forgiveness. Bottom line: no one has ever been tougher than Jesus.

The obligatory Halloween post

Thanks to school and deployments, I don't have anything else to do this evening, so I'm spending Halloween at home doing nothing in particular. Sure, I should be doing homework...but I'm not. I'm celebrating getting a 96 on my History 108 mid-term and watching the gun stuff on Outdoor Channel. At least I will be until UFC Unleashed comes on.

Since none of that has anything to do with Halloween, I guess I'll get on with my Halloween topic. Of course, since today is the day, a lot of stuff on TV tonight has to do with "spooky" stuff. Most of it isn't, but since Lugosi and Carloff movies are kinda scarce, that's just the way it is. One thing that there is in abundance, though, is programs about ghosts.

If you read my treatise on reincarnation-go ahead and read it, I'll wait-you'll come to the conclusion that the idea of a transitory spirit doesn't hold a whole lot of water with me. The accepted myth of ghosts is that they are the disembodied spirit of someone who died in a bad way. Could be through trechery, murder, accident, unusal Christmas tree mishap...whatever. The general theory is that it wasn't grandpa dying peacefully at home after a long and fruitful life. Why that matters, I don't really know...which makes sense, because you know I don't believe that myth. The "accepted" mythology of the ghost is not particularly feasible.

Now, that is not to say that I don't believe in the spiritual plane; I definitely do. The Bible makes reference to it, and the existence of God and Satan requires that there be an otherworldly place for them to occupy. Going beyond that is getting into spiritual arguments that are somewhat beyond the scope of what I'm intending to convey here, so I'll leave that as it is at this time.

People report scores of happenings that can't be explained easily. We've all heard them; they go by the name of "ghost stories", and are meant to have an etherial explanation to what cannot be explained empirically or scientifically. Let me get this out of the way: I don't believe they're lying, and I believe that many, if not most, of them believe what they experienced at a very deep level. They attribute these happenings to the unhappy spirits-ghosts-of individuals that should have moved to the Great Beyond and for whatever reason have not. I don't believe that they're ghosts. So where does that leave us? If I don't believe they're ghosts, what are they?

My theory on this has not been put forth as a common explanation: those things imputed as ghosts are not ghosts, but they are from the spiritual plane. They are demons and angels. Since most of the stories skew to the malevolent, the majority, if not all, of them are demonic.

Demons are the antithesis of angels. They are the minions of Lucifer (that Satan dude. I guess he likes a lot of names. Pretty vain), who was a fallen angel that can't get it though his head that he can't be God's equal. He was cast out of Heaven for rebelling against God, and his followers went with him. Those followers are demons in league with Beelzebub who do his bidding. That's an archaic way of saying they're his posse, and they're all a bunch of guidos that do what he tells them to. Or he does it himself. Yeah, that's possible: he's not omnicient or omnipresent. Even with his power, he can only be in one place at a time. I guess he's in good shape with all that running around.

"Why?" I hear you thinking. Well, I don't really hear it, actually. I just know that's the next logical question. That's pretty simple, really. Satan can do a lot of creepy, freaky things. As proof, I give you Hillary Clinton. Well, maybe not, but she does things that make ya wonder. Anyway! We mentioned the "why" and couldn't avoid taking a shot at the worst of the Presidential candidates. So here's the very simple "why": because Satan doesn't have to make you a follower of his to achieve his goal. In the book of Revelations, we find that da debbil loses. This is fact, and he knows it. However, since he's already invested in this particular course of action (arguing for predestination...hmmmm....) and can't stop now. Maybe he doesn't know it, but he should. At any rate, as I stated earlier, he doesn't have to make you a satanist to pull off his plan. All he's got to do is to take your eyes off of God. If he's got you thinking ghosts are real, and that the mythology is real, he's done his job.

That quiet little "boom" you heard? Yeah, that was your mind being blown. Again.

a bit of an epiphany

I was sitting in church this morning when a thought came to me, all out-of-the-blue like. I had to write it down lest I forget it, and I had to get it posted before that note slipped my mind. Would ya look at that: motivation!

There's a very old saying that probably came from either bikers or criminals: "Its better to rule in hell than serve in Heaven." The sentiment is that whoever's wearing that on the back of their beat up t-shirt is a rough dude; one would suppose that character could take care of himself...whatever that really means.

It also brings up an interesting question: who said you get to rule in Hell? I don't care how much of a tough guy the hardcore shirt wearer is; there are plenty of things between Heaven and Hell that are tougher. No puny human gets to decide where he rules. Think about it: you don't even rule much of anything on Earth, and you want to be a ruler in a place not even of Earth? How do you get that job? What kind of schooling is required? If you're not even good enough to rule on earth, how ya gonna do it where beings are more powerful than you are? If you can't rule the world (and better leaders than you have tried, come close, and ultimately failed) you stand no chance of getting that job in the afterlife.

The arrogance of people never ceases to blow my mind. We think we're so in control, that we affect so much. Its laughable. The Earth was here before us. Animals didn't need to worry about ethical treatment or rights. They go on living with or without us. Scientists two decades ago were claiming we were causing a global freeze, but when that didn't pan out, they went for global warming instead. The Earth was here before us. It will be here, if God decides that it will be, after we've gone. We could blow up every nuclear weapon we have simultaniously, in the process really putting the Iranians to shame with thier efforts in comparison, and make the world clicking hot for generations. The Earth would still right itself. Humans can mess things up, and maybe even do it for a long time, but we still don't have that much of an effect on things. The world goes on with or without us.

So, since we can't even make the world bow to our will, how is it we'll be able to rule in Hell, then? The shirt doesn't qualify as a pass. You gotta stand up and do something about it. Didja see The Omen? The Possession of Emily Rose? Who's possessing who? You gonna go to Hell and take that demon's job? Go! Tell him he's a pansy. Whup his ass, then go after his boss. Lemme know how that works out for ya.

Think about it a moment. Since those are the choices, there's really only one way to go. I'll be a servant in Heaven. Its going to be a lot better serving Jesus than it will be serving Satan. If nothing else, the working conditions will be far easier to deal with.