How Faith Works

Posted on August 7, 2017 by ehurst

Your commitment to Christ is the starting point for everything.

As with the rest of Creation, the human body has a rhythm and cycles of its own. Anyone with a good body consciousness can tell it, but it shows up vividly in fitness training. A good solid workout routine will go stale within 3-4 months. Your body will begin to beg for a fresh challenge. My previous heavy workout routine at the local park has hit that wall. It’s time to turn a corner and do something different. I’m going to test out some ideas for building power without triggering arthritis. In a week or two I’ll report back here on my experiments.

Today was a shorter, harder ride over some hills. This time it was up Midwest Boulevard to Wilshire, west to Kelly Avenue, south past the Western Heritage Museum to the Katy Trail, then back home via the NE 4th corridor. For once, I didn’t feel that tug to stop and pray somewhere, so I just stayed on it fairly hard until I got back within 4 miles out from home and backed off a bit.

To be honest, I’m just marking time. I’m way out on a limb here with faith. I teach what I believe and practice; I am utterly certain by faith that I am called to one more mission adventure. What I’ve said about it so far remains strong in my convictions — indeed, stronger than ever. But in the flesh, I see nothing at all so far to match what I’m praying. Yet my heart knows it’s out there, coming my way. Thus, it’s an exercise in discerning my heart and my prophetic gift. Further, I suspect God is helping me pull it out because He’s inclined to grant what my faith says should be. Some of what I’ve said is less prediction and more faith seeking.

On a human level, I’m fully prepared to find I’m just a fool with overwrought fantasies. When it comes down to it, this path is truly the best I can do. No other way brings me such peace and confidence to keep living day to day. The only difference it makes is that, if all of this fails to arrive in my life, I’ll just have to figure out how to live my final years as a deluded nut-case. I’m ready for that, too.

So, for example, my attempts to get fit and stay fit began as a simple command from God for its own sake. That was several years ago. During that time I started with a lot of dumb ideas popular with folks who think they know so much about the human body and what’s best for everyone. I’m no longer following their advice. It’s more a question of learning to listen to my body and take it where it wants to go. You can’t really do fitness as science; fitness research can help, but it cannot know what’s morally proper.

Now that command to stay fit has a target. Aside from simply doing what seems best with what God has given me, I’m also aware that my calling includes an element of bodyguard work. I did some of that as a Military Policeman, reading and listening to what more experienced people could tell me about it. The truth is that 95% of personnel security is intimidation. If you look like an abusive ogre with a sharp attention, most threats back off. That means within the limits of my body, I need to look somewhat like a dangerous thug. Fortunately, I’m half-way there because of my DNA. Of course, there are other things I have to train for, but that’s a significant element.

And I’m training my head, too, making sure I can handle a wide range of Linux systems administration. I’m not referring to the school stuff for certification; Linux won’t be the bulk of what I’ll be doing. It’s just an important core competency along with all the other administrative stuff I’m likely to do. Whatever crisis is coming our way, it will include a major problem with computer security, with new headaches for everyone. God has shown me in no uncertain terms that, whatever anyone else does, He’s going to prosper me most in using Linux (Xubuntu in particular).

These are examples of how faith works.

Posted in personal | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on How Faith Works

Advances in Self-awareness

Posted on August 6, 2017 by ehurst

I’ve mentioned in the past that a part of good religion is a good anthropology. In our case, that means having a good grasp on human nature, in the sense of how we are designed. My contention is that the biblical Hebrew viewpoint is as close as we can get to reality, since it’s the viewpoint God as Creator revealed. This viewpoint conflicts with common Western assumptions, of course. But it probably conflicts a lot less with the leading edge of Western research.

For example, we’ve already noted that Western medical science recognizes the heart as a sensory organ in its own right, along with an independent nervous system. But it’s not common knowledge. And even among medical researchers there is some debate about whether the heart has its own “mind” for processing the sensory data it collects. Nor is there consensus how it is possible to process such data, because they aren’t sure what that data is. My contention that this research supports my teaching that the heart is the seat of convictions and your true moral will is likely to find very little hearing among medical researchers, due to their residual Western biases.

Still, there is progress. Take this article from Nautilus online magazine as evidence of incremental improvement. The author notes that it’s false to imagine the intellect as fighting emotions; intellect and emotions cannot be separated. It’s more a question of fine-tuning we need to work on, not one squelching the other. Of course, I still have reservations with this improved model, but it is an improvement.

I note in passing that the reason our brains focus on prediction is because of our space-time perception. We are locked into that linear progression frame of reference as part of the Curse of the Fall; that’s a very unpopular notion. Even when mainstream Christians proclaim a belief in the Fall, they fail to understand how it affects their whole existence. It becomes compartmentalized in their thinking, and they absorb the ambient social mindset as the default.

My point in all this is to improve understanding the self. Most people who think they have problems are simply stuck in a place where they don’t understand how the self works. Their perception is locked in a mythology that doesn’t make room for their very real experiences. Further, being “beside yourself” is not necessarily a problem, because sometimes you really do need to move your awareness outside your self, as it were, to get a better look at what’s happening inside.

Posted in social sciences | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Advances in Self-awareness

Psalm 143

Posted on August 5, 2017 by ehurst

The last of the four songs of distress, this one is also considered a penitent psalm. David has no quarrel with dying here; it’s not a question of what he deserves, but his faith demands he not simply give up.

He calls for God’s attention, then immediately confesses he is unworthy. The issue is God’s divine moral character. On the one hand, God alone is holy and no human is worthy in His sight. On the other hand, this implies that God is also merciful for His own reasons, having chosen to use people to participate in His revelation of glory. If we know this, surely it is because the Lord has spoken through His people before.

David confesses his dire straights; one more nudge and he falls over the edge into death. He has come to the end of all his resources and there’s nothing left.

However, so long as he lives, David can remember all the things God has done. Not just ancient records, but what David himself has experienced at the hand of Jehovah from his birth. In this quiet moment, in the long night of the soul, he recalls all the marvelous things God has done in revealing His glory. This is the mighty God to whom David spreads out his hands in supplication.

If the Lord isn’t ready to move, then David’s life is ended. But he is confident in God’s power and mercy. Jehovah sees and knows, and can ensure David lives to serve Him again. Now is the time, he cries out. There’s no one else who can save him, yet his Master can do anything. Indeed, let the Lord turn the tables on David’s enemies. Let them not take mastery over him as if to steal from God.

Posted in bible | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Psalm 143

The Drawing Power

Posted on August 5, 2017 by ehurst

How do you know? What’s the clue that religion is working as it should?

To be honest, the only thing we have that most people can grasp readily is inner peace. So our biggest problem is getting people to be totally honest with themselves. But that requires a certain amount of inner peace already, because people in turmoil tend to avoid that level of self honesty. It’s a sort of Catch-22, and it’s why we could never “sell” our religion because it actually demands a genuine spiritual impulse.

It’s also why religion can never be universal, in the sense that no two of us could possibly have the same religion. We can overlap in our shared human experiences, but there remains something wholly unique to each of us that necessitates variations. You cannot find genuine inner peace in my religion; you aren’t me. This is why I insist that Radix Fidem is a meta-religion: It’s a religion about religion itself. We study how religion is supposed to work, how to make it a valid expression of your inner spiritual apprehension.

Thus, I use my religion as a tool to explain my meta-religion. I’m striving to find a place to stand that doesn’t violate your individual calling from God, but gives you the means to discard all the stuff He doesn’t want you to have. I’m trying to offer a means of building a covenant identity that includes you and me both, that moral space of sharing what we ought to share and keeping to ourselves what’s private.

This is the thing I’m trying to build. I want to see a covenant community of people who understand religion itself. Something in this tells me I shouldn’t be the only one who strives to help free people from bad religion. If we identify bad religion, not in terms of content or structure, but in terms of how it binds the soul, we are offering something truly unique. We can know from experience that, once we take the binders of falsehood away, people will naturally find the truth for themselves. We would never suggest that any particular religion is wrong, but we insist that it may be a bad fit simply because it didn’t not grow outward from the individual soul. True religion cannot be packaged and imposed from outside the soul.

And the others will call us “a cult” or other ugly terms, but that’s just the way it goes. My own personal response is to seize upon the labels to blunt their effect as a weapon. Indeed, somewhere in the bowels of US government records is a dossier with my name on it saying that I am a “shaved-head cult leader.” Go ahead and laugh; I do. It’s ludicrous because what I teach bears no resemblance to the definition of a cult:

  1. Exclusive. They may say, “We’re the only ones with the truth; everyone else is wrong; and if you leave our group your salvation is in danger.”
  2. Secretive. Certain teachings are not available to outsiders or they’re presented only to certain members, sometimes after taking vows of confidentiality.
  3. Authoritarian. A human leader expects total loyalty and unquestioned obedience.

Maybe I need to crack the whip a little more? Sorry, I just can’t do it. You can’t “leave” my cult because you can’t join it in the first place. There’s no objective standards to bind you; it’s all a question of how comfortable we are with each other. And while some of the things I write are hard to follow and maybe hard to swallow, I’m doing me best to make it accessible to everyone and anyone. There are no vows of secrecy behind the scenes. It’s true WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I leave myself wide open to mocking; I’m likely to help you with it because I don’t take myself that seriously. Personal loyalty? Keep your distance unless you feel comfortable wallowing in my madness; I’m certainly hoping some of you will find it comfortable enough to be friends with me. Still, you surrender nothing essential to yourself to come in that door.

I’m just trying to set an example of what’s possible in religion.

As we move forward through this time of tribulation, to the degree your personal religion matches your very real faith, people are going to notice. They cannot see inner peace, but they’ll see the symptoms in how you respond to the turmoil and suffering. They are going to know that you feel at home in Creation, never mind the possible weirdness of talking aloud to “inanimate objects.” In any given context, some folks will never accept your religion. That’s okay because real faith is always a miracle of God; it’s His initiative. But no one can take from you that very real sense of inner peace, and that’s what will draw those who are ready to hear.

Posted in eldercraft | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The Drawing Power

Photography: Downtown OKC

Posted on August 4, 2017 by ehurst

Some 50 years ago my family lived downtown; I could walk to the the big metropolitan library in just a few minutes, cutting through back alleys and parking lots. Since then, it’s amazing how much has changed, and there’s all kinds of construction on new towers right now. At any rate, our first shot is the GE Building, so new it doesn’t even show up on Google Maps, but you can see it on Google Earth.

Next door to that is this refashioned church house now occupied by the offices of Oklahoma State Commerce Department. The building was a long time historic landmark and required extensive renovation to save it. Both of these first two buildings are perched on the east side of Interstate 235, right between the hospital district on the east, and downtown on the west.

NE 8th bends to the SW and is renamed Harrison. This is what the skyscrapers look like just after crossing westward over I-235. This area has a handful of historic buildings preserved, too. However, it’s also in the yuppie loft strip that runs from Bricktown north a ways. During different periods of my life, we occupied three different residences within walking distance of this spot. A fourth is about a mile farther west. One of those buildings is still in use; the others are at least two generations of construction gone.

This the view along Couch Drive toward Leadership Square with the signature red abstract sculpture out front. This is the fourth renovation of Couch Drive that I’ve seen. Right now, they have these humped up tall grass plots (representing the state’s past as mostly a bunch of tall grass prairies) in the middle and a tiny, narrow access drive to the building fronts. It was actually prettier a few years ago, but each new batch of politicians has to make a name for themselves.

Kerr was once a very lovely water fountain that had been donated some decades back by the Kerr-McGee Corporation. I’m sure it got too expensive to maintain, but a sloping patch of green grass isn’t much of a replacement.

There are a lot of eateries downtown, mostly too pricey for someone like me. This whole block features a collection of highly decorated sculptures. These two are basically cast iron with a smooth coating that holds paint. It was impossible to show the rest of them because they alternated between fairly deep shadow and exceedingly bright sunlight and the camera didn’t handle the contrast that well.

To be honest, our downtown district is not all the large. The urban canyon effect is less than 50 blocks square.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Photography: Downtown OKC

DNC Leaks and Computer Forensics

Posted on August 3, 2017 by ehurst

For those of you curious about how we do computer forensic work, here’s a short video that explains how we know that the DNC email leaks during the presidential election were an inside job.

I admit that I receive darn little training for my computer tech support ministry. It began as a driving need to write and publish back in the old DOS days. It was by far better than scribbling or typing on paper and was easily the best way to keep track of documents and notes. My interest in the Internet was long delayed until I discovered all that background resources that were hosted out there.

Along that path, I ran into some troubles not of my own making, and ended up getting harassed online by government agents. They even hacked my computers in a vain attempt to find evidence that didn’t exist. They were trying to rope me into a case in which I had no involvement at all. Learning how to counter that harassment is where I learned so much about computer forensics.

Along the way, I learned how Open Source tools seldom did things that betrayed you, and could often help you sniff out things that could betray you in documents created by proprietary software. I learned how to read meta-data in all kinds of files, and how to read email headers. The information there tells way more than you might imagine. You can look up the term “meta-data” in conjunction with the name of your software and learn how to modify or remove it. While it isn’t common knowledge, you would expect people who work in tech support to know this stuff.

Oddly, the man named in the video as the source of the “Guccifer 2.0” DNC leaks was an IT guy, someone who should have known his name was in the meta-data, but that’s not something taught in the mainstream IT schools. And to be honest, it could have been planted there, but that’s highly unlikely.

One more note: When Motherboard news interviewed the DNC leaker, it was clear this fellow didn’t know Romanian language that well, yet claimed to be Romanian. And it’s hard to imagine anyone living in Romania who doesn’t recognize Russian language, not to mention probably reading it well enough to get by.

Cynicism is a gift from God. Politics is full of deception on all sides.

Posted in computers | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on DNC Leaks and Computer Forensics

Photography: Framing Exercise

Posted on August 3, 2017 by ehurst

The loop was NE 4th to Bricktown, on both River Trails to Western, and then back via Eagle Lake and Ray Trent Park. Today I worked on composition, particularly framing. This image is the north bank River Trail, looking southwest from right near the railroad bridge. I refer to these trees as “the choir” because every time I pass, it sounds like they are singing in the breeze. There’s enough fragrant pine to make it utterly pleasant.

It was very tempting to stand for a long while in the shade of Shields Boulevard. I had the north bank trail to myself for quite some time. This bridge is high enough to admit whatever breeze to blow through, so it’s a very cool shade on a warm day like today.

The dam itself isn’t that interesting, but I was trying to use the framing of overhanging limbs while shooting from a shady spot, one of my prayer chapels. Because of recent rains, there’s just a trickle of water flowing over the dams all the way down.

Don’t you wish you were dressed to get wet? I was sorely tempted. Again, I tried to frame it with limbs, plus catch one of the buckets dumping. I was surprised that the place was vacant, since school hasn’t started yet. You can just about see the vast collection of colorful water balloon remains.

This is a standard view of the downtown skyscrapers from across the river. I was hoping for more elevation, but the trees would then have obscured the whole view. As always, the biggest thing in sight is the Devon Tower, housing the offices of Devon Energy. There’s a glimpse of the choir across the river, as well.

Because Crooked Oak Creek has cut such a deep channel, it’s typically dramatic, but all the more so at the height of the green season. The City Parks department mows this whole area regularly during the summer. Today the geese have moved on, leaving their poo everywhere. Instead, there’s a white crane fishing in the shallow waters. Sadly, it was just barely visible as a white dot at 8 o’clock just off the center of the image. I should have used the telephoto.

Thanks for stopping by.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments Off on Photography: Framing Exercise

Unchained Vision, Epilogue

Posted on August 2, 2017 by ehurst

I presented this series asking you to bounce it off your own heart of conviction. It means nothing if you can’t embrace it as your own. The only evidence to support my message is what you find in your own soul. I have this wild notion that my mission includes putting words together to help you clarify your own thinking about how God works in this world. In so doing, I had to spend some time debunking what I regard as false ideas.

An unshakable conviction binds me: We are on the threshold of a major crisis here in the US. We are going to tribulate, and I am convinced the proximate cause will be yet another stupid war. Yet the biggest mistake any of us could make is overestimating the importance of such a thing. It’s big and ugly, and it will cause some human suffering, but it is hardly anything new for us. It’s not the end of the world, though I feel certain it will be the end of the USA as we know it. That is, this coming crisis will be the final blow in a long decline in our system of government. We’ll still be Americans in America, but our government will come apart, to be replaced by something else.

And there will be some economic troubles, but don’t panic. Again and again: Don’t panic. Put your trust in the Lord.

To make that trust easier, I wanted you to see a bigger vision than just what you can get from the news. Maybe now you can understand how it would benefit Zionism if the US went to war with North Korea, for example. Zionism intends to take over the world, and it’s eggs are not all in one basket. If the US is knocked out of the game, the Zionists will simply court someone else to be their bully. If the whole world goes into chaos and turmoil, the Zionists have a plan to use that chaos and take over. Until that point, the plan is to leverage one bully or another to create chaos, particularly in countries that won’t suck up to the Zionists.

Hopefully you understand that the label “Zionists” could change if the circumstances warrant, but it’s still the same people serving a Satanic agenda. So I’ve offered a different label to emphasize that point — The Cult — to help you understand that Zionism is not what it claims to be. It’s a front for something quite sinister, indeed.

And while I’m at it, I suppose I could warn you that Zionists were the ones who insisted it was necessary to drive Muslim refugees into Europe. You can find writings and videos where one or more Zionist representatives explained it, some long ago, as a concrete plan to create chaos in Europe. To make that more likely, they also planned long ago to sow chaos and turmoil in the Middle East so that Muslims would feel like moving to Europe. Just to guarantee this was as messy as possible, the Zionists made sure that their servants were in control of European governments, pretty much as it has been here in the US. Zionists made such governments silly enough to get involved in the Middle East and silly enough to embrace the SJW social policies as cover for national self-destruction.

I suppose I could write a couple of books, expanding on previous material I’ve published, showing in detail how this all stems from that same something that I call The Cult, which now stands behind Zionism. But I’m pretty sure it would be a waste of time right now. If I have to prove it, I’m talking to wrong audience. So I’m letting it rest on the quick summary of The Cult and whatever else you may have read on this blog so far.

The start of that crisis is very close. I’m doing my best to help you see clearly what it takes for you to be ready, to stand firm in your own calling as a witness of God and His revelation. Be ready to exploit the situation by getting involved in things as a divine infiltrator. Your heart already knows what to do; I’m just trying to help your mind not get lost.

Posted in eldercraft | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Unchained Vision, Epilogue

Update on Windows Snooping

Posted on August 1, 2017 by ehurst

If you happen to be interested in the subject, I ran across something fresh: NSA Collects MS Windows Error Information. The article discusses how the NSA is harvesting any bug report or telemetry sent from your Windows computer back to Microsoft.

This is posted on Bruce Schneier’s blog; I chose to link there instead of the original article he references because of what shows up in the comments section. Someone claiming to be a former employee of Microsoft says this: “When I worked at Microsoft I discovered that the company was curating and feeding NSA this information. This is one of many such internal programs.” Another commenter asks whether this has a specific contract, or if “unrelated contracts are issued quid pro quo for betraying Microsoft customers with unfixed vulns”. The MS commenter says the arrangement is quid pro quo. In other words, everything your Windows computer communicates back to MS is in turn repackaged for the convenience of NSA. It implies that this includes all users of MS Windows worldwide.

This is a very serious claim. I suppose there is almost no way to verify that, but it certainly plays into the hands of a lot of anti-MS folks out there. Here is the link to the original Spiegel story.

Posted in computers | Tagged , | Comments Off on Update on Windows Snooping

Unchained Vision, Part 5

Posted on July 31, 2017 by ehurst

Let’s take a moment to throw out some junk doctrine. Let’s go back and search for truth among the eternal perspectives of the Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) peoples, of whom Israel was one nation. That was the setting God built to reveal Himself.

Satan is rather like Potiphar in Pharaoh’s realm. He began as Lucifer, God’s covering cherub. He was caught in corruption and arrogance, and so was demoted. His job was to become God’s jailer and lictor — to serve as God’s wrath personified. His nastiness is less a matter of his nature and more his assigned role. You should not imagine he enjoys this job, but does enjoy the prestige. As the jailer, he gets to profit from all the blessings from everyone who serves as a slave in his prison.

Satan is a faithful servant of God, and he is one of three archangels with a similar rank. We know that Michael is another, and we believe the third is named Gabriel, but that’s not too clear (no others are named in the Bible text). Satan’s underlings in the angelic service are demons, and the other two archangels each have a similar force of angels serving under them. That makes it two-to-one in our favor. But the difference between a demon and an angel is not in their nature, but their feudal duties — it’s just a job.

Satan is also God’s cattle driver. We who are not cattle, but the sheep of His pasture, are called to wander along with the cattle herds because we hope to help find some lost sheep. Satan is constrained in his work by Biblical Law, in the sense that such a Law is written on hearts. Hearts that are faithful to God are immune to most of the Devil’s depredations. We harvest our blessings from God’s promises, whereas the cattle have theirs siphoned off by Satan for his own consumption and profit. Meanwhile, Jesus as the Living Law of God’s heart rules over Satan, placing restrictions on the temptations can offer us, and the trials he can put on us.

In Hebrew, there are two words translated “temptation” in English. One is the root word nasa, meaning a simple test or assay. The other is massa, which is closer to a hard trial and difficulty. There is a similar pair or terms in Greek for the New Testament. As you might expect, the difference is contextual, because our lot in life as fallen creatures is to see plenty of both. However, the covenant promises indicate that we see less of the latter if we properly respond to the former. Still, the ANE image is that because has a cattle driver named Satan, and it’s our duty to infiltrate the herds and shine the light of truth, we will see a certain amount of suffering common to all humanity. This is part of Satan’s profit from his faithful service.

There can be no genuine faith in Satan. Even those who believe they serve him knowingly don’t really understand. Their religion calls on them to be self-serving. But most of those who could be called members of The Cult (a figure of speech) also have no consistent motives other than serving themselves. They are ordinary fallen humans, having surrendered to the temptations of Satan. The greater their power over other humans, the more personally immoral they are.

Nutty Netanyahu is not the soul of Israel nor of Zionism; he is a corrupt and willful figurehead in it for himself. Israel as a project of Zionism isn’t really the point; it’s a tool for leverage to control global human behavior and enslave the human race. The globalists are one part of the Zionist club; the imperialists are another faction. Virtually every official in the US government is some kind of Zionist, conscious or otherwise. Precious few of them are true believers; most are in it as the one best path to power and profit. True believers aren’t willing to do what it takes to get their hands on such power.

Thus, we will not see an individual Antichrist. That requires a level of commitment and selfless drive that would keep such a person from rising in power. Satan is not permitted to incarnate himself the way Christ did; Christ is his master. While the Devil can use people to do some pretty creepy things, it is woven into reality that people who surrender totally to human depravity must suffer and their lives come apart in measure roughly equal to their depravity. In the same sense, folks who profess Christ, but who manage to embrace a lot of Western pagan cultic nonsense about what the Bible says, have opened themselves up to some damnation while they live.

By the same token, they surrender a portion of their divine moral inheritance. They lose blessings promised under Biblical Law. The thing you need to understand is that Jesus was that Living Biblical Law of God; the desire to serve Him is the foundation of lawful living. Lawful living constrains the hands of Satan and demonic influences in your life.

Addenda: See the comments below to bring out a fuller image of things.

Posted in eldercraft | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Unchained Vision, Part 5