Fruitless Shepherding

Posted on August 27, 2014 by ehurst

There is no accounting for some people’s tastes. When I was a kid, a very popular rock song was “Spirit in the Sky” (YouTube link). The guy who wrote it was mocking the gospel message. However, the fellow who programmed the distortion filters for the electric guitar was a musical genius. To this day, when I hear the song I am torn between the beautiful playing and the disgusting lyrics.

Artistry is one thing. Praise talent as talent, a gift from God. At the same time, never forget the necessity of calling moral wretchedness what it is: sin. Don’t confuse your testimony. Especially if the artist in question claims to be a Christian should you be careful; all the more so when they claim to lead in matters of Christian morality. Talent and moral purity are different categories.

See Galatians 5:13-25, particularly Fruits of the Spirit.

We could probably debate the meanings of the words in Greek and perhaps what they look like applied to human behavior. However, the whole cast of things is this business of sacrificial love. We could even argue what that means in terms of ANE versus Western assumptions, but most of us recognize that even “tough love” is still a form of sacrifice that makes firm demands on the recipient. Jesus cracked a whip only because the just demands of His Father’s Laws are the lowest point at which grace touches the earth. It was redemptive, not punitive; it pointed men back to God.

At the foot of the Cross, divine favor doesn’t leave you standing proud. Various forms of human talent and personality traits have no effect on the end product of humility before the Lord.

Beautiful expressions of faith don’t necessarily mean someone is fully committed to following Christ. We have an awful lot of people whose whole religion is a mere human choice expressed through mere human capabilities, but the soul has never been nailed up there next to the bloodstains left by Jesus.

I am both amazed and deeply disappointed at the number of those who claim to be fellow believers, who then turn and idolize people who exhibit no fruit of the Spirit. Talent aplenty, and perhaps the chutzpah to carry it off with skill and relish, but we don’t see enough of people who confess their unworthiness as the Holy Spirit demands.

Far be it from me to name names, as if it were my place to paint black marks on the folks we should not admire. I’m not keeping a list, but if you excuse sin because you find it so entertaining, and so very effective in human terms, then I have cause to question your commitment.

It’s easy to argue the logical conclusions of systematic theology because one man’s reasoning is as good as the next. The spikes that hold our sin nature on the Cross are the pointed demands of biblical theology, which everyone agrees is another thing entirely from systematic theology. Theology in the Bible hardly makes sense because it is not logically coherent to Western minds, at least not without placing it all in a rational framework. Sure, most theologians seem to have some measure of deductive logic in trying to account for clear biblical demands in Scripture, but the entire business of inductive and deductive is not the spiritual standard. “Spiritual” does not mean a better grade of reason, but a commitment that defies reason.

But I’ve hammered enough on ancient Hebrew epistemology. Look up all the stuff I’ve written in the past, or the “Philosophy” tab at the top of this blog.

Granted, when we can persuade men by their own power to at least embrace the Laws of God, we gain so very much in terms of redemption. However, when someone tickles our Western human fancy while rejecting clear moral demands of Scripture, we dare not laud their work without at least offering some caveat at least once in awhile.

Don’t follow someone as your shepherd if they don’t follow God.

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Wandering Stick

Posted on August 26, 2014 by ehurst

Whatever happened to desiring moral dominance?

First, a brief lesson in biblical Hebrew expression. The terms “rod” and “staff” are roughly synonymous. When you read the expression — “thy rod and thy staff” — it refers to a single object, but with two different emphases for what it represents: power and authority. Rod is generally a tool and weapon; it can be used to do things. Staff is a symbol of authority, as noted by its other common uses in English. Don’t get caught up in precise descriptions. The thing referenced might be a simple walking stick, or an elaborate symbol of office. It could be just a switch for spanking or an ornate scepter. What matters is the symbolic meaning, not the object itself.

Every shepherd carried a stick. He might have weapons, as well, such as a sling, sword, etc. That stick may well be worked somewhat that it could serve as a javelin, but probably not heavy enough for a battle lance. The idea of power and authority was both protective and punitive. The fundamental image of political authority was always rooted in the image of shepherd. Furthermore, the whole thing falls within the ANE feudal social structure. A shepherd might legally own his sheep, but he would also have feudal obligations that included his sheep. Without a proper appreciation of that setting, you cannot possibly understand the Lordship of Christ.

By comparison, Western concepts of feudalism are a perversion of what God had in mind. Church traditions that fold in medieval cultural symbols are completely wrong, adding to the deception and confusion of our fallen state. Western feudalism is depraved, but Hebrew feudalism is God’s command for humanity. The differences are significant on multiple levels.

So any moral frame of reference that builds on the Western approach is immoral. Not so much in the particulars, but in the basic assumptions. The manosphere and famous/notorious bloggers like Vox Day promote male dominance based on Anglo-Saxon moral assumptions (picking on one of the most popular figures). While I can agree that this is better than the current political dominance of feminist mythology, what no one seems to notice is that it’s all one package. The manosphere only pretends to be logical and unconcerned, but uses a lot of words and expressions that come across as bitter, a bitterness from having lost so much and trying to claw it back with cold force. A Western man cannot be logical without being angry. It requires anger to overcome the fake caring; truly logical and impersonal is utterly impossible for any human. Whatever most manosphere writers mean by “rational and logical” is a chimera of Anglo-Saxon self-deception. The anger and bitterness are in there somewhere, and the rest is arrogant pretension. It is anti-Christian.

And you would be guilty of clinging to the perverted Anglo-Saxon approach if you read my explanation through simplistic assumptions. The ANE shepherd does not pretend he has no anger, but also knows that anger is just one thread of a man’s soul, even as the same soul may act in compassion. He uses anger to feed the same passion as love, because there is no real distinction. Folks like Vox Day are fully capable of tenderness and friendly demeanor, but they write about it like a tool, or as something kept hidden away and private. Gotta be tough with our wicked world, cold and aloof.

Not so with the ANE shepherd. Male dominance is not something we fight for, but we assume God’s favor on certain aspects of male dominance in the nature of things. It’s part of God’s moral character, from which the entire fabric of Creation is woven. It has nothing to do with effectiveness, but righteousness itself. We would rather die right than be effective at the cost of moral compromise. And lest you be a fool, know that pursuing effectiveness is itself a moral compromise. The fallen world of our existence inherently resists God’s will, so our striving for God’s moral justice will put as at odds with humanity, but not with Creation. There is some sloppy interplay between human mortality and cursed nature versus God’s living character at work in Creation. We let God handle the outcomes and look for peaceful conformance with His divine will.

Much of the manosphere’s explanations about feminist solipsism is accurate as far as it goes. But the place they give it, the array of reactions and conscious discussion about it, and the whole tone is essentially drawn from the same Anglo-Saxon mythos that gave birth to both sides of the battle. The manosphere remains a captive of Oester by engaging her in battle. There is nothing redemptive in any of that; the shepherd of God’s sheep is utterly missing. The whole debate remains outside of God’s justice because no one carries His staff. No one brings His authority to bear.

You could apply the same critique to a wide range of other issues that consume bloggers in the West. It’s time to pick up your staff and recognize that this world is not our home and that redemption is pulling people out of themselves and this world of deception, up into an awareness of the Spirit Realm. If you cannot reject the Western ways, you cannot follow Christ. The Cross of Christ is just an extra-heavy version of the shepherd’s staff.

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Bits and Pieces 17

Posted on August 25, 2014 by ehurst

At various times you’ll see modern Judaizers. After two millennia they are still at it, trying to drag Christians back under the Talmud. They don’t like the academic label “Judaizers” and claim various other terms, but it changes nothing. The latest I’ve seen is a call to embrace the Talmudic calendar. Keep in mind that the Hebrew calendar did change a bit by custom over the centuries. Several celebrations are entirely extra-biblical and not binding even under the Law of Moses. However, the Judaizers miss the whole point of “rightly dividing” the Old Testament to see what applies to us under Christ. Most of the Hebrew calendar reflects agricultural habits for Palestine, and don’t fit well in other parts of the world. You shouldn’t follow that calendar in South America, for example, because it makes no sense at all. Rather, the single biggest take-away is that we should investigate the wisdom of moving away from the solar calendar and back to the lunar. It’s not black magic to notice the human body, as well as some of our brain chemistry, is more deeply affected by lunar cycles than by solar. God expects us to pay attention to such things. As always, do your own research and rightly divide the Word for your life.

Regular readers know that I make much of personal security and privacy online. One of my favorite tools is using multiple browsers, each one for a different use. I also use multiple profiles within a browser as a sort of firewall between the most egregious collaborators in spying and tracking. For example, I use one profile in Google Chrome for Facebook only. I don’t even chase links from there, but copy the links and paste into a different browser, and may even edit that link to get rid of references to FB referrals. After testing some rather lightweight browsers completely lacking in things like JScript (Dillo and D-Plus) versus Lynx and Elinks, I’ve just about settled on the most useful compromise available for now: Links2. I note that the download page has a Windows version I’ve never tried, but the one for Linux can be built with a semi-graphical rendering that is a fair compromise. I still get to see images and the text, but almost everything else is simply ignored. This one crashes far less than others (not once, so far) on sites that are coded funny. The menu allows for flushing the cache at will, and BleachBit knows how to clean it, as well.

Update: Installed and tested Links2 for Windows on my wife’s Win7 machine. It looks and acts like it does on Linux. If you click near the top border of the window, a menu appears. Explore the menus for various settings, but the whole point is to avoid bloat and vulnerabilities when all you need is information and maybe the images. Whether in graphical or text mode, simply hit “g” on your keyboard and tell it where to go.

Pain is a part of living. Learn to embrace it in its proper place. While it serves sometimes as a warning that things aren’t right, not all pain is bad news. Some of it simply signals that you are human in a fallen world. That includes the pain of certain memories. Be honest with your pain and you’ll discover things you never could know any other way.

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But, You Said…

Posted on August 24, 2014 by ehurst

The words are easily less important than tone, context and delivery. That’s the whole point. I’m sure you’ve heard someone say this in the most nerve-grating way. That or, “No, you said…” If the way it comes across stirs anything at all, stay away from the person who said it.

That’s because you are dealing with someone who pretends they are the truth police. They’ll pick out your words and throw them back at you as a weapon, designed to sting and hurt. It’s often a form of punishment, as if you were a detestable worm subject to their arrogant correction. This is the mouth of someone who will attack your heart and spit on your soul. Tolerate it from someone you can’t get rid of, but never from a romantic interest.

Always observe them carefully before you even make any approach. You need to see them under stress, at their worst. How they treat others signals how they will treat you. Chances are you will catch it even worse the first time you disappoint them because you’ll be closer emotionally. And you will, because you are human. Sure, it’s easy to learn gaming techniques and how to face down a romance partner who wants to fight, but it’s morally wrong in the first place. It’s wrong for you to treat it like a game, and wrong for you to let them do it to you. It will most certainly lead to moral harm for anyone around you, including any kids if you decide to have them.

In the broader context, it’s an evil culture and an evil civilization that descends into nit-picking legalistically over precise wording. Don’t be a part of that. It’s not that we need a bunch of Pollyannas who always seek the best construction on any communication, but it does require a generous soul that makes room for human weakness to be worthy of your love and devotion. If you can’t read between the lines when someone talks and acts, then you are dealing with a foreigner, for all intents and purposes.

But in case you are wondering, the proper gentle protest is more like: “Oh, I’m sorry. I was under the impression you meant…” It’s not as if you should never experience anger or hurt, but a drama queen/king gets bored when things are too nice and stable for more than a few minutes. Learn how much drama you can actually tolerate in the long run and choose accordingly.

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Psalm 12

Posted on August 23, 2014 by ehurst

Some days it feels like your world has tumbled into the pits of Hell. Hyperbole is a common feature of the dramatic and symbolic Hebrew narrative.

David begins with a common cry equivalent to our modern “God help us!” Have all the righteous disappeared? David feels surrounded by demons and other servants of the Enemy. While not perfect himself, David remained morally sensitive. It was a painful fact of life that where power is concentrated, there the predators gather. The best of kings would find himself surrounded by the worst of humanity.

At the very least, David had to deal with constant deception. Could he ever get a straight answer from anyone? Does his entire court rely on flattery and lies? If it’s not the subservient weasels, it’s the boastful and arrogant hucksters. They proclaim him the greatest king in human history and in the same breath promote themselves as the only ones heroic enough to be fit servants.

There’s a difference between hyperbole and outright lying. When David catches these jerks in their lies, they simply insist this is how powerful men ought to act. To whom are they accountable? Why, even David could not remain on his throne were it not for their deft tongues and expert management — so they boast.

But these same people insist it is necessary to walk on the peasants as if mere pebbles in their path. If you aren’t arrogant and tough, you never know when they might revolt! But God has a different viewpoint on these matters. He has promised to rise up and crush the arrogant who abuse His people. David affirms this kind of promise is like purified silver. (We have reason to believe it was not until Solomon’s reign that gold became more valuable than silver in Israel.) God’s promises were the very national treasure of Israel.

So let these elitist thugs be forewarned: God will not fail to bring down the proud snobs. That would mean a pretty rough time ahead, because David felt like they were all over the place, gauging from what he saw in his palace.

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What I Am Working On

Posted on August 22, 2014 by ehurst

This is one of those things where you are tagged by someone you know. Jay DiNitto passed the torch to answer a few questions and I agreed to it. It didn’t hurt that he offered a flattering compliment, too.

1. What am I working on?

A Bible study in Song of Solomon is the current project so that I can complete a book on the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament (minus Psalms and Proverbs, each of which get their own volume later). My approach is that Solomon wrote this as moral drama, total fiction but with significant guidance in how God says romance should happen. It’s all about sex and marriage. Making it into some extended allegory about Christ and His Bride, the Church, seems to me a silly Western obsession and foreign to Hebrew thinking.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

It comes with the territory: I’ve generally rejected Western Civilization and Western Christianity with it. While I don’t claim to have caught the whole secret of Hebrew intellectual assumptions in Scripture, I’m quite disappointed that so much of mainstream Christianity makes no significant effort to understand. I’ve spent a lot of time reading secular sources on ancient civilizations, philosophies, antiquities, etc. Most Christian scholars seem totally unaware that there is a difference between Western and Hebrew intellectual assumptions. I make no bones about embracing Hebrew Mysticism in particular, and Ancient Near Eastern epistemology in general. So I try to think like a Hebrew and translate that best I can into our Western world.

3. Why do I write what I do?

I write like this because I can’t avoid it. This thing burns like a fire in me and even if I were the only person reading my stuff, I’d still write it. That it happens to touch a few others is a bonus, but not a motivation. All of my books are free because I have a pension that just barely gets me by, though I do take donations.

4. How does my writing process work?

That’s both easy and hard to answer. On the one hand, I’m semi-retired with a good education and very little in the way of intruding responsibilities. So I can afford to write like a good Christian Mystic — when the Spirit of God moves me. For example, I put off this study in Song of Solomon because it just didn’t feel important until this past week. Now it matters. I study what others have said about it using some reference books I own and a few online sources I like, but I typically use them to eliminate what I won’t be saying. By the time I’ve read some of this other stuff, I generally have a strong sense of where I want to go with it.

For other types of literature: Fiction I write whenever a story comes into my head and won’t go away. I often churn it out in long sessions over a short period. A fictional world intrudes on my awareness; I explore it with my conscious mind. The story ends when the imaginary world fades out at some point. My stories tell themselves. I just give them shape in words. Teaching books I write when it seems I can’t avoid some topic any longer. If it starts growing into a book, I organize as much as I need to get started and simply see where it goes. Again, that stuff writes itself. Only one book I’ve written followed the standard academic format and planning.

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Song of Solomon 2

Posted on August 22, 2014 by ehurst

The bride and groom tell the whole world of their devotion to each other. The treasure here is the collection of images in the unique Hebrew context.

The woman opens with a measure of self-denigration. She’s nothing but a common flower of the meadow. We make too much of the early English translators’ choice of “rose” when the Hebrew word meant something more common with no noticeable fragrance. The effect is to deny that she is anything special. The man responds that, if so, she happens to be that flower growing among thorns by comparison to other women. It’s not that thorns didn’t come with flowers, but that picking them would be risky. He has no interest in high-risk romance. He prefers the simple beauty of someone who won’t complicate his life with unnecessary drama.

She returns in kind. Apple trees were wholly exotic in Palestine, an imported species requiring a great deal of trouble and care to get any fruit. To find such a thing growing randomly in the forest is a miraculous discovery. She paints the image of embracing him as her covering protection, her relief from a difficult world. His love is more than simply sustaining, but a rare delight. She could never get enough.

In dreamy anticipation, she then paints an image of celebration, the fundamental meaning of sex. That this party hall with sweet wine and exotic food is all about making love should be obvious. Hardly a duty, she’s looking forward to it with indescribable passion. The image of how he holds her with one hand and caresses with the other is meant to titillate. The Hebrews were uninhibited, and had no discomfort with frank discussion of human sexuality. By the same token, they avoided any hint of bawdiness. It’s hard for Westerners to envision a world view without Victorian prissiness.

The lady then turns to warn the other maidens about jumping the gun. The imagery of stags, does, and similar creatures are quite ancient symbols of sexual vigor. She calls them to promise themselves they won’t settle for the first thing that comes along and stirs the hormones. Give it time; wait for the right man. We note in passing this would be easier for a rural girl to observe than a city girl, so she’s bringing her country wisdom to bear. Then she conjures the image of patient restraint because God’s choice for husband can appear suddenly with little advance notice. So she encourages them to open their hearts to sensing things not easily noticed in the hustle and bustle of the city. Get out away from all of that and experience the quiet solitude of waiting for something worth the wait. You never know where he’ll appear, but you’ll know it when you see him because he will be paying attention to you without demanding anything.

Instead, he’ll wait for the right moment to win your heart. His appeal will leave you totally free to reject him and his honorable intent will be obvious. He doesn’t demand too much too soon. Instead, all he asks is to be near her, to revel in the joy of her simple presence.

Typical of Ancient Near Eastern literature, the Hebrew people used the image of the fox as negative, a destructive influence in romance. The vineyard is generally the symbol of pleasure in marriage, a life of happiness in building a family, having children. In response to the man’s call to her, she asks him to invest himself in removing hindrances that would spoil their love. Does he really mean it? Will he reduce his attention to other gals? Don’t play games, boy; show me.

Finally, she notes how true love is peaceful, rather like an animal quietly grazing in the meadow where those little flowers grow. She calls to him as the figure of a virile buck to turn aside from the distractions of other social opportunities and stay with her until it’s clear as the morning light that he is committed to her. Let the whole world know and he can rut wildly with her.

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Virtual Spiritual Family

Posted on August 22, 2014 by ehurst

Welcome to our virtual parish.

I’m a virtual pastor. Technically I’m an elder, the management half of the church leadership team. However, I also serve in the priesthood role simply because no one else is doing it and I have been trained for it. Two different religious agencies have at one time in the past ordained me, and Oklahoma recognizes that I am a clergyman. I do actually get to officiate as clergyman now and then in meat space.

Did I use enough confusing and overlapping labels there? Since this whole thing is in virtual space, I’m not sure it makes one bit of difference. There is really darn little to manage except the teaching. That’s something either of the two primary offices could do. Frankly, it’s the elder that would do most of the counseling in the original concept of the church.

A recurring theme in the teaching and counsel here is the moral elements of romance and marriage. We are plodding through Song of Solomon chapter by chapter and I’m trying to point out how God’s moral character is expressed in godly romance. I take some of my behavioral science facts from the manosphere or “game” sites, red-pill sites, but the moral framework on such sites is usually not good. We emphasize the Ancient Hebrew intellectual understanding of things, while most of the manosphere is overwhelmingly Western.

Here, women are treated with a bit more respect, even as we disparage Western feminism. For example, I am utterly convinced we see in the New Testament women in church leadership. No, I don’t mean pastoring in the priestly role, but as elders, and most certainly as deaconesses. A church is fundamentally a spiritual family in the Ancient Hebrew tribal sense, an extended family household. No household is complete without a spiritual mama. Men don’t know everything. We know what we are wired to see and experience, and the wiser among us realize how limited that perspective is. Without a feminine input, even a bit of feminine contradiction, as it were, you would not get the full revelation of God.

I often note that we do not use a test of orthodoxy here, because systematic theology is merely one person’s intellectual speculation. It’s not revelation and it’s not Scripture. Narrative theology is simply a rewording of the Bible, which leaves an awful lot of intellectual queries unanswered because intellect isn’t that important. So the membership of this virtual parish is very diverse, including folks who aren’t Christian or even religous at all. The content of my teaching is very plainly advisory, not prescriptive. It may be rude to argue with me, but I fully expect you would disagree with me on some things.

That’s how real families work. Were we to gather physically in some location, we would need a strong coordination for our meat space activities. That’s a major element in eldership. But we meet here in virtual space, so precious little of that is needed. Thus, we are left emphasizing a broad variation and flexibility. Technically, we really aren’t doing anything at all.

As I continue exploring the implications of godly romance and marriage, I want to include at least one other voice, a sort of spiritual mama. My wife is not a writer, but she’s there behind the scenes supporting this ministry. Instead, I rely on someone else to provide that feminine balance for this blog. Readers may recognize Wildcucumber as the online nickname for that motherly voice. Her blog is called Falling into Grace. She won’t say exactly what I say and you might even perceive a bit of disagreement here and there. It’s not an issue. What matters is how the underlying frame of moral reference is close enough to get the job done. So I recommend her comments on life in general, but in particular I treat her as the balancing gender viewpoint for this virtual parish.

Oh my, what a grand privilege! Heh. Don’t swamp her blog; that might freak her out. Would I include others on our imaginary church leadership staff? Sure. Participate meaningfully and contribute to the discussion and if your voice sounds like you are leading along the same broad moral terrain, I’ll include you just the same.

Let’s be family as much as a virtual setting will permit.

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Frantic Spamming (Updated)

Posted on August 21, 2014 by ehurst

Update: A manager at Love’s called shortly after I posted this and was unhappy to hear that I had so much trouble getting this SMS spam to stop. I take his apology at face value. I told him it took me awhile to figure out where it was coming from, so maybe they’ll do a better job of including the ID in the messages from here on out. At any rate, this hyperbolic rant stands because it took so long to get a response. My first attempt to contact them was last week.

Original post…

Boycott Love’s! Actually, that would be pointless.

The economy is declining; we are headed for a crash. However, “crash” in this sense does not mean that economic activity stops, but that it reverts to some level far below what we consider sustainable. It moves at a pace and with a volume insufficient for the population to be comfortable. Across the whole country, some specific locations will be worse than others. Some fortunate few will continue living comfortably while most will suffer varying degrees of deprivation, at least compared to what life was like a decade ago.

Those who have some sense of proportion will simply adjust. In our current cultural climate, that’s a pretty small slice of our population. Most will continue with their highly inflated sense of entitlement. That unrealistic sense of demand is what causes people to act crazy, including criminal acts aimed at relieving the distress. However, the majority will at least spend some time first testing the waters of bad ethics before actual criminality.

In broad general terms, marketers and advertisers were already splashing around in bad ethics. They’ve been studying ways to manipulate and prey on typical human thought patterns. They knew long ago, for example, that pissing people off is almost as good as making them love your brand name. Thus, annoying the shit out of them would still cause them end up looking for your products because it dominates their memories. We few normal folks won’t fall for that, but the vast majority of our society has been conditioned to operate that way. In other words, it’s a tactic that generally works for the marketers.

That tactic depends, of course, on a means of advertising delivery that people can’t or won’t shut out. You like TV? Radio? Precious few are the media outlets that don’t come with advertising. Sure, we had some juggling back and forth with various ways to block or skip over advertising, but we have been conditioned to think it’s unethical to do that. Think about that for a moment. Think about how the vast majority of advertising is an attempt to manipulate you into buying something you don’t want or need. Our entire system of commerce and production is based on the assumption that you will be advertised into docility and not expect much from the products so that you’ll always be dissatisfied and keep buying. There is a sense in which the marketers own the entire system, and never offering more than useless crap so you are forced to endure their harassment.

Yes, by using WordPress without paying for the service, I’m forced to endure whatever shitty advertising they put at the bottom of my posts. I wish I could afford to “go premium” but it won’t happen any time soon. Please forgive me.

When it became possible to take advantage of cheaper means of delivering advertising through newer communication systems, they jumped on it. In no time at all we discovered that the difference between a genuine pitch and spam is virtually nothing. Would you believe that most spammers will deliver, more or less on what they advertise? They might be lying about what the product will do, but if you give them money, they send what they offer. The problem is that a significant number of us did not agree to tolerate the spam. That is, while we grudgingly tolerate advertising on TV, radio, blogs, etc., we don’t agree that the mere possession of an email account justifies just any jerk from dumping marketing bilge into it.

Rightly so; you did not agree to it. It’s one thing when the company hosting your free email account inserts ads where you can see them when you use the service. It’s another when some third party, not a party to the working agreement, abuses the opportunity to advertise in a way you cannot block. Sure, we now have the on-going development of spam filtering with some of these “free email” providers. Spam email still accounts for the majority of all Internet traffic. Though the numerical portion seems to vary, it’s often cited around 80%-90%. The way the Internet is designed and operated, there’s not much they can do to eliminate it, but I see that most of it never gets delivered and served up to human eyeballs. Still, spammers abuse the system, which makes them almost exactly the same kind of slimeballs as every other marketer.

Still, when it comes through the system and wastes your time and attention, you are rightly pissed off. You may not be able to do much about it, but your offense is wholly morally justified. Granted, there is the possibility that you can strike back, but it usually takes more effort than you might be willing to expend. Sometimes, it just might be worth it.

Only just this month I’ve purchased from my cellphone provider SMS (AKA “texting”). Immediately I started getting weekly spam texts from Love’s Deal Alerts. Of course, they were too smart to let me know that was the sponsor. Instead, they used a deceptive “common short code” — 56837. You might have a devil of a time finding out who is behind some of those codes, but I stumbled across this page and it helps a lot. In this case, Love’s is a major corporation that started here in Oklahoma and owns truck stops and a bunch of “country stores.”

By no means did I subscribe to this damned nuisance texting service. Worse, there was no simple way to unsubscribe. I’ve used their website contact page, emailed the webmaster, and even filed a complaint with the FCC. So far, the messages still come weekly, typically right when I’m doing something important. This whole thing is precisely the kind of unethical behavior that makes sensible people hate advertisers and their advertising. The only thing I haven’t tried is picketing their local truck stop or physically visiting their corporate offices. It’s the sort of thing where, if they won’t honor the typical efforts to be relieved of the nuisance, then their ethics are so low you should expect it would take genuine threats of physical violence, which would also get me into big trouble while they get to continue their evil ways.

Love’s is just one a million operations all too willing to abuse any angle they can to avoid the valid general suffering we all have to face with a declining economy. You can bet they serve as merely one example of the frantic spamming we have only just begun to see.

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Tear the Veil over the Past

Posted on August 21, 2014 by ehurst

Remember: It’s all narrative. It’s not a question that you cannot possibly get something approaching objective facts, but that you won’t get much of it from the voices so willing to tell their story. People are generally incapable of being objective.

At a bare minimum, anything approaching objectivity requires an otherworldly commitment. That’s the foundation. So long as you care much about this world, you cannot handle it with any degree of honesty. You will be unable to resist the temptation to slant things to your desires. Once you let your self-honesty slip, everything else is subject to heavy filtering.

So I don’t pretend to tell you objective facts; I confess openly that what I write is just my own narrative. Take it first and foremost as entertainment. God’s Truth cuts its own path through the heart, so however much of His Truth you see in my work is to His credit, helping you take what He wants for you from the mixture of words I splatter on your screen.

My path is not for you, but in my blather may be clues to the path God has for you. What we need more than anything else a removal of obfuscation. By some miracle, it would seem God uses my words to reduce confusion for some. If nothing else, writing it out this way clarifies things for me. God’s Truth about this world is not a matter of objective fact because He can change it on-the-fly to suit His whims. Rather, the business of revelation is to grant you a perspective, a characterization of things that will guide you through your personal darkness.

One of the worst lies that keeps confronting me in my daily surfing is the notion that we can somehow recover the American Dream. The American Dream never was, because it was too many different things to too many different people. Further, the variations were mutually exclusive to one degree or another. All of them grew out of the false assumption that we could somehow agree on something no two people could possibly share.

But getting beyond that, whatever it was we did have in America is gone. It won’t be back. Government will never obey the Constitution, if it ever did. People who are in power won’t even consider it, though they’ll lie about it an awful lot. The police agencies in this country will never, ever protect the public from threats. They will always and forever protect the government prerogatives from the people. You never had a voice in the first place, but it’s now becoming more painfully obvious. Even where we can agree on what ought to be, you can be certain that won’t happen.

I am utterly convinced that if I can just get people to put aside that myth, we can go forward into the future on the basis of what God is actually likely to provide. Don’t ask Him to return us to something you might imagine it ought to have been, because it wasn’t what He wanted in the first place. Stop blaming God for inspiring that filthy nonsense. The original concept for this country as commonly explained to us today was a blatant rejection of God’s Laws. So we should hardly be surprised when He decides it is time to let it die.

If you intend obeying Him, discard the nonsense and prepare for what God is actually doing.

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