New Reasons to Use Linux

Posted on August 1, 2009 by ehurst

Let’s be clear: I don’t know all the details, don’t have a full range of understanding in computer technology. I’m pretty much a duffer. But I know what I like and what seems to work for me. What I do understand is human nature, particularly government and bureaucratic human nature. I’ve worked in it extensively. The biggest threat to any of us remains the combined mind and desires of human governments. It makes me just short of paranoid, but feel free to pretend I’m over the line, if it makes you happy.

I run Linux to be secure. There are OSes more secure than Linux, but they don’t work as well at the same time. It’s a compromise between security and function within my habits. If I was truly paranoid, I wouldn’t bother connecting to the Internet. As it is, the Net is currently my best venue for publication. I don’t have to charge anything because I don’t have to mess with expensive ways of getting my message to the masses. My ideas might be utterly stupid, but they won’t cost you anything. You can find my books linked here, no ads, and the pages load quickly because I write the code by hand, without images or JScript.

The stuff I write tends to poke at The Establishment in several ways. For example, a primary element in my writing says we don’t need organizations to do religion and please Jesus. We need to organize when we involve more than two people, but what we have in terms of mainstream organization is utterly contrary to what Jesus commanded. Another thing I attack is the epistemological assumptions which allow Evangelicals to assume they are obeying the commands of Jesus, when they aren’t. But I won’t bore you with the details of all that here. In doing all that poking, I’m also poking at the relationship which has churches sucking up to government. I also attack government — in short, all Western governments. I try to present a reason to find they are all illegitimate in God’s eyes.

There was a time the US gave lip service to the notion criticism was a good thing for government. But that was a myth some time ago, as the government here seethes at the temerity by which anyone would dare to complain. While I don’t support any part of what most people think of as democracy, nor even the particulars of a republic, I’m hardly the only one saying we don’t even adhere to those flawed principles which are widely advertised as the foundation of the federal government. You might say the whole building has slipped off the foundation and is resting on something else. That something else does not include a respect for the will of the people. In every way you can imagine, it is very much a case of us versus them.

As a part of all that mess, I have seen some things happen which make Linux a much better choice for doing what personal computers do.

As a former Military Policeman, I am painfully aware of planted evidence. Do not doubt for one second it’s not happening. It’s been part of the scene for a long time as the way to get rid of someone who annoys the system, but has clean hands. Put dirt on their hands for them. It is now a primary tool of federal law enforcement. One of the easiest ways to plant evidence on someone is to find in their possession a computer running Windows. Yes, Windows can be locked down to some extent, and Linux can be wide open, if you change a lot of things out of the box. But most people don’t. So when it comes out of the box, Linux is more secure. It’s harder to plant evidence because the majority of the tools for that don’t work well on Linux, but are all designed to work with Windows, and maybe some with Mac. If I were a real target, I’d already be gone, but until I cross that threshold (it does keep moving), I’m able to avoid most threats of planted evidence.

In fact, it’s pretty hard for just plain old snooping. For example, recent federal government websites, to which you are very much invited to visit, have begun requiring unconscionable levels of trust. For now, it only applies to auto dealers who attempt to participate in clunkers program: “When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a Federal computer system and is the property of the United States Government.” Given what I know about such things, this is just the start. That provision will soon appear on every site where contractors, vendors, and such interact with government. Eventually, it will surely become the policy for every citizen attempting to use any government service. At that point, what the feds say about the clunker program will apply to every federal activity:

Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and disclosed to authorized CARS, DoT, and law enforcement personnel, as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic and foreign. By using this system, the user consents to such interception, monitoring, recording, copying, auditing, inspection, and disclosure at the discretion CARS or the DoT personnel.

They will assume your computer is part of their system, and you have extended an open invitation for snooping. It’s not enough the NSA eavesdrops on every electron of traffic across the Net, reads your unencrypted (and some encrypted) email messages, and notes every URL you request. No, they will demand full access to the whole thing. And while I have nothing to hide, there is a difference between secrecy and privacy. What is on my system is simply none of their business. For now, it’s more likely if they take an interest in the contents of my harddrive, that interest will appear on one of several levels. It’s not all one thing, and each agency does things a little differently. Between routine traffic sniffing and confiscation of the hardware, there are multiple levels and methods of snooping which might apply. So while I know the feds have left their IP addresses all over my site logs, they haven’t done much else. Yet. They could come right through my hardware firewall and try to scan the system, but most tools are frustrated if the target is running Linux. So if they want my stuff, they’ll have to decide it’s worth a little bigger investment in man hours. That website would hardly offer them full access to my laptop.

I’m no threat to the government, but they are most certainly a threat to me. My whole point is warning people they are a threat to everyone. While I give people a reason to believe resistance is no sin, I don’t call for direct action which constitutes anything criminal under current definitions. I don’t have any dirt on anyone important and I don’t hack into their systems looking for it. I doubt I could, but I’m not interested. Along those lines, I am content to observe what comes into plain sight. And I’ll probably talk about it, because I can’t avoid warning people when something harmful is on their path. At some point, I’m sure things will get more dicey. History shows governments always run from bad to worse in how they treat those they govern. Until then, just running Linux is pretty good protection from low level threats.

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Hype, Hysteria, or Intel?

Posted on July 31, 2009 by ehurst

It’s pretty rare I would post twice on the same day, yet here it is. Apparently this business of the H1N1 flu virus is really jangling raw nerves. There is plenty of reason to believe it’s a designer virus, and not at all a natural occurrence. Even without that, we are rightly suspicious when the mainstream media pours on the scare tactics. As I understand it, some 35,000 die every year from natural flu epidemics. The vaccines have always been almost entirely pointless at best, guesswork which often misses.

Indeed, the best long-term preventative for flu is getting it and recovering naturally. Okay, that might be pretty rough. The best natural defense otherwise starts with basic good health. You know: no smoking, eat right, exercise, etc. The single best thing you can do after that is Vitamin D3. Consistent across the board recommendations run something close to 5000 IU per day (which also whips cancer). After that, lots of Vitamin C, then Echinacea. There are other precautions, but all of these don’t make money for Big Pharma nor corporate medicine and HMOs, so you won’t get this from them.

As we’ve covered here at least twice, it’s altogether moral and righteous to resist the government or anyone else seeking to coerce you into accepting these bogus inoculations. Places I visit across the web indicate an awful lot of folks are willing to use violence to do so. This whole thing looks like an attempt to herd folks into something for which the flu scare is just a cover. Some suggest it’s likely RFIDs will come with it. A great many are utterly certain the vaccine is nothing less than a covert poison program to reduce the population. If this has any basis in reality we are talking about a “cytokine storm” — a hideously unpleasant way to die.

The broad distrust of the companies producing the vaccines is almost surely justified. Their recent record of behavior has been downright criminal, but they are protected from prosecution on most things, either by choosing to test dangerous new drugs in 3rd world countries, or more recently, federal law which gives them a complete tort protection. And do we trust the federal government, either?

So when a story pops up this morning from Greg Evensen warning about roadblocks, metal bracelets and forced vaccinations, you would hardly be surprised it spread like wildfire. I noticed it around noon, CDT. I found about eight sites linking to it. Four hours later, there were several dozen. By now, you should expect to find over a hundred references to it.

I don’t know Evensen, nor his reputation. It could be an honest leak. It could also be a false leak, perhaps even as a test to gauge reaction to such an idea. Would anybody know if this is just Evensen trying to sell his seminars? If his warning is true, there is an awful lot of background missing. By itself, any combination of state, local and federal forces attempting to institute roadblocks for this purpose would result very shortly in dead police and medical contractors. I feel certain this is one issue which would provoke an armed uprising. Not even an economic collapse would be sufficient cover to make this work. It would require better protection than serious Iraq War tactics our troops are using.

I don’t doubt there are people in the US government right now who drool at the thought of culling the population of the country, or at least having an excuse to impose martial law. Some of them wear military uniforms. Still, I doubt many of the troops themselves are eager to do that here. I’m almost certain a sizable portion of the policemen in this country would outright refuse to do it, if for no other reason than their own safety. I would hope most medically trained people would consider it unethical. It would almost certainly require some serious major disaster to distract people, to create a huge climate of fear which would make them less likely to be on guard against such a program.

That would be the real story.

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Religious Music Woes

Posted on July 31, 2009 by ehurst

Why do so few overtly Christian songs break through commercially? How come there aren’t any powerful musical accomplishments among Christian musicians to rival, say, the long string of major hits by the Eagles? So I’ve been asked at times.

First, let’s make sure everyone understands there is a bias in secular music management against Christian music. The religion genre has its own market and marketing strategies, and the two don’t mix. For example, you can’t audition for American Idol singing a religious song. The exceptions in the system are notable, because they are so rare.

Second, the existence of a Christian music genre separate from the secular music market guarantees that rarity of “cross-over” hits. Worst of all, it guarantees the grubby-greedy-filthy ethics of the music management business maintains control even in the Christian market. As long as it’s “business” you can’t keep Babylon out of it.

The entire purpose of Christian music is not music, per se. It is worship. In the world of faith, all things are worship. You are either building up the glory of God, or that of Satan. There is no neutral ground; Jesus said so Himself. (And another thing: If I have to cite chapter and verse to prove that, you haven’t read the Bible enough. The ANE assumptions are you will recognize the reference.) In our minds, we over-philosophize about the divisions between overt support, overt attack, and things which seem neutral. In the Realm of the Spirit, there is such a thing as “harmless” in that sense, but I find the notion of black-n-white dichotomy a purely Western cultural invention. What Jesus meant was the matter of loyalty. If God is at the center of your desires, you are unlikely to embarrass Him.

This whole debate shows our cultural schizophrenia. We compartmentalize our world; that’s the whole purpose behind the analytical frame of reference. While we acknowledge a given thing can fit into different categories, even competing categories, we give far too much importance to the mere existence of categories in the first place. It’s okay to note our human experience in the world can be segmented into a logical structure, but to assume that structure is itself “reality,” even when we propagate that structure globally to most other humans (“academic standards”), is madness. Yes, it’s necessary for language to have definable terms in order to communicate between humans. What is not necessary is the degree to which we apply such structures, as if that’s the fundamental nature of Creation itself.

So explain this: The Beethoven, Wagner, and Satie I dearly love help me focus when I’m trying to write, but the Eagles, whom I also rather like, get in the way. Likewise, Petra and Bloodgood, also much beloved, also get in the way. It’s not simply a matter of instrumental versus lyrics, either. Strauss can get in the way, but the “Hallelujah Chorus” and “Carol of the Bells” do not. You may believe you or someone else can explain it, but it won’t explain it well enough to change things. And while we might mark that down to some degree as conditioning, it still is not, nor can ever be, something science and philosophy will ever fully explain.

The fundamental issue will always be that point of commitment: To what are you ultimately loyal? It won’t matter if some Christian band produces a hokey tune and unimaginative lyrics. Other Christians can sense the loyalty behind the song, and it will sell. That’s hardly the whole story behind the marketing of, say CCM. There’s a lot going on at the same time. Artistry matters, and whether it will sell to the crowd with the most money in their hands. Some of the most annoying songs are also the most comforting for a wide audience, so we keep hearing them. Or perhaps the song simply tickles an addictive mental distraction people want.

The Christian music market is rooted in Babylon, and some of the most loyal followers of Christ never get an album out. Some of the greatest artists of our time still labor in obscurity. Secular marketing has a very hard time with anything that won’t provoke mass appeal. For all their excuses, the marketing folks know they are trying to cultivate a manipulation factor in the buying public. If they could flip a switch to sell the next new album, they would do it, and try to make it hard-wired. Precious few music marketing managers care what’s right or wrong when they make that decision. Even when the managers are themselves musicians and servants of God, the decisions are made based on dollars, not loyalty to Christ. Some of the nastiest people you’ll ever meet perform CCM; some of the biggest names are folks you don’t want to know.

However, there is that extra element in their audience which seeks a worship experience, something altogether absent from the secular market. The secular music crowd don’t get that. They don’t worship in that sense. What appeals to followers of Christ on that level completely misses the secular audience. The music moguls recognize what sells, and can see some similarities in both products, which is frankly part of what damns the religious music market. Still, they don’t accept the existence of a spiritual factor because they don’t have it. To them, it’s simply a matter of a very different market, and frankly, there’s more money in secular music.

The biggest mistake any believer can make is letting a non-spiritual person define “success” for them. You might accept their definition in the sense of understanding how to deal with them, but the biggest disaster in religious music as whole is thinking the market does any good at all to promoting good music, much less good worship.

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Truth Is No Threat

Posted on July 30, 2009 by ehurst

Loose lips sink ships. But only if the government owning the ships has rejected God. So let me propose a counter sound-bite: “Truth is no threat to the honest.”

Secrecy assumes there is no God. The Lord promised Israel if they relied on Him, He would take care of all the details and no enemy would stand before them. Just to show how much that reliance mattered, He once ran a demonstration which remains to this day utterly unforgettable. When a collection of allied forces approached, God informed Israel they should send out the choir as their advance line of attack. As the formation crested the hill, their enemies lay scattered and dying in the valley below.

That was no fluke. When you embrace the Laws of God, He supports your national safety and security. So much does He do so, He can use your army band marching with instruments to defeat a massive allied attack. You can broadcast to your enemy the exact details of your plans to defend, and it won’t matter. They will fail because God is on your side.

We have proclaimed in times past about God and right on our side, but we were lying. Justice is defined by the Laws of Noah, not by some materialist Greek philosophical base, filtered through Latin anti-human organizational structure, combined with pagan Teutonic morals, and all Sanforized and homogenized by Enlightenment atheism. God is not impressed by such things.

He is deeply impressed when a nation humbles itself before His throne, and enters the Covenant of Noah with Him. He’s pretty impressed when individual humans do so, too. Total honesty is an integral part of that.

Truth is no threat to honest people, because Truth is another name for God, and honesty is what He demands. Genuine honesty is His policy for all humans. Yes, there are things none of us should ever see, because they build an appetite for sin. That’s not secrecy, but covering sin. We also know we expose things to children slowly, in steps, so they can assimilate truth as they grow in understanding. The nation of adult Americans are children only if our national leaders worked hard to make them that way, also contrary to God’s commands.

Those who work to uncover secrets are doing God’s work.

[Note: This article will be added to the series, Studies in the laws of Noah.]

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Ethics of Resistance

Posted on July 29, 2009 by ehurst

First off, nothing in Noah’s Covenant or the rest of the Bible requires you to resist. If you want to play along and believe God wants that from you, by all means, play along. You do have to reconsider when your decision applies to others. If by choosing to go along, you are dragging along others under your leadership, the burden is much higher. At that, you may well be required by Noah to resist.

Having covered that, there is a distinct ethical-moral consideration. Unless the threat is immediate, you cannot justify outright aggression. Naturally, it’s between you and God when the threat becomes “immediate,” but quibbling as an excuse for unjust bloodshed will fall heavily on your soul. All the more so when you lead others. The call from Noah is to form your tribe, then attempt to disentangle to the degree possible. If the ruling regime won’t allow it, consider ways you might resist and satisfy Noah.

Naturally, in these modern times, you should expect any government agency to use deception. If the decision has been made to, for example, to force the population to accept immunizations against the H1N1 flu, it is unlikely they’ll announce the intention honestly. People like me have already made enough noise and there is a significant portion here in the US who will not volunteer. Indeed, they will fight it. Expect the government to seek ways to sucker us into it.

That being the case, we do have some reason for being on-guard against any attention from the government. For example, I am a disabled veteran. In the past, I got most of my medical needs treated at the local VA clinics. In the past year, I found their treatments were pointless on a couple of things, and found my own solutions. I managed to cure some long-standing issues for which they were content to treat merely the symptoms. I haven’t been back in over a year. I’m trusting them less and less. I’m keeping my eyes open, reading the news, and checking non-mainstream sources. Depending on how it looks, when they call me to come in for the flu shot this fall, I may decide it’s time to quit going there altogether, forever. If I even suspect there are plans, all the more so if I hear about efforts, to make this stuff mandatory across the population, it’s time to make that final break.

Each of us has to decide for ourselves what’s required of us to obey Noah.

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They Call It “Protest Art”

Posted on July 28, 2009 by ehurst

As a kid, I dabbled in graphics arts some. I used to carry a sketch pad a lot of places and did impromptu renderings of things I saw. As an adult, I managed to paint a couple of murals which people actually wanted. Most of that faded before I was 25. By no stretch of the imagination am I a good painter or sketch artist. I’m not all that creative with visual stuff. I do okay with parody of something someone else did, and I do okay with simple decorative stuff. Still, I’m not really a graphics artist.

However, lately I’ve been hit with the itch to do some of that stuff again. I have no strong pull to fine arts, but I do have this nagging thought about something such as sidewalk chalk and fairly simple messages. Naturally, my “protest” is against sin, and I have little interest in typical secular protests about politics and social causes. On the other hand, I suppose my ideas are quite radical and would very much call people to rebel against the current ruling regime here.

It would be interesting if I could get a decent digital camera, then I could post pictures of anything I do along those lines. For now, though, it’s just an itch. I’m praying about it.

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Turning Point

Posted on July 27, 2009 by ehurst

A parable of internal debate and resolve.

There were scars visible on his hands and forearms. It was obvious he had tried it before, and the scars were proof of both past failures and current resolve.

It was not science, since no one seemed quite sure how it worked. Nor was it precisely art, since there was no particular standard among men to judge the aesthetic merits. Rather, it was the simple matter the blocks either stood or fell. Somewhere in the structure of the chalky material was something which recognized when things were done right and the stacks turned solid, as if the whole thing had been cut from a single mountain of the hardest stone on the planet. The standing work of only a few men still stood. Some were so ancient no one knew how long they stood, but legend had it at least one stack had been there before the first home was built in the area. There had always been a stack of blocks waiting for someone to try.

The stuff was popular enough, used as ephemeral art carvings, toys, or kids simply drew on the pavement with it. But every now and then someone came along with some inner flame of inspiration, and would stack blocks of it in some strange pattern in the center of the square. It was popularly believed the stones would speak, but the artists themselves insisted the inspiration was not in the stones. Where it did come from, no one knew how to say.

Of course, the fellows who failed could talk all day, but no one would listen to them. After all, they obviously didn’t understand what they were doing. And it was sure someone would try almost every day, sometimes several in a day. There were always plenty of blocks and plenty of room.

A few admitted they weren’t serious about it, just wanted to feel the blocks and experiment. Once or twice, and it got boring. Most who tried it insisted they really had been inspired, then ended up injured when the structure they were building fell. Again, inexplicably, the blocks would cut when they fell, but at no other time. Under any other circumstance, they would simply crumble and at most leave bruises when handled poorly. In the stacking, though, it was always different.

Today’s aspirant was one of the oldest anyone remembered seeing. His face was familiar by now, since he had been there so often. Once or twice his building fell before he really got very far. The last time, it had gotten well over his head, but still fell in the end. Was that a rather fresh scar on his left hand?

He stood for a moment looking at the blocks. He was muttering, looking about, taking stock of the various sizes and shapes. For a moment, he gazed skyward, then looking back down, he spoke aloud.

“This is the last time. If this fails, I’ll find something else to do. But I’ll never come back again.”

Slowly, he selected a few blocks and cleared some space. This one was going to be quite large. Indeed, if he got it very high and they fell, he might well be killed this time.

Another month or two. If what I’ve built falls this time, I’ll stop forever. I won’t be back any more.

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Babylon Is Fallen

Posted on July 26, 2009 by ehurst

While there is an element of theology here, making it seem more appropriate to my other blog, there is a particular call for action under Noah which does not require a spiritual grasp to get it.

Babylon is the symbolic term for Satan’s commerce in human souls. We summarize all that talk with a characteristic definition: Babylon means everything has a price, and that’s all that matters. This is directly contrary to Noah, and very obviously at odds with “Love the Lord with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.” Love dies when a price tag is attached to anything. That’s not a condemnation of the academic discipline of Economics, but a condemnation of what’s done with it most of the time. Understanding human behavior through observation of economic activity is wisdom. Acting purely on economic interests and principles is obeying Satan.

Consider the big picture on a more global scale. Politics are local, but there is an element of truth in the socialist/communist “we are the world.” While God surely acts in the life of the individual, it’s downright stupidity to think that’s the end of the discussion, since the vision from the beginning was to reach all mankind. Not blindly, but with an eye to the moral effects of all our actions, as the smallest thing can change everything.

Those who embrace what is typically thought of as political conservatism, aside from no longer having any real representation in the US government, also suffer from a severe myopia regarding economic actions. Shipping a factory to impoverished lands does economic good to the laborers hired there; it must also inevitably change their lives on a vast scale, things which cannot be measured economically. It takes a very dark moral conscience to believe economics answers the whole of our responsibilities. Conducting your personal life along prissy middle class Western lines does not complete your responsibilities before God. If you create a deep hunger for hedonistic pleasures, then use that to sucker some poor country into accepting your factories, with all the hugely different cultural processes inside, destroying their tribal existence as if it’s not a factor at all, then you are the dope dealer selling crack to little kids. To suggest these things is not “liberalism” — the world is not that simple. You have touched the life of another human being, and God holds you accountable.

Every empire in history follows the same life cycle. The whole thing hinges on some means of asserting force in other lands. Whether it be advanced tactics, better organization, cultural allure, better technology, combinations of those things or something altogether different, you can’t play games with words to deny that’s what is happening. You have something different than the folks you touch there in those other lands, and assuming it’s automatically better just because you can use it or make them want it is incredible arrogance — it’s sin. It’s also so common, nobody wants to discuss it. Assyria had a unique warrior culture, Babylon had genius rulers, Persia had a distinct moral and religious union, Greece had another genius leader with advanced military tactics, Rome had superior organization (even as she destroyed the humanity of all she touched), etc. There were other factors in each case, such as Greece’s cultural evangelism on which Rome piggy-backed, but the point is we can see each empire had some unique advantage which allowed them to project their power and influence into places lacking that vitality.

That vitality permitted the growing empire to absorb the resources of other countries, which always serves to artificially inflate the economic situation back home. No matter how you cut it, the imperial forces are stealing and enslaving those they conquer, by whatever means they conquer. You can only do that so long before there’s a backlash. Every empire has been based on greed, arrogance and adventure-seeking (entertainment). The moral laws of the Universe (AKA the Covenant of Noah) can be ignored only so long before God puts them back in place. We call that carrying the seeds of your own demise when you ignore them.

America, at the head of the Western Empire, is about to harvest what has sprouted from those seeds. Because we have projected our power over the whole globe, the collapse will affect all humanity. The depression has started, and in a month or so, it will be impossible to ignore. But it won’t be a short-lived correction. It will be long and painful, lasting easily more than a decade. The fiat currency system has enslaved nearly the entire human race, and with it the infestation of blindness about how this world actually works. It would easily take ten or twenty years to correct any part of that before some other force rises. It won’t be the West, not as we now know it.

This is God’s justice.

Now is the time to grasp the fundamental understanding of what Noah demands. It will hardly be easy, because it requires a complete shift of worldview, a cultural shock, but one which must be chosen intentionally. If you fail to embrace the removal of price tags, embrace the tribal social structure, accept the broad mystical moral assumptions, you will suffer in terms all too predictable.

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Bogus Health Care Racket

Posted on July 25, 2009 by ehurst

Around here where I live, people have begun discovering what a racket this public health care can be.

At the outer edges of the “low income health care delivery system” is a host of little clinics which sometimes actually do some good. However, that good is always cloaked in a particular religion, as it were, of Women’s Health Services. Since women have been so horribly oppressed over the centuries, it’s necessary to ensure they don’t suffer and die from all these horrific health threats peculiar to women. Yes, that’s sarcasm.

They offer this free screening for things like breast cancer, cervical cancer, AIDS, etc. Now, that in itself is a good thing. People who can’t afford treatment and want it find relief that way. However, when the folks who actually worry about such needs have all been through the system, it stands to die or lose some of its fund-raising clout when they can’t find enough clients. You see, too often the folks in these clinics aren’t the best at what they do, and they might not have a job if the “free clinics” were shut down for lack of clients.

So the screening is extended, and more and more women are roped in, even to the point of phone-banking the numbers of anyone who ever had any connection at all with anyone who was once served at the clinic. They collect numbers of all breathing humans they can talk to just for this purpose, even if it’s just grandma watching the baby while a low-income mother applies for WIC or something. When the clinic traffic gets slow, they pull up these numbers and pester folks with free screening of this or that, getting pushy with those who profess no interest or need.

Once they get you into the clinic, they tell you repeatedly, “It’s free!” They always find something on that first mammogram, of course, and make a referral for further examination. The bigger clinics often sponsor the screening to get new patients. Naturally, you are sent through some long intrusive application for some kind of welfare assistance. With enough fudging and so forth, they can usually get you something to cover that next exam. It’s their job to make sure they qualify you for this stuff, so you can bet they’ll look for any opening they can exploit.

So you get sent to this expensive MRI clinic, and they treat you really nice. These are good, high-class people, but that clinic has to turn a profit. So you get that MRI, and …. they find nothing. Absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, the original “low income clinic” somehow manages to find a way to charge you for two visits. While it may be at their low rate fee, it’s still not the “free” they promised. You may spend the rest of your life trying to argue with them, because it’s these low-income clinics that are staffed with some of the meanest people I’ve ever met sitting behind a clinic desk. Naturally, who’s going to listen if you talk about these wonderful people who work so hard to serve the under-served poor of the community?

It’s a racket.

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Better Than Horoscope

Posted on July 24, 2009 by ehurst

It is not necessary to be spiritual to get a word from God on things.

Consider: Under Moses, the designated priests could get a word from God regardless of their spiritual condition. All they needed was ritual adherence. There were, of course, other factors, such as the nation’s faithfulness as a whole. There also has to be a mechanism for asking which offers God a chance to ignore your question. This is totally consistent with ANE ethics, particularly regarding interactions with royalty. God casts Himself as the ultimate ANE Sheik. Keep in mind Moses is a subset of Noah.

However, in a broad general sense, most of what we regard as miracles and miraculous intervention was according the Law Covenants, not a genuine spiritual link with God. The spiritual connection adds a whole new element, but does not change the fundamentals. When people observe the Laws, they have standing to ask for things according to the promises of the Laws. I’m not sure exactly what we might do to mark the answers to questions, since we have no reliable information on what exactly is meant by “drawing lots before the Lord.” Perhaps this is something which simply requires a certain amount of testing.

Strictly speaking, dealing with ANE royalty was mostly a matter of protocol. We assume nothing simply because no one of us could possibly know enough about the Sheik’s business to always get it right. Still, when He proposes a covenant, aside from what seems to us caprice because we don’t know all the angles, we address it mostly as an element of mystery attached to all things. We fulfill the best we know, make a request through proper channels, and wait for a response at the Sheik’s leisure. Naturally, we try our best to make our requests consistent with what we know of His character.

So any Joe Sixpack who is observant of the Laws of Noah can ask God for a good harvest, and have reason to believe it will come. He could, for example, ask for God’s guidance choosing between two or three prospective brides, and reasonably expect His choice to be according to His interests, but would work out well in those terms. The same goes with other perplexing life choices. The guidance offered will always be regarding things covered in the Covenant — things of this world. Please notice: Satan and the demons are generally bound by the same Laws. We can’t possibly fathom the actual details, but demonic activity is permitted or restricted by God according to the Laws of Noah, which remains the covenant binding all humanity today. The story of Job points out the inscrutable angle in God operating outside the scope of our understanding, yet in the long run, according to His promises. Variations are more likely to happen when the person involved is spiritual, due to higher expectations from God, and far less often when they are not spiritual.

It should be obvious under no circumstances should anyone expect paradise on this earth. Certain select individuals, for whatever reason, may approach that, or at least seem to be almost there. However, you and I, regardless of spiritual condition, should never expect it. We should always expect to be denied critical information as part of the Covenant conditions, which will maintain a certain variability in how things work out. However, the promises of the Covenant are unshakable. Perhaps you’ll remember the Western bias for precision is a major hindrance here.

Thus, in terms Evangelicals will understand, God does hear a sinner’s prayer for covenant blessings under Noah. The theology which states God hears only one prayer from sinners, that of confession and commitment to Christ, is not supported in the Bible. It’s a logical derivative of the Westminster Accords, which are themselves entirely too Aristotelian to be faithful to Scripture. The declaration by certain religious organizations God works only, or works best, under their organizational structure, is only so accurate as they adhere to Noah. Any degree of Aristotelian or Platonic assumptions will guarantee they are wrong.

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