Live by the Absolute - Die by the Absolute

Chris Matthews seemed to take a long time to get through Friday’s show, partially because some segments had extensive buffering sessions.  Glen came by and I gave him a cigarette, but hasn’t been by since.  Chris Matthews used the word “pin prick” to describe Obama’s bombing operations in Iraq now.  But Matthews claims “There are no half way measures; either you’re IN a war or OUT of it”.  Is that an absolute statement?  These ISIS people obviously aren’t afraid of dying because over a hundred thousand of them have been killed in neighboring Syria.  So it’s not as if we are somehow now going to “scare them away” – run them off.   In the long first segment of Thursday’s show there was talk about Obama Care and how successful Kentucky has been since their wise, democratic governor instituted what they call ‘Kynnect”, which features the KY of Kentucky.   The program is very popular and would seem to give the democratic lady senate candidate a major edge over Mc Conell.  Rand Paul kind of waffled and babbled when asked about the Kynnect program.  Matthews, as I did in a recent posting- - take exception to making EVERYTHING somehow a political event about the President.  They have even turned this latest crisis in Iraq into a political football – all about the President - - just as they did with the border crisis in this country, and the Israel and Gaza situation, and by the way they are back fighting again.  Then I read the Bible for a while- - and had two smoking sessions fairly close together.  Then I came in from the north to the courtyard and in time got in the growing line and got two cups of coffee.  Then I listened to Melinda Lee for the rest of that hour and into the next hour.  Melinda was talking about it being the season for fresh vine ripened tomatoes, which are so much better.   She said that you should not store tomatoes in the refrigerator, which is news to me.  She also said that keeping crispy things crispy that you bring to a picnic are hard- because the moisture of the thing will ‘steam” in whatever enclosure you carry it in- - and that steaming action will tend to soften whatever- - - up.

Besides the politization of every last news event- there are other things about right wingers we all find annoying.  They don’t mind minorities and plenty of them “as long as they know their place” as a permanent underclass with little or no opportunity for advancement.  In fact now they are saying for the first time that you have a poorer chance of “class upward mobility” in America now than you do in Europe.   Also this notion of- - the rich don’t just want to be rich.  They want to as it were HAVE IT ALL, which means the poor have to be even poorer.  They would rather have that bigger piece of a smaller pie rather than a smaller piece of a bigger pie.  Even if the rich are helped out by Keynsian policies, too, they would rather not have it.  They speak of that “lucky break” for an inventor but far more likely is that the poor guy’s discovery or invention or process would be bought out- - and he’d be left with a pittance while the new developer went on to make a fortune and get his stock listed on the NYSE.  And no doubt he’d try to drive him out of business is he didn’t play ball by undercutting his price.  And then he’d jack the prices way up once the competition was gone.  That’s what happens.  For being such fans of the free market, the Tea Party is appallingly ignorant of it.  For instance yes you will have non union people paying high wages, which, which I’m sure people like Larry Elder never tire of pointing out.  But take that little “stick” of the union away and see how fast wages drop.   Of course these people on the right are into “breaking” things./  They said they wanted to “break’ President Obama, they want to “break” Unions, and they sure as heck “break” the law, and somehow all those lofty “Absolutes” they talk about – never apply to them.

Since some high school kid cracked the DVD code within a couple months of when they came out, they say for Blue Ray they want to have a changeable code where in order to play some Blue Ray discs you have to “phone home” and hook up to the internet to see if this is a copy you’re supposed to have.  It sounds like a big hassle for me because what if your internet is down and you want to play a Blue Ray.  Leo’s show today has had a lot of things like to “try again in two million 380 thousand minutes, or something.  Of course you still have those cosmic rays flipping bits, and one of those bits may be an authorization bit to prove you are really the “administrator” of the file.  Leo says that owning a computer these days is like the average person owning a truck when a sub-compact may do them just fine.   And there were calls about discs freezing.  Then Neil Savedra comes on and talks about “Absolute” truths.  As you know I discuss “Objective” truths.  Understandably Neil does not care to use THAT word because there is an implication what whatever Truths he preaches are somehow provable.  In terms of what Neil said about “Your truth” and “My Truth” I think a lot of misunderstanding could be cleared up if you substituted “Reality” or “Situation” for Truth.   Neil uses the term Absolute because he believes it to be a sledge hammer by which can beat reality into others.   I can say for instance that a certain narrative of objectively true.  Someone was talking about the movie ‘A Man for All Seasons” with Paul Scoffield.  You can relate the general story and everybody pretty much agrees on that.  There was a conscientious Catholic who believed that divorce was wrong and separating from the mother church was wrong.  So where does Neil come down on THAT problem.  I certainly have no answer as if handed down on a stone tablet.  So many mathematical truths, for instance ARE relative.  Even the notion of “standing still” is relative.  If I cite some equation known as a function in Excel such as 1 x equals 2 Y plus 3, this is in fact a relative equation.  Saying a circumference of a circle is Pi times D, is also a relative truth.  And all of the variables involved are Dependant variables.  Scripture quotes Jesus as saying “Apart from the Father I can do nothing”.  So if the Holy Trinity is an “Absolute Truth” does that mean that God apart from the Father can do nothing?   It makes no sense.   What about that guy who said that there was a blood moon the evening after Jesus was crucified?  Was he speaking absolute truth?  Well then- - how come NO gospel mentions it?  And remember that Jesus had just gotten done talking about the moon turning to blood being a sign of the “last days”.  So- - given this bit of knowledge- - wouldn’t the disciples have been afraid seeing a blood moon on Good Friday?

The President announced two bombing raids in Iraq against Isis because their oppression is getting way out of hand, and not even the most dedicated ostrich can continue to hide his head in the sand over this one.  I speak of this in my posting this morning.   I called Judy back after the address was concluded.  Judy reports, happily I might add, that Mom has developed a little backboned and yelled at the people who wanted to forcibly take Staten drugs because they were prescribed.  Judy said she feared running afowl of the government because they are downright dictatorial about “elder abuse” and child abuse.  I think of that Valerie Bertenelli movie where she as a young mother of a little girl, ran afowl of the beaurocratic monster what is government today.  If the government with the blessing of the DFA can compel old people to take a drug you know is going to kill them- - we really do have a Bolshivic type dictatorship.   I have not turned a deaf ear to the cries of libertarians saying the Obama administration had dictatorship in mind.  I praise God that Mom found the wherewithal to stand up against this med program when they can come right into your room without knocking and literally pour the pills down your throat.  I also talked to Judy about how the whole world is in distress today with all of these wars of aggression and Christians and other minority religions are on the run.  Judy agreed but also said that “The human condition has always been this way; this is what the Bible says”.   I kind of re-thought my position about Democracy and am forced to the conclusion that Judy is right.  There ARE certain people in the world that should NOT have democracy, if they are going to institute a government that itself is an instrument of Immorality.

 For lunch we had a burrito that you make yourself with a giant soft tortilla and more than enough filling mixture for it.  It was good.  We had a banana for desert.  Then it was Sean Hannity.  But his show was a little bogus today because as you know there has been a cease fire in effect for a day or two.  But Sean was still talking to his cronies in Israel - - or people with British accents as if that gave them intellectual cover.  And it was “bomb, bomb, bomb - - Gaza”.    Sean just can’t get enough of that bombing back to the stone age, even when the parties involved have advanced beyond it.  It reminds me of Gene Scott showing reruns of the times he threw a fit saying he was going to quit the ministry if he didn’t get thirty thousand in pledges over the phone in the next half hour.  Of course he screams “go to the phones” and then when you call there’s nobody there, and that made me furious.  He’s not only a guy who puts his worst moments out there for the public to see; he even replays them!   On “Days” the big news is that Page has already decided she was going to drop out of Stanford even before she starts.  That’s one thing I agree with Eve on.  That would be a horrible mistake, but it seems she’s already contacted the University about her plans.  Meanwhile Nicole wonders why Eric can’t believe her because I’d say she’s gone a long way twords “atoning for her sins”.   In this case it isn’t “No harm, no foul” but rather “You did your part- - but I’m mad at you anyhow”.  When asked to explain his now irrational rage he just says “Nicole - - You did this to me!”

I think a certain amount of “search for the Absolute” is fine.  So what do we know about the earliest form of Christianity?   Two sources, the Coptic Church, and the historian Tassitus, state that Jesus or “Crestus” was alive in fifty AD and perhaps later than that.  The Roman Colloseum was not built till 80 AD so Nero wasn’t feeding Christians to the lions there.  I find it necessary here to advise any reader reading the "History of Gnostic hericies' or any such title- - to realize that such articles are usually written with the greatest of bias.   What we need to do is to go back - - before the myths and cover-ups were invented.  The ideas in this posting are not unique to me - - you see traces of this "Crestorian" strain of the faith (my term) all through history - - but it never had a PR agent.  I would like to invoke Vincent Bugliosi's "consciousness of guilt" argument though, because some texts - -under black light- - you can see an "e" changed to an "i" to make "Christian" and not "Chrestian".   Who would go to all that trouble unless they were hiding something.  In terms of the Emperor Nero - -  those who suffered from this are not the "Christians" we know today.  Indeed the distinction made by Ireneus is "Catholic" Christians.  The only hint of inference that Christianity as we knew it at all existed at all as "early" as AD 96 was one article saying "Christians no longer had to pay the foreigners tax as Jews had to".  I take exception to the words "No longer" since you can't infer the ABSENCE of reference to a group as somehow PROOF this group had separated from another group.  Capish?  Now here are more specific details - - many clues found in the actual gospels.

 There was darkness for “about three hours” on the day that “Crestus’ or whoever was crucified.  We know a partial solar eclipse of the sun might well take that long like November 24th of 29 AD.   Knowing the "retrogression of the orbital nodes" there would well be an eclipse of the moon on April 3rd of 33 AD and- - a solar eclipse in 29 AD.  If you take out the words from scripture - the one line 'The time of the Passover was near" you'd never know from the internal evidence that it Was in fact Passover.  All four Gospels report the same scenario of an angry Mob wanting the release of a guy known as “Jesus Barrabus” and that the other guy should be put to the cross.  They seem to be a very Confident mob that believes they have the upper hand and are showing no fear of Pilate themselves. We know there was a recent “Riot” - - about the same time Crestus - - overturned the money changer’s tables in the Temple.  We know that in Matthew 23 the word ‘Priest” does not occur once in this long condemnation, and neither does the word “Sanhedrin” who ran the temple.  We know one day later Jesus (?) was sitting calmly in an orderly temple near the place where people were donating money- so if he is the same guy- - he was not only never arrested but welcome back.  There is no reference to any Passover lamb being either prepared nor eaten at the “Last supper”.  We know that at Passover the point was to stay IN your dwelling for the night to be ceremonial protected from the “Angel of death”.   And yet Jesus takes a stroll in the moonlight- - only internal evidence suggests there was no moon that night.  We also know there were laws barring the carrying out of an execution on the same day that the individual was first charged.  We also know it was cold at night.  We also know it wasn’t the season for figs.  There is an inference that sunset came relatively early.  We also know that it would not have been a Passover when Jesus died because it’s patently illegal to conduct any business at all on a holy day.  Judas leads “A Roman Cohort” to the Mount of Olives.  We know that Tassitus refers to “A battle which took place on the Mount of Olives”.   Only ONE of the four Gospels makes any reference to Judas either repenting or hanging himself.  We also know from Josephus or someone that “An Egyptian - - preached “Tear down this temple made with hands and in three days I will build one up NOT made with hands” - - and we hear he “Escaped into Egypt”.   We also have Jesus quoted as saying to his detractors “I am going away – and you cannot follow me”.  He also had told his disciples “But as for you - - pray that you will be accounted as worthy to escape all these things”  - - so again there is an allusion to escaping.   I’m not stating any absolutes here- - I’m just showing you some “puzzle pieces”.  No doubt there are others.  Now, just put them together.