"Is God Really Dead?"

- By Jim Culp

 

Over the last ten or so years, I have been involved in several discussion groups, many group conversations, and several outright debates on the subject of the existence of God.

Amid the confusion and anger that this subject typically generates, there is a "light in the darkness."

That light is called the truth, or reality. And that reality is that if you believe in God, or the hundreds of synonyms for that title, you do so with hope or faith, not with proof or scientific explanation. Allow me to explain how  I cane to being able to be comfortable with that last statement.

I was raised in a Christian home. That is, a home where Christian beliefs were

honored, shared, and oftentimes practiced.
Our "brand" of Christianity was a protestant derivative called "Baptist", a movement started in 1609 in Amsterdam, where believers rejected Catholic practices and started their own thing. Our churches took it a step further, and identified themselves as "Fundamental Baptists", preferring and attempting to follow the teachings of Jesus straight from the New Testament and not from directives by the Baptist churches social conventions that were commanding the doctrines of the day.
Throughout my childhood and teenage life I was drug to church three times (yes, three times) per week, sometimes placed in church-schools, and taught to honor the Word of God always, no matter what.

In January of 1985, I dropped out of high school and joined the U.S. Army.

I stayed a faithful Christian, and prayed daily to an unseen God that never answered back, but I remained a faithful believer.
Over the next 17 years, I served in the regular Army, the Kansas National Guard, and the Army Reserves. In 2000, I began a path of personal and private research of world religions, politics, and the common practices of churches and their financial dealings.

As for the military, I was a professional soldier, Non-Commissioned Officer, and Instructor who cared very much about what I was doing. The military gave me vast experience in 17 countries, hundreds of cultures, and an understanding that would serve me to this day. What the military unknowing armed me with was an good overall picture of the Earth's religions, their practices, and an inherent understand of how religion plays such an important part in people's lives.

Everyone is affected by religion...whether one is religious or not.
You cant go to Europe without feeling the influence of the Catholic Church; and you cant go to any southern part of the United States and not feel the influence of protestant Christianity.

In 2001, the people of the United States of America and many nations of this Earth were grossly deceived when an act of Imperialism was committed by agencies of our Federal Government, and two planes were crashed into World Trade Center towers One and Two. Life as we know it would change forever.

The Muslim world and the faith of Islam were blamed for this outrage, and the armies of the Christian God started attacking the "terrorists" of the world, and a Jihad (Holy War) that will last for many years to come began.
My reserve unit was mobilized for deployment to Iraq in February of 2003.
Life AS I KNEW IT was over. The next two years would change me forever.
But that's another story.

In late 2004, I adopted a belief system consistent with facts and knowledge of truth; nothing else. Again, I continued on a path of personal and private research of world religions, politics, and the common practices of churches and their financial dealings.
I went to a very private place and talked to God. I told him that if he would show me something, I'd be his greatest prophet. Still haven't heard anything from God; that was 11 years ago.
I resigned my Christian beliefs, adopted semi-pagan beliefs, and shed the prison of region from my heart and soul forever.
That all being said, I've been called an atheist and an agnostic.

I am neither.

An atheist is defined as "a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings."

That's not me. I don't deny the existence of a "supreme being or beings."
I deny the concepts that a god, or gods, exist in the fashion that Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and hundreds others suggest. I lived over 35 years under the cloak of that fantasy, and I just don't buy it anymore.

An agnostic is defined as "a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience."

Close, but still no cigar.
I believe that every single thing in this universe is composed of energy. Somewhere, out there or over there, wherever the hell that is, there is an energy source. Ancient Druids called it "the Source". I believe that sentient (that's you and me, by the way, and allot of animals) beings are one type of energy and non-sentient (everything else) are another.
The sentient beings have life spirits. Now, you can call that a soul, a chakra, a chi, or the Rolling Stones if you want. But that particular energy comes from a very specific part of the Source. All the rest comes from the rest of the Source.

Simple? Maybe. But the Source is my definition of "God".

Some modern scientists have suggested that God is dead. He once existed, but he's gone now and we'll have to fumble about and get along ourselves.

The Jewish are still waiting for Jesus to come, and Christians are still waiting for him to return. Of course none of the 64 brands of Christianity that I have researched agree on anything, much less when Jesus is coming back, and what he'll do when he gets here.

Islam (Muslims) are still very faithful to God (Allah), but have a real hard time agreeing on how to do that peacefully.

Hindus and Buddhists are still chilling out and playing it cool.

So I guess you'll judge for yourself.

As Ozzy said on the 13 album, "I don't believe that God is dead."

Me either Ozzy.

 

ESP: Real or B.S.?

By Jim Culp

 

May 5th, 2015

 

In all my years of research into politics. religions, and culture, I have run across stories of people who have claimed some sort of ESP (extra-sensory perception) at some point in their lives. I want to share one such experience with you, dear reader, that happened to me quite some time ago.

In early 1992, I had returned from the Persian Gulf War (the year before) and because of dire circumstances in my marriage, I was given sole custody of my 2 year old daughter Jessica. I lived in a little town in northeast Kansas called Junction City. It's just southeast of Kansas's largest reservoir, Milford Lake, and about a hour due west of Topeka.

I was a 25 year old Sergeant in the US Army in those days. I was doing my best to serve my country in peacetime, because war and the Army's inattention to family situations had really taken it's course for me.

On a typical day, I would get up at 0400 (4 a.m.), get dressed in my physical fitness uniform, get Jessi out of bed, dress her, and take her to a day care provider at 0500, and get to the base by 0530.

To digress somewhat, I owned a 1989 Ford Tempo Sedan, a car that wasn't hip or square, just somewhere in the middle and served my purposes.

Jessica's car seat was always right behind me, because I could hand her something over my head, or grab her little foot and play with her as we drove through sometimes sub zero temperatures. When I got home one evening, I prepared Jessica's meal, cracked open a beer, and watched the news as she munched away and made noises that made her laugh.

As I sat and watched Peter Jennings tell us about the day's news, the thought came to me to go out and move Jessica's car seat to the middle. I don't have a clue why, it just did, and I did.

The next morning it was the usual 26 degrees.

I bundled Jessica up like a Bedouin baby headed across the Sahara, and strapped her in, and we were on our way.

At about 05:10, I started across the intersection at W. 14th Street and N. Jackson Street. Out of nowhere a full size Chevy Blazer doing 52 miles per hour collided broadside with my driver side, and caved the rear door and the rest of the rear of the car in eight inches, and the rear roof downwards about twelve inches. All of the glass on the car (except the windshield) imploded to the inside of the car.

I looked back and Jessica was sitting there with the biggest WTF? look on her face that I'd ever seen; it even topped the looks I got from my 18 year old troops just a year before when  bullets zipped past their heads one night in Southern Iraq.

No one was injured. If Jessica had been in the same place she was the day before, she would have been crushed.

Did I have ESP that evening? I don't know. But I am certainly glad that I moved the car seat.

 

 

There Comes a Time…..

By Jim Culp

 

Not to rip off Neil Young, but this is titled “there comes a time.”

 

There comes a time in your life when:

 

You know the difference between family and relatives.

 

You know the difference between “love” and “like”.

 

You know the difference between people that say they’ll help, and those that really do.

 

You feel the difference between “talkers” and “performers.”

 

You know that some people are just full of shit, and that’s all they are.

 

You know the difference between people who go to church and play the charity game, and those that actually follow the teachings of Jesus, the Buddha, and Gandhi.

 

You feel, in the depths of your heart, those that really care about you and those that make sure other people see and hear what they pretended to do for you.

 

You love less people more, and learn to forgive those that like.

 

You find out that something you championed for decades is a worthless pile of garbage that you should have smelled years ago and thrown away.

 

You finally reach the conclusion that people truly cannot appreciate something that they never experienced; but they are experts on the matter.

 

Yes, there comes a time….a time when you realize you’re finished with lies and games, and you start to live….

 

Banned: Those who dont conform.

March 31, 2015

It is particularly amazing and profound to me that some business owners would take a stance that they have here in the USA the last few weeks. They've decided that they will not provide services to persons that are gay, lesbian, or of transgender posture. Their reason for this practice is that the act of being gay is against the teachings of the Christian bible. I see.

To reveal the source of these "teachings", you have to go back to the early chapters of the Christian bible and go to the book of Leviticus, the third book of the Torah (the Jewish part of all Christian bibles).

The following are excerpts from this book.

"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination. (NKJ, Leviticus 18:22)"

"If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. (NKJ, Leviticus 20:13)"

These are taken from a version of the Christian bible that is translated into understandable texts by some guys with more degrees than Stephen Hawking. These directives to the believer were written in an age when a group of men were trying to establish religious control and dominance over a region. They claimed to be visited by angels and some even claimed that they were given commandments directly from God. OK, that's cool. Go ahead and believe that.

But in this day and age, here in the USA, we live under the cloak of the Constitution of the United States of America.  Particularly, the Bill of Rights. If you read that document thoroughly, you'll find that the Founding Fathers were a mixture of men with very different beliefs, backgrounds, and opinions. However, they all signed a document that supported freedom of speech, freedom from the establishment of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms.

Over the last 200 years, these rights have been tossed about and thousands of laws have been made in the States that support, twist, outright challenge, or totally ignore these Amendments to our Constitution. But we're not talking about a law here. We're also not talking about some verse written in a scroll 3,000 years ago. We're talking about personal preference, and we're talking about hate. On top of that, we're talking about Man telling Man what he can and cannot be, or what he can or cannot feel; the very reasons the Constitution was written in the first place.

March 14, 2015

 

ISIL: The Deadly Threat?

 

Good morning, dear readers. I hope this finds you all having a great weekend and prosperity in your lives.

Today we'll look at ISIL, the evil terrorist organization that is plaguing the Middle East and taking up 4 minutes of the news each night.

The concept of this group is the formation of a new Islamic state with a Caliph (a Supreme Leader whose ancestry can be traced back to the prophet Mohammed) who will declare his state the only true one, and demand allegiance from all Muslims world wide.

Let's start by defining ISIL (it's an acronym).

After many little splinter groups got together and received some funding, the group formerly started calling itself ISI, then the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS).

As we've all seen and heard, the group quickly spread across Syria and started taking villages, towns, and now cities in parts of Iraq.

The group is now known as ISI, ISIL, or take your pick. There's no telling what words the Arabic translations are sometimes twisted into...for purposes of this discussion, dear reader, you can call them the Vector. I use that term because they are nothing but a tool used by big money profiteers that are and have been orchestrating a global agenda for two thousand years.

Not meaning to digress, let's go back to definitions and explanations.

The group then became ISIL (The Islamic State of Syria, Iraq, and the Levant). It claimed a Caliph ( and established a cabinet of leaders). Since that time, the group has had several leaders, two of whom got whacked by airstrikes or kids with wrist rockets (no one knows for sure, of course). Since then it name a new Caliph; it has named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the world wide Caliph, with not only traces back to Mohammed, but to Abraham. In rebel Islam's eyes, that makes the dude Darth Vader. But a holy and wise Darth Vader.

Then the group said "hey, we're "worldwide", so now we are the IS (Islamic State). So right here let's draw a line. This doesn't mean every Muslim in the world is now part of ISIS. Yes, I've heard some ignorant bastards say shit like that in the last few months. I have Muslim friends in the UK, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, Canada, Turkey, and 4 of these here United States, and none of them are joining ISIL. You know why? Because they know what I know. It's a Vector. A means to an end. It would be like Bob Smith getting on the news tonight and saying, "hey bubbas, I'm Jesus Christ. Everyone's gotta go to my church now."

Muslims, Islamic States, and particularly Caliphs and Islamic theologians are calling ISIL's actions bullshit.

Now to educate you on that and explain my "theory" (it's not only mine, it's widely shared by many people).

The ideology behind calling this group ISIL in the first place means that they plan on establishing a full blown Islamic State (comparable to Iran or Saudi Arabia) that has Iraq, Syria, and the Levant as it's "base."

First let's define "Levant." This is the ancient area of the east Mediterranean Sea that includes Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Uh-oh. WE didn't say Israel, did we?

Ok, so....that means that IS, or ISIL, plans on overthrowing the governments of powerful leaders like Bashar al Assad (Syria), Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel), and the six governorates of Lebanon, and declaring her little empire with vacation resorts in what was Israel.

Well, that's going to be a task. It's also going to draw allies from both sides to each party's cause, and it's a sure path to World War III.

As one of my favorite writers said, "World Wars change Worlds."

My friends, ISIL is currently funded (overtly or covertly) by at least 14 countries. That list includes the USA. Again, I hear ignorant people saying "no way we'd help them towel heads." Ok, keep thinking that. No one is saying that John Kerry loads a C-17 aircraft with rocket launchers and flies to the Caliph of ISIL's house and has cigars with him while the minions unload the goods, but if you think for a minute that weapons, ammunition, and intelligence that goes to hundreds of agencies worldwide isn't stolen, bartered, or outright donated to ISIL, think again.

If you watch C-SPAN, you'll know that Benjamin Netanyahu (Prime Minister of Israel) just petitioned the US Congress to attack Iran and eliminate it as a threat to peace. This bold move was followed by senators and congressmen sending letters to the Iranian government (Which is treason, by the way. We are at war, remember?) telling them to ignore the Presidents' actions and do what they're told by them.

Actions similar to this, distorted truths, and outright ignorance led us to the last four wars. But this one isn't leading to skirmishes or fights that will stay contained. This will lead to World War III, exactly what is meant to happen for the establishment of a world government, a world army, a world currency, and the dawn of a new age. 

 

Jim Culp-2015

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Jim