Fwd: Belief

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: John Jenkins <jrjenki@gmail.com>
Date: October 24, 2014 at 2:30:40 PM EDT
To: abehel@ix.netcom.com
Subject: Belief

I've intended to send this for a while but Dollywood continued to call. Today the Rampage is shutdown and I am not working. Something broke that fixing requires the channel be drained.  When drained the water somehow finds its way into a stream requiring Dollywood to control the flow so the urine (human and fowl), and associated  "purification" chemicals not pollute the stream. When they refill they have to notify Pigeon Forge of their intentions. Dollywood does not want it filled when guests are in the park; if it affects PF I can only imagine what it does to DW.

 

A few weeks ago the Supreme Court decided to not consider various state bans on same-sex-marriage allowing same-sex-marriage to proceed, at least in those states and for a while. During the report they showed two men kissing…. on the lips which brought to mind that you told me you thought homosexuality is a choice. I have asked a number of men what could influence them to choose to kiss another man and want to run their hands all over his body. I told them the question was rhetorical, because I did not want to know their answer. I cannot imagine anything permitting me to make such a choice so in my ignorance I believe the root cause of homosexuality must be something else.

 

Then we have the question of why do we believe anything?

 

When children who are ten, twelve, fourteen years-old are baptized are they capable of understanding what they are doing or are they just responding to someone they trust? For that matter do adults just respond to someone they trust? Faith is not enough. Who does not have "…confidence in what they hope for and assurance about what they do not see." in something? Consider people in "the" denominations, Muslims, Hindus etc all have "faith" as we have faith even atheists have confidence in something and hope for something.

 

Isn't it odd that what someone called "The Christian Age" is the first time since Creation that God does not interface directly with his creation? I realize many believe God answers their requests but factual evidence calls that belief into question. We are expected to believe without evidence of any type. We are not even allowed the Gideon test. I am told testing God is sin; relying upon God is testing God thus is sin; and that God helps those who help themselves. Our belief is based on our perception of the person telling us which is, in turn, based on their perception of the person telling them which is … you get the picture.

 

At some point shouldn't belief rely on fact, on knowledge? Are we the first of all creation expected to take somebody's word? God had been speaking directly but now…not a peep.

 

Studies have shown we are more likely to believe that a statement is true if we have heard it before---whether or not it is actually true: "illusion-of-truth effect." Subjects rated the validity of plausible sentences every two weeks. Without letting on, the experimenters snuck in some repeat sentences (both true and false ones) across the testing sessions. And they found a clear result: if subjects had heard a sentence in previous weeks, they were more likely to now rate it as true, even if they swore they had never heard it before. This is the case even when the experimenter tells the subjects that the sentences they are about to hear are false: despite this, mere exposure to an idea is enough to boost its believability upon later contact. The illusion-of-truth effect highlights the potential danger for people who are repeatedly exposed to the same religious edicts or political slogans.

Maybe we need to examine our "certainty."

John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN



Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
         http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

 

"Having spent considerable time with good people, I can understand why Jesus liked to be with tax collectors and reprobate sinners."

Mark Twain

Applying Jesus' Precepts

Friday night at the Adair’s I heard folks, around the fire, talking about protecting the congregation. I heard comments about guns and euphemisms for killing.  

 

How do you rationalize those discussions with what Jesus told Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” 

 

Or his Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 

 

and with the behavior of some missionaries in Ecuador  in 1956?

 

Operation Auca was an attempt by five Evangelical Christian missionaries to bring Christianity to the people of the rainforest of Ecuador. The Auca were an isolated tribe known for their violence, against both their own people and outsiders who entered their territory. Their efforts came to an end on January 8, 1956..

 

Even though they knew that to face the Aucas was to face danger, the men decided not to use weapons if confronted with violence. When the missionaries finally met the fierce tribe, all five missionaries were killed. Not one of the missionaries drew their guns to fire in self-defense.

 

Looking back we see that like Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge -- actually had the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation.

 

Guns were obviously widespread on the frontier. Out in the untamed wilderness, you needed a gun to be safe from bandits, natives, and wildlife. In the cities and towns of the West, however, the law often prohibited people from toting their guns around. A visitor arriving in Wichita, Kansas in 1873, the heart of the Wild West era, would have seen signs declaring, "Leave Your Revolvers At Police Headquarters, and Get a Check." When you entered a frontier town, you were legally required to leave your guns at the stables on the outskirts of town or drop them off with the sheriff who would give you a token in exchange. You checked your guns then like you'd check your overcoat today at a restaurant. Visitors were welcome, but their guns were not.

 

In a photograph taken in Dodge City in 1879, everything looks exactly as you'd imagine: wide, dusty road; clapboard and brick buildings; horse ties in front of the saloon. Yet right in the middle of the street is something you'd never expect. There's a huge wooden billboard announcing, "The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Prohibited."

 

While people were allowed to have guns at home for self-protection, frontier towns usually barred anyone but law enforcement from carrying guns in public.

 

When Dodge City residents organized their municipal government, the first law the passed was a gun control law. They declared that "any person or persons found carrying concealed weapons in the city of Dodge or violating the laws of the State shall be dealt with according to law." Many frontier towns, including Tombstone, Arizona also barred the carrying of guns openly.

 

Like any law regulating things that are small and easy to conceal, the gun control of the Wild West wasn't always perfectly enforced. But statistics show that, next to drunk and disorderly conduct, the most common cause of arrest was illegally carrying a firearm. Sheriffs and marshals took gun control seriously.

 

I wonder what Bryan’s friend thought.

 

Do we really want GSMCOC to be an armed fortress?

John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN



Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
         http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

 

“Having spent considerable time with good people, I can understand why Jesus liked to be with tax collectors and reprobate sinners."

Mark Twain

When Churches Become Political

While the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion€, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right of peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances it does not guarantee churches cannot be taxed and the threat of the loss of such a status is the primary tool government has to exert influence on churches. Jesus did not address social issues and the church in Rome continued to grow despite Roman rule.

But when churches become political the world changes,

 

Secrets

The main reason not to reveal a secret is aversion to the long term consequences. Friends may turn away from you a community might ostracize you. Concern about the outcome is evidenced by the fact that we are more likely to tell our secrets to total strangers; with someone you don’t know the neural conflict can be dissipated with none of the costs. This may be why strangers can be so forthcoming on airplanes, telling all the details of our troubles and why confessional booths have remained a staple in one of the world’s largest religions. It may similarly explain the appeal of prayer, especially in those religions that have personal gods who lend their ears with undivided attention and infinite love. 

Are We the Sum of Our Chemicals?

Scientists say chemical reactions create electric circuits which cause various areas of the brain to send messages to the body etc. For a long time I have wondered how the soul (spiritual) influences or affects the physical if it does. Do our actions originate in our brain or does the soul in some fashion influence the brain. What follows is from a book by. 

David Eagleman, a neuroscientist at the Baylor College of Medicine, in his book Incognito.

Do we possess a soul that is separate from our physical biology---or are we simply an enormously complex biological network that mechanically produces our hopes, aspirations, dreams,desires, humor, and passions? The majority of people on the planet vote for the extra biological soul, while the majority of neuroscientists vote for the latter: an essence that is a natural property that emerges from a vast physical system, and nothing more besides. Do we know which answer is correct? Not with certainty.

Consider epilepsy. If an epileptic seizure is focused in a particular sweet spot in the temporal lobe, a person won’t have motor seizures, but instead something more subtle. The effect is something like a cognitive seizure, marked by changes of personality, hyper religiosity (an obsession with religion and a feeling of religious certainty) hypergraphia (extensive writing on a subject, usually about religion), the false sense of an external presence, and, often, the hearing of voices that are attributed to god. Some fraction of history’s prophets, martyrs, and leaders appear to have temporal lobe epilepsy.

 

Consider Joan of Arc, the sixteen-year-old-girl who managed to turn the tide of the Hundred Years War because she believed (and convinced the French soldiers) that she was hearing the voices of Saint Michael the archangel, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Saint Margaret , and Saint Gabriel. As she described her experience, “When I was thirteen, I had a voice from God to help me to govern myself. The first time, I was terrified. The voice came to me about noon: it was summer, and I was in my father’s garden.” Later she reported, “Since God had commanded me to go, I must do it. And since God had commanded it, had I had a hundred fathers and a hundred mothers, and had I been a king’s daughter, I would have gone.” Although it’s impossible to retrospectively diagnose with certainty, her typical reports, increasing religiosity, and ongoing voices are certainly consistent with temporal lobe epilepsy.

 

Consider Noah, Abraham, Paul and others more current......

John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN



Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
         http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

 

“Having spent considerable time with good people, I can understand why Jesus liked to be with tax collectors and reprobate sinners."

Mark Twain

Are We the Sum Total of Our Chemicals?

 

 

Consider epilepsy. If an epileptic seizure is focused in a particular sweet spot in the temporal lobe, a person won’t have motor seizure, but instead something more subtle. The effect is something like a cognitive seizure, marked by changes of personality, hyper religiosity (an obsession with religion and a feeling of religious certainty) hypergraphia (extensive writing on a subject, usually about religion), the false sense of an external presence, and, often, the hearing of voices that are attributed to god. Consider history’s prophets, martyrs, and leaders appear to have temporal lobe epilepsy.

 

Consider Joan of Arc, the sixteen-year-old-girl who managed to turn the tide of the Hundred Years War because she believed ( and convinced the French soldiers) that she was hearing the voices of Saint Michael the archangel, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Saint Margaret , and Saint Gabriel. As she described her experience, “When I was thirteen, I had a voice from God to help me to govern myself. The first time, I was terrified. The voice came to me about noon: it was summer, and I was in my father’s garden.” Later she reported, “Since God had commanded me to go, I must do it. And since God had commanded it, had I had a hundred fathers and a hundred mothers, and had I been a king’s daughter, I would have gone.” Although it’s impossible to retrospectively diagnose with certainty, her typical reports, increasing religiosity, and ongoing voices are certainly consistent with temporal lobe epilepsy.

 

---David Eagleman, Incognito

 

Consider Noah, Abraham, Paul.