Randolph Harris II International Institute

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Die objektive Diagnose der Homosexualitat

 

 

There is nothing more likely to succeed with an audience than a good history of witchcraft, or somethings so marvelous, as to do violence to common sense, before we give it our faith. A high degree of refinement does not seem to subdue our wicked propensities so much after all; and were civilization itself to be estimated by some of its results, it would seem perhaps better for what we call the barbarous part of the World to remain unchanged. Scientific laws are always practically inexact. By this notion, it is wished that we point out that a scientific law is never exactly confirmed by the evidence for it but rather is confirmed within the limits of experimental error. A law is accepted on the basis of experimental evidence even if that experimental evidence does not exactly coincide with what, on the basis of deductions from the law, one might expect to be confirming evidence. This is so simply because all measurement of evidence in modern scientific practice involves taking into account errors of measurement, and such errors of measurement must be factored out before a definite conclusion is reach as to the relevance of the evidence. 

It is a long known anatomical fact that there is an original predisposition to bisexuality, that in the course of development this changes to monosexuality, leaving only slight remnants of the stunted sex. A spokesman for the masculine inverts stated the bisexual theory in its crudest form in the following words: “It is a female brain in a male body.” However, we do not know the characteristics of a female brain. The substitution of the anatomical for the psychological is as frivolous as it is unjustified. It is more likely that the bisexual predisposition supplies the individual with male and female brain centers just as somatic sexual organs. These centers develop first towards puberty mostly under the influence of the independent sex glands. We can, however, say that same over, we do not even know whether we can assume for the sexual function separate brain locations (centers) in the same way as for the speech function. Bisexual predisposition may also be presumed for the inversion, though we do not know what it consists beyond the anatomical formations; and, secondly, that we are dealing with disturbances which are experienced by the sexual instinct during its development.  

 Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, when a man will but give it fair play, and discover it when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistake. In every man there exist male and female elements. In the determination of sex, as far as heterosexual persons are concerned, some are disproportionately more strongly developed than others. There is a firm belief that in every woman there are male, and in every man, there are female germs and qualities. In Mandarin Chinese, the term “women” means “we” because men are from the womb of a lady. However, the first man, Adam, was created by God. Then God duplicated Adam, and removed his penis (rib) and that cause the lady to become more softer and develop characteristics that are feminine such as breast, hips and things because she was softer than a man. Uninformed individuals, who are not willing to accept their sexuality succumbs to the charms of the emanating from the manly qualities of body and mind; he feels himself like a woman and seeks a man.  

Good heads and good heart generally go together, but they are not inseparable companions. Among the Greeks, where the most virile men were found, it is quite obvious that it was not the masculine character of the boy, which kindled the love of man, but it was his physical resemblance to woman as well as his feminine psychic qualities, such as shyness, demureness and the need of instruction and help. As soon as the boy himself becomes a man, he ceases to be a sexual object for men and in turn becomes a lover of boys. The sexual object in this case as in many others is therefore not of the same sex, but a union of both sex characteristics, a compromise between the impulses striving for the man and for the woman, but firmly conditioned by the masculinity of body (the genitals). Although psychoanalysis has not yet given us a full explanation for the origin of the inversion, it has revealed the psychic mechanism of its genesis and has essentially enriched the problems in question.

In al the cases examined we have ascertained that the later inverts go through in their childhood a phase of very intense but shortlived fixation on the woman (usually on the mother) and after overcoming it, they identify themselves with the woman and take themselves as the sexual object; that is, proceeding on a narcissistic basis, they look for young men resembling themselves in persons who they wish to love as their mother has loved them. We have, moreover, frequently found that alleged inverts are by no means indifferent to the charms of women, but the excitation evoked by the women is always transferred to a male object. They this repeat through life the mechanism which gave origin to their inversion. Their obsessive striving for the man proves to be determined by their restless flight from the woman. Psychoanalytic research very strongly opposes the attempt to separate homosexuals from other person as a group of special nature. By also studying sexual excitations different than those manifestly overt, it discovers that all men are capable of homosexual object selection and actually accomplish this in the unconscious.  

The bisexual men are attracted to women because of a chemical attraction, but they like other men, usually boys because they are innocent and need guidance, and it is considered a problem. The determination as to the definite sexual behavior does not occur until after puberty (13-25 years old) and is the result of a series of as yet not observable factors, some of which are constitutional, while some are of an accidental nature. The behavior is altogether controlled by an archaic constitution and by primitive psychic mechanisms. The importance of the narcissistic object selection and the clinging to their erotic significance of the anal zone seem to be their most essential characteristics. We found the sexual rejection or the early sexual intimidation and the existence of both parents plays an important role in the child’s life. The disappearance of a strong father in childhood not infrequently favors inversion. However, there is also a certain degree of independence is unmistakable also in this relation.  

The term Homosexuality should be replaced by better one which is Homoerotic because it is a number of different condition that are grouped together and have quite variable significance both from organic as well as psychical point of view because the one symptom of inversion is present. There are but four very marked differences at least between two types of subject-homoerotics, who feel and act like women, and the object-homoerotic who is masculine throughout and only has (mistakenly) exchanged a female object against one of the same sex. We have obtained an insight which can become of greater significance to us than the solution of the above problem. Our attention is called to the fact that we have assumed a too closer connection between the sexual instinct and the sexual object. The sexual instinct is probably entirely independent of its object and is not originated by the stimuli proceeding from the object. And some people are attracted to youth who are not legal because they an impulsive urge (uncontrollable at the time) and are using them as a substitute because they cannot secure the proper object.   

Still, it throws some light on the nature of the sexual instinct, that should permit such great variations and depreciations of its object, something which hunger, adhering more energetically to its object, would allow only in the most extreme cases. The same may be said of sexual relations with animals—a thing not all rare among unindustrial civilizations—where the sexual attraction goes beyond the limits of the species. For esthetic reasons one would gladly attribute this and other excessive aberrations of the sexual instinct to the insane, but this would not accord with the facts. Experience teaches that among the later no disturbances of the sexual instinct can be found other than those observed among the sane, or among whole races and classes. Thus, we find with gruesome frequency sexual abuse of children by community leaders, trusted people in the community, teachers, and servants merely because they have the best opportunity for it. The insane present the aforesaid aberration only in a somewhat intensified form; or what is of special significance is the fact that the aberration becomes exclusive and takes the pace of the normal sexual gratification.   

This is very remarkable relation of sexual variations ranging from the normal to the insane gives material for reflection. It seems to me that the fact to be explained would show that the impulses of the sexual life belong to those which even normally are most poorly controlled by the higher psychic activities. One who is in any way psychically abnormal, bet in in social or ethical conditions, it, according to experience, regularly so in one’s sexual life. However, many are abnormal in their sexual life who in every other respect correspond to the average; they have kept abreast of the human cultural development, but their sexuality remained as their weak point. As the general result of these discussion we come to see that, under numerous conditions and in a surprising number of individuals, the nature and value of the sexual object steps into the background. There is something else in the sexual instinct which is the essential and constant element. The most pronounced difference between the love life of antiquity and our lies in the fact that the ancients placed the emphasis on the instinct itself, while we put it on its object. 

 The ancients extolled the instinct and were ready to ennoble through it even an inferior object, while we disparage the activity of the instinct as such and only countenance it on account of the merits of the object. The union of the genitals in the characteristic act of copulation is taken as the normal sexual aim. It serves to diminish the sexual tension and to quench temporarily the sexual hot sheets motel desire (gratification analogous to satisfaction of hunger). Yet, even the most normal sexual act, certain addenda are distinguishable, the development of which may lead to aberrations described as perversions. Thus, certain intermediary relations to the sexual object connected with copulation, such as touching and looking, are recognized as preliminaries to the sexual aim. These activities are on the one hand pleasurable as such, and on the other hand, they enhance the excitement which persists until the definite sexual aim is attained.  

One special form of contact, which consists of mutual approximation of mucous membranes of the lips in the kiss, has received a sexual value among the civilized nations, though the parts of the body do not belong to the sexual apparatus and merely form the entrance to the digestive tract. These addenda, therefore, supply the factors which allow us to bring the perversions into relation to the normal sexual life, and are available also for classification. The perversions represent either an anatomical transgressions of the bodily regions destined for sexual union, or a lingering at the intermediary relations to the sexual object which should normally be rapidly passed, on the way to the definite sexual aim. The fascination with breast, and large breast in particular, for all kinds of reasons, goes back to infancy, a charge of excitation that we eventually eroticize because they provide so much pleasure and nourishment to babies, or reminds them of the warm heartbeat the felt when their mother held them close to her chest. The increased pull towards breasts starts usually in the teen years. Homosexual men also like big breast because they remind them of a booty.   

Overestimation of the sexual object is the psychic estimation in which the sexual object shares as a goal of the sexual instinct is only in the rarest cases limited to the genitals; generally it embraces the whole body and tends to include all sensation emanating from the sexual object. The same overestimation extends to the psychic sphere and manifests itself as a logical blinding (diminished judgment) concerning the psychic attainments and perfections of the sexual object, and in a credulous yielding to the judgments emanating from the latter. The absolute faith inspired by love thus becomes an important, if not the primordial source of authority. The nature of hypnosis is to be found in the unconscious fixation of the libido on the person of the hypnotizer (by means of the masochistic component of the sexual instinct. This character is connected to the parent complex. It this sexual overvaluation, which is so incompatible with the restriction of the sexual aim to the union of the genitals only, and which raises other parts of the body to sexual aims.  

At the same time it is to be observed that sexual overestimation is not developed by all of the mechanisms of object choice, and that we will later learn of another and more direct explanation of the sex role of other bodily parts. The factor of excitement hunger explains the spreading of the sexual interests to other parts of the body than the genitals does not seem to me to deserve this significance. The different paths along which the libido moves, behave one to another from the beginning like communicating pipes, and one must therefore take into account the phenomenon of collateral streaming. The significance of the factor of sexual overestimation can be best studied in the male, in whom alone the sexual life is accessible to investigation, whereas in the women it is veiled in impenetrable darkness, partly on account of the conventional reticence and insincerity of women. In typical cases, the wife permits this sexual-overvaluation of the male to pass by but almost always makes up for it in the child born to her.  

Humans are driven by the laws of nature, which make them believe automatically in the possibility of experience. Knowledge of nature, to many, requires tearing down the insurmountable barrier fixed between a priori (being without examination or analysis) and empirical knowledge by means of one’s distinction between sensibility as receptivity and understanding spontaneity. It is also not unusual to support the working person’s longing for a decent living account to the law of humanity. We have been given directions to attend to faith, and fear, and self-restraint. There are two angels with an individual—one of righteousness and the other of iniquity. The angel of righteousness is gentle and modest, meek and peaceful. When, therefore, he ascends into your heart, forthwith he talks to you of righteousness, purity, chastity, contentment, and of every righteous deed and glorious virtue.  When all of these ascend into your heart, know that the angel of righteousness is with you. These are deeds of the angel of righteousness. Trust him, then, and his works.  

Look now at the works of the angel of iniquity. First, he is wrathful, and bitter, and foolish, and his works are evil, and ruin the servants of God. When, then, he ascends into your heart, now him by his works. When anger comes upon you, or harshness, know that he is in you; and you will know this to be the case also, when you are attacked by a longing after many transactions, and the richest delicacies, and drunken revels, and divers luxuries, and things improper, and by hankering after women, and by overreaching, and pride, and blustering, and by whatever is like to these. When these ascend into your heart, know that the angel of iniquity is in you. Now that you know his works, depart from him, and in no respect trust him, because his deeds are evil, and unprofitable to the servants of God. And once you fall victim to the ancient illusion, it will be hard to escape his deadly embrace, and you will flee into the arms of danger, dropping conditions essential to salvation.  

These, then, are the actions of both angels. Understand then, and trust the angel of righteousness; but depart from the angel of iniquity, because his instruction is very bad in every deed. If the angel of inequity is in your heart, you will think you must sin. On the other hand, be a man or woman ever so bad, yet, if the works of the angel of righteousness—sensibility and intelligibility—are in his or her heart, he or she must do something good. You see, therefore, that it is good to follow the angel of righteousness, but bid farewell to the angel of iniquity. This commandment exhibits the deeds of faith, that you must trust the works of the angel of righteousness, and doing them you may live to God. However, believe the works of the angel of iniquity are hard. If you refuse to do them, you will live to God. Morals have a basic science, jurisprudence, because the idea of justice is the constitutional law of this science. If there were no a priori law of justice, the sort of systematic knowledge of the law that the Romans assigned to iurisprudentia would not be possible.

 

Facing the World with a Soul, Love, and Virtue

Instead of a lifestyle of lust, find eternal Love. When one tries to fulfill their every carnal desire, breaking the rules can cause one to lose it all. Tell me what you feel. In what dark, damaged place does it infect you? What? What is it? What am I smelling in this place? There is some foulness here. The smell of mendacity and evil. What is that stench? What is this reek? Is it the smell of torture? It is the smell of your heartless work and bone-dry theories, like last week’s vomit. And the heart has vamoosed from this culture long ago. Let the savages be civilized, but civilize them with benefit, and not with evils; and let heathenism be destroyed, but not by destroying the heathen.  It is the existence of taboos which enables us to possess any sacredness of personality at all. It is taboos that preserve our more refined sensibilities from the people who wipe their mouth with the table cloth and blow their noses with the serviette, and it is taboos that preserve us from being murdered outright. If we were objects of complete indifference to our fellow, or of no more concern that stones, we should soon be driven up to or over the verge of suicide. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

Life is livable because we know that wherever we go most of the people we meet will be restrained in their actions towards us by an almost instinctive network of taboos. We know that they will allow us the same or nearly the same degree of freedom and privilege that they claim for themselves. Knowledge is a biological response to the World. Be simple and guileless, and you will be innocent and know not the wickedness that ruins the life of humanity. First, then, speak evil of no one, nor listen with pleasure to anyone who speaks evil of another. However, if you listen, you will partake of the sin of one who speaks evil, if you believe the slander which you hear; for believing it, you will also have something to say against your people. Thus, then, will be guilty of the sin of the one issuing the slander. For slander is evil and an unsteady demon. It never abides in peace, but always in discord. I recently has started watching talk shows and too much news and I did not feel good about it and had spent more time watching the TV than with my religious studies. After a while it did not feel good to me, and I decided to watch the TV less and spend more time reading the Bible and other religious text.  #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

fcgvhjkI know that God is real and I am very concerned with the salvation of my soul, and just because other people enjoy the forms on entertainment that are on the TV, it does not mean that they are food for the soul, and I want to go to Heaven and lead a proper life. Keep yourself from slander, and you will be at peace with all. Since I have taken an interest in the news, I have seen some unsavory people come into my life and I do not want anything to do with them, and since I grew up going to church, I recalled that it is good to return to religious study and to fill my soul with the words of God and that evil people would flee from me. Put on a holiness in which there is no wicked cause of offense, but all deeds that are equable and joyful. Practice goodness; and from the rewards of your labours, which God gives you, give to all the needy in simplicity, not hesitating as to whom you are to give or not to give. Give to all, for God wishes His gifts to be shared amongst all. They who receive, will render an account to God why and for what they have received. For the afflicted who receive will not be condemned, but they who receive on false pretenses will suffer punishment. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

xfcgvhbjnklOne, then, who gives is guiltless. For as one received from the Lord, so has one accomplished one’s service in simplicity, not hesitating as to whom one should gibe and to whom one should not give. This service, then, if accomplished in simplicity, is glorious with God. One, therefore, who thus ministers in simplicity, will live to God. Keep therefore these commandments, as that your repentance and the repentance of your house may be found in simplicity, and your heart may be pure and stainless. An analysis of the foundations of science, and in particular of the axioms of geometry will reveal that these axioms are forms of experience in the life of any particular individual. Thus, since the biological adaptation of the race has crystallized three-dimensional Euclidean space, this spatial framework has become the one in which individuals see spatially locatable objects, such as like minds and kindred souls. In this direction, such a construction is ultimately a growth of experience which has been transformed into neural capacities. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

Thus, it can be conceived that content distinction of knowledge is as one relative to the biological development of race. What is at one time the content of experience is later, through a biological process, transformed into a form of experience. Things have their own psychology. The tiresome foray of psychology into the realm of individual human affairs has sidetracked us from giving attention to the work of the soul in the World, trapping it for several centuries in the science, computing, and engineering of the core of our being, where the behavior of the stimulus and responses will be accounted for. And the compelling task before us is to find the true nature of our souls by seeing through opinions, reactions, and judgments, through what we fear, desire, and wish and hope for in order to speak for ourselves. Many people have submitted to a wicked force in the World, and these hands-on experts are not able to perceive the soul because they have come under its possession, and drunk with enthusiasm they are driven by it as if by a god or a daemonic force. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

And that is why status, wealth, money, awards, and material things do not matter much because in seeking great status and wealth, many people have given their souls over to Satan, and no matter how much money you have nor what your status is, you cannot buy an innocent soul. However, it is possible to obscure the soul completely. Love the truth. They, therefore, who lie, deny the Lord, and rob Him, not giving back to God the deposit which they have received have joined an evil conscience. Put away from you all wicked desire, and clothe yourself with good and chaste desire; for clothes with this desire you will hate wicked desire, and will rein yourself in even as you wish. For wicked desire is wild, and is with difficulty tamed. For it is terrible, and consumes people exceedingly by its wildness. Evil desires slay the servants of God. You must refrain from evil desires because many people are mastered by them, and do not resist them, will perish at last, for these desires are fatal. Put you on, then, the desire of righteousness; and arming yourself with the fear of the Lord, resist them. When these evil desires see you armed with the fear of God, and resisting it, it will flee far from you, and it will no longer appear to you, for it fears your armor.  #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

Go, then, garlanded with the crown which you have gained for victory over it, to the desire of righteousness, and, delivering up to it the prize which you have received, serve it even as it wishes. If you serve good desire, and be subject to it, you will gain mastery over evil desire, and make it subject to you even as you wish. You will find favour among those who are to repent, and they will give heed to your words; for God will be with you. These commandments are great, and good, and glorious, and fitted to gladden the heart of the individual who can perform them. Learning how to breathe calmly and remaining in a state of relative physical relaxation, even while accessing painful and horrifying memories, is an essential tool for recovery. Sometimes we people do us wrong, the people we love, we worry about the spiritual and legal consequences they may face, but do not let it sadden your soul. They made their choices and decisions and all you can do is pray for them and yourself and hope that God saves them. Your relationships with these people who betrayed you may never go back the way they were. However, we have a host of inbuilt skills to keep us on an even keel. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

 

Our neurological structure evolves over a period of time, so that what is necessary at one time is not necessary at another. Personal entities are feelings. They are constituents of everything since the fact that there is a continuity of forms in nature gives assurance that, at least to some degree, any entity in nature possess the same qualities that all others have. Since feelings are elements of consciousness, all entities therefore have this aspect of consciousness to a certain extent, although it is only to more complex entities that we ascribe consciousness. The elementary entities that we call “feelings” are considered to be absolutely existents and therefore things-in-themselves. These elementary entities are named mind-stuff, since they participate somehow in the character of the mental. Their necessarily incomplete representation in the mind of humans is what is known as the material World. There exists a complex mirroring relation—indeed, the image of two reflecting mirrors—between the external World and its representation in knowledge. In this intimacy, we find ourselves undivided. When we experience the being our wholeness, we are not afraid to experience the truth of the moment, regardless of how things look to the judging mind.  #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

Thus, there is a World in which the mental and physical are really two different ways of looking at the same World. All existence is ultimately infused with a psychic aspect, that is, that panpsychism is the most correct view of reality. When we do not separate ourselves from the mystery of our own essential awake being, or separate ourselves from experiencing the truth of the moment as it is—the felt sense of the body being—we do not suffer. Physical bodies may experience pain; thinking minds may be confused; emotions may present themselves as intensely optimistic or pessimistic; but we are not suffering. We are living from the truth of our wholeness, being who and what we truly are, and this is never divided, never in conflict, even when conflict is being played out. As we bring every part of our natural bodily life into harmony with the new life God has placed within us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that are characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ. I cannot be near you and not stare into your eyes, when you look at me, I can feel you in my heart and soul. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9

 

Truth is One and Unique, Powerful and Strong

 

The conception of evil is ignorance and virtue is knowledge. Just as the power or efficacy of causes was thought to necessitate their effects in a special way in which effects can never be said to necessitate their cases. Indeed, the concepts of power and necessary connection were sometimes treated as they were one and the same. Power, force and necessary connection are sometimes referred to synonymously. Thus, it was thought that a person, in vanquishing his or her foe, makes their enemy die or does something that renders it impossible for that individual to live, that subjecting water to a certain temperature makes it boil, and so on. However, despite the fact such a cause can be certainly inferred from such an effect, given a sufficiently detailed description for the latter, it is never supposed that the effect necessitated such a cause. The Sun might shine upon a stone and thus make it become warmer, but in a sense in which it could not be said that the stone, in becoming warmer, makes the Sun shine upon it. It is in the sense illustrated by these examples that causes generally were thought to necessitate their effects in some way which it would be absurd to speak of effect necessitating their causes. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

However, many recent philosophers have pointed out that if there is any necessary connection between causes and their effects, that connection has no more direction from cause to effect than from effect to cause, that the states of anything at any given time determine its past states in the same way that they determine its future states, or, in epistemological terms, that the same principles of inference that enable one to predict its future states also enable one to retrodict its past states. This is a question that has not been satisfactorily resolved in philosophy, for while it is certainly true that, according to any customary interpretation of necessitation, the present state of anything necessitates or determines its past states no less than its future ones, the application of this principle results in paradoxical assertions. It permits us to say, for example, that a given may, by dying at a certain time and place and in a certain way, determines or compels another man to have vanquished him, in the same sense that one can plausibly say that a man, in vanquishing another, compels that other to die or that a stone, in becoming warmer in just the way it does, makes the Sun shine upon it, in the same way the Sun, in shinning upon it, makes the stone become warmer. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

With that being said, God is the transcendent one, a simple unity, the ultimate first principle and cause of all things. The categories of logic cannot be applied to him. Nor are any parts to be ascribed to him, for the one is indivisible. God cannot properly be named. The good names we give him are supports to our minds to stop us from erring. Taken separately, these names do not say what God is like, but together they show his power. While God cannot be known, the Son, or the Logos, is wisdom, knowledge, and truth. He unites himself the powers. The Son is not simply one thing as one thing nor many things as parts, but one thins as all things. All things come from him. For he is the circle of all the powers rolled into one and united. Within this unity of the Son the individual believer is saved. Faith is union in him, while disbelief is separation, estrangement, and division. We should not divide the supreme God from the Creator of the World, making two Gods instead of one. We must not put our trust in any person. We must put our trust in God first. We must trust absolutely in what God’s grace can do for us and others. #RandolpHarris 3 of 9

If I put my trust in human beings first, the end result will be my despair and hopelessness toward everyone. I will become bitter because I have insisted that people be what no person can ever be—absolutely perfect and right. Never trust anything in yourself or in anyone else, except the grace of God. God’s goodness is perfect and unique. Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? Do I really believe that God will do in me what I cannot do? If a person is ever going to worthwhile, there will be times when one must risk everything by a leap in the dark, something you do without being certain what will happen as a result. God does not prevent evil and suffering from taking place, but when they do, he turns them to good account. He may use suffering as a form of correction for sinners. God demands that we risk have faith in his Scriptures. Once one obeys, we will immediately find what God says is as solidly consistent as common sense. After death, imperfect souls may be sanctified by intelligent nonmaterial fire. The complex goodness of humans is always assimilation to God—growing like him by participation in his goodness. All people receive the image of God at their birth and all may then, as they choose, become assimilated to him and receive his likeness.  #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

Be patient and of good understanding, and you will rule over every wicked work, and you will work all righteousness. For if you be patient, the Holy Spirit that dwells in you will be pure. He will not be darkened by any evil spirit, but dwelling in a broad region, he will rejoice and be glad; and with the vessel in which he dwells he will serve God in gladness, having great peace within himself. However, if any outburst of anger take pace, forthwith the Holy Spirit, who is tender, is straitened, not having a pure place, and He seeks to depart. For he is choked by the vile spirit, and cannot attend on the Lord as he wishes, for anger pollutes him. For the Lord dwells in long-suffering, but the devil in anger. The two spirits, then, when dwelling in the same habitation, are at discord with each other, and are troublesome to the individual in whom they dwell. For if an exceedingly small piece of wormwood be taken and put into a jar of honey, is not the honey entirely destroyed, and does not the exceedingly small piece of wormwood entirely take away the sweetness of the honey, so that it no longer affords any gratification to its owner, but has become bitter, and lost it use?  #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

However, if the wormwood be not put into the honey, then they honey remains sweet, and is of use to its owner. You see, then, that patience is sweeter than honey, and useful to God and the Lord dwells in it. However, anger is bitter and useless. Now, if anger be mingled with patients, the patience is polluted, and its prayer is not then useful to God. I should like, sir, to know the power of anger, that I may guard myself against it. And if you do not guard yourself against it, you and your house lose all hope of salvation. Guard yourself, therefore, against it. For God is with you, and all will depart from it who repent with their whole heart. God will be with you and save us all. For all are justified by the most holy angel. Virtue comes through discipline and the pursuit of goodness, without thought of ulterior gain. The harmony of the soul is assisted by the harmony of the body. Virtue is the fulfillment of human’s function and the achievement of one’s end. This fulfillment is found in pursuing the mean between extremes and in possessing right reason. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

There is a class of things intermediate between good and evil. One should recognize the things which are in one’s power and the things which are not, and avoid being dominated by one’s irrational passions. Patience is great, and mighty, and strong, and calm in the midst of great enlargement, joyful, rejoicing, free from care, glorifying God at all times, having no bitterness, and abiding continually meek and quiet. Now this patience dwells in those who have compete faith. However, anger is foolish, and fickle, and senseless. Now, of folly is begotten bitterness, and of bitterness anger, and of anger frenzy. This frenzy, the product of so many evils, ends in great and incurable sin. For when all these spirits dwell in one vessel in which the Holy Spirit also dwells, the vessel cannot contain them, but overflows. The tender Spirit, then, not being accustomed to dwell with the wicked spirit, nor with hardness, withdraws from such a person, and seeks to dwell with meekness and peacefulness. Then, when he withdraws from the individual whom he dwelt, the individual is emptied of the righteous Spirit; and being henceforward filled with evil spirits, one is in a state of anarchy in every action, being dragged hither and thither by the evil spirits. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

Who will save your soul after all the lies you told? When the evil spirits take over a person, there is a complete darkness in one’s mind as to everything good. This, then, is what happens to all the angry. Wherefore do you depart from that most wicked spirit anger, and put on patience, and resist anger, and bitterness, and you will be found in company with the purity which is loved by the Lord. Take care, then that you neglect not by any chance this commandment, you will be able to keep all the other commandments. Be strong, in these commandments, and put on power, and let all put on power, as many as wish to walk in them. The simple elements of Christianity are true, and heresy is to be rejected as false. Truth is one and unique, powerful, and strong in delivering people from error. It comes from God and is preserved within the tradition of the church. The truth is whole composed of many parts. It is one body from which each philosophical sects has torn a limb, or part, falsely imagining it to be the whole truth. The many parts must be brought together, so that the perfect Logos, the truth, may be known.  #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

Who will save your souls if you will not save you own? Believe that there is one God who created and finished all things, and made all things out of nothing. He alone is able to contain the while, but God cannot be contained. Have faith therefore in God, and fear God; and fearing God, exercise self-control. Faith is an act not a process. Faith is the acceptance from God of an indemonstrable first principle from which all other truth may be deduced. It is a judgment of the soul. Knowledge is both logical and spiritual, joining things together either by rational reasoning or by spiritual vision. Spiritual knowledge is growth in Christ, awareness of God’s universal presence, and union with him in love. Symbolism reveals hidden connections and points to unity. Knowledge is always a complex unity. God is ineffable being, and the divine reason implanted in humans. Keep these commands, and you will cast away from you all wickedness, and put on the strength of righteousness, and live to God, if you keep this commandment. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9

 

 

God is the Sun and the World is Eternal

 

 

How often is the term “savages” incorrectly applied! None really deserving of it were ever yet discovered by voyagers or by travelers. They have discovered heathens and barbarians, whom horrible cruelties they have exasperated into savages. I might be mistaken thinking that I am sitting in front of a blazing fire, but I could not be mistaken about it seeming true to me. I cannot be mistaken about the idea itself. Usually with pains, sensations, images, and other so-called objects of inner sense being included, it would be absurd to say, “I believe I am in pain, but perhaps I am not,” just as it usually is absurd to say, “I said it seemed so-and-so to me, but I was not sure whether it really did”—absurd, that is, unless the experience itself is indeterminate or borderline. Accordingly, sense statements (presumed to be sincere) are sometimes said to be incorrigible on the ground that one who makes such a statement cannot possibly be mistaken about his or her experience even though one may deceive others. My mother always taught me that it is ridiculous to constantly acknowledge the physical pain that you are feeling and that it could make it worse because one focuses on it more and that we should focus on things that generate happiness. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

Focusing on physical pain is a lot like focusing on a relationship that has ended, you will feel the pain more because you are thinking about it. However, you notice when a relationship ends, and even when you are experiencing extreme emotional pain, when your friends come around smiling and happy and playing music you like and wanting to take you out to have fun that it distracts you from your pain and you feel better about yourself. Just because you are distracted and enjoying life does not mean that the break up did not happen and that you are not hurting emotionally, it just means you are trying to heal and move beyond the pain. Actualization requires principle and material force. The idea seems to be that self-nourishment is the characteristic sign which we identify the presence of life, and that soul explains the presence of those features. The soul is substance in the sense of form or essence of a living thing. So, the soul is the actuality of a natural body that is potentially alive and we must also feel our soul with things that make us feel good and it will keep the body and emotions strong and alive. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

A living thing’s soul is its capacity to engage in activities that are characteristic of living things of its natural kind and conducive to their well-being and survival.  Anything the nourishes itself experiences growth, movement and rest, perception, and intellect and the soul is what is causally responsible for the animate behavior (the life activities) of a living thing. The Great Ultimate involves both principle and material force. Principle is necessary to explain the reality and universality of things. It is incorporeal, one, eternal, and unchanging, uniform, constituting the essence of things; it is always for, and it is the reason for creation. Material force is necessary to explain physical form, individuality, and the transformation of thins. It is physical, many, transitory and changeable, unequally present in things; it constitutes their physical substance and involves both good and evil. It is the agent of creation. These are nested in the sense that anything that has a higher degree of soul also has all of the lower degrees. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

The principle of duality is not accepted by everyone. Physicalist do not thing that mental states are brain states—or heart states—or bodily processes at all. Natural objects are given a form regardless of our perception. Reality that is of images, produced by us and dependent on our will, fantasy, and creative processes are impressionism. People use their knowledge about the World and depict reality as it is conceived at a given time. There is no one system of mathematics, but there are many mutually exclusive systems. Various geometries coincide. With accepted proofs not always establishing all the given causes or factors including bias being considered. When we build analysis based on logic, we can accept, reject, or accept the negations of some extralogical existence axioms of infinity, and the assumption of the existence of transfinite cardinal numbers. Logic itself should not decide any existence problem. Conflicting views are presented in long speeches, with few interruptions. Sometimes the clash of opinions leads to insult and denunciations when personal abuse is involved when views are examined on fear of death, on pain, on distress of mind, and on other matters. Nonetheless, dreams and goals and visions ensure preservation; they portray the virtuous soul enjoying a more perfect existence on Earth and in Heaven in the region above the moon. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

 Happiness is to be found in living according to nature, which is revealed to us through experience; there is no absolute good or evil, as we may deduce from the multiplicity of customs and laws. Knowledge is acquired through our sense and has only relative validity. Only the truths of mathematics and reason are universal. Religious beliefs, however, do not spring from reason; it is reason also reason that should guide an individual in regulating their lives, establishing society and laws, and achieving happiness. Toleration and love of others is important, we were all saved by God’s love. Therefore, one who is both body and soul, is free and immortal, and one’s behavior should be governed by reason and by conscience. People should worship God and abide by the golden rule to treat others with the same courtesy and respect that you would like to be shown.  Truth has to be found in the individual soul. It is absolutely and undeniably certain that something has existed from all eternity.  There is something now, and since something cannot come from nothing, there must always have been something. There has existed from eternity someone, unchangeable and independent being.  #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

That unchangeable and independent being, which has existed from eternity without any external cause of its existence, must be self-existent, that is necessarily existent. The only true idea of a self-existent being is the idea of being of a being whose non-existent being is an express contradiction. The self-existent being is infinite, omnipresent, intelligent, free, omnipotent, wise, good, and just. The fitness of certain kinds of behavior between persons is as manifest, as that the properties which flow from the essences of different mathematical figures have different congruities or incongruities between them. These fitting relations between person are the eternal law of righteousness. With respect to our fellow creatures this law is: so deal with every person as in like circumstances we could reasonably expect one should deal with us, and that in general we endeavor, by an universal benevolence to promote the welfare and happiness of all humans. The eternal law of righteousness is also spoken of as the Law of Nature and the right reason of things. The right reason to account for someone’s obligation to follow the law of righteousness. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

 Right reason distinguishes humans from beast and enables us to see that there is a natural and necessary difference between right and wrong and between just and unjust. It follows that a vicious person is someone whose reason has been either clouded by education or bad habits or overborne by selfish desires. Reason is the faculty that discerns the fitness of actions and impels our obligation. However, at the same time the role of reason in speculative matters and the role of reason in morality are not wholly similar. In mathematics, for example, as soon as one understands the terms and conditions of their compatibility, one immediately assents to those propositions in which the terms are properly combined. However, morality is a matter of both reason and will, and despite a person’s knowledge of the right reason of things one might nonetheless withhold one’s will from conforming to it. In founding morality on the fitness and unfitness in the relation of thins, God must discover the fitness and conform his will to it just as any other moral agent must. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

Whenever our right becomes the guiding factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. God answers prayers in the best way—not just sometimes but every time. God has chosen to order things as they are because this order makes for the best of all possible Worlds. Gravity is an act of will on the part of God, an instance of pre-established harmony. God is the primary cause of motion, and the quantity of motion in the Universe is constant. The planets are moved by vortices in the ethereal substance. Once our Lord was glorified in His ascension, the Holy Spirit came into the World, and He has been here ever since. We have to receive the revealed truth that God is here. The attitude of receiving and welcoming the Holy Spirit into our lives is to be the continual attitude of believers. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive reviving life from our ascended Lord. If truth and justice, and the better principles of our nature, cannot exist unless enforced by the statute-book, how are we to account for the social condition of the Typees? #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

 The good law will come with a better civilization; but before society can be civilized it has to be de-barbarized. If anything is a mystery to you and is coming between you and God, never look for the explanation in your mind, but look for it in your spirit, your true inner nature—that is where the problem is. Once your inner spiritual nature is willing to submit to the life of Jesus, your understanding will be perfectly clear, and you will come to the place where there is no distance between the Father and you, His child, because the Lord has made you one. After passing a few weeks in this valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained. What is the sign of a friend? Is it that one tells you one’s secret sorrows? No, it is that one tells you one’s secret joys. Many people will confide their secret sorrows to you, but the final mark of intimacy is when they share their secret joys with you. Have we ever let God tell us any of His joys? Or are we continually telling God our secrets, leaving him no time to talk to us? The total being of our life inside and out is to be absolutely obsessed by the presence of God. God’s will alone is sufficient reason to account for things being where they are.  #RandolphHarris 9 of 9

 The Winchester Mystery House

The Winchester Mystery House in America is a source of many old ghostly tales. Frequent ghost sightings inside the mansion and on the estate’s grounds have turned it into a well – known haunted house. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

 

Are you Ignoring your Most Important Relationship?

Relationships seem nearly impossible these days, I am not into relationships, I like being single and do not even want to be intimate with anyone. Nonetheless, most people I have met are already in relationships, have ulterior motives, too busy, or are just not my type. Not only that, but our society is so visual and everyone is publicizing themselves so they can be selected to market a product or they are a model with 100,000 followers on their Instagram social media profile and showing off their fabulous bodies. With such a high number of interactions on social media, these people with these fantastic bodies, great faces, nice hair, sexy lips, and dreamy eyes probably have others throwing themselves at them daily, and if they are not already in a relationship, that is not a problem because there are hundreds of people who would love to date these internet icons. Conversely, if I was dating an internet icon, it would make me so uncomfortable because the person I am in a relationship with would be considered highly desirable and having people contact them daily, for various reason, and this would likely compromise our relationship. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8

Personally, I would like to date a nerd because they are not going to be stumbling around drunk and babbling during the day. They do not have much of a social life and usually are very smart, someone I could have a conversation with about anything or get to know their hobbies, what kind of music and movies they like, what is their favorite car, favorite color, what cuisine they love, can they cook, where do they seem themselves in five years, and what is their favorite style of architecture. However, nowadays, many people think they know others because of social media and have preconceived notions of who an individual is because they basically cyberstalk people they like, meaning they monitor your social media accounts, find out who you know, interview those people, then hangout at places they know where you are going and they even track your cell phones to find out where you are and people get hurt that way. However, that is not the only problem. With social media, you never know who is actually behind the screen of the computer and it may not be the person you think it is. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8

Nature is not only spontaneity, but also a constant flux, for all thing are in a state of perpetual self-transformation, each according to its own nature and in its own way. I recently met someone on social media, and we connected in person. I could not figure out what was going on with him because he has a verified account, but in person he seemed so different than he did on the computer. Turns out, it was two different guys. One was the internet icon who was hired to model for pictures and manage the social media account and the other was the actual person who was being represented, but he rarely uses social media and their personalities are vastly different. So, even if you met a person and get to know them, their social media account may not actually represent them. You never know who is managing it or what it is actually being used for. Then some people are nothing like their social media accounts, even if they are the ones using them. If there is an agent directing this process, there is no evidence of it. Things seem to develop from simple to higher life and finally to the individual, and social media can be completing a cycle of transformation.  #RandolphHarris 3 of 8

Some people use social media as an outlet or just to send out random things that are on their mind because they have no one to talk to, or they are responding to critics, but when you meet them in person they are totally different that you would probably expect them to be. In this unceasing transfiguration, things appear and disappear. In such a Universe time cannot be recalled and things move like a galloping horse. The person and their social media profile seem to be different, there are some large differences, some small, some beautiful and some ugly, but people consider them one. Reality and unreality, right and wrong, life and death, beauty and ugliness, and all conceivable opposites are reduced to an underlying unity. This is possible because all distinctions and oppositions are merely relative, because they are the result of a subjective point of view, because they mutually cause each other, and because opposites are resolved by assumptions. Because that is your picture and name, I assume this is you using this account, and even if it is, maybe the things you are saying is about a television show, talk show, or lyrics to a song. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8

Nonetheless, the things we share on social media are somewhat relevant, even if they do not depict us in reality. You are letting this person represent you for a reason, you shared information about this television show because it resonated with you on some level, these song lyrics interest you for a reason. By the doctrine of mutual causation a thing necessarily produces its opposite, “this” implies “that,” life is a transition, construction requires destruction, and so forth. So, maybe the social media account represents all the things you know you are not allowed to do or say, with a little insight into who you are. By opposite, both being extremes, need to be synthesized. Some people reject all distinctions and seek no self, fame, or success. People may be seeking great knowledge, which is all-embracing and extensive, and discards all small knowledge, which is partial and discriminative. Some people share essays and things of depth on social media, but that is overlooked. Social media is an outlet for so many different causes. Some internet icons, especially Japan, get paid thousands and hundreds of thousands a month to advertise products, and that is their only job. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8

I like to fast in my mind, and sit down, and forget everything—especially the so-called humanity and righteousness of hypocritical society; and travel in the realm of infinity. In this way cultivating profound virtue, achieving great concord with spiritual peace and emancipation. The internet can be mystical and the fatalistic elements are obvious, but it allows us to roam beyond the mundane World and become teachers or kings. To be in accord, we must nourish our own nature and follow its own destiny. The eagle should rise to the clouds, and the dove should hop from treetop to treetop. If a person were to shorten the crane’s neck because it is long or to lengthen the duck’s leg because it is short, that would be interfering with Nature. Spiritual freedom and peace can be achieved only through knowing one’s own nature and capacity and being able to adapt oneself to the Universal process of transformation. The ultimate goal is oneness with God and for one’s individuality to be clearly recognized. Individual differences are not to be taken as basis for discrimination, but neither are they to be denied or ignored. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8

This respect for individual nature and destiny will eventually lead to the emphasis of love, peace, and harmony. We should not be superior servants to controversy and judgment nor hypercritical of others. Like the general run of deists, there is reason sufficient to guide people to God’s favor and happiness of another World; some might be suspicious of mystery and of miracles and critical of some passages in the Scriptures, but it is better than talking about a parking lot fight or a home invasion. I find negative information to be so draining and it makes people sad, it is not something I want to focus on. Revelation in the Bible is considered by some not as divine, but as the work of honest people who gave fair and faithful account of matters of fact; I believe in the dignity of human nature and free will. We should all take a careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of the freedom of will, which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, virtue and vice, reward and punishment, praise and blame. Do not take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry; it is unbelief. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8

Because of the things that have happened in my life building faith in God has been a really tumultuous process and has taken daily practice. I have learned the celebrities and reporters and money and status are not what make one a great person. What makes one great is when they operate with love for humanity and nature and animals. And when we worry, it means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. The only cure for unbelief is obedience to the Spirit of God. The delight of despair comes when I delight in knowing that there is something in me which must fall prostrate before God when He reveals Himself to me, and also in knowing that I am ever to be raised up, it must be by the hands of God. God can do nothing for me until I recognize the limits of what humanly possible, allowing Him to do the impossible. It is God who fills plain days with happiness and it is God who cares much about everybody. My love for God is beyond words and He deserves every beautiful thing. The only relationship that matters is not with a celebrity, an internet icon, or a reporter, but with God! #RandolphHarris 8 of 8

Documents on Christian Unity—Maker of Heaven and the Earth

Morality constrains indviduals to serve the interests of power for the collective, in the way cells serve the interests of power for the individual. Do you have anything to hide from God? If you do, then Let God search you with his light. Live in accordance with one’s experience of the things which come about by nature. Of no one of all things is there any birth, nor any end in baneful death. There is only a mingling a separation of what has been mingled. Any action for which we can be held morally accountable is one we can choose. We are held morally accountable for our choices. Decision can precede choice. All acts of deliberation and resolution can be completed before one chooses, which is further evidence that the choice is the action itself. Between the time one decides and one acts there is an intent. There will be deliberation, decision or choice, intention (and brain processes, nerve messages, and muscle contractions), bodily movement, and a series of further occurrences, for example, words uttered and a lie told, which extend indefinitely into the future and which appear to be causally related. Direct choices are acts of will. Choices, in the fundamental sense of “choice,” and acts of will are both ways in which we act, not actions themselves. One can do something with effort, take effort trying to do something, and resolve to do something.  #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

Each person serves has reason, wisdom, or knowledge of what is really good and what is really bad. Rightness of an individual action is wholly determined by the kind of action it is, and teleologist, who maintain the rightness of an individual action is wholly determined by the goodness or badnesss of its consequences. Sometimes expected consequences appear to morally require that we make exceptions to moral rules, and sometimes actions with good consequences nevertheless appear to be immoral. Jesus was born about 5 B.C. in Palestine and was executed by crucifixion at Jerusalem proper in A.D. 29 or 30. There immediately arose a conviction among his disciples, reflected in the New Testament of the Holy Bible, that he had been raised by God from the dead, and under the compulsion of this conviction the Christian church came into existence, witnessing to both the divine status and the saving power of Jesus, now proclaimed as the Christ. Jesus was depicted as fully and authentically human, subject, like others, to temptation, hunger, pain, fatigue, ignorance, and sorrow. However, at the same time, he was affirmed as the Lord, Messiah (Christos), the Son of God. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

This extremely exalted view of Christ reaches its highest expression in the Forth Gospel, which claims in its prologue to Jesus’ life that the Word (Logos), which was in the beginning with God, and was God, and though which all things were made, became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we have beheld his glory, glory as the only Son from the Father (John 1.14; the conception of the Logos as the universal principle of reason in Greek philosophy). The faith that Jesus was the Christ apparently arose out of a practical acceptance of his status as one who had authority to forgive the sins, to declare God’s mind toward humans, to reveal the truth meaning of the divine Law, to heal diseases, and to assume that human’s eternal destiny and welfare was bound up with their responses to hum. This practical acknowledgment of his unique authority probably crystallized into conscious conviction as to his deity under the impact of the resurrection events. Jesus is identified as a son of man and as the Son of God. It was a publicly observable fact that Jesus was a man, and the fact of faith that he was divine, in that in him all the fullness of God was pleases to dwell (Colossians 1.19). #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

The Holy Spirit, which is referred to apparently indiscriminately as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, inspires and guides both individual and the Christian community. God who was incarnate in Christ was the God who had created the Heaven and Earth. This was expressed by the affirmation that God is both Father and Son; and the reality of the Spirit, operating in the World both before and after thirty or so years of the incarnation. However, God’s actions are not only in the past, there is a divine activity in the present that can directly affect the individual today. That human beings are sinful is a theological statement of the observable fact that men and women are persistently self-centered and that even their highest moral achievements are quickly corrupted by selfishness. We must continually keep our soul open to the fact of God’s creative purpose and never confuse or cloud it with our own intentions. If we do, God will have to force our intentions aside no matter how much it may hurt. A missionary is created for the purpose of being God’s servant, one in whom God is glorified. Beware lest you forget God’s purpose for your life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

Our Lord’s exhortation to us is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affection in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections—some people we like and others we do not lie. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. The true expression of Christian character is not in god-doing but in Godlikeness. Men and women are free and responsible person on whose daily choices depends on their own final good and happiness or irretrievable loss and failure.  I was reading about a Russian scientist who dropped dead and people thought he had been poisoned. Upon further investigation, it was found that he had cancer, which caused blood clot and he had a heart attack, which causes his heart to bleed, but he kept working. While at lunch with friends, the scientist’s heart bled so much that it compressed and stopped beating and that is what caused him to suddenly drop dead. The doctor who did the autopsy said she could not imagine herself working in his condition and that he must have been in extreme pain. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

No amount of enthusiasm will ever stand up to the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His servant. Only one thing will bear the strain, and that is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ Himself—a relationship that has been examined, purified, and tested until only one purpose remains and I can truly say, “I am here for God to send me where He will.” Everything else may become blurred, but this relationship with Jesus Christ must never be distorted nor ignored. In prescientific cosmology, Heaven is located in the sky above our heads and Hell in the ground beneath our feet. Heaven is now generally conceived of as the enjoyment of the full consciousness of God’s presence and participation in the divine kingdom, which represents the final fulfillment of God’s purpose for his creation; and Hell is viewed as self-exclusion from this. Hell perhaps signifies sheer annihilation. Or is it possible that Hell is the final frustration of God’s purpose by the loss of part of his human creation be reconciled with his ultimate sovereignty, and does the idea never-ending torment, as a form of suffering out of which no good is finally brought? #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

There is the existential standpoint of real life, in which we exercise a fateful responsibility in our moral choices and are confronted with the tremendous alternatives of spiritual life and death, symbolized by Heaven and Hell. There is also the detached standpoint of theological reflection, in which it seems possible to deduce from the two premises of the sovereignty and the love of God that although damnation is abstractly conceivable and is known in existential experience as a dread possibility, God’s saving purpose in relation to his creatures will nevertheless in the end be triumphant, and eternal loss will remain an unrealized possibility. The Christian faith has always drawn people together into a community of faith, or church. Everything that occurs is controlled unexceptionably by fate, which is the continuous causal chain of the things that exist. Nothing comes about except in accordance with antecedent causes. Even in the case of states of affairs that might seem to be of a spontaneous or uncaused nature, obscure causes are working under the surface. People are responsible for their conduct.  If there is sin in your life, do not just admit it—confess it. Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master? #RandolphHarris 7 of 7

QUICK MOVE-IN | HOMESITE 67

New HomesCresleigh HavenwoodQuick Move-In | Homesite 67

4 Bedrooms – 3.5 Bathrooms – 3,489 sq. ft. – $824,533

Home Site 67 is a Residence Four plan, the largest home offered in Cresleigh Havenwood. This two-story, 3,489 square foot home features four bedrooms, including one suite on the first floor, three and one half bathroom, and a true three-car garage.

The covered porch provided a warm entry and the dining room is located right off the entry way. The Kitchen is connected through the Butler’s Pantry providing ample storage. The great room and loft upstairs allow for various uses that will suit your family and lifestyle.

This home includes over $50,000 in options and upgrades
• Durable luxury vinyl plank flooring throughout the first floor
• Gray Shaker Cabinetry with Soft-Close Doors & Drawers
• Over Island Pendants and Under-Cabinet Lighting
• Gourmet Kitchen option with upgraded appliances
• Stainless Steel Farm Sink and Upgraded Faucet
• Flat Screen Prewire in Great Room
• Owned Solar

Best of all, each Cresleigh home comes fully equipped with an All Ready connected home! This smart home package comes included with your home and features great tools including: video door bell and digital deadbolt for the front door, connect home hub so you can set scenes and routines to make life just a little easier. Two smart switches and USB outlets are also included, plus we’ll gift you a Google Home Hub and Google Home Mini! https://cresleigh.com/havenwood/quick-move-homesite-67/

I Will Choose (or Decide to Buy) a 2025 BMW Tomorrow

Our manners and customs go for more in life than our qualities. Choices may or may not involve mental acts and fundamentally are overt actions for which certain sorts of explanations in terms of purposes can be given. Choices, unlike beliefs, are neither true nor false. We rate choices by calling them good or bad, wise or foolish, and correct or incorrect when “correct” and “incorrect” mean that a choice is suitable or unsuitable for the attainment of some end, but we never rate choices by calling them true or false. Human beings can be sinful and some men and women are persistently self-centered and their highest moral achievements can be quickly corrupted by selfishness. Yet, although we thus fail, exhibiting a chronic moral weakness and poverty, our failure is not inevitable; we are ourselves, at least some part responsible for it. The fall of man is a myth that man was originally created perfect but fell by his own fault into our present state, in which he was divided both in himself and from his fellows and God. God’s free forgiveness, offered by Christ, all humans are released from guilt of their moral failure (justification) and are drawn into a real of grace in which they are gradually re-created in character (sanctification). #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

The past is such a curious creature, to look in its face, a transport may reward us, or a disgrace. Now I gaze at your eyes and you are so quiet that there is only hope for the future. I complain you do not cherish our connection while you claim I am too sentimental. Times goes by slowly, but your eyes are in my heart forever: they are as pure as crystal, as light as the moon, as deep as abyss and as white as the snow. My beloved, let us bury the sweet whisper of the past years in our deep hearts and turn them into beautiful memory. No matter how far away I am from you and how many years before we meet again, I am always missing and blessing you in my heart. Heaven is eternal, spontaneous, nameless, and indescribable, at once the beginning of all things and the way in which they pursue their course. It is nonbeing, not in the sense of nothingness, but in the sense of not being any particular thing. It is absolute and mystical. When it is possessed by an individual thing, it becomes the thing’s character or virtue. Because of one’s innate ability to do good, one necessarily extends the innate knowledge into action. Knowledge and action are really identical; one is the beginning and the other completion. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

A named etched in a plaque may not pass into posterity, nor may the one carved in a slate in eternity, but the name of our God impressed in the recesses of our hearts will stay there forever. It is you who open the window of my thoughts. It is you who melt the frost in the bottom of my heart. This poem of love, passion, and imagination is as deep as the blue sky. Can these bright stars be your eyes? Your eyes are stars to me, in the vast ocean of life, navigating me to the dawn. The most beautiful face in the World is yours, the warmest chest in the World belongs to you, the strongest arms in the World are your, the purest heart is the World you possess. The ideal life of the individual, the ideal order of society, and the ideal type of government are all based on Heaven and guided by it. As the way of life Heaven denotes simplicity, spontaneity, tranquility, gentleness, and most important of all, nonaction, or, rather, letting Nature take its own course. We will find spiritual freedom and peace, a place will we show love to all. Universal love benefits Heaven, spiritual beings, and all living beings. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

And on Earth one should show special affection to one’s own parents. Otherwise there would be no difference between other people’s parents and one’s own, family relationships would collapse. The only way one can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If one obeys God in the first thing He shows you, the He instantly opens up the next truth to you. God will never real more truth about Himself to you until you have obeyed what you already know. Our Lord took on Himself the sin of the World though identification with us, not through sympathy for us. God deliberately took on and endurance the cumulative sin of the human race. Jesus Christ reconciled the human race, putting it back to where God designed it to be. And now anyone can experience that reconciliation, being brought into oneness with God. The will of Heaven is that human beings should practice humanity and righteousness, be economical, and practice universal love, and it is our duty to obey the will of Heaven. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

Erroneous thoughts and erroneous attachments are similar to clouds hiding the Sun. When they are removed the original nature will be revealed and great wisdom obtained. The way to discover the original nature is calmness and wisdom. Calmness does not means not being carried away by thought in the process of daily life and being free from characters while in the midst of contemplation and experiencing life. When the mind is unperturbed by selfishness or deliberate effort and is left to take its own course, it will reveal its pure nature, and enlightenment will come suddenly. This World is good, focus on the original goodness of nature that takes place in the midst of daily affairs, and keep your mind focused on self-realization. The nature and destiny of human beings and things will be correct in their differentiated state if they all follow the same universal principle. As new things appear, new principles are realized and in the production and reproduction in the Universe the process of daily renewal never ceases. When principle is endowed in humans it becomes their nature. Human’s nature is originally good because we were created by a benevolent and loving God who is the source of all goodness.  #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

 Evil arises when feelings are aroused and we deviate from the laws of God. However, through moral cultivation selfish desires can be eliminated and the principle of Nature realized. Our Lord’s temptations and ours are in different realms until we are born again and become His brothers. The temptations of Jesus Christ are not those of us mere human, but the temptations of God as Man. Through regeneration, the Son of God is formed in us, and in our physical life He has the same setting the He had on Earth. Only the Spirit of God can detect temptation of the Devil. Many of us turn back from going on with Jesus Christ from the very moment we have an experience of what He can do. Watch when God changes your circumstances to see whether you are going on with Jesus Christ or siding the negative forces, the flesh, and the Devil. The mind is originally good and endowed with the innate knowledge of the good and the innate ability to do good. The mind fills the whole Universe. A simple, easy, and direct method of recovering one’s originally good nature consists in having a firm purpose, stabling the nobler parts of one’s nature.  #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

The daily renewal and incessant change is a reality of endless transformation of closing and opening, which constitutes a process of unceasing production and reproduction. Every day we have a chance to be better people and make healthy changes in our lives, which will result in many beneficial manifestations that are in various aspects of the mine, will, and consciousness. Christ suffered in his own person the punishment that was justly due to humankind. However, God’s forgiveness does not need to be purchased by Christ’s death, but this brings home to the human heart both human’s need for divine forgiveness and the reality of that forgiveness. God has acted toward humans in three distinguishable ways—in creation and providence, in redemption, and inner guidance and sanctification. People are freely accepted by God’s gracious love, which one only has to receive in faith. Individuals have only to accept the fact that although unacceptable even to oneself, one is accepted by God. What separates the enlightened person from the ignorant? Is civilization a thing distinct, or it is an advanced stage of barbarism?  #RandolphHarris 7 of 7

 

Do Not Be Sadden by the Doctrine of the Mean

We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people. It is truly wonderful how easily Society can console itself for the worst of its problems and difficulties with a bit of a clap-trap (contrived but foolish talk). The father of lies is the Devil—mischief and the Devil are never far apart. The good or evil we confer on others very often recoils on ourselves. The distinction between good and evil arises when human nature is aroused and manifested in feelings and actions and when these feelings and actions abide by or deviate from the mean. The chief task of moral and spiritual cultivation is to calm one’s nature through absolute impartiality and the identification of internal and external life. To achieve this end, one must advocate sincerity and seriousness. It was ordained as a scourge upon the pride of human wisdom that the wisest of us all should outwit ourselves. Principle is a fundamental idea or general rule that is self-evident and self-sufficient, extending everywhere and governing all things. It is laid before our eyes. It cannot be augmented or diminished. It is a universal truth, universal order, universal law. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

Most important of all, principle is the universal spiritual capacity of creation. It is dynamic and vital. Human beings and all things form one body because all of them share this principle. It is identical with mind and with the nature of man and things. Since principle is the natural ability of creation and since life-giving is good, principle is the source of goodness. To be good is to obey principle. Thus, principle is both natural and moral and both general and specific. It has meaning as an abstract reality, but more so are the moral law of humans. We must learn to maintain a strong degree of character in our lives, even to the level that has been revealed in our vision of Christ. The lasting characteristic of a spiritual being is the ability to understand correctly the meaning of the Lord Jesus Christ in his life, and the ability to explain the purpose of God to others. Readiness for God means that we are prepared to do the smallest things or the largest thing—it makes no difference. Material force is the physical aspect of principle.  Impulsiveness needs to be trained into intuition through discipline. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

Every moment of time solicits to be employed in the important business of love. Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. In the process of creation each operation is new, for material force is perpetually generated by Origination. (Origination is comparable to creation, except that it is natural and self-caused and is not an act of being.) The intellectual approach of understanding principle is balanced by the moral, for whereas the pursuit of learning depends on the extension of knowledge, self-cultivation requires seriousness. Humans are a complex chemical compound whose behavior is strictly subject to the law of causality, who in every action seeks one’s own pleasure, and whose character is determined by the features of the environment within which one is obliged to act. Radical reconstruction of the social environment is needed to create happy and productive individuals. Human beings are organs and instruments of a universal spirit and under certain conditions, a nationality (narodnost) may become an individual person. On the other hand, human beings as rational creatures and bearer of the Absolute is an end in oneself and must not be treated as a mere instrument. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

Not society, but individuals, think, feel, and desire; the monstrous notion that society is a higher organism, an all-devouring Moloch, whose function is to make humankind happy by putting it in chains is false. However, there are encroachments by the social and political spheres on the private and personal realm; the individual life is the foundation-stone of the entire social edifice—as a single spiritual substance, possessed of reason and free will, and hence of a moral worth and dignity that demand respect. The dialectical movement of both thought and being are a passage from initial unity to final multiplicity, through two intermediary stages of relation and combination. The superior being is one who is wise, humane, and courageous, who is motivated by righteousness instead of profit, and who loves other people. A person is good by nature, but only by nature people are alike, but through practice they have become far apart. All children know how to love their parents and a person seeing a child about to fall into a well will instinctively try to save him because human nature is originally good.  #RandophHarris 4 of 7

Remember principle: no expediency, no compromise. The four main principles of humanity are altruism, righteousness, propriety,  and wisdom—and the innate knowledge of the good and the innate ability to do good. Evil is due not to one’s nature but to bad environment, lack of education, and casting oneself away. The superior person is one who develops one’s mind to the utmost and nourishes one’s nature. The nature of some is essentially evil. They seek for gain and are envious. Because conflict and strife inevitably follow, rules of propriety and righteousness have been formulated to control evil and to train humans to be good because propriety and righteousness has to be taught to some as their native nature has been corrupted and they abuse people and do drugs because they to recognize humanity and righteousness originated with Heaven. It is the will of Heaven that people should practice humanity and righteousness, be economical, and practice universal love, and it is human’s duty to obey the will of Heaven. It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

The harmonious development of the individual in society is through the investigation of things, the extension of knowledge, the sincerity of the will, the rectification of the mind, the cultivation of the personal life, the regulation of the family, national order, and World peace. The goal is a harmonious World in which people and society are well developed and adjusted. The virtues, such as kindness, benevolence, and affection are the way in which we can get a life that has no lust, no self-interest, and is not sensitive to the ridicule of others. Humanity is the moral character, which enables humans to attain true fellowship. The moral character is developed in oneself and in one’s relations with others. A person wishing to establish one’s own character, also established the character of others. This is the two aspects of conscientiousness and altruism. By this time a clear distinction between what is good, correct, or proper and what is evil, incorrect, or improper has be made. God wants the innate sense of correctness fully exercised through the precision of and distinctions made in law, rules of propriety, and music. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

The Spirit of God witnesses to the redemption of our Lord and nothing else. The Spirit witnesses only to His own nature and to the work of redemption, never to our own reason. If we are trying to make God witness to out reason, it is no wonder that we are in darkness and uncertainty. Throw it all overboard, trust in God, and God will give you the witness of the Spirit. We have to correct errors in our hearts (moral errors). Centrality in the individual is the state of equilibrium in one’s mind before the feelings are aroused, and harmony is the state after they are aroused. In society centrality and harmony together mean complete concord in human relations. Ultimately, through the moral principle, Heaven and Earth will attain their proper order and all things will flourish in a harmonious universal operation. When the individual behaves correctly and society operates in the right manner, the way of God is aid to prevail. The way of God is the moral law, and moral order. It is the way of Heaven. Heaven is the Supreme Reality. Love levels all distinction. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7

 The Winchester Mystery House

Why would a ghost haunt anywhere? If there is an afterlife, it must be more interesting then here. However, this is not a science with clear-cut rules. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

The Ocean of Trees–Avoiding Error and Finding the Truth in View of the Human Predicament

We have to be people who vindicate the power of the human race to produce greatness.  There are no absolute truths in life and what is morally right varies from person to person or from society to society. It is only a delusion on our part which makes us suppose that the World is bad. And the only real progress is the removal of delusion. The Universe is eternally the same and eternally perfect. The movement is only in our minds. If someone could have a sufficient insight into inner parts of things, one would be a prophet and would see the future in the present as in a mirror. God has given us a rational nature and will call us to account for it. Without denying the authority of Scripture, people should reason about the Bible as precisely as civilians do about the Constitution under which we live. God has a moral perfection. It is not because his will is irresistible that we obey, but because his will is the perfection of virtue that we pay him allegiance. We cannot bow before a being, however great and powerful, who governs tyrannically. People discover God not only through Scripture and rational inquiry, but also through consciousness. In all higher actions the soul has a character of infinity and sin is the ruin of God’s noblest work.  #RandolphHarris 1 of 5

A belief in the parental character of God and the dignity of human beings provides an ideological base for humanitarian efforts. God’s nature is infinite and therefore surpasses all attempts to define or limit it. Hence, we cannot know, in rational terms what He is. Since humans cannot discover any truth except by revelation, morality should be based on following nature, except when guided by the divine light. We possess the requisite sense for gaining knowledge, whether we can distinguish illusions and dreams from veridical experience, and whether we can, in view of the enormous variability of sense experiences, determine which ones correspond to objective states of affairs. Some people do not have the abilities to possess adequate or certain criteria that enable them to distinguish truth from falsehood. Many believe things mainly as a result of passions and social pressures, not reasons and evidence. Hence, we should accept that some people function as beasts and not as rational beings. Hence, if God reveals genuine principles to us, then we should be sure to make sure our ways are godly. Everything else is only dreams and smoke. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5

Examine all questions freely and dispassionately, keep prejudice and emotions out of all decisions, develop a universality of mind, and reject any decisions that are in the slightest degree dubious. This skeptical method is of greater service to religion than any other there may be. It leads us to reject all dubious opinions until our minds are blank, naked and ready to receive the divine revelation on faith alone. The complete skeptic will never be a heretic, since is one has no opinions, one cannot have the wrong ones. If God pleases to give one information, then one will have true knowledge. Until the skeptic receives the revelation, one should love by a morale proviso ire, following nature. One ought to live as a skeptic and a noble savage if one has no divine guidance. Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. If our desires seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5

Every hope or dream of the human mind will be fulfilled if it is noble and of God. However, one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God. There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him even small gifts of surrender, just to show how genuine our love is for Him. Once we are totally surrendered to God, He will work though us all the time. The first thing I must be willing to admit when I begin to examine what controls and dominates me is that I am the one responsible for having yielded myself to whatever it may be. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because somewhere in the past I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God, I do so because at some point in my life I yielded myself to Him. Therefore, when the darkness of dismay comes, endure it until it is over, because without it we will not have the ability to experience things that are inexpressibly wonderful and pleasant. Live constantly knowing that only God can and will judge us, and walk in the knowledge of the holiness He has given you. This will provide one with hop to reach the truth, for truth is not always discovered by reasoning, but sometimes by some inner light, a kind of feeling (sentiment), perhaps what is called the heart. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5

So, with that being said, as long as we are coming from an honorable place and know that our heart is one filled with love, sometimes we need to use it to make decisions, and that is how the noble savage is developed. The soul belongs only to people who have lived in a state of cultural primitivism far from the contamination of society.  This means true human nature, which is intrinsic, objective, normal, healthy, or universally valid. The “savage” is the romanticism and idealization of a nostalgic revelation the golden years of childhood, where the soul is yearning for the simplicity of the past. We are reinforcing the sense of individuality, where we can express an absence of all distinct thoughts and feelings, a kind of mystical union with that God who is nature itself. The creative quality manifests the spirit of life and brings unity with humanity, or love and makes one the moral being one is. It enables one to embrace all things and Heaven and Earth as one body. Whatever is produced in one, that is, whatever is inborn in one, is one’s nature. In its original state, tranquil state, human nature is neither good nor evil. If prudence consists in wishing well to one’s self, young flirts are as prudent as antiquated souls. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5

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The Relationships between Chance, Determinism, and Moral Responsibility

 

 

Do the events of human life really follow a pre-delineated trait, or does chance sometimes produce oddly united circumstances? There are various possible definitions of the term “chance.” A chance event is one whose cause is unknown. A chance event is the concurrence of two independent casual chains. These and other similar definitions of the term do not grant chance events a distinct and separate ontological status but distinguish them from other events on the basis of whether or not humans can predict their occurrence. This typically leads to theories if probability that, it is claimed, provide an explanation of chance. Pure chance is when atoms, the ultimate constituents of matter, fall vertically through space at equal velocities but that sometimes makes an uncaused swerve (clinamen) and this comes into collision with other atoms. This produces a cluster of atoms and this a material object. Human’s free will consists of just such an uncaused swerve of atoms occurring in one’s mind. The swerve envisioned is not due either to an external force or to a change in the atom itself but is entirely uncaused. It is not just that humans cannot discover the cause because of its obscurity. There is simply no cause to be discovered. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6

 

Simonides was one of the most prolific of the early poets of Greece, but only a few fragments of his compositions have descended to us. He wrote hymns, triumphal odes, and elegies. In the last species of composition he particularly excelled. His genius was inclined to the pathetic, and none could touch with truer effect the chords of human sympathy. “The Lamentation of Danae,” the most important of the fragments which remain of his poetry, is based upon the tradition that Danae and her infant son were confined by order of her father Acrisius in a chest and set adrift on the sea. The chest floated towards the island of Seriphus, where both were rescued by Dictys, a fisherman, and carried to Polydectes, king of the country, who received and protected them. The child Perseus, when grown up, because a famous hero. Simonides passed much of his life at the courts of princes and often employed his talents in panegyric and festal odes, receiving his reward from the munificence of those whose exploits he celebrated. This employment was not derogatory, but closely resembles that of the earliest bards, such as Demodocus, described by Homer, or of Homer himself as recorded by tradition. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6

A belief in the existence of possible events in an instinctive feeling that allows one to view the future as other and better than the past, and only appeal to feelings can be decide the question. On one occasion when residing at the court of Scopas, King of Thessaly, the prince desired him to prepare a poem in celebration of his exploits, to be recited at a banquet. In order to diversify his theme, Simonides, who was celebrated for his piety, introduced into his poem the exploits of Castor and Pollux. Such digressions were not unusual with the poets on similar occasions, and one might suppose an ordinary mortal might have been content to share the praises of the sons of Leda. However, vanity is exacting; and as Scopas sat at his festal board among his courtiers and sycophants, he grudged every verse that did not rehearse his own praises. When Simonides approached to receive the promised reward Scopas bestowed but half the expected sum, saying, “Here is payment for my portion of thy performance, Castor and Pollux will doubtless compensate thee for so much as relates to them.” The disconcerted poet returned to his seat amidst the laughter which followed the great man’s jest. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6

In little time he received a message that two young men on horseback were waiting without and anxious to see him. Simonides hastened to the door, but looked in vain for the visitors. Scarcely however has he left the banqueting hall when the roof fell in with a loud crash, burying Scopas and all his guests beneath the ruins. On inquiring as to the appearance of the young men who had sent for him, Simonides was satisfied that they were not other than Castor and Pollux themselves. You cannot go through life doing people wrong and using them. Eventually the type of energy you put out will come back to you. God’s omniscience knowns the ends He wishes achieved, but not necessarily the exact means to these ends. At various points in God’s plan ambiguous possibilities exist, and it is here that human’s free will comes into play, deciding on means to already determined ends. For any sequence of events whatsoever a mathematical function can be constructed that states a correspondence between these events and the times at which they occur. This is not to say that each event might not be an uncaused event but that the disorder predicated of the entire series of events must be relative to another set of laws. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6

The development of quantum mechanics has led some thinkers to claim, on the basis of Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty and von Neumann’s theorem, that certain subatomic events are inherently unpredictable and that the principle of universal determinism has thus been proved false on the subatomic level. Whether this be true or not—and physicists themselves cannot seem to agree—one must carefully distinguish between these two very different questions: Are events on the subatomic level uncaused? Or are these causes of these events simply too complex for humans to grasp?  The first of these questions can never be conclusively answered affirmatively, since no matter how much evidence there might be to suggest that a given occurrence is uncaused, no certainty can be afforded that new evidence might not be uncovered which does not determine the cause of the event. In addition, the second question cannot be conclusively answered affirmatively until the cause of the event in question has actually been uncovered.  It would this appear that any event whose cause has not yet been discovered may be viewed either as pure chance event that possess no cause or as a complex event whose cause is yet unknow but may be eventually discovered. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6

It is this difficulty—that one situation can be so interpreted as to support two contradictory theses—that lies at the heart of the philosophical problem of change. The key to the missionary’s devotion is that he or she is attached to nothing and to no one except our Lord Himself. It does not mean simply being detached from the external things surrounding us. Our Lord was amazingly in touch with the ordinary things of life, but He had an inner detachment except toward God. External detachment is often an actual indication of a secret, growing, inner attachment to the thing we stay away from externally. It is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person’s life. The more precisely scientific observations are made, the more numerous are the irregular departures from scientific laws. Only by granting the occurrences of change events that one can account for the diversity of the Universe. It is only the assumption of Universal determinism that chance is unintelligible. It is no argument against chance to assume that no chance exists and then deduce from this that no chance exists.   God comes back and revives His call to us. God’s stride and His power alone are exhibited. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6