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.
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
I 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
One, 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
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
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
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
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
