Author: John McMahon

It never ceases to amaze me how a person’s true personality comes out if they are simply given a few minutes to express themselves. I should say their true personalities comes out and does so complete with prejudices.

This is especially the case when two people who disagree have a discussion and are attempting civility. Some people can only sustain a facade for a short amount of time so that by the end of the conversation their tone is harsh, accusatory, annoyed and perhaps even arrogant, sarcastic and insulting (this does not discredit their argument but is may be a window into their emotive motives).

This appeared to have been the case when Dr. Jason Gastrich interviewed James Randi.1 James Randi aka The Amazing Randi is an atheist and pseudo-skeptic who is well known as a debunker of supernatural claims. He has been involved in various interesting investigations and experiments. For example, he once trained a young man to act, and speak, like a new age guru. He then had the young man give a series of lectures on new age spirituality where they sold power crystals. The young man soon came to be revered by many followers who came to seek his advice on spiritual matters and crystal power. Soon thereafter Randi exposed his own hoax/experiment and explained that the young man was doing nothing but acting a part. However, many people still sought the young man as a spiritual guide. They demonstrated that even when a sham is exposed by those who concocted it some people are so superstitious and desperate to be in touch with the paranormal/supernatural that they still held to a belief that had been disproved by the very person whom they sought as a guru.

James Randi has also exposed the frauds of various health-wealth-prosperity-faith-healers. One case was that of Peter Popoff who claimed receive divine revelation about people (such as knowledge of their illnesses). He would astonish the crowds by this miraculous knowledge. However, he was exposed as a charlatan because, as it turns out, before his appearances those in attendance would write down their prayer requests. Peter Popoff’s wife would collect them. Next she would direct him with whom to speak with in the crown via a small hearing device that he would wear. She would read from the prayer requests and he made it seem as if this intimate knowledge was coming from God.

In Jason Gastrich’s interview we meet two James Randis; one at the beginning of the interview and another at the end. The one at the beginning is reasonable, the intellectual, the fact finder, the open minded skeptic that merely requests evidence and who is willing to go where the evidence takes him. The one at the end is annoyed with Christian individuals, engages in petty complaints and expresses irrational emotional reactions to theology. Let us cite some examples.

James Randi sets up a straw man when he discusses a man who has convinced himself that he is the virgin Mary. James Randi states that the man may very well be the virgin Mary, but he doubts it. Jason Gastrich states that he doubts it also. To which James Randi replies that they doubt it for different reasons and states:

You already got it in the book, you see. You don’t have to think about it, you don’t have to reason it out. It’s already answered for you, it’s in the book.

In other words, since Jason Gastrich is a Christian he does not have to think because it is all in the Bible-which is misnomered the book. This is presumptive in various ways. One is that it assumes that Christians do not augment reason with what the Bible states and visa versa. It also touches upon a presumption that is a very common misconception in atheist circles. They seem to think that Christians learn what the Bible states at an early age, before they have had a chance to develop reasoning skills. From this early age they never dream of questioning any of it and never bother thinking about anything else. When any issue is raised they simply say, “The Bible says_” and that is the beginning and the end of it. This argument may indeed be indicative of some yet, it is far too generic and generalized to be of any real value particularly when you consider that the atheist proposing it likely rejected God as a child and has not developed their knowledge of theology or critical thinking (at least in that regard) since.

Moreover, Christians are known, or should be known, as people to constantly test and question the Bible. They research it and struggle with it just as the Bereans are praised for doing (Acts 17:11). Yet, the bottom line seems to be that if you found that a book on mathematics that stated 2+2=4 you may set that book aside and seek our own answers. However, you may discover that 2+2=4 and then come to realize that the answer was there in the book all along. We may then come to rely on this book for the answers. We may even constantly seek within and without the book and constantly find that the reasonable answer we found without was the same as that which we found within. This is what many Christians practice when they come to notice that that which makes sense in the realm of logic is the same that the Bible has stated all along. That the universe had a beginning and consists of time, space and matter and that the Earth is spherical and hangs on nothing or the First Law of Thermodynamics serve as examples of biblical statements that have been subsequently discovered.

It is interesting to note that both some atheists and some scientists put forth a front of being tenacious seekers of truth. They certainly are often just that. However, an interesting thing occurs with regards to the questions of how and why the Big Bang occurred and what caused it. You have never seen people so pleased to not have to consider, explain or even discuss an important and interesting philosophical, theological and cosmological issue (see Cosmology Part I, Part II).

Let us now point out a case of redirection. Jason Gastrich makes a statement and James Randi redirects the conversation by incorrectly restating Jason Gastrich’s comment. See if you can catch it:

James Randi: I want to live this time, now, and do the best I can ah, with, with what I’ve been given.

Jason Gastrich: _Christians too that are trying hard to change the world today. Trying to make advancements in science and, and-

James Randi: And why is that?

Jason Gastrich: For the love of people, for the love of God I suppose.

James Randi: Oh, “for the love of God,” yes. So we got the old fear thing again. If you don’t do this, boy, you’re gonna go to hell. And you know what hell is like? Ooh, that’s very hot, very nasty. It’s almost like Florida in the summer.

Notice that Jason Gastrich states that Christians do these things “for the love of God,” but James Randi states “the old fear thing again.” Jason Gastrich said love but since that did not play into James Randi’s preconceived prejudice, the atheist’s talking points, he redirects the comment. We thus move from Christians doing good because they love people and because they love God to Christians doing good because they are repressed by a vindictive, oppressive deity who has them deathly afraid of hell. Keep in mind that atheists complain about God allowing evil and then complain about what God does about evil.

Before we continue commenting on this issue we will point out another of James Randi’s comments:

Do something kind that, that doesn’t necessarily reflect on whether or not you’re gonna go to heaven and live forever in streets of gold and with a halo around your head.

Understand that another of atheism’s presumptive and misconceived straw men is to claim that Christians only do good deeds for fear of God, for fear of punishment, for fear of hell and not because they are good and decent people. I covered that in The Red Light of Punishment. Succinctly stated, there are two fallacies in one: the atheist presupposes to know that which they do not know-that they know other people’s thoughts and motivations-and mistakenly apply a works based salvation theology to Christianity which does not hold to such a theology.
In this specific case James Randi offers fallacious, non-Biblical, concept of damnation. Hell is not, as James Randi appears to claim, a place to where people are condemned for lack of good deeds. Hell is a place that was created for the devil and his angels and to which people choose to go when they choose to come before God having chosen to reject His offer of salvation.

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The more you learn about certain actors the more you realize that they are actually less talented than you may have thought.
Think about, for example, the difference between stage and movie/TV acting. On stage you either get it right or you do not. It is happening live as you perform before an audience. In movie/TV acting you could have dozens of takes of the same scene (receiving direction after each take) the best one of which is picked and then we are supposed to think that the actor is oh, so talented, look how natural they appear on the screen.

But regardless of stage, movie/TV, etc. one thing that very many actors have in common is that, in a manner of speaking, they are not “acting” but are having spirits act through them—quite literally.

The history of acting, especially in Hollywood, is a history of occult practices which result in acting performances.

Today’s example features Nicolas Cage who has developed his very own acting method. His method is actually not unlike many other people’s and also ranges from conceptualization, preparation and finally acting out.

There is a difference between the sort of acting whereby you pretend to be someone else and the sort of acting whereby you become someone else.

In an “Exclusive Nicolas Cage Webchat,” Empire Online reports, “The Ghost Rider himself answers your questions…”

With regards to his method, which he calls Nouveau Shamanic (new shaman), Nicolas Cage notes:
…I was invited to go to Ireland to have a Q&A with a group of thespians about this concept, but the truth is, like Brian Bates said, everybody who’s an actor is already there; they just don’t know it yet.
This style, if you will, or programme, is really teaching how not to act, and how to utilise your dreams, power objects, even taking weekends to experiment with imagination and finding ways of infusing your performances with those experiences so that it’s no longer acting but truth.
Acting implies lying in some way – Olivier said as much in his autobiography, and I don’t want to lie. Thankfully Sean Penn said that Nicolas Cage is no longer an actor, and that’s what I want. I want to find a way to make it more truthful. This style is stimulating your imagination to be more truthful in the words and the movements.

Acting is a thing of the past and the new/nouveau method, which is the old method, is to conjure spirits via occult means (and the only spirits that respond to occult means are demonic) which is where “everybody who’s an actor” already is anyhow even if “they just don’t know it yet.”

So his method is shamanic and a shaman is “A member of certain tribal societies who acts as a medium between the visible world and an invisible spirit world and who practices magic or sorcery for purposes of healing, divination, and control over natural events.” Accordingly the spirits communicate to the shaman via the aforementioned “dreams.” And “power objects” are infused with the spirits of, well, the spirits. Nicolas Cage tells of one of his power objects:

I went to the Bermuda Triangle of forests, known as the Hoia-Baciu Forest, and I went for a drive through the forest and saw a man who was just walking amongst the trees, and I asked him a question, I rolled down the window and said, “Do you live here?” He said yes. I said, “Is this forest haunted?”

He didn’t answer for about a minute, he just looked at me and said, “Yes”. I said, “By what?” and he said, “Have you seen the floating people with no legs?” I said, “Not yet, but I hope to real soon.”
Then I asked him if it was OK for me to take a fallen branch, so I grabbed a branch that was about six feet in length and four inches wide, and I took it home to my little cottage in England and I chipped away at it and varnished it and made a nice staff out of it. I’m probably the only person in Glastonbury with a Hoia-Baciu staff.

Here are some actual examples of how Nicolas Cage allows himself to be demonized in order to, keep in mind, not “act” but rather express “truth” which has been revealed to him by demons. Following is his answer to the question, “What were the biggest challenges physically or psychologically to perform both parts of John Blaze and Ghost Rider?” FYI: John Blaze is a human who occasionally becomes possessed by the spirit of vengeance who is known as Ghost Rider:
It was the first time that I played Ghost Rider. Blaze was easy; I knew he was a man who had been living with a curse for eight years of having his head light on fire, and the tone that would take. I compared him to a cop, or a paramedic who develops a dark sense of humour to cope with the horrors he has seen. But Blaze has also caused the horrors, so he’s hiding out because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else.

Ghost Rider was an entirely new experience, and he got me thinking about something I read in a book called The Way Of Wyrd by Brian Bates, and he also wrote a book called The Way Of The Actor. He put forth the concept that all actors, whether they know it or not, stem from thousands of years ago – pre-Christian times – when they were the medicine men or shamans of the village. And these shamans, who by today’s standards would be considered psychotic, were actually going into flights of the imagination and locating answers to problems within the village. They would use masks or rocks or some sort of magical object that had power to it.

It occurred to me, because I was doing a character as far out of our reference point as the spirit of vengeance, I could use these techniques. I would paint my face with black and white make up to look like a Afro-Caribbean icon called Baron Samedi, or an Afro-New Orleans icon who is also called Baron Saturday.
He is a spirit of death but he loves children; he’s very lustful, so he’s a conflict in forces. And I would put black contact lenses in my eyes so that you could see no white and no pupil, so I would look more like a skull or a white shark on attack.

On my costume, my leather jacket, I would sew in ancient, thousands-of-years-old Egyptian relics, and gather bits of tourmaline and onyx and would stuff them in my pockets to gather these energies together and shock my imagination into believing that I was augmented in some way by them, or in contact with ancient ghosts. I would walk on the set looking like this, loaded with all these magical trinkets, and I wouldn’t say a word to my co-stars or crew or directors. I saw the fear in their eyes, and it was like oxygen to a forest fire. I believed I was the Ghost Rider.

Again, he is not acting but having the spirits who possess him to express themselves. Clearly Nouveau Shamaic is nothing but repackaged Vieux satanic.

As for Brian Bates, note that, The Way Of The Wyrd is “a tale of Anglo-Saxon Sorcery and pagen [aka Pagan] Anglo-Saxon England. Based on Historical theories of Old England.” It is a novel based upon actual “Anglo-Saxon spiritual teachings…wisdom traditions…spiritual secrets of an indigenous shaman of ancient England…Anglo-Saxon tribal wisdom” which Bates explains as follows:
…our Anglo-Saxon ancestors believed in a universe where lines of power ran through the earth, spirits inhabited the trees, streams and stones, and where magicians were able to look into the future through the mysterious power of runes. People understood their universe as held together by an interlaced web of golden threads visible only to the wizards…
The Way of Wyrd transforms our experience of personal destiny – who we are, and how we can manifest our personal potential…to strengthen and empower our lives…
The Way of Wyrd, I tell the story of how an Anglo-Saxon young man is initiated into the secrets…
People of Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, Jewish and other religious affiliations requested instruction in Wyrd, as well as those already associated with western earth-based spirituality, such as Wicca, Druidry, shamanism, and so on.

Call it wisdom, spiritual or what you will but it all comes down to a romanticized was to get people demonized.

Nicolas Cage not only seeks out demons to channel through him but note that he specifically appeals to pre-Christian times. Makes one wonder how much fun he would be at a Christmas party. Oh wait, he tell us that too as he answers the question, “Of all the roles you’ve portrayed what was the most taxing mentally and would you ever go to those lengths again?”:
I think that Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance was mentally taxing, if only because I had to go to a Christmas party shortly after I had wrapped photography in Romania at two in the morning as the Ghost Rider. The invitation had a Christmas ornament on it with Ghost Rider’s face on it as a tree. I had a couple of schnapps and went to the party; I had not entirely let go of whatever magic I had been channeling, and all hell broke lose. In fact, I think I kept saying over and over, “Merry Christmas you ********!” I am lucky I’m not in a Romanian prison.

So whatever magic he had been channeling left him drained, mentally taxed and caused all hell to break lose at a Christmas party—nice!

We are supposed to believe that fact is fact, fiction is fiction and actors are just pretending. But the more we learn about Hollywood, screen writers (who write their worldviews even into “fiction”) and the spiritual or rather, spiritist practices of “actors” we learn something that more and more people are, thank YHVH, becoming more and more aware of: movies, TV shows, sporting events, musical concerts and many other forms of entertainment are, in reality, occult rituals in disguise.

I got on my knees and sort of communicated with the spirits. When I came out, I was in charge. I couldn’t have acted that, I couldn’t have written that.
—Denzel Washington

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A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help. Here is my donate/paypal page.

Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page.

Some of my books, all of which you can find here or here:

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Facebook
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Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.

Two documentaries in particular have well chronicled the relation between musicians and the satanic occult. Essentially all music that proceeded forth from the USA can be traced back to Robert Johnson and his well-known deal with the devil at the crossroads:

They Sold Their Souls for Rock and Roll Part 1 of 4

Hell’s Bell’s – The Dangers of Rock ‘N’ Roll – Part 1 of 18

One of these has a segment on Aleister Crowley’s motto from the Book of the Law is “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” (which we dissected in detail, see here). They note that the motto has been used in very many song lyrics.
As a personal note: in this author’s life BC he played with three bands and yet, only wrote lyrics to one song. And do you know what the chorus was? YHVH help us, it was “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”

Before getting to our point, consider some of the content of Aleister Crowley’s obituary published in TIME Magazine in Monday, Dec. 15, 1947 AD as GREAT BRITAIN: Rascal’s Regress:

Edward Alexander (“Aleister”) Crowley…determined to be a shocking young man. He went to Cambridge and became interested in magick (as he insisted on spelling the word)…Most of his books and poems…were printed privately because of their obscenity. Aleister achieved his shocking ambition. But he discovered that, although he was notorious, he had also become ridiculous…

Newspaper called him “The Worst Man In The World.” They told fantastic stories of him; he could raise devils and dead cats; he drank blood; he celebrated the obscene Black mass in his “temple”…He said he could make himself invisible, and claimed to have walked around a town once in a red robe and golden crown, unnoticed by anyone. In a treatise on magic he blandly remarked that “for nearly all purposes, human sacrifice is best.”…

Nina Hamnett…told of Crowley’s villa in Sicily; “About half-past five in the morning, the household had to go out and face the sun. It was called “adoration.” The evening ceremony was the great thing. In one corner was a chair in which Mr. Crowley sat in front of a brazier in which incense was burned. There was a scarlet woman who wore a jewelled snake under her robe. There was a sort of hysterical business.

[Once] a cat was sacrificed. The knife was blunt and the cat got out of the red circle. That was bad for magical work…Justice Swift : “I have been over 40 years engaged in the administration of the law [but] I have never heard such dreadful, horrible, blasphemous and abominable stuff….” [Crowley stated] “Before Hitler was, I am.”…The world of 1947 buried him almost without noticing it, and without a shudder.

Another of Aleister Crowley’s (in)famous mottos from Book of the Law is, “Every man and woman is a star.”
This also has become infused into song lyrics and, in fact, is likely why we refer to celebrities in general as “stars.”

This motto is sometimes quoted directly, word for word, as in Ultramarine’s album that is titled, “Every Man & Woman Is a Star.”

Sometimes there are allusions to it as in John Lennon’s song, Instant Karma:

Instant Karma’s gonna get you… Who in the hell d’you think you are A super star Well, right you are Well we all shine on

Like the moon and the stars and the sun

Sometimes celebrity stardom is mixed in with the Crowley motto as in the Village People’s In Hollywood (Everybody Is A Star):

Take a bus, a train or a plane to Hollywood Go there and then change your name You die your hair out there, it’s part of the game You’re gonna be a star, a big star…

Everybody is a star in Hollywood (alright)

Sometimes it is rephrased as in the children’s song album Kidz Bop which is titled Everyone’s A Star!

Note the common pillars

Following is a short list of songs and some of the lyrics that appeal to Aleister Crowley’s motto.

The Cult: Every Man And Woman Is A Star Pray that the world keeps us all down Tempests, bad trips Small lies, kill signs. Kill the beast in the ditch…

Every man and woman is a star

Note that Aleister Crowley referred to himself as “the beast” as per the Bible’s Book of Revelation. This is reminiscent of The Eagle’s song Hotel California which states, “They stab it with their steely knives but they just can’t kill the beast.” This song appears to be in reference to the Crowley related Pasadena California residence wherein Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard ran a sort of satanic boarding house.

T.N.T.: Everyone’s a star Lay your cards on the table Show the world who you are… In your blood it’s electric And the power’s in your veins… Everyone’s a star Shinin’ in the spotlight tonight… Feel the lightnin’ in the air Look in the mirror

Are you the only one there

The life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11) and this one’s is coursing with demonic energies, “it’s electric…the power’s in your veins.” Many reference to lightning in occult contexts are, consciously or not, to Jesus’ statement, “I saw satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). Such a person may only “see” themselves in the mirror but they are surely not alone.

Raven Symone / Cheetah Girls: Everyone’s A Star Look inside and you know you are I saw a man dancing on the corner Hat out… It’s hard to see but you know that anyone can fly Open your eyes, see the truth and you will realize that Everyone’s a star… The simple things can be so profound…

You can shine so bright

Stars are often correlated with brightly shining light, “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2nd Corinthians 11:14).

Francis Dunnery (aka?) Francis Connie: Everyone’s A Star I’ve talked to senators and presidential daughters… I’ve talked to a medicine man and they’re all the same to me Wherever you are, Whatever you say, Wherever you go Whatever you need, whoever you are Everyone’s a star… I’ve been to old Calcutta I’ve been to Africa… I went to Zion on my way back from Jamaica… Everyone’s a star Sing it to the north side, sing it to the south side Sing it in the east side, sing it in the west side Sing it in the water, sing it in the air Sing it on the ground and everybody sing it Everyone’s a star

I’m just a peasant boy they said was going nowhere

From the elite (“senators and presidential daughters”) to a medicine and worldwide, everyone agrees, “Everyone’s a star. This is then chanted ritualistically to the four directions and to the elements. He was just a peasant boy they said was going nowhere but then gained fame by joining forces with the occultists in the music industry.

Sly & The Family Stone (and Barbie and Joan Osborne): Everybody Is A Star Everybody wants to shine Ooh, come out on a cloudy day ‘Til the sun that loves you proud… You don’t need darkness to do what you think is right… Everybody is a star I can feel it when you shine on me…

Ever catch a falling star

More references to shining, anthropomorphism of the Sun and reference to a falling star.

Robin Thicke: Everybody’s A Star Makin’ your heart stop Everybody knows me I’m gonna be a star That is why I feel it deep inside

A new invention runnin’ through my mind

Seeking stardom.

Kinks: Everybody’s A Star I’m I am a creator, inventor and innovator I observe the people, the ordinary people… ‘Cause I’m a star (Gonna make you a star) And I can make you a star (Gonna make you a star)… I’m the magic maker… I can take any man I see standing in the road And put rouge on his cheeks and put some powder on his nose I’ll teach him how to act, I’ll remould and reshape him I’ll put him in a stage suit and I’ll teach him how to pose I can turn the most ordinary man in the world into a star I’m a starmaker…

I can make or break you

In this case the reference it to star makers and how they manipulate stars towards financial success even at the cost of the star’s personal decline.

Damien Jurado: Everyone A Star Burned out, I found you like a light on Time to forget all that I’ve done I’m too in tune to change the dial Connected colors for the mood I’m on rewind all the time A welcome sign outside my mind Ready when you are to lose Asleep for days inside the blue Everyone a star, everyone a star…

Free is all we are, free is all we are

This guy is sold out to the one who made him a star and feels it is too late to turn back, “I’m too in tune to change the dial.”

Well, this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as Aleister Crowley influence of art is concerned.

This is an announcement pertaining to the new series upon which we shall embark.

In this series I simply present quotations from the Bible with little if any commentary. I categorize it in order to be useful in answering the charges made against Christianity by various religious groups.

These claims are such as that Jesus is not divine, that the Holy Spirit is a force or energy, that God is not Trinune / Trinitatiran, that Jesus is the Archangel Michael, and so on.

At the end of the series I will provide a one post summary of all of the relevant citations by category.
Be aware that without a little background in the study of the doctrine of the Trinity some of the text may seem obscure.

For some background and apologetics with regards to the Trinity you may want to read the following as preparation for the posts which are to come.

How to Understand the Trinity

Mormon Theology vs. The Sh’ma

Mormon Theology – Monotheism or Henotheism?

I designed this illustration of the Trinity and you can purchase this design on a t-shirt or sticker at my online Cafepress shop:

Some of my books, all of which you can find here or here:

Social networks:
My Amazon author’s page
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Archive video site
Ken Ammi’s Product Reviews
My CafePress shop
Google +

Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.

Some of my books, all of which you can find here or here:

Social networks:
My Amazon author’s page
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Archive video site
Ken Ammi’s Product Reviews
My CafePress shop
Google +

Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.

True Freethinker has been chronicling the attempts by some atheists to dictate child rearing to the parents of the world. Not content to merely come out of the closet some atheists want to proceed by kicking your door down so as to besmirch you and gain access to your children. In this episode we will consider a plan outlined by Nicholas Humphrey.
Forget the philosopher Weird Al Yankovic’s tales of an Amish paradise. Forget the Amish friendship bread. Nicholas Humphrey represents a very troubling trend amongst atheists to apply the most malicious and vicious of labels to those with whom they disagree as he states, amongst many other things, that “The Amish_survive only by kidnapping little children.”

The New Atheist sentiments of “religious” parents raising their children according to their “faith” as “child abusers” is no mere intellectual exercise or controversy stirring tactic; I have personally experienced the displeasure of having one of those militant activist atheists tell me to my face, “you abuse your children.” Of course, I invited them to notify the authorities, which they declined to do. Rather odd I thought; they know that I am a child abuser and are doing nothing about it-that makes them worse that I.
However, some atheists are pushing to make it so that they will someday be able to do something about it. Richard Dawkins envisages “society stepping in?”1 in hopes that his movements’ interference “might lead children to choose no religion at all.”2

We will now cover a significant lecture on the subject by Nicholas Humphrey who is the School Professor at the London School of Economics and Professor of Psychology at the New School for Social Research.
This was an Oxford Amnesty Lecture of 1997 AD and has been alternately published as “What shall we tell the children?” and “What shall we tell the children?” (PDF, HTML).In an illogical and falsely dichotomous manner Nicholas Humphrey manipulates his audience into accepting the vision of he, and cenobites like him, as arbiters of what will be allowable to be taught to your children.

His various references to “liberals” are in acknowledgment that he is well aware of his audience’s constituency. Thus, he is addressing what he hopes to be a sympathetic audience and seeks to placate any objections that they may have along the way.

In addressing Amnesty International he seeks to encourage them to not only seek to liberate people from physical bondage but from the bondage of children’s captivity to their parents. Children, he argues are to be inoculated against their parent’s “word-virus” or viral religious memes.

Should we then be fighting Amnesty’s battle on this front too? Should we be campaigning for the rights of human beings to be protected from verbal oppression and manipulation? Do we need “word laws”, just as all civilised societies have gun laws, licensing who should be allowed to use them in what circumstances? Should there be Geneva protocols establishing what kinds of speech act count as crimes against humanity?

He presupposes that the rhetorical answer is “no.” Perhaps in 1997 AD “hate-speech” was not as of yet inculcated into American society, and illegal in Canada, as it is today. In any regard, he seeks to rectify the answer by elucidating his purpose:

_we should try to make up for the harm that other people’s words do, but not by censoring the words as such_it is the purpose of my lecture today to argue in one particular area just the opposite. To argue, in short, in favour of censorship, against freedom of expression, and to do so moreover in an area of life that has traditionally been regarded as sacrosanct.I am talking about moral and religious education. And especially the education a child receives at home, where parents are allowed-even expected-to determine for their children what counts as truth and falsehood, right and wrong.Children, I’ll argue, have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people’s bad ideas-no matter who these other people are. Parents, correspondingly, have no god-given licence to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children’s knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insist they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.In short, children have a right not to have their minds addled by nonsense. And we as a society have a duty to protect them from it. So we should no more allow parents to teach their children to believe, for example, in the literal truth of the Bible, or that the planets rule their lives, than we should allow parents to knock their children’s teeth out or lock them in a dungeon.

That’s the negative side of what I want to say. But there will be a positive side as well. If children have a right to be protected from false ideas, they have too a right to be succoured by the truth. And we as a society have a duty to provide it. Therefore we should feel as much obliged to pass on to our children the best scientific and philosophical understanding of the natural world-to teach, for example, the truths of evolution and cosmology, or the methods of rational analysis-as we already feel obliged to feed and shelter them. I don’t suppose you’ll doubt my good intentions here. Even so, I realise there may be many in this audience-especially the more liberal of you-who do not like the sound of this at all: neither the negative, nor still less the positive side of it.

We are instantly made to wonder just who will be the arbiter of what constitutes “bad ideas” and “nonsense.” We wonder if there really is no limiting “children’s knowledge” (“Happy sixth birthday little Juanito! What? You want to learn about necrophilia. Sure, of course!”). And just what is “the truth”? Who doeth bequeath it?

We encounter what is perhaps the first of his very many manipulative dichotomies as he likens religious upbringing, the imparting of certain ideas, to physical mutilation:

Let’s suppose we were talking not about children’s minds but children’s bodies. Suppose the issue were not who should control a child’s intellectual development but who should control the development of her hands or feet . . . or genitalia. Let’s suppose indeed that this is a lecture about female circumcision. And the issue is not whether anyone should be permitted to deny a girl knowledge of Darwin, but whether anyone should be permitted to deny her the uses of a clitoris.
And now here I am suggesting that it is a girl’s right to be left intact, that parents have no right to mutilate their daughters to suit their own socio-sexual agenda, and that we as a society ought to prevent it. [ellipses in original]

There is quite a bit to state in this regard.Primarily, Nicholas Humphrey knows that he is addressing a majority liberal audience and is thus, playing on the liberal instinct to recoil at the very thought of restricting sexuality in any way shape of form (with the most generic caveats against that which they personally find distasteful, of course). He seeks to liken physical mutilation to intellectual mutilation. While he is aware that in the one case he is dealing with irreparable damage and in the other with something that may be unlearned or augmented he will return to this fallacious likening nine times during the lecture (it is as if his notes stated, “Point weak here; mention female circumcision”).Also, note that the term “female circumcision” is both ubiquitously employed and fallacious. It is supposed to be likened to male circumcision but is absolutely nothing like it.Female “circumcision” is, as rightly stated above by Nicholas Humphrey, mutilation: it is the complete removal of the clitoris for the specific purpose of ensuring lifelong denial of sexual pleasure.

On the other hand, male circumcision is the removal of a little part of the penis’ foreskin which is not only very healthy but does not diminish sexual drive or pleasure.

Nicholas Humphrey has attempted to win his liberal audience to his side by going from recognizing that their natural reaction to his proposal of dictating child rearing is, shall we say; initially skittish, to getting them to be overcome with emotion for the, rightful, condemnation of child mutilation. This is a fallacious and yet very effecting tactic: he has won their empathy and having won their emotions their intellect is putty in his hands.

All the prophets prophesied
only of the days of the Messiah
-Talmud-Sanhedrin 99a

This essay seeks to elucidate some of the biblical symbolism which points to the Messiah.

Part 1: The Seed and the Coming Messiah and Isaac and the Future Sacrifice
Part 2: Isaac and the Future Sacrifice (continued) and The Serpent in the Wilderness and the Lifting Up of the MessiahPart 3: Melchizedek’s Priesthood and the Messiah

Part 4: Melchizedek’s Priesthood and the Messiah (continued) and The Passover Seder and the Messianic Sacrifice and The Temple and the Messiah’s Forgiveness and The Lamb of God

The Seed and the Coming Messiah:
Adam and Eve attempt to cover their sin by their own effort (good works) by making a covering of fig leaves. This is unacceptable to God who instead sheds blood in order to cover their sin by providing animal skins to cover their bodies.

In Genesis 3:15 God tells the serpent (satan),

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

The Hebrew word for seed: zeh’rah (used some 221 times in the Old Testament-the Tanakh) is sometimes dynamically translated as descendant or offspring, the concept is still one of a singular entity.It is one of her seed not all of her seeds; a descendant (singular) not all of her descendants (plural). Notice that it is the seed of the woman not of the man, symbolic of the Isaiah 7:14 prophecy of the Messiah’s virgin birth. This seed would bruise (or crush) the serpent’s head, which is a much more devastating blow than the bruising of a heel.Targum Pseudo-Jonathan states,

“_there will be a remedy for the sons of the woman, but for you, serpent, there will be no remedy.”

Also in Isaiah 53:5 the Messiah is referred to thus,

“Surely he hath borne griefs inflicted by us, and suffered sorrows we have caused: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded through our transgressions, bruised through our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his wounds we were healed.”

Isaac and the Future Sacrifice:In Genesis 22, Abraham is told by God to take his son, his only son and sacrifice him.

Abraham had two sons Isaac and Ishmael but God tells him to sacrifice his only son (this word for only is yachiyd: only, only one, solitary one, unique one, indivisible).

Abraham loved Isaac and gave him as a sacrifice.They travel for three days to the mountain where the sacrifice was to take place, for three days in Abraham’s mind his son was dead (yet, he trusted in God’s promise of making him the father of great nations).They traveled via donkey.Isaac caries on his back the wood on which he is to die.When Isaac asks where the sacrifice is, Abraham answers that God will provide Himself a sacrifice.Abraham is stopped from sacrificing Isaac yet, a sacrifice is made.They find a ram caught by his horns in the thicket.

Abraham calls the place Adonai Yir’eh: Adonai will see to it or Adonai provides. On the mountain of the LORD it shall be provided or it shall be seen (v. 14).

God loves His son; the Messiah Jesus.Jesus was dead for three days.He rode into Jerusalem via donkey.He carried the instrument of his death, the wooden cross, on his back.God provided the sacrifice, in the case of Abraham and Isaac God did not call off the idea of sacrifice at all, instead He required that there be a substitute provided by God Himself, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son_” (John 3:16).Jesus was “crowned” with thorns (thicket).

The crucifixion took place on the very same mountain which centuries earlier Abraham said that God provided and would provide the sacrifice.

Both were loved by their father, both offered themselves willingly, both traveled via donkey, both carried wood up the hill for their sacrifice, both events took place on the same hill, both were delivered from death on the third day.

Jesus referred to this incident as prophetic when he said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad” (John 8:56).

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Norm Geisler references TrueFreethinker.com:
Apologeticspress.com’s Kyle Butt references TrueFreethinker.com:

Read the article about which Gary Habermas, PhD (Distinguished Research Professor & Chair of the Department of Philosophy at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary) said, “I have hung on to it since you sent it, & plan to keep doing so”: Historical Jesus – Two Centuries Worth of Citations.