Previous William Thomas Sherman Info Page postings, quotes, observations, etc.
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["bathwater" -- live concert footage; "TMF9"; Stefani in pink hair] and ["No Doubt - Don't Speak original version" -- tv appearance "Storytellers" VH1]
["Freddie King - Hideaway" -- from The Beat tv show 1966.]
Often times, it's not the thing itself that is bad (for example, advertising), but only the devil in it which makes it so.
It's worth remarking that the church does not believe that Jesus is God, or that Jesus and the Father are God. Instead, what it believes is that Jesus, and the Father, together with the Holy Spirit are God. Each, by itself then, isn't God. What this means and implies, for practical purposes, is that say you have what seems to be Jesus with the Father. If the Holy Spirit is not present, then it isn't either Jesus or the Father that you have (and other dual combinations similarly); Bill Griffith notwithstanding.
Then something came up to remind me of "The Exorcist" (1973). One interesting thing about that film I remember is how it very much shocked and frightened people when it came out. I was effectively a child at the time and myself had no desire to see it -- yet not being necessarily for or against others doing so either. Years later, I still hadn't seen it, as I imagine others didn't for the same reason; because once I'd heard the basic synopsis it didn't seem necessary. Watching some of it in the way of clips this passed weekend only confirmed this surmise. I don't mean to say therefore that the "Exorcist" isn't a good film, but when it comes to the graphic and explicit, you know, I'd just as soon not.
But more to our point, how does "The Exorcist" stack up and compare to real life? While I like dramatically how the story is resolved in the priest's sacrificing himself at the end, it is worth noting that you cannot medically prescribe for a fictional situation. So that what in the movie seemed insurmountable, in real life circumstances given the presence of more rational, intelligent and inspired people might be less so. For one thing, a given devil is a person like anyone else -- who was born and has their personal history. Consequently, consider what difference there is to seeing them in this light rather than as some religious, mythical, or cosmological abstraction. At the same time, they themselves are sick people, medically speaking, and this is another significant aspect to taken into consideration when it comes to sizing them up. Also, spirit people, like regular people, and as individuals are different. The magician, as rotten a devil as there ever was (or as I heard of or knew), for example, forbids swearing like they have in "The Exorcist" because he himself, and in his own time, has had to hear so much of it.
Things like the shaking of furniture, lights being turned off inexplicably, being held down physically by "demons," and having living apparitions enter your bedroom I have experienced and seen myself, and again if viewed a certain way can be ridiculed. However, this is not so easy to do if you are half asleep in bed; in which case you are more easily frightened. So that in all, more common sense and perhaps a little bit of humor will more likely go a much longer way than invoking "The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" in sacred ritual. This is not to dismiss or make light of ritual, but each thing in its proper place, and just because you respect such things doesn't mean a spirit person has to. And to realize this is simply to apply common sense.
"Exorcist" clips - Viewer Discretion Advised
More victims you may find of interest...Is it entirely my imagination, or was there or was there not a film titled "Spooky Movie;" that came out about the same time as Robert De Niro's Rocky and Bullwinkle picture? I was almost absolutely sure there was such; having had to spend a good deal of time hearing from the magician and over these brain torture radios that the young people who participated as actors in it were granted the golden opportunity of having their own real-life run in with spirit people -- as a sort of practical joke you understand. Well, try as I might I now can't seem to find hide or hair of the film. Yes, there is something that was released (supposedly) in 2000 called "Scary Movie," but I am almost inclined to suspect this was concocted later merely to distract from and cover up the otherwise vanished tracks of the former.
Who knows?
Yet another one of those great tracks from another one of those great (for the most part) Moody Blues albums; this time a rare live version of the same (from 1986.)
["Moody Blues - 03 Rock N' Roll Over You - 1986"]
Isn't this also one of the phoniest things you ever saw? And I have come across other and similar interviews with this woman who is supposed to be Pat Priest of the Munsters. Yeah right. Where is the charm? The gentle grace? Where is the good sense of humor she obviously had? All of which naturally raises the question as to what happened to the real one.
["Count Gregula's Crypt vs. Pat Priest - October 2, 2011"]
To say one can arrive at truth by means of science presupposes the scientist deferred to to decide a question is honest. If they are not honest then presumably their conclusions, by definition, risk not being true. At the same time, we know there are no end of people who will use science not to arrive at truth, but merely to use it to push subjective ideology. It so happened this evening I came across this AP article, May 26, 2012, by Frank Eltman entitled "Scientist: Evolution debate will soon be history"; which clearly is one example where it is implied that a) the evolution debate still goes on among serious thinkers, and b) evolution necessarily disproves religion. Here we have a clear instance of where science is used merely to serve an ideological slant; because even granting evolution is true, this in no way disproves religion. Meanwhile, there is much about evolution that is not known or understood; so that there are those willing to arrive at grandiose conclusions on the basis of it who in actual fact have no proper right to do so. And those who would have you believe evolution disproves religion do not care about real and objective science at all, but rather are concerned entirely with promoting moral, economic, and political agendas.
Now here I have for almost a decade challenged scientists and others to investigate my claims regarding knowing and establishing the existence of spirit people empirically, and unless someone else is preventing them from looking into my claims, they otherwise are acting as ostriches burying their heads in the sand. They can and will not face me. Yet they like to think they are doing science, but are not really. What hypocrisy is it then to hear some of them trying to shock us with the tired old surprise of evolution, and yet which is at least as ancient as Democritus.
Come here to Seattle, Mr. Leakey (I would say), and find out what a real surprise is.
Of course, religion, as well like science, has its share of frauds, incompetents, or people who mean well but are little capable of thought. But religion is no more to blame for such persons than science is to blame for charlatans and ignoramuses in its ranks. Both religion and science are and have been used to serve dishonest and corrupt ends, and religious irrationalism (including dishonesty), "Satanic" irrationalism, and scientific irrationalism are all the same thing; namely a means of fettering judgment and enslaving the mind in order to serve unprincipled materialists and economic imperialists.
Excerpts from Augustine's epistles continued.
[ch. 3] 17. It was not in the power of the Platonists, however, to be so efficient in supporting the side of reason enlightened by truth, as the others were in supporting their own errors. For from them all there was then withheld that example of divine humility, which, in the fullness of time, was furnished by our Lord Jesus Christ—that one example before which, even in the mind of the most headstrong and arrogant, all pride bends, breaks, and dies. And therefore the Platonists, not being able by their authority to lead the mass of mankind, blinded by love of earthly things, into faith in things invisible—although they saw them moved, especially by the arguments of the Epicureans, not only to drink freely the cup of the pleasures of the body to which they were naturally inclined, but even to plead for these, affirming that they constitute man's highest good; although, moreover, they saw that those who were moved to abstinence from these pleasures by the praise of virtue found it easier to regard pleasure as having its true seat in the soul, whence the good actions, concerning which they were able, in some measure, to form an opinion, proceeded—at the same time, saw that if they attempted to introduce into the minds of men the notion of something divine and supremely immutable, which cannot be reached by any one of the bodily senses, but is apprehensible only by reason, which, nevertheless, surpasses in its nature the mind itself, and were to teach that this is God, set before the human soul to be enjoyed by it when purged from all stains of human desires, in whom alone every longing after happiness finds rest, and in whom alone we ought to find the consummation of all good—men would not understand them, and would much more readily award the palm to their antagonists, whether Epicureans or Stoics; the result of which would be a thing most disastrous to the human race, namely, that the doctrine, which is true and profitable, would become sullied by the contempt of the uneducated masses. So much in regard to Ethical questions.
18. As to Physics, if the Platonists taught that the originating cause of all natures is immaterial wisdom, and if, on the other hand, the rival sects of philosophers never got above material things, while the beginning of all things was attributed by some to atoms, by others to the four elements, in which fire was of special power in the construction of all things—who could fail to see to which opinion a favourable verdict would be given, when the great mass of unthinking men are enthralled by material things, and can in no wise comprehend that an immaterial power could form the universe?
19. The department of dialectic questions remains to be discussed; for, as you are aware, all questions in the pursuit of wisdom are classified under three heads—Ethics, Physics, and Dialectics. When, therefore, the Epicureans said that the senses are never deceived, and, though the Stoics admitted that they sometimes are mistaken, both placed in the senses the standard by which truth is to be comprehended, who would listen to the Platonists when both of these sects opposed them? Who would look upon them as entitled to be esteemed men at all, and much less wise men, if, without hesitation or qualification, they affirmed not only that there is something which cannot be discerned by touch, or smell, or taste, or hearing, or sight, and which cannot be conceived of by any image borrowed from the things with which the senses acquaint us, but that this alone truly exists, and is alone capable of being perceived, because it is alone unchangeable and eternal, but is perceived only by reason, the faculty whereby alone truth, in so far as it can be discovered by us, is found?
22. To Him, my Dioscorus, I desire you to submit yourself with unreserved piety, and I wish you to prepare for yourself no other way of seizing and holding the truth than that which has been prepared by Him who, as God, saw the weakness of our goings. In that way the first part is humility; the second, humility; the third, humility: and this I would continue to repeat as often as you might ask direction, not that there are no other instructions which may be given, but because, unless humility precede, accompany, and follow every good action which we perform, being at once the object which we keep before our eyes, the support to which we cling, and the monitor by which we are restrained, pride wrests wholly from our hand any good work on which we are congratulating ourselves. All other vices are to be apprehended when we are doing wrong; but pride is to be feared even when we do right actions, lest those things which are done in a praiseworthy manner be spoiled by the desire for praise itself...
~ Letter 118