Previous William Thomas Sherman Info Page postings, quotes, observations, etc.
www.gunjones.com
“Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.”
~ Joseph Addison, "Cato" (1713)
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A: I'm NOT just thinking of myself. The glory of my ego is important to all! All of us. Not just me, but you too!
B: You say.
A: Behold, my powers from outer space have made it seem as if I am an interesting person, indeed a highly interesting person!
B: OK, OK already, but can we go now?
A: No, you can't go now!
B: Look, why can't you just live your own lives (in peace), and let us live ours?
A: We can't do it that way. (pauses) This world, I mean the entire world, the universe: pray, what good is it if one can't rule and dominate it all? (exits)
B: Is this not incontrovertible proof that one can take in all the money, status, and privilege in the world and still have nothing? As far as I’m concerned, it takes an infinitely greater amount of faith to believe what these people do than what it does or would take to be a credible Christian.
[C, an acolyte of A enters]
C: (staring straight ahead in a dazed stupor) I know all these things! I know all these things!
B: (addressing the audience) What our friend here means is that Mr. Magician projected all these amazing and magical images into his head; on the basis which he concludes that he possesses high and secret knowledge. (hands C some papers)
C: What's this?
B: A bill for all this ton of stuff you bought.
C: Now that's a lot of nonsense! I bought and paid for it with my credit card.
B: Dude, you don't understand, when you use a credit card you have to pay back later for what you bought.
C: Oh no, you're wrong, no I don't! I already paid for it with my credit card!
Therefore they will not be born again, which is impossible, but they will rise again, and be clothed by God with bodies, and will remember their former life, and all its actions; and being placed in the possession of heavenly goods, and enjoying the pleasure of innumerable resources, they will give thanks to God in His immediate presence, because He has destroyed all evil, and because He has raised them to His kingdom and to perpetual life. Respecting which resurrection the philosophers also attempted to speak as corruptly as the poets. For Pythagoras asserted that souls passed into new bodies; but foolishly, that they passed from men into cattle, and from cattle into men; and that he himself was restored from Euphorbus. Chrysippus says better, whom Cicero speaks of as supporting the portico of the Stoics, who, in the books which he wrote concerning providence, when he was speaking of the renewing of the world, introduced these words: “But since this is so, it is evident that nothing is impossible, and that we, after our death, when certain periods of time have again come round, are restored to this state in which we now are.” But let us return from human to divine things. The Sibyl thus speaks:—
“For the whole race of mortals is hard to be believed; but when the judgment of the world and of mortals shall now come, which God Himself shall institute, judging the impious and the holy at the same time, then at length He shall send the wicked to darkness in fire. But as many as are holy shall live again on the earth, God giving them at the same time a spirit, and honour, and life.”
But if not only prophets, but even bards, and poets, and philosophers, agree that there will be a resurrection of the dead, let no one ask of us how this is possible: for no reason can be assigned for divine works; but if from the beginning God formed man in some unspeakable manner, we may believe that the old man can be restored by Him who made the new man.
~ Lactantius (c. 250–c. 325), Divine Institutes (Book VII, ch. 23)
(Here is another volume NOT to be missed.)
Hermes Trimegistus (i.e., "Hermes Thrice Great") was frequently praised and referenced by some of the more scholarly-minded Early Church Fathers. His views on God and the Trinity are remarkably similar to later orthodox Christian theology.
https://archive.org/details/divinepymanderot0000unse
[The divine Pymander, and other writings of Hermes Trismegistus, trans. by John D. Chambers]
You can also find this same fairly easily in paperback.
Here then is the low-down:
* Philo of Alexandria (25 BC-50 AD)---> Clement of Alexandria (c.150-c.215 AD)---> Origen (c.185-c.253)
* Hermes Trimegistus, author of Divine Pymander (late 1st-early 2nd century AD)---> Ammonius Saccas (175-243 AD)---> Plotinus (c.204-270)
(pro. criminal spirit people, btw, hate this sort of thing; that's partly why I love it.)
HOW SAINTS CAN ACT AS INTERCESSORS.
~ some extracts from The Sayings of the Holy Desert Fathers [of Egypt] by Saint Palladius of Galatia [c. 4th century AD], translated by Wallis Budge.
394. Two brothers went to the market to sell their wares, and while one of them had gone to perform the service, he who was left by himself fell into fornication; and the other brother came and said to him, ' My brother, let us go to the cell,' but he said to him, 'I cannot go, for I have fallen into fornication.' Now while he was seeking to do better, the brother began to swear to him, saying, 'I also, when I was away from you, fell in the same manner, nevertheless, come, and let us repent together, and it may happen that God will pardon us.' And when they came to their cells they informed the old men about the temptation which had come to them, and whatsoever the old men told them to do the two brothers did, and the one brother repented with the other, just as if he had sinned with him. Now God saw the labour of his love, and in a few days He sent a revelation to one of the old men concerning the matter, saying, 'For the sake of the love of that brother who did not sin, forgive you him that did commit sin.' This is what is meant by the words, ' A man should lay down his soul for his friend.' (p. 87)
397. They used to tell the story of a certain brother who fell into sin, and he came to Abba Lot, and he was perplexed and confused, and was going in and coming out, and was unable to rest. And Abba Lot said to him, 'What is the matter with you, O my brother?' and he said, 'I have committed a great sin, and I am unable to confess it before the fathers.' The old man said to him, 'Confess it to me, and I will bear it'; and then the brother said to him, I have fallen into fornication, and I thought you hadst discovered the matter.' And the old man said to him, 'Be of good courage, for there remains repentance; get you gone and sit in your habitation, and fast for two weeks, and I will bear with you one half of your sin'; and at the end of three weeks it was revealed to the old man that God had accepted the repentance of that brother, and he remained with the old man, and was subject to him until the day of his death.
For a Kindle version of this text, see:
https://www.amazon.com/Sayings-Holy-Desert-Fathers-ebook/dp/B01DFLXWA0
HAPPY FOURTH
Now how do you like that folks, "SOMEONE" (I could not quite say who) is censoring me on YouTube; for a reply I made to someone (and which latter had replied to my initial comment.)
The video in question is:
"CIA, JFK Assassination, Israel, Watergate, Cold War Dynamics: Aaron Good on James Jesus Angleton"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2vShMpTvps
Here is what transpired with the third of these comments being the one immediately deleted (after repeated attempts to post it.)
@WmThomasSherman The problem with this sort of interpretation is that it assumes that America is merely those with the material power to control it; when in point of fact there are other people present and living in this country who are not this way and indeed are actually real America; not the gangsters and pirates, as it is argued, who take over everything.
@paulweber686 And your point is....what? The "Real America" that you reference does not, can not, implement the types of policy that Good is describing. Nor can they stop or alter it.
@WmThomasSherman But better real "America" than an ally with either capitalist gangsters OR moneyed communists. That's what Valley Forge and all that was about after all, wasn't it? Liberty or Death, and if death so be it, Christians can take it.
[To you who know very well to what I am referring. Also and just incidentally -- all those kids, like the princes in the tower, were completely innocent.]
"A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!"
As a child I was a Nixon republican. But ever since about Jimmy Carter I was always a stalwart democrat and who detested the idea of Reagan and Bush as presidents (I think in retrospect Reagan was all right as Governor, but absurd to have made him President; he was at that point merely someone foolish being used by others for ulterior motives.) When Clinton ran I voted for him. When Obama ran I voted for him. But when the democrats made Hilary Clinton their candidate, I couldn't believe it (she had got in thru her husband, and abandoned the "sticks" [Arkansas] to be with the big guns in NY; which I found pompous and arrogant.)
The point I would make is for all those people who so hate Trump, the democrats have only themselves to blame. Going so out of the way wacko on several points, including all these LGBTQ and Woke lunacies, they created Trump and then and now people were and are being forced to go to Trump.
Not that Trump doesn't have his decided good points, he indeed does. He did in fact save America. But yes, and granted he has his obvious bad ones also. Then there are things like the outrage of Jan. 6th (whatever that was about), but was that any worse than all those George Floyd riots ACROSS THE NATION, with burning, killing, and looting?