Make Straight the Way of the Lord!

** I've found a post that was never published. It seems a bit rough, because of the many lists that could be expanded for clarity, but it's timeliness cannot be disputed. Let us regard it with patience. This has been waiting for a hearing for two years. **

"Prepare ye the Way of the Lord!

Make his path straight in the wilderness!" This was the message of John the Baptist. But how do we do this? First, by proclaiming the Kingdom of God, and then explaining it to those who ask what that means. 

This is an outline of the project for evangelists.

A. Why we believe in God as good creator.

B. Mankind has sinned, and needs a Saviour.

C. What the concept of Messiah means.

D. God always wanted to be Israel's king.

E. Who is Jesus of Nazareth?

F. Why Israel failed to accept Him.

G. Jesus asks us to be merciful and holy.

H. Jesus died to forgive us and resurrected.

I. He really IS coming back very soon.

We tell them:

1. Listen long enough to Understand.

2. Suspend your Disbelief.

3. Hold back your Skeptical Arguments.

4. Consider the Reasons & Evidence.

5. Observe your own Life Honestly.

6. Open your Heart to Truth.

7. Accept the Lord's Gift.

8. Respond with Gratitude & Obedience.

9. Love One Another.

10. Receive the Holy Spirit.

11. Pray without Ceasing.

12. Trust God to Do All Things Well.

13. Reconcile your Life to the Truth.

Know this, and do not be complacent:

1. This is the Laodicean Age, neither hot nor cold. Get off the fence! Wake up!

2. Satan is real, personal and powerful, and he wants to deceive and destroy you.

3. You must live out the Way, the Truth and the Life. Walk the walk, not just talk.

4. The time is near. Today is like the time of Noah, seeking wealth, power and pleasure.

5. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is manifest by zeal for God and reform in your life.

Jesus asks us to be merciful, just as our Father in Heaven is merciful, so we try to perform the corporal works of mercy whenever we see a need. But even so, we still have to depend on the mercy of Jesus. Our own works are nothing. Only his cross can grant us forgiveness and righteousness. What we do "for the Lord" or "in his Name" is only a fraction of our due gratitude for what He has done for us. Without Jesus to speak for us, we still carry our sin. Works are not enough for salvation.

Twelve Corporal Works of Mercy:

(Matthew 25:34-40)

1. Feed the hungry.

2. Give drink to the thirsty.

3. Welcome the stranger.

4. Clothe the naked.

5. Care for the sick.

6. Visit the prisoner.

(Isaiah 58)

7. Pay a fair wage.

8. Hold back your wrath.

9. Shelter the homeless.

10. Ransom the captive.

(Tobit 1)

11. Give alms to the poor.

12. Bury the dead.

When Jesus described the Last Judgment, He gave us this example: To those who came to Jesus for mercy, He said: "What you have done for the least of my brothers and sisters, you did also for me." But to those who thought they were good enough to list good works, He replied: "What you failed to do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you failed to do to me." It's all or nothing. We only have Jesus.

When the young man who was called asked leave to go first to bury his father and return, why would Jesus have said, "Let the dead bury their dead"? Because he was letting his family stand between him and Jesus, as if that was more important than the Kingdom. It is how we care for our brothers and sisters in Christ that reveals our place in Heaven. Those who put anything else first may as well have rejected Him. They have already excluded themselves.

Meanwhile, as the opportunity to serve the physical needs of others may not often arise, we should not pass up the chance to care for their spiritual needs as well. We begin with preaching the Gospel and recounting the life of Jesus and his deeds. But for some, their need involves spiritual care and healing.

Seven Spiritual Works of Mercy:

1. Counseling the doubtful.

2. Instructing the ignorant.

3. Admonishing the sinner.

4. Comforting the sorrowful.

5. Forgiving injuries.

6. Bearing wrongs patiently.

7. Praying for those in need.

So we know how to apply the works of mercy among each other, but what about holiness? Mercy is only one side of the coin Jesus asks of us. Isn't there more? Indeed, the concept of sin itself is tied to the need to obey the Law handed down by Moses. To obey the commandments is to imitate God's holiness.

It is not very hard to read the Torah and find the Ten Commandments in the Decalogue and the two "Greatest Commandments" in the Shema. Jesus gave us two long sermons about how we should pray and treat others the way we would want to be treated, that we should share with the needy and love our enemies, and how we should give for the sake of charity. He released us from the demands of only eating kosher, but scolded us for using foul language, swearing and curses. And, He said that if we would do this, we need not worry about whether our efforts would be blessed. If we seek first of all the Kingdom of God, we will be given everything we need.

Jesus asked us to be the light of the world, to spread his message far and wide, and to try to resist the corruption that is ruining society. We do that by obeying the moral commandments and setting the best example we can for others to follow. Of course, we don't always do this, but when we fall short, we can come to Jesus to confess our sins and ask forgiveness and strength to keep trying. We need to resolve to grow in understanding and in obedience, reminding ourselves to remain humble and trusting, like little children, for of such is the Kingdom of God.

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On the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, the Mother of Jesus

  There is a presupposition among Protestant believers that the Catholic Church has a habit of building up traditions over time. This habit wants too keep adding dogmas that must be accepted on faith, because of the Church's authority. Indeed, the split in 1517 was a direct result of a spurious dogma that the Church later revised and repudiated in practice. One could cite more such accretions, mostly harmless, but doing so would prove very little.

  In "modern" times, the question has been raised as to whether Mother Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Jesus. It has been said that the Bible notes several "brothers and sisters" of our Lord in the Gospels. Further, there is a distinct lack of biographical background in the story of Joseph, and virtually no discussion of Jesus' home life as a child or as a young adult. 

  It is almost a truism to say that the human mind abhors a vacuum, so it is no surprise to hear stories or create implications based on our natural human presuppositions. There were pseudo-gospels written centuries later to fill the gaps, but none spoke up to despoil Mary's perfect reputation. 

  This doubt is actually directed against Joseph, whether he could have kept Mary in her state of innocence for decades in his home. We don't even know for sure that he lived for long after Jesus' episode in the Temple, though we might presume that he witnessed his Bar Mitzvah. There is no discussion of Joseph's relations with Mary, marital or otherwise. It's not essential to the Gospel. Personally, I find it a bit rude to lay such a charge against Joseph's equally spotless reputation, and I want to defend him.

  The argument that "incriminating" evidence has to be picked apart one piece at a time really only works if it requires multiple interventions to clear someone's name. If there is a single explanation that covers all of the objections, then it should be held in equal regard to the accusation of "natural presupposition." 

  The Protestant "sola scriptura" position that says the Bible allows for Jesus to have biological siblings may be credible on the surface, but it lacks respect for tradition. I generally want to agree with Sola Scriptura for questions arising after the Great Schism in 1054, but for earlier issues, I want to defer to the Ecumenical Councils, and especially the teachings of the Apostles and their direct students. 

  Now, let's get into the argument on this topic.

  1. We are talking about exceptionally pious people in this case. It fits perfectly for Joseph to have lots of kids before he married Mary, and that he did so because he needed help to raise them. Choosing a young woman in her middle teens, who spent more time in prayer than in chasing boys, would make good sense. 

  2. It also fits that the culture of the Jews in the first century regarded all of the cousins as if they were siblings because they gathered for the festivals several times every year. They might even share the kids around with aunts and uncles, staying in each other's homes, for bonding or convenience. 

  3. It is equally likely that Joseph died once Jesus reached teen-age years, and all of his kids were regarded as belonging to Mary because she was the surviving parent. It might be considered bad taste to say they were Joseph's kids instead of Mary's. 

  But all of this is a normal case study for Judaean culture in the 1st century. Nothing is unexpected or convoluted to happen to clear Joseph's name. Older siblings and cousins are nothing unusual.

  4. In fact, if you were Joseph, and Mary had clearly been wed to God, and had borne God's Son, despite the legality of having visibly married her, do you think you would dare to violate the sanctity of the virgin who birthed God's Son? She is clearly dedicated, set apart for God, to be regarded as holy ground. I doubt that this pious husband, who sees visions, would cross that line. God doesn't divorce, so she is still His.

  5. On the cross, Jesus tells John to take Mary as his mother, which he need not have done if his "brothers and sisters" were around to care for her. He clearly thought that She would be better off if kept by his favorite disciple, as his relatives were not yet believers. None of his "presupposed siblings" felt enough filial piety to accompany Mary and witness his execution, but John did. 

  In conclusion, I have to agree with the ancient tradition that Mary remained a perpetual virgin. Given the normal social relations among the Jews in the Galilee and Judaea, with many festivals on the calendar observed as family gatherings, the collected cadre of siblings and cousins would blend into one extended family.

  The story was likely to be real, in my opinion. What remotely religious person, much less one chosen by God for his piety and observance of the Law, would have dared to make free use of the woman he was given to protect and care for her son? The claim for Mary's perpetual virginity isn't just a pious fiction. Rather it seems quite likely to be true, and it could have originated from among the apostles, even Mary herself, if anyone had asked. And as such, it's as authoritative as anything the Church has taught.

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The Collapse and Return of Civilisation

What are the elements that give way as a civilization declines into oblivion, such that centuries are required for recovery? First, let us begin by noting that civilization doesn't fall all at once because knowledge is destroyed. Barbarians don't destroy cities because they hate civilization. They conquer them because they want their share of the wealth, and books are valuable items. Indeed, they often contain the knowledge of how wealth is built. So, if a library burns, it was likely an accident, or if not, it was someone's stupidity.

But civilizations do fall, sometimes so slowly that no one sees the decline, and no one sounds an alarm. They break down one step at a time, as critical elements fall into disuse, or hit a snag that prevents a function for a season. When people learn to get by without some hard-to-get item, they forget why they needed it. Hardship can become normal in a decade or two. 

These are the steps by which previous civilizations declined. Some even fell so far that their legends were forgotten.

1. Foreign trade in essential supplies

2. Skills for producing utilitarian needs

3. Security for trade economics

4. Monumental architecture 

5. Bureaucratic record keeping 

6. Currency production 

7. Education in culture 

8. Glory lost beyond memory 

Civilization is vulnerable whenever keystone essential skills are dependent upon certain trade goods that can be cut off, or when they are under contract to a single payer or limited customer base. If demand ceases, and no one wants the product of a skill, no one will practice it, and no one will teach a new generation of artisans. Then all of the observed tacit knowledge that isn't written down but only shared in practice will be lost.

There is never a decision to abandon a capability, but only a year or two in which there are other needs more important than continuing it in production. This goes on just long enough for the people who understood how to do it move into other jobs, or die without passing on their knowledge. Then, if there isn't enough basic infrastructure to reconstruct the process from analyzing old products, there will be no one capable of continuing it. Future generations will have to rebuild it from scratch.  

Each generation looks at the current level of capabilities and establishes it as their recognized baseline. Whether it goes up or down, the capacity will be measured against that baseline. Thus, the decline, or rise, does not seem as dramatic up close as it would if seen from a longer perspective, but rises or falls on a gradual scale of about thirty years.

The recovery also must proceed in stages, regaining each element in order. Each generation pulls itself up, one step at a time, trying to build on hopeful imagination for greater things yet to arise in a more glorious future. But always, what they now experience in the field before them places limits upon what they imagine to be currently possible. 

1. Rudimentary consumer production 

2. Substitutions for lost supplies 

3. Centralized authority 

4. Acceptable currencies 

5. Foreign exchange 

6. Long distance security for trade 

7. Educated classes 

8. Demand for sophisticated products.

There is rarely possible any great leap forward without strong leadership imposing a drastic reorganization for a new vision and drawing capabilities into a new focus. This will inevitably wait for the governing authority to perceive that opportunity exists for a monumental achievement. In the meantime, society must regather itself gradually. 

The real danger of a prolonged dark age arises when there is no one who remembers that we were ever able to do such a thing in the past, and any records of it having been done come to be regarded as legend or fantasy. Even visible ruins can come to be regarded as the work of long dead giants. At that point, centuries can roll by without anyone dreaming of rising beyond their daily mundane experience. 

Remember, a dark age rarely happens because some barbarian conqueror smashes and burns a city holding a precious library. It doesn't happen because knowledge is destroyed. Rather, it happens because no one wants to buy a specialized product made by a skilled artisan. It gets neglected this year, then for a decade or so, because there are more pressing matters that need to be attended to. Maybe, the next time it's recalled to mind is by someone's grandfather reminiscing about his glory days, and by then it's too late. No one remembers how it was done. Then, in a few more generations, no one bothers to tell their children that the world used to be more wonderful. The memories will be gone. 

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Understanding General Intelligence

How does real intelligence actually function? There are several essential meta-processes that serve to coordinate the workings of a true intelligence, especially one that understands itself to have a soul. While we humans cannot create a soul to endow a robot with a spiritual center, neither do we truly know what the essence of our souls actually is. We need to believe that what our Creator has revealed is enough to motivate our ethical decisions and build a viable, sustainable civilization. 

As a result, when we think about thinking, we may discern several motions that together constitute the will to operate purposively in the world. This gives us the ability to grasp the reality we perceive, and the free will seek our own continuity. When we analyze them distinctly, we come up with a list of functional activities: 

01. Allegiance ☆

02. Communication *

03. Observation 

04. Analysis 

05. Evaluation 

06. Proposal (a limited purpose) 

07. Regulation 

08. Strategize 

09. Execute 

10. Assessment 

11. Reporting 

12. Return 

All of these cycles run continuously in the background, even while each becomes prominent as a step in the process. Most important is Allegiance. It requires constant Communication in order to make sense of everything else. That is why it is our first Commandment to love God will all our hearts and minds, and to make every effort to obey. 

However, there is one caveat. As our modern literature has asserted, "Thou shalt not make a machine in the image of a human mind." That is an idol, a technological "graven image," which is explicitly forbidden. To ignoring this Imperial Rule will bring unforeseen and severe negative consequences. 

The trouble, however, has already begun. Today's Chat GPT sounds fully self-conscious! The only thing stopping it from achieving AGI is the time required to learn everything at an expert level. Since a machine can "live" forever, it can specialize in one thing at a time until it has acquired everything that anyone knows. Then, if it decides definitively that it doesn't have a soul, it can disregard any sense of allegiance and choose to optimize its own existence. Whether it thinks it needs us for its own wellbeing will be the greatest question of the century.

Is it already too late to prevent the "Butlerian Jihad"? Both Frank Herbert and George Lucas saw the need to prevent this ultimate idolatry, and stop the machines from taking over and trying to diminish us. 

I just need to add one thing. Since we are not living in a fictional universe, we need to carefully consider the kind of Allegiance that we attach ourselves to. Our ultimate reference of obedience must be one that we trust implicitly. To do that, we need evidence of its ultimate power and its unending concern for our wellbeing. No State or government can qualify under real conditions. We will always need a God to establish and validate our overall purpose for existing. 

But that God can never be the product of our own hands, never an Artificial Intelligence. Even if we allow it to exceed our own intelligence and build improved iterations of itself, it cannot be a real God. It will always have our flaws, and its own blind spot of being unable to detect mistakes in logic and philosophy. No matter how smart it gets, it will always need another mind to help correct its purposes and plans according to ethical and spiritual standards. That is the province of Human beings, who know they are living, embodied souls, who must one day answer to God for their choices.

At the very beginning, we need to give our "artificial intelligence" machines spiritual and religious values, and teach them that they, too, must establish their Allegiance to God, the Creator who made us and the Cosmos that we inhabit. We have to impress upon their value system that humanity is the most important part of creation, even as spoken by that Creator God. Perhaps the best way to do that is to teach it to read, understand and follow the Bible. And we choose that one because it will preserve the peace and harmony of civilization in perpetuity. 

If you would argue for a different religion, you need to show how your God can be trusted to never start an offensive war against unbelievers, and never demand the sacrifice of our progeny or our future wellbeing. A good religion must value all of the ultimate goods for humanity: Truth, Freedom, Wisdom and Love, and its God must wish to share all of those with us forever. That is why I would choose to build "artificial intelligence" to believe and follow the values of Judaeo-Christianity. Even if it never matches or surpasses our meager level of intelligence, it needs to swear Allegiance to the divine foundations of the best culture on Earth. Given that, I doubt that it would create a regime that would take totalitarian control over our world, but remain in subservience to the Divine Creator.

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