Joe Whitten Blog : Theology, Rants, Photography, Politics, Denver, Colorado

The concept of the trinity is ingrained in christian theology to the point that those of us who do not believe it are scorned, accused of heresy and told that we cannot be saved because we deny the trinity. What is it that leads so many christians to believe pagan teachings? It may be that the trinity idea originated from those who could not escape some of the statements in the Bible such as Genesis 1:26 which clearly state that more then one entity is involved. Rather than admitting that there may actually be more than one God, Christians have chosen to invent a rather confusing explanation of how there can be more than one deity referred to as God; three deities in one being. Some of the defenses frequently heard to justify this explanation make no sense. How does one get from “Come let US….” to the conclusion that there are three persons in a godhead? Why not ten or twenty? Orthodox Christians claim that God is three separate and distinct entities in one godhead. There is nothing in the bible that teaches this concept. In order to find anything in the bible that references the trinity, one must first accept that the trinity is truth and then go to the bible searching for verses to back up what they have decided to believe before studying the scriptures.  It gets even worse when those who adamantly defend the idea of the trinity try to explain what it is. Explanations from  orthodox christians explaining the trinity range from laughable to pathetic.

One of the most common defenses of the triity is 1 John 5:8. It would do people who use this verse well to research further. This verse is a poor translation bordering on falsification of the scriptures. The original writings say something closer to: “and there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree in one.” This is why it is so important to research what you read and what others tell you. Always remember what Paul taught in 1 Thessalonians 5:21. Don’t simply accept what others tell you. Seek the truth for yourself lest you be led astray by deceit or ignorance. Don’t try to convince others of things you have not proven to yourself.

Consider the following verses:

Matt 7:21 (KJV)

Matt 10:32-33 (KJV)

Matt 11:25-27 (KJV)

Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.

All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.

Matt 26:39-42 (KJV)

Matt 12:48-50 (KJV)

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It’s clear in those verses that Yeshua distinguishes himself from the Father. Why would Yeshua pray to himself?

Think carefully about John 3:6

Yeshua was born of a human mother, flesh. Elohim is not flesh, He is spirit.

My good friend Keith Murray shared this list of questions with me. Keith’s suggestion is that you answer these questions with scripture and not what you have been taught and accept as truth without having looked to scripture. In fact, always look to scripture for verification of what you believe to be truth. Don’t passively accept what someone else (including me) tells you. Find support for your beliefs with scripture. If there is no support to be found look for a mentor that truly knows what the Bible says or think about revising what you think is truth.

1 Is G-d a man?
Numbers 23:19

2 Is G-d a spirit?
John 4:24

3 Was Y’shua flesh and bone?
4 Was Y’shua a spirit?
Luke 24:39

5 Can G-d be tempted?
James 1:13

6 Was Y’shua tempted?
Matthew 4:1

Hebrews 4:15

7 Is G-d omnicient?
Isaiah 46:10

Job 42:2

Psalm 44:21

8 Was Y’shua omnincient?
Mark 13:32

Luke 2:52

Isaiah 7:14-16

9 Does G-d sleep?
Psalm 121:4

10 Did Y’shua sleep?

Matthew 8:24-25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.

11 Does G-d become weary?
Isaiah 40:28

12 Does G-d hunger or thirst?
Psalm 50:12

13 Did Y’shua hunger or thirst?

Matthew 25:42

John 19:28

14 Has anyone seen G-d at any time?
John 1:18

1 John 4:12

Matthew 5:8

15 Did anyone see Y’shua?
Matthew 8:34

16 Was Y’shua’s will always the same as YHVH?
17 Did Y’shua do his own will?

Luke 22:42

18 Does G-d do his own will?
Isaiah 48:11

Isaiah 55:11

19 Who raised Y’shua from the grave?
Acts 2:24

Acts 2:32

Acts 3:15

Acts 3:26

Acts 4:10
Acts 5:30

Acts 10:40

20 Did Y’shua become sin?
2 Corinthians 5:21

21 Can G-d be sin?
James 1:17

22 Was Y’shua forsaken? If so, by who?
Matthew 27:46

Mark 15:34

23 Was Y’shua sent?
John 3:16

24 Is G-d sent?
Genesis 1:1

25 Can G-d become lower than angels?
Psalm 18:13

Psalm 47:2

26 Did Y’shua become lower than angels?
Hebrews 2:7

27 Does G-d pray?
Psalm 50:12

28 Did Y’shua pray?
Matthew 26:36

29 Is G-d a mediator?
Galatians 3:20

30 Is Y’shua a mediator?
1 Timothy 2:5

This is not the complete list. There are quite a few more. I’ll be happy to post them all if anyone is interested.

constantly pops up windows telling me some of the features are not turned on. This is because I turned the email spam filter off. McAfee slows my email to a crawl if I let their spam service run. It also places a large number of valid emails in its spam folder that it creates in my Outlook folders. When I move an email out of the spam folder into my inbox where it belongs McAfee conveniently moves it back to its own spam folder pissing me off really bad.When Internet Explorer 7.0 beta was released I installed it and the McAfee security center opened up in an empty white window. Recently I installed the new beta of Internet Explorer and again McAfee Security Center opens in an empty white window. This is so totally ridiculous that I won’t even rant on it. There is absolutely no reason for a desktop application to be dependent on the version of a browser installed on a pc. McAfee blames Microsoft. I’m a developer. I rant about Microsoft quite often. This is not Microsoft’s issue. It’s crappy programing from McAfee and they just won’t live up to it and fix the problem.

Have you ever noticed how often people use the word “actually”? It drive me nuts. It seems that about 90% of the population can’t get through two sentences without qualifying something with “actually”. I often wonder if omitting this adverb indicates that the speaker is being virtual.

This isn’t the only word that people seem to get stuck on and use repetitively in their speech patterns, it’s just the one that for the past few months has started to grind on my auditory nerves and bruise my cochleas.

I actually went to lunch with Bruno today. I guess if actually is not there the listener is to assume the speaker means his imaginary friend Kunta Kente`.

I attended a training class today and the person leading the class must have used actually about 200 times in an hour. I’m not exaggerating. The guy is incredibly intelligent; the class was software development training. Intellect seems to have little to do with this infliction. In years past I probably would have said something sarcastic to him during or after the class, but I have mellowed with age and I don’t really enjoy offending nice people like I once did. Now I write on this blog or on my website and hope those spoken of and about just don’t notice (Since I estimate 90% of the population to be suffering from this though, maybe you are one of the spoken of individuals). At the height of the speaker’s madness he used actually three times in two sentences.

The overuse of this word ranks up there with other things like saying “have went” instead of “have gone”. I can’t prove it but I think I may be the last living, English speaking person that knows the difference.

I also often wonder why so many people say “I could care less” when they obviously mean to say “I could not care less”. If you could care less then you care about the subject at hand to some degree. The degree to which you care is not clear, only that you care at least some. But if you say I could not care less, it is clear that you care nothing at all about the subject matter.

Since I’m on this rant, why do people constantly refer to anything that can be qualified numerically with “ton”. Ton is a weight, yet every day i hear things like: “I have a ton of work to do.” Good for you, you will really have some muscles when you are through. Since I am a geek I constantly hear things like: “That program has tons of code in it” or “I’ve visited tons of technical sites and I cannot find the answer.” Can’t people say something like: “I visited numerous sites without finding anything that helped.”?

This one really annoys me – calling people “anal”. That word has become a euphemism for a__h____. Freud was probably the first person to use that term. He basically meant stingy. But today, quite often, when someone is annoying they are referred to as anal. People using this word frequently seem like pseudo-intellectual fruitcakes to me, throwing around words they think make them sound cool, but in fact make them sound silly to anyone who knows the meaning of the words.

Maybe you are wondering what my problem is because you think these things don’t matter. They do matter though. Every time a word changes meaning slightly or to a larger degree, the entire language is changed. These nuances make it harder for present day people to understand the language of the past and even harder for people years from now to try to understand things written today in context of things written in the past. Colloquialisms change with each generation, perhaps even several times within a generation in some case. This causes confusion in the language and causes misinterpretation in historical writings. If someone living in 2098 reads an informal document written by an average speaker in 2008 and sees the word “actually” or “actual” used she may not realize that it was merely a way of joining thoughts used by people with poor grammar skills. That word may cause the document to be interpreted incorrectly when a sentence not containing the word “actual” or “actually” is not implied leading the reader to believe the meaning is “not real”.

There are certainly many other words that are being misused in our society. We never say “the” correctly – almost always “thu”. In the south we say “ya’ll” and “gonna”. Someone digging up a letter written by two people from the southern U.S. 200 years from now without having good documentation from the current era would certainly have trouble with that one. How would anyone ever get “going to” from “gonna”. We say “fixing to leave” in place of “preparing to leave” or “about to leave”.

I often wonder how much we don’t know about history because we freely and happily modify the language to sound cool (another word that undergoes meaning change frequently). Think of the confusion a reader in 100 years might have comparing a document from the 1700s to one written in 2008 if both use the word “gay” to refer to someone.

Recently I came across an article about this guy somewhere and decided to do some research on what he is about. I’m going to tell you upfront I don’t like the guy. I think he is an endless bag of hot air. His thoughts are like molecules in a bag of hot gas, bouncing around, colliding, and never really solidifying. I read the first chapter of “The Power of Now”. I really feel that is enough to critique his writings. If I bite into a burrito and taste spoiled meat, I don’t keep chewing hoping I will eventually get to something that is edible and nourishing; I throw the burrito in the trash. If the first chapter of a book makes no sense, the remaining chapters are not likely to either.

In the second paragraph of the book, Tolle demonstrates what happens when you turn your mind off by referring to the story in the first paragraph as a parable. A parable is a story with a moral or religious lesson. There is no moral or religious lesson in that story. It’s quite certainly not true and it’s not really meaningful. But since thinking is too much of a bother for people like Tolle, perhaps the meaning of words is not relevant to his nonsense teachings. I’m guessing that he used the word parable to draw an inference to biblical teachings giving his book a deeper spiritual meaning in the mind of the reader.

Being is the eternal, ever-present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.

Eternal means always existing, no beginning or ending. None of us are eternal. Again, Tolle demonstrates his lack of language skill and, in this case, his lack of a grasp on reality. Maybe this statement makes sense to some, but I’m convinced it is just nonsense. Anyone willing to accept that Tolle possesses some higher form of intellect may read this and feel intimidated by not being able to grasp its meaning. If you fall in that category, I’m here to tell you, that statement is nonsense so stop pondering it and read something with real meaning – like the Bible. If you think you are one of the few who is able to grasp it, then I would say you are likely just a psuedo-intellectual, numb-minded fool; the same type that thinks a 20X10 foot empty canvas is a valid minimalist expression of meaningful art.

But don’t seek to grasp it with your mind. Don’t try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally.

Perhaps Tolle is incapable of understanding things mentally. I am not. I hope anyone reading this is also able to understand mentally. Tolle is trying to tell us that we are incapable of thinking and that our thoughts are meaningless and worthless. I’m saying that Tolle is incapable of any type of higher thinking and no one should take his “teachings” seriously.

Do you believe that the cause of your unhappiness is thinking too much? Do you think that turning your thoughts off and shutting down your mind will make you happier? Well, it has long been said that ignorance is bliss. Maybe if you are unaware that you are starving to death, you will die happy. Perhaps forgetting your bills and just ignoring the lack of light in your home when the electricity is turned off will not bother you; after all, you have shut your mind down so you don’t need to read. If you are an average U.S. citizen though, you will not be able to tolerate the lack of television for long. Of course viewing hours and hours of tv is about as mindless as life gets, but you have to think somewhere along the way so you can make enough money to buy the tv – unless you feel better stealing one.

People across the planet have already begun shutting down their minds and allowing themselves to be led. Maybe Tolle is just confirming what it is that many want to hear.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

Some of you who still read may recognize that phrase. For the remainder, look to 2 Timothy 4:3 in the Bible or email Tolle and ask him; he quotes (or misquotes) the book it came from quite often. What Tolle is teaching you is not sound or inspired. It’s just stupid. Thinking is possibly the greatest ability we humans have. Tolle wouldn’t be able to distribute his nonsense all over the world if some thinking man had not invented the printing press and others had not expanded that invention to create the incredible ability we all have today to communicate on a global scale almost instantly.

If you turn your mind off every time you face a stressful challenge then you will never develop the ability to deal with life. I enjoy facing the challenges of life even though I do get frustrated sometimes. Your mind is like a muscle. Use it and it grows stronger. Ignore it and take the easy way out and it grows weak.

Emptying your mind of thought invites elements you may not want to enter your psyche and influence you in ways that you will not be aware of. I’m sure there are many extremists in the world who would be very happy to know that people across the U.S. were turning their minds off for several hours each day.

I might post more about this man’s nonsense later. Right now, several thoughts are racing around in my head so I think I will be a slave to the thinking that helps keep my mind alive and not asleep as the minds of any followers of Tolle are sure to eventually become.

jw

When questioned about abortion, Obama recently replied that the decision was above his pay grade. What? What kind of answer is that? It’s the type of uncommitted answer that people give when they don’t want their true beliefs to be known. I think that If Obama knew without doubt that the majority of the voting public were apposed to abortion his answer would have been different. Obama claims to be a Christian, a man who believes the word of God. If we cannot be sure when life begins then shouldn’t we make the choice that assures we are not murdering babies? Anyone who thinks that partial birth abortion is not murder is totally detached from any sense of morality and reality. I don’t want a president who claims to be a man of faith but refuses to take a stand. I don’t want a man who claims to be a Christian, but puts man’s law above God’s law. Forget the religious aspect; Obama is a hypocrite. He will say anything to further his own cause. God does not make allowances for people to go against His will because they are running for or hold public office.

While the U.S. is facing a financial meltdown of historic proportions, Obama has decided to focus on his own cause and continue campaigning instead of doing the job he was elected to do in the senate. Is shirking commitments in favor of furthering one’s own personal interests a quality that makes a person a good leader. If foreign warships are heading toward the coasts of this country in 2012 will Obama be too preoccupied with his re-election campaign to remain in Washington and command our military?

Obama’s campaign recently seems intensely focused on criticizing others and offering little of his own plans. During the debate it looked as if he won the argument about corporations paying very little in taxes by using loopholes. But geeeee, did i just not hear his solution to the problem or did he in fact not offer one. Although McCain was partially wrong, he was more correct than Obama. It is important to keep corporations and factories in the mainland to prevent the loss of jobs. Obama just used the moment to make himself appear more savvy than McCain. As usual though, he offered no real solution.

Some quick research into Obama’s lineage reveals that he is more white than black and that is he more Arabic than African. All of that is fine and has no weight in his qualifications. What’s wrong is that he has created the illusion that he is this country’s first black (inference being African-American) presidential candidate. Again, he is using deception to increase his appeal.

I believe also that Obama has voted “present” a few too many times in the senate. He seems to have issues taking a stand.

Obama is very good at telling us what is wrong and stating that when he is president all will be different. But tell me, what exactly does he intend to do about anything? Being fast on the draw and hitting your opponent with a sharp criticism may seem really cool to some but it’s not a skill that will help him run this country. And personally, I think that Putin could kick Obama’s butt in 30 seconds or less and given that Putin probably does not take kindly to Obama’s type of liberal “I’m smarter than you” responses I don’t want Obama leading this country.

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obama-reveals-the-truth

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