Reversing civic illiteracy

 

Reversing civic illiteracy

A recent article[1], by Timothy S. Goeglein, on “civic illiteracy” suggests a swamp of controversial history and motivated me to binge-read companion articles. I think readers have slim chance to pursue goodness, because many writers unintentionally skirt the topic – writers often fail literacy. Goodness necessitates writing with precise, accurate, and deep word usage, which is difficult for both writer and reader. In fact, I won’t let any author bind me to their “civic” or their “illiteracy”. It’s a matter of freedom in grammar, word usage, and thus thought.

Civic literacy

Few people would consider Goelglein’s suggestion, “civic literacy”, as I reverse and use it: awareness-of how-to pursue necessary goodness in living, both individually and collectively. My view stems from global slogans like “live and let live” and “do the right thing” – necessarily practicing goodness rather than accommodating badness and tolerating evil. Civic citizens may and can constrain bad actors and eradicate evil villains. With civic intentions, the reliably responsible individual neither initiates nor tolerates harm to or from anyone and aids civility and governance, in order to pursue statutory justice. A civic society continually discovers injustice and amends unjust laws. Goodness is necessary, in order to pursue justice. Neither divinity nor government can usurp humankind’s duty to pursue necessary justice.

The civic citizen’s greatest power is reliable responsibility against harm. Yet individual pursuit of goodness may be repressed by local badness, such as war, even while humankind steadily discovers and practices goodness. Personal goodness may and can accelerate, even when temporal badness represses society. Yet humankind continually pursues goodness, intending to prevail over badness and not tolerate evil.

The role of physics and its progeny

                The laws of physics, especially conservation of energy and economic viability, drive three types of civil behavior: independent, dependent, and villainous. Dependents, such as sloths and criminals rely on civic citizens, and villains terrorize the other two groups. Both elected and appointed government officials necessarily collaborate to constrain if not eradicate evil villainy, so that society may operate. In short, the able and the willing citizens collaborate to constrain the evil actors. Civic illiteracy, then, is personal and collective failure to pursue economically achievable necessary goodness.

                Guidance regarding how to pursue necessary goodness on earth may and can be sought in the reports and consequences of human development plus application of recent discoveries. Discovery is lame, even harmful, if unapplied. Consequences of human choice do not yield to reports about happenings. For example, the United States accepted its Civil War of 1861, in order to accelerate humankind’s march toward responsible independence to every inhabitant of earth. The world neglects this gift so that slavery can still be practiced.

I think three factors dominate civic literacy: most human-beings feel yet do not articulate that necessary goodness is a self-interest; nations compete over The God or none; and the United States republic remains promising to the civic world.

Motivation and inspiration

Powerful as they are, the laws of physics may be meaningless to the person who has not discovered, trusted, and committed-to human being (verb). The human-being practices, facilitates, and encourages civic integrity. The alternatives are mineral (nothingness), vegetable (consumption), animal (self-satisfaction), spirit (mystery), and villain (intentional harm).

These options bemuse the individual, because many laws of physics have not been discovered. At any moment in time, an array of persons do not accept some laws. Both unknowns and personal arrogance against physics sustain a continuum of human behaviors from pursuit of perfect goodness to evil.

Among Homo sapiens, there are only two viable types: female and male. The female’s body generates eggs (ova) and a male may inseminate a viable egg to produce an embryo. Gestation and delivery of a healthy infant gives opportunity for a human-being to develop. Ovum, embryo, or infant may be subjugated by the female and male who conceived the baby.

Authentic females choose reliable males, and together, they produce offspring to receive the couple’s care for life unto grandchildren and further descendants. Suffering the mistakes of their parents, children develop better parenting practices and debate their elders about the changes. Thereby, mistakes do not make traditions. Each generation may and can retain past good practices and establish improvements, so that successive generations may accelerate necessary goodness. Authentic single people do all they can to aid development and maintenance of children unto mature adulthood.

It takes a quarter century for the human body to develop the wisdom-building parts of the brain, and the aware person spends their first quarter century acquiring the knowledge and intentions to pursue human being (v).  Choosing a mate for life before comprehension and intention were acquired creates risk to personal success. Time is unforgiving and the person who does not discover and adopt these principles risks erroneous choices. When the choice of necessary goodness is not obvious to an actor, waiting is often the better choice.

Discovering and ruling-to goodness

                Goodness and badness existed from the beginning -- before the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago. A sequence had to happen: the earth had to form, bipeds had to emerge, and Homo sapiens had to dominate human-being. Homo sapiens developed during more than 200,000 years, and they seem distinguished by a brain with rapid, capacious neurons and synapses so as to utilize an exponentially increasing flow of information and decision making. Only human-being may and can discover goodness as justice and no one knows if a new mutation will be required for the discovery.

                The invention of grammar, more than 10 thousand years ago empowered Homo sapiens to negotiate treaties. The Code of Hammurabi, nearly 4 thousand years old, divided inhabitants according to 4 practices: goodness, civic dependency, badness, or evil. Civic citizens collaborated to aid the dependents, reform bad actors, and constrain/eradicate evil people. But “eye for eye” rule rendered offending citizens dependent, lessening economic viably. Physics demanded revision to republicanism – constitutional law with intentions to statutory justice.

                Some nations improved republicanism. And 237 years ago, framers and signers published the religion-free 1787 United States Constitution. Its amend-ability and intentions empower “ourselves and our Posterity” to pursue statutory justice. The intentions are stated in its preamble, and every citizen should earn their view. Mine, today, is, “The civic faction, We the People of the United States, facilitate and practice 6 public pursuits — integrity, justice, safety, strength, prosperity, and responsibility, “in order to” pursue necessary goodness “to ourselves and our Posterity”.  

Religious primitives to Judeo-Christian monotheisms

In primitive Mesopotamia, there were 3,600 gods[2] compared to 4,200[3] religions today. The Code of Hammurabi resulted from socio-political innovations by Sumerian kings and their divinity schools during the period 10 thousand to 4 thousand years ago, when the Babylonians conquered Sumer. The polytheistic Sumerians also conducted research in physics and progeny with exemplary success, for example, inventing irrigation and fertilization of the land. Their city-state treaties became codes of law. They pursued civic goodness, for example, civil aid to widows and orphans. Eventually, societies took responsibility to educate their youth.

Soon, competitive monotheism began to dominate socio-political trends.[4] Also, the nearby Greek civilization proposed human being (verb) by the 5^th century BC.[5]

Semitic-speaking people in Ur departed to escape human blood and body sacrifice for worship to various gods. They left to prefer animal/ fowl killing in idol worship.

A branch of Semitic-speakers developed Judaism, with non-human blood sacrifice, tradition, and continuous development of the law. Israel developed as separate branches of descendants, who controversially worshiped Yahweh, yet divided over observance of the law. A faction predicted a descendant of King David would be anointed to unite the tribes as a nation (ostensibly to civic earth’s benefit). They discontinued blood sacrifice when the Romans destroyed the 2^nd temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE and continued to pursue necessary goodness. 

A faction of Jews thought Yeshua of 2 thousand year-ago Nazareth was the anointed one from David and projected him onto Jewish literature and Yahweh tradition, constructing the miracle-worker now called “Jesus”. Attention to Jesus lessens Yeshua’s civic influence to humankind, since Homo sapiens cannot raise their dead. In 50 CE, Paul declared himself apostle to the pagans, who objected to male circumcision, which Yeshua suffered at age 8. Paul’s ministry created “Christ”, whose blood and body were sacrificed to redeem elected souls rather than to encourage civic living. Christianity canonized The Trinity to compete with Yahweh. In this review, I mentioned 5 divinities: Yahweh, Yeshua, Jesus, Christ, and The Trinity. It attests to insufficient humility toward The God – whatever constrains the consequences of human choice. I have not addressed the Holy Ghost, which may span Judeo-Christianity. I accept the importance of these 5 divinities and more, while encouraging everyone to consider Yeshua’s civic influence to necessary goodness.

Education critical to humankind

The Holy Bible collects thoughts of Homo sapiens in Mesopotamia, preserved from the past millennia. Genesis 1:26-28, 3,500 years old, segues from Mesopotamian polytheism to a monotheism, yet suggests that only humankind may and can rule to necessary goodness on earth. The advent of competitive monotheism bemused humankind’s pursuit of goodness by persuading factions in city-states to believe their god would eventually relieve their descendants of the ancestor’s pain and suffering. Kings employed military commanders and religious priests to persuade the people to look to higher power for salvation from physics and its mysteries. Slogans like “our god is more powerful than your god” bemused the people to ignore the Genesis 1:26-28 directive to constrain chaos in their individual and collective ways of living. Parents taught children tradition, thereby preserving the good with the bad and accommodating evil. The chaos the world suffers in 2024 can be stopped through personal intention to acquire comprehension and intention to pursue human being (verb).

Every individual may consider the division of Homo sapiens according to personal choice to either pursue necessary goodness or settle for less. A more detailed grouping includes the following:

1.       Civic citizens

2.       Collaborative citizens who

a.       Are willing yet lack capability for civic wholeness and integrity

b.       Or are not now applying capability

c.       Or are lazy

3.       Citizens who actively cheat yet have potential for reform

a.       Some game well-fare assistance

b.       Some practice crime

4.       There are habitual criminals

5.       Some are evil villains

Fellow citizens in groups 1 through 3 may and can collaborate to either constrain or eradicate people in groups 4 and 5 under constitutional statutory justice.

                The lack of rule to necessary goodness in the world suggests radical change, in order to constrain the chaos. It seems no longer can the individual assume governments can pursue necessary goodness. And no longer can humankind hope that “our God” will relieve posterity of erroneous practices. Females and males worldwide may and can rule the earth to necessary goodness. 

Recent affirmation of humanity

                The precocious political philosopher from 2000 year-ago Nazareth affirmed Genesis 1:26-28 – humankind may and can rule to necessary goodness on earth. The framers and signers of the religion-free 1789 United States Constitution affirmed Genesis 1:26-28. James Madison had no clue when he imposed freedom of religion to Congress at the expense of the people, authoring the First Amendment.

                The information age facilitated by the Internet makes it possible for anyone to entertain themselves by becoming an authority on James Madison’s controversies. He authored both “Memorial and Remonstrance” and the religion clauses Congress included in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clauses grant Congress freedom of religion at the expense of the civic faction of We the People of the United States. It is up to the people to reform this tyranny.

Conclusion

Anyone who dreams of order among Homo sapiens, rather than division we behold in October 2024, may and can imagine teaching youth and adults to pursue human being (verb). Rather than ponder controversial Madisonian American history, youth may leave K-12 education with their own interpretation of the preamble to the United States Constitution. My view is that the civic faction of We the People of the United States use integrity, justice, safety, strength, prosperity, and responsibility, “in order to” pursue necessary goodness “to ourselves and our Posterity”. The actions of a civic people accommodate the pursuit of perfection that is suggested in Genesis 1:26-28.

 

Copyright©2024 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. 

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[1] Civic Illiteracy Is a Danger to Us All | The Epoch Times

[2] Online at https://www.worldhistory.org/Mesopotamian_Religion/

[3] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religions_and_spiritual_traditions

[4] Online at monotheism summary | Britannica.

[5] Online at https://theconversation.com/the-long-walk-from-civilised-and-barbaric-to-a-new-world-view-81110

Common-sense humility to the God

Common-sense humility to the God

It seems to me that part of pursuing human being (verb) is acceptance and appreciation that something constrains the consequences of human action. So far, humankind has not discovered what that entity is, so it can be regarded as a mystery. Traditionally believers label it “God” or equivalent, partially, because the ideal or the good is insufficiently discerned and because divinity dominates the world we know. Many theists erroneously label unbelievers atheists, ignoring the possibility that the unbeliever is humble to the God. An unintended consequence is that theists commit to and trust-in their God, not realizing they could retain humility to the God, or the entity that is actually, really in control. A person need not yield hopes and comforts in their God, in order to maintain humility to the God and appreciation to civic unbelievers. “Civic” refers to responsibility to neither initiate nor accommodate harm to-or-from any person or to-or-from any harmless God.

                I think “ourselves and our Posterity” at University Baptist Church- UBC may and can choose to pursue the God, mysterious as that entity may be, because most UBC members demonstrate the ability to appreciate diverse personal Gods held by fellow citizens – are open-minded and moreover, openhearted.

In addition to humility to the God, I perceive two necessities, if this dream will facilitate an achievable better future to UBC, to its community, to Baton Rouge, to Louisiana, to the United States, and beyond. The necessities are: acceptance of human responsibility and awareness of the representative political philosopher – acceptance of the God’s will and of Yeshua’s civic influence. The civic acceptances may and can be indirect.

Humankind’s responsibilities

                Before Homo sapiens emerged, some 200 thousand years ago (tya), there was no political philosophy. Homo sapiens developed languages. Grammar, coming perhaps 10 tya, empowered organization of diverse language-groups under political philosophies. Successive kings in Sumer civilization created law codes to organize civic culture for the good to inhabitants. The political development culminated in the Code of Hammurabi, the work of a conquering king. The Sumerian philosophy dispersed and expanded.

Semitic-speaking people in Mesopotamia summarized Sumerian-essential political philosophy in Genesis 1:26-28: the God wills that humankind pursue order to the earth – rule on earth. Accepting and executing that duty as stated, in the God’s image, is not easy. People may pursue the good rather than the bad or the evil -- light rather than darkness (Genesis 1:1). The people may discover the laws of physics and progeny and discern how to pursue positive benefits. They may persevere without standards, because discovery improves understanding the good. Sometimes the essential discovery is a new instrument for perceiving the laws of physics. Perseverance to the good is the awareness-force in the positive application of physics.

                Human conflict rather than collaboration is illustrated after Genesis 1 -- in the rest of the Bible, from Genesis 2:4 through Revelations 22. The God of Genesis 1 is portrayed as the Jews’ Jehovah then Paul’s Trinity, both competing with awareness and discovery. John 1:1 seems to equate Yeshua to the God. Each person may and can choose their God-of-comfort-and-hope yet remain humble to the God as the individual pursues understanding. The challenge to accept the opportunity to pursue human being (verb) is renewed to each newborn human and to their generation.

Humankind’s chief political philosopher

                Also emerging from Mesopotamia is awareness of political philosopher Yeshua, born to Jewish parents in the Nazareth of 2 tya -- an Aramaic-speaking village of about 200 people. Due to Yeshua’s civic understanding and consequential public impact, some thought him the anointed descendant of King David -- anointed to unite the 12 tribes of Israel. About 300 years later, the Greek “Χρισμένος”, for anointed one, became Latin “Christou” and in another 1100 years “Ιησούς” evolved to “Jesus”. Yet these are 3 separate entities: Yeshua, the reforming person; Jesus, the reported miracle worker; and Christ, divinity’s political victim and savior of mysterious souls. The civic citizen may and can appreciate fellow citizens regardless of their sentiments toward each Yeshua, Jesus, Christ, and Jesus Christ, because they accept personal responsibility according to Genesis 1:26-28. Appreciation and humility to the God unites believers and non-believers. Civic integrity unites people who pursue the good, people who need constraint to reform, and villains who invite termination.

                Today, about 15 million Jews think Yeshua only a political philosopher; 300 thousand Messianic Jews believe Yeshua was anointed to unite Israel; some of 2.7 billion Christians think Jesus represents their God and a major faction thinks Christ saves mysterious souls; and perhaps 7.2 billion readers/listeners appreciate one or more of the three entities: Yeshua, Jesus, or Christ. I guess 0.8 billion people have never heard of any of the 3 entities. My appreciation for Yeshua’s civic influence may not be widely shared, but I do not know.

An Opportunity

                Yeshua is a unique political philosopher. Only Yeshua affirmed Genesis 1:26-28’s message:  On earth, humankind is responsible to the good. Moreover, Yeshua informed us, in Matthew 5:48, that we may pursue perfection in the God’s image, low as present comprehension may be to the individual or to humankind. Perfection-possibility applies to each individual in their time, to each generation, and to humankind. Perfection-pursuit is essential, because the God will not change humankind’s failures and successes (Matthew 18:18). Praying for a God, divinity, or government to usurp humankind’s responsibility is futile.

Since Yeshua did not write, we can pursue his philosophy with 3 tools. First, we can trust that Yeshua intends the good and if something seems bad, withhold action until the good intention is discovered. Second, we can trust that every word of the Holy Bible is pertinent to human being (verb) even though a particular passage may seem to express the bad or even evil. Third, we can accept the responsibility, the power, and the authority to the good that is willed to each of us and to our collaboration, as stated in Genesis 1:26-28. If an idea does not reflect common sense, we are obligated to pursue understanding before taking even necessary action. That is, if the good is not evident and there is no necessity, don’t act unless survival requires taking the risk to act.

An example may convey the idea. In Matthew 10:5-14, Complete Jewish Bible (1998), Yeshua commissions twelve emissaries to Israel, as follows:

Don’t go into the territory of the Goyim, and don’t enter any town in Shomron, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Isra’el. As you go, proclaim, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is near,’ heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those afflicted with tzara’at, expel demons. You have received without paying, so give without asking payment. Don’t take money in your belts, no gold, no silver, no copper; and for the trip don’t take a pack, an extra shirt, shoes or a walking stick — a worker should be given what he needs. When you come to a town or village, look for someone trustworthy and stay with him until you leave. When you enter someone’s household, say, ‘Shalom aleikhem!’ If the home deserves it, let your shalom rest on it; if not, let your shalom return to you. But if the people of a house or town will not welcome you or listen to you, leave it and shake its dust from your feet!

This literal message seems negative. We can trust that it exists of necessity to the good and wait for a positive interpretation. Pastor Eric Fulcher helped me wonder if leaving dust was a metaphor for leaving ideas, like planting seeds. Until I learn better, I consider the point of this passage to be: if a fellow citizen is stubborn, neither try to force them to listen nor allow their attitude to oppress you. The message itself will eventually appeal to the citizen’s pursuit of the good. (Some of the villages the emissaries visited practiced sacrificing the firstborn male to feed the fire.)

                Facing Israel’s bid to have the magistrate execute him, Yeshua expressed his purpose, “The reason I have been born, the reason I have come into the world, is to bear witness to the truth. Every one who belongs to the truth listens to me.” (John 18:37)

Conclusion

                It seems essential to pursue Yeshua’s civic influence, in order to pursue perfect living in private, within groups, and as humankind. The miraculous Jesus may aid some people to have courage against the unknowns. The salvation of mysterious soul may inspire some people to persevere. To the unbelieving civic citizen, the good sustains self-interest for life, whereas the bad is temporal, and evil is terminal. A civic culture encourages, facilitates, and empowers human being (verb).

                The group that can better the above ideas may flourish in this world, which has diverged at the hands of divinity failing to reserve sufficient humility to the God.

PRB, 7/24/2024

Copyright©2024 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. 

Humankind’s Lost Sheep: Divinity School

 Humankind’s Lost Sheep: Divinity School

 

Note to the reader

This essay has footnotes for clarity and endnotes to support opinion, in order to touch the time, space, and flow I would address. I read and write to learn, then dream of reader-comments toward an achievable better future to humankind. To touch that stream isn’t easy.

 

I attempt to address human psychology impacting 90% and motivating 1/3 of humankind -- the professed believers among Holy Bible readers. I cannot address the other 2/3 of humankind, because I have scant experience and observations beyond my own way of living.

 

Readers who conclude that I dream that civic humankind will accept responsibility, power, and authority to rule the earth to the good to “ourselves and our Posterity” will be positioned to suggest how to proceed. I am listening.

 

Preface

During my lifetime and beginning my 82^nd year, humankind’s division seems furtively acute. I think it is because humankind has, so far, neglected personal duty to pursue psychological order to the earth. We plan a colony in space yet quietly accommodate war in our own friendships. Order ends with discovery-of and benefit-from the laws of both physics and psychology -- the laws. Psychological order begins with educating youth to pursue human being (verb).[1] We have no idea how responsible, powerful, and authoritative humankind may and can be. I think competitive divinity schools could collaborate. Our generation has the opportunity to discover what human being (verb) means.

 

Introduction

Humankind, Homo sapiens, is informed by the laws of physics and nudged by primitive literature, like Genesis 1:26-28, that neither their creator (whatever it is,) nor a government will/can usurp human being (verb). Quoting the passage, in the Complete Jewish Bible, CJB (1998),[2] with my emphasis,

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in the likeness of ourselves; and let them rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the animals, and over all the earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the earth.”

So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.

God blessed them: God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth.”

In other words, each human-being and their civic[3] collective is in charge of order on earth.

Divinity originators gloss over the fact that this passage began in the law codes and treaties generated by Sumer’s succession of kings from 5500 years ago to 4000 years ago. “God” in this passage seems the creator of the universe, perceived as the visible earth, the heavens, and the waters below. From Genesis 2:4, Yahweh seems to have a representative, Adonai, who speaks to Adam and Noah and later to leaders of Semitic-speaking people then Israel, who developed Hebrew and Aramaic. Yeshua[4] spoke Aramaic but did not write.

Institutions routinely construct divine doctrine that keeps civic citizens isolated. Civic differs from civil in that individuals voluntarily pursue and aid happiness, neither initiating nor accommodating harm to or from any person or society. Civic integrity pursues psychological order. Divinity coerces people to satisfaction that their God requires their acquiescence – choice is not an option. For example, to err is human; we are all sinners. However, Genesis 1:26-28 informs that we may and can choose to provide order rather than accept chaos.

I think a minority in each generation of Homo sapiens empowers an achievable better future. And pursuit of mutual happiness can and may emerge in my lifetime. What’s new to humankind is the Internet, which empowers free speech. The villains of the world recognize this and are doing all they can to preserve and control division grounded in belief. Belief is the pursuit of mystery despite research and discovery. Divinity schools veil belief as power-to-know without evidence. The semantic consequence is babel among believers.

The civic minority is constrained by worry that the majority will-not, cannot collaborate to overcome established semantics – in other words, undo the belief babel. Belief is entrenched in societies, and the civic minority perceives their life too short for them to facilitate reform. Unlocking the semantics could -- would empower reform to human being (verb) rather than impose false hope and belief.[5] The various claims that human being (verb) pursues the bad rather than the good can be undone by reforming education, especially divinity schools.[i] Homo sapiens may and can accept the responsibility, the power, and the authority to discover and beneficially apply to the good the laws of physics and of psychology.

Due to variations in the laws of physics and its progeny, such as biology and psychology, there may always be both bad actors and evil villains. Therefore, something needs to unlock mutual appreciation among people of good intentions and collaborative behavior on earth. Perhaps cause-no-harm[ii] is a psychological law rather than mere civic appreciation. Maybe the laws of physics plus human intentions to cause no harm comprise the law that guides human being (verb). An evolutionary example from divinity schools might express this concept.

Among the harmful psychologies competitive monotheism created, Christianity’s the Eucharist and its competition, Remembrance, passionately divert 1/3 of humankind from the self-interest to not cause harm in their way of living. What Christians believe becomes more important than how civil neighbors live. The controversial salvation of mysterious soul bemuses pursuit of life. Divinity schools rationalize mystery rather than physics and may and can choose to reform.

Widespread consideration to civic influence from Jesus, né Yeshua[6] could defeat Christian competition for favor in afterdeath and establish human psychology to the good during life. If so, reform is possible through churches educating adults and youth to pursue human being (verb). Believers in any of some 45,000 Christian sects[iii] or denominations[iv] including Messianic Judaism may and can choose to neither cause nor accommodate harm yet still pursue private hope and comfort in their God. Human being (verb) can simultaneously apply physics and behold mystery.

On the other hand, Flannery O’Connor uniquely, generously pursued yet neither imagined nor articulated “the ineluctable truth”.[7] O’Connor boldly used the word “violence” to express her truth: the Eucharist. I think she knew the audience would recoil from violence. Shock empowered her fiction. Alas, I cannot ask her: why violence? I can only write, speak, and act to assuage naked passion, because it causes harm and suggest that Yeshua’s civic influence proffers relief. I hope O’Connor, although deceased, may agree she is a friend of mine.

 

Background

Yeshua, humankind’s principal political philosopher to the good, [v] has only potential influence, because his name has been untraceably abused by competition among monotheists. Divinity scholars advise, 0ur-God will beat your-God, regardless of the-God. By “the God” I mean whatever constrains the consequences of human choices rather than divinity phantasms, for example, Jesus the redeemer or Christ of Yeshua’s resurrection. Humankind’s pivotal political philosopher is Yeshua the Nazarene. He was born 2000 years ago, at the recent edge of Homo sapiens developing grammar. Grammar was essential to start writing law codes 10 thousand years ago[vi], in order to pursue political power.

 

The God’s political philosopher?

Globally, perhaps 90% of inhabitants are aware of some variation of the ancient Greek transliteration, “Iēsoûs”, which came from “Yeshua”. And 2630 million (m) [vii] of 8020 m people believe in “Jesus”, a 500 year-old competitive name. A small faction, 15.7 m [viii] recognize Yeshua as the name his Nazarene-Jewish family used 2000 years ago. But only 2.3% [ix] of Jews claim Yeshua was the Messiah to Jews. [Some people call “Messianic Jews” Christians. [x] It’s complicated: I would ask the believer what to call her or him. [xi]] Does anyone call you by another name, say Jack Sprat even if you are female, and try to make it stick? Divinity schools impose division on otherwise civic people.

In review, while perhaps 90% of global inhabitants know of Jesus, only 32.8% believe in Jesus (the controversial Christian entity), 0.2% accept Yeshua as teacher/rabbi but not as Messiah, and 0.004% believe Yeshua was the Jewish Messiah, who would, in a second coming, unite to one nation the 12 districts of Israel. Israel exists and many Jews still await their Messiah.[xii] How small is the micro-minority who pursue Yeshua’s civic influence to humankind to accept the duty to rule on earth in the God’s image? Am I alone? I don’t think so, but don’t know.

Since the Messiah was to unite Israel, Messiah-to-serve-Gentiles stretches the monotheistic competition that divides Judeo-Christianity if not humankind. I suggest a transitory political expression, Jesus, né Yeshua (Jesus born Yeshua), in order to accelerate discovery, acceptance, and appreciation to Yeshua[xiii] and the civic good he proposed for acceptance by humankind. That is, Yeshua did not advocate human being (verb) merely to offend either humble theologians, or civic leaders, or their mutual collaboration but to fulfill humankind’s purpose on earth: to pursue order to the good. In Yeshua’s civic influence, believers do not belittle non-believers and vice-versa. However, divinity schools partner with governments to grow their institutions, dividing humankind.[xiv]

Between “Jesus” and “Yeshua” there are many civil and religious issues -- state and church competitions-- that make “Yeshua” a matter of entity more than of name. He was born the historical Yeshua[xv], biblically a descendant of both King David and of prophetic speculation[xvi]: an anointed king would establish a nation. But as Yeshua emerged in adulthood, affirming Genesis 1 more than Genesis 2[8], improving the Torah, embarrassing the Chief Rabbinate[xvii], and shaming[xviii] the magistrate, he received injustice like Socrates suffered under the men of Athens.[xix] The legislatively powerless Rabbinate convinced the Roman magistrate to execute civilly innocent Yeshua. That Jesus and Yeshua are different entities is demonstrated in a debate, both by the presenters and the audience. At 91 minutes into the debate, the rabbi says, “I don’t [say] ‘Yeshua’, because that is Judaizing of Christianity”.[xx] I do not assert that I know the entity Yeshua:  It’s simply the entity I appreciatively trust and commit to, in order to protect myself from divinity schools, ancient or new.

 

Missionary or exploiter?

Three years after Yeshua’s execution, Paul, a Jew and trained as perfectionist for Torah, which I deem civic guidance intended to constrain error in living, appointed himself ambassador to the Gentiles. A civic citizen can easily perceive that extending successful coercion from a small community to an exponentially larger one is politically astute. Paul preached that three blessings[xxi] favored non-Jews in eternal afterdeath. No Jewish divinity school ever proposed afterdeath. Five years later, Matthew 28:19 codified belief in The Trinity[xxii], “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”. Divinity made Paul’s 3 blessings a triune[9] coercion that obscures if not dismisses Yeshua’s civic influence.

Paul’s triune legacy proffers mysterious eternal life to God-elected soul phantoms. No one ever proved souls exist, yet people believe Paul in order to ignore Yeshua’s civic influence, especially encouragement to accept Genesis 1:26-28, even to perfection. Instead, the antinomian believer hopes for favorable afterdeath by the precious blood of Christ. What travesty! I prefer humility to the God and pursuit of Yeshua’s civic influence.

A most arrogant person, Paul, only 3 years after Yeshua’s execution, challenged the Jewish title “Messiah”, which divinity developed into “Christ” -- Messiah to the Jews would be Christ to the Gentiles. These are divinely constructed entities, rather than mere competitions with Yeshua’s person. Paul developed his politics for 14 more years, continually encountering Gentile opposition to male circumcision. (That’s right: female mutilation[xxiii] did not matter to Biblical divinity!)

Therefore, in 50 CE, in Jerusalem, Paul appealed to a fledgling group of diverse Messianic Jews, bishop-ed by Yeshua’s brother, James. Others present were John with elders and Peter. These few Jews represented neither the rabbinate nor Yeshua’s influence to the good, with the possible exception of James.[10] The group privately compromised, in order to allow Gentiles to pursue a factional Yahweh[xxiv] on 4 abstentions: abstain “from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication”. [xxv] That seems like a group plus one. Most Jews, Israel, did not think Yeshua was the Messiah, so the compromise was not from an Israeli council. Note the abstention from blood, because blood calls to mind the Eucharist, Remembrance, and risk of infectious disease, including STDs yet is essential to the divinity of Christ if not Jesus.

The representatives at the Council of Jerusalem, 50 CE, are traditionally regarded as the founders of Christianity, and subsequently divinity scholars called Paul “the apostle” even though he was not of the twelve Yeshua chose. However, Acts 15 shows that each party, all Jews, had divisive opinions respecting Judaism, the Torah, Yeshua’s execution, circumcision, Messiah, Gentiles, and Israel. Neither Jesus nor Christ had been thought of. Since then, the divinity divide exacerbated exponentially.

 

Ending blood sacrifice

            Did Yeshua suggest consumption of blood and flesh? Or did the laws of physics convince Jews, earlier than Gentiles, to avoid blood contact, let alone consumption? Did the 50 CE Jerusalem council’s’ set of 4 abstentions reflect blood borne STDs before medical technology caught up with human experience? Did the Roman destruction of the second temple in 70 CE consolidate Jewish thinking about blood sacrifice? Were Gentiles unaware-of or insensitive-to Israel terminating blood sacrifice in 70 CE? Did Israel regard Yeshua’s execution the end of blood sacrifice?

 

Evolution to human being (verb) and appreciating blood-functions

            We know not where human being (verb) is going nor where civic integrity has been. Homo  sapiens began emerging maybe a million years ago, dominated hominids perhaps 200 thousand years ago, eliminated cross breeding perhaps 15 thousand years ago, and invented grammar with which to record city-state negotiations and develop law codes 10 thousand years ago.

            Trial by error is, and was in primitive times, a useful research method. Trials with unknown toxins encourage avoidance of the associated consumption or practice. For example, sexual promiscuity always risked STD. It’s not difficult to affirm ancient logic about the power of blood and modern faulty experiments with it as medicine.[xxvi] Yet even now, some people toy with blood-ingestion. Noah’s 4 thousand year-old covenant prohibited blood-ingestion, and that ancient directive carried forward through Acts 15 (after Yeshua’s execution). [xxvii] Is there evidence Homo sapiens was vaguely aware of STDs 10,000 years ago? Maybe so. What about drinking Yeshua’s blood?

In 70 CE and later, other Jewish writers[xxviii] mimicked Paul’s dubious report that Yeshua broke bread and poured wine to symbolize distribution of his life to the 11 apostles plus the one who had betrayed him. Paul’s divinity claim is in 1 Corinthians 11:23-29:

For what I received from the Lord is just what I passed on to you — that the Lord Yeshua, on the night he was betrayed, took bread; and after he had made the b’rakhah he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this as a memorial to me”; likewise also the cup after the meal, saying, “This cup is the New Covenant effected by my blood; do this, as often as you drink it, as a memorial to me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes.

Therefore, whoever eats the Lord’s bread or drinks the Lord’s cup in an unworthy manner will be guilty of desecrating the body and blood of the Lord! So let a person examine himself first, and then he may eat of the bread and drink from the cup; for a person who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself. This is why many among you are weak and sick, and some have died! 

I cannot discern receipts “from the Lord” or quotation of “the Lord Yeshua” from Paul’s rationalizations and do not accept this Passover story. It refutes the message since Noah that blood is not to be consumed. It claims that ceremonial error ruins the physical Lord. It invites self-judgement, which I refuse to practice. The consumer cheated if they did not proclaim a second coming.

Yeshua improved Moses law, the Torah, without refuting physics. Paul boasted of the authority to construct a new covenant. Paul witnessed against Yeshua, in my opinion.

 

Research informs that blood is a hazardous mixture

Research brought medical care up to date with Biblical exclusion of ingesting blood and beyond, launching Infectious Disease as a licensed practice in 1972, 52 years ago. We know that “arteries, veins and capillaries . . . carry blood [containing plasma] throughout your body.” [Plasma delivers] oxygen, proteins and other nutrients [and collects] debris like damaged and cancerous cells, bacteria and viruses. Lymph nodes [initiate cleanup for return to the bloodstream].” [xxix]^{, [xxx], [xxxi]} Modern practice is to avoid direct contact with blood. I can neither ceremonially pretend to risk blood borne toxins nor preserve an ancient, misguided practice. Nor can I encourage others to follow beliefs that defy physics; I can only preserve believers’ civic privacy provided they cause no evidence of harm.

Paul’s opinion about Messianic body and blood have no standing respecting pursuit of Yeshua’s civic influence to the good on earth. I am comfortable being neither elect nor antinomian. I do not know enough to claim preference yet cannot deny serene acceptance that I am not elect. I am comfortable that Cynthia[11] is elect and know she is civic. I would neither modify nor pacify my most precious gift: I accept Cynthia’s person.

 

Semitic-speaking ancestors hoping to persuade the God

            In Sumerian Ur, a polytheistic civilization, diverse groups used sacrifices to worship polytheistic gods, such as fire, including blood-sacrifice and body-sacrifice, even humans were killed for presentation to the fire. Sometimes, the victim was dissected, and select parts were burned so that the smoke would please the god in heaven or enhance the fire.[xxxii] It seems some groups believed that fire is a cleansing god. Some dissected body-parts were consumed by priests who were desperate for protein.[xxxiii]

Bible writers confuse theistic backgrounds, using careless brevity. For example, quoting, Genesis 11:28, “Haran died before his father Terach in the land where he was born, in Ur of the Kasdim”. There is ancient, literary evidence that Terach, Abraham’s father, left Ur, because his son Haran was politically sacrificed in the fire. [xxxiv] The king or competitor would disprove Abraham’s divinity. Abraham’s father, Terach, may have moved family, entourage, and property to escape human sacrifice to the fire. In a new land, Abraham continued animal, fowl, and grain sacrifices practiced in Ur.[xxxv] Sacrificing domestic animals was not cheap. Perhaps Abraham initiated monotheism,[xxxvi] yet he did not found divinity school.[xxxvii]^{, [xxxviii]}

 

Semitic descendants

Semitic descendants, the ancient Jews, Abraham’s descendants through Isaac and Jacob, developed elaborate ceremonies to humble themselves to Yahweh, including annual sprinkling of blood on the altar. The development covered hundreds of years, in lands where factions still practiced human sacrifice to the fire, [xxxix] three generations after Isaac’s intended murder under Abraham’s knife. [12]

However, Israel stopped blood sacrifice after Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 CE, 4 decades after Yeshua was executed. “The emerging rabbinic community declared that Torah study, prayer, and acts of loving-kindness would replace sacrifices.” [xl] This illustrates that development of human being (verb) continues after authorization of the Tanakh in the 10^th century CE[xli] and updating in 1917![xlii] Factional Jews progress.

“In modern Judaism, the only rite that requires the shedding of blood is the circumcision of newborn males.”[xliii] Many people object to circumcision on the basis of physics; some prefer male-body wholeness. Yeshua was circumcised: Luke 2:21 CJB, “On the eighth day, when it was time for his b’rit-milah, he was given the name Yeshua.”

 

Unfortunately, Holy Bible competition obfuscates Yeshua’s civic influence

Yeshua, a Semite and a Jew, reared in Nazareth during a difficult political time, promoted constraint to the bad in order to perfect the good. Was Yeshua a civic citizen, a precocious-Jewish political-philosopher, the Messiah, The Cross, a divinity, the sacrifice, or something else? Was Yeshua a monotheist, like Abraham? Or a Trinitarian? Did Yeshua’s blood matter? Was Yeshua merely a beneficial Jewish political philosopher whom divinity entrepreneurs obfuscate? [xliv]

Divinity thrives on belief. A minor Jewish faction hopes Yeshua will return to unite the 12 tribes. A larger society neglects Yeshua to promote Jesus, and a faction hopes Christ redeems Trinity-elected souls. Those factions have abundant sub-groups. It has even been suggested that Yeshua wanted to be sacrificed in order to save the Jews from the Romans.[xlv] But Yeshua influences successive generations to continually, continuously pursue civic integrity.

Did Yeshua suggest consumption of blood and flesh, or is it time to set personally-constructed competitive-ceremony aside? Can civic citizens pursue Yeshua’s civic influence without intending to?

 

Lifetime experiences and observations respecting the Eucharist

Divinity scholars assign Yeshua to the political underground so severely that civic citizens in successive generations are unlikely to discover his civic influence. They suppress innovators, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, who praised Jesus’ human example.

I agree with Emerson: ministers ought not promote ritual consumption of body and blood, even with bread and wine substitutes. Pretending/attempting to rebuke physics feels wrong to me and thus opposes my intentions: perseverance to the good by appreciating the physical and psychological[xlvi]^{, [xlvii]} laws.

In his adult public-emergence, Yeshua invitingly asked, “What are you looking for?”[xlviii] Happily to me, French-Catholic Cynthia privately prays in plain sight to the mysterious God-and-Jesus, pursuing comfort against the unknown. Borrowing words from Leon Russell, she taught me precious secrets of appreciation, withholding nothing. I am better because Cynthia is my friend.[xlix]

Flannery O’Connor, who died in 1964, violently promoted the Catholic Eucharist, never discovering, at least not promoting, Yeshua’s civic influence. I regret only the word “violence” in my appreciation to O’Connor, another civic god who faced death.[13]

 

O’Connor “violence” and the ineluctable truth

O’Connor’s art thrives. For example, a biographical film, “Wildcat” was released in 2023. Selected letters, some to Catholic priests, are in the 2019 book, Good Things Out of Nazareth. (A chance to turn commerce on its head by promoting Yeshua’s civic influence.) In Mystery and Manners, 1957, O’Connor explains her art: faith in the Catholic Church.

 

My family experience with divinity

I somewhat understand Catholicism.

As a protestant father, I served my Baptist church. Roles I liked best were Sunday-school student, choir member, chauffer in the church van pool, usher, assistant to children’s Sunday school, Family Enrichment Committee member then leader, donor, and good-will participant. I never wanted to be a deacon and rejected my maternal ancestors’ hope that I’d become a preacher.

I also worshipped with my French-Catholic family, on Saturdays or on Sunday evenings. Reading the catechism, I neither wanted nor took the Eucharist. Mom and Dad had convinced me that my relationship with the Trinity is direct: I am not to trust the church – any church. Scarce chance for me to be caught in Jim Jones’ 1978 web.[l] Unfortunately, my parents neither addressed divinity schools nor recommended comparative-religions study. (Modern European countries and former colonies are in angst over Religious Education.[li] Apparently the struggle between the Church and Lutheranism preserves division of humankind in Europe.)

After 20 years with internal religious distinctions, I longed to ceremonially unite with my family of five, without compromising integrity to the God[14] I perceive. I assume the God knows my thoughts and nourishes my civic intentions to appreciate each person’s privacy.

I asked a favor of a beloved priest. Monsignor Stanley Ott explained and held that priest and parishioners, in liturgical prayer, produce Christ’s-body-and-blood for personal-consumption. In that practice, both the priest and the parishioners stand between the Trinity and me. I prefer humility to the God rather than to the Church: Ott said he loved the Church too much to compromise its civility (rules). He decided we should meet privately no more. Ott seemed too civil to the Church to be civic to a fellow human being.

Happily, if not fortunately, Dad, Emerson, and Thomas Paine convinced me to trust my opinion when someone disagrees, especially regarding Jesus, né Yeshua’s civic influence. Dad, in civic integrity, regarded many Bible passages as mysteries. When stumped by a passage, he’d say, “I don’t know the truth.” Unlike Paine, Dad did not end up seeming un-civic.

My family’s psychological diversity did not compete with Msgr. Ott’s Church dogma. I think divine dogma is mistaken. Transubstantiation detracts from Yeshua’s affirmation that humans are gods/judges facing death and are charged to pursue the good to the earth.

Appreciating the God’s will that humankind may and can rule in the God’s image, institutions that divide civic people are like the lost sheep in Yeshua’s parable of 99 in the flock.[lii] Let me repeat that. Institutions that do not pursue order to the earth, as suggested in Genesis 1:26-28, are the metaphorical lost sheep among humankind. Divinity schools work to preserve and advance their dogma. It is not too late for them to reform, in order to aid humankind to accept its civic duty on earth.

Our teenaged children, at UBC[liii] by my request, stopped taking Remembrance after I read Herschel Hobbs’ opinion[liv]:  Only believers-who-chose-baptism-by-submersion are invited-to the Lord’s Supper. I think Yeshua’s civic image opposes Hobbs.

 

Civic Emerson opposed divinity

O’Connor condemned[lv] Unitarian Minister Ralph Waldo Emerson for urging Remembrance without bread and wine.[lvi] Emerson was serenely sincere in his opinion and consequently resigned ministry at Second Church of Boston, [lvii] then a Unitarian congregation.[lviii] Harvard Divinity School recognized Emerson decades after his world renown.[lix]

He has been my friend since youth, when I first read, in the mid 1950s, “Self-Reliance”. And reading “Divinity School Address”, in the late 1990s, I thought: at last, my opinion aligns with another person. I express 2 regrets: first, I did not read “Divinity” before fathering our Catholic family and second, Emerson had not discovered and written about Yeshua’s civic influence. Emerson could have cited, for example, Matthew 19:4-5, “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and that he said, ‘For this reason a man should leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two are to become one flesh’?^”. I was not aware of this passage when I married Cynthia and am fortunate that we lived its principles.

 

Violent truth?

O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners, Pages 82-83, got my attention. I quote, with my emphasis, as follows:

 

The artist uses his reason to discover an answering reason in everything he sees. For him, to be reasonable is to find in the object, in the situation, in the sequence, the spirit which makes it itself. This is not an easy or simple thing to do. It is to intrude upon the timeless, and that is only done by the violence of a single minded respect for the truth.

 

I recoil, perceiving O’Connor presented self-reliant perseverance as violence. The ineluctable truth yields to neither violence nor to personal truth and demands humility. Bishop Baron happily, glowingly recounts O’Connor-violence to her-truth: “Well, if [the Eucharist] is a symbol, I say, to hell with it.” [lx]

Whether spoken, written, or quoted, verbal violence stuns me. Yet I appreciate O’Connor’s quest for ineluctability, which requires triune evidence: unavoidable, unchangeable, and irresistible.[lxi] The ineluctable truth yields to neither opinion, nor to reason, nor to divinity schools. O’Connor’s “reason” cannot “discover [the God] which makes itself”.

 

Can divinity pursue Yeshua’s civic influence?

I think both Emerson and O’Connor pursued, yet neither one discovered, appreciation-for Yeshua of Nazareth’s civic integrity. So far, neither writer’s art unites the Church or overcomes divinity school innovation against physics. I think UBC pursues happiness to joy for humankind rather than to selected believers, so may and can lead church reform then divinity reform. It requires accepting that the laws[lxii] hold humankind responsible for order to the earth.

 

Conclusion

            Considering the number or religious denominations, sects, and philosophies in the world, it is no wonder humankind is divided. Glows there a spark that could excite the civic faction to pursue order on earth? Perhaps it is appreciation to the laws more than to either the good or the God, a mystery. We can accept the God but may not define it. What about children? Can intention to educate them to pursue human being (verb) ignite adult reform? Can adults discover and commit-to self-satisfaction in doing all they can to help children?

            One of humankind’s courageous proponents to the good on earth is Yeshua, born in Nazareth 2000 years ago. About 1/3 of the world’s inhabitants place their hopes and comfort in Jesus’ blood. It is such a passionate belief it seems uncivil to question it. However, scholarship seems to inform that the statement “whoever disowns me before others I will disown before my Father in heaven”, came from Yeshua[lxiii] rather than either from Jesus or from Christ. Further, Matthew 18:4 reports that Yeshua said, “the greatest [adult is] whoever makes himself as humble as this child”. What if ignoring Yeshua’s humility assures chaos on earth?

In my life, I gained perseverance from the God, a mystery, and guidance to the good from Yeshua, talking to the people he met. Happily, I earned these two opinions enough to articulate them, during recent months after I returned to UBC.

Also, in writing this essay, I improved my opinion that the 1787 U.S. Constitution, only 237 years old, intends the civic faction, We the People of the United States, to pursue “to ourselves and our Posterity”, the laws of statutory justice rather than of judicial precedent. About 12 prior generations left to “ourselves and our Posterity” the opportunity to establish and maintain the United States’ constitutionally stated intentions. The United States would pursue laws that conform to both physics and to human being (verb). This can be presented in another essay.

Opinions more civic than mine may and can be used to educate youth to pursue human being (verb). I seem to be in the smallest minority yet do not doubt the power of civic acceleration.

 

Epilog

            Some readers may think it strange that I would grant one writer, Flannery O’Connor, importance to me (despite her mystery of “violence”), on par with one of the writers featured in the Bible. I left UBC (and Christianity) in 1994, telling Pastor George Haile that I could never discover Phil Beaver if I continued church isolation. All the books and articles I read and civic dialogues since then aided discovery that Yeshua’s civic influence always protected me from divinity school competition. Yeshua’s modern integrity emerges when two civic people transparently share and work to resolve heartfelt concerns and commitments.

 

Acknowledgements

 

Briefly, I would not have written this without 4 recent encouragements. Co-pastor Tanya Parks, UBC, asked for 2-minute book reviews to share at a monthly luncheon for seniors and agreed to hear my talk on Flannery O’Connor’s “Mystery and Manners”, a non-fiction book posthumously published. Second, Jerry Trahan read the script for the talk and asked what I meant. Third, O’Connor’s posthumous friendship deepened as I tried to address Jerry’s question. Underlying these events is the mutual search comprehend the God’s message that is led by Kenneth Tipton’s Sunday school class, the Nomads.

 

PRB, 7/5/2024, updated 7/11/2024

 

Copyright©2024 by Phillip R. Beaver. All rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted for the publication of all or portions of this paper as long as this complete copyright notice is included. 

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[1] “Human” is adjunct to the verb “being”. Human being (verb) expresses both the perfect behavior each person may choose during life and the ultimate good humankind may and can achieve to the earth and any extensions. There is no excuse for teaching youth that their natural tendency is to choose the bad or accommodate evil.

[2] Ron Perritt kindly aided my choice of CJB or NIV, for the word “rule” rather than alternate interpretations.

[3] “Civic” expresses voluntary reliable-responsibility to the good in connections and transactions on earth and its extensions. Civility responds to rules, law, or force.

[4] Yeshua is the person born to Yosef and Miryam 2000 years ago in the town of Natzeret, population 200.

[5] Matthew 22:37-39 commends love to Adonai and to neighbor. Human-beings may choose to appreciate both the mystery of the God and innocent fellow citizens. By innocent I mean not pretentious even though bad or evil.

[6] Born Yeshua.

[7] “Ineluctable” means triune (three in one) unavoidable, unchangeable, and irresistible (Merriam-Webster online).

[8] Matthew 5:48 “Therefore, be perfect [in the image of Genesis 1’s God].

[9] Triune: consisting of three parts, members, or aspects.

[10] James seemed to accept Yeshua’s encouragement to pursue perfection. James 3:2, “Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.”

[11] My wife of 54 years and mother to our 3 children.

 

[12] Genesis 22:10, “Then Avraham . . . took the knife to kill his son.”

[13] Psalm 82:6-7, “You are elohim [gods, judges] . . . you will die like mortals.”

[14] I don’t know the God. Perhaps it’s whatever constrains the consequences of human choices. Or the ultimate good humankind may and can achieve. Or the responsibility, power, and authority that initiated the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. I perceive no one has imagined what that entity is. Even “the God knows” seems a risky articulation.

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[i] Online example at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPQBt1pZ2B7Gk4IjB_T4doi1R1gJSdtZL. Two wonderful scholars generously share with listeners, yet each protects a dogma rather than collaborates to facilitate human being (verb).

[ii] Agathon, in his speech, informed me of the power of appreciation: it neither initiates nor accommodates harm to or from anyone or any god. See in Plato’s “Symposium”, online at Symposium, by Plato (gutenberg.org).

[iii] Online at https://www.livescience.com/christianity-denominations.html.

[iv] Online at https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members.

[v] Albert Einstein is another of humankind’s unrecognized political philosophers. See “The Laws of Science and The Laws of Ethics” at https://www.samharris.org/blog/my-friend-einstein.

[vi] Online at https://www.britannica.com/topic/cuneiform-law.

[vii] Online at https://research.lifeway.com/2024/01/22/8-encouraging-trends-in-global-christianity-for-2024/.

[viii] Online at https://www.jewishagency.org/jewish-population-rises-to-15-7-million-worldwide-in-2023/.

[ix] Online at Jews for Judaism | How many messianic Jews are there?

[x] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism.

[xi] Messianic Judaism is divided by semantics. For example, one body of believers seems to assert that Yeshua is Abraham’s Jewish branch Messiah; http://www.cbyjanesville.org/what-is-messianic-judaism-1.html.

[xii] Online at https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1912115/jewish/Do-the-Jewish-People-Still-Expect-a-Messiah.htm and again at https://www.foi.org/2020/05/01/what-is-the-jewish-view-of-the-messiah/. There was a recent US conference of “Messianic Jews and Israel loving Christians; see https://mjaa.org/messiah2024/.

[xiii] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeshua.

[xiv] Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter XI, online at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232-h/1232-h.htm#chap11.

[xv] Online at https://jewishjournal.com/culture/180539/.

[xvi] Online at https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/cgg/ID/22047/Prophetic-Speculations.htm.

[xvii] The rabbinate no longer exists in the United States. See https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/fema_faith-communities_jewish-leaders_1.pdf. See also https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/fema_faith-communities_protestant-leaders_1.pdf, https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/fema_faith-communities_roman-catholic-leaders_1.pdf .

[xviii] Online at https://www.history.com/news/why-pontius-pilate-executed-jesus.

[xix] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Socrates.

[xx] Online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_oCkfe4ivQ&t=2674s.

[xxi] 2 Corinthians 13:14, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

[xxii] Converting Paul’s heartfelt wish into grounds for a triune God illustrates the art of semantic imposition. Capitalized, Triune is a synonym for “Trinity”, “the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead according to Christian dogma.” The dogma would impose divinity on the Pauline hope, in order to promote competitive monotheism. The tactical construct cannot distract me from the God, whatever it is.

[xxiii] Online at https://www.bbc.com/news/world-47131052.

[xxiv] Online at https://www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh.

[xxv] Online at https://www.britannica.com/event/Council-of-Jerusalem and Acts 15:29.

[xxvi] Online at The Strange Endurance of Consuming Human Blood for Our Health - Gastro Obscura (atlasobscura.com).

[xxvii] Online at God’s Word on the Sanctity of Blood - EARLY CHRISTIAN BELIEFS.

[xxviii] See each Mark 14:22-26 (70 CE), Matthew 24:17-30 (60 CE), and Luke 22:7-20 (80 CE). John 13-17 (100 CE) omits the distribution of bread and wine. All except John may have been trying to fulfill ancient beliefs in Exodus 24:8 and Jeremiah 31:31: blood for a new covenant. Perhaps John alone published after news that that Jews ended blood sacrifices as a consequence of the second-temple destruction in 70 CE.

[xxix] Online at https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/25209-lymph.

[xxx] Online at https://biologydictionary.net/blood.

[xxxi] Online at Lymphatic Vessel Network Structure and Physiology - PMC (nih.gov).

[xxxii] Online at https://www.wordonfire.org/articles/how-should-we-understand-old-testament-human-sacrifice/. Strangely, the author does not cover Abraham’s descendent sacrificing his son; see note 29, below.

[xxxiii] Leviticus 7:31, “make the fat go up in smoke on the altar, but the breast will belong to Aharon and his descendants”; Leviticus 7:34,” From the fellowship offerings of the Israelites, I have taken the breast that is waved and the thigh that is presented and have given them to Aaron the priest and his sons as their perpetual share from the Israelites.”; Deuteronomy 18:3, “This is the share due the priests from the people who sacrifice a bull or a sheep: the shoulder, the internal organs and the meat from the head”.; 1 Samuel 2:14, “Whatever the fork brought up the priest would take for himself”.

[xxxiv] Online at https://www.thetorah.com/article/why-the-midrash-has-abraham-thrown-into-nimrods-furnace. [Note: this midrash includes an interesting debate about progeny of physics being hierarchical gods.]

[xxxv] Genesis 15:8-11, ““Adonai answered him, ‘Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a dove and a young pigeon.’ He brought him all these, cut the animals in two and placed the pieces opposite each other; but he didn’t cut the birds in half. Birds of prey swooped down on the carcasses, but Avram drove them away.”

[xxxvi] Retaining polytheism might have facilitated civic integrity rather than the chaos of monotheism. For example, once humankind discovered that the sun is a natural nuclear reactor, there was no incentive to choose a Sun god. However, it is difficult to dissuade believers in the Trinity, for example. It seems more difficult to dispel mystery than to resolve myth.

[xxxvii] Online at https://ancientspast.com/history-of-the-first-known-god-uncovering-the-ancient-origins/.

[xxxviii] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism, “Shamanic practices may originate as early as the Paleolithic, predating all organized religions.”

[xxxix] 2 Kings 21:6, “M’nasheh , , , made his son pass through the fire [as a sacrifice].” [Note: Manasseh’s sacrifice was his son’s murder, in the 3^rd generation after Abraham.]

[xl] Online at https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Projects/Reln91/Sacrifice/sacpage2.htm#.

[xli] Online at Hebrew Bible - Wikipedia.

[xlii] Online at Jewish Publication Society of America Version - Wikipedia.

[xliii] Online at https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Projects/Reln91/Sacrifice/sacpage2.htm#.

[xliv] Pastoral abuse accuser Cindy Clemishire expresses church-suppressed-Jesus (like Yeshua) at about 15 minutes of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eHjs4dCiD0. Likewise, I wish to form civic church rather than destroy trust and commitment.

[xlv] Online at https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2019-09-28/ty-article-magazine/.premium/the-jews-arent-to-blame-for-jesus-death-a-bible-scholar-asserts/0000017f-e2ec-d9aa-afff-fbfc1e000000.

[xlvi] Online at https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/the-laws-of-physics-in-ux-what-can-we-be-taught-by-cartoons-and-video-games-304f37563a68.

[xlvii] Online at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22616-y.

[xlviii] John 1:38.

[xlix] Poetic reference to Psalm 82:6-7, “My decree is: ‘You are elohim [gods, judges], sons of the Most High all of you.  Nevertheless, you will die like mortals”. Yeshua referenced “you are gods” in John 10:34.
like any prince, you will fall.’”

[l] Online at Mass suicide at Jonestown | November 18, 1978 | HISTORY.

[li] Online at https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/secular-power-swedish-schools-joseph-ballan. Note, Ballan seems civic in early divinity-school influence.

[lii] Luke 15:1-7 CJB, “The tax-collectors and sinners kept gathering around to hear Yeshua, and the P’rushim and Torah-teachers kept grumbling. “This fellow,” they said, “welcomes sinners — he even eats with them!” So he told them this parable: “If one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, doesn’t he leave the other ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? When he does find it, he joyfully hoists it onto his shoulders; and when he gets home, he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Come, celebrate with me, because I have found my lost sheep!’ I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who turns to God from his sins than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to repent.” [Note, CJB’s “This fellow” to me seems warm compared to NIV’s “This man” and is typical of many rewards of reading CJB. NIV feels like imposition of a construct rather than collaboration for the ineluctable truth.]

[liii] University Baptist Church, Baton Rouge Louisiana.

[liv] Herschel Hobbs, What Baptists Believe, 1964.

[lv] Mystery and Manners, page 161-2.

[lvi] Online at https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/lordsupper.html. Quoting, “[T]he Almighty God was pleased to qualify and send forth a man to teach men that they must serve him with the heart; that only that life was religious which was thoroughly good; that sacrifice was smoke, and forms were shadows”, September 9, 1832. Emerson resigned as Unitarian minister, 2^nd Church of Boston, October, 1832.

[lvii] Online at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Church,_Boston.

[lviii] Online at https://www.uua.org/re/tapestry/adults/river/workshop13/178793.shtml.

[lix] Online at https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/02/when-religion-turned-inward.

[lx] Online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgo0ONxWiWk

[lxi] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ineluctable

[lxii] “The laws” refers to the object of human being (verb), which in this essay emerges as intentions to benefit from the laws of physics, a purpose that constrains each individual, each group, each nation, and humankind.

[lxiii] Matthew 10:33, Complete Jewish Bible (1998). I wonder if readers of this version of the Holy Bible are split between people who believe Yeshua is Messiah only to Jews and those who think him Messiah to humankind. I accept judgment by the God and pursue civic integrity by engaging fellow citizens to consider Yeshua’s reported speech regarding heartfelt concerns.