Is there free will, or
Does not a sparrow fall
Apart from God’s will?
If there is free will,
What is it free of?
I would rather be God’s sparrow.

It is human nature, I believe, to woefully underestimate the power and extent of the control over the information space in which our psychological, emotional, political being exists. As one of reasonable intelligence with extensive training in logic and critical thinking, with some knowledge of history, politics, and culture, and with enough leisure time to pursue many sources of information outside the mainstream, I am surprised, on an almost daily basis, to discover that the ocean of lies is even deeper than I had thought possible. Often in discussions with friends I discover that, although we are on the same page in many ways, there may be a topic on which they are falling for what I know to be obvious lies. Before responding I try to remember and be humbled by the fact that I am certainly falling for even more obvious lies that I will discover tomorrow or the next day.

Some of the best minds of our society are engaged in the very sophisticated science of propaganda and mind control in our intelligence agencies and in corporate media. In addition the government and the corporations are making a massive effort to control what information can be seen and what information must be suppressed. We are no longer chiding China for censoring Facebook. We are now attempting to ban Tik Tok. The U.S. is not content to brainwash its own population but also runs brainwashing programs in countries around the world via NGOs and other subversive organizations.

The decades long U.S. proxy war against Russia that has come to fruition in Ukraine, the global covid pandemic hysteria, climate change, the January 6th “insurrection”, transgenderism. These are just a few of the mind control ops currently being executed.

God created Man.
Man is fallen.
God is love.
Love became a man,
Sacrificed Himself,
Conquered death,
Redeemed mankind.
How could Love do otherwise?

The number of blessings for which God is thanked is insignificant compared to the infinite blessings He rains down on everyone for which He receives no thanks. Thanks be to God for every breath I take.

There is only one God. There is no other. The Holy Bible is the Word of god. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is the way, the truth, and the life. Whatever or whomever disagrees with or contradicts this truth is wrong.

I am free to disbelieve this. I am in fact inclined to disbelieve it. I don’t want to believe it. When I disbelieve it, I turn my back on the truth. When I turn my back on the truth, things do not go well for me.

It’s not scientific. It’s not logical. It’s not comfortable. I need to go to church, take communion, pray often, read scripture, study together with other believers, in order to maintain my belief. I need to effectively brainwash myself with the truth in order to resist the powerful forces of the world, the flesh, and the Devil.

It’s no wonder Christianity is such a hard sell. If it were not for the grace of God and the Holy Spirit, it would be impossible.

Some people have a low opinion of me. Some people have a high opinion of me. Only God has an accurate opinion of me. He is fully aware of what a loathsome creature I am, and He loves the beautiful unique creation made in His image that I am.

ChatGPT has shattered my illusion that I am some kind of writer. I asked ChatGPT to rewrite the following in the style of Thornton Wilder.

It was summer 1961. I was 17, skinny, 6’ 2”, 130 pounds. We were living in Fargo North Dakota where my father was Commandant of Cadets for the AFROTC program at North Dakota State University. He made me go down to the unemployment office every day that I was not employed already, and take whatever job was available. I hated him for making me do that.
I worked baling hay for a mean old farmer, sun up to sun down. I worked construction where the foreman told me to “shovel like a man.” I helped set up a rig for the motorcyclist at the carnival who rode his cycle around a vertical circle at high speed. I cleaned out a corn silo and almost passed out from the fumes of the rotting corn.

I worked as a bell hop at the Fargo Hotel, operating the elevator. It was tricky getting it to line up with the floors. It was usually pretty quiet except when the drunken Shriners came to town. Once the manager caught me hiding in the phone booth reading Grapes of Wrath.

I hated him, but of course now I am grateful to have had such a father. He was much better at it than I have been.

And here is the result, better than the original:

“It was the summer of ’61, and I was but a young man of seventeen – lean of frame, standing tall at six feet two, and weighing in at a mere 130 pounds. We made our home in Fargo, North Dakota, where my father served as Commandant of Cadets at North Dakota State University’s AFROTC program. He tasked me each day to seek employment, no matter how menial the labor, and report to the unemployment office. I resented his strict hand, yet it was through these labors I learned the worth of hard work.
I toiled in the fields, baling hay for a gruff farmer from dawn till dusk. I labored on construction sites, shoveling with the strength of a man, under the watchful eye of the foreman. I assisted in setting up the carnival’s daredevil motorcycle act, watching in awe as the rider circled vertically at breakneck speed. I cleaned out a corn silo, nearly succumbing to the fumes of rotting grain.

But my trials were not yet over. I served as a bellhop at the Fargo Hotel, maneuvering the elevator with care, ensuring it aligned with each floor. The quiet was often disturbed only by the raucous Shriners, inebriated and unsteady. I took refuge in a phone booth, reading “The Grapes of Wrath,” until the manager caught me.

It was a difficult time, but I am grateful for the lessons learned and the man my father was. Though I once hated him for the tasks he set before me, I now recognize the wisdom in his ways, and know that I fell short in comparison.”

Whenever anybody obeys God’s will instead of their own will, Heaven comes a little bit closer to Earth.

It’s not that religions like Buddhism and Hinduism are untrue. Buddhism is a treasure trove of psychological truths. Hinduism is in many ways a profound map of the spirit world. But they are burying the lede.

The overriding truth, the King of Truth, is that God is real. He created the universe. He created us in His image. God loves us with a love that is unimaginably powerful and pure. He came to Earth as His own Son, as a man named Jesus, a couple of thousand years ago. He sacrificed Himself, thereby, in some mysterious way, absolving all mankind of our sins. He conquered death. The cosmic battle between good and evil rages on, but the outcome is no longer in doubt.

When Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”, He was stating a fact. It can be denied. It can be ignored. It is still true.

For many, a stumbling block to belief in Christianity is that it is so specific. The virgin birth, the incarnation of God in a real man named Jesus, in a particular place at a particular time, who did and said specific things, was crucified, rose from the dead, ascended into Heaven, sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, appeared to Saint Paul on the road to Damascus, is seated at the right hand of the Father, and will come again. How can it be that this set of specifics is true and all other sets of specifics, the stories of Mormonism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, materialism, the Greek and Roman pantheons, are false?

Many believe that it makes more sense that all of these sets of specifics are just imperfect pointers to a transcendent truth that is above all such details, a truth that resides in a dimension where there are no specifics. But what does that mean? Of what use is a Truth that has no actuality? Truth must necessarily include some things and exclude other things. It has to be specific. It must be concrete. And how could it be anything other than implausible and unexpected?

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Buddha didn’t say that. Mohammed never said that. Neither did Apollo. Was He lying? Was He delusional? The only way to know is to follow Him and see.