Eating Right Makes Me Fit for the Destination

Fasting and Eating

This is the first Sunday of the Month of March. Every month, usually on the first Sunday of the month, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints celebrate a period of fasting. Those who can,  abstain from food and drink for two consecutive meals. They donate the value of those meals to be used to directly help the needy in their area. They typically refer to this day as "Fast Sunday."

Because today is Fast Sunday, I am thinking about food, and what we eat. What I eat. Or what I should eat (more on that later).

Fit or Fat

With the advancement of medical sciences we have gained a lot of insights into how diet affects our health. We know that too much food, in excess of what we need to fuel ourselves for the day, tends to make us fat. We know that some foods, regardless of the quantity or our caloric needs then to make us fat. We also know that being fat, carrying excess weight, tends to produce some very bad health outcomes, most of which culminate in suffering and death at an earlier age than might otherwise be the case. The medical studies citing the role of excess weight in heart disease, strokes, joint failure, liver failure, and other issues are too numerous to cite, or refute.

The "get skinny" and the "get fit" industries (the two overlap but are not the same) capitalize on these facts to promote a variety of products and processes. Most of those products and processes have dubious benefits and some are more harmful to our health than being fat.

Junk Food

All this is a roundabout way to make the point that if I feed myself a steady diet of junk food, I can only expect to suffer weakness, ill health, and untimely death. In contrast, if I eat a reasonably healthy diet, ensure I have at least some moderate regular exercise (walking is exercise), I can expect to enjoy physical strength, mental acuity, and moderately good health until my body wears out, or I exit mortality from some abrupt misfortune. Of course, fat or fit, I have no guarantee that some ailment or accident won't somehow wreck me.

Now that I am thinking about the effects of my diet on my physical body, I'm going to s switch gears and consider the diet and exercise I am feeding my spirit.

Natural Diets

For all the advancements of medical and physical sciences none of the sciences can identify what animates a living being and is then absent from the deceased. They can measure and track the evidences of animation, and they can even note many things which directly result in the cessation of animation. However, they are unable to see, even with the most powerful of microscopes or other medical imaging devices, the source of what animates our minds and bodies. Natural sciences can only reveal nature.

Spiritual Diets

To gain insight into the world which science is unable to penetrate requires reliance on sources that are outside of nature. The supernatural. God is, by definition, a supernatural being. He does not appear to be bound by the same laws of nature which we observe. Fortunately for us, He has deliberately revealed himself to humanity on many occasions throughout time. Although it is not my purpose here to delve into those occasions, it is relevant to note that He has repeatedly revealed some key facts which we could not discover on our own:

1. He exists
2. He is more powerful and wise than we can imagine
3. He cares about us
4. Each of us has both a spirit and a body

He has revealed a lot more than this, but these are the relevant points for this essay.

What animates our minds and bodies is our spirit. 

Spiritual Junk Food

My question today is, what happens if our spirit has the same kind of diet and exercise routine as we give our bodies? And what does a good, or bad, spiritual diet and exercise routine look like?

I believe that if I feed my spirit a steady diet of spiritual junk food and give it very little spiritual exercise, it makes my spirit weak and sickly. It may even bring me to a form of spiritual death, perhaps before I am ready to leave mortality.

On the other hand, if I feed my spirit healthy spiritual diet and at least moderate spiritual exercise I will enjoy a more robust physical and spiritual life. This leads to some important questions:

1. What is a good spiritual diet or a bad spiritual diet? 
2. How can I know the difference between them?

Seeing Good and Bad

I am going to start with the last question. How can I know the difference between things that are good for my spirit and those that are bad for my spirit?

The answer is simpler, and harder, than people may imagine. It is encompassed in the teaching that "by [its] fruits you will know [it]"

Good Fruits

In my experience, a good spiritual regimen has the following effects or fruits:

• I have more energy
• Gratitude - My appreciation and enjoyment of the good things in your life is enhanced, making the bad things in my life more tolerable.
• Patience / Tolerance - I feel more peaceful because I know that getting things wrong is a necessary part of growing and learning, both for me and others. I am inclined to kindness toward others who may not be able to anything for me. I am more patient with stupid people, selfish people, and mean people because I understand that I have my own flaws, which may not be the same as theirs and we are all trying to get through this life wearing a spiritual blindfold most of the time.
• Optimism - While a good spiritual regimen doesn't give me an unrealistic outlook on the world, it makes me a more optimistic person. If God is real, and He cares about me, then, although I may not see what he does or understand it, I can trust that He is working for my well-being. And, if I have God in my corner rooting for me, how can I not get back on my feet when I have been knocked down and push forward when everything else seems to be trying to hold me back and drag me down?
• Attractive - It attracts people who want or who have a good spiritual regimen. It is a natural fact that "birds of a feather flock together."

Bad Fruits

In my experience a bad spiritual regimen has the following fruit (and yes, I do have experience with bad spiritual regimens of myself and others):

• Depression - a lack of energy
• Pessimism - the expectation and outlook that good things don't stay in my life
• Anxiety - the constant fear of getting it wrong and bringing extra pain and embarrassment into my life.
• Impatience / Perfectionism - Life is too short to get anything wrong and others are constantly stealing my most precious and unrenewable resource in this life, my time. If they can't help me to get what I want, then they need to get out of the way and stop slowing me down. Also, I hate it when I get in my own way by not doing something perfectly and getting the exact outcome I desired.
• Self-Righteousness / Intolerance - Anyone who doesn't see the world the way I do lacks the intelligence to be worthy of life and liberty or my time and attention. They will just waste their own and steal my time. Their biggest sin is their stupidity in not sharing my opinion.
• Ingratitude - What I have is never enough. There is always more out there that I don't have in my grasp.
• Envy and Covetousness - The worst part of life is that I can see that others, who aren't as deserving as me, have more and better in their life than I. I cannot celebrate their success, I can only mourn that theirs isn't mine.
• Repulsive - Ironically, although like attracts like, no one truly enjoys the company of consistently negative or toxic people. Although I may accrue some power and followers, and some may love me despite myself, no one will enjoy being around me for long.

So, look at the fruits above. Which list resonates more? Those fruits are the effects of a bad spiritual diet and exercise regimen.

The Good Food Diet

This leads me to the first question: What is a good spiritual diet or a bad spiritual diet? 

I know, that is really two questions, but I will deal with them as one. They are one because the bad spiritual regimen is most often the absence of a good spiritual regimen. My spiritual regimen, good and bad, is what I do everyday, even if I am unaware of it.

I am naturally more aware of my physical diet and exercise because it is right there front of my eyes. My spirit is unseen and I am often blithely unaware of my spiritual diet and exercise. Unlike my body which promptly gets my attention when I neglect it, the neglect of my spirit doesn't make me visibly collapse and put me in the hospital because I abused it.

Confessions and Disclaimers

So, what is a good spiritual regimen (diet and exercise)? Before sharing this I must confess to whomever reads this two things:

1. I do not perfectly practice a good spiritual regimen. I am not perfect. I have my flaws, some of which I enjoy and shouldn't. I am trying to want to be the person I should be.
2. I am an unapologetic believer in Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ and the Only Begotten Son of God. I believe that Jesus was telling the truth when he said, "I am the way, the truth, and the light." He said "the" not "a" way. I also believe that the truths that lead us to Him are seeded in all the religions of the world. Because of that, regardless of your religious affiliation, a good spiritual regimen will bear good fruits for you.

Good Eating

Here are the parts of a good spiritual regimen, as I and many others have experienced them:

• Wake up to what I am "eating." 
• A diet of emotionally, sexually, and mentally numbing movies, video games, music, reading, and other entertainment is the spiritual equivalent of junk food.
• In a physical diet, exercising the "table muscle" of pushing yourself away from the table before I feel full is an important part of not overeating. Likewise in my spiritual diet, I exercise my table muscle and push back from the junk food buffet being pushed at me by media and society. Instead of mindlessly eating what is being served up, I try to push back from the table. I take a look at what is available, and replace junk food with healthy food.
• Deliberately start putting good things into my spiritual diet.
• Try to make time each day to read (or listen to) the scriptures. Whether the scriptures of my religion are called the Quran, Bible, Torah, Shastras, Mahayana, or the myths of my ancestors, I need to make time each week (or daily at best) to read them.
• While I am reading and listening, I think about how it might apply  to my life and to my challenges and I write down or record my thoughts and impressions.
• I have made (or borrowed) a list of the books which have been around for decades or centuries as  examples of great literature and important reading. I pick one. I read it. I write down, or record, my thoughts as I read it and after I am done reading it. 
• Make time to think about what I am reading and listening to. I think about how it might apply  to my life and to my challenges.
• Then, I pick another book from the list and do it again. If I finish all the books on my list, I make another list and do it all again.
• Wake up to what I am thinking.
• Thinking is the spiritual equivalent of chewing. When I chew my food, I break it up into smaller pieces and taste it with my mouth. When I think, I am tasting with my  imagination, my mind, and my spirit. 
• Are my idle thoughts filled with bitterness, revenge, self-indulgence, or self-pity? Or are they filled imaginings of me acting like the kind of person I want to become?
• Your thoughts will become your words. Your words will turn into your deeds. Your deeds will make your destiny.
• I want to be the hero of my story, not the victim, and certainly not the villain.
• Take more control of my thoughts.
• Meditate. I periodically make time to be still. Silence the noise and activity around me. I clear my mind for a time, focusing on slow and steady breathing and releasing the tensions in my body. 
• Build inner self-awareness.
• I have tried to learn what are my "buttons" that others use to manipulate and control me. I pick up one thought, word, or action of my own in my life, recent or long past. Something I have thought, said, or done. I decide if is it something I am proud of and pleased about, or uncomfortable with. I seek to understand what seemed to compel  me to think, say, or do that. Was that the only course I could have taken in that situation? I examine if my thought, word, or deed was the result of me letting something (or someone) control and compel me, a reaction? Or, was it a deliberate choice I made after quickly considering the alternatives and choosing the one that would likely have the outcome I desire most.  
• Decide what kind of person I want to be.
• I strive to learn lessons from my past. If I could relive a moment, would I make the same choice? If not, then I decide how I want to handle any similar situation that may occur in my future. I imagine myself making the clear choice and imagine the probable outcomes of that choice. Do I like those outcomes? If not, then I do it again in my mind and make different choices.

Conclusions

Making conscious choices for ourselves is the most important part of maturity. Choosing the kind of person I want to become is the single most important choice I can make in my life. Everything else, every other choice is more chance than choice until I make that big choice. 

I am convinced that choosing the kind of person I want to become, for it to be worth the prices I pay, must be made for myself. To please me. It is foolish for me to choose what to become to please my spouse, children, parents, friends, or even God. Although all of those may have my best interests at heart, if I don't choose because that is what we want, I will never be happy or content either in my journey or my destiny / destination.

For my part, I want to want to be like God. I struggle because there are moments when I want to do things that aren't at all godly. Every time I fail and fall down, I can hear God in my corner urging me on saying, "It's not over and you're not finished. Consider the lesson you just learned. Make it a part of you. Get back up on your feet. Face forward and press on. It's the journey that will make you fit for the destination I have prepared for you."

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on X: @ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God

Man Didn't Make God

Recently I was relaxing and enjoying watching a relatively successful and very well-done science fiction series about people and true artificially intelligent robots.  One of the main characters asserted that man created Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil to keep everyone else in line.  Holding over their heads the notion that their disobedience could result in an eternal punishment.

This atheist's article of faith is what Karl Marx alluded to when he said that religion is the opiate of the masses.

While it is true that throughout history many people have cynically used religion as a tool to bolster their power over others, the fundamental notion that man invented God is a theory without a single shred of evidence to support it it actually flies in the face of countless evidences which contradict this prideful and hopeless premise.

The fact that those who reject God reject the evidences and witnesses of God does not obliterate those witnesses, rather it shows the lack of rationality of those who reject those witnesses.

Those who say that no one has returned from death to tell us what is on the other side are liars or ignorant of the facts.  I am not talking here about ghosts and phantasms.  I am speaking of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was publicly put to death and three days later ate food and conversed with people who had seen him die and laid his body in the grave.

But that is not the only person to pass the portal of death and return.  The New Testament (Matthew 27:52, 53) notes that after the resurrection of Jesus:

 "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."

Note the word "many" which is repeated.  Many arose from the dead and appeared to many people.  So, aside from those who witnessed the resurrection of Jesus many others witnessed the resurrection of many who they knew to have died.

Further, the appearance of Jesus was not limited to just one instance or a few people.  He appeared many times after his crucifixion and at one point (1 Corinthians 15:6) appeared to more than 500 people in one meeting.

In The Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 11) the resurrected Jesus appears, shortly after his death and resurrection, to people gathered in the Americas.  Upwards of 2,000 people were present.

In more recent times we have several people who have testified that they have had dealings with people who were long dead and appeared as resurrected beings.  These include John the Baptist, Peter, James and John the Apostles of Jesus, Moroni, a prophet among God's people in ancient America, Moses, Elias, Elijah, and others.  At the apex of these appearances we have the resurrected Jesus having appeared more than once since 1820.

No rational person could not consider the testimony of so many first-hand witnesses and dismiss them based solely on the power of their own prejudices. 

Further, those who purport, against the evidence, that the concept of God evolved over time, the records show that God revealed himself to Adam, our first father, and again to Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and others.  When they saw God they understood, because He told them, that He is our parent. They could see Him and discern that He and we are of the same species, so we are created in His image.

God put Man on this Earth and did not leave him ignorant of our relationship to Him or His expectations of us.  It is Man who has attempted to reinvent God to be something more of their liking.  Finally coming to the point of a devolution of thought which purports that we created God in our own image and for wholly our own purposes.  Which is to say, there is no god, only Man.

I will concede that good and evil exist independent of God and Satan.  By God's command and design every human being (Man) is an agent unto ourselves and able to choose and act.  Sometimes we choose to do good, sometimes evil. Sometimes we know what we are doing and other times the good or evil that comes from our choices is unintended.

God and Satan each tempt us.  God tempts us to choose to do good.  Satan tempts us to choose to do evil.  When we do either, it is our choice, not the will of God or Satan forcing us to act one way or another.  So, the evil in the world which so many ascribe to the acts of religionists are not the evil acts of God, nor are they the evil acts of Satan.  They are the evil acts of people who followed inclinations of their own.  Inclinations which we are free to indulge in a world where we live with a significant degree of uncertainty regarding the existence of God and Satan, Heaven, and Hell.

It may seem like the safest course is to try to choose the middle ground between these two extremes.  Many who reject God and Satan and religion in general think they are choosing a middle way.  They end up choosing themselves.  They worship themselves and others like them. They put people as their deities and worship at the temples of human government and human institutions.  

Unfortunately, rejecting God is not a middle ground.  Putting yourself, or another human, in the place of God is not a middle ground.  It is opposing God.  It has the net effect of tempting people to reject God.  In this rejection, the temptations of Satan are heeded.  

Satan doesn't need us to worship him to achieve his ends.  He only needs us to reject God.

Notice, I didn't say Satan wins.  Satan doesn't win in any scenario.  He lost when he opposed God before Adam ever walked this Earth.  He and his followers were cast out and lost their opportunities to grow more like God.  They lost the opportunity to fulfill their genetic potential as children of God.

Because of that loss Satan and his hosts are bitter.  They know that they cannot win.  What they want is for you and I to make the same choices they did and cast aside our divine potential.  

God will win.  Those who follow God will win because of His victory and their faith.  

Satan will lose.  Those who reject God will lose, whether or not they embrace Satan.  Inasmuch as they think they are smarter than God they become like Satan and embrace his destiny.

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God

The MOST Important Thing for Fulfillment

Tom Sheppard

11/30/2021

The single most important thing you need to know to help you live a happy and fulfilling life is that you are a literal child of God.

Even many of those who believe in God don't believe or understand that we are literally his children.  They have bought into the tripe peddled by philosophers and apostates that says we are creations of God and thus his metaphorical children.

They deny the explicit language in the Holy Bible and other scriptures which tell us the humanity is created in the image of God.  We are in the image of God in the same way children are created by their parents in the image of their parents.

I will concede that if we were just guessing about all this, or making it up, it would be the pinnacle of pretention to assert that we are literal children of God.  Unfortunately for all the philosophers who try to dilute scriptural truths by calling them metaphors, the idea that we are created in the image of God and are his children came directly from God himself.  It is a message he has reiterated throughout time.

When Adam first opened his eyes in the Garden of Eden, he saw God.  He and Eve walked and talked with God.  They could see that they looked like him and he told them they were his children.  That knowledge wasn't wiped from their minds when they were cast out of Eden.  They carried it with them and taught their children the true nature of God and our relationship to Him.

The scriptures record that some time later God revealed himself to the prophet Enoch.  Enoch walked with God.  Just as Adam had, Enoch was able to bear first hand witness of the true nature of God and our relationship to Him.  Although Enoch had likely been taught all these things before he was called, after his call, he could testify of them through his first-hand knowledge.

Abraham is called the Father of the Faithful.  He obtained great promises from God and talked with God face-to-face on several occasions. This would allow him too as a first-hand witness of the true nature of God and our relationship to Him.

Moses talked with God face to face as a man talks with his friend, according to the scriptures.  That means that when the Israelites were led out of Egypt they were led by someone who was able to tell them from personal experience the true nature of God and our relationship to Him.  Those Israelites who tried to make it all a metaphor and set up a golden calf and called it God, were destroyed.  Likewise all those who think that God as our father is a metaphor wander in a wilderness of doubt and are destroyed by their despair.  That is a metaphor.

Jesus of Nazareth was threatened with death more than once because of his assertion that he was a literal son of God.  He repeatedly taught the true nature of God and our relationship to Him.  He said, "if you have seen me, you have seen the Father."  Further, when Jesus appeared to his Apostles after his resurrection from the dead it was clear that they recognized him and saw him as a man, similar to them.

In these latter days we are not left without witnesses to this key point either.  In the Spring of 1820 a young boy in upstate New York had the heavens opened to him in response to his earnest prayer.  He saw God the Father and Jesus Christ as two separate and distinct personages, in form and shape like man.  In seconds that young boy knew as fact more about the nature of God and our relationship to Him than all the religious doctors for the past 1,500 years combined.  He knew first hand, while they were struggling to reconcile what they could imagine with what they read, and so dismissed this foundational fact as a metaphor.

Understanding the true nature of God and our relationship to Him is foundational to our happiness because that one fact alone gives meaning to everything else.  This fact lets us know that God is our parent and as a perfect parent all he does is designed to help us fulfil our greatest potentials and to be happy.  It means that God created this amazing world, with all its beauty and complexity, out of love for us, his children.  It means that he allows the presence of evil in this world because of his wisdom and love for us requires that we have freedom of choice and the ability to learn from our mistakes, and the mistakes of others. It means that He will not leave us without the benefit of his personal guidance and tender care over our lives.

As children we often misunderstand or fail to comprehend the reasons and objectives driving the actions of our parents.  Further, our parents are imperfect and so their intentions and actions may go astray.  God is a perfect parent and loves us perfectly.  We may not understand all his actions, but we can have perfect faith that all He does and allows to happen will, if we heed Him, be turned to our ultimate benefit.

#MyGodAndGovernment #ChildofGod

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppardFollow Tom on Instagram:  ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God

Lying Liberal Altruists

Image (c) iqoncept and Depositphotos.com

                              This article is an excerpt from Godvernment: Government as God 

Tom Sheppard

9/4/2020

The Lie of Liberal Altruism

In the 25th chapter of Matthew, the Savior speaks of the final judgment.  To those who have done well and to those who have not, He offers the same explanation for the reward they are offered.  He tells them all that, "... inasmuch as ye have done [or not done] it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

He is referring to how they did, or did not, take care of the poor, the sick, the destitute, and the afflicted among them.

Today, much of our political debate and divide appears to be focused on how we, as a society, believe we should go about taking care of the least advantaged among us.

For many years, as I read or heard these words, I believed that Jesus was speaking metaphorically.  I believed He was saying that He was holding us accountable for our treatment of our fellow human beings, and He is certainly saying that.  However, I am now convinced that Jesus was not speaking metaphorically in this matter.  Rather, He was being completely literal.

We learn elsewhere that in His atoning sacrifice, He suffered all the pains of humanity (Doctrine and Covenants 18:11), so that He could learn to succor those in need (Hebrews 2:18).  I suggest that, in a very real way, He has actually shared and felt the very pains of the homeless, the hungry, the naked, those in prison, and those who wash up on the edges of our society like flotsam washing up on a beach, and, that He did not suffer those pains in some abstract way, or as a derivative of what those people suffer—rather, through some incomprehensible mechanism, He is and was able to fully feel the actual pains that each of us has suffered and will suffer.  Having felt those actual pains, He then can understand our situation completely and can comfort us, or forgive us, in exact measure according to our pain and need.

Knowing that He feels the pains of others, when we help those in need, when we relieve the suffering of those in anguish or pain, when we feed the hungry, we directly reduce the amount of suffering and pain that Christ suffers.  Likewise, when we cause others to suffer, we add to the pain that He suffers.  When we fail to act to alleviate the pain and suffering of others, we fail to alleviate His pain and suffering.

I believe that is true.

In light of that belief, some would suppose that I would be driven to embrace the social welfare model of government (aka socialism, communism, progressivism, liberalism, fascism).  In fact, much of the social welfare model of government wraps itself in a mantle of altruism about caring for the less fortunate among us, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Socialists like Bernie Sanders and liberals like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seek to destroy the rich (other than themselves), and even the middle class, and make us all equally poor together.

I despise their cries to destroy the wealthy in order to help the poor, and there is no hypocrisy in my feelings.  You cannot lift anyone up by tearing someone else down.

When Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and their ilk talk about helping the poor and relieving suffering, they are not talking about digging deep into their own pockets and giving until it hurts themselves in order to help others.  They are content to keep their own wealth, gained by feeding at the trough of the taxpayers.  They will keep their wealth, and instead they will dig deep into the pockets of others and force them to give until it hurts.

Their hypocrisy in their failure to live the very principles they are espousing is as clear and horrendous as that of any Christian preacher who rails from the pulpit against the evils of the flesh, and then is caught in adultery and debauchery.  Their altruistic battle cries of "soak the rich" mask the brutal reality of their policies, which actually soak everyone who is above the poverty line in order to make us all poor together and ensure that the only path to wealth and comfort is through service to the state.

We need to re-enshrine the notion of individual action and individual accountability in our nation, especially when it comes to the issues of caring for the poor and disadvantaged.  A thrust toward individual accountability is in direct opposition to the socialist thrust of collective accountability.

Each individual should take personal action to help those who are less advantaged than they.  Each person should do according to their ability and means.  This does not mean that we cannot band together into charitable organizations to magnify our efforts, but we should not ever rely upon the power of taxation, which is nothing less than forcible redistribution of wealth, in order to take care of those who are disadvantaged.

I make a notable exception in this for military veterans.  Military veterans are the only organization which has earned the right to partake of a portion of the public treasury to support them in their times of trouble.  Because they have literally offered their lives in the service of our country, they are actually entitled to support through taxation.

Food for thought!

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/ 
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard 

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

Your comments are welcome. Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as GodClick on the image below to buy your copy today

Godvernment is available in both paperback and ebook format through Amazon.

The Creation of Superman

                                                                                                 Image (c) GazMax and Depositphotos.com
    

                                   This article is an excerpt from Godvernment: Government as God 

Tom Sheppard

9/4/2020

The Mutant Game

In recent years, movies and stories about humans evolving into something more have become very popular.  The X-Men movies, the TV series The Tomorrow People, and even the popular stories of Harry Potter and the Twilight series are all driven by the notion that even ordinary-seeming people may actually have latent or undiscovered supernatural abilities.  In some storylines, the change from ordinary humans to super-humans is driven by science.  In others, the change appears to be a random genetic change.

Regardless of the cause, in each story, all or part of the tension in the storyline is the conflict caused by ushering in what is effectively a new species, Homo Superioris, to replace Homo sapiens.

It seems that a very wide swath of humanity wants to believe that it can individually and collectively become much more than it appears to be today.

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest, most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.”

CS Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Interestingly, Lewis, a friend of J.R.R. Tolkien (author of The Lord of the Rings), began his ascent to renown as an ardent atheist, intent on proving the belief in the God of Jesus Christ to be utter nonsense.  The result of his focusing all the powers of his brilliant mind on this issue was that he became utterly convinced of the reality of God and Christ.  His conclusions about the reality of what lurks beneath our skins arose as a result of his studies of God and Christ.

It would seem that CS Lewis also believed that someday, Homo Superioris would arise.  However, his book The Abolition of Man makes clear that the emergence of this superior creature can never come as a result of the genius of humankind, regardless of how many resources and the power of intellects which are turned to this endeavor.

Lewis also revealed the dark side of the quest of science (or politics) to create a superior human being, “the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means—as we have seen—the power of some men to make other men what they please.”

It is this dark place where “some men make other men what they please” this will inevitably result in people turning themselves into amoral monsters as they try to become gods, creators of the new humanity.  Such a quest, surely, they will reason, justifies any act—any betrayal of the norms of society.  Once again, they will be deluded by the notion that they can achieve some noble and good end through base and ignoble means.

Homo sapiens will only convert into Homo Superioris by following the teachings of the Homo Superiori who have preceded them down this path to glory.  I here have referred to them as Homo Superiori, but we know them more commonly as God the Father, and His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

Do you reject out of hand my conclusion?  Pause and give it more thought and study.  What do the many books that comprise the Holy Bible tell us about Christ and His Father?

Jesus said that he only did what he had seen the Father do before him.  What did Jesus do?

• He changed the molecular structure of water into wine.
• He walked on water and enabled Peter to do the same.
• He raised the dead (more than one).
• He healed the lame and the sick.
• He foretold the future and revealed the past.
• He came back from the grave as a living creature, consuming food and drink with His bewildered disciples.
• He entered a locked room and appeared in the midst of its occupants, giving them quite a fright in the process.
• He disappeared from before the very eyes of two of his disciples.

Don’t all of those things sound like something you might see in a Harry Potter, X-Men, or other super-human-themed movie?

His message from start to finish was simply this: “Be like me.  I am like our Father in Heaven.”  If He wasn’t inviting us to transform ourselves into Homo Superioris, then someone else was putting words in His mouth.

What is more, He told us what we had to do to become like Him and the Father.  We have to make morally correct choices, regardless of our circumstances.

Again, in contrast to God’s approach, which is to change the inner man and he will change his circumstances, the human worshippers believe you have to change a person’s circumstances to enable the change of the inner person.  Nothing could be more easily disproved.

Consider the story of Colin Powell, who rose from a ghetto to become the most powerful military leader in the free world, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of the U.S.  Then consider his brother, who, raised in the same circumstances, became an addict, a drug dealer, and a welfare recipient.

For very personal insight, look at the life of author and businesswoman Star Parker, a self-described “welfare crack ho.” She was a product of poverty and the government’s “war on poverty,” until she discovered God.  As she drew closer to God, she became a different woman on the inside and began to make very dramatic changes on the outside.

She changed the course of her life from one of self-destruction and social parasitism to become an entrepreneur, providing first for herself and her family, and then creating jobs for others, helping them to help themselves to change their circumstances.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy my related article Mutants and Superheroes.

Food for thought!

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/ 
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard 

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

Your comments are welcome. Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as GodClick on the image below to buy your copy today

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Faith in Who, or What?

Tom Sheppard

9/4/2020

When God gave Moses the 10 Commandments the very first of those was "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Any reasonable interpretation of this mandate must conclude that God was saying we shouldn't put the words, ideas, philosophy, advice, or even the commands of anyone or anything ahead of what God tells us. In spite of that unequivocal commandment our world today consistently abandons faith in God for faith in humanity.  Putting aside for one second the inadvisability of disobeying the direct commands of a being that is fully capable of creating livable planets, consider the folly of putting any faith in humanity.

In nearly 5,000 of recorded human civilization one lesson is abundantly clear and is repeated in nearly every generation.  Humanity seldom behaves in very humane ways.  Further, whenever one group of people have the opportunity to treat another group of people badly, they will do so nearly 100% of the time.  This is a true of the high school cliques of "mean girls" and "jocks" as it is for the genocidal violence of the Tutsis and Hutus of Rwanda.

One man put it very well when he said "We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion." (Joseph Smith Jr., Doctrine and Covenants 121:39).

Using our history books, I could cite instance after instance where humanity has proven its propensity to plunder, ravage, pillage, enslave, and kill when they might have as easily extended hands of friendship, fellowship, and cooperation.

Don't get me wrong.  I know that the other side of the ledger - the side where people have acted with nobility, kindness, compassion, and love toward those less fortunate also has many entries.  Unfortunately they are not nearly so numerous as the blots on our human history.

My point in noting this is not to attempt to assert whether or not humanity is inherently bad, or good.  My point is to demonstrate that anyone who puts their faith in humanity as the means to make a better world for all of us is putting their faith in an irrefutably inconstant, unreliable, and generally bad actor.

In contrast with the behavior of humanity, which can at best be called fickle and at worst diabolical, the behavior of God is constant.  From the beginnings of his dealings with humanity he has laid out a set of principles to guide us which have remained unchanging throughout the ages.  Jesus Christ put it plainly when he summed it up by telling us that loving God and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves is what all the law and the words of the prophets amount to.

35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy bheart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38 This is the first and great commandment.

39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

(Matthew 22:35-40, King James Version, emphasis added) 

Today the notion of economic collectivism, in the form of political socialism, is once again ascending in many parts of the USA.  The emotional appeals associated with this movement are cries for equity and treating the less fortunate with kindness and generosity.

Many of those who embrace this ideology believe that if we all embrace the same ideals humanity can cure all its own ailments.  However, because not everyone is ready to submit their will and well-being to the greater good of the collective, those who are holding out must be legislated and bullied into compliance and their "excess" material goods will be forcibly taken and redistributed.

History shows repeated examples of countries where this high-minded approach has been implemented.  In every single case it has either been voluntarily rolled back or enforced by the violent deaths or "re-education" of those who don't agree with the means or goals of the collective.

It is not exaggerating to say that enforced collectivism through socialism has led directly to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of millions of people.  Those are just the casualties in the 20th century.  Who knows how many have or will be murdered in the 21st century as socialists once again push to make humanity better by exterminating all those who seem to stand in their way.

The irony of the ruthless inhumanity carried out by the collectivists in the name of making humanity better seems to be totally lost on its present adherents.

One of the fundamental flaws of socialism and its twin forced collectivism is that it is based on an irrational and proven erroneous notion that, given the proper external stimuli, people will choose to consistently and constantly treat other people with kindness, compassion, and generosity.  This faith in the willingness and ability of humanity to transform into beings filled with a better nature is repeatedly shown by history, both ancient and recent, to be a vain imagining.

In fact, the only times history shows people consistently showing compassion, kindness, and generosity toward those less fortunate has always been the result of internal stimuli rather than external.

Franz Kunkel noted that in the NAZI death camps, in spite of every possible external stimuli to behave otherwise, there were some individuals who consistently acted with compassion, kindness, and generosity to those around them.  This instance alone should be enough to refute the notion that humanity will manifest a better nature as the result of external stimuli.  However, the evidence doesn't stop there.

With notable exceptions, the history of the people of the United States of America is a history that is overflowing with kindness, compassion, and generosity toward those less fortunate.  The voluntary charitable efforts of Americans is stunning.  In 2018 they gave $427.7 billion.  In 2017 that number was $410 billion.  Charitable giving has consistently been about 2% of GDP at least since 1977.  A survey by Lending Tree found that Americans have been the most generous people in the world for nearly 250 years. They noted that 2 out every 3 Americans surveyed contributed to at least one charity.

The generosity of Americans is not compulsory as it is with socialism.  It is achieved through the internal stimuli that many Americans feel to share their abundance with others.  The socialists seek to take advantage of that generosity and twist it into an economic and political model which pretends to promote compassion, kindness, and generosity while it actually results in slavery, mass poverty, misery, scarcity, fear, violence, and death for all but a very elite few who are running the whole show.

Anyone who can read a history book and think critically should be able to see through the emotional manipulation of good intentions thrown out by socialist and forced collectivists.  The reality behind their utopian rhetoric is a brutal dystopia.  That result has been unequivocally demonstrated in the historical record of many nations.  

Some will argue and hold up countries like Denmark and Sweden as counter examples.  However, if they look at the history of those countries they will see that they flirted with socialism until their countries were on the brink of economic collapse.  Then, they retreated back toward capitalism to preserve their people and their nations from destruction.

The United States of America, and the freedom, prosperity, and generosity of its people, rest upon the foundation of the US Constitution.  Anyone calling for "fundamental change" in our nation is plainly calling for the changing or elimination of our foundation, the US Constitution.

Since the adoption of the US Constitution, it has served as a bulwark and protection of the people of the United States against the predations of government and those who want to rule over others.  Weakening, removing, or dramatically changing the US Constitution will open the floodgates for oppressive government such as we see in places like China, where the government routinely kills or imprisons thousands of people whose only crime is to disagree with government policy.

Our current political choices, obfuscations to the contrary notwithstanding, are between an increasingly socialist, forced collectivist vision championed by Democrats, including Joe Biden on the one hand and Libertarians and Republicans, including Donald Trump who are seeking to preserve, protect, and defend our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I believe that the US Constitution was inspired by God.  It was designed by Him to protect our freedoms with a vigor that has not previously been seen in the governments of humanity.  I put my faith in God and a path that has proven generally beneficial to humanity.  That path is capitalism.  I choose that over putting my faith in a path that has proven inimical to humanity and is based on a faulty foundation of human nature.  That inimical path is socialism. 

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God

Disappointing Dad on Father's Day

Tom Sheppard

6/21/2020

Today is Father's Day.  A day we celebrate dads.

All of us have dads.  It isn't possible to come into this world without one.  Some feel they have great dads.  Some feel they are great dads.  Some have disappointing dads.  Some are disappointing dads.  Some of us disappoint dad.

Some are disappointing dads because they aren't there.  They engendered a child and then, at some point before or after birth, they went away of their own volition.  Each became a disappointing dad because absence seemed to signal indifference, disinterest, or even hostility.

I have heard that some children who lose their father to death experience this same kind of disappointment or anger.  Blaming dad for his absence, although it was due to powers outside his control.

For those whose fathers are present, everything doesn't necessarily come out well either. Some disappointing dads abuse their children.  Sometimes that abuse is deliberate.  In other instances it may be unconscious. With still others, it may be more perception than reality.  After all, what child, denied the desire of their heart at some moment hasn't in anger cried out to their parent, "I hate you.  You are the worst dad/mother, ever." 

For my part, some things about my dad puzzled me for many decades.  Until my own children reached adulthood, marriage and their own children they remained an enigma.  Then, almost in an instant, like a bolt of knowledge from heaven some previously inexplicable behavior, words, or attitude of my own dad, pondered fruitlessly for years but never understood, becomes utterly clear and understandable.  Revealed by wisdom learned from experience only possible by having first traversed all the time and experiences inherent in those many years.  I needed certain experiences to achieve the necessary perspective, or context, to fully understand and appreciate some of my dad's behaviors, words, and deeds.

I know that at times my children have felt they had a disappointing dad.  At times that was merited.  I have never claimed to be perfect in any of my endeavors.  I do the best I can with what I know.  Some things I have done, or do, that disappoint them I am confident will look very different to them when they too have reached a point in life where they can more fully understand the context and realize that knowledge that is hidden to children because of inexperience is often revealed only through subsequent years of experience.  Time inevitably changes your perception of the past, present, and future.

The shoe of disappointment doesn't only fit children feeling disappointment with dad.  Dads at times too feel disappointment in their children.  As with the disappointment of child with dad, dad's disappointment in his child may result from actual bad behavior, from failing to meet expectations, or simply be a matter of perception rather than fact.

In Matthew 5:48 Jesus revealed what is the ultimate purpose of our life on earth.  "Be ye therefore perfect," he said.  "Even as your father in heaven is perfect."

In other words, the natural impulse most of feel at some point to grow up to be just like dad, is the actual purpose of life.  Not to be like our flawed, mortal dads, but like our perfect, Heavenly Dad.

Some, however think our Heavenly Dad is a disappointing dad.

We learn from religion that our shared dad is perfect. He has all-power, all-knowledge. He is full of truth, justice, mercy, and love.

Those who think he is a disappointing dad see bad things happen to good people and are disappointed that Dad didn't use his power and knowledge to prevent these bad things from happening to good people.  They see this apparent inaction as indicating that either he doesn't really care, isn't really all-powerful and all-knowing. They think perhaps it shows he isn't truthful, just, merciful, or loving.  They suppose this indicates either that he doesn't care, or perhaps doesn't actually exist, or if he exists, not with the attributes ascribed to him.

Due to experiences of my own, too deeply sacred and personal to share here, I know that our Heavenly Dad is real.  He is all-powerful, all-knowing, just, merciful, and loves us with a deeper and more perfect love than we can imagine.

Just as I have learned, through decades of experience, to understand some formerly inexplicable actions or words of my earthy dad, I have come to accept that many, perhaps most, of the actions or inaction of my Heavenly Dad will not be understood by me until my perspective is fundamentally changed through certain experiences.  Some of those experiences are likely to include my own death, and the lessons learned will not be understood until after I pass through that portal.

This belief that my Heavenly Dad is perfect and good, even when I don't understand why he allows some things to happen is called faith.  Faith is belief in something that is unseen and true.

Until I can understand the context of my earthly dad's actions, I am in no position to decide if I am justified in saying he is a disappointing dad.  Likewise, in this life, I will never understand the context of the actions of my Heavenly Dad, so I am unjustified in deeming him a disappointing dad.

Of greater concern to me is whether or not I may be disappointing Dad, my Heavenly Dad.  Am I disappointing Dad in how I am treating my brothers and sisters?  

• Do I hate them because they have more than me?  
• Do I despise them because they have less?  
• Do I fear them or hate them because they look different than me?  

Am I disappointing Dad by breaking his house rules?  Particularly those house rules that keep our home a peaceful place?  House rules such as 

• don't murder, 
• don't commit adultery, 
• don't steal, 
• don't lie, 
• don't covet what others have.

Am I disappointing Dad by not loving my neighbor as myself?

Are you disappointing Dad?

If you feel you are disappointing Dad, don't despair.  Thanks to the actions of our elder brother Jesus Christ, we can repent of all our disappointing actions and Dad will forgive and forget them.  Shall we not also then, forgive others who have injured us, and leave judgment of them and their actions in the hands of God.

I am not suggesting we fail to enforce the laws of the land.  Those are given by God, through our brothers and sisters, to keep peace in this earthly home, and those which are just tend to align very clearly with those I listed above.

Enforce the law against unlawful actions.  And leave the judgement of who is disappointing Dad, to Him.

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God

What if God Stopped COVID-19 Today?

Photo cover detail from Godvernment by Tom Sheppard (C) Copryright Thomas K Sheppard

Tom Sheppard

4/10/2020

Today is Good Friday.  The day Christians celebrate as the time when Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled his mission by atoning for the sins of the world, was crucified, and on the following Sunday (Easter) rose from the dead to begin the resurrection of mankind preparatory to them being recalled into the presence of God for judgement.

Not coincidentally, this is also the weekend when Jews celebrate the Passover.  Remembering how God killed the first born of all Egypt to punish them for not letting the Israelites depart, while passing over every Israelite houshold that smeared the blood of the sacrificial lamb above their door.

Egypt was afflicted with several plagues before this final, terrible visitation brought death into nearly every household.  The death of the first-born hit the house of Pharoah as well as that of the slaves and everyone in between.

Today, we are all feeling a bit like the Egyptians.

As of this writing, COVID-19 has claimed 97,292 lives and infected more than 1,623,910 (confirmed) people world-wide.  It has shuttered the economies of nearly every country and inspired the US government to pass a stimulus bill that will have massive tax implications for everyone after this crisis is behind us.  It has also allowed state governments and the Federal government to implement curtailments of our constitutional rights which were unthinkable just a few short months ago.

Today, some localities (Rhode Island) have police and National Guard going door to door searching out potential violators of travel restrictions with orders to forcibly take violators into custody and impose quarantines.

A few months ago, if the Federal or any state government had ordered us to stay at home and taken travel restriction enforcement actions they would have been met with massive protests in the streets.  I mention this not because I think we should be fighting these current restrictions.  I mention this because I fear that now that we have crossed this boundary where our constitutional right to freedom of assembly has been breached and accepted, this will condition the citizens to be more accepting of similar actions in the future which may be motivated by power-grabs instead of genuine public safety.

Today, Russell M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has asked that all who are able fast and pray for relief from this plague.  This is not just for the 16 million members of his church.  It includes an appeal to all people of faith.  He solicits our prayers for those infected, the medical professionals caring for them, the scientists trying to stop it, and for our economies.  He asks God to stop this plague, if it is His will.

I wonder what would happen if God decided to stop this plague in its tracks?  What if, in an instant, the virus simply shut down?  How would the world react?  Would they thank God, seeing it as a miracle?  Or, would they pin the abrupt cessation on some fluke of cosmic rays?

I suspect that many would credit divine intervention, if it ended so abruptly.  However, if God enlightens the minds of some scientists and guides them to create an effective vaccine, instead of intervening directly what would people say then?

I fear many would overlook the role God plays in revealing things to our minds and guiding us.  Instead, they would simply credit the scientists, claiming that humankind saved itself.

The plague of COVID-19 isn't the worst thing to happen to humanity in the last 100 years.  The worst thing happening to humanity is the failure of their faith in God.  There is no counter which shows how many people in the world are suffering from failing faith and how many have already died spiritually.

God, having engineered humanity and all creation from the ground up is uniquely knowledgeable to cure the Corona Virus.  Having all power he is uniquely able to make changes in the body of every living person and cause the virus to cease to be effective.  In spite of this knowledge and ability many people lack faith.  They don't believe that if God exists that he has any rational motive to do all the good things he can do.  They do not understand that his motives are the same as those of every good parent, because he is literally, not figuratively, our parent.  He is our creator just as our earthly parents are our creators.  He is the father of the spirit that resides in each of us and he is the father of our bodies by virtue of being the father of the bodies of Adam and Eve, our first parents.

If God is a loving parent with the ability to stop all this carnage and suffering, why doesn't he?

Some will wield that question like a sword, trying to disembowel any person of faith.  But, have they really considered the question?

Does good parenting consist of solving all the problems your children have for them, without any effort on their part?  When you see children where that has happened, you see children who are spoiled brats with an overweening attitude of entitlement.  Those children become monsters.

Good parents prepare their children to solve their own problems and leave them the freedom to fail and help them to learn from those failures.

A piercing examination of sacred scriptures from all cultures reveals just such a pattern.  God gives humankind tools, knowledge, and directions.  The scriptures provide anecdotes of people who failed and then learned and of those who failed to learn and perished.  Some scriptural stories are appropriately cautionary.  Others show what can happen when we succeed and subtlety clue us in that success may not be what we think it is.

The COVID-19 plague, like any other disaster I have witnessed, will result in two primary outcomes for those affected.  Some people will seek to take advantage of the chaos to enrich themselves at the expense of others.  The crisis will bring out the worst in them.  Other people will give selflessly, knowing that there is no adequate earthly reward for the service they render others.  The crisis will bring out the best in them.

Will this plague bring out the best in you, or the worst?  You cannot choose whether or not the crisis will affect you.  You can choose how you react to it.

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). 

 The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

 Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read Godvernment: Government as God

A Good Answer to "Where Was God When...?"

Tom Sheppard

10/13/2018

"Where was God when this horrible thing happened?"
"How could a loving God allow such a terrible thing to happen?"

I have often heard my atheist and agnostic friends ask the questions above.  They are good questions and they deserve a good answer.  I have pondered their questions for quite some time now and I believe I now have a good answer rather than some glib retort about not questioning the wisdom of God.

Before I give my answer, let's examine the questions a bit first.  Shall we?  I think such profound questions are worth both pondering and study.

Let's lay out the aspects of God that we know from the Holy Scriptures.

God is all-Seeing - Matthew 6:4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. Luke 12:2-3 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

God is all-Knowing - Isaiah 46:9-10: Remember the former things of old; for I am God and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient time the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.

God is all-Powerful - Isaiah 14:24,27: The Lord of hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand. For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?

God is Just - Psalms 89:14: Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne.

God is Merciful -  Psalms 89:15: Mercy and truth shall go before his face. Exodus 34:6: And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious. Nehemiah 9:17: But thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful.

God doesn't Lie -  Deuteronomy 32:4: He is the Rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity: just and right is he.

God is Loving - 1 John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

God Allows Us To Choose - Joshua 24:15 ... Choose you this day whom ye will serve. Joel 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

"Where was God when this horrible thing happened?"  The question calls into question several fundamental aspects of the nature of God.  It questions if he was aware of what happened, which calls into question whether or not he is all-knowing.  It also assumes that if he knew about it, he displayed indifference, which calls into question his loving nature.

The second question is very explicit in its question of the nature of God.  It asks, how could a loving god allow bad things to happen to those he loves?

It is pretty hard to see what good comes out of the actions of a serial killer, a mass-murderer, or a child-molester.  It is also very hard to understand why God would stand idle while someone harms innocent people, such as small children.

We tend to look at such incidents and say, "why didn't God stop this person from doing that horrible thing?"  Let's consider the principles at play here.  Suppose God stepped in and stopped a child molester.  First, how does the molester get stopped?  Does s/he die on the spot?  Is it a divine version of chemical castration?  Regardless, this evil-doer gets forcibly prevented, by divine intervention, from acting.  "Good!" we all say.

But God says that he cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. (Alma 45:16).  So, if he is going to kill the child molester in the act, it is not logical that he would stop there.  Rather he would likewise kill the adulterer, the fornicator, the liar, the thief, etc.  In other words, pick your favorite sin, the one you enjoy the most, and imagine what would life be like if God killed you immediately when you committed that sin. 

A god who kills us the instant we disobey him wouldn't seem very merciful or loving.  

So, when we rail against God because he didn't stop someone from doing something bad, to someone good, we should think carefully about what we are really asking Him to do.  It looks an awful lot like we are asking him to play favorites and punish others, but not us.

The very folks who use these questions in an attempt to justify their disbelief or disregard for God would be among the first who would also rail against Him for forcibly preventing them from disobeying him, and would use just inflexible and utterly impartial behavior to justify their disregard for God, saying that He is not worthy of our adoration because He is so harsh.

This all brings me around to a simple conclusion.  Those who use arguments, or questions, which make God appear to be different than they think He should be tend to put forward arguments which if carried to their logical conclusion would also make the questioner discontent.  In short, those who want to find a reason to disregard God, will find a rationalization for their conduct regardless of what God does or says.

These same people will also demand proof of God's existence, and turn around and reject every proof.  They will not believe that Jesus of Nazareth resurrected even though The Bible contains the written testimony of several different people who associated with him both before and after his death.  Nor will they believe the account of people in the Americas who were visited by the resurrected Savior and felt the prints of the nails in his hands and feet, and the spear-wound in his side.

They will deprecate the ample, and growing, evidences of the innate order of the universe around them and attribute it to some unknowable cause such as chance, rather than admit that the presence and craftsmanship of a watch is evidence of the watchmaker.

The reality is that all of fall into one of several camps, when it comes to our dealings with God.

1. Those who believe in Him and want to obey. Alma 42:24 For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved.
2. Those who believe in Him and don't want to obey.  James 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
3. Those who don't want to believe in Him because they don't want to obey.  Alma 10:5-6 ...I said I never had known much of these things; but behold, I mistake, for I have seen much of his mysteries and his marvelous power; yea, even in the preservation of the lives of this people.  Nevertheless, I did harden my heart, for I was called many times and I would not hear; therefore I knew concerning these things, yet I would not know; therefore I went on rebelling against God, in the wickedness of my heart
4. Those who have never properly considered the evidence that they see everyday.  Alma 30:44 Thou hast had signs enough; ... ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.

I am reasonably certain that my post on these questions will not bring any unbeliever out of their unbelief, although I can hope.  I do actively hope that my words here will help to reveal the built-in hypocrisy of the questions many atheists use to justify their unbelief.  I also hope it will help those who do believe in God, but find themselves at a loss for a coherent response in the face of these questions.  Hopefully, by reading this, their faith in God will be strengthened and these fiery darts of the Adversary will be quenched, and bother them no more.

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). 

 The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

 (c) Copyright 2017 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

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