Paradise and the Pit

Suppose that you were woke up one day in the midst of a maze, a labyrinth.

When you wake up you see a sign that tells you the following:

This maze has exactly two exits.   

One exit will drop you into an inescapable pit of spikes that will wound you and cause you excruciating pain.   

The other exist will admit you into a place where all your physical needs will be met and you can spend your days learning and growing without the distraction of having to provide for your needs. 

At the end of the day, the maze will be emptied.  All maze occupants who have not reached an exit by the end of the day will be ushered through the exit nearest to them. 

At various places in the maze, starting here, you can find guide books prepared by some who have successfully navigated the maze.  You can use these guide books or disregard them, as you choose.  Some who have passed through the maze have disregarded the guide books and written their observations on the walls.  You may ignore or heed these as you choose. 

You can also make verbal appeals for guidance from the creator of the maze.  But you may not agree with or understand all his answers.  Instructions for making appeals to the maze creator are found in the Guide Book.

On the wall beside the sign, someone has scrawled the words, "The guidebook is a fantasy."  Another says, "The maze never ends."  And a third hand has written the words, "There is no pit. There is no maze creator.  Do what feels good."

So, here you are, stuck in the maze.  What do you do?  Do you heed the writing on the walls?  Do you follow the guide book?  Or, do you ignore both and strike out on your own?

While this may seem like an academic exercise, it is actually a pretty close analogy to the life we are in. We are born into this world with no memory of what went before and how we came to be here.

While all of us aspire to be happy and have our lives reach a pleasant end, we are confronted with a variety of advocates who try to tell us what we need to do to be happy and to have a good end to our journey.  Also, when our day is done, whether we want to leave the maze or not, we will be removed (we die) and face a conclusion to this journey.

The Bible, The Book of Mormon and The Doctrine and Covenants all contain accounts of people who have died and returned to visit mortals and instruct them in what lies beyond and what they need to do to have a happy ending.  

In the Talmud and the Old Testament, Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Jacob and Moses all had face-to-face conversations with the Creator, which they characterized as a man speaking with his friend.  

In the New Testament, Peter, James and John saw Jesus conversing with Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9).  And after his crucifixion Jesus appeared to the Apostles and other disciples, and upwards of 500 people in an incident that is referenced, but not recorded (1 Corinthians 15:5-6).  In addition, the Bible records that after the resurrection of Jesus, the graves of many were opened and saints who had "slept" arose and went into Jerusalem and ministered to many.  

In The Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 11), Jesus descends from heaven in the sight of a multitude in the Americas and they are allowed to feel the prints of the nails in his hands and feet and the wound from the spear in his side and they testify that he appeared as a resurrected person to them.  In addition, they mention that after the resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem, people in the Americas rose from the dead and ministered to the living.

Lastly, in The Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were ministered to by a resurrected John the Baptist, and later by Peter, James and John (D&C 128:20).  This is in addition to Joseph Smith having stated that he had dealings with Moroni, a resurrected  man who had died some where around 400 AD and had seen the resurrected Jesus (Joseph Smith History).  And in Section 76 of this book, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon assert that they also saw the resurrected Jesus.

In spite of having evidence and solemn testimony of various people spanning more than 6,000 years of  written history recorded in our "Guide Book" we have those who write on the wall that, "The Guide Book is a fantasy."  And the basis for their cavalier dismissal of the information in the Guide Book?  

Their dismissal of more than sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction in court stems from:

1) The fact that the Guide Book contains some accounts of extraordinary events which, given the few facts around the events, cannot be adequately explained or understood with today's technology or man's reasoning.  And,

2) the dismissers have not personally experienced an acquaintance with a resurrected person or with the Creator.

And, the bases for dismissal are ardently defended in spite of the fact that Guide Book gives pretty clear instructions on the exact steps needed to find out the truth or falsity of the instructions of the Guide Book (see Alma Chapter 32 in The Book of Mormon for the clearest version of the steps of the experiment).

So, here you are in the maze of life.  God offers a Guide Book.  Do you follow it or do you ignore it and rely upon the limited views provided by your fellow maze travelers?

For my part, I can say that I know that the Guide Book is accurate.  I have tested it using the experiments that the book says will validate it.  I far prefer to have a map, a guide, and the advantage of having conversations with the Creator to guide me through the more murky parts of this life.

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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. 

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

Visit Tom's Amazon.com Author's Page

(c) Copyright 2015 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

Your comments are welcome and invited. 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, even ones that may unsettle me.

There is No God

Michaelangelo's depiction of the creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel circa 1512

There is no god.

That is a message we often hear. And another which is a bit more subtle, but which has the same effect, "All gods are the same." This last assertion, of the equivalency of all religions should be very familiar to those who have read C. S. Lewis' books, The Chronicles of Narnia, specifically the book The Last Battle.

In that book, the cat Ginger promotes the belief in Tashlan - an amalgamation of the evil diety Tash and the good diety Aslan.  Ginger teaches that Aslan and Tash are the same. Many characters in the book prefer to embrace this easier path and much mischief, destruction and unhappiness results.  It is the central conflict of the book, and in case you haven't read it, I won't spoil the ending for you.

But you and I are living in a different book. We are living in the Book of Life.  And, like our own lives, this book has a beginning, a middle, and most ominously, an end.  And, like any compelling story, our lives, individually and collectively involve an unavoidable conflict.

In Lewis' The Last Battle, the conflict was the choice between Tash and Aslan.  Ginger, by promoting the conflation of Tash and Aslan was presenting a false choice that appeared to be no choice.

Today, we hear three main voices on the topic of religion.  I will tackle each of these separately here, because each is an important argument that each person needs to confront as part of being a responsible adult human being.

1) God does not exist.  Religion is the opiate of the masses and guilty of causing most human suffering throughout history.

2) All religions are the same.  Whatever way you choose to worship god is fine.  The important thing is to live a life that reflects the religious values that are common to nearly all religions - caring for the poor, providing for your family, being kind to others.

3) There is only one true religion, and if you reject that one true religion, then there are unpleasant consequences which will eventually and unavoidably come to you.

I will address each of these in the order above.

1) God Does Not Exist 

- This argument is extremely prevalent, perhaps for the first time in human history.  It has gained ground steadily under two influences: 

A) Communism explicitly embraces the notion that God does not exist and that religion is used by the powers of the world to maintain their hold over the masses by conflating their eternal salvation with support for the government which holds them in thrall.  

B) Intellectualism - this is the conceit of the educated.  They get a bit more knowledge than the average person, be that through science or the arts, and they come to the conclusion that diety is a concept that was invented by humankind to  explain with superstitious stories the world around them which they, at the time, lacked the knowledge to explain and understand. 

Both Communism and Intellectualism reject the concept of the existence of intelligent beings whose powers, knowledge and abilities are incomprehensibly far beyond our own, and who are related to us and seeking to help us.  At best, they will lump this into the realms of science fiction and fantasy novels.  At worst, they utterly embrace the double conceit that humankind is the pinnacle of evolution, not only on this planet, but in the entire universe and that if humankind cannot attain something through their own powers, then it does not exist.

Here is the most pernicious outcome of the notion that god does not exist - it is that humankind is the sole arbiter of right and wrong, good and evil.  Whatever conclusions about those things humanity reaches, must be right, because we are collectively too smart to be all wrong together.

One symptom (and cause of this) is that today, we see an educational system in this country that is being perverted from one that teaches people how to use their powers of reasoning and experimentation to examine facts and come to their own conclusions, into a generation of people who are educated to see everything through the biased lenses of a set of socially acceptable opinions that are purveyed as facts.  

Unfortunately, when people cease to believe in diety, then they cease to believe that one day they will be held accountable for all their actions in this life.  All religions have this in common - the notion that after we leave this life, diety will judge us and reward us according to our obedience to the things we were taught that were right.  If god does not exist, then there is no final accountability where we are measured against an absolute and unyielding yardstick.

This denial of diety and the consequent judgement is extremely liberating to the minds of many.  It frees them up to be as fiendish as they desire while allowing them to utterly ignore either conventional notions of good and evil or the nagging voice of conscience that tries to dissuade them from their destructive and prideful path.  Eventually, they are able to utterly silence the voice of conscience, and they take this withdrawal of the voice of god in their lives as conclusive evidence that they were right in their notion that god does not exist and what is right is whatever they can get away with.

In a world without god, might makes right.  Whether that is the might of majority opinion, or the might of superior firepower.

2) All Religions Are The Same 

- I won't spend a whole lot of time in this space, because of one important reason, the bottom line of this notion is this:  If all relgions are the same, then they are the same as no religion.  Which means that whatever path you decide is right, is right.  This, in the end, is the same as saying There is No God.

The most vile aspect of this notion is the moral equivalency it makes between groups like ISIS who are killing and torturing all who they define as sinners and every other religious organization in the world, including the Dalai Lama, the Pope, and your local priest or minister.  So, whether the religion teaches tolerance and peace, or violent destruction of dissenters, they are all morally the same.

When President Obama makes public arguments equating the Christian Crusaders of the Middle Ages with  ISIS, his argument does not highlight the horror of savage intolerance, rather it seeks to undermine any moral argument that Christianity is different than Islam.  His argument promotes the notion of moral equivalency and instead of increasing the strength or moral and religious arguments against the likes of ISIS, it destroys the foundation for outrage against any outrageous conduct by any person or group.

The Lion Monument or Löwendenkmal, a striking rock sculpture dedicated to the fallen Swiss mercenaries who served under France's notorious King Louis XVI. Narnia fans might find it familiar as it evokes the dying Aslan on the stone table.

3) There is Only One True Religion 

- When I hit on this topic, I know, without question, that I will offend many.  Unfortunately for them, many of those who will be offended, if they critically examine their beliefs will find that they have been lulled into the moral equivalency camp and they have replaced their belief in God with a belief that all ways are right.  

Fortunately for me, I am on very firm ground when I assert that there is only one true religion.  I am on firm ground because Jesus Christ said it long before I did.  He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life.  No man cometh unto the Father but by me" (John 14:6).  Jesus did not leave room for ambiguity in his assertion.  And, he was teaching obedience to the god of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses.

Image courtesy of GivingPraise.com

Contrary to what Islam preaches, he did proclaim himself as the Son of God, numerous times and placed himself above Abraham.  When he did this in Nazareth, they immediately tried to kill him for speaking what they thought was blasphemy (see John 8:58).

In case I am not being clear enough here, I will state it so plainly that it cannot be misunderstood: Christianity is the only religion on earth that is true.  All other religions have some pieces of the truth and have some value, but they are not pointing people toward the one god that actually exists.

And, before anyone can mock this assertion because of the proliferation of Christian churches, let me stat clearly that there is only one Christian church which is true, in that it possess both the correct teachings and the authority from God to carry out ordinances on earth, such as baptism, that are as binding on God as they are on man.

There is truly, as was stated by Paul, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." (Ephesians 4:5). And one religion.  And, it is not one from many, as most Protestant Christian churches preach. Rather, there is only one that contains the binding authority that Christ gave to the Apostle Peter when he told him, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 18:18)

God does exist. And, we know of His existence, not as the intellectualist says because we made it up, rather, we know of His existence, his attributes, his purposes, and our relationship to Him because He revealed Himself, again and again.  He did not leave us here to fend for ourselves and to labor in ignorance.

He showed himself to Adam and Eve and taught them. And He did not leave it at that. He revealed Himself to Enoch and to Noah. And later to Abraham and Jacob.  Then to Moses and Joshua.  And when God sent His own Son to teach His children, they killed him as they did the prophets before him.

But even after the death of Jesus Christ, God revealed himself to the Apostles and many others.  But those witnesses too were killed by those who didn't want to accept the idea that there was only one true religion, one true church, and it wasn't theirs. 

In our days, God again revealed Himself and immediately dispelled the many mistaken notions that had arisen around His nature, purposes, and ways.  And, like those messengers who were rejected in times past, this messenger too was attacked and eventually killed when the message he preached said, again, that there is one true religion, one true church, and it wasn't one of those in power at the time.

I know that my statements here will anger or offend many, but again, let me say that I am only repeating what God Himself has said:

"And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually--"

Doctrine and Covenants 1:30 (emphasis added)

God said it. I cannot argue against it or ameliorate it without turning away from what He has said.  That being said, I also know that under God's plan, no one who lives to any degree in accordance with His doctrines will be shorted in their reward when life is done, whether or not they knew they were His doctrines and principles.  So, it behooves all humankind to live with the sure knowledge that when life is over we will be held accountable for all our deeds in this life by a power far greater than we can comprehend.

In counter to the three points at the start of this article, to conclude this article let me offer three counterpoints:

1) God is real.

2) Moral equivalence is not just wrong, it is evil and destructive.

3) There is one true religion which has been revealed and which can be verified using only the means and methods God has revealed.

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. 

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

Visit Tom's Amazon.com Author's Page

(c) Copyright 2015 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.

A Gift From Nicholas Cage

Do you remember the scene in the Nicholas Cage movie National Treasure where Cage puts on the glasses with strange colored lenses, invented by Benjamin Franklin, and suddenly he can clearly see all the hidden clues on the map?

Today, if you will accept it, I will give you a pair of those kind of glasses that will allow you to see the hidden clues in the trends around us and begin to make sense of them.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints has a book of scripture that they call The Book of Moses (part of The Pearl of Great Price).  In the first chapter of that book, the 39th verse God tells Moses, "For behold, this is my work and my glory - to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."

If you don't get the distinction between immortality and eternal life, allow me to explain.  Immortality means to live forever with your spirit and body inseparably joined to one another.  And Eternal is one of the names of God, so Eternal Life means to have the kind of life that God has.

But, don't take my word for it alone.  Here is what Dictionary.com says about immortality:

immortal condition or quality; unending life.

Contrast that with what it says about "Eternal Life."

This expression occurs in the Old Testament only in Dan. 12:2 (R.V.,"everlasting life").  It occurs frequently in the New Testament (Matt. 7:14;18:8, 9; Luke 10:28; comp. 18:18).  It comprises the whole future of the redeemed (Luke 16:9), and is opposed to "eternal  punishment" (Matt.19:29; 25:46). It is the final reward and glory into which the children of God enter (1 Tim. 6:12, 19; Rom. 6:22; Gal. 6:8; 1 Tim. 1:16; Rom.5:21); their  Sabbath of rest (Heb. 4:9; comp. 12:22). The newness of life which the believer derives  from Christ (Rom. 6:4) is the very essence of salvation, and hence the life of glory or the eternal life must also be theirs(Rom. 6:8; 2 Tim. 2:11, 12; Rom. 5:17, 21; 8:30; Eph. 2:5, 6). It is the"gift of God in Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). The life the faithful have here on earth (John 3:36; 5:24; 6:47, 53-58) is inseparably connected with the eternal life beyond, the endless life of the future,  the happy future of the saints in heaven (Matt. 19:16, 29; 25:46).

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary

Now before you go and get all "God Maker" on me, just hold off and keep listening, at least until the end of this post.  Then, after you give it some consideration, feel free to disagree all you like.  But, I haven't given you the gift yet.

Another thing we learn, both in The Book of Moses and in The Holy Bible is that Lucifer, or Satan or the Devil if you prefer, is as real as Jesus Christ and God the Father.  You actually cannot believe in Jesus Christ and not believe in Lucifer.  After all, Jesus fasted forty days and then was tempted of the Devil.

Now, the whole cloven hoof, forked tongue and tail thing is just pure fairy tale.  Lucifer was a son of God, just like you and I are.  The difference between us and him is that he thought he was smarter than God.  Okay, some of us may have that in common with him now, but we didn't when he made a name for himself.

The Book of the Revelation of Saint John, commonly known as Revelations, mentions that "there was a war in heaven" and that Lucifer was cast down into the earth, along with those who followed him.  Without going into the whole reasons why he  got in a fight with God, let's just focus on the fact that his rebellion got him kicked out of Heaven.  

Now, we are almost to the gift part, so hold your mind open a little longer.

Lucifer is understandably bitter about how things have gone and his fondest hope is to screw things up and ruin God's whole day.  What better way to do that than to destroy his "work and glory?"

If you accept that God wants to make us immortal and give us eternal life and that Lucifer is real, and real angry, then you can look at the entire course of human history as an ongoing struggle between these two opposing forces.  On the one hand, God wants immortality and eternal life for us.  On the other, Lucifer wants to deny us immortality and eternal life.

And, before you start feeling a victim here of forces outside of your control, please realize we have the freedom to choose for ourselves and that our entire purpose here is to be tested to see if we will choose the path that leads to eternal life, or not.

This is the gift.  A lens which allows you to begin to make sense of not only human history, but the trends of our times.

The crazy conspiracy theorists have one thing right, there is a grand conspiracy behind much of what is going on.  But the Grand Conspirator is Lucifer, an undying son of God, cast out and determined to make a wreck of our lives.  And because he is undying, he can promulgate his conspiracy from generation to generation by influencing and wooing followers, both witting and unwitting, to promote his tactics and plans.

Now, the challenge you face today is this, can you use this lens to look at anything in the world around you and begin to discern the true motives behind the trend?

I will give you one trend to look at right away.  Then, you will have to do more on your own.

We cannot become immortal if we never become mortal.  In other words, if Lucifer can prevent God's children from ever being born in this world, he will have succeeded in his purpose to thwart God.  Now, think about trends like abortion and same-sex marriage.  Do you see how they suit the purposes of Lucifer in trying to prevent the immortality of God's children?

Now, add to the mix things like war, which not only cuts many lives short and warps the lives of many others while spreading misery, it also kills lots of people who can then never have children.

Disease and plagues, likewise.

If you use this lens, you will see things very differently.  The radical feminist movement, for one.

Radical Feminists (not people who say equal pay for equal work) have promoted an agenda that advocates not only the abolition of marriage as an institution, but promote that women shouldn't have sex at all and if they are weak and must give in, it should only be with other women.  In short, they would be happiest if men did not exist at all.

The same is true for radical environmentalists - again, not those who say we need to be kind to our world and use our resources wisely - they think the world is better off without people.  The folks at PETA advocate that a rat is the same as a dog is the same as a child.  In other words, they place no higher value on human life than they do on that of any animal.  In fact, because people eat animals, they think less of humanity than they do of cows.  Of course, they conveniently overlook the fact that all life on this world is sustained by the ending of another life.  The wolf or man kills the cow and eats it.  The cow in its turn eats plants, which kills the plant.  But I digress.

The whole "population bomb" crowd who in the 60's predicted we would have food riots in NYC by the 90s's have been preaching population control based on the totally disproven, and patently false premise that the world food supply is going to be less than needed to prevent starvation and world war.

These movements that have a net effect of  advocating the elimination, or dramatic reduction of humanity are clearly seen through this lens of long-term struggle between Lucifer and God as chess moves by Lucifer to restrict the number of God's children who can gain immortality.

Failing to prevent all births, Lucifer has to implement additional plans to thwart that whole "eternal life" thing.

What do we need to do to qualify for eternal life?  Well, the list is short, and long, depending on how you look at it.  The short version is do what God says we should.  The long version is do ALL that God says we should.

Lucifer has several ways to win at this part of the game.

If he can convince people that God doesn't exist, then it is pretty much game over for those folks.  For those who believe in God, if he can convince them that Lucifer doesn't exist, then they will let their guard down and be likely to compromise and imagine up a god that suits their own likes and dislikes. And the list goes on and on.

Three of his most insidious and powerful tactics are:

1. Make it look like so much fun to do things we shouldn't while making doing good things look very boring, unimaginative, and unfulfilling.
2. Make it look like doing good is highly restrictive, a severe loss of freedom.  In contrast, he makes doing things we shouldn't look like the real exercise of freedom.
3. Make doing things we shouldn't do look like we are doing good and make doing things we should do look like we are doing things we shouldn't.  In other words, get us to think that evil is good and good is evil. 

 - On this last point it is worth noting that the whole support of gay marriage uses this tactic quite successful by conflating that struggle with the civil rights movement of the 60's.

The Civil Rights movement was all about what Jesus said was the second most important thing we should do - treat others as we would have them treat us.

The institutionalized discrimination against people of color was a shameful way to treat fellow chidren of God.  It punished and castigated people, not because of their behaviors, but because of the color of their skin.

In likening the gay marriage movement to Civil Rights, the supporters of gay marriage made an issue of choice and turned it into an issue of birthright.  I know many, including at least two of my own children, will take issue with this last statement.  Never fear, I will give that subject a whole article on its own. But that is for another day.

When you have the ability to use this lens, the sweep and sway of human history as well as the social trends of yesterday and today begin to fall into a pattern and make a more predictable flow.  Furthermore, if you believe in God, it begins to give you a road map to better navigate the buffetting winds of the times and to prepare for what is coming next, because we know that Lucifer will not retreat or relent in his onslaught, and we will continue to pick up the tempo and ferocity of his assault on those who believe in God and are trying to do what He has commanded.

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. 

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

Visit Tom's Amazon.com Author's Page

(c) Copyright 2015 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.