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Archive for June, 2009

the real ten commandments - coveting

Saturday, June 27th, 2009

The Ten Commandments

I thought this would be the most appropriate way to follow up on the Georgia guide stones post from earlier in the week. This is going to be the first of a ten part series examining the 10 commandments that have been given to us by God. This will be a different look at these “rules” that I think will give you a better understanding to God’s heart and a proper in sight to what we desires for us.

The world likes to make us think that God is boring and wants to inhibit us from having a good time. Nothing could more untrue. As I am going to demonstrate over the next ten posts every one of His Commandments only has our health, safety and well being at heart.

The Ten Commandments

I am The Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I The Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love Me and keep My Commandments.
You shall not take The Name of The Lord your God in vain; for The Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His Name in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath to The Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; for in six days The Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore The Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which The Lord your God gives you.
You shall not kill.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour’s.

You can read them for yourself here in the Bible at biblegateway.org

Now down to business

I am going to go through these in reverse order, which will make sense on the last day of this series. The tenth commandment here tells us not to covet. So what does covet mean anyway?

Covet - verb (used with object)

to desire wrongfully, inordinately, or without due regard for the rights of others: to covet another’s property.
to wish for, esp. eagerly: He won the prize they all coveted.
to have an inordinate or wrongful desire.

What’s the point?
We live in a world ripe with materialism. The pursuits of many are based on what they can obtain for themselves. We are bombarded with advertising everyday telling us to buy this or that. All these wonderful things are supposed to make us happy and complete. With that message sewn into our brains we see people with this car, or that house or wearing such and such clothing, we get the impression that they are somehow better or more well of. We end up desiring those same material items.
It’s in that spirit that motives and hearts change. God is aware of this and wants us to have a defence against it. He knows we will burn ourselves out chasing things that in the end don’t satisfy, it only pushes us to pursue more.

The Balancing Act of Materialism

A world without coveting - not keeping up with the Joneses
I bet we would have far less debt in a covet free world. People wouldn’t unwisely spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need if there was no spirit of covetousness. I am thinking people by and large would work less as well, reducing stress, fatigue and increasing health and vitality. How much of work is done in the vanity of supporting the life styles we create for ourselves based on things the world shows us? I think that family relationships would be a lot healthier as well if we all worked less and spent more stress free time together. Everyday most people are forced to work more hours or take second jobs to keep their lifestyle going. I picture one of those comedic plate spinners frantically running around the stage trying to keep everything from falling apart. This commandment doesn’t just tell us to not covet stuff but also not to covet people. I will address this principle when I arrive at the adultery commandment.

But what about people that don’t have the basic needs for survival? Is it wrong for someone to covet food if they don’t have food? It certainly is not wrong for a person to desire the things they need to survive. In the New Testament Jesus is asked what is the greatest commandment. He responds by saying:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.

I contend that if those words were being followed that no one would go without the basic needs of life. No one wants to go hungry or without food and shelter. No one would let themselves go hungry if they had food to eat. So if you love someone like yourself and you see they are hungry, you would feed them, ending their need to covet food. Does this happen in our world? Not really. But it should, because it would be a better place.

God’s motivation here is not to tell us we can’t like things. It’s about where the motivation of our heart resides. Our purpose is not to be collectors of stuff or desire to heap onto ourselves everything we see. He wants us to be healthy, stress free and have good relationships with those around us. My advice to you is to guard your heart and your motives. In the end, as creator, everything belongs to God anyway.

the georgia guidestones

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

I can’t recall exactly how I came across these. I have known about the guide stones for a number of years now. I probably stumbled upon them as I bounced from site to site looking at various information. When I did come across these I stopped dead in my tracks. Why had I never heard about these before?

The Georgia Guidestones (American Stonehenge)

A brief overview of this monument:
Located in Elbert County Georgia in the United States, this series of stones weighs hundreds of tons. There are four vertical outer stones surrounding a center stone that all touch a square cap stone. On the faces of the the four outer stones are “ten commandments for the new age” (what the Sam Hill is the new age and when is that starting!?) engraved in the eight most common spoken languages of the world.

The stones were ordered in 1979 and the monument was standing by 1980. There is much secrecy around the origin of the stones as they can not be linked to a particular owner or group. A small distance from the main set is a flat stone in the ground that gives some general information about the set up and origins. The story is that the project was commissioned by a man named Robert C. Christian and he was backed by “A Small Group Of Americans Who Seek The Age Of Reason.” as indicated on the flat tablet by the stones.

The ten commandments of the new age

Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.
Unite humanity with a living new language.
Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason.
Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
Balance personal rights with social duties.
Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite.
Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature.

I won’t comment on all of these but lets take a look at the first one. Five hundred million people on the planet? While I can’t disagree that the planet and nature as a whole could benefit from a smaller population the obvious conflict is that there is nearly seven billion people alive now. Aside from the first one most of these seem fairly sensible… but the question has to be asked again. Where did these come from? Other questions would be why are they there and why doesn’t the public at large know of their existence? Again, ripping on the media (news, TV, magazines, radio and paper), they are rarely if ever discussed. Why? Maybe they’re old news. To me however, with what they imply (someday a vast majority of the earth’s population will be gone) they should be talked about often. Think about them, let me know what you think.

Other reading:
Wired.com - on page three take note of the second image, read the caption. Notice anything specific about it?
Wikipedia

new world order - world government

Friday, June 19th, 2009

This is a topic that I want to cover in depth on this site. Really, this subject is one of three main reasons this site exists. It is a very large subject so I am going to brush on it here and dig deeper later. You may hear me saying that a lot in the first little while but my purpose in the early going is to quickly touch on many areas to establish a loose framework. Then once that is done I will spend chunks of time on single subjects.

Have you ever heard of this term?
So a New World Order huh? Sounds like some political mumbo jumbo does it? Well its a term I am going to help you get acquainted with because a lot of powerful people in many places have not been shy about throwing the idea around. The first time it was brought out onto the public stage was September 11th 1991.

So what’s the big deal?
Where do I begin? One of the first things I can see a problem is if there is only one source of governmental power it is accountable to no one but itself and its desires. Something that makes me believe it is not a good thing is the pseudo secrecy that surrounds the entire subject. No one really seems to come right out and tell us what the entire thing is about and why it would benefit us. Kind of like the banking system we are under. No one really understands it, we are just forced to live with it. Not because it serves the purposes and well being of the public, but because it serves a higher purpose that we are not to understand.

Tip of the iceberg folks. If this is new to you, jump on Google and do a few searches. Its a gigantic topic the established media rarely touches.

A quote to consider

We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.
David Rockefeller Baden-Baden, Germany 1991

Don’t be surprised, but our good friend David Rockefeller that provided the quote above is an international banker. Look around for yourself. This is a huge topic… more to come later.

Other reading
New World Order - Wikipedia

not a great picture

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

A friend forwarded this to me yesterday. In a nut shell it is a series of line graphs comparing the progress of the first great depression to our current economic situation which has been cleverly called the “Second Great Depression”. These graphs are not an inspiring sight. I went over them a few times and looked over the pages and couldn’t really find any sources for where the information comes from, which kind of bothers me. I get into this stuff pretty deep but I do try to level myself by finding corroborating evidence from somewhere else. The internet is ripe with mis information.

I wonder sometimes…
I am no economic scholar but a question comes to mind when I see this information. If there is a pattern to it, does that by any chance mean the cause or origin of the problem is the same? Alternatively it makes me wonder if the problem is similar wouldn’t the solution to the first problem also be the solution to the second problem? I will admit that is very presumptuous on my part.
I am a very skeptical person on banking and how money makes the world go round. One small and compelling illustration to this point would be the short video below. I have a lot to learn about the world of finance, but this gentleman uses a very simple demonstration. (Note his use of the word usury in the video, it was a term used in the Money as Debt video I posted earlier)

debt = slavery

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

In response to the illusion that is money
Let me front load this article with the fact that Money as Debt was made in 2006 and since then it has been updated once and an all together new version has been released. You can visit the official site that represents the movie here.

I have to say this video weighed pretty heavy on my mind after I first saw it in early 2009. Some of this stuff I knew and some of it I had my own gut feelings about before seeing it. For example whenever I would hear in the news about national debts being measured in billions and trillions and hearing about massive credit debts of individuals I always wondered how that could be.

I find most of the quotes throughout the video very interesting. For example:

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.
John Kenneth Galbraith Economist

the money trap

I think this quote is very true. Who really thinks about where money comes from? As long as it shows up on a cheque and gets into a bank account no one really has an issue. But that is only one side of the coin; there is the whole debt issue. People gladly spend on credit cards and do not think of the consequences. Where does this money come from and why is it so redily available? If someone puts “free money” under a box propped up by a stick with a string tied to it, you should go the other way. Nothing is free and debt is leverage for the lender.

Here is where I get stuck and my brain starts to hurt.
The bank is privately owned, not by the government. The bank is in the business of producing and distributing money to governments to be used in worldwide economies. A good business practice would be to lend out the money, get paid back while making a return on the loan. Repeat the process and become monstrously rich. But that is not what’s happening. The bank has loaned out money in such a fashion that it can never be repaid. Does that seem like good business to you? I am left to assume that this is on purpose and a strategic part of their business plan. As the video explains when a loan is taken the only thing of value in the transaction is the collateral put up against the loan. So these astronomical debts are really giant points of leverage. Why else would they operate this way?

So here we are at the mercy of paper rectangles, metal circles and some numbers in a computer. It’s almost incomprehensible to me and no one thinks about it. Isn’t it also interesting that money is not really talked about in school at all until you go to post secondary?

Why debt = slavery
Once a sizable debt is taken on by an individual they are no longer in control of what they have. Someone is now legally allowed to be in your pocket taking whats yours plus interest. So here you are working to pay someone who does not know you, nor you know them. Debt also carries an amount of stress that varies with the size of the debt so your happiness is hindered. Is it not a scarey thought that the very people we borrow money from have the ability to manipulate the economy and money supply? If they choose we can lose our jobs and the means to pay back our debts. If this occurs we are at the mercy of their desires. That sounds like slavery to me.

This subject is a very large one and it is something I want to address from time to time. I will end this shortly because I could go on and on. My intent behind this post and the video is just to get you thinking. I want to leave it here with a few more quotes from the video and two pieces of scripture from the Bible.

This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash, or credit. If the banks create ample synthetic money, we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon. It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defect remedied very soon.
Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Georgia

________________________________________________

None are more enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Goethe

________________________________________________

Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonal, there is no human relation between master and slave.
Leo Tolstoy

________________________________________________

The rich rules over the poor and the borrower is the slave of the lender.
Proverbs 22:7 (ESV)

________________________________________________

Will your debtors not suddenly arise and those awake who make you tremble? Then you will be spoil for them.
Habakkuk 2:7 (ESV)

*The words in bold are links to definitions if it will help put the verse in context.

It seems to me the Bible had this theory down a long time ago. Does this ring true with you at all with the current econmic crisis we are facing? We are being forced into more borrowing which only deepens the world’s plight in the hands of bankers. Indeed this is slavery. What other options are there? Share your thoughts with me. Stay tuned for more on this subject. Thanks for reading.

the illusion that is money

Sunday, June 7th, 2009

I want to start on the topic of money because money touches almost every other aspect of where things are going to go from here. This post is not going to be verbose because the video I am providing will do most of the talking for me. I am going to post this video and then publish some commentary on it a little later. Please, watch the whole thing. The animation is a little rough but the commentary and information are excellent.

alittlecandle

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Archive for June, 2009

the real ten commandments - coveting

the georgia guidestones

new world order - world government

not a great picture

debt = slavery

*The words in bold are links to definitions if it will help put the verse in context.

the illusion that is money