The Jasper Love Trilogy: In Search of Jasper Love

By Onyx Cantor

This is the story of one man’s triumph over Cult Religion. As a preacher’s son, Jasper Love struggled to comply with the dogma and bigotry of the unpredictably changeable Doctrine of Good Enough dictated by Cult Religion. He and four sisters labored to comply with cult demands consistent with their mother’s mantra: “People expect preacher’s kids to be perfect.” The Voice of Truth (bestowed on Jasper as a child in a genuine salvation encounter with Jesus Christ) conflicts with voices of deception from pulpits and pews, triggering crippling anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. Further compounding his confusion is a terrifying awareness of the cult’s distortion of scripture concerning his innate identity. When a Connecticut preacher detects his private struggle, the Bible scholar promises: “If you marry a good Pentecostal girl, this thing will just fade away.” Jasper foolishly accepts the challenge, believing that the pastor’s counsel is based on Truth. A 32-year battle ensues, during which a Pentecostal preacher’s daughter who, aware of his struggle and trained in Exploitation of Advantage, manipulates and controls the miserable husband who strives to suppress and conceal an innate identity which “simply won’t leave me alone.” Cultists despise his genuine relationship with God when the Holy Spirit weakens the tenacious grasp of the antiChrist’s claim on his soul, rescuing him from abominable doctrines through Spiritual Enlightenment to Truth Absolute. Spiritual Warfare ensues, during which he is molested by authority figures, betrayed by cult dishonesty, falls into sin, is attacked by demons, and is delivered by the Holy Ghost through visions of spiritual combat between the demons of Cult Religion and the Angels of Truth. In the end, his foolish attempt to conform with the Doctrine of Good Enough predictably results in the destruction of everything he wasted a lifetime building: marriage, family, home, career, material wealth, and reputation. Yet, in losing all, he is delivered from the Darkness of cult idolatry, whereupon he is finally free to immerse himself in genuine Truth, Light, and Love, breaking the tyrannical chains of Cult Religion. Released by the Holy Spirit from cult bondage, he is at last unleashed to fulfill his destiny: To teach the Truth about Jasper Love (that boundless, unconditional love known only to those who genuinely experience Spiritual Enlightenment) to a people deceived by the hateful harlots of idolatry who are nothing more than power-crazed, authoritarian, self-aggrandizing, despotic antiChrist heretics who worship only one god - CONTROL.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Mar 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781489725349

Onyx Cantor

Onyx Cantor grew up in a small town in southern Illinois. He learned about faith from his Pentecostal evangelist father, inherited severe depression from his mentally ill mother, and struggled with the tyranny of organized religion. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from a prominent Missouri University in 1974 and worked 30 years in engineering until failing health ended his career in 2004. He contributed to the progress of Reliability Engineering and honed writing skills in that capacity. His 32-year marriage to a Pentecostal pastor’s daughter ended in divorce when his health deteriorated. His ambition now is to share the beauty of God’s Grace which transcends the Darkness of Religion, and to expose the pernicious nature of Religion as the idol which stands between God and those who would know Him.

Book preview

In Search of

JASPER

Love

ONYX CANTOR

277493.png

Copyright © 2020 Onyx Cantor.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Comparison of fictional characters to real people, living or dead, is forbidden. While the events are real, the identities of the characters are concealed with fictitious names.

LifeRich Publishing is a registered trademark of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

LifeRich Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.liferichpublishing.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Unless otherwise cited, scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2536-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2535-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2534-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019920831

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 02/28/2020

Nota bene:

• Onyx Cantor is a nom de plume.¹

• Since one of the author’s purposes is to share with his grandchildren the joy of learning new words, the Glossary at the end of this manuscript presents the definitions of selected words. Each word defined in the Glossary is identified with a superscript hehe.png the first time it appears in the text.

Acknowledgments

All praise and glory to

YHWH

G-D

Yeshua Hamashiach

Ruach Hakodesh

without whom nothing of anything has meaning!²

Much gratitude to my sister and my son

for editing support, encouragement, and advice.

Blessings and honor to Sister Janet Paschal

(writer of How Are Things At Home)

for permission to include your lyrics in Book III.

Thank you for blessing me and my children with your lyrics!

The spirit in your song always makes me cry because

it is from the heart of someone who, like me,

knows that this world is not our home.

Thank you to the staff of LifeRich Publishing®

for helping make this publication available

to a world desperately in need of Jasper Love.

Sincere thanks to the staff of St. Louis Bread Co.

for accommodating and supporting me

while I struggled to complete this project –

and for the world’s best bagels.

And finally, thanks to all those

whose offenses made this book interesting.

And necessary!

WATCH FOR: SEQUELLA³ – The Aftermath of The Jasper Love Trilogy

Contents

Jasper Love – A Poem For Children

Author’s Preface

Prolegomenon to The Jasper Love Trilogy

Prologue: T3 (A Short Novel About Beginnings )

Book I:    In Search of Jasper Love

Jennifer’s Foreword – Book I

Prolegomenon to Book I

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

Book II :   Living Jasper Love - Deception and Vilification

Julián’s Foreword – Book II

Prolegomenon to Book II

The 1970s (continued)

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

Epilogue :Fait Accompli (A Short Novel About Beginnings)

Book III :   Loving Jasper Love - Redemption

Hosanna’s Foreword – Book III

Prolegomenon to Book III

Dear H~O~P~E,

Letters To H~O~P~E

Parting Advice

The Private Journal of Jasper Love

Glossary of Selected Words and Phrases

Usage Alerts

Endnotes

Jasper Love –

A Poem For Children

I am fearfully and wonderfully made! ⁵

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,

and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second [is] like unto it,

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

On these two commandments

hang all the law and the prophets. ⁶

(emphasis mine)

GettyImages184942519.jpg

Figure 1. Jasper!

Each jasper stone is unique,

just as is each one of God’s creatures,

including human beings. ⁷

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Jasper Love - A Poem For Children

©2020 ONYX CANTOR

I’ll tell you a tale

If you will but listen,

The tale of a lover

Whose love was forsaken.

The love of this lover

Was so heartlessly shunned.

Wounded and stunned,

His trust was undone. hehe.png

Haters and fakers

Are so quick to judge,

While hiding their secrets

With idol and kludge. ⁸

He thought he could trust them.

Truth could not stop them.

They worked together

To shame a brother.

They worked in collusion

With evil delusion.

They sharpened their rapier,

The myth they needed to believe, ⁹

Then confabulated fables

With gossip and chinwag. hehe.png

As lies will do, when given ear,

Their lie grew from tongue to tongue

With prattle and twaddle

Until Truth did not matter.

Shaken and broken,

The lover appealed to reason.

He tried to dissuade them.

Then shattered, he scattered.

Often we learn from evil offenses

That truths we once thought true

Were merely fences

We built ourselves to hide Truth Absolute. ¹⁰

We lie to ourselves,

To God, and to others

When we know we can’t trust

Our sisters and brothers.

Others cannot love you

Until you first love you.

The lover looked outward,

Then inward, then upward.

Then verklempt, hehe.png he surrendered

To God as his Stalwart. ¹¹

He learned then that love

Is more than expression.

It’s trusting and loving

With Grace and compassion.

The still small voice

With which he was so familiar

Taught him that loving like God

Means loving like jasper.

Each jasper is unique

In hue, shape, and color.

A love like jasper

Is forever and ever.

Love is a wispy mystery

Without Faith, Hope, and Charity. ¹²

Jasper-Love means loving

Those who do not like you

Because you are different,

And they are not like you.

Love based on rules,

Religion, and condition

Is not Jasper-Love

Which is love with conviction.

The Sinless Savior

Gave His life for the sinner.

If you would be like Him,

You must love like Him.

When priest-pleasers seized Him,

He healed a wounded captor ¹³

For He who hates sin

Jasper-Loves all sinners.

When you finally find Jasper-Love

In your Qi, Yin, Yang, Chakra, and Karma,

You can finally love others,

Not as you want them, but just as God made them.

Religion and Control desiccate the soul.

Jasper-Love resuscitates the soul.

Author’s Preface

Why This Book? Why Now?

But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people… to open their eyes, and to turn them from DARKNESS to LIGHT, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive FORGIVENESS of sins… which [is] sanctified by FAITH that is in me. ¹⁴ (emphasis mine)

This book must be written. I did not want to write it, but I am forced by the crimes of others to document their shameful assault on Truth in hopes of enlightening at least one to the iniquity hehe.png they justified in the name of self-righteous hehe.png Religion. ¹⁵

Some will read this book and love me, some will read it and hate me, but all who read this book will certainly know me… just as I am!

Producing a semi-autobiographical novel based on the experiences of a long, eventful life is no small task and involves no small risk. The publication of one’s flaws, failures, sins, and shortcomings, as well as the crimes of others alleged by the writer, exposes the confessor to graceless reprisal, bigotry, hehe.png hatred, and merciless vilification. hehe.png

Yet Truth begs to be known and will not rest until it has been proclaimed in the open court of public record. The telling is painful. The writing is painful. The sharing of less than flattering tales is unpleasant. ¹⁶

But Truth demands satisfaction.

If this work inspires faith ¹⁷ in God by one soul who has believed the lie that his or her sin is somehow beyond the Grace ¹⁸ of Jesus Christ, then I will consider the extreme efforts invested in this work to be rewarded with copious hehe.png compensation for my anxieties, suffering, and expense.

If this tome hehe.png can alter the course of even one tyrannical hehe.png cult hehe.png dictator hehe.png disguised as a godly preacher, leading to confession, repentance, hehe.png and conversion to genuine Christian faith, then my reward is sufficient.

If the principles supporting my simple faith in Jesus Christ are adequately described in this précis hehe.png of my experience with organized religion to temper the extremism of American Fundamentalist ¹⁹ organizations founded on antiChrist hehe.png idolatry, hehe.png indeed complementing the 21st Century Grand Reformation ²⁰ already begun by the Holy Spirit among these hypocritical hehe.png organizations which rely on self-righteousness, judgmentalism, and demonization of dissenters, then I will consider this work successful. The wise reader will at least receive this volume as merely a propaedeutic hehe.png fillip hehe.png to a spiritual Paradigm hehe.png Shift hehe.png and a plea to flee the moribund hehe.png Religion which holds him captive.

The primary objective of this book is to inform my grandchildren about the grandfather to whom they were deprived access by the conspirators hehe.png who destroyed the family, the home, and the Christlike reputation which I spent a lifetime building. These children have a right to the Truth about their grandfather. Herein, I expose them to my good, my bad, my successes, my failures, my virtues, and my flaws.

Some have challenged me, Why would you publish your faults, your failures, and your sins? To them, I reply, Truth is generally the best vindication hehe.png against slander. hehe.png ²¹ – especially when the truth is far less offensive than the gossipers wish it were. More succinctly stated, I might simply say, Because Truth matters. As Edwin Way Teale said, It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it. ²²

Furthermore, If we are true to ourselves, we cannot be false to anyone. ²³ Only by telling the whole truth can one disarm the defamation of his reputation by conspirators who depend on untruths to destroy a friend who chose to trust them. After all, I am just like everyone else who struggles to find Grace because every saint has a past (if he will but admit it), every sinner, a future (one of justification and redemption if he will simply receive Christ). ²⁴

My grandchildren are free to reach their own conclusions, to despise me for my flawed behaviors, or to appreciate my sincere love for them, but mostly to love me for who I am. I hope they can learn from my experience and avoid my mistakes. They deserve to know the Truth; that I am no worse than any man and no better, but certainly not the vicious villain which the conspirators contrived to portray. The success of this undertaking may be measured by the number of my precious grandchildren who turn away from cult religion to embrace the Truth, the Light, the Love, the Grace, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Even one of my grandchildren deceived by cult religion will cause me inestimable anguish.

These pages, if understood, will challenge my grandchildren to hold the conspirators accountable for their actions! If the children instead choose to reject me after reading the Truth, at least they will have made their own decision. I will be gratified simply in knowing that they had access to the Truth in contrast to the lies manufactured by the conspirators under the command of Satan himself.

Far too late in life, I discovered the harshest truth. I wasted a lifetime seeking a sure thing, only to discover the reality that there are only two sure things in this world: the goodness of God and the wickedness of man against man. These are without question and without change. These truths explain the perpetual struggle between God and man, Jesus Christ bridging the gap and seeking without ceasing to deliver man from the bondage of evil into the Liberty of Love, whereby man can be delivered of the unwholesome need to win, to conquer, to suppress one another. Without this Liberty, man will invariably descend into the abyss of War, Exploitation of Advantage, and Religion. War is not the consequence of Religion – they are one and the same, inseparable; the human need to prove to himself his superiority over his fellows – this is, by definition, antiChrist.

All the while, God offers man deliverance from this sophomoric, hehe.png solipsistic hehe.png lust to dominate, conquer, and control others. Relief is as simple as accepting one’s helpless bondage to the fear of one’s imperfection and simply acknowledging the supremacy of God alone in the realization that we, without God, are imperfect, evil, and slaves to human lust – and that’s okay, because we are all equally imperfect, wicked, sinful, and subject to the desires of the flesh. Perfection, Righteousness, hehe.png Truth Absolute, and Enlightenment are gifts from the Infinite – YHWH, G-D, Yeshua Hamashiach, Ruach Hakodesh – to any man who will but receive them.

The fundamental principles Jesus taught are contrary to the baser lusts of man to conquer, enslave, and overpower his fellows. Thus, Jesus Christ is the antithesis hehe.png of war, Exploitation of Advantage, and Religion. For this reason, warriors, kings, and religious charlatans hehe.png despise Jesus Christ who, as the Supreme King, represents that power to which they must submit as superior to themselves because God is the Warrior they cannot conquer, the Righteousness to which they aspire and seek in vain through Religion, the Supremacy man craves but can never acquire.

Religion despises Light and Liberty, so religious leaders will always despise those blessed with the Enlightenment and Freedom available to Man only through a personal encounter with the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Having experienced the Light, I am despised by cult religion. This biography tells the story of that cult hatred, as well as the numerous occurrences of exploitation plotted against me by men who are slaves to their need to conquer.

This story recounts the sins, transgressions, and crimes of impenitent liars in an Indiana cult who collaborated to destroy me. An SRAC ²⁵ monarch hehe.png in that state schemed, plotted, and led the campaign to condemn me to unreconcilable exile, hehe.png censure, hehe.png and infamy hehe.png – simply because I was too honest to submit to cult domination without questioning its validity.

I have undertaken many challenges in life and achieved much but writing this book has been my greatest challenge. Apart from combating evil spirits in the church and brutally oppressive despots hehe.png conspiring to destroy me (including in my own family), the most difficult challenge I have ever faced is in writing about them. The emotional trauma of recounting a lifetime of abuses at the hands of authority figures, peers, family members, and religious tyrants hehe.png has been the most grueling work I have ever undertaken. Yet God commanded and guided while I merely obeyed.

The greatest pain of my life has been the irreparable harm done to me and my precious grandchildren, harm caused by lies used to separate us without justification. They were stolen from me by a cortège hehe.png of crafty hehe.png conspirators who, in concert with demons, hehe.png concocted hehe.png horrific lies to vilify hehe.png me. While it’s true that I am not perfect, not even close, the truth herein will demonstrate that I am not the villain I would be if the conspirators lies were based on legitimate facts rather than fabricated gossip, and not the villain they needed me to be to justify their crimes.

It would be so easy to just let this story die with me, but there is far too much to be gained by publishing the facts so that each reader can learn and grow, hopefully protecting others from victimization by Religion, even showing some deceived by it how to escape it and move forward on their individual journeys toward Truth Absolute.

After reading this manuscript, one reader who failed to grasp it’s pellucid hehe.png purity accused me of loving words and hating people. While it’s true that I do love words because of their beauty, precision, power, and purity, I do not hate people. But words have never hurt me, while unscrupulous hehe.png people have purposely used words (and Religion) to cause irreparable harm to me and to others. Even so, I would not have invested a modest fortune, thousands of hours, and over 400,000 words in this manuscript if I did not love the people who committed the sins I wrote about with the hope that at least one would see their error, repent of it and fall at the foot of the Cross, the only place where he might find Grace.

If there is any hate in this story, it is driven by the Darkness which hates the Light I share in this book. It is that hate which motivated the people who committed the offences I write about here. That same hateful spirit has tried desperately to keep this book out of your hands. Another chapter in this story might include the list of strangers who attacked me without provocation or explanation during the final four months of this project. None of these attacks were openly identified as associated in any way with my work on this book or any of the events documented in it. In fact, the strangers were motivated not by personal resentment for me but driven by the Darkness which is terrified that you will read this book and discover how Darkness and Religion have deceived you, and that you can be set free of its power over you.

A Word About Structure, Motivation, & Consequence

The objective of Books I & II is to provide four blessed children who were cheated from knowing their grandfather with truth about the events of his life, the good and the bad, the factual information certainly distorted by Satan’s Witless Tools. The first volume provides a background and explanation for the conflict which fills the second volume which culminates in an account of an attack by hostile friends and family who were inspired by the lies, deception, and manipulative scheming of cultic, hehe.png sociopathic hehe.png conspirators in obedience to demonic mandate combined to deprive a grandfather of the joy he might have derived by witnessing the growth of his precious grandchildren.

Book III is the final installment of the trilogy, and, in fact, is the primary objective for the creation of the series. Each topic is presented in a letter addressed ‘Dear H~O~P~E,’ (a fictitious name manufactured from the first initials of the fictitious first names of my four grandchildren). This volume provides information and inspiration essential to the establishment of a firm foundation for those children in their self-image as descendants of a long line of Christian ministry.

The primary objective of Satan’s plot to destroy the family unit was to steal Truth and Light from those children. The persons who participated in the destruction of that family (they know who they are!) were foolish tools in Satan’s toolbox. The purpose of this volume is to share some of my values and principles in great detail with my precious grandchildren, values I could not teach them in person because I was stolen from them by the complot of dolts. It is unlikely that continuous daily exposure to the children, had it never been disrupted by the eagerness of Satan’s sociopathic, self-serving witless tools to rally with the Darkness of cult Religion, would have motivated me to so comprehensively itemize and clarify my principles and values as presented in Book III.

Consequently, the Luciferian scheme to deprive four innocent children of the Truth and Light herein backfired on the dark conspirators by presenting me the unique opportunity to more fully share these Truths in written form, undistracted by cult Religion and sociopathic manipulations so prevalent now in the family to which I faithfully, consistently, and selflessly dedicated 32 years of my life. Satan and his Foolish Tools were elated by what they perceived was victory in their conspiracy to destroy what I spent a lifetime building, but my victory is made sweeter and more complete by their folly.

The conspirators will undoubtedly find this Trilogy offensive and make it their mission to waylay this narrative to prevent the Truth from repairing the damage done to the four grandchildren. They will fail because that damage was more offensive to God than to me. Their hostility is to be expected, since you can’t promote principled anti-corruption action without pissing-off corrupt people. ²⁶

By the Grace of God, this book is now in your hands. You now have two choices:

1. Read it, embrace it, and find freedom through Jasper Love.

2. Put it back on the shelf and go back to sleep.

What I have written, I have written. ²⁷ It has been done in obedience to God, inspired alone by His Purpose and in clear conscience that these Truths are undeniable and presented as Truth, not with malicious intent, but rather as a Light to shine in the Darkness.

Prolegomenon to

The Jasper Love Trilogy

What Is Man?

²⁸

Oh my friend, why do you… care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? ²⁹

Behold! What A Piece Of Work Is A Man! ³⁰

He rejoices at the wounds of another!

He exploits hehe.png every advantage over a fellow to inflict injury and, where no advantage exists, he invents one through deception, schemes, plots, trickery, flimflam, fraud, conspiracies, hehe.png cozenage, hehe.png and chicanery! hehe.png

Man hordes resources which he cannot use and have no value to him, while he abandons all that which is infinite within him and of immeasurable worth: his soul, his love, his identity. Such men are love-paupers and greed-slaves, addicted to the most dangerous kind of deception – self-deception.

Behold! Every species has a predator – Man’s most ferocious predator is Man! Man is a Wolf to Man! ³¹ The framers of the US Constitution acknowledged that it is the nature of fallen man that the weaker are subjected to the violence of the stronger. ³² The only remedy to this depraved lust to dominate and conquer is the regeneration afforded us by the Work of Grace through Jesus Christ.

Exploitation of Advantage

The 3 Rules for Exploitation of Advantage:

1. Exploit everyone else’s weakness to your advantage.

2. When you have no advantage, create one.

3. If you cannot create an advantage, at least create the perception of one.

The inhumaneness of humanity is undeniably testified throughout human history. In prehistoric times, the strongest and the cleverest survived the weaker and the less cunning. Charles Darwin ³³ described the process of natural selection ³⁴ by coining the phrase Survival of the Fittest. ³⁵ Darwin’s theories attempted to describe the wide variety of creatures living on earth in the 19th century, as well as explaining the cause for the disappearance of species for which fossils remain as the only testament hehe.png of their extinction. Without doubt, all creatures evolve over time, yet in some areas, man has not. The primary area in which Man has not evolved is in his baser lust to possess, to rule, and to conquer.

The instinct of the cave dwellers in long past millennia survives in modern man, expressing itself in the competition for limited resources with ruthless, hehe.png selfish, and unconscienced hehe.png Exploitation of Advantage. Throughout recorded history, man’s depraved lust for supremacy repeatedly overshadows his integrity, inspired primarily (if not solely) by an intrinsic hehe.png fundamental need to gain power, wealth, or control at the expense of others. Even the most generous of figures, portrayed as unselfish and self-sacrificial, was inherently motivated to sacrifice by the selfish need to augment his self-image as unselfishly sacrificing wealth and comfort for the benefit of his chosen mission to serve mankind.

This is not to say that the nature of man is inherently evil, as the Calvinist ³⁶ might insist. Rather, it is undeniable that the nature of Fallen Man ³⁷ compels him to seek his own fulfillment in whichever paradigm he chooses by exploiting his advantages in competition with others seeking fulfillment in the same paradigm. Thus, it is not a value judgment to say that every man is driven to exploit any advantage. Judgment as to the goodness or wickedness of a man’s actions is only to be measured by the effect of his actions on others, whether to the advancement or hindrance of the human condition in the broad view, or more commonly, the effect of one’s actions on fellows in his direct acquaintance.

For example, one may be pursuing employment in a specific field. It is neither good nor bad that one so interested would develop an advantage in the competition for that job by preparation in either academic or practical training. It is wise to develop one’s skills to cultivate and demonstrate a genuine practical advantage over the unskilled in competitive environments.

Even so, lurking in the hearts of Unregenerated Men ³⁸ is the unquestionably sinister compulsion to exploit their advantage to the specific detriment of others. Even more common among the less talented, yet politically entangled, is the purposeful scheme to substitute public perception of advantage rather than the real advantage of talent or skill. That perceived advantage can then be exploited to elevate the politically entangled by suppressing the genuinely talented. In such cases, skill is devalued while perception and deception are rewarded. Political relationships are the most predominant basis for success in modern corporate America.

And in modern American churches.

Enlightenment

The light shineth in darkness;

and the darkness comprehended it not.

– John 1:4

"Am I alone wise?

Doesn’t anybody else see the Light of Truth?

Here I stand. I can do no other."

– Martin Luther on trial

The Holy Spirit offers The Light of Truth to every man. The Light cannot be understood, overcome, appropriated, absorbed, diminished nor extinguished by Darkness, ³⁹ nor by any man who chooses to reject or deny it. Light offends any man brainwashed by cult religion because it offends the Darkness of antiChrist idolatry securely sealed within his paradigm, imperceptibly and purposefully piercing his soul with abominable hehe.png transmogrification hehe.png of Truth.

Few pursue the Light.

Fewer find it.

Even fewer accept it when it shines into them, unwilling or unable to acknowledge and escape the Darkness of Religion.

Cult leaders whose authoritarian, self-serving, control-obsessed techniques modeled after The Doctrine of Good Enough (in denial and open defiance of the Grace purchased by the Blood of Jesus Christ) are nothing less than tyrannical dictators who do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord. They have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof ⁴⁰ – the power of Grace. Such tyrants place themselves on pedestals ⁴¹ of preeminence, hehe.png declaring their authority as priests whose approval is essential for the redemption of underlings. Their gospel is not one of Salvation hehe.png by Grace through Jesus Christ, but rather an idolatrous hehe.png antiChrist elevation of themselves as the judge, jury, and executioner of every man they deem unworthy of their approval. Their primary objective is not the eternal salvation of souls, but the soul-deadening entanglement of their victims in the fruitless pursuit of the dictators’ approval, and that approval must never be granted, lest the dictator surrender CONTROL, losing his power to dominate the weak-minded and the lazy.

In contrast are the souls who seek Truth and walk in the Holy Spirit. Those who are led by the Spirit and walk in it are no longer bound in Darkness where the law justifies their condemnation, but they are set free from the bondage of the law. ⁴² It is to them that God is willing and delighted to reveal the Light of Truth. Once enlightened, they are unable to return to the state of Darkness which is governed and exploited by cult dictators. More importantly, the enlightened are obligated to share the Light of Truth with all – those who will embrace the Light, and those who reject it due to their spiritual blindness and bondage to cult Religion.

Enlightenment liberates man from the bondage of Religion, yet it places him in conflict with cult tyrants. Those who are enlightened must be eliminated from the congregation, lest their light exposes the Darkness and corruption which controls those who do not know the Light. Enlightened, emancipated, hehe.png independent-minded, Christ-centered men are a threat to control freaks in the pulpits of idolatrous antiChrist cults.

Cult churches are modeled after the pattern of antebellum hehe.png plantations of the North American South. In this model, any slave who questions the authority of the Massa – any slave who dares to pursue truth contrary to the pre-established rules defined by the Massa – such rebels must be shamed, defamed, and eliminated, lest their truths threaten the power of the Massa to dominate and maintain the illusion that his authority is unquestionably supreme, irreversible, and not to be challenged as God’s Divine World Order.

Just as abolitionists were not welcome in The Deep South, The Light of the Holy Spirit is not welcome in the congregations of fools who function as weak reflections of their particular dictator’s particular definition of Good Enough.

The Still Small Voice

God revealed himself to Elijah not in a strong wind, an earthquake, or fire, but in His still small voice ⁴³ (a delicate whispering voice known only to those who know Him). Observe I Kings 19:

And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him… And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus… ⁴⁴ (emphasis mine)

What Is Truth?

⁴⁵

Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. ⁴⁶

Truth Absolute is the single most beautiful experience of being human. We are not born knowing everything, or much of anything for that matter. We spend every moment of our lives in pursuit of Truth. Each of us longs to know Truth, and Truth longs to know us. The moment a single truth is unveiled is more joyous than any other mortal experience offered us. Revealed truths change us, shifting our paradigms and propelling us toward more truths.

Truth is timeless because it transcends hehe.png time. Truth is boundless because it is everywhere always.

Truth wants to be known.

Truth longs to be known.

Truth craves to be known.

Truth is available to any who will seek her.

Truth hearkens to us, tirelessly calling us. Truth does not need us, but we need her desperately. Our journey has no everlasting value except for the Light of Truths we receive along the way.

Truth is not simply that which we are taught. Teachings are attempts by others to persuade us to accept their perception of Truth, often without any supporting proof that it is indeed true. Demanding that others accept our teachings as truth without question is egotistical hehe.png and cultic, betraying the teacher’s obvious fear that his teaching might very likely be untrue.

Genuine Truth is not threatened by questions, nor is our quest for Truth hindered by questions. In fact, genuine Truth demands questions. If an idea cannot withstand the scrutiny of questions, then it is unquestionably not true at all. It is the insecure cult leader who is offended by questions of his ideas, exposing his unfortunate failure to seek genuine Truth for himself by questioning the ideas of other teachers, thereby revealing his failure to walk in the Spirit whose desire is to guide us into ALL Truth. ⁴⁷

Still, as long as we are yoked hehe.png to the flesh, we can never embrace the fullness of All Truth because the view of Truth is distorted by the flesh, so we can only view it through a glass darkly. ⁴⁸ For if we know and understand All Truth, then we are no longer burdened with the veil of the flesh, in which case we will have become complete in God who is the Essence of All Truth.

Enoch of Biblical history embraced All Truth, because of which the burden of flesh fell from him. When Enoch transcended the flesh by receiving All Truth, he was not, for God took him. ⁴⁹

Embracing Truth Absolute is the purpose of the human journey through this dimension, a goal which can only be achieved by transcending flesh, walking in the Spirit, shedding the burden of untruths masquerading as Truth through The Great Deceiver, Religion.

What is Faith?

Faith and Religion are NOT interchangeable synonyms. They are two distinct concepts.

Contrary to widespread acceptance of the homogeneity of these two words, faith is NOT the same as Religion. Religion is simply accepting and choosing to believe in a set of rules, dogmas, and rituals associated with what someone else declares they know is true, while faith is believing in that which I cannot prove is true, although I may or may not have personally experienced it as true.

I cannot make an untruth true just by believing it is true. Likewise, I cannot make a truth untrue just by denying it is true.

Faith is the conscious choice by which I choose to believe even that which I cannot prove by my own witness is true. For example, I believe what others told me about Abraham Lincoln; that he was the 16th President of the United States, that he led his nation during bloody war, and that he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre. I accept as fact that there is a city in France called Paris, although I’ve never seen it myself.

But how can I know that all these alleged facts about Lincoln and Paris are true? I cannot because I did not experience them personally. I can choose to accept or deny what historians, geographers, photographers, and reporters pose as truth. For me to believe a supposition is true is an act of faith. Faith transcends personal experience and supplements personal experience with truths which the believer chooses to add to his set of beliefs.

What Is Religion?

Religion has been described as the process by which man pursues knowledge of, understanding about, and access to a supernatural entity – a Higher Power, if you will – an omnipotent, hehe.png omnipresent, hehe.png and omniscient hehe.png being which I choose for convenience and clarity to call God.

No description of Religion could be more inaccurate. From its beginning, Religion has been man’s greatest barrier to knowing God, leading lackadaisical hehe.png men to accept the teachings of others, too lazy to pursue genuine Truth which is available to man only by walking in the Spirit and testing the ideas of others with mandatory continual questionings. It is not simply our right to question the teachings of others. It is our duty, lest we fail to embrace Truth Absolute because of our own spiritual sloth. Yet, most men fail to question Religion, succumbing hehe.png to their fear of rejection by self-appointed ecclesiastical hegemons. hehe.png

To demand that other people accept my ideas as absolute, undeniable Truth is nothing less than cultic hubristic hehe.png hegemony which is the central theme of Religion. Yet, lazy men satisfied with the dark lie – If the preacher likes me, I must be okay with God. – flock to cult tyrants who offer nothing more than submission to their untried beliefs and demand followers to accept those beliefs without question. Such were Israel’s Pharisees, ⁵⁰ Hitler’s Brown Shirts, ⁵¹ Mussolini’s Black Shirts, ⁵² and the millions of parishioners in thousands of congregations around the world for centuries.

Such submission is hero worship! It is not godliness! It is languid hehe.png craving for and pursuit of the approval of the crowd and is nothing less than idolatry! Anything that a man permits to stand between that man and God is that man’s idol. This form of idolatry prevails in the vast majority of American churches. Their evil message of idolatry is subliminal, hehe.png often unspoken, yet it unmistakably demands, Agree with your pastor, or you cannot be accepted into heaven. This powerful argument has defeated many souls who began as sincere in their pursuit of Truth, but who tragically chose to believe Satan’s lie that agreement with a pastor (the cult tyrant) in all things is the only path to heaven. In yielding to this falsehood, most sincere souls abandon their God-given duty to pursue genuine Truth.

The Founding Fathers wrote into the US Constitution that man is endowed with certain inalienable rights. ⁵³ The Constitution refers to these as The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God. ⁵⁴ These laws are the only reliable basis on which to launch a government on a foundation that never changes. Religion is Man’s impotent, unsuccessful, and impossible attempt to rob God of His Inalienable Right as the Only Supreme Being with the power and authority to judge and condemn or redeem! Such hubris! Such is Religion!

Can God’s Grace compensate for such submission to idolatry? Jesus openly declared it cannot, for it is the opposite of Faith in God, it is blasphemy hehe.png against the Holy Spirit, ⁵⁵ the unpardonable sin, ⁵⁶ the abomination hehe.png which leaves the soul desolate. ⁵⁷

The Doctrine of Good Enough

1. Define yourself as an authority figure, such as pastor.

2. Brainwash the members of the congregation to believe that they must have your approval, not God’s, in order to be received into the Kingdom of God.

3. Set the bar for a member’s performance at a level which is slightly above his ability to achieve, promising acceptance as the reward for his submission, obedience, and loyalty.

4. Wait for him to rise to that level.

5. When he comes to you, seeking affirmation that he has complied with your performance demand, do not grant accolades hehe.png or approval. Instead, inform him that he must now rise to an even higher level. Create some new challenge that he must accept but be sure to offer him the hope that each new level will be adequate to grant acceptance into the Kingdom of God.

6. Repeat step 5 without ceasing!

Note: Be very careful to protect the secret that your demands cannot qualify him for the real Kingdom of God, but merely for your own Kingdom of Good Enough. With each new level of achievement, set new goals that he must accomplish. Be very careful to assure him that each new level is absolutely necessary and will be the final level. With effective manipulative skills, you can repeat this cycle ad infinitum. hehe.png Be sure to insert subtle messages into your sermons and Bible Studies about the requirement that he must have your approval in order to reach Good Enough.

What Is It Really?

The harsh reality of The Doctrine of Good Enough as an approach to pastoring people is that it is idolatry! This Doctrine robs the people of the joy of living solely for God and serving Him with confidence in His Power to Redeem. hehe.png This Satan-inspired Doctrine effectively places the pastor between God and His believers. People are thereby manipulated into serving the interests of the pastor, not God. By convincing the people that they need the pastor’s approval, diabolical hehe.png pastors elevate themselves to positions of tyranny, depriving the people of a relationship with God and compelling the people to focus their energy on pleasing the pastor, not God, because God’s genuine supremacy jeopardizes the pastor’s counterfeit supremacy.

This approach to ministry is a profane abomination! It has served as an effective tool to manipulate the innocent and the sincere into committing horrible offenses against God and mankind, deceiving poor souls with a false sense of security that they can indeed achieve Good Enough for eternal salvation. In the sinister hands of cult pastors, The Doctrine of Good Enough evolves into domination by despots.

The Pharisees did it to their followers in Jerusalem during the era of Jesus’ ministry of Grace. Jesus himself rebuked them for their self-aggrandizing attempt to dethrone God as the only Righteous Judge of every man.

Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Fidel Castro, among others, succeeded politically in destroying their sycophants hehe.png with a political version of The Doctrine of Good Enough. History is replete with evil, tyrannical dictators who have applied these same methods:

1. CONVINCE THEM YOU ARE THE SUPREME AUTHORITY.

2. BRAINWASH THEM THAT THEY MUST HAVE YOUR APPROVAL TO BE GOOD ENOUGH (AND SOMETIMES, JUST TO STAY ALIVE).

3. LET THEM BELIEVE THAT THEY CAN ACTUALLY ACHIEVE YOUR APPROVAL.

4. NEVER GRANT THEM THAT APPROVAL (WHICH THEY DON’T EVEN NEED) SO THAT THEY WILL CONTINUE TO SEEK YOUR INACCESSIBLE APPROVAL.

The Do’s&Don’ts

Every cult has them – the rules, the codes, the dogmas, and the rituals which you must appear to have adopted as your paradigm.

Do this! Don’t do that! Believe like the rest of us and you’re ok.

Every organized religion endorses, legitimizes, and defends its leaders’ list of Do’s&Don’ts based on their own version of The Doctrine of Good Enough. The result? Works Religions! ⁵⁸

Jesus warned against Do’s&Don’ts religionists: In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. ⁵⁹

Scripture clearly rebukes Do’s&Dont’s religionists: … if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain. ⁶⁰

C³ a Cookie Cutter Christianity

Sadly, many who claim to be adherents of Christianity do practice Christianity as if it were a religion. To many, Christianity is nothing more than a set of rules and rituals that a person has to observe in order to go to heaven after death. That is not true Christianity. True Christianity is not a religion; rather, it is having a right relationship with God by receiving Jesus Christ as the Savior-Messiah, by grace through faith. ⁶¹

I don’t recall where and when I first heard the term, Cookie Cutter Christians. But I remember very well how it felt when I heard it because it immediately resonated in my soul… because I knew I belonged to a C³ religion. The realization that the world recognized what I had long tried to deny – that I was deceived by cult religion – was a source of embarrassment and fear for me. At that time I was not ready for Truth, but, with the guidance of the still small voice, I eventually found the courage to admit that the organized religion in which I had tried so hard to find a place was just another one of the world’s many cults.

Now, it is obvious that not all cults are Christian, but all cults are guilty of the cookie-cutter approach to controlling people, meaning that they all demand fealty to their organizational hierarchy, hehe.png require allegiance to their codes, bylaws, and peculiar Do’s&Don’ts listed in their own version of The Doctrine of Good Enough. It is only by the cookie-cutter approach that religious cults can brainwash their victims into believing in their own exclusive access to God, Righteousness, and Heaven. C³ is the tool used by insecure dictators to draw a crowd of equally insecure followers. They deceive each other into denying their shared insecurity.

In order to reassure themselves that the still small voice beckoning their souls toward the Light of Truth is wrong because it draws them away from cookie-cutter conformity, hehe.png they must deny that voice. They are reassured that their obedience to their chosen dictator’s version of The Doctrine of Good Enough is correct when they congregate, whereupon they observe others pretending to conform to their cookie-cutter Do’s&Don’ts, while each of them hides their uncertainty about their security from the others behind a hefty shroud of dishonesty.

Look here, preacher, their actions say. I’m still obeying your Do’s&Don’ts, so I’m still righteous… Right?

SRA

(A neologism ⁶² for which the author claims ownership)

Self-Righteous Asshole: One who judges another as unrighteous, while justifying hehe.png his own sin by declaring it less offensive than the sin of another and entrusts his righteousness as secure through what he believes are good works because his deeds appear to be obedient to a cult tyrant’s version of The Doctrine of Good Enough. Characteristics of SRAs include malevolence, degeneracy, fiendishness, cockiness, impertinence, insolence, audaciousness, arrogance, judgmentalism, self-righteousness, and a general disregard for the value, pain, or needs of other people.

It is possible for one to be self-righteous without being an asshole. The distinction of assholianship ⁶³ is earned only when the self-righteous sinner judges another unworthy because he fails to acknowledge, revere, and submit to a cult dictator’s authority via The Doctrine of Good Enough, then shuns and vilifies the one he deems so unworthy.

Anyone who thinks himself righteous by any means other than the Grace of Jesus Christ is a fool.

Yet religion offers false hope of vindication whereby one is deemed righteous through deeds, as if one’s good works can eradicate hehe.png the guilt which he (and all of us!) inherited from the Fall of Man through disobedience in The Garden of Eden. Every cult deceiver offers an empty promise of justification hehe.png through obedience to his own version of The Doctrine of Good Enough. The dishonest, dishonorable, despicable, nefarious, hehe.png indecent, immoral dictator misleads his followers with a worthless, unsupportable perception of himself as in a state of righteousness because he appears to obey the cult deceiver’s rules. Perceiving himself as made righteous by obedience to the dictator’s rules leaves the betrayed follower vulnerable to temptation because his faith is not in Redemption solely through the Grace of Christ but in justification by works. Denying his sin (not in fear of God, but in fear of rejection by the cult dictator), the unrepentant, unredeemed, and unforgiven sinner relies on his ability to conceal his sin against God. The victim of antiChrist cult deception is so conned that he unashamedly violates the rules of both God and the cult dictator, convinced by the dictator that God cannot judge the sinner without the permission of the dictator and salvation is assured, provided the dictator never learns of the violator’s violations of the dictator’s rules, disregarding God’s omnipresent witness of every deed.

I have heard church people say, when observed breaking the dictator’s rules, What the pastor don’t know won’t hurt him, as if God’s awareness of a man’s sin is inadequate to condemn the offender because God is overruled by the authority of the dictator who alone is empowered to judge. The offender believes himself as still in a state of righteousness, provided the cult dictator remains unaware of the violation. In time, the deceived denies his unrepented sin, ignoring Apostle Paul’s philippic hehe.png to the Apostolic Church in Rome, and to any who would think himself righteous. The self-righteous dismiss the only state of righteousness available to fallen man, specifically the justification (i.e., restoration to the state of perfection, imputation of righteousness, ascription hehe.png of sinlessness, accreditation of undeserved guiltlessness, gifted holiness, absolution hehe.png of sin) given freely to him whose faith is in Jesus Christ alone.

… there is none righteous, no, not one ⁶⁴… the righteousness of God… is through the faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe… For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation hehe.png through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission hehe.png of sins… through the forbearance of God to declare… His righteousness: that He might be just and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay, but by the law of faith. Therefore… man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. ⁶⁵ (emphasis mine)

Religion and Jasper Love

For me, it was an American cult religion, the charismatic hehe.png right-wing, fanatically conservative, Christian Fundamentalist cult organized around tyrannical authoritarian decrees which conspired hehe.png to destroy my faith in God and my faith in human decency. This cult would in due course rob me of everything I would accomplish over four decades wasted in commitment to the false hope that I might somehow satisfy the cult’s demands for perfection as defined by cult dictators. The destruction of my home, my family, and my public image brought the cult conspirators immense joy, and they would celebrate my losses. They justified my destruction as God’s will, ascribing my losses to the necessary consequences of my unwillingness to comply with the cultic demands of superlatively tyrannical Doctrine of Good Enough religion. I dared to question tyranny, thereby unleashing the vigor and zeal of jaunty vicegerent ⁶⁶ vengeance. Weak minds would follow the cult, choosing a preacher’s approval over genuine righteousness, thus rejecting Truth, thereby rejecting the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and expelling me because of my devotion to Truth. These are men who clearly have no concept of the meaning of Jasper Love.

Twin Tyrannies

Those who pledge fealty hehe.png to the tyrants of cult religion are no less guilty than the tyrants themselves and are accountable for their silence in the presence of the tyrants’ dictatorial Exploitation of Advantage of a brainwashed population of serfs hehe.png and fools.

There can be no doubt that I have made appalling blunders, mistakes, and errors in judgment. I certainly made poor choices and caused harm to others. Everyone does. However, like all wise men, I learned from each mistake, altered my course to avoid repeating those mistakes, and offered reparations hehe.png where possible. This does not make me unique in the family of man, as every good man follows this pattern. Furthermore, a man’s mistakes do not become irreversible condemnation until talebearers hehe.png surrender the report of a man’s failure into the hands of a cult preacher bent on vilifying and permanently condemning not the mistake, but the man.

In my search for Truth, I fell victim to two especially tyrannical Doctrine of Good Enough pastors in my journey through the SRAC.

First Tyranny

The first tyrant’s destructive religion and obsession with control over his subjects came into my life at a time when I was vulnerable. I thought that the skill with which the first could manipulate sincere believers into committing abominably uncharitable hehe.png acts against fellow believers simply by working the techniques of The Doctrine of Good Enough was unsurpassable. About that, I was wrong.

Second Tyranny

The second tyrant would hoist the first’s wickedness to an inconceivable level, directing church members to coldly reject anyone who he defined as unworthy of his approval and admission into his heaven. This tyrant began his ministry of assault on my family the year I moved my family to Broken Village, 16 years after my connubial hehe.png promise to an unloving wife. By that time, she and I would have overcome tremendous obstacles. All the challenges to our success during the first 16 years would pale in comparison to the challenges during the second 16 years because of her entanglement with the second tyrant’s cult religion.

I have had many challenges to overcome in ministry, in employment, and in family relations, all of which prepared me to recognize the evil techniques employed by the second tyrant. During those years of preparation, God was developing me to defend my own soul from the damnation of falling victim to the Broken Village brand of tyrannical antiChrist.

Father God, I often pleaded for guidance. Why do so many entrust their eternal security to the religion built on the gospel of an impotent hehe.png savior? I have no doubt about the security of my soul, protected by the Holy Spirit from the Broken Village version of cult religion. But I am terrified that my family may fall into idolatry at the hands of this antiChrist cult. I plead with You for the souls of my family.

Such heresy hehe.png by cult tyrants is contrary to the Grace message of Jesus Christ. In fact, it is antiChrist in that it aims to dethrone God as the only legitimate judge and displaces Christ as the only Savior. Such is the handiwork of Lucifer. ⁶⁷ Such is the practice of the cult tyranny of religion. Such is the nature of self-appointed authoritarian hehe.png religious monarchs.

All Learning Is By Experience

Behold the human condition; born into a world with which we have no understanding, looking to human interaction to define the parameters of human existence. Every single experience we encounter, including instruction from other humans, adds data to our definition of what it means to be human. Those who declare truths to us but are no surer of Truth than are we, are guilty of misguiding us, causing great pain to us, themselves and others, pain for which they are accountable to God. Unrepentant liars will be judged.

Each of us is born into this world knowing nothing more than how to suck and how to breathe. Even the initial breath must be forced upon some, and some must even be taught to suck. Everything we come to know in life is a direct result of teaching and experience.

The experience of burned fingers taught me to avoid touching hot surfaces. My experience in schools and churches taught me the history of man (at least the history others choose for me to trust is true), the languages of communication, the names assigned to planets, the boiling point of water, the reason for rain, the process of planting and reaping, the ideas of philosophy, religions, logic, and so many other things. Others taught me that 2+2=4, which I choose to believe is true, but could not receive as true except by experiencing learning from another. All these learned experiences add to the simple innate hehe.png survival instincts like eating, breathing, and sleeping. Even controlling our bodily functions consistent with societal expectations must be taught to us. Our personal experiences through our days may alter our perception of the world into which we are born, offering us opportunities to choose our responses. Among these are suspicion, envy, disappointment, anger, bitterness, resentment, pleasure, satisfaction, and innumerable others.

Since we can learn much of what we need to know by the experiences of others, it is necessary to read about those experiences. We call it History. Each of our lives is so unavoidably interwoven that global events affect us in many ways. Any autobiography must include the impact of external events which altered the path of the writer. Therefore, you will read herein about such global events that changed my direction and my belief system several times along my journey. I hope you can also learn from the history I chose to include here, as well as from my own personal history. It is a wise man who learns from his own mistakes. A genius learns from the mistakes of others.

Desire and Attraction

Desire and attraction are mysterious characteristics of an individual. Persuasive arguments can be posed demonstrating that desire and attraction are visceral, hehe.png instinctual, and born into us. Desire is awakened only when relationships with others ignite our intrinsic passion. Impossible to prove is the theory that the targets of our desire and attraction are not specific until developed in us as we experience a pleasure moment with another. Either way, it matters little what we find desirable and attractive.

It does not matter what happens to us nor in us. What matters is how we respond and how we choose to handle those steps on our journey. Events do not shape us, but our responses to those events most certainly do. But desire and attraction are not the consequence of what happens to us, but merely a characteristic which was in us before the event happened. Desire and attraction are part of the package we received when we were fearfully and wonderfully created by the Creator.

Defining Normal and Okay

The difference between conditional love and hate is irrelevant…

if it even exists.

– Onyx Cantor

Animals kill, steal, and destroy, but their motivation is never hatred, but rather food for survival, or defense against a perceived threat to that survival. Love and Hate ⁶⁸ are uniquely human emotions. The question is, Why do humans hate?

The presence of hate in our beings is not born into us, nor is hate forced upon us. Hate is first taught, then chosen. No one is born hating any specific demographic group. Hatred is a choice we make in response to our own experience. Hatred for a specific demographic group is most often presented by a social group as a requirement to be accepted as that group’s definition of normal and okay. That definition motivates us to adopt a specific hatred for people we do not even know, have never met, will never meet, and have no personal investment in, except that hating them makes us feel normal and okay. We accept no responsibility for the impact of our chosen hatred. We seem not to care when a person we do not know takes his own life because he is unable to bear the isolation, the rejection, and the sorrow that we inflict on him with our choice to adopt hatred for a specific demographic group. We justify our hatred not with facts or personal experience, but simply with the commonness of that hatred because we are too insecure with ourselves to question hatred imposed on us as necessary to achieve normal and okay.

Shakespeare accurately wrote that humans are prone to hate that which we fear. ⁶⁹ Could it be that a man’s bigotry and hatred against any demographic group (whether a racial, cultural, national, or gender group) exposes his fear based on ignorance of (or fear of a part of) himself? Ironically, the hater is himself imprisoned by the hate he chooses.

Thus, our own fear of rejection prompts us to reject others, benefitting no one and hurting us all, because we choose the common hatred for no reason other than our weak need to not be rejected or perceived as different. It is a brave soul who will risk rejection by declaring his refusal to adopt the common hatred. It is the weak, insecure, inhumane hehe.png soul who will comply with the common hatreds without question and with no supporting data to justify those hatreds. In so doing, we destroy our own souls! At the same time, we impose great pain on those who dare to be different from the social definition of normal and okay. The pain we impose through hatred is often so severe that the hated resort