Past Postings

Previous William Thomas Sherman Info Page postings, quotes, observations, etc.

***********************************************************************************************************

Today I told him flat out that if he doesn't clean up his act, he can expect to end up like Mussolini.

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

Rest assured, honors bestowed by liars and fools are no honor.

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

That my enemies are so bad is some consolation to me; insofar that it can only make me look good (by comparison.) But I.O.U.s from (their) heaven -- what is this but so much nothing? A more wise person of faith already and usually (if not, given human frailty and doubt, strictly speaking always) has assurance of heaven and the vindication of morality, holy devotion, and right reason within, and doesn't require more proof of God than this (including "proof" of an after life.) Moreover, if these spirit people are so great and wonderful as some are so completely convinced they are, how come not a single intelligent person (unless out of scientific interest and or out of pure charity) wants to have anything to do with them?

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

In one sense at least (and leaving aside the question otherwise of the purity of his intentions), Robespierre judged quite correctly. For he and his party, it truly had become a matter of either kill or be killed. The following is an audio excerpt from Will and Ariel Durant's Age of Napoleon.

~~~~~~*~~~~~~


["Star Wars is SOOO Much Better than Star Trek" -- Carrie Fisher discusses tongue-in-cheek controversy with William Shatner, Nov. 2011]

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

The magician conceded to me that, no and despite his long (indeed interminable) career, he's never met Elijah.

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

[For Jan. 23, 2012] This is progress of a kind, I'll grant you. Yet I will be even more and fully convinced of the government's sincerity when they finally get around to outlawing the use of brain torture radios by private interests.

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

"We'll murder all these people and animals, see...And we'll be rich, I tell you! Rich!"

~~~~~~*~~~~~~


["Duran Duran - Friends of Mine (Fox Theater Pomona Apr 14, 2011)"]

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

[ch. 2]...If, then, God is not ashamed to be called the God of these men, and if they are counted by Christ among the living, and if all believers are sons of Abraham, [Romans 4:11] since all the Gentiles are blessed with faithful Abraham, who is appointed by God to be a father of the Gentiles, can we hesitate to admit that those living persons made acquaintance with the learning of living men, and were taught by Christ who was born before the daystar, before He became flesh? And for this cause they lived, because they had part in Him who said, “I am the life,” and as the heirs of so great promises received the vision, not only of angels, but of God in Christ. For they saw, it may be, the image of the invisible God, since he who has seen the Son has seen the Father, and so they are recorded to have known God, and to have heard God's words worthily, and, therefore, to have seen God and heard Him. Now, I consider that those who are fully and really sons of Abraham are sons of his actions, spiritually understood, and of the knowledge which was made manifest to him. What he knew and what he did appears again in those who are his sons, as the Scripture teaches those who have ears to hear, [John 8:39] “If you were the children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham.” And if it is a true proverb [Proverbs 16:23] which says, “A wise man will understand that which proceeds from his own mouth, and on his lips he will bear prudence,” then we must at once repudiate some things which have been said about the prophets, as if they were not wise men, and did not understand what proceeded from their own mouths. We must believe what is good and true about the prophets, that they were sages, that they did understand what proceeded from their mouths, and that they bore prudence on their lips. It is clear indeed that Moses understood in his mind the truth (real or spiritual meaning) of the law, and the higher interpretations of the stories recorded in his books. Joshua, too, understood the meaning of the allotment of the land after the destruction of the nine and twenty kings, and could see better than we can the realities of which his achievements were the shadows. It is clear, too, that Isaiah saw the mystery of Him who sat upon the throne, and of the two seraphim, and of the veiling of their faces and their feet, and of their wings, and of the altar and of the tongs. Ezekiel, too, understood the true significance of the cherubim and of their goings, and of the firmament that was above them, and of Him that sat on the throne, than all which what could be loftier or more splendid? I need not enter into more particulars; the point I aim at establishing is clear enough already, namely, that those who were made perfect in earlier generations knew not less than the Apostles did of what Christ revealed to them, since the same teacher was with them as He who revealed to the Apostles the unspeakable mysteries of godliness. I will add but a few points, and then leave it to the reader to judge and to form what views he pleases on this subject. Paul says in his Epistle to the Romans, [Romans 16:25] “Now, to him who is able to establish you according to my Gospel, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept in silence through times eternal, but is now made manifest by the prophetic Scriptures and the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.” For if the mystery concealed of old is made manifest to the Apostles through the prophetic writings, and if the prophets, being wise men, understood what proceeded from their own mouths, then the prophets knew what was made manifest to the Apostles. But to many it was not revealed, as Paul says, [Ephesians 3:5] “In other generations it was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed unto His holy Apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and members of the same body.” Here an objection may be raised by those who do not share the view we have propounded; and it becomes of importance to define what is meant by the word “revealed”...
The passage, “Many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things ye see and did not see them; and to hear the things ye hear and did not hear them,” may be interpreted in the same way. They also desired to see the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God, and of His coming down to carry out the design of His suffering for the salvation of many, actually put in operation. This may be illustrated from another quarter. Suppose one of the Apostles to have understood the “unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter,” [2 Corinthians 12:4] but not to witness the glorious bodily appearing of Jesus* to the faithful which is promised, although He desired to see it and suppose another had not only not marked and seen what that Apostle marked and saw, but had a much feebler grasp of the divine hope, and yet is present at the second coming of our Saviour, which the Apostle, as in the parallel above, had desired, but had not seen. We shall not err from the truth if we say that both of these have seen what the Apostle, or indeed the Apostles, desired to see, and yet that they are not on that account to be deemed wiser or more blessed than the Apostles. In the same way, also, the Apostles are not to be deemed wiser than the fathers, or than Moses and the prophets, than those in fact who, for their virtue, were found worthy of epiphanies and of divine manifestations and of revelations of mysteries.

[ch. 3]...For Christ is found in every saint, and so from the one Christ there come to be many Christs, imitators of Him and formed after Him who is the image of God; whence God says through the prophet, “Touch not my Christs.” Thus we have explained in passing the passage which we appeared to have omitted from our exposition, viz.: “Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ;” and we have also shown that the words belong to John the Baptist and form part of his testimony to the Son of God.
~ Origen (185-232 A.D.), Commentary on the Gospel of John, Book VI

* Note. In another portion of text found in his commentary on Matthew (Book XII, chs. 36-39) and pertaining to the transfiguration, Origen reminds us that to see Christ bodily is to see Logos or the Word or Reason bodily.

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

Saw It On the Net

The "actual" world presumably implies the world according to whose governance. People speak of the "actual" world, and yet it is forbidden to discuss spirit people seriously and scientifically, and who are the primary source of all the worst cruelty, injustice, and evil -- so what then after all is actual or real about such conceptions of life which cannot even deal with what is actually going on? (Love the wires in the head thing.)

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

More