Ghostbusters 3

 ARRG!
Still not wrapping my mind around people who lambast a sequel for being exactly what it claims itself to be -- A SEQUEL!
GBII was a perfectly fine sequal to the 1984 film.  It did exactly what it was supposed to do -- deliver up a 2nd helping of "Ghostbusters"
GBIII obviously is not able to simply just deliver up another supernatural episode involving the comedic talents of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, etc....  The original cast are going to be appear in this new installment and they might even don the equipment they're known for, but the idea is to keep it coming and in order to do that, they need to introduce new characters.  So, that aside, GB3, in its' "placating of old fans", as some buthead on the interenet accuses the film of doing, is succeeding at being what it is -- a sequel. 
A sequel CAN of course be a completely new film independent of anything that came before it.  That is not an impossibility.  But that's not why SONY is funding a 2nd sequel to Ghostbusters.  The goal is not and never has been to start a new franchise or create an entirely new intellectual property.  Seriously, ppl!!!!

HONOR, Love and Gozer's pet rat

I don't get how how people express an interest in seeing Bill Murray's character's misguided declaration that "the franchise rights along will make rich beyond wildest dreams" come to fruition.  Dan Aykroyd's character, and Harold Ramis', were both knee deep in the study of spiritism (how am I spelling that wrong??Rr) and neither of them had high hope for the business venture that Venkman (Bill Murray) had sprung up on them.  Stantz (Aykroyd) is shaking his head in disagreement the whole time Venkman is declaring how the franchise rights will bring them great fortune.
GHOSTBUSTERS is told from the POV that ghosts do indeed exist but they are not lurking behind every other house.  The idea that theyd be able to make a decent income off of paranormal investigations and eliminations was a very long shot. 
I was thinking earlier that if GHOSTBUSTERS had been a true story, it would point to GOD (THE God, not Gozer The Gozarian) being in control despite the spiritual turmoil that was apparent in the film.  And I was thinking the presence of a gender fluid supernatural force that thinks of itself as a God and isn't declaring itself to be Satan, I was thinking "How do you insert that into any kind of narrative that is true?"  And honestly, **if** GHOSTBUSTERS had been written from factuality, I would simply have to concede it's one of many mysteries.  Bottom line is there are things that UNFOLD - IN - THE BIBLE ---- things that are not ambiguous or otherwise in need of decoding, but are plainly explained as part of a narrative ---- that people like myself and most everyone I've met simply cannot explain without at least appearing to contradict some facet of commonly understood truth.
For instance, is it still possible to summon spirits from the dead?  In the Old Testament, it was.  King Saul summoned Samuel after he'd departed this Earth.  But people suspect that OT saints were being held in kind of a vault until Jesus came.  Maybe that's more or less accurate.  Maybe only people that go to Hell are summonable by the dead. 
But that's an interesting series of questions that pertain to doing something that God flat out told His people not to do.  If you look at the passage, it's basically Saul wanting information that Samuel isn't able to offer.  Saul asks Samuel whatever it was he was wanting and Samuel says something to the effect of "Why are you bothering me about this?  I told you all of this was to come about and how to avoid it.  But you never listened to me"  That's got some larger implications.  Basically, it's one of many many MANY examples of mankind expecting to find a cure for its' ailments.  Saul wanted to be disobedient to God and hateful toward his fellow Hebrew, his successor, of all people, mostly, and still find satisfaction in life.  I can attest to this: You can't be happy in life and be disobedient to God.  You can be happy in life and not be a Christian, yes.  You can be tainted with sin, and be apathetic about it and carry on like it's 1985.  But if you are called by God, if you have accepted His call, and you haven't turned your back on it, then you can't find satisfaction, at least not fully, in seasons of disobedience.  It just doesn't work that way.  The tried and true hymm "Trust and obey" I do believe states it with utmost clarity: "There is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey". 

Samuel did right by God in telling his brethren, including Saul, what God wanted them to know.  Samuel was dedicated by his mother for the purpose of hearing God speak to him and proclaiming what he'd heard.  That is a good example for all of us to follow, to not hold back in speaking of our beloved savior, the precious gift of salvation He has given freely to all who trust Him.  But the story of his after-life presence, although it does have questions that I'm sure more than just me would prefer to have the answer to, it is above all a tale of a man desperately caught up in disobedience to God Almighty thinking he can find a way out.  There is no way out.  This life will always have a promise of greener greens, higher highs and greater greats.  Sometimes those promises have something of a hint of value to them, but there is nothing of equal value that one can trade for peace of mind.  And chasing anything, be it information, stuff, whatever it may be, is counter-productive to any receiving of peace.  I can attest to this as well.  I mean, there are things worth chasing obviously.  Pandora internet radio isn't going to just happen.  Someone had to toil at mass producing computers and then lobbying to free the internet, and then of course someone had to start Pandora internet radio and keep at it until technology caught up with everyone including Pandora.  As for myself, I do have to enter it into a "search" bar or type the whole thing into the address bar and hope I don't mis-spell it and walk into a virus...which does indeed happen to me sometimes.....But I would much rather just chill out and listen to Pandora than constantly be sifting through full length albums trying to determine if any of them are worth buying individually and figuring out why they aren't and trying to excuse myself from things I don't like about either myself or my lot in life or the nature of commerce in general.  Truth be told, only a handful of artists made money pre-Spotify.  Now, they all make money, but most of them are lucky to make enough to live off of.  However, it is more equitable so really my main issue is my asinine persistence in buying music CDs instead of just chipping in a reasonable amount to the music I truly like.  So many ways to do things better.  And it's worth it, IMO.  Staying in the same tarpit through life is just abysmal.  It's one thing to make it shore and then fall into another tar pit.  A guest preacher noted that there's a fundamental wrongness in the children's Sunday school song about climbing Jacob's ladder.  And I agree with him, the idea is not to sneak into Heaven.  The idea is, trying to be accurate here, I might be falling on my face ---- the idea is HONOR.  I've been reading Romans chapter 13 a few times over the last couple days.  We should honor those who are worthy of honor, those who have taken on the challenge of resisting temptation and are 8 to 10 or more, coming along victorious.  We should honor government.  We should honor the governments' clerical workers.  But we should LOVE one another.  Bros & sis' in Christ should love each other, as Christ Himself loved us.  We should love everyone else as well, as one of the other places in The Bible the pastor pointed out a couple weeks ago, it's not the same depth of love that we have for each other as the bridegroom but it's more akin to honor; rather than debase them or belittle them or humiliate them, we should respect them for the potential that is within them and their inherent value as imagebearers of God, and we should communicate what we can about God to them when opportunities arise to do so, but we should not have inward affection toward them the way we do toward other members of The Body.

Anyway........that wasn't a very strong closing sentence, but I'm kinda half needing to go to bed and I'm out of things to say at the moment......

SLAPPED

 

RED MARK for feeling bitter

RED MARK for seeing a correlation to my sin and other’s preceding behavior

RED MARK for taking an interest in & action on my continual accumulation of red marks

RED MARK for thinking there was a way to be an acceptable human before God’s people and have these red marks on my face.

cursed

 My hands are behind my back and over my head
I have no gun.  I have dropped my sword
Do with me what you will.  Accuse me.  Condemn me.  Throw me aside forever.
Nobody will care.  Nobody ever has.  

I have tried to reason with.  I have tried to contend with.  I have used my pen as a sword, and I have even used my tongue as such, in lieu of friends or allies to commiserate with.  My lack of ability to forgive is exposed.  I have made myself a target for attempting to gain sympathy, for not settling into condemnation, for hoping to be accepted and loved.

I wish I were dead.  I wish I were never born.  Someone, maybe many, have been blessed by my hands and speech.  I am cursed.

Thy is Dead, so is "The End"

 Found this book called A SERMON FOR THE WORST MAN ON EARTH by Charles Spurgeon, who lived and died roughly the same time as the dinosaurs and William Shakespeare.

The DESCRIPTION of the book says Spurgeon shows that, among other things, "a sense of sinnership confers no right to mercy."
First of all, does ANYTHING confer a right to mercy?  Secondly, if it DOESN'T confer a right to mercy, how is that relevant?  Does it confer a withdrawal of mercy?  If not, then what the hell is the point in making such an observation????

Ug.

the pain cont'd

 RRRB
This accountability software being de-'d has made it feel easier to delve into filth.  Go figure.
I really wish I hadn't done that.  Arb.

Got to thinking about all the times I took communion over the years and how few if any of them I was taking it an unfit manner.....or however it's said...idk...  I don't even understand the word "communion".  I don't feel closer to God eating the church appointed wafer than I do not eating it...I don't feel the weight of Christ bearing my sin more then than I do any other time.  Ug x indefnt..............................:/

it's a pain

My pastor suggested that sexual imoorality / lust was one element of greed.  I don't know if I agree with that.  When a person gets the urge to have sex, trying to satisfy that desire is not greedy.  It's wrong, duh, God says so....it just doesn't resonate with me.  I've been trying for the past couple months -- not consecutively or successfully -- to live by that rule of thumb and I had an accountability software installed for that purpose to help be reminded to keep my mind off that facet of reality so that I wouldn't get hot'n'bothered and go searching for t'n'a.
I just sunk again, if that's not already obvious.  I don't really have a legitimate reason except I'M TIRED OF THIS!  Obviously I shouldn't be.  Any emotional or intellectual opposition I have to keeping off sex until/unless I get married is just me not submitting to God.  There's no excuse for that.  I feel like me being born evil and not being completely stripped of my evil nature serves as a sort of excuse, but it isn't.  

Ug.

Deed End

God resists the proud.

I am insanely arrogant.  I don't know if I'll ever be humble.  I think I have faced such stagnation in my spiritual growth -- and hence doubt and fear etc -- because of that.  Regardless, God has not abandoned me.  I have made progress as slow going as it is.  I think God is making a grand statement here.

God hardens who He wants to.

I think God has hardened me in response to my pride and other detestable behavior.  I need to keep seeking God's counsel.  I need to increase my worship to Him.

I don't believe anyone is beyond saving.  I do think continual sin makes it less likely that salvation will arrive.  I could be mistaken about that.  But at the moment it seems like a solid enough theory.

Jesus did day He will return and that upon His arrival the world will be judged according to its deeds. He also says that Sodom will be judged less harshly than the unbelieving Jews.  I don't think our good conduct is forgotten by Him.  My bad conduct far outweighs my good conduct but I have made an attempt throughout my life to do what is right even though I also do what is wrong and I also don't do enough of what is right.  I think maybe my silver lining of goodness is what at least partly compels God to not completely forsake me.  Like I said, maybe I'm totally mistaken.

It's all too political

 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-social-media-censorship-bill-law-governor-abbott/

 

I haven't read the actual bill/law, so I have no basis to complain about it, but the paraphrasing on this article is somewhat troubling, although, from what I can tell based on the details provided, it does sound like they put together a thoughtful bill to put into law.  It really is false advertising to allow users to post content and then not tell them WHAT their content can't consist of or "shouldn't" consist of.  I personally haven't had any issues with conservatives I know having their stuff being removed, but then again, I don't keep track of their posts like they themselves quite possibly do.  I just know I see a lot of conservative political stuff from the people I go to church with that have friended me on Facebook, and the only person I know who has any complaints about his stuff being removed is my biological father who posts some rather dumb stuff.  I wouldn't be surprised if he unknowingly posted a few outright lies and saw that they were removed.
Donald Trump loyalty aside, the conservative party has done a good job at stabilizing this country.  A lot of their policies are based on the promotion of the "freedom" to be selfish and encouraging wealthy people to be as wealthy as humanly possible (on the pretense of "rewarding" them as if taxation has anything to do with reward vs punishment) and I think some people in the party are just downright callous, and worse.  The liberals / Democrats are, like most people, a bunch of spoiled brats.  The difference between a liberal and a conservative is that conservatives use the idea of "Freedom" to justify and protect their greed and selfishness, because the only thing they want that they don't have is power.  Of course, that's the politicians.  The voters who elect these people are not all rich.  Many of them are hopeful that someday they will be rich and many of them are just voting them in merely because they advocate for the unborn.  It doesn't matter what their policies for the already born are.

 

I do think this whole concept of Medicaid for all and free college tuition is just feeding on the spoiled bratness of humanity.  Granted, there are places where the predominant cultures are still determined not to let their children grow up arrogant and selfish, but in the US, that is not the case.  There is good reason to vote conservatives in congress.  It's not because their policies are better.  It's because their policies are just as absurd but shaped differently.  Two political parties in office that can't agree on anything are not going to screw anything up.  Generally speaking, anyway...

But the idea of not discriminating against someone based on their political views is rather short sighted.  In some nations, cannibalism is legal.  Although it doesn't seem to have gone anywhere, there was, for about a month or so, a "political" movement to allow child sex.  ANYTHING, regardless of how despicable it is, how grotesque or just **wrong**, it can be justified by attaching the word "politics" or "political"

with strength....

 

https://activated.org/en/foundations/the-word-of-god/bible-studies/depending-on-god-vs-self-effort/

I thinkI finally figured out what all this "not in your own strength" actually means.

Nothing is done by "our own" strength.  God enables everything to be.  There are things that any human being can do on any given day, and some of those things are necessary when trying to do what is right.  Most of the work involving fighting sin and putting off the old self etc. is not God supernaturally leaning in and saving the moment.  Except for the fact that God holds all things together.  Inasmuch as I can walk toward a sin, I can fight the temptation to do so, but without humility that leads to faith, why would I even bother?  If I have no humility, I have no faith.  If I have no faith, then all this talk about "right vs wrong" is moot.

I guess there's a loophole in that somewhere and that's where the phrase "not in your own strength" comes from.  I don't know how to "depend" on God.  I spend my entire life in dependence.   I know I am not entitled to have this computer, or the house I live in.  I know it's a matter of politics as to when or if it gets taken away, and politics is always changing.

The biggest hurdle I have in my walk against sin and toward God is that I just don't "get" it.  I know that, in a sense, oggling a beautiful woman is lecherous and akin to bottom feeding, which is a life for pigs that people plan to eat.  God wants a better life for us, one where we have our OWN wife, our OWN happiness, and we don't have to step on toes or cut throats to have it.  I know that's the ideal.  But then some people end up homeless, unwillingly.  Some people have no wife (me included).  I've never even had a girlfriend.  Heck, I've never felt close to anyone, although since I've been going to church, there's people I feel as close as I think I'll ever feel to anyone.  I just don't feel a connection to other people.  Someone was asking me if I missed someone who was attending church but had since deceased, and I was telling her that my mom is the closest I've ever felt toward another human being and if I moved to another state and settled there and got some semblance of a normal life, I would not miss my mom.  If I moved to another state and remained isolated for 95% of the time like I do now, I would probably feel lonely.  That's not because I miss any body in particular, that's just what happens when one is isolated for long enough.  My response to this would be to pick one: be a Eunich for the Kingdom of God or keep responding to wood by grabbing it and pulling it out.  That just seems counter intuitive.  That feeling in and of itself is basically a God given urge to commit sin UNLESS I'm married, which is not a God given event.  Which brings me back to my initial point of confusion --- I, for one, have far more strength than I am accustomed to dispensing.  It is strength that I HAVE.  Inasmuch as ANYONE's strength is possessed by the person who exerts it or reserves it.  God could be at any moment adding strength to this vessel, but I have no reason to assume he's not taking strength away.  Paul kept asking God for help with something or other and God told him "My strength is made perfect in weakness".  So God literally does provide a shortage of strength.  Of course, Paul was just about the most selfless human being in the world for much of its history.  He did things that I highly doubt I would ever do, although Paul was in a different position than I'm.  Paul literally MET Jesus.  He didn't reach out in fatih to Jesus and receive The Holy Spirit.  He MET Jesus and THEN received The Holy Spirit.  And Paul was raised in the strict guidance of Judiaism.  And he took it to heart.  He wasn't pretending to worship God for his own appearances.  He was literally a mis guided Jewish man.  His love and devotion for God was real.  He was simply missing the fact that JESUS IS THE MESSIAH!  I, of course, read about this, and remember it being read about, and it's pretty cool stuff, but it's not the same treatment I have received from God.  I'm not dare saying I deserve that.  It took apprx 30 years to give consideration to the possibility of laying my life to what The Bible says.  The first step is kind of like "well, duh"  It goes like this: "I don't determine what is true"  I think abou that and I'm like "How could someone be so stupid to think anything else?"  And I knew that, to an extent, but then I had another thought:  "If Hell is real, I have been warned and cannot feign ignorance".  At that point, God revealed Himself to be a lot more kind and genlte than I'd given Him credit for.  And when I say "Revealed", i mean that, through a combination of thought and reading, I was able to see past the blood and guts and see that God has given instructions and guidance for life FOR OUR BENEFIT, and that, despite our constant tendency to try to re write physics, He offers forgiveness and continues to offer forgiveness for our trespasses.

"Shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound even more?  May it never be!"  There's a part of me that I can see having that wicked tendency to give into sin because I know it's paid for.  I don't know if it's exactly what Paul was describing.  I do try to limit the severity of my sins, the duration and the qty.  I've probably been doing that more so since I had begun receiving counsel from a young man at the church i've been going to for the past year or so.  For a ridiculously large chunk of my walk with Christ I was spending probably 6 hours weekly online looking at filth.  These days, I try to avoid looking at outright garbage, but a couple times over the past month I found myself severely relapsing.  The first time, maybe slightly over a month ago, it lasted almost a month, maybe closer to 2 weeks, way too long.  The 2nd relapse only lasted a day, maybe not even that long.  So I do see the fruit of that man's counseling taking shape, even though I'm not determined enough for his liking for him to see a benefit in continuing to counsel me.  But I honestly think he did all he personally could.  So it works out.