I got to thinking that football is one team against another, and playing both sides, emailing emails similar to this to both sides before a game, conflicts with the nature of the game, which is that you have two sides both of which want to win. So I decided to be on only one side this time.

I identify with white pro football players for various reasons. At the Waltham Y and on the basketball courts around here, I've been doing these drills where I sprint about 15 yards keeping the soccer ball off the ground and close to my body the whole time, touching it with alternating left and right feet, touching it every three paces, flying with the ball at a sprint for 15 yards (and drills similar to this one described). I've succeeded with drills, in which the ball bounces off the wall and comes at me, and I hit it with some part of my body and then fly with it in a predetermined direction with it never touching the ground (I still remember the way the little kids acted the days I did this). A coach from the high school pro QB Doug Flutie went to, saw me and said I was very fast. People watching me compare me to the greatest soccer players of all time. They mutter about how I am incredible and how I am a star.

I think I get discouraged and tired because all I get is barely audible mutterings of praise once in a while. Soccer is beginning to seem more like a tiring chore; as I get older I enjoy working at the computer more and more; and it's getting hard for me to pry myself away from my workstation. It's tiring to think that I could go out there and so to speak walk on water right in front of someone, and they would act as if I was'nt even there.

According to dreams I've had recently (see my soccer log at https://www.angelfire.com/ma/vincemoon/soccairfourteen.htm ), I'm not far from being the best soccer player in the world; the dreams imply that working at a job would interfere with my ascent to supremacy after all, I'm competing with multimillionaires who have chefs who cook for them and are driven around in limos by chauffeures). Leaning on government for a helping hand is not the method of avoiding the burdensome labors that can interfere with stardom, that is preferred or respected. People complain about government taxing and spending, but then they don't step in and do anything themselves which would replace government.

Regarding the subject matter of this email further down, I estimate that due to confusion re the exact meaning of scripture, Americans have for a long time been too lackadaisical with regards to good works. St Peter said there were things in the letters of St Paul that are hard to understand, which the unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction. Yet it is these same difficult scriptures that are the scriptures that lots of American Christians who are not good at understanding hard-to-understand stuff make a big deal out of, while they ignore the art of balancing a scripture against other scriptures that take a different slant. It's dangerous to take scripture out of context.

I think I've got a good insight. The confusion re faith vs works has to do with confusion re the definition of works. If you define the attempt to live a conscientous life as good works, that's one definition of works. If you define actually doing exactly what God wants as good works, that is another definition of good works. One can adhere to one's conscience while being in contradiction of God.

By the way this email is @2009 David Virgil Hobbs--could be that I will use some things in this email in some other context.

"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God...it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God...it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God...there's something wrong with you...you should be rolling out the red carpet for me!"

The fact that such a statement as this about camels and red carpets is conceivably a respectable statement in certain situations means something. I estimate that Christians who are not rich, especially the best of this group, are an under-rated, under-respected group.

REASONABLE TO DEPEND ON NOT JUST THE SENSES BUT ALSO FAITH DERIVED FROM STATEMENTS OF OTHERS WHEN EVALUATING RELIGION

Many people apparently believe that in developing opinions re religion, one should reject information that does not come from the eyes, the ears, the sense of touch, or one's own inner mind. A simple parable I invented checkmates such ideas. Imagine being lost but having to get to the hospital because your son is sick. You encounter someone and he tells you the directions for how to get to the hospital that you have never seen. You believe what the person tells you and find your way to the hospital. Then when you get to the hospital you know that the hospital exists whereas previously you only believed that the hospital existed.

Likewise in the sphere of religion, it is reasonable to depend on not just what one's senses tell one but also on what others tell one. When you believe what others tell you, you have faith; then later, after you have experienced epiphany via a transcendental state of mind resulting from your obedience to the dictates of religion, you attain to knowledge, a step above faith. Just as you have an ethical responsibility to get your sick son to the hospital, so also you have an ethical responsibility to get your spiritually sick son (we are all spiritually sick) to the hypothetical spiritual hospital of the parable.

The "sign" that led to me becoming serious about christianity

In high school on the South Side of Chicago David Gottlieb and his brother Alan Gottlieb were friends of mine. They were generally hospitable, you don't appreciate such hospitality until you spend time in the less hospitable communities.

Once I was at the Gottlieb residence, socializing with the Gottliebs one or both of them. I left their place and walked down to 55th Street,to the intersection of I think Dorchester or Blackstone at 55th St., in Chicago Il., on the south side near the University of Chicago. There at the playground where there is now a pool next to the big twin apartment buildings, I ran into my friend Wayne Braxton and Linda Skinner. I had taken some pill, I know not for sure what it was.

We played frisbee, I could tell that I had charmed Linda. She was smiling and clapping her hands together and her body language and facial expression were that of one who considers themselves to be something less than me. I was on the slide and she got on the slide in front of me and leaned backwards into me, but I leaned backwards politely to avoid contact, she was 14 and I was 17. I felt like a God, like Mercury; I felt on top of the world. I felt as if the top of my head had come off, thereby unleashing all the joy and transcendence that is usually suppressed.

Then later when I tried to talk to Linda Skinner (the playground was the first time I had met her) she would not be my girlfriend. I became despondent and a few months later returned to the playground, where I left an offering to God on the slide, a date, one of those things you eat, and prayed to God for a sign to reveal to me how I could be the charming person I was when I met her in the playground, for it seemed I was like two people, one person who was the way I was when I met her in the playground, and another person who was the way I was in my usual state of mind. It seemed that I could not get Linda for a girlfriend because she liked one side of my "split personality" but did not like the other.

As I sat on the slide praying for a sign, a car started honking. It sounded as if it was sympathizing with me. I went over to look inside the car, and inside of it, there was a "Holy Bible" on the front dashboard. This led to my becoming serious about Christianity. I noticed that a very small percentage of cars have a Bible visible in them.

Persons such as Linda may think I became serious about Christianity just to please them, but actually, I became a Christian before I was five years old, while I was living in the bungalow at the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay India, surrounded by Indians from India, Hindus, and my non-Christian parents. I became a Christian before I ever got to know a Christian. But I did not become serious about Christianity until this incident with the honking car.

Dream about being a Russian commando that preceded me waking up feeling Christ on the Cross Within

Not so long ago, I (a citizen of the USA) dreamt that I was a Russian commando, spying on the German Army in WW II. I was watching them hold a Christian church service. The Germans troops noticed me up in the rafters of a big building spying on them--they heard or saw something--but they let me go--it was as if, they were afraid that their bosses would find out about me. I was admiring the German troops, I felt more akin to them than to my Russian comrades. Later the Germans came to get my surrender. I was trying to decide if I should fight to the death as a matter of honor or surrender. At this point, I woke up, and could feel Christ crucified on the Cross within me for about an hour. I did not feel the pain of it but still crucifixion was a boring experience. I could feel the supernatural quality of Christ on the cross within me, I could feel that Christ was more than a prophet.

There were some other details to the dream and how I felt when I woke up but I have given you the basics of it. I would have to spend a few hours digging through a small mountain of my spiral notebooks to find the account I wrote of the dream when I first had it and come up with the details.
The crucifixion was the only time in Christ's life when he was reduced to the state of a slave, without control over his body. It was probably the only time he was bored. Yet we humans spend alot of time being bored even though we are never crucified, our boredom stems from our sins. Seems God effected some kind of union with us humans, by becoming bored on the cross the way we often are bored without being on a cross.

Telekinetic Nature of Prayer or thoughts

My idea is to if possible use the--for lack of a better word--telekinetic action of the minds of people such as yourself (this is rational continue reading for just a minute and you will understand I will explain), to help improve spirits of people everywhere (except the ones who should not be uplifted), especially some group you might wish to specially focus on.

This is rational I'll explain to you an original insight I figured out. Just as you could not hear the drumbeats produced by the mind of the drummer if God blocked the sound waves, so also another type of action of God, interference as opposed to non-interference, allows the benevolent thoughts in the mind of a praying person to have effect on others. Another way of looking at it is, if I had my finger on the remote control trigger of a nuclear bomb that would destroy the devil, My brain activity that led to me pushing the button would not be able to detonate the bomb if God intervened to prevent the signals sent from the remote control device from reaching the bomb; the signals would be able to travel to the bomb only if God allowed them to (this does not mean God approves of everything he allows to happen). So if you do something such as read the two poetic prayers I wrote you can find below,(keeping in mind a couple of unwritten lines of special focus on some group of your own choosing), you might actually be able to accomplish something. One poetic prayer is entitled "Overcoming Sins that Prevent Us from Catching the Divine Game" and the other is entitled "the Sport of Virtue". In these poems Christ is referred to as "Yayzoos" the name by which he was originally referred to in scripture and by the early church.

Scripture Reveals Part of God's Mind

Many people these days are wont to argue with "religious" persons who are similar to myself. The best way I know to deal with this kind of discord is to point out that the Old and New Testament scriptures have three times officially declared that most of God's thoughts words and actions are not recorded in the scriptures. Perhaps the world would be a better place now if in the past the religious had been more aware of and expressive regarding the fact that scripture does make such declarations.

Conscience Must be Based on a Pure Mind

Another new original insight discovered by myself into theological basics that has somehow escaped the minds of humanity throughout the ages: The excuse, "but it was not against my conscience", is invalid if the conscience has been polluted by various pollutants such as greed, selfishness, arrogance, willful ignorance, and intellectual laziness. Supposing in the presence of anger or some other mental sin, a person's conscience dictates action A; but in the absence of anger or the given mental sin it dictates action B. If, affected by anger or some other defect in attitude the person follows his conscience and does action A, how could this be better than if, in the absence of anger or some other defect in attitude, he were to commit action A even though his conscience dictated action B? That would imply that the presence of anger or some other defect in attitude improved the person over what he would have been in the absence of the defect.

'Religion-produced' Stress Can Be Healthy

Some people may feel "stressed out" by what they read in this letter. The idea that a person's fate in the afterlife is affected by their conduct in this world, the idea that the fate in the afterlife is NOT predestined, both ideas I adhere to, are ideas that have been denied by some new forms of Christianity, they are ideas that can cause stress, because of the implication we have to worry about what we think say and do and the implication that what we think say and do can effect our fate in the afterlife.

My response to such persons, in part:

Stress can be good for you. Physical exercise is a form of stress. Mental exercise is known to ward off certain types of senility. For hundreds or thousands or more generations, mankind has, generation after generation, been subjected to mental and physical stresses that exceed the level of stress much of mankind is exposed to in modern times. Religion, properly understood, is more than simple tranquilizer or sauna like relaxation. If you are walking across a street, and a car is about to hit you, do you condemn the person who warns you that you are about to be hit, on the grounds that he is a source of stress?

People fail to understand, and I also partly fail to understand, why some should face unfortunate afterlives; in their inability to understand such things, they proceed to reject the idea of a deity who would condemn some to unfortunate afterlives. But despite my lack of understanding, I know for a fact that Christ is the Son of God, and I know for a fact that certain portions of the scriptures are inspired by God. My understanding of the matter at this time, is, that, some are condemned to unfortunate afterlives, because such acts as a kind of brain surgery for those who enter into fortunate after-lives. A lifetime on earth, twists the brain of the person who experiences it into something that is a shadow of a divine brain; and something has to be done to bring such brains back to a divine condition.

St. Paul never said that the christian was freed from the burden of obeying his conscience, though he did admit that due to the physical pressures of his body he St. Paul in certain ways violated his own conscience without being separated from God or damned as punishment for such certain types of violations of conscience.

'Good Works' Can be Necessary; all is not Predestined

In general regarding religion, I feel that there has unfortunately been amongst almost all protestant denominations, a misinterpration of St. Paul's words regarding works and predestination. This misinterpretation was spoken of by St. Peter, when he said that there are certain things in Paul's letters that are hard to understand, that the "unlearned and unstable" misinterpret with the end result that they destroy themselves. The fact is that Paul did not mean that for all persons it does not matter what they do so long as they have faith; and the fact is that Paul did not mean that for all persons it is predestined from the time of their birth whether they go to heaven or hell. You can find my explanation of what Paul actually meant when he was talking about faith and works in my newsgroup post. And if you scroll down to look at the scriptural quotation taken from a letter of Paul's that appears on all of my resumes, you can find further proof that yes what a person does can matter it is not just faith. Another newsgroup post of mine explains what Paul really meant when he talked about predestination.

In a nutshell, regarding works, I believe that when Paul talked about faith without works, when he was talking about works he was talking about the works of the Jewish law in the case of the Jews, and that no Jew successfully keeps all the works of the Jewish law; and he was talking about the conscience of the Gentiles with regards to Gentiles, the idea being no Gentile succeeds in following his conscience perfectly. Thus in and of themselves such things cannot justify men. What Paul meant was that good men are justified by faith not perfect adherence to conscience or law, in combination with their general goodness. He takes it for granted that he is talking about good men being justified through faith not the works of the Jewish law or perfect adherence to conscience.

Things must be taken in context. The whole tone of the gospels is about a preacher, Christ, urgently advising the people that if they do this they will make it if they do not they will not. There is no implication in the narratives describing Christ's life, that it was all a silly exercise because it does not matter what men do and all is predestined. In context, there are plenty of scriptures emphasizing the importance of good deeds.

However, I think that youths, and the conscientous, can be justified without doing anything, get the Holy Spirit, when they first repent and turn to Christ, but thereafter they have to be careful to behave themselves.

If God is love, why do 'christian' leaders increase the importance of factors other than love when it comes to social life?

Religion is supposed to be about love; yet still there are outwardly religious persons who are obsessed with turning "how much money does he or she have" into a prime consideration in marital and other social decisions. What sense does that make? If money becomes so important in such decisions, then love becomes unimportant in such decisions. I do not believe that this constant ratcheting up of financial pressures re marital and other social decisions, is eugenic or truly religious.

perhaps the selective persecution of certain drugs/herbs has reduced the spiritual intelligence of mankind

One reason people have become so ignorant about such matters, is that governments have been banning some herbs and plants and drugs while they have been promoting other herbs plants and drugs; they have been banning the substances that produce religious experiences while promoting the substances that produce a kind of sacrilegious dopiness. As a result an imbalance has developed in society, an imbalance that produces a profane state of mind in society.

I personally have had "religious experiences" without using any kind of herb or plant or drug; but, if persons find themselves unable to escape their ignorance without consuming a substance, maybe they should go ahead and consume some kind of substance in a disciplined fashion. Maybe they should for a few days abstain from cigarettes and sexual passion for those they are not married to, exercise, read the scriptures, and pray, and then proceed to consume some kind of substance that will help them transcend their ignorance. But it should be kept in mind, that this kind of approach varies with the individual and should be put into effect in ways that do not violate the law.

Personal Motto:

My resume has the following quote in the upper right hand corner: