The house and the long home

When I saw the house, I knew I could live there. Instantly, or almost. It started with the prospect of four small dwellings, neat and orderly in the main, nestled side-by-side at the end of a close. It grew when I saw the house to be sold had a gated (barely) side passage.
I liked the handsome dark wood flooring (actually plastic) in the living room. I liked the large kitchen opening onto the garden. The garden looked lovely, very quiet and enticing. And at the end of it there was a shed, side-on with respect to the house, and partly concealed (mercifully, as it turned out) by bushes.

So now that I am living here, thanks to the diligence of my father in his hard work and very careful use of his money, and thanks also to the generosity of my sister.

Thanks, above all, of course, to the mercy and forbearance of His Majesty on High, Who has shown grace by sparing His servant until his sixty-fifth year and offering him a comfortable home, notwithstanding his unworthiness and often hard-heartedness.

Now that I am living here, as I was saying, I know that my first sensations were correct, and I am living in a very comfortable way indeed.
Cosseted and caressed in most every manner. Warm and secure, in the utmost tranquillity.

And it comes to me to understand, having had the opportunity to see, as a bystander, the emptying of the houses of those who have no further need of an earthly tabernacle, that in later life a house is something of a sepulchre also. A premonition of what the Bible calls, with its customary grace, our "long home".

Given my penchant for gloom, I think it's a good thing to have some projects to do around the house and in the garden... and I am quite spoiled for choice in this regard, which is a blessing indeed because getting out and about in the fresh air helps to dispel my sober contemplation of my death and remind me that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.  

I have been watching several videos in which David Foster Wallace is interviewed, reads from his works, or in one case his works are read by another gentleman. I mean read well. I first heard of him through the famous "What is Water" address, but I have since become quite interested in the man. He was indeed a good writer and a sometime thinker following, I presume, in the footsteps of his father, an "American philosopher".

My curiosity inevitably drew me to research his claimed suicide. I say "claimed" because DFW was very influential and very successful and, since his death, has become a cult figure in the media 1.

DFW, my home improvement tasks, and my eschatological musings are tangentially conjoined at the matter of verandas.

It is in my mind to build a veranda at the rear of my house to provide some measure of weather protection, and a way of shielding the very bright sunlight that sometimes streams into my south-facing kitchen, swathing my computer screens in bright stripes and preventing my work from proceeding, obliging me to close the heavy drapes on the prettiest days. I went online and visited the author's home in LA - it was sold shortly after his death. It is a beautiful house near the hills outside LA, and it has a handsome veranda with timber rafters (of the kind I wish to employ), one of which, so the story goes, provided the perfect gallows pole to allow a distressed young man to take his own life in 2008.


1
A footnote, in deference to DFW's preferred solution. 
He was, we are told, depressed: a state of mind that is often connected to creative brilliance in popular culture and even in some science books. He voluntarily submitted to several sessions of ECT, as though he had never read Ken Kesey's classic work of fiction.
To my mind this seems odd, because his house was lovely, he was greatly admired, he was quite wealthy and lately married. Also, he was clever. 

Aha, you say, but he was depressed: it is a medical condition and you mustn't make light of it!
But I do not wish to make light of the matter, and if the story is true, it is most certainly tragic.

His "What is Water" address is perhaps key. As far as I can tell it filtered into the church through the offices of Timothy Keller, who is a great preacher in my humble opinion, though quite elevated in the intellectual sphere with all its problematic ramifications.

Prod and the Hell's Angels

I''m tired of all the nonsense going on inside the church and beyond: predictable YT vids, stifling of truth, not just in the media but in the hearts and minds of those who really ought to speak it a bit more.
And all the boring stuff by men and women who can play the piano or some other hard instrument, build sheds, carve wood, sing songs, ride boards, rant about the Bible, stand at lecterns and behind pulpits.

Fed uppissimo with it all

So I thought I'd mention something about my experience with the Hell's Angels, which was real and, to me at least, quite interesting.

Like almost all known phenomena in the world, the Hell's Angels is mainly a theatre company. I suppose everyone knows that on some level, because of their flamboyant costumes, properties, and rude manners, at least according to the flicks. They're basically fashion icons.

But aren't they mean and dangerous?
Well, not as mean and dangerous as some silken voiced fellows who clamber up to the pulpit, if truth be told.

When I was a younger man, some years in the past, I had hooked up with an attractive and ruthless  young lady from America, when there were not so many US citizens on the streets of Albion... in the 1970s sometime. Philadelphia, to be precise, but we met in a well-known university city on the rivers Cherwell and Thames.

She worked at the Playhouse, which is where the bikers also used to work and hang out, because tradition would have it that they were roadies and bodyguards at rock concerts, the biggest of which were staged at the theatre, back in the day.

We had a band, she and I, along with Steve, the drummer, Mikey, the piano player, an older gentleman who played the saxophone very well indeed, and John, who was a very large and hardworking farm manager who played a small bass guitar with the speed and dexterity of a mandolin, which instrument he also played, and we used to do mainly West Coast sort of songs, such as were played by Jefferson Airplane and other such well-known bands. At the time, that music was not popular in the pubs, but it turned out that the local Hell's Angels liked it well enough so my girlfriend got to know them and mainly their leader at the time, which was, surprisingly I suppose, a woman.

I was quite frightened of them, as tradition demands, when they came to the pub where we played and behaved in a rough and ready way, as they are suppose to do according to tradition, but they never seemed to do us any harm, although we used to tell stories about them that made us seem very bold and made them sound extremely dangerous.

I did get to meet one man, who we knew only as Animal, this being his name, and he came round to the house where I was living because he liked a girl who also lived there, which was a very sweet girl indeed although I don't think she was too crazy about Animal, which was quite a disreputable sort of man from the standpoint of appearance and elocution, although he did seem to be a surprisingly docile soul who spent most of the time just sitting quietly and sleeping.

So that's more or less my experience with the Hell's angels, other than hearsay and stories and wotnot. I did meet the leader of the chapter in a nodding sort of way, and she was a very heavy kind of woman but she seemed quite OK. I suppose she would have to be tough to be the leader of a Hell's Angels chapter and she had a big old motorcycle and lank greasy hair. They were a funny lot altogether. I did hear that they mainly liked to knock down members of the police force, which were very annoying indeed in the 1970s, so me and my long-haired middle-class (mainly) dope-smoking friends didn't think that sort of behaviour could rightly be criticised too vigorously.

Google Doodles

I always check out Google's recommended personages because I assume that I will be led in the direction of deception and occultism and I find my starting hypothesis is never disavowed.

So today, December 10th 2019, we have Bertha von Suttner, according to Wikipedia the second woman Nobel laureate after that colourful pretender known as Marie Curie (aka Mercury - a Roman god).

I assume, due to my previous research, that Ms von Suttner is actually a Mr von Suttner (the photographs do seem to lend credence to that idea although there remains a degree of conjecture of course), because no one is ever elevated before the populace until they have changed their gender, an act which in itself is deemed to imbue the individual with power and make them worthy priests to pursue the dissemination of witchcraft around the world.

The iconography offered by Google images (the truth is always in plain sight) produces the picture I have included above.

I became curious, so I counted the points on the crown and found they are seven in number, or indeed seven and seven, since they are replicated in orange and white.

Now where have I seen a seven pointed crown before?

Let's have a look at the crown of Ishtar, (also called Innana or the Queen of Heaven, an androgynous Babylonian deity) and indeed of the very Statue of Liberty, both of which have seven points.

"Well, what of it?", you say.

Look, the cult of Ishtar, which is referenced in the Bible, was one of the main mystical religions of ancient times (and remains so to this day - as can be seen in the manly Statue of Liberty with his headdress). It is of course Satanic, with practices of child sacrifice, ritual sodomy, cross-dressing, orgies and so forth. The Bible often speaks of God's hatred for the passing of children through the fire, among many other ungodly practices, but true worshippers of the Queen of Heaven (updated by the Catholic Church to be personified by the Virgin Mary) continue to believe that sodomising and sacrificing children are power-inducing acts... and they surely do induce some kind of powerful emotion, in the same way that exerting absolute control over another person is thrilling and sexually alluring to the deviated mind, bringing substance and a sense of worth to the controller, although very few (none?) outside the cult would resort to actual sacrifice.

The untimely death of a hilltop person

Some people live on a hilltop. Their life is transparent and all their sins are before the world

We all live in glass houses and shouldn't throw stones, but those rare folks whose glass house is set on a hill are generally the target of any kind of stone throwing, so they hardly need reminding. They use the stones they receive to make artworks - the idea of throwing them is far from them.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. 

But how many do indeed throw stones and find motes. And where better to lob and to find than among those hilltop people with their open-book lives. I often heard them mentioned from the pulpit when I attended church. A convenient scapegoat, as I began to realise, while pride, pettiness, prejudice and arrogance were allowed to thrive secretly amongst the faithful without censure.

But even if our glass house is set in a vale and our sins covered by a conspiracy of omertà, they are most exquisitely revealed, not just to the Lord, but to whoever has eyes to see and a loving heart to understand.

There is something child-like about the hilltop people - a reckless trust and lack of guile, and since many of the elders, deacons and worshipful will be absent at the roll call, perhaps there will be a corner of Heaven set apart for them:

Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

Mythic Math

There is a famous photograph showing Albert Einstein (actor/freemason) standing in front of a blackboard covered with hard sums... you know the one I mean.

It's actually an artwork. The meme is repeated at regular intervals in cinema, universities, and news programs. It's the numerical equivalent of Ipsum Lorem, the Latin sounding gobbledygook that's used as a placeholder for pagination purposes.

It could be a succession of magical runes. That's why so many people report poor math skills: they have not been invited to the banquet, or perhaps the Lord has opened their eyes.

It's certainly used as a touchstone to validate any nonsense that the adversary wishes to use to deceive the world.

"So, are you actually claiming that all maths is fake?"

Nope - don't be silly.

Opening the matrix

Why are so many born by means of a C-section procedure?

What doth wikipedia say?

The Roman Lex Regia (royal law), later the Lex Caesarea (imperial law), of Numa Pompilius (715–673 BC),^[122] required the child of a mother dead in childbirth to be cut from her womb.^[

So, as we might suspect, the "Caesarean" comes from Rome, a city famous for being the centre of opposition to the One true God over the ages.

What doth The Bible say?

That thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix, 

"It's mainly about sacrificial animals", you say, but nonetheless, opening the matrix is a synonym for birth so it's hardly controversial to suggest that the adversary might attempt to thwart any kind of dedication to the Lord implicit in the natural God-ordained process.

There are health problems with C-sections, or so I have read, because it seems the infant misses out on a key part of their immune system, which is obtained from the walls of the birth canal during delivery.

Not an expert, don't know... but I do know that whenever we depart from God's ways we fall into error.

Meanwhile, in Birmingham...

Keeping it simple

It is hard, sometimes, with the many different revelations, ideas and theories that arrive over the Web, to know quite what to think about all manner of things.
This is certainly an act of the devil because God is not the author of confusion, so when I sense confusion in my mind I try to remember to take a step back and meditate for a moment on my own limitations, intellectual and in all other realms.

That's why I decided some time ago that I would have nothing to do with the attempts to use "more authentic" names for God and Jesus. Everyone seemed to say things differently and I became quite confused, so I went back to the Bible and decided to stick with God and Jesus Christ.
I have noticed that when people start with the "Y" names they are quite likely to start getting into Hebrew roots or Torah keeping ideas at the same time.

I know the church is full of deception, so could it be that our Baptist and evangelical preachers are deceiving us about the reality of the New Testament and the commonly held view that the Jewish Law was annulled with the sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour?
It's a complicated issue indeed, and people start aggressively quoting Bible verses to support this position or the other, but after a while I started to notice a preponderance of pridefulness among self-professed Torah keepers or Hebrew roots advocates.

I dislike these ideas quite a bit. We have new wine so we need new bottles.
I love the Old Testament as I love also the New, and I don't believe we will be condemned for eating a bacon butty, having a foreskin, or going to church on Sunday.

I don't know the identity of the Jews, but I think it is undeniable that Britain was historically one of the most faithful Christian countries, if not the most faithful. I see our King James Bible is the benchmark and its long endurance is key indicator of its absolute reliability.
On a side note, I learned recently that King James believed he was the King of Israel, thus I suppose giving credence to the ideas of British Isrealism.
We are told that the English language is a mishmash of derivatives and borrowings from other more ancient languages, but that may not be true at all. Perhaps it is the root rather than the branch.
Certainly, my King James edition is more reliable than the 1604 Giovanni Diodati Italian version, which, although very faithful and close to the AV seems, to me at least, to reflect the influence of Rome.

Otherwise, I wonder, why did the translator survive without being condemned to the stake as, we are told, occurred to Tyndale?

Some pics of my new house

Before new downstairs window and door were fitted

New shed and fence

Kitchen/Study

Living room

Under the maple tree

The ford near my house . I played here as a child. It is the area where Tolkien lived as a boy

Dining Area

Drunks and fools

"For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness."

I know it's not entirely biblical to claim that God takes care of drunks and fools, but is there really no truth in it?

People in the church seem to get a bit puffed up. Happens to me too of course: all that getting dressed smart and going out early on Sunday morning. Singing hymns, praying nobly worded prayers aloud, and minding my p's and q's. Glossing over all kinds of rebuffs and rebukes in the interest of fellowship. Taking care to pray for people I have come to dislike quite a bit or, anyway, people who I only ever see on Sunday mornings.

Then there is the intellectual pride. Bible scholars who study Scripture and read only clever books about religion, forming opinions, reaching eschatological positions, and plotting out a course (the only right one of course) through the cluttered minefield of exegetics. Refusing to enter into any assembly that departs from one's unique understanding of  the Word. 
Haughty, dismissive and cruel? I have noticed those qualities from time to time.

Like little children, drunks and fools seem to tick to a different beat. Foolishness is an integral part of the human condition: our ridiculous conceit, investment strategies, and dietary routines. Strutting about as though we owned the show instead of bowing our heads and knee before the King of Kings... always, whether at the alehouse, on the street, or at the race track.

I'm not praising foolishness per sé, merely recognising that adopting a spontaneous and simplistic approach to the world may appear as foolishness oftentimes, but perhaps brings less of a stink to the nostrils of God than our strutting and posturing.

As for drunkenness, it is a sin of course, but a lot of those church folks could benefit from taking the edge off from time to time and maybe taking a trip to the bars and fleshpots. After all, didn't Jesus Christ frequent the people in those establishments?
He wasn't stuck up at all, and, while I know it has a metaphorical application, He did turn the water into wine at the wedding feast so He was not just God incarnate, he was also the man - the kind of guy you need at a wedding feast.

The two is's

Today is a very blustery day in England.

I went to the dentist, but I went - in my Fiat Panda - by a country way over the hills. The distance is short but the time was long due to traffic and me getting lost for 20 minutes after the flood cum ford.

I would not have attempted to drive through it if I had known how deep it was, but it took me by surprise because I saw no signs and there several other cars coming towards me on a narrow road.
I read recently that just six inches of water can often prove too much, and this flood seemed to be about six inches deep. Even though I drove fairly slowly to avoid creating too much of a bow wave, towards the opposite shore I felt the car losing power and I started to panic. I was carried through, but like the children of Israel, I became immediately lost upon gaining the opposite bank.

When I got home I decided to have a coffee, as usual, but I clumsily flipped the basket from the moka machine and it rolled on the floor and under my kitchen units, because, as you know, I do not allow kicking strips to reside in my kitchen. After a quick look I realised I needed a torch, which, once retrieved, informed me that the component had rolled so far into the corner that it was almost nestled against the mouse trap, which is cocked complete with cheese so cannot be approached by groping fingers without risking injury.

When I fell of my bike and broke my left metacarpal, I discovered that hand injuries can be very complex and are, of course, very impactful in respect of normal daily activities. I was fixed up at the hand coordination unit in the hospital, where I had quite a few adventures and meaningful encounters. I was only a day patient though... thankfully. Not like my dad, who spent nearly a month in a different hospital, shuffled from ward to ward and ultimately ending up in a geriatric unit that was anyway deemed to be excessively specialised with respect to my father's needs, which by that time were minimal because my father - I thought - had decided it would be a good time to die. All the fight had gone out of the man, after nearly 98 years of keeping it all very tightly together with a stern will indeed. My dad was quite the character, but he was far too self-reliant to turn to the Word of God, which he said was mainly a matter of interpretation and thus unreliable.

I wonder how much this kind of seemingly reasonable and rational thinking has been cemented by the church, with the different denominations and infighting and mainly, I suppose, with the Catholic-Protestant issue that has been used very effectively to divide and rule. Social programming exercised with absolute finesse and exercised, it would seem, since very ancient times.

But Scripture must be fulfilled.

Because strait the gate, and narrow the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Yes, I did remove the two is's. I love the King James and never mess with it as a rule, but in this case I think the recommended additions can be discarded for poetic ends. I suppose "strait" and "narrow" are almost synonymous, but perhaps strait refers to a momentary narrowing as in a passage, while narrow is such as to reference a single-file path winding up the hill, with thorns and brambles and wotnot.

Big science

To state that Mr Steven Hawking was "a man of great wisdom, a man of great intellect, no question" (about 23 minutes in), is incorrect. Disregarding my own perplexity concerning that gentleman's reported intellect, "discoveries" and persona, there are very many people who would question that statement, although they have been mainly relegated to the modern sensationalist lunatic asylum labelled "conspiracy".
And this, quite apart from what it says in the Bible... in the book of proverbs, for example.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

But fear of the Lord apparently never troubled Mr Hawking if we are to believe the media representation with which we are provided.

There are indeed some who would claim that Mr Hawking was effectively a captive and little more than a living stage prop, that replaced several times over the years. In this shocking case it may be that the poor crippled man of the moment feared the Lord very greatly indeed, but this is of course nothing more than conjecture that is as impossible to prove as it is to disprove, though most people have a certain (diminishing) level of trust in the things shown on television or reported in the newspaper... a matter that I personally find quite surprising.

In this case (wisdom), I think Mr Begg misspoke and would surely retract if possible - the Lord only knows how easy it must be to choose an unfortunate turn of phrase when speaking so freely in front of a large audience. I think I would hardly be able to recite or even remember my own name. I suppose however that the idea that Mr Hawking was a man of great intellect, however misguided, would be the predominant view of Christians so I speak on behalf of a minority of opinion, but not such a small and insignificant one as Mr Begg implies.

I love listening to Alistair Begg. He is currently among my favourite teachers. Please excuse my nitpicking, if it is indeed nits with which I am dealing. I believe the ideas and philosophies promoted by or through Mr Hawking are unscientific and deeply antithetical to the work of the Lord and are indeed fashioned and diffused quite deliberately in order to promote the cause of the adversary. If I am right, that would surely be a troublesome nit indeed.

Dear Spiders

Thank you for your kind attention

I know you are busy getting settled in to my new house in various nooks and crannies and making yourselves comfortable.
I also know you are mentioned in Scripture in the book of Proverbs:

"The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces"

But I am not a king

You also make an appearance in the book of Isaiah:

"They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web"

speaking about deceitful and vain folks, so your web is a metaphor, perhaps, for intrigue.

and in Job

"Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web"

meaning, I suppose, that your web is easily broken (and it is - see under)

Now therefore, since you are in the Bible, like me (seven times in my case, beginning with First Samuel: "Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel: for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords and spears"), I must afford you due consideration.

However, while you might be thinking that I am the sort of person who says "Ooh I never kill spiders! I just put them in a jam jar and then leave them in the garden." Or one of those persons who thinks that because a spider inspired Scottish king and local hero Robert the Bruce to redouble his efforts in fighting against the English in the 1300s, then I will be eternally grateful to you and adopt a tolerant attitude in relation to your construction initiatives and lurking behaviours... I am actually a person of an entirely different kind (the Scriptural reference to swords and spears might give you a hint).

Although I take no (not much) pleasure in destroying your habitats, eggs, and tribal members, I feel duty bound to proceed in that direction if I see you and manage to intercept you before you run into an inaccessible place.

So, please behave with discretion and keep a very low profile. And, to be clear, building your webs in the corners of my nice new magenta coloured walls and white ceilings is not acceptable. I will see you, and immediately introduce you to my new and powerful vacuum cleaner.

Yours faithfully
Smith (English)

The proper disposal of cats

To the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Dear Sir or Madam

I write to seek your recommendations for the correct procedure to follow in terms of cat removal. I am unclear as to whether the electrified fence I am planning to install should be the standard 20,000 volt version, or if I need to budget for the full 50,000 volts in order to ensure complete and instant destruction of the creatures as they cross my garden fence.

It does seem to me that the more powerful solution would ensure also that the beast would be reduced to potash, thus benefiting the soil and providing nutrients for earthworms and insects in the garden, so perhaps the higher cost would be justified also in animal welfare terms.

I know my efforts will help save the lives of countless small rodents and birds in the neighbourhood, but I do understand that you are not currently issuing any form of reward or civic recognition for the humane and complete destruction of roaming cats, so please rest assured that I am happy to proceed in anonymity.

Please advise also if you are currently offering any kind of grant or subsidy to help with the cost of the equipment, in consideration of the overall improvement in animal welfare it will engender.

Many thanks in advance for your kind attention and reply.

Yours sincerely,

Prod

The books in my house

We were assembling my new bed, me and Shon, and we were getting on very well with it.

I like having Shon to help me because he is a cheerful man and very flexible and practical. In fact, I sometimes tease him about the fact that he isn't married, because I think he would make a good husband and he would probably benefit from having a loyal wife at home, but he's getting a bit older now so I think he has to get cracking.

It came to the part where you have to screw in the slats, of which there were thirteen on each side, and after a bit I became bothered about the fact that they might not be at right angles to the frame.
"We need a book" saith I, to use as a makeshift set square, although Shon thought we could do it just using one of the slats. I really did think a book would be better however, so eventually Shon had to hand me one (because I couldn't get out from my position between the bed and the window).

He reached up onto the bookshelf and I did grin when I saw which one had fallen under his hand.

It doesn't surprise me at all, he explained when he saw the title, because Bibles are the only books you have in the house! Well, that's not strictly true, because I have got an adventure book about the Pony Express, two books about different types of trees you can find in England and in Italy, a book about various sea fish and freshwater fish, and also a book about a love story between two older people who visit Amsterdam, but it is true that I have nine Bibles, if you count the two in Italian (I'm not counting my New International Version of course).

So we put this Bible, which is a Study Bible with notes, against the slat and the bed frame and I couldn't miss the opportunity to explain why it's actually called a "right angle", going on also to mention the plummet and how it's all about being level and upright. I thought it was the Lord that had put the book in his hand, although Shon doesn't believe in the Bible and instead follows a kind of universal spirit energy that, according to him, is always flowing around us and can be harnessed using different crystals and metals. I think it might be true, but I can't seem to sense it personally other than in a general sort of way.

Finally, if you are, like me, a Bible believing person, I will also mention that there is no line and no plummet on a sphere - and hence no right angles. This is a matter that might give some cause for concern if you don't know, as I do, that the Lord's Earth is a flat and motionless plane and not a ball, as is sometimes claimed.

We eventually finished assembling the bed and it looks very fine in the small bedroom. I said to Shon that we might have to take it apart again and move it to the big bedroom if it turns out that the other bed I have ordered is a bit shorter and would fit better in the available space, but Shon just said, as he often does, that I need to have more faith.

Time

Time, saith he, is a construct...

I was freecycling a PA system on the Internet. I didn't know you could do that, but you can. As it turns out there were loads of people who wanted a free PA system, which made me realise I could have probably flogged it for  'na gambina, an Italian expression that I have adapted to mean one hundred coins of the realm, although the miserable alloy sterling coin is no match to the bright and glittering gold sovereign, issued in 1817 with a value of one pound.

Today, to purchase a single one of these coins would call for an outlay of at least 300 of their modern-day counterparts.

Such is life.

I suppose the only fair way of choosing between all the hopeful contenders for my PA system is by time of arrival of the incoming mail.

Or it would be, were it not the case that time is quintessentially a construct. So for one man it may be that four o'clock is, as it were, nine o'clock, while for another man, or woman... particularly the latter group for sure, we men are mainly on the level as I'm sure my brothers will mostly agree, it might be half-past four for a very long spell some afternoons and then six o'clock jumps to half-past ten in the blink of an eye and it's time to blow out the candle.

And how slowly does a watched kettle boil?
And how quickly does an unwatched saucepan burn?

But clocks, you say, clocks!
Fiddlesticks, says I, fiddlesticks!

He who sitteth In the heavens

The oddest thing is, I would say, the thing I will write now.

That thing, and not the upsetting "shape of the earth" business (although the Earth is indeed flat, as it must be to accommodate its great oceans).

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed...

Those kings and rulers have attempted to break asunder the bands and cast away the cords that restrain their wicked hearts in the presence of the one true God, by deceiving the world with their claim of being able to fly to the heavens in their rocket ships.
Independently, as it were, to a place beyond the "atmosphere", being, as those of us who know and believe the Bible understand, the place in which the Almighty sits upon His throne and places His feet on the world as His footstool.

But the Lord shall have them in derision.

They cannot fly into the heaven: there is only one way to ascend - through redemption by being washed in the blood of the Lamb. They are prevented by a hard boundary called the firmament "spread out like a molten looking glass". That's where we also find the stars and the sun and the moon, as clearly stated in Genesis.

Epistemology
That "they cannot fly into the heaven" has been well proven by the widespread exposure of the wholesale use of theatre and other forms of deception throughout the "space industry". An amateur rocket with onboard cameras was clearly shown to strike a hard barrier at an approximate height of  70 miles.
It might be interesting to note that the space industry stands at the pinnacle of all world industrial sectors. Companies vie with one another to obtain a single endorsement from a space agency, to the point at which it is a de facto requirement of any multinational organisation that wishes to thrive, as is also the allegiance of any such organisation to the social, spiritual and environmental goals expressed by the UN

The precise nature of the firmament and its height cannot be known by men because it is not given in the Bible. We know it is a physical barrier because of the waters above the firmament mentioned in Genesis.
I have heard it said that the waters above the firmament could just be the clouds, but that's not what the Bible says. This is the water with which the Earth was flooded when the gates of heaven were opened.
Also, I know many people think rain comes from clouds because that's what the "architects" say, but if you truly think about it you will probably realise it's a far-fetched idea. The rain comes from the Lord, and sometimes the Lord does indeed open the gates of heaven - that's what I think.

Amen

Hidden Truth

The truth is very well hidden in the world.

That's why so few people read the Bible, which is given to us to show us how to live and to tell us what has been and what is to come.
I came to understand the shape and nature of the world before I had accepted the Kingship of our Lord, although I was reading the Bible regularly at the time. Not long after, I realised, with a shock, that the Bible was literally true - a matter still astonishes me to this day. The power and majesty of the Lord and the precision and beauty of His works are amazing indeed.

Other people can and will come to their own understanding about things. I am however always encouraged to learn that others have independently reached the same conclusions as me, also because it provides an opportunity to share the burden of ostracism that can sometimes accompany the espousal of an unpopular truth.

I do not consider myself to be more or less intelligent than any other person. I have, however, been using the Internet daily for research since its infancy, due to my profession of translator. It is my job to avoid being misled by specious arguments and false or unreliable information so that I can base my work on solid foundations that can withstand the scrutiny of sometimes quite demanding  clients. Of course, since my washing in the blood of the lamb, I have come to understand that the ability to do my job has been granted by the Almighty and none other, so I try to keep that in mind at all times.

There follows a shortlist of my path to understanding, in the hope that it may prove helpful to others in finding fairly reliable information about the flat earth. I don't fully endorse any of these content creators, and I have some very major disagreement with a couple of them, but in this matter I think it is important to avoid discarding the baby with the bathwater. Kent Hovind, for example, has consistently attacked the flat earth with no Scriptural basis, but his Bible-based exposure of the lie of evolution still stands as a stellar body of work.

To understand the lies of modern cosmology it is important to understand that the "moon landings" were nothing more than an elaborate fiction. I met a man I respected who hinted at this matter and he advised me to watch this video
I went on to research the topic carefully and the hoax became absolutely obvious. The truth is always concealed in plain sight

Then I heard, by chance, one of the first interviews given by Eric Dubay because I was following Jeff Berwick at the time.
I went on to watch video after video on this topic for several months. I was fascinated by the scope and scale of deception and there was a sense, initially, that something radical was going to occur because the lie clearly exposes the complicity of all world governments. One secular channel that produced good information on the subject is Jeranism.

This gave me my secular and logical basis. Then Rob Skiba and Dean Odle confirmed and developed my Biblical understanding of the matter.
The Truth is Stranger than Fiction channel later started to share some testimonials. There are people all over the world who have picked up their Bible and fallen to their knees before the throne of the most High on coming to understand this deception.

The fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom, All praise to the Almighty

The cure

"There's no cure for... [insert any physical or psychological ailment].

I think most folks kind of believe that, with all those "incurable illnesses" we hear about. They are, you see, illnesses that no one ever recovers from.
Except, that is, for the people who do actually "miraculously" recover from them, but are in a statistically insignificant minority.

But when we pause to recognise that each and every one of us is a statistically insignificant minority then that sort of thinking starts to lose its appeal, if we can temporarily allow the words "appeal" and "statistically" to appear together in a sentence without coming to blows.

The fact is - and it is fact in very deed, although not at all widely known about and oftentimes viewed with scorn when revealed - that we have an advocate and redeemer in the form of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, when he walked among us as a man, showed time and time again that he could heal any illness and even raise the dead. He no longer walks the streets or fields, but the angels are among us and the will of the Lord will always be done, so we can ask Him for healing in prayer and abject humility, as befitting the King of Kings, as we are commanded.

So these day's I never talk of terminal this or incurable the other.

Let us praise the Almighty and place our trust in Him.

Hallelujah

Love in the Bible

From the 1537 Matthews' Bible, I Corinthians, 13

Though I speake with tounges of men and angels, and yet had no loue, I were euen as soundinge brasse, or as a tynklinge Cimbal.
And though I could prophecye, and vnderstande all secretes, and all knowledge: yea, yf I had all fayth so that I coulde moue mountaines out of theyr places, and yet had no loue, I were nothing.
And thought I bestowed all my goodes to fede the pore, and though I gaue my bodye euen that I burned, and yet had no loue, it profeteth me nothinge.
Loue suffreth longe, and is curteous. Loue enuieth not. Loue doth not frowardelye, swelleth not, dealeth not dishonestlye,
seketh not her owne, is not prouoketh to anger, thinketh not euil,
reioiceth not in iniquitie: but reioiseth in the trueth,
suffreth all thinge, beleueth all thinges, hopeth al thinges, endureth in all thinges.
Though that propheciynge fayle, other tounges shall cease, or knowledge vanishe awaye, yet loue falleth neuer awaye.
For oure knowledge is vnperfect, & oure prophesiynge is vnperfecte.
But when that which is perfect, is come: then that which is vnperfect, shal be done awaye:
When I was a child, I spake as a chylde, I vnderstode as a child, I Imagined as a chylde. But assone as I was a man, I put away childishnes.
Nowe we se in a glasse euen in a darke speakinge, but then shall we se face to face. Nowe I knowe vnperfectlye, but then shall I knowe euen as I am knowen.
Nowe abideth fayth, hope, and loue, euen these thre: but the chiefe of these is loue.

Vibratory Action

Due to the vibratory action of my washing machine, my breadboard has wriggled between it and the worksurface in the space it calls home, and ultimately, due to my ham-fisted attempts to retrieve it, fallen down behind this built-in appliance. It is a major incident and a crew (currently on a break) has been assigned to resolving it.

Windows onto the unreal

This morning Windows offers me a few tips:

Watch your content come alive
Insert animated 3D graphics, and watch hearts beat, planets orbit, and T-rex rampage across the screen.

There's no exclamation mark at the end of this fun-packed little sentence, so we must be grateful for small mercies, but it's interesting to note that the three examples of things that will make my content come alive are all deceptive:

"watch hearts beat"
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

The heart is not the source of life or even the seat of love

"planets orbit"
Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass?

There are no planets, just stars in the firmament. Nothing is orbiting; the host of heaven rotates above us.

"T-rex rampage"
O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called

All science concerning dinosaurs, including the Tyrannosaurus rex, which was invented in the early 20th century, is nothing more than Babylonian fakery.

Here's an idea: instead of watching our content come alive by copying the tactics of Hollywood, we could just attempt to write clear, incisive and, if the Lord will allow, beautiful prose... Prod included.

An Eulogy at my father's funeral

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.

Dad liked to recite this soliloquy, which he had committed to memory at school and then, typically, kept with him for more than eighty years like a well worn pocket knife. I think he believed it, and that's probably why it stuck with him. 

He was an exceptionally reliable man - diligent and thorough in every endeavour. He invested his time and money wisely, and he has provided very handsomely for his heirs, something for which, I think I can speak on behalf of all, we are most grateful.

Our father planned meticulously, taking care of mum for many years by treating the kitchen as a laboratory in the paint factory and preparing food in accordance with carefully compiled formulas.

He was a stoic, never complaining at his lot even when our older sister and his beloved daughter Alison passed away so unexpectedly and tragically at a young age. He was deeply wounded, but it took a keen eye to see it.

He was an exceptional man in that he existed in a cerebral sphere that is outside the ordinary. It is of course an exaggeration to say that he considered people to be dynamic expressions of electrochemical phenomena, but his extreme rationality and philosophical materialism certainly led him in that direction.

Dad was a creative man, forever making bookcases, models, tables, a guitar case, and anything for which a need was expressed, also for neighbours and community functions when he was given the chance. Carole found a painstakingly engineered foam padded box with bespoke hinges and aluminium fastening mechanism designed to accommodate a "photographic timer" according to the label.
Apart from his handicraft and homemade country wines , he also had something of a thespian spirit, and never drew back from an opportunity to tread the boards. Although I didn't follow his acting career personally, the photographs suggest that comedy was his preferred genre. He certainly had the ability to raise a laugh, and he was entertaining the paramedics, nurses and doctors even in the last month of his life.

He was a mainstay and point of reference, and perhaps not just for his immediate family, to whom he was a true patriarch although in the vesture of a modern and enlightened man.

He was not, however, enlightened by the Words of the Holy Bible, a Book that he made a point of avoiding despite having three copies on the shelf by his chair. He did however once suffer me to read these few verses from Ecclesiastes without reporting any particular harmful effects afterwards:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Dad's beloved verses from As You Like It reach a grim conclusion: "the Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion;"

but Dad cheated Shakespeare's finale because he retained his wits until the very end. As for the oblivion, we shall have to wait and see.

A letter to Jerusalem

You will be in Jerusalem as I write, so greetings to the brethren, as Paul might have had it.

Perhaps the Catholics were indeed responsible for moving the day of worship to Sunday though I think there is a precedent for Sunday worship in the book of Acts, and anyway I think every day is a day of worship so I'm not too bothered about that stuff.

As for Rob Skiba, I think all people on the public stage are shills. Skiba has helped spread awareness of biblical cosmology for sure, just as David Ike has revealed much deception on the world stage, but ultimately these folks are all gatekeepers. In the case of Mr Skiba I am wary of his insistence on changing the names given in our King James Bible for God and Jesus. He is also constantly referring us to the apocrypha. The result is that he is saying, de facto, we cannot trust in our Bible. or in the Bible alone. Also the name issue of course is a side swipe at the KJV, because if we should be using words like Yaweh and Elohim etc. then why are they not in our Bible?

The Lord has taught me that I can rely on the Bible and that he will preserve a true Bible for all time.

Research and the Bible itself inform me that this refers to the King James Version:

The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.

although I also think its six predecessors, from Tyndale to Geneva, are mainly reliable. As you probably know already, several of them are beloved by those of us who understand the truth of Biblical Cosmology, due to 2 Samuel 11.11:

And Vrias sayd vnto Dauid: the arck and Israel & Iuda dwell in pauilions: & my Lord Ioab and the seruauntes of my Lorde lye in tentes vpon the flat earthe: and shulde I then go into myne house, to eate and to dryncke & to lye wyth my wyfe? By thy lyfe and as sure as thy soule lyueth, I wyll not do that thyng.  

Isn't it interesting to note that in this passage Uriah is speaking the truth to David, who was attempting to deceive him to cover his own great iniquity: the righteous confronts the devil!

I think my negative appraisal of the HRM is influenced by the dispensational teachings I was exposed to at church. While I was initially dismayed to hear the preacher's view of such matters, I went on to do my own research and I am satisfied that the interpretation is mainly good and most important in understanding the Bible overall, helping to clear up what appeared, on the face of it, to be contradictory or at least incompatible positions or statements. I know there is much opposition to this understanding, and I have researched the objections as carefully as I have been able, but I remain quite confident of it.

There is no doubt in my mind that the preacher is an excellent teacher. I was spellbound 1 during many of his sermons and Bible studies expounding the deeper meanings of Scripture.  I think he mainly draws his material from his extensive studies of biblical scholars from the 1600s to the 1900s, broadly, and those folks had plenty of insights to share. It saved me wading through a body of literature that is absolutely vast and gave me a smattering of some of the key points, so I am most grateful. He is also quite a passionate speaker from time to time and shares some mainly reliable information concerning the deceptions that surround us. 

Sadly, I can no longer attend because I am almost certainly seen as a potential troublemaker, having inadvertently angered the elders by speaking of the transgender deception that surrounds us (not during the meeting) and warned the preacher (likewise informally) that he is placing his trust in "necromancers" rather than in the Word of God in relation to the FE issue.

1 I just noticed I used the word "spellbound", perhaps I was!

Tolerance and love

The only person I could freely talk to about my many unorthodox beliefs was my father, a matter that is surprising to me indeed.

I use the past tense because my father is nearing the very end of his life and can no longer follow the kinds of complex reasoning involved in unravelling the deception of the world.
I suppose he is an oddball like me - or I am one like him. However, I have come to understand that the truth lies in the Lord Jesus Christ, while he was determined never to even look in the direction of the Bible, despite having three copies of the AV on the shelf near his chair.

I can talk to my daughter also, but I am careful to step around her shibboleths. I know she will disagree with me about many things, so I look for common ground and try to explain the contents of the Bible, as far as I am able, because she does not know that book and because I am her father.
In general, I understand that people do not share my views about things, so I adopt a peaceful and tolerant approach to others.

I wish I could rely on your tolerance too. I know you don't agree with me, but it is most tiresome to have to fend off angry attacks every time I make a statement.

Anyway, what do you know of epistemology and philosophy? I don't think you have any particular interest in those matters, but I studied them for a while and I learned quite a few things, including debating techniques, although I am no expert.

When you say, for example, "se una donna è brava e competente per te è un travestito" you are using a strawman argument. Perhaps you know what that means, but I will explain just in case you don't: you are deliberately mischaracterising my position in order to ridicule it.

Strawman arguments are common, but they are dishonest. Like when I proposed at church that we should organise a "men's meeting", and the preacher, who didn't want to do that for some reason, spent ten minutes arguing against youth groups in the church, which was not my proposal any more than I am proposing that clever and competent women are male to female transgenders. It is a plainly silly idea and thus easy to argue against. Also youth meetings in church have many well known drawbacks and so the idea can be easily opposed, but that was not my proposal - indeed, I do not agree with youth meetings in church any more than I think that all clever and competent women are transgendered men.

See what I mean?

More generally however, I dislike debates. I will listen to people's views - I might disagree and offer a different interpretation, but once it has been established that our views differ, I expect the matter to end there. If we do not agree, then let peace govern the nature of our relations. If one of us is wrong, then let it be so - all truth will be revealed one day.

Why can you not afford me the same courtesy I afford you? I have no intention of ridiculing people because of their ideas, even though I think many of them are completely misguided. I understand people must come to their own conclusions. I speak about my ideas, but I don't expect others to accept them. I am very used to this situation. Wherever I go, I encounter dissonance, whether it is in the agora, in the church, or among the conspiracy people. All I ask is that people allow me to speak freely, without censure or prejudice.

People might think my ideas are crazy, but if they know me at all and care for me I would expect a modicum of respect rather than mocking.

So, here we are, alone and unable to speak. We could have pursued a friendship or even more, but that would require tolerance. If you feel you must scold me and criticise me, that is your prerogative, but then where is the "love" of which you often speak? Surely it is in tolerance that we find real love - it's easy to love people when they simply echo our views and prejudices.

The Cult

I was in a cult. But when I was in it, we never used to call it that. The very idea that everyone else seemed to assume it was a cult reinforced our belief that everyone else was thick and we were enlightened.
In truth however, you would have been hard-pressed to find a bunch of thicker individuals even by placing adverts in the newspaper and offering good wages and accommodation.
What's more, we paid the cult leader for the privilege of feeling clever, while being, as I mentioned, most thick.

1. "But Prod is a clever man indeed, he was surely drawn into it through some infernal cleverness?"
2. "Since he's not entirely thick, perhaps he knew what he was getting himself into?"
3. "It surprises me not in the least, the fellow is an arrogant oaf quite devoid of even a modicum of common sense or mental acuity"

'Twas a mixture, in fact, of numbers 1 and 3 of the above. Number 2 can be entirely discounted, other than to say that I was searching for truth, and in our modern world truth is very well hidden indeed.

When I was in the cult I didn't speak to my parents for more than a year, although I lived quite nearby. I also didn't see my older sister at all, because she died as I was starting to extricate myself, a matter that is my fault, although I cannot help somewhat blaming the cult leader for practising his clever deception. I don't suppose for one moment however that he would have classified his actions as deceptive, even though their ultimate purpose was to elevate himself and belittle all other people, including his closest admirers, who although regularly flattered and buttered up, were always at risk of stern rebuke, and penalties and even ejection from the fold if they failed in any of their duties.
Stef, as we used to often call him to signal our privilege and affection, maintained very tight control of proceedings and reacted with outrage to even the mildest criticism or perceived slight.

Ultimately, however, I had walked into his shop, however deceptively labelled, so I'm on the hook for it all.
It wasn't all bad. I learned some basic ideas about the practise and theories of philosophy and I realised how important such matters are. It shaped my thinking and actions over the next several years, and it prepared me to come, eventually, to understand that the truth lies only in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy One of Israel, whose words unto Pontius Pilate before his condemnation to the cross are as follows:

To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.


Amen to that, from me at least.


I'll write some more cult stories later... I think we used to do some funny things, now that I look back on it, but like I said, it wasn't all bad. I got the chance to meet a load of young folks - I was by far the old codger of the group since most were in their twenties and I was already over fifty. I suppose people might have thought I was the teacher, but actually I was the student. I didn't have much wisdom to bring to the table whatsoever, but I did learn quite a bit from one or two fellows who were, mercifully, much brighter than me. The cult leader himself, however, after a promising start, sadly revealed himself to be far more dense, mentally speaking, than the average man - in my own estimation (but I know I am not alone in taking that position).

Addendum

Although I spoke about different levels of intelligence in this short writing that I have written, I did it merely to illustrate a point here and there and raise the occasional smile, if possible. I do not hold with the elevation of any individual or the abasement of another in consideration of perceived cleverness or lack thereof, or based on any other criteria.
It is my desire and intention to defer entirely - in this matter and in all others - to the grace and wisdom of the Lord, though I know I fall short of this mark most alway.

The exciting night out

Last night I went on a visit based on an invitation that impudently I pre-empted.
It was a hard raining night very, and I couldn't precisely remember the house, so I tramped up and down in the rain, testing the new waterproofing on my bush hat (works) and the water repellent properties of my brand new Craghopper jacket with fleece lining (impeccable).
I found the place at last - I had been standing outside already twice, but both road facing windows showed a vista of a sparking and glittering kitchen occupying a volume whose existence, at least as a continuous entity, postdates the time of my previous visit.
I actually went up the path as far as the door, to see if that silly notice was still there (he used to have freeman sort of notice charging people for wasting his time, aimed at the council and the many faces of officialdom) but the notice was consipicious only by its abence so I backed away.
Eventually the fellow came into view in the shining space and I waved or whistled and the job was done.

It wasn't going to be just the two or three of us, counting his wife (missing on on the evening in question due to having had the good sense to attend more of a womanly kind of thing while we had our men's night), I now realised, because already comfortably accommodated were two other fellows, both of whom I know, but not very well.

The night - and it was a good one - consisted of chatting, playing some instruments, singing, and chatting again. One man tried to convince me something funny about the Bible, but I didn't buy it for a moment, and another man offered me a room in his house, which I think was very generous since he hardly even knows me. I told him that, in the circumstances, he was either exceptionally altruistic and generous, or unusually thick, depending on one's perspective, but I suppose it might be a mixture of the two.
Who can say? Maybe he didn't mean it, but he did say it, so I suppose he might have been prepared to  put up with me. Maybe I should take him up on it, since I am about to be evicted (which is why he so kindly offered).

Yours truly
Caveman Prod

Serve somebody

.... it may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you gotta serve somebody, as Mr Shabatai Zisi ben Avraham sang many moons ago. Dylan, named after the Welsh poet connected to and perhaps inspired by, or so I read, that Crowley fellow who keeps cropping up. Arch-deceiver, it seems, but truth is revealed through the arts and in commerce and never in news channels or documentaries except covertly, because the illusion must be maintained and reinforced and all media opportunities are used to that end.

The revelation of truth is sometimes explained in terms of duping delight, and I suppose that is not unreasonable. although it's hard to know what people might find so funny. We have certainly seen incongruous laughter in media footage. The trouble being, also, that we have realities such as Monarch and MK Ultra, we have theatre, and we have master manipulators at large.
According to the Wikipedia page on LaVeyan Satanism:  Lesser magic is the practice of manipulation by means of applied psychology and glamour (or "wile and guile") to bend an individual or situation to one's will.

Then there's the third tenet of the Satanic Temple, which, according to Wikipedia, states that

One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone.

and the sixth Satanic statement of LaVeyan Satanism

Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires.

To comply with these principles and allow others to comply thereto, we must be informed of what lies on the road ahead and willingly choose to proceed or take a detour. It is entirely our responsibility to seek the appropriate information. Once it has been disclosed, however tangentially, then our willingness to comply with the narrative is assumed. And if our willingness be blind, and the result of ignorance of the many deceptions that are practised upon us, then such ignorance can be construed as a self-willed state: a fellow should have his wits about him... or else!
According to the Wiki article on LaVeyan Satanism Lesser magic is the practice of manipulation by means of applied psychology and glamour (or "wile and guile") to bend an individual or situation to one's will.

This is a very important concept and absolutely fundamental to Satanic beliefs. It is, of course, a strong underpinning of the abortion movement, but it also implies that we should not be made to surrender to the overarching force of the state, again adopting the forewarned = forearmed principle. The Satanists are forewarned indeed through their Masonic affiliations and I suppose there are many quick-witted men among their confederates, so we may be thankful that we have our own wits granted by the Lord and the assistance of many valiant saints who have considered it their duty to share the revelations they have received.
Above all, of course, we are to be grateful that we are protected from all tricks and snares by the strong outstretched arm of the Lord. The Bible makes it clear that Satan, as he attempts to control our lives, is defeated automatically when when appeal to the Lord Jesus Christ and plead his blood for our unearned defence.

So, people... I mean most folks, or so I would imagine, think that Satanists are men and women who wear tight black leather outfits and light candles in crypts, possibly even attending the orgiastic types of meetings we read and hear about and sometimes see depicted on our screens. They would be the sort of people who worship Baphomet or Baal and other such gods and make the horns sign with their hands.

But actually, whosoever chooses not to follow God through his only begotten son the Lord Jesus Christ (and I would say that follow means complying with His commandments, worshipping His Holy Name, reading and believing the Word, and so forth - as far as we are able, given our sin nature), is, ipso facto, following the devil, as Bob Dylan kindly pointed out back in 1979.

http://youtu.be/ngXC2rAjFKA