The Natural Congregation of Yahweh is what the secular world, modern traditional 'Christians',

and the modern 'Jews', would phrase as, "The Natural Church of God"

Thoughts on Modern World

  I was recently asked what I thought about the many technological advancements of our modern world.

  My response was, “Well, let me think a minute. I was born just before television, penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, contact lenses, Frisbees and the pill. There was no radar, credit cards, laser beams or ball-point pens. Man had not invented pantyhose, air conditioners, dishwashers, clothes dryers, and the clothes were hung out to dry in the fresh air and man hadn't yet walked on the moon. Metal detectors were used to find lost metals not to keep weapons out of schools, the computer age hadn't yet been coined because computers were still science fiction.

  My parents got married first, and then lived together. Every family had a father and a mother. It was normal for myself starting at about age 13, and for every other real man that I knew, to act like a gentleman; to open doors for women, to help them with their coats, to address them politely as "Ma'am", to address every man older than yourself as "Sir", to always let women have the available seats if anyone had to stand and to let women go anywhere first; in other words, to treat them as a lady. Children today don’t even know how to define “lady” and “gentleman”, aside form gender! It was also normal and expected to always have and show respect for your elders. Good manners were a given. It was polite and expected that you would greet people you met on the street and wish them a good day - whether you knew them or not.

  "Gay" still meant happy. There were no gay-rights, computer-dating, dual careers, daycare centers, or group therapy. Our lives were governed by good judgment, and common sense. Mothers actually looked after their children in person. We were taught to know the difference between right and wrong and to stand up and take responsibility for our actions. We accepted what we knew about right and wrong. We had no idea that we could "excuse" our wrong behaviour with such platitudes as being "victims" of oppression or abuse. What used to be self-indulgence is now "self-fulfillment". What we used to call two men living in sin together is now a "meaningful" relationship under the “minority rights act”. What was once discipline is now "repression". People can now do things that used to be wrong, because they have now been "liberated".

  Equality amongst all men used to be respected by the world as something worth striving for. In this country, I’m now one of the “minority”. I’m Caucasian and I’m heterosexual. My way of stating in plain language that I’m “just a normal white guy”, is no longer “politically correct”. Natives, East Indians, blacks, Orientals, homosexuals, feminists, cultists, and others, all move to this country expecting and getting more rights than I have. They are not required to adopt my customs or the customs of this country, but I am now obligated by law to provide special accommodations for their unique ethnic, cultural and religious beliefs and customs. Yahweh [God] and religious faith also used to be part of what made most Canadians proud. Now it is against the law to speak of Yahweh in most public forums.

  Everyone knew that government employees were there to provide services for you and that they were actually well thought of, courteous and helpful. We treated them with respect, partly out of our compassion for knowing that they were poor, and not able to do anything but work for the government. Living in small rural communities was considered a privilege as well as an enjoyable necessity for many. Good neighbours always left their keys in the car and their house open in case someone had an emergency. People shared their work, their produce, their machinery or tools and always preferred working together when possible. "Work" on the farms was really a lot of fun and satisfying because of the evidence of its productivity! Poor people moved to the "city" and suffered the hardships of working alone at really boring factory or government jobs. If they were lucky and made enough money to move back to the community, they were welcomed and helped.

  Serving your country was still thought of as a privilege; living in this country was an even bigger privilege. We thought fast food was what people ate during Lent. Time-sharing meant time the family spent together in the evenings and weekends, not purchasing condominiums. The stores and shops where we did purchase those very few things that we did not grow or barter with our friends for, were all owned by people we knew; by people that also wanted to help us in any way they and their small business could manage. Customer service meant real help – where the storekeeper actually cared and took full responsibility for your satisfaction, not just the place where you took back your purchases and made your complaints.

  We never heard of CDs or guys wearing earrings. And I don't ever remember any kid blowing his brains out listening to Tommy Dorsey or Glen Miller. If you saw anything with 'Made in Japan' on it, it was junk. Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and instant coffee were unheard of. We had 5 & 10 cent stores where you could actually buy things for 5 and 10 cents. Ice cream cones, phone calls, rides on a streetcar, and a Pepsi were all a nickel. And if you didn't want to splurge, you could spend your nickel on enough stamps to mail 1 letter and 2 postcards.

  You could buy a new Chevy Coupe for $600 but who could afford one? Too bad, because gas was only 11 cents a gallon. In my youth, 'grass' was mowed, 'coke' was a cold drink, 'pot' was something your mother cooked in, while 'rock music' was your grandmother's lullaby. 'Aids' were helpers in the Principal's office, 'chip' meant a piece of wood, 'hardware' was actually found in a hardware store, and 'software' and 'internet' were not even words.

  And I think I am of the last generation to actually believe that a lady needs a husband to have a baby. When my sister and I were young my parents called us children. Now my "kids" claim I am the victim of a "generation gap"; an expression that didn't exist until about twenty years after I was born. Which co-incidentally was only 1954.

  So all in all, what do I think about the many advancements of our modern world? I really miss the community spirit, the good neighbours, working on the farm with friends and families where everyone actually looked forward to and enjoyed their work. Where neighbours weren’t just someone that lived close by that you could recognize. Neighbours were people you worked with; they were your friends, they were helpful, they were polite, and they were those that really and truly cared about each other. They had good values, and they actually lived by them.”

  Good Values! That is the purpose of this Web-Site! And it is what my book, “A New Mind”, which is patterned after many Biblical examples, is all about! I hope you read it! I hope you enjoy it! And I hope you find it useful!

  Another point of view regarding changes in our modern way of thinking was recently sent to me from another well known Congregation member. It was a response to why we might be experiencing terrorism and other "modern" problems. It went this way: 

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc., I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you had better not read the Bible in school ... the Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem. (Dr. Spock's own son committed suicide after many years of his father's advice.) We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Then someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. The school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued (there's a big difference between disciplining, touching, beating, smacking, humiliating, kicking, etc.). And we said OK.

Then someone said, let's let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won't even have to tell their parents. And we said OK.

Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they're going to do it anyway, let's give our sons all the condoms they want so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school. And we said OK.

Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. Agreeing with them, we said it doesn't matter to us what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as we have a job and the economy is good.

Then someone said let's print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body. And we said OK.

And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then further again by making them available on the Internet. And we said OK, they're entitled to free speech and freedom of expression.

Then the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence, and illicit sex. Let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes. And we said it's just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Or why it doesn't bother them to steal or cheat or investigate pornography.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

I believe Yahweh is deeply saddened by this, just as most of us surely are, but for years we've been telling Yahweh to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect Yahweh to give us His blessing and His protection if we ignore all of His advice and demand that He leave us alone?

Funny how simple it is for people to trash Yahweh and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding Yahweh, people think twice about sharing.

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of Yahweh is suppressed in the school and in the workplace.

Are you laughing?

Funny how when if you were to forward this message, you would not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what Yahweh thinks of us.

Ask people to read it, or pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just disregard it... no one but you, and oh yes, Yahweh, will know what you did. But, if you decide to disregard this thought process, then please don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world IS IN!

Israelite year 5762 (Roman 2002) TOP ^

Possibilities and Provocations

             Have you ever thought, or has anyone you know, ever suggested that a Creator God is not a reality, just a comforting idea in your mind, an emotional crutch, wishful thinking? Many prominent philosophers have propagated that Yahweh is nothing more than a psychological projection. Ludwig Feuerbach first suggested this, and Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, Freidrich Nietzsche and others over the years have picked up on it.

Is Yahweh just an imaginary “cosmic father” invented for our emotional protection, created in our image to comfort us, a phantom to fill the hollow places? Any challenge put this way is beset with fundamental problems. Is it fair to dismiss theism because belief in Yahweh happens to fulfill emotional needs? Is there a real connection between our psychological state of mind and the real truthfulness of our ideas?

How does what we wish to be true influence what is actually true? Psychological motivations give us information about the person who believes something, but they tell us absolutely nothing about the truth of his beliefs. An idea cannot be refuted by simply showing  - even correctly - the psychological reasons why a person believes it. Why? Because psychological motivations have nothing to do with the truth of any belief. That evidence must come from other sources.

Someone might say that Israelites just want a father figure - but I say, maybe we do, maybe we don’t, but what has that got to do with whether Yahweh exists or not? My claim that Yahweh is our protective Father, and the critic’s that He is simply a psychological projection, could both be wrong - but neither claim on its own, is going to get us closer to the truth.

Suppose I believe, that after doing my accounts I have a large balance at the bank. Suppose you wish to determine whether this belief of mine is wishful thinking. You could never come to any useful conclusion by examining my psychological condition or motivation. That evidence would only be available by proving my arithmetic wrong. In other words, you must show purely on the evidence, that a man’s idea is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong.

The initial question - Does a Creator God Exist? - must be answered with reasons of evidence first, not dismissed with misleading talk about motives. Suppose I make note of the apparent order and design of the universe, for example, and conclude that Yahweh is responsible. How could you refute me? There is only one way - address the merit of the reason and evidence itself - not my motivations for believing it.

If there are good reasons to believe in Yahweh that are not dependant upon my emotional condition, then assessing my psychological condition misses the mark entirely. One can never answer the question “Is Yahweh just an idea?” by looking at motivations. Any refutation of His existence or self-serving adjustment of His definition must address reasons of evidence, not desires. Give me convincing arguments that Yahweh does not exist, or is something different than what He says He is, before you ask why I believe in such a fantasy.

Let’s turn the question around - fair play, so to speak. Is atheism a reality, or is new age thinking a reality, or are they just ideas, wishful thinking, emotional crutches - the axe cuts both ways. Perhaps atheists reject Yahweh because they have had bad relations with their own father - maybe atheism was invented to escape the frightening implications of Yahweh’s existence. Maybe new age thinkers adjust their definition of “what their God is” because they are better comforted that way.

People of all cultures, from the most primitive to the most advanced believe in some form of God. They don’t have to work themselves into any belief - perhaps this is the real reason - it is simply natural!  Even atheistic naturalists posit “Mother Nature”. Why would they be motivated to use this particular phrase?  They use it because it seems like “someone” is - assembling, building, designing, organizing.

Atheism, not belief in Yahweh, is the real anomaly - the unnatural, forced, artificial response. This active disbelief, including the active manipulation of belief practiced by new age thinkers - who design a god to fit their own needs - takes the real effort, not belief. This disbelief is premised on talking one’s self out of believing in Yahweh and engaging in mental gymnastics to dissuade the obvious.

Why would anyone do that when the evidence is so apparent? Here is where the question of psychological motivation has its proper place. The motive is obvious. If we can somehow convince ourselves that Yahweh does not exist or that He exists only as we wish Him to be, then He won’t be cramping our style. When it comes to our own lives we don’t like to be riding in the back seat - we want to be the drivers!

Think about it. Invent a god - fashion one of your choosing. Would your god be like the God of the Bible? A god formed by the human mind would probably mirror human sensibilities and proclivities. He (or she) would think and act, more or less like we do. His morality might reflect our desires. When we erred, he’d cluck his disapproval and then dismiss our frailties with an affectionate kids-will-be-kids shrug. After all, nobody is perfect. And coincidentally, this is the kind of god most religions and new age thinkers seem to produce. Not New Covenant Israelite faith though.

The curious thing about the God of the Bible is how unlike us He is, and how very unlike anything we could even imagine. His wisdom confuses us; His purity frightens us; His compassion overwhelms us. Instead of being at our beck and call, He defies our manipulations. In His economy, the weak and humble prevail and the last become first - doesn’t sound very much like a human invention does it!

Is our Israelite God just an idea? Is He within the capacity of our limited human imagination to create? Or have the atheists and new age thinkers closed their eyes, hid their faces and turned their backs for fear of trembling at the sight of the true God?

I won’t judge you for whether you believe in Yahweh or not. This book is not about belief in Yahweh - it is about believing Yahweh. It seems to me to be elementary that Yahweh exists, and the more important issue is WHAT IS HE SAYING to us. That is what this book will clear up once and for all,  dispelling the myths and proving the realities. Before you judge it, read it from cover to cover - it may provoke you in more ways than you think. It is not friendly toward any religious organization, in fact prominent religious organizations have threatened violence and offered bribery in attempts to stop its publication. It is totally evidentiary in support of its radical points of view, it pulls no punches and tells it like it is - believe it or not. TOP ^

Pursuing Relevance Part I

We have great difficulty exercising our imagination to believe that those around us are “smart”, if we hold on to the belief that the “stuff” we know or that we would like to know, constitutes the only, or one of few ingredients of “smartness”. Once we abandon this idea, we may find that the people around us do indeed know a great deal of their own “stuff”, and that it is then much easier to imagine they are the brightest people around. But what are we really doing by giving credibility to “stuff”, whether theirs or ours?

The “stuff” we are talking about is commonly referred to as “information”. But, information, or bits thereof, only become knowledge when they can be practically “applied”. Information on its own is merely trivia, and is in the preponderance, impractical, in that it is generally not possible to convert most available information into knowledge that can be applied to cause change. We have tremendous volumes of information, even libraries (physical or techno-driven) full of it, but it is almost all totally irrelevant in terms of applicable knowledge.

Knowledge is relevant. It is the information that has become of use - it can be applied to some set of practical circumstances to effect the status quo; It may be utilized to maintain the status quo, or it may be utilized to change the status quo. If the status quo is perfect, then obviously so is all of the current knowledge. If the status quo is imperfect, then obviously, new knowledge must be recognized and applied in some practical sense so as to effect the desired change's). By extension, if the status quo is imperfect, then most certainly so is all of the available information; even the current voluminous amounts that are available, as it cannot be formulated into the requisite knowledge to cause the desired effects.

By further extension, it is “knowledgeable” to avoid filling your mind with the ever-inefficient, ever-increasing volumes of available information, because as you do, you eliminate by virtual overload, if nothing else, the only tool known to mankind that possesses the ability to “produce” knowledge - the kind that may indeed be utilized to actively effect positive change. This may actually be “relevant”!

The most strident, traditional advocates of high “standards” on knowledge, insist that these be “applied” particularly to “basic fundamentals”. Indulging our propensity to inquire into the language of education, we find that the essential portion of the word “fundamental”, is the word “fundament”. It is poetically appropriate that “fundament” also means the buttocks, specifically the anus. We will resist the temptation to explore the subconscious motives of  these “fundamentalists”, but must state that their “high” standards actually represent the lowest possible standards imaginable for rating our education or information dissemination systems in any arena of human knowledge.

What one needs to ask of a standard is not, “is it high or low?”, but, “is it appropriate to our goals and objectives?”.  If our goals and objectives are to continue to make people more alike, to prepare them to be docile functionaries in some bureaucracy, and to prevent them from becoming vigorous, self-directed, inquiring learners, that are incapable of educing from within and therefore “producing” knowledge, then our current standards are apt. However, the very survival of the true learner’s skill and interest in learning; his ability to “create” knowledge, are at stake. Perhaps this is also, relevant!

We must rather be centrally concerned with the hearts and minds of competent, confident learners when they are genuinely engaged in learning - in contrast to those merely concerned with the fundament. No competent learner ever says to himself, “In solving this problem, I will read 2 books, write a report of 20 pages with a minimum of 15 footnotes and prepare an oral review. . .” The only place we find such “standards” are in a school syllabus - where we are first trained not to learn, simply to “perform”. It is initially instilled, rehearsed and practiced until we are “conditioned” to believe it is the “acceptable” method. These false standards do not exist in natural, human learning situations where knowledge is actually produced, since they have nothing to do with the conditions of learning - with what the learner needs to be and to do in order to learn about learning, or indeed learn about anything.

Consider this: The first hole dug on the moon with man-made machinery has been done. It is the most expensive hole in the history of mankind - and it is still, empty! Now, what does it mean? How do we know whether this is one of man’s noblest achievements or if it is a game being played by a small group of lunatics for their own amusement - at our expense? Is this relevant? To what? Maybe not even to this article!

“Progressive” thinkers, transmitters of our “cultural heritage” and lovers of “standardised” education everywhere, are defenders of this type of “achievement”. Learners - capable knowledge producers, know that none of these types of things have any direct bearing on them, and that it is all part of the “conditioned” response to accept the teaching of lies! Furthering this premise, the main thing children in school practice in their “learning” is how to lie! The game is called “Let’s Pretend”, and if its name were chiseled onto the fronts of every school and announced or printed at the beginning of every news article, scientific or medical journal, we would at least have an honest announcement of what takes place. The game is based upon a series of pretences which include: Let’s pretend that you are not who or what you really are and that the sort of work or training that you are doing actually makes a difference to your lives; let’s pretend that we must continue to amass great libraries of “information” and let’s pretend that it is of vital importance in and of itself, and let’s pretend that to “know” a lot of this information - as much as possible - is important and that whoever knows the most of this crap is the smartest; let’s pretend that what bores you is important, and that the more bored you are the more important it is; let’s pretend that there are a great list of certain boring things that everyone must know, and that both the questions and the answers about them have been fixed for all time; let’s pretend that your intellectual, personal or business competence can be judged on the basis of how well you can play Let’s Pretend. There may not be much positive relevance in “Let’s Pretend”!

A learner soon comes to understand that what he is asked to think about in school or in the workplace has no bearing on what he needs to think about in order to learn anything or to produce knew knowledge. He therefore removes the best, most important, most vital part of himself from his learning process - his mind - the inquiring thought process, the primary motivation for learning anything and everything of substance. It seems that this might just be extremely relevant!

It is not uncommon for “teachers” to make such statements as “Oh, I taught them that, but they didn’t learn it”. There is no utterance more extraordinary than this one. It is on the same level as a salesman saying “I sold it to him but he didn’t buy it”, in other words, it makes no sense at all.

There are thousands out there teaching or propagating their information, who believe that there are certain “subjects” that are “inherently good”, that are “good in themselves, or good for their own sake”. When you ask “Good for whom?”, or “Good for what purpose?”, you will be dismissed as being “merely practical” and told that what they are talking about is literature qua literature, grammar qua grammar, computer techno-information qua computer techno-information, mathematics per se. Such people are commonly called “humanists” - mostly by themselves, and are our teachers, scientists, traditional researchers, analysts, and disseminators of information - our “fundamentalists”.

Thousands of these fundamentalists propagate their subjects because they are inclined to believe it to be important and they enjoy talking about it to others. That is why they become involved so. It is also why they predominantly fail to teach anyone anything. They typically define a “bad” student (learner) as any one who does not respond to what they have prescribed for him. They teach or provide information on one thing or another under the supposition that the “subject” will do something for their audience which, in fact, it does not, never did, and indeed, which most evidence indicates, does just the opposite of the proclaimed intention - it forces the participant to remove his “mind” capacity from the equation. In other words, we are conditioned to “conform” to the information provider’s version - and if we don’t, we are told we just “don’t get it” and/or we are judged/marked into “low performance” categories.

Contrary to conventional education and information dissemination models,  true teaching or sharing of information, is the art of eliciting from the learner the meanings they have already stored up so that they can be re-ordered, re-classified, modified or extended to new and practical application's). The learner is not as is supposed, a passive recipient, he is an active producer of knowledge. The word “educate” is related to the word “educe”. In the oldest pedagogic sense of the term, this means to draw out of a person something potential or latent. We can after all, learn only in relation to what we already know. Again, contrary to common misconceptions, this means that if we don’t know very much, our immediate capability for learning is not very great. Further, if the information we already possess is flawed, or is based upon flawed premises, we will also have limited capacity to learn anything of real value; we will not be able to effectively and efficiently produce and recognize new knowledge - we will only, as evidenced by those great many fundamentalists around us, be able to continue in our efforts to memories vast amounts of readily available information - interesting to them - boring and impractical to us. This is also, extremely, relevant!

There is a very fascinating and simple source of basic information that provides the first basic premise for the pursuit of knowledge. This has been freely provided us by our Creator. It is the basic premise from which all further knowledge can be produced and recognized. To search for knowledge beginning with any foundation other than this one and only true foundation, is risky at best, and entirely flawed at worst. This source reveals to us the cause for true “education” from within. It shows us the way to educe from the knowledge written in our hearts and minds the very nature of life; its purpose, its design and its function. It reveals the awesome potential of mankind to learn, produce and recognize knowledge; to be creative as is our Creator - to be gifted with the ability to do original thinking, to understand the magnitude of our future potential, and even to understand the nature of and to be filled with the very mind power of our Creator. It shows us clearly how to seek solutions for all of what we now perceive as problems or difficulties and it provides answers to every unknown that we may have ever wondered about. We simply need to “inquire” into it, and all this and more will be opened to us. This is undoubtedly, relevant!

Would you like access to that first basic premise to knowledge that would enable you to easily solve (or provide solutions for) any real problem you were able to recognize? Would you like the first basic premise to knowledge that would enable your ability to recognize problems? If you wouldn’t, then maybe you perceive yourself as “irrelevant”!

 Before you prejudice your next thoughts, think of what it was you were going to learn tomorrow or the next day. What purposeful learning - what experience had you in mind - what knowledge were you going to produce from it? Can you honestly say that whatever you thought of learning could come even close to understanding the very mind and character of your Creator - Yahweh? Maybe! Well take the next step - then how close do your ambitions come to actually putting you in the position of being able to prove, unequivocally, the existence of your origins, of your current and future potential, of your Creator and all things about Him. There is absolute, irrefutable proof, readily available, all you need do is ask for it! It is relevant in the extreme, and so are you! TOP ^

  Relevance Part II

  Part I in this series was designed to educe the reader’s inherent awareness of, and understanding of, the significance of starting any pursuit of knowledge from the right basic first premise. Starting from a Yahweh-centred, Yahweh taught premise, is what this chapter is all about.

It is increasingly obvious, that many people in this day and age, believe in some form of “God”, and therefore possess what could be described as a knowledge of the “God of their understanding”. Many, especially the trendy New Age thinkers, and even a considerable number of “traditional” thinkers, have a propensity to believe in a God, simply when they see or hear of, and because of, certain events that might otherwise be deemed “spectacles”, or miracles. It is even more common for the “accepted” version of a God, to be “whatever you want a God to be”. In other words, whatever makes many comfortable with a definition of a God, turns out to be precisely what the “God of their understanding” is.

This “creative license” being applied to the very definition and character of Yahweh is also readily applied by many in terms of their own understanding of “spiritual” status, or “spiritual enlightenment”. To be able to “do” something miraculous; to walk on hot coals, to speak in tongues, to do “good” things, to be able to heal people as an example, is to many people, a definitive “sign” of “spiritual advancement”. Recently, one particular person was pointed out to the writer by several independent parties, as being “the most spiritually advanced or evolved person on the planet”, simply because he was able to heal many people of their physical infirmities. Each of these same people claim to believe that spiritual growth is something that “only comes from within”, yet they do not even recognize the paradox of these two statements. That paradox is relevant to truth.

Interestingly, it is the writer’s opinion that none of these people have ever read their Creator’s version of spirituality. Or perhaps, it would be more generous to say, they have probably read all, some, or portions of it, but have obviously not observed nor have any regard for the true meaning set forth regarding spiritual growth and/or spiritual knowledge. Wanting to believe in our Creator and in Yah'shua the Messiah seems to be consistent, as does wanting to be “spiritually evolved”, but wanting to believe our Creator and Yah'shua the Messiah seems to be most inconsistent, almost non-existent, and “justifiable” by means of a great many euphemisms. We must first believe Yah'shua the Messiah when He pointed out that He never actually healed anyone! He made it abundantly clear that it was the “power of Yahweh” that caused every one of His healings and other “miracles”. Secondly, we must also believe Yah'shua the Messiah when He instructed us to “Test the spirits”. What Yah'shua the Messiah meant here was precisely what He said - “Test the spirits”, whether they be of Yahweh (His Holy Spirit of Truth), or of Satan (the Spirit of Deception). If only His Holy Spirit of Truth were able to empower us, Yah'shua the Messiah would not have warned us to “test” them! There is vital relevance here!

It was of paramount importance to Yah'shua the Messiah to point out on many occasions as recorded by his disciples, that none of the things He said or did, were of His own doing or ability, but were either provided for Him by Yahweh the Father, or were merely the result of His faith in the Power of Yahweh the Father. Yah'shua was quoted as saying He could do nothing of His own accord, only Yahweh the Father, working through the power of His Holy Spirit (or Will) could do anything associated with each of Yah'shua’s miracles. Each and every time a miracle was recorded in Yahweh’s word, it was also recorded that the miracle was accomplished by “the Will of Yahweh”, not by Yah'shua or any of His disciples. Yah'shua’s faith, was the catalyst, Yahweh’s power - His “Will” (Spirit or intent) was the “power to perform miracles” in each and every case.

There is a simple and true test of the Spirit - whether or not it is His Holy Spirit of Truth or the Spirit of Deception working in an individual. His Holy Spirit of Truth always makes it known that any appearance of miraculous healing (or any other miraculous event), is being accomplished by the Power of Yahweh working from within the individual being healed, and the healed party will recognize the internal revelation of Spiritual healing and be thankful to Yahweh and to Yahweh alone. His Holy Spirit of Truth, like Yah'shua, does never take credit for directly healing any one. The Spirit of Deception will on the other hand, allow the “healed” (or the audience - the “admirers”), to thank him, to effectively believe “he” did it and to therefore, “worship” him, allowing the Healer to directly or indirectly, accept credit for the miraculous healings), further allowing the healed party's) to believe that the Healer was therefore a very “spiritually evolved” individual. In most cases, the Healer is himself deceived, and also believes himself to be highly “spiritually evolved”, as evidenced purely by the good works. If we were not meant to apply this test as Yah'shua instructed, I wonder why He was also inspired to write: “For many shall rise up and show great signs and wonders, so as to deceive if possible, even the elect”. These first basic premises from which to educe knowledge of spiritual growth are relevant to its truthful analysis.

To accept the premise that all knowledge comes from, and is therefore “educed” from within, is easy as related to most things. We need to realize that if this is the case with even simple forms of knowledge, that it most assuredly is the case with Spiritual knowledge. A progressive awareness of Spiritual knowledge as revealed from within the individual, is the effective catalyst for Spiritual Growth of that individual. Without more awareness, more growth will not occur. As Spiritual awareness CAN ONLY COME FROM WITHIN as and when revealed by Yahweh (as Yah'shua said: “No one can come to me except by Yahweh who draws him”), it is obvious that Spiritual growth must also of necessity, come from within, and therefore, be based upon the only true, reliable first basic premise for knowledge.

If even for one minute, a healed person, or one desiring to be healed, or one desiring to learn how to heal (and by extension - desiring spiritual advancement), looks outside of himself - to a “faith-healer”, or to anyone other than Yahweh the Father, then that person has been successfully seduced into looking toward and seeking closer ties to the Spirit of Deception.

The Spirit of Deception, like His Holy Spirit of Truth, will provide the most “miraculous” results; will provide those great “warm and fuzzy” feelings of “wholeness” within you, while concurrently providing the most crafty diversion necessary to keep you from seeking His Holy Spirit of Truth - the revelation of knowledge from within. You will no longer seek that which you perceive you have already found. That’s relevant!

If one small human mind could educe this knowledge, and formulate an hypothesis for its application, do you not suspect that the all-powerful “god of this world”, as Yah'shua declared the Spirit of Deception to be, could not also? Your very spiritual survival, let alone your desire for spiritual advancement, depends entirely upon your recognition, that, of course he could. And that’s relevant! TOP ^

Thoughts on Education Part I

(Supplemental Foreword)

            As North Americans, we enjoy living in what the world perceives as the richest, most powerful, most prosperous and most educated nations on earth. We have vast libraries full of great volumes of accumulated knowledge on virtually every topic imaginable. A great percentage of the world’s countries look to us for advice and guidance in social, community, technical and other strategic planning initiatives. Yet we suffer nearly 25,000 murders each year within our own borders - far more deaths each year than what results from the many wars abroad that the Americans participate in - yet these wars evoke greater public outcry!

Since World War II, we have been flooded with movies, programs, books, pamphlets, counselors, articles and professional advice on love, marriage and sex. Why then do over one half of our marriages end in divorce? Or why do ever-growing numbers of unwanted teenage pregnancies result in even less wanted, staggering numbers of abortions by unwed teenage mothers that are contracting and spreading disease with their teenage counterparts at even more alarming rates? Why? Nearly 54% of our citizens now enjoy some form of post-secondary education compared to less than 4% at the turn of the century, yet like the statistics mentioned above, and only recently, unemployment has skyrocketed, welfare roles have quadrupled, and over 15% of our own populations live below the poverty level!

Why when  we continue to train nearly 750,000 physicians with an average of 11 years of education, and we make ongoing advances and technical breakthroughs in understanding and treating disease, do we have excessive and still growing health care costs, coupled with higher numbers of people suffering ever-increasing new diseases, sickness and death like never before? Why then with all of our education and resulting knowledge do we suffer such abysmal problems? Why the paradox?

We must remember that there is a cause for every effect. If the effects of our knowledge have caused us to be living in undesirable circumstances, we must look to the cause. This does not necessarily mean that the knowledge we have produced has caused all the evils around us, but it does mean that our vast array of knowledge has failed to cure existing problems or to prevent new ones!

What is wrong? Is it wrong to acquire and possess knowledge? Of course not, but there are 2 basic types of knowledge - true and false - or right and wrong - or good and evil. In our pursuit of knowledge, we have used only one basic premise or starting point - science. The scientific method of experimentation, discovery and reason. Errors almost always result from a false basic premise. Mankind started off in the wrong direction (with science) and even though some of the knowledge acquired along the way has been good, it’s been based upon the wrong premise! Therefore man has yet to achieve the desired effects of his efforts.

Do you suppose that knowing who you are and why you exist has anything to do with the right kind of education? It does if you want to get started on the right basic premise. Very early in the Biblical accounts, we see Yahweh is educating mankind. He is revealing to them, what is right and what is wrong - or what is good and what is bad. Mankind had a choice. They could know right from wrong by taking Yahweh’s Word for it, or they could decide for themselves. They pioneered in deciding for themselves what is right and what is wrong. They conducted the first scientific experiment when they ate the forbidden fruit! They rejected Yahweh’s Word, they observed the fruit, experimented with it by tasting it, and then reasoned that it was pretty good! Webster’s defines “experiment” as: “test, trial, experience; to try out a new procedure, idea or activity”!

Starting out on this wrong first basic premise was what caused Yahweh to cut mankind off from His revealed knowledge - the true foundation or starting point for all knowledge (Gen. 3:22-24). That knowledge which is still cut off from the majority of mankind today, is the missing dimension in modern education! The Encyclopedia Britannic defines education as: “an attempt on the part of the adult members of a society to shape the development of the coming generation in accordance with its own ideals of life”. In other words, education is what mankind has made it to be!

To call into question our modern system of education, or its standards, would seem ridiculous to most, because those people are prone to assume - to carelessly take for granted whatever is popular - whatever has the general public acceptance - which is that education is something you go to school to get. However education is not something you go out and get! It is a way of life. And there are two additional problems with our modern education system - WHAT is being taught, and HOW it is being taught.

Our children are not being taught HOW TO THINK, but merely to follow along with the rest of the crowd. The preponderance of  our “learning” is merely to memories portions of our vast accumulation of knowledge. Our systems of education instills the habit of assuming - of carelessly taking for granted without question - what is commonly accepted. It is only a fraction of human beings who truly know why they believe what they do. We are nations teaching our children to be followers not leaders! And because we like to be well thought of - to be liked - to be accepted, people are trapped into conforming - into following the false teachings of the world like blind sheep!

For 6,000 years man has virtually destroyed every part of this creation he was intended to maintain and beautify - for 6,000 years he has been experimenting with what is right and what is wrong! Man has educated HIMSELF with his own scientifically created material knowledge. In so doing, mankind has produced a vast mountain of evils all around himself. His fund of knowledge is a mixture of right and wrong - of good and bad. It has produced a civilization full of empty lives, unhappiness, pain and suffering, crime, immorality, broken homes and family life, corruption, injustice, violence, pollution, environmental chaos, war, disease and DEATH. Yet man refuses to believe the most obvious results of his own experiment! “There is a way which seemed right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Prov. 14:12).   That way began when man conducted the first scientific experiment in the symbolic Garden of Eden!

Humans do not learn well from experience, nor all at once. The childishly simple and most incredibly obvious lesson of the forbidden fruit has not been learned in 6,000 years! Even an agnostic would have to agree that the future welfare and quite possibly even the very existence of our civilization is dependent upon the educational system we choose to utilize. We must truly question whether we have absolute faith in our system of education and resulting knowledge production, especially considering the tremendous import we place upon it. One who is truly educated never relies on assumption and does not take things for granted. We must learn to “Prove all things” (I Thes. 5:21).

Yahweh freely revealed to us over 6,000 years ago, that there are 2 basic types of knowledge - good and evil - or right and wrong. Many are inclined to equate the good knowledge with only spiritual knowledge, and the bad knowledge with material knowledge. This however, would make all forms of material knowledge wrong, or evil, which of course is not true. Mankind was given dominion over the physical creation with instructions to subdue it. Dominion means to “reign or rule over” - the material creation, and to subdue means to “subject to oneself”. To fulfill this Yahweh-given assignment, mankind needed to know how to deal with THINGS! Yahweh knew he would need to learn to make things, to build things, to grow things and to work the land and resources of the planet. Yahweh knew that man would of necessity, have to create his own material knowledge. First Corinthians 2, reveals why man alone among the creation, is capable of acquiring this needed knowledge: “For what man knoweth the THINGS of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?”

Yahweh also FREELY revealed to us that, although  mankind was created physically complete, he was created spiritually INCOMPLETE! Simply put, man has a complete body and a complete HUMAN spirit, or conscious will. The human spirit however, is INCOMPLETE; it requires the Spirit (Will, desire or intent) of Yahweh to complete it; “...even so the [Spiritual] things of Yahweh knoweth no man, but the Spirit of Yahweh [knows all theses things]”.  In addition to working with material things, mankind was to develop and maintain a loving relationship with his Father - Yahweh. Man was also to marry and develop and maintain loving relationships with his spouse, his children and his neighbors. He was also to teach his children to be loving, honest, contributing members of a community. These things required the help and advice offered only through Yahweh’s Spirit.

So from the beginning, mankind needed to know how to deal with things - material knowledge, and how to deal with others - Spiritual knowledge. Acquiring physical knowledge is possible due to the fact that we were created with a human spirit - His Holy Spirit within us that separates us from animals. Spiritual knowledge however, comes ONLY BY REVELATION of Yahweh - it is FREELY GIVEN - all we have to do is accept it! To become truly educated we need both kinds of knowledge!

REVEALED KNOWLEDGE, freely given to us by Yahweh - Yahweh’s Word - the Bible, is mankind’s instruction manual. Who would know better what to put in an instruction manual - the Creator, or the thing created? This revealed knowledge is the FOUNDATION, or first basic premise - the starting point for ALL KNOWLEDGE! It is not the sum total of knowledge - it is the only true premise from which to start - the concept that directs our approach to the acquisition of all further knowledge. Yahweh gave us awesome minds with which to think - He intended us to use them to explore, observe, study and measure things - to acquire additional knowledge through experimentation and HUMAN reason.

Knowing this, He supplied us with the requisite first step - the basic premise from which to conduct all of our observations - His freely given revelations of what is right and what is wrong. But like our first parents, we have continued to reject the very foundation of all knowledge. Our educational systems and resulting production of knowledge have been operating without a foundation - based on human reason alone, which invariably means false premises and erroneous hypothesis - the evidence is all around us!

Paul describes a society which rejects Yahweh’s revelation as the foundation for all knowledge: “Because that, when they knew Yahweh, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools” (Rom. 1:21-22). Once you reject Yahweh’s freely given advice - His revelations of foundational truth, your wisdom becomes darkened - you no longer have access to the spiritual light - or enlightenment, that is “the LIFE of men”! This pursuit of material knowledge only, is foolishness to Yahweh! “And even as they did not like to retain Yahweh in their knowledge, Yahweh gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient [or not right])” (v. 28).

All knowledge is obviously not wrong, but when you leave Yahweh and His fundamental starting premise out of it, it may well end up wrong more times than not. And so when we say there are two types of knowledge; good and evil, we mean just that. There is the good or right kind of knowledge, which is any knowledge, whether spiritual or material, that is based on the foundation of Yahweh’s Word, and there is the evil or wrong kind of knowledge, which also can be any knowledge, whether spiritual or material, that is based on human reason (or experimentation) alone.

While the Bible (Yahweh’s Word) must be the beginning premise for the pursuit of all knowledge, Yahweh does still expect us to train, develop and use our incredible mind power to His glory and honor. The overwhelming majority of humans use their Yahweh-given abilities to seek for and attain material knowledge for their own selfish and vain ambitions - and most will even admit this! There are a very few at the opposite end of the spectrum who believe that Bible study is all we should do in order to obtain an education, and that we should set aside all materialistic pursuits. Neither extreme is true education.

The Messiah did not come so that we might be uneducated and live in poverty. Instead, He said: “I am come that they might have LIFE, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). The Messiah hoped that we would allow a Yahweh-centred, true education to make it possible for us to live ever-expanding, happy, joyous, productive, creative and prosperous lives, intelligently using the creation the way it was intended to be used! The Bible is not a book of sentimental religion, nor is it the repository for all knowledge. It is precisely and simply what it says it is - the first basic premise, or starting point for every pursuit. It contains the basic premise from which we attain all additional knowledge, whether knowledge of  science, history, psychology, genetics, sound business practices, health, family and community or international government relations, social sciences, sex - virtually ALL branches of knowledge.

To become truly educated in any area of knowledge, the Bible must come alive. It contains practical, common sense, sound principles, that when applied, always bring about successful and prosperous results. Just like it says it will! “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in [good] health, even as thy soul [spirit] prospereth” (III John 2).

The Messiah encourages us to rely on Yahweh for our physical needs - to provide food, shelter and clothing. BUT, few people grasp the true meaning and intent of the conditions for the Messiah’s promise in Matthew 6:33: “BUT seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of Yahweh, and His righteousness (revealed truths); and all these THINGS shall [then] be ADDED unto you”. Notice the Messiah does not tell us to discard every material thing on the way to becoming educated, He simply tells us to make seeking Yahweh and the Kingdom our FIRST priority, as they are the most important! There are other things to seek as second, third, and fourth priorities, etc., but the problem with most people is that they make money, a career choice, a love interest, or acquiring some form of material knowledge their number one aim in life, while relegating Yahweh to a lesser, if not the least important pursuit of their lives!

So we see that education is not something you go out and get, it is rather a way of life. Education is rightly developed character, and that may not come easy. Most want to be considered successful and well educated, but they do not really understand the meaning behind the words. Generally what they are wanting is simply a superficial recognition for WHO they are, rather than WHAT type of person they are - too much emphasis on the package and not the contents!

If you are seeking to be a truly educated, well-rounded individual, you first need to know WHAT that means, and then you need to be prepared to work hard to achieve it - for the rest of your life! There are seven basic aspects of obtaining an education revealed within the Biblical accounts that may provide you with some assistance in achieving yours:

1.         Build a solid spiritual foundation based on Yahweh’s freely revealed laws. We were designed and placed on this earth to become educated in spiritual AND material knowledge. Unless proper spiritual knowledge is the foundation of our life, most everything we do, is more apt than not, to be based on wrong information. The Messiah gave His disciples knowledge, but then He admonished them to GO OUT AND APPLY IT. Those who DO what He freely revealed, He likened to building on a rock foundation, whereas those who make their life based solely on human reasoning, He likened to building on sand. Remember not only to learn the Spiritual intent of the revealed knowledge - but to APPLY it. That is where the results come from - this APPLICATION is the cause for the desired effect!

2.         Capture the vision of the type of person you would like to be. We are told that people perish without vision in Proverbs 29:18, and in Proverbs 23:7, that; “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he”. The Messiah many times admonished us to “follow Him”, or to imitate Him - to use Him as an example of what type of person we would aspire to be. As Paul relates : “For you yourselves know how you ought to IMITATE US; we were not idle when we were with you”. Paul and his companions worked hard, being careful to pay for all of their own needs. Notice WHY: “It was not that we have not that right [to accept gifts], but to GIVE YOU in our conduct an EXAMPLE TO IMITATE” (II Thes. 3:7-9 RSV). And Paul further clarifies this in I Cor. 11:1; “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of the Messiah”. Respect the wise counsel of your elders such as the Messiah, Paul and other lesser but wiser, accomplished people of history, or within your own family or community, and look up to and abide the advice given by such people, providing you always check that their advice is based upon true Biblical premise. It is your responsibility to “Prove all things”, as the Bible instructs.

3.         Prepare and plan with much patience, to work hard to achieve your goals. Its been said that opportunity favors the prepared man. Proverbs 24:27 says, “FIRST work your farm, and till the soil - THEN marry and set up house”. Notice the system of priorities. Many set out with every passion and desire to find that special someone, while spending little time or effort to secure a good job or to better themselves educationally. Most people do not understand that marriage is a Yahweh-plane relationship which is symbolic of the marriage of the Messiah to His Congregation [His obedient believers - those that APPLY His revealed truths]. So many enter into the marriage not really committed, thinking that divorce is always an option. But regardless of what society teaches, marriage is a sacred covenant, not only between husband and wife, but between THEM and Yahweh, and should not be made hastily, without counting the cost, and only after much planning and preparation. Likewise, we must realize that we are not ready to jump into a career or to immediately pursue any major objective without much planning and preparation.

Planning, preparation and hard work requires patience, and it may not always come easy. Why else do so many frustrated people suddenly realize after years of unhappiness, that they are in a job they hate, a marriage they want out of, or a life they do not enjoy? Because of impatience, or not counting the cost of their decisions - by not APPLYING the first basic premise - by not making the decisions based on the right foundational knowledge - not planning and preparing  prior to making the decision.

The Messiah said of those who apply patience, that they are: “...those who, having heard [understood] the word [the truth about right and wrong knowledge] with a noble and good heart, keep it [apply its principles] and bear fruit [are successful] with patience [planning, hard work and preparation]” (Luke 8:15). Planning and preparation often incur many difficulties while exercising your patience. This is where faith in the absolute validity of Yahweh’s revelations of basic knowledge comes into play. We are instructed to “count it all joy when you fall into various trials [problems or difficulties], knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. BUT let patience [proper planning, hard work and preparation] have its perfect [prosperous and abundantly successful] work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2-4). Count the cost and be prepared to work hard and properly plan and prepare prior to making life’s crucial decisions.

4.         Learn to be humble like Yahweh. Yahweh - our Creator, truly does want us to be happy, and to realize that we should want to imitate this all-powerful, all-knowing Being! Notice how we do that: “For all [material] things hath mine hand made...but to this man will I look [to provide them with], even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth [has faith] at My Word” (Isa. 66:2). Yahweh also says that He “dwells”, or freely shares His advice - His revelations of what is right and wrong, with “him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit” (Isa. 57:15).

To listen to and heed the wise counsel of older, wiser, more accomplished individuals takes much humility. Adhering to and diligently obeying Yahweh’s advice - His freely given Laws, concerning success in business, family, community, international relations, and virtually every other of our endeavors, requires even greater humility. We must not let the vanity of our typical “know-it-all”, or “know-a-better-way” human nature get in the way of a right, Yahweh-centred education.

5.         Strive for excellence in everything you do. Your job is a career. Your marriage, preparing for Yahweh’s Kingdom - every one of your prioritized objectives should be treated with the planning, hard work and preparation of a career - the best you can. Ecclesiastics 9:10 instructs us that “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might [as best as you can]; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest”. We have only a limited time during this life in which to become educated. We need to learn to simplify our lives and the things that we do, in order to devote quality time for proper planning, hard work and preparation for each of our important educational pursuits: Yahweh, family, work, the community and our other educational hobbies.

Yahweh gave us minds meant to be developed and trained to operate efficiently and effectively - if we always do the best that we can. And when we do, we will enjoy the fruits of a happy, prosperous, healthy, successful, secure and abundant life.

6.         Continually seek for and accept new challenges in your life. Always observe, think and learn, while seeking more productive and efficient ways of doing things. You have the mind to do it, which is what makes life interesting and is the catalyst for stimulating growth. Unless we deliberately make efforts to go beyond what we have already mastered, we will never grow.

A life full of obstacles and challenges is a blessing, providing a wealth of opportunities to work hard for, to plan and prepare for and to conquer each and every one of them, while gaining an invaluable education - its called experience!

7.         Realize that true education never stops, but is rather a life-long pursuit. Focus on developing the whole you. Education is not merely learning how to earn a living, it is learning how to live - it is building character. Never stop in your studies of great men; always seek counsel of wiser, successful elders before big decisions - there are always some around. If you do not know any personally, then take the wisest advice of all - seek for the fundamental guidance - the first basic premise of all knowledge - accept Yahweh’s Word on the topic you are pursuing. Continue to develop communication and social skills - build new friendships, broaden your existing relationships. Look for and take advantage of new opportunities to learn, to participate, to help, to share what you know - to become truly educated.

None of us have yet attained the perfect education. We can all continue to put our absolute best into becoming as close as humanly possible to our greatest role model. I’ve chosen the Messiah and His Apostles as my personal and foremost examples to imitate with all my might.

I truly hope that you will come to understand that there is a definite correlation between physical and spiritual prosperity. Yahweh - your Creator, does want you to lead a happy, successful, exciting life - He cares enough to have even freely given you a complete “instruction manual” on how to do just that! Most do not enjoy His blessings because for one reason or another, they refuse to accept His advice - they actually think they know better!

Begin now by submitting to Yahweh in all humility, then seek His Kingdom with all your might. Beyond that, if you make Yahweh the centre of your life by seeking out and accepting His sound advice on every other goal or topic you have an interest in, you will need to plan for and prepare to enjoy a life of happiness and abundant blessings. It works - Yahweh really does know just a little bit more than most of us! Put it to the test - try Him out - its absolutely FREE and guaranteed to work! When you put Him to the test, what an education you will have!

This book is a small insight into some of the most basic Bible topics. It is my very best effort to share some of the simple concepts outlined in the Bible. I have faith that if you read it with an open mind, it will stimulate and motivate you in your pursuit of a well-rounded, complete and true education - it WILL inspire you to actually read the Bible, and APPLY its principles, which is the way to achieving the happy, successful, healthy and abundant life you surely have always hoped for.

TOP ^

MORE THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION Part II

Do you think for yourself? Now there is a question that would inspire a variety of heated responses from people! “You better believe I think for myself! No one is going to tell me what to do,” most people would say. But there is a vast difference in doing what you want or feel like doing, versus actually LEARNING TO THINK FOR YOURSELF. Most people simply do what they want or feel like doing, which is the very reason why most of them never actually think! And, most do not understand the difference!

An example in point. Examine any modern textbook today and you will see that Darwin’s theory of evolution - not the Bible, is the foundational doctrine upon which all education is based. Evolution and the resulting “scientific” education based upon it, are something that the overwhelming majority in society accept with very little questioning. Yet even many of the most scientific minds acknowledge the numerous flaws in the improvable theory! The same theory that was refuted by Darwin himself!

Religion, if people are honest, is also something most people take completely for granted. Most believe what they have grown up to believe, never stopping to consider why - or to wonder if they could actually prove it one way or the other. You would expect the most convincing argument refuting evolution to come from the field of religion, yet the average church goer cannot answer the questions because most of them do not even read the Bible, and many that do, certainly do not understand it, so they take someone else’s word for it.

There are thousands of awesome proofs, refuting absolutely any possibility of evolution right before our very eyes - yet most cannot even see them! Ask any botanist how many plant species are totally dependent upon co-existent insects, or ask any biologist how many animal species are totally dependent upon co-existent plants - the answer is every single one of them! In other words, they all had to be there from the beginning at precisely the same time in order to have survived. Even the simple question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, will confuse most people. Yet if you actually think just a tiny bit, you will realize that neither the chicken nor the egg could have come first - the only way the species could have begun, was with a chicken AND a rooster, otherwise the first egg would not have hatched! Ask any proponent of evolution to explain how every species of plant and animal on the planet evolved both male and female counterparts at precisely the same time (in order to multiply), and you will find that none have an acceptable answer beyond “it must have just happened”!

The greatest proof that evolution is an impossible and very childish theory, is the very existence of man - who, because of the human spirit, has MIND POWER - the ability to think, reason, plan, design and create things. Animals are driven by instinct and nowhere in the evolutionary theory is there any explanation for the incredible leap between dumb animals and the mind of man - in fact, nowhere in the evolutionary theory can its proponents even answer the simpler question of how the plant species suddenly made the gigantic leap to instinctive animals. Just consider the awesome advancements in technology and science created by man and then consider the non-existent contributions to society set forth by the plant or animal kingdoms.

Only man of all living organisms can THINK! What a privilege! Yet thinking is something else that most simply take for granted - and rarely actually DO! There is a reason WHY we can think - there is a reason that Yahweh gave you a mind! He gave it that we might educate ourselves to use it - properly. As we look around in this decadent society, we see the fruit of minds that have become twisted and perverted by being educated from the scientific premise. We have become a society of daydreamers and drifters, with the average North American watching nearly 45 hours of television weekly. Television requires no thinking and is a thief of time! More than ever before, children read less, spend less time outdoors, get little if any real exercise, have poor appetites yet struggle with weight problems, poor diets and health, and most importantly, they spend less time thinking - because they spend up to 60 hours per week watching television, playing with mindless video and computer games, or countless other electronic babysitting toys, while consuming vast mountains of junk food.

Think about the negative effect this has on the mind - especially the young, impressionable minds of children. TV promotes daydreaming, the exact opposite of thinking. It fills willing minds with thousands of distorted, unrealistic and often perverted images while robbing the mind of the time to spend investigating and discovering the natural world around them. If you add all of the other distracting gadgets we have at our fingertips, it is not hard to see why so many find it hard to concentrate, why we constantly need a “break”, and why most simply do not enjoy thinking! Not only have people not been trained to think, they have been conditioned - trained NOT to think.

Certainly the breakdown in the family and the overall moral slide of society contributes to our collective lack of educational thought. Studies show that parents, or step-parents in many cases, are not as concerned about poor grade reports from their children as they used to be. One study showed that one third of parents did not even know what kind of grades their children were getting! In the same study, nearly 25% of high school students said they did not apply themselves in school for fear of what their classmates might think - it is not “cool” to be smart! Certainly peer pressure discourages thought - especially of those minds that are already too lazy to think for themselves.

For those students who are concerned about grades, an increasing number are cheating for a higher mark. In fact, North Americans have become quite accomplished cheaters. Honesty is no longer the best policy - not if you want to get promoted. Politicians cheat - and lie about it, celebrities cheat - and brag about it, bankers cheat - and deny it, athletes cheat - and claim “everyone” is doing it, and the average citizen cheats on a daily basis in ways far too numerous to list. Students cheat - and admit feeling better about getting an “A” by cheating than a “B” for their own hard work! Obviously cheating does not stimulate educational thought.

Aside from dishonesty, the working world does not stimulate thinking - in fact it discourages it in most cases. We are a people who no longer attain satisfaction and enjoyment through work. Work has become the dreaded “four” letter word. Most people work in a mindless job with a boss over them because they do not have the mental discipline to create or manage their own work. The working world also discourages productivity. Although we are working more hours than in years past (solely to get more money) we are getting less done! We are beginning to reap the rewards of two or three generations of workers who have grown up in the age of television and “free thinking”, which is more accurately non-thinking!

Add to these factors the tremendous wealth and prosperity we have enjoyed, and you end up with people conditioned to, and desiring only a life of ease - of not thinking. When its time for vacation, most desire a place where they can just free their minds (from what I do not know)! Very few, actually just want to get away to think and collect their thoughts. We don’t have time for that! We work for pay and when it’s time to get away, we want to go to “never-never-land”. The gregarious, push-button lifestyle of western civilization does not develop a thoughtful people.

Do we realize that even a democracy does not encourage deep thought? The very nature of our government structure promotes conformity - find a group you belong with and vote for them - don’t think - just conform! Try being a non-conformist in this arena - actually THINK of and suggest better ways to govern, and like a few other thinkers over the years, you will not only be ridiculed, but more than likely arrested!

Added together, all of these factors make it very difficult for us to properly educate our minds - our foremost purpose in life! We must forsake the thinking of this world and learn to think like Yahweh! You can do it. You CAN learn to think, reason, meditate and educate yourself to actually create like the Yahweh of this universe - but it will take work - hard work.

Hebrews 11:3 says that Yahweh made the visible things of this universe out of nothing! How creative - what a thinker! How long must Yahweh have thought about and planned such an awesome creation. When you consider that we were created in His image and likeness (Gen. 1:26), with minds capable of thinking, reasoning, planning and creating like Him, how sad that most do not exercise those minds - do not educate them through proper thinking.

A great thinker has vision. He has mental discipline. He exercises patience in planning and preparing for his actions, knowing that there is a time for certain things (Eccl. 3:1-8). But learning to think like Yahweh is not a “gift” as many traditional Christians would have you believe - the mind is the gift. Learning, or educating the mind involves a great deal of thought - it involves a change of mind! “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, Will of Yahweh” (Rom. 12:1-2). This timeless advice was first handed down to the ancient Israelites in Exodus 23:2, where they were instructed to “NOT follow a multitude [the crowd] to do evil [the things of the world]”. II Corinthians 10:5 gets even more specific: “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of Yahweh, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of the Messiah”.

Contrary to what traditional Christians profess, Yahweh is not looking for people who will just give their “hearts” to Him and get “saved” that they might “go to heaven”, just as they are. Yahweh is looking to WORK with people who are willing to WORK with Him - who are willing to put the effort into thinking AND acting like He does.

In conclusion, there are three broad points to consider when planning and preparing to educate your own mind.

1.         Realize that you alone have control over your own thoughts and what you think about. There is a story which perfectly illustrates this point in a book entitled, Every Man and a King, by Orison Marden. He writes, “A certain man of no great learning, so runs an old legend, fell heir to a ship. He knew nothing of the sea, nothing of navigation or engineering, but the notion seized him to take a voyage and command his own ship. The ship was gotten underway, the self-appointed captain allowing the crew to go ahead with their usual duties, as the multiplicity of the operations confused the amateur navigator.

Once out to sea, however, the work grew simpler, and the captain had time to observe what was going on. As he strolled on the forward deck, he saw a man turning a big wheel, now this way, now that.

“What in the world is that man doing?” he asked.

“That’s the helmsman. He is steering the ship”

“Well, I don’t see any use in his fiddling away there all the time. There’s nothing but water ahead, and I guess the sails can push her forward. When there’s land in sight, or a ship coming head on, there’ll be time enough to do steering. Put up all the sails and let her go.”

“The order was obeyed and the few survivors of the wreck that followed had cause to remember the fool captain who thought a ship steered herself.

“You say no such man ever existed, and you are right. That isn’t admitting that no such foolishness exists, however. You wouldn’t be so foolish, would you?

“Think a moment. Are you not in command of something more delicate, more precious, than any ship - your own life, YOUR OWN MIND? How much attention are you giving to the steering of your mind?”

Most people believe, or act like they believe, that they are merely victims of circumstance - just going along with the flow, never realizing that all along, they, and they alone, were in control of their own destiny. As in the story, your circumstances may determine what you were born into, but they do not determine where you will go - you do that!

Just as we choose what to eat, read or wear, or when to get up, or which dreams to pursue, which job to seek, which person to marry, so we can choose which images we allow our minds to dwell on. Col. 3:1 relates the same thing as the above story: “If ye then be risen with the Messiah, seek those things which are above, where the Messiah sitteth on the right hand of Yahweh”. Thayer’s Lexicon defines the word  “seek” as: “to seek in order to find out by thinking, meditating, reasoning; to inquire into”. Yahweh intended our thoughts to govern our actions. You can either set your mind to steer the ship or you can let it drift aimlessly in an ocean where Satan reigns supreme. Most choose the latter, many even believing that Satan does not exist, or holds no sway over their destiny! Wonder why so many that do not choose to think their actions through, end up in experiencing divorce, bankruptcy, single parenthood, abortions, disease, unemployment, accidents, injury, environmental crisis, and on and on it goes.

If you continue reading in Colossians 3, Paul lists several things on which you should and should not be thinking. It’s all in an effort to “put on the new man [or mind], which is renewed in the knowledge after the image of Him that created him” (v.10). We become like Yahweh when we learn to discipline ourselves to think on the things that Yahweh thinks on.

2.         Create an environment suitable for thinking. The familiar story of Lot and his family illustrates the damaging effects of living in a morally bankrupt society - which is precisely what our modern “free-thinking” society is. Yahweh told Lot to gather his family and leave Sodom, for Yahweh was going to completely wipe it out because it had become a society without restraint - one of complete mental freedom to think about and do whatever you wanted or felt like!

Sound familiar? How many times have you heard people say, “I can do whatever I want, as long as it does not hurt anyone else, or I don’t force it upon others”? But, what these self-gratifying people do not understand and consequently never think about, is the fact that the visual effect of their actions, ALWAYS has a lasting impact upon the minds of everyone around them - it involuntarily but most certainly programs the “theatre” of the mind.

In fact, many of these minority groups, are so organized in their perverted behavior, that not only do they force it upon others, via parades and other public spectacles, they have even been successful in causing our governments to grant them “special” rights and privileges which are in addition to the rights of normal people. Lot even offered his two virgin daughters to a raping mob hoping they would leave his house alone. But because they had become so twisted and perverted, the men of Sodom no longer wanted women - they wanted men!

As they were fleeing the city, Lot’s wife looked back with longing to the society she had come to love; the society in which a violent, raping mob almost sexually assaulted her own daughters! She had become so wrapped up in the decadence of the day that she actually hated to leave it. She was not willing to completely forsake the wrong ways - the way of sin. Because of that, she became a pillar of salt - or simply put, she died with the rest of the sinners.

The point is, you cannot stay in the midst of the same old habits, or circle of friends, or allow yourself to watch those kind of things that you are trying to stop, and expect to control your mind. At some point you must flee old habits and wrongful thinking.

But Satan is the “god of this world”, as the Messiah Himself declared. So how can we come out of this world if he is its god? The Messiah answered that in John 17: “I pray not that thou [Yahweh] shouldest take them out of the world, but thou shouldest keep [guard or protect] them from the evil [that is in the world]”. The Messiah did not wish or expect us to be isolated in some secluded cabin away from society - He simply prayed that Yahweh would help us to build up a protective hedge around us and our thinking, to keep us from the evil influences surrounding us.

Your mind thinks and meditates on a constant succession of connected images. The images which have transformed the thinking of most in this society are of sex and violence. We have to avoid those areas and people which fill our minds with negative imagery, which sometimes NEVER leaves!

But it is more than just avoiding people or things which pour out negative imagery - we have to begin thinking about what’s right - setting our minds on things above, as Paul said. Strive for a healthy, well-balanced life to improve the quality of your thought production. Developing and educating a thoughtful and creative mind is impossible if you get too much or too little sleep, too much or too little exercise, too much or the wrong kind of food.

Just think about the negative effects of so-called “night life”. Night life does not prepare people for the day - it does just the opposite. Work ends and then the fun begins, leaving many exhausted in the mornings, seeking stimulants to wake them up so they can trudge through another day of their mindless job. Think about what this lifestyle does to productive thought.

We are to use the night to prepare for the day - that is what Yahweh intended when He created the night AND the day! Use the night wisely - go to bed early, rising early the next morning, often before most others, feeling refreshed and invigorated and ready to gather your thoughts, thinking about, planning and preparing for your day. The Messiah was great with people. His friends and companions loved Him dearly, and the hearts of the disciples glowed with admiration when in His presence (Luke 24:32). Yet the Messiah realized the value and vital importance of solitary time. In fact, He craved it!

“And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, He went out and departed into a SOLITARY place, and there prayed” (Mark 1:35). He was not out late the night before - He rose early and began by focusing His thoughts on Yahweh - on the things above. Notice Matthew 14:23: “And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up into a mountain APART to pray: and when the evening was come, He was there alone”. The Messiah also ended His day seeking those things from above - praying and thinking on the things of Yahweh.

Great men of the Bible repeatedly sought after Yahweh and His thoughts early, when it was most quiet, and when their minds, refreshed from a night of sleep, and free from all of the cares of the coming day, were most impressionable.

Take steps to eliminate all possible external distractions to thought, and then practice Messiah-like thinking - in the mornings to fully and adequately prepare for the day, and in the evenings, to fully and adequately prepare for a calm and restful sleep during the night.

3.         Fix firmly in your mind that educating yourself to think like Yahweh is a habit. Paul, because of his life of sinful activity prior to encountering the Messiah, was well aware of how bad habits could affect the mind. He had much to say about changing your mind - about getting away from bad habits and acquiring new, good habits. He was speaking as one with authority on the issue, as indeed he did have much experience from which to draw. In his case, it was not simply a matter of sharing the revealed truths, but rather sharing them as they related to his and every other sinner’s (like you and me) life.

It is not unlike exercising the body. Your mind also becomes conditioned by what it does, or does not do. In Philippians 4, Paul exhorts the brethren to be of one mind - Yahweh’s mind that is. He continues on in verse 7, with more details of what this means: “And the peace of Yahweh, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Yah'shua the Messiah”.

Solomon, whom Yahweh stated was the wisest of all men, past, present and future, when asked by Yahweh what he desired most, replied simply, that he wanted Yahweh to grant him wisdom in understanding the things of Yahweh (See I Kings, Chapter 3). Not only did Yahweh grant Solomon’s request, He graciously, and in addition, granted him more material riches and honour than any other man as well!

Yahweh will protect our minds, but this does not mean that we need do nothing! We must do our part. And in verse 8, our part is further clarified: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy - meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these DO, and the Yahweh of peace will be with you”.

It is vitally important that we realize the significance of the order in which these things occur. FIRST we think - THEN we act. Your thought, or lack thereof, governs your actions, which are the causes for the effects in your life. Bad, or incorrect actions based on lack of thought result in bad or unpleasant effects.

Good, or correct actions based upon well thought out plans, result in good or productive effects. And the best way to ensure that good effects always happen in your life, is to develop good habits of always thinking things through from a Biblical perspective - a perspective of revealed truths, which are the first basic premise to any of your endeavors.

Most non-religious people assume the Bible was written to inform them about basic religion. Most religious people think the Bible was written merely to inform the mind about details of religion - about Yahweh, the life of the Messiah and possibly some doctrinal information.

Both groups are only partly correct. The biggest mistake made by almost everyone, is that the Bible is NOT merely a book of information to fill the mind - it is a book of information purposefully designed to CHANGE your mind - or to RENEW it to its perfect state as it was originally designed!

True education is nothing if not the persistent and determined training of the mind, to think, act and reason like the mind of Yahweh - like the mind it was patterned after! David, whom Yahweh said was “a man after His own heart”,  wrote: “I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word” (Ps. 119:16). He did not forget Yahweh’s word because of what he says in verse 15: “I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways”. David read, studied and then meditated, or thought about what he read several times over!

Continue from this inspiring Psalm: “O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation” . David completed his studies later as he meditated on Yahweh’s testimonies - His revealed truths - the fundamental starting point for all things.

The Messiah was the greatest thinker who ever lived on earth, yet most do not try to emulate His way of thinking. They assume - which is a way of NOT thinking, that the Messiah’s way is just not practical in this modern world. THAT’S NONSENSE! 

The Bible is the only absolutely practical book ever written, revealing principles which, when applied, bring about rock-solid, positive results - every time, freeing you from the artificial limitations of an otherwise “no thinking” lifestyle, common to most people in our society! And they always will - even for eternity!

Practice these timeless principles. Take the Bible at its word. Most people, even in religion, do not take the Bible at its word, otherwise there would not be so much religious deception and division in this world. Believe the Bible and not men!

Think on these things. Then, APPLY them and prepare for the freedom to become truly educated! And as you develop that education, you will find yourself taking on the very nature and character of Yahweh Himself - and that’s a good thing!

Acquiring a NEW MIND is simply a matter of changing the old mind - of exercising the freedom to develop and maintain the habits necessary to truly educate your mind. This book, “A New Mind” is simply purposed to inspire you to change your mind about the Bible. It is designed to inspire you to actually read and apply  the many Biblically revealed truths in your day to day living.

I hope, when you have finished reading this book for yourself, that you have not only been inspired to read the Bible, but to share the inspiration of this book with others as well. There are no copyrights or restrictions on the material contained in this book, other than it must always be shared freely - not sold, and in its entirety, so feel free to make copies for your friends and loved ones, or write to us, with the names and addresses for any number of free copies you wish us to send.

Remember. The foremost purpose of the Bible is to change, or renew your mind for the purpose of allowing you the freedom to enjoy the only opportunity of truly training and educating your mind during this lifetime.

The foremost purpose of your life, is to become educated after the image and likeness of your Creator - your loving Father. That is why He has so graciously given you all of the necessary tools!

Your mind, patterned after His, together with His instruction book - the Bible, are your free keys to an infinite gift - a brand new mind. Turn the keys - the rewards are eternal!  TOP ^

Against School

How public education cripples our kids, and why By John Taylor Gatto

John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the Year and the author, most recently, of The Underground History of American Education. He was a participant in the Harper's Magazine forum "School on a Hill," which appeared in the September 2003 issue.

I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn't seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren't interested in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.

Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn't get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?

We all are. My grandfather taught me that. One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainty not to be trusted. That episode cured me of boredom forever, and here and there over the years I was able to pass on the lesson to some remarkable student. For the most part, however, I found it futile to challenge the official notion that boredom and childishness were the natural state of affairs in the classroom. Often I had to defy custom, and even bend the law, to help kids break out of this trap.

The empire struck back, of course; childish adults regularly conflate opposition with disloyalty. I once returned from a medical leave to discover that all evidence of my having been granted the leave had been purposely destroyed, that my job had been terminated, and that I no longer possessed even a teaching license. After nine months of tormented effort I was able to retrieve the license when a school secretary testified to witnessing the plot unfold. In the meantime my family suffered more than I care to remember. By the time I finally retired in 1991, 1 had more than enough reason to think of our schools-with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of both students and teachers-as virtual factories of childishness. Yet I honestly could not see why they had to be that way. My own experience had revealed to me what many other teachers must learn along the way, too, yet keep to themselves for fear of reprisal: if we wanted to we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old, stupid structures and help kids take an education rather than merely receive a schooling. We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness-curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids to truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then.

But we don't do that. And the more I asked why not, and persisted in thinking about the "problem" of schooling as an engineer might, the more I missed the point: What if there is no "problem" with our schools? What if they are the way they are, so expensively flying in the face of common sense and long experience in how children learn things, not because they are doing something wrong but because they are doing something right? Is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no child behind"? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not one of them ever really grows up?

Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so, for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a rationale, because 2 million happy home-schoolers have surely put that banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products of a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from a secondary school. Throughout most of American history, kids generally didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals, like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not uneducated.

We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of "success" as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon, "schooling," but historically that isn't true in either an intellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughout the world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting to a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble prisons. Why, then, do Americans confuse education with just such a system? What exactly is the purpose of our public schools?

Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:

1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each person his or her personal best. These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education's mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong. Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality – to craft the ultimate conformists. That is its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else.

Because of Mencken's reputation as a satirist, we might be tempted to dismiss this passage as a bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. His article, however, goes on to trace the template for our own educational system back to the now vanished, though never to be forgotten, military state of Prussia. And although he was certainly aware of the irony that we had recently been at war with Germany, the heir to Prussian thought and culture, Mencken was being perfectly serious here. Our educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is cause for concern.

  The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again and again once you know to look for it. William James alluded to it many times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publicly denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s. Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land of Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to be brought here. That Prussian culture loomed large in America is hardly surprising, given our early association with that utopian state. A Prussian served as Washington's aide during the Revolutionary War, and so many German-speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congress considered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws. But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens 11 in order to render the populace "manageable."

It was from James Bryant Conant-president of Harvard for twenty years, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive on the atomic-bomb project, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany after WWII, and truly one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century-that I first got wind of the real purposes of American schooling. Without Conant, we would probably not have the same style and degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would we be blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000 students at a time, like the famous Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant's 1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and was more than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that the modem schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered between 1905 and 1930. A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but he does direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918 book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."

Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood, would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole.

Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.

2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in this country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same lines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. In time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending just such a herd via public education, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.

There you have it. Now you know. We don't need Karl Marx's conception of a grand warfare between the classes to see that it is in the interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to discard them if they don't conform. Class may frame the proposition, as when Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in 1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks." But the motives behind the disgusting decisions that bring about these ends need not be class-based at all. They can stem purely from fear, or from the by now familiar belief that "efficiency" is the paramount virtue, rather than love, liberty, laughter, or hope. Above all, they can stem from simple greed.

There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy based on mass production and organized to favor the large corporation rather than the small business or the family farm. But mass production required mass consumption, and at the turn of the twentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and unwise to buy things they didn't actually need. Mandatory schooling was a godsend on that count. School didn't have to train kids in any direct sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it did something even better: it encouraged them not to think at all. And that left them sitting ducks for another great invention of the modem era - marketing.

Now, you needn't have studied marketing to know that there are two groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than they need to: addicts and children. School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children. Again, this is no accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would grow older but never truly grow up. In the 1934 edition of his once well-known book Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P. Cubberley detailed and praised the way the strategy of successive school enlargements had extended childhood by two to six years, and forced schooling was at that point still quite new. This same Cubberley - who was dean of Stanford's School of Education, a textbook editor at Houghton Mifflin, and Conant's friend and correspondent at Harvard - had written the following in the 1922 edition of his book Public School Administration: "Our schools are ... factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned .... And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specifications laid down."

It's perfectly obvious from our society today what those specifications were. Maturity has by now been banished from nearly every aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need to work at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscal self-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn to entertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to ask questions. We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial blandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy $150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the free. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, has seen to it.

Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively; teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an inner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on the serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature, philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuff schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company, to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a more meaningful life, and they can.

First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are: laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the habits and attitudes that corporate society demands in the crafting of the ultimate conformists. Mandatory education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to turn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoods extended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as a pre-teen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there's no telling what your own kids could do. After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women – because we go to school. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.

Grace and peace to you, from our Father, Yahweh, and Yah'shua our Messiah!

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Updated on 26/08/2008