https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYMfsUgbhN4
Elvis Presley-Blue Suede Shoes (with Lyrics)
The Joseph Theory
Introduction: God
"Our God is not an ogre."
God is not an ogre.
He does not require blood sacrifice to forgive sins.
He is not bought, bribed, or seduced.
Even Jesus spoke against blood sacrifice.
Jesus simply forgave sin.
There are numerous scriptures that tell us this.
I Samuel 15:22 – "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry."
Psalm 40:6 – "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire; my ears have you opened; burnt offering and sin offering have you not required."
Psalm 50:12 – "If I were hungry, I would not tell you: for the world is mine and the fullness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?"
Psalm 51:16 – "Thou desirest not sacrifice, else I would give it; thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."
Isaiah 1:12 – "I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats. My gut is full of blood. When you come to appear before Me, who has required this of your hand, to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations."
Hosea 6:6 – "Therefore have I hewed them by the Prophets; I have slain them by the Words of My mouth; and Thy Judgments are as the Light that goes forth. For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. But they like men have transgressed the Covenant; there have they dealt treacherously against Me."
Exodus 32:20 – Moses "took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewn it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it."
Isaiah 66:1 – The heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool, where is the house that you would build me? where is the place of my rest?….. he that kills an ox is as if he slew a man; he that sacrifices a lamb, as if he cut off a dog's neck; he that offers an oblation as if he offered swines blood; he that burns incense as if he blessed an idol. Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their obominations. I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called none did answer; when I spake they did not hear; but they did evil before my eyes and chose that in which I delighted not."
This is all discussed in the Addendum "Blood Sacrifice." It will explain the origins of the ritual of blood sacrifice, the reasons why it became indoctrinated into religion, and the reason why it still continues to be believed. There are many instances in which doctrines are in direct contradiction with scripture… and with God Himself.
Much of what we understand about the scriptures has been filtered through a group of doctrines that serve as the "automatic translator" for us… or
"this means this because that means that."
But… what happens when those doctrines are set aside to take an unprejudiced view of the words themselves?
What has emerged in this case… is an entirely different story, indeed.
It is a story within a story… and it is a beautiful story. If you have found the scriptures tedious and hard to grasp, this treatise will give you a new view of them… so that they become a new joy. Even if you cannot accept the theories presented to you… you will be able to view all that you read in a new light.
To complement this theory is an Addendum with charts, references, histories, and other materials that this research has produced. Whatever your beliefs may be, these will be a source of interesting information.
This treatise begins with… proof of the existence of God.
http://www.starlightgazette.,,,,,com/Joseph/IntroductionGod.html
part 1 of 2
"A Covenant With Truth"
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Mankind's Dreams
"Freedom is as essential to an intelligent being as is food."
The Promised Land… Utopia… Shangri-La… Paradise…
The dream of the ages where all would live in peace…
A land where all of its inhabitants would be free…
Each one… free from the tyranny of another…
Each one… resting peacefully beneath his own fig tree…
A place where the Fountain of Life flows freely…
On earth as it is in Heaven…
The American dream…
To believe according to one's own conscience…
To prosper from one's labor and ingenuity…
To claim one's birthright to a place in this world…
Our currency…
Promising that freedom is backed by God…
Engraved on its face "In God We Trust"…
Our flag…
Stars rising over stripes…
Dreams rising over oppression…
The United States' Constitution…
The refined hopes of humanity molded into a nation
That would preserve forever the precepts of liberty and justice…
Even as the design of freedom takes shape…
Servitude to power being something all contend with…
As individuals… and as peoples…
And this… a path home…
Our Constitution is not just the foundation for a government…
It is not just a contract between states of legal words…
It gives its people no religious creed or mandate…
But its principles hold a blueprint for peace.
It is a guidepost for us… the people of the nation…
To structure a kind of society that is based on respect…
Each for the other.
That document is but the cornerstone of a human freedom
With which we were given charge to build a just and a free society.
Those blocks… the framework of our freedom…
Rely on the cornerstone for guidance…
A cornerstone that is based… on our shared humanity.
The building blocks of such a free nation
Can only be bonded by the will of the people
When we are compelled by all truth
To understand those laws of mutual respect
And then to practice them in our lives…
Our bonds… not of nationality… not of religion… not of history…
But of our own shared regard for freedom.
This forging of human freedom…
This sanctuary for humanity…
Compels us to overcome oppression…
To discover and to correct injustice…
To define and to refine our principles…
To accept and to understand each other…
To dispel our fears of each other…
To find our way out of the darkness
Where we battle over what is right…
To find satisfactory compromises
So that we can go about our lives
In a way that we can live together in peace…
All of us… finding peace in our own lives…
Each with our own beliefs and struggles…
And in doing all this… perhaps…
Show a way for all of mankind
To find a way to live together in peace.
But, freedom can go wrong…
When it becomes an amusement park for the base…
Or a free-for-all for the powerful and influential…
Or a human version of the survival of the fittest.
Freedom can become its own version of tyranny
Unless we can find a better understanding
Of what it is that our lives really are on this earth…
Unless we can find a meaning to life that we all know is true…
A living truth
That compels all we are as human beings…
…Unless we had been freed to think…
To discuss… to question… to be different…
To be honest with ourselves and each other…
We could never find that truth.
Without clear truth there can be no understanding…
And without understanding there can be no peace.
It is in this that we see our true mission…
Our inevitable and our most joyous mission…
The threshing out of that Truth.
(continued)
part 2 of 2
As citizens of freedom we have a Covenant with Truth.
As we break the yokes of oppression, suppression, and repression
We must grasp something more true…
Something beyond the forces of convention and doctrine…
We must find the source of all that is true to us as human beings.
Without it… we should admit that we can never be free…
We must resign ourselves to allow others to be our masters.
Freedom was the beginning of a human maturity…
It required us to become more than what before
We had been compelled to be
When we were told what to do.
But…the framework within which we function needs to be such
That our lives are more than just a mere illusion of freedom.
The machinery of life does not need to dehumanize us
For it to work well.
We must become our own masters…
Become men and women in our own right
By the strength of our own hearts.
To do this, we need to find that truth that… is truth…
Beyond doctrines and rules.
It is only with our freedom that we will find that truth,
And it is only with that truth that we will ensure our freedom.
Freedom is peace to the human heart.
Freedom is life to us.
Freedom is surely our very truth.
Freedom is as essential to an intelligent being as is food.
Shall we open the storage bins of the priests and feast on freedom?
In John 8:32 then in 8:36, it is said,
"And you shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free,"
and
"If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed."
We have been given permission to be free.
We, surely, must find that Truth and that freedom…
We must discover the truth of our lives here on earth.
And yet, if we discover absolute Truth,
Won't we be taking the risk
That it will become just another doctrine?
Just another dictate over freedom?
Rather than freedom itself?
After all!
The Truth is said to set us free!
And not lock us in!
Truth and freedom must walk hand in hand, but…
What is that fearful Truth?
Journey with me as I build a case for Truth…
As I gather from some of our greatest truths…
So that former definitions of all we are can wash away…
So that we can see clearly…
So that we can find our true meaning…
So that we each… can find the "Meaning of Life" itself.
Chapter 2. Quest for the Truth
http://www.starlightgazette.,,,,,com/Covenant/Covenant-Index.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcrddV5N9Xs
The Byrds — Turn! Turn! Turn! ᴴᴰ 4K (Stereo)