1) Many people who could have contradicted the fact were alive when the Gospels proclaimed that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead. All the enemies (and there were many) of Christianity had to do was produce the corpse of Jesus to stop the new movement.
2) Some say the guards at the tomb went to sleep and the body of Jesus was stolen. Four or more guards, sleeping at once? Nearly impossible, since sleeping on the job was punishable by having your shirt burned off of your body, or worse.
3) Thousands died brutal deaths believing that the man they were following had risen from the dead, when simply saying the Jesus had not risen from the dead would spare their lives.
4) If Jesus merely swooned on the cross, as his enemies still sometimes claim, his body would have been such a fractured mess than nobody would have followed him.
When you remove the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
--Sherlock Holmes
~E. Samuel Prophet
I believe that god created all people equal. I believe that some people do everything possible to make us not equal. I believe that we have the right to say whatever we want, so long as it doesn’t endanger anybody. I believe that many advocates of free speech want free speech only for themselves. I believe in helping people to the best of my ability, giving each person the benefit of the doubt and loving my neighbor as myself. I believe that the overuse of technology can cause people to lose the ability to complete a thought and that the cellular phone is more responsible for A.D.D. than anything, including sugar. I believe that cell phones are good, but should be used with restraint, like a firearm or a bottle of strong whiskey. I believe that people are drugged, legally, illegally and through TV and that this, combined with the over use of technology, destruction of wild places on earth, obsessively watching sports rather than playing sports, or better yet, watching your own children play sports, or shopping ‘til you drop is a symptom of a spiritual disease that has left many people with an inability to lift anything heavier than a spoon or face a problem bigger than what shoes to wear. I believe that most of you reading this believe this, but that it requires courage to be first to say that the emperor is not only naked but is sometimes stupid. I believe that making something legal is a wimpy way to reduce crime and increase tax revenues. I believe there is bad and there is good. I believe that the environment we live and breathe in is more important than gadgets that end up clogging landfills. I believe that all animals should be treated with kindness, even when they are being raised for food. I believe that there is a heaven and a hell. I believe that I don’t know who is going there. I believe that it is my responsibility to love someone if they don’t believe anything I just wrote. I believe that prayer will help you and me. I believe that Jesus Christ is a man of history who was born, died, rose again and will return to the earth. I believe that I have every right in the world to believe this and that you have every right in the world not to believe this. I believe what Ziggy Marley told me: ”we don’t have to believe the same things to get along.” I believe that a human fetus has a right to live, just as fertilized eagle egg has a right to live and that there is a big fine for tampering with an eagle egg, since that egg, if nurtured, will probably become an eagle. I believe that someone reading this will “twist these words to make a trap for fools” and try to make me seem like a bigot. I believe that I am not a bigot. I believe that those who attempt to make freedom of speech illegal will suffer the most if they get their way. I believe in civilized dialogue. I believe that if you disagree with me you are wrong and I am right. I believe that’s why it’s called my opinion. I believe that my opinion is subject to change but that it will not be changed by those who attempt to shout me down, rather than reason with me. I believe that you and me and everyone are wrong on some points and right on others. I believe that we are both right and wrong at the same time, much of the time. I believe that once you dismiss an idea and can no longer consider it without anger or a threat of violence, you are already wrong and well on the way to ignorance. I believe there is a time for peace, a time for war and a time to die. I believe that I should have the right to write, say or shout what I just wrote without fear of reprisal. I believe that there will be reprisal. I believe that I can handle it. I believe that we should eliminate plastic and the internal combustion engine from the earth. I believe that the good Samaritan shows me that it matters less what I believe than how I act on those beliefs. I believe that no political party has a corner on truth or lies. I believe that if I saw you injured on the side of the road that I would do anything I could to help you, regardless of your race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. I believe that beyond all my other beliefs that you are worth more than anything else on earth. I believe that I would like to get to know you. I believe that I would like to hear from you on the above points. I believe that you will not hear from me if you slander my name, curse at me or threaten me for my beliefs. I believe that if you take such actions against me that I will try not to dislike you for it, but that I will pray for you. I believe that I could be a good neighbor to a gay activist, an alum attorney, or anyone else that I strongly disagree with. I believe that I would be a bad neighbor to anyone who hates someone who voices an opinion contrary to his or her own. I believe that I will fight for your right to say what you believe no matter how much I disagree with it. I believe that we have a lot to talk about. I believe that punishing someone for a contrary opinion is tyranny. I believe that if you try to force tyranny onto a free people that you will have a fight on your hands. I believe that none of the above comments are contradictory. I believe that I am parable and that these words are true and self-evident. I believe that I love each and every one of you, even if you disagree with everything I believe. ~Lucas Parable (voices in a cultural wasteland)
Yesterday I went for a drive, deciding to stop only at places previously unknown to me. I ventured upon a Chinese restaurant in Poway, California and was waited on by a Thai woman named Pauline. Pauline smiled brightly and looked me in the eyes, before asking my name, something few other waitresses have ever bothered doing before. The food arrived and it was above average, but Pauline was a five-star experience, sharing sustenance and joy with me and all her other customers. When she brought the check, I asked her the secret to happiness. “No secret,” she replied, “just be happy.” I paid my bill and as I walked away she came to the door of the restaurant and waved goodbye to me. In the car I cracked open my fortune cookie and read, “Turn off the TV and the computer and exercise your mind with a good book.” And so I read in my car on the hot asphalt of that altar/mall parking lot for half an hour, full of food and joy. ~Lucas Parable
Someone has passed and with it something that was once Southern California. Like many who came of age in the ‘60s he lost his bearings when the developers thought to sell our collected memories for mere money. I met him in the late ‘60s when I was among the few of my friends to own a car on Maui. I was driving out to ride perfect surf when I took on a passenger, kid of, maybe 14, hitch hiking and all alone in the world, but at home as soon as he hit the powerful surf. Kevin and I didn’t catch up again in the mid 1970s when we shared a house in Santa Cruz, living on scraps and good times. Then I didn’t see him for a long time and heard that he was living in Mexico. When I saw him again, he looked as old as the earth and the sea that had once loved him. His wave came to us unnoticed and broke on a lonely beach. ~CMA
