Pat-Pat - Volume 18, Issue 4

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Crimes Against Cause

Douglas Jones

He shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble; He commands the sun, and it does not rise; He seals off the stars; He alone spreads out the heavens, and treads on the waves of the sea.

All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

In Him all things consist.

Therefore, we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken.

"Go, and remove the sackcloth from your body, and take your sandals off your feet."

And he did so, walking naked.

Douglas Jones
At 16:08:26 gmt, planet earth shot off the path of its revolution and straightlined toward the Struve 2398 Star System, leaving the other planets agape. The Sahara got icy and, for a few minutes, all the lattes froze, but then some warmth returned, lights blinked back on, and the stiff pointiness of the oceans thawed. Everyone went back to work. Many lovers complained about the lack of moon.

He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

"The concept of guilt and punishment, including the doctrine of `grace,' of `redemption,' of `forgiveness' were invented to destroy the causal sense of man: they are an outrage on the concept of cause and effect!" Nietzsche

Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

"That for everything that exists there must necessarily be a positive cause, through which it exists." Spinoza.

"I was in a job interview and I opened a book and started reading. Then I said to the guy, "Let me ask you a question. If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?" He said, "I don't know." I said, "I don't want your job." Steven Wright.

Fifteen hours and twenty-three minutes before planet earth broke its revolution, the Southern California Earthquake Data Center recorded a left-lateral strike slip in the Garlock Fault Zone that measured an astounding 340 meters, but it snapped back into place after fifteen seconds, with no recorded china damage. Field seismologists in the Garlock vicinity reported losing four utility vehicles in the momentary crevice. Apart from the vehicle loss, the incident was written up as a recording anomaly.

All things are created by Him, and in Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things have their being.

"The concept of guilt and punishment, the entire `moral world order,' was invented in opposition to science." Nietzsche.

The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

"I have maintained that all things follow by inevitable necessity from the nature of God. . . . This inevitable necessity in things destroys neither divine laws nor human." Spinoza.

"In my house there's this light switch that doesn't do anything. Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in Madagascar. She said, `Cut it out.'" Steven Wright.

Sixty-eight hours before the Garlock Fault slip, the National Hurricane Center watched five category-one hurricanes form simultaneously in the Gulf of Mexico, a coincidence made odder by the fact that all five formed under the ocean surface. The five storms—Barry, Chantal, Dean, Erin, Felix—grew to hurricane strength within twenty minutes, with water currents reaching speeds of 140mph. Many jellyfish were tangled beyond repair.

And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.

"When the natural consequences of an act are no longer `natural' but thought of as effected by the conceptual ghosts of superstition, by `God,' by `spirits,' by `souls,' as merely `moral' consequences, as reward, punishment, sign, chastisement, then the precondition for knowledge has been destroyed." Nietzsche.

If you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.

"Hence it follows that God is no more the cause of a blind man not seeing, than he is of a stone not seeing." Spinoza

"One time the power went out in my house and I had to use the flash on my camera to see my way around. I made a sandwich and took fifty pictures of my face. The neighbors thought there was lightning in my house." Steven Wright

At 7:17 a.m. on June 30, 1908, a meteorite exploded six kilometers above Tunguska, Siberia (60°552N 101°572E), felling sixty million trees over 2,150 square kilometers. It left no crater or radiation traces, but it did create genetic abnormalities throughout the region. In St. Petersburg, twenty minutes earlier, V.I. Lenin wrote the following sentence for chapter three of his scathing critique of the philosophical idealism of his opponent Alexander Bogdanov: "Does this mean that for example, the earth may move now in an ellipse, now in a circle, that it may revolve around the sun now in a year, now in a quarter of an hour? What nonsense!" Within weeks the Bolshevik party split due to irreconcilable differences, and in October, the Ford Motor Company produced the first Model-T automobile. Fifteen million were eventually sold.

Et ipse est ante omnes et omnia in ipso constant.

"The doctrine of `grace,' of `redemption,' of `forgiveness' were invented to destroy the causal sense of man." Nietzsche.

But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

"The objects of ideas are the efficient causes of the ideas, whereas this is exactly what is expressly denied in that proposition, and I now think that this is the cause of the whole confusion. Accordingly it would be useless for me at present to try to write at greater length on this subject." Spinoza.

"I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights, so it looks like I'm the only one moving." Steven Wright.

In a.d. 723, a volcano on the Greek island of Thera exploded with fury, shooting pumice stones onto many nearby islands, even creating an island of ash. The sea surrounding Thera became too hot to touch. The Emperor of Byzantium, Leo III, ordered the revered icon of Christ removed from the Chalke Gate of the Great Palace. While a soldier stood on a ladder removing the image, a woman rushed out of the crowd and knocked down his ladder, killing the soldier. The woman was executed. Leo III's son, Constantine, continued his father's iconoclasm, and during a night in a.d. 763, the chronicler Nicephorus reports "that all the stars moved from their appointed celestial stations and were borne down upon the earth. When they came near the earth they vanished at once without ever causing harm or the slightest damage."

He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, He organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

"They are an outrage on the concept of cause and effect! And not an outrage with the fist, with the knife, with honest hatred and love!" Nietzsche.

The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.

"I fully admit that God cannot be angry, and that all things are done in accordance with his will." Spinoza.

"I hooked up my accelerator pedal in my car to my brake lights. I hit the gas, people behind me stop, and I'm gone." Steven Wright.

After Roman armies under Titus destroyed Jerusalem in a.d. 70, Northern Lights phonemena (aurora borealis) appeared in the sky over Palestine, like a flaming cloud that moved windingly and regularly so that glowing fragments were flying in all directions at unexpected moments. Again, aurora borealis showed up far south at the fall of Rome centuries later. This, however, began a "thousand-year long era of silence" in aurora borealis activity where few records appear, except at rare moments, such as 1177, which coincided with the death of Thomas Becket. The "era of silence" for northern lights phenomena lifted just before the invention of the printing press.

And He Himself existed before all things, and in Him all things consist (cohere, are held together).

"When the natural consequences of an act are no longer `natural' but thought of as effected by the conceptual ghosts of superstition, by `God'. . . then one has committed the greatest crime against humanity." Nietzsche.

Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The LORD will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

"We cannot infer that because sciences of things divine and human are full of controversies and quarrels, therefore their whole subject matter is uncertain." Spinoza.

"I moved into an all-electric house. I forgot and left the porch light on all day. When I got home the front door wouldn't open." Steven Wright.

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them,came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. "Why do you seek the living among the dead?"

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind.

"When the natural consequences of an act are no longer `natural'. . . then one has committed the greatest crime against humanity."

Why do you seek the living among the dead?

Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.

"The doctrine of `grace,' of `redemption,' of `forgiveness' were invented to destroy the causal sense of man." Nietzsche.

Why do you seek the living among the dead?

You will say to this mountain, `Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

With men this is impossible.

He is not here.

But He said to them, "Where is your faith?" And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, "Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!"

"Strictly speaking, God does not love or hate anyone." Spinoza.

"Why do you seek the living among the dead?"

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.

"One could, with some freedom of expression, call Jesus `a free spirit'—he cares nothing for what is fixed: the word killeth, everything fixed killeth. The concept, the experience of `life' in the only form he knows it, is opposed to any kind of word, formula, law, faith, dogma. He speaks only of the inmost thing: `life' or `truth' or `light' is his expression for the inmost thing—everything else, the whole of reality, the whole of nature, language itself, possesses for him merely the value of a sign, a metaphor." Nietzsche.

He is not here.