30 November 2022

’Idál, 08 Qawl (Speech), 179 B.E

Seen

After several cloudy days, the blue skies were most welcome!

Done

Thanks to a suggestion from my colleague, Bill Fulkerson, I installed TheBrain on my iMac. At first blush, it seems to be a blend of Evernote and MindNode. I hold out hope that its visualization features compare favorably with the interactive graphic display capability of Obsidian. Like so many applications, it’s easy to get caught up in the bells and whistles of what they COULD do. Enough so that before you know it you’ve forked over the money to access all those specials only to find out later either you can’t figure out how to make them work or that you don’t need them at all. Licensing TheBrain is not inexpensive. I want to make sure I know how to use it and that it does what I need it to. If so, I might trade in Evernote, MindNode, and Obsidian for TheBrain. But we’ll see…

Noted

Astral Prospecting on Instagram | Astral Prospecting on YouTube | Astral Prospecting on Facebook

Marc Bosserman on Instagram | Marc Bosserman on Facebook | Marc Bosserman Music and Musings on YouTube

Tab’s Galaxy on YouTube

Listened

Jefferson Starship - Earth

Notes by Discogs.com

Read

Brookes, John. 101 Essential Tips: House Plants. 1st American Edition. London: Dorling Kindersley, 1996. http://archive.org/details/houseplants00broo.

Bookmarked

Bendell, Jem. “Deep Adaptation Quarterly, Issue 12, November 2022.” MailChimp. Deep Adaptation Quarterly, November 2022. http://eepurl.com/ieROB1.

Bronstein, Yosef. “Yosef Bronstein: Rav Tzadok & Rav Kook on Jewish History.” 18Forty. Accessed November 30, 2022. https://18forty.org/podcast/yosef-bronstein-rav-tzadok-rav-kook-on-jewish-history/.

Loury, Glenn. “Cruelty in the Name of ‘Antiracism.’” Substack newsletter. Glenn Loury (blog), November 29, 2022. https://glennloury.substack.com/p/cruelty-in-the-name-of-antiracism.

Naftalovich, Rotem, Daniel Naftalovich, and Frank L. Greenway. “Polytetrafluoroethylene Ingestion as a Way to Increase Food Volume and Hence Satiety Without Increasing Calorie Content.” Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology 10, no. 4 (January 24, 2016): 971–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/1932296815626726.

Nirenberg, David. “The World John von Neumann Built.” The Nation, November 28, 2022. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/john-von-neumann/.

Solé, Ricard. “What Is Possible in the Space of Microbial Cognitive Complexity?” Tweet. Twitter, November 29, 2022. https://twitter.com/ricard_sole/status/1597701897120403456.

Woodhouse, Leighton. “The Dogma of Harm Reduction.” Substack newsletter. Social Studies (blog), November 16, 2022. https://leightonwoodhouse.substack.com/p/the-dogma-of-harm-reduction.

Sorted

Returned to entering books into my Zotero library along with their availability for checkout on Internet Archive. I’m about ready to prepare a list to sell online and approach buyers for bids. This should be fun — NOT!

Quoted

There are other questions and evidences to be considered. Abraham was a Manifestation of God and a descendant of Adam; likewise, Ishmael, Isaac, Jeremiah and the whole line of prophets including David, Solomon and Aaron were among His posterity. Were all these holy men condemned to a realm of punishment because of a deed committed by the first father, because of a mistake said to have been made by their mutual and remotest ancestor Adam? The explanation is made that when Christ came and sacrificed Himself, all the line of holy Prophets who preceded Him became free from sin and punishment. Even a child could not justly make such an assertion. These interpretations and statements are due to a misunderstanding of the meanings of the Bible.

In order to understand the reality of sacrifice let us consider the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. It is true that He sacrificed Himself for our sake. What is the meaning of this? When Christ appeared, He knew that He must proclaim Himself in opposition to all the nations and peoples of the earth. He knew that mankind would arise against Him and inflict upon Him all manner of tribulations. There is no doubt that one who put forth such a claim as Christ announced would arouse the hostility of the world and be subjected to personal abuse. He realized that His blood would be shed and His body rent by violence. Notwithstanding His knowledge of what would befall Him, He arose to proclaim His message, suffered all tribulation and hardships from the people and finally offered His life as a sacrifice in order to illumine humanity—gave His blood in order to guide the world of mankind. He accepted every calamity and suffering in order to guide men to the truth. Had He desired to save His own life, and were He without wish to offer Himself in sacrifice, He would not have been able to guide a single soul. There was no doubt that His blessed blood would be shed and His body broken. Nevertheless, that Holy Soul accepted calamity and death in His love for mankind. This is one of the meanings of sacrifice.

As to the second meaning: He said, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.” It was not the body of Christ which came from heaven. His body came from the womb of Mary, but the Christly perfections descended from heaven; the reality of Christ came down from heaven. The Spirit of Christ and not the body descended from heaven. The body of Christ was but human. There could be no question that the physical body was born from the womb of Mary. But the reality of Christ, the Spirit of Christ, the perfections of Christ all came from heaven. Consequently, by saying He was the bread which came from heaven He meant that the perfections which He showed forth were divine perfections, that the blessings within Him were heavenly gifts and bestowals, that His light was the light of Reality. He said, “If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.” That is to say, whosoever assimilates these divine perfections which are within me will never die; whosoever has a share and partakes of these heavenly bounties I embody will find eternal life; he who takes unto himself these divine lights shall find everlasting life. How manifest the meaning is! How evident! For the soul which acquires divine perfections and seeks heavenly illumination from the teachings of Christ will undoubtedly live eternally. This is also one of the mysteries of sacrifice.

In reality, Abraham sacrificed Himself, for He brought heavenly teachings to the world and conferred heavenly food upon mankind. ¹