False Teaching

Today I want to talk about false teachers. People who pretend to teach one thing but are really teaching another. Fake Teachers. Pseudo-Teachers.

The Bible warns us about this, and the Bible advises us that false teachers will arise.

So how do you tell false teaching? The Bible tells us that it is people who do not teach the word of God, false teachers are people who teach things as being from the God which are not from God.

Probably the most common false teaching in Christianity is the idea that Noah took 2 of every animal on the ark. Jews hear this from Christians and think Christians are idiots. The Bible tells us that the animals were put on the ark in pairs, two by two, and that there were seven pairs of clean animals and two pairs of unclean animals. Some people reading the Bible believe that there is a contradiction in Genesis, loading two of each in one passage and seven of each in another. This case can be made in the English, but, not in the original Hebrew which is why Jews don't think much of common Christian teaching.

Now I don't believe that people start out to become false teachers of Christianity or God's word. People just teach others what they have been taught by other people.

There is no Greek word for false. There is a word prefix, the prefix pseudo. Pseduo-Teachers, Pseudo-Prophets that is translated to the English word False.

Pseduo does not exactly mean False, it means more like Fake.

Studying Greek in the New Testament is interesting. The Greek the New Testament is written in is not Classical Ancient Greek, it is Trade Greek. Trade Greek is more like Eubonics. Trade Greek switches between the masculine and feminine, it misuses the rules of grammar, it is based more on Greek “slang” than Classical Greek. In addition Greek words do not directly translate into English words.

This makes the translation of some passages very difficult.

Lets look at something else very common, the Christian teaching of Apostles.

Commonly Christians teach that there were 12 Apostles and they were all men. The Bible does not say that there were only 12 Apostles. The Bible does mention the 12 Apostles, as well as other Apostles like Paul and Barnabas. The Bible does not even tell us all the Apostles were men, but, these are commonly taught ideas in Christianity.

In Luke Chapter 10 Christ sends out another 70 people to spread the message. People sent out by God to preach are Apostles. In Luke 9 the Twelve are referred to as disciples. These twelve are sent out to preach and they become Apostles.

Lets look at a specific Bible Verse in both the Greek and the English, the verse about Mary and the others telling the Apostles about Christ not being in the Tomb.

Luke 24:10 Now they were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. The other women with them told these things to the apostles.

This is a really interesting verse, not because of what is written which is interesting, but, also because of what is left out.

Greek also has several ways of expressing the idea of "others", you can have "the other hand", you can have "other people", you can have "other places", there are "others that are the same" and there are "others that are different".

There is a Greek word left out of the second sentence. If we translate the Greek directly without converting the grammar into English Grammar we get:

The others (like themselves) with them telling unto tous apostles things.

According to Strong's the word Tous is used to mean:
about (2),
all (5),
case* (3),
cause* (1),
circumstances* (3),
companions* (8),
condition* (1),
experiences (2),
far (1),
followers* (1),
former* (1),
meat (1),
one (6),
one who (1),
one* (1),
others (4),
others* (1),
outsiders* (3),
people (1),
sight (1),
some (7),
some* (5),
suitable (1),
these (4),
things (1),
this (31),
those (406),
those who (17),
together* (8),
under* (1),
welfare (1),
what (47),
what had happened (1),
what* (1),
which (14),
who (52),
whoever (8),
whom (4) times

So why was this word left out? My research leads me to believe that the sentence means something more like “They told the other (like themselves) Apostles about these things”.

Am I correct in this translation? Maybe. This is something that theologians can argue about for centuries.

The Bible does not tells us that the Apostles were only men. Paul tells us not to allow women to teach in the church, but, in Philippians 4:3 Paul also tells us help those women which laboured with me in the gospel.

This passage is also pretty strange because the Greek words translated in this passage stress the togetherness and similarity of work multiple times. Essentially Paul is saying help those women who are doing the same things I am doing, OR, help these women who are the same as me.

We allow women to teach in the church because over time we have gained greater understanding of these passages and we believe that Paul's instructions not to allow women to teach were based on the time and culture in which he taught. Because of passages like the one in Philippians we understand that women did teach the Gospel in Paul's time, just not everywhere.

There are still Christians who teach that women are not allowed to teach in church. I think that is pseudo-Christianity. My Opinion based on my studies, my research and most of all my prayer and direction by the Holy Ghost.

The Bible does not tell us that there were only 12 Apostles. The Bible does not tell us that all the Apostles were men. These are things that people teach.

I also think those who teach things that the Bible does not tell us are teaching pseudo-Christianity, False Teachers.

All of my study of the Hebrew, the Greek, the Bible and all the other surrounding historical documents has led me to believe that there is one way to learn, from the Holy Spirit. If I put my faith in learning from people who teach false doctrine like only 1 cow and one bull on Noah's ark my faith is not in God, it is in those I allow to teach me.

These days I put no faith in men, nor the words of men nor the laws of men nor the teachings of men.

I place my faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

Theory and Fact, understanding the Truth

Over the years there have been many, many discredited “facts”. This is because people do not understand the difference between a fact, a theory and the truth.

Over the last six years the DNA theory has come into question. DNA is both very simple and very complex. DNA is a mixture of facts and theory. The math behind DNA is sound, BUT, the math requires that all variables be understood.

Suppose you have a cookie jar with 10 cookies in it. You know that your child takes one cookie every day. You have 10 days of cookies. After 5 days the cookies are gone. You badger your child and your child insists that they only had one cookie a day. You convict your child of cookie theft and ground them.

Is it a fact that the child took the cookie?

No. It is a theory. You know that you and your child are the only people who had access to the cookies and 5 cookies are gone. The theory is that your child took the cookies. The theory is sound. The math is correct.

The reality could be anything. Suppose you later discover that you have a raccoon in your attic that has been taking cookies. Your jar has a hinged lid so the lid closes automatically after the raccoon manages to get one out.

This is the situation with DNA.

Scientists got together and studied DNA. They discovered quite a lot about it. We don't know everything about DNA though and we are learning more all the time.

Since we don't know everything about DNA we cannot say that there is no variable that we do not understand.

Arizona opened their criminal DNA database for scientific study. The data discovered did not support the DNA theory. Instead of admitting this, people argued it.

You can't argue a fact. 2+2=4 right? Wrong, 2+2=11 IN a base 3 number system. 0,1,2,10,11,12,etc.

In the statement 2+2=4 we do not define all of the potential variables and we assume a known variable, the base 10 number system.

In grounding the child for taking cookies we assume that we know all the ways cookies can be removed from the cookie jar.

In claiming that DNA is an individual characteristic we are assuming we know all the possible variables that effect DNA.

All of these determinations require a level of assumption and typically that assumption is arrogant. Most of the time our assumptions may be correct. Other times our assumptions will be incorrect and that is the difference between FACT, THEORY and the Truth.

A FACT is something about which no assumptions are made.

A THEORY requires assumptions based on data or evidence or whatever.

TRUTH is that there are very few FACTS and most people couldn't tell the difference between a FACT and a theory to save their lives.

We have to live our lives making thousands of assumptions every day. We assume that the sun will rise in the morning and we assume that the sun will set at night. These are not facts, it is possible that the sun will not rise or set. The Earth could be hit by a giant meteor and be destroyed.

I am not asking anyone to quit making assumptions based on very low probabilities like giant meteors or raccoons. The only thing I am asking is that people recognize that they are making assumptions and not dealing with facts.

Optical vs Magnetic computing, black and white vs color television

Most people don't remember having only black and white television sets because color television sets are so cheap almost everyone owns one.

When I was a kid we had a black and white television and my mother didn't have a color set until I bought her one when I got out of the Army.

Computing today uses black and white technology, basically even worse than black and white television. At least black and white television had shades of gray. In computing today we have just black and white, a 2 bit system really.

We gather together groups of bits in clusters of 8, 16, 32 and 64 but these are only groups of 2 bit systems. On and off switches.

Optical computing offers the opportunity to bring to data what color television brought to home entrainment.

With optical computing you can store 10 gig of data in the same space we store 100K of data now.

The problem is producing the optical storage medium. Back in the seventies people used crystals. Now people are using proteins and nano-lasers. The newer technology can probably be commercialized within ten years.

In thirty years we will have optical data storage mediums that are so far advanced we can't even begin to understand them today.

Lying with Data

Recently I decided to "prove" that when the Big Ten wins the RoseBowl the economic condition of the United States improves.

It makes perfect sense, when people in the midwest are depressed over losing the RoseBowl they are less productive and the GDP suffers. When those nutcases on the west coast lose, who cares?

It is not difficult to deliberately misinterpret data and this is the problem with gullible warming and most of the crap that the Democrats support.

When you can't hide the obvious discrepancy in the data you can always hide the data and this is something the democrats are terrific at.

The Democrats are pretending they are being more open in government, and what they are doing is publishing crap data.

Essentially they modify the data available on websites like BEA.gov and GPOACCESS.gov to support their stupidity.

It bugs me, but, it is what I expect.

The Democrats started whining about a resolution against a Turkish Government that fell a century ago because of that government's support of a genocide.

When people in the international community pointed out to the stupid Democrats that they had supported multiple genocides in the United States the Dem's dropped that resolution.

Were they open? Did they tell people, "Hey, we supported genocides in the United States in our past, but, we have changed and don't kill people any more."? No, because they hide data they don't want people to see and pretend to be open so morons refuse to look any deeper.

You have to question data and you have to review data in context.

Economic data is more difficult. For example, the comparing the GDP before we switched totally from the Gold Standard to the current GDP is not really a valid comparison.

I think Obama is going to try printing more money next year to pay down the National Debt so it does not go over the GDP.

This will be transparent to international economists and it will toast the US credit rating.

But, the data won't show that to the average person and the democrats will lie about the issue.

Do not trust what any one tells you, review the data yourself!