Journal Twenty of BLSKV

03/02-
WEDNESDAY

   I watched most of The Last Jedi before the phone's browser took me off-site and I lost my place in the movie again, so I decided I'd finish it later.

I bought Joy's radio off her for 40.00 today because I accidentally broke the already-bent antenna off of mine yesterday, and she gave me 10.00 because I had forgotten that I had not had to pay the 4.00 co-pay yesterday on my Rx because that same Rx on my Risperidone had been called in twice, which was the reason the insurance did not cover the second scrip, so they only gave me one of the two scrips for the same medicine and the insurance covered it, and there was no charge, and I did not remember this until after Joy had left and I was back in my apartment.

I went up to Casey's and on the way, someone who I thought resembled Maggie in a car waved at me vigourously and I waved back.
I bought a slice of pepperoni pizza and an X-Tra Large Dr. Pepper.

I did not take my zzzQuil last night, but I was able to get a decent night's sleep.  Maybe I'll take it tonight two hours after I take my pills when I get home from Bates City RLDS Church, which I'm really looking forward to.

I'm about to update my computer log using the ChromeBook.

The Church Service at Bates City Branch starts at 7PM tonight.  Mr. Streihas will pick me up at 6:40 PM and take me.

Taylor Brady had to cancel our appointment at my house today because one of her clients had an emergency.  Our next appointment is Wednesday, March 9'th @ 2:30 PM.

Church was positively awesome!
[8:53 PM]
I'm so refilled of the Spirit of God now. We had a prayer and testimony meeting and there were hymns and a little fellowship afterwards.

I'm going to look up an article about Ingersoll the Infidel and Preacher Beecher right now for my friend Brother Paul V. Ludy to show to a post-office worker.

From my research for Paul Ludy:


Father Hyacinthe says there are three religions in the world, the Jewish, the Catholic, and the Protestant, and all are equal in the eyes of God. There is a people in South Africa who worship the stomach of the hippopotamus. We suppose their religion is equal to the others in the eyes of God. At least it is equally sincere, and has the advantage of being simple and intelligible.

-Atheist Ambrose Bierce

- The Blaspheme of Robert Ingersoll: Why he mattered to Ambrose Bierce, by Don Swaim


Bierce and Ingersoll were of the same mind regarding the specter of Prohibition, although neither lived to see the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919. Presciently, Ingersoll said, “I do not believe that the people can be made temperate by law....Prohibition fills the world with spies and tattlers, and, besides that, where a majority of the people are not in favor of it the law will not be enforced; and where a majority of the people are in favor of it there is not much need of the law.”

                                                -Ibid.

Both men spoke out against socialism, which Bierce saw as one of two extremes of political thought, the other being anarchism, and that between the two “lies the system that we have the happiness to endure.” Bierce asserted that, “The Socialist believes that most human affairs should be regulated and managed by the State,” and he grumbled, “Our own system has many Socialistic features and the trend of republican government is all that way.” Those who endorsed Socialism, such as public ownership of utilities on the ground of principle “are a pretty dangerous class,” he said. But he had an open mind relating to government ownership of railroads, saying, “...there is doubtless a good deal to be said on both sides.” He described the anarchist, whose role loomed much larger in Bierce’s day, as a “kind of lunatic,” and he once wrote to his niece saying he would put them all to death if he lawfully could.

Ingersoll [who opposed the death penalty: “Does not the Government feed the mob spirit—the lynch spirit?”], described himself as an individualist, and wanted as little law as possible, “only as much as will protect life, reputation and property by punishing criminals and by enforcing contracts,” and he said, “...in the United States there is no place for Anarchist, Socialist or Dynamiter.” Sounding much like a modern day conservative, he maintained:



I want the people to do everything they can do, and the Government to keep its hands off, because if the Government attends to all these matters the people lose manhood, and in a little while become serfs, and there will arise some strong mind and some powerful hand that will reduce them to actual slavery.

-Ibid.

"While it is not good to have unlimited freedom of thought it is good to formulate one's own opinion about all matters of personal preference and for all men to be of the same mind about Truth, yet there is no end to the number of original thoughts that can be had by men that are supported by the Truth according to The Scriptures, Truth and what God reveals and shall reveal and has ever revealed to man."- Brent Lee Sohlden Koivopolo V 9:47 PM 03/02/022 CE, a warm night, no snow, after church on a Wednesday.

Ingersoll believed the influence of women in political discourse was positive. “If women wish to vote, if they wished to take part in political matters, if they wish to run for office. I shall do nothing to interfere with those rights....There was a time when physical force or brute strength gave pre-eminence.... So I say equal rights, equal education, equal advantages.”

Women did not achieve the right to vote in America until 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified by a majority of the states, so neither Ingersoll nor Bierce was alive to see it. Today, Bierce would probably find some humor in the fact that in 1984 Mississippi became the last state to ratify the amendment—sixty-four years late.

-Ibid.

Ambrose Bierce said "“If men can be good without religion, and scorning religion, then it is not religion that makes men good; and if religion does not do this it is of no practical value and one may as well be without it as with it...”

My reply: Religion's practical value is that it not only makes men better than just "good"-it makes them holy, saved, justified, sanctified and pure, and fit for God's service, saves them from an endless hell, gives them superior morality and ethics, and prepares them for entrance to heaven, and allows them in.


    From 'Indiana History Blog, Indiana Historical Bureau, of the Indiana State Library:


On September 19, 1876, both Wallace and Ingersoll supposedly shared a train ride to Indianapolis to attend a Civil War soldiers’ reunion (although one of Wallace’s accounts says it was a Republican convention); both men served the Union Army during the Civil War and fought at the battle of Shiloh. Wallace recounted the highlights of their conversation in his preface to The First Christmas:



took a sleeper [car] from Crawfordsville the evening before the meeting. Moving slowly down the aisle of the car, talking with some friends, I passed the state-room. There was a knock on the door from the inside, and some one [sic] called my name. Upon answer, the door opened, and I saw Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll looking comfortable as might be considering the sultry weather.

Ingersoll invited Wallace to join him in conversation. Wallace accepted on the condition that he could dictate the subject. From there, Wallace asked Ingersoll if he believed in the afterlife, the divinity of Christ, and the existence of God, with the “Great Agnostic” answering in the resounding, “I don’t know, do you?” Then, Wallace asked Ingersoll to present his best case against the doctrines of Christianity, which Ingersoll did with such “a melody of argument, eloquence, wit, satire, audacity, irreverence, poetry, brilliant antitheses, and pungent excoriation [concerning] believers in God. . . .” Ingersoll’s views of both theological and biblical skepticism shook Wallace to the core, with the latter remarking that, “I was in a confusion of mind unlike dazement.”



The title page to the first edition of Ben-Hur, 1880. Courtesy of the Internet Archive.

The title page to the first edition of Ben-Hur, 1880. Courtesy of the Internet Archive.

Lew Wallace’s own theological confusion, what he called “absolute indifference,” seemed spurred into action by Ingersoll’s words: “. . . as I walked into the cool darkness, I was aroused for the first time in my life to the importance of religion.” Thus, Wallace began his own investigation into the doctrines and traditions of Christianity, culminating in the authorship of Ben-Hur and a “conviction amounting to absolute belief in God and the divinity of Christ.” This story found its way into newspapers as well, with reporters recounting the meeting in the Terre Haute Sunday Evening Mail and the Indianapolis News. According to Wallace’s accounts and its echoes in newspapers, his evening with Ingersoll led to a full conversion to Christianity and the writing of one of the most successful religious novels of the period.

From, Robert Ingersoll's Tribute to his friend the Preacher Beecher:


The memory of this ample man is now a part of Nature's wealth.

He battled for the rights of men. His heart was with the slave. He

stood against the selfish greed of millions banded to protect the

pirate's trade. His voice was for the right when freedom's friends

were few. He taught the church to think and doubt. He did not fear

to stand alone. His brain took counsel of his heart. To every foe

he offered reconciliation's hand. He loved this land of ours, and

added to its glory through the world. He was the greatest orator

that stood within the pulpit's narrow curve. He loved the liberty

of speech. There was no trace of bigot in his blood. He was a brave

and generous man.

With reverent hands, I place this tribute on his tomb.


-The Secular Web, Internet Infidels.



At a meeting once both Colonel Robert Ingersoll and Henry Ward Beecher, an eloquent preacher, were present. The noted agnostic, had spoken at some length and had brilliantly set forth his agnostic views. "How," questioned those present, "would Beecher reply to these attacks on God's Word? Would he defend Christianity?”

Not a word did the old man say, but sat relaxed, as though quietly meditating.

At last Colonel Ingersoll remarked: "Mr. Beecher, have you nothing to say on this question?”

The old man slowly lifted himself from his attitude of contemplation. "Nothing! In fact, if you excuse me for changing the conversation, I will say that while you gentlemen were talking, my mind was bent on a most deplorable spectacle which I witnessed today.”

"What was it?" at once inquired Colonel Ingersoll. Notwithstanding his peculiar views of the hereafter, this scoffer was noted for his kindness of heart.

"Why," said Mr. Beecher, "as I was walking down town today, I saw a poor lame man walking with crutches. He was slowly and carefully picking his way through a veritable cesspool of mud, in the endeavor to cross the street.

"He had just reached the middle of the puddle of filth, when a big, burly ruffian, himself all bespattered, rushed up to him, jerked the crutches from under the unfortunate man, and left him sprawling and helpless in the pool of liquid dirt which almost engulfed him.”

"What a brute that was!" said the Colonel.

"What a brute he was," they all echoed.

"Yes," said the old man, rising from his chair and brushing back his long white hair. His eyes glittered with their old-time fire as he bent them on Ingersoll. "Yes, Colonel Ingersoll, and you are the man.”

"The human soul is lame, but the hope inherent in Christianity gives it crutches to enable it to pass along the highway of life, with a semblance of respectability. Your teaching knocks these crutches from under it and leaves it a helpless, sprawling, and rudderless wreck in the slough of despond.

"If robbing the human soul of its only support on this earth—the Word of God—be your profession, why, ply it to your heart's content. It requires an architect to plan and erect a building; an incendiary may reduce it almost instantly to ashes.”

The old man sat down. Silence brooded over the scene. Colonel Ingersoll realized that in Henry Ward Beecher he had found a master in his own power of illustration-and said nothing. The company took their hats and departed.


"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good." Psa. 14:1; 53:1.


"The Word of the Lord endureth forever." 1 Peter 1:25.

-bibletruthpublishers.com/ , Article, The Soul Robber, from: Echoes of Grace:1963

I have characteristics of Hermes, Abraham, David, Aristotle, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

My current Star Wars ranking:

I like the prequels in this order: 3, 1, 2. OT: 5. 6, 4 Favorite of all: 9. Second Fav: 8, 7 is not as good as 5, 6 or 3.