God’s guidance: miscellaneous

For greatest ease in understanding, i recommend that you read the Introduction before this Chapter and that you then read this Chapter in the order i recommend There.

God’s guidance: miscellaneous, selected, edited and with Commentary by Victor Luis Villalon-Suarez

most recently reviewed on 5/26/2022 at 15:17

Improvements since the immediately preceding review: Inserted Arabic for “Ibn al-Haytham”. Substituted “God in me thanks” for “I thank”, etc., mutatis mutandis. Optimized “May all forms of life that ever shall have lived live again, but this time in Heaven!” to “May all forms of matter that ever shall have been exist again or, if God Creates Heaven before they disappear, continue to exist, but this time in Heaven!” Inserted the “ي” in “الحيثم”. Added the quote by John Locke on religious faith. 5/26/2022: Quote by Nathan Beford Forrest.

“If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a temporary victory – sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s good will.”—Benjamin Franklin.

“To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of [H]eaven [Which is Evil]. (知止乎其所不能知，至矣。若有不即是者，天鈞敗之。)”—Zhuāngzǐ (莊子) Book XXIII, paragraph 7 (quoted in the Wikipedia article The Lathe of Heaven). Imagine a hunk of wood spinning on a lathe. The lathe, Evil, feels, without being conscious of, the shape God is driving at, and as It cuts away, God keeps adding new wood, changing the shape, also feeling unconsciously the shape it is driving at. The shape is Heaven, and neither God nor Evil know what They have to add or cut away, they just feel what may be right, in the case of God adding substance, and what is wrong, in the case of Evil shaving away.

“Confía en el tiempo [o sea, en Dios, Que también es el tiempo], [por]que suele dar dulces salidas a muchas amargas dificultades.”—El Quijote. “Trust in time [this is, in God, Which is also time], because it usually gives sweet exits from many bitter difficulties.” (My translation, with apologies for this translation to professional translators and to all other readers.) In my experience, this is true. So i believe it. I accept it. But only because of my experience of its truth. There is no such thing as blind faith. All faith results automatically and only from evidence.

"Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.”—attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“the seeker after truth does not place his faith in any mere consensus, however widespread or venerable. Instead, using his hard-won scientific knowledge, he takes care to verify what he has learned of it. The road to the truth…[has so far been, and may in the future remain] long and hard: but that is the road we must follow.”—Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham الحيثم إبن), quoted on page 58 of Climate Change: the Facts, edited by Alan Moran (Woodsville, New Hampshire: Stockade Books, 2015).

Why do you applaud me? What if what you are applauding is evil? We shall not know unless God creates Heaven by means of it. So there is no cause for celebration before the everlasting celebration, Heaven, because we do not know if what we are celebrating is indeed worth celebrating unless God creates Heaven by means of it. I think we all at times feel grateful, whence the desire to celebrate, because i think gratitude is an automatic response of the mind whenever we think of the occurrence of something we think is good, or of the existence of something or of someone we think is good, and we all, i think, have in our thoughts at times events, objects or people we think are good, and so feel grateful for or to them. But because we shall not know whether these events, objects or people are truly good unless God creates Heaven by means of them, our gratitude may be mistaken. This does not negate the fact that we feel gratitude at times. And when we do, what shall make us happiest shall be to direct our gratitude at God alone, to thank God alone.—me.

How to thank God: “God! God in me thanks Thee alone for [what you are thanking God for]!” How to thank another person you have heard mention God: “[name]! God in me thanks God in you [for [what you are thanking the person for]]!”—me.

What to say about any future event: “If it is best, so be it. If not, not.” In Spanish: “Si es lo mejor, que así sea. Si no, no.”—me.

What to answer to “How are you?”: when speaking to a person one has heard mention God: “Well enough to do All God Needs me to do, i pray solely to God.” When speaking to a person one has not heard mention God: “Well enough to do All i Need to do, i hope.”—me. In Spanish: “Lo bastante bien para hacer Todo Lo Que Dios Necesita que haga, Le ruego sólo a Dios.” And “Lo bastante bien para hacer Todo Lo Que Necesito hacer, espero.”—me.

What to say or to write in parting to a nonBeliever: “May all forms of matter that ever shall have been exist again or, if God Creates Heaven before they disappear, continue to exist, but this time in Heaven!” and to a Believer: “May God create Heaven right now!”—me.

All i hope is That God lives in everlasting happiness, because Then so would i.—me.

Answer to “Do you believe in God/the gods?”: “I believe in God as i define God, which may not be how you define God.”—me.

“Scholars love to spout truths.”—the UPenn professor of the course on how to deal with difficult people, which was very popular but i did not take, to me alone in his office with the Eroica playing in the background, when i was at Wharton. It may be that not all truths, and perhaps even not most truths, are Necessary to know, are Knowledge, Information, necessary for God to create Heaven.

“Fiat iustitia et ruat cælum!”—ancient Roman maxim: “Do justice even if heaven falls!” Rather: do justice so Heaven doesn’t fall! Or better yet: so God doesn’t fall, meaning die. Or in the hope That God doesn’t die. Or, in positive form: So God Lives. And to put the reason for the command, the incentive to obey it, before the command: “In the hope That God Lives, do justice!” And finally, to phrase it terms of the individual: “In the hope of living in Heaven, do justice!”—me.

“It is a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”—C. S. Lewis, source: https://dreaminginthedeepsouth.tumblr.com/post/484966566/thevistation.

“Three things cannot be long hidden, the sun, the moon and the truth.”—Buddha, quoted in an email of 3/26/2022 from the Moorish Science Temple of America, on an “About Membership” webinar scheduled for 3/27/2022 at 19:00 EST.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour.”—John Heywood.

“All the life and power of true religion consist in the inward and full persuasion of the mind; and faith is not faith without believing. Whatever profession we make, to whatever outward worship we conform, if we are not fully satisfied in our own mind that the one is true, and the other well pleasing unto God, such profession and such practice, far from being any furtherance, are indeed great obstacles to our salvation.”—John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, at https://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_religions10.html.

“Get there fustest with the mostest!”—Nathan Bedford Forrest, Forrest’s Cavalry Corps, War Between the States, 1861-1865.