Lions are Supposed to Have Teeth

I have an audio Bible among the files in my car’s stereo, and I keep it on all the time when I drive. I used to listen to different kinds of music, but over time, I moved to Christian music, and now I just listen to the King James. It bothers me to turn it off. Sometimes my friend Mike has turned it off while riding in my car. I told him to stop doing that. We would be riding along, and suddenly I would notice that the atmosphere in the car was wrong, and I would realize the Bible was gone. I didn’t like it.

I almost never select books or chapters because Ford’s system for doing that is useless. Whatever plays, plays. Yesterday it was 1 Samuel, which contains the stories of Samuel and Saul.

I made a Youtube video yesterday, and in it, I discussed the fact that Christians who are failures are often able to exercise divine gifts and authority. It’s very strange. My last pastor, Albert Santiago, was an unrepentant, active child rapist, but he cast a demon out of me, and sometimes God spoke through him. In the video, I mentioned Saul, who prophesied even after God cursed his kingdom.

It was later that I went on an errand and heard 1 Samuel.

I mention Santiago’s name a lot because men who rape little girls should not have cover. Secrecy let him put a little girl in his bed over and over, and honesty might have protected her and whoever else he has raped. Maybe someone will be spared in the future because I’ve spoken or written his name. He should have been executed.

Saul was actually a great guy when his story started. He was taller and better-looking than other men, but he was humble, and he wanted to please God. The corruption that ruined him came on over time.

Early on, Saul heard a story about an Ammonite named Nahash who planned to commit an atrocity against Israel. According to extrabiblical sources, he had a practice of gouging out the right eyes of the men he defeated, and he had done this to every Jewish man in the area where he did his conquering.

Nahash came against Jews in a place called Jabesh-Gilead. They agreed to submit, but that didn’t satisfy him. He told them he would let them live only if they agreed to let him gouge their eyes out. They asked for a week to think about it, and they contacted Saul.

Here is the interesting part: when Saul heard about it, he became very angry, and the reason he was angry is that the Holy Spirit was upon him. So the Holy Spirit himself made him angry. God, who is love, and who loves forgiveness, made Saul angry. Saul got the Hebrews together and defeated Nahash, and this involved killing a lot of people. For God.

I found this interesting, because anger is one of my big concerns. I always think about the way I felt when Jesus visited me. Love poured through me like microwaves heating up a turkey breast. I have concerns that anger at other people comes from self-righteousness, fear, and lack of empathy, so I always ask God to send his love through me. I question people who seem to be hooked on what they call “righteous anger.” I generally feel that they are using God to justify something that comes from another source.

I had a friend who seemed to be angry all the time. He was very proud of work he claimed to be doing for God. He wanted to be praised for it. He got angry at me because here on my blog, I said God was not interested in our hard work and wanted to do things for us. After I wrote those things, he vanished from my life, and since then, he has had a lot of problems.

It turned out he had filled people with tall tales about his adventures and abilities and grand plans. Most of it was just hot air. He said he was building a strange Christian compound with a hurricane-proof house and a big workshop. He was known for offering people jobs. He suggested I could be his in-house attorney. His projects never panned out, though.

He told me something weird. He held himself out as some sort of nuclear engineer. He said he had designed an atomic bomb in high school, and that a state university had admitted him purely on that basis. I believed it because I had no reason not to. Some people really are nuclear engineers.

Later on, though, he admitted he couldn’t do math. You can’t design or even understand an atom bomb without math, and you definitely can’t participate in an undergrad engineering program. It’s like joining the Bolshoi when you can’t walk. No university anywhere is going to let you study engineering if you haven’t done calculus in high school.

He was never an engineer. I don’t know whether he has a college degree.

Knowing I was a physicist, he once tried to give me the idea he knew more than I did about a hand-waving calculation I had done to determine roughly how many bombs could be made from the uranium ore Saddam Hussein had. He said I was pretty close.

It was an informal Chicago-piano-tuners estimate, and I figured a nuclear engineer would know more than I did. I have not been trained to build nuclear bombs.

In retrospect, I suppose he just made up a number. He lacked the mental tools to do a calculation, but he wanted me to admire him and think he was part of the STEM gang, so he said what he said.

The fact that he told me he couldn’t do math shows that he didn’t really take engineering courses, because even a failed engineer would know that a physicist would know an engineering student has to know a lot of math. He slipped up.

He got in trouble for asking a huge, reputable company to move a ship for him. He held himself out as a successful entrepreneur when his company didn’t really have much in the way of assets or income. The company later sued him and won. They claimed they had lost nearly $800,000 preparing to do the job for him. They got a default judgment because he couldn’t afford an attorney.

Since then, he has had bypass surgery, his projects have failed to go anywhere, and I don’t think anyone would call him conspicuously blessed.

The ship was abandoned and broken up for scrap.

The story of the lawsuit is on the web, so it’s not exactly a secret.

I tried to get him to pray in tongues and basically fuel up with God, but I don’t think he ever did it. He once said, as an admission, that he was living on other people’s prayers, which is not really possible. He was way too busy for his own good.

He used to get very angry at preachers and other Christians, and he defended it. I thought he was wrong to justify his anger all the time. I felt God had used him to caution me about anger. Maybe I went too far in the direction of conciliation, though. Maybe I am fighting to suppress anger that comes from God. I am not sure.

In case anyone is wondering, while I do have the typical human desire to conceal my faults and failures, and while I have not revealed every disappointing thing about me, I am pretty much what I say I am. I do have a law degree and a physics degree. I did spend two and a half years in graduate school in physics, and I quit because I was burned out, not because I could not do the work. Although you could say I couldn’t do the work because I was burned out. You need enthusiasm to get up every day and do 6 or more hours of advanced math problems.

I was enrolled in classes when I quit, and I began trading stocks, which did not work out because it was a dumb idea.

I really did score over 150 on a battery of IQ tests, except for one where I got 142, but I give myself an asterisk for that one, because the lady who was giving the test didn’t tell me it was timed until I was way into it, and we were having a pleasant and engaging conversation while I worked. I got a perfect score on the something-or-other reading test, which impressed the lady.

The tests did not define scores above 150, so I do not have a number. Just “150+.” I have the papers somewhere to prove it. Many people are smarter than I am. I feel like I’m smart enough.

I haven’t done extraordinarily well on math tests. I got a 690 on the math SAT back before they dumbed it down. I have a history of locking up mentally on math tests, though. For some reason, I have aced practice tests and then choked when doing the real thing. I used to get perfect scores on practice quantitative GRE tests, but I got a 730 when I took the exam.

I have said I used to bench press 300 pounds easily, and this is true, but I did it on a machine, which I always point out. I also add that when I tried 220 on a real bar, I succeeded, but it was a lot harder. Machines don’t develop muscles used to balance things, and they let you put a lot more strength into movement. I maxed out most machines I used, but I didn’t impress anyone on the leg machines or the curl machine.

I wrote an article about training as a boxer, and the editor of the magazine I wrote it for didn’t believe me when I wrote that I used to do 25 one-armed pushups per side, with my feet on a chair, while working out, but I really did. I was able to do 30 or more, but I was not willing to keep going. I did 5 in his office, easily, quite some time after I had stopped exercising regularly. I know he and everyone else in the office had been talking about it and questioning my honesty, because when we came out, he announced, “He did 5.”

I think I could do one regular pushup right now if the floor was red hot and the reward was a pizza.

I did hit very, very hard as a boxer. I didn’t make that up when I said so. People who held pads for me were startled. Their eyes opened wide when I punched. I was not a good boxer, though. I did not train long enough because I got an injury, and for all I know, I would never have become any good. I didn’t skip rope well.

I practiced law successfully. I was very good at it. It was not hard for me at all. I quit to take up writing. Three books I wrote were published by a real publisher, even if they were stupid and did not make money. I chose not to return to law because I felt sure God was telling me to knock it off. I started applying to firms and doing interviews, but I quit. I did not fail. I made a choice. I was working when I decided to quit.

I really do live on a farm where I have a lot of tools and things. I built every single thing I have said I built. I really did marry a woman from Africa last year, and we did go to foreign countries to be together. When I say we are financially okay, I am not lying. I am not planning to run off to the Bahamas to get away from a pile of Mastercard debt.

I do make the best pizza and cheesecake on Earth, as far as I know. I am not lying about those things.

I have not accomplished anything in the way of a real career, what I have is mostly inherited, and I am no one to be admired, but anything I tell you I can do, I can do. I don’t make claims I can’t back up in order to impress strangers. I would be afraid of being exposed. I am not overly burdened with a craving for admiration, although I do have some desire, and I have never had much in the way of ambition.

I’m not building a big compound, and I am not going to offer anyone a job.

Now you know some good things about me, and some bad things.

Recently I wrote about an aunt who has extreme problems with insecurity. She is so hungry to be admired, it may amount to a mental illness. She has made wild, dishonest claims about her children which ended up embarrassing them; you would think she was talking about Niels Bohr and Queen Elizabeth the First. I like being admired, but I can’t imagine throwing everything else away for it.

The problem my aunt has is made even sadder by the fact that everyone knows about it. No one who knows her admires her. The things she says to gain admiration have led every one of her relatives who is still involved in her life to look down on her. They express their contempt and laugh behind her back. I guess that’s what usually happens to such people.

If she didn’t lie about her kids, people might be somewhat impressed, or at least not disillusioned, when they get to know them. Instead, people find them disappointing.

Spud Webb looks pretty good unless you’re expecting Wilt Chamberlain.

I don’t really understand narcissism, which is a root of ambition. I think you have to have a lot of ambition in order to understand ambitious people. I’ve read about men who drove themselves like slaves for years, not because they loved what they were doing, but because they wanted admiration and sex. Pete Townshend has said he became a guitarist just to get girls. I can’t grasp that mindset. I won’t even pretend I like a woman for 10 minutes to get sex! That’s too much to ask.

I don’t understand what drives Donald Trump. He was a great president, but he has done a lot of stupid things. He commits adultery with about as much hesitance as I have when I throw aluminum cans in the regular trash. He doesn’t think about his wives or kids when he cheats. He has completely neglected his children’s moral and religious educations in order to make himself rich and sexually busy. And he’s pretty typical of driven men.

I can get excited about making money for about 36 hours. After that, it wears off. I can get excited about promoting myself for about 15 minutes.

I am naturally lazy. I have told plenty of lies in my time. I am not brave. I fry chicken badly.

I think it’s better to surprise people by being better than they expect than to fail and hand them transparent excuses that make them look even worse.

I think about JFK sometimes. Democrats like to say he read 1200 words per minute, but in reality, he and a leftist journalist discussed false figures to put in a story, and JFK picked 1200 to impress them. Look it up. He was that dishonest, not to mention insecure.

He was just a fairly smart guy with a crooked family and a dishonest press establishment that backed him up. He would have been humiliated if someone had given him something to read in a short time and then made him take a test.

The other day I read that Jennifer Lawrence graduated from high school and entered college at 16. People repeat this myth. She never graduated from junior high. JUNIOR. She is out there lecturing high school graduates about how to fix the world, though.

The late Brian Dennehy lied and claimed he was a combat vet. Now it’s on his Wikipedia page forever.

A magazine said Benjamin Netanyahu had an IQ of 180. Turns out it’s not true. They recanted. But the myth is still out there. He’s a very impressive man anyway.

Radio psychology guru Dr. Laura Schlesinger is a doctor of nutrition or something. Qualified to work in a health food store, I guess. No, I’m wrong. Her doctorate is in physiology, says the web. Not psychology or medicine. So why behave like a psychologist and call yourself a doctor? I’m a doctor of law. I can literally call myself a doctor, and no one can contradict me. Should I get a radio show about medicine and bill myself as Dr. Steve?

Someone once told me that Menachem Schneerson, the rabbi some Jews thought would be the Messiah, was off-the-charts brilliant, and that he had stunned people as an engineering student at the Sorbonne. Not true. While he may have excelled at his religious studies, he had an ordinary EE diploma from the Ecole Speciale des Travaux Publiques, which is not part of the Sorbonne and is known for civil engineering, not electrical engineering. He was no Tesla. Maybe I shouldn’t mention Tesla in this context, because Nikola Tesla hated Jews.

Tesla himself, who truly did change the world with the AC motor and radio, both of which would been invented soon with or without him, has been overrated. A biography says he was 6’6″ tall, but he was really 4 inches shorter. People think he invented all sorts of currently-incomprehensible technology which will one day change the world, but that’s not true. We already have everything he invented, and some of his ideas didn’t work. He said he would prove relativity wrong and put Einstein, a Jew, in his place. That claim aged poorly.

Bill Nye calls himself the Science guy, but he’s an engineer with a bachelor’s degree.

I frequently feel annoyed at Massad Ayoob, a fading magazine writer who has a rabid following of uneducated gun nuts. Around half a century ago, he started publishing fairly useful books about self-defense, but he has made himself out to be things he is not.

He has no military background. He is not an engineer or gun designer. He has no scientific training. He has no legal training. He was a part-time cop in a microscopic all-white New Hampshire town with almost no crime, and he has never used a gun anywhere but the range. But he likes to give people the impression he’s Wyatt Earp crossed with Audie Murphy, John Moses Browning, and Gerry Spence.

He has worked as an expert witness, which a plumber or dentist could do, and which in no way qualifies him to talk about the law. He lies about his experiences in this line of work. He has argued publicly with some of the world’s greatest wound experts. He puts up Youtube videos in which he gives people legal advice which could put them in prison or execution chambers. Why not just bill yourself as a pretty good writer and competitive pistol shooter? Isn’t that enough?

Lance Armstrong’s whole life is a lie. I wonder who was really the best cyclist in the world all those years. Probably someone who ended up working in a bike shop.

It’s always irksome to read about overrated people with padded resumes. There have been people like Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and John von Neumann, who have lived up to and beyond their hype, and it’s a shame to put liars on their level.

To get back on track, a guy from Scotland has a Youtube channel nearly no one watches. His name is Gordon. I watch every video he makes. He hears from God. There is no doubt about it.

Today Gordon put up a new video, and he linked it to an older video.

In the new video, he talked about 1 Samuel and the way God made Saul angry. It made an impression on him this week, just as it did me. I was shocked to see him talking about these things exactly when I was thinking about them.

The earlier video was made when coronavirus had churches locked down. In that video, Gordon was somewhat angry with lukewarm Christians in big, complacent churches. He was a little derisive. He laughed. In today’s video, he gave some background information.

The first video was made after he had a vision. He was praying, and he started walking in circles, talking about Jericho and bringing Rahab out and destroying the walls. He then saw a woman on her knees with her hands up, as though chains had just come off. He saw a tower that had fallen around her. He passed out and then found himself on his couch, groggy and unable to get it together.

He made the derisive video while he was still under the effects of the vision, and the words he said in it were prophecy, not his own words.

The big message here is that sometimes God wants you to be angry and critical. These things are not off limits. God can give you commands, words, and feelings that make you uncomfortable because they put you outside a Christian’s normal ranges.

This makes sense, because if there is one thing Satan’s children love, it’s shaming us for being critical and angry. They ignore Christian charity and the inestimable number of things we do for others, and they focus on the small amount of time we spend in anger and correction. They tell us we are not allowed to be angry or give correction. They want to pull our teeth.

It’s ridiculous, how non-Christians are always giving us Christianity lessons. I don’t teach people how to be good at sodomy or smoking weed.

Gordon says church has to be different now because we are at war. That is true. I keep saying the time for cajoling and stroking is over. The ship is sinking fast, so patience has to be redefined.

I believe this is an area where you have to use caution and rely on tongues. If you rely on tongues, you will be guided, and the things you do will be God’s will and not your own, so you will not go off into anger and criticism that come from Satan.

I was amazed that Gordon and I had the same thing on our mind on the same day.

Now I have something new to pray about.