Like victory, happiness is fleeting

"Memento homo"

Invading fears repel my coward joy,

And ills foreseen the present bliss destroy.

-- Matthew Prior

I am no counterfeit

Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit:

to die is to be a counterfeit;

for he is but the counterfeit of a man,

who hath not the life of a man.

-- Falstaff in William Shakespeare's
King Henry IV Part 1, Act 5, Scene 4

The dead are very fakes

The dead are very fakes,

On that you may rely:

The rest are only snakes

And liars which say aye.

-- Johnny

Bethel Redding's Beni and Jenn Johnson declare "cancer free zone" in April 2017, Beni comes down with it in March 2018

You can't make this stuff up.

Do you see a man who is hasty in his words? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

 

-- Proverbs 29:20

Beni Johnson is the wife of Bill Johnson, a so-called miracle worker and faith healer.

From the story here:

Beni Johnson, co-pastor of Bethel Church in Redding, California, is being treated for a cancer diagnosis that "shocked" her. "When this all began in March and I walked out of the doctor's office shocked." ...

Just over a year ago in April 2017, Beni's daughter-in-law, Jenn Johnson, urged members to pray for a "cancer free zone" at Bethel during a during a worship session while singing "By the Blood." During that service, Beni Johnson revealed she had a heavenly encounter with Jesus in the spirit and gained access to healing power over cancer. "All through worship whenever I start to sing this song and I close my eyes I just actually step into Heaven. And I was looking around Heaven but I noticed that my brother-in-law Jim, and my father-in-law Bill's dad are standing on the edge of Heaven and they are looking down," she said. "And both of them died from cancer. And I said, Holy Spirit, Jesus, why are they standing out to me? Why are they standing and looking down and then Jenn said 'we declare healing over cancer,'" Beni Johnson said as the audience applauded. ...

As people were encouraged to pray for those with cancer, Johnson stated, "Don't pray; declare. This is a time, this is an open Heaven right here and we're calling down the healing power of Jesus over cancer." 

One value of religion may be that its calendar is a reminder that human progress is debatable

Jon Levenson, once upon a time of the University of Chicago, here:

In this calendar, there is thus a cyclicality of feasting and fasting, of celebrating and mourning, of high success and abysmal failure, that stands in tension with, and relativizes, any “progress of mankind toward an accomplished purpose.” The messianic consummation is indeed promised and, for the believer, draws closer with each passing day. But whether humankind is making progress toward it is a very different question.

Terry Teachout underestimates the power of belief to deny reality

The firmament is like a gigantic nest, in which lies the egg containing the yolk of the future

https://www.spaceanswers.com/news/new-component-of-milky-way-discovered/

When fates among the stars do grow,

Thou into the close nests of time dost peep;

And there, with piercing eye,

Through the firm shell and the thick white dost spy

Years to come a-forming lie,

Close in their sacred fecundine asleep.

-- Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)

Mark the ruins

 

 

 

 

Now wasting years my former strength confound,

And added woes have bow'd me to the ground:

Yet by the stubble you may guess the grain,

And mark the ruins of no vulgar man.

-- William Broome (1689-1745), translator of parts of Homer's Odyssey for Alexander Pope

Children of Linda Sarsour's beloved mentor, Imam Siraj, arrested in New Mexico for child abuse, allegedly training them to be school shooters

From the story here:

TAOS COUNTY, N.M. - What started out as a search for a young child taken by his non-custodial father in Georgia has turned into accusations of a homegrown terrorist camp in New Mexico.

Documents obtained by FOX 5 News give a better outline of the timeline of events from the reported abduction of then 3-year-old Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj to accusations the boy’s father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, was training children for mass shootings at schools. ...

Also found was a firing range at the compound and a series of loaded firearms where children could easily reach them and. Those firearms included a Bushmaster AR-15 with 9 loaded magazines and sling, a Glock 26 .9mm with 3 loaded magazines, a Kimber .9mm with 3 loaded magazines, a Smith and Wesson .38, a Ruger .357, and a Springfield XD 40 with 2 loaded magazines. A green vest was also found.

Other than a few potatoes and a box of rice, there was little food in the compound and deputies believe the children had not eaten in days. Investigators also believe the children had no medical care. Authorities believe the group had lived in the compound for a least two months.

Wahhaj, 40, along with Morton, 40, and his wife Subhanah, 35, Jany Leveille, 35, Hujrah Wahhaj, 38, were all charged with 11 counts of abuse of a child.

Wahhaj was also booked on his no bond warrant for child abduction out of Clayton County. Morten was also charged with harboring a fugitive.

Aug. 7, Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said they found the remains of a young boy the previous morning on the property. The sheriff said they turned the remains over to the Office of Medical Investigations for an autopsy and to determine the child's identity.

Despite the find, Clayton County Police remained hopeful that young Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj would be found alive.

The story here details Linda Sarsour's long relationship with the Imam. The Imam is reportedly saying the whole story about his son, daughters and grandchildren "sounds crazy".

Sarsour was one of the national co-chairs of The Women's March on Washington against President Trump on January 21, 2017.

Repression of religion in China expands to include flourishing Protestant Christianity

The Miami Herald reports here:

Under President Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, believers are seeing their freedoms shrink dramatically even as the country undergoes a religious revival. Experts and activists say that as he consolidates his power, Xi is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982.

The crackdown on Christianity is part of a broader push by Xi to “Sinicize” all the nation’s religions by infusing them with “Chinese characteristics” such as loyalty to the Communist Party. Over the last several months, local governments across the country have shut down hundreds of private Christian “house churches.” A statement last week from 47 in Beijing alone said they had faced “unprecedented” harassment since February.

A dozen Chinese Protestants interviewed by the Associated Press described gatherings that were raided, interrogations and surveillance, and one pastor said hundreds of his congregants were questioned individually about their faith. ...

Officials once largely tolerated the unregistered Protestant house churches that sprang up independent of the official Christian Council, clamping down on some while allowing others to grow. But this year they have taken a tougher approach that relies partly on “thought reform” — a phrase for political indoctrination. ...

In Zhengzhou, Henan’s capital, all that is left of one house church is shattered glass, tangled wires and torn hymnbooks, strewn among the rubble of a knocked-down wall. Pegged to another wall is a single wooden cross, still intact.

The church inside a commercial building had served about 100 believers for years. But in late January, nearly 60 officials from the local religion department and police station appeared without warning. Armed with electric saws, they demolished the church, confiscated Bibles and computers and held a handful of young worshippers — including a 14-year-old girl — at a police station for more than 10 hours, according to a church leader.

Man is a very worm

Darwin mocked for saying much the same thing

Man is a very worm by birth,

Vile reptile, weak and vain!

A while he crawls upon the earth,

Then shrinks to earth again.

-- Alexander Pope

How much less man, that is a worm (σαπρια)? and the son of man, which is a worm (σκωληξ)? -- Job 25:6

But I am a worm (σκωληξ), and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. -- Psalm 22:6

Fear not, thou worm (ολιγοστος) Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. -- Isaiah 41:14

We unburdened crawl toward death

Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
Give me the map there. Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death.

-- William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act I, Scene 1

We play at many things and are the sum of them, but aren't them really

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. ...

-- William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7

Leisure weighs heavily on some

His leisure told him that his time was come,

And lack of load made his life burdensome.

-- John Milton