Messages

31

A City on a Hill / Re: A fall from a Horse, and the Light (Personal Testimony)

« on: October 02, 2009, 02:46:34 pm »

The following is a quote from the Methamphetamine Treatment Practitioners Reference by the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs:

A significant negative consequence of prolonged methamphetamine use is that during the first four to six months after stopping use of the drug − and for some people, even longer − there is a profound inability to feel pleasure (anhedonia). Many recovering methamphetamine users say, “If this is how it’s going to feel to be sober for the rest of my life, I can’t live like this.” These feelings are among the most critical contributing factors to relapse, so it is important to educate clients that for most people, this condition improves with extended sobriety.

A significant result of the initial experience I described, as well as the ones I continue to experience when I enter into various forms of prayer is that of euphoria. They come in various levels of intensity from a mild feeling of peace and joy accompanied with a mild sensation throughout my body, to that of an extremely intense physical sensation and loss of awareness of the world around me. My first encounter with what I believe to be God was roughly 3-4 weeks after my last injection.

Unless a person has experienced the rush of a methamphetamine injection, an understanding of the intensity would only be based upon the explanation of another. At times, depending on the quality of the drug my eyes would roll into the back of my head and I would either sexually climax or feel an intense feeling throughout my body but intensely focused within my feet.

The experience and experiences that I have had and continue to have are better than that of the drug, and it would seem reasonable that God would grant that kind of experience to lead me away from the drugs to Him. I am certainly not ashamed of a comment such as I traded meth for Jesus, and am quite addicted to His person and the experiences I continue to have. I am also not convinced that I am some kind of miracle of medicine who after a year of daily injections of the drug some how absent mindedly figured out how to produce an experience at the same time in which I cried out to Jesus. I did not, as you suggest, realease myself from any form of responsibility before or at the time of the experience. I did repent and ask for forgiveness in subsequent experience but the first was a matter of confessing faith in a resurrected Jesus Christ who is now my Lord. It has also taken me several years to completely release and forgive myself for what I have done in the past. Although I live relatively free from the condemnation and depression of the past it has taken me quite some time to fully give it to God.

As far as tangibility is concerned, what is it that makes the drug tangible? Is it solely because I can see the crystals melt into the water and then feel it as it is injected into various places of my body or is it the intense rush that it produces once it hits my blood stream? If the power of God is introduced to my body through an invisible yet spiritual dimension producing a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual experience and sensation, how is that any less tangible? It is in fact very tangible for myself on a personal level.

32

A City on a Hill / Re: Forget your God!

« on: October 02, 2009, 01:38:07 pm »

Tuberload, I know you're probably just covering your bases here, but I hope you realize it is never my goal to attack you personally.  I may come off a bit coarse at times, but it is never because I disrespect you as a person; I may find your beliefs objectionable to the highest degree, but it's never my intention to do anything but argue against the existence of God (or to discredit attempts to argue for the existence of God).

I'm naturally skeptical.  I always have been.  This may find a few of you incredulous, as I used to be openly religious myself, but I blame indoctrination for that.  I was always uneasy about my beliefs, but my blindness was reinforced by my environment.  When I left home, my faith rapidly faded.

This being said, I think unconditional skepticism almost requires atheism.  There is no tangible evidence for the existence of God (to my knowledge -- feel free to prove me wrong).  I'm familiar with the usual apologetic arguments, and a few of the less common ones.  Every single one of them is terrible to the point of it being vaguely pathetic.  Because of this, I reject the notion of a God.  Unlike many theists (and atheists), I don't claim to know that God doesn't exist, because I don't think anyone has knowledge pertaining to the existence of a god.

I appreciate this response. I hope you understand that the approaches and arguments you present are, confessedly, beyond my scope of understanding and therefore would require much effort to produce a genuinely thoughtful articulation.

As you have observed my reasons for belief are rather subjective and founded upon experience. Objective doctrinal studies, for me, have only served to keep my personal experience, which I will refer to the belief as God through the mediation of His Christ Jesus and His Spirit, within the proper boundaries as described by the Bible. I hold to the belief that if a God who created everything that is, is truly desirous of my soul, and if I am truly living within a fallen state of personal humanity, then He is more than capable of communicating to me the necessary information required to return to a restored state. I therefore approach God in a way heavily reliant upon faith. The evidence for me is found in what I believe are God’s responses to that faith. We live in a world where information is transmitted all the time between satellites and other mediums of wireless communication. All of this takes place while invisible to the natural human senses. Therefore it would seem reasonable that God, by His Spirit, can also communicate with me through a spiritual means even though it is invisible to my natural human senses. This is of course heavily reliant upon faith, but the experience is a very real one and not just some ideology. I am encountering something whether this belief is proven justifiable or not beyond that of my own personal context. The good things that have come about in my life over the last 3+ years is grounds enough for me to trust in the source of this experience, once again a statement heavily reliant upon faith but not void of evidence or substance.

I am not interested in the doctrines of men, rituals or religion void of a living God yet full of ideas and traditions. I am also not aware of the apologetic arguments, so anything I say that sounds like one just proves that my ideas are not necessarily original. I will approach all who will listen with what the word of my faith has to say for reasons previously stated. I have very few of the answers. You however give me much focus and motivation to at least attempt discovery of a few, and for that I thank you. I believe that the supernatural ministry of God’s Spirit through healings, miracles, divine insights into the human heart, etc, is still available for our time. While this may cause me to be ostracized by religious orthodoxy I would rather produce a tangible experience for a lost and hurting person than an argument for an inquisitive mind. This, of course, is once again a venture of faith, a venture in which I hope to see a realization, a venture that will be justified only if a blind mans eyes are truly opened or a lame man truly walks or perhaps by the Spirit I tell a person I have never met intimate details about his life because there truly is a God that knows everything about him. Am I a fool? Only time will tell.

33

A City on a Hill / Forget your God!

« on: October 01, 2009, 11:51:13 pm »

Don't believe in my God? That's fine. Use this thread to tell me all the reasons why. I do my best to respect the beliefs of the community and limit discussions of faith to my own personal board. Please return the courtesy. If your only goal is discrediting and or attacking me on a personal level, I ask that you limit it to this thread. I don’t want every post I make being overran with philosophical arguments as to why I am wrong.

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A City on a Hill / A fall from a Horse, and the Light (Personal Testimony)

« on: October 01, 2009, 11:10:16 pm »

Why do I believe what I believe? With such wonderful products of the human mind purportedly proving that the existence of God is a futile venture, how would I go about trying to do that? My purpose will not be to convince you with philosophical insights, rather to relay my experience and allow you to decide for yourself.

16 I (Jesus) will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;
17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
19 After a little while the world will no longer see Me (speaking about His crucifixion and death), but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also.
20 I that day you will know (Greek: have knowledge of) that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and disclose(Greek: manifest, show oneself, appear to, make known) Myself to him
…
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach (reveal the knowledge of the truth to) you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you (John 14.16-20, 26 NASB).

My history with this group and various members has been quite a long one, around 8 to 10 years. When I was in my mid to late teenage years I had an interest for computer related topics, in particular programming and web development. I was by no means skilled but my computer and the internet gave me a nice place of escape. Various battle.net communities gave me a social outlet while I hid away from the world. I was however sucked away from any chance at success in life and fell deeper and deeper into drug usage. This was a period in my life where I did not come around these online communities or even own a computer.

To keep the story short as possible, the end of my drug run was about a year long period in which I was shooting up methamphetamines. I was involved in burglaries, robberies, and car thefts with a man by the name of Craig Schiering. I was also heavily involved in the usage and sale of drugs with my cousin Adam Carlberg.

I ended up serving some time in the Geiger Correctional Facility, located west of Spokane Washington, for a car theft charge, properly Taking a Motor Vehicle Without the Owners Permission in the 1st degree. Roughly may of 2006 I went before a judge who said that based upon my criminal record it was her opinion that I was not to be released but should serve my time in jail so that I could possibly learn my lesson, although from her experience I would not. I then spent a period of about a month in a minimum/medium security wing awaiting my next trial in June. During this period of time I found myself heavily drawn to the Bible. I was ridiculed quite a bit because of it, but I continued to read. There came a point in my reading were I was invited to confess my belief in a Resurrected Christ named Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I proceeded to do so and at that very moment an intensely powerful presence struck the top of my head and proceeded to flow throughout my entire body. My hair was standing straight on end as what felt like electricity pulsed throughout my body in an intensely tangible way. I had previously held a strong opinion that Jesus, and religion was just mans method of controlling people. I did not discount the existence of a God, but refused to accept religion. After this first experience I would have the same presence come upon me in very tangible ways and I would passionately cry and ask God for forgiveness for all I had done. I asked that He would help me, and that He would give me a place to go so that I would not wind up back on the streets and into the drugs. I used to cry from time to time as I stuck the needle into my arm, because for the first time in my life I knew that something had a hold of me that I did not think I could get free of. About a week after that first encounter with God through the mediation of Jesus, I went before the same judge. She looked me in the eyes and said that she was going against her better judgment but something seemed different about me so she was going to release me and let me go through my trial on the outside. Six days later I was walking out the front gates, and I was scared of what was going to happen to me to be honest. I was terrified of the drugs and life I was living. I walked over to the bus stop and seconds had gone by when a man by the name of Adrian Simila, the leading minister of the Lords Ranch Christian Discipleship Ministry, was driving by, pulled over and proceeded to offer me a place to live as long as I was willing to be raised up in the Christian Faith.

I accepted his offer and took it as God’s response to my prayer for a safe place to go. A month after being at this ranch I wound back up on the streets with my cousin Adam. We ripped off a restaurant and ended up spending a large part of the night in a drug house shooting up heroin. The next morning I went to my step mothers house and she hysterically kicked me out of her place telling me she had received a phone call from the restaurant I had ripped off and she could tell by my look that I was back on the drugs. I slept in my car that night freaked out because a girl who worked at the restaurant knew me from back in high school and was threatening to turn me into the police. I was pending trial on a felony car theft charge. I was the only one in my car, parked in a vacant field in an industrial part of town when I heard a voice say to me, “I am not going to let you get away with the things you used to get away with.” I was gripped with terror and cried out for God to forgive me and told Him I would go back to the ranch. When I was pulling back into the Lords Ranch a few days later the same voice spoke to me again saying, “Now honor me and stay were I put you.” The restaurant ended up going out of business a few weeks later and nothing ever came of the incident.

That same day when I sat down on a couch in the main building to watch the local news I saw that Craig Schiering had been shot in the side of the head and his charred body found in a burn pile while I was in jail, and I have recently found out that my cousin Adam Carlberg died of a drug overdose roughly a year after I went back to the ranch. I link to an spokesman review article concerning Craig’s murder can be found here

I have since that time had numerous mystical, very tangible, encounters with God. I have been free from the methamphetamines for about three years now and have no desire to go back. God has given me a very real experience that is greater than that of the drugs and replaced it within both my mental and cellular memory. I take God at His Word and engage it by faith, and regularly see it come to pass. The Holy Spirit reveals the knowledge of God to me through my spirit, and as I grow and learn about Christ my life is further changed and my passion to live for Him grows stronger.

All of this came around because I was broken enough, and willing to believe God’s Word. That Jesus Christ had been resurrected from the dead and is now seated at the right hand of God. That He requires my allegiance and submission to His Lordship. That I am to repent by turning from my ways and seek God that I may learn His, and that I am to come to Him on His terms and not my own. That He would give me His Holy Spirit, and change me into something new over a process of time, and in the time appointed I would share in a resurrection of my own where I will live for eternity in a glorified body, if I persist in the faith. I continue to experience this promised change, and the power that makes it possible.

A person may be able to come up with an argument, but I have a past and ongoing experience that can never be taken away from me.

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A City on a Hill / Re: The Fruit of the Vine (Poetry)

« on: October 01, 2009, 10:53:17 am »

To the one who is willing to see God, both His existence and attributes, can be clearly seen in that which He created. To those who would rather worship there own ideas or the product of there own hands instead of God, they choose to allow themselves to live in a darkened state of mind and heart (Rom 1.18-23). To go beyond our ability to see Him clearly in His creation, God has demonstrated His love in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. True it is an idea that seems foolish to the world, but to one who has encountered the living God in a tangible way and been filled with His Spirit it is the wisdom of God (Jn 3.16, 1Co 1.18-30).

As to the poem itself, it speaks about a personal experience of ones process of salvation, not some attribute of God that is to be clearly seen. You would have to get into the Greek of Rom5.3-5 to develop the imagery of the rutted path and God's love being pressed out of the grape. The grape is a person who is being proven fruitful in the Lords vineyard. The love is being squeezed out of the seed, which is Christ in him, a love which is tangibly experienced and displayed over time because of the work of the Holy Spirit within the believer as he endures trials through the eyes of faith. It is not the laws of man or the church that brings about a true salvation, but the work of a living God within and a believers willingness to die to his life that he may truly experience life as given by God.

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A City on a Hill / The Fruit of the Vine (Poetry)

« on: October 01, 2009, 01:34:49 am »

An eternal hand closes around the grape as it walks a warn down rut of a path
The love of God being pressed out of a seed not open to bribery
Offspring of the bondwoman carry about golden tablets engraved with new laws
The rejected grape never satisfying its righteous requirement
As its blood flows from the winepress vat
There is no room for boasting in its old skin
A lifeless stare gazes into the eyes of its Redemption
At last faith can have its way

-- Tuberload

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A City on a Hill / Content Coming

« on: September 30, 2009, 09:53:05 am »

I am walking out the door to work as I type, so content and board guidelines will come shortly.

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A City on a Hill / Re: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

« on: September 30, 2009, 01:12:43 am »

i've never unstood the notion of an omnibenevolent god laughing at people.

I was more anticipating a poetic discussion, but I can see how my small poem could spark such a conversation. I'll respond with my thoughts in line with yours once my personal board request is either accepted or denied.

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A City on a Hill / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

« on: September 29, 2009, 10:58:04 pm »

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

I have been curious about your signature since I first read it, and I've finally come a crossed it's source...

OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptorwell those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

...Or perhaps you are just quoting from the inscription found on the base of a statue of Ramesses II, the 19th dynasty Pharaoh of ancient Egypt, in which this poem is in some way thought to have been inspired.

In either case here is a poem of my own:

OZYMANDIAS
From the pit you weep most arrogant of men
Disintegration of works crumbling with time
There is One who sits in the heavens and laughs
As the world watches a fools arrogance unwind

40

Entertainment District / Re: 0wnz0red

« on: September 28, 2009, 08:00:44 pm »

SPOILERS!!! (like most of this thread )

Good story, but I don't like the ending much. Liam doesn't seem to be the type to sell out like that, it doesn't suit his character. And I'm also surprised that the government would just let him go like that. I was expecting a 1984-esque ending, but I was disappointed. :-/

I think everything after Murray started writing his own code was sort of disappointing and it seemed rushed.

I agree. I was enjoying the story till about that time, and then it just seemed hurried along.

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General Discussion / Re: Let's hear it!

« on: September 28, 2009, 12:29:02 am »

So I woke up today at 10am. Drunk. Walked home. Puked everywhere about halfway through walking. Went back to sleep. Just woke up now. Still woozy.

I can say I don't miss those days. 

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General Discussion / Re: Let's hear it!

« on: September 26, 2009, 11:58:36 pm »

I saw that Tim Burton(?) cartoon today called 9. I like cartoons/animated movies most of the time. I can't say it was the best movie I've ever seen but it was good.

I also bought my first pair of slacks, dress shirt, and a tie for the first time in probably five or six years. I'm still working on the tie. It either comes out long, short, or without the nice little dimple.

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General Security Information / Re: Hacking competition?

« on: September 24, 2009, 10:33:30 pm »

I do what I can.

44

General Security Information / Re: Hacking competition?

« on: September 24, 2009, 08:32:03 pm »

Tuberload: When you look things up, make sure you learn how to use the Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE), especially the scripts written by the guy named "Ron". They're awesome.

I'm setting my printer up now so I can start printing educational material.

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General Security Information / Re: Hacking competition?

« on: September 23, 2009, 06:00:05 pm »

Incidentally, I'm well aware that nobody doing this will be experts (or even amateurs), so I'll post a list of tools and some basic theories at the outset.

Could you post the list of tools and basic theories now? That way I can begin allocating my free time for research purposes.