Astronomy and Politics Through the Lens of Epistemology
How do We Know What We Know?
What is Our Method of Evaluating Truth?

 As Our Country Collapses from Within, We Need to be Reminded of The Origins of Our Freedoms

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As we stand and watch as our country disintegrates from within, many of us long for the time when we had real freedom of faith, speech, travel, etc.  I am speaking here to the people, who often call themselves patriots, who know exactly what I am talking about without my having to describe the historical details or the related current events.

 

Tragically, many of us seem have either forgotten, rejected or have never known the author of those freedoms, namely, our God Adonai, Elohim or El Shaddai (among others).  Ironically, it was Benjamin Franklin at the original Constitutional Convention that first suggested that all too common human failure in our remembrances [Franklin reference].  Franklin put it this way: 

"All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend?"

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Can it be in our present circumstances of today's total political chaos of 2021, that we again have run into the same human failure?  Despite the fact that, Franklin had been all over the religious map in his early years, at that same convention he went on to make the additional observation that thunders a wake-up call for us today: "I have lived, sir, for a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth, That God governs in the affairs of men".

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Well, does he govern in your affairs and concerns with respect to the chaos that is going on in our nation?  Do you believe that your prayers can actually impact current events in our nation?  To get a better grasp on this, we need to remember an overview of the general story of how Adonai revealed the value of freedom to the Hebrews.

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Adonai, our God, first demonstrated the value of freedom to the ancient Hebrews by denying its presence, by allowing them to be gradually trapped by the religious domination of the Egyptians for hundreds of years. Yes, it was good at first in the generation of Joseph, son of Jacob.  But in subsequent generations, the Hebrew’s freedom to speak, worship and travel, dropped to a catastrophically low level as later Pharaohs became increasingly authoritarian.  Eventually they would essentially experience a form of slavery.  Is that what we are drifting toward today in the US?

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Then Adonai granted the Hebrews their freedom in the story of the Exodus from Egypt.  In that story, they would experience the freedom to get to know Adonai without their faith practices being superseded by the Egyptian Gods.  Yet that took another generation of change in the desert.  In the desert and before they would inherit their promised land, Adonai gave the Hebrews His law and His response to the practice of slavery which the Hebrews had experienced. 

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Adonai’s response to slavery, at the time, was that it could be engaged in only temporarily and was restricted to a maximum of 7 years after which the slaves, by God’s Law, were to be unconditionally freed.  The only exception to that rigid proclamation was, if and only if, that slave so loved his master that he voluntarily would be willing to give up his freedom.  To prove his willingness, he had to certify before the religious leaders with all manner of complicated ritual to prove that continuing to be a slave was his personal, genuine and voluntary decision.  Other than that specific and rare circumstance, lifetime slavery was absolutely banished by the Hebrew Law given by God (and can never be compared to what happened in the US in its infancy).

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So Adonai revealed His reaction to human slavery in two ways. First, by demonstration of the captivity and then the granting of their freedom, but secondly by His revealed laws and ordinances on slavery.  So, how do we describe what we call political freedom today?  By biblical definition, it is the exact opposite of slavery!

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But, I have not finished the story of God’s revelation on freedom versus slavery.  Especially today in modernistic thought, Jews and Christians alike might in various ways, question whether the values of freedom were in the forefront of Adonai’s current priorities today or whether they were just low-level ordinances of Hebrew Law.  Indeed, in Hebrew history His people would go through vacillating cycles of honoring God’s law in general including how they would value freedom and then often fail to grant their temporary slaves freedom in the time allotted, if at all.  So, God responded to Israel through the prophet Jeremiah.

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Jer 34:16-17:  Then you turned around and profaned My name, and every one of you brought back his male and female slaves, whom he had set at liberty, at their pleasure, and brought them back into subjection, to be your male and female slaves.'  Therefore thus says the LORD: 'You have not obeyed Me in proclaiming liberty, everyone to his brother and everyone to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim liberty to you,' says the LORD-'to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine! And I will deliver you to trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth.

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For that reason, the Northern tribes of Israel and others would lose their inheritance to the promised land and were scattered all over the earth.  This should emphasize how critically important freedom is to God.  Then how can we possibly conclude that freedom is a tertiary or even low priority concern for us?  Is freedom as important as the great commission?  NO, but even the great commission had secondary admonitions.  Look closely at the second verse in that passage:

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Mt 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

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Mt 28:19 Therefore go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  Mt 28:20 teaching them to observe all things, whatever I commanded you. And, behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the world.

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Now, that the Great Commission includes teaching all things He has commanded us, what is arguably the second most important charge the Church is commanded with? 

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 Mt 5:13 ¶ "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
 

Mt 5:14 "You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.
 

Mt 5:15 "Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.
 

Mt 5:16 "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
 

So, what might be the second most important charge the Church is commissioned with?  To be salt and light to the world world around us.  So, what is salt to those who actually heard the Sermon on the Mount?  It was a preservative.  So, what light should we be preserving in our age?  Adonai’s priority of freedom and literally setting the captives free!  Yet, the loss of that same religious freedom is what we have been losing gradually for the last 30+ years, to be honest, really early in the last century if one goes back that far.

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So, the question here is do you know God?  Keep in mind there is a difference between knowing God and knowing about God.  To truly know God or Adonai, one needs to know both about Him and to know Him directly – on a personal level, as many of the ancient Hebrews did.  Jesus said "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent (John 17:3).   I do not know if it is prophetically possible to spiritually revive our country, but one thing is for sure.  Any solution will have to start with each one of us seeking to know Adonai.

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Do you know Him?  Some might start out on how to restore America with the need for patriotism.  Yet, the problem with blind patriotism alone is that it is hard to both efficiently and effectively convey that to others who do not know Adonai personally, much less American history!  One needs to know WHY we believe - what we believe?  Put in another way, what is our method of evaluating truth?

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So, do you know why you believe, what you believe? By the same token, can you describe what is YOUR method of evaluating truth?  Knowing those two concepts is described by theologians and philosophers alike as the study of epistemology to which this website is dedicated.  I will not be going back to the beginning of Jewish or Christian philosophy, I will be describing my epistemology progressively over the general direction of this website and the following blogs below.