"Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John" - Love and Desire

Tokyo Bay

Love and Desire

The Buddha taught to abandon all the desire and even hope for betterment of life in this world, since every action, except ascetic training, in this world will result in evil.

But even when a man is practicing ascetic training, Satan would come to interfere and try to have the man abandon the training by arousing his worldly desire, according to Buddhism.

Christ Jesus taught to love God with all of the heart and the power of a man, since God is almighty and He is the lord and the heavenly father of everyone.

But when a man is trying to love God with all of the heart and the power, Satan would come to distract a man from love to God by showing money, wealth, and worldly riches that would satisfy his worldly desire, according to the Bible.

So, the issue is human desire.  And the matter is that Satan is accompanying human desire.  Therefore, if a man can luckily live while satisfying fully his desire, he would be a prey to Satan eventually.

We should be afraid of Satan to the degree that we would gladly abandon our desire.  Or we should be afraid of punishment by God to the degree that we would forget our desire.

However, believers who are happy to love God with all of their hearts and power must be out of the range of Satan's curse.



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Mar 6:17 For Herod himself had sent forth and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias' sake, his brother Philip's wife: for he had married her.
Mar 6:18 For John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's wife.

"be not, as the hypocrites" - God as a Matter of Course

Tokyo

God as a Matter of Course

Pascal (1623-62) presented a theory to encourage belief in God:

Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas they stand to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

However Satan is stronger in persuading people to forget about God, since there is no need to believe in God in order to acquire wealth and realize material happiness in this world.  And, material happiness is real as it can be seen, while God is not real as people cannot see Him.  Satan teaches people not to respect what cannot be real in this world.

However, can anybody want all the others to stop believing in God?  Then only liars, thieves, murders, swindlers, violent guys, and all the other criminals occupy this world, since justice and righteousness cannot be possible without belief in God.  

If you don't believe in God and everybody doesn't believe in God, there will be no absolute authority that encourages justice and righteousness among people.  And without justice and righteousness supported by absolute authority, this world would be controlled only by evil and bad guys.  Then, there would be no survival and progress of the human society.

Modern wealth is produced by modern technology that is based on modern science.  People have no doubt about validity of various theories of modern science such as electromagnetism that has helped development of electric engineering.  But who created electromagnetism from the beginning?  Did it happen to be created in the universe by chance?  Or doesn't our intelligence tell that it was created by some highly intellectual existence such as God?

Put simply, if a man doesn't believe in God while knowing a possibility of existence of God, he will surely go insane or mad finally, since he has no absolute authority to respect as a matter of course.


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Mat 6:16 Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

"deliver us from evil" - Miracles on Mankind with Celestial Bodies

The Tokyo Station

Miracles on Mankind with Celestial Bodies

God performed some great miracles in an astronomical scale on the earth to secure existence, survival, evolution, and development of the human species:

The first case was about the creation of the moon, 4.5 billion years ago, suitable for intellectual and spiritual development of the human species.  

The giant-impact hypothesis suggests that the Moon formed out of the debris left over from a collision between Earth and an astronomical body the size of Mars, approximately 4.5 billion years ago, in the Hadean eon; about 20 to 100 million years after the solar system coalesced.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-impact_hypothesis

(https://www.astroarts.co.jp/news/2000/02/23moonimpact/index-j.shtml)

Accordingly, the moon was formed in a manner that it would, later or when the mankind fully evolved, come to look from the earth in the same size as that of the sun while the diameter of the moon is 400 times smaller than that of the sun.  So, the mankind has seen the two celestial bodies in the sky of the similar size.  It had great influence on human culture and, especially, on its spiritual development.  The bright and hot sun and the cool and subordinate moon.

In reality, every myth created by any tribe on the earth has reference to the moon and the sun.  So, although knowing not modern astronomy, ancient people developed their intellectual ability through creation of their myths based on inspiration caused by the sun and the moon.

Today, we also know that light travels from the earth to the moon almost one second, which might be another miracle caused by God.

The second case is the salvation of ancestral mammals for the human species from dangerous dominance of dinosaurs about 66 million years ago, although ancestral species had survived already a crisis of extinction for four times till then.

In the past 500 million years there have been five generally accepted major mass extinctions that on average extinguished half of all species...The last such mass extinction led to the demise of the dinosaurs and coincided with a large meteorite impact; this is the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (also known as the K–T or K–Pg extinction event), which occurred 66 million years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event#Biospheric_effects    

It is generally believed that mammals started to evolve due to the extinction of the dinosaurs.  So, without this meteorite impact 66 million years ago, the human species, as part of mammals, could not have evolved as it did.  Moreover, it was good timing to realize the global configuration of the continents suitable for evolution and deployment of the human species on the earth, according to the continental drift theory.  For example, the Himalayas started to be formed 45 million years ago.



(This Dynamic Earth: the Story of Plate Tectonics by W. Jacquelyne Kious and Robert I. Tilling)

If the meteorite impact had occurred far before 66 million years ago, the dinosaurs might not have been completely wiped away or the human species might have been confined in only Africa or separated between Africa and South America due to different configuration of the continents on the earth.  But retrospectively, the meteorite impact occurred just in the timing that allowed the emergence of the human species in Africa and later its global deployment due to the continental arrangement on the earth as indicated by the continental drift theory.

And God had Judaists establish their country in Palestine, the center of the earth or the connecting point between Africa, Europe, and Asia.  God also sent Christ Jesus to Palestine the connecting point between Africa, Europe, and Asia for convenience of deployment of His teaching.  Therefore, we may believe that God caused the meteorite impact 66 million years ago so as to later set Jerusalem at the center of the world.

Put simply, God used twice, 4.5 billion years ago and 66 million years ago, a big celestial body to prepare favorable conditions for evolution and deployment of the human species on the earth that critically started three million years ago and development of Christianity that critically started 2000 years ago.

However, it might suggest that God might also use another celestial body to terminate the human species if we do not follow God as He wishes.


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Mat 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

"as we forgive our debtors" - Careless and Irresponsible Christians

Tokyo

Careless and Irresponsible Christians

Christ Jesus never said to use his image on the cross as a symbol of Christianity.

He did not specify how the Christian ritual should perform, although he delivered instructions on how to pray to God.  He did not teach the most important creed of the Christian church: the Trinity.

Christ Jesus never told to respect and worship Him as God Himself.  Or He did not announce that He was God Himself.  But the Christian church established its religion based on the creed that Christ Jesus was God.  Were Christians at the time when this creed was officially adopted around the fifth century confident that Christ Jesus and God should be pleased to hear the creed?

The point at issue is not as to whether or not Christ Jesus was God but whether or not Christ Jesus and God are rejoiced to hear Christians saying that Christ Jesus is God.  And, what countermeasures would God take if He is not pleased.  It is so, because it is careless and irresponsible for human beings to define God by calling Christ Jesus God.  Men should only accept the definition of God by God but should not make out of definition of God without keeping their standing.

My theory is that in response to the groundless creed of the Vatican that Christ Jesus was God, God gave Islam to Arabs and other tribes, since European Christians who carelessly and irresponsibly established the creed and the Trinity might do any grave harm to Arabs and other tribes.

In this context, in order to get rid of Islamic threats now Westerners are facing, the Vatican should abrogate its creed regrading Christ Jesus as God and the Trinity.  And the, God might stop excessively supporting Islam or take tough stance with dangerous Muslims.


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Mat 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Mat 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

"shake off the dust under your feet" - A 1991 Islamic Assassination

Tokyo

A 1991 Islamic Assassination

Once an Islamic leader of Iran ordered to assassinate an author who wrote a novel related to Islam.  He also ordered assassination of translators of the novel to different languages:

The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters. The title refers to the satanic verses, a group of Quranic verses that allow intercessory prayers to be made to three Pagan Meccan goddesses: Allāt, Uzza, and Manāt.[1] The part of the story that deals with the "satanic verses" was based on accounts from the historians al-Waqidi and al-Tabari. 

The outrage among Muslims resulted in a fatwā calling for Rushdie's death issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Supreme Leader of Iran, on 14 February 1989. The result was several failed assassination attempts on Rushdie, who was placed under police protection, and attacks on several connected individuals such as translator Hitoshi Igarashi (leading, in Igarashi's case, to death). 

The book was banned in the Republic of India as hate speech directed towards a specific religious group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses  

Hitoshi Igarashi was a Japanese associate professor who translated The Satanic Verses into Japanese.  He was killed by somebody, most likely a foreign Muslim, in the University of Tsukuba, north of Tokyo, in 1991.

Igarashi was born in 1947.[1] He completed his doctoral programme in Islamic art at the University of Tokyo in 1976, and was research fellow at the Royal Academy of Iran until the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

After Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1989, calling for the death of "the author of the Satanic Verses book, which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Qur'an" and in March 1991 (3 months before Igarashi's death) issued a further fatwa and multimillion-dollar bounty for the death of "any of those involved in its publication who are aware of its content".[5] He was stabbed repeatedly in the face and arms by an unknown assailant and died. His body was found on 12 July 1991 in his office at the University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. 

In 2006, the case was closed without having determined any individual suspects. Kenneth M. Pollack alleged in The Persian Puzzle that the attack was a covert operation by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In 2010, Bungeishunjū reported a rumor circulating among the Japanese immigration authority that a young and wealthy Bangladeshi committed the murder then flew back to his home country the next day, before it was discovered. According to the unverified rumor, the Japanese government has refrained from applying for the extradition of the suspect from Bangladesh due to fears of inflaming anger over the Satanic Verses controversy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitoshi_Igarashi

After the death of her husband, Mrs. Igarashi started to study in a postgraduate course and became a successful educator.

And the Japanese version of The Satanic Verses is still sold in Amazon and kept in many public libraries in Japan.  (https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%82%AA%E9%AD%94%E3%81%AE%E8%A9%A9-%E4%B8%8A-%E3%82%B5%E3%83%AB%E3%83%9E%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A5%E3%83%87%E3%82%A3/dp/4787790013)

As for the contents of the novel, it looks like a result of a kind of mental confusion of the author in the situation between India and Britain:

The work is an "albeit surreal, record of its own author's continuing identity crisis."[2] Ally said that the book reveals the author ultimately as "the victim of nineteenth-century British colonialism."  Rushdie himself spoke confirming this interpretation of his book, saying that it was not about Islam, "but about migration, metamorphosis, divided selves, love, death, London and Bombay."[2] He has also said "It's a novel which happened to contain a castigation of Western materialism. The tone is comic."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses  

The problem is that when Rushdie born in Bombay, then British India, into a Muslim family struggled to build his identity against Western materialism, he had to happen to undervalue Islam that could not defeat Western Civilization.



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Mar 6:11 And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.