Overview of My Visions and Ideas

North Forest

Here they are . . .

The Church

True Christianity is defined by the teachings of the apostles which are found in three places:
1. The New Testament (properly interpreted)
2. Select writings of the early church fathers
3. The creeds
Any church, denomination, or Christian community adhering to these essentials is truly Christian.

The Universe

Movement within the universe is an illusion. God creates and destroys the universe (a creative frame) a trillion trillion trillion times per second. Each creative frame is static like one image of a motion picture film. The soul "connects the dots" and perceives time and motion.

In creating the universe one creative frame after another, God usually uses mathematics and the natural laws to determine where to place each object.
In each creative frame God can place objects wherever he chooses; he is not bound by the natural laws. Thus, we have miracles and the laws of quantum mechanics both of which seem to defy the laws of nature.
The soul inhabits its physical body for a brief moment during each creative frame.
There are four phases for each creative frame:
- Creative — the creative frame is being formed.
- Sustaining — the creative frame exists unchanged for a brief moment.
- Destructive — the creative frame is being destroyed.
- Rest — the interval between two creative frames. The universe simply doesn't exist during this time.
The "lake of fire" is merely that condition in which a soul inhabits its physical body during the destructive portion of each creative frame. Thus, these souls forever experience destruction, hopelessness, fire, annihilation.

Theology

The new heavens and new earth (the universe) is the same universe as this universe; but without sin.
The Catholic emphasis on Thomas Aquinas and Aristotelian philosophy is misguided. (The Orthodox churches do not have this philosophical base.)
The moral law was in operation in Old Testament times. God never commanded people to do immoral things such as genocide, abandoning their wives and families, unjust wars, slavery, capital punishment for small crimes, etc.
Amillennialism with a yet-future great tribulation and anti-Christ.
The Bible is to be interpreted literally; even more literally than Protestant fundamentalists do.

Certain events described in the Bible literally occur in the spiritual earth and these events impact the earth. The book of Revelation has many examples.
It is not always easy to know when a passage is literally describing something in the spiritual realm or when it is figurative. But because symbols are real in the spiritual realm it makes no difference whether we properly identify these passages.

The book of Revelation contains very little in the way of prophetic events that can be mapped to a timeline. It mainly deals with themes such as persecution of Christians, judgment, the second coming, and descriptions of events in the spiritual realm (which impact this world).

Philosophy

The soul lives in a spiritual realm and has certain attributes.
Once created by God, the soul lives forever.
We never lose our memories because they are stored in the soul.
Souls can have a spiritual body (this is what we experience in our dreams) in addition to inhabiting a physical body.
Souls have certain attributes. Each kind of creature has a certain set of attributes. The attributes are things such as consciousness, appetite/desire, will, emotions, memories, language, physical body, etc.

The Spirit World

There is a spiritual earth corresponding to the physical earth.
There are various spiritual realms from the highest heaven to the spiritual earthly realm.
When spirit beings possess other creatures it seems to affect the form of their spiritual body. Thus many demons have animal characteristics (because they have been doing this). Spirit beings are attracted to the prospect of having a body but in possessing bodily creatures they are violating God's law by leaving their proper habitation (Jude 6).
There are various kinds of spirit beings:
- Angels — good spirit beings.
- Demons — wicked spirit beings. These manifest many forms, shapes and sizes.
- Souls of humans — these live in the spiritual realm and interact with the other spirit beings.
- Disembodied humans — this condition is temporary.
- Spirits of animals — embodied and disembodied.
Spirit beings have a certain ability to impact this world. Thus, demon-possessed people can have super-human strength.
Spirit beings can manifest in the physical realm in two ways:
- With a body — Example: the angels who pulled Lot back in the house.
- With various physical manifestations such as light, sounds, wind — Apparitions are of this category.

Social Topics

Society should help the poor. There should be no more homelessness or dire poverty.
The global warming craze is misguided. We should instead be focusing on reducing the world population to 500 million; creating sustainable, environmental-friendly lifestyles; and eradicating pollution.

Christian Doctrine

Christ is truly present in the Eucharist for those who believe it and when practiced in the context of a church or Christian community that believes it.
Spirit beings (the angels) have a limited ability to perform genetic engineering by modifying matter (involving demon possession). They did this once before Noah's flood (a local flood to destroy the creatures they created) and again during the time of the Israelites (the giants in the land who were killed in battle). God doesn't allow this anymore but now these spirit beings are influencing humans to perform genetic engineering via naturalistic means. Before the time of Jesus the goal was to prevent the birth of the Messiah; now it is to corrupt humankind.

Morality

Contraception is morally acceptable. The problem is finding a method that does not result in abortion, that has no harmful side-effects, and that is practical.
Divorce is morally unacceptable because marriage is forever (it continues into the new heavens and new earth).
Any kind of sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman is immoral.
Viewing or reading about other people's sins is immoral except in the context of studying history or some other subject.
Sharing stories about the sins of others is immoral except in the context of warning others or studying about people in general.

Science

The earth and universe are old.
Noah's flood was local.
Evolution occurred but God intervened during key mutation events.
Adam and Eve were real people, the first two humans.
Even before Adam and Eve sinned, animals ate each other and there was pain and suffering.

Evolution (changes) of my views/perspective.

Recent visions and musings:

Before all that:

Article originally written February 15, 2010.

John Shepard

http://www.northforest.org/Visions/Overview.html

Revised: July 3, 2011