By Nicholas Ifkovits

Bill Maher posed the question; “Why doesn’t God just kill the devil and eliminate evil in the world?”

The short answer; Because then God would be killing the very mechanism by which He tests His human creation, and with it His own children.

Whether you believe it or not you are created in the image of God. What does that mean? That God looks like a boy? A girl? An old man or woman? No. Obviously that’s silly. You are a reflection of God in that you have will. And you (mankind) and God are the only creatures in existence that do.

True, various animals have varying degrees of consciousness and intelligence, but this is imprisoned within the confines of instinct. They have to do what they are programmed to do. A bird can’t, for example, decide on a whim to fly west for the winter if it’s programmed to fly south. It has no choice. You do. Like God, you have will because you are a child of God.

In a twist stranger than fiction, God cannot kill the devil without killing you, His ultimate creation. If God were to “whomp on the devil” as Bill Maher puts it, thereby eliminating evil in the world, God would be eliminating your ability to choose evil and with it your will, thus reducing you to a mindless automaton. A mere robot in a world reduced to a lifeless play-set for a lonely God to tinker with.

But it’s clear that God doesn’t want to create a plastic toy, God wants to create life. Companionship. Willful creatures not unlike himself.

Like you, God wants to reproduce himself by producing children. And to those who choose life (God) over death (the devil) the promise has been made: they will be born again into His kingdom where they will reside forever as His offspring ‑ the children of God.

See four philosophical, thought-provoking novels at: www.abookshops.com

By
Nicholas Ifkovits

How many pages does it take to lay out the complicated rules and requirements of our tax code? According to tax publisher CCH, the total number of pages devoted to federal tax code rules, IRS rulings, and regulations, has grown to 72,536 pages.

Any system of tax rules that requires 72,536 pages to explain and understand would be incomprehensible to anyone. Even the government’s own officials and tax experts.

Which begs the question: Why create a 72,536 page tax code? Because if anyone were able to read and interpret the tax code, rich people, and the rich politicians who wrote it, wouldn’t be able to cheat. Which means wealthy politicians and business tycoons wouldn’t be able to screw minimum wage workers toiling on farms, in factories, fast-food restaurants and discount stores across America out of a gargantuan sum of their meager wages.

Which they keep telling us is good for the economy. Whose economy?

Why not one tax at one rate for everyone, rich, poor, or indifferent? No exemptions. No write-offs. No need for tax attorneys, accountants, and H & R. Block for the poor slugs making minimum wage. Just one tax-rate for everyone regardless of income, occupation or corporation. We all pay 10%. Period. The IRS form sent out could fit on a 3×5 postcard. And no one could cheat. Or at least if they tried it would be phenomenally easy to determine.

And it would be fair. A person making $100 dollars would pay $10. A person making $1,000 dollars would pay $100, and so on. What’s wrong with that? And it wouldn’t take a mathematician to figure it out. Maybe that’s what scares the wealthy politicians. Maybe that’s why a Fair Tax Law wasn’t instituted fifty years ago. Maybe that’s why it never will be. Because it’s fair. And rich people wouldn’t be able to screw poor people. At least not for free.

To see four philosophical novels by Nicholas Ifkovits, go to: www.abookshops.com

By
Nicholas Ifkovits

The King James Bible (the indisputable word of God according to Christians), Genesis 1:29, states: And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth…

In general, the people of the United States claim to be a “Christian nation.” Yet, in defiance of the very word of God, the United States government makes it a federal crime for any American anywhere in the U.S. to grow in their own backyards or homes, healing, pain-relieving, herb bearing medicinal plants such as marijuana, Coca, or heroin-bearing poppies. Why?

Because these medicines, given to the people by God (according to the King James Bible), will harm us. How? According to the United States government, if people are allowed to grow their own medicine they will die. Accordingly, the U.S. government is protecting us from the word of God. I sense a contradiction here.

In the course of Mexico’s “drug war,” between 2006 and 2011 some 40,000 people have died. In addition to that, how many have died in the United States over this “drug war”? How many imprisoned at great tax-payer expense? Not to mention the cost of families destroyed as fathers and mothers are imprisoned and their children become wards of the state.

If the current drug war is about saving lives, how many lives would be saved by not having a drug war at all? If people could grow these medicinal plants in their own backyards and homes as God intended, how many people would die over it? Would a scant few people (by their own choice) die from overdosing (abusing) these medicines? Yes. Will some people die in airplane crashes? Yes. Should we then outlaw airplanes to “save the children?”

It appears that allowing citizens of the United States to grow their own medicines in their own backyards and homes, as God intended, would only harm the profits of huge drug companies and drug dealers. Clearly, it would put an end to the “drug war.”

Why is the federal government of the United States so fiercely opposed to ending the “drug war”? Because it’s protecting us? You can turn anything into a weapon of war. Even a good deed.

Clearly God intended that people should have these various pain-relievers. The U.S. government agrees, as long as they’re provided by multi-billion dollar corporations and drug dealers. But if a person grows them at home (as God intended according to the King James Bible) it’s a federal offense worthy of the destruction of families, imprisonment and death.

Why would the government of a “Christian” nation such as the United States be so fiercely opposed to such a simple, biblical, God-given decree such as: I give you every herb bearing seed…?

It must have something to do with money. And who gets it. And why and how. Is that why Jesus got so angry and overturned the money-changers’ tables? Was Jesus angry over corruption?

God only knows.

To see four philosophical novels by Nicholas Ifkovits, go to: www.abookshops.com

By Nicholas Ifkovits

I had a friend who used to get high and talk to God. At least he thought he was talking to God. He said getting high somehow opened up a channel between himself and the Almighty that actually allowed him to hear more clearly God’s reply.

I knew what he meant. Talking face-to-face with God the way an Old Testament Phophet such as Moses might have. Crazy people do that. Popes have done that. So have the leaders of cults large and small, such as Manson, Jim Jones or the Reverend Moon, reporting to the rest of us what God wants. And often huge numbers of people believe them, and have killed others, and even themselves, in the name of their leader. Or in the name of God. Hitler at one point rhetorically asked, “Who’s to say I am not under the special protection of God?” Is eveyone who believes in Divine Inspiration, both leader and follower, crazy, then? Turning this dilemma over in my mind gave birth to “The Three Voices Theory.”

The Three Voices Theory

Three Voices

Every believer of whatever stripe must deal with three voices: His or her own (gut feeling, intuition, wishful thinking, or whatever you want to call it), God’s voice, and Satan’s. That Satan delights in imitating God’s voice to your deluded confusion is Biblical. And probably Koranical. The question is, how can YOU tell Satan imitating God’s voice, from the actual voice of God? Throw in being high and, or, your own wishful thinking and therein lies confusion. And grave danger. The battle for your soul.

Two Voices

Everyone who believes in the supernatural sans God, such as those who turn to magic spells, crystals, statues and stars for understanding, those who talk to the dead, seers, witches and wizards must deal with only two voices. Their own and Satan’s. Biblically speaking (and probably Koranically as well), practicing the aforementioned beliefs is emphatically forbidden by God. Therefore, obviously, God would have naught to do with these. And Satan is pure evil. Whatever power you receive from him will be short-lived. And then your nightmare will begin.

One Voice

Every non-believer, atheists for example, must deal with only one voice. Their own. Because they believe in nothing, nothing supernatural will ever touch them. Satan will not, out of fear of awakenening the damned to the reality of the “other side.” And God will not, for as we all know, according to the Bible and the Koran, if you reject God, God will reject you. And even if God still sought an atheist’s attention, as in the shepherd seeking the lost lamb, how would an atheist hear the inaudible voice of a Being whose very existence he or she vehemently denies? And who can blame God if a willful creatures shuts its eyes, and then finds itself in the dark?

See four thought-provoking books here: www.abookshops.com

And talk to me.