New Year approaches and this year, with the reentry of President Donald Trump in the White House just a few days later, I see the people are hopeful for a great renewal and strengthening of America through him, yes, but really they see something great and divine coming in their personal lives; To make their lives and communities much better. That is, at least the half of Americans who backed him for President, thinking most of the blame for the woes in their lives is because of the Biden Harris administration or the fault of Democrats and Liberals, while for some reason or another they have dismissed the terrible shortcomings of Trump and his loyalists, and cannot blame anything but their perceived enemies on the state of the world.

This lack of understanding of where the peoples’ problems come from and lack of accountability for their own parts in the long decline of American and the world’s prosperity is easily masked by Trump and like-minded leaders who shout promises of greatness, divine blessings, and glory to stoke the hearts of billions while they also line their egos and pockets. They have no idea they are leading the people into much that is wrong while they’re losing their own fights with Godliness, no different than popular prosperity preachers who deceptively use God’s name and authority for their own greedy purposes.

This huge contradiction of right and wrong in taught and believed values is probably the biggest reason there is so much suffering, misfortune, and degradation in our communities – the Why in Why bad things happen, is sorrowfully misunderstood and reshaped in the minds of those who believe they know better but are actually some of the largest contributors to the problems they think they can solve.

The Why is rooted in the spiritual as I noted on the About Page. But when people think spiritual, they often also think invisible, nontangible, and subjective – It won’t affect me if I can’t see, feel, or believe in it. I hope you don’t think that way, especially after reading the last article about Practical Romance where I said trying to get out of God’s laws for mankind is as impossible as trying to not be affected by God’s physical laws of the universe. You simply can’t do it. The consequences of real sin (as opposed to what people think is sin) are as concrete and powerful as the law of gravity holding you to the floor.

You may not understand how they work or all their exact mechanics, but both God’s spiritual and physical laws are real and have the most profound effects in our lives. God’s spiritual laws for mankind are the “karma” cause and effect of curses and blessings for all of us, so it is critically important to understand them right. However, that is easier said than done, just like God’s physical laws can also be confounding. When I was a new Christian, just learning about the spiritual reality of things, the church made it sound like they had all the answers, and especially always had them right.

But as the years went on in my life with God, He showed me some very hard truths. One of which is that His people have so much error in them that it’s despondent, desperately sorrowful, that they go about preaching as if they were infallibly God-led but have no clue their values and beliefs are wrong and actually hurt whom they teach, not help. It’s as if they are still in the old but wrong doctrine of flat-Earth-centric teaching but teach it with such confidence that it really isn’t laughable. Some in the church today have gone back to that Flat-Earth-centric teaching, stating that it’s in the Bible, even, so my analogy isn’t a metaphor but actually how God’s people think and behave. The reasons this happens are complicated. Here, I will only say, the Bible does not state the Earth is flat nor at the center of the universe or Solar System. The problem is in the erroneous interpretations of bad and false teachers who do not really know enough or even reject what truly is, much like the Newtonian physicist who rejects Einstein’s confounding theories of relativity despite much Einstein’s theories have been proven to be true.

That brings me back to what our families and communities really need – good and true teaching, both of spiritual things and nonspiritual, by people who truly understand what they’re talking about. We need to know what actually is and not what popular leaders and preachers say, because getting God’s spiritual laws wrong will always bring trouble, as I summed up on the About Page, “The best Blessings in life come from the right walk in Virtue, Faith, Hope, and Love; while doing them wrong will inevitably bring troubles.”

But how many times have you heard a priest or teacher say, “They got it wrong, this is how things actually are?” And how do you know I’m not the one that needs his teaching corrected? The proof is in the work. Look through everything and see if God did not give and guide as I said. If anything is wrong or amiss, then I expect you to tell me and we can go over it together. I’m not above corrections, and no good teacher will act as if they are, so be wary of anyone who gives an air of unquestionable infallibility and authority.

My opening remarks about the renewed Trump Administration go with this. His followers believe he and his leadership will fix everything wrong with the country and make their lives worthy of being an American. Trump says he’s the one who can fix everything. But the truth is, everything wrong with the country and world is not because of Trump’s enemies, nor because they reject his policies and leadership, nor because they reject right-leaning conservative values. It’s because they all, from the rich and privileged leadership down to the worker barely living at the poverty-line, all from the left to the right, including Trump and his circle, have gotten values and morality wrong; those things defined by God’s spiritual laws which we cannot avoid.

A point in this was recently made in the debate of removing fluoride from water supplies, a controversial move that is backed by RFK Jr. and many of Trump’s supporters who vow to make changes when they get into office. However, I do not back that move because there is overwhelming proof that fluoride helps prevent dental decay while there is insufficient to no proof that the levels of fluoride currently in our water systems is producing health problems. This is why a recent Federal Court decision determined further study is needed to see if levels of fluoride currently approved by the EPA need to be changed^[1.1].

After looking at the NTP (National Toxicology Program) report^[1.2] that the court used for their determination, I agree with the decision to get further data, but I do not agree with the court’s statement that the current levels of fluoride approved by the EPA is an “unreasonable risk of injury” to the public. The NTP study was not a study of fluoride effects itself, but an analysis of previous studies done before 2023 in different countries and populations that assessed IQ scores of children (the overall sample size for all studies combined was about 7000 children). Thousands of studies were considered but only 19 were given the most relevance out of 72 that were rated to be of “better quality” or “low risk of bias.”

In layman’s terms, they only used studies that they thought gave the best results for providing valid data for their purposes of evaluating IQ effects of fluoride. That also means they used studies that also tried to limit “confounding factors” besides fluoride that may be the actual reason for health problems or less IQ, such as lead and arsenic exposure. However, studies were inconsistent in how they handled these factors, and there could be confounding factors or other reasons besides fluoride the studies are not aware of.

I would prefer to use the larger sample sizes of many more than the 19 they picked, and use data from as many good studies as possible. However, it can be difficult to merge the data from studies that used varying and inconsistent measures. The limited number of ones they selected had their own inconsistencies, but one has to critic their decision to only use a tiny percentage of the available data. Having more valid data is better than limiting your data because you’re not sure how good it is. They had no guarantees that the studies they rated as better gave the best sampling information.

That goes with another problem I saw in the NTP report. It appeared to be biased towards trying to prove fluoride is too toxic to use instead of being completely objective. Of all the studies they talked about, they only showed actual numbers for a handful of them, mostly ones from China that appeared to show significant toxic results. But even within those studies, there was inconsistency of support (insufficient proof) that levels of fluoride approved by the EPA truly degraded IQ. There was only a more definite link in much higher levels of fluoride, which BEGIN at the 1.5 mg/L mark (the number the court and NTP focused on as a hazard point), but most of the negative effects belonged to groups exposed to much higher levels, over 2.0 and 4.0.

Why didn’t they include stats for all the other studies? Instead, the NTP report was overstuffed with “bias analysis” of the studies they looked at, while more important and relevant numbers from the studies was missing. The report is over 300 pages long and I deemed much less than half of it as relevant analysis of the fluoride issue.

I also have a big problem with estimating fluoride levels in people from urine sampling, which is what many of the studies used. It may be a good general indicator or lower or higher levels, but it is difficult to get accurate fluoride levels when the body absorbs it, people absorb compounds differently, and concentration levels in urine are affected by other factors, like water intake, when you last urinated, or whether or not you used fluoride toothpaste recently. This means exact harmful levels of fluoride are difficult to calculate and is why the studies say they “estimated” the levels. That means the “danger level” they picked of 1.5 is unproven, much less the 0.7 considered good for dental health.

Furthermore, measuring IQ is very subjective, which the studies did acknowledge, and the decrease reported in IQ of harmful levels was only a few percentage points at moderate levels of fluoride around the 1.5 mark. I do not consider 1 or 3 IQ points to be significant in tests of IQ. But I do consider the link in much less IQ to much higher levels of fluoride important, however, these links were known decades ago and were basis for the EPA’s recommended levels.

Why did I talk at length about this fluoride analysis here in discussion of Why bad things happen? It goes back to leaders and teachers who presume they are correct and infallible, but are actually hurting our families and communities by pushing their incorrect ideas of what is right. That’s why I said leaders like Trump and spiritual leaders are a huge reason for bringing harm on the people. It isn’t all about economic, government, or world policies that any one person or group advocates, but is all about the morals they use and have people live by that hurt our communities.

There’d be no problem if their morals truly did align with God’s but rarely have I seen anyone get important morals all correct, much less popular leaders, priests, and teachers. In fact, I have not found any leader or spiritual teacher I could endorse as having all the most important morals correct. That is a sad state for the kingdom of God, but it proves what God showed me about His people – they have lived in corruptions of spiritual teachings for millennia and even consider them sacred, so that it is nearly impossible to have them fix their ways. Their perceived divine infallibility is actually their curse.

And so, I have dismayed when holidays come up have everyone, including peoples of God, rejoice too superficially while they think all is well. Like New Year’s coming now, I see flurries of ads for celebrations, merry-making, and beloved renditions of Auld Lang Syne. But what is full of felicitations for most of the world, I feel sadness in the world’s revelry. New Year’s was never an important holiday for me even before I became a minister of Christ. It was simply a reason to go party in my youth, and as I aged, that lifestyle evaporated, like flurries of snow in days before the sun could muster enough warmth to melt them.

New Year’s revelry was simply something I grew out of, but when I began a life in ministry, I noted more how people treated it as a time to clean yourself out and somehow magically become renewed in new goals with the new year. New Year’s resolutions they’re often called, and though well intentioned, they often fail to truly transform or renew a person’s life in the long term.

I noticed this mentality is similar to how Judaism treats Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement, as a purify yourself day to go with the Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) celebration about a week before. Like secular New Year’s, it’s a time to start fresh and celebrate, even for very unobservant, nonreligious Jews. For many Jews, these religious holidays are times to look for the magical renewal of your life that most of the world looks for on New Year’s.

But what I noted during Yom Kippur was, even though God is gracious to forgive and give real, tangible cleansing and blessings for those who pray and ask for it, God does not want temporary repentance. Unfortunately, temporary change is also often why New Year’s resolutions fail. But for Jews, Christians, and the unbelieving alike, temporary repentance or removal of sin from their lives is not the only problem.

Most of them also do not understand that their ways, traditions, and false beliefs also have them living in sin that ultimately brings judgment or curses. These are the ways of life that the so-called “learned,” “infallible,” and “authoritative” teach the people. For the Jews, they fail in the Old Law, what they call the Torah, and do not realize how it is impossible to live by now (see God's Offering for All In Judaism for more). So think further, why should so many Jews see real working of blessing and cleansing after Yom Kippur petitions if God did not truly act to clean up real sin? They call Yom Kippur their most important holiday because they see its real spiritual effects, not because God said it was the most holy holiday.

And why do so many Christians also see God acting in the same ways for their petitions of atonement in prayers for forgiveness? If people did not sin and bring bad things upon themselves, nothing would happen on Yom Kippur or after similar prayers for atonement and healing. Year after year, the people go through this need to be atoned and cleansed of sin, yet they hardly change from their ways and traditions that bring the need in the first place.

This is why I feel so sorrowful on the world's New Year’s and Judaism's Rosh Hashana. The consequences of living in dark or false ways and temporary repentance really hurts our communities. I’ve shared many testimonies of this (see Topics here and at 3rdCompass.org for more). The people truly have no idea what their ways and beliefs bring to them, even very educated, long-time believers, because the ways of their sect often steer them wrong. And so the people live in traditions and teachings that make them hardly different than the secular world – they continuously cycle in lives of getting dirty, clean up once in a while, but quickly get dirty again.

It was for no superficial reasons that Christ told a man He healed, "You were made well. Stop sinning so that nothing worse happens to you" (John 5:14). So remember that nearly all the bad things that happen to you and everyone else is because of the working of real sin, the breaking of God's actual laws for mankind, not the breaking of what people may think are God's laws and commands. God certainly can and does give real healing and renewal from afflictions caused by sins, but remember Christ's statement, too, Stop sinning, otherwise healing and renewal will always be temporary if you keep living in the same ways that have you sin.

Unfortunately, most people go to the very same teachers and preachers that don't truly know right and wrong, and often follow advice that keeps them in sin. This is so commonplace because believing communities, no matter which sect or faith, are so saturated with false teachings after thousands of years of living by them. This is why the world keeps in its decline, no matter who they follow, and you see more and more afflictions and health issues among the people.

And moreover, believing communities are no different than their secular counterparts in their love of good song, like Auld Lang Syne, in which they submerge themselves in lyrics and melodies that fatten the heart and tickle their ears. Music that is rapture and warmth, seemingly good for a pious soul to connect with God, but truly, fattened hearts and soothed ears are not healthy for the person of God. They’re more like the products of addictive narcotics in which people completely lose their sensibilities, so it is more important for a mature person of God to recognize what really is bad or not in their spiritual lives (see Song Ratings and Warnings for more about good and bad music).

Like with Christmas, Traditions! are sacred to the people, no matter for what holiday or culture. They identify so much with traditions that getting rid of them is like suicide, absolutely unthinkable, but it is bad tradition and teaching that have the people in so much trouble with God. This thought was never in the story of Fiddler On The Roof, in which the main character so emphasized outdated and improper Jewish, “Tradition!,” that no one could really understand why God was driving out the Jews at the end of the movie.

And like that, the world is drowned in singing of Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve, which is a semi-sorrowful remembrance with the raising of pints of beer and cheer to good old times. Auld Lang Syne means “Old Times Since”^[1.3] or more loosely, “Old Times Gone” or “Old Times Sake.” The first stanza and chorus translate to:

It is for “Old Times sake” or what can be thought of as the peoples’ Traditions, or how they live their lives, that they are raising glasses to and wishing for another year of, even though many of those traditions and beliefs really hurt them. And so, it goes to back to why New Year’s resolutions, yearly Yom Kippur cleansing, and occasional prayers of repentance only go so far and have temporary effect. How can people expect lasting change, renewal, and blessings when their morals and lifestyles remain the same and are the reasons they sin and need divine help to fix, again and again? And so they begin another cycle of remain dirty, but for a day, in how they live.

If they could only see. It isn’t for lack of trying to open the eyes of the world. God has tried to make the people see what is wrong with their beliefs and ways. One of those ways was when God showed me how the number 43 is related to not going far enough to follow God so that they remain in sin (see this Update in God's Alarm for details), and last year, He gave me more to go with it and New Years celebrations.

I noted a news article about the world population saying that at the beginning of the New Year, the worldwide growth rate will be 4.3 births and 2 deaths every second^[1.4]. I noted how the 4.3 goes with the other 43 guidance God gave, and with what I’ve said here, you probably understand why God would have this pop up in the global birthrate.

God is saying the world is stuck in that 43 state of not going far enough to make themselves right with God, continually cycling themselves in “Old Times” or “Tradition,” which for believing communities is their ways and doctrine. After all the Lord has given in this ministry to show the truth of their errors and bring people out of sin, everyone remains stuck to their own ways.

That is what 4.3 births every second connects to, and so, with 2 deaths every second and knowing that God says the number 2 means love, I also see that God’s love has reached its limit for mankind. And so “2” or Love from God is dying, because God’s patience, too, has an end. This cycle of temporary repentance among lives of sin cannot persist in a truly Golden Age for mankind. All the world’s so-called “infallible” and “righteous” teaching that is supposed to keep people from sin, actually does the opposite, so that God must always judge it and bring its consequences on the people.

A big point I made the other day in my discussion of fluoride and trusting Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and other conspiracists is that it isn’t the fluoride in our water that is the problem for people. It’s the sins they live in. That’s what is generating more and more health problems for our children, family, and communities, because I can guarantee, even if you lived all your life in an area that has superhigh levels of fluoride, you and your family won’t have problems from it if you all live right by God. His blessings of protection are far more powerful than environmental factors. (However, God can have other reasons to let troubles into your lives that don't have to do with sin, such as for testing and spiritual maturing)

But if you live in sin, even if you refuse to believe you do, then God’s laws will still affect you and your loved ones, bringing the bad effects of sin on you all – judgment or curses, which may come from excess fluoride exposure or any other environmental or situational hazard. Living in sin will always hurt you and your loved ones. I made it clear your children and loved ones are impacted by your sin in the Practical Romance discussion. It is no joke.

But getting Virtue, Faith, Hope, and Love right will keep you from sin and let you get God’s blessings instead of the inevitable consequences of sin. Trump and his supporters think he can usher in a Golden Age for America, and surely, no Golden Age will have all the horrible things and suffering we see in the world now. But how do you think a Golden Age can exist with all the same sin people are doing now?

It simply can’t exist that way, just like none of us can avoid the consequences of God’s laws, so given all this, will you support what is right and truly from God? Or will you keep on listening to and following those popular but seriously flawed and mistaken leaders and teachers? Will you keep raising glasses to your own community’s traditions and “old times”?

Making New Year's resolutions or other commitments for a better, healthy life?
Check out what psychology has wrong about willpower and self-control...