If you have been puzzled over how one Bible could be transformed into the many different Christian doctrines, this book is for you. Some years ago, after my daughter was born, I returned to art school to finish my Bachelors of Fine Arts degree. I was glad to hear about a Christian fellowship on the campus. I asked one of the group leaders when the group met, and he promptly sent me a list of their beliefs, along with a question: "Do you believe these things?" It was a litmus test. He demanded to know if what I believed lined up with his group's doctrine. From previous experience, I knew there was only one correct way to answer: his way.I decided to pray and ask God how I should respond. I sensed God say that I should reply, "It is against my conscience to describe my beliefs outside of the scriptures." The verse I used is the following one.John 10:3636 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?I did not quote a famous theologian, a Christian creed, or a church doctrine to describe my beliefs. I repeated what Jesus said. My response was not the one he was looking for, because later I heard that I was the topic of discussion in that group, and they were even warning their members about me!How anyone reacts is not up to me. And since that day I have decided that I will not use anything else other than scripture to describe my beliefs. The Lord Jesus Christ is my example.After his baptism when Jesus heard his Father say, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased," he went into the wilderness for 40 days. He was then confronted by the Devil, who said, "If you are the son of God..." God had said to Jesus, "This is..." and Satan said, "If you are..." How would you respond? What did Jesus use for his response? Did he quote a Jewish creed? How about what a famous rabbi said? Or, did he cite a Jewish tradition? No, none of the above. Here is what he said.ASV Matthew 4:44 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.That is what this book is about. What God said, versus what God never said. What God said will set you free.

The acclaimed New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller from Robert Cialdini—“the foremost expert on effective persuasion” (Harvard Business Review)—explains how it’s not necessarily the message itself that changes minds, but the key moment before you deliver that message. What separates effective communicators from truly successful persuaders? With the same rigorous scientific research and accessibility that made his Influence an iconic bestseller, Robert Cialdini explains how to prepare people to be receptive to a message before they experience it. Optimal persuasion is achieved only through optimal pre-suasion. In other words, to change “minds” a pre-suader must also change “states of mind.” Named a “Best Business Books of 2016” by the Financial Times, and “compelling” by The Wall Street Journal, Cialdini’s Pre-Suasion draws on his extensive experience as the most cited social psychologist of our time and explains the techniques a person should implement to become a master persuader. Altering a listener’s attitudes, beliefs, or experiences isn’t necessary, says Cialdini—all that’s required is for a communicator to redirect the audience’s focus of attention before a relevant action. From studies on advertising imagery to treating opiate addiction, from the annual letters of Berkshire Hathaway to the annals of history, Cialdini outlines the specific techniques you can use on online marketing campaigns and even effective wartime propaganda. He illustrates how the artful diversion of attention leads to successful pre-suasion and gets your targeted audience primed and ready to say, “Yes.” His book is “an essential tool for anyone serious about science based business strategies…and is destined to be an instant classic. It belongs on the shelf of anyone in business, from the CEO to the newest salesperson” (Forbes).

Is there an underlying, unifying factor that could give us a frame of reference to grasp into one holistic view, an explanation, a description that would give us a unifying understanding of all physical reality as well as our physical-spiritual human reality? This question becomes evident when we contemplate the immensity of outer space as shown by the photos taken by the Hubble telescope. They elicit from us a spontaneous exclamation of admiration and awesomeness at the magnificence of its immensurable vastness populated by billions and billions of stars grouped inside several million or more galaxies. No less is our wonder when scientists have found unpredictable behavior of electrons at the quantum field that is determined by the intention of the observer opening up the question of how much do we define reality. A similar experience of admiration surges when one sees an animation of the neural activity of the brain showing the firing of thousands of neuron sparks dispersing a million and more electrical impulses filled with biological information required for the body to perform continuously in a never-ending, life-sustaining energy current. No less is the admiration one must admit before the complexity of a human or animal organ, a single cell, a DNA strand, or even a gene. All these physical realities contain a mini universe as grandiose and complex as the one shown by the photos taken by the Hubble space telescope. If all the above levels of perception were not enough, there is also the human realm of emotions, intuitions, insights, imagination, creativity, moral judgments and immoral behaviors. He manifests deceit, sacrifice beyond explanation, unconditional love and unbearable hatred, all mixed in a reality that seems to be far too complex to be fully understood, controlled, or directed. Before this mind boggling universe, is there in Creation a Universal Principle that can give us a point of view from which we can obtain a minimum sense of understanding of where we are at in the cosmic dance of our existence? This book-essay makes an effort to find and present the reader with such Universal Principle. Welcome to discover it.

In Pursuit of Unity, Michael Perman presents a comprehensive analysis of the South's political history. In the 1800s, the region endured almost continuous political crisis--nullification, secession, Reconstruction, the Populist revolt, and disfranchisement. For most of the twentieth century, the region was dominated by a one-party system, the "Solid South," that ensured both political unity internally and political influence in Washington. But in both centuries, the South suffered from the noncompetitive, one-party politics that differentiated it from the rest of the country. Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, Perman argues, the South's political distinctiveness has come to an end, as has its pursuit of unity.