"I do not believe that people are at their core good. I believe because of "the fall" humanity is from the moment of conception corrupted. I do think however, that most people like to go down the path of least resistance which in today's world is a non-confrontational attitude. So getting a group of people to hate, ridicule, outlaw, and eventually attack another group of people is not a straight forward affair, but with this blog post you will learn the needed steps to take a group of otherwise peaceful people and turn them into savage, angry, barbaric people willing to do most evil things imaginable, but only when it comes to a particular group of people. The first step is to find the group that is not in support of your worldview, and in fact holds many opposite opinions to your worldview, and the first thing you want to do is dehumanize them. You see people nowadays feel bad about attacking another human so if you want to get a group of people ready to attack another group your first step is to get them to not see the other side as actual humans. This can be done in variety of ways and has several different effects. One of the most effective ways which plays into step 2 is to make this group seem evil in some way. You could insult their worldview and call it backwards, or foolish. You create this us vs them situation but you paint yourself as a normal human with normal morals, while painting them as abnormal humans. Perhaps they are a different color, perhaps they have a different orientation, or perhaps they are not as evolved. You can play off the current culture in what you want to call them. You can use a vile term to call them by, and this way you paint with a broad brush so that you can equate the best of that group with the worst of that group and judge them all equally. You don't want them to be seen as individuals, it's easier to just categorize them all together so that you have a more clear target. Remember that the key is to make them look evil in some way. So be sure to blame anything you can on them or their worldview. It can violence, suicides, the break down of the family, don't bother with actually looking at the situation, and don't worry about facts. Just blame and attack to keep them on the defensive. Again you can use whatever is sensitive in culture that you're in. The trick is make them a special kind of bad. Not the kind of bad that everyone has, but this is a different bad, and they are not like other people, they are less than human which is why they are so bad. This will give you some important results. First and most important it closes down all communication with other side. Who cares about finding truth and listening to worldviews to see which best fits with reality when you have a people to persecute. All of that discussion would just make these people seem like actual humans beings, and if you are going to get others to persecute them they can't be human. So this way you close down communication which only reinforces your position because now people will only ever hear one side of the argument, and you can further make them look evil by misrepresenting their side in your monologue. The next step is to add a sense of self-righteousness to the people you want to be your persecutors. People want to feel that they are right in what they are doing, this is why it is so important that when you dehumanize a group of people you make them out to be really evil, now your people won't feel so bad when they start to hate that group of people and ridicule them. When ridicule of your targeted group begins it's important that you don't condone it, but neither do you condemn it. You see if you celebrate it, you'll lose your subtlety which you need because you are manipulating people, but you don't want to condemn the ridicule either, because you want to let people know that it is not wrong to ridicule another group of people. If anything what you'll want to do is berate the other side for not being able to take a joke should they complain about being ridiculed. As ridicule of this group becomes more socially acceptable you want to continue to dehumanize them and continue to culturally attack them and their worldview while promoting the idea that when people do things against this group of people they are in fact doing what is right and good. So for example when an injustice is done, you want to make sure that this is seen as victory for your side, not because it actually did anything for your side, but because it hurt your target. The next step is silencing any voices of balance. Now since you have already made this group subhuman you have silenced them from the public square, however there will always be those people who want to be fair and balanced. They must be silenced. If a person shows a little bet of sympathy or balance towards the group you want to persecute, you must shout them down, and send a mob of people after them. This will not only silence them, but it will also act as a warning to other people who might want to stand up for the group you want to persecute that they must quite or else. You also need to shout down anyone who criticizes you or your group. If your group is going to be the self-righteous knights who will annihilate this evil group of sub humans then you must be above reproach. Not literally, in truth you can act any way you want, but if anyone should dare speak against you, they must be silenced by any means the culture will allow. The next step is to outlaw certain things that your targeted group will want or need to do. Should they be a certain color then keep them from entering certain places, if they are a religion make some of their customs illegal, if they have a worldview then make holding certain positions they have illegal and all of this should be done in the interest of the public well being. That's an ambiguous term that is hard to clearly define so it should be good to use for the dumb down masses. Finally keep doing all these things and human nature will push it forward naturally, as ridicule begins to become more bold and cruel, and more laws are made to the point that if someone is even part of that group they are now a criminal and thus worthy of all manner of suffering in the eyes of your public. Now you can do whatever you see fit to this group you want to persecute because you have made them less than human, evil, a problem to be corrected by any means necessary and you have silenced anyone who would speak against you, or for them. Let the extermination begin."
I hope as one reads this they grasp the satirical tone in it. I do not think it is right or good for any group or any person to be persecuted. I believe each person should be treated equally and fairly because they are made in the image of God. I believe it is wrong to bring injustice against a particular group because you disagree with their worldview or something other shallow reason. I wrote this so that people would understand what I see as a pattern for persecuting others, and seek to avoid this line of think and acting. For Christians I hope that should there be anything in here that hits close to home, that you reflect in thought, prayer and studies of the scriptures, and if need be repent. It is not my desire to see anyone persecuted, however living in a fallen world I know this will be the case until Jesus returns. What did you think of this blog post? It is a little different from my normal ones, so I'm curious as to how you will like it. Comment below and let me know.
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I've never given much thought about organization until I need to find something and can't. I've always operated on the "I generally know where it is" approach to life and that has been a bad idea and it really demonstrates my immaturity. Today I went to go get my marriage licence and if you are married you know that it requires some particular documents. Documents that I had trouble finding because of my lack of organization. This slowed down the whole process and ended up hurting my fiance, because since this is something we had to do together she wasted some of her time because of my laziness in organizing my files. As I said earlier this demonstrated that I was immature in this area, but let me tell you I have learned my lesson now. I sowed disorganization and I reaped a longer process for doing a relatively simple task. The principle of sowing and reaping is one that is clearly taught in scripture. It is just basic wisdom, however if you are anything like me, these little decisions that I make each day and don't think about add up to a big frustration. I am fortunate that I was able to find what I needed in time, but if I couldn't then this would have taken even more time, and that would not have been good for anyone. As Christians I think we can allow our spiritual life to also get disorganized. If we do not continue to reflect on our faith, and continue to learn about our savior and do not have regular time in His word, then when life hits us with any number of issues we are not able to find what we need to approach them from a biblical worldview, and if we continue to neglect the word of God then our worldview which we claim is Christian could in fact have nothing to do with what God has said in His word. Instead what we end up with is a confused mess of inconsistent ethics and ideas and we continue down that road we become susceptible to the lies of this world. When we buy into the lies of this world we get wrapped up in all manner of sin that is hurtful to others, self destructive and most of all offensive towards God. This demonstrates a spiritual immaturity on our part when we do this, and in some cases it can demonstrate unbelief. So what do we do when we realize that we have allowed ourselves to become lazy in our spiritual lives? Well we repent and trust in Jesus, the one who has saved us from our sins, and we look to the time when God did not give us what we sowed, He visited that upon Christ, and we look to all that we will reap not because of our righteousness, but because of Jesus' righteousness. I've had to repent of the sin of laziness in regards to my disorganization just like I have had to repent of many other sins that have committed knowing full well that they were wrong. Perhaps you find yourself in similar shoes as I, or perhaps you feel like you have done worse, no matter how big or how small your sin is, there is forgiveness in Jesus Christ when we repent of our sins, and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of them. This is what the Christian life looks like until Jesus returns. Paul talks about this in Romans 7. Paul states that he does the things he doesn't want to do, and doesn't do the things he knows he should, but then at the end of the chapter he thanks God for Jesus Christ who will deliver him from this sinful body. You see, a believer's life is filled with repenting of sin and trusting in Jesus. Christians must have both. It is important for the development of a believer to continue to confess and repent of their sins as they learn more about the character of God through His word, but it is also important that we continue to trust that through Christ alone we are saved. We are not saved because of how many sins we confess, we confess our sins knowing that God is good to forgive them because of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. We repent because we understand how our sins hurt ourselves and others and offend God. Repentance and trust in Christ, that is the key to the Christian life. It is something that I am learning more about day after day. What do you think? Are you an organized person, or do you struggle with that? Are you trusting in Christ for the forgiveness of sins? Comment below and let me know.
So you're writing a book, or screen play and you need a compelling villain, but you don't want to offend anyone, what do you do? You use the Nazis. Yes the Nazis are a group that is still seen throughout our modern culture as still being in no uncertain terms evil. We even call people Nazis when we think they are being too strict or mean. If you were to ask people if they were for or against the Nazis most people would say they are against the Nazis, but do we even know why the Nazis were evil? Yes their name is associated with evil, but is that all we understand about them? I fear for many people that is the only reason they understand the Nazis to be evil. The more educated person might say that the reason the Nazis were evil is because of what they did to the Jews, which is that the murdered a lot of Jews in this thing called the Holocaust. This is of course what the Nazis are most known for, and for good reason because the Holocaust is the great tragedy of the 20th century. Even understanding this there are still questions that arise as to why the Nazis were evil. One question is, if that is the only reasons the Nazis were evil, and then the next question is why is it that killing the Jews was so evil in the first place? Why is it that the Nazis wanted to extinguish the Jews from the world? Why was this called "The Final Solution"? Why were the Jews such a problem for the Nazis? One might be tempted to claim racism as the reason why the Nazis wanted to commit genocide, however it is foolish to think that something as irrational as racism could have lead to such support for the The Final Solution alone. I do believe racism played an important part, but it was not the sole factor. It does not fit that the Nazis just woke up one day and decided they were going to get rid of anyone who was a Jew. There was a worldview behind this, and in fact getting rid of the Jews, was not an end, but rather a means toward an end. The Nazis believed they could create some kind of super race as they defined it, and believed the Jews stood in the way of this super race, and thus had to be eliminated. Even achieving this super race was not the end goal for the Nazis. They believed with a race of super humans, eventually all the weaker humans would be gotten rid of and then there would be a Utopia on Earth. So the Nazis were evil because they wanted to make a Utopia? In a sense yes. Is the concept of wanting the Earth the be a better place bad in and of itself? The answer is no. Is it wrong to strive to make the world a better place? The answer again is no. There is an old saying that goes, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" While the saying is not Biblical, I do believe it is in alignment with a Biblical worldview. It was not wanting to make a utopia that made the Nazis evil, it was what their utopia looked like, and the means by which they were willing to achieve it that truly revealed their wicked hearts. To understand this one must understand the fundamental philosophy and worldview that drove the Nazi movement. This also requires an understanding of why the Nazi worldview lead to such suffering, which is because it is fundamentally inconsistent with reality. The type of utopia that the Nazis wanted to created was so far removed from people's real experiences that they would have to get rid of every person on earth in order to achieve it. The Jews would have been the first to go, but had the Nazis not been stopped, the Jews would not have been the last. When one operates on a worldview that does not coincide with reality, suffering will be the result. For example, if I were to have the worldview that gravity does not exist and so acting on this worldview I jump out of a window three stories up, I will suffer. That is an easy example of how life really is. Not all of reality is that easy to observe. This is why it is necessary to compare worldviews, understanding that you have yours,and they have theirs, seeing what you disagree about and then making a determination on which worldview is most consistent with reality. I strive to have a biblical worldview, as I believe that scripture is most consistent with reality. This is one of the reasons I enjoy apologetics because it enables me to test my understanding of my worldview, but to also see how my worldview reflects reality. Of course the reason I have this worldview is because I have been given faith through the power of the Holy Spirit to believe that Jesus Christ has died on the cross for my sins, and rose on the third day. Since I believe that through Christ all things were made I believe He has the authority to define how reality is, which I believe He did through His apostles who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is through understanding my worldview, and then understanding the Nazi worldview that I can see how it is evil and will lead to suffering. The Christian terminology for this would be that the Nazis were sinful, and violated the laws of God and man. Worldviews are so important because how we view the world will affect how engage the world, and if we engage the world in way that is inconsistent with reality, then suffering will be the inevitable result. What do you think? Have I made any good points, any mistakes? Why do you think the Nazis are evil? Comment below, let me know!
"Did God Really Say..." These are the first recorded words of Satan. They were spoken to Eve in the garden right as Satan was wanting to convince her to eat the forbidden fruit. This question of "did God really say" seems to be a popular one in culture today, and the question serves the same purpose today as it did so long ago, which is create doubt and unbelief, so that one can be lead away from God's direction. The questioning of God's word is taking place all over today, and this is what I believe to be the primary reason why the church stands in such confusion as it does today. Churches today seem to have a lot of confusion about what is pleasing to God. Not in everything. I haven't met a church yet that thinks it's pleasing to God to not give your money, but there are a lot of issues where the churches disagrees, and while I think there are a number of reasons why this has happened, I think the primary reason is because Christians are not sure about God's word. Doubt has been cast on God's word in a variety of ways, however the way I want to focus on today are those who argue that we cannot truly know what God's word actually says. The statement usually goes something like this, "I believe scripture is the inerrant word of God, but not every interpretation is." This is a true statement, however there is an underlining principle which is false and that principle is, "we can't know which interpretation of scripture is correct." They say that the best lies have some truth mixed in there, and that is why this is such a good lie, and also why it is such a dangerous lie. There is some truth in it, however it is still a lie. This idea that we cannot know which interpretation of scripture is right, is not an idea people would have had 200 years ago. This is a concept that has arisen from the predominate philosophical worldview known as post-modernism. This worldview states that we cannot know objective truth, and so truth now becomes subjective, or left to the individual. So the secular post-modernist would say, "We can't know that the Bible is true." The Christian post-modernist would say, "We can't know the truth of the Bible." The Christian post modernist is willing to say that the Bible is true, but that it's truth cannot be known, the Bible might be the word of God, it's interpretations are not. While it is true that Biblical interpretations are not God-breathed, I think that Christians can learn with a high degree of certainty which interpretations are right and which are wrong. I think that if God has spoken to his people, He has spoken clearly to them. So through proper hermetical tools, and the aid of the Holy Spirit I can know fairly well what Scripture is saying. Yes I acknowledge that there are some parts of scripture that are unclear, however, I do think it is possible to have a good idea of what the author wanted to communicate in scripture. I seem to find myself in the minority on this however. Since it is the predominate view that Christians cannot know the truth of the Bible, because they cannot know which interpretation is correct, Christians are then called to look into their heart as an indicator of what God wants them to do. Again this is a post-modern thought, because it is making truth subjective, and predicated upon one's feelings rather than objective truth. The biggest problem is the fact that one must look into their heart, which scripture says is full of all manner of sinful things. My heart is fickle. Sometimes I feel good, and sometimes I feel bad. Sometimes I feel happy, and sometimes I sad. Don't worry this isn't turning into a poem, but my point is, that when truth becomes subjective, people are no longer conformed around it but truth is conformed around the people. This is what I see happening in many churches in the US, and it saddens me, because God's truth is that which sets us free, and we must remember that ultimately Jesus Christ is truth, and if we conform truth to suit our emotions then we are not really worshiping Jesus, we are worshiping a false Jesus that we created. Also when truth becomes subjective, it cannot rise any higher than the individual, which leads to confusion because some many doing all kinds of things, and calling it Christianity. It is like people moving all different directions, but they all say they are moving east. Casting doubt upon God's word is what Satan does best, but it is done in order to cause humans to suffer. Christians must fight against doubts raised by Satan, and those who have become participants with him in leading other into unbelief over God's word. One of the first steps to fighting against this doubt is by looking to the one in whom you trust, the one who saved you, which is Jesus Christ. For Christians it is a matter of trust. Do we trust Jesus? Do we trust the word of God, or will we be lead into unbelief? At the end of the day each person must ask, "who do I trust?" What God tells me, or what the world tells me? What do you think is a reason the church in America seems to have so much confusion, what did you think of this blog post, comment below and let me know .
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