THOUGHTS ON THOUGHTS 21 AUG 2013

The Word tells us to “hold fast to what is good!” What is good food for thought?? Our worldviews are built by others as we grow up. If stray information comes our way that can’t be placed on our worldview structure we toss it aside. Our worldview, the way things make sense in the world, can actually prevent us from understanding how the world really works. People tend to remain attached to their beliefs & notice those things that validate their views. They will grab a plausible explanation rather than sift things to find the truth. But in this modern battlefield of ideas, what is good & what is bogus? Credentialed experts disagree. We live in an infoglut w/ a Tower of Babel of competing views. The power of propaganda rivals the power of drugs.
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Information is not knowledge. Seeing is not knowing. Explanations may give us peace of mind, but they may not explain what really happened. I remember how warped the thinking of prison officials can get. I remember being in the hole in winter w/ little clothing. When the prison medical staff came thru & asked if I was O.K., I asked for permission to have some more clothing from my property because I was freezing & developing medical problems like arthritis. They told me that being cold was not a medical problem. I suppose they (like most people) don’t realize that perhaps 3 or 4 times as many people die from the cold than from tornadoes. To my way of thinking, a tornado would be perceived as a threat by everyone even prison staff, but freezing isn’t a medical problem (unless you’re the one who is freezing). Which brings up a good point, we should ask ourselves if there are other perspectives than our own.
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Christ said the weightier (higher priority) things were love & mercy…not being the smartest person on the block. Our religious knowledge (connected to a religious spirit) can get in the way of the Spirit of Love…for instance, in 1690, Christians took the verse where God says that a woman “will give birth in pain” to condemn a woman to death. She had used anesthetic during childbirth. I have had similar unloving condemnations from religious groups, fortunately none have killed me. Be careful no one spoils your faith by high sounding nonsense, philosophy, and empty deceit, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. COL 2:8. Christ quotes the prophet Isaiah who quotes YHWH God, “In vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” MK 7:7, ISA 29:13
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Popular ideas often are simply circular reasoning…Popular Object A (either Thing A/or Person A) is popular because people want it, & people often want it because it is popular. When tested under scientific methods, common sense often fails to prove itself. With the power of both the mass media & stars to tell us something is popular, something unknown can be elevated to popularity simply by declaring it popular. “Self-fulfilling prophecy”—so to speak. Individuals do something similar, “fake it, ‘til you make it.” The woman or man, who acts like she or he is in demand, creates demand.
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People get lazy & don’t develop thinking skills. They worship the superficial. Bill Cosby has gotten tired of lazy thinkers who somehow expect God & Jesus to do everything for them. He said, “God is tired of you”, and in regards to people who drift w/ the popular winds of thought he said, “…Are you waiting for Jesus to pull [your] pants up…?” The plain fact is that independent thinking takes work & responsibility for one’s thoughts. It also takes a certain self-confidence that one can succeed in getting to the bottom of things to the truth. Those who are lazy, will continue to allow the World to give them the security of slavery instead of freedom, and order over messy liberty. What do you think?