Head games are immoral and not always harmless.
There are times when I play silly little computer games to distract my conscious mind while my spirit spills over into my subconscious mind. That sort of ego suspension serves the purpose of allowing unexpected answers to drift forward into the consciousness. Some of those games are patently unfair. That is, they offer no path to learn. You can’t get better at the game by the application of skill and intelligence, because the game designer intentionally hides the solution in ways intellect cannot help. It’s just plain old luck.
That’s okay for silly games with no significance in life. It’s downright evil when you do that to people for your personal entertainment. People don’t need to know how brilliant you are; they can figure that out without pointed demonstrations. All it does is prove you are also a complete ass. You destroy whatever trust might have been possible simply because you wanted a wholly unjustified ego boast at someone else’s expense. I ran into that a lot in the military, to the point where I realized trustworthy leaders were so few that I despaired of ever believing in the system at all. You could get nice words about forthright leadership, but you could never get it in reality.
So when I see that silly posturing in religious leadership, I know I’m dealing with a false religion. I’ve seen it so often in church, I’ve also despaired of any good thing coming from any I’ve checked. So rare is the forthright leader, he deserves serious support, never mind his actual competence.
There is enough inscrutability in the universe already. God cannot make Himself less puzzling; our weakness is our own problem. We complicate His truth beyond all reason. A major element in the story of Job is that some things simply cannot be explained and the demand that God answer all questions to our human satisfaction manifests an insufferable arrogance. We aren’t God and should stop playing at head games as if we were on His level. That’s what got Lucifer in trouble. The real truth is hard enough when it’s revealed as much as possible. There are plenty of people who will flatly reject the truth without keeping it out of reach.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)
Strive always to be as transparent as you can.
