Pardon me while I blather for a moment.
I can tell you my story and my answers, but I won’t pretend to have much more than the provisional decisions I make for myself. And tomorrow I might change my mind. Not because I am unreliable and flighty, but because I don’t rest my decisions on mere facts of this world. This world is shadows and “reality” on this level of existence is fungible.
All the more so with all the noise. I’ve written enough about the seductive lying of TV, radio and Western cultural mythology, and tried to warn you that most of what you can find on the Net is bullshit, too. There are no good guys, and I’m not going to be roped into a false dichotomy. For example, the US is lying about Russia, but Russia is lying, too. And while it might be okay to invest in China, don’t count on it long term. Invest in yourself with skills and experiences that no one steal from you.
Can you honestly sit there and page through the crap offered up as “news” on the likes of Yahoo? How about the carefully structured feeds from Google and their unconscionable tracking? Every news site is trying to make money first, but most of them engage in deep psycho-manipulation for the sake of even more profit from normal human frailty. They don’t play fair, and some of these people would sell their own mothers for the right price. Were they not utterly lacking in morals that matter, they wouldn’t be in business in this world.
Let’s pick a single recent example: In McKinney, Texas, a police corporal named Casebolt responded to complaints about a rowdy pool party. In a short video that has gone viral, he can be seen playing rough with a teenage girl — he’s white and she’s black, of course. He also draws his sidearm on a couple of kids. Read other reports and you learn the neighbors were very unhappy with the excessively rowdy kids and way too many of them in one place crashing this private party. Just what would you expect of a policeman who should have had at least two-dozen more backup officers?
Yes, we have a problem with police brutality, but we also have a problem with general lawlessness from certain segments of the population who reject the mainstream. I reject the mainstream; does that make me a thug? The real problem is so deeply fundamental that no one wants to discuss it. They’d rather yell and scream from their mutually exclusive assumptions, both as a subset of the same damned system that makes the world such an ugly place.
Here’s another from history: Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. That famous image of the young fellow blocking the tanks? Those tanks were leaving the square after the drama was all over; it was a staged photo-op. Did you know that protesters burned to death the unarmed fresh military recruits on their buses before they even got to the square? Yes, protesters were killed, too, but virtually nothing you’ve been told about the meaning of the protest itself is true. Lots of Western cash went into that operation before it ever made the news.
News people are paid liars, though some are deeply deceived themselves. Being there on the ground doesn’t make you any more cognizant of the whole story than would living in another star system and reading faint signals beamed across the light years of space.
No, I don’t love the US, Russia, China, cops nor racially diverse teenagers. I don’t hate them, either. I love my Lord and His calling on my life. That’s more than mere religious blather, but I’ll just have to let you figure that out for yourself. If you haven’t tasted it, no one can explain it to you. If you have tasted it, no one has to explain it. All we need is the occasional reminder not to get wrapped up in the activity itself, but to back off in our souls and see the bigger picture.
This world is fallen. Not in the sense of Creation itself, but we humans are fallen. Don’t trust anyone, least of all the fallen soul in the mirror. Learn the paradox that you still have to make choices despite that lack of trust. My answer to that quandary may not work for you, but I’m determined to tell my story because silence is not an option.
Indeed Ed, the ‘world’ has been captured by a great orb of lies and deceit. It demonstrably absurd in the extreme, so much so that it seems absolute.
I trust norhing government or the media say. The net a jungle of straight lies and alluring subdefuge and illusion. But, we still have discernment and we are all born with inbuilt BS detectors i believe. We just need to rid ourselves of the egoistim and corporeal fascinations to be able to access it i believe.
Ive never been a terribly religious person, like many have sought a subjective spirituality, convinced of a our metaphysical persistence after death, but have had my eyes opened to the extent of ‘evil’ in the world. The evil i talk of is one of self delusion as to our real nature, our real identity. I have always had the Bible around as one of the great spiritual texts for the unfathomable insights it gives me to lifes most vexacious questions, and our nature in general.
I have only just started to see striking correlations between the world as it is today (and has always been i suspect) and the stories of the earth being Satans domain to rule, tricking us with his lies and illusions. I see no other explanation for the almost blanket coverage of deceit across the board, from all governments, the media, entertainment, academia and science.
As i said, the correlations are striking and it also provides a hypothesis to explain why so many people would tell so many lies and keep ranks over so many ‘conspiracies’ that many people are waking up to.
My question to you is to ask what your interpretation of Job 1:1-12 might be. It is a story of Jobs tests, but could easily be interpreted as allegoric for all people.
Our trials and tribulation are probaly without doubt out ‘test’, but time and time again Satan is mentioned in the Bible as the great Iiar. In fact much is said about his lying as being Satans primary weapon or tool of enslavement.
With that in mind, God said to Satan to knock yourself put, but not to harm Job directly. I ask this in relation to the increasing assessment and opinion that many a past evil deeds were perhaps hoaxes, stories concocted and produced to give the appearence of an horrific event, presented by the media all to scare the living daylights out of us.
Anyway, just some ponderings as i increasingly wade back into the Bible for more answers than i thought had questions 🙂
Thanks, degoggler — healthy ponderings, indeed. The prologue in Job builds on a set of cultural assumptions Westerners find alien. The Bible arises from Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) culture, and a presumed background of ANE feudalism. Satan is our enemy, not God’s enemy. He has no choice but to serve the God who created him. Eastern potentates often had vassals whose relationship and service was complicated. Satan received a demotion for from his former position and was obliged to serve as God’s jailer and lictor. So Job opens in this atmosphere of an Eastern Potentate who exists on a different plane entirely, but owns and operates this one for inscrutable reasons. What He chooses to reveal are not facts, but so much of His character as pleases Him. He also reveals the character of our situation.
And He chooses to reveal Himself within the Hebrew cultural and intellectual assumptions, a way of thinking He designed for the purpose. Humanity has run as far as they could, as fast as they could, away from that starting point. It’s quite a leap for us to grasp that from our position today, and you will find most Westerners assume there is no significant difference. Is not our intellectual approach the human default, the only realistic way of thinking? Such arrogance! They read their assumptions back into Scripture and it creates all kinds of trouble.
Was the story opening Job literal? How could it be? It describes events beyond our plane of existence; our very best intellectual talents cannot reach that higher plane. Hebrew language is not descriptive, but indicative — it is parable first and foremost. This plane of existence is of little real importance and slated for destruction. Our souls are not really part of this realm; we belong on that higher plane. But our human intellect definitely belongs here. It is limited to what our senses can perceive and our reason can make of it. Not much to go on when everything that really matters is beyond human intellect. Hebrew culture and language presumed such things without discussing it much, in part because every other culture in that part of the world already agreed in substance.
It takes time to remove the intellectual blinders. I’m just getting started and trying to tell the story of my discovery. I’m glad it helps you in your own struggle.