“If You Are Not With Us, You’re Against Us”

I don’t know how many times I have heard that phrase.  The most notable use of it in the last 10-15 years was when President George W. Bush used it in the build up of the “War on Terror”.  It was easy to be sucked into the hysteria of those days, believing revenge on the 9-11 attackers was just and right.  Of course, the purpose of this post is not to dredge up old arguments of Bush era days.  I mean, it is over 10 years ago when we began fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq in response to 9-11.  As my children would say, “it’s ancient history.”

My real point is to discuss that phrase.  It is a phrase that is used often and it sounds almost Biblical in its power.  Maybe, that’s because it is almost Biblical.

As we do most nights, our family was reading from the scriptures after family dinner.  Tonight, we read from Luke, chapter 9.  How many times I must have glossed over the verse, I don’t know, but tonight, for some reason, the verse came alive in my mind.  In verse 49, the author had just recounted Jesus casting out a devil from a boy and now, the disciples were explaining to Jesus that they had forbade someone from casting out devils because that person was not a disciple or follower of Jesus. In verse 50, it reads:

And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.

When I read this, I thought back to that famous line in my title.  The popular line is the exact opposite sentiment of what Jesus was preaching here.  I immediately was lost in thought as to wonder, how often in our zeal to preach what we believe to be righteousness do we forbid others because they are not of our same belief system?  How often do we think, “oh, but that person is a Muslim” or “that person is a Catholic” or “that person is an athiest.”

The message Jesus was preaching here is clear, find the common beliefs and build upon those.  Don’t divide.  Don’t separate from others because of disagreements.  Those that are not against us are for us.

Jesus taught another important lesson when he explained that a tree that bears good fruit is good, while a tree that bears evil fruit is evil.  By their fruits, ye shall know them.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit.

In this world, there are many evil people, but our awareness of those evil people is largely possible because there are also so many good people.  It is easy to see the world as completely populated by evil because we listen to the news media sensationalize every bad piece of news.  Why? Because bad news sells, good news is boring.  So we are constantly fed the bad news.

The truth is this: the world has many more good people in it that bad.  If this were not true, then society would have collapsed into darkness long ago.  Instead, society has reached a point where it is nearly possible to go to any country and for the most part be safe.  This is an extraordinary fact.  The fact that you can still walk at midnight in your neighborhood and not be mugged is also proof that the world is not as dark and bleak as we often believe it to be.

Now, I’m not trying to argue that we don’t have severe problems in the world.  We do.  What I am saying, is that our friends, our neighbors, our fellow humans on this planet, most of them are seeking to do good.  The fact that most are seeking to do good is evidence that those that fight for righteousness, or in other words, the good of mankind, those people have many more allies.

The challenge for us is to reach out to our neighbors who may not always be of the same beliefs or practices as ourselves.  Find the commonalities and build upon that.

Those that are not against us are for us.

Colloquial Ridiculocity Transmutes Intelligence To Imbecilic Nonsense

WARNING: The following post contains material that some may find “old-fashioned”, “out-of-date”, and even “old-fart”ish.  Proceed at your own caution.

To be sure, I am not cool.  I’ve known this all my life.  Even when I tried to be cool when I was a teen-ager, I wasn’t able to pull it off.  In fact, I remember many times as a fourth and fifth grader that during recess, I was hanging out with the teacher or recess monitor and talking with them because that way I could have a more mature conversation.  I know, I’m totally uncool.

It should be no surprise, then, when I read a post on Linked-In that purported to be a guide to Baby-boomers and Gen-X’ers on how to communicate with Millennials, I found the post to be a complete pile of excrement.

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140608103839-41035799-you-sound-old-stop-saying-this-at-work?trk=vsrp_influencer_content_res_name&trkInfo=VSRPsearchId%3A760945811402407309630%2CVSRPtargetId%3A5881347402333433856%2CVSRPcmpt%3Aprimary

The gist of the post was to take typical colloquialisms that Baby-boomers say and interpret first how Millennials hear them and then suggest a better way of saying it.  Can I be the first one to say, “this is ridiculous!”.  My first irritation is a minor one: “what-evs”?  Seriously, I’m supposed to accept an adult using “what-evs” in their normal speech?  What is this? Junior High?  To adults who say this without a hint of irony: grow up and stop being lazy. Complete your words before you force the English language to sound French.

Here is my problem with this kind of trash parading around as business advice: not all people of a generation are the same.  “WHAT!” Yes, that is right, people are individuals.

I know this goes against everything we learn from school, work, and politics.  We a conditioned and trained by the society we live in to view people in groups.  After all, we look at the 2012 presidential election as the 47% versus everyone else including “single women”, “blacks”, “hispanics”, etc.  I put quotes, because that is how the news media presented those groups to us.  At school, we had the jocks, geeks, nerds, cowboys, goths, freaks, preppies, and any number of other groups we were identified with. In my profession of architecture, when I worked in a large firm, people were grouped and you found yourself pidgeon-holed into a particular role based on what other people thought of you.

And this grouping by generations doesn’t even make sense.  Apparently, because I was born in 1979, I am not as cool and hip as someone in born a few months later because I am Gen-X and they are a Millennial.  But it is the same ridiculous logic that says because you are born between the 20th of one month and the 20th of the next month, you will have all the same likes, tendencies, inhibitions, emotions, etc. as all the other people born in that same 30 day period of the Gregorian calendar.

And yet, this grouping continues unabated.  Nobody is ever judged by the content of their character because too many people just see a black man as a black man and a white man as a white man.  They don’t bother to look deeper than the skin color, or in the case of generational discrimination: the grayness of their hair.

But am I even being true?  I’m saying “nobody” and “they” to refer to large groups of people.

We need to stop and get to know people.  It is all about knowing the individual.  Groups are imaginary.  They are arbitrary.  In every group, there are exceptions.  Why?  Because they are not groups, they are a bunch of individuals each with their own life, story, personality, etc.

 

It’s Hard To Blog When You’re Busy

For several months, I have neglected writing on this blog.  The reason: I have just been too busy.  But then, I got to thinking.  For almost all things we either make time or we don’t.  If it is something that is important to us, we make time for it.

Which begs the question: what do we spend our time on most?  The question is important because it indicates where our priorities are.  Are we too busy to do something important because what we value more is that latest episode of a show on TV or keeping up on the latest memes on Facebook?

It may not be the most important thing for me to write this blog.  I’ll admit, I gain no monetary value out of doing this and I doubt anybody actually reads it.  So why do I do this?  It is because I love writing.  The vast majority of my time is spent doing the things necessary for making a living in my chosen profession of architecture.  But as much as I enjoy architecture, I also enjoy many other activities that bring me joy and satisfaction.

So if it is important, then why have I neglected it?  At first, I was overwhelmed by the increased project load that hit me at the beginning of the year.  But slowly, it became a matter of forgetting.  I think we all do this in many parts of our lives.  Things that we value fall by the wayside because we think, “oh, not today, I’m too busy or tired.” The next time we think to do that important thing, it is easier and easier to say, “next time.”

The point of this post is to say, “enough with the next times, I’m doing something today.”

Why I Don’t Get My Dental Work Done By My Accountant . . .

It’s not that my accountant is not a smart guy.  I mean, he is.  In fact, he seems quite capable at doing many things.  Yet, he’s not a dentist.  He doesn’t have the training or the practice to do dental work.  

Now, you are probably thinking, “duh!”  And yet, we ask ignorant people to make very important decisions for us all the time.  Okay, and now you are thinking, “what?!”

Before I get myself in too much trouble, let me preface what I’m about to say with, this is a thought piece meant to provoke thought.  

So the ignorant making important decisions for us all the time?  Try: voting.  Yes, voting, the routine we go through every four years (it’s actually every year, but the ignorant don’t know that) where we all pretend that it is some sort of virtue to make sure everybody gets out to vote.

Here is my question: when you vote, do you know the names on the ballots.  Do you know who those people are and what they believe.  Do you know what positions they are running for and what the “county auditor” even does?  Or do you go into the booth and as your eyes glaze over with confusion, you just choose the first name in the list or maybe you go for the name that is the most fun to say as a tongue twister?

Yes, we are all ignorant voters.  I confess, I have been there many times voting under the influence of ignorance.  And when I was younger, I would simply vote on every issue, regardless of my knowledge on the issue.

But I know I’m not the only one.  It changed for me a few years ago when the thought crossed my mind– if I don’t know, then why should I distort the vote of those who may know.  So, I began abstaining from those portions of the ballot and I would stick to the issues and candidates I did know something about.

Too often, we get caught up in “get out the vote” campaigns and euphemistically think that if we just had more voter participation, our country wouldn’t be in the mess it is in. NO.  What we need is for each individual to stop paying so much attention to Justin Bieber, and start paying more attention to the issues– yes, study them, research the candidates.  Before we go to the polls, we should know who and what is on the ballot and we should have at least a somewhat informed opinion of those ballot items.

And in that way, I can finally get my accountant to give me the cavity filling I need . . . oh wait, that’s still a bad idea.

Progressivism is anti-progress…

It is amazing what a little positive spin can do for an ideology. Take progressivism, for example. It is simply a branch of Marxist thought meant to progressively take a capitalist society and feed it little bits of socialism at a time to eventually convert it into a communist one. It is like the frog in the boiling water. Put it in the boiling pot immediately, it jumps out. Put the frog in cool water and slowly turn up the heat, the frog with be boiled to death.
The slow process of converting the classically liberal United States of America into a communist country began over one hundred years ago. Progressives have had a long term plan to get Americans hooked on socialism. The process involved adding a program here, a program there. Get people to accept government help, eventually they would become dependent. As the people become more dependent, they begin to see the government not as a guaranteur of rights, but a guaranteur of well-being.
But, why is that so bad? Why shouldn’t the government make sure everyone has a roof overhead, or a chicken in the pot, or clothes on their backs? Aren’t these fundamental needs? Where is the caring heart of those who would argue that government should limit welfare programs?
The answer is in the one thing Progressives can never provide: individual progress. If you have children, you understand this implicitly. At some point, when the baby is now a toddler, you have to wean them of the mother’s milk and diapers. Later in life, you have to make them suffer the inevitable scrapes and bruises as they learn to ride a bike. The process of raising children is a process of taking away the support because you are attempting as a parent to teach them self-reliance. Without this process, the child would actually be prevented from the progress they need to self-actualize.
In the case of politicians who promote the ever expanding welfare state, they are essentially saying that it is okay for a person to be permanently dependent on the mother’s milk of government money. They are telling us not that the person should just have a helping hand, but that they should have a couch to lay back on while others provide for them.
Socialism, communism, and progressivism all have this similar trait: they attempt to remove the pain of life from people. They attempt to create a safe environment where no one fails. But when no one can fail, the opposite is also true, no one can succeed.
It has often crossed my mind that as I work hard, I recognize that my last year’s income is actually less than the average annual benefits paid out by the federal government to a typical welfare recipient. I used to get angry at this fact. I used to think, “how is this fair?” But lately, I have become more and more convinced that it is those welfare recipients who are being treated unfairly. They are being held back from the potential for personal growth and self-actualization that I am free to pursue because I have chosen to avoid receiving any government help (healthcare not withstanding as I am being forced to use government assistance thanks to the ACA, but that is a story for another post).
The white-washing that Marxism benefits from through the guise of progressivism is evident in the name they chose over 100 years ago: Progressives. They understood that progress is a universally admired word. We all want progress because we all wasn’t things to get better. But truthfully, the progress we need is not found in stunting the spiritual growth of the citizenry. It is found in promoting freedom, especially the freedom to fail. Because the opposite is also true. Having the freedom to fail grants us the freedom to succeed.

When To Hate

I say to-mah-toe, you say to-may-toe,

Let’s call the whole thing off.

This sounds like politics today.  You have people who are convinced of their own rectitude believing that the other side is completely evil.

While there are some people who are truly bent having it only their way– what I find is most people simply want to live in peace.  They don’t want to destroy others in favor of their own lifestyle and beliefs.

But what if your lifestyle or your belief is antithetical (or diametrically opposed) to another’s lifestyle or belief?  How do you reconcile that?  How does one simply lay aside their deeply held convictions to accept others who would demand a completely different belief that cannot coexist.  With most issues, this is not the reality, but with some issues, it is this very particle duality (in other words, my proton to your electron) that creates explosively heated political issues.  For some, it is abortion, for some it is same-sex marriage.  For others, it may be a belief that all people should bow to Allah, or maybe, the problem for your is those who do bow to Allah.  Maybe you think China is right with the one child only policy, or maybe you think people should have more kids. These are hot button issues that create deep and very passionate battles between people who are fiercely decided on their side of the issue.

So, this is when to hate the other?  This is where it is okay to begin taking out your anger with physical acts of violence or terrorism?  Unfortunately, too many people use their self-proclaimed righteous indignation to HATE the other side.

I’m a man who has some sincere beliefs.  I do not like to see my beliefs trampled on by others.  Yet my beliefs are trampled on by the news media and Hollywood all the time.  But I do not hate the people behind these mockings.  To hate the person blinds me to the real issue.

What we often forget is that throughout the history or our nation, political battles have been severe and hard-fought.  But our freedom of speech requires us to suffer through speech and political statements that we find reprehensible and offensive.  We have the right to say what we believe, and so does the other side.  But when they say it, hate what they say, but love the person.

Yes, I know, but the other side is dead wrong.  Your side is always right! Right?  Maybe so.  But you get no where in convincing the other side if you just tear them down and tell them they are wrong.

So, when should you hate?

Better question: when should you love?

Always.

And it’s to-may-toe.  But that’s okay, let’s call the calling off off.  Right?

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Most people are familiar with Robert Frost’s famous poem concerning two paths diverging in the woods.  Another famous poem of his is Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Eve.  The poem describes feeling of sudden calm and peace experienced by a hard-working man who happens to stop a moment and enjoy the snowfall in the woods on his way to his next appointment.  The sentiment is one that connects with me deeply.

Too often, we are too busy in our lives for taking those brief moments to enjoy the beauty of the weather and nature.  But those times we do, it is a pure treasure.  Maybe it is a hike in the woods or a brief pause on the side of the road looking up at the mountains in the distance, but it is those moments that remind you that you are alive.

The poem closes saying, “And miles to go before I sleep.”

Those pauses to catch your spiritual breath by enjoying the nature around you are important.  But the work is not done.  The race is not finished.  Take the breath and get back into the race and finish.

Nazi Doctors and Star Trek

It is an unfortunate reality in modern America that too often the historical framework the Nazi’s of 1920’s – 1940’s Germany are portrayed simply as racist mass-murderers.  While I agree with the assessment that the Nazi philosophy did contain a high degree of racism, the simplification of this group of people blinds us to the warning signs reveal similar ideologies.

The Nazi’s were actually National Socialists.  There primary philosophical basis was that the best system of government is socialism and that it should be focused solely on the betterment of the nation-state rather than the global whole as the communists thought best.  Other differences included the extent by which communist attempted to equalize ownership of goods and services whereas Nazi’s had a more government-business collaborative model that is more similar to current day China.

Either way, however, the overarching aim of these systems was and is to create utopian civilizations where the state provides for all the needs of the people so that no one is left with out.  It all sounds very compassionate. The compassion ends where reality begins.  As soon as the realities of resource distribution force socialist governments to pick winners and losers, systems are developed to determine who the winners should be.  In the case of the mentally or physically handicap, they are usually the first losers as the state determines that they are a waste of resources and that it is better for the collective that they be euthanized.  As soon as a government crosses this line, it is not long before gas chambers and mass graves are taking able-bodied people also based on race or ethnicity.

Josef Mengele (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dr. Josef Mengele

One of the most horrid things in Nazi Germany was the experimentation done on Jews by doctors like Dr. Josef Mengele.  Doctors like this performed countless experiments subjecting their Jewish subjects to freezing, or high altitude in airplanes, or live dissections of Roma twins.

Yet, out of all the evil experiments Nazi doctors performed came a great deal of the knowledge that modern doctors now use to treat patients successfully.  It is a paradox that it is ethically and morally reprehensible the things Nazi doctors did, and yet we benefit from that research. No doubt, it is this paradox of scientific medical research and our modern-day use of it that led the screenwriters for the 1990’s television series Star Trek: Voyager to create an episode that touched on this very issue.

The episode: Nothing Human, featured an unknown non-humanoid species of space-faring alien that was critically injured on their spacecraft.  Captain Janeway, having compassion on the creature, beams it to sick bay and the doctor attempts to treat it.  During the treatment, the alien leaps onto the ship’s chief engineer and injects its probes into her body as a means to sustain itself on off of her organs like a parasite.  The doctor can’t remove the alien because of how interconnected the parasite’s probes are with the engineer’s organs.  To attempt to solve the problem, he creates a holographic program based on the research of a noted exobiologist from Cardassia (one of the Federation’s enemies).  Not knowing the scientist’s past, the doctor and scientist make great progress in their research to solve the problem. 

Eventually, through one member of the crew whose family had been a victim of horrible war-time experimentations of this scientist on his home planet of Bajor brings the accusation to the captain to attempt to get the doctor to cease using the ill-gotten research because of the moral turpitude of doing so.  The captain decides to have the doctor continue based on the thought that it is more important to save the crew member than to keep ignorant on moral grounds.

The moral question is this: when information is gotten in ways that are evil, is the use of that information evil, even if it can save lives?  In the case of medical research, it is a very difficult question.  Obviously, we do not want research to be conducted in ways that harm people.  But if the research has happened in the past and has valid information, why is it not okay to use that knowledge since it is out there in the world of collected knowledge already?  Will using it truly encourage future ill-gotten research? Will it dishonor the memory of those lost as victims of the experimentations?

It is hard to say that it is acceptable, but when it comes right down to it, the high altitude research on Jewish concentration camp prisoners by Mengele and other Nazi doctors did in fact teach the German Luftwaffe and even the American Air Force many things and has benefitted countless pilots.  Was it right to conduct that research? Of course not. But now that the information is there, should we subject our pilots to unsafe conditions out of sanctimoniously self-induced ignorance?

History is filled with horrible events that in our modern-day understanding seem so barbaric and atrocious.  Yet our world today is built upon knowledge gained through the good and the bad experiences of the past.  Hopefully, we will never see atrocities like those committed by the Nazi’s ever again. But self-imposed ignorance is never going to prevent it.

An Atheist Mega-Church?

 

 

Atheism (Photo credit: atheism)

 

I found the stories linked below pretty interesting.  Apparently, there are many atheists out there who do like church, they just don’t like the idea of a god. So now, some of them have started forming congregations to preach their gospel of god-less life.  It is fascinating because it shows that there really is a positive social and moral component to religious life, and that these atheists are trying to recreate that good that they see in traditional religious groups while forgoing what they see as a superstitious belief in a magical supreme being in the sky.

 

 

 

Ultimately, what do they preach?  It sounds like they preach philosophies that aim at being good to others and living life to its fullest.

 

 

 

Personally, I applaud those who are striving to find and preach principles of goodness.  In the second article linked to below, it discusses Pope Francis and his recent statement saying that atheists are good if they do good.  Jesus Christ taught that you will know a person by their fruits, or in other words, their works.  If their works are good, then they are a good person.  Why should it matter if they believe in a god if they are still doing the work of God?

 

 

 

The only danger I see with this practice is if an atheist church is preaching principles that lead away from doing good.  God-fearing religions are also under this maxim, though, that the preaching of evil results in evil.  For me, I believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Redeemer of the world.  But if I were to attend a church that professes to be of Christ and they teach hateful or destructive philosophies, then I should cease to attend because you are what you eat.  The words we consume become our moral fiber.

 

Stained glass at St John the Baptist’s Anglican Church http://www.stjohnsashfield.org.au, Ashfield, New South Wales. Illustrates Jesus’ description of himself “I am the Good Shepherd” (from the Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 11). This version of the image shows the detail of his face. The memorial window is also captioned: “To the Glory of God and in Loving Memory of William Wright. Died 6th November, 1932. Aged 70 Yrs.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Being good is often a community based effort.  It is difficult to be alone in living righteously.  If a community of atheists is seeking to be good and find that gathering as a congregation helps in that righteous lifestyle, then good for them.

 

 

 

RELATED ARTICLES:

 

 

 

http://news.msn.com/us/atheist-mega-churches-take-root-across-us-world?ocid=ansnews11

 

 

 

http://news.msn.com/world/atheists-are-good-if-they-do-good-pope-francis-says?ocid=msnnws

 

 

 

Bullying is Not What You Think It Is . . .

Last night, our family was having our Monday night family meeting as we normally do each week.  In that meeting we call Family Home Evening, the children take turns teaching a lesson.  This week, it was my seven-year-old son’s turn and he chose to share an article he read in a children’s magazine about bullying.  The topic seemed to turn on a light bulb inside my mind.

Recently, the sports media is all squawking about the alleged organizationally sponsored bullying of one of the players on the Miami Dolphins football team.  He eventually quit the NFL because he couldn’t take the “toughening up” that the team tried to give him.  Upon hearing the story the first time, my initial reaction was: really? I mean, you are a grown man being paid a minimum of six figures so that you can play a ball game and you can’t handle a little hazing, a little taunting?  Really?  Where’s your man card, because you need to turn it in.

But here’s the thing: I don’t think much about bullying at all.  Why? Because I was bullied throughout my childhood by other boys and the experience only made me stronger.  For boys, the ritual taunting of other boys is a normal part of growing up.  For me, I learned through being bullied that it is easy to overcome as soon as you realize that the bully can only hurt you if you are a willing victim.  With verbal abuse, the bully will call you names, tell mean-spirited jokes, and you, the victim, are expected to squirm and cry and be unhappy about it.  Yet, as soon as you laugh back and show that it doesn’t bother you, the bully loses there only power over you.

The enlightenment that I experienced with my son’s lesson last night, however, was the realization that bullying is all about contempt.  It’s about envy.  It’s about hate.  Bullies will attempt to create victims of those they despise.  And why do they despise them?  Often, it is because there is something missing in the bullies life that they see in the life of the person they seek to bully.  They envy their victim.  Maybe their victim is smarter, richer, or has a loving family.  They want what their victim has, but cannot have it, so they take out their anger upon their victim as a sort of poetic justice.  After all, misery loves company.

With the Dolphins, I honestly can’t say I know enough about what happened to know why that individual left the organization, whether the “toughening up” was truly bullying as the sports media is suggesting or if it was truly just a kind-hearted attempt to help that individual toughen up.  The difference is important.  The difference is love.

Often, as a parent, you will have to discipline a child.  Sometimes, you have to forcibly carry the child kicking and screaming out of a store when they refuse to accept “no” for an answer.  At the time, I am certain the child thinks their parent is being so mean.  As the parent, you are trying to prepare your child for the realities of needing a budget in their adult life.  They will not be able to function in their adult life financially if they get everything they want as a child.  The hard knocks they’ll take as an adult will be far worse than a moment of agony as a parent being the recipient of puzzled and angered stares from all the shop-goers who do not understand fully the role of a parent.

Parenting often requires “toughening up” the children in this way.  There are many limits, though.  While telling a child “no” and carrying them out kicking and screaming is a necessary and painful thing to have to do.  Especially if you could just afford to buy the child the toy they want (though you should still be careful to say no frequently enough to teach them). But if you strike the child to get them to be quiet, then you have crossed the line into bullying.

Bullying is envy and hate.  But we should still help each other to be tough, but that requires love.

RELATED ARTICLES:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/11/is-bullying-inevitable.html