I got a longer one because I live in the part of the country that is currently on fire!
I’m all right, no worries, but the schools here are closed and we can only hope they’ll be open by next week.
Which is really the least of our worries.
You know, other people get snow days, but along the West Coast, we get “fire days”. I’d say that’s way worse.
Also this is the worst fire incident we’ve had in 50 years or more, they keep saying.
This topped off a pretty weird two weeks for me. As I’ve been sharing, I’ve been doing a lot over break. My break was less relaxing than my actual job.
I bought a new car that I had to take to the shop three times. Twice it was a pretty minor thing, just some software updates that they at first told me could have been a head gasket leak that would cost 4 or 5 grand…thanks for that 2 hours of panic attack!
The other was to get the brakes checked, which they told me were fine, but then another place told me were not, in fact fine, and I will need to fix them soon. So…yeah, that was nice.
The other time I just had to get a tire patched, so no big deal.
Thankfully, the car seems to be fine now, and I hope it will stay that way for a few months at least, since I just got it.
Also I went on my first planned trip on vacation without my mom, and the day we left, I had an allergic reaction to medication I was on because of my wisdom teeth getting taken out, and I had to go ot the ER while on an island, to get meds for it.
Thankfully, it wasn’t a dangerous reaction, but it was bad enough to get hives for 4 days. I’ve never had those before, I don’t recommend it, though my case was mild, but still.
So…yeah, then we got back, and found out there was fire all around the area we live in, and my work would be closed all week.
Which is a minor concern, because the real problem is the many friends I have who may have lost their jobs or houses, or their families have, since this started.
Despite the crazy week I had, I know I’m the lucky one, and that’s saying something. All that could happen in one week, and there are still thousands of people having a worse week than I am, just in this county. That’s a staggering thought.
I’m not sure I have any words of wisdom to make a cliche speech about hanging together, but, I can say, it does put things in perspective.
I was tempted to feel sorry for myself, after all, my trip was partially ruined, and I had several days of anxiety I didn’t need, while I was trying to recover from hives, which doesn’t help with hives.
And I was worried about getting to work and making a bad financial decisions.
But then I realized how bad things were in the county right now, and that I really had very little to complain about compared to them.
I have a house and my workplace is likely to reopen, since it’s not in the red zone. So I’ll probably still have a job next week, unlike many people. We didn’t lose power, so far, and no family I have lives in the red zones.
It could have been much worse.
It could be a lot better, but, you know, no matter what’s going on with you, someone else is having a worse day, probably. I mean, if you can even read this post, I guarantee someone out there is having a worse day than you.
I don’t want to be accused of using this disaster just to generate more traffic to my site, but I did wonder if anyone would be interested in the perspective of someone who lives where this happens.
A lot of people say California is scary because of the earthquakes–and well, the lunatics.
I agree about the latter, but a fact many people don’t realize who live outside this state is that the wildfires that happen pretty much every year do much more damage than 80-90% of our earthquakes do.
Every now and then, we have a bad one, but the majority of us barely feel a jolt when it happens, and it doesn’t usually spread outside the strike zone, while a fire like this can become two fires, or in this case, up to 6.
And since we get dry weather a lot here, and that impacts fires, but not earthquakes, environmentally, we’re more in danger.
People are blaming our government for not preparing for this, and while I’m sure there is some truth to that, the reality is that the worst fire is happening near the coast, there’s not a lot we can do about that area being dry. We use ocean water to fight these fires, but the wind is what kept us from doing that, not the lack of resources.
Sometimes, nature just fricks you over.
Some spiteful people online are also saying that this is what the people in Hollywood deserved, and they don’t really feel sorry for them.
A lot of people don’t like California, after all.
Heck, I live in the area and I don’t like it a lot of the time.
Still, it is our home.
And whatever people think about Hollywood, it’s really not most of the state, like outsiders believe.
It’s true that the rich stars who had to evacuate probably have plenty of money to rebuild with, making it hard to feel sorry for them compared to the other people, still it’s their home too.
And there are many more people who are not well off, and were just doing their jobs. I know one person who had to leave a hospital they worked at over this.
I’ve noticed that we humans tend to rush to assume things are karma and judgment when disaster strikes.
Even I do, and I wonder why. Because while making sense of it is something we want to do, I don’t really see how it makes us feel better.
I mean, it could be, but the tricky thing about assuming that, is that you have to ignore how many people who are good and were innocent get caught up in these tragedies.
People like to cite religion as a source for saying all this was judgment, my own father likes to do that.
However, at least in the Bible, many disasters are recorded that were not God’s judgment. The bible even kind of makes it clear that not all bad things are a judgment. Sometimes, they are just bad. Sometimes, there may even be other forces at work besides God.
Why do we rush to assume we know what it is? Like we all know the Mind of God?
Besides which, all the churches, hospital, charities, that get affected by this, are we going to say that God judged them also?
I guess some people might believe that, but I have a hard time swallowing it.
If you’re wondering what it feels like to live through this, it’s weird how things can feel normal, in one way. As long as I don’t step outside and inhale the smoke that makes us feel sick and cough.
And as long as I don’t turn on the news.
Or check my churches’ small group chat to see how many people have family in danger right now.
It’s been strange to me many times how easy it is to ignore tragedy even when it’s close to home, because it’s not right in my backyard.
Yesterday, there was even a faulty alert sent to our area, and then another one this morning, scaring people, who thought we were out of the burn zone.
For a second, we weren’t sure if we might have to evacuate after all.
The thought went through my head that instead of just losing money from not working, I might be facing losing my house and stuff instead.
Thankfully, it was a false alarm, but even for a few minutes, I understood a little better how other people feel.
People are coming together, that’s the nice thing. It’s a lot like how the hurricanes affect people on the East coast.
I feel like I’d prefer the hurricane to this, but I’m pretty sure if I actually saw one, I wouldn’t think so. They’re still more destructive in the long run than the fires.
Still, I think of how scared the students at my school probably have even this week, and it’s weird. Mostly we only worry about school shooters and fires being started in the lab in our schools.
And even that’s bad enough, but you’re used to that threat, so you become dull to it.
You don’t really get used to the threat of wild fires. They’re unpredictable.
They think humans may have started it. We can hope by accident.
Maybe tha’t why we assign blame for this so easily too. Fires, unlike storms, can be started by man. We’ve all seen Bambi. It’s easy to blame the pot heads and crazy people out here.
Yet, it often is an accident. Or just faulty equipment. Not malicious intent (sometimes it is, and then I do think those people deserve what they get.)
The reality is tragedy can be tragic because it’s accidental, and it just happens.
I can’t moralize really about to, since eI don’t know how it started either.
I know we’ve been praying a lot out here, though some people have reported that their family/friends didn’t appreciate the gesture too much.
Whether you believe in God or not, I think it’s good to understand that people pray because they don’t know what else to do to help, but they want to do something. And some of us have no other way to intervene. I’m not offended by Muslims or Buddhists praying for me, even if I don’t acknowledge their gods. I appreciate the support.
There’s no reason to be harsh to people who mean well. Though, when we’re stressed, it can be hard to remember that, so I also hope we can be forgiving of people who may get snippy with us under the circumstances.
I was told we might get some financial aid from the government for my coworkers and I, but honestly, I think most of us don’t need it the most of anyone. If we’re going back to work at all, we’ll be better off than thousands of people right now.
I hope the government directs its resources to the people who will be homeless and jobless for months after this.
I guess that’s all I have to say. Things have taken a better turn today, and if the weather cooperates, we may get all the fires contained by Sunday, at least partially, so I hope if you pray, you’re praying that the weather will stay clam and the wind will not return.
If you are interested in donating to this, there are many things people are setting up to help the victims of the tragedy, if you look it up online, I’m not a patron of any particular charity, but I saw that some are being put together on social media.
You ever talk to a Christian who thinks everything has to have some spiritual tagline?
Like a coffee shop has to be called “Holy Grounds” or “He brews” (My churches’ coffee shop is just called Cafe Vida as a nod to the Churches’ name, but, that actually sounds like a normal cafe name. Guess we dodged that bullet.)
Or Christian gum? Or Christian versions of literally everything? if you go to a Christian bookstore, you’d be surprised how many eye-rolling puns and rebranding you’ll find. (Heck, it’s like going into Hot Topic but without the punk goth style.)
I’ve grown up around this stuff and some of it always seemed a little odd. Other stuff, it seemed cheesy but harmless.
And honestly, I don’t think cheesy rebranding is really that big a problem. People make fun of Christians for it, but, in a culture where anime fans buy plushies and body pillows based on fictional characters, and write fan fics shipping themselves with real and imaginary people, and there’s a brand store for pretty much every group out there (including Satanists) I think we could all just acknowledge that it’s not a Christian thing to be cheesy, it’s a human thing.
We like to have our little groups and to make our merch for them.
Nothing really wrong with that.
However, I’ve noticed that the attitude of everything needing to be Christian can also translated into “everything needs to be spiritual.” Everything needs to be rebranded into a certain interpretation.
I’m guessing you clicked don this post for one of three reasons.
You’re a Christian who is already set to be offended by anything I say to criticize Christians–or you may secrets agree with me about it and don’t have an outlet at your church.
You’re a non-Christian who wants to read about how nuts Christians are (very popular now I know)
You actually follow me and read it because I haven’t posted in a month or so. (In which case, thank you so much for your support.)
I’m probably going to annoy you if you’re group 1, I don’t know about the other two.
Now to be clear, I’m not hating on my fellow believers. By and large they are the nicest people I meet, no matter where I go. Sure, there’s some bad apples, but, if I took the bulk of non-believer I met, and the bulk of believers, the believers would win out as to who has been the most kind, helpful, supportive, and positive influence in my life.
However, my critique is more than Christians only help with some things, but often have this weird blind spot that I think is not biblical and not wise, especially in this day and age where people’ have forgotten all common sense approach to anything in life.
In fact that’s what I think we’re missing as a whole: Common sense.
Or, wisdom, if you prefer the Bible word (see what I did there?).
Some people also call it discernment, but that often gets mistaken as just being about spirtual warfare. In relay, discernment needs to be a skill evyeron uses, even if you’re not a believer.
What made me start thinking about this right now (thought not for the first time) was a conversation I had with a friend at the Bible study group last night.
This guy had shared several months ago about a problem with losing his enthusiasm for doing spiritual things. He still has his faith and still love the Lord, but doesn’t feel the same drive to pray, fast, or worship. He was worried that his closeness with God was being damaged.
Honestly, I could relate to it, as I’ve had the same feeling for a couple years now. However, in working through it in my life, I’d come to see some things about it.
My immediate reaction was to say I thought it was probably just the normal dying down of enthusiasm. This guy has been a Christian less than 4 years, and I would have expected it to happen a lot sooner. We all eventually lose the first passion and have to replace it with something deeper.
However, I was the only one who had this perspective.
They meant well, but every other person in the group jumped either to “some unknown sin” (Think of Job’s comforters in that story) or to “spiritual attack” and that we needed to pray it away and stuff.
Well, I knew that wasn’t going to work. And I wished I had a chance to talk to him more about it because I felt sure I knew the real problem. But then, I wondered if I was just being arrogant and thinking I knew best, as I usually do.
Months go by and I don’t hear any more about it, but then yesterday, he brings it up again and asks if we can talk about it (well I offered too since he was asking for prayer, but he was eager).
So me, and my sister sat down and heard the story.
I can’t lay it all out, but suffice it to say a lot of lifestyle changes, new responsibilities, and probably just the natural passage of time’s effects on our emotions seemed like the root cause. There was no sin, no religious trauma (this guy didn’t grow up in church really so it’s not an aversion to spiritual things based on past experiences) and no one in his life was really making it harder. It’s just that life changes, and our passion and energy change with it.
And since the issue had not changed, despite the prayer and other “Spiritual” advice, my sister and I figured we were right. It wasn’t sin or warfare.
After we got done talking, the guy said what we said did seem to help a little. And we asked what was helpful and he said that while he’d talked to our pastor and other believers about it, no one had really given him the practical angle like we did.
Our suggestions were mostly lifestyle based.
We didn’t say to pray the problem away, to fast, or to worship.
My personal thought was he probably over did it as a new Christian, and that was why he was burned out on it. But I didn’t say it that way, I just suggested trying other things to connect with God that weren’t so spiritual, and that it was fine to use things like exercise, (my sister suggested using art, movies, and stories to find meaning that God might have for you).
I also suggested (as I always do) to read a book. The Screwtape Letters talks a lot a
bout spiritual burnout and how to deal with it. And it’s an easy read, while a lot of theology books aren’t (I love them but, they’re very dry usually.)
Whether bro will take our advice or not, he seemed relieved that we didn’t make the whole thing into even more of a spiritual crisis.
The real problem here is often that we start to feel guilt and shame for not wanting to do these things.
Personally, I’ve found it much easier to pray when I’m exercising, whether it’s just walking (what many people do), or dancing, or literally lifting weights and doing pushups. It’s easier to worship that way too.
Sometimes activating my body helps me and my soul and mind. And that’s not a new idea. Paul wrote that bodily exercise is good, but spiritual exercise is better. (1 Timothy 4:8)
C. S. Lewis addressed the loss of early enthusiasm in the Christian walk many times in his writings, like The Screwtape Letters:
“Let him assume that the first ardours of his conversion might have been expected to last, and ought to have lasted, forever, and that his present dryness is an equally permanent condition.” [Chapter 9]
He also states that we forget that we are mind, soul, and body. That if we treat our body unwisely, it will make our spiritual lives harder. We’re all united.
Also why doing the right things will make our bodies healthier. There’s scientific research to back this up, but anyone who paid attention really would notice the same thing in the people around them. My family members who lived the most sinful, undisciplined lives ended up with a myriad of health issues, while the ones who did not have even for the most part, the healthiest.
Now it’s not always true, some chronic disease are just genetics or not our choice, but, it’s true more times than it isn’t, in my opinion (And health experts agrees).
That said, do you know how many times I’ve heard any Christian go to that when someone tells them a problem.
It’s weird to me actually, how divorced we are from our everyday lives when we go to church.
I’ve heard plenty of believes give life advice that was practical when they were having our outside of church–some of them still rely solely on spiritual stuff, but many will suggest lifestyle changes outside church–but insides church, they will only say prayer, fasting, worship, whatever.
It’s like we’re ashamed to be normal human beings with normal problems.
This attitude is not remotely biblical. I’m not even sure how it got so widespread. and it’s not even just America.
I used to go to an African church (I mean they mostly were Africans who went to it, it wasn’t in Africa), and they were actually more this way. Anything could ever be cussed just by health issues, it was always the devil. Nothing could ever be irresponsibility on your part, it was la the devil attacking you.
Maybe here and there one person might suggest it was something else, but, they never really got much attention.
It was so weird for me. I mean, I wasn’t sure whether to agree or not.
But going to many different churches in my life, and listened to different problems people have, I’ve thought most of the time “You know that to could easily be resolved if you’d just mature, or make a change to your life that would be smart. You don’t need prayer, you need discipline!”
I’m not by any means saying we shouldn’t pray about everything (Philippians 4:6). But there’s another aspect of this the Bible covers, particularly in the book of James. Which makes it clear that we are not to only pray for people’s blessings. We are also supposed to bless them ourselves, if we have the means to do so’
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds?…15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” [James 2]
And there are chapters and chapters of how Christians are supposed to live, how we are supposed to grow in self control and kindness and modesty (not the clothing kind).
So it’s not as if God doesn’t make it clear that we need to address our mind and our bodies as well as our soul.
I don’t know why this has gone out of the Church’s Sunday Sermons, Bible Studies, and general ideology so much. At most, we give lip service to it. But people often get very offended if you dare to advise them on any practical matters.
(Though some of us would be really glad for it.)
Despite being raised in a Christian home, where my parents both turn to the spiritual aspect more than anything else when they address issues, I’ve always rushed more to any practical explanation first.
Actually, that’s probably why. For years I’ve watched my father deal with lifestyle and behavioral issues, and he always went for prayer on them…and nothing happened.
I don’t think it’s that prayer isn’t a real help for many people. I think it’s that prayer must be followed by our actions. Unless it’s a situation that we can’t do anything about. But, if we’re honest, 80% of our problems are ones we could easily do something about, and people often use prayer as an excuse to do nothing.
They act as if God will take care of it. God will magically change your personality and life habits for you.
Yeah, well, even if God could do this, why would He?
Don’t you think God might find it demeaning to be asked to fix problems for you that you could fix yourself? Many parents and even professionals find it annoying to be asked to fix stuff for people that they could fix on their own.
And like your mom when she cleans your room, if God fixes your easy problem, He may do it by eliminating some things you don’t necessarily want gone, because it gets to that point where it’s too frustrating to deal with it anymore. (I mean that sounds like what happened to the Israelites when they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.)
I guess the big question now is why do we do this? And how harmful is it?
I’ve spent some time describing why we need to take action in the here and now, but is thre really any reason not to say that’s also spiritual.
Well, according to James, it is spiritual. True religion is serving the people who won’t be able to pay you back for it. Often, who won’t thank you for it.
C. S. Lewis said that kind of true Christian would be someone who seems to always have a lot of time, and never talks about their problems extensively or their achievements.
I’m not there yet, certainly. But Lewis tried to practice what he preached. He tried not to think of his influence on people, as one of his friends documented. (An introduction to the the Weight of Glory tells the story.)
That said, Lewis was always wary of spiritual pride. The temptation to think that being more “in the know” about spiritual things makes you better than non-believers, or even new believers.
And we do that a lot in the modern church (I suspect it’s always been the biggest problem in any church, really).
We don’t think of it as pride.
But when we tell someone who’s opening up about a struggle that they should just pray more, or do this or that spiritual thing, but we don’t offer any other help to them, that’s pride.
It’s like saying “If you did all these spiritual things I did, you wouldn’t have problems.”
Chonda Pierce, a famous Christian comedian, told how in her struggles with depression, that was what got on her nerves the most when people told her. No one just wanted to listen to her vent and be supportive. Judgment free.
Most of us probably mean well (I’ve done it myself once or twice), thinking that’s just what we’re supposed to say–and then there are some who are just mean and dismissive because they truly don’t care.
Either way, it doesn’t help, but people generally forgive the first kind more easily.
The thing is, this or that said in prayer doesn’t always really matter. Shocking I know. But God knows our hearts. He knows what we mean, the Bible says that too. Saying magic words doesn’t make anything different.
There are things you can learn to pray for better, sure, but I never thought formulas were a good idea. Too much like the way pagans worship their false gods. Repetition. Jesus warned about that.
And he warned that over complicating things is also the work of futile religion.
The best thing to do is pray simply and honestly about what you need, thank God, and ask forgiveness. in some measure all of us should be praying those three things on a regular basis. Whether you do it daily in that order, or you do it was the need arises.
The bible also never says how long to pray, or how many days a week you should. Though it does support doing it every day, it sounds like in some place, but God never commands it in the New Testament in so many words. Jesus says “our daily bread” as the closest thing to it.
I’m not saying you should pray every day, but I’m saying that people make up all these standards. Pray for an hour, pray for half an hour, pray 5 times a day…and it’s all unnecessary.
Pray when you can, when you should, and when God leads you. Figure out the rest to fit your life, that’s what I tell people.
Reality is, especially if you’re a parent, you can’t devote hours every day to prayer. Telling people that’s the answer is ridiculous.
Telling people that more worship will fix every issue they’re having is also ridiculous.
Yes, it may help. Worship does help us relax, it does help a lot of things, but, that doesn’t mean you should be doing what you can on your end.
An old saying is “Heaven helps those who help themselves.” It’s not the bible, but the Bible does say to work and to live wisely. which is pretty much the same thing. That phrase has fallen out of popularity in our entitled, spoiled generations.
Honestly, people who work hard to make what they want happen often don’t demand as much from God anyway, and are more grateful for the hlep He does give. But they often need less to begin with because they do work for themselves.
And why should we earn part of our own success? There are things only God can give you, it’s true, but you have to remember the parable of the talents. Everyone has so much and they need to do so much with what God gives them, or it goes to waste.
And all this asking God to give you more, instead of figuring out how to use what you have better, is not a good lifestyle.
And this applies to mental health issues as well. People ask for prayer for anxiety and depression all the time…if you dare to suggest that they probably should exercise more, cut down on sugar, sotp reading angsty teen novels or watching depressing movies, and stop hanging around people who only company ob t life–well then you’re part of the problem. You dared to expect something from them.
Look, I don’t know how else to say it, if something is enough of a problem for you to ask for prayer from other people about it (since most of us don’t like sharing our problems anyway) then it’s nos you need to be willing to take action to fix.
And who’s to say God does not answer prayer by simply telling you what to do to make it better? Many of my prayers have been answered that way. And many people I know have shard similar stories.
Like when Naaman asked a prophet what to do to be cured of leprosy, and he was told to bathe in the Jordan River 7 times. He refused at first, thinking it was too silly and unnecessary, and his servants asked him “if he had asked you to do a hard thing, would you have done it?”
And so, realized that it was simple to do it, he did, and he was cured.
Simple things can be the hardest, because we can do them ourselves, we just don’t want to.
And we’re afraid to tell each other that, because peopel get the most offended when you say they need to change.
But, that’s life. Most things in life only change when you yourselves change. Tough crap if you don’t like it.
One more thing…
Perhaps a lot of this sounded only like basic common sense after all, and nothing really unusual.
But what if I said I don’t even think the attending church weekly, and participating in ministry is really most of what Christianity is about.
That might shock you.
Ministry is important, but, again, most of the ministry done through church is just more church. More 6 week lesson series, studies and prayer meetings.
Which is fine, but, rarely changes anyting in your life big time.
Helping the person you sit next to in school, on the bus, at work, that’s much closer to real Christianity.
But those are the poele who often annoy us the most, aren’t they?
Or being kind to your own family, that’s not the popular topic now, is it?
But that’s what the Bible, and really, most faiths that have nay merit at all, describe as real righteousness. Personal and private life things being in order before public or professional ones.
Yes, the public ones are important, but never as much as private, though it’s counter-intuitive to most of us to think of it that way.
But a thought to keep in mind is that Jesus Himself did not often attend church, though He did go to temple when he was in town and could. Before they drove Him out.
Jesus spent the majority of his time traveling, eating, drinking, and teaching his followers. He settled disputes, provided food, and did many miracles in private, not public. He taught often about how to live with your neighbor and your brother, not with your public.
Why? Because that’s what He was really about fixing.
And how to live with God. How to honor Him truly. How to show Him your love.
Jesus didn’t have 4 worship songs, a prayer time at the end of service, and offering.
All that was a part of his life, but in a different way. He wove it into his full life, he never separated the two like we are.
And compartmentalizing it into just chruch stuff is part of our problem. We should see following God as holistic.
You can follow God while you’re working out at the gym, reading a book, babysitting, taking kids to school, doing a desk job, doing a physical labor job, teaching, sleeping, showering, whatever.
Do everything as to the Lord, the Bible says. [Colossians 3:23]
And if any area of your life is out of balance, the best way to serve the Lord is to bring it into balance, whether you need a physical, mindful, emotional, or spiritual solution. Often it’s more than one thing.
Adn yes, there’s time to use prayer and fight on another plane, but, it should usually be only one step, not the only step period.
Food for thought, and I think I’ll end there.
TLDR: We do this because we’re afraid to admit we have non-spiritual problems because it makes us sound more ordinary and we think a good Christian should be spiritual.
But, we’re all human and it’s part of life to have normal problems too, which sometimes need normal solutions as much as spiritual ones.
Thanks for reading, and until next time, stay honest–Natasha.
I’ve written about the Chosen before (see The Chosen). I started out liking the show but after season 3 I had problems with it, and now, I’ve had to watch season 4 as part of a Church thing (not because I wanted to).
And I think I now have a better idea of what I think about it than before, and I am more sure that season 3 was not just a fluke. Season 4 was already on shaky ground, but after the death of Raymah, and subsequent alterations they made to match that, it has completely derailed from scripture.
Even where the Word says that Jesus lost none of His followers. [See John 16 and 17:6-12 especially vs. 12.]
I think the Chosen has a real problem with certain parts of the Bible, and the Faith of Christianity and I’m going to detail why in 10 points.
So let’s do this thing:
1. Sometimes it’s more risky to show miracles then it is to show tragedy.
Actually, it’s always more risky.
It’s a strange truth about human beings, we find it easier to accept bad things happen, then good things.
The easiest way to prove this is to ask yourself how your expectations are effected by a positive or negative outcome of any situation.
When something ends badly, and the same situation repeats itself again, is your first thought to expect it to go wrong? Or do you clear the board and have no expectations?
And conversely, even if it goes well, do you still think it will go badly the third time? Or, at least, are you just as worried about it?
How many good experiences does it take to cancel out a negative one?
And how many negative experiences does it take to ruin something for you?
The problem is that many people treat God like this.
When I looked at the controversy around Season 4’s killing off of Raymah, (who was not a biblical character to begin with, so I guess they thought they could get away with it) the most common defense fans made of the decision was that it was a good risk to take in storytelling, and that it was good to depict that God does not always answer prayers.
Which is a rather presumptuous statement. How do we know that God does not always answer prayers? The answer may simply be one we did not understand.
It is true that we don’t always get what we want.
Therefore, according to the writers, it’s okay to change the Word of God, as long as it makes a point that is not found in scripture, but is a common teaching of the modern church.
The Chosen writers claim they are not changing the Word of God, that they are simply depicting the story.
What I find interesting about this claim is that it’s like they think as long as they are not writing the words into the physical Bible, they are not changing the Word of God.
Did they forget that the stories of Jesus were originally passed down through oraltradition, just like every other religion’s stories. The Gospels were not written for a few decades after Jesus died. (Probably they were written because many of the first Disciples had died and so there were less people who could tell eye witness accounts of it, and the writers of the Gospels realized they needed a record of it.)
But for the first 20-4o years, all we knew about Jesus was by word of mouth. And that was enough.
So it was crucial that they told it accurately.
And the writers of the Chosen also seem to ignore that most of Jesus’ teachings were in story form: Parables, and that changing the words Jesus used would change the parable’s meaning.
Not to mention how often both Jesus, and other prophets used visual teaching aids to make their point. Temples, rocks, trees, dust, etc.
So yeah, the Bible has always been passed down through oral and visual means, not just the written word, and if you change it in spoken or visual depiction, which a TV show would be, you are still changing the word of God.
Words are spoken before they are written aren’t they? If you change what God said in what you speak, performance or otherwise, you are changing his Word. Like a false prophet would not give accurate prophecies.
This is not to say nothing the chosen has done has ever not been good. They do show some things as they happened, and that is going to have power, no matter how mutilated the rest of the show is…
But that does not excuse it.
The thing is, even if the imitation has some power, the unfiltered word of God always has more power than a paraphrase. The real thing is always better. And this is true of all things.
You’ve seen copies of great art, or remakes of movies, even when they are good, do they ever hit you quite the same way the first one did? No…there’s a freshness in originality that moves us more than imitating it does, no matter how well we do it.
Knock off brands are never as good as name brand food, or clothing, or medicine, or anything.
Iconic things are iconic for a reason.
2. The Pride of Assuming we can make God’s point better than He can.
The disturbing thing about people’s justifying changing the Word of God because it’s more ‘realistic” is that it’s very arrogant to assume we just know what God thinks about things.
Tragedy is real, I’m not the type to ignore that.
But the whole story of the Bible is about how God will overcome all evil in the world, including the evil of loss.
So it was important that Jesus overcome all evilest he was faced with, in His time on Earth.
The only time Jesus ever failed was when it depended on people’s free will to accept him. Which healing and resurrection do not. That is a different matter.
But when it came stopping to the things that plague our world, Jesus never failed to do that. You won’t find one story incident of Jesus saying no to someone who asked for healing, or failing to resurrect anyone he wanted to.
In fact, it’s kind of surprising that Jesus never once said no…almost like it wasn’t about worthiness.
(BTW, Jesus raised at least 3 people from the dead. The Chosen and most other depictions of the Gospels leave out the widow’s son for some reason.)
What I find odious about what the the writers of the Chosen are doing is that they are using the Word of God, which God meant for His own purpose when He had it recorded and told tho the world, to instead teach a message of their own.
It really wouldn’t matter in the least if they are right or not about they way God sees loss. I think it’s not really as simple as they made it out to be.
People like to act as if there is only one reason anyone ever dies, but the Bible actually teaches clearly that there are many reasons someone can die. Sometimes it’s sin, sometimes it’s just their time, sometimes it’s evil on someone’s part, and sometimes it’s so that God can do a miracle (which is the most rare, but happens.)
Or some may give up their life willingly as an act of sacrifice.
God seems to see death as a complex issue, and since, to us, it certainly is complicated to experience loss, I’m glad the Bible does not give a generic answer to the problem. That would be kind of silly. And show it was not a true faith.
That said, the Chosen has no business trying to simplify it either into something so packaged and vague that you can’t ever say for sure if it’s legitimate or not.
The reason for not raising Raymah from the dead given is that “it’s not her time.”
But, God no where in the entire Bible, not just the Gospel, says that it’s not someone’s time to be resurrected. That reason never comes up, there’s not that many cases of resurrection in the Bible, but none of them contain that.
God also, to my knowledge (and I did look it up to be sure), never even says that there is a set time for people to be raised to life, aside from the final ressurrection, which is of a different kind.
So they are making this up as way to explain to people why they do not get what they want.
Because, you know, so many of us ask for resurrections on a regular basis…
Yeah, I’ve never asked for that.
Making the lesson about resurrection is suck a presumption because it’s a mystery even in the Bible why and how God does it.
Now the message bout not all prayer being answered (at least right away) could be addressed, but it should have been around something that the Bible addresses itself, not something that we have no authority to speak on. Because, we really don’t. We don’t know the rules. We shouldn’t presume to know God’s reasons for things when He does not outright give them to us.
Do you think I’m being a snob? But God says in His word: “My ways are Higher than your ways, and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” [Isaiah 55:9]
I’m showing the respect to God that I think He deserves.
And I don’t set up my own wisdom to be the authority on God’s ways. I only know that by His own Word, which He gave us to judge by, this does not line up.
And that should really have won the argument right there. That anyone can even still supports this is telling about how little anyone in our cultural respects the Bible anymore.
There are a few people who agree with me, but, they seem to be in the minority, even out of the Christian audience.
3. Our own lack of faith is being used to justify this writing decision.
Because we find it hard to believe in miracles we don’t see everyday, that makes it okay to say Jesus would not have always done them…because that sounds too good to be true.
Newsflash: Jesus is supposed to sound too good to be true. That’s how we know He was God in the flesh. If he wants limited the way a man is limited, we’d know he was just a prophet, which is what the Muslims believe.
But we believe He was God, so you cannot limit Him like a man.
Case in point: When Jesus cast a demon out of a boy his disciples couldn’t cast out, He was able to do it easily, He had more authority that His disciples who He said would need to have prayed more, and fasted, in some versions, to do it.
Almost like Jesus, the one who gave them authority, inherently has more authority than them. Who is greater? The one who bestows authority? Or the one it’s bestowed on?
Heck, even Disney’s Aladdin got this right. “The [genie] gave you your power, he can take it away.”
4. The Chosen plays it safe.
While it has no problem putting in things that out right contradict scripture, the Chosen also is omitting everything in the Gospel that would actually be difficult for the moderm audience.
As I said, it’s astonishingly easy for people to accept tragedy. As evidenced by how many people accepted Raymah’s death, and who are showing disgust with those of us who think it was wrong to write it in.
But strangely, the topics Jesus taught on that would really be a problem for our modern culture, they have been omitted from the entire show.
I kept expecting them to start including more stories and sermons, but they haven’t.
Like Jesus’ teaching on marriage, it would not be popular now, so they omitted it.
They omitted His teaching on any and all political issues, which He didn’t cover a lot, but did a few times.
They omitted His teaching on hell entirely, which does not surprise me. Most people do when they cover the Gospels.
The omitted His teaching on many other things, his parables of the talents, the poor stewards, the last days, the servants, the straight and narrow way to life…anything that might make anyone uncomfortable.
By contrast, teachings about forgiveness and acceptance of differences never really bother that many people. There are some who think it’s too lenient, but in our culture, for the most part, it’s approved of to preach acceptance and forgiveness.
And those are important, and undoubtedly the best parts of the Chosen, when they do focus on it. But they waste so much time on things that never happened, and they don’t cover many things that did.
Jesus did so, so much more than what they’ve shown.
And you may say: “Well they don’t have the budget to show all of those things.”
I’m aware they don’t. No one could…but it would take less budget to pay for people to just sit and talk, which most of the preaching would be, or to show parables, when they are very simple stories, than it would to pay for all these action scenes that were never real.
And to me, it’s disrespectful, it’s like saying Jesus didn’t do enough things worth talking about for them to cover, they have to add all this stuff He never did, to make it more interesting…because the Gospel was not interesting enough already.
And yes, it may not interest everyone…but if people are watching the show to learn about Jesus…then they need to learn about Jesus.
But the story is supposed to be about his followers!
The show says it’s about the lives of the people He called…but what were they learning?
Peter said Jesus had the words of life?
If we’re going to show the disciple’s lives, it’s imperative that we show what they were really hearing and experiencing, not making up stuff that never happened to them.
(FYI, they were never stoned either. The attempt was made on Jesus, alone, but, He escaped, and none of the disciples were injured at any point. That was all a flat out lie.)
And I don’t object to then the how just covers them having fun with each other, or having asides that do world building. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you can stay within the realm of possibility based on the Gospels, without committing heresy and blasphemy by portraying Jesus incorrectly.
And it is, whatever they say, incorrect. If you cut out all the hard things Jesus taught, like about divorce, and hell, and judgment…then you cut out part of Jesus…and that cuts out some of the power of His message and life.
And without the full power of it, what are we basing our lives on?
5. What this twisting of the story is really doing:
I hope that all this is not intentional on the writers’ part…
But unfortunately, I kind of think it is.
I don’t see how it couldn’t be. They are studying the Bible to write this show, they know what they are doing is not biblical. They know it’s changing the events of the Bible to suit a more ‘dramatic narrative.”
But they are also changing it so that it matches more their image of God.
Someone who is patient.
Someone who confronts people who are judgmental, the pharisees, but only for the reasons we are okay with. Like objecting to healing.
Never for the reason that we don’t like, like think they knowGod better than Jesus did…
Wow…something that might actually make us question the writing of the show.
I mean, clearly, the writers of the Chosen just understand Jesus better than us. They’re doing all this research…you know, with non-Christian scholars (look it up), to really understand what the founder of our faith was all about.
And they clearly leave out half of what He taught (if not more) because they just understand what we need to see about Jesus, more than we do.
And heck, they know most people no longer read the Bible or care what it says, so they’ll get away with it.
And that’s not exploiting the ignorance of the population, and the gullibility of new Christians who don’t know better yet, in order to make money…Since they run this thing on donations.
And of course, us all subscribing to it on our streaming platforms….
I mean, there’s no ulterior motive here at all.
(I notice they also left out Jesus’ teaching about money for the most part….though they do represent greed as a bad thing…I think. But more sympathetically than other sins.)
6. What this show represents is False Gospel.
And people being okay with it because they think it’s a better story show two things:
a. We have fallen very far off track in the Western church and our love of scripture. We don’t love it anymore, we’re embarrassed by it. Because all of it does not fit pop culture. So, changing it is for the best in our eyes.
b. People do not really understand the beauty and wisdom of the Gospels.
I’m a simple woman in one way only: If I say I believe the Bible, I mean I believe all of it. Even the parts I don’t like, the parts that confuse me, and the parts that seem hard.
Because, I accept that I am not all knowing. That God has always seemed difficult to understand to all poeple, in all times…but that is not unusual in life.
All the most real and beautiful things in life are hard to understand.
Love is.
Great art is.
Wisdom that really works for life is.
Life itself, with all its complex functions, is hard to understand.
So is the biological life we experience, and the natural world, they are hard to understand.
Even the things that are unpleasant have a purpose, and thousands of years ago we did know what many of them were, but we do now.
Why should God be any different? How could He be? He made the other things.
So yes, I don’t understand it all…but I don’t need to.
I accept God’s real because I have seen Him work in my life and the lives other, and I know He is real and true. so I can accept what I don’t know.
Not being able to do this, either on in a show,or in real life, seems to show a lack of faith to me.
Also a lack of sincerity.
If it it’s so hard to believe that Jesus was as powerful as He was, but that in our lives, we don’t get everything that we want…well…
Tough.
7: A response to these issues
See, our loss does not make it okay to scoff at someone else’s blessing. No more in the modern day than it did 2000+ years ago.
Just as Peter asked if John would die for his faith, as Jesus warned Peter he would, and Jesus said ” What is that to you? You follow me.”
See, John did not die for his faith, he was the only one who did not.
Peter picked the right one, I guess.
John was exiled,but, he died of old age.
Would it really have made Peter feel better if he knew John would die also?
Is someone else sharing our suffering necessary for us to bear it?
I think not. I think that’s selfish.
And Jesus told Peter He wouldn’t answer that.
And that the same for us, I think.
No, we do not all get the same miracles… We all get our own. However many we get.
And more than we like realize, since we’re not privy to all things that could be trying to harm us in our lives.
But, that does not mean we should presume to know why.
Jesus didn’t explain Himself.
I think that it did not need to be explained.
God knows the allotment of suffering we all will get.
Yeah, it’s disproportionate…but, what in life is ever in equal amounts to all people’?
Never in nature, only humans ever try to give everyone the same amount, and how often does that backfire as we realize that not everyone can have the same amount.
Two people can eat two different amounts of the same food.
Some people can’t even eat some foods.
We’re not all ready for the same thing. We’re not able to do the same things.
People who lose people in their lives now and feel the need to project that into the Gospel to feel validated…well, they are playing a dangerous game.
Both the writers, and often the fans.
I can’t stress this enough: THE GOSPEL IS NOT A VEHICLE FOR YOUR PERSONAL PROBLEMS AND YOUR ATTEMPTS TO RECONCILE THEM WITH YOUR CONCEPT OF GOD.
You learn from the Gospel, you do not use it to promote your own solutions to things that are not officially in the faith. Not as if they are doctrine, anyway.
Do we really need something so pathetic as needing to think Jesus let people die who were following him, in order to feel better about our suffering?
As if we’re the same as those people?
We’re not in the same time and place they were.
Some times just have more protection then others.
(Though, in my life, I’ve heard probably hundreds of stories by now of people being held, and even of being resurrected a few times and either I assume every single person was lying, even ones I know personally to be honest people, or, I assume that God still–shock–does miracles.)
I don’t see this as an issue.
And I don’t think they needed to waste our time with lies, just to push some half baked doctrine.
There are some passage in the Bible about prayers not being answered right away, but they are for more than one reason.
It can be lack of persistence. It can be the prayer is delayed by evil forces in the world (see Daniel). Or it can be God says no…but that’s rarely the reason given (to David and Paul are two of the only examples I can think of, for different reasons). Usually, it’s just not the right time.
8. Is everything in the show bad?
I don’t want to go that far. I might make the error of sinning in the opposite way if I do.
Being too judgmental and eager to quench any good the show may do, is not a good attitude to have.
But I must point out some things.
I rarely hear this taught on (only by John Bevere, actually), but not all good things are necessarily God.
At least, they may seem good, but that doesn’t mean they are good.
See, often poeple can start with a good message, or good deed, but do it only to do a worse evil.
Like how a child predator will use affirmation and rewards to lure a child in…but then do unspeakable;e things to them.
And if you think that’s painting it too strong, the word says that Jesus compared twisting His word and causing people to stumble, to misleading and sinning against children, and said it would be better to be drowned with a heavy stone, then to do something like that.
So if Jesus takes false teaching that seriously, then I think we probably should not be so flippant about how media is treating it.
Media like the Chosen takes some good things from the Bible, and dangles it in front of the Christian audience, who are starved of it, because the World tends to mock us and tear us down in entertainment.
So we’re desperate already.
And then they mix in their own twist on it, just when we’re not looking, and start threading it with things that really did happen or are really Biblical, we may not even notice.
The devil loves to use Scripture out of context, He tempted Jesus that way in the wilderness, so why not us?
[Another thing the Chosen constantly does is take the stories of Jesus out of the context he spoke them in, rendering the meaning utterly different. Just recently they did this with the story of the final judgement of the Sheep and the Goats. They made it seem like he was teaching this to explain the idea of the coming kingdom, but He told that story as a warning to His followers, not to correct misconceptions about him. He did address those at other times, but that’s not where this teaching fits into the Bible. It had nothing to do with Mary and the oil. It took place a few days before that on the mount of Olives, and there were no pharisees present, just him and His Disciples, which Matthew 24:3 makes a point of making clear. They ruined the moment of Mary’s anointing just for more e’em impact…but I thought it took away the emotional impact to mix it up with the politics.]
9. What is the Chosen even really about?
I challenge you all to look very carefully at what the message of the Chosen has really become.
Consistently, it is only a message from the most flimsy parts of Christianity (by which I mean, they are making it unbalanced), and hardly even Christianity anymore.
It does focus on the healing and kindness of Jesus to a few people, yes, but, it ignores the main thing He taught.
That His real purpose was to teach us how to follow God the best way, which has not been covered at all by the show.
Not how to pray, how to worship, how to fast, none of the things Jesus said about serving God.
Not even his speech about loving the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength”
None of His new teachings about being closer to the Father. Like “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.
But Jesus’ whole ministry was to reconcile us to the father.
His healings were part of that. Since physical and demonic ailments often are a hindrance to being close to God. (Also He was compassionate. It can be more than one thing.)
Since all that is gone, the show is very superficial.
It centers around what Jesus did for his disciple, and what He didn’t do…that’s it.
It’s not about God’s glory. It’s not about Jesus’ heart for His father, or His passion for His name.
They have no had the Temple Cleansing scene yet, I’ve heard that they will in season 5.
The issue is that, with the way they wrote this, they are going to make it look as if Jesus did these things just to anger the Pharisees. And the temple cleansing is Him adding to that.
But that was not why Jesus did it, at least, we’re given no hint that it was. It was Him showing zeal for Gods’ house, not to anger the Pharisees.
They take away huge parts of Jesus’ character, and by existence, His Disciples.
It’s not okay to ignore that they were real people.
Jesus is not just an idea you get to use to show whatever side of Him you are comfortable with.
He is His own person, and you should show Him in His own words and deeds.
Who can explain God better than Himself? And who can possibly hope to undrstand Him but Him?
So how can we think changing Jesus, in any way, is acceptable.
I don’t think they need to show ever sin thing He did, but what they do who’s should be what He did, and what He was like, not what we think He should be like.
A if we could ever know that, apreit form Him.
AS C. Lesis wrote, we shold pray to God “not to WAht I think Thou art, but what what Thou knowest Thyself to be.” IF w’re to be really honest about it.
10. My conclusion about the show
Boldly, I think no Christian should support what the Chosen is doing.
The good they have done, I question how good it really can be.
How can showing people a fake version of Jesus really help them?
Yes it may get them to read their bible…
But the thing is, that doesn’t help them, if in doing it, it has taught them to read it looking for the version of Jesus they’re seeing on the screen.
To read it with a bias, and filter out what they don’t like.
And if you think a show could not do that…then you don’t understand psychology. Because media does that all the time to us, and we’re lucky if we’re at least aware of it.
Movies try to make us feel most things are the way they show them, and it’s convincing.
Bad enough they corrupt sex, family, dreams, and art, but, you stay away from my Lord and Savior, you liars.
People will always try to twist Jesus to suit them.
But I must say, I’ve never seen anyone do it so openly, and gt so little flack for it from even Christians.
Yes, skeptics often praise watering down Jesus because they don’t like Him the way He is, but I expect that. Though it annoys me.
But those of us who are supposed to love Him, if we don’t really love Him, as He is…What are we even doing?
Why call yourself a Christian if you don’t like Christ?
No one seems interested in answering these questions who supports this show…
But I still have to keep asking them. I can’t afford to let myself be hypnotized by fancy special effects and decent acting to accept things that are not true.
And no one else should either. You have a responsibility to crack open your bible and find out if this show is right or not.
And not to just to look for it to confirm what you’re seeing, but really, really look.
And sorry to the writers , but any real perusal of the Gospel will show clearly that Jesus is not like what they are showing.
At times, yes, He may be something like it…but never as cut and dried as they want. Never as non-confrontational, or non-controversial.
It’s His teaching that still offends us to this day that gives us a real taste of what it was like to follow him.
And they should cover it, or they should shut up about it, because Jesus does not need you to show only part of who He is to the world. The world can do that itself.
It’s our business to show all of Jesus, as much as we can, since we are entrusted with the spirit and knowledge of Him to do this.
And throwing that away, frankly, makes me wonder if the chosen writers ever really had it to begin with.
But that’s not for me to say. I only wonder how much they can love God, if they would not even show God in the most simple way we have, His word is as simple as it gets, every other experience of God is harder to endure than that, so if you can’t even get that right…
Well, I don’t know. God knows their hearts. Maybe they are sincere.
But it looks bad.
And even if they were, it doesn’t make right, only makes them seem more sympethic.
That said, I urge you all to be careful about this show. Even approving of it partially is still sending a message to the world that we really, honest;y, don’t care that much about our Bible.
I have an anecdote for you today, as some of you may recall, I work at a college, as well as attend classes (online mostly now) to get ready for certification in ASL Interpreting.
Which is a whole ‘nother story in of itself, but not my focus today.
I currently work in the writing center, as many colleges have one, as a student tutor.
The job can be boring when people just want grammar checks and assignments to be signed off, but every so often I get a real zinger that reminds me why I love my job–or hate it, depending how you look at it.
Just such an occasion happened last week for me during finals. A student was doing an assignment on the topic of banned books.
He titled it “the war on books.”
Banned books are an interest of mine, so I was eager to read his paper.
Until…
Turns out the student had haphazardly researched what the leftist news cites had to say about parents’ objections to the many LGBTQ+ and political agenda books that are being presented to students.
Also the objections against Harry Potter and other books that include topics religious people don’t like.
I was surprised to see “To Kill a Mockingbird” on the list. Usually conservative, the group this student was rather biasedly targeting in his paper, don’t object to that book. I was skeptical that it was them. Mostly it’s the liberals who don’t like Huck Finn or Uncle Tom’s Cabin, other famous books that include some touchy race words and aspects of life, just because they are realistic about it.
Some people don’t understand the value of historically accuracy when teaching kids about race issues.
I asked my student about why he targeted only conservatives, and his basic answer was it was what the articles mentioned.
Not sruspi, they were form liberal owned papers.
Which is bad journalism, because all political parties object to certain books, not just conservatives, they’re just trying to make it seem like it’s a political party issue, but it’s a issue parents of all backgrounds have.
I’m not supposed to lecture students, so I had to be careful how I worded my objections, I causally pointed out that the paper had a clear bias ad that it’s not considered responsible writing in college to target people groups.
“We target ideas not people,” I explianed.
(This is true, whatever side you’re on you’re supposed to keep it professional in college classes.)
I learned this myself, and I think it’s helped me as a blogger to not try to call out specific people, though I do complain about the left, on a blog it’s okay to do that, it’s not considered professional formal writing and people expect you to be biased in a blog. I do refrain from slinging insults though.
The student took this point pretty well from me, so I dared to, after going over some of his professor’s feedback also, broach the subject of his argument itself.
I asked him “is your position that parents should not be deciding what their children read.”
“Yes.” he said.
I had a silent moment of disbelief.
But I didn’t show it.
Instead I said that it was good to make his solution clear then, so I asked him “then who should decide it?”
I kid you not, he went quiet for at least 1.5 seconds, then he said “I didn’t really think of that.”
I did not say “I could tell from you paper that you didn’t think about it.”
I just thought it.
I patiently explained that if you say one person should not decide something, your implicit argument is that someone else should. In this case it would be the school (or perhaps the child themselves, but we were talking about 5th graders, so that was doubtful).
This student didn’t know it, but I have a pet peeve with college courses about the vial stories they make students read, and many students I speak to agree with me that the stories are awful and they don’t enjoy them. Some of them are borderline pornographic, and I told my English professor they made me uncomfortalbe to read.
I think college students should sign some kind of waver saying they’re okay with explicit content, or else be allowed to read a story with a senl theme, but less graphic depictions.
So I’m with parents about objecting to books I would never read myself being shown to kids not even old enough to drive yet.
The student agreed with my point, and said he hadn’t thought about it that much and he’d have to fix that later. And that he’d fix the biased part.
Since he seemed openminded, I decided to risk one more point, once we’d gone over some more technical stuff, and our session was nearly over.
I mentioned that I’d had one of his classmates with this paper subject in earlier in the semester, and we’d talked about it too. And I had asked them if parents should never be able to decide what their kids read, and their answer was kind of noncommittal.
For context, one of the books mentioned in the article was one that showed sex positions between two gay men–and it would be horrifying if it was between a man and owman also, being shown to kids under 18, the legal age of consent, there is no reason to be showing a book like this, and it wasn’t even to teach sex education, that I understood.
The article openly admitted this book was objected to because of that, but insisted that the parents were at fault.
I wonder what they would have said if the teacher had shown the kids a R-rated movie instead.
I decided to give the student an illustration.
“For example,” I said. “Would you object to a child whose parents were atheists being forced to read a religious text in school?”
[The funny thing about this is that’s not even as overt, because plenty of atheists can acknowledge the lessons of religious texts are beneficial, as long as the content is not too explicit. And not all religious texts are about God only, plenty are about people and have useful life lessons.But on principle the parents can object to it if they want.]
The student immediately said “Yes.” Just like I thought he would.
But impressively, he also said “I get it, because that’s the same thing.”
He might have been bad at doing research for his paper, but he wasn’t stupid.
I agreed that it’s basically the same thing if religious parents don’t want their child taught stuff that goes against their religion.
And as a Christian, of course I would prefer everyone to learn about the Bible, but I wouldn’t force a Muslim child to read it against their parent’s will. Because I want the same rights to protect my child as they do, and if an exception can be made for me, it can be made for anyone, that’s the danger of hypocrisy.
As Portia piontes out in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”, once you make an exception for one person, no matter how much you like them, it’s a problem because it becomes a precedent for less scrupulous people to use as a loophole to get out of their punishments.
So why did I share this story?
Other than I thought it was funny, I also thought it was a good example.
I’ve been in college for 5 years (because a certificate program takes a long time) and I’ve noticed how the courses are trying to chip away at students’ integrity.
I know one class that make its student defend the idea that eating someone is okay if the person agree to it, and was drugged so as not to feel it.
I hope that shocked you and not that you’ve already had to study that case in your class.
I almost got physically sick when I went over that assignment.
But I learned something very important, and kind of diablocial, about psychology.
If you make someone argue for something, even if they hate it, it forces their mind to become a bit more open to it, just by dint of practice.
It’s like drinking alcohol, at first it’s really bitter, but then you get used to it, and your tastebuds go numb.
Now if it’s a harmless subject, that’s fine.
But what if it’s a subject the person really object to morally at first, but by practicing arguing for it, they become more amenable to it.
You might say “They probably didn’t really object that much then.”
But that is not true.
That is exactly how brainwashing works, you make someone accept part of something that is not true, and then you build off of it, till they don’t even realize you changed their mind.
The real art of counseling is to help people realize that they really think, deep down under the lies they tell themselves.
The art of brainwashing it to make people believe that they really agree with what you think, deep down, despite their misgivings initially.
Also the art of gaslighting works that way. Though in both cases, you may not actually believe what you want them to believe.
Some amount of manipulation goes into all forms of teaching, but a responsib;e teachers knows where to draw the line, just like a responsible parent knows that tricking your kids into eating more greens is very different than tricking them into a career choice they didn’t want. One of these things will not do lasting damage, and the other will.
And convincing someone to do what you want willingly, instead of jamming it down their throat, like my mom used to do with food I didn’t want to eat, is a very different skill.
However, if you force feed someone poison it will still be poison, and it’s still harmful.
I think the college classes are a mix of both. They force students to read about topics no one should ever be forced to read about.
Then they have them argue about it, till the students are willing to look at it more laxly.
Some professors hate this curriculum as much as the students do, but are required to teach it. Their silent protest is making the assignments as short and worth as little points as they can.
Others love it, because they’ve drunk the Kool Aid that says this is somehow becoming more progressive.
To go back to my student with the book banning, it’s really not so surprising the poor chump didn’t question his position till I pointed it out. After all, he’s being taught the exact same way by his professors, and it doesn’t occur to him to question it, because in his highschool days, he just had to do whatever the teachers said.
This is how I think public school teachers kids to be blind followers. Don’t object to anything or you fail the class.
At least in college our paper can criticize the material if you’re creative about it, so some vent for these feelings is allowed.
The thing I’ve noticed that’s key to brainwashing, is to make sure no one ever asks why you think this issue is so important.
As soon as I asked my student who he thought should be making the decision for what kids read, he hesitated. Because maybe deep down, he know that saying it should be the school and not the parents is a very problematic thing to say, without some parameters. Once I pointed out how he’d object to one situation but not the other, he began to see that he had a double standard, or better yet, the articles he read did.
Not every student can even admit this, some are very stubborn about not thinking out their position. I’ve had a few end our session as soon as they could because they didn’t like what I was saying.
I admit I’m not perfect as a tutor, but I do hold up students with views like mine to the same standards. I’ve told them plenty of times to be more careful about how they write their argument.
Even more so because I know professors with leftist leanings, like some I had, will tear their paper apart if they give any opening to do so by sloppy arguing, and they need to be better than the other students, not worse, at being unbiased.
What your college doesn’t tell you about these issues, like boko banning, or pride, or equality, is that the very first thing you need to ask before you teach anything about this, is why you think it matters.
See, the assumption that equality is the most important value of life permeates our culture, and most people don’t actually question if it’s valid.
As long as they don’t, the argument is always going to be on uneven footing, because you’re automatically forced to concede points to the other side.
And suggesting that there are higher goals than equality gets you a weird look, like that’s crazy, because it is so assumed.
I do believe in equal rights, but I don’t share the definition of rights that many people do, and I don’t like to argue on their turf until we’ve established what we really think.
Often my view surprises them because it’s not taught in school.
Which is my point, school doesn’t teach this stuff.
Chesterton said that a boy is only sent to school when it is too late to teach him anything. [Orthodoxy, chapter 9]
The angle in schools is very narrow. It doesn’t teach you all sides of an issue, or even the underlying assumptions of the side it is teaching.
The point is to teach yo uto spit out the same rhetoric they use, and not think any deeper, or any longer, about it than absolutely necessary.
And you wonder why the internet is such an echo champ of inane chatter and trolling.
I wish I could tell you the Left is the only offender, but I’ve seen just as much of it on the Right, only the Right tends to at least hold up the idea of unbiased thinking more than the left does, but often only in name, not practice. And often their approach to issues is just as surface level. Just because I happen to agree with their side more doesn’t mean I don’t see the flaws in their approach.
I was talking to my sisters and a friend about this earlier this week, and telling them that as much as we like to appeal to rationality for our side, we forget that people do not usually want to be rational.
They believe things because they are comfortable believing them, and because it’s what everyone else says, and most people don’t go against the flow. If our view was popular, they’d take it, but it’s not.
In fact on of my favorite tests of faith is to ask if your faith makes you comfortable.
Mine doesn’t. Some things about it are comforting, but many are challenging and unpleasant, but I’m firmly convinced of their validity despite that. Which shows I do not believe it just to suit my own fancy.
Granted, I may be ore afraid to stop believing it than I am to accept the unpleasant things, but that also shows genuine faith.
What is not genuine is when the only fear you have is to consider a different perspective that makes you uneasy period. Not because it’s one that would shake your entire world. People can be just as stubborn about not trusting new companies as they are about new religions, but either might be better than what they currently use, they’ll never know if they can help it.
What college does not tell you is that sometimes it’s in losing those beliefs that make us comfortable that we find what’s really right for us.
Stores stopped carrying a coffee brand I liked, which bothered me for months as I had to use a cheaper, much less tasty variety.
But this dissatisfaction led me to try a new kind of organic coffee that tasted even better than the brand I first lost.
The point is, someone losing one good thing, and being dissatisfied with the available replacements, leads you to find a better thing in the end.
Ideas can be the same. Humans are terrible at knowing what’s best for us, and the wisest of us keep that in mind all our lives and are flexible, the foolish of us try to make everyone else agree with our definition of what’s best at all times.
And I think any religion that doesn’t challenge your idea of what’s best isn’t really a religion, it’s your preference that you put a religious face on. And Christains do this just as much as other religions.
But the bible at least is clear that it’s not the purest form of our religion to do this, that the best way is to be teachable.
Now, even so, even an idiot who’s right by sheer accident is better than a genius who’s wrong by deliberately pursuing the wrong thing.
So I still think it’s better to be a stupid Christian than a smart atheist, because intelligence is not everything, and anyone who thinks it is is already missing a big chunk of their heart.
Our intelligence, as we call it, is so very small compared to the complexities of the universe, that to feel proud of it is kind of ludicrous. The smartest person in the world can’t explain the real mysteries of life any easier than a stupid person can. Sometimes they have more trouble because they think they can.
Our intelligence, as we call it, is so very small compared to the complexities of the universe, that to feel proud of it is kind of ludicrous. The smartest person in the world can’t explain the real mysteries of life any easier than a stupid person can. Sometimes they have more trouble because they think they can.
Even so, I feel compelled to still get involved in these debates.
It seems small, but the Bible does say, “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,” [2 Corinthians 10:5]
Which is why I write about it also.
I think it’s about time to wrap this post up (and I’m still recovering from a head cold anyway, starting to feel sleepy), and I think that’s a good closing thought.
I might write more about this in the future, but I think my overall takeaway is that you can’t let school be your only education.
You have to dig deeper, school plays to the bare minimum, unfortunately, to the lowest common denominator, and that’s encouraged by a lot of educators now, because no one should ever be made to feel inferior. Even if realistically, some people are not as smart or skilled as others.
Most people who hate learning, hate it because school does it the wrong way, and would enjoy it if they tried a different approach.
I believe in learning and self improvement if you can improve. And in growing.
So yeah, that’s it for today on what your college doesn’t teach you, though some professors, bless ‘em, do try, and I love them for it, but it’s just not enough without the student trying too.
Until next time, stay honest, –Natasha.
Well, I was young I was young and naïve Cause I was told Cause I was told so I believed I was told there’s only one road that leads you home And the truth was a cave On the mountain side And I’ll seek it out until the day I die…
I’ve been so busy with classes and work and other stuff, it always feels like blogging is at the bottom of my to-do list.
Might be a short post today anyway.
So…what should we talk about?
Something controversial?
You know me.
Well, since I’ve been working at my college, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to meet people who have views I don’t agree with…which is a constant source of frustration.
I know that we have to allow other people to have their opinions, but they don’t seem to feel the same way. It’s annoying to be silenced so quickly if I even start to poke the big balloon of hot air that is most of the opinion people spout off.
I know the truth is never popular, but the alternative is just scary.
I guess I confuse people. I’m 24 and half and I live in a Blue state. I shouldn’t have the opinions I do. I should prefer traditional teachings to progressive ones and I shouldn’t prefer the opinion of God to the one of Man.
But the thing is, before I ever cared about fitting in with my peer group, I cared about truth.
I feel sorry for my generation, and it’s not just because of the mental health crisis, or the total depravity of sex and everything else that can be corrupted.
It’s also because I can’t imagine being raised without truth being put first and seeking out the right way to live being a priority.
What shocks me the most often about other people my age is not that they’re wrong, isn’t that to them, it doesn’t matter whether they are good or not. They have some vague sense that there is astandabe, but they prefer not to care about it.
I know that’s not new, but that it is so prevalent and no one seems to even feel the need to excuse it now, that is what’s scary.
I remember when I read the Mr. Miracle Comics by Jack Kirby, one thing that stuck out was when the character in it who ends up waking Scott Free (Mr. Miracle) up to his brainwashed existence mentions to him that he doesn’t really think or have any right to be respected because all he does is have a programmed response to be angry when someone says a certain word or phrase to him, and he doesn’t question it.
It’s interesting to think of what Kirby probably thought was a dystopian view of society becoming almost the reality for many though not all, people.
It’s not new to the world, but it is new to us to see it happen in our lifetimes, and I think it’s always shocking to those outside it just how deep it goes.
Here’s the thing, Wokeism, or whatever you want to call it, is not new.
It’s not even a creative spin on old ideas.
It’s just slapping a bunch of new labels on things that have been around for thousands of years and have always tried to defend themselves with whatever words or excuses they could.
People think that being LGBTQ supportive is a new thing, but the Greeks would use it as part of worship to gods, they’d go even further than we do–at least I hope.
And rejecting religion is nothing new, it is the movement that has happened before every single fall of a country since history began to be recorded.
Not a popular fact to point out.
What always frustrates those of us who see this happen and warn people is that no matter what we do, they will act surprised when it happens. We always think we’re so right, till we’re so wrong.
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death,”
But I am learning a few things about how to reach people like this from having to work around them.
While it’s only small changes for now, it’s good to learn.
See, I also find the approach that many people on my side of the politics and faith issue take to be unsatisfying.
We condemn the people who believe these delusions for believing them, but neglect to remember that they’ve been taught only this most of their lives. That media and schools are on the side of it, and that the government itself is in the back pocket of those groups.
Considering the weight of societal pressure to agree with them, and the inability to get away from it even in our homes often enough, it’s easy to see why so many people are afraid to disagree.
Even those who have questions are afraid to voice them.
And those who scream the loudest tend to drown them out anyway.
Public protests are our right as citizens I suppose, but I don’t think they work. They might get a few people thinking, but most will only scream louder.
And now for some truth that no one on my side is going to want to hear:
In the long run, it’s not going to matter how much we protest.
The vast majority of young people are indoctrinated by the schools and don’t know how to even reason at all about what they think, because they are not taught to do so.
I live in it. I would know.
Even the critical thinking and philosophy classes at colleges are always slanted one way, usually to the Left.
I notice how the examples they gave us to analyze for logical fallacies were always very weak incomplete or even inaccurate examples of right wing thinking that wouldn’t be what was present by the most educated or well thought out speakers for the side. Probably just college level stuff by people who haven’t learned how to argue yet.
Which is fine, but then on the Left side, there’s only a very small example of fallacious logic provided and if students aren’t that hard on it, the professors often don’t care.
And if you dared to ask for errors to be found in hot topic issues…oh forget it. You’d get fired.
So let’s be realistic people, we’re not going to be able to out yell them.
The older generation is going to die out and there’s only a minority in the younger one who has different opinions, and a lot of them are too neutered by the culture to even stand up for anything, they’re afraid.
(Which is so deeply unattractive in the dating pool I might add.)
But I also don’t think being angry is going to help anything in the long run.
I’d be the first to say we all have reason to be angry. There’s never any lack of reason to be angry.
But my question is will it help?
I think that often, Left or Right, we’d really rather just be able to point at someone else and say they’re stupid and it’s all their fault, then ever try to help them.
I don’t think we need to apologize for being right, either policitally or literally, and I hate it when people do that.
But we don’t need to be arrogant about it either.
Unfortunately, I find just as many poor thinkers on my side of the issue as I do on the other side. Many very smart people buy into the Left because they have never heard the Right presented in an intelligent or compelling way.
And then you have people who are too smart to really buy it, but too well aware of the consequences of disagreeing to dare to voice that thought to anyone who does support the Left Wing agenda.
All this together means I think that we really need to reconsider our approach.
Really on either side, what good is rage doing us?
The difference is that the Left outnumbers the Right now in America at least, so they don’t need to worry about getting the power, only about keeping it and that’s why they hold us in such contempt. They know we can’t beat them by sheer force. Though they are terrified of going anywhere where we might outnumber them and then they might need a therapy session to deal with the emotional stress of being talked down to.
(If I needed therapy after every time someone disparaged my worldviews, I’d never be able to work in this country.)
Anger is justified, but it is not helpful. Foolish people know all about anger, and if you stoop to their level, they’ll drag you down with them.
I think we should be striking where these young people are actually vulnerable.
Their opinions may be strong, though ill informed, but that’s about all that is.
Once you turn someone into nothing more than a mouth for your ideology that you’re pushing them to have no choice but to believe, you take out any kind of self reliance or self respect or courage.
Anger is a poor replacement for happiness.
What’s going to get to them is not our reason or logic, because they can’t understand that, they’ve never been taught to.
But what might get through is if we’re happier and more confident people.
I’ve stood out among my peers as the person who’s sure of herself, and while some of them have openly despised me for it, they know it’s not like them.
While I never set out to really be this person on purpose, once I realized I am that person for better or worse, I had to ask why.
I consider the way I live to be normal. Trying to come to the right conclusions about things and to live in a way that promotes the most happiness in myself and the least regrets about my actions.
In other words to do as I think God has said we should do, and hope for the best, while preparing for the worst when necessary.
I never thought that was novel till I heard other people talk about their lives.
I never realized that what I believe made me happier just because I really believe it, and conviction gives you a sense of purpose that other people don’t have.
And I think I’d like to ask this generation some questions now that I feel are going unasked.
Why do you believe what you do?
And I mean why do you really believe it?
Most of us who call ourselves born again Christians had a conversion experience where we had a realization that it was true and that we needed it or we wouldn’t be able to live freely, or live at all in some cases. So many of us are pulled back from the brink of suicide or self destructive lifestyle.
I would like to know where this is in the secular side of things. Why do you feel so strongly that it’s true.
If you had to pick a reason other than it’s what everyone teaches and supports and assumes it’s true what would you pick?
How does your belief make you a better person?
Do your beliefs prompt you to think about who you are? Do you make people’s lives better? Would you say you’re a more gracious or forgiving person? Do you do more nice things for others? Do you defend people who are being picked on, no matter who they are or what their beliefs are?
Do you try to be fair, do you try to be honest, do you have any ideals that are about personal excellence and ot public approval?
Because it is so easy to get by in the world if you just give it lip service. It doesn’t care about your heart. The world will not be there for you if you are miserable and downcast and in financial trouble.
There’s not one jot of charity in the LGBT movement to anyone but themselves, unless it’s just as a bonus because some people in it who care about other things too (and I won’t say it’s not good when there is, it’s just rare.)
The Pride movement doesn’t promote better grades or better understanding of hard subjects. They promote acceptance, but often can’t even define what it is.
It’s more like a void is trying to be filled with morals and ethics, but when you look at it, the actual guidance for ethical living is pretty small.
3. What in your worldview tells you how to be a good person?
I mean a really good one. Not just accepting and supportive.
What comforts you when you go through something hard? And what meaning is there in pain or suffering?
What is the best reason to believe what you believe in?
What should people care most about in life?
What world would you want to grow up in, if you could?
All of these questions are the ones that we really need answered.
My conclusion is that only by teaching people love and truth together can we really teach them at all.
Truth is precious but very little valued by people unless they think it benefits them.
And my generation is practical.
They know that deviating from the norm gets you insults, ostracized, and more and more often fired and failed, if people have enough power over you.
They know also you will be publicly flogged by the media who does not care about justice or fairness or spreading kindness.
Until they want something other than the security of the world’s favor, they will never want God or even man’s wisdom.
So our best defense is, as it’s always been, living to the best of our ability to embody the principles of God’s ways and our freedom in them.
Or, if we really think we are smarter, we must try to use that to benefit other people.
As a tutor/teacher I look at students a lot who seem like idiots to me, but my job is to make them as smart as possible. Sometimes it works. Sometimes I want to cry for this generation.
But it’s for the few who we can save that we have to try.
And at least, in my faith, I have the assurance that my fate does not depend on them anyway, and the longer I live, the more glad I am of that. The world is too fickle to rely on.
People will attack me for that, but I really care very little because I know that in the long run, the world will betray them, as it always does and always has, but God will never betray me, because He is what He is.
And no that does not mean I’m never discouraged, but thank God, all my hope is not in other people.
I can’t promise you that it will get better, things usually get worse before they get better.
But I can promise you that trying to live by the world or the culture is a useless exercise, and no one can keep up with it.
I watched a video this morning by a Christian Lady saying that this whole Trans craze is the reason she’s finally pulling her kids out of school and homeschooling them.
Hurray!
I was homeschooled all up till college. I do have trouble making friends, but it beats not having a brain.
Not that there aren’t some very smart kids in Public school, the problem is the systme istelf sucks the IQ out of these kids as fast as possible.
I learned something from this video that I should have realized before, I just never had gone to school enough to know it.
The schools slip this LGBT+ whatever stuff ito the curriculum because they clasify is as “anit-bullying” training
See, a very powerful lie because it’s mized with a small amount of truth, alwasy the most effective.
Sure, you can point to the whole pride community and say “They do get bullied”
True…but every community gets bullied. I don’t care who you are, you just have to live around jerks who are from a different circle, or be in the minority in your neighborhood.
The lady made an excellent point, that no other kind of bullying is the solution to pressure everyone else into being this thing.
Just about everyone mainstream had a label in the Pride community now, just because it makes them cool. Just ike everyone has a mental illness.
Humans are infamous for promoting trends that are unhealthy to ourselves, without knowing it. But I never thought I’d see the day, even in my short life, where promoting being unhealthy itself would be popular.
What the heck?
I have a cousin who’s already fallen under this spell, who was always a very normal girl before she got Tiktok. But, of course, she wants to fit in.
The kid is too young to drive, but according to the YouTube lady, that doesn’t mean she can’t get hormones and change her pronouns, without parental consent.
It’s bizarre and insane, you have to get parental consent to treat kids in the freaking Emergency room just in case you give them something they are allergic to, but you don’t have to get it to give them body altering hormones?
That’s nuts.
Even parents who support the rights of this community have an issue with this, but the kids are being taught to ignore their parents, to see them as the enemy if they don’t support this.
I see no real doubt about this being a cult, but I didn’t understand how it got slipped into school so fast until the anti-bullying connection was made for me, now I get it.
Because I hear kids defends this so vehemently, the way they’d say it’s not right to bully someone else, and they never stop to think that maybe it’s not the same thing, because a kid doesn’t understand the nuances between preventing bullying and pushing an agenda.
Hey, China did this once. They said everyone should stop being bullied by the oppressive landlords. Anyone who owned land and wealth had to be stropped of it.
So they made their whole population poor, and completely dependent on the government, which was pretty broke also, and just the most high ranking people had wealth. People turned on each other, because there was no need for proof, you just had to make an accusation. All the most spiteful people are in charge in a society like that.
It didn’t end well for China.
It’s not rocket science to most of us that all this is not going to end well, but how do we stop it?
I figure that in some ways, it can’t be stopped. AS long as parents are willing to allow it, some kids are bound to be victimes of it.
Homeschooling is the best option, to be sure, but not everyone can do it. Still one could pay for a tutor, or try a different kind of school.
But it’s not just schoool, it’s the internet.
No kid should have a tiktok, that’s just common sense. They don’t need to be exposing themselves on line to people when they can’t even legally sign an information release form yet, not that hard to figure out.
I didn’t start my YouTube channel till I was 17 or 18 I think, and I never gave personal information out on it.
I know I’m not saying anything new here, but we just need as many people to be saying it as possible. To do our best to have a counter movement.
But in answer to the guy who commented asking why people feel the need to prove themselves right, and they can’t just live and let live.
This is why, Sir. Thisfreakingcrapiswhy!
Because when we give up trying to prove ourselves right, you know who takes the hit? It’s not us, not right away, not the adults. It’s the kids. They don’t get a choice. They don’t know any better.
And if we adults who do are too lazy, cowardly, or indifferent to speak our piece to these other people and contest them, they will own our kids. Literally, before too long.
It won’t be long before even being an adult won’t be any protection anymore, at this rate. But let’s talk about htat.
I know people at my college who will applaud slipping this propaganda into everything, because they don’t think.
You see, if we thought about it, would we relaly beokay with this?
I know exaclty how it works.
People may call me transphobic for not agreeing with this, but I prefer to think of it as Pride-phobic. I am terrified by anyone exulting pride as something we all should be aiming for. Pride is deadly.
Hubris is the deadly Pride that says “I can do better than God/gods” depending on what religion you are, but it’s pride in oneself and their own wisdom above everything else.
Playing God, we call it.
I can’t think of any more blatant example of this than saying you can change the gender someone was born with, especially before they are old enough to understand what that truly means.
Some people say that doctors play God, to be sure, in some cases.
Yeah, that might be true…so change the laws there, but that doesn’t justify letting kids make these choices, or letting mentally unstable people make them either.
Now if a stable, grown adult wants to transition, I may disagree, but I wouldn’t stop them, because the y have the right to choose what they will do. They have the right to choose to do anything…and reap the consequences.
But that’s not the majority of cases here, that’s the problem.
I know why people take isue with sotpin it.
They say that whatever negative things happen it’s still important to promote this because these people need to feel accepted and loved.
That sounds good.
Until…
Think about it, what culture has ever had trure and complete acceptance of every kind of person?
That would be zero.
But the ones that got closest were the Nazis.
Yeah you could be from any background, if you join the nazi party you were in. You were the cool kids.
All you had to do was be willing to crush anyone outside the party who was in your way. Anyone who as not Germany,or anyone who was German but was loyal to the enemy, that is tot say, the people you were murdering enmasse.
Some people will say Gitler wasn’t evn worn now.
I heard the Whoopi Goldberg even said that the Holocaust wasn’t about Race.
I guess all those books the Germans wrote about superior genetics being in the German line, and all that propaganda they put out about black people (you know, ones like Whoopi Goldberg) and Jews was all about something other than race.
I can’t imagine what it would be, if not race, must be something only enlighten people like Goldberg know.
I remember the Rwanda Holocuast really united the country, as long as you weren’t Tutsi. And as long as you didn’t look Tutsi, even if you were Hutu, you were fine.
Yeah…you know mass acceptance comes at a price. Because when people are individuals, some of them will not fit in, they will not be accepted, so you have to sacrifice your individuality in order to be accepted.
Put on their label, dye your hair, wear the make up, wear your pride sticker. Now you’re cool.
But if you want to do anything for yourself, without putting that label on it you can’t get away from it.
Remember that gay ice skater in the Olympics a few yeas ago. The news couldn’t get enough of him, though he was not the best skater in the team, and the one who was didn’t get interview as much. (And I mean by the scores, he wasn’t the best, not my personal opinion).
I really would care if a gay man was the best ice skater, because to me being gay and having talent are two things that have nothing to do with each other, why would they? Does being straight give you talent? No? Does sex give you talent period? No.
But he gets attention just for that.
You know it kind of sucks even if you are gay, because you may have hobbies that you’d like to get acclaim for, and you’ll never know if people are just praising you because you’re gay, or because you’re talented. Since the general public really can’t recognize talent and skill that well to begin with, that makes it even worse. Charisma goes a long way with the masses, but if you say you’re gay, that’s an automatic win.
A lot of people are milking it on purpose to get famous, or more famous, Like Demi Lovato.
But if you genuinely do feel gay, you may not really want that to be all there is to you. I read an article by someone like that once in college.
And it’s sad. Really. Talent is talent, whoever has it, shouldn’t it be acknowledged as such?
I’ve watched a gay youtuber for years now, because he has talent. But sadly, he has leaned more and more into using his gay label to make content, instead of actually using his creative talents to do it. He used to be real clever, but he doesn’t need to be now. He’s got talent still…but he no longer needs to use it, so he doesn’t.
That’s going to happen to kids right and left at this rate. Why be a scientist if you can get famous by being a sexual orientation, it’s not like that takes work.
I saw this ad for a new show where this Trans person is saying that they hate it when people say they are brave for transition so young, and someone replies “its not brave to be who you are.”
While I wholly disagree with the premise of that sentiment, it’s interesting in one way.
By their own logic, why is this anything to applaud? If it’s just who they are, that’s like applauding someone for liking the color blue. What does my merits as a person have to do with it? Nothing.
Some of them will say t his.
The thing is, the people who are getting into this because it’s popular are really the ones who will ignore that.
Nevermind if it actually hurts the exact people you’re trying to help.
A gay person might like to write a play about something other than being gay, you know, just for once. But they aren’t allowed to, are they? Name one, I’ll wait.
Anyway, I need to wrap this up.
In short, I think pushing this agenda is hurting the gay and whatever else is in the spectrum people just as much as anyone else, and it’s hurting kids too.
And before we decide to ride this train because everyone else is doing it, we should ask if we want to be responsible for that kind of damage.
drybonestruth 