Christianity

What Your College Doesn’t Tell You…

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

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…

The Wrong Approach to Wokeism.

/ toseealife / Leave a comment

I’m back finally!

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.

  1. 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?

  1. 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.

    Find hope in something else, and cling to it.

    Until next time, stay honest–Natasha.

    The Oh Hellos–The Truth is a Cave.

    My Own Devices

    / toseealife / Leave a comment

    I’d like to start this post with a song:

    I was left to my own devices.

    Many days fell away with nothing to show.

    … But if you close your eyes Does it almost feel like nothing changed at all? And if you close your eyes Does it almost feel like you’ve been here before? How am I gonna be an optimist about this? How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

    We were caught up and lost in all of our vices In your pose as the dust settled around us

    Eh-oh, eh-oh Eh-eh-oh, eh-oh Eh-eh-oh, eh-oh Eh-eh-oh, eh-oh

    Oh, where do we begin? The rubble or our sins?

    The rough draft of this post got erased somehow…I guess I shouldn’t leave things on this site…

    So starting over from scratch, what would be a good thing to write about?

    I know that my original point was how well this song describes us now. I mean us in the Western World.

    You know it’s funny how much depression runs rampant in our cultures, considering we have more benefits than we ever have.

    But that’s actually something we have in common with animals.

    A study was done on rats, where they were given everything they needed, all the time, never had to work for it.

    The rats developed depression, as well as other unhealthy habits, for rats…and for humans.

    But you might see the same thing with dogs. They’re bred for work, and when they’re kept as pets but not exercised properly or given any tasks to do, they will also get depressed.

    And so do humans.

    This life of staring at screens and working from home, and not getting outside and having to really work to solve problems that many of us have is making us depressed. We feel like we have no meaning, because there is no effort.

    We don’t have to be fighting for survival, to feel accomplished, any creative goal can help, but most especially if it’s necessary.

    I know each generation has its issues with how the younger one has it easier and isn’t disciplined.

    I do think there’s some truth in that, though. Even I feel less invested in homework assignments since I had to do them digitally, and it’s just a little too easy now. I know it doesn’t prove I’m smart now, if I succeed, it just proves I knew what the teacher wanted. Many times I could have done way more if left to my own devices.

    But the education system encourages me not to be creative, because my grade will suffer if I don’t meet the exact requirements of the assignment. Ever get in trouble for going over the page limit? Yeah…

    But anyway, my point is, we don’t have to really work. There are people who do, but the ones who are the face and voice of our culture don’t.

    And that is every race, gender, and whatever else.

    i think that’s part of the reason we spend so much time fighting each other, really. While history shows people would fight each other no matter what, it doesn’t help that we really have all the time in the world to do it now, instead of having to set aside time to go to war.

    All this has got me to thinking.

    About how few people under 30 even know history now, they really don’t know that much period. Not science, or religion, or how people work.

    You have your outliers, like my cousin, who like to do their own research, but they’re not the majority.

    Not that this is unusual, in pampered societies, it’s pretty normal, actually…and then they crumble.

    That’s what the song Pompeii is about, really. How when we’re left to ourselves, to follow our own whims, we get buried in our sins, until disaster strikes, and freezes us that way forever.

    And how can you be an optimist about this? When there is only one outcome ever to societies in moral decay like that.

     “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25, 17:6)

    Both those instance talk about someone doing something pretty stupid and wrong. And also it says:

    “Be not wise in your own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.” (Proverbs 3:7)

    We are wise in our own eyes now aren’t we?

    Like all this prattle about not getting married and staying single that I wrote about before. What is that but being wise in our own eyes.

    And we don’t seem to care what generations of humans before us said or thought. We’ve got it figued out now.

    I mean because with zero experience, zero study, and only the corrupt examples of current culture to go by, clearly we’re well informed on these issues.

    But the depression of this age has gone so far now, that a lot of kids don’t even care anymore if they’re right.

    Case in point, just yesterday, I was in YT comment thread with someone who said that truth doesn’t matter tot ehm.

    I was asking them why they bothered to watch the whole video of a debate if they didn’t care about the truth or what was right.

    I got no answer to that so far. I probably never will.

    At this point, admitting you hunger for a definitive truth is like a weakness to our relativistic young people–and some older people also.

    Of course the dismissive attitude of older people isn’t helping.

    I mean, who let the kids watch PBS and Disney Channel and Cartoon network? I noticed the bad messages of those channels when I was a kid. I’m not surprised the people who never questioned it have now swallowed it hook line and sinker.

    I mean, you take a whole show like Dora the Explorer, and you go on a quest through a fake map, looking fora fake item, learn a few Spanish words…and you call that exploring?

    Nothing against Dora personally, it’s an okay show for entertainment–but it’s not really educational. And it’s not even the worst one.

    It’s hard to blame the young, they’re just doing what they were taught to do, and by the time they realize it wasn’t right, they’ll have a lot of regrets.

    Still we have our own responsibility. And they do choose not to think, not to try, not to explore for real. And that’s on them.

    I bring all this up, but do I have a solution?

    I think the solution is the same as it’s always been.

    Person by person, the only thing to do is try to get people to understand the condition they’er in.

    Debate isn’t always the best way to do that, I admit. Though it works for some.

    I’ve had most people just duck out of arguments when they realized I was going to win because I was better informed than them, or just straight up insult me.

    But people can’t always be so quick to dismiss if you touch them on a personal level.

    We need both.

    But it’s hard, there’s so few people fighting these battles compared to the people who are casualties in them.

    But that’s how it usually goes. We preserve a remnant of the people. The majority of them don’t want to be helped.

    Some will literally say so, I have grandparents who would say that.

    We love our sin so much.

    We love being able to do what we wnat.

    And now it’s not a secret, you’d even hear it hailed from the streets and the theaters and political campaigns that we’d rather die doing what we’d prefer to do, right or wrong, then live submitting to God’s will.

    I saw this comment today, it was like this: I don’t believe in God because there’s nothing about same sex relationship in the bible and He’s not okay with them.

    First: There’s actually plenty about homosexuality in the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah, the books of the Law, and Romans 1 all talk about it. (It’s called Sodomy in the old Testament)

    Second: I find that these types of objections completely misunderstand the nature of God’s existence.

    You see, if God exists does not depend on our personal preferences. He either does, or He doesn’t.

    If He does exist, He is the final say on what is right and wrong. You, as His creation, don’t get an opinion.

    Sure, against other humans, you do. But not against God. If God was in front of you and He told you, that would be the last word. And if you saw God, in His Glory, the last thing you would dream of doing is arguing with Him.

    See, the point of contention is not if God supports what we feel is right.

    If God is the Reality, then that is the reality we have to deal with. Even if He was the bloodthirsty God of many religions, cruel and spiteful, which would be bad for us. But it would be Reality, there’d be nothing we can do about it.

    Thankfully, God is not like that. But He’s still unchangeable. Your preferences donesn’t come into it.

    You may not like it….and God has never said we have to like doing what He says…but He does say we need to do it.

    As a Christian, I do find that the rewards of serving God is that if you do it long enough, you will start to like it, and then eventually, you won’t be able to do without it. But that’s sort of an insider bonus. The bible promises that one day everyone will have to submit to God’s will, whether they like it or not.

    It’s a bit like Gravity. Many of us wish we could fly, and though we can sort of, using machines, we have to borrow that from things God made that can defy gravity, we ourselves can’t defy gravity more than a few feet in the air before it yanks us back down.

    In the same way, we can’t defy God’s design for very far in our moral lives. Maybe if we had the “help” from the devil, we can go farther…gross.

    But that’s short lived, and on our own, the consequences of our actions will always pull us back down to the ground eventually.

    Christians believe that one day God will set us free form the law of Gravity, just as one day, we don’t need the Law of morality anymore…because we’ll become things that don’t need gravity, and things that don’t need law. We’ll have a new nature.

    Like a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.

    But until then, this is what we’ve got. We have to work with it.

    I’m not an optimist about Mans’ ability to fix this world. I think we’re as doomed as Pompeii.

    But I always knew that.

    But I still have hope. I hope in God’s ability to always save some people, as He promises to do. And in that hope, we keep trying to be a part of that.

    I think that’s about all for now.

    Until next time, stay honest–Natasha.

    Loving Ourselves

    / toseealife / Leave a comment

    Well my last post seems to have gone over well, so I trust I’m striking a chord with some people at least.

    I talked a lot about being arrogant in that post.

    What I don’t want to do is come off like I’m blaming Gen Z and Millennials for this.

    While I do blame them in some capacity for making their own decision to embrace all this insanity, I can’t say they’re particularly stupid or evil compared to the rest of humanity.

    It’s been pointed out by smarter people than me that the age of Moral Standards we’ve lived in for the last 200 years in the West, give or take a few decades or centuries depending on the country, was not a usual thing for humans. It’s the anomaly.

    From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance to the Revolution era, it was a very unusual period in history compared to before, especially the pre-Christian era.

    Up till then, the general consensus from all people’s was that everyone else was corrupt, and only their culture stood out, and some of them didn’t even go that far.

    If you read what the Bible describes people doing, it would shock you how sick it was. Even now, we haven’t gone that far–as a whole–though some of us have.

    And God somehow still had hope for those people. It boggles my mind. But He was always looking for the Remnant.

    What big movement preachers tend to overlook, though they mean well, and I wish what they talked about was more frequent than it is–is that Positive Change, as well as Ethics being Preserved, is usually the work of small amounts of people.

    A few thousand out of many thousands, is usually the biggest amount of people who work together on it.

    It can be as few as 8, like the story of Noah (the legend is found in almost every culture in the world by the way, often with the same number of people surviving as the Bible says.)

    God has His eyes always on the few.

    Jesus even told us “Straight is the gate and narrow is the way to Life, and few will there be that find it.” (Matthew 7:14)

    Which seems harsh…but Jesus is just telling us how this works.

    The Masses of people are not concerned with morality that much, and if they ever are concerned about a few things in general, it was the phenomenon of the past thousand years to see that, it wasn’t common before.

    That’s why some historians have the idea that Man’s Consciousness is evolving. They look at our moving toward higher and higher ethical standards, and or at least more discussion about them, and they say we improved.

    But if you look at the bare facts of history, you’ll see each age has its own problems, and they repeat. We’re not smarter as a whole, it’s isl that those of us in each generation that do See Clearly, see a little more, because wise men learn form history and they build off of it, but foolish ones ignore it and they always have.

    That was part of the thought that’s been rolling around in my head for several months, which is just this:

    Things that people predict will happen if a country doesn’t change it’s course always do actually happen.

    And no one listens because no one ever has listened.

    You see, a lot of social commentators say that the problem is people just don’t realize what is happening.

    But that is not true.

    Sure there’s secrete scandals still, there probably always will be as long as mankind is in power.

    But the problems that are eating away at us are ones people predicted and called to attention for years, and decades, and even centuries.

    Just like in the Bible the Prophets told the Israelites what was happening. And the Israelites didn’t listen.

    It’s so hard for us to admit this, isn’t it? That we do what we do, knowing exactly what will happen, and we do it anyway.

    Example:

    If you got any person to answer you honestly on the subject of depicting violent in movies directed at kids as much as we do, they’d have to acknowledge that statistics do point to violence in entertainment having a bad effect on kids and their development.

    [See articles here: https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Children-And-TV-Violence-013.aspx#:~:text=Extensive%20viewing%20of%20television%20violence,to%20imitate%20what%20they%20see.

    https://www.bartleby.com/essay/effects-of-tv-violence-on-children-F3CEVXSZTC%5D

    But would they stop promoting that stuff by watching it, talking about it, reviewing it, and in many cases, showing it to their own kids.

    My father did, and he’d be one of the ones to say it was a problem.

    You see? We know…we just don’t care.

    That’s always the way.

    I’m glad that my faith was never in humanity to begin with, because living in a world where everyone’s corruption is exposed so much via internet would kill anyone’s faith in humanity.

    We hope for the best from people, but we cannot depend on it, unless we know them very well.

    But that’s not really mean to be a depressing thought. The Bible has said that for years. All these angsty pop culture hot take people are just agreeing with an old teaching, that’s all.

    It’s like G. K. Chesterton said, if we try to hit on anything original an good, we’ll only find it was Orthodoxy the entire time.

    Even the idea of Self Worth is Christian, though it’s been taken way, way out of it’s proper context, as always.

    I don’t know if there’s a better or worse thing to worship other than God. One could make the case for it, but it’s kind of a matter of opinion whether the worship of success and domination of a few hundred years ago is really better or worse than the worship of tribalism and self fulfillment is now. Often both at the same time.

    Humans are not better or worse than we’ve been in the past.

    But we are regressing out of the progress the last centuries brought us in at least realizing how messed up we were.

    People used to admit that there was a lot wrong with human nature, even if they didn’t see it in themselves.

    But now we’re really trying to deny that Human Nature is corrupt.

    Telling people to “Be themselves” no matter what.

    Yes,the message to be genuine is a good one.

    But predictably, since other messages were neglected, it’s become “be yourself even if that you is a terrible person.”

    Women will admit to be aggressive b—-s publicly now. Like ti’s something to brag about.

    “I’m so mean, yay!”

    Or “so evil” I hear that one a lot.

    “I have no soul” guys say that one too.

    “no heart.”

    Wow, so brave of all of you to admit to being inhuman. Hip hip hurrah.

    I think actual people who are jerks have always been proud of it, if they weren’t arrogant, they probably would be jerks.

    But at least it wasn’t approved of by the entire culture before, not for a long time, but we’re swinging back that direction.

    Let’s just remember that in Greek Culture, which is where we get a lot of our ideas, rape and kidnapping were normalized parts of their mythology that no one thought twice about. It’s possible to be completely blind to the obvious.

    Actually we’re blind to the obvious most often, because we just don’t want to see it.

    2 Timothy 3 says this about it:

    “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power.”

    Even if we ignore the ones I didn’t emphasize, though they are still prevalent, look at how much those words sum up not just our complaints at a culture, but the things we actually praise.

    Romans 1 says that people, known such thins are wrong, not only practice them but approve of those who do.

    In 2000 years, nothing has changed.

    Ecclesiastes says there is “nothing new under the sun.”

    It’s been dawning on me that while I appeal to people’s desire for morality when I debate them, I am assuming they care at all.

    But I think less and less of them do.

    Aside from the SJW crap that they are programmed to react to, without understanding it at all, they really don’t care about higher thought.

    These things have no value to them. They live for entertainment and pleasure. For Self. And no one tells them this is unacceptable.

    It’s not a mystery why the Media promotes this. Selfish people buy more things, and care less if you exploit others to provide them with those things.

    But it’s sad how the schools and churches have promoted it so much also.

    They have us so much under their spell, the Overlords’, that we can be told this point blank, even by our own commercials on TV, and we simply don’t care. Just keep distracting me. The world is a dark place.

    Well in Quasimodo’s words to Frollo “Well now I see the only thing that’s dark about it is people like you!”

    See, the people who tell us to stay away form the world because of its evil are the same ones making it evil. They don’t want us to catch on, do they? Called Gaslighting.

    Because if we did catch on, we might stop them, and evil men fear having their deeds exposed, don’t they?

    They hate and fear those of us who know better and have pure hearts. And like Fagan from Oliver Twist, they want to make sure anyone who does is corrupted.

    A lot of anime has this theme also. What is Japan trying to tell us, huh? That people who are naturally more inclined to do good than the rest of us are feared the most.

    Don’t you fear someone who seems like a better person than you, sometimes? I know I have.

    I’ve mostly given up thinking of it that way, we’re all human. But I can do that because I have grace, the people who don’t are still afraid, we remind them of their own death the Bible says.

    People have accused Christians of that ever since they first appeared.

    I have to recognize as I write this that a lot of people may not even be ready to hear what I’m saying.

    They may not even be to where they see a piot ot all this.

    I can hope it resonates with someone who is ready, who needs it.

    Like “wow I’m not crazy!”

    My advice, if i’m qualified to give it, is if you have found yourself noticing all these problems, don’t waste time being chocked by them.

    Try to find that remnant of people who still believe in the old values, and stick with them.

    And reach who you can. There’s always some wheat among the tares of each generation, perhaps more than we realize, since many of us give up trying to reach them.

    It’s not our job to decide who can receive truth and salvation, we are supposed to shoot our shot, and let God choose how it lands.

    I don’t know what all our fates will be, and I ‘m not suppose dot know, but I know that we can’t control destiny, only how much we want to take an active role in it. There are still things that will happen no matter what, but there’s a lot we can change also. So we are still supposed to try.

    That said, for now I’m done, so until next time, stay honest–Natasha

    Leave Will Smith Alone, gosh!

    / toseealife / Leave a comment

    Look, I think this whole thing around Will is none of my business, so I’m not going to bother talking about what he did and how he did it.

    In fact, I don’t want to dedicate a lot of time to this at all. I just have a few things to point out:

    However he did it, the fact that a man defended his wife is being made into a public spectacle.

    Can you imagine this happening 100 years ago? I can’t. Probably no one would have thought twice about it. And if there was a little hot temper involved, oh well, people knew you didn’t say things about other people’s wives in front of them. In fact, you didn’t make personal remarks at all, you know why? Because even if it seems like a joke, some people are going to use it to mock them, and it’s not funny then. IT was just a rule of polite society not to open people up to public mockery, and I frankly miss that rule. I have never seen it end well when it’s discarded at churches, schools, or anywhere else.

    2. Whatever happened, how is it any of our business?

    Think about it, are we going to make Will Smith regret his actions? Probably not. Are we making what the guy on stage said okay? No one’s talking about that?

    What exactly are we getting so worked up about anyway? That our peer pressure can’t micromanage every actor in the world into the small little bubble of acceptable behavior that one of us can agree on anyway?

    Yeah, so much for freedom of expression. I guess not if you’re a celebrity.

    I mean, no one’s asking if the dude who said the thing should have the freedom to make such jokes about people just because he’s a comedian. I’ve never found it funny anyway. Maybe because I got made fun of for things I couldn’t help about my appearance when I was younger. Or maybe because…it’s just not funny. What exactly is so funny about people’s looks, unless they are deliberately trying to look silly? Think about it.

    3. Are we all qualified to pass judgement?

    How many of us are going to be in Will’s position, where our SO is being humiliated in front of other people and we have to make a judgment call about it?

    Would we have the guts to defend them in any way, let alone the right way?And how many men would have kept it chill at that point?

    Is Will Smith above being human, now? Is he somehow not subject to anger or embarrassment or guilt?

    I’m not saying it was good or bad, again, just asking why we all think we should just say this?

    Because, slapping someone is not a crime. Sorry. Maybe it’s not good…but there’s not exactly a rule book for it, is there?

    4. People think it was unprofessional.

    I totally agree, it’s better to be real classy and ignore your wife’s feelings being hurt so that the dude talking about it has the green light to do it again.

    Again, maybe there’s another way to handle things, but we can’t always pick and choose our spotlight. Would it be right if it was in private?

    And maybe the comedian just shouldn’t be allowed to say things like that, again. Isn’t that inappropriate also?

    So yeah, I guess that sums up my thoughts on it.

    It’s true, maybe no one cares about my opinion either. But then why should any of us care about theirs? And why should Will Smith?

    I’m making a better case for leaving it alone than anyone is making for gossiping about it, which, by the way, if you are a Christian, gossiping is unbibilical. And so is publicly harming people in this manner.

    I’m not standing up for Will Smith so much as decrying the whole cultural concept that thinks this is okay, it’s disgusting. And he’s just one instance of it. It bothers me in politics as well as with other public figures. Ew.

    Of course I open myself up to the same treatment by putting myself on line, but that’s kind of lie the argument that women open themselves up to being assaulted by stepping outside their doors without a man.

    They both have to do this to do their jobs, usually, and, just because we have to take the risk doesn’t make the jerks who take advantage of it not guilty. That sounds like something guilty people would say.

    So yeah, anyone who uses the excuse that Will is a celebrity and so has opened himself up to public scrutiny as an excuse to publicly flog him for this…you’re basically using the same loci as those jerks who say women’s clothes make it okay to harass them. Hope you’re proud of yourselves.

    And if that offends you…

    Uh…why should I care? I’m not a celebrity.

    And that’s about all I have to say about it. My biggest hope from this post is just that I got someone to think twice about why we do this, and if it’s really okay, I’m not expecting to get a whole movement going here.

    After all, I’m not ABC news.

    Signing off, and stay honest– Natasha Queen.

    At the end of a fast…

    / toseealife / Leave a comment

    I decided to follow up my previous post.

    Mostly because I think the perspective when you start a fast and when you end it is totally different.

    I mentioned before that I have a hard time with the prayer part of fasting.

    Well, I decided to do something about that finally, at the urging of the Spirit, I think. And start committing more time each day to God.

    So far, it’s not anything spectacular.

    But I was watching this YouTube video the other day after I had already started, I’ll try to link it here:

    But this lady is talking about how 1st century Christians had it rough, and how we in the West, 21st century are spoiled, I’ve heard it before. I’m tired of it, you know?

    But then this part of the video, at the end, that she impressed me with is where the 1st Century Christian makes this summary.

    Basically pointing out that we have the Bible, we can meet freely in public, and we can openly have our faith…but we don’t read the Bible, we shirk church, and we hesitate to tell others about our faith. And our pastors often encourage this attitude instead of rebuking it.

    And this lady says “I (the 1st century Christian) can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I have it better.”

    And I thought that is just so true.

    Of course, as many commentators were quick to point out, there’s many countries where it’s still deadly to be a Christian. We in the West can feel like the world revolves around us.

    I believe God let us be the safe haven to persecuted Christians for a purpose, so we could support them and give them refuge…but a lot of us don’t even remember that it’s our job. That Paul told us to remember those who suffer for Christ as if it were us ourselves.

    I suppose it would do no good to worry about it, but, I do think, I could be more aware of it.

    Of course it’s getting more dangerous even in the West, but we’re still a far cry from the East and Middle East.

    But it’s a more mature attitude to realize that for all that, it’s better to be real about your faith, even if you’re suffering, than it is to have no real faith, and have it all.

    Why do we do this, in the West? We squander what we have, and waste our oppertunities.

    Not everyone may be a door to door evangelist, or a street preacher, and nowadays, that isn’t received so well anyway.

    But tagging Christian Instagram posts and tweeting Bible verses is not exactly witnessing.

    I’m sure it blesses some people, but it’s not witnessing in of itself to do only that, and not get more personal, and that’s where we seem to freak out.

    I remember this line from “The Devil Wears Prada” where Nigel confronts Andy about her superior attitude towards the fashion industry. “Most girls would die to work where you only deign to work.”

    Couldn’t that be said of us? “Many people would die to do, or say, what we barely deign to do or say.”

    I don’t mean to be too harsh. Many of us here have found ways to influences others and minister to them even in our wealthy and overstuffed culture. And I’ not hear to disparage that. What is this blog but my attempt to use the internet as a way to tell people about God, instead of just distract them from Him.

    But we can’t deny that, at the very least, we brush things off much more easily than our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world do. We examine ourselves less, and we compromise with the world more.

    Case in point:

    Pre-fast, I’ve been exposing myself to more and more sexual content in fiction on the net. I don’t do it on purpose, but I read stuff that has it, and I can’t always scroll enough to skip it. (They ought to make some kind of button for that.)

    I don’t think it really affects me…at least, at first I thought that.

    But sure enough, those thoughts end up in my head more.

    I find actually, that for someone like me, the biggest trap of sexual content is not that you start to lust after the characters or actors involved, I don’t, but it’s that you start to read it into everything. You assume it’s there, even when it isn’t. And your mind supplies the subtext.

    Even if you don’t like it, you expect it, and it becomes part of the experience for you.

    Post-fast, I read something last night that was like that, more than I expected it to be, and I felt so disgusted it surprised me–because I haven’t been feeling that repulsed for a while.

    But I just felt like God was looking through my eyes at it, and it embarrassed me, even if I didn’t intend to see it. I scrolled right quick, but I still felt dirty. And yes, I repented, but it was still jarring to have that experience again. In a way, though, it was relief, at least it still bothers me.

    Sexual content is tricky. You can be disgusted by it and still find it addicting just because of the way our brains and bodies are wired. Why else do we like cringe comedy?

    And we like that judgmental feeling of being above that, but still viewing it.

    I know a lot of Christians who fall into that trap.

    The good news is, if that’s all it is, you can get out of it fairly easily. Just cutting out the source will usually do it.

    A real sexual addiction is much harder to kick, but not impossible, with God. I’m thankful I’ve never had this problem.

    Some people would argue that it’s not bad as long as you’re not engaging in it…I don’t think that’s biblical.

    But I give into temptation to let it slide.

    And I honestly think, that’s more our temptation as young Christians. The devil doesn’t tell us to think it’s good, not at first. He just tells us to let it slide.

    Let it slide when you see LGBTQ content that you know is unbiblical, but it’s popular, so don’t knock it.

    Let it slide when you see a sexually charged scene, because it’s not like you’re doing it.

    Let it slide when people are expressing attitudes that are anti-Christian in a blatant way.

    And i don’t mean that they just aren’t Christian themselves, of course we’ll encounter that, but some creators go out of their way to pollute and corrupt Christian ideology when they write about it, I do think that’s dangerous. If you don’t know your bible especially, you’ll believe anything people say about it.

    I remember I was watching this Tiktok compilation of people who left Christianity, out of curiosity, thinking maybe I’d understand it better.

    And, it was full of bitter, ignorant people who clearly didn’t really know what Christianity taught at all. Their church either failed to explain, or they weren’t paying attention.

    And hey, sometimes it’s that you’re not paying attention. Even the worst churches are bound to get something right, I find most people who complain pick and choose what they listen to from a church, instead of listening to all of it. My father could go to a church that taught basically what his Church taught, but find the one point they didn’t express the same way as him, and make that all he heard. And one time I remember he said he didn’t like a worship song’s lyrics, and then misquoted the lyrics to mean something that the song did not actually say. I was astounded by how he could convince himself it was bad, when we’d all heard the same thing…I thought.

    One person in the compilation mentioned reading the whole bible all the way through (which in one sitting, or even over a few days, I found questionable, even I can’t do that and I read very fast) and saying she found so many contradictions.

    I’ve read the same bible all the way through more than once, and I was like “What contradictions?”

    A lot of minor discrepancies are just misunderstandings, which if you research actual scholars, can be cleared up very easily. They can also be mistranslations, depending on what version you use.

    And other contradictions the Bible itself will explain, and acknowledge. They are not really contradictions. The God of the Bible is a collection of paradoxes, much like humans are. He’s Just and Merciful. Stern and Kind. And we’re told that we will perceive Him through the lens of how we ourselves act.

    Which is just true of world views in general. Ever notice how prideful people think everyone is proud, and selfish people think everyone is selfish? And kind people tend to see more kindness in others. It’s because we look for what we put out.

    Maybe I’m just too biased to see the problems with Christianity, but I’ve heard a lot of criticisms launched at it that only proved the people didn’t understand what the religion actually teaches, and only believed some twisted version of it they got from someone else. I mean, if I want to criticize Hitler or Marx’es philosophy, I would read something they actually said, or did. Not just what their enemies said they did. That’s just smart.

    All this to say, just because someone disagrees with you does not make them worth listening to. They could be lazy, ignorant, and stubborn. Taking criticism of the faith fro people who actually study the topic is more useful.

    But I think we’re a little too trained to listen to all complaints against Christians, from everyone, regardless of whether they are the kind of person who’s likely to be honest about it or not.

    To get back to my original point, I think due to all this confusion, we are worst off than early Christians in some ways. Though we have a lot more opportunities.

    But valuing God for Himself is the best gift we can have, and that is the thing we struggle with. We devote our time to so much else.

    Now, when I started my fast, I only stopped doing one thing. I kept all my other distractions the same.

    But you know what? I stopped wanting to do them as much.

    Funny, but watching movies, and reading fics just didn’t seem quite as important without this other thing I was already sacrificing. I still did it, but, I just didn’t feel the need to as often. I began doing things outdoors more, interacting more with my sister instead of just sitting alone doing my own thing.

    My energy improved. I felt tired at first without the high of my addiction, bu over the last week as I replaced that more with outside time and time with God, and have recover form being sick, I feel much more energized. My mood is better.

    You see, this is what I was saying in my other post. When you give up even one thing, you realize how many things you don’t really have to have in your life. It feels like you do, but then it’s gone, and you find there’s always something else you can do. We don’t rely just on one thing.

    Fasting makes me a little more disciplined that before, even if it’s for a short time, but usually, after a fast, discipline comes a little easier for a while, that mindset sticks with you for a bit. Eventually, you do lose it, that’s why fasting is supposed to be a reoccurring practice.

    My family is also nice enough to encourage me to stick it out, and not to give it up. Which is always helpful. And to help me occupy my time in other ways.

    I find that even doing other things, my thoughts center more on God just because I am aware that I am not doing something, for Him.

    (I hear this works in marriage too, for making you feel more loving to your spouse because you know you’re doing or not doing something for them, even if they don’t know. Try it.)

    Perhaps the most embarrassing thing I’ve realized though, is that my lack of interest in God is mostly my own fault.

    When I get bored with Church and worship and prayer, it’s because I have filled myself up with other things.

    I remember the Avatar movie (the blue one, not the travesty of the kids show’s live action one) where the Tsuhik (not sure I spelt that right) says to Jake:

    “It is hard to fill a cup that is already full.”

    While that movie is far from perfect, I do think they nailed one thing about having a simple, spiritual life. Jake later says “They don’t want anything.”

    Funny, when you are filled with Spirit, you really don’t want a lot from the world.

    And when you are filled with the world, you don’t want a lot from the Spirit.

    We can’t have both.

    I think, once upon a time, God made it so we could. The world was made to be pure, and being full of our lives here, and our lives with God, would have been one and the same.

    And someday, God promises, He will put it back that way.

    But till then, the world has fallen to evil, and if we fill ourselves with it, we turn from God. It happened to Solomon, the Wisest man to ever live before Christ.

    And if I think I’m beyond that, I’m kidding myself.

    Fasting does humble a person.

    I’m not saying I’m a new woman, I think that’s more for God to say. I’m saying that I just have remembered somethings I was letting slide, as you might say.

    Not all change is dramatic, you know.

    Man, we are so hooked on that in church though. The breakthrough, the breaking off, the strongholds, the mountains moved…

    Which is all good, in its time.

    But so much change is quiet, gradual, or if it sis sudden, it’s private and not something to yell about until we’ve walked it out.

    All my moments of real breakthrough were alone, or silent, or quiet. I have always wondered why.

    But when I saw others have big, loud moments…but remain unchanged afterward, I started to wonder if Gd maybe did it that way on purpose. Maybe when it’s big, an d shiny, we focus on that too much, and forget the actual change.

    A change of heart happens in an instant, perhaps, but it happens inside. And it’s better to show that with how we act before we tell someone.

    We want to hear it right away now. We ask people what they feel or think right after we pray and talk.

    But, usually people need more time than that to know if something really stuck with them.

    There’s a resewn God is always telling us we have to be faithful, i. e. consistent with our religion. We can’t just do it every once and a while and expect it to change us.

    I’m only saying what hundreds and thousands of other people say in the church…and maybe we all say it because it’s true.

    So hey, if your Christian, and you’re not liking what I’m saying…oh well.

    And if you’re not Christian and you read this anyway, that’s amazing! I hope you got something out of it.

    You know, I kind of hope I am making some Christians uncomfortable by saying we need to quit it with the big showy stuff so much. Good.

    I know I do have a lot of readers from out of country, though, and maybe you live somewhere where what I’m saying couldn’t’ possibly apply on a cultural level.

    Still I think the truth of faithfulness is something all of us need to hear, even if we’re somewhere where our faith is tested everyday. Because it’s just another kind of discouragement.

    Suffering and abundance are both tests of our faithfulness. Who knows which is really harder? All I know is we have to face whatever we have, now, if we really want to please God.

    I hope I will keep this going, and learn more from it. I’m only human, but God is God.

    If I can end my fast, but still maintain some discipline and boundaries, that’s a net gain.

    Until next time, stay honest–Natasha.