“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by precedent, by implication, by erosion, by default, by dent of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other- until the day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.” Ayn Rand
Wow! You want to have a worthwhile history/social studies lesson? Have students write a short interpretation of this and the following quote: “If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” Adolf Hitler.* Then have them discuss the following proposition: Propaganda and ignorance are happy partners that ravage the land.
It occurs to me that by quoting these two individuals, I could be wholly dismissed by anyone who knows their philosophies. Many Empiricists and Naturalists would applaud Ayn Rand for clear-headed objectivity, but she dismissed faith and religion out of hand. So much for logic and fair-mindedness. Her nearsightedness blinded her to evidences of God. We all have blind spots. I wholeheartedly disagree with her perspective in order to point out that we may learn truth from many people in many places, even opponents, if we are open to it. Her quote here is apropos to our present situation. We have a phrase yelled at us, proclaimed and assumed to be true, day after day, scouring away any right or level-headed thinking by demand and insinuation. So it’s true, right?
And the Third Reich demonstrated that persistent and horrendous lies will be taken as truth. It need not even be believable at first, nor crafty, nor partially true, only persistently and passionately told. We are experiencing these repetitions in several arenas at this time.
The question is, “Will we allow the lies to drown out the truth by our deafening silence?” All of the loud protestations of lies as truth are the propaganda. Silence is the willful ignorance that partners with it to promote destruction of our freedoms. And yet silence is the passive willfulness.
Our ignorance runs deeper and more active: “‘They bend their tongue like their bow; lies and not truth prevail in the land; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me,’ declares the Lord.” Isaiah 9:3 We repeat lies by meme and manifest, little caring that our “causes” promote evil.
Go to the source of truth (John 17:17, Psalm 119:60) and ask the Author of Truth (Psalm 86:15) to strain out all of the man-made lies that have seemed as truth to you.
Lord, have mercy on us, and draw Your people and many lost people to Yourself. Cause us to stand for truth as surely as men of valor in battle and saints in the fire. Thank You for the God-ordained institutions of the family, church, and government that give us order, peace, and joy. Strengthen us to defend them against subtle and outspoken lies that seek to destroy Your gifts to us.
*probably originating from Joseph Goebbels
Choppy Seas Ahead
Posted in Blessing, Change, Cultural commentary, General, tagged Blessing, Cultural commentary, Foundations of Life, Grammar on May 8, 2022| Leave a Comment »
I decided awhile back in writing blogs that since accurate quotes are hard to come by, especially from notes taken from live talks (sermons, lectures, conversations, etc), that I would at least communicate with myself when I was not exactly quoting, but just accurately summarizing with words actually spoken (or synonyms thereof) but not necessarily in that order, to surround them with apostrophes (‘) rather than quotation marks (“).(1) See if you think that I am wrong to pass these off as nearly quotes.(2)
In the sermon this morning, my pastor said many noteworthy things. I was dull of mind and slow of pen and didn’t get many of them down, but following are a few essentials I grabbed out of the verbal stream:
“God is Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer… These are the foundational issues we build our lives upon.”
‘In the variable winds and choppy waves of our rapidly changing culture that make us soul sick, we do not build our lives upon trends in our culture or traditions of better days, but the truth of God’s Word.’ Actually, he didn’t use ‘variable’ or ‘choppy’ but described the bounce on a small boat that made him sick. And though he conveyed all of the thoughts with almost all those words, they never appeared in one sentence. So, what are you building your life upon in these changeable time- trends, traditions, or truth? Trends and traditions may align with truth, but they are not the judge or guide of our choices, truth is.
He read about the sixth day of creation from Genesis 1:24-31. Though he said much more could be gleaned, he did offer 5 applications:
“God is our authority. Life is precious. Men and women are different theologically and biologically. We should celebrate the differences in men and women.” ‘We live within our God given callings and then we are blessed.’ I was behind on my writing and could not get down the last one exactly, but it most interested me. He talked about how obeying God’s calling, which he prefers over the word role, brings life, while living counter to it brings death. We see the promotion of so much death in our culture these days that verify the judgements of Romans 1 on those who refuse to acknowledge God and His callings. Are you as a church-goer, perhaps even devotee of Christ, following these life cursing trends in our culture? For the sake of us all, please stop!
1. That was such a fun sentence to write. I hope it is grammatically correct and easily understood.
2. Do you realize that I am suggesting a new grammatical form and use of the apostrophe? Old School Grammarians would disdain my attempt to amend the rules. They might say, ‘You do not need such non-sense. We already have quotes and summaries of ideas.’ I would retort, “That is what they said. I just am not willing to swear in court that they used those exact words in that exact order.”
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