The Sun Will Rise Tomorrow

We all tend to look at the world in set and predetermined ways. I have always been one to examine these world views. In the past I have called them templates. Of course this tendency of mine is in itself a template. It is hard to get away from templates. 

We need to be careful we do not allow our templates to interfere and blind us to the facts. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but no one is entitled to their own facts. I have long had a template that said, like the Weird Al song I put on the blog yesterday, that "Everything You Know Is Wrong." Obviously everything you know is not wrong, the sun will rise tomorrow morning. No. Wait. The sun won't rise—the earth will turn… never mind. 

It is good to look at our assumptions from time to time and see if they match reality. They may not. 

In particular starting Wednesday I will look at the templates we have with regard to the Middle East. These templates are pretty well established: Israel good, Arabs bad; Russia bad, America good; Arab dictators bad, Al Qaida good. Oh, wait, that last one does not work. Yet, this seems to be our foreign policy. America removes Arab dictators and replaces them with the Moslem Brotherhood, and then wonders why the Middle East is in chaos. 

Does our current policy with regard to the Middle East make much sense? Is Mitt Romney's desire to escalate our current war with Iran rational? Make no mistake, we are currently at war with Iran. Hopefully what I will write over the next week or so will cause you to stop using your current template, set it aside for a moment, and look at the Middle East with fresh eyes. 

Everything You Know Is Wrong!

And of course Al. 

Telephone Game

I remember the first time I played the telephone game. It was in the fifth grade. The beginning statement was from an ad our teacher had found. It said, "Go on a trip with Bill and Betty." I was one of the ones that changed it as it made its way across the room. I heard it wrong. It became, "Bill and Betty went on a trip." It continued on until everyone started laughing as they heard it. It had changed again. Then the final person went in front of the class and said "Bill and Betty went on a trip and kissed." He turned very red as he said it. Care to guess what his name was? Yes, there was a Betty in the class! 

As Abraham Lincoln once said, "There are a lot of fake quotes on the Internet." As the election season progresses we will see a lot of emails about the various candidates. It has already started. Obama is not too popular in certain circles. You may have noticed. I do not like him myself, but that is not the point. If you repeat a story about someone and it turns out to be untrue you have sinned. Yes, sinned. 

In the last presidential election I received a forwarded email from a friend, who alas has gradually become an acquaintance over issues like this. I forget exactly what the email said, but as soon as I read it I doubted it. I did some very simple research on Google. The email that he had forwarded about Obama was untrue. You’d think that he would have been grateful to have this pointed out so he could avoid this error in the future. I was wrong. His attitude was that while this story was untrue, others similar to it were true so it did not matter. 

To be frank, there are scriptures that indicate this is not wise. 

James 3 tells us:

Don't be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person, in perfect control of life. A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! ...

Moses tells us the same in Ex 21:1-3

"Don't pass on malicious gossip. "Don't link up with a wicked person and give corrupt testimony. Don't go along with the crowd in doing evil and don't fudge your testimony in a case just to please the crowd. And just because someone is poor, don't show favoritism in a dispute.

Or maybe this from Eph 5:3-4

Don't allow love to turn into lust, setting off a downhill slide into sexual promiscuity, filthy practices, or bullying greed. Though some tongues just love the taste of gossip, those who follow Jesus have better uses for language than that. Don't talk dirty or silly. That kind of talk doesn't fit our style. Thanksgiving is our dialect.

I know this may be overkill in terms of scriptures, but this is a crucial issue. Gossip is often mentioned in the Bible. Click here for some more examples. 

If you are going to forward an email, or share on Facebook, a little research might be in order. 

Of course we can trust Weird Al, so his advice in this this video is completely true.  

Corporate Capitalism

This chart speaks volumes to me. The whole system is run by the large companies and for the large companies. It is more and more difficult to avoid "Babylon"-even at the grocery store. 

The Tide Is Turning

The tide may be turning as this song suggests, but a lot of people will drown first.