Posted on by Abe Austin

Basis for Judgment: Today’s Social Waves

Thus far I have examined the shifting beliefs and philosophies of the world, and how we tend to be changed by them over time, constraining our thoughts to certain patterns so that we stop being able to conceive of other alternatives. In my perspective, basic Christian and traditional principles are becoming progressively unfathomable to the western world.

I will be specific. Abortion, gay marriage, transgender medical procedures, euthanasia, and complete uniformity in the nature of men and women. These are the main social waves that I see taking our western world from its foundational Christian values. Some of these are firmly in opposition with Christianity, others are only at odds dependent on the degree to which they are pursued.

I believe that the media overemphasizes the conversion of the world to these agendas, presenting these as closed cases, when the battle is actually very much alive. Unfortunately, the media is the community that primarily surrounds and shapes us today, and what it presents as a decided principle tends to become the social reality soon enough.

Earlier, I discussed the parable of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Take any of the issues I mentioned above and replace the “clothes” with that philosophy. The media insists that everyone else already sees the “Emperor’s clothes”, and the individual comes to believe that everyone really does. The individual feels that there is something wrong with himself that he does not see the clothes, so he advocates for the clothes even if he does not actually see them. He describes them by simply parroting the descriptions that others have said. Most shockingly, in time he may come to truly believe that he does see them, too.

And what is the harm in all of this? Why is it at a bad thing if we as a society evolve and embrace new ideas, even if it means throwing out the theologies of old? We have discarded many antiquated beliefs, such as our superstitions, and we consider that a good and progressive thing, so why not this? Why can’t everything be cast aside if it is deemed outdated and replaced with what the masses decide is good for now?

I concede that there would not technically be any harm in this if we were merely machines changing software. To the computer, there is no difference between running its original programming or running malware. It continues happily either way, because the wires and bits have no objective truth to follow. Any failure to fulfill the purpose of their designer makes no difference to the dead material that composes the machine. Even if a virus causes the machine to run overly hard until it completely breaks itself and ceases to function at all, the machine does not care.

But mankind is not this way. Mankind is not a machine. Mankind is inseparably connected to its creator and to an objective truth, and the destruction of mankind is of great consequence. We will explore this more tomorrow.

Posted on by Abe Austin

We Can’t Talk: Part One

I expressed my intention to resume my verse-by-verse scripture study, but something came up, and I need to go over it this week. The verse-by-verse study will begin next Monday.

What came up was a stressful and anxious conversation at work. It was pronounced enough to make me stop and consider what was going on, and what it all meant. The conversation started innocuous enough, my coworkers and I were discussing the new Hogwarts Legacy game that recently released. Everything was fun and light-hearted until one of my coworkers expressed disappointment that this otherwise appealing game was tied to a “transphobe” like J. K. Rowling. Another coworker challenged that statement, defending Rowling, and the two had an extremely awkward and tense exchange.

Their discussion was by no means insulting or disparaging. In fact, both of the coworkers spoke very deliberately and haltingly, couching their statements in all manner of caveats and disclaimers. I imagine that the two of them were trying to filter anything out of their speech that might escalate the disagreement. I assume so, because I was also doing that very thing. I wanted to express my own strongly-held opinions, but I was also terrified of ruining our work-friend relationships. Combing through every possible statement was mentally exhausting, and I only ended up making one small contribution to the discussion. As you might imagine, such a self-conscious and labored conversation quickly fizzled out. In less than a minute one of the other coworkers threw out a change of topic and we all clung to it like a life preserver. The tense exchange was over.

Or at least, it was over on the surface. My mind was still firmly on the experience we had just had. Why had it gone down that way? Why had it been so hard to speak? Is it really impossible to express our passionate and contrasting opinions in a way that doesn’t ruin relationships?

I know they say that politics and religion are the two things you must never talk about if you want a friendship to last, but something inside of me balks at that notion. Are we really expected to muzzle ourselves around the most important discussions of our day? Would it really be better that we reserve these conversations for flame-wars with complete strangers on the internet that accomplish nothing? No! We need to be able to have these hard discussions face-to-face with the people we have the most influence with.

Because, make no mistake, we do need influence and persuade. “Hot topic” items like transgenderism, racial differences, and abortion are the exact things that our society needs to work out today. Every society throughout all time has had their own controversial issues that they were responsible to give an answer to. Some of them handled it well and history looks at them fondly. Some of them handled it poorly and history looks at them disdainfully. Some of them completely abdicated their responsibility, turning the decision over to a select few who used that power to execute horrifying agendas. This led to the massacre of millions and decades-long regressions until the common people were finally willing to take back their voice and demand something better.

So no, these can’t be conversations that are reserved exclusively for the internet forums, or the debate halls, or the chambers of government. We, the everyday people, need to be able to engage in the conversation face-to-face, or else our chances of making the right decisions drops precipitously. If there is any takeaway from the conversation I had with my coworkers, it is that many of us are not able to talk about these all-important issues, and this is a very disturbing fact. We should all be very concerned for what it portends.

Over the rest of this week, I want to discuss this situation in more depth, and hopefully provide inspiration for us all to do the hard work that is ours to do.