Posted on by Abe Austin

Us vs Them- The Danger of Virtue

An Unbalanced Scale)

In my last post I described my shock at the gleeful, public praise for the murders of Brian Thompson and Charlie Kirk, as well as the support for continuing assassination attempts against Donald Trump, as well as the deriding of members of the LDS church after the shooting of their congregation in Grand Blanc, Michigan. I was particularly shocked by the cases of Brian Thompson and the LDS church massacre, where the victims seemed to have not been chosen because of any personal offense they had committed, but because of their appearance, association, or presumed beliefs.

I have realized the very real possibility that I might be crossing paths with people who have unashamed murderous intent against me, even though they don’t know me on a personal level, simply because I have some characteristic that they have determined is worthy of death. Perhaps because I am White, or male, or Christian, or traditionally conservative. They might be able to look at me and immediately identify me as their sworn enemy, but I will have no idea that they are mine.

And that is the terrifying imbalance that the virtuous and the principled have to contend with. Those of us that still believe that people are innocent until proven guilty, that believe that individuals are individually good or bad, and that you do not know which are which until they show you, we are put at a disadvantage where we cannot pick out our enemies so quickly as they can pick out us. They can kill us before we even know that we need to defend ourselves from them.

The Temptation)

If the threats and the killings continue in our society, there will be many of the virtuous and principled who begin to waver. They will look for patterns in those who are targeting them, and they will not be content to live at a disadvantage to them. They will start to adopt the same sort of “us vs them” thinking where they paint an entire swathe of people “bad,” and they will go to war with them. There will no longer be any regard for the individual, only for the collective.

There is a reason why wars tend to divide on simplistic lines. It is hard and it is dangerous to treat everyone as an individual. It is easier to condemn an entire nationality, race, or religion. To point at them as a whole and say, “that is my enemy, all of them are my enemy, and I can kill any of them and know that I am furthering my cause.”

That is the easier path. The pre-emptive path. But I think anyone who still has an inkling of conscience, knows that it is also the wrong path. We know it is unjust to assume evil in others, even if it seems more strategic. Tomorrow, I would like to use my last post in this series to talk about how to be faithful in dangerous times such as these. How do we keep our souls, even when it might cost us our lives?

Posted on by Abe Austin

Us vs Them- The Breaking Point

A Shocking Realization)

One of the most horrifying things of the past few years has been to witness the open enthusiasm and support for symbolic murders. In December of 2024, when Brian Thompson was killed in the streets by Luigi Mangione, it was not in response to any particular action or policy that the CEO of United Healthcare had enacted. Certainly, people had their criticisms of the company and the broader industry as a whole, but there was nothing particularly anti-consumer about Brian Thompson. Indeed, he had only been CEO for four years, and critiques of his company long predated his tenure and will continue long afterward. He was killed simply because of what he represented: the entire healthcare system.

It is safe to say that virtually no one in America had even heard of his name before his death. None of us knew his politics. None of us knew his morals. None of us knew what sort of husband or father he was. None of knew whom he had helped or hurt in his personal life. None of us knew if he was ultimately a good man or a bad. And yet, thousands of voices came out on social media to praise and celebrate his killing. Nothing about the actual man mattered, all that mattered was his job title.

This was when the mask came off and I was horrified to see the monsters that lurk in our daily society. The murder itself was terrible, made even worse by masses who approved of it, made worse by the fact that those masses felt absolutely no inhibition in crowing about it in public. There was absolutely no fear of social ostracization, of real-world consequences, of meaningful rejection. People saw absolutely no downside to cheering on a murderer like they were cheering on a football team.

Then came the assassination attempts against Donald Trump. Mainstream celebrities made light of them and even called for further attempts. Then there was the successful assassination of Charlie Kirk. People publicly called for the rest of his family to be slaughtered next.

It hasn’t just been violence against political or public figures, either. On a more personal note, members of my own church were slaughtered during their services last year in Michigan by a man who openly professed his hatred of the LDS faith. While there has not been large social support for what he did, many so-called Christians used the opportunity to ensure others knew we didn’t believe in the “correct Jesus.” Once again, there was no hesitation for public derision of murdered innocents. It is this open and blatant disregard for propriety that has so shocked me.

Scary New World)

Of course, we have always known that there were monsters hiding in the closets. But they were supposed to be exceedingly rare. Only the clearly and seriously broken in the world would be so depraved, and I guess I never realized how many people there are today that fit that category. And also, the monsters were supposed to be in hiding, constrained by social pressure from stepping into the light in their hideous forms. Now they march out boldly and without apology. When what is said in the public square is already inexcusable, what does it say for society’s darker secrets?

One clear takeaway is that “us vs them” thinking is alive and well in our culture, and that it is deadly serious, too. There are people who are willing to kill others just because of select characteristics, and others that are willing to publicly support it.

It is nothing new to think that you know what the problem in today’s world is. To think you know what ideas are causing harm. To think you know which people are driving the detriment of society. But it is an extra leap to then decide, “and everyone of that group is culpable and worthy of death.” To not deal with people as individuals, to not see them as potentially redeemable. To see the world as only able to improve with the violent removal of that category.

Of course, these developments put immense fear into the hearts of those who most often hear themselves vilified in the public square. We become weighed down with the knowledge that anyone around us might be a potential killer. We start to view everyone, especially those different from us, as a potential threat. And this, of course, leads to “us vs them” thinking in the opposite direction.

I want to delve into that shift tomorrow. How a population that is willing to talk out their problems becomes radicalized towards violence instead, and the dangers that loom ahead of us if we do not have a powerful course correction now.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Us vs Them- Trends of Today

The State of Things)

It is impossible to be properly judged without being known. At different times, different categories of people have had broad generalizations made about them because of the category, not because of who they actually were. They have been accused as a whole for the problems in the world, each member guilty simply by association. Of late, being a White, Christian, male with traditional conservative views has lumped me into such categories of disdain and ridicule, with no regard for who I actually am and why I believe the things that I do.

Over the past couple years, it has become apparent that the wholesale disparagement of White, Christian, conservative, masculinity will not go unchallenged in the West. For a long while, it did. I watched as the prior generation, and many of my own peers, and even I, myself, simply shook our heads and went about our day quietly, trying not to think about the hostility growing against us. But with the assassination attempts on Donald Trump and his second election into office, something clearly changed.

And that is not all good news.

Worse, Not Better)

It is one thing to no longer agree to being walked on, it is another to start retaliating with sweeping generalizations against the other side. Sadly, the latter trend is growing alongside the former. I am seeing more and more defenses against blanket criticisms of White, conservative, men, but then also blanket criticisms where someone “knows” what a woman speaking really means, because all women are a certain way. Or how one is “fatigued” with Black people, as a rule. Or how every liberal is morally compromised. Not just that there are problems with certain individuals, but with all of a certain category.

We are trading one mistake for another. We are right to stop being overly passive. To stop pretending that being walked on is a virtue. We should not be afraid to openly disagree with the trends that we’ve been seeing, and to advocate for the principles we hold dear. We need to restore fairness and equal treatment on both the legal and societal level. But in doing all of that, we must not leap all the way painting everyone on “the other side” with the same brush.

Of course, not every White, Christian, conservative will do this. But as their views becomes more popular, the basest and most easily influenced among them will reduce things down to “this side good, that side bad.” Sadly, the basest and most easily influenced cohort seems to be increasing every year.

So, when I say “us vs them” thinking, that I believe retaliation for the past is about to increase, I am not saying that I am happy about it. I think the injustices of the past decades were tragic, and I think those of the coming decades will be also. I am not happy that White, Christian, conservative men were so unfairly treated, but neither am I happy for the reckoning that is coming back in turn. I do believe that reckoning is inevitable, though. It will happen, whether I like it or not.

And I think there is a very simple reason why this reckoning is inevitable, and a reason why it is just starting to begin now but will soon be fully upon us. I will endeavor to explain with my next post what lines were crossed that went too far, and what will happen now in retaliation.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Us vs Them- Shifting Towards Tribalism

It is commonly understood that “us vs them” thinking only brings out the worst in people. It frustrates efforts for peace and even becomes a justification for terrible atrocities. All my life I have been told that we must reject this sort of thinking. I have been told that knowing one part of who someone is does not give me the entire picture of them. That I must appreciate the nuance in people. That I should seek to understand people as individuals.

I find this to be excellent advice. All throughout my life I have had the opportunity to associate with people who believe very strongly and very differently from me. People with contrary religious beliefs, inverted politics, and opposing social agendas. And in each and every case, I have always found it worthwhile to shelve my assumptions and actually get to know these people. I have had open and frank conversations about our strongly different views, with an emphasis on understanding the good reasoning that led us to such different outcomes. In every instance, I have discovered an individual. A sensible person. A rational and coherent brother or sister. I often still disagree with them, but I can appreciate where they are coming from. I have learned that even someone who I think is “wrong” still has that spark of divinity within them. Even those that feel differently from me are still children of God.

So I agree with those sayings that we’ve all heard countless times. “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” “Walk a mile in their shoes.” “90% of an iceberg lays beneath the surface.” We’ve all heard these nuggets of wisdom since our childhood. We’ve all repeated them when someone was making unfair assumptions.

But then…why is “us vs them” thinking still so common? In fact, why does it seem to be growing stronger every year? Perhaps it was always this way. Perhaps it is our default way of being, only overcome by deliberate choice. If that is the case, then more and more, we do not seem to be making that choice as a society.

As I have recognized this worrying trend, I have had thoughts about what it means for the future, the imbalance that it will create in society, and the obligation of the faithful in the face of the trials ahead. I will spend the next couple days discussing those thoughts, and hopefully we will be able to find an ark in the midst of the rising flood.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Offensively Faithful- The Popular Immoral

Dangerous Trends)

In the last post I gave what I consider to be the strongest evidence that we live in the last days, and the scriptures show us that in those last days, the popular majority will go astray, will believe falsehoods, and will resent the righteous.

If this is true, then each one of us needs to be very careful of the moral trends of our day. We must hold each to scrutiny, and reject many of them, even though it will make us unfavorable with the masses. Of course, I am not saying that every popular trend in the last days is inherently evil. Today it is popular to reject slavery, and that is good. It is good, because it aligns with the nature of God and the words of scripture. But every trend that disparages faith, that denies God, that takes offense to the words of scripture, these are the trends that lead to the selfish and meanspirited population described in the last days.

From my perspective, these popular trends in the West include promotion of homosexuality, feminism, socialism, and transgenderism. Even before considering the substance of each, they have all begun by taking offense to scriptural doctrine, have undermined the commandments of God, and have demonized the faithful. That alone informs us of their deviant motives. And then, when we look at the actual substance, we see that they have directly supported grave sin, including abortion and sexual depravity, and that they have stoked the passions of the depraved, until physical violence has erupted, often targeted at those that do not accept their sin. They have also passed their twisted ideology on the young and the impressionable, leaving them to believe that acceptance of these sins is the only way to be moral.

Realistic Evil)

This raises an important point. I believe that too many of us assume that these trends and sins cannot be the image of apocalyptic evil, because we know people who live within these trends, and they do not seem evil to us. They’re just people, with qualities that we love. But this is by no means a proof of innocence or virtue. People that seem “good” to us can absolutely be aligned with evil trends. To prove this, we need only look at the historical record. We frequently point to people in the past whose ideologies we condemn as evil, such as nazis and slave owners, yet many of them did not view themselves as evil either. They just saw themselves as people, with qualities that they loved, just as we view those supporting the modern anti-God philosophies of today.

We make the mistake of assuming that the majority wicked of the last days will look like caricatures of evil. That they will all be sadistic, maniacal, moustache-twirling cartoon villains. But that just isn’t realistic. The wicked of the final days will almost certainly be like the wicked in all other times: people who feel justified in their time, people who live in a context that makes them believe that they are in the right, people who have other virtues that are used as evidence of being good and correct.

But none of us can evaluate our righteousness from within our own context. As the preacher taught, “every way of a man is right in his own eyes,” (Proverbs 21:2). In our own historical analysis, we can see that culture and consensus can override conscience and leave people feeling that even the most terrible of actions are right. What we require is an external standard to compare ourselves to. An unchanging yardstick that is synonymous with universal good. Such a standard has been given to us in the words and commandments of God. When our own conception of good does not align with what God has given to us, it is us who are in the wrong, not Him.

In conclusion, I do believe that we live in the last days, and in our day there are many who discredit and disparage the Lord, who support beliefs that are directly contrary to His word. Agreeing with these voices is popular, it is what we are taught from our earliest years that we are supposed to do. That creates a context that blinds us, that makes us genuinely call good evil, and evil good. Just as was foretold for the final days. When we see that our belief come from popular consensus, and that it is antagonistic to the scriptures, and that all people in history have thought that they were in the right, even the most evil, that should give us serious pause. Even though it might feel wrong to us, we should consider the possibility that we are, in fact, the ones in the wrong, and we should experiment with God’s law, to see if it does not soften our hearts and change our minds.

And if we do not, then Armageddon awaits.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Offensively Faithful- Do We Live in the End?

Looking to the End of the World)

In my last post I discussed the moral makeup of humanity that we expect for the last days, and that the popular morality of that time would certainly be sinful and depraved. It remains for us to consider whether we now live in those last days, though. For if we do, that would be a strong indictment of the social movements of the world today.

As it turns out, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and as the name suggests, one of our unique beliefs is that God has pronounced this to be the last dispensation, the last days before the end of the world and the second coming of Christ. Because of the testimony I have gained of the other tenets of this gospel, I take this matter of being in the last days on faith. Thus, I do believe that we live in the final age foretold.

But even without adopting the paradigm of my church, I believe there is still a strong case to be made for us being in the end times. And certainly, this is not a very rare opinion among Christians. Many, from all different sects, have also expressed the opinion that the world is ripening for destruction, and that things seem to be aligning for the prophecies given in the Bible.

Of course, Christians have been making these predictions basically since Christ’s ascension. I, myself, make sure to keep a healthy skepticism about any immediate second-coming predictions. Even though I say we live in the latter days, I don’t presume to know whether that means we are 5 years from the second coming, or 500. It will come when it comes, and I will happily welcome it, whichever side of the veil I’m on.

But let us look at a few reasons why now appears to be a likely candidate for the end times.

Reasons to Assume Latter Days)

  1. The depravity of the world. Certainly, the world has always known tremendous evil, including the very worst of what we see in the world today. But what makes this time especially evil is how even so-called followers of God have abandoned His commandments and justified the sins of the world. We slaughter our unborn, we watch videos of strangers having sex, and we cheer for the murder of our political rivals, all while calling ourselves Christian. There have been other times historically where God’s people abandoned Him, and those times have always immediately preceded their destruction. It seems probably that when the current family of God abandons Him, that their destruction would likely be one-and-the-same as the destruction of the entire world.
  2. The fulfillment of prophecies. Perhaps every era of history can lay claim to wars, rumors of wars, and evil abounding, but there are some prophecies of the end which are only fulfilled in these times or are only possible to be fulfilled for the first time now. The most prominent of these is the return of the nation of Israel. Less than fifty years after Jesus’s death Jerusalem was destroyed and the last remaining Israelites displaced, making it then impossible for Jesus to return to them there, though it was prophesied in Zechariah 13 that he would. It was only in the last century that the historic land of Canaan was restored to the Israelites, both fulfilling some end-time prophecies, and paving the way for others. Also, this is the first time when there has been such great global connection, allowing for the war of good and evil to play out on a universal scale, fitting the descriptions we have of the end.
  3. We happen to live in years whose numbers are meaningful. We are around 2000 years from the death and resurrection of Jesus, potentially 6000 years from the beginning of Genesis. If Jesus were to come in the near future, it would fulfill the pattern of six 1000-year-long days, leading into the seventh day of rest. We also see numerous calendars terminating and resetting around this time, including the Mayan, the Essene, the Zoroastrian, and more.
  4. We live in a time of global destructive power and acceleration. Technology and society are evolving at a pace that has never before existed. We have developed weapons capable of the utter decimation of society, and a social culture that changes every year. The potential of catastrophic system failure is only accelerating, and the worldly turmoil only makes that occurrence more and more likely.
  5. There is simply a sense of reaching the end of an era. The world has completely changed multiple times in the last 250 years and seems to be doing so again right now. We can feel the tides turning, the divisions expanding, the gravity shifting beneath us. It feels like we are at least at the end of a world, and given all of the above criteria, it seems it could well be the end of the world.

When I was a child, I only believed that we were preparing for the end, not that we were actually in it. Today I do believe we are in that 11th hour. Again, I do not know how long this period will last, but I believe that the prophecies detailing the end of the world apply to us today, including those that describe a fallen and morally bankrupt generation. Tomorrow I will examine what that means for trends that are current and popular, and how any who live to follow the consensus should immediately reconsider that.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Last Line of Defense


Being a person of conscience means being willing to stand up for truth if no one else will. Obviously, we hope it doesn’t come to that, we hope that our society will be a buffer against the waves of lies and sin, but if they will not, we still will. If nowhere else, the buck stops here. We are the last line of defense. The iron plate that will not yield while everything else breaks in pieces. We cannot bear the idea of having to face our Maker and having Him ask of us, “but why didn’t you say anything.” And so, whether we wanted it or not, we are the bearers of our generation’s public conscience, the ones who will not give silent, implicit consent to what we know is wrong.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Unraveling of Trust

A System of Trust)

For a society to function properly, its people must cooperate with one another. They must share a ruleset. They must have mutually beneficial expectations, and those expectations must be honored. All of this is necessary, because the world is too large and too complex for each of us to handle all aspects of it on our own. The advantage of a well-functioning society is that certain people can dedicate themselves to understanding one particular system and then disseminate to everyone else the essential information without them having to repeat the work. Shared rules also allow us to take complex interactions and reduce them to simple predetermined actions.

From what movies we watch, to how we navigate the road, to how we prioritize world affairs, “trusting the experts” and following predefined rules is the optimal strategy. I do not have enough time to watch every film, so I read reviews to only watch the best ones. I trust the rules of the road, so I can navigate complex group operations, like two lanes merging into one. I listen to news reports so that I know which issues I want to help my society overcome. I have not personally verified all of this information, but I trust in those that have, and assume my life will be optimal as result.

Trust Exploited)

But implicit trust is the most valuable commodity in the entire world, and the exploitation of it can be very lucrative.

What if a movie studio realizes that it can buy falsely positive reviews? The trust of the people will lead to increased ticket sales.

What if a driver realizes that he can hurriedly follow the car in front of him during a zipper merge to advance a space in traffic? He gets to his destination faster.

What if a news agency realize that they can sensationalize the news and fabricate outrage? Their ratings and ad revenue increase.

In each case, trust is turned into advantage, and one party is progressed beyond what could be achieved by honest means. Perhaps the short-term gain is justified by the assurance that one infraction is not going to break the whole system. The general populace will still benefit by trusting the institutions, and this one dishonest gain will amount to little more than a rounding error in the ledgers of society.

But when trust is exploited by one party, others will realize what has happened, and some will want to tip the scales in their favor also. Experience has proven that when the bond of trust has been broken once, and successfully profited from, a mass of other bad actors will soon follow.

Trust Broken)

And what happens when trust is broken repeatedly? It dies.

I watch a string of bad movies that came highly recommended, and I stop going to the movies altogether.

I get cut off in traffic repeatedly, and I start competing with every other driver on the road.

I realize the causes I supported made me a pawn in some party’s power grab, and I stop listening to the news media entirely.

I do not “trust the experts” anymore. I do not engage in the systems and rules as designed. And I am not the only one becoming cynical. Once enough of us are bitter and disillusioned, the movie industry collapses, violence becomes rampant on the roads, and conspiracy theories abound. The society stops being a society, and becomes instead a mass of angry individuals, all distrusting of one another. Divisions and public violence increase, and eventually the entire nation faces its demise. Perhaps strangest of all, there might even still be a majority of people who want to be honest and want to engage with the systems as intended, but the risk of trust outweighs its benefits, and so separating, not uniting, becomes the new norm.

When one is raised in a cohesive society, it is easy to take its trust systems for granted, but in truth, they must be guarded most carefully. For when they are broken, everything is lost. I do not know how far things can go and still be repaired, but at some point, the death of the nation must become inevitable.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Power of Your Voice- Communication and Technology Revolutions

Leaps and Bounds)

Yesterday I mentioned the direct correlation between inter-cultural communication and the advancement of technology. The more people share their voices with one another, the more each is fertilized with the other’s ideas, and the more we advance as a whole. Also, as a culture expands in its technology, that has included enhancing their means of communication. Thus, one advancement leads more and more quickly to another, and so the pattern has been one of exponential growth.

In fact, every major advancement in communication leads to a spike in technological advancement. Here are the most notable examples:

  1. Early writing systems from 3000-2000 BC, followed by large-scale agricultural systems and bureaucratic states.
  2. The printing press from 1440, followed by the scientific and industrial revolution.
  3. Telegraph system from 1830s-1840s, followed by trains, long-distance transit and transportation, factories and distribution.
  4. Radio, telephone, and television from 1920s-1950s, followed by consumer appliances, personal automobiles, and rocket science.
  5. The internet from 1969, followed by software and home computers, globalized manufacturing, and robotics.

The Road Ahead)

Our communication technology has progressed from talking to our neighbors, to meeting each other across great distances, to writing down words that could be carried elsewhere, to having instantaneous communication with millions across the globe. Today we appear be on the cusp of yet another advancement in communication and technology. With the advent of AI, for the first time ever we have the ability to receive messages from the aggregate sum of millions of voices all at once. Given the wealth of historical writing included in these models, that includes being able to have conversations with those who are already dead. What sort of leaps in technology this may lead to remains to be seen, but we can only assume it will be similarly transformative.

It is also left to our imaginations what higher forms of communication could yet await us. Perhaps some sort of thought-to-thought or spirit-to-spirit communication would unlock the highest era. Perhaps some of those higher forms of communication are reserved for the life after this one, though.

Of course, we have to acknowledge that not all advancement and technology is good. There is much to be concerned about, much division and destruction before us, and the scriptures predicted this exact dilemma in the story of the Tower of Babel thousands of years ago. Tomorrow we will take a closer look at that story, and what it means for us today.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Inside Out- Internal Control

Yesterday we talked about the external influences that society puts on us, molding us into decent and productive citizens. We talked about how there is great good in this, and that we ought not to do away with it. However, we also discussed the limitations of external influence. How it can allow for a society of moral behavior, but inwardly immoral people. How it can be eroded, and when that happens, horrors follow.

Internal Control)

True stability in society requires internal control. It requires people to be inwardly converted to the principles of morality and civility, who will self-govern themselves, no matter what the laws or social norms say. Thus, laws of the land may be important, but laws of the heart even more so.

Consider how Jesus’s words align with this. “Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man,” (Mark 7:18, 20). We can infer that the opposite of this statement is also true, it is not that which goes into a man, but comes out of him, that justifies him and proves him good. It is the choices from the inner place, not the outer, that truly matter.

Notice, then, how sensible the work of missionaries and proselytizers is. They do not go to change public policy, to lobby for laws, to influence the external controls. They go to the individual, convict them of moral sin, reintroduce God to heal what is broken in the heart, and leave a soul that is personally committed to doing what is good. It is hard work and is only effective on those who are open to it, but it is the most important work to maintain the fabric of our societies, let alone the saving of souls.

A Warped Priority)

You would think that we as a people would have learned the importance of this work. That we would trust that as we focused on the individual soul, that the collective society would improve. That as we fixed what is inside, all of the outer peripheries would correct themselves on their own.

As one who gave two years of my life to missionary efforts, I can tell you that that is not the case at all. Opposition to proselyting efforts, and a desire to banish them is everywhere. Both from governments and individuals. Not only this, but we live in a time where people who do have a strong moral compass are often ridiculed or considered suspect. Instead, people crave more legislation, more external control, more outer force, particularly on those they disagree with.

As discussed yesterday, this is a very dangerous attitude to take. The more society discourages and tears down internal control, the more its people will be uprooted from true morality, the more wildly they will start to swing, and eventually they will surely fall to debauchery, perversion, and destruction.

In summary, this question of inner or outer moral convictions may seem a small and simple thing, but its long-term implications are far-reaching. All of us should be sharply aware of our own reliance upon internal or external controls, and also our society’s. And for both ourselves and others, the most important work is to heal the heart within, connect God to the inner man, and establish internal moral control.