Theologian John Calvin once noted men’s hearts are “a perpetual factory of idols.” As people across the political spectrum move away from religion and fill the void with politics, idol worship runs rampant.
Stand up for the unborn Eric. The pope isn’t the Apostle Paul. This new Pope has people around him that deserve worse than prison for molesting children. This pope has changed with the times but God’s word doesn’t change. This pope will be judged by our father in heaven and held to a higher standard. May God come into all our heart’s to stop evil.
Well this explains--and very well--the recent obsession with "the narrative" on both sides.
And Erick, I must say that your side journey from politics to theological study certainly proves to be beneficial! Your theological lens focuses on the deep issues of cosmogony an mythology that you incorporate so well into this analysis. . . which is the best explanation I have seen, to account for what has happened to America in these last two months, and especially these last two weeks.
Keep up the good work. And let us remind the distracted world that Jesus is Lord!
...and remind our own distracted selves as well, Jesus is Lord ;-) Paul, Peter et al had true tyrants trying to stamp out the gospel. We dare not do this to ourselves by losing sight of the true goal: build God's Kingdom!
Well said. There will , of course, be push back to this revelation. However, that inevitability is merely reflective of the natural human disdain for receiving correction from a seductive course. Defensiveness over correction offered by an ally is destructive. Thoughtful consideration of it is wisdom. May we be all the wiser today. Thank you Erick.
Stories are easy to write and easy to remember. Truth is hard and sometimes uncomfortable, because we have to face up to our complicity in not using it or recognizing it.
And facts are hard too, because even our normal source of facts (books, people we respect) can come from bias.
So you have to work at finding the bias, finding it in the story or fact, putting it aside so you can see what's true, and then writing up or speaking the truth without letting your own bias creep in. (And then, I add grumpily, hardly anyone reads it. Truth and facts can be boring.)
In a world where our value is judged by people clicking on a story or video...it's so much easier to give up on the facts and just write a myth.
I would like to reassure you that all of us over 50 people do not fall for conspiracy theories like the ones you described. I was not a Trump supporter in the beginning, though I reluctantly voted for him since Hillary was not an option. I was surprised to see that he did accomplish some things that I believe were good for the country. I am not a fan of his over the top tweeting at times. On the other hand, the democrats have been so vile and vicious, there were other times I admit I completely understood his attacks. I have never read or watched a Qanon anything, don't even know where to find them. I don't believe Trump instigated the breach on the Capitol the other day. I do believe that the lawsuits that specifically questioned the validity of votes that were cast under rules changed at the last moment by state officials and judges which were in violation of their own constitution should have been heard by the courts. I don't believe that all the people who stormed the capitol were ANTIFA. I do believe that some of them were. One has now been arrested, so we know for sure there was one and if there was one there were more. I think it is very likely that ANTIFA stirred the pot amongst the Trump supporters who are more easily led to this kind of activity, and probably got it started online before the event even happened. All of that is not only likely but logical. So when anyone says "There were no ANTIFA involved", it is as unlikely as those who say "It was not Trump supporters, it was all ANTIFA". Far more likely to have been both, egged on by ANTIFA. And I excuse none of it because I don't think anyone has any right to attack any building full of people. We may have a "revolution". It seems inevitable to me. But if there is, it has to be in accordance with the Constitution.
Kathy: You start your comment saying that you don't believe in conspiracies and then the rest of your post is filled with them: Lawsuits rejected, ANTIFA presence, stolen elections. We have lost the ability to determine objective truth these days. No matter how hard we try, the glitter of the "simple explanation" has become the fools gold we mine.
Tom: I re-read Kathy's post a few times, particularly about the lawsuits that did not get any hearing before the courts, including SCOTUS. Her point was that Trump, et al, were within their Constitutional rights to challenge irregularities, all of which fell short of someone's judgement regarding whether they deserved a hearing. Some was the so-called "lack of standing" as plaintiffs such as the states that sued the process in PA, WI, etc. Others were lack of insufficient evidence to change the outcome (kind of a utilitarian, "yeah, I hear ya but since it won't make any difference, it would be a waste of time"). So rather than a serious examination of election process changes that may/may not have been Constitutional, hence be called forth, reprimanded and corrected moving forward, we just do the Hillary, "What does it matter now?"
I viewed the lawsuits as not so much a "get Trump in no matter what" as some might interpret, but as a referendum on our country's election process and its need for serious overhauling. COVID-19 provided a perfect cover for malfeasance. Without the "everyone can vote thru the mail or in person (or both? ;-) )", what would the results have been? We shall never know. Frankly, the ease of voting this time is probably the real reason for the Yuuuugest voter turn out in American history - don't have to wait in line anywhere, even the Millennials can hold a pencil and fill out a ballot scantron like they did in school ;-).
Conspiracies aside, our election process this go-around had a LOT of gaps in authentication, even more than usual since the huge amount of mail-in voting was vetted (or not) by humans, at least most of which had a stake in the outcome personally (that applies to both sides).
Many people do not understand the systems in place already to prevent fraudulent voting. In Wisconsin, for example, every ballot given to a voter is "checked out" whether they vote in person or by mail. After the polling place closes, the number of people who voted cannot be greater than the number of people who checked out a ballot. I suppose it is possible to vote twice by using two different addresses in different precincts, but that is why we should promote voter ID laws. People are upset at the thought of sending everyone mail in ballots, but if a person were to send in multiple ballots, the first one would be listed on the voter register and any others would be discarded at best and possibly prosecuted.
I have voted by mail for several years. I am very comfortable with the procedures in place now. I would be open for a review of practices but to complain about the process after the fact (and that is what happened in Wisconsin) is ridiculus.
Please be aware I am not "many people", am very familiar with the intended security processes in various states and also the opportunities for defeating them. This does *not* include the conspiracies that SW companies swizzled votes in the background. Anecdotally one Pastor in Cali regaled his audience with a tale of an opportunity to cast multiple ballots - he filled out the the mail in ballot in case there would be no in-person voting, happened to bring it with him during his in-person voting. His integrity prevented a fraudulent voting with both hands and feet, but sliding both ballots in at the same time was certainly possible. Would the duplicate bar codes have been caught? Could be/could be not. In addition, ballots were sent to former residents at the house, could have filled those in and mailed in as well.
The implementation of many states' "push" model for ballot distribution created an artificial election process in general and added significant gaps in security that we can close moving forward if we choose to learn from 2020.
Exposing gaps in the process of this cycle's implementation of wholesale vote-by-mail is not at all ridiculous. Since none of the lawsuits got a hearing, it will likely be swept under the rug
You know perfectly well I did not use the expression "stolen elections". And I mentioned the ONE lawsuit that I have read enough about to know it had validity to be heard. One anti Trump person has already been arrested, though I initially thought he had identified himself as ANTIFA, I made a mistake and it was BLM. You are either unable to read with understanding or are being deliberately obtuse if you think I was supporting any conspiracy theories. I am and always have been using pure logic with the information that is available to all of us. You can go read basics of the lawsuit that the attorney was trying to get to the supreme court. It makes sense.
Kathy....what a great post. You expressed my thoughts and feelings exactly. Thank you. I am thankful that the authorities did not shoot the capitol protestors as EE suggested in his 1/6/2021 post.
Actually, I believe he claims to be BLM. He was from Utah, I believe, and I can't recall the name. If I find it again I will post it. Saw it last night on TV and read an article this morning.
According to Fox's "Special Report", John Sullivan "has no known ties to Antifa." They also noted that he's a self-proclaimed racial justice activist. Although, as the news reported noted, "Left-wing activist groups accused Sullivan of trying to infiltrate their protests, claiming he had ties to right-wing groups."
I found articles in Utah newspapers that he was arrested last June on charges of rioting and criminal mischief. Interestingly, according to the NY Post his brother James is a diehard Trump fan. Quite a resume'.
Thank you! I'll try again using BLM. Probably it'll take a while to distill who everyone is and what they support. Too easy to pretend to be someone online.
Appears I managed to accidentally delete my tome (screed?). May be a message from the Holy Spirit?
Anyway, regarding "lumping", I am equally guilty of lumping Millennials, Gen X/Y/Z, LGBQTlmnop, leftists, conservatives, Believers, non-believers, yadda, yadda in my rhetoric or responses. While lumping serves to shorten the message, it also casts a wide net, capturing dolphins in tuna nets (to cite an analogy we old fogies can relate to). We "dolphins" outnumber the "tuna" by a wide margin in this case, IMO.
Found the original tome, re-posting. Sorry thread order now all messed up...
"Over the past five years, QAnon’s conspiracies have settled into the minds of middle American church goers, mostly over fifty. Younger Americans are so used to slickly packaged TikTok and Snapchat videos that they tend to be dismissive of most things they see circulate on the internet. But the fifty and older crowd sees the same and connect high production quality with truth..."
Erick, since you're not over 50 yet, let me tell you that those of us over 50 are far less likely jump the shark with QAnon than you "youngsters" ;-). The fact that there are some of us more recalcitrant and intractable than others isn't so much a lack of ability to think critically, it is more that this election's weirdness has been beyond the pale of any of the 11 presidential elections I've voted in - something was very wrong though we couldn't really put the data together to prove it.
I've never read anything QAnon-ish, nor am I drenched with internet flop-sweat. I grew up without the internet, watched it emerge, flourish, explode and then, as with anything humans do, find its way into darkness. I have known from the Jr. Hi in the 70's that one must weigh one thing against another since every position posited has a pre-supposition behind it. We "old foggies" are actually less likely to engage in internet tripe than those that grew up with it from day one and likely don't really know any better (or at least any different).
Remember, it was us "old folks" that knew what a card catalog was, had to to research the hard way, so came to appreciate the value of "slow research" that made one search multiple sources by hand, slowly weighing information from one source to another, more effectively sifting through the rubble than today's "just google it" form of "research". While there will always be exceptions to every rule, I'd be cautious about blaming us "boomers" for this particular rabbit trail.
Stand up for the unborn Eric. The pope isn’t the Apostle Paul. This new Pope has people around him that deserve worse than prison for molesting children. This pope has changed with the times but God’s word doesn’t change. This pope will be judged by our father in heaven and held to a higher standard. May God come into all our heart’s to stop evil.
. . . and Cyrus was a Persian who lived about two and a half millenia ago.
Well this explains--and very well--the recent obsession with "the narrative" on both sides.
And Erick, I must say that your side journey from politics to theological study certainly proves to be beneficial! Your theological lens focuses on the deep issues of cosmogony an mythology that you incorporate so well into this analysis. . . which is the best explanation I have seen, to account for what has happened to America in these last two months, and especially these last two weeks.
Keep up the good work. And let us remind the distracted world that Jesus is Lord!
...and remind our own distracted selves as well, Jesus is Lord ;-) Paul, Peter et al had true tyrants trying to stamp out the gospel. We dare not do this to ourselves by losing sight of the true goal: build God's Kingdom!
I really appreciate your thoughts Erick and helping us stay of the fray as Believers. Come Lord Jesus come. Share the Gospel. Be ready when He comes.
Good piece Eric
Well said. There will , of course, be push back to this revelation. However, that inevitability is merely reflective of the natural human disdain for receiving correction from a seductive course. Defensiveness over correction offered by an ally is destructive. Thoughtful consideration of it is wisdom. May we be all the wiser today. Thank you Erick.
I think you and many others give way to much credit to the qanon BS. Similarly, people give too much credit for what is "said" on Twitter.
Stories are easy to write and easy to remember. Truth is hard and sometimes uncomfortable, because we have to face up to our complicity in not using it or recognizing it.
And facts are hard too, because even our normal source of facts (books, people we respect) can come from bias.
So you have to work at finding the bias, finding it in the story or fact, putting it aside so you can see what's true, and then writing up or speaking the truth without letting your own bias creep in. (And then, I add grumpily, hardly anyone reads it. Truth and facts can be boring.)
In a world where our value is judged by people clicking on a story or video...it's so much easier to give up on the facts and just write a myth.
When a culture has no Center,
When the Gospel Truth’s untold,
Soon the darkness fills the vacuum
And The Fringes seize control.
When the Church abandons Scripture
‘Til there is no God to fear,
Wisdom makes a hasty exit,
Solid ground then disappears.
When the Word is deconstructed
And reduced to Feel Good Spin,
Trouble’s brewing in the caldron…
And we’re sowing only wind.*
When Emotion mans the ramparts…
(On the Left or on Right)…
The descent will be quite rapid
Into bedlam through the night.
Yes, when Chapter Three of Romans
Is removed from center stage,
We’ll discover in short order
Why indeed the heathen rage.
Law turns quicky to disorder.
Natural Man will lose The Way.
Brother, Cain will turn on Abel,
Suddenly…there’s hell to pay.
* * *
* “For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind:…” Hosea 8:7
I would like to reassure you that all of us over 50 people do not fall for conspiracy theories like the ones you described. I was not a Trump supporter in the beginning, though I reluctantly voted for him since Hillary was not an option. I was surprised to see that he did accomplish some things that I believe were good for the country. I am not a fan of his over the top tweeting at times. On the other hand, the democrats have been so vile and vicious, there were other times I admit I completely understood his attacks. I have never read or watched a Qanon anything, don't even know where to find them. I don't believe Trump instigated the breach on the Capitol the other day. I do believe that the lawsuits that specifically questioned the validity of votes that were cast under rules changed at the last moment by state officials and judges which were in violation of their own constitution should have been heard by the courts. I don't believe that all the people who stormed the capitol were ANTIFA. I do believe that some of them were. One has now been arrested, so we know for sure there was one and if there was one there were more. I think it is very likely that ANTIFA stirred the pot amongst the Trump supporters who are more easily led to this kind of activity, and probably got it started online before the event even happened. All of that is not only likely but logical. So when anyone says "There were no ANTIFA involved", it is as unlikely as those who say "It was not Trump supporters, it was all ANTIFA". Far more likely to have been both, egged on by ANTIFA. And I excuse none of it because I don't think anyone has any right to attack any building full of people. We may have a "revolution". It seems inevitable to me. But if there is, it has to be in accordance with the Constitution.
Kathy: You start your comment saying that you don't believe in conspiracies and then the rest of your post is filled with them: Lawsuits rejected, ANTIFA presence, stolen elections. We have lost the ability to determine objective truth these days. No matter how hard we try, the glitter of the "simple explanation" has become the fools gold we mine.
Tom: I re-read Kathy's post a few times, particularly about the lawsuits that did not get any hearing before the courts, including SCOTUS. Her point was that Trump, et al, were within their Constitutional rights to challenge irregularities, all of which fell short of someone's judgement regarding whether they deserved a hearing. Some was the so-called "lack of standing" as plaintiffs such as the states that sued the process in PA, WI, etc. Others were lack of insufficient evidence to change the outcome (kind of a utilitarian, "yeah, I hear ya but since it won't make any difference, it would be a waste of time"). So rather than a serious examination of election process changes that may/may not have been Constitutional, hence be called forth, reprimanded and corrected moving forward, we just do the Hillary, "What does it matter now?"
I viewed the lawsuits as not so much a "get Trump in no matter what" as some might interpret, but as a referendum on our country's election process and its need for serious overhauling. COVID-19 provided a perfect cover for malfeasance. Without the "everyone can vote thru the mail or in person (or both? ;-) )", what would the results have been? We shall never know. Frankly, the ease of voting this time is probably the real reason for the Yuuuugest voter turn out in American history - don't have to wait in line anywhere, even the Millennials can hold a pencil and fill out a ballot scantron like they did in school ;-).
Conspiracies aside, our election process this go-around had a LOT of gaps in authentication, even more than usual since the huge amount of mail-in voting was vetted (or not) by humans, at least most of which had a stake in the outcome personally (that applies to both sides).
Many people do not understand the systems in place already to prevent fraudulent voting. In Wisconsin, for example, every ballot given to a voter is "checked out" whether they vote in person or by mail. After the polling place closes, the number of people who voted cannot be greater than the number of people who checked out a ballot. I suppose it is possible to vote twice by using two different addresses in different precincts, but that is why we should promote voter ID laws. People are upset at the thought of sending everyone mail in ballots, but if a person were to send in multiple ballots, the first one would be listed on the voter register and any others would be discarded at best and possibly prosecuted.
I have voted by mail for several years. I am very comfortable with the procedures in place now. I would be open for a review of practices but to complain about the process after the fact (and that is what happened in Wisconsin) is ridiculus.
Please be aware I am not "many people", am very familiar with the intended security processes in various states and also the opportunities for defeating them. This does *not* include the conspiracies that SW companies swizzled votes in the background. Anecdotally one Pastor in Cali regaled his audience with a tale of an opportunity to cast multiple ballots - he filled out the the mail in ballot in case there would be no in-person voting, happened to bring it with him during his in-person voting. His integrity prevented a fraudulent voting with both hands and feet, but sliding both ballots in at the same time was certainly possible. Would the duplicate bar codes have been caught? Could be/could be not. In addition, ballots were sent to former residents at the house, could have filled those in and mailed in as well.
The implementation of many states' "push" model for ballot distribution created an artificial election process in general and added significant gaps in security that we can close moving forward if we choose to learn from 2020.
Exposing gaps in the process of this cycle's implementation of wholesale vote-by-mail is not at all ridiculous. Since none of the lawsuits got a hearing, it will likely be swept under the rug
You know perfectly well I did not use the expression "stolen elections". And I mentioned the ONE lawsuit that I have read enough about to know it had validity to be heard. One anti Trump person has already been arrested, though I initially thought he had identified himself as ANTIFA, I made a mistake and it was BLM. You are either unable to read with understanding or are being deliberately obtuse if you think I was supporting any conspiracy theories. I am and always have been using pure logic with the information that is available to all of us. You can go read basics of the lawsuit that the attorney was trying to get to the supreme court. It makes sense.
Kathy....what a great post. You expressed my thoughts and feelings exactly. Thank you. I am thankful that the authorities did not shoot the capitol protestors as EE suggested in his 1/6/2021 post.
Who was the antifa supporter? That's a serious question -- I googled and didn't come up with anything.
His name is James Earl Sullivan. From Utah.
I would not have found this without his name, so thank you. But the Examiner has a profile of sorts of him. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/blm-activist-documented-capitol-siege
Thanks! Off to read about him.
Actually, I believe he claims to be BLM. He was from Utah, I believe, and I can't recall the name. If I find it again I will post it. Saw it last night on TV and read an article this morning.
According to Fox's "Special Report", John Sullivan "has no known ties to Antifa." They also noted that he's a self-proclaimed racial justice activist. Although, as the news reported noted, "Left-wing activist groups accused Sullivan of trying to infiltrate their protests, claiming he had ties to right-wing groups."
I found articles in Utah newspapers that he was arrested last June on charges of rioting and criminal mischief. Interestingly, according to the NY Post his brother James is a diehard Trump fan. Quite a resume'.
Thank you! I'll try again using BLM. Probably it'll take a while to distill who everyone is and what they support. Too easy to pretend to be someone online.
Well said
Thank you. I get tired of being "lumped" into this "category" of supposedly senile older Americans who believe everything on the internet.
Appears I managed to accidentally delete my tome (screed?). May be a message from the Holy Spirit?
Anyway, regarding "lumping", I am equally guilty of lumping Millennials, Gen X/Y/Z, LGBQTlmnop, leftists, conservatives, Believers, non-believers, yadda, yadda in my rhetoric or responses. While lumping serves to shorten the message, it also casts a wide net, capturing dolphins in tuna nets (to cite an analogy we old fogies can relate to). We "dolphins" outnumber the "tuna" by a wide margin in this case, IMO.
Found the original tome, re-posting. Sorry thread order now all messed up...
"Over the past five years, QAnon’s conspiracies have settled into the minds of middle American church goers, mostly over fifty. Younger Americans are so used to slickly packaged TikTok and Snapchat videos that they tend to be dismissive of most things they see circulate on the internet. But the fifty and older crowd sees the same and connect high production quality with truth..."
Erick, since you're not over 50 yet, let me tell you that those of us over 50 are far less likely jump the shark with QAnon than you "youngsters" ;-). The fact that there are some of us more recalcitrant and intractable than others isn't so much a lack of ability to think critically, it is more that this election's weirdness has been beyond the pale of any of the 11 presidential elections I've voted in - something was very wrong though we couldn't really put the data together to prove it.
I've never read anything QAnon-ish, nor am I drenched with internet flop-sweat. I grew up without the internet, watched it emerge, flourish, explode and then, as with anything humans do, find its way into darkness. I have known from the Jr. Hi in the 70's that one must weigh one thing against another since every position posited has a pre-supposition behind it. We "old foggies" are actually less likely to engage in internet tripe than those that grew up with it from day one and likely don't really know any better (or at least any different).
Remember, it was us "old folks" that knew what a card catalog was, had to to research the hard way, so came to appreciate the value of "slow research" that made one search multiple sources by hand, slowly weighing information from one source to another, more effectively sifting through the rubble than today's "just google it" form of "research". While there will always be exceptions to every rule, I'd be cautious about blaming us "boomers" for this particular rabbit trail.