A Question For "Jim"
by Preston McNutt
Brad is doing a great job of addressing the individual questions “Jim” posed in his letter to Dr. Laura, so I'll not attempt to add to or refine his answers in any way. What I will do is address the mindset behind the “Jim”s of the world. The letter we're referring to can be found at A Letter to Dr. Laura, Introduction.
The questions posed by the fictitious character hiding behind the anonymity of an assumed name are framed in a whimsical and what he thinks is humorous way. His intent is to make people question the validity of Biblical morals and mock those who hold to those timeless precepts. While on the surface it may be funny to some-I must confess, this kind of sarcastic wit makes me smile-the person's motive in writing such a mindless diatribe is obvious. It is a poorly disguised confession of his underlying rebellion and personal faith that his ways are better than any religion that a God that he refuses to believe in can require of him. It also exposes another carefully crafted mask of an insidious character trait lying hidden behind his attempts at levity. “Jim” is a bully. Framing the debate on his terms, he gives no option for an opponent to engage in meaningful dialogue or offer a reasoned response. He's like the bully in the sandbox who kicks sand in his playmates' faces and runs to the principal to complain they got tears on his feet. People like “Jim” like to think of themselves as "intellectuals" while denying this title to anyone with a rational counter to their claims. Those who challenge them get sand thrown in their eyes.
“Jim” may have been attempting to use an ancient method of the fifth century B.C. philosopher Socrates. Instead of telling people what he thought was true, he asked seemingly simple questions that led his opponents to challenge the hypotheses and axioms that shaped their opinions and beliefs and created contradictions and inconsistencies in their minds, leading them to accept the premise of his questions as truth. The premise? Reject any notion that the laws given by God are intended to grant freedom and joy, rather bondage to a rigid set of impossible to follow precepts.
The contradictions created by this style of questioning lead to the inconsistencies portrayed in the works of the dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. Many of his works show graphically what might be called “strange loops”, an impossible event that the eyes nevertheless lead the mind to believe is actually happening. One example is a very simple picture of a hand drawing a hand, which in turn is drawing itself. Another is a drawing of a set of stairs, with people both descending and ascending and reaching the same destination, at the same time. A logical impossibility, yet the eyes see it actually happening and convince the mind it is real.
Our culture is filled with this kind of mind control. The media throws out talking points designed to shape the thinking of the masses like sand on a membrane in a cymatics experiment. When their facts are challenged, they simply apply a different frequency and the sand is tossed in more quirky patterns. New whimsical outlines are formed, hidden agendas are covered, and a semblance of new ideas emerge, but without any real change in content. The talking heads are paraded in front of a dumbed-down public as they exchange nods of acceptance of one another's depth of understanding. The open-minded heads of intellectuals, scientists so-called, authors, politicians, Hollywood filmmakers and their bigger-than-life creations are filled with an enormous number of parroted facts that never seem to bind with one another to form fertile soil from which original ideas will grow. Each regurgitated sound-bite exists as an autonomous entity, separate from all the others, continuously shifting around like grains of sand, forming ephemeral dunes in the lifeless deserts of their minds. To have structured values in their circles is an unacceptable faux pas.
Jim's questioning of the laws of a loving God have one defining motive. Jim wants to live his life the way he wants to, and he wants others to join him in that independent lifestyle. It is a mindset that is as old as the Tower of Babel. The choice between tyranny and freedom date back to Nimrod (the Mighty Hunter in place of the Lord). He promised the people a giant tower that represented freedom from restrictive religion, one in which they could live their lives however they wished without fearing that God would flood the earth again in judgment of their wickedness. He offered them a walled city to protect them from the animals. The people gave up their money in the form of taxes to build the tower. They gave up their lands to live in the protection of his city. They gave up their families, submitting to what came to be known in the middle ages as primae noctis, or first night. That was the custom of having a newlywed woman sleep with the king on the night of her wedding. The event was graphically portrayed in the movie Braveheart.
The most precious thing they gave up was their freedom. They gave up their rights when they exchanged Yahweh's law which guaranteed their freedoms for the laws of man that enslaved them. Today, people like “Jim” have no problem submitting to tens of thousands of man's laws which are inexorably drawing mankind into deeper and more restrictive bondage, while belittling and making mockery of the very few of God's laws that guarantee freedom for all people.
The thinly veiled lifestyle being promoted by the questions “Jim” asks is the same one exhibited by those ancients on the plains of Shinar. The women danced around Asherah Poles to be "liberated" in the Temple of Easter where they served as prostitutes in the cult of sexual freedom and women's liberation. When the consequences started growing in their bellies the men offered their children to Molech in order to appease the gods of prosperity while they lined up to receive their share of their god's favor.
Today we still celebrate Nimrod's brand of freedom. We submit to laws that are made by man and keep us in bondage, and reject the laws of God which were made to give us life and freedom. We invent ways to avoid the consequences of our own wickedness instead of simply changing our ways. We offer up the unwanted fruit of our licentious “freedoms” on altars of convenience with government-funded abortion clinics, birth control pills, and a plethora of pharmaceuticals. The number of children being introduced to psychotropic drugs and anti-depressants is appalling. Add to that the child psychologists, therapists, abandoned children, human trafficking, juvenile detention centers, gang related crime, and the list goes on ad infinitum. We give up our children's minds to be educated by a state system that is vehemently opposed to Biblical virtues. We give up their bodies to be experimented on by a medical system that is vehemently opposed to God's precepts for ensuring good health via increasing numbers of vaccines, flu and virus innoculations, and so on. We give up their souls when we reject God's Sabbath and send them to Sunday School to learn of Babylonian worship practices that are whitewashed and given Christian names and meanings.
A brilliant mathematician by the name of Ivan Panin answered a challenge issued by an intellectual liberated critic of God's laws in the Sunday, November 19, 1899 edition of the New York Sun. His response was a letter detailing his mathematical findings on the first seventeen verses of the book of Matthew, which comprise the geneology of Yeshua, (Jesus). The patterns of sevens, with repeated patterns of sevens embedded within sevens like wheels within wheels, showed the impossibility of such a linguistic pattern of such complexity occurring by chance. The laws of statistical probability showed conclusively that there must have been an outside source of information, as no human being could possibly produce such a work of such magnitude in what he called a “linguistic miracle”, especially in the short time Matthew had to write it.
In that spirit, rather than answer “Jim” point by point, I'd like to answer his challenge with a few questions of my own.
- If all beliefs are equally valid, how come my belief is the only one that gets rejected by proponents of his brand of religion?
- Once a person labels the truth as falsehood, ridiculing truth with out-of-context definitions, can anyone trust him to speak the truth in the future?
- If religious tolerance is necessary for society to function properly in peace and harmony, why is faith in the Bible the only one that is considered dysfunctional?
- If diversity training benefits everyone, why do those classes mostly consist of white heterosexual males?
- Why does Hollywood glamorize drug addicts, criminals, liberal Democrats, and mentally challenged people? What do they all have in common?
- How come Hollywood can always find a good side in thugs, but never in honest businessmen? When is the last time you saw a movie or TV series with an industrious man as a role model?
- If there are no absolutes and family is an antiquated tool of bourgeois oppression, why is having gay marriage at the top of the list of political initiatives?
- Would you know from the media coverage that there are more sex offenders among public school teachers then among Catholic priests? How come the church gets the blame and the Department of Education doesn't?
- Why is the media so outspoken about sex abusers being priests, but avoids calling them homosexual pedophiles? Who are they afraid to offend?
- If Hollywood types are so opposed to capitalism, why is there a warning against unauthorized distribution of their movies?
- Why is experimenting on animals cruel, but experimenting on human embryos compassionate?
- How come those who disagree with the Bible are considered enlightened, but those that believe the Bible and reject humanistic thinking are called bigots?
Shalom
Preston McNutt