My View Of What Is Happening to the World.

These ideas and thoughts are an opinion. They are subject to change. If you see a problem anywhere post a comment, and I will do my best to ammend\address it.

The world is changing.

Integrity

Unimpaired, unadulterated, or genuine state; entire correspondence with an original condition; purity.

I see Integrity as representing a purity of information. After the recent election of Obama, I observed some very interesting effects in people. There is a great hatred from many for Obama. I observed as people began to boil their views on Obama. A few things caught my eye. One person's citation for Obama included that he did not say the pledge of allegiance, and was un-American and a terrorist.

http://thinkonthesethings.wordpress.com/2007/11/02/barack-obama-refused-to-say-the-pledge-of-allegiance-youve-been-played-for-a-daggone-fool/

The pledge of allegiance part; I believe resulted from a chain email. There is another part referring to a terrorist rumor:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/did-you-know-that-senator_b_74710.html

The point I am trying to make is not for or against Obama. It is that if the majority of the people in this world are accepting information as pure without question we have a problem.

Many people are deciding who to put in leadership of the most powerful country in the world, based on rumors, flyers, and chain emails. We are in a different world. It is one full of lies, trickery, and deceit when it comes to information. As consumerism becomes more and more the focus of the world, we are innovating more and more ways to put information into peoples hands. We are also creating ways to do this in extremely convincing ways.

My point is we are becoming more ignorant because of this. There seems to be a ever growing amount of people who accept everything they see. There are people who accept stereotypes as fact, some very close to me i.e. Muslims going to build bombs in mosques. This is sad. When you combine this ignorance with intolerance...Intolerance is amplified.

It is amplified because you have everyone believing different things from all of these sources of information. With these differing beliefs we now have an initial setup. Once we add in arguments and emotions tensions rise. If intolerance is included here, we now have a recipe for instability. As time continues and information becomes more and more dispersed and developed, differing beliefs increase in number. If tolerance is not an attribute of the people, we now have conflict as people fight to resolve that they are in fact right. Conflict increases anger triggers hate and begins the emotional process of mutual destruction. Yea I am beating a dead horse, with this tolerance stuff, however is seems to make so much sense. (At least to me)

Bad information doesn't come in a shady looking box with a warning label. It comes as a delicious entree, mixed with truth, gibberish, and delight.

There is another balancing factor here that is to ensure Integrity in information. Don't assert that everything you see and hear is fact. Learn to ensure integrity with what you choose to base your choices, stances, and beliefs on. If you don't your choices, stances, and beliefs are on a foundation of sand, that will either wash your ideals away or swallow you in your ignorance. Build them on a foundation of rock; a foundation of integrity.

If things don't change or continue to get worse, we may very well be approaching a limit.

Nov 5, 2008

What if a sure ticket to heaven...Wasn't.

-----This is one of my religious views and it will be carried under religious context. This is written mainly with Christians in mind, though is relevent to all cultures, religions, and peoples. So please don't take this as preaching or zealotry - I am merely proposing this as thought.-------

There are a-lot of Christians who are sure they will go-to heaven. They believe if they are deeply (and pridefully) religious and as long as they accept Jesus as their Savior they have a near sure shot "into heaven." Suppose that these objectives were wrong. Suppose judgment was not passed on what we traditionally believe. After all the people before the flood probably thought hey we aren't bad people.

Tradition could agree that people who go-to hell primarily do so because they are sinners. A Christian would take this two steps farther and add lack of repentance and failure to accept Jesus as their savior, but what if we got this all wrong.

Suppose Judgment is passed based on Intolerance.
The Sin is a result. This is why we can repent for it. There is something subtle a tier below Sin. Something that causes a great amount of sin, and with it hatred, divide, and war. This is Intolerance. Intolerance subtlety creeps in and makes even the most loving brothers turn against one another.

To make sure I am clear let me define intolerance.
1. lack of toleration; unwillingness or refusal to tolerate or respect contrary opinions or beliefs, persons of different races or backgrounds, etc.

Intolerance sneaks in. If you look around you, if you look at common discussion, if you look at people; intolerance makes a showing nearly all the time. There is so much intolerance in this world. It spawns hate which is not defined traditionally as a sin, but hate divides and creates sin. My opinion is that God would not want this in Heaven. Sin is an effect. God would likely look at the cause.

Here is the real kicker:
Many of you hardcore Christians under this model - are not heaven bound. You create hatred and divide in the world without even realizing it. You blind yourselves in your fanaticism. You say everyone else is wrong. You say there are no other paths. You create divisions. You build walls. This is not the way of life the man your religion was founded on, carried. Jesus embraced this. He had understanding, love, and care regardless of division of belief, he didn't seek to build walls in exclusion and forced acceptance of belief or all is lost. It was simple. Have tolerance for your fellow man. Understand that while you believe different things it is ok. Simply don't spawn hatred and division because of it, because this I believe will send one to hell, and so many of you Christians are doing this! Most every deeply Christian person I know is guilty of this.
Jesus' original teachings do not echo these views of intolerance. This world is becoming extremely intolerant as a whole, and this I am curious is a possible cause for the end of our times - not a world of sin, but one of intolerance. Christians are not the only ones guilty of this, but we are as a whole some of the most push-ful in the choose us or go-to hell methodology - possibly to much irony.
Peace.

1 Tolerance is the fruit of
judgment. The whole world
before thee is as a little grain of the
balance, and envy is an unequal
measure of the LORD's way.

http://www.themountainsvoice.net/index.html
An amazing site. I suggest reading it all if you are a religious person, believing in God. This is a Christian man, but a different one than most Christians - one I believe sees, his words seem of the heart.

Oct 9, 2008