Opus 2026-177: Empty Phrases

There are certain terms that we hear, embrace and might eventually realize are not accurate.  In a free society we can take things we don’t agree on and throw them back and forth.  In the process we can distill them to useful tools of understanding.

The thought that got me going was the phrase “God of history”.  I have heard it used to explain that God is involved in the every day events of today and the entire reach of the physical earth.  This is the idea of immanence.  God is not nature but He created and controls nature.  So when we look at where we are today as a nation and as individuals we need to realize that we come from a long chain of events.  Our values did not just appear one day.  They were molded over centuries.

Then we have people reminding us that “God is love”.  Yes, He is.  The Bible tells us that.  The problem with the use of the phrase is that many people using it have one of two problems.  First, they don’t know what Biblical love is.  One of the quotes that keeps surfacing in my mind comes from a brief moment in the presence of a soap opera.  In it the heart throbs getting married promised to stay together “as long as we both shall love.”  This is Hollywood stuff.  It is the concept of love based on physical lust and eye candy.  It means they could break up the next day if they wanted to, or even that evening.  People who use this phrase need a long study of I Corinthians 13.

Second, they think they are gods.  This goes back to Eve in the Garden. I t is alive and well today.  We see it in new born babies who think the world revolves around them.  Many people never move beyond that.  It is the reasoning of the current accusations of racism and white privilege.  It is identity politics.  It is the idea that the individual doing the speaking is above everyone else.

How about the call to redistribute wealth?  It sounds good if you are someone who has never saved a dime and have a college major in communications of something followed by the word “studies”.  It is reasonably certain that you never took a class in economics from someone who could balance a checkbook.  As I am sure I have said before, if you took the wealth of the world and divided it up evenly between all the people in the world, within a short time it would all be back where it started because most people who have no wealth don’t know how to make wise decisions about wealth.

A second problem with redistributing wealth would be that civilization would cease.  Since no one would see the need to go to work, production would stop.  Why work if the lazy will simply take your rewards away from you.  The well stocked shelves at your local store would become empty in a few hours, and since no one was working to restock them, would remain empty even if the storerooms were full.  It would not take long for the entire supply chain to fall apart and Conan would emerge to created the power of the sword.  Of course the food worth stealing would soon be eaten also.  Think about how much wealth it takes to totally stock a hardware store.  We wont even have anyone willing to work to unload the boatload of nails from China.

Have you ever heard someone claim that the main stream media is not biased?  I think we have come to the place where they don’t claim it any more but it was amusing when it was parroted.  The absurdity of the claim is the denial that everyone is biased but most of us are aware of it.  I know my grandchildren are the best in the world.  I also know the reason they are at that pinnacle is, in addition to being true, because they are mine.  I have no violent feelings emerging from my heart when you make the same claim.  I am sympathetic to your ignorance.  When we talk about the news we need to also remember there is a big difference between being biased and lying through your teeth.

I am sure I could come up with more but I will save that for another day.

homo unius libri