Saturday, March 15, 2008

this I know ... for the Bible tells me so


Can you see this dead baby bird? He is really small. (You can tell because of the size of the blades of grass.) I found him on a dog walk because Dog 2 pooped right next to him! I think dead birds are really neat because you can finally see them up close. I just thought I would share.

Jips and I saw Horton Hears a Who last weekend. It was very well done, I recommend that everyone go to see it.

The main message of the film was this: If you believe in something you should say what you believe and stick to it. When the situation arises where Authority and/or The Masses give you the choice of
(a) sticking to your belief and facing persecution
or
(b) denying your belief
you should choose (a). I found this message to be very disturbing. I know that the message has the best of intentions but I believe that there are cases where you should take choice (b) and deny your belief. The film's message is too black and white, and in real life, gray will get you further.

Example 1.0 : Let's assume you believe your boss is an immoral idiot, but the boss likes you. It is smarter to not tell anyone what you really think of your boss.

Maybe that isn't the exact same type of case.

Example 2.0: Let's say you are a young girl in Bible school. You believe that Jesus is a hoax. The teacher wants everyone to sing Jesus Loves Me. You could (a) throw a fit, cry, etc. refuse to sing because Jesus is fake and the Bible school teacher is trying to trick everyone, or you could (b) sing the song.

In my experience, singing Jesus Loves Me went against what was in my heart, but it would have been a smarter political move than crying and telling my Bible school teacher that I hated her because she was trying to trick me into believing in Jesus.

So how should we choose our battles as adults? How many things can we lie to Authority about before we start to become the person we are pretending to be? Is this the start of a double life? Or is it just what normal people do all the time?

3 comments:

Jeanne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rikki said...

Nice question. I think it's grey because other people's feelings matter and you can't go trumpeting your opinions everywhere just to....what? You can stick to your own beliefs in your mind and in your actions, and then if somebody asked you straight up if you thought Jesus was a hoax and they insisted that you answer, then it'd be their own fault if they were upset with your admission.

I don't think we necessarily must lead double lives as adults...at least I hope not, because I don't like that idea one bit. I think you're just more able to empathize and be in tune with others more as you get older.

As a side note, I'm getting a kick out of the idea of baby Fermi not buying into the "Jesus loves me " song.

Fermi said...

Other people exist and we should watch out for their feelings.

GREAT POINT tino! I need to remember that!

Also, the Jesus thing. I think I missed the point that Jesus was supposed to have special powers like a superhero. I got suspicious when the bible school teacher told me that he turned water into wine. I KNEW people couldn't do that, so Jesus must not be real.