Why does it seem the World around us is getting worse!

On any given day, there seems to be a new tragedy that plagues our Nation. America is a great nation, but I can’t help but ask the question, why do we hear of these tragic situations nearly daily? 

Last month it was the Church goers in South Carolina. Yesterday it was Marines in Tennessee. Time and time again we continue to hear of a new mass shooting case, while opponents of Gun Control argue that less guns is the answer, and proponents of guns argue more guns. It seems that at the heart of that they’re forgetting to look at the root causes. As some have said “Guns don’t kill people” while I agree with that statement, there seems to be no effort to get to the root cause of those instances. It seems evident that HATE is the central issue.

What kind of world do we live in where young kids now has “Active Shooter Drill” ingrained in their vocabulary?

What kind of a world do we live in where a young teenager can go out to get candy and a soda, and end up dead?

What kind of a world do we live in where a traffic stop, ends in you clinging to your life?

What kind of a world do we live in where unarmed citizens are dying in police custody?

What kind of a world do we live in where my skin color, is a motive for the violence inflicted upon me?

What kind of a world do we live in where Slavery and Jim Crow era is now looked at as Southern Heritage? I’d like to pause here briefly. It boggles my mind to comprehend how a society that was soo against Blacks prospering just a mere 50 years ago. In one breath say they’re proud of their Southern Heritage, while at the same time not recognizing that Racism was an aspect of that heritage. It’s one thing to say you’re proud of your heritage, and acknowledge the bad aspects. To remember that you’re also capable of bad thing, so that you can actively work to produce good. To simply forget about the bad aspects seems a recipe to repeat those mistakes. 

What kind of a world do we live in where Military Service members have to protect themselves living in our Country?

What kind of world do we live in where someone can say “I’m CHRISTIAN” yet openly spew hate towards the LGBT community?

These are just a fraction of the questions I find that I ask myself. The truth is I don’t know how to begin to answer many of these questions. For me part of it is a break down in empathy. How can you continue forward with any of these acts if you’ve ‘Walked a day in another person’s shoes’ A question that I love to ask is “why have you take the actions you have?” This question has always quipped my curiosity about people, to get to know and understand them beyond what I see. What is your motivation? Why did you say what you did, or more importantly what experiences have led you to your decisions? If you’re living your life and not making a conscious effort to think about many of these types of questions that I find plaguing my mind, it seems that Society as a whole may be in bigger trouble than I can imagine. Our world seems to be falling apart, is anyone going to try to address some of our faults, to make an attempt to be less violent with each other?

I have the FREEDOM to…!

The debates over the past weeks have been interesting and aggravating at the same time. While we all have our own individual values and belief, we have the freedom to choose how we’re going to live our lives. The thing about freedom though is that if you’re free to think one way, others are also free to think another. The biggest most contested views of our time seem to be around Abortion, Guns, LGBT rights, and certain Belief Structures. I myself tend to be a bit more logical in my thinking, it’s not that I don’t use emotional appeals, I just try not to base my entire arguments on them.

Logical reasoning is the process which uses arguments, statements, premises and axioms to define whether a statement is true or false, resulting in logical or illogical reasoning – as defined by www.fibonicci.com

In contrast here an Emotional appeal:

An emotional appeal is a method of persuasion that’s designed to create an emotional response… Emotional appeals are considered fallacies, or errors in reasoning, because they manipulate emotions in an audience – as defined by study.com

With logical reasoning there’s usually someting specific, where an outcome can be measured and tested. A simple example could be: when it rains, things outside gets wet, the street is outside, therefore when it rains the street gets wet. This can easily be tested, you’d just have to wait until it rains, and you can check for yourself, you don’t have to take my word for it. In contrast Emotional appeals are usually based on stories or anecdotes, and inferences. They usually try to elicit some kind of emotion. For example fashion magazines feature well fit people, with body types that aren’t like the general population, and they ask you to feel fit.

Every action has a Reaction!

It’s been some time since I’ve been in school, but everyone I’m sure remember’s Newton’s Law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. How does this apply to some of today’s debates? Those opposed to Abortion may argue that it is the killing of an innocent life, that it’s barbaric. While I do support their individual beliefs, doesn’t that mean that other people are also FREE to have other beliefs that might not be similar? What I don’t like about the proponents of Anti-Abortion is that they’re basically saying I don’t like Abortion so you shouldn’t do it. I agree that this could be problematic in that there are many things which society deems inhumane that we don’t support. For me it seems there’s still a broad swathe of opinions on this issue, so we also have to have room for varying views. Many argue that the 1st Amendment gives them the freedom to speak their views, yet they trample the views of others that disagree with them.

A war against Religion! 

One of the biggest arguments I seem to hear the most is that people’s Religious Freedoms are being infringed upon. This is always an interesting argument, it usually goes like this. My religion teaches me that ______ (insert cause) is wrong, therefore you shouldn’t do it. This makes me laugh because as those who say their freedoms are being infringed upon, they are actually trying to take away your freedom to choose how you feel. Many say that the Supreme Court’s decision to open up Marriage Equality to the LGBT community is a step towards damnation for our country. While I myself favor traditional marriage, if you favor another kind, then so be it. If I’m free to feel one way about marriage, you’re also free to feel another. The notion that marriage is a Religious Institution is preposterous, and here’s an example that illustrates that point: In order for a marriage to be legally recognized it takes only a marriage license from a State Organization. No longer is the day when you’d have to get approval from a religious leader. Taken a step further, if you were an upstanding citizen, and were married by your local priest, had family friends and the entire community present, but don’t have a marriage license. Your marriage isn’t legally recognized. It seems that marriage hasn’t been a Religious right for quite a long time. For me the Religious that oppose marriage equality lack this basic premise. They believe that marriage is rooted in a religious base, yet the legality of a marriage is more of a Government approval. If the Religious community wants to worry about something, it should be that our Government doesn’t seek a religious opinion when writing laws, and haven’t for a long time now. For me we can’t have it both ways, give up our opinion or input when laws are formed. Then after the fact if we don’t like it, say people are infringing on our religious freedoms. Which is an oxymoron anyway, because the reality of those arguments isn’t that other’s are infringing on their freedom. Rather they’re looking for a way to stifle other’s beliefs, and only theirs should have any kind of standing. Which of course is everything the 1st Amendment isn’t about, something to think about!

What would Jesus do!

By now if you’ve read many of my writings, you’ll know that I’m Christian. However I have to say most of the Christian Voices don’t represent my views. Take any specific issue, the response form Christian seem to be this: “You’re an abomination to god, you will die a slow and painful death, and will live in eternity like that, you should confess your sins, and be saved from eternal damnation” I jokingly say that they don’t even say “hello how are you!” The problem with that approach is that it might not be entirely rooted in the Gospel. Take Jesus for example, I understand that not everyone is a believer and that’s ok. In the stores in the bible Jesus’s interactions usually went something like this “Hi there how are you, here’s some interesting news, don’t know if you know about this… A conversation ensues, then at some point the person will ask, “wait do you know who I am?” My community has shunned me, are you sure you want to talk to me? While I’m paraphrasing here, here are some direct resources to check out. John 4: 1-29; Luke 5: 27-31; Luke 7: 36-50. My point is this for the Christian Community, Jesus is our example. Interestingly when he interacted with people who were labeled as “sinners” he never addressed their sin initially. In many cases it was other people who brought up the sin, and Jesus was happy to interact with the person with no regard for what their flaw was. It seems that many Christians miss this lesson.

3. “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 4. How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5. Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.

It doesn’t matter the issue, people don’t like when you point out their flaws, especially when you don’t know anything about them, or what has lead them to where they are. For me what people lack is basic empathy, and in many cases don’t take the time to know others. To really find out the why behind why they feel so strongly about a cause, or what has lead them there. If you’re to change someone’s mind, it’s easier to do that by changing their heart or their core. We all have our core beliefs, and they don’t easily change.