finding the truth...

I want to look at a popular way of thinking I’ve run into, and it becomes more prevalent during election times. People want to believe what they believe- because it supports what they want to do. They will believe what they believe and not actively search out the truth regarding that subject because what they believe perpetuates their course of action. In the case of politics, it’s so often this case. This time around, I STILL hear that Barrack Obama is a Muslim terrorist who’s an extremist. Why do people believe this? Because they want to vote republican. So, despite the overwhelming lack of support for their belief, they will believe what someone else has told them (as a flat lie, in this case) because it perpetuates their desire to vote Republican.

I read an article last night that quoted a woman as saying that she heard Obama is a Muslim terrorist. She could easily find dozens of places to dispel that rumor, but she WANTS to vote for a republican, and, especially now as the gap widens in the polls, people will cling to what they can to support what they want to do.

Doesn’t this permeate our Christian thinking, too? We want to pursue our course of action- living for ourselves, living in our affluence, going to church on Sunday. So we take the Bible to say that God wants us to be healthy & wealthy- that we are responsible to no one- and that God helps those who help themselves. If only those people who are in need would help themselves, God would help. So many honestly believe these things without doing the small amount of research in the Bible to show this is all false. And they believe it because? It perpetuates the lifestyle we live, alleviates our guilt of selfishness and gives us a warm fuzzy instead.