The Lies We Cling To

Is there a difference between Hope and Delusion? Aren’t they more or less the same - Ignoring the facts about a situation in order to feel better about it? The non-believer will challenge hope based in spirituality as self-delusion based in superstition. How does one combat that logic, should they even try.

The basic problem in this instance traces back to marketing. You see many of us begin to believe whatever marketing plans we pay attention to, and over time assume them to be fact based. The longer one holds a belief about something, the more firmly their belief becomes defacto truth. It’s like that text in the Bible says, you know the one, “God helps those who help themselves”. However, to find this text, one would have to write it in the margins as it is not found in the entire Bible, in any translation; Nor is the text “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”.

Both of these wonderfully trite sayings convey a hidden message implied in the wording – you must do something to gain help or blessing from God. This concept is the foundation of every false religion on planet earth as it relies on the strength of men to find their own salvation, a fate none have ever accomplished. But marketing being what it is, the sayings go on, and many people still hold them to be true. For churches who hold to a works-based, i.e. man does things to save himself, salvation – these sayings are perfectly acceptable even after they are revealed to have no basis in scripture.

I wish our attention to marketing was limited to errors within doctrines we hold to, however, it is not. Take for instance all those sins we continue to commit. Herein lays the mystery of iniquity. If we know that diversion from God is diversion from all that is good. Then sin consists of all that is evil. Knowing that evil is designed around destroying everything it touches, why would we continue to choose to embrace it?

We know better. We absolutely know better intellectually. It just makes sense to avoid evil wherever we can. Even a non-believer sees the logic in this. So why does logic cave in to what otherwise must be described as stupidity, or insanity? Perhaps it is the marketing of evil that has so conditioned us to accept it, that we are clinging to lies, rather than letting go. To believe there is some sort of hope at the bottom of a bottle of alcohol is self-delusion. To believe there is truly some sort of escape during the high of cocaine, rather than simply inevitable delay of whatever root cause of the problem is, is again self-delusion.

Why is it so commonly accepted that sex with someone different (strange) is better? Why is the destruction of intimacy embraced by so many men trying to cover up their own insecurities, and so many women attempting to keep up with or get back at men. Just from a purely logical standpoint it does not make sense. Being intimate with someone you know, someone you trust, and someone you can share your innermost desires with should make the sex ten times better than with some stranger who let’s face it is only out for themselves. They could give a crap about you, your feelings, your desires, your dreams, or anything about you as a person. You are only viable as a tool to achieve an orgasm. After that your usefulness is completely obliterated. And NO, no-one respects you in the morning – you are either the whore or the whore-hopper – neither seems too great a tag line.

But our entire society seems bent on perpetuating this lie. American media clings to it. American advertising clings to it. And worse, our marriages are hardly unions where the two participants share their inner most thoughts, desires, fantasies, etc. with each other. Even in marriage intimacy is lacking, and may account for why people only share these deep seated things with folks they do not expect to see again. After all, if sleeping around does not make a man a man, then what does exactly? If varied sexual experience is not something a man wants in his woman, then maybe I’m just used goods?

We must cling to our lies, or learn we have debased ourselves. We must hold on to the myths that define our sexual behaviors rather than examine root causes, and real facts. And truthfully, a careful examination of our sexual behavior reveals the real target of evil was much deeper – our ability to be intimate. Intimacy was always what evil was out to destroy. If evil could succeed in destroying our ability to be intimate with someone else, it would have succeeded in destroying our ability to trust, to communicate, and even to value the humanity in others. People become mere objects if intimacy dies, not far behind it, the family unit dies.

This phenomenon is true no matter what race, age, or even sexual orientation you are. Destroy the ability to be intimate, and you have degraded the very fabric of society. Monogamy has been ridiculed as some sort of stringent law dictated by a mean-spirited God in the past. Non-believers, and Christians who have bought in to the idea that strange is better, share a fundamental belief that monogamy is simply impossible. It is not. Where virginity used to be prized, now it too is ridiculed again.

There is a reason why only virgins were selected for human sacrifice in the past, because evil being evil, it wanted to kill purity wherever it could. It then follows, there is a reason why eventually it was just children who were brought for victims of sacrifice (read between the lines). In the culture of Satan, whatever is horrific is best, so to kill is a great thing to them, but to kill innocence is even better. This is where any form of diversion from God eventually leads to. The killing of innocence. It did not start or end on the cross, it was clearly exemplified on the cross. Satan and his servants have been killing the purest of God’s children for as many years as we have been alive. From Able just outside the garden of Eden, to the poor child who dies today of avoidable starvation just down the street from you, evil is bent on the destruction of anything associated with good.

And since most of us would cringe at the idea of killing our young, evil must disguise itself, and learn to peddle softer ideas that are not so immediately obvious to us. Ideas like there is no need of intimacy, only of biology. Orgasm is king. Relationships are just too much work for not enough return on investment. Why bother with forgiveness, and growing closer together as a couple when you should focus only on your needs, on your wants, on your desires. If your partner does not understand, find another partner. This is yet another lie we cling to that causes divorce rates to spiral in this country, even inside believing homes.

Even with all these facts in evidence we cling to the lies we have been told to believe. This in short, is the difference between hope and self-delusion. I can hope to learn better how to forgive. I can hope to learn better how to love. I can hope my situation will improve even when it is grim because of the love my Creator God still has for me as a person. But I will not delude myself into clinging to lies that I know lead to destruction. I will reject the idea that more is always better. I will reject the concept it is impossible to be happy with only one. I will learn to serve rather than wait to be served. And in so doing I will learn how the society of Heaven operates, and be released from bondage to self-inflicted pain …