This episode really captures a lot of what I’m seeing now. Seven of Nine starts seeing conspiracies everywhere as she processes insane amounts of data and information. One of them is right, but the rest get more absurd with time.
And they all are supported with evidence, they’re just not true. But even the people involved struggled to convince her it wasn’t real.
The same thing is happening to us and your friends on Facebook. Our brains cannot process all this data/info, so we’re buying into these theories.
I’m not the first one to point this out. @SkyeJethani had a great thread. But we’re seeking simple solutions to incredibly complex problems. And we have evidence to make things add up, but it’s not true.
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I think church leaders have been getting the concept of the tithe wrong for a very long time. And I believe it’s why many believe in a cruel God who wants you to sacrifice “because I said so.” 🧵
I never really considered what would happen to animals, olive oil and grain given to the Lord as a tithe. I guess I assumed it just went bad or something. But Deuteronomy woke me up this morning.
“Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name…
For everyone who has said “you can’t just assume based on the article, you gotta watch the video”… the video is 10000x worse than the article.
I’ve been a part of dealing with decisions like this. I’ve gotten it right and wrong. Our church would say the same. I’ve helped plan these announcements before.
THIS IS WEIRD.
First, the entire sermon was about this announcement. I don’t get that at all. Why?
My favorite part of the series was the Anakin development. The animated series shows why everyone revered him but slowly amplified his dark side tendencies.
Animated Anakin is swaggering and charismatic but still temperamental and frustrating.
You feel why he’s The Chosen One and why the Jedi are hesitant to fully believe.
Idolatry isn’t just about what you love, it’s about what you hate. When you organize your life around something you despise, you elevate that idol to a level of counter-worship. Instead of trying to please the idol, you make offerings to harm it.
In a Christian context, idolatry is about elevating anything or anyone beyond their actual value. When you care too much, give too much, obsess too much or fear too much, that’s an object of worship. Or in this case, counter-worship.
You don’t have to consider it at the same level as God for something to be an idol. It just has to take an outsized portion of your resources: time, energy, money, focus, creativity...