What is Normal?  Choosing your Conditioning

• You are what you eat – in mind and body
  • A steady diet of Thomas Covenant & Belgariad had Pam & I speaking like the characters & pondering whether some of their beliefs & experiences might be true in our world
  • Elimination Game TV is conditioning us to look for the weakest link, trust none, and discard one for the sake of the rest (when this concept was introduced to my 3^rd grade class (‘Quest’), we had the good sense to reject it, and our parents supported us – it was removed from the schools until at least ’84, when I graduated)
• Scriptures
  • Rom 12:2a – and be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind
  • II Cor 4:16b – but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day
  • Col 3:10 – and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him
  • Jude 16-21 – These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.  But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.  These be they who separate themselves sensual, having not the Spirit.  But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life
• Worth1000.com Images – if you see it often enough, it’ll seem normal (Worth1000 is now defunct, think photoshop morphed animals)
• Trends – in clothing, manners, what ‘growing up’ entailed – Think through what’s going on & where it will lead
  • June Cleaver à Samantha Stevens à Roseanne Barr à Marge Simpson
  • From “Father Knows Best” to Father’s a boisterous jerk (All in the Family) to Father is an unnecessary nincompoop (Everybody Loves Raymond, Married with Children, Simpsons)
  • Christian = Intolerant Homophobic Creationist Bigot
  • Euthanasia for Humans is a good plan – only the worthy should live, consume ‘our’ food & air, and add to the carbon particles in our atmosphere (by exhaling)
  • We’re nothing more than energized mudpies with no one to answer to and no one to lean on, so suicide’s a viable option (which is now the leading cause of death among teens, and young people are taking this route more than any other group – frustrated middle-agers used to have the lead)
  • All beliefs are equally valid – including the belief that serving the deity of choice means killing people who believe otherwise (incidentally, contrary to the Crusades, radical Christianity feeds & clothes those who disagree with us)
  • Americans used to think up creative solutions, having been taught the elements so that they could continue their own education by reading & observation…  Now they’re taught to compartmentalize, swallow & spit out the established answers, and avoid cross-examination & deductive reasoning – we’ve become lazy, dumb, & spoiled, the perfect recipe for enslavement
• Earth Life will conspire against Heaven Life
  • Busyness & Distractions
  • Overemphasis on the Temporal
  • Romans 7:15, 8-25 – what I want to do I don’t & what I don’t want to I do