You get out of your mind only the products of what you put into it. That’s why, even if you don’t believe everything you read, what you read still has something of an influence on how you think. If you’re like me, then that leads you to the conclusion that there’s no monopoly on truth, so therefore it’s important to sample a diversity of different points of view and to periodically investigate factual claims offered to substantiate a variety of opinions. If you read only liberal stuff, eventually you’ll become liberal. If you read only conservative stuff, eventually you’ll become conservative.
We’re also all susceptible to confirmation bias — whether consciously or not, we self-select facts and information that confirms our initial opinions. So keeping a broad sample on the reading menu is the best way I can think of to come as close as possible to making up your own mind about things rather than be an intellectual sheep.
But, if you are a deeply socially conservative evangelical Christian, a rather significant industry has been created around you, with you as its market, which will provide you with all the necessities and luxuries of life, only “from a Christian perspective.” This way, you can magnify your pro-Christian confirmation bias to the maximum extent possible. You can insulate your delicate Christian mind from anything that isn’t Jesus-approved by:
- Reading the news from a Christian perspective
- Making sure you have a Christian roommate
- Playing a clone of “Guitar Hero” that features only Christian rock music
- Listening to popular music that has been rewritten so that every song has Christian content
- Using a web browser that automatically rewrites web pages to filter out content thought to be not Christian-friendly
And soon, you won’t even have to poison your delicate mind with the pernicious liberal influences of … wait for it…
The Bible.
Liberal Falsehood:
The earliest, most authentic manuscripts lack this verse set forth at Luke 23:34:
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Is this a liberal corruption of the original? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible.
After all, why should “real” Christians read about, you know, Christ forgiving people for their sins? What does that have to do with real Christianity? Tell you what, I’m glad I’m no longer a believer and no longer a member of any identifiable political bloc. Adhering to a party line would be so much work with nonsense like this floating around. I simply lack the mental energy to sustain cognitive dissonance to such a degree.
You know, on the other hand, this might be a colossal hoax. A joke. It has to be. It certainly is registering on my B.S. meter. Poe’s Law is in full play here; it is difficult to figure these things out sometimes.
