But They're Not Like Us

There has always been an attitude within certain sectors of Society, both Globally, Nationally and Locally, that if someone is different to, 'me', there must be something wrong with, 'them'.

Down through human history this has led to conflicts, sometimes terrible conflicts, resulting in massive loss of life.

These differences can arise for a number of reasons: place of birth, colour of skin, the language spoken, different beliefs, different philosophies, etc.  The list is almost endless.  The saddest incidents of these 'differences' arises within the very arena where they should be rarest:  the arena of Christian belief.  Let me explain.  

Christianity, as a faith-based system, is rooted in the Holy Bible, a Book of books:  actually 66 books in all, telling the story of creation, the stories of God's and Creation's interaction through Millennia which lead to the Ultimate interaction, that of God sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for the redemption of a broken creation having turned bad as personified in the Human Race.

From the moment that the first humans disobeyed God, and Sin entered the world, it has infected our Humanity, our very DNA, and there has been conflict.  Even, sadly, where the two Sons of those first humans had a conflict, and one Son killed the other.

That first act of, free-will rooted disobedience, resulted in the whole of creation being broken, from that moment.  And it is this broken creation, in which we all live, which causes all the conflict we see every day.  And it is this broken creation which seems to be constantly over-looked when we come to consider all our conflict initiating differences, and none more tragic than how we treat each other.

OK, so now we come to the core of this article.  How we Christians, view, respond to, and treat those we find are different to ourselves.  How the, 'Me' is different to the, 'Them’, particularly, in the 21st Century, how we view certain groups of, 'Them', the ‘Others’.

One of the favourite targets, and there are others, of certain Christian groups are members of the LGBT+ community.  An example being the Westboro Baptist church in America, one of whose favourite placards proclaims, 'God Hates Fags'. This church also targets many other groups, as well as other churches.  It really is a hate group.  Sadly though, their hate-filled rhetoric and messages towards the LGBT+ community, in particular, seems to have influenced many churches, and many  Christians groups.  But of course, this hatred towards, ‘Others’, this ‘otherness’ is not new.

So lets start with the question: Does God Hate People?

Being part of a broken creation, we are all born into a sinful world.  Sin lives in us all, and it is who we are.  And it is this Sin, this terrible disease if you like, that fills us and leads us to do sinful things.  And that is what God hates.  And the only way to deal with this disease of Sin that consumes us was to offer his Son as a sacrifice, which is what happened when Christ was hung on a cross to die more then 2000 years ago.  And all this happened because God Loves us and wants us to be free of the disease of the Sin he hates.  He did it not because he hates us, but because he hates what has become of us because of Sin and because he loves us and wants to rescue us from that which he hates.  God does not hate us. God loves us.

But we are still part of a broken creation, and we still do things that are wrong.  But because God loves us, and Jesus died for us on that cross, we have a pathway to be washed clean of all the horrible things that Sin can still do to us. 

You may have come across the argument used by many people to condemn people who are Trans-sexual (or Trans), Homosexual (Gays) etc. and you may often hear the argument, 'God made them Male and Female - END OF!’  But what those people forget, or have failed to understand is that, the moment Sin came in, ALL of creation,  I repeat, ALL of creation became broken.

From that point onwards everything we did, thought, said, wished for etc., became tainted.  Nothing was, or is, how it should have been, nor how it should be.

And this leads us to another very important consideration.  Not only is the whole of creation broken Spiritually, it is also broken Physically and Biologically and some of that is down to us.

In 1996, some 30 years after Rachel Carson's book, 'The Silent Spring' was published, another book was published, called, 'Our Stolen Future'. One of the outstanding things in the book was the discovery that Man-made chemical hormone changing molecules have now permeated every living person on the planet.  Even isolated and remote Northern Inuit peoples are contaminated.  This had led to, in some people, deep psychological, physiological and Biological changes.  So people may be born with bodily defects that are a direct result of these human made chemical contaminations.

So it is really no surprise that a person may be born 'Male' and yet feel they're  'Female', or vice versa.  Or they may be born with two sets of genitalia, or none.  And the list goes on.

Because we are all part of a broken creation, we should not be judging, criticising, ostracising or condemning anyone.  As Christians, or as I prefer to say, Christ Followers, we need to heed Jesus' words in the Bible: Matthew chapter 7 verses 1-3 'Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

It is humbling to acknowledge that we are all broken people, and in no position to set ourselves as judges of others.

Remember, as Christ Followers, Love Others. 

Are we being Chemically Coshed?

Brave New World is a classic book, in every sense of the word. In Huxley's tale of a "negative utopia", society was encouraged towards the mass consumption of a drug called, Soma. The use of this drug kept the majority of the population compliant, happy and generally non-aggressive.

Interestingly, it may have been a visit to the newly opened Brunner and Mond plant, part of Imperial Chemical Industries, or ICI, Billingham, which inspired him to write the classic novel.

Some of what we read about in BNW has come to pass in one form or another, particularly the ability to engineer embryos for artificial insemination or for the specific purposes such as genetically matched organs, reflects Huxley's vision of factory produced children. However, it is the aspect of Soma production and use which is where we will focus.

The World Government of Huxley's novel encouraged the widespread use of Soma, and in the UK today, our Government is increasingly encouraging a state of affairs where the population is being pharmaceuticalised beyond anything that can reasonably be termed, necessary.

For instance. There is currently a debate raging concerning whether all (repeat, all) over 50s should take Statins While the drug is effective at reducing Cholesterol and thus reducing the possibility of heart attack or stroke, it also has severe side-effects in many people. This writer was prescribed the lowest dose of Statins some time ago, and within 4 months was having quite severe muscle pain in one leg which occasionally prevented walking. All the symptoms vanished within 7 days of ceasing the medication.

During the recent near pandemic of Swine 'Flu, the anti-viral drug, Tamiflu, was mass prescribed. Many people thought this was a cure, it was certainly presented implicitly as such in the media, but at best it only reduced the effect of the virus by about 24 hours, by slowing down the rate at which viruses infect cells in the body and, therefore, how fast they spread and make you ill.

Despite this, and despite the acknowledged side-effects (nausea, vomiting, retching and diarrhoea), which often were more severe than the disease they were supposed to be 'curing', the Government went all out to enforce a mass-vaccination programme.

The fact that Swine Flu was not the feared pandemic we were all told it would be, and that the majority of people only suffered mild symptoms, the fear of the disease was greatly exaggerated. Why? Was this to encourage a certain compliancy within the population to allow themselves to be unnecessarily pharmaceuticalised?

You might find this Mail Online article interesting.

and this one!

Of course, for the aged or those with long-term illness, vaccination is nearly always beneficial.

We've looked at Statins and Tamiflu. Let's examine the increased use of Warfarin with the elderly as a routine procedure. Warfarin (known more commonly to most of us as rat poison) acts upon the blood as an anticoagulant thinning it out. Of course, although it is a poison, in lower doses it does not kill. The reason it is used is to prevent heart attacks and especially strokes in the elderly. By elderly we are talking about the over 70s. Such prevention is a good thing only if it is being used as a necessity and not as an age determined generality. For the assumption is that everyone over a certain age will benefit from Warfarin medication, and this is simply not true.

Case in point: A gentleman I know personally, and have know for over 40 years, was put on Warfarin about 3 years ago. At that time he was a very active 80 year old, used to do lots of outdoor physical activity (gardening especially) never bothered about any chilly weather and had a very good quality of life. Now he wears his outdoor clothing inside because he is always cold; holding his hand is like clutching the palm of a dead man. His quality of life is greatly reduced. Prior to being pharmaceuticalised, he had barely suffered a day's illness, presented no symptoms indicating any potential heart problems, and yet he was still prescribed Warfarin simply because he had reached 'that' age.

In all these instances, we have to ask a question: who is really benefiting from the wide-spread, and possibly completely unnecessary pharmaceuticalisation of the population? One answer may be whichever political party is currently trying to convince the public that it really cares. Another, much more likely answer would be an economic one. Money, industrial fiscal profit, is a huge motivator. The pharmaceutical industry is in business, not as a charity, but to make profit selling product. This product is pharmaceuticals; pills, potions and vaccinations.

Finally, let's mention the Government's current obsession with vaccinating underage girls against cervical cancer with Cervarix. It is not a bad thing that women, or in this case, underage girls, are protected against a serious disease. The anomaly is that while 70% of cervical cancer is caused a sexually transmitted virus, the approach is vaccination rather than the more obvious solution of encouraging sexual abstinence. But then, no Government has dared approach this, or any other sexual problem, for instance, the ever increasing rate of teenage pregnancies, with a moral solution rather then a pharmaceutical one.

And, of course, a moral solution would not produce share-holder profit for Roche (Tamiflu) nor for Bristol-Myers Squibb (Warfarin) nor for GlaxoSmithKline (Cervarix) nor the manufacturers of the varied range of Statins.

More general drug info can be found on this excellent medical site

So when a Government is looking for serious solutions for serious problems, who might be whispering in their collective ears, who might have a huge vested interest in persuading that Government that the pharmaceutical route is the one to choose?

Think about it - it's not rocket science!