Thursday, September 10, 2009

Minority Report

If there's one thing we find throughout the Bible it's this: Beware the majority report.

Let God be true and every man a liar
The snare of the fear of man
Neither fear ye their fear.

And of course the story of the entry into Canaan where only two of the twelve spies believed God could help them against the Canaanites.

Throughout history, the majority report has generally been proven wrong. Medicine, science, etc...all were totally wrong back in the day. Doctors performed lobotomies, didn't believe in germs or washing their hands, used forceps. But the more things change, the more they stay the same.(And yes, medicine is still generally-wrong. We like to think we're advancing but every twenty years or so something that was touted as great and a cure-all ends up being dismissed with an "oh, we were wrong." I remember when everyone was saying taking beta-carotene supplements would prevent cancer. Now, scientists warn that beta-carotene taken by itself will lead to cancer. Now they say we must take foods with beta-carotene naturally. Or they'll tell you there's such a thing as brain death, then they say well we need to give the brain-dead person pain killers when we harvest their organs because the brain-dead person feels pain.

True, it's sometimes about the pendulum swinging from one end to the other ...and there's always that learning curve. But let's face it medical science is still woefully inadequate and often terrifyingly wrong-headed. We believe in it, though. We say, "Didn't the Salk vaccine cure polio?" Well, it cured polio in the US but in Europe polio disappeared all by itself. Now we have the blood-stream of US folks flowing with polio germs. Am not saying that medicine and science is always wrong, though. Just that we should always be aware that the majority report is often wrong.

Am not sure what it is about the human mind that makes us unable to stand alone. The herd mind is a strong instinct. It would be okay if we were totally on the mark and our minds were perfectly aligned to God's, then we'd all be in perfect harmony with truth and with God. But that's not the way it is.

So often there are whole churches where only one person believes God's word is strong against some impossibility. But, whether we're alone in trusting God or have another soul walking the narrow road with us, let God be true and every man a liar.

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