Nothing Is As It Seems!
Insight on Perception: Know that the Lord Our God is perfect in His understanding of every person who has ever lived on this earth, every thought that we have ever entertained and those which we have dismissed, every reason behind every decision whether justified or not, and every impulse that leads to each action or none action we take or do not take. In this God is the only true judge of our actions. Hence Jesus warns against judging others; (Luke 6:37 & Matthew 7:1). Our perceptions are not like Gods, and therefore inherently flawed which leads us into making some of the greatest mistakes, misjudgments, and emotional betrayals.
Guiding Questions: How many times have you or your actions not been fully understood by friends or family? How many times have you misjudged someone you care about and accused them of something which later is proven false?
Our Perceptions Do Not Always Lead Us to Truth!
Dear Brothers and Sisters, I truly say unto you do not pretend to know what your brother or sister is thinking and do not fool yourselves into the assumption that you know what is in another person’s heart! Actions they have taken only speak of a specific set of circumstances which are between God and that person (Job 19:4-5). As Christians, we can only do our best to be a support and serve as a reminder of God’s perfect love without judgment or condemnation. When we allow ourselves to perceive the reason why a friend or family member has done something, we fall to speculation that allows in the seed of distrust and sews deep into our hearts contempt for that individual. I know all to well the guessing game which ensues, the acceptance of falsehoods because they seemingly fit into the puzzle whether they truly do or not, and the outright rejection of any explanation that is offered especially if in our own mind it does not match what we have judged to be the truth do-to personal biases. I say unto you, my brothers and sisters, only God knows what is in our hearts, minds, and soul, and in this truth, judgment is His alone! Therefore, when you are tempted to accuse, remember that this is not from God and is not in our jurisdiction rather remember that it is the game of Satan to trick you into the mindset of division for the sole purpose of sowing discord. Resist from telling your brother or sister in Christ that he/she is not a true Christian, again this is a judgment and God will judge you as you have judged them with the same measuring stick of intolerance and prejudice (James 4:12). Do not be that scribe or that Pharisee who through falsehoods allows doubt into your heart rather trust in the Lord that all things are in his purview and be like the Saints who reach out anyway, loves anyway, believes with an open heart trusting in friendship, and practicing the wisdom of nonjudgment and compassion.
I lay down my self-imposed responsibility of judging the heart, motives, intentions, and actions of the people in my life. You have instructed me in this, and I will obey you. I remove the back-breaking burden of being the judge, and I repent of the pride in my life that is evident every time I have a critical, judgemental thought. You have commanded me to walk in forgiveness and love, to rise above offenses, and to walk humbly with you. I choose that road today. I submit my thoughts to you – each and every one – for approval, choosing loving thoughts and not condemning thoughts, compassionate thoughts not critical thoughts. And kindly remove the log in my eye. Thank you.
Posted on July 23, 2018 July 23, 2018 Author Brother BrianCategories AcceptanceTags James 4:12, Job 19:4-5, Luke 5:22, Mark and Jill Herringshaw, Our Perceptions Do Not Always Lead Us to Truth, Perception, Pray Plain and Simple, The Trap of Human PerceptionLeave a comment on Nothing Is As It Seems!It was a fun ride. There was a whole lot of slamming on every turn. I rode this only twice just because it was so bad, I cannot believe that a kiddie coaster that opened in 2014 is this rough already. It also had a rattle like you could'nt believe. I only rode it for the credit.You didn’t think you’d see the day when the European media was taking a harder stand than the U.S. on an important issue in the Islamic world, but that’s what appears to be happening, as major U.S. media outlets are refusing to run the offending cartoons. "I don't think we would run a cartoon in this newspaper that would be deemed offensive to any religious figure," says a foreign editor of The Detroit Free Press. "We're very careful in terms of any photo or any caricature that we run." Can someone do a check and see if this paper has ever run Ted Rall cartoons?
But hey, all is not lost: American cultural institutions are still very comfortable offending Christians and patriotic Americans. A new exhibit in New York (at a fittingly balkanized event called the National Black Fine Art Show) depicts Osama bin Laden in an apparent likeness of Jesus. Apparently a whopping one viewer so far has expressed opposition. The show’s producer was asked whether he had second thoughts on the piece, now that its intent was clear (the artist did not deny it). But you know what his response was without me telling you: “I don't think it's anyone's job or vocation to limit the expression of artists,” he said. Good little sheep.
So, working off a formulation that Mark Steyn used in his recent New Criterion piece, “It’s the Demography, Stupid,” let me see if I have this right: In the first case, what we need to do is express our intolerance for those who express intolerance of the intolerant; in the second case, we need to show tolerance for those who show intolerance to the tolerant, or perhaps it’s showing tolerance for those who are tolerant of the intolerant.
Bert van den Brink and David Owen (eds.), Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory, Cambridge University Press, 2007, 399pp., $91.00 (hbk), ISBN |||PHONE_NUMBER||| 459.
In its best moments, academic dialogue brings together the right people at the right time to push a fertile research program to new levels. In this volume we have a carefully focused snapshot of such a moment. The research program in question is Axel Honneth's sustained, increasingly influential attempt to develop a social theory of recognition. The right people are a diverse group of philosophers and social scientists who have contributed to the broader understanding of recognition and its socio-political functions. Here, editors Bert van den Brink and David Owen bring the right people together in a carefully assembled volume focusing on a crucial and underdeveloped aspect of Honneth's theory: its relation to power. This book is made up of carefully worked out papers, but retains the energy of their original conference presentation at Utrecht University. It further captures the dialogical character of this event by including two detailed responses from Axel Honneth.
The issue under consideration lies at the heart of Honneth's conception of recognition: the problem of power relations within the very practices of recognition. Honneth's theory is particularly vulnerable to such problems. It is realistic and comprehensive enough to consider recognition in many domains in which power is endemic, from intimate relations and domestic spheres to the institutional realms of law, politics, and the market economy. When we think of these domains as making vital contributions to the full development of individual subjects, we must ask whether power can at the same time exercise a hidden influence. In such circumstances, even normatively positive practices of recognition might produce effects that a critique of power -- a focus of Honneth's earlier work -- would find objectionable. This poses a further challenge for the theory: how can it separate out power-laden forms of recognition from those that are not distorted by power? Absent some such normative means, we may have to conclude that there is a problematic complicity between recognition and power. In this case both would be technologies for producing selves, equally dangerous in their capacity to create docile and useful subjects.
In a book spanning almost 400 pages, there is much to savor and much to discuss. I can only sample the variety and quality of these approaches; some highly worthy essays won't be discussed in what follows. This, however, only gives readers an added incentive to examine this complex and important volume themselves.
To pose the problem of recognition's complicity with power, van den Brink and Owen cluster essays around philosophical, social, and political themes. The first cluster concentrates on philosophical issues central to the notion of recognition itself. Heikki Ikäheimo and Arto Laitinen, Robert Pippin, Bert van den Brink, and Patchen Markell take a variety of directions that are innovative both in approach and in the skill with which they draw out key themes for consideration. Ikäheimo and Laitinen, for instance, provide a bracing investigation of the meaning of recognition. They bring tools of analytical philosophy to bear on a literature that has largely developed in a European, neo-Hegelian idiom, showing how both approaches gain strength when they are combined. Recognition, in their careful analysis, is a dialogical process that requires the autonomy of both recognizer and recognizee. Moreover, this process makes a minimal but meaningful reference to objective states of affairs, referring to a world outside of the immediate, interpersonal context of recognition relations themselves. This objective element, Ikäheimo and Laitinen claim, could provide a basis for identifying power-distorted and ideological forms of recognition.
Bert