Tags

, , , , , , , ,

You may wonder what ants and peanut butter have to do with anything, so allow me to now introduce Elon Musk into the mix and really confuse matters.

Also, I’m going to just double down on my prior post about the pitfalls of our protestant work ethic. Galling I know, but how can anyone can look at our collapsing culture and decide, “I know, let’s just keep doing more of the same,” is beyond me.

There are now five of us living in a one bathroom house watching them try to reset the gas pumps to accommodate four digits. Ten bucks a gallon. So I’m not too concerned with making anyone uncomfortable or causing offense by suggesting it’s quite possible we have somehow contributed to driving Western civilization right off the rails with our entrenched ideas and attitudes.

I just watched an interview with Elon in which he praised and admired the Chinese for their work ethic. I just want people to pause and think about what that really means. We’ve been saying that sort of thing in this country since forever! In order to “compete in the new world,” allegedly we all need to start embracing a communist country’s notion of production and working yourself to death for the state?? I don’t wish to target Elon here, not in a personal way, but rather to target some of the ideas he (and many others) have been spouting. On my end that would be a hard, “Nope.”

Also, he is currently a hero of the right on account of the fact that he just grabbed twitter and let all the conservatives back on. I have enjoyed that, it’s quite entertaining, but just the same watching everyone once again start to equate wealth with values, power with virtue, social status with wisdom, politics with morality, gave me a splitting headache.

Everybody loves Elon, he’s a billionaire and a businessman, so he must know what he is doing. Which brings me to the ants and the way the Western world has gone and decided work is salvific, and by your work you shall be saved. Be the ant, the pursuit of stuff, status, and things, will save you and make you immortal.

It’s a blasted shame that there aren’t any Christians about prepared to explain to Elon that you can colonize the stars and merge your brain with artificial intelligence, but we are still but dust. At the end of one’s life, heck even in the middle of one’s life, it is a relationship with our Creator that really matters. It’s the only thing you’re going to be taking with you.

Which brings me to peanut butter. Does anybody care that nearly everyday we are being threatened with death and disease? Is anybody tired of being threatened with salmonella every time you try to eat something?? Is it possible the “k” in monkey pox is silent?? Crazy I know, but rather than being great humanitarians who “just want to make the world a better place,” I am going to suggest we are often motivated far more by greed and selfishness, and a complete disregard for the well being of other people.

I happen to really appreciate how the Bible tells us in multiple places that God will judge the nations. Not just individuals, but whole groups of individuals. That means you can make all the right choices, do all the right things, live a righteous life, but if your neighbor is suffering and your community is falling apart, you are accountable. God won’t care if you try to say, don’t look at me, it was liberals, bad politicians, and all those people making poor choices. My hands are clean!

Back to Elon, ants, and peanut butter. In Matthew 6 the Bible speaks clearly of how, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Well, if our heart is invested in hoarding toilet paper, fearing peanut butter, and cultivating a communist pleasing work ethic, we got a big problem.