Those of you who have ever used binoculars know that there is typically – what is called – a focus thumb-wheel between the two halves of the binoculars. This part allows you to determine on what you are going to focus – or in reality, how far away from you you want to see clearly. If you want to see something in focus just a few feet away, you turn the thumb-wheel to a position where things a few feet away are seen clearly. If you want to see something in focus just a hundred yards away, you turn to thumb-wheel to a position where things a a hundred yards away are seen clearly. It is completely up to you what you want to focus on. And, again, if you have used binoculars in the past you know that things between you and the focal point setting as well as things past the focal point setting are out of focus and blurry. If you have never used binoculars, you may not fully grasp what I am saying, so you can either trust me or get a set and try for yourself.

But you can also choose a focal point in your mind when you look at the world around you. You choose to focus on whatever you want. Just remember though that choosing a focal point will automatically result in other things being out of focus and fuzzy.

Last evening I heard a new commentator talking about the current ICE raids going on in this country and she likened it to Nazi secret police rounding up Germans who were non-compliant with Nazi policies or values. She made an analogy. Analogies are neither right or wrong, they simply suggest similarities between things. The danger is making an analogy based on a single focal point while ignoring other important aspects.

Are there government agents rounding up non-government folks? Yuppers there are. Are the agents often masked to hide their identities? Seems to be the case, yes. Are they whisking them up to momentarily unknown locations? Sure thing.

So, to agree with this “news” person, all you need to do is focus on what she wants you to focus on and ignore everything else not mentioned. Selective “seeing” is a big part of self delusion or someone else’s purposeful obfuscation. If you want to avoid delusion and see the bigger picture, ask yourself what are the differences between ICE raids and Nazis grabbing people off the street. Think carefully about it. Maybe, do some research on what went on in Germany in the 1930’s and 40’s and what is going on today in the US. You determine whether the analogy is flawed or not because of a too-tight focal point.

If you think the analogy is helpful and accurate, then go for it and agree. If you think the analogy is flawed and deceitful, then reject it… and I suggest considering that the one suggesting the analogy is either ignorant or they think you are too ignorant to see through their attempts to brainwash you.

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If you would like to communicate further about this or any other issues, please email me at jimshaul@gmail.com and we can chat. We can also chat on Messenger once I know who you are. If you would like to read more of my thoughts, please visit my blog: https://jimshaul.org and follow me there. You an also find me on Substack @ https://jimshaul.substack.com/

If you appreciate my posts, please consider Liking them and Sharing them below if you think they could be a blessing to others. For His Glory,

Jim

Give a hungry man a fish and you fix his hunger for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

You all know the saying. But lets dig a little deeper, shall we.

First shovel full: Whether you do option 1 or option 2, you may be acting out of empathy for the hungry fellow. If you choose option 1, it is not fair to tell someone who chooses option 2 that they are not empathetic. If you choose option 2, it is not fair to tell someone who chooses option 1 that they are not empathetic. A person choosing either option is likely doing so out of a heart of empathy and we should not disparage him as not caring if he does not choose what you choose.

Second shovel full: One could argue that it might take several days to teach a man to fish. Teaching him to fish so well that he should expect to catch fish every day could take weeks, months, or even years. So sure, we could teach him to fish, but in the meantime he is starving and needs to eat. If you don’t give him a fish, he might not live long enough to learn how to fish. All you end up with is a dead apprentice fisherman. On the other hand, if you give him a fish but don’t teach him how to catch them, then all you are doing is giving him another day of life… unless of course you keep bringing more fish every day. In this scenario you end up creating a state of dependency on you to keep him alive, which of course cannot go on forever.

Third shovel full: Both options have upside and downsides. Choosing one over the other does not mean you are not empathetic. You simply have weighed things out and have decided which things of value to protect. If two people have weighed things out and come to different conclusions as to the best course of action, all that is left to do is to decide which empathetic response best advances your values. There is no room for declaring that those who disagree with your proposed solution indicates a lack of empathy.

And now we take out the last shovel full: there are many problems in our world and many hurting people. Most decent human beings care when other human beings are hurting. There are , however, two important stages to see. First, recognizing that there is a problem and that people are hurting. The only thing necessary here is to have the truth – objective facts upon which we make a determination of the problem. The second stage is devising a solution to the problem. This involves imputing personal values, ethics, and often political philosophy – things that we hold individually in our heads and used to devise the solutions – things we all can easily disagree upon.

And now, the bottom of the hole. I encourage you not to dismiss anyone as uncaring, cold, or unthinking because they hold to a different solution to a problem. Complicated problems involving human suffering abound: immigration, homelessness, addiction, famine, and etc. Many people have completely different solutions. I encourage you to not listen simply because you label them as unempathetic. Assume that they care, but also that they have differing solutions. Start the conversation with the certain and undeniable facts that you agree upon, then seek to listen to and understand other solutions. Iron sharpens iron and spirited disagreements can, in fact, lead to working together to solve the problem and reduce the suffering.

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If you would like to communicate further about this or any other issues, please email me at jimshaul@gmail.com and we can chat. We can also chat on Messenger once I know who you are. If you would like to read more of my thoughts, please visit my blog: https://jimshaul.org and follow me there. You an also find me on Substack @ https://jimshaul.substack.com/

If you appreciate my posts, please consider Liking them and Sharing them below if you think they could be a blessing to others. For His Glory,

Jim

0.4%. That is how many non-ethnic Japanese folks there were in Japan in 2023 according to: https://www.japannihon.com/how-racially-diverse-is-japan/.

It would be safe to say that ethnic Japanese is the dominant ethnic group in that country. It would be also safe to say that Japanese culture is the dominant culture in Japan. Please listen carefully: a dominant culture is not the same thing as a dominating culture. A dominant culture simply describes numbers – it is raw statistical analysis. A dominating culture describes how the culture dominates i.e. rules over and controls the less dominant culture.

From 1946 to 1990 in South Africa, the percentage of Black population increased from 68.6% to 76% . The percentage of White population declined from 20% to 13% (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12321499/)’. Under the apartheid system, blacks were the dominant culture, but whites were the dominating culture. Much injustice to the blacks occurred during that time.

White culture dominance ended when Nelson Mandela finally walked free on February 11, 1990, and negotiations to end apartheid formally began that year. These negotiations lasted for four years, ending with the election of Mandela as president. In 1996, the country initiated a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in an attempt to reckon with the gross human rights violations during apartheid. Since then, much injustice to the whites at the hands of the black regime has happened.

Does this make the distinction clear? I hope so, because I must press forward.

Throughout the history of humans on the planet, there has a been a consistent pattern of behavior called tribalism. Tribalism refers to customs and beliefs transmitted and enacted in groups (tribes) sharing a common identity and in which centralized political organization and authority are absent (https://sociology.iresearchnet.com/sociology-of-race/tribalism/). People have a tendency to hang out with others who have similarities to themselves based on many dimensions of similarity such as: race, ethnicity, language, religion, ways of life, kinship, attitudes, worldview, and generation.

If a black person moved to Tokyo and opened a Japanese tea shop close to a native Japanese tea shop, one would expect the black-owned shop might not do as well as the other. This may be rooted in racism, but it may also be tribalism based on culture (language, dress, business customs, and etc.) Even if the race came into it somewhat, it hardly seems proper to say that the Japanese people there were evil because they treated the black guy differently. If the black guy complained that the Japanese were racist and demanded that he be treated the same as the man who owned the Japanese tea shop, many people would say that he was playing a race card.

Here’s the deal. being treated differently can be rooted in many dimensions of difference. Race may or may not play a part in it. What would you have to do to prove it?

Japanese people are not evil because they feel more comfortable with other Japanese people. They are likewise not evil if they really value their culture and would like to see it perpetuated. lots of folks highly value the culture in which they share and have grown up within. It is only natural.

It would specious to claim that whites are evil on the basis of their culture dominance. It would also be specious to claim that whites are racist if they want to preserve their historical European culture and values. It would not be specious to claim that there have not been individuals and groups of whites who have sought and obtained dominance of others in this country. They are out there, to be sure. I submit to you that they are at the fringes and from those fringes they have brought much injustice here.

PS. I have no reason to beleive that the nation of Japan would be better or better off if the percentage of non-japanese people increased. To see more of my thoughts on Diversity, read my posts on Paradise by the Kamani-board Light and Diversity Post #2 at my blog.

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If you would like to communicate further about this or any other issues, please email me at jimshaul@gmail.com and we can chat. We can also chat on Messenger once I know who you are. If you would like to read more of my thoughts, please visit my blog:

and follow me there. You an also find me on Substack @

Jim Shaul

A substack by Jim Shaul: Reflections and Refractions

If you appreciate my posts, please consider Liking them and Sharing them below if you think they could be a blessing to others. For His Glory,

Jim

From my World Religions Course Notes:

Divine Wheel Model: The model that asserts that the approach to final unity/acceptance/salvation with the divine is best illustrated by the image of a wheel with a hub, the rim, and spokes. The hub in the center represents the divine center, the outside rim represents mankind living life, and the spokes represent various religious traditions as equally viable paths to the divine. In this model, all religions are legitimate ways to get to spiritual apotheosis.

This model is held by lots of folks, whether they articulate it as such or not. Anyone who says that all religions are about the same thing and will get you to the same place is teaching this model.

The model and what it teaches sounds nice, because it allows everyone the possibility of a positive eternity leaving no one to a negative eternal state to look forward to. Everyone is cool in the end. Sounds nice, doesn’t it?

There are a few problems with it though. One problem is that many of these religions say very contrary things and some teaching are completely contradictory. By the very definition of the term ‘contradictory”, two contradictory claims cannot both be true at the same time in the same universe. Therefore many of the claims in these various religions must be false.

Another problem is that all three of the Western religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) claim that they are the only way to salvation, excluding all others. Therefore, the Wheel Theory (which really is a religion itself) cannot be true unless all three of these religions are false. If any one of these three religions are true, the others are false – including the Wheel Theory.

A third problem has to do with the source of the claim. How did this claim of the Wheel Theory come to be known? The only possible source of such is a mind that sits outside the universe and declares the Wheel Theory to be true. How, when, and where did this Divine mind declare this to mankind? Its easy to sit and simply declare it to be true, but to defend it – when someone asks how you know it to be true – was by saying, “ you just know it”, it doesn’t carry a lot of weight. If I made the claim that left-handed people are intellectually, morally, and spiritually superior over right-handers, and my only defense was, “I just know it”, it would tough to get converts.

The only being that can know for sure which religion is the correct religion is the creator of the universe – the one who made it and knows how it operates.

The important question is, how do we sort that our with our puny brains?

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If you would like to communicate further about this or any other issues, please email me at jimshaul@gmail.com and we can chat. We can also chat on Messenger once I know who you are. If you would like to read more of my thoughts, please visit my blog:

https://jimshaul.org

and follow me there. You an also find me on Substack @

Jim Shaul

A substack by Jim Shaul: Reflections and Refractions

In a recent FP post:

There so many issues that you raise here, that it is difficult to figure out which is best to respond to what I consider to be the most overarching question in the original post. Jesus was not the president of a country. He didn’t establish national laws and rules and policies. He told individual and groups of followers how to live their lives for God and His kingdom. Personal kingdom ethics was His focus. Using those to try to establish or justify national policy is simply putting words in His mouth…which is what I see most people doing when the try to establish a moral position by asking “what would Jesus do.” The typical answer I have seen, to be honest, is the the person to take their own morals and put them into Jesus mouth in order to give them more gravitas. Jesus number one job during His lifetime was to show people who His Father is. He knew very well that within a few short decades the nation of Israel would be destroyed by the Romans. Nations come and go, but human spirits last forever and the relationship they have with the Father determine the nature of that eternal state. This is what weighed heavily on the heart of our Lord. Trump is an elected leader. It is understood – by most persons in a society that democratically elects its representatives – that people know that who they vote for will not and cannot perfectly represent their individual values and priorities. All we can do is vote for someone that we think has a better chance of taking the county on a course we favor moreso than a different candidate. When Trump ran the first time, I doubt that a majority of his supporters considered him to be a born again Bible believing Christian. They simply embraced his vision for the future more than Hilary’s. If Hilary had gotten elected would people have been posting things asking her to align her policies with Jesus’ even though the Clintons held themselves out as Christians. She didn’t promise that and neither did Trump to my knowledge. Having said all that, I am open to discussing how individual policies Trump has put in place are appropriate, but i will make one caveat. I will not discuss them as a group. It gets too confusing and in my experience hardly ever leads to a meeting of the minds. One issue at a time is my preference.

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If you would like to communicate further about this or any other issues, please email me at jimshaul@gmail.com and we can chat. We can also chat on Messenger once I know who you are.If you would like to read more of my thoughts, please visit my blog: https://jimshaul.org and follow me there. You an also find me on Substack @ https://jimshaul.substack.com/

If you appreciate my posts, please consider Liking them and Sharing them below if you think they could be a blessing to others. For His Glory,

Jim

Imagine you are in a dark basement with no windows and no lights. You are sitting at a table with a joystick and a computer monitor sitting there. The monitor is getting visual and sound signals from a robot you are controlling and you are controlling the robot with the joystick.

Got it?

You have no direct contact with the outside world, but you are receiving information.

So you direct the robot to walk down a sidewalk. You observe people and buildings and plants and animals. A young person on a street corner tries to hand you a gospel tract and you ignore her and walk on by. You have no need for such nonsense.

Later on, you go to a park and see a group of people gathered and walk over to see what is going on. As you get closer, you realize that they are listening to a preacher in the park talking to people about God. You shake your head and walk away.

Finally, you walk by a church, and in the parking lot you see many items for sale to raise money for local needs. You drop your head and quickly walk past.

You are annoyed with all this God stuff. You cringe inside at the name of Jesus. You consider it all superstition and a scam and wish it would all go away.

Then the power goes off in your basement room. You are cut off from the outside world, alone with your thoughts and feelings.

Human beings have two components, a body and a spirit. The spirit is connected to the spiritual world and the body is connected to the physical world. The information from the physical world goes into the brain and from the brain (a physical organ) to the mind (a part of the spirit). When the body dies, the spirit no longer receives information from the brain.. because it no longer functions. The brain no longer sends sense data from the world: no sights, no sounds, no tastes, no smells and no feelings. The mind is cut off from these. The spirit is cut off from the physical world and is left with its thoughts and feelings.

If you live your entire life rejecting God, ignoring His call to Christ, resisting His goodness and His authority, that is the state you will be in when your body dies.

Cut off from God. Alone in the darkness, separate from His light, His love, His kindness, His goodness, and His life.

He doesn’t have to send you there. You have chosen this path and this place.

It is the place you will inhabit for the rest of eternity… by your choice.

If there is a tugging in your heart towards God, if there is an emptiness in your heart about life, if you long for purpose and meaning and connection, please consider responding to Jesus’ call. He called out years ago: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. (Matt. 11:28-29)

This seems to me a much better path. Jesus said, “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matt. 8:11-12)

Choose wisely, my friend, and choose soon, for you know not when your body will stop sending you signals from this world.

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If you would like to communicate further about this or any other issues, please email me at jimshaul@gmail.com and we can chat. We can also chat on Messenger once I know who you are. You an also find me on Substack @ https://mrjimshaul.substack.com

If you appreciate my posts, please consider Liking them and Sharing them below if you think they could be a blessing to others. For His Glory,

Jim

Is there anything morally wrong with being rich?

The Bible has quite a bit to say about it… and much of it negative, but it does not say the rich people becoming less rich will help poor people.

Think about it. What do rich people do with their wealth? Do they hide it under their beds? No, they make it work for them by investing it They buy stock and entire companies. They build businesses. They put it into interest bearing accounts. But, they also buy expensive stuff for themselves. What is the outcome of them doing all these things? Let me tell you.

Stock purchases end up providing capital for business to operate and grow including paying their employees. Starting businesses end up providing sale to suppliers which gives them money for their employees and capital for the business to operate and grow including paying their employees. Putting money into accounts allows for the banks and fund managers to help start and grow businesses including paying their employees. Buying expensive stuff gives the suppliers more business which gives them money for their employees and capital for the business to operate and grow including paying their employees.

Rich people’s money doesn’t hide in the dark under beds and accomplish nothing. Rich people’s money ends up flowing out to the society providing for sales, services, and wages for the working class. Is there anything wrong with that? Is there anything immoral with that?

It is true that having riches can be dangerous for the rich person and Scripture warns about that as well as oppressing the poor.

1 Timothy 6:17 “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.

Proverbs 22:16 Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.

But nothing in Scripture says having wealth is inherently immoral.

I suggest two things: 1) if you are rich, don’t trust in your riches nor be arrogant about them.Put your trust and hope in God, 2) if you are not rich, don’t envy rich people or think that you having part of their wealth will make you happier. Instead, walk in integrity.

Proverbs 28:6 Better is a poor man who walks in his integrity than a rich man who is crooked in his ways.

Rich people are not the problem; poor people are not the problem. Taking from the rich is not the answer. Giving to the poor can help them… but only for a short while. … and this we should do

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If you would like to communicate further about this or any other issues, please email me at jimshaul@gmail.com and we can chat. We can also chat on Messenger once I know who you are.If you would like to read more of my thoughts, please visit my blog: https://jimshaul.org and follow me there.

If you appreciate my posts, please consider Liking them and Sharing them below if you think they could be a blessing to others. For His Glory,

Jim