UI – Part 470 – Freedom is Not Complete Freedom

Less Free

Freedom is not as free as many secularists believe. In today’s “me” culture the often heard comment many make is, “I am free to do as I want, to live as I prefer and to believe as I believe.” The only caveat stated is,”as long as it does not harm anyone.” Use of The word “harm” applies to physical harm. Psychological damage to self or others is ignored by the claim. Guilt or shame or concerns that arise from actions suggest no one is as free as they might think they are or desire.  The secularists tend to fill our colleges and universities with like minded professors and administrators, creating a liberal bias suggesting independence means an individual’s truth may not be the same as others, but should be fully acceptable.  Political left choices towards eradicating God, attacking the Christian right, creating a Government as “nanny,” and causing dependencies in the name of freedom is inherently wrong.   

Everyone has constraints, wanted or not, on their lives. I am not speaking here of the Muslim enclosed in their Islamic cage. Under such circumstances the limits on freedom are intentional. The Islamists, the leadership, scholars and educators, impose control on the conduct of one’s choices as well as inducements to join as a collective force to achieve an end (All for Allah) by any means possible. “Hatred” is the cheerleaders cry to cause them to focus on the non-Muslim opponent. In addition “fight” is the command to deal with those who resist any Islamic incursion, even as an imposition, to compel the then labeled “aggressor” to stop. Anyone intolerant of Islam is the aggressor.  Compare the tolerance of Islam towards Christians and Jews and you will discover they feel differently when they resist or attack, even kill a convert, a Christian, Jew, gay or even an adulterer.  Does that suggest to the reader – “double standard!”  To stop being an aggressor towards Islam, to stop resisting Islam’s presence in your lives, asked for or not, is to die, to accept Islam, to curb free speech and never question or criticize Islam, and to even become, as many leftists-liberals have, a defender of Islam. In defense they are brainwashed, conditioned, to refer to Islam as a”religion of peace” under the premise that if said often enough and by more and more non-Muslim liberal freedom of religion ignorant leftists who refuse or neglect to understand Islam, others too will think of Islam as peaceful.  The liberals as proof of their objectivity and tolerance (not their knowledge of Islam) will open doors and borders to refuges and immigrants from Islamic societies totally foreign to those of the free world. 

No Peace in Islamaland

For the record, Islam is not peaceful! Islam is hate filled and barbaric.

So Islam is inherently not free. So we return to those who live in the paradise of free nations and look at restraints that do exist, intended or not.

In the Islamic world, the good you achieve, the success, the pleasure, is attributed to Allah.  The god of Islam makes the good possible.  However the errors you incur, the outcome not expected, any devastation caused, even as to a loss in battle, is the fault of the individual.  How much comfort does Allah provide the loser who is Islamic?  

Selfless

If you love, you have a relationship, you will consider the feelings of others. In so doing you will stop doing what you might otherwise do to please yourself, in order to please the other.

As a parent, a leader, a boss, a celebrity, a prominent sports figures, TV personality, preacher, or one heralded by your peers you become an example. As an example you need to examine your actions to ensure the position you hold will serve others in a positive fashion.

Dependency

You may disdain the limelight to rid yourself of any possible restrictions on your self, but then you would be alone. Who do you then turn to in a time of need? Just as a baby needs a parent, and the frail elderly person needs a caregiver, or if by chance you have an accident, even a drug overdose, your independence will be stricken as you become dependent on third parties for a cure or to aid in recovery.  So much for freedom!  Drug addiction alone, as a dependency on opiates, or alcohol, or other influences that determine how you go about your daily life are items that make you less free.  It could also be money, success, sex, other material items, the political arena, a want for recognition or control (power) that drives you.  Self is still the determinant as what you do or achieve might be credited to you, to the self.  I made the money.  I accomplished where I am today.  I did it myself.  I do not need anyone else.  Certainly it was not God; it was all me.  That is until the me, as you, is no longer on the pedestal, no longer generating sufficient cash to provide the comfort you seek, your fine automobile breaks down and you have no idea how to repair it, even change or replace the tire, your sex partner leaves you or a failure in business creates havoc with you status.  Where do or can you turn?

Without Love

Tim Keller, his recent book, Making Sense of God, tells us “love” is a necessity for everyone. Without love there is nothing but emptiness. That vacuum causes a need and the need leads to a want for what the individual, the free-loving self-directed “me” person cannot fully provide. There is self-love, but that is insufficient. Where there is love there is a cause for less freedom. Keller noted (Page 112),”you must give yourself to something, or you have no meaning in life.… No one is free. Everyone needs love, meaning, and satisfaction in their lives, and so everyone is under the control of something.… There is no such thing as freedom without constraints.” 

Losers

The leftist liberal protesting college and university student, the seeker of safe spaces because as liberals they lost the Presidential election to Trump, who may not even be the conservative strain they abhor, need to open their ears, listen and think before they shout and protest.  History is a wonderful teaching tool.  Even our third President, Thomas Jefferson, experienced protests and riots in the streets after his election.  We now have President 45, and between #3 and #45 there has been anguish, despair, joy and hope, marches, and vitriol directed at the victor.  The job of President is much more complex today than in the 1800’s, although those in the 1800’s had their own problems with the youth of our democracy, divisions of thought between the North and the South, turmoil with Muslims along the Barbary coast, and election outcomes. Today the problems may be different, the world is in chaos, the past Presidents, not just Obama, have had their troubles and errors, and Trump is faced with issues in need of solutions, foreign and domestic, north and south, east and west. He and his cabinet ministers may be alone thinking how nice it would be to have cooperation among Republicans and Democrats, not the childish singing as when the Democrats were faced with Congress passing health care legislation that begins to reshape and save our nation from the catastrophic ills of Obamacare. They never expected the Republicans to succeed, relishing in the lack of accomplishment.  But they did, and the Democrats began to wail anew. 

Preservation of Freedoms

What needs to be done for America, we must seek to preserve the freedoms we enjoy, recognizing moral and ethical constraints that make life for everyone more tolerable, and safe. We must recognize, as well, the secularists have negatively infected society to believe freedom is what the self wants.  What the self wants will never fully satisfy.  There is a need for balance.  I do not see that coming from the Left.

The “me” segment of society cannot be enabled or further encouraged.  What they achieve is empty and not fulfilling.  It is neither good for the individual nor the Nation in which they enjoy their freedoms.  They are not wholly free and must seek to defend, not condemn, what our great America offers.  In so doing they will realize, as difficult as it may be, and with as much resistance and denial as they can muster, that the biblical God is on our side.  He is on their side too.  God will never stop loving his creation.  He will not blame you for your errors, but continue to love you, comfort you and welcome you into his arms.  In God you are free. 

Do not be a slave to material things or covet that held by others.  Be free, be a child of God.  Accept outcomes knowing your life is already purposed. 

 

Grace and Peace