Devices and Dementia

Devices and Dementia - By Terry James - https://www.raptureready.com/2020/08/12/devices-and-dementia-by-terry-james/ This commentary will, I anticipate, meet with considerable eye-rolls and head-shaking. What a fuddy-duddy, I can imagine the thinking will be behind the eye rolls and the head shakes. (The very fact that I use the term "fuddy-duddy" makesme a candidate for the very dementia to which I, at least cursorily, link their beloved devices.) By the term "dementia," I refer to a spiritual condition rather than a physical-mental one. Although medical studies put forth that total absorptionin the cyberspace of the devices that are everywhere we look can cause organic disturbances, the spiritual damage might be, in my view, incalculable. Smartphones and the many other devices that demand all but total allegiance to their human automatons are used by the powers and principalities inhigh places in their wicked endeavors. That is, the observably, highly addictive instruments turn the already-fallen minds of people, young and old, to directions other than toward God, who created humankind to fellowship with Him and to be His family foreternity. We're seeing the results of Satan having brought about the Twitterverse-a generation of social media-transfixed people who now have or are rapidlymoving toward thinking in any direction other than God. Of course I'm not referring to everyone in social media. Not every user of Facebook, Twitter, or other social media venues engage within the arenasof anti-God thinking. Many ministries use these as tools to put forward teachings from the Bible and the saving gospel message (that is, if their posts or tweets or whatever aren't banned or taken down). However, the vast majority of device users are held in what seems to be inescapable gravity. Those caught in the grip of cyberspace, by and large,think and communicate in terms that encompass anything but things of God and the Bible. The result is fulfillment of Bible truth. When people get away from principles of how to live God's way, upside-down or reprobate thinking becomes the norm. The devices have evolved from instruments for entertainment to those designed to evoke and cultivate a collective mindset that more and more embracesanti-biblical actions and activities. I believe it explains, at least in part, the insanity we are witnessing in every direction we look. Again, here are the apostle Paul's words that frame the matter. It's an all-encompassing and powerful indictment from on high, to be sure. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. (Romans 1: 28-31) Just like in the case of any human invention, the devices are not in themselves evil. In my teenage years, I heard all the warnings that TV would bethe ruination of the nation with entertainment from the devil-influenced minds in Hollywood. Well, I'm not so certain that those warnings weren't well placed. I sure didn't think so at that time. Neither, I'm sure, will the youth or even themore mature device users of today agree with my thoughts here. But to anyone who looks around and is honest, this world suffers from a dementia that grows progressively worse. It has brought about a divide, a schizophrenia,within the culture in America. I maintain that it is the electronic device instrumentalities that have at least exacerbated, if not engendered, the cultural and societal divide Ipropose it is the all-pervasive electronic devices that are culpable in the matter of the reprobate mindset that has developed in this time so near the end of the age. I was recently sent an article that, in my estimation, helps explain how Satan and his minions, both human and demonic, have been able to induce anti-Godthinking through the ubiquitous electronic devices of our time. The article was by a person who worked within mental institutions of earlier times. What is happening today in the West increasingly reminds me of what I saw in that long-stay mental hospital many decades ago, but is less humane. Today,when a person displays signs of deviating from political correctness, the cultural overseers leap into action and denounce the behavior and the culprit, whose guilt is incontestable. If confession, contrition, and penance are not instantly forthcoming, theonly sentence is to be declared a "far-right bigot," with the likely result that the mainstream news media will then pick up the story and try to ruin what is left of the pitiful target's life. Only the most courageous and resourceful will stand fast to theirvalues and principles and defy the modern Maoist cultural revolutionaries of the radical progressive liberal-Left. The task of enforcement by the latter is, however, made considerably easier by the almost ubiquitous Smartphone, which makes social conditioningextremely easy. The Smartphone functions as a virtual Skinner box. The original Skinner box was constructed of clear Perspex inside which a hungry pigeon pecked ata lever. A reward of grain was delivered only for the desired behavior. Today the box is virtual, as humans tap the keys of their smartphones. Usage of social media from these smartphones appears to be highly addictive, and can turn even previously well-adjustedpeople into obsessive narcissists who crave 'likes' and will leap onto any bandwagon in an attempt to increase their virtual popularity. Combine this with the credulousness and gullibility of willingly impressionable youth and one has the ideal material for social conditioning. Hencethe smartphone as a virtual Skinner box. The radical progressive liberal-Left have-with great enthusiasm-seized upon this opportunity to socially-condition the young and anyone else with high suggestibility, and are intent on turning tens of millions of peopleinto compliant instruments of their political will. The astonishing feature of all this is that the involuntary but mostly compliant subjects of this vast experiment in social engineering appear to lackany insight into what is being done to them. They have surrendered their critical faculties to invisible minders who program them to feel emotions, think thoughts, deliver utterances, and commit acts at the behest of hidden controllers who can avoid takingany responsibility for what ensues. And, perhaps most alarming of all, these cultural automatons are voluntarily giving up their cultural history, allowing it to be replaced by political propaganda which misrepresents the past. The result is that such peoplelive in a present that is created and controlled by someone else, as is their future. Their lives are no longer their own, yet they are oblivious of this. ("The West is One Vast Social Engineering Experiment," Len Wryte, American Thinker, https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/the_west_is_one_vast_social_ ) Although there is more than enough anti-God thinking and behavior to go around-in both major political parties in America-one, in particular, is manifestingdementia that can't be missed. Even the person chosen to be its presumptive candidate in the upcoming presidential election is front and center in exhibiting the reprobate thinking. And I don't mean to be cruel with my assessment. The proposals and rhetoric of this particular political party go against practically every former rationale in the political process for appealingto Americans who love and want the best for their nation. This proves, I'm convinced, the degree of reprobate thinking that now infects their ranks. That party's leadership apparently insanely believes that a majority of Americans now want to tear down the nation's founding and rebuild with ideologyand structure of a socialist/Marxist sort. I don't think it to be taken out of context to use the following in the matter of devices and dementia. Neither do I mean it to be taken as a pun ortongue-in-cheek. God's Word is truth. Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices. (2 Corinthians 2: 11)