Category: Politics and Religion

Eternal life

~ SA Otey

What is the greatest gift someone could give you?

Do we all have eternal life? Whether it be with God or separated from God. Once the soul is created, is it ever destroyed? One would argue that being annihilated is more in line with God’s mercy than eternal life apart from God. In the case of justice, annihilationism is the ultimate comfort for evil-doers. If I know that there is an end to suffering, then why not just do whatever we want right now? Where is the justice in punishment for evil?

God will not force you into his presence for all eternity nor will he extinquish your existence. If you don’t want to be with God, then he will give you what you want. That’s the greatest gift.

Why I Stopped Watching the News (And You Should Too)

~ SA Otey

When was the last time you watched the news and said, I’m glad I watched that?

I can’t remember, because the news industry knows human psychology: bad news sells, good news doesn’t.

The Negativity Machine

Here’s a question that changed my perspective entirely: Why does it seem that there’s never any good news?

The answer reveals everything wrong with modern media consumption. News outlets have built their entire business model around exploiting what psychologists call “negativity bias” – our brain’s evolutionary tendency to pay more attention to threats than positive information. It once helped us survive in dangerous environments. Now it’s being weaponized to capture our attention.

“If it bleeds, it leads” isn’t just a catchy newsroom phrase – it’s the fundamental algorithm that determines what information reaches your brain every single day. A school shooting will dominate headlines for weeks, while the millions of students who safely attended school that same day won’t merit a single mention.

The Hidden Cost of Staying “Informed”

I used to take pride in being well-informed. I checked news apps throughout the day, scrolled through headlines during coffee breaks, and fell asleep to the soft glow of breaking news alerts. I thought this made me a more engaged citizen.

Instead, it was slowly poisoning my worldview.

The Mental Health Tax Constant exposure to curated catastrophe creates a persistent low-level anxiety. Your brain, designed to respond to immediate threats, doesn’t distinguish between a news story about violence happening thousands of miles away and actual danger in your environment. The result? Chronic stress about situations you have zero control over.

The Time Thief: Calculate how much time you spend consuming news each day. For most people, it’s between 1 and 3 hours when you include social media news feeds, news apps, and background news consumption. That’s potentially 1,000+ hours per year focused on information that rarely improves your actual decision-making or life outcomes.

The Illusion of Understanding Breaking news culture creates the illusion of being informed while actually making you less knowledgeable. Context gets sacrificed for speed. Nuance disappears in favor of dramatic headlines. Stories get updated or corrected later, but first impressions stick. You end up with strong opinions about complex situations you actually understand very little about.

What You’re Really Missing

When I stopped my daily news consumption, something unexpected happened: I didn’t become less informed about things that mattered. Instead, I gained something more valuable – perspective.

The news industry feeds you the worst 0.01% of human experience and calls it “reality.” But actual reality looks very different:

  • Medical breakthroughs happen regularly
  • Crime rates in most places continue long-term declines
  • People help strangers every single day
  • Communities solve problems collaboratively
  • Technology continues improving lives in countless small ways
  • Most human interactions are neutral to positive
  • Progress on global challenges like poverty and disease continues steadily

None of this makes headlines because gradual improvement isn’t dramatic. But it’s statistically more representative of human experience than the crisis-of-the-day that dominates your news feed.

The Liberation of Stepping Away

This doesn’t mean becoming completely uninformed or ignoring serious issues. It means being intentional about information consumption instead of letting media companies hack your attention for profit.

What I do instead:

  • Read weekly news summaries instead of daily updates
  • Focus on local news where I might actually take action
  • Choose one trusted source rather than consuming from multiple feeds
  • Seek out solution-oriented journalism that covers how problems are being addressed
  • Pay attention to long-term trends rather than daily fluctuations

The unexpected benefits:

  • Significantly reduced anxiety about world events
  • More mental energy for things I can actually influence
  • Better focus and productivity throughout the day
  • More optimistic (and realistic) view of human nature
  • Deeper engagement with my immediate community

Your Attention Is Your Life

Every minute you spend consuming news is a minute you’re not spending on relationships, creativity, learning skills, or engaging with your immediate environment – the places where you actually have agency and influence.

The media industry has convinced you that staying constantly updated on global crises makes you a more informed citizen. In reality, it often makes you a more anxious, distracted, and pessimistic person without meaningfully improving your ability to contribute to solutions.

Your worldview is too important to let it be shaped by algorithms designed to capture attention rather than inform understanding.

The Challenge

Try this experiment: go one week without consuming news. Notice how you feel. Notice what you do with that reclaimed time and mental energy. Notice whether you’re actually less capable of making good decisions about things that matter in your life.

My prediction? You’ll discover that most news consumption is a habit masquerading as a necessity. And breaking that habit might be one of the most liberating things you do this year.

The world isn’t falling apart. You’re just consuming a distorted sample of reality designed to keep you scrolling.

It’s time to stop.

Your Calvinism is Showing

~ SA Otey

I’ve attended many Bible Study Groups over the years, and one thing is for certain, there will be a point during one of the discussions where I’ll be labeled as a Calvinist. Early on,. I had no idea what that meant, I thought I was just reading the Bible and understanding it as it was plain and simple. Turns out there was a man named John Calvin who came up an acrostic called TULIP which after reading it made me super concerned that people would label me as such.

Fast forward, now I really don’t mind if people label me as such. It just show that people just don’t understand things. Do some research and understand for yourself. I guess the more concerning thing is that Xians throw out labels as pejoratives.

Big picture: Calvinism emphasizes that salvation is 100% God’s work from start to finish—humans don’t initiate it, earn it, or keep it going. It’s all about God’s grace and sovereignty.

🌱 T – Total Depravity → “Dead Battery”

🔋 Imagine a phone with a completely dead battery—it can’t turn itself back on.

  • We’re spiritually dead, not just weak. Only God jump-starts the heart.

🌤 U – Unconditional Election → “Adoption Papers”

📜 Parents don’t adopt based on a child’s achievements. They choose out of love.

  • God’s choice isn’t based on our goodness, but His mercy.

🎯 L – Limited/Definite Atonement → “Targeted Rescue”

🚁 A rescue helicopter doesn’t just circle overhead—it lowers the rope for specific people.

  • Jesus’ death doesn’t just make salvation possible—it guarantees it for His people.

🧲 I – Irresistible Grace → “Magnet Pull”

🪙 A strong magnet doesn’t force metal—it naturally draws it in.

  • God changes our hearts so that we freely want Him.

🛡 P – Perseverance/Preservation → “Tight Grip”

🤝 If it depended on us holding God’s hand, we’d let go. But He’s holding us—and He never drops His children.

THE IMPORTANCE OF STANDING UP AGAINST IMPERIAL CHRISTIANITY

~ SA Otey

Here’s a quote

When Christianity spread into the Roman Empire it got absorbed into the culture of patriarchy, nationalism and, eventually, capitalism. The faith was morphed from a message of liberation for all the wretched of the earth into a self-righteous cudgel for the rich and powerful.
As you may know by now, the Roman emperor Constantine forced Christian bishops to come up with creedal statements that had little or nothing to do with the original teachings of Jesus. For many, the Christian religion was reduced to supernatural claims, cultic moralism and shameless toadying to the hierarchy of the day. For many, Christianity was reframed from a religion of empathic servanthood to one of judgmental sectarian control.
The new imperial Christians were superstitious and ignorant about this world, but felt they were experts on the world to come. The new imperial Christians weren’t so good at loving their non-Christian neighbors, but felt they were good neighbors to their new and improved Jesus who now preferred working through the rich and powerful, and was no longer concerned with the poor and outcast.
I believe there is confusion in calling the Christianity of Constantine and that of Jesus by the same name. I’m not saying we should argue about who gets the label, but it is important for somebody to say if some Christians want to force their dogma into the public square, that is the Christianity of Constantine not Jesus!
Somebody needs to say, If there is a mass shooting and some Christians are more concerned about protecting their guns than the children, that is the Christianity of Constantine not Jesus!
Somebody needs to say if some Christians are more concerned about the the success of the American economy than the plight of the working poor, that is the Christianity of Constantine not Jesus!
And, finally, somebody needs to say, if the cross is a symbol of Christian superiority instead of a call to suffer on behalf of the oppressed of every nation, that is the Christianity of Constantine not Jesus!”

This statement is a passionate, rhetorically charged critique of what the author perceives as a distortion of Christianity through its historical entanglement with political power, especially during and after the time of Constantine. It blends historical commentary with moral and theological judgment. Let’s break it down in terms of accuracy and logical fallacies:

🔍 Accuracy

✅ Historically grounded elements:

  1. Constantine and Christianity:
    • It’s accurate that under Constantine (early 4th century), Christianity transitioned from a persecuted sect to a religion with state backing.
    • The First Council of Nicaea (325 CE) was convened under Constantine, and it did result in a creedal statement (the Nicene Creed). However, the idea that Constantine “forced” bishops to create creeds that had “little or nothing” to do with Jesus’ teachings is an overstatement. The council aimed to resolve theological disputes (like Arianism), not to invent Christianity anew.
  2. Christianity and power:
    • There’s scholarly consensus that after Constantine, Christianity increasingly aligned with imperial power. This alignment likely altered the tone and priorities of the institutional church—though to say the entire faith was reduced to “toadying” is more polemical than precise.
  3. Critique of modern political alliances:
    • The statement critiques modern Christianity’s associations with gun rights, nationalism, and capitalism. These critiques are interpretative rather than factual—they reflect a particular moral or theological perspective, not an empirical claim.

⚠️ Logical Fallacies and Rhetorical Devices

1. Hasty Generalization

  • The phrase “the new imperial Christians weren’t so good at loving their non-Christian neighbors” generalizes a vast and diverse group. Not all Christians under imperial Rome—or now—fit these critiques.

2. False Dichotomy (Either-Or Fallacy)

  • The argument often frames two mutually exclusive Christianities: Jesus’ Christianity (pure, servant-hearted) vs. Constantine’s Christianity (corrupt, power-hungry). Reality is more nuanced. Throughout history, many believers have expressed both sincere faith and problematic entanglements with power.

3. Appeal to Emotion

  • Lines like “more concerned about protecting their guns than the children” use emotionally powerful language to provoke a moral response. This doesn’t make the point false, but it’s more rhetorical than logical.

4. No True Scotsman

  • The assertion that certain political or cultural expressions of Christianity are “not the Christianity of Jesus” can lean into this fallacy: redefining a group in a way that excludes counterexamples (e.g., “no true Christian would do that”).

5. Slippery Slope (implied)

  • There’s an underlying suggestion that once Christianity became entangled with empire, it inevitably became morally compromised. While influence and compromise occurred, “inevitability” over-simplifies the range of Christian responses over time.

🧠 Summary

  • Historically inspired, but simplified and stylized for rhetorical impact.
  • The statement is best read as a prophetic or moral critique, not a scholarly argument.
  • Logical fallacies include: hasty generalization, false dichotomy, appeal to emotion, and potentially No True Scotsman.

Theories on Jesus’ Death: Exploring Controversial Claims

~ SA Otey

Jesus merely fainted on the cross and was revived later

  • Romans were good at killing people
  • Beaten, Scourged (which most didn’t survive)
  • Nailed to a cross
  • The spear pierced his heart

    It does account for the empty tomb. Fails to explain Jesus’ death. Fails to explain why enemies of Jesus saw him, but I doubt the disciples would think Jesus had defeated death, looking like he did.

Jesus had a twin brother who took his place

  • The twin would have had to hide all of his life
  • Only to die for Jesus’ manipulation and deceit
  • This is the opposite of the rest of his teachings
  • Luke makes no mention of the twin in the birth narrative

Doesn’t explain the empty tomb
If Jesus’ brother were dead, he would be in the tomb

Hallucination Theory – Amid their profound grief, the disciples experienced private and corporate hallucinations. Giving everyone the same experience

  • Perception of objects with no reality usually arises from disorder of the nervous system or in response to drugs
  • An unfounded or mistaken impression or notion: DELUSION
  • The possibility of several different people having the same exact hallucination in the same way at the same time is improbable
  • Remember, Jesus appeared to over 500 people in 40 days.
  • Doesn’t solve the problem of the empty tomb


Wrong Tomb -The followers of Jesus simply went to the wrong tomb

  • Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” were at the tomb when Jesus was buried
  • The disciples recorded that women discovered the tomb, even though women were not considered reliable witnesses.
  • Pilate placed several Roman soldiers to guard the tomb
  • The oldest argument against the resurrection, which assumes that the correct tomb was visited
  • Doesn’t explain why friends and enemies saw Jesus after he died

The Alien Theory -Jesus was from another planet because:

  • Knowledge of Science and Medicine
  • Psychic abilities
  • Had the ability to heal himself in the tomb and escape unnoticed
  • Locate the disciples telepathically and transport himself there
  • It proves too much
  • Any objection can be dismissed by invoking Jesus’ alien nature
  • Everything looks supernatural to us, but is just common for his race
  • No way to prove right or wrong because it’s unfalsifiable
  • Commits the “confirmation bias” fallacy. Proves so much that it proves nothing

Legend

  • Christ was never taken down from the cross
  • Left to rot and eaten by wild animals.
  • Apostles didn’t care what happened to the body; they could carry on the ministry
  • Everything recorded in the Gospels about the burial and resurrection was invented to convey greater spiritual truths (via parables)
  • This was done to vindicate their slain leader
  • Doesn’t account for the Jewish claim of the Stolen body and the Empty tomb
  • There are so many historical details at the time that there would be plenty of evidence to counter the apostle’s claims

What do Democrats and Republicans Believe? Part II: Economy

~ SA Otey

get it @ redbubble.com

Democrats:

Favor policies that promote economic equality, such as progressive taxation, increasing the minimum wage to drive the cost of goods and services up and customer service down to nonexistent. Expanding social welfare programs like abortion healthcare and brainwashing education.

Republicans:

Advocate for lower taxes so you are not working more and getting paid less. Deregulation to stimulate economic growth, and free-market principles with minimal government intervention.

https://amzn.to/3SQfcQX

What do Democrats and Republicans Believe? Part I: Ideological Spectrum

~ SA Otey

https://www.teepublic.com/sticker/51556654-fedup-with-politics-in-2024

Democrats:

Also called the “left” of the political spectrum. Emphasize social welfare programs at the expense of the taxpayer turning the safety net into a hammock. Environmental protection except for their private Gulfstream jets to attend climate change summits. Healthcare reform so your benefits are decreased to fund their premium plans. Progressive taxation, taking more of your money to fund government programs.

Republicans:

Positioned on the “right” of the spectrum. Advocate for limited government so you can mind your own business with little intervention in the economy. Lower taxes so you can keep more of what you earn so you can donate generously and not against your will to entities you disagree with. More deregulation so you can drive the car you enjoy without worrying about destroying countries mining for battery parts. Traditional values so you can keep our society from getting out of control with pagan ideologies.

https://amzn.to/3SQfcQX