James H. Cagle
“Think on these things” (Philippians 4: 8 KJV).
What a thrill it is to have the facts and through my own thought process think my way through the meaning of the facts and interpret them for myself and form my own opinion without the aid of anyone else’s opinion.
The majority of people today do not ever experience this thrill because they’ve been taught to think by default. They think so because others think so. They’ve outsourced their thinking to others and only use their mind to process others thoughts. In this way they get the herd mentality and become “useful idiots.”
Real thinking is our most neglected responsibility. Real thinking is the hardest work we’ll ever do. That’s why we don’t do it, and why we let others do it for us. “If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; but if you really make them think for themselves, they’ll hate you.” But a person is not truly free until they’re thinking for themselves.
Individual, critical thinking is serious work because it means we trust ourselves to come to an accurate interpretation and meaning of the facts and thereby draw our own conclusions and decide our own actions.
The Bible tells us that as we think in our heart so we are in life’s actions. God knows this and so do politicians and religious leaders. If they can take a lie and lace it with enough truth to get us to receive and embrace it in our thoughts then they will have us following them and acting in a way that helps them fulfill their personal agenda.
There are many politicians who want us to trust them to do our thinking for us so we can be useful idiots for them. And this we have done to our own demise. There are also many religious leaders who want us to trust them to do our thinking for us so we can be useful idiots for them as well. And this we have done to our own corruption. It’s plain to see that when we don’t think for ourselves we will be taken advantage of.
We talk about taking America back and taking our churches back, but until we take our minds back and do our own thinking again we are fighting a losing battle, for the battle is over the mind.
Hitler said, “How fortunate for leaders, that men do not think. Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” Did that make you think?
