Does anyone feel like they took the red pill?

[Barbarbarann]

DH and I are active Christians. I was having an interesting conversation with DH the other day and we were talking about how being saved and following Jesus feels like we took the red pill from the Matrix. It feels like our eyes are opened to how evil is operating in the world and you can't unsee it. I feel like we are in an age where evil is deemed good and good is deemed evil and we are the only ones that can see it and others are mostly blasé, heads in the sand or mislead.

I wonder if anyone else out there feels that too? When I mentioned it to some ladies at a Bible study yesterday - I was met with blank looks. I am not some militant, Bible-thumping conspiracy theorist either, just someone who quietly reads their bible daily and prays.

@Happyinarcon

Modern society says prostitution is legitimate sex work which is empowering for women and should be destigmatised.

It is absolutely not the majority view of modern society that prostitution is empowering.

I'm not sure that many agree that prostitution is empowering, so not the best example.

An area which shares some similarities is surrogacy. It is fast becoming normalised.

I suppose it depends what you mean by evil and demons. I'm an atheist and my intelligence, empathy, humanity and my reason shows me pretty clearly what's wrong in the world and what needs fixing. Is that what you mean? I'm not sure you need Jesus for that, to be honest. Otherwise you'd be saying that 70% of the world's population has no moral compass.

@rockpoolingtogether I think that it is important that a woman carrying a DS pregnancy is presented with a realistic picture of the range of possibilities she might be dealing with, from having a child who can, with support, live independently, to one who is at the other end of the range. It is important that woman in that situation know how very very high the risk is that their child will develop Alzheimers at a very young age.

There's a fine line between pressure to terminate (which should not happen) and not presenting a rose tinted picture of what DS can be. It isn't a situation of 'presenting evil as good' unless it's outright pressure to terminate in the face of determination, and I wonder how prevalent that really is.

@pointythings ah, what if one believes that abortion is evil per se.

Which I know I can't explain clearly and quickly on a forum. It's an ongoing debate. But many Christians and of course Catholics accept that abortion is evil. However, this is considered counter cultural by many

Even if one believes abortion is evil, that cannot be defined as 'evil perceived as good', because the belief that abortion is evil is just that - a belief. Whereas the opposite view is backed up by actual evidence, i.e. the tens of thousands of women who die every year because they cannot access safe and legal abortions.

@Beyondbeyondbeyond,

Who do you think Jesus is?

I am a Christian. I see Jesus as God in the flesh.

@pointythings

Whereas the opposite view is backed up by actual evidence, i.e. the tens of thousands of women who die every year because they cannot access safe and legal abortions.^

Tried to show that's a quote but not sure if it worked.

My response would be that I'm not arguing for of against the legality of abortion, but simply citing it is evil as it is akin to murder. No one disputes that murder is evil. Even if murder was legal, it would still be evil.^

Abortion is only evil if you think it is akin to murder. That is an extreme point of view which is much in dispute. So still not 'evil presented as good' - unless you hold certain beliefs, which clearly you do.

And of course it would be equally wrong to present abortion as unequivocally good. Because life isn't that simple; it's shades of grey and the balance of what is best in any individual situation.

In any event, the question I asked was about what OP considered 'evil presented as good', and she hasn't been back to clarify.

Personally I would see the constant pursuit of economic growth over the wellbeing of all human beings as something that could be seen as 'evil presented as good' - but free market believers would disagree with me, and they are entitled to do so.

@SilverBranchGoldenPears thanks, kind of you to say so, much appreciated.🙂

Have you been brain washed by the church.
Fact is the bible has been written so many times its not got any truth in it.
I have my beliefs that we live we die we are reborn.
I dont believe in all the other crap from any religion.
Look out the window thats the world we live in.

And the billions of women every year forced have pregnancy after pregnancy imposed upon them against their will. And the child victims of rape and incest forced to carry to term in AMERICA. I could go on.

I completely agree with this.

Firstly I don't think most of us need the blue (red?) pill to see the evil around us. Secondly, it has always been thus. Man pursues mammon to the exclusion of all else, man starts wars, man kills the innocent, his neighbour, even his own family. Man sexually abuses children, man tortures animals. All of this and more has not changed since time immemorial. The only difference is that technology has made some of these actions easier and possibly more prolific. But nothing has fundamentally changed in the evil all around us.

So I think the OP may be referring to the "woke" agenda. Same sex marriages and trans issues for example. I would imagine she and her DH would like to tell us we're fools for not recognising these abominations.

Could be, or maybe she's woken up to the crimes and institutional coverups committed by the churches? That too, of course, is nothing new, the change is that they're not getting away with it so easily now.

As I understand it, the Matrix draws heavily on Hinduism and its central tenets as demonstrated in its scriptures. Central to this is the notion of Maya, the idea that the world has only seeming reality, like a dream. The soundtrack to the film uses the mantra om asato ma sat gamaya, tamaso ma jyotir gamaya, mrityor ma amritam gamaya om shanti shanti shanti, which means 'lead me from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality, om peace, peace, peace'. The film has nothing to do with trans

From the Director -

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a33521185/the-matrix-trans-allegory-meaning-explained/

It looks like Lily Wachowski transgendered the film retrospectively to me

Or wasn't up front in 1999 about what s/he really meant but now it's not only OK but really really at the cutting edge? Anyway i didn't like it before, I really hate it now.

I’d be very wary of thinking that believing in Jesus ‘woke you up’, that feels like fervour which is not clear thinking. It’s thinking that only you can really ‘see the light’.

I do not believe in Jesus or any religion.

However I have been fully aware of both goodness and awfulness in the world, and all the weird grey area in between for most of my life. It’s not a super power. It’s just not dressing anything up as OK.

Basically, if actions harm others, emotionally or physically, or harm yourself, then that is harm. There is nothing really special about seeing this.

Also, be careful about spreading the word that it is believing in Jesus that enables more goodness and clarity. There have been several atrocities including abuse in the church which have all been covered up or committed in the name of God.

Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah[a] of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.
16 “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse[b] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”
23 “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[c] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.
29 “‘This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and makes herself impure while married to her husband, 30 or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the Lord and is to apply this entire law to her. 31 The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.’”

Abortion as a result of adultery seems just fine in the bible

And if you want to claim it doesn't count as we are no longer under Mosaic law then you also can't use Exodus to justify being pro life either