Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2020 4:39:21 GMT -5
Mar 28, 2020 3:32:44 GMT -5 @agraves said:
Self-ReferentialIn times of crisis, it is very easy to use self-referential thinking. Self-referential thinking might be defined as reading into outside events, seeing them as pertaining to individual shortcoming. A larger self-referential might be defined as outside events pertaining to society’s shortcomings. Either way self-referential thinking is an unnecessary distortion in my opinion.
Self-referential thinking is what gives pastors the platform to read too much into things, calling them Biblical; when the events in questions actually have a lot of neutrality. Self-referential thinking, in a preaching sense, distorts the meaning of God, making Him a micro-managing God, who looks at the chaos of the individual or the individual society and finds meaning in it.
It is a self-referential thought to read disaster into chaotic events. That would only make chaotic events more chaotic. It is also, I believe, socially irresponsible to read disaster into things just because one in dealing with the unknown and trying to personalize the unknown by giving it a personal meaning, a meaning the self-referential individual can easily relate to.
I can give an example self-referential thinking. Today I was remembering an argument I had with a bus driver about two months ago. I felt remorseful that I threw a bag of garbage at the offending bus driver’s bus. I thought maybe the Lord especially loved this bus driver and created the Corona virus to punish me as well as billions of other people. Even though the thought only lasted a few seconds, there is a kind of ego-centrism that lurks in the unknown. There is something about what a person doesn’t understand that takes him out of the middle way and places him on the side of some radical extreme.
One could say that God was punishing a stupid-ass president. Even though this feels sort of right, it is yet another example of a self-referential distortion. Okay I think I exhausted this topic.