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A – Get into a FIGHT—it will be good for you.
B – Let the WEAK ONES DIE.
C – What you will gain (and oooh, did you see that?!)
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Yes, that sounds horrible, and you probably have images of weak groups of people in any nation being treated horrendously. However, I am talking about letting reality kill off the weak ideas because not promoting the deaths of weak ideas leads to much of the horrible things happening in the world and in your life.
Ideas are different than the people who hold them. Ideas don’t have feelings to be hurt or physical bodies to sustain damage. The reality is the real damage occurs to people when bad or incorrect ideas are not brutally exposed. 9/11 should have left a visible and historic exclamation point on that fact.
When an idea is hurt or even killed (meaning exposed as being inaccurate, or as being so useless even those who held to it let it pass away), then the person(s), who held the idea as something important may experience discomfort or hurt as the idea passes away.
Does that mean we must avoid serious pitting of ideas against each other in politics, beliefs, or relationships for fear of offending or hurting someone’s feelings? A lot of people seem to think so as many avoid discussions about conflicting ideas. For example, many say, “Don’t talk politics or religion at Thanksgiving”—but think more.
Can you think of examples in politics, relationships, or other areas of life where not critically examining beliefs could (or has already) led to bad or even tragic consequences? Sparing someone’s overly cushioned feelings sounds like the nice thing to do, until reality brings the harsh results of the person’s faulty ideas, damaging the person far beyond bruised feelings. Ever wish someone would have confronted you on your poor thinking before you followed through on your faulty beliefs?
Suppose one doctor told you the skin cancer on your nose need only be treated with surgical removal, while another doctor states that particular type of cancer must be treated with both surgery and radiation as often some microscopic cancer is missed by surgery and grows back even deeper than before. Those are two different ideas that should be placed in the fighting pit of reality, as you can only make an informed decision when these two ideas fight for their livelihood.
If one is exposed and ended, great—that makes your decision easy. If not, at least both will have made their strengths and weaknesses clearer to you, which places you in the best possible position to make your choice. Now, may a doctor get her/his feelings hurt because an idea was exposed and not chosen? Sure, but the good that results from making the correct choice is tremendous. Really, it’s all good, because the doctor with the inaccurate belief now has the opportunity to step away from that dangerous idea before she/he spreads it further.
This situation actually did occur. The person involved had cancer growing on his nose and had surgery twice before I saw him and asked about it. He said his doctor told him surgery was the way to cure the cancer and radiation was dangerous. I explained every month I watched patients leave our cancer center completely healed from the type of cancer he had and what the known, minimal side effects would be. I told him I could get one of our physicians to explain the treatment and the reasons why surgery alone was unlikely to stop his cancer at this point so he could take time to determine which treatment would be best.
He declined to letting the two ideas fight and said he will just stick with the surgery. After a third surgery and the spread going on into the eye socket and eventually killing him, reality made clear the belief he chose to cling to was the wrong one.
It’s uncomfortable, and it can be very hard dealing with the recognition that an idea or belief you held as important is inaccurate. However, dealing with that discomfort or pain can be a tremendous mercy compared to what you will go through if you hold to those false beliefs when reality brings all the consequences home. As a friend of mine in Michigan, Pastor Christopher Brooks, once noted, “When you’re born, you look like your parents. When you die, you look like your choices!”
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