Government, man's replacement for God

1. Omnipresent/omniscient. The state is increasingly everywhere and monitoring everything you do so that none of us have any secrets any longer. After all, what do you have to hide?

2. Greatest source of wisdom. This results in the state becoming ever increasingly all knowing, with the assumption that once all knowing, the wisdom to deal with such knowledge will just come naturally because without God, people think that the human being is naturally good, so why worry about it? Nothing in the private sector can even come close to the wisdom of government in dealing with our never ending problems. And to procure such wisdom, all we need is science. And even though science is not a source of wisdom, man is inherently good so it will naturally come. After all, we are all evolving and all evolution is to our benefit, so history becomes that much less important as a learning tool because we have progressed so far!

3. Omnipotent. The government becomes all powerful. Governments tend to trend towards collectivism. Over time, power is increasingly centralized to the point of one person, or group of people, ruling over everyone else. It is an innate desire to be ruled by a king no matter the objections heard to the contrary because history bears this out. Most governments have been ruled by despotic single rulers, and those that are not have trended towards that, like Caesar declaring himself emperor of Rome to the chagrin of the Roman Senate or the Executive Branch in the US ballooning into the 4rth branch of government, taking over many of the jobs originally done by the Legislative branch and now ruling by Executive edicts, etc.

4. Ineluctably. We have all heard of the long arm of the law. With the government becoming exponentially omnipresent and all powerful, escaping it's clutches is increasingly problematic.

5. Benevolent. The state is looked upon as the only real source for helping those in need. Why without the state, we would all be starving in the streets without health care and with no hope. The state, therefore, is the source of all "love" and only source of hope.

1 Samuel 8

1 When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as Israel’s leaders. 2 The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. 3 But his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.
4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”
6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”

In Indonesia, the government steps in and provides certain services to society that the economic system here, at its current stage of development, is unable to provide.

It also regulates certain things and entities that, if left to their own devices, would take actions that'd have terrible impacts on the poorest and most economically powerless segments of society.

There is of course an ugly underneath of corruption and abuse of power to all this, but I'd say it's much better now than it was, say, 20 years ago.

Meanwhile, this country is jam-packed with devout believers flocking to their mosques, churches and Hindu temples who would most certainly not see government as being a "replacement" for their various God figures.

@fmf said
In Indonesia, the government steps in and provides certain services to society that the economic system here, at its current stage of development, is unable to provide.

It also regulates certain things and entities that, if left to their own devices, would take actions that'd have terrible impacts on the poorest and most economically powerless segments of society.

There i ...[text shortened]... who would most certainly not see government as being a "replacement" for their various God figures.

You're not seeing the forest from the trees. Ever hear of Babylon?

I hope you live to see the day of the fulfillment of the prophetic calendar when the state will force the people to receive a "mark" or suffer starvation or be killed for not bending the knee to the state.

Then you will understand what whodey is talking about.

@secondson said
You're not seeing the forest from the trees. Ever hear of Babylon?

If you have some specific knowledge about Indonesia - the country where I live - and what I wrote about it above, feel free to lay it out.

@secondson said
I hope you live to see the day of the fulfillment of the prophetic calendar when the state will force the people to receive a "mark" or suffer starvation or be killed for not bending the knee to the state.

Oh.

Will this operation be run out of Jakarta or will it happen after the capital and seat of government is moved to a new-yet-to-be-built city on the island of Borneo?

@fmf said
If you have some specific knowledge about Indonesia - the country where I live - and what I wrote about it above, feel free to lay it out.

You didn't read what whodey posted did you?

You're misunderstanding the topic of this thread.

I'll give you a hint. It's not about Indonesia.

@fmf said
Oh.

Will this operation be run out of Jakarta or will it happen after the capital and seat of government is moved to a new-yet-to-be-built city on the island of Borneo?

You're way out there in left field FMF, and the team is in the dugout.

@secondson said
You're not seeing the forest from the trees. Ever hear of Babylon?

I hope you live to see the day of the fulfillment of the prophetic calendar when the state will force the people to receive a "mark" or suffer starvation or be killed for not bending the knee to the state.

Then you will understand what whodey is talking about.

Understanding what whodey is taking about is easy, the hard bit is taking him seriously.

@secondson said
You didn't read what whodey posted did you?

You're misunderstanding the topic of this thread.

I'll give you a hint. It's not about Indonesia.

My post is my reply to the OP.

@secondson said
You're way out there in left field FMF, and the team is in the dugout.

Do you have any comment about the notion of government being man's replacement for God as it applies to the government, the people and their worship of God where I live? Generic apocalyptic babble is not a valid answer.

@whodey

1. Omnipresent/omniscient. The state is increasingly everywhere and monitoring everything you do so that none of us have any secrets any longer. After all, what do you have to hide?

Google, Yahoo, are the fat cat organizations collecting all your private information for customer profiles worth billions of dollars whodey.

Better take your privacy concerns FIRST to your Internet Provider. They're the ones with a record of everything you do online so they can sell you to other companies like Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, etc.

And I don't understand why you are blaming the government when it is all a part of "making America great again" - $$$$.

@whodey said
1. Omnipresent/omniscient. The state is increasingly everywhere and monitoring everything you do so that none of us have any secrets any longer. After all, what do you have to hide?

2. Greatest source of wisdom. This results in the state becoming ever increasingly all knowing, with the assumption that once all knowing, the wisdom to deal with such knowledge will just c ...[text shortened]... h care and with no hope. The state, therefore, is the source of all "love" and only source of hope.

That thing in the Old Testament about not taking the Lord's name in vain. You might want to think about that.

@fmf said
In Indonesia, the government steps in and provides certain services to society that the economic system here, at its current stage of development, is unable to provide.

It also regulates certain things and entities that, if left to their own devices, would take actions that'd have terrible impacts on the poorest and most economically powerless segments of society.

There i ...[text shortened]... who would most certainly not see government as being a "replacement" for their various God figures.

I don't mean to demonize government, rather, I'm demonizing idolatry which is anything that replaces the role of God.

For example, it is obvious that through the example of Christ that we are not told to defy the ruling powers.

Romans 13:1 - Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

Romans 13:1-7 - Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. (Read More...)

But at the same time, we are to acknowledge that God comes before those world governments.

Acts 5:29 - Then Peter and the [other] apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.

John 18:36 Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place."

Put another way, if your reaction to an election is this, perhaps you have a lose screw or two loose and take these results too seriously as to your ultimate welfare.

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