Fixing America In 500 Words Or Less Chapter 41 ARE PEOPLE REALLY SHEEP?        Most men may not complain when young women these days wear their pants lower than where their mother's pockets used to be, but it can be somewhat nauseating to see older females trying to keep up with their daughter and even granddaughter's peer group.  It is reminiscent of the sixties, when in order to be cool, boys had to wear Levi's brand jeans, even though JC Penny sold a perfectly functional pair for half the price.        A Bob Dylan song back then touched on this “Mr. Jones” mentality of modern society ¹  And, what with large gas-guzzling SUV's being purchased by American middle-class “McMansion” families in the midst of Middle East wars, oil shortages and looming planetary disaster, certainly nothing much has changed.        Liberal authors tend to blame corporate branding, but such a “keeping up with the Joneses” reality has existed since ancient Babylon and, traces back into the mists of prehistoric time.  Tribal cultures on a global basis display culturally dictated rings, beads, feathers and other ornaments, paint faces and bodies in peer-pressure proscribed ways and, mimic each other in dress, speech and custom.        Ancient warriors often trimmed beards and hair in certain proscribed fashion and displayed specific tattoos and other body markings.  Cultures throughout history display their own unique concepts of beauty, manliness and femininity, often directly contradicting what other cultures dictate. ²  Hetero- sexual men in many societies have worn clothing that even the most overt homosexual male wouldn't wear in our own.        Today, tattoos and body piercings are all the modern rage and women deliberately reveal bra straps they worked diligently to keep hidden not long ago. And, we are inundated with harmful food and “must have” gizmos and gadgets that no one in their right mind would consider purchasing for logical survival or any other purpose.        Are designs carved on ancient pottery and inlaid jewels on swords functionally necessary at all?  And, was expensive architecture, art and sculpture purchased by kings and popes in the midst of massive poverty and famine during the Middle Ages, any less moral than modern Wall Street paper-shufflers earning 10,000 and more times as much as those who pick their fruit, cook their food, cut their lawns and pick up their garbage?        Does a wise society reward athletes with enormous sums to play games in the midst of rising poverty, homelessness and human suffering?  Do wise people stand in long lines to see the latest film or to meet celebrities who really haven't accomplished much of anything at all?  How many Americans blindly believe we represent the greatest society in history, without even bothering to actually study much of human civilization, if any?        Culturally induced conformity might appear harmless, but it extends into endorsing the amassing of private wealth and consequent enslavement of the masses, supporting wars in a guise of false 'patriotism' and, endorsing racism and classicism in order to “belong”.        Is it really true that “all we like sheep have gone astray”? ³  You decide. 4-6 { See Does Science Really Know What is True? for related information. } NOTES: 1. “Ballad of a Thin Man”; Highway 61 Revisited (1965). 2. According to historian Will Durant, upon sighting two male European missionaries and their wives, a tribe of native Africans began rolling on the ground in laughter, hardly able to contain themselves.  It seems that the queen of their tribe weighed in excess of 500 pounds and was so obese that she required two attendants to be able to stand up.  Members of other tribes traveled for hundreds of miles just for a chance to gaze upon their queen who, was thought in the general region to be the most beautiful woman in the world.  The natives just couldn't get over how poorly the European's God would treat them, to have given them in their view, such ugly and scrawny wives; women who were most likely many pounds heavier than what is considered a desirable weight for beauty queens in our own modern society.  It would seem when it comes to what constitutes attractiveness among various diverse historical cultures, beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. 3. Isaiah 53:6, John Chapter 10. 4. Various sources say sheep are intelligent animals, similar in intelligence to pigs and dogs, that sheep are emotional animals and, sheep can remember distinct faces for years.  Sheep are social animals, preferring groups and are rarely found alone unless lost.  Sheep have a strong instinct to follow the sheep in front of them.  When one sheep decides to go a certain direction, the rest follow, whether or not it is a safe thing to do.  Sheep will follow one leader for a while and then switch to another leader for no apparent sane or rational reason. Because the behavior of certain breeds of sheep was "common knowledge" to the audience of Jesus and the authors of the Bible, some of what is intended by comparisons of sheep to people, such as "all we like sheep have gone astray", can be lost on a general modern audience unfamiliar with the behavior of sheep.  According to the online source "Sheep 101", "Sheep have a strong instinct to follow the sheep in front of them.  When one sheep decides to go somewhere, the rest of the flock usually follows, even if it is not a good decision.  For example, sheep will follow each other to slaughter.  If one sheep jumps over a cliff, the others are likely to follow."  For more information on sheep behavior, see Sheep 101 & 201. 5. Some of the more obvious often absurd conformity found in modern society include ties and watches worn by men, similar and often excessive makeup worn by women and various rings, necklaces and other ornamental products worn by both sexes.  Children in rebellion of parental "uncoolness" typically develop their own conformity of dress, appearance and speech.  Often various peer groups dress, talk and act differently than other groups within the same large society, but continue to be highly conformative within their own grouping; for example, such as how men working in trucking, warehouse and construction-related environments tend to dress, talk and act, in comparison to men who work in office and similar "white-collar" environments.  It may be true that it is easier to prove summer will not soon be followed by cooler weather and, that the sun will never again arise in the eastern sky, than to prove that Isaiah and Jesus were wrong about people being like sheep who have gone astray. If we have not gone astray of what is morally correct, then why is there so much war, other violence, hunger, poverty, mass pollution, slavery, inequality of wealth and other human oppression here today in the modern global reality?  If our Creator has not given us a designed shared human conscience, how is it that diverse and often non-connected societies spread across the historical map share similar base laws against murder, adultery, theft and false witness, similar and often identical so-called "golden rules"?  How is it that people on a global level throughout human civilization history recognize similar actions as being "good" as opposed to "evil", similar treatment as being "love" as opposed to "hate" and, similar ideals as representing "justice" as opposed to "injustice"?  How could such similar and often identical concepts in both connected and non-connected societies randomly arise from quantum bits of matter?  Atheists rarely pause to consider the obvious; it takes an immeasurable amount more of blind faith to be an atheist than to believe in the obvious and, it takes even more blind faith than that for an honest skeptic to embrace atheism. 6. SIMPLE TEST:  If you don't believe you are a sinner, try doing what you think is good all of the time and, see how well you do.  If you don't believe in God, try coming up with a better explanation for how you and the rest of the universe happen to exist, than Jesus already taught us for free; "before Abraham was, I AM".  Now that you have demonstrated to yourself atheism and agnosticism are dishonest, you can freely admit you are a sinner who needs God's help, just like the rest of us sinners. It should be noted that changing the word "sin" to something else, such as "bad behavior" or "social maladjustment", in no way, shape or form changes the resulting human hunger, suffering, sorrow and death.  And it should be noted that a different explanation doesn't qualify as "science", unless it can better explain origins than Eternal Creator.  God defining himself as "I AM", not found anywhere in history prior to Moses as far as I am aware, is the ONLY concept known to humanity that satisfies universal and beyond origins. According to Jesus and according to the Modern Science evidence, what causes greed, hatred, irrational fear, prejudice, stress, tension, murder, theft, rape, false witness, slavery, inequality of wealth, war and other human oppression, arises from what is within ALL people (source; Encyclopedia Britannica; "Human Sexuality" & related). Modern science and education sometimes loses sight of the most obvious of forest information within the trees of unconnected details.  Children on a grade school playground can be observed ostracizing and being mean to other children for no good reason at all.  Such ostracism and general meanness continues on into adulthood, where some of our most highly educated adults form exclusive "clubs" like the Mensa Society, openly practicing human segregation by banning the vast majority of people from their selective group.  Why is there a Nobel Peace Prize given to adults for actiing like we believe all of us should already act?  The simple fact that both children and adults need to repeatedly be punished, cajoled, begged and enticed into being what our own consciences dictates as "good", while we are easily "bad" without any such encouragement and often in the face of repeated punishment, very clearly demonstrates that human beings share a significant innate obedience problem.  As the Bible says, God did not give us his law in some naive expectation that we would obey him but rather, he gave us his law to demonstrate a point, that we are sinners, unable to live up to the dictates of our own conscience. Click Here to Go Back to Contents Click Here to eMail the Author Copyright © December 10th, 2019 by Richard Aberdeen. Copyright © December 10th, 2019 by Freedom Tracks Records. ( including from several earlier copyrights ) No part of this material may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher and signed by the author. For inquiries, please contact Freedom Tracks Records.  The essays entitled Revolution and Revolution ~ Side B are open copyright and may be reproduced and distributed as desired.