Monday Morning Music Ministry

9-19-22

A recent dust-up on the Internet – or in “real” life, about the Internet – a pair of zillionaires addressed the evils that lurk in this new world of skewed values, formed and furthered by the Internet. They focused on the relatively sudden change in society’s standards, and the various dangers represented by “bots,” attractive lies, and the web’s seductive appeals to youth.

Charlie Munger, the Vice Chairman of Berskshire Hathaway, seemingly took a swipe at the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who agreed with Munger’s premise but is fighting his own battles against bots and bias of sites like his targeted Twitter.

I am grateful for the subjects to be raised; the men are close to the truth – a disturbing truth that has malignant implications for Western Civilization. Munger said at a conference: “The world is not driven by greed, it is driven by envy.” Elon Musk, in a separate screen statement, responded about a specific site, “Instagram is an envy amplifier,” referring to its toxic temptations. He is getting warm.

Those temptations? They are common to movies, TV, Facebook, YouTube also – not only for people to feel pressure to look better, but if necessary to act differently. Changing one’s (web) personality is a step away from changing one’s real personality and standards, to some abstract web-defined perfection. Then, another baby-step to adopting alien values and standards to be acceptable to invisible judges on magazine covers, music videos, movies, and the web. Musk even admitted to being addicted to Selfies and the urge to Photoshop them.

Enough people are doing the same thing these days, so the willing victims feel safe and… welcome.

I keep myself from calling these human chameleons “kids,” because adults are dancing to the same tunes. With “itching ears,” as the Bible calls the willing dupes, they say to the culture, in effect, “lie to me.”

Yes, adults, too. I am astonished by how many teenage girls I see in malls trying to look like 40-year-old skanks; and how many mothers try to look like teenagers.

Munger and Musk are close to Biblical truth, whether they know it or not. Greed and envy are subsets of Pride. The Church has long warned against the Seven Deadly Sins. That list is not in Scripture itself, but is inherent in Commandments, proverbs, and church teachings. They are, generally:

Gluttony

Lust, Fornication

Greed

Despair

Anger

Sloth, Laziness

Pride

Few would argue that, deep down, prudent respect these anti-virtues for the poison they represent. Yet humanity continues on its way. For all of God’s warnings and laws – going back to the Garden, really – in my mind the chief of all these Deadly Sins is Pride.

I see all sins, all offenses against God, as flowing from Pride. Adam and Eve thought that they could evade God. Satan thought he could outmaneuver God. Rebellious souls think they are cleverer than God. Individual sinners think that God will give them a pass. Gnostics think they know more than God. Legalists think that good deeds will impress God, despite what He said. Secularists, when they grant the possibility of a God, think they will get brownie-points for “caring” and being nice people.

All of them think they know more than God, or have an “in” with Him, or can explain away their sins, which are, after all, not worse than those of their faulty neighbors…

It is all Pride.

C S Lewis said that Pride “leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind…. Pride is understood to sever the spirit from God, as well as His life-and-grace-giving Presence.”

Benjamin Franklin said that none of our passions more than Pride, is “so hard to subdue…. Disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive and will every now and then peep out and show itself.” In his famous fashion, mixing humor and wisdom, he said, “Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”

And, famously, the Bible said that Pride goes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18). It sounds like a gentle warning, but it is a grim promise of what happens to people under God’s eyes, and reject His grace.

“Lovers of selves,” instead of God. Pride. Have you heard these words? Also not a warning, but a prophecy. You tell me: Are we in those End Times?

There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. – II Timothy 3:1-5

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