Blogging A – Z Challenge 2021: P Is For Personality Cults

Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 22354 – 818:

Here’s the haps:

As many of you are aware, there are certain authors I really, really like. I mean really. There are other authors I really like and still many more that I just like. There are some I don’t like. Celebrities, I think, are the same way although I recognize fewer and fewer names as time goes by. People put a lot of stock in what they have to say, though. I think it’s kind of interesting, myself. Just because someone can sing/act/write/whatever in a way I enjoy does not make them an expert on anything. But people hang on to their every word as if they really were some sort of oracle. I think most people do this to some extent or another but it’s who some people choose to follow that is also interesting.

I have been a long-time fan of Louis L’Amour. I even have three web pages dedicated to some of his works. I’ve read his autobiography and I know what he thinks about some things and I don’t really have a desire to be like him or think like him, even though I can read and re-read his books multiple times. Same with Douglas Adams. I don’t think I can count how many times I have read through all six books of the Hitchhikers Guide trilogy and his Dirk Gently books and the Salmon of Doubt but that doesn’t mean that I ascribe to his personal philosophies and lifestyle. Michael Crichton was a brilliant author as well. State of Fear, Timeline, Pirate Latitudes, and Jurassic Park are titles I can think of that I have read and enjoyed by him. I don’t approve of his characters’ pottymouths but the stories are great. Robert Heinlein had some weird ideas, some of which come out in some of his books but not all. The same is true of singers and entertainers and sports figures. Just because you’ve gotten good at something (or at least famous for it) doesn’t mean you know anything about anything else.

A charismatic personality that can throw a football and get a pass at cheating in the Super Bowl is not more knowledgeable about life or anything else than I am. Less so, in my opinion, because I don’t cheat at games. (Now that I have said that I will be very surprised if I don’t get a comment defending his cheating and correcting me on the “facts.”) That’s because he is an idol. Carl Sagan, Douglas Adams, Vince Lombardi, Salvador Dali, Maya Angelou, Oscar Wilde, O. Henry, Abraham Lincoln, Robert Heinlein, Bruce Springsteen, Rush Limbaugh, Robert Redford and innumerable others, all idols. I just picked a few at random that sprang to mind but there is a world filled with them out there. They tell you what to think. They tell you what to wear. They tell you, like Maxine Waters, to stir an already boiling pot, in other words, what to do. They tell you how to vote, they tell you a lot of things. Okay. But the average person will never meet their idol. Generally speaking, if you are able to interact with them at all it will only be on a rudimentary level at the best.

I try to never mock or disrespect anyone for doing this. There are people who follow teachers and teaching that are millennia old and the really great truths have been taught by many teachers. My page about the Golden Rule shows several examples.

The difference between these worshippers and myself is that I have a personal experience with God. I repented of my sins and He filled me with His powerful Holy Spirit. I have a continual connection with Him and can commune with Him whenever I need. Just like the idol worshippers, He tells me how to think:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report;
if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

(Php 4:8-9 KJV)

He tells me what to wear:

And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.

(Mar 5:15 KJV)

And how to behave if there is a mob of rioters:

You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice,

(Exo 23:2 ESV)

So you can go and worship whoever you want to, living or dead but don’t belittle and disrespect my knowledge of He that was alive and was dead and is alive forevermore.

Remember, the world is full of Idol Worshippers. Sadly, the church is full of idle worshippers.