Now would be a really good time to evaluate whether your beliefs come from a careful investigation of facts and data within an atmosphere of freedom, or through the psychological manipulation that is popularly known as gaslighting.
It really is a simple test.
Pick one of your beliefs. The Wuhan virus, the untested vaccines, belief in evolution vs creation or atheism vs God. Now replay how you came to your conclusions.
Have you examined both sides of the issue, honestly examining the data and facts that each side presents? Have you felt like you had the freedom to explore both sides without prejudice and settle which way the data and facts point without fear of censoring, ridicule, or rejection if you conclude one side rather than the other?
What about the biggest issue of all, the question of whether life arose by mindless chance that leaves us without accountability to anyone, or by deliberate act of the Creator to whom we will all give account one day. Did you come to a conclusion by having the freedom to explore all the facts and come to your own conclusions, or did you come to a belief because you were directed there by the dissing, ridiculing, mocking and rejecting that was aimed at one viewpoint?
For me, I have had to come to beliefs about life under the reign of gaslighting over everything. One side has consistently presented facts, data and evidence with a sense of offering me the opportunity to look at it and come to whatever conclusion seems right to me, albeit with a strong sense of love hoping I would see the good of what they believe.
The other side, even from my youngest years of childhood, demanded agreement through the exact psychological manipulation we are witnessing in high gear today. I was called to believe things, not on the basis of facts, data and evidence, but on anger if I didn’t comply, mocking of anyone who would so stupidly believe the other viewpoint, threats of disowning if I chose one side over the other, and experiences of disowning and rejection when I concluded that the evidence contradicted the gaslighters’ claims.
Here are my conclusions:
God has shone his light on my path even in the midst of all the gaslighters’ attempts to steal, kill and destroy my knowledge of the truth. With God’s safeness surrounding me, I have been able to respond to his invitation of, “Come now, let us reason together, says Yahweh: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”[1]
When all the facts, data and evidence are examined together, and all the gaslighters’ psychological manipulation is ignored, the Bible stands triumphantly above every communication the world has ever expressed. When the gaslighting is removed from the declarations of the opposers, their arguments do not hold up to the light of God’s word.
The evidence constantly declares that we were created by the deliberate intention and activity of the God revealed in the Bible. The geology of the planet gives ample witness to the worldwide flood described in God’s Book, proving that what God has written is just that, the word of God.
And all the eye-witness evidence surrounding the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead proves him true as the Resurrection and the Life, the only name given to men by which we must be saved. Yes, people will mock the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, not because it lacks evidence, but because it demands accountability.
It is no surprise that God’s Book includes its own prophecies regarding today’s gaslighting escapades. God states, “In the last time there will be scoffers (gaslighters), following their own ungodly passions.”[2] He says, “knowing this first of all, that scoffers (gaslighters) will come in the last days with scoffing (gaslighting), following their own sinful desires.”[3]
The question then is, have any of us picked sides on an issue based on avoiding the scoffing, ridiculing, gaslighting threats directed at one viewpoint?
My contribution to helping everyone with this is to testify that it is possible to avoid the psychological manipulation of the gaslighters, get alone with our thoughts, examine all the evidence for God, creation, the flood, and the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and come to our own conclusions about everything so we know we are willing to stand before the Creator in the judgment and take full responsibility for what we believe.
And, of course, I would be quite happy to share my journey from gaslighters’ bondage to freedom in Christ with anyone who would like a safe environment to think these things through.
© 2021 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English
Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition:
2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News
Publishers.)
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