Red or blue? Right or left? They're both wrong.

Ecclesiastes 12:10 The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words, and that which was written blamelessly, words of truth. 11 The words of the wise are like goads; and like nails well fastened are words from the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. (Scripture quotations from the World English Bible, public domain)

It's dangerous to read too much into a Bible passage, but this one seems to be saying that there is really only one source of truth, one shepherd. Others may speak, or write, but what they say should be measured against Christ's character and His teachings.

It is unfortunately true that one of the results of the multiplication of media outlets is that people can pick some that match their biases and predispositions, or their religion or race, and never even see or hear from other sources that may disagree. This was illustrated by a recent report in Wired. The author decided to "like" everything he saw in Facebook, including things that he definitely didn't like, to see what would happen. He reports "As day one rolled into day two, I began dreading going to Facebook. It had become a temple of provocation. Just as my News Feed had drifted further and further right, so too did it drift further and further left." In other words, what he saw matched what Facebook thought he really did like. In this case, the author was seeing bias in both directions, but most Facebook users, perhaps unconsciously, have their information and opinion sources tilted in only one direction. We tend to watch, read and listen to news sources that agree with our previous opinions.

So who is right? Whoops! Who is correct?

Both the right and the left, the red and the blue, are wrong.

A few years ago, this blog noted that abortion seemed to have suddenly ceased being the most important political issue for conservative Christians, and had been replaced by immigration concerns. Why? The influence of Lou Dobbs and other TV commentators. But the most important source of the political inspiration of Christians should be the Bible, not media personalities.

Both the left and the right, the red and the blue, are wrong. How?

* The right tends to ignore the plight of the poor, minorities, and otherwise less powerful people, including immigrants. For the Christian, there should be sympathy for immigrants, illegal or not, and concern for their spiritual and economic welfare. The Old Testament speaks about being kind to strangers. So does the New. Leviticus 19:33 "If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you lived as foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God." Injustice and racism are wrong. Psalm 72 speaks of the role of government (in that case, King David, who was the government) in helping and protecting the poor.
* The right tends to believe that the way to solve many problems is to send in troops, or to use bombs, or to use, sell or give away more weapons and ammunition. It seems to forget that Christ didn't say "stand your ground," but "turn the other cheek." How much violence in other countries would never have happened without US military aid? How many repressive dictatorships has such aid propped up? Too many.
* The right believes that the most important political and economic solutions are to cut taxes, if possible to zero, and to let the free enterprise system have unregulated license to act in the best interests of the stockholders. The free enterprise system has its place, but it has led to pollution and other problems. It bears at least some of the blame for the recent recession, where the US economy declined by about a third in the space of a year of so. Taxes are needed for roads and other infrastructure, for funding regulatory agencies, for public schools, for paying police, firefighters, and troops, (and politicians -- including those who want to cut taxes!) and for other things.

* The left seems to want to ignore Biblical teachings on sex and marriage. Homosexual activity is wrong. (See here). Many Christians, and others, believe that abortion is murder. (See here.)
* The left seems to want to ignore property rights. Although the New Testament says very little about property, the Old Testament indicates that it was very important to the Jews, and taking someone's property without just compensation is just as wrong as denying someone a job because of their ethnic background.
* The left seems to believe that the most important political and economic solutions are to increase government size and the amount of government regulation. Government agencies have their place -- I'm grateful for the Social Security Administration, for example -- but they also tend to get mired down in red tape, and submit to the wishes of special interests, rather than doing what they were originally supposed to do. And government does cost money, lots of it.

God help me to take a Biblical position, if I need to take a political position at all. The left and right are both partly wrong, in serious ways. Thanks for reading.

Added January 8, 2015: I have analyzed what's wrong with the political left and right, in considerably more depth.

To Grandmother's: A Cautionary Tale

She was a good girl, and she loved her grandmother. Her mother called her away from the TV, and said, "Your grandmother is sick. Please go over there and take this basket for her. I'll call and tell her to unlock the door for you."

She took the basket, which had bananas, chocolate candy, and other attractive goodies, and went through the alleys and the empty lots to her grandmother's house.

On the way, she met a wolf. Now, she hadn't read the right stories, and so she didn't know he was a wolf, but he had, and he was. He politely asked her where she was going. She gave him the address. The wolf said, "Have a nice walk!" and scooted off to the address by way of a couple of dark shortcuts.

Now, depending on whether you have read this story in the KJV or the NIV*, the wolf either:
1) ate the grandmother, and put on her nightclothes, or
2) scared the grandmother into enough health that she ran out of the house, grabbing her cell phone on the way out.

The wolf scrounged around in a drawer or two until he had something to wear that looked like what the grandmother had been wearing. When she came to the door, and, like the wolf, found it open, she came in. The wolf was lying in the bed, pretending to be her grandmother.

Well, the stories say that he told her that his voice was low because he was hoarse from being sick, that his eyes were big so he could see her, and that his ears were big so he could hear her, and that his teeth were big so he could eat her. After that, either he did eat her (KJV) or she ran away, and got a cop to come in and finish off the wolf (NIV). The cop was already on the way there, after 911 was finally convinced that the grandmother, though hysterical, had called in a real emergency.

Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous? What granddaughter with an IQ higher than that of a pickled pig's foot would confuse her grandmother and a wolf, under any circumstances? None, that's who. So what did go on in Little Red Riding Hood's brain? (Whoops--I gave it away . . . ) What went on in Little Red Riding Hood's brain is that she found the wolf strangely attractive. If she hadn't, she would have known that it wasn't her grandmother after the first question, even if the bedroom was totally dark. So she just hung around, when she should have run out of there at top speed.

James says that we are "drawn away of . . . [our] own lust, and enticed." (1:14, KJV) That's what really happened to Little Red Riding Hood. May I be certain that it never happens to me.

This post combines (sort of) two series, one on colors, and one on temptations. I plan to continue both.

*See here for one version of the story, in which LRRH is surgically released from the wolf, after being swallowed. Here's another, in which the wolf just eats her.

* * * * *

Our youngest daughter suggested that I would be interested in the James Thurber and Roald Dahl versions of LRRH. I was. Both of them involve pistols, which is not characteristic of our pacifist daughter. She also suggested the Steven Sondheim "Into the Woods" lyrics, which have LRRH speaking here. (Scroll the text, or search for LRRH). Thanks!

I also made one correction above, and am reposting and changing the date and time.

Colors: Red

I know that there are people who can't see at all, and people who can't see all the colors. I'm not grateful enough for the ability to see, and to see color.

Red is a popular color. The Wikipedia has a good article on it. There are positive and negative associations with the color. U. S. stop signs are red. A person who is angry is sometimes described as "seeing red." Teachers often grade papers with red markers. We eat (or don't) red meat.

The national flags of Canada, China, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States all use red, as do those of other countries. That of China, the world's most populous country, is almost all red.

Blood is often described as red. However, only oxygenated blood is red. I've given blood, or had blood drawn, many times, and such blood is dark red, or reddish brown, because it comes from veins, where it has less oxygen. The red cells of blood are very important, although they have basically only one function. That function is to furnish oxygen to the other cells of the body. Hemoglobin is the molecule in red cells that carries oxygen. When oxygen combines with the iron in hemoglobin, the hemoglobin has a red color.

Some of the largest stars are called red giants. They are cooler than most other stars.

Many flowers are red. Red roses, of course, are associated with Valentine's Day.

Bees aren't able to see the color red. (They can see ultraviolet, which we can't see.)

Red in the Bible
The Bible uses red in a number of ways, or to stand for a number of things, as we do today. Here are some of those.

The Israelites crossed the Red sea. The Wikipedia article on that body of water indicates that the name may be a mistranslation of Reed sea, or may be because of seasonal algal blooms of a red color, or may be because of red-colored mountains near it. Over half of the occurrences of "red" in scripture refer to that crossing.

Red was significant in Jewish ceremonial law. God directed that some of the covering of the tabernacle be skins dyed red. (There are five statements about this, from Exodus 25:5 to 39:34.) God specified that a red heifer be used to prepare the water for cleansing those who had been ceremonially unclean (Numbers 19).

Zachariah 1:8 and 6:2, and Revelation 6:4 prophesy about a man riding a red horse, as symbolic of war. The man in Revelation (perhaps also in Zechariah) is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Isaiah said that though sins were red like crimson, they could be as white as wool. That's interesting, because, in both the Old and New Testaments, blood was used in atonement for sin. So, symbolically speaking, red sin can be washed with red blood, and becomes white!

Red or reddish-brown, Christ's blood was the most precious substance in earth's history.

Infrared
The visible colors are only a small part (less than an octave) of the electromagnetic spectrum. Infrared light is a little redder than red, so to speak. Better put, its waves are of a slightly lower frequency, and a slightly longer wavelength, than red light. Infrared is also called radiant heat.

Some animals are able to perceive infrared light. They aren't able to do this with their eyes, but with other specialized organs. Humans can perceive infrared light with special instruments, which are used in hunting at night, night photography, and in warfare

Red and Valentine's Day
I'm not certain why the color red came to be associated with valentine's day. My guess is that the association is related to the heart, the blood-pumping organ, which is often thought of as the seat of the emotions. The heart isn't really the seat of the emotions, and it doesn't really look like a valentine. It doesn't have a sharp point at one end, and two equal curves at the other. I wonder where the valentine shape comes from. Here's a theory on that, involving a flower.