The Avoidance Strategy 1

Date:   Category: faith
Galileo showed the Truth but many are avoiding it. Image by DALL-E AI
Galileo showed the Truth but many are avoiding it. Image by DALL-E AI

Are the heavenly beings close-minded? Is the training in heaven for the beings to be close-minded? GOD knows everything, yet knows how to listen, even with humans’ imperfections. King Solomon is righteous and is the wisest of all men, yet he knows how to listen to his people. What lesson can we learn from the story of Job with GOD? What kind of mindset is that in which it trains others to close their minds and presume their doctrine is the Golden Standard? If their doctrine is the Golden Standard, why does it create a lot of divisions and denominations? Is it the church or the mindset of the people which is the problem? What is the Avoidance Strategy and its Tactics?

Before describing their Avoidance Strategy, let us apply Reverse Psychology to convey the correct behavior when standing for the Truth. In our hypothetical situation, you founded a religion based on the Truth that the Earth is round. Somebody challenges your doctrine and proclaims that the Earth is flat. On your side, because you are confident that your doctrine stands for the Truth that the Earth is round, you allow your parishioners to read the articles and publications of the opposition proclaiming the Earth is flat. Standing for the Truth that the Earth is round, there’s no issue in trying to listen to the point of the opposition as to why the Earth is flat for them. Having listened to their arguments, you have found their claim is faulty and told them where the errors are, so the opposition cannot blame you for not listening. The point is that if you stand for the Truth, it is not an issue to listen and try to understand the point of the other side.

In reality, a situation arises when their doctrines have loopholes. Some do not want people to see the errors of their doctrine. Some will result in brainwashing people to keep people away from the Truth. It leads to the Avoidance Strategy, where the context is to keep people away from the Truth that their doctrine is a fallacy. You may notice that I’ve kept using “Some” because we cannot generalize institution, organization, or person because it is a matter of case-to-case basis (it is relevant to keep this in mind while reading this post). Again, we are not generalizing. This post will focus on different tactics used under this Avoidance Strategy. The tactics are pushed either by their religion or self-imposed by people who are on self-denial in accepting the Truth, or other people influencing others to avoid them from seeing the Truth, or others who are simply close-minded with their presumption that their doctrine is the Golden Standard.

In 1616, the Roman Catholic Church officially imposed condemnation of the Heliocentrism Model of Galileo Galilei. As a result, people are restricted from understanding it because it is heretical to do so. People did not have that opportunity to fully understand the logic behind and keep inside the box of their doctrine, as discussed in The Box Effect. post. It is an example of how a religious institution imposes avoidance to keep people within the box of their doctrine so that people will think that their doctrine is the golden standard. Imagine, if all people closed their minds because the Roman Catholic Church has already had a trial for that case, we would get stuck up in this wrong geostatic and geocentric model of the Roman Catholic interpretation of the Old Testament. Considering that the Old Testament originated from Judaism, where its real name is Tanakh, specifically expounding the Torah. Now, the question is why Judaism did not make the same mistake as the Roman Catholic Church. Torah originated in Oral Tradition as Moses went down from Mt. Sinai. He only brought Two Stone Tablets containing the Ten Commandments, so the details are in Moses’ mind. Moses had to discuss the case-to-case basis and explanations orally. As time passed, this Oral Torah got written down into what is now known as the Written Torah. The Roman Catholic doctrine only took the Written Torah (renamed as the Old Testament), bypassing the interpretation of the Oral Torah that allowed them to create their interpretations, formulations, and doctrines leading to erroneous claims, such as the case of Galileo Galilei concerning Helicentrism Model.

Some parishioners stand for their religion and show loyalty. That is why the psychology of those types is that they avoid listening to those who oppose their church’s doctrines, resulting in avoidance. They use this loyalty/solidarity tactic as an avoidance to keep their mental state thinking that their doctrine remains the golden standard, but what have we learned from the lesson of the story of Galileo Galilei? Does the loyalty and solidarity tactic make the Earth immovable, geostatic, and geocentric? Loyalty or Solidarity has no bearing on the Truth, and Truth is still the Truth regardless of their Loyalty or Solidarity. Usually, this takes effect in a group because it provides them validation for their loyalty/solidarity tactic in avoiding the Truth. Of course, it can also happen to an individual inflicting self-imposed validation to avoid listening to the Truth and to close their mind. Personally, it is an important lesson I’ve learned from Galileo’s Galilei struggle that even if the world does not believe in the Truth that whistleblower delivers, it is still the Truth; even if the whole world believes in their lies, their lies are still lies regardless they treat it as the golden standard doctrine, as reflected in The Santa Claus Effect.

Some may argue that they have accepted that the Earth is round, not flat, and rotates around the Sun, not the Sun that rotates around Earth and is not immovable. Yes, that is the argument, but it is just the acceptance of the facts because the real lesson here is not to close the mind within the box of their doctrine. The facts are not the lesson, but it is how people should think when someone whistleblows because of the loopholes found, and when it happens, people should not close their minds and listen to see why someone whistleblows against their doctrine. Listening and understanding the argument why other sees their doctrine has loopholes. It is a repeating event under the Roman Catholic doctrine which is why it generated a lot of divisions and denominations having opposing doctrines, traditions, beliefs, and other areas relating to Faith. This repetition alone should send a signal to everyone not to close their minds when someone whistleblows against the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. Those people should allocate space in their minds to listen and understand. Now, after listening to and truly understanding the point of the whistleblower, and not just mere listening but the mind already pre-judged, there will come a point where you need to decide whether the world is flat or round. The point is we allocate space to listen and are not biased so that we will be able to see the Truth.

In Job 1-42, Job is a blameless and upright person. Through his tragic, painful, and sorrowful experiences, he complains to GOD and requests to argue with Him to present his case. We all know that GOD is Perfect and Omniscient (all-knowing), making GOD the true golden standard. Since GOD is the golden standard, did GOD close His mind to Job’s argument? In the story, GOD listens to Job’s arguments and is not biased toward him. Even the Perfect GOD knows how to listen, so it is wrong for those who defend false doctrine to refuse to listen to critiques of their doctrines and remain biased. They should learn to listen and understand so that they can recognize errors and make the necessary amendments to align with the Truth. It is not a demand but it is the right thing to do.

In this post, we have learned that it is not right to be biased and close-minded against the errors of the Roman Catholic doctrine, and I think a lot of Christian denominations would agree. If we have closed our minds because the doctrine of the Roman Catholic had proclaimed it as heretical, what happened to our modern science? Or will it get stuck with the word science without the word modern? We should be thankful to those people who are not close-minded and stand against the false doctrine to push science to what it is now. Imagine those lost centuries if people were not controlled/restricted and avoided the Heliocentrism Model, the accumulation of space exploration within those centuries would have been exponential. Perhaps we would have reached a planet rich in oil, maximized renewable energy, or reached a planet rich in resources that would make the commodity here on Earth affordable to everyone. Controlling people to avoid understanding the Truth is not the right way because even GOD knows how to listen. Of course, we are not implying that we should listen to everything, our context here is listening and understanding the arguments regarding the loopholes of the Roman Catholic doctrine. I recommend reading Chapter 14 Misconceptions of the free book Save Our Souls , which exposes the loopholes of the Roman Catholic doctrines. There are a lot of tactics under the Avoidance Strategy and this post will become lengthy if we elaborate on it, so we will have those details in our next post Avoidance Strategy 2.

May GOD bless you for not being close-minded, not biased, and for reading this post.

References

  1. https://ahavahpublisher.com/book/ “Save Our Souls. Fritz Jeran Velasco, 2024”