GIGO Garbage in, Garbage Out The will vs Human Nature

GIGO

Garbage In Garbage Out

‘The will   vs  Human Nature’

Lately, I’ve been hearing more people, in the media, talking about how we should just let out minds or emotions do what they want. Don’t suppress natural emotions. If you lust, go ahead, if you are angry, be angry, if you hate, go ahead, if you love, love,  if you are attracted, let it out. Why suppress something nataaural as ‘religion’ attempts to do with certain things, because in the end it will just come out anyways.

The focus of these people is on the premise that if we act more ‘natural’ that it would be better for people, that religion seeks, falsely, to suppress normal life.

It’s obvious that those who say these things are more ‘against’ religion than they are for ‘nature’ for most people, when they think about it, know their own human nature well enough to know that you can’t let things in your life ‘run wild’. Let’s look at how ‘nature’ really is. So many people have been addicted to things, from eating, to smoking to drugs and many other things and know what it takes to stop. We all have tendencies to over eat, some people try cigarettes in their life, and some get hooked, some don’t try at all. It’s natural to over do it.

Most men have seen those guys that are so over driven about sex that you wonder if they will rape someone someday. It’s as if they have an obsessively outward nature about it. Other guys desires  are kept more private and respectful. All men have desires but there are different levels, for some reason, hormones and human will?

The point is, should we all just let out minds run wild with stuff? Because we have desires, let nature do what it wants? I say no. I point to the wisdom of Hannibal Lector. Ha ha “We covet what we see every day” in other words, the bad desires are focused on what we have in front of us and as well what we let in. Garbage In Garbage Out. The Bible says you reap what you sow, and “as a man thinks, so is he.” All of life is this way. Other people say GIGO garbage in, garbage out… Please look at these examples if you don’t think so.

Any parent knows that if we don’t govern our children, and just let them watch killing, cursing, fart and burp when they want and do what they want, they become uncontrollable brats and make us miserable. No parent would argue about this, ever. Most kids would wind up in serious trouble without a parent to govern them. Shoot, most kids by the age of 3, would burn the house down, wander into the street or fall down the stairs and die without parents.

Anybody knows that if you think about cake and chocolate all day long, that you will have no will power. Is will power wrong? Should you just eat until you are over-full? What about that stomach of yours that grows with what you stuff into it??? Yes it stretches, and then you want and need more. The same goes with cigarettes, drinking, sex and other desires. If you don’t govern what you put it, you will become obsessive or addictive and sooner or later, not able to live a normal life, without problems, if you let it ‘run wild.’ People say that ‘religion’ and so called ‘good’ people in the world  ‘suppress’ “natural emotions” but they fail miserably to realize one thing … our APPETITES.

Appetites are not desires or needs.

Appetites change and stretch like your stomach, ‘naturally.’ You would not crave pizza if you had never tried it before, but you would be hungry. Also, People that learn to kill, whether a gang member, or a soldier or police have to cross a mental line and then become more comfortable with taking a life. They don't like in initially. Sex is different because it is a basic need for most people, as well as eating, but there are always things that we can obsess over that can cause our ‘appetites’ to expand. Obsessive Appetites are harmful.

So what those people say about, letting it go, and letting our appetites run wild are in essence saying that morals are wrong and animalistic tendencies are better. Don’t let your mind, with reasoning, tell you what is right and wrong, but let your body do what it wants. They say hunger is no different than appetite. They say being gay or lusting after another mans wife is not different than needing sex. All of these are just natural desires and curiosities that vary with everyone. Why not let them out?
Because it is wrong. You are not animals, you are men. You have something the animals don't which is the ability to philosophically understand that you exist and that what you do matters to others. This keeps you from killing and eating other people like an animal might. You can exercise limitation because of your intellect and not just because you are full. 

But if there are limits in the world, limits to how fast you can drive, limits because you can hurt others, limits because of dangerous things, limits of gravity, limits of how long you can breathe under water, limits of what you should say to others, limits to what you eat, drink, consume.. etc… then there are limits in your human nature and appetites as well. You cannot limit that your body likes sex, but you can make choices to limit how much.. Hormonally the average persons blood grows more tame with age, when at 18 years of age you could hardly contain it. But as men no one can argue that arousal, at any age, is made worse with looking at pictures or someone attractive. So you can limit your arousal by NOT LOOKING, you, have the choice… not limiting your need for anything, but understanding that you can keep your APPETITE to a manageable, normal, average place, by using your brain and limiting your actions. This is what religion and most good people are teaching, and not, as some claim that we are restraining normal, natural feelings. God created us with our needs, and the ability to become angry for example, but also gave us a brain to ‘naturally’ work with our needs and govern them. You can’t just say do what you feel like doing, it’s natural and then get on the highway and go 55??? The next time someone says this, hit em on the head and say, I felt like doing that. But there might be consequences so be careful, use some reason, I mean well, don’t think about it too much, just do what comes naturally!!! Even if it means you think or use reason.. ha ha ok never mind..

Some might say, “wait a minute, doesn’t the Bible say… don’t handle, do not taste, do not touch, is NOT the way to handle our desires? Yes, for customs only, but it also says you will reap what you sow, “go forth and sin no more” and “through the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the flesh.” Not perfectness for salvation, or else we would all, never make it but because of the consequences and because God says faith without works is dead. God is after our hearts and our will. And yes we still have to strive for the mark. What Paul was teaching with the ‘do not use’ and ‘touch’ scripture was that we cannot, in our own strength change everything in our nature when it comes to the ‘sin nature’ under the law. Because, like an obsessive appetite it can take over and live through us. ( Rom 7:17)

            But lets look at Col 2 where it talks about this in context.

Col2

20Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Now if you continue to read, which many people don’t.

Col3 1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is your  life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

So just after supposedly saying that “don’t taste, touch, handle” or abstinence is NOT the way to handle your nature he says in verse 5 not to sin??  This bad understanding happens because we are cherry picking scriptures from here and there… Lets read all of Col 2 to see what Paul is saying.

Here is the verses just before Col 2:20

¹⁶ Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. ¹⁷ These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. ¹⁸ Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. ¹⁹ They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.(so here people were disqualifying others because of customs)

²⁰ Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21“Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.

So it is obvious not that he is dealing with the Jewish rules about “days” “eating and drinking” in verse 16. customs, not about sin? God is not saying don’t worry about trying not to sin, you can’t do it. That is a terrible understanding and not in context. God then does turn around and say in Col 3:5 to “put to death things in your earthly nature: sexual immorality” etc… and he talks about the “sins”.

He was speaking to men who are trying to live under Jewish law…not 20^th century 10 commandments that Christians teach.

Again he says in Romans
Rom 7  (about being under the law) 

And Rom 8:13For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

There are many men, without extra help from God, though He created our will, who become great men, climbing Mt. Everest, overcoming their own nature to love or to conquer or become great things. We have a God given will and strength, naturally. Our works(and will) are made or formed(John3:21) in God. The Bible doesn’t teach that we do nothing without the Holy Spirit, in POWER moving us there, only… If so then we would not be walking by faith. So I’m not saying that we can do all things in our own strength, but that we have a natural will and strength from God for choices and action, but that to overcome the greater sin nature, we need extra help from the Holy Spirit.

            So if we HAVE to govern our kids, and we HAVE to govern our own lives and thought -life, then it is a part of ‘nature’ to do so. Our complex brain is a part of ‘nature’, not just our body’s appetites.  Even wild beasts make up their own minds to attack or not, based upon ‘reason’… will I get hurt, will I survive? It’s fight or flight, built into all living creatures, based on needs and appetites, we, as humans, are just at a higher mental level. The question is, are we as smart as the animals are? Make the choice now!