FB = blog fodder

Social media is definitely the craze, not just of millennials, but even Xer's and Boomers, who have a desire to connect with friends and family. One of the fascinating outcomes of Facebook, as a leading social media outlet, is how people express their ideas by borrowing quips from what others are saying. This provides a nice way for people to express their own thoughts in clever ways.

My recent series of blogs have been focusing on the priority of exploring how core assumptions influence people's thoughts, feelings and actions without them ever really knowing it. Core assumptions are stealth, but powerful sense-making foundations of our lives. I have especially focused on the differences in core assumptions that establish how people determine knowledge, truth, faith, and reality. Here are a couple of posts, just today, that make great examples of how Facebook is a "gold mine" for transmitting core assumptions.

Whether you like it or not, your FB posts make you a "carrier of core assumptions." 

People are very drawn to a video of Robin Williams answering the question "If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?" Robin Williams was a popular, funny guy. All kinds of people followed him because of his unique talent as a comedian. When we like someone quite a lot, we tend to give him/her credit for thoughts and ideas that are beyond their expertise. However, in doing so, we tend to embrace or endorse core assumptions that we may not really adhere to if we thought about it more.

Back to the question about Heaven. Robin William's answers were like, "I would want God to have a sense of humor too" and he then illustrates his ideas of Heaven with a few jokes. If we accept what he said, we are basically believing that a person's inferences about an object is what establishes truth about the object. R William's made heaven in his own image, as that of a comedian who used humor to defuse the pain in his life. This aligns with my last blog on core assumptions. One assumption on reality is that truth about an object is based on the quality of the inference an observer makes about the object. This is in contrast that truth about an object is determined by the originator of the object, not the observer.

Wouldn't it have been quite impressive if William's core assumption about existence and truth were the second one. Imagine your excitement about his answer had he said, "the truth about Heaven is best known by the originator of Heaven, so let's ask God how He describes it"? How you responded emotionally to his answer may tell you something about your own core assumptions, not about Heaven, but about truth. Regardless of intention, sharing the video on FB is being a "carrier of core assumptions."

A very dear friend of mine posted this on FB as a share from Purple Clover, the popular source of platitudes on truth. What are the core assumptions associated with believing this? Of course there are assumptions on change, but there is something more here, something more subtle. Actually, there is a core assumption about people that I do not even believe my friend would agree with. However, the cute inference about change is appealing and therefore shared. But what is the effect of the implied assumption about people?

You may agree with me or not, and that is certainly your choice, but it seems to imply that people are basically good and their challenge to living the best life is stripping away all the stuff they have accumulated that stands in their way. It seems to be saying, "just get back to your true self." This is an assumption coming from humanism, not Scripture. We are told in numerous places that in Christ we are a new creation, the old has passed. We are admonished to walk in the newness of life. We are shown the contrast between walking in the flesh and walking in the Spirit. We are told that in our human nature, we are alive to sin and dead to righteousness. 

If we are a Christian, would finding this platitude appealing settle our mind and emotions on the wrong core assumption? Would believing that we are basically good eliminate the need for a Savior? Of course, it may mean to a Christian that we now have a "true self" that has been transformed by God and our identity is now in Christ. In this case the platitude would be encouraging us to quit living beneath the privilege we now have in our new nature.

Sharing platitudes that make people feel good may in fact be making us a "carrier of deceptive core assumptions."  

 
It is a social media caution certainly worth pondering ......