The Highly False Sense of Entitlement

Learning from history.

We all claim to do it, and yet ignorance of history seems at an all time high today.  The reason?  History shows one certain constant:  With affluence comes apathy.  Apathy toward others, and most importantly apathy toward God.  Societies, Civilizations, and nations have come and gone, and the constant?  The relative affluence for either the leaders or the society in general that leads to the apathy and a sense of selfish entitlement.  And in this day and age, the barrage of false narratives and/or spin in media and government outlets shows that a lie is perfectly acceptable if it accomplishes the goal of getting what our selfish, agenda and politically driven desires are.

Everyone wants to claim a sense of entitlement, and if they are not claiming it for themselves, they are accusing others of it.  We go back generations to dredge up wrongs committed by certain groups of people to show that we have been wronged, and "they" owe us now.  And often, the claim of being owed for some past wrong comes at the expense of a complete rejection of the laws of the land, often leading to theft, destruction, and even murder.  We've become a lawless society, simply because we too often do not follow our own laws, and ignore it when others fail to do the same.

Actor Dean Cain commented a few days ago something to the effect that here in America, it's amazing how much we can fight over things that are just plain dumb, while much of the rest of the world simply struggles to live and survive.  The country of South Sudan would be a prime example:  the genocide and famine there that has virtually destroyed the new country is beyond comprehension.  My observations are that in our society, we have reached an all time high at doing just that:  arguing and fighting over things that are simply not worthy and often not true, believing that someone else owes us something for some past wrong.  Let me be clear:  We are owed nothing, right or wrong, because in the end, we are as guilty of wrongs committed as the wrongs we accuse others of!  In addition to this highly false sense of entitlement, we are reveling in our relative affluence (and even the poorest among us are often better off than most in 3rd world countries today).  As a result, we are becoming completely apathetic toward our fellow human beings, the rule of law, and what our charters of freedom identify as the source of those laws (and freedoms):  God.

My original field of study was geology.  I spent 7 years and two degrees (not to mention a great deal of money) to essentially pursue a career that never came to pass, and in part because I began to notice just how much science, humanities, the arts, and such had all gone from being pursuits that were often paralleling theology to becoming humanistic pursuits that ignored the very concept of God altogether.  Philosophy, like geology, over the past 150 or so years has done the very same thing.  This may explain why the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books, despite it's rather dark nature.  It also does not attempt to divorce the questions "what is the purpose of man?" and "why are we here?" from the reality of God's existence.

Ecclesiastes begins with the premise that "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun."  We may indeed have developed "new" things and "new" technologies, but in the end, it is just becoming more efficient at things already done.  We are far more effective at destroying our world and the people in it, but it is still destruction, in the end:  that which we have done for millennia.  Part of his conclusion?

So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless.  

In his pursuits of denying himself nothing, seeking wisdom, undertaking great projects, amassing great wealth, and the like, it was all motivated out of a sense of selfish desire.  His ultimate conclusion is that we are owed nothing by no one (including God), and therefore what we have (which comes by God's hand) should be enjoyed as such - not seeking to "keep up with the Jones's" but simply to enjoy whatever we have as the gift of God, and to always remember that all things come from God's hand.  Or as a commentary states:  "Life not centered on God is purposeless and meaningless. Without him, nothing else can satisfy (2:25). With him, all of life and his other good gifts are to be gratefully received (see Jas 1:17) and used and enjoyed to the full (2:26; 11:8). The book presents the philosophical and theological reflections of a typical person (12:1–7), most of whose life was meaningless because he had not himself relied on God." (Hoeber, R. G. (1997). Concordia self-study Bible (electronic ed., Ec). St. Louis: Concordia Pub. House.)

So how do we overcome all this?  Does this false sense of being owed something ever end?  Will it, like so many nations, kingdoms, and empires before us, destroy us in the end?  Will we continue to descend into chaos and anarchy?  Or can something turn it around before it is too late to prevent?  Two things must happen:  One is that others must become more important to us than we ourselves are.  It's NOT about me.  It's about others before self.  That's a basic Biblical perspective.  And speaking of the Bible, we've got to stop attempting to kill the God of the Bible off in society, especially at the expense of the many false gods we claim today.  And this is the eventual outcome whenever we make anything, especially our own selfish interests, more important than God in life.