AGEISM IS THE NEW RACISM
by Dr. Robert D. Hosken
"Ageism is just as much a subconscious bias as is racism." This is a quotation from the conclusion of my M.Th. thesis that I recently completed: you can find it in the middle of this paragraph, where it delves into the implications of St. Augustine's misinterpretation of Romans 5:12 that became the foundation for his doctrine of predestination. Read it!
Predestination is a form of fatalism: that's just the way God made you and there is nothing you can do about it, it's your fate. What does predestination have to do with ageism? Like racism, which is too often so embedded in our culture that we are unconscious of it, ageism is a subconscious bias. Western Christianity has trained us to think in terms of "the elect" versus "the damned" or "us" versus "them" – "we" are the good guys and "they" are the bad guys. Human differences such as age or race or nationality or religion or political positions can often divide people into "us" versus "them." We want to associate with people who are "like us."
Racism has become a hot topic in the U.S., so now it's "cool" to be anti-racist. But most people are still totally unaware of their ageism bias. Many children and younger adults feel somewhat uncomfortable around elderly people and avoid them. Why? Because they're different. This is the same reason that many people avoid disabled people or poor people: we don't want to think about falling into poverty, or having an accident or illness that leaves ourselves disabled, or growing old and dying. Psychologists call this "the normalcy bias" - when things are going well for us, we want to think that our situation is "normal" and things will always continue on as normal, being just like they always have been.
But what is the result of this subconscious bias of ageism? When we are in a group of people and see an older person, we might tend to look the other way, we turn to talk with someone else, in other words, we ignore "those people." It sometimes even comes out in crude, hurtful words such as – "You're using up too much Social Security!" or "You're breathing our oxygen!" – both which are just another way of saying – "I wish you were dead!" Christina Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund has been quoted as saying, "Old people live too long and this is a risk for the global community."
As I have mentioned before, to hate someone doesn't need to result in doing mean things or saying such crude, hurtful words. The word "hate" in Russian is "nenavidet" which translated literally is "not look at" or in other words, to look the other way, to ignore someone. Elderly people who are placed in nursing homes and don't receive visits from family or friends can sometimes die of loneliness, a real diagnosis that doctors can put on a death certificate. You don't have to shoot, stab or poison someone to hate or kill him – just ignore him! I saw a sign once in a dentist's office – "Ignore your teeth and they'll go away." And if you ignore elderly people, they'll go away too, but sometimes not without a struggle.
In psychology, there is a phenomenon called "spread" – for example, someone sees a person with Down syndrome and subconsciously thinks of him as "a mongoloid idiot." Some people with Down syndrome, however, have a higher education and successful careers, but the stereotype image of the Mongol-like flattened facial shape is often associated with mental disability, so people "spread" the latter condition to everyone having the former condition. The same is true of ageism: when people think of growing old (which they try not to think of!), they have a mental image of someone who is experiencing mental decline, is forgetful, unstable on his feet, or likely has one disability or another: "One foot in the grave" is a common expression. But there are many older people who go to the gym or exercise outdoors and whose minds are sharp and their bodies are healthy. In Job 12:2-4a we read: "No doubt, but you are the people, And wisdom shall die with you. But I have understanding as well as you; I am not Inferior to you: Yes, who doesn't know such things as these? I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor." Job’s friends thought he was less than human or stupid, a butt of jokes: he must have done something bad for all those calamities to come on him. Don't spread!
My wife Cheryl is a nurse who has worked occasionally in nursing homes: she loves to listen to the older folks' stories. Their lives are full of stories, they have experienced some amazing things and learned valuable lessons – they want to tell their story to someone before they pass away. They are lonely. So Cheryl sits with them and listens. It's good therapy... for both of them! And the elderly just might have some gems of wisdom to share with the younger generations that could save them a great deal of pain, distress, and expense! Job 12:12 states: "With aged men is wisdom, In length of days understanding." Recall the saying – "He who will not learn from the mistakes of history is bound to repeat them." Both euthanasia and abortion are a denial of the sacredness of human life because we are not just animals or assets and liabilities on a balance sheet, we are created in God's image to be able to partake of the Divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).
In Acts ch. 19, we read about how the Apostle Paul preached the Gospel in Ephesus, it rankled "a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen" (v. 24). Artemis was a sex goddess, similar to the pagan fertility goddess Astarte in the Old Testament. Pagan idol worship was quite often linked to temple prostitution and human sacrifice because polytheism leads to polyamory (polygamy, polyandry, and homosexual acts) and the sacrifice of unwanted babies to Moloch: what you really believe determines how you behave. We read about this evil practice in the OT book of 2 Kings 23:6-7 (ERV) – "Josiah removed the Asherah pole from the Lord's Temple. He took the Asherah pole outside the city to the Kidron Valley and burned it there. Then he beat the burned pieces into dust and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. Then King Josiah broke down the houses of the male prostitutes who were in the Lord's Temple. Women also used these houses and made little tent covers to honor the false goddess Asherah." The Asherah pole was a phallic symbol used for pagan worship that included prostitution and homosexual acts.
Demetrius and his fellow-craftsmen made a good deal of money off idolatry and the sex trade linked to it, and didn't want their business threatened – "Not only is there danger that this our trade come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be counted as nothing, and her majesty destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worships" (v. 27). This led to a huge riot in the city of Ephesus. In today's terms, the pagan practice of abortion and selling slaughtered babies' body parts is big business, so limiting it really upsets both the sex addicts and the moneymakers. Moneygrubbing is also involved in the euthanasia of elderly and disabled people who "cost too much to keep alive" – so an overdose of narcotics "will take care of that problem."
Human life must be considered sacred from conception to natural death. The recent U.S. Supreme Court's decision that cancels the Roe v. Wade ruling has caused a great uproar of rioting leftists who for the past five decades have aided and abetted the murder of over 63,000,000 unborn babies (and an unknown number of babies born alive after surviving attempted abortions). That would come to over 1,200,000 people being murdered every year for the past five decades: if we think of it in terms of one major city in the U.S. being obliterated every year for 50 years, we begin to comprehend the awful, enormous, horrifying magnitude of this genocide. And because a disproportionately high percentage of these murders are Afro-Americans, we should consider it a form of ethnic cleansing. America needs to repent of and stop these pagan atrocities! Find out more here: Here's How to Reach the World.
(Also available as a PDF at www.Agape-Biblia.org/literatura/#ageism.)
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