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COVID and the Manipulation of Your Mind – Part 2

COVID and the Manipulation of Your Mind – Part 2

Healthy Versus Unhealthy Decision-Making

This is the second entry in our blog series based on the program COVID and the Manipulation of Your Mind, which I presented on July 15, 2022, at the United Healthcare Summit. In the previous Part 1 blog, we examined the differences between a healthy and unhealthy mind. In this blog, we will examine the differences between healthy and unhealthy decision-making and what undermines healthy decision-making; and in our final blog in this series, I will outline a nine-step process used to manipulate minds and get people to make decisions they would not otherwise make.

Decision-making is not the choice itself but the process one employs when making a choice. An unhealthy process increases the frequency of unhealthy choices. A healthy process doesn’t mean one will never make an unhealthy choice, but it does decrease the frequency of unhealthy choices.

Ten Principles for Healthy Decision-Making
  1. Begins with a calm and honest mind

    Healthy decision-making begins with a mind that is calm and is willing to be honest about whatever is being examined and considered. In other words, healthy decision-making starts with a healthy mind that is honest with the data and is willing to be corrected by evidence and truth.

  2. Has a mature goal of desiring objective truth and healthy results

    Healthy decision-making seeks not only to understand the truth, but also to apply it in meaningful ways that would result in objectively healthy outcomes. The goal is improvement; growth; development; and advancement in health, wellness, ability, skill, wisdom, talent, love, relationships, community, etc.

  3. Understands the principles involved in the problem

    Healthy decision-making on any subject requires one to have some working knowledge of the principles involved in that subject. If making decisions about aircraft wings, one must have some knowledge of the principles of aerodynamics, physics, material stress tolerances, etc.

  4. Gathers relevant data, weighing its reliability

    Healthy decision-making is informed with the most accurate, reliable, and relevant information that is reasonably attainable. Thus, one actively seeks evidence, data, information, and then weighs the source and the reliability of the data, prioritizes it, and forms a conclusion based on the most relevant, accurate, and reliable integration of the facts possible.

  5. Differentiates fact from fiction and opinion

    Healthy decision-making is based upon facts, evidence, objective reality, and not upon wishful thinking, fantasy, claims, or proclamations. Healthy decisions are not formed from hysteria, distress, fright, nor are they determined by popular or expert opinion. Discernment differentiates facts and evidence from the interpretations and conclusions of others based upon those facts or evidences being understood through the principles of God’s kingdom.

  6. Weighs risks versus benefits

    Healthy decision-making will consider the potential outcomes of the various choices, weigh the risks versus the benefits, and decide if the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks. Healthy decision-making chooses the path with the greatest likely benefits and the least significant and likely risks.

  7. Makes a decision and then evaluates the outcome, applying the new data that results from the choice

    The healthy process of decision-making will, after making the decision, step back and evaluate the outcome—i.e., see what happened. One will then honestly and as accurately as possible incorporate that new information into one’s understanding and then …

  8. Updates one’s decision-making with the new information

    After making a choice and evaluating the outcome, a healthy decision-making process is eager to update one’s understanding and make new decisions based on the new information, and then, reassess that outcome and update again.

  9. Invites honest critique and tolerates rejection

    A healthy decision-making process invites outside review, critique, examination, and questions because the person with a healthy mind wants truth and understands others may see things that they do not see and such review will refine understanding, expose errors, affirm accurate conclusions, and ultimately improve the position. But healthy decision-making retains the authority of one’s own decisions with oneself and, therefore, will tolerate rejection, not changing one’s choice simply to avoid rejection but choosing what is most consistent with truth and God’s principles despite the negative feedback, hostility, and rejection.

  10. Respects other’s individuality and leaves them free

    The healthy decision-making process also respects others and recognizes that others have their own unique individuality, life experiences, values, morals, priorities, and stand in a different position in life, see things from a different angle, and may examine the exact set of facts and conclude that for them a completely different action is best in their life than what you believe is best in your life.


What Impairs Healthy Decision-Making

Let’s now turn our attention to factors that interfere with one’s ability to make a healthy, mature, and informed choice.

Powerful emotions—especially fear

While all-powerful emotions can impair healthy decision-making (just consider someone who is infatuated), the most reliable emotion to use to manipulate a group of people and impair group decision-making is fear.

When we are afraid, the brain’s fear circuits fire and impair the functioning of the critical-reasoning centers and people either freeze, flee, or fight. This is one of the reasons the media constantly bombards us with fear-based messaging of all kinds; the more fearful, the less capable people are of critical reasoning.

Dishonest attitudes and prejudices

If a person comes to a question, situation, or problem with preconceived ideas, prejudices, biases, a closed mind, and negative attitudes toward the issue or people under consideration, then their ability to appropriately weigh the evidence, consider alternative views, and prioritize facts is undermined and healthy decision-making is impaired.

Unreliable information and propaganda

The effectiveness of our decision-making is dependent upon the quality of the information upon which the choice is based. If our decisions are based upon falsehoods, misinformation, and propaganda, then the choice we make, even if it is correctly reasoned through (i.e., is a rational choice given the believed facts), is much more likely to turn out to be harmful, unhealthy, wrong, and incorrect. This is what has happened to many people during the COVID crisis. They made decisions based on faulty information and propaganda; had the information been true and reliable, then their choice would have been healthy, but because the information was false, the choice for many has turned out to be harmful.

Trusting the untrustworthy

To the degree you trust the input of someone who is untrustworthy, whether they are malevolent and lying or benevolent but don’t know what they are doing or have faulty information, then your decision-making will be undermined. This is why every person must think for themselves, evaluate the data and facts for themselves, and come to their own conclusion about what is best in their circumstance. Just as the Bible says, every person must be fully persuaded in their own mind (Romans 14:5).

Group pressure

Peer pressure, the sense that everyone else thinks differently than you do, that you are the odd one out on your own, undermines healthy decision-making. With increasing peer pressure, the choice is shifted away from the facts, evidences, logic, rational and to the anxiety that comes from rejection, isolation, and being alienate from the group. The security of the collective, the reassurance and affirmation of others, becomes part of the decision-making and will often eclipse the truth and evidence. People will prioritize feeling a part of a group, holding onto a sense of security found in the agreement of others over their own understanding of the situation. When it seems that the vast majority of other people, and especially experts who are perceived as knowing more than you, are drawing a different conclusion, it can cause one to doubt one’s own conclusion. The healthy approach is to examine the reasons that others believe as they do and compare those reasons with your own and weigh the reliability of the evidences, facts, principles, methods, and motives, and decide if there is a good reason to change your view. But it is unhealthy to change your view simply to be accepted by, or conform to, a group.

Censored information

This is similar to propaganda but also slightly different. Censored information may be, for what is presented, 100 percent factual and accurate, but other exculpatory information is left out that would change your conclusion. To the degree the information we have is censored and we are prevented from knowing the full facts, our decision-making is undermined. For instance, if you were told the verified benefits of a medicine but the real and known danger that the medicine may cause infertility was withheld, withholding the risk undermines one’s ability to make the best choice for them. A post-menopausal woman may not care at all about this risk, but any person who still wants to have children will.

Coercion

Whenever we are under threat of any kind—whether physical, emotional, economic, or others—those threats incite fear, undermine critical reasoning, impair decision-making, and introduce a new set of variables that cloud the choice. No longer is the choice simply about what is best based on the facts, but now other consequences will one have to be considered: What suffering can I tolerate? How much is it worth to me? Will it cost me a job, freedom to travel, ability to go to college, access to my grandchildren? Coercion undermines the quality of decision-making.

Ends justify the means

The ends-justify-the-means modality is a method of ignoring what is healthy, objective, and true in order to advance an agenda that is actually not healthy and not based upon truth. And when you see the ends-justifies-the-means approach being used, recognize it as evidence that those using it are covering something up, have ulterior motives, and are advancing something that will ultimately be harmful to those they are trying to persuade.

Information Versus Methods—Watch the Methods

Healthy decision-making is based upon truth, which is presented in love to others, seeking to be of benefit to others, then leaves people freedom to decide for themselves without any coercion, and does all of this in openness, inviting outside input, review, and critique. Why?

Because truth loses nothing by investigation and questioning; but lies cannot tolerate the truth.

Unhealthy methods are deception, coercion, control, and secrecy. Those who do not have the truth are not interested in the truth and do not want investigation; they do not want openness, inquiry, or questioning. Therefore, they will use the methods of censoring, silencing, accusing, and coercing. They will terminate voices of truth from employment, deplatform, vilify, make threats to inflame fear, use government agencies to intimidate, fine, shut down, arrest, and will control the media to obstruct the evidence. And they will use the claim that the ends (saving lives) justify the means (violating consciences, telling so-called “noble” lies, coercing, threatening, etc.).

If the data, facts, studies, reports, and science are too confusing, then simply step back and ask: What methods are being employed?

When it comes to the COVID question, one side of this issue consistently and persistently has used the unhealthy methods that are antagonistic to the kingdom of God and undermine healthy decision-making. And as time unfolds, the truth is slowly coming to light that confirms that the mandators have lied and their actions have caused incalculable harm.

As we conclude this series, we will examine a nine-step process used to manipulate minds and get people to make choices they would not have otherwise made had this process not be employed.

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I was brought up in a different faith and have been petrified my whole life of God. I believed that I would burn in hell for eternity. When I was 12 I started pursuing the things of this world, but for the next 45 years the Spirit was always calling me, as I knew there was a God through nature. I could see the vast sea of stars in the universe and knew there was something bigger out there. Five years ago, through a Revelation seminar, I was blessed to learn about God’s character and government.

Then I found Come and Reason Ministries and have come under some extreme pressure when I speak about the ministry. One time a member sent me an internet article titled “Whats wrong with Tim Jennings?” I asked her what she thought of it and she said “I don’t know, I didn’t read it.”

I have always wanted to find out for myself the truth about God, so I stayed with the Design Law construct and have been liberated to understand the big picture. Once we consider Design Law, all other Bible stories and prophecies seem to fit perfectly. It is truly beautiful to see people grasping how God operates this Universe of Love and the liberation it has provided in their lives. It blows my mind to see how consistent Design law is with what our founders believed. I hear statements like “This makes so much sense.”

Tom W., Mt. Pleasant, MI, USA

 

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Just watched watched lesson 10 in the 1st quarter 2021 bible study classs on Isaiah. I want to thank you for your intellectual spirituality; it’s not an oxymoron! From the point of view of a teacher I also enjoy seeing how much personal pleasure you clearly take in not just tasting, but feasting on God’s word – it reminds me of Jeremiah not being able to hold it in! It makes me smile that your cup is so full and overflowing that you make it to Tuesday’s lesson (on a good day). It just goes to show the richness of God’s Word.

God bless the Come and Reason Team from our church here in Great Britain.

Andrew H., Great Britain

 

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God lead me to your book “The God-Shaped Brain” while I was searching for another book about the brain and then to your interview about your book on HeartWise Ministries [where] I found out about [Come And Reason Ministries]. I’m now devouring the webcasts of your Bible studies. I have been so greatly blessed and I thank God so much for your courage to speak the Truth in love no matter what. Listening to you contrast the two opposing systems (laws) and digging deep to unearth the hidden treasures in the Bible makes me so incredibly happy and I feel very blessed to be part of your Bible Study Group although I live far away. I am just so excited that there is a group of people that is spreading the Truth about the character of God and it saddens me how few realize what our Father in Heaven is really like.

Kessy B., Australia

 

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I would like to express my thanks to the C&R team for creating a platform from which people can learn to trust in God and grow. My life is a witness to the effectiveness of this ministry. Without believing the truth about God as you have shown, I don’t know what my life would be like. I had given up on God helping me with certain sins – it was all useless. Given that the scripture is clear and God is so good, how could I have betrayed him so many times? I was a yo-yo christian; spinning up and down. My faith and enthusiasm was driven by discoveries/threats that prophecy is about to be fulfilled. But when I watched your “Healing the Mind” seminar, it was like a light finally went on. I could see God had no plan to hurt me, the danger came from sin, and that He is working to protect me and strengthen me. Thank you for allowing God to use you. The message God gave C&R saved my life!

Antony N. – Hobart, Australia

 

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I just want to tell you how blessed I have been reading “The Remedy!” It has become a daily part of my devotional relationship with God. In it I have found a God of love and a God that loves me! The bible has come alive for me! It is the first time that I can say that I have felt hope fill my heart as I have read God’s word. This is good news I can share! Thank you, Dr Jennings! Thank you for your heart for others. I can’t put into words how this has set me free! It has strengthened my trust and love for God.

Jason H.

 

Testimony 70

I have been watching you for many years and have learned to love God with all my heart. I was raised by a loving Christian mother that had been lied to about who God really was, so our religious upbringing was hell fire and damnation. As soon as I was old enough and moved out, I not only left the church, I ran as fast as I could to get away from it. Sad to say, it wasn’t until the past couple of years that I learned and understand who my Father really is and how much He loves me. I understand God’s Design Laws (which make sense) and when I’m teaching my church Bible study class, I’m able to really put to use the things I’ve been learning and Holy Spirit is leading. Thank you for introducing me to my Father of true, pure love. Everyday with Him is new and exciting. One thing that breaks my heart is that I didn’t know Him sooner. God Bless you and your ministry!

Judy Phelps, Reno, NV, USA

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I have been truly blessed by your blogs and other resources. They have helped me to see things in a much brighter light and to reason things out better. Thank you so much for your ministry. Whenever I have the opportunity I pass along your material to my friends.

R. Noseworthy, Newfoundland, Canada

Testimony 46

Over the past couple of years God has been expanding my view of Himself and His character. Along my approximately 40-year journey, I have often had questions, but was hesitant to voice these and step outside the traditionally accepted thinking, for fear of admitting that I may in fact be eternally lost. In the recesses of my thinking has been the thought – if one blindly accepts (which is widely regarded as “real faith”) and does not question, is this really ‘truth?’ I often find it challenging to grapple with very theological ‘speak,’ but Dr. Jennings has a real gift of explaining spiritual concepts with clear practical examples. The weekly discussions are growing my Christian experience and slowly changing my view of how to live as a child of God in today’s complex world. Finally the whole Old Testament sanctuary teaching moved in my mind from fantasy to reality!

Beverly S., South Africa

 

Testimony 43

Two years ago I stumbled upon your book, “Could It Be This Simple,” and then found “The God-Shaped Brain” videos on YouTube, your bible study class, and the ‘Come And Reason’ mobile app. I shared your book with a friend and after nine months of showing love, patience, and kindness this person has been changed by the love of God, too. The same love that healed me, I now express to other women in tangible ways, such as to a Baptist woman with high anxiety and childhood trauma. She was extremely happy and relieved when I shared about the so-called “judgment of God” and burning in hell. She had no desire to serve a God that was so harsh. I have repeated the phrase dozens of times to her. “What we believe has power over us, but we have power over what we believe…”

This message that you are sharing has changed my life. I will continue to serve other women and bring this message of God’s healing love to their lives by sharing your books, YouTube videos, and The Remedy Bible app. Keep up the good work. Don’t be discouraged. God is doing a mighty work in and through this ministry!

Jill L., Midwest, USA

 

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I’ve been reading the bible and walking with Jesus since I was around 16. I’m 42 now. I’ve mostly been alone in my walk although I went to several churches in different denominations. For the past 3 years God has been showing me His character of agape. It’s been a blessing and changed how I view God and my walk with Jesus. About a year ago I came across the power of love and the principles of design law. These teachings changed how I read scripture and have been such a beautiful blessing. I’m very excited and grateful for these truths. We share these truths of agape, design law and the reality of the principles of the two trees in the garden of Eden with people on Facebook and YouTube. People all over are learning to trust God and His agape design law which makes life possible. Thank you for everything you shared with me. May God continue to bless your ministry and lives.

Bradley M., Hinsdale, NY, USA

 

Testimony 52

Your unique way in spreading the truth is what we all need today. Most of us don’t recognize the contamination coming from all the lies and selfishness in the world. Because of our fear of death, we forgot how to live. Lies left and right. I was losing hope and faith, because of so many ideas that are always contradicting each other – so many questions answered by other, more complicated, questions – until I found your channel on YouTube.

You did not just give me answers, you also taught me how to answer new questions that arise in my mind. Now I see things differently. I see God’s mercy, grace, and Love everywhere, in spite of all the chaos that we all have done as humans. I don’t fear death anymore. Accepting the Truth and Love about God is truly a genuine Freedom from all the confusions, sufferings, selfishness, pain, and death.

I just wanted to say, thank you, sooooo much for revealing the real Remedy for our infected life. I have a new hope and now see the world in a different perspective!

Wheinny P., University Place, WA, USA

 

Testimony 32

The message [of Come And Reason Ministries is] for all Christians (and those who may become Christians) and not just Adventists or any other group. It is difficult to imagine why any [anyone] with intellectual and spiritual honesty could find fault with the way you explained the healing substitution concepts and the truth about God’s character, though I know some will reject and criticize. On behalf of those in our group near Tacoma, WA, thank you and your staff for all of the hard work and for sharing the Gospel in this manner. God’s message of healing love will be carried to the whole world and then Jesus will come – He promised it.

Terry U., Tacoma, WA, USA

 

Testimony 15

I have been sharing Come And Reason Ministries Bible study lessons with several folk. You have such a beautiful view of the plan of salvation. If we had this message preached when I was young, my generation would still all be in church.

H. R., New Zealand

Testimony 61

I grew up in a prominent protestant church and had what I like to call religious anxiety. I’ve always had questions about God and Salvation that no one could seem to answer.  I didn’t know how to find resolution. During 2020, at the height of my anxiety, I fell to my knees and begged God to show me truth and light and to give me the hope that I’ve been longing for. Days later, I stumbled upon your online videos and it was like a veil was lifted and EVERYTHING made sense! For the first time in my almost 39 years of life, my religious/spiritual anxiety has lessened. I feel a sense of freedom and peace I’ve NEVER had before… and it’s all because my view of God has changed. Thank you!

Ashleighn C.