This was our webcast today.
Watch live streaming video from thinkorange at livestream.com
Who Controls Your Thoughts?
Back in the 60’s at one of our Ivy league universities here in the US. (I think it was Yale) some people did a fascinating experiment. They solicited volunteers to come in to be part of this experiment. I will try to make the description brief. A volunteer would be placed in a room and would hear the voice of another volunteer in another room. (the second volunteer was a set-up unknown to volunteer number 1)
By the way, I am telling this based on my memory of hearing it way back in college so if I get some of the details incorrect just hang with me. Volunteer one was told that volunteer two would be asked questions and if the got the questions incorrect, then V1 would push a button that gave V2 an electric shock. Each time V2 was wrong the voltage would go up. V1 would hear the hurt, fear, and eventual terrible pain noises made by V2 when V1 pushed the button. In the experiment the V1’s would often stop and not want to keep going because V2 would be screaming begging them to stop. The professor (guy in lab coat who looked very professional and certainly was the symbol of authority) would calmly reassure V1 that it was in the best interest of the experiment and not to worry. Unbelievably, in the majority of cases, V1 would keep going with the pain shocks sometimes until there was no more sound. (like …holy cow did I kill him?)
Interestingly, in France, the have the same thing happening in a game show right now. On television volunteers watch as they play the game and push the levers and deliver the shocks and see people scream and beg them to stop. 16 out of 70 participants stopped and would not shock the contestant any more. You do the math. A vast majority of players keep playing and keep on believing they are hurting the other contestants because the game show host prods them along.
We are talking for a while about THINKING. What do we think? Why do we think it? How does that relate to our theology and our relationship with God and others?
Here is my question for you today. Who wore the white coat in your life? What did they tell you was ok? Do you see anything in the way that you think that actually may cause others to hurt?
Bigger question. How likely is it that you believe all that you have been taught just because it was the authority figure who taught you that?
When I was in college, I was challenge by a professor to begin to think along these lines. He told me that we would be tested on the truth. But that sometime during lectures, he was going to lie.(and not tell us when) And there were some things in our text books that were incorrect. If we wanted a good grade we had to know the truth. Which meant we would have to study, and study more than one book and look to see if his lectures were true on any given day. That was when my thinking began to change. I started wondering if my faith was actually based on reality because it was totally based on what my preachers and parents had taught me.
When I started thinking for myself, I began to figure out my faith. And I am still doing that. We should be reading, listening, searching all the time and not just from people who are in our circles. Find books, and speakers and magazines and tweeters and bloggers who have some interesting things to say, and then you decide what it is that you think.
You may think you already know what you think but that kind of thinking keeps you from thinking the way you would think if you heard people who think things that you have never thought of before.
That was my favorite last sentence. What do you think?
Think and Rethink webcast
A note from the Bigstuf Office about Think and Rethink Webcast.
Just wanted to let everyone know that next Thursday, March 18th, at 2:00-3:00 P.M. Eastern time, Lanny is going to be featured on Reggie Joiner’s webcast. Reggie is the founder of ReThink as well as the Orange Conference and currently does a weekly webcast. This week, he will be talking about strategies to help students get plugged into serving in other ministries. After this, Lanny will join Reggie in conversation and they will be talking about the leadership training that takes place at BigStuf Camps during the summer.
The link for this webcast is http://www.livestream.com/thinkorange. You can click here to watch the video live at 2:00. If you would like to join the chat, you will need to create an account beforehand. You can do this by also clicking on the link and clicking on the “sign up for free” tab at the top.
This is something you do not want to miss hearing!! . . . However, if you are unable to watch at 2 P.M., you can go to www.thinkbigstuf.com where it will be posted on Friday. (If you want to just come in at 2:30 when Lanny and Reggie are talking you are welcome to join in then as well.
We are hoping to continue a webcast on what’s to come at BigStuf 2010, so be looking out for those details!
Hope everyone is having a Terrific Thursday! =) Please contact me if you have any questions!!!
Think
Our theme for this summers Bigstuf is THINK. I have been thinking about thinking…which kind of makes mental feedback go into some kind of chaotic frenzy if you stay there very long. But…the question is why do we think what we think. All of our thoughts are created by some outside influence. We think something is blue because someone told us to look at a color once and said it was blue and that is now what we think. If you just had a child and you want to see something really cool, teach your kid that all the colors are different than what we know them to be. Show them green and tell them that is red. Do that enough and wow… What would be weird is that the child would grow up and just think they were colorblind when really they just think what they were taught. A 14-year old girl goes into the Gap and decides to buy that cool shirt that she “thinks” she likes and she “thinks” it is her opinion that makes her like it. Really what happened is that some 57 year old guy in a suit in a board room made a presentation a year earlier about what would be cool and that 14 year old girl watched tv and movies and read magazines and saw the same shirt on her favorite musician and she decided she liked it. If that guy in the board room had made a totally different presentation a year earlier, the same girl might have laughed and made fun of that same shirt thinking that she would never dream of wearing it. We grew up in church and either had our “religion” drilled into us or we had a great youth group and we believe and think what we think about God because we had a good experience or because we feel guilty if we don’t or we turn away from those thoughts because someone said “if you believe this, then your life will be fine” and we believed and our dad died and we don’t believe it anymore. The exact same you could have grown up in North Africa and have a totally different belief system and think we are totally right about what we think or believe. Think about that. Whoosh. I want to chat for a few weeks about why we think what we think and I would love to have your thoughts about thinking as we delve into this to get ready for camp. If you have great websites, books, videos, etc about our minds and how they are shaped and our thoughts and why we think them. Join in. Tell your twitter followers. Let’s see what people are thinking. Meanwhile I think we should be asking questions all the time. Who, What, When, Where, Why and how. Especially WHY. WHY? That question by itself changes our thoughts more than any thing else. Lets chat. Think about it. Lanny
