"Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders."
- Jeremiah 9:4(KJV)
I saw a 'news program' last night called 'Democracy Now'. The program was part of a segment called their War and Peace report(I think that was the name) about a video that was supposedly leaked from someone within the military showing an assasination/ambush.
What struck me more than anything about the entire program was the amount of speculation and accusations that were made, all without any response from the parties involved or even much factual clarification as to what exactly was taking place(so far as I could tell).
One man was invited to speak who had 'written a book' and he spoke as though he had intimate knowledge of US Military actions around the world, through 'his sources'.
What all of this made me think of is the fruit of a culture that embraces lies and expects deception at every level.
No one trusts anyone because everyone knows that everyone else is a liar, and a certain amount of deception is expected in even the most basic elements of life.
It is the ethos of Babylon the Great. I say that because, although the people running this 'story' might have at some level noble and good intentions, yet it all seems to be systemic of a humanity that has choosen to trust in the strength of itself to solve its problems, to bind together so that they are not scattered abroad. Instead of trusting in God.
We have sought to uphold truth apart from Ultimate Reality and the consequence is that we have reaped an unholy mountain of lies.
And we have not trusted in the One Who swore to His own hurt and did not repent, even when the cost of that was that He Himself would have to pay it through(Psalm 15:4, 110:4, Hebrews 9:22, 10:5).
And so, decieving, and being decieved, is the ethos of Babylon the Great.
An entry for the word at wikipedia says this:
Ethos (pronounced /ˈiːθɒs/) (ἦθος, ἔθος, plurals: ethe (ἤθη), ethea (ἤθεα)) is a Greek word originally meaning "accustomed place" (as in ἤθεα ἵππων "the habitat of horses", Iliad 6.511), "custom, habit", equivalent to Latin mores.
Ethos forms the root of ethikos (ἠθικός), meaning "moral, showing moral character". To the Greeks ancient and modern, the meaning is simply "the state of being", the inner source, the soul, the mind, and the original essence, that shapes and forms a person or animal[1]. Late Latin borrowed it as ethicus, the feminine of which (ethica, for ἠθική φιλοσοφία "moral philosophy") is the origin of the modern English word ethics.
