Frost This

Dark humor is a sign of high intelligence. Or is it dementia? I forget.

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

The year is 1950. Your doctor lights a cigarette and tells you smoking is fine. He read it in a study. He is telling the truth about having read it. He does not know, or is not saying, that the study was funded by the tobacco industry.

The year is 1958. Your doctor tells you to eat less fat. The evidence is contested. The contestation is not in the public messaging. The food industry has been helpful in clarifying which findings deserve attention. Some researchers who published contradictory data have been quietly defunded. Ancel Keys is on the cover of Time magazine.

The year is 1962. Your doctor prescribes thalidomide to your pregnant wife for morning sickness. It has been approved. The FDA gave it the green light in Europe. Twelve thousand children will be born with severe limb malformations before anyone in an official capacity acknowledges the problem. The families are told the drug was safe. The drug was approved. Both of these things remain true.

The year is 1972. Your doctor prescribes Valium. Britain is in the grip of a benzodiazepine wave that will last two decades. The dependency risk is known internally. It is not shared. Your doctor is not lying to you. He was not told either.

The year is 1999. Your doctor prescribes Vioxx for your arthritis. It is newer than ibuprofen, well-tolerated, and Merck has a study showing it works. Merck also has internal data suggesting it roughly doubles the risk of heart attack. This data will not reach your doctor for four more years. Fifty thousand people are estimated to have died in the interim. Merck eventually settles for 4.85 billion dollars. No criminal charges are brought.

The year is 2002. Your doctor prescribes OxyContin. Purdue Pharma trained its sales representatives to tell doctors the addiction risk was less than one percent. That figure came from a letter, not a study. The letter was about patients with terminal cancer on short-term doses in hospital settings. Your doctor is a GP with a patient who has a bad back. Nobody draws a distinction. Nobody is required to.

The year is 2008. Your doctor checks your cholesterol. Your LDL is elevated. You are prescribed a statin. Nobody mentions that the number needed to treat for primary prevention is approximately 250. Nobody mentions that the muscle deterioration you'll notice over the next two years is listed as a rare side effect rather than a documented pattern affecting a meaningful percentage of patients. The trial that informed the prescription was funded by the manufacturer.

Now it is today.

Your doctor has new guidelines. New studies. New consensus.

He is confident.

He has always been confident.

The confidence has never been the problem.

The confidence is, in fact, precisely the problem.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@S_W_Somerville @oldbutteR @philfCAL @DeAngelisCorey @USBornNRaised Thanks!
I do worry that the best states are about to be targeted with the most egregious bills.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@S_W_Somerville @oldbutteR @philfCAL @DeAngelisCorey @USBornNRaised How about MO or KS?
We’re ready to leave the east coast forever.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@oldbutteR @philfCAL @S_W_Somerville @DeAngelisCorey @USBornNRaised If they do this in my state, we will move immediately. What are the most homeschool friendly states?

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@DustyMcBear @HikeGhost @thewriterme Republicans are just democrats going the speed limit.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@youknoskit @danjordans166 @JimmyDean407 @iamyesyouareno You knuckle draggers always think normal people think like you. We don’t.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@hat34972464 @Sandra649161355 @Viralvid_89 She also said she doesn’t have a driver’s license. You really want unlicensed drivers on the road with you?

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@joe_boyko @kirawontmiss I mean, I really wanted to be wrong on most of it.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@8Mittens8 @andiammonite @UsuallyInvited @avidseries They kinda just did! 😂

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@markgadala Duh.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@agreatdayinnc @kristenmag In a way, I’m glad they did these things to us en masse, becuase they’ve been doing horrible things to us for so long individually, and everyone called us crazy when we talked about it. Now everyone knows the depths they’ll go to.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@ShrivastavAni @jimmycarr Hold on—I was told reliably by the women on The View that Christians were the number one violent threat. Now you’re saying they’re peaceful?

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@Rich_Eriksson @senator_gun This is certainly another side to the story.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@punmasterflash @surfstyleeee @FoundationDads I raised four boys and this is the way.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

The only book I immediately want to start again every time I finish it.

[M.A. Franklin @FoundationDads]

People think the Bible is boring.

Once, I was talking to another man one time, explaining my process of teaching the Old Testament and getting people to dig deeper.

He interrupted, looking at me in surprise, and said: “It sounds like you are talking about The Lord of the Rings or something.”

This is a normal reaction, given what most people are fed. You are taught that the Bible is a derivative myth, a hodgepodge of stories that is, at best, unimportant. At worst, it is dangerous for people to take seriously.

If you grew up in the church, you were probably taught a watered-down version that skips a lot of the “troubling” parts of the Old Testament so you can go straight to the Jesus stuff (the gospel).

But the Bible 𝘪𝘴 dangerous.

It was meant to be dangerous.

Just not in the way the secular world wants you to believe it’s dangerous.

The fact that men, in particular, would find comparisons to Lord of the Rings surprising is a consequence of the feminization of the church.

The modern church has focused on one aspect of the Bible to the detriment of others. It has taught a neutered gospel.

So what is the Bible? And what is the gospel? Let’s push aside the normal platitudes and focus on the epic story being told.

The cross, and the death of Jesus, is the surprising climax of an exciting epic full of blood, battle, and chaos, the rise and fall of kings, dynasties, and empires, the constant clash of good and evil, courageous exploits of men and woman both great and small, wizard duels and superheroes, giants and demons, contests of wit and wisdom, dark political machinations, and the triumph and tragedies of warrior poets.

It is an epic beyond anything the Iliad, the Odyssey, or The Lord of the Rings can offer. And it has the most surprising twist imaginable.

It is also true.

Instead of focusing on the epic, Christians isolate the cross and the gospel and make it about our personal salvation. While not wrong on the surface, this is too small in scope. The cross is the true king finally coming into his own, after all hope seemed lost, and preparing to reward his friends and smite his enemies…

Instead of focusing on the epic, Christians made baptism nothing but a cleansing of our own personal sins. Again, not wrong, and that is glorious in and of itself. But too small in scope. Baptism is also an anointing and ordainment, a declaration of knighthood, where the new man is given a sword and told to go forth and conquer for his new king…

Instead of focusing on the epic, Christians have made households and churches a refuge from the world. But households and churches are fortresses, advance outposts in the heart of enemy territory, where Christians train new recruits and from which we launch new offensives…

Instead of focusing on the epic, Christians create an environment where the rhetoric of the rough prophets of old, and of John the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul, is considered “mean” and “insensitive.” Many church-goers today would scold them for their harsh words. But the imprecatory psalms have as much a place on the lips of Christians as the penitent psalms, calling for the overthrow of our enemies…

The cross of Christ is the ultimate call to adventure for any man willing to fight. It is a call for young men to glory in their strength and enthusiasm while storing up plunder for themselves in heaven, instead of working for self-aggrandizement and passing pleasure. It is a call to make the epic a reality and to take your rightful place in it.

And instead, Christians use the cross to domesticate men.

Christians have taught a neutered gospel because a church full of eunuchs is easier to manage.

It is no wonder that men do not flock to the banner and instead turn to other things.

But the Bible is meant to be dangerous, and the cross was meant to create dangerous men. Men willing to lay down their lives. Men willing to build and conquer.

Don’t lose the epic story in the platitudes. Truth is more impactful, more able to pierce bone and marrow, when it weaves in and out of a grand story.

God knew what He was doing.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@AminCad @tetetette00 @JohnnyFDK @XFreeze This was a master class on staying on topic.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@CruxStellarum @snvaughan411 @Protestia He’s right though.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@29arista1 @Protestia Seriously. Just go be your own thing!

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@MylesTeteak @Protestia Let’s hope so.

[Frost This @musclemaam]

@BobbyBitcoin30 @Protestia Well…