Hey, Whatever!
A strange new Americanism some time ago arrived on the scene in our society which from the very first time I heard it, I found very frustrating and irritating. At first I did not know why there was that dis-ease in my spirit when I heard it.
I now hear it over and over again ad nauseum all over the place. I have noticed that my grandchildren and even my married children are using it as a response. You and I know how easy it is to become echoes of our society and conform to this world. It is the word, WHATEVER. From the very first time I began to hear it, for some unknown reasons I developed a headache which pain began to travel down to my heart.
The modern WHATEVER MANTRA hits me with the same annoyance as when I say to someone in recognition of a kindness shown or service rendered to me, “Thank You,” and they grunt back with, “NO PROBLEM.” Which of course makes you think that if they had found you to be a problem, they might have “killed” you instead of “kinded” you. Or at the least, if they had found you to be a problem, they would have shunned you instead of served you. Why is it that in our society people can no longer say, “You’re welcome!” Oh well, WHATEVER! On my, now they have me saying “WHATEVER” too.
When a modern day teenager or adult is verbally confronted with or corrected for wrong doing, or they are backed into a corner in a discussion on morals, it is now common that they respond with a facial expression of defensiveness, and then react by responding with an annoyed tone of voice by saying, “Whatever.” I have on occasion responded to their non-answer and asked, “Whatever what?” I have found that I make no progress, for their answer is once again, “Whatever.” I then have the strong conviction that we could go on “Whatevering” forever.
It has occurred to me that their “Whatever” is for them a response that answers every spiritual and moral question, and addresses every spiritual and moral issue. But why is it then that when the exchange of “Whatevers” has gone on for “However” long, after it is over, I feel as if I have been on a very long intellectual and verbal fast? “Whatevering” sort of feels like grabbing at shadows, or trying to snatch Forrest Gump’s wind-blown feather out of the air.
For a long time now I have tried to make sense out of this modern, dialogical conundrum. I have become very concerned that, when sensing my inability to penetrate their “Whatever Mind Set,” I have myself been tempted to throw up my hands in despair and also cry out, “Hey, Whatever!” However, as I have given it more thought, I have come to the conviction that the modern Americanism “Whatever” does have a very important meaning, albeit a disastrously wrong one. In point of fact, I have discovered it to be one of the most lethally poisonous words as it is being used in modern expressions.
WHATEVER – WHATSOEVER
To understand the meaning of “Whatever,” we must understand the true spirit and mindset behind it. I am reminded in this regard of Israel in the spiritually and morally bankrupt time of the Judges in the Old Testament, and the very revealing words of Judges 17:6 and Judges 21:25 KJV,
“…everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
It could also read,
“Everyone did WHATEVER was right in his own eyes.”
Hey, whatever! Don’t be trying to pin us down with your rules and regulations and stipulations. I can hear them say,
“We will do WHATEVER we jolly well please thank you.”
And I can almost hear someone also say, “No problem.” But the problem is a huge problem for this reason:
“WHEN EVERYONE DOES WHAT IS RIGHT IN THEIR OWN EYES, EVERYONE
IS DOING WHAT IS WRONG IN GOD’S EYES.”
In short, WHATEVER in our modern society means, “Whatever turns you on; different strokes for different folks; whatever suits you at the moment; everything is up for grabs; live and let live; get out of my face; I’ve got my rights; hey, whatever; I am entitled to my opinion, and you to yours; you’re okay and I’m okay.”
It is the same spirit in the teenager who when he is told by his parents to get something done by such and such a day or hour, he responds in rebellious disgust with the word, “WHENEVER.” “No,” says Dad, “Now,” only to have the son or daughter again in defiance say, “WHENEVER!” Meaning, “I will do it on my time when I want to and not a minute before then.” This is not a time for Dad to say, “No Problem,” but rather this is a “Big Problem!” Then when the WHENEVER RESISTER finally gets the point, he walks away scuffing his shoes and shuffling his feet still mumbling “Whatever.”
Today, we live in a very loosely defined family world, for very few anymore are able to define what a family really is. Loosely defined families with loosely defined morals equals – “WHATEVER FAMILIES.” When a child does something wrong, it doesn’t help for the parent to say, “Hey, I used to do that too when I was your age. Care to hear about it?” Of course, the secular, humanistic psychologist would advise such a parental comment for the sake of cementing parent-child relationships and bolstering children’s self-esteem. When in fact what is being strengthened is “THE WHATEVER SOCIETY.” Hey son, hey daughter, don’t worry about it. Whatever!
Today the kids wake up at 7:00 a.m. and turn on the TV, and it stays on until the last one goes to bed at 10:00 p.m. Cartoons, sitcoms, game shows, soap operas etc, provide a seamless background to their waking hours as they watch WHATEVER IS BEING SHOWN. Indiscriminate, unbridled WHATEVER VIEWING. And you ask, “What are you watching kids?” The bored-to-death answer, “Whatever.”
Sort of like what we used to do when cars didn’t have seatbelts. Us kids would stand on the backseat with our elbows on the back of the frontseat, so we could peer through the windshield and breathe into out parents ears. Now we are horrified at the thought of such unbelted recklessness. Today we belt in our kids, but only so they can “safely” watch WHATEVER DVD they want to while riding. Improved safety!
How in the world can we even begin to understand the entire Penn State University debacle? It makes our hearts ache, our heads spin, and our shoulders stoop. We must face the gruesome fact, and that is the massive coverup of the horrific child sexual abuse and rape crimes perpetrated on young boys by Penn. State Assistant Football Coach Garry Sandusky. Why the coverup? Very simple:
“WHATEVER IT TAKES TO PROTECT A HUGE UNIVERSITY AND A MASSIVE
FOOTBALL PROGRAM TO KEEP THE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ROLLING
IN SO THAT IT WILL BE BUSINESS AS USUAL.”
When the spirit of “Whatever” and even “Whenever” are rampant, you then have the essence of a world gone berserk. You had better keep your house and car doors locked at all times, and even then there is bound to be somebody in such a society who will do to you, to your house, and to your car, and to your sons and daughters WHATEVER HE PLEASES AND WHENEVER HE PLEASES. That world of WHATEVERNESS was prophesied by our Lord in Matthew 24:12,
“And because lawlessness is increased….”
That is better translated for our purposes,
“And because WHATEVERNESS is increased, ANYTHING GOES.”
Oh how earth has been so dangerously misdirected into a most wobbly and deteriorating orbit called THE WHATEVER ORBIT. Earth has become now a WHATEVER ASTEROID on a collision course with self-destruction.
It is amazing what a difference 2 or 3 letters make. We read in John 2:5 KJV the words of Jesus’ mother Mary at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, where she says to the servants,
“WHATSOEVER He saith unto you, do it.”
And again, the words of Jesus to His disciples in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:20,
“Teaching them to observe all things WHATSOEVER I have commanded you….”
Just two little letters – SO – are the essential difference between the Kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God. Oh my, SO big a difference between WHATEVER and WHATSOEVER. It makes all the difference in the world! On the one hand, there is, “Hey, I am going to do WHATEVER I please,” and by way of stark contrast on the other hand, “Amen, I am going to do WHATSOEVER Master Jesus tells me to do.” The former is the “Kingdom of Darkness,” and the latter is the “Kingdom of Light.”
How did we get where we are today with our youth culture gone WHATEVER AND WHENEVER CRAZY? A certain Dr. Sugarman has so insightfully stated:
“TODAY WE KNOCK OURSELVES OUT TO GIVE OUR KIDS EVERYTHING WE
DIDN’THAVE, BUT WE FORGET TO GIVE THEM
EVERYTHING WE DID HAVE.”
I agree totally, and if I may, I would like to put it in yet another way:
“TODAY, WE KNOCK OURSELVES OUT TO GIVE OUR KIDS ALL OF THE HUMAN
WHATEVERS WE DIDN’T HAVE, BUT WE FORGET TO GIVE THEM ALL
OF THE DIVINE WHATSOEVERS WE ONCE DID HAVE.”
A BRIEF HISTORY OF AMERICAN WHATEVERNESS
The time in Biblical history called “The Judges” and its spirit and mindset of “Whateverness,” was bound to take over in America. Why? Because America’s courts removed God, His Word, and His laws from the very fabric of her society – from her schools, her courtrooms, her homes, and even her churches. It really began with Bishop Robinson and his “God is Dead Movement,” and with Joseph Fletcher and his “Situation Ethics Movement” of the 1960s. Then the Supreme Court of America made God and His laws crimes in our public schools, and ipso facto endorsed both the “Death of God” and “Moral Relativism.” All of this has given rise to the moral chaos and anarchy of America’s “Hey, Whatever Society.”
This disastrous “Whatever Philosophy” has been given greater momentum by President William Clinton and Vice President Al Gore than by any Presidential – Vice Presidential team in the history of the United States of America. That is until the appearance of Barack Obama and Joe Biden in Washington D.C. who devote a week each year to honor homosexuals, transsexuals, transvestites etc. for the great contributions they make to our societies. Under these renegades, America is coming down with a terminal underdeveloped sense of right and wrong, and with an ever stronger inclination toward the latter.
These Clinton-Gore, Obama-Biden “WHATEVER TEAMS,” I hate to say, just won’t go away and are here to stay until the end of time, unless God is fully reinstated and His laws are totally restored in America. They are going to keep on pressing us to kiss their “Whatever Rings.”
These “WHATEVER PEOPLE” remind me of the story of the young man who was walking his girlfriend home from school while holding her hand. Suddenly out of nowhere a little girl on a bike showed up beside them. “Why don’t you kiss her?” she taunted the boy and girl and kept on taunting them as she rode her bike in slow, looping circles. They tried to ignore her hoping that she would go away. Sensing that very thing, the bright little bicycler said to them, “I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO, SO I’M GOING TO FOLLOW YOU WHEREVER YOU GO.” They said to her, “NICE LITTLE GIRLS DON’T BOTHER PEOPLE.” She said, “WHATEVER.”
The media gave national coverage to President Clinton’s guest appearance at a “Homosexual Celebration” in San Francisco. Pushing the value of tolerance, his endorsement of same-sex behavior was applauded by the liberal press. President Clinton’s primary thrust was thatmorals are evolving, if you will, EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS, and we must be continually updating standards of right and wrong in order to stay relevant to WHATEVER TIMES we are living in. President Clinton said, “We are redefining in practical terms the immutable ideas that have guided us.” Of course, if they are immutable, then they can neither be evolving nor changing nor redefined.
Remember now:
“ALL EVOLUTIONARY THINKING, WHETHER IN ORIGINS OR ETHICS, IS ALWAYS
THEFORERUNNER OF WHATEVER-THINKING, THAT IS, WHATEVER IS
PREFERRED BY THE CULTURE AND TIMES WE FIND
OURSELVES IN.”
How discomforting in a culture that prefers video games of terror, menace and murder.
All of this Clinton jive came hard on the heels of Al Gore’s ringing endorsement of Ellen DeGeneres for pushing the American public to look at sexual orientation in a more open light. In short, “WHATEVER THE TIMES CALL FOR” must become the standard of the day. By the way, thanks Bill and Al for the 1st place, blue ribbon, gold-standard oxymoron of world history, namely,
“WHATEVER EVOLVING IMMUTABLES.”
I have always been amazed that liberals do not choke more often on the verbal smokescreen that they try to blow all over America. Tragically, most of America is lost in their WHATEVER FOG simply because they want to be.
WHATEVER IT TAKES
Let’s bring this down to where the rubber hits the road. Grassroots WHATEVERNESS! You know how it goes, “You gotta do what you gotta do.” And again, “It’s a tough life – WHATEVER it takes.” At the heart of WHATEVER is the ever popular, “THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.”
Listen to the following WHATEVER THINKER and you will get a feel for “WHATEVER RATIONALIZATION”: “My boss won’t miss the money. He drives a Mercedes. He takes his trips to the Bahamas all the time. The money is peanuts compared to what this firm takes in every year. Besides, I’m desperate! I’ve got a family to feed. What is a man to do? There is just nothing else I can do.”
There is nothing really all that surprising about such thinking. People do it all the time in our society. These are the sounds of the WHATEVER CULTURE: “It is a dog-eat-dog world, and after all, what’s a man to do? Whatever it takes! And you don’t know what it’s like and how hard it is until you have walked in my shoes. In this world of injustice and hard times, everyone bends the truth a bit. Sometimes these days, bending the truth is a downright necessity, and it is the only smart thing to do. Times are tough and in times like these you have to make tough decisions that otherwise you wouldn’t make. It is every man for himself, and if you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will.”
A man in Florida survived Hurricane Andrew. One day one of his neighbors asked him, “So, what claims are you putting in?” The man had not suffered any damage to his house or car from the storm, so he answered, “None!” The neighbor couldn’t believe it, and so he said, “Hey, here’s your opportunity to collect a few bucks. The insurance companies are practically writing checks on the spot.” And then the clincher when he went on to say to his honest neighbor, “After all, you have been paying obscene premiums for years, and you not have gotten a dime back of your own money. There are times like these when you gotta do whatever you can to even out this totally unfair system.”
You see, A WHATEVER SOCIETY is always A MORALLY NUMBING SOCIETY. This is the growing state of ethics in our world today. It is getting so that you don’t know anymore who you can trust. Everyone seems to have their own WHATEVER RATIONALIZATIONS. When people are into the WHATEVER MINDSET, they often make a distinction between little white lies and the really bad, big black lies. The problem is that such folks are always at risk to tell bigger, darker lies too. Jesus said in Luke 16:10,
“…and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous
also in much.”
When in point of truth, in the WHATEVER SOCIETY, we are on our way to losing the conviction that all lying is wrong period.
MERCY KILLING
We have in America for some time now entered into the “No Moral Absolutes Culture.” It has also led us into the unbridled and unrestricted “I Have My Rights Culture.” That has given birth to the “Hey, Whatever Culture.” You will know that you are in the “Hey, Whatever Culture,” when the people there are the ones who demand their rights even when what they are doing is morally wrong. Yes, you are reading it correctly:
“THE HEY, WHATEVER CULTURE IS WHERE SUBJECTIVELY PREFERRED RIGHTS
TRANSCEND OBJECTIVE RIGHT AND WRONG.”
It all really started with abortion and abortatoriums where the unborn must now be fitted with combat regalia in order to survive against abortionists who in America have been committing war crimes against “fetuses” for decades. There, murderers disguised as doctors and nurses in medical fatigues lurk behind locked gates awaiting their next tiny victims the likes of which have been murdered by the tens of millions.
It is striking that there is still no “House Subcommittee on Unborn Infant Murder and Mayhem.” Striking but not surprising in the “Whatever Culture” where on a daily basis gruesome and sadistic acts against the helpless are carried out as they sink their cold, sharp, steely weapons into tender flesh. But then as they say, whatever is best for mother and fetus varies from situation to situation, and so the WHATEVER BEAT goes on.
Then came the more complex case of the “Mercy Killing” of adult Terry Schiavo in Florida which we shall discuss in just a moment. First of all, in the WHATEVER CULTURE, the mantra “Right To Die,” i.e. the “Right To Kill Yourself,” which is “The Right To Commit Suicide,” has gained prominence and vast endorsement in the elevating of human rights above moral right. The phrase “Right To Die” is but a verbal cover-up for what is really happening, and that is, “The Right To Murder Yourself.”
Second, “The Right To Die – Murder Yourself Culture,” spearheaded by the late convict Jack Kevorkian,was the first step to the next unthinkable step, and that is “The Right To Mercifully Kill – Murder Invalids.” In 1998 Terry Schiavo’s husband, Michael, petitioned the Sixth Circuit Court of Florida (Pinellas County) to remove her feeding tube pursuant to Florida Statutes Section 765.401. He was opposed by Terri’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, who argued that their daughter, though a total invalid, was conscious. The court determined for Terry that she would not wish to continue life-prolonging measures, and on April 24, 2001 Terri’s feeding tube was removed for the first time, only to be reinserted several days later.
On February 25, 2005, a Pinellas County judge again ordered the removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. Several appeals and federal government intervention followed, which included U.S. President George W. Bush returning to Washington D.C. to sign legislation designed to keep her alive.
After all attempts at appeals failed and the stoppage of the murder of Terry Schiavo proved unenforceable, the federal court system upheld the original decision to remove the feeding tube. The staff at the Pinellas Park hospice facility where Terri was being cared for disconnected the feeding tube on March 18, 2005 and she died on March 31.
Once Terry Schiavo’s feeding tube had been removed by her husband and by the courts, television news anchormen and women were constantly asking doctors the question, “How long will it take for Terry Schiavo to die?” The real question was however, “How long will it take for Terry Schiavo to be killed?” Or, “How long will it take for Terry Schiavo to be murdered?” Whether you starve me, poison me, drown me, suffocate me, shoot me, or stab me to death, you have killed me, i.e. murdered me.
Here was a woman who was alive and breathing on her own. She was responsive to her family who loved her, and wanted with all of their hearts to care for her. For 15 years they did exactly that, as any decent, moral human beings would who live in “THE WHATSOEVER GOD SAYS SUB-CULTURE OF AMERICA.”
In America, the door is being opened wide to euthanasia, under the smokescreen cover of “Mercy Killing.” There is a dandy for you, killing being portrayed as a merciful act. America used to cry out, “Bloody Murder!” Now she merely whimpers, “Mercy Killing.” Whatever! Whatever you call it, it is up to Michael and the courts to do WHATEVER he and they deem best. Not WHATSOEVER GOD SAYS. but, WHATEVER MAN SAYS.
Today, the godless, the whatever-liberals would have us to believe that the killing of the severely handicapped or diseased is the highest expression of a merciful society. How merciful was it to starve Terry Schiavo to death? The once bold and definitive line between merciful and merciless is now growing thinner and fainter. America finds herself in the moral smog and pollution of mercifully pursuing what is evil, and unmercifully opposing what is good based on the totally subjective modern standard – WHATEVER.
The liberals are giving America a cup of poison, and calling it merely and simply unhappy hour. America toasts the right of mercy killing, then drinks the lethal brew and dies. There has never been a greater fallacy put upon the minds of men, than by this false representation of unmercifulness as mercifulness!
The WHATEVER SOCIETY has already through abortion and will inevitably through mercy-killing and euthanasia make the fatalities of the Colonial Wars, the Civil War, and World Wars I and II look like children’s play-wars fought with BB and dart guns. Child safety has been taken out of the womb, and invalid and senior safety is already on its way out of the care homes and nursing homes of the WHATEVER CULTURE.
THERE WAS NO KING IN ISRAEL
The complete texts of both Judges 17:6 and Judges 21:25 in the KJV read like this,
“In those days THERE WAS NO KING IN ISRAEL, but every man did
that which was right in his own eyes.”
Or we could put it this way,
“In those days THERE WAS NO KING IN ISRAEL, instead, every man
did whatever he jolly well pleased.”
Of course, for while the cat is away the mice will play and all inhibitions will vanish. Put that on your cheese and savor it.
Living in such a society is like daily riding through a car wash with half-open windows, or riding on a golf ball scooper at a driving range without a steel cage. Then the WHATEVER SOCIETY becomes a seven-days-a-week and a 24-hours-a-day free-for-all festival that resembles Mardi Gras in New Orleans, while the so-called law enforcement agency smiles approvingly.
By the way, lest we forget what happens to “ANYTHING GOES SOCIETIES” and “WHATEVER TURNS YOU ON SOCIETIES” and “WHATEVER FEELS GOOD SOCIETIES,” Sodom and Gomorrah were fire and brimstoned, and New Orleans, the city of Mardi Gras, was blown apart and then drowned. Whether it is homosexuals knocking down doors to get at Lot’s angelic guests, or bare-breasted women leaning over balconies, the sin party was brought to a sudden, devastating conclusion.
The point being in spiritual and moral principle:
“WHERE THERE IS NO DIVINELY RECOGNIZED AUTHORITY, THERE WILL ALWAYS
BE THE MORAL ANARCHY OF HUMAN WHATEVERNESS.”
Remove the DIVINE DON’TS and you will end up with unstructured and unrestrained HUMAN DO’s. Take away the HOLY DIVINE WHATSOEVERS, and you will end up with the UNHOLY HUMAN WHATEVERS.
In brief, the “Whatever Society” is the result of the removal of Divine laws that carry with them absolute necessity. Why absolute necessity? Because they are founded upon the relationship of the creature to his Creator and of the subject to his Heavenly King, thereby making the creature totally dependent upon Creator and the subject completely submissive to His King! “A Whatever Society” is totally void of the creature-Creator, subject-King relationship, leaving man to the arbitrary whims and fancies of his own passions and desires. That is “WHATEVER” in a nutshell.
And while the world is already reaping and will reap forever the corruption, misery and death of their HUMAN AND SELFISH WHATEVERS, the children of God are reaping and will one day reap forever the purity, joy, and perfected life for obeying the DIVINE SELFLESS WHATSOEVERS.
It was all so recently and so graphically captured on the morning C-Span Washington Journal program when a human rights activist called and stated, “The Republicans need to put down the Bible and pick up the Bill of Rights.” Why of course? There you have it coming at you and going strong – those troublesome Bible Thumpers, God Pushers, and Rah-Rah Right Wingers who are always trying to trump everyone with the Divine Authority Card. For you see, the Bible majors not in human rights, but in Divinely declared rights and wrongs. In fact, the Bible has a Divine Bill of Wrongs – the Ten Commandments – THOU SHALT NOTS. That is why the caller wants the Bible put down, because that is the way to lift up the WHATEVERS. Exactly! WHATEVER!
