I Think Therefore I Am A Sheep?

"They're just a bunch of sheep". We've all heard this, or at least some variation of it. Or perhaps we've even uttered the words ourselves; always with contempt as we describe a person or group that-depending on what they've given themselves over to-seem easily blown this way or that. Christians are a favorite for these charges; at least I know they once were for me. I saw them as self-righteous and mindless sheep under the control of "the church"; desiring to pull the rest of us into its web of deceit, control and tithing. I never once considered at that time that I might myself be a sheep serving my own master. As a Cristian today I now get to sit under my own judgement from across the span of time. Fortunately this allows me to relate with the accusers of Jesus and his flock today. I now also realize that those judgements were no less the result of a sheep mentality than that of the Christians I so loathed. As it turns out, it's not a matter of whether or not we are sheep, it's a matter of who is our shepherd. As Bob Dylan so aptly put it, "we all gonna have to serve somebody".
Like it or not, we were designed by a creator to do just that, serve our master. Without delving too deeply into the obscure realm of spirit body distinctions, I contend that our brains, in a physical sense, are extremely complex flesh and blood computers, and as such are programmed by someone or something to think in a certain way. Again, it's not a matter of if they are programmed, but who does the programing. There is a reason that history is filled with examples such as the rants of a mad man in the mid 20th century "programing" a whole nation to do the unthinkable. It is also the reason God gave us these instructions on raising our children lest they find themselves under similar control.

Impress… [God’s commandments] on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (1)
This passage gives us a blueprint on properly programing the minds of our children. If the idea of programming our children’s minds somehow sounds repulsive, all I can say is, don't send your children to government schools, and don't let them watch TV.
One of the heard mentality criticisms I often hear from many, as though it was an original thought, is that one’s brain must be checked at the door when entering a church. But, with a little thought one might conclude that if anything should be checked at the door, it is fear. For the result of the surrender required and perpetrated by the Good Shepherd is radical change; change in the way one sees his Father in Heaven, change in the way one sees himself, and change in the way one sees reality. One of those realities is that we are all in fact sheep. For such a surrender is required courage. Moreover, considering what is currently passing as "rational thought", it might be more appropriate to say that one should check his brain at the door on the way out of the church; that is if he is to buy into what passes today as rational thought. Consider some of this “rational thought”:

• Intolerance will somehow not be tolerated.
• There is no truth and somehow that’s true.
• Men running big businesses are only interested in themselves but somehow men running big government programs such as health care will act in our best interest.
• We evolved but somehow homosexuality survived this process and is just as normal as heterosexuality and somehow it is immoral to disagree.
• Laws should somehow not impose one person or group’s morality on another.
• Man is basically good but has somehow been corrupted by society, that society consisting of, of course, man.
• A President who does not care about a baby left in a linen closet to die is going to somehow care about you when you're old and feeble and left in the linen closet to die.

These are laden with self-contradiction, dichotomies, paradoxes, and sophistry, and yet are only a few examples. How are we suppose to interpret this? Are we supposed to simply not think about the inherent irrationality of this so called rational thought and merrily join the hordes being herded along singing, "eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die"? This illustrates the lengths and mental calisthenics man is willing to engage in to deny the truth of his subjection to an authority higher than himself. Unfortunately, reality is not subject to man's denials.
In the end man does not ultimately reject the sheep mentality, but rather he rejects the Good Shepherd. He does so in preference to a shepherd who will let him believe he is free, free to think as he pleases, and free to behave as he pleases. But in so doing, as illustrated, thinking freely is his adversary, not his ally, and so his "freedom" is tightly bound to the dictates of a narrow minded and obstruction filled path to reach his desired but ever ellusive destination of sovereignty. His only solace is that the path is a crowded one; filled with the herds of his fellow as he is furtively shepherded to his eternal damnation.

(1) Deuteronomy 6:7-9