The issue of directed energy weapons torture and psychological attacks that include “gang stalking” raises an important personal question. If an authority figure you respected asked you to torture a fellow human (albeit physical or psychological torment) would you do so? A recent university study tackled that question and found troubling results:

“Replicating one of the most controversial behavioral experiments in history, a Santa Clara University psychologist has found that people will follow orders from an authority figure to administer what they believe are painful electric shocks.

More than two-thirds of volunteers in the research study had to be stopped from administering 150 volt shocks of electricity, despite hearing a person’s cries of pain, professor Jerry M. Burger concluded in a study published in the January issue of the journal American Psychologist.

“In a dramatic way, it illustrates that under certain circumstances people will act in very surprising and disturbing ways,” said Burger. - MercuryNews.com

“The study, using paid volunteers from the South Bay, is similar to the famous 1974 “obedience study” by the late Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. In the wake of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann’s trial, Milgram was troubled by the willingness of people to obey authorities — even if it conflicted with their own conscience.”

What this study failed to explore thoroughly are the principles motivating the minority to refuse participation in torture sanctioned by a human authority. We know that the majority often allows others to think for them — that’s fully evident in other facets of life. But what about the principled minority who do not compromise? Those who refuse to go along with actions that violate their conscience are truly exemplary and worthy of imitation. What makes that minority different from the compliant majority? In this regard, an account recorded in the Bible centuries ago reveals an insight worthy of consideration.

When judges in the Sanhedrin, the highest Jewish court in Jesus day, ordered a small group of Jewish followers of Christ to stop preaching regarding Jesus on the threat of imprisonment and flogging, they responded with the words, “We must obey God as ruler rather than men.”—ACTS 5:29

In other words, they considered God’s authority higher than that of any human agency. When a conflict with human law existed, they choose obedience to God’s law even if it placed their own lives in peril. As a result of that stand, that small group suffered hatred, mockery and intense persecution. Consider this: Would that small group of faithful followers of Christ torture others if they were ordered to do so by the same high-ranking judges? Would they obey God or men? What do you think?

Obedience to God can exert a powerful and enduring restraint from participation in the abuses of corrupt human authority. It can also become the foundation for an uncompromised integrity when adherence to right principles results in persecution.

“You must love your neighbor as yourself.” — Matthew 22:39

References:
MSNBC: Most Will Torture If Ordered
Time Magazine: Why We’re OK With Hurting Strangers

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