There are a lot of things that go on in the background of many societies, clubs, houses, churches, companies, etc, that people don’t realize. They may even take part in it and not know it’s going on.
Something may start out as a joke, but pretty soon no one who started the joke is still there, and everyone thinks the joke is truth. In some ways, you could say it’s no fault to the people who come to the party late, right? They didn’t know it was a joke, so how can they be expected to know any better?
That depends on several factors. The most important being, where is your standard of right and wrong, and or, where is your standard of truth?
If you have no standard to go by, how can you know what’s right, wrong, truthful, or a lie? Unless you base something, including your view, upon something concrete, then how can you be expected to be able to see when something is out of place?
A random analogy I just thought of: If you’re in a completely white room, all the walls, floor, ceiling — white with an equal amount of light coming from them. Now picture that there’s no gravity. You’re just floating there. If you were in that room and something appeared on one of the white sides, you’d have no way of knowing if it was coming from up, down, or from the side. You’d only have your own knowledge and experience to decide.
However, if you keep all of that exactly the same except now add gravity back in, all of a sudden you would know exactly where it was coming from because you would have something to base it on. You have a foundation of what’s right and wrong. Some people believe there isn’t that. That there is no firm foundation to base beliefs on and that everyone should decide for themselves. They’d say, “Which way is that object coming from in relation to you?” What may be up for you is down for someone else.
The point of all of this is to say that you have to have something solid to base your beliefs and thoughts on. For me, that’s the Bible. Because I have the Bible, which are God’s words written down for me, I never have any excuse to go into a group that is living in sin or brokenness and not to realize that we are there. I have all the tools so that no matter what situation, I can know what’s right, wrong, truthful, or even a lie.
By having this, I’m able to make sure that nothing that is incidental ever turns into something deliberate. I may make mistakes, but with the help of the truth, that can be corrected before it turns into something that is deliberately done.