So, what is the right way to fight? Let me tell you …

Don’t.

And then we have arguments. Conversations are flipped so easily, to manipulate us. That is our modern culture. Our favorite truth is often just someone’s manipulation talk.

Do you know that you are being manipulated, constantly?

Am I boring you? I hope so. A simple honest conversation doesn’t fit our modern times.

A woman that I know had a conversation with a pastor, about some difficult topic. She wanted to understand what people were saying about one thing, including on the Internet. His answer was “Are you trying to tell me that you believe …?”

He didn’t like the questions, and he painted her as aggressive and rude, and maybe radical. I can’t explain this very well, but she tried to talk to him, and he changed the interaction into her being wrong, and then tried to scold her and correct her.

He manipulated her conversation with questions, and made her wrong. I think he liked the things that she was asking about, and he wanted her to conform. A real conversation was not necessary for him.

He is a pastor in her church, and she is very confused and upset now. Her pastor did not listen to her, and twisted the conversation into something else. She thought they were having a conversation so she could understand some confusing thing, but he flipped it into something else.

He had an agenda and now they have an argument. That is how people speak to each other now. She understands that a conversation was flipped into manipulation.

This might be confusing, but this is advice about a huge problem, that is growing around us. We all know about the Internet, and some of us remember the time when there was no Internet. Now we have this huge thing, that we can access easily from the phone in our pocket. People everywhere are putting out their opinions, to the whole world. The information, real or fake, is a flood around the world. That includes me writing this, right now.

The biggest problem is getting someone’s attention. So thank you for reading this.

Our problem now is that people who speak are desperate for attention and they want conformity to their favorite ideas. Things are happening, sometimes crazy or violent things because that sets some speakers above the others and gets the attention that they crave. Conversations easily become manipulation.

For example, what are your private political opinions? What are you supposed to believe and say, according to the experts?

In Canada, in the city of Vancouver, demonstrators burned the Canadian flag while someone shouted “Death to Canada, death to the United States, death to Israel!” You might guess who they support.

Does that story make you emotional? It is supposed to manipulate you in that way.

Really, those demonstrators just wanted to rise above the common herd, and get your attention. That happens all the time, and ours lives will be better when we understand. The context is flipped, and then we are manipulated into believing something, or pretending to conform.

Do you know the Bible story of the woman at the well? Jesus met a woman, probably a prostitute, and they had a conversation. The end result was her whole town changed and followed Jesus. This happened when Jesus stopped the arguing and had a conversation with her.

They had so much potential for and argument, and even a fight, but something else happened. This is in the Bible book of John and chapter four.

• An emotional trigger: When he asked for a drink she said “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (verse 9)
• Another trigger: She added “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews …” (verse 19)
• Simple honesty: In the end, the people of the town told the woman “Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know this man really is the Savior of the world.” (verse 42)

If we want to change the world, we need to learn Jesus’ example of honesty.

I hope we can walk away from the abusive manipulation to conform, and I also hope we can speak with the same honesty as Jesus.

Our world needs that.