Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven
|
|
| Sunny Days in Heaven Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven |
|
|
Tuesday, January 20, 2004 It's the culture, stupid An outstanding essay from WorldNetDaily. Here's some snippets but the whole is worth reading. Maybe we already know these things, but the alarm that's in this article is worth experiencing again: Remember in the classic, biblical epic films of the 1950s, how Sodom and Gomorrah were portrayed? Drunken men with multiple piercings and bright red robes, with one loose woman under each arm, cavorting in orgiastic revelry against a background of annoying, mosquito-like music? Maybe a bone through the nose as well? Hollywood took pains to depict these lost souls in the most debauched and irredeemable manner, to justify their subsequent destruction with fire and brimstone as punishment for their great sinfulness. Guess what? Those Hollywood depictions don't even begin to capture the shocking reality of what is going on right here in America's culture today; I mean, they're not even close. . . . Chuck Swindoll lamented that one out of two American churchgoers today is caught up with Internet pornography. After years of counseling patients, mostly young women, who purposely cut their bodies with razors and knives to obtain relief from emotional conflict, Levenkron concludes: Self-mutilators have many different reasons for their actions and are tormented by a spectrum of different feelings. Yet I consistently encounter two characteristics in all self-mutilators: 1. A feeling of mental disintegration, of inability to think. 2. A rage that can't be expressed, or even consciously perceived, toward a powerful figure (or figures) in their life, usually a parent. In past eras, if parents were very imperfect or even corrupt, their children still had a reasonable chance of "growing up straight," since the rest of society still more or less reflected Judeo-Christian values. The youngster could bond to a teacher, minister, mentor or organization that could provide some healthy direction and stability. But today, because of the near-ubiquitous corruption "out there," if parents fail to properly guide and protect their children, the kids get swallowed whole by the child-molesting monster we call culture. What do I mean? Just this: Your being any way other than genuinely virtuous, not perfect, mind you, but honestly and diligently seeking do the right thing at all times, will drive your children crazy. Here's how the craziness unfolds: Children deserve and desperately need firmness, patience, fairness, limits, kindness, insight and a good, non-hypocritical example. In other words, they need genuine parental love and guidance. If they don't get this, they will resent you. Even if you can't see it, even if they can't see it and deny it, they will resent you for failing to give them real love. And that resentment, which becomes suppressed rage, is a destructive, unpredictable, radioactive foreign element in their makeup, which transmutes into every manner of problem, complex and evil imaginable. It makes children feel compelled to rebel against you, and against all authority, out of revenge for your having failed them. And it makes everything forbidden, from sex, to drugs, to tongue studs, to things worse, seem attractive, a road to personal freedom. Rationalizations and philosophies that once they would have laughed at as ridiculous, now make sense to them. Practices they would have shunned in more innocent times, they now not only embrace, but celebrate. All of this occurs below the level of consciousness. The author does offer some hope at the end of the essay, so the situation is not impossible. posted by Mark Butterworth | 4:15 PM | |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
 |
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
