My last post instigated some interesting comments, which in turn compelled some return thoughts of my own.

First, yes, America has "a" culture. Sorry people, I didn't write very clearly what I meant. :) It all depends on how you define the word. If you make it an absolute standard of good taste and discernment, our society has in many ways lost it. If you think it is arbitrary, that no society has better and worse taste than another, that each is just different, then of course our country has a culture. This discussion becomes moot, because there is no way to judge whether it is better or worse than it was. "Better" and "worse," in fact, become nonsense terms. I choose the first option, in order to say that the culture at large has lost sight of what is beautiful. It has corroded. You have only to go into a Borders bookstore and skim through the titles of new books to see that this is true.

We've lost God, and with Him we've lost the standard of proper action and good taste. I honestly don't have the words yet to put together all I've learned in the last three years that shows this is true. I can only try.

Why does the public need to know every detail of a movie star's life, for example? Where is the natural sense of decency? Sure, they let themselves be open to the public eye. But does this mean we have the right to look?

Why is information about sex shoved into kids from such a young age? To keep them from getting STDs? Oh, and that works so well. What if they were taught, when they were ready, that sex is a precious and beautiful thing, to be guarded and kept for the proper time and place? They are taught it is natural and healthy, but they are given no discernment for what is best.

I talked to a teacher of special ed children this past Tuesday and told her I wanted to be a college professor. She smiled a grim smile. "Teaching," she said, "is not what it used to be. My colleagues and I know; we don't teach any more. We indoctrinate. I tell kids to become anything but a teacher. Me, I'm just holding on 'til retirement." Why are thousands of kids made to stay in classrooms where they don't want to be and where they're not learning anything anyway? What kind of country will they grow up to make?

I could go on. How does this come from not having God? Nietzsche describes the situation very bluntly and very honestly. The most basic choice of humanity is to choose whether or not to believe in God. Without God, every man is on his own. Nobody really has a right to tell him what to do. He can make his own moral choices, and he has no real rational reason to "act properly." He doesn't even have a rational reason to say what "properly" means. "The greatest good for the greatest number of people?" Why should he care about other people's good?

"All you need is love." The hippies tried that in the 1960s, and it didn't work for them. It only works if everyone loves everyone else. No matter how much you personally love your fellow man, the first person who comes along and does not love other people will muck up the whole works. He tyrannizes, becoming Nietzsche's Ubermensch (Over-man). And you can't say that he must love, because that would be constraining him. You can't force someone to love. So what do you do with him? You imprison him. At that point you need a system of law, for which you need standards. So you're back to the same problem. Where do you find your standards?

Why ought a person to love? Only because of Jesus Christ: "Because God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall have eternal life." His life becomes the standard of righteousness, because He had perfect knowledge. He lived the same life as us, with exactly the same struggles and with (probably) far more pain, and yet He lived it all properly. It still amazes me every time I think about it, and it is that awe that allows us to truly love others.

More ramblings. Thoughts?  ¶ 8:09 PM