And back
I admit, I'm disapponted in myself. The reason that I started this blog was as a tool to improve my writing skills over the summer. What it ended up becoming however was a way to procrastinate and waste time; something that I'm sure every student is expected to but should not be doing. A good friend of mine took a blogging hiatus; as far as I know, he's still on it. My hiatus was unannounced and unintentional however, and for those of you that were faithfully checking my blog, I apologize.
The reason that I'm posting this here is simply because of a quote that I read in a book that I have been reading recently (Tactics by Fred Stoeker). In this book, Stoeker says that we must not confuse the common with the normal. So to revert back to my student example, just because it is common that students go and party, procrastinate, and rush things in at the last minute (thereby submitting subpar work) does not make it normal or good. Since when did the aspect of what is good for oneself become a democratic process?
Just because it is common to see teenagers smoking in their respective "smoking pits" behind or next to their school, doesn't make it normal or good. Just because more people nowadays than ever are smoking marijuana does not also validate it as something normal or good. That logic simply does not stand, and I fail to see why everyone uses it.
In the current post-postmodern (as my friend Josh Robinson calls it) mindset, relativism is king. You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want as long as it doesn't hurt me. I love that above statement because it implicitly assumes that actions that you take do not affect society in anyway. C. Wright Mills is often quoted in sociology classes as saying that the sociological imagination is developped by considering the combination of biography and history. History is the sum of many individual biographies, and you're actions add up to that sum, affect and change it. Do we really want to support a worldview that suggests that your actions exist within a vacuum and that you have no effect or influence (positive or negative) on the lives of others?
I'm sure that most would agree that pain, in and of itself is not a positive thing or something to be enjoyed. Pain can certainly be used as a means to learn an important lesson (not studying and failing a test, not touching a hot element because it will burn your hand), but only masochists get pleasure from self-inflicting pain. But of course, because they're not inflicting the pain on US, it must be ok for these people to do this. So why don't we demand that the government condone their way of life, give them research grants in order to discover the masochist gene that makes them the way they are, and put up billboard ads everywhere of a woman spanking a man with a whip!
We don't do such things because as a society we feel that doing such a thing does harm to society. We don't want our kids growing up thinking that hurting yourself on purpose is normal or even good. You can talk about relative values all you want, causing yourself pain for no reason is not phsyiologically good for you; yet, they're only taking action upon themselves aren't they?
The appeal is that there is something deeper than just relative shifting moral values underlying the current of the human psyche. God is the creator, sustainer, and author of everything existant within this world and he built into us an absolute standard by which we can measure who and what we are; that is, himself. Do we measure up to God? How can we when God is infinite, divine, perfect - everything that humans are not? Because God gave us a way to perfect righteousness, His Son Jesus Christ. "For in the Gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last." (Romans 1:17) We cannot be righteous on our own power; it is in our nature to lie, steal, pillage, exploit, and think of nothing but ourselves at the cost of all others. But God gives us the power to live righteously and to be a shining light for all.
I will be the first to admit that Christians have done a terrible job of being this shining light. If you look around, I'm sure that you will find none that is hateful, impatient, and angry as myself. But it is by the power of God that this does not manifest itself more than it already does. Perhaps you think it wrong that I generalize and say that ALL humans are evil and bound to do wrong. But how can I think otherwise when all around me, the natural tendency of people is to do everything to enrich and better ones own life with little regard for the dignity and sanctity of the lives of others? I'm sure that those of you that study International Development know what I'm talking about in terms of greedy multinational corporations raping this world to increase "the bottom line."
What was the point of the above? Well this blog is called "Random Rants and Stories." If you scroll back to some of my earlier posts, they are mere scatterbrained rants about random topics. The value in that, I discovered, is that it allows you to dump your thoughts out in words, and then you can pick through the tangle of musings that came out to tie it all together into cogent and meaningful discourse that is primed and prepared for productive debate and discussion. If you find something here you like, take it. If there's something here you disagree with, by all means comment and let's discuss. And for my friends out there, if there's something here you think heretical, let me know for the love of all that is good and holy. The last thing I want to do is be heretical.
