"Hateful"
Last week alumnus Jim McGuire told the graduating class of River Valley High School in Caledonia, OH, "I also strongly suggest to make sure to choose a spouse on biblical principles, you know a male with a female and female with a male." The outrage was immediate. His remarks were "hateful." The man suggested that those who do what God says would be better off than if they don't, and that is "hateful." One Twitter user wrote, "He should take his ignorant views back to the 1950s." Umm, 1950's? Try 2008, when most of California voted to define marriage as one man and one woman. There was indeed hateful speech there, but it wasn't from Mr. McGuire, and the ignorance and hypocrisy of the public is showing.
Who's Bad?
The New York Times headline reads, "An Attempt at Inclusion Proves There Is More Work to Do" and the tagline was that some Tampa Bay Rays players undercut Pride Month by not wearing rainbow logos. Some "evil" Rays players stood by their beliefs rather than bowing to the LGBT. So they are not inclusive while the Times et al. is ... while rejecting anyone who doesn't agree with them. Inclusive. You keep using that word. I do not think that word means what you think it means.
In a Related Story
An Australian Federal Court has ordered Google to pay $515,000 to a former deputy premier who quit politics because of videos on You Tube. Australia does not allow free speech and will not allow Google or You Tube to allow people to exercise it. Seriously, I don't know the plan. You Tube will need to inspect every video for "truth" (as defined by the Australian government) before allowing it? This is what happens when expression of ideas become illegal ... like believing Scripture over LGBT values.
Don't Believe the Science!
A feminist in Norway is looking at 3 years in prison for tweeting that a guy who identifies as a girl cannot be a lesbian. She had the audacity to claim, "The fact is that men who claim to be women are only men who claim to be women." Is 3 years enough for believing the science?
Believe the Science?
As it turns out this story came out from PLOS One (a highly regarded medical journal) in 2019, but no one said a word. This study says that there is no gay gene. They are not "born this way." Another case of "Believe the science ... unless we tell you not to ... or just keep the science from you."
Passing the Buck
A family has sued Meta blaming their Instagram platform for their daughter's eating disorder and suicidal thoughts. If only they could have sued iPhone because there is no "Off" button. Or maybe sued someone else who was responsible for the care and protection of their pre-teen daughter. (She signed up for Instagram when she was 11 and the minimum age was 13. That's Instagram's fault?) If only. But I guess irresponsible parents suing themselves wouldn't work well. Besides, no one is going to believe that all this social media is actually bad for our kids.
Irresponsible
Do you know the difference between "not responsible" and "irresponsible"? A Missouri court has ruled that an automobile is responsible for a woman getting HPV having sex in the car, so the insurance has to pay $5.2 million. To be fair, they ruled that the vehicle's owner was responsible, but somehow the irresponsible (there's that word) owner is not responsible (there's the other one) and the car insurance company has to pay. At no point did anyone seem to rule that the two people having sex in the car were actually responsible because they were irresponsible, not "not responsible." And once again our nation via its court system is eliminating human responsibility for human error.
From the Babylon Fish
In light of last week's news that California could declare bees to be fish, the Babylon Bee offered the harrowing story of a child playing in a meadow who got stung by a fish.
I haven't been tracking too closely (because it really is a circus), but I hear that Miley Ccyrus will be performing the halftime show at the Jan. 6 committee hearings. On the Jan. 6 issue, polls suggest that people filling their gas tanks are starting to think those January 6 folk might have been onto something. Makes sense, I guess. The latest Powerball Lotto jackpot is up to 2 tanks of gas now. And Jimmy Carter is afraid that all these Biden comparisons could tarnish his presidential legacy.
Must be true; I read it on the Internet.
6 comments:
I'm not sure that we have any idea what the extent of the damage that social media will cause to children going forward. I completely agree that parents (we parents) have the primary responsibility for protecting our kids, but some help from society would sure be appreciated. I believe that smart phones also play a huge role in this, as seemingly do you.
It's tough when "every other" 12 year old has the lasted iPhone. Peer pressure is hard, and FOMO is just peer pressure by another name.
Craig, I cannot figure out how Christian parents have arrived at this point where the world drives their parenting. My father signed up for courses in college to become a forest ranger because that's what he wanted to do. Six weeks into the semester his father told him to change to engineering ... so he did. He didn't get to choose what he wanted to be and understood that to be okay. In my childhood, I didn't watch TV, didn't listen to that "devil rock and roll," and a variety of other contrary-to-my-world rules because I understood that we were Christians, "not of this world." In my youth we didn't play cards or use dice if my grandparents were around because we understood it would offend them. IT WASN'T ALL ABOUT US. My kids got used to "No" when their sole reasoning was "everyone else does." I think they found themselves better off for it. But my parenting style is mostly gone, too. Today's parents are seeking to make their kids more comfortable in their environment even though their environment is getting more and more anti-God every day. Parenting has changed for Christians even though God hasn't. And it isn't looking like it'll improve anytime soon.
Dan, it is hateful, egregious, evil lies like that that keep you banned from commenting here.
I agree. My upbringing wasn't quite that strict, but it was more strict than my kids. I do think we were fortunate that the smart phone era started when my kids were older and we could limit what they had access to. I'm always surprised when I see Christian parents who appear to have simply given up when it comes to things that "everybody else does".
I'm confident that we will continue to see more and more research that continues to demonstrate how harmful social media is to children, and how much of the recent explosion of mental health issues is related to social media/smart phones. I keep seeing research that indicates a strong correlation between social media (among other things) ad the recent spike in children identifying as "other" sexual orientations. When Miley Cyrus comes out as omnisexual, that looks pretty good to a 12 year old girl.
Parents appear to have given up. I talked to one mother whose 16-year-old was dropping out of high school. "What can you do?" she said with mild annoyance.
I agree with you about the effects of technology. The church's current immersion in the current culture cannot be seen as a good thing ... or even biblical. Paul quotes God as saying, "Go out from their midst, and be separate from them" (2 Cor 6:17) and we seem to defiantly declare, "No!" And it's not working well for the American church.
I would certainly agree that the Church being submerged in popular culture is also a significant problem. Too many christians seem more worried about being accepted by non believers, and the culture at large, than about following Christ and the inevitable negative impacts of their acceptance that brings. At some point it seems like we'd see a swing back from our current culture toward something less exclusive of Christianity, but I suspect it'll get worse before it gets better.
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