Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the actual topic at hand: the complete and irreversible downfall of society as we know it. Wickedness abounds; traditional values are forgotten; the wise elders are shunned; God is dead. Woe is us!
This is, of course, especially true for America. Its here that, as any good American Christian knows, traditional values are being challenged left and right. Thankfully, nobody's childish enough going to point fingers or assign blame or anything.
Oh.
The thing is...it's all a load of crock.
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of evil things being done by Americans, and if you've been a victim of one of these things, you know firsthand the pain that comes when someone acts with malice, selfishness, thoughtlessness, or cruelty. The point I'm trying to make is, this isn't anything new, and it's certainly not worse than ever.
Now, this is one of Casey's favorite topics, and I don't want to steal his thunder at all if he's planning a future blog post about this. However, I was reminded of this whole issue thanks to a great post on another blog that addresses this same topic. I recommend giving it a look. Basically, it asserts that society isn't worse than it was two hundred years ago, or even thirty years ago. In fact, in several important categories (crime, war, religious belief and participation, etc.), America is actually categorically better than they have been.
That's not to say things are perfect; far from it. People are still oppressed thanks to such trivial reasons as the birthplace of their ancestors, their objects of worship, even their freaking gender. But consider this. When else in the past has racial tolerance been as high as it is now? Where else in history are women given as many rights as they are today? It's been 150 years since someone's owned someone. America, for all its problems, is actually doing pretty well. Once again, don't get me wrong--there have been terrible things in our past that we are still (or should still be) making reparations for. But when you take a step back and look at the big picture, you realize--we're pretty okay.
Now, for some reason, religions (especially Christian ones) don't really like the whole "Things aren't so bad" angle. If they want to keep that up, let me offer a suggestion: let's shift our focus away from America. Have you heard about forced female genital mutilation in several African countries? Or how about the lengthy list of 20th century genocides, many of which are still ongoing? Or the fact that a woman in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read?
Not to mention, of course, any number of other atrocities occurring throughout the world that I just don't have time to write down here.
If we like preaching against evil so much, then let's preach against evil. The world isn't going to hell because of some trivial first-world annoyance. There's too much real villainy going on right now for that to be true, and I'm worried that thinking so devalues the true suffering of these people.
Really? Tiny horns? Really?
