Life’s Curveballs

Is morality on a glide slope and heading down fast or are we just hearing about it more because of the news media? Here is he latest headline, Suburban Atlanta Police Charge 3 Boys, Ages 8 and 9, With Rape, Kidnap of Girl, 11.

The juvenile victim stated that an 8-year-old boy and two 9-year-old boys that she had been playing with earlier pulled her into a wooded area, where one of the boys raped her….

Last week the headline was, Head Found, Teens Arrested in ‘Thrill Kill’ Death of Decapitated Sex Offender.

Any time anyone kills just because they want to - and that’s what the evidence seems to suggest here - is bone-chilling. Why anybody would want to do that, especially being 17 years old, it makes us think and ask a lot of questions about our society.

What are the influences effecting today’s youth that create such lapses in morality? I am 53 years old, soon to be 54 next month, and I don’t remember anything like this in 60s, 70s, and 80s with such frequency. Sure, there were the occasional lunatics like Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and others, but these are psychopaths and serial killers not boys.

History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into economic and political decline. There has neither been a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.

~ General Douglas McArthur

Are we heading for a national disaster and are these signs of the impending collapse?

1. The Openness of Homosexuality - In today’s society being openly gay is viewed as being ok and as Jerry Seinfeld professed… “Not that there is anything wrong with that.” Well, I see it as wrong and not normal no matter how much it’s accepted in our society today. Homosexual marriage is now acceptable in some states, which is another sign of our moral decline.

2. Acceptable Violence - Is the violence that we see and hear on the radio, our televisions, movie theaters, and video games leading to our moral decline? I say that it is. When I was growing up, I wasn’t subjected to a steady barrage of violence as our youth are today. They see and hear it everyday so how can anyone think this has nothing to do the violence we are seeing on the streets and our schools.

3. Celebrity Trash - We buy it at the grocery store, we see it on talk shows, and so-called news programs. The Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohans, and Paris Hiltons of today’s pop cultural flaunt it, stick it in our faces, and we gawk at it, suck it up, and can’t get enough of it. They are telling our youth that this behavior is ok, there are no rules, and you can do anything you want and get away with it.

4. Decline of Patriotism - In the 50s and 60s, we had Veteran’s Day parades. The 4^th of July was more than a day we just shot off fireworks. We waved our flags respected the service of our troops and veterans. We knew that our freedom was a gift and it was paid for by people that sacrificed everything for it. We were all thankful for the gift and we knew what it meant. Our youth of today think that we owe them something; they have no concept of sacrifice, and are not thankful for anything.

5. Decline of Religion - We’ve removed prayer from our schools in 1963 in an attempt to rid America of any reference to God, and for some other examples, you can read my last post about Attacking God. Is the decline in religious attendance in the west one of the reasons for our sliding moral values? When you combined the decline of religious values with the other issues above, it is my opinion; the answer is a profound, yes.

Our Pledge of Allegiance states that we are ‘one nation under God,’ and our currency bears the motto, ‘In God We Trust.’ The morality and values such faith implies are deeply embedded in our national character. Our country embraces those principles by design, and we abandon them at our peril. Yet in recent years . . . Americans . . . [have] for the sake of religious tolerance . . . forbidden religious practice in the classrooms. The law of this land has effectively removed prayer from our classrooms. How can we hope to retain our freedom through the generations if we fail to teach our young that our liberty springs from an abiding faith in our Creator?

~ Ronald Reagan

Are we abandoning our moral values at our own peril?

What Can We Do

I am not suggesting that just any one thing has caused our moral decline. It is the totality of many things and it starts in the home. Early childhood education and moral education at home and in school are important factors in turning this trend around. However, with the liberal slant in our media and our educators, we must play a more active role in our children’s moral education at an early age.

If our morals are out of the closet, our children’s morals will not be health.

If violence in tolerated in our homes and on our televisions and computer screens, our children will believe that violence can handle their problems.

If we let the pop culture and celebrity guide our children, they will know no boundaries.

If we are not patriotic, our children will not know their freedom is not free.

If we are not religious, our children will not know the love that God has for them.