Something to ponder

It is interesting how the people who have taken great strides to teach our culture that there are no absolutes are the same group of people who are now crying for the enforcement of laws based on the idea that there is such a thing as an absolute. Just think about it, when people believed that there were absolutes and there for a right and wrong you didn't have the problem of people pirating music, movies, or other media items. The NEA and Hollywood have made it their task to break down our belief in absolutes and now they are the ones crying their eyes out when people steal things through downloads, or act violent in schools, or any number of other things that they complain about. Many of the things they complain about are in fact wrong but they have been done such a good job teaching our children that there are no absolutes so "if it feels good, do it!" This is a sad reality that now we all have to live with. I spoke with a young man not too long ago who was boasting about the program he wrote to steal minutes for prepaid cell phones, and a virus he wrote to take over other people's computers to use for his own gain. When I confronted him about why he would do these things to people his answer was, "it's fun." Sadly as I spoke with him he felt that all the pain and headaches he was causing people and even the loss of revenue from the companies that he was stealing from was all ok because "having fun" gave him license to do these things. Sadly this young man is one of the "good kids" yet he has no problem ripping people off in these ways. He seemed shocked that I didn't download movies off the internet, copy other peoples free lunch coupons, or scam the blowing ally out of free games. He said, "It's all just fun, and cheap fun at that." What? Cheap fun?? What is he talking about? Driving down the stock prices of the companies you are cheating? Driving up the prices of goods and services for the rest of us? How is this "cheap fun"? Yet he seemed convinced that being fun somehow made it OK. He later was complaining about having to spend money on a date in order to get sex. When I ask him about moral reasons he might want to think of a date as something other than payment for sex he said, "Well, she's hot and it's fun." Then I ask him about the risks he was taking and he said it was ok because it was fun. So lets see here...being fun makes it worth getting an STD? This is crazy, yet this is the sad result of teaching our children that there is no absolutes. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I for one would rather earn my money, pay for the things I have, and treat others with respect in exchange for living a healthy life filled with real meaning beyond just having fun. I'm not saying I don't do anything wrong, but by admitting the existence of absolutes and finding that measure of absolutes in the Bible I know that while I may not be able to do everything right there is a redemptive plan available to us through Jesus Christ.

Santa is anti Christmas?

I know Christmas is over, but I've been having this nagging thought. See I was listening to a song about how you had better be good because Santa has a list and naughty people go on the list and don't get a gift. However, Christ came for the sinner (or the naughty) not the righteous. We are all sinners, so you could say we are all on the naughty list, but no amount of being good will get us off. The only way to get off the naughty list and on the good list (listed in the book of life) is to put our faith in Christ and his work on the cross, the real gift of Christmas. So it seems that Santa got it backwards from Christ, the One who's birthday we are observing. This is just one more reason we should look to the Bible which tells the story of the Christ of Christmas rather than to the media who just doesn't get it.