So, on my other blog I went ahead and wrote a small rant on Rand's Objectivist heroes in her various novels.

http://lopezj4141.blogspot.com/2009/07/objectivism-and-victimhood.html

Anyway, I have been thoroughly enjoying this literature. :-) I'm now carefully saving up the books left by Rand in my collection, so I can parse out the enjoyment just as long as I can...

--
Juan


“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.
-

George Orwell:

"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."

I have noticed a trend which I find highly disturbing in the Christian youth these days. I understand that there is a common experience in youth generally referred to as rebellion. Rebellion obiously takes many forms through the life of a young person, but in this case, it is finding the religious beliefs of the parental generation to be insufficient, and a need to make those beliefs "theirs", or acclimatize the beliefs to their generational worldview.

While I don't think this rebellion is anything that is unusual, the current trends in Christian youth rebellion have been highly disturbing. After experimenting with the concept of "emerging church" over the past years, the emerging youth have decided that the "softness" of their parents and those currently "in charge" is something that must be rejected.

Again, this is not new, the U.S. Church has seen a few generational rounds of revival and movement towards more fundamental views of Christianity.

However, I believe I am seeing an even GREATER difference than merely a push towards more fundamental interpretations of religious life. I believe that we are seeing a sweep towards unthinking fundamentalism that paints itself as a holy "all-or-nothing" war on everything deemed to fall outside of the newfound worldview, and gives it that frightening "because GOD says so" attempt at authority.

One of the most dangerous results of this newfound thinking is the espousement of radicalism that is frightening in tone and perspective.

Examples I have heard or had thrown at me during discussions:

-The first ammendment is a logical and religious fallacy. With only one truth, how can we respect other perspectives we know to be untrue? We don't owe our allegiance to the government and constitution, we owe it to God, and God trumps the 1st amendment.

-We must quit thinking about God as a merely the luvvy-dubby grace-filled lover of all that the liberal wing of Christianity has foisted upon us. God's Justice should not be forgotten, and should be ENFORCED.

-We were a majority Christian nation - and we should keep it as such. Man's law should submit to God's law, and our leaders answer to Him. Not subjecting the government to God's law is a cop-out by weak Christians who are not fully devoted to God.

-There is only ONE correct interpretation of Scripture - God's. All these denominations have it wrong by espousing different interpretations.

Do appropriate divinity, prophet, and holy book substitutions in many of these perspectives, and these words are indistinguishable from the crazies that decided the Great Satan needed to have some buildings blown up on 9-11. How did we let our children get to this point of radical thinking? Am I the only one that thinks this double-plus Reformed-Calvinism shift in the youth is a surprising extrema in the pendulum shifts of religious rebellion? Am I the only one concerned?

I'd like to hear thoughts and comments. :-)

Hello, and welcome one and all. :-) I may be ambitious in believing that there may be more than just us posters reading this, but I hope that eventually we can draw some interesting debaters out to our little corner of the cacophonous bloggosphere.

We're three guys with three sets of opinions (at least, probably more...), and have found discussion with each other to be interesting, invigorating, and at times challenging - but always illuminating. I look forward to comments and discussions on future meanderings we may take in this cooperative.

As Dan said, we're definitely wide-ranging and spread out. I have had the pleasure of knowing Dan for nearly a decade. Ron, I've known quite a bit less, and through this electronic medium only, but I have appreciated his comments and discussion nonetheless, and look forward to getting to know him better and letting him get to be annoyed by me.

I echo the sentiment that I am not a Republican, Democrat, Baptist, Methodist, GenericLabelX, GenericLabelY...I am simply a man trying to understand a bit more of the world around him, and learn to love and follow his God as best he can. I will often fall short of the mark, but I enjoy the continuous challenge that is life. If we had nothing new to strive for tomorrow, what point would there be in getting up to face it? I fiercely love both my "home" countries, U.S. and Mexico, and love them enough to see the promise and flaws in each. I am unapologetically proud to be as blessed as I am with my history and background, and feel no need to be ashamed of who I am, what I am, or from whence I come, flaws and all. :-)

If you want to get to know ME a little better than these philosophical musings, that will be more personally (and exhaustively verbosely) taken care of on my own blog rather than here.

I'm excited about the possibilities, and mulling topics over in my head as I write this.