FROTHING AT THE MOUTH

 It seems in this day and age that everybody is offended by everything. A starlet wears her skirt too short, and the Twitterverse explodes with angry tweets. And the angry tweets provoke other angry tweets condemning the tweeters as twits. Then she wears her skirt too long, and we get another Twitterwar. Someone makes a casual, thoughtless remark that they would never have made if their brains had been in gear, and loud calls are made to "cancel" that person. If someone thoughtlessly refers to a person as "he" when the preferred pronoun is "ze," this is a crime against humanity. 

Fortunes are lost and careers are ended at the slip of a tongue, and almost nobody is immune to censure for the slightest offense. It's somewhat like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer.  

In the land of the First Amendment, you risk ruin every time you open your mouth. The PC police have a fundamentalist view of all transgressions against Wokeness. The least insensitive comment engenders cries for the harshest punishment. 

Many people with a strong survival instinct act as though their every word and action are being recorded on an enemy's cellphone video. Aesop is supposed to have said: "Wise men say nothing in dangerous times", and that quote has seldom been truer than it is today. Of course, the original version of Aesop's quote had been cancelled due to the man's obvious misogyny and has been gender-neutralized as "Wise people say nothing in dangerous times." Is there a statue of Aesop anywhere that can be torn down?

Anyone born prior to 1950 who has ever transgressed the least prohibition of the 21st century's version of morality is to be cancelled, written out of the history books as a hero and made a villain, and any statues of them must be torn down. 

That bigoted racist, Winston Churchill, who was largely responsible for saving Europe during World War II, is supposed to have said that a people who are at war with their past have no future. I agree.

CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE IN MODERN AMERICAN SOCIETY

JOHN: I just read an article about a college ordering one of their students to take a Bible verse off of the door to his dormitory room because it was deemed offensive to post verses from the Bible. It seems as though our postmodern society is bent on eliminating every vestige of Christian influence.

NICK: That’s right, if we’re going to put our house in order,[1] we must get to the root of the problem [2] and eradicate all Biblical references one way or another.[3] We can't possibly have religious tolerance in America until Christian influence is erased from the four corners of the earth.[4]

JOHN: Aren’t you being too severe? Why can’t individual Christians exercise their religious beliefs by posting Bible passages in their personal space?

NICK: I can see that you’re not with us, and whoever is not with us is against us.[5] How can an educated person like you say anything in favor of those good for nothing[6] Bible thumpers? As Abraham Lincoln once said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."[7] We have to unite under the banner of religious tolerance and eradicate all vestiges of Christian influence, starting with the Bible.

JOHN: I don’t think Lincoln was the first person to ever speak of a house divided.

NICK: The saying may be as old as the hills,[8] but be that as it may,[9] it applies to our situation.

JOHN:  Christians are peaceful, law-abiding citizens. There are few rotten apples in any barrel, but as for the majority of them I can’t think of a more inoffensive group of people. I think the First Amendment was written to protect non-violent expressions of faith such as this.

NICK: Your argument won’t hold water.[10] I can see right through it. I wasn’t born yesterday,[11] you know. These Bible thumpers are a brood of vipers.[12] They’re wolves in sheep’s clothing,[13] That’s what they are. They’re a gigantic thorn in the flesh[14] of American society. As that old Byrds song, Turn, Turn, Turn, says, "to everything there is a season,"[15] and the season of Christian influence in America is about over.

JOHN: Are you sure the Byrds are the first ones to say that?

NICK: Sure, I’m sure.

JOHN: Well, I can see that you’ve completely removed all Biblical influence from your life.

NICK: You don’t know the half of it.[16] I'm a real Doubting Thomas.[17] When it comes to being completely free of Christian influence, I’m head and shoulders above[18] everybody else. Haven’t  I convinced you that I’m right?

JOHN: I think I’ll answer that by referring you to Proverbs 26:4.[19]

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1. 2 Samuel 17:23
2. Job 19:28-29
3. Job 33:14
4. Isaiah 11:12
5. Matthew 12:30
6. Proverbs 20:14
7. Matthew 12:25
8. Job 15:7
9. 2 Corinthians 12:16
10. Jeremiah 2:13
11. Job 8:9
12. Matthew 3:7
13. Matthew 7:15
14. 2 Corinthians 12:7
15. Ecclesiastes 3:1
16. 1 Kings 10:7
17. John 20:24-25
18. 1 Samuel 9:2
19. “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.”

YAHOO NEWS IS STUNNED BY YOUTH'S DISPLAY OF RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES

Yahoo News has just reported what it calls "one of the strangest cases of purported religious beliefs intersecting with athletic performance." A young girl competing in a cross-country race became upset because she had been assigned the number 666 to wear. She asked for, and was denied, permission to run with another number. She refused to run with the number, and forfeited a chance to compete in the Kentucky state championships, a goal she had been working toward for three years. The article said that the girl's decision "stunned" everyone at the meet except her coach. You can read the story by following this hyperlink.

Here's what I think is strange about the story:

1. That anyone would think it was strange for a person to refuse to wear a symbol which was deeply offensive to that person's religious beliefs.

2. That anyone would be "stunned" because someone valued their religious beliefs above success in an athletic competition.

3. That the author of the article would characterize the girl's religious belief as "purported."

4. That the authorities who denied her request to change numbers would disingenuously claim that she never said she wanted to change numbers because of her religious beliefs.

I salute Cody Thacker. She stood up for what she believed in and willingly suffered the consequences. Instead of being ridiculed, she should be admired.

It has not been that long ago that instead of being "stunned" by "strange" refusals to violate "purported religious beliefs," we celebrated them. A similar incident occurred in the 1924 Olympics, when the British sprinter Eric Liddel refused to run the 100 meter dash because it was contested on Sunday. He refused in the face of the strong insistence of the British Olympic Committee and the Prince of Wales. To make a long story short, Liddel became admired as a hero and was mourned by an entire nation when he died during World War II. The 1981 movie Chariots of Fire told his story, and the story of his Jewish teammate, Harold Abrahams, who won gold when he ran in Liddel's place. The movie grossed $58,972,904 in the United States--and a dollar went much farther back in those days. 

Why, in 1981, did the American media celebrate Liddel as a hero when today it wonders at Cody Thacker's "odd" behavior? The last time I checked, the First Amendment still guaranteed freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. To question a young girl's principled stand based on her religious beliefs is reprehensible.