Remember when...?

[Oscar_Kipling]

I used to feel about the future the way you seem to feel about the past. I  never really could look back with a warm fondness, but that wasn't and isn't really sad to me. What truly bums me out is that a path to a better future is increasingly difficult to imagine. I guess Christians don't really have that problem do they? I mean in the near future there will be unfathomable horrors, but after that there is nothing but salad days amirite!? I mean as a Christian wouldn't any movement toward the moral exceptionalism of the past actually be a step away from the inevitable death of evil, sickness and perversity? What do you think you are actually lamenting here? Do these reveries compel you to do anything kind? Does remembering the good old days grant you the strength and perspective to give more of yourself even though no-one deserves it and you can scarcely afford it? Like, what is this for? Is it to help yourself or other christians be more christlike? I was starting to forget how this place made me feel, I'm starting to remember now.

[Sojourner]

I miss the slower, simpler times of my youth when traditional, common sense values prevailed. I was attempting to contrast those times with the changes in standards of morality and social norms that are making things increasingly more bizarre. I'm glad I'm up in age and won't see where the path we're on takes us.

BTW Oscar, I could not possibly care less that you don't agree with my perspective.

[Oscar_Kipling]

I miss the slower, simpler times of my youth when traditional, common sense values prevailed. I was attempting to contrast those times with the changes in standards of morality and social norms that are making things increasingly more bizarre. I'm glad I'm up in age and won't see where the path we're on takes us.

Yeah, I get that, I miss things too. I think mostly I miss the ways that I felt, an outlook that I held. I miss how when I was a kid, on some summer days the park felt like an epic adventure could be just behind a tree or over a hill. I can say with some certainty that the times of my youth were not simpler, but I was. When was your youth?

BTW Oscar, I could not possibly care less that you don't agree with my perspective.

I know.

[RabbiKnife]

I used to feel about the future the way you seem to feel about the past. I  never really could look back with a warm fondness, but that wasn't and isn't really sad to me. What truly bums me out is that a path to a better future is increasingly difficult to imagine. I guess Christians don't really have that problem do they? I mean in the near future there will be unfathomable horrors, but after that there is nothing but salad days amirite!? I mean as a Christian wouldn't any movement toward the moral exceptionalism of the past actually be a step away from the inevitable death of evil, sickness and perversity? What do you think you are actually lamenting here? Do these reveries compel you to do anything kind? Does remembering the good old days grant you the strength and perspective to give more of yourself even though no-one deserves it and you can scarcely afford it? Like, what is this for? Is it to help yourself or other christians be more christlike? I was starting to forget how this place made me feel, I'm starting to remember now.

In the immortal words of The Joker (as played by Jack Nicholson,) "This town needs an enema."

[Oscar_Kipling]

I used to feel about the future the way you seem to feel about the past. I  never really could look back with a warm fondness, but that wasn't and isn't really sad to me. What truly bums me out is that a path to a better future is increasingly difficult to imagine. I guess Christians don't really have that problem do they? I mean in the near future there will be unfathomable horrors, but after that there is nothing but salad days amirite!? I mean as a Christian wouldn't any movement toward the moral exceptionalism of the past actually be a step away from the inevitable death of evil, sickness and perversity? What do you think you are actually lamenting here? Do these reveries compel you to do anything kind? Does remembering the good old days grant you the strength and perspective to give more of yourself even though no-one deserves it and you can scarcely afford it? Like, what is this for? Is it to help yourself or other christians be more christlike? I was starting to forget how this place made me feel, I'm starting to remember now.

In the immortal words of The Joker (as played by Jack Nicholson,) "This town needs an enema."

Bah, Why can't we have a Joker like Cesar Romero anymore, Now its all enemas, comically long pistols, gritty realism and forehead tatoos...What even is a Joachin, sounds like some fru-fru health food junk they are trying to shove down my throat! Why don't men climb trees anymore!? Everytime I turn around someone is trying to replace my family values with CBD oil...My grandfather bareknuckle boxed Nazi Zeroes over the pacific just so they could turn around and take Jesus out of our economy! And that's why birds don't land on young women's fingers anymore...when I was a kid a young girl could barely walk 10 feet before a group of adorable woodland creatures would try to make her a dress while singing a wholesome diddy!

[Oscar_Kipling]

But seriously, if the past was so great and there were so many good moral choices were being made, how did that past produce this present?

[Athanasius]

But seriously, if the past was so great and there were so many good moral choices were being made, how did that past produce this present?

Clearly, it can't have been.

Do you know how everyone complains Twitter is a dumpster fire? Well, it is, but also, that's the world and not unique to Twitter. It's just that it's concentrated, and impossible to deny. The Christians at some local church are loving and can't understand why people think they're a country club? Go on Twitter and get concentrated sanctimonious unloving unkind empathy-lacking judgmental refusing-to-understand Reformed "if you think women can preach you hate Jesus" "Jesus loves me" Christians.

There is no better "remember when" that exists outside of recollection and nostalgia. Even those boomer golden years weren't great. It's more a therapeutic act than real historical recall. Remember when you could call out homosexual-loving heretics like Andy Stanley and no one would disagree with you? Remember when you could suggest David didn't rape Bathsheba because she probably liked the kingly attention? Remember when you could smack women around a little bit and John Piper would shrug and go "ehhh for the sake of the Lord amirite?"

Remember when Christians didn't annoy the living hell out of me? Remember when before I was diagnosed with cancer? Remember when I could live with myself without needing constant distraction or else face world-ending depression and misery?

Remember when Rob Bell put out Nooma and he wasn't yet the big ole heretic?

Remember when life was good? /rant

[RabbiKnife]

Sufficient to each day is the evil thereof.

Non-Christian humans tend to be nostalgic because reality without Jesus would lead one to suicide as a rational thought.

Christian humans tend to be nostalgic because as Jesus said, in this life you will have persecution, and we don't like it very much because we tend to focus on us and now and not on Jesus and eternity.

[Fenris]

Non-Christian humans tend to be nostalgic because reality without Jesus would lead one to suicide as a rational thought.

*Cough*

[Oscar_Kipling]

But seriously, if the past was so great and there were so many good moral choices were being made, how did that past produce this present?

Clearly, it can't have been.

Do you know how everyone complains Twitter is a dumpster fire? Well, it is, but also, that's the world and not unique to Twitter. It's just that it's concentrated, and impossible to deny. The Christians at some local church are loving and can't understand why people think they're a country club? Go on Twitter and get concentrated sanctimonious unloving unkind empathy-lacking judgmental refusing-to-understand Reformed "if you think women can preach you hate Jesus" "Jesus loves me" Christians.

There is no better "remember when" that exists outside of recollection and nostalgia. Even those boomer golden years weren't great. It's more a therapeutic act than real historical recall. Remember when you could call out homosexual-loving heretics like Andy Stanley and no one would disagree with you? Remember when you could suggest David didn't rape Bathsheba because she probably liked the kingly attention? Remember when you could smack women around a little bit and John Piper would shrug and go "ehhh for the sake of the Lord amirite?"

Remember when Christians didn't annoy the living hell out of me? Remember when before I was diagnosed with cancer? Remember when I could live with myself without needing constant distraction or else face world-ending depression and misery?

Remember when Rob Bell put out Nooma and he wasn't yet the big ole heretic?

Remember when life was good? /rant

Yeah, I suppose actual therapy can get expensive, and there probably aren't enough therapists to serve everyone that could actually benefit from it.

[Oscar_Kipling]

Sufficient to each day is the evil thereof.

Non-Christian humans tend to be nostalgic because reality without Jesus would lead one to suicide as a rational thought.

do you actually believe this on some level?

[Sojourner]

I never implied this country was ever a utopia free of societal problems. Racism and bigotry, social injustice, hypocrisy among Christians, widespread corruption and other problems have always existed. My intent was to point out certain prevailing improprieties that did not exist 40 years ago or so. That is simply an observation based on facts, not some misguided, nostalgic, reverie lamenting a supposed idyllic bygone era.

[Oscar_Kipling]

I never implied this country was ever a utopia free of societal problems. Racism and bigotry, social injustice, hypocrisy among Christians, widespread corruption and other problems have always existed. My intent was to point out certain prevailing improprieties that did not exist 40 years ago or so. That is simply an observation based on facts, not some misguided, nostalgic, reverie lamenting a supposed idyllic bygone era.

I'm not sure that you understand what an implication is, because you totally did. The slower, simpler times of your youth when traditional, common sense values prevailed is a confabulation. Perhaps the slower part is actually relevant and reasonably accurate. Instead of stepping back and admitting that you just wanted to put on some rose colored glasses for a minute, you are trying to convince the reader that you acknowledged the flip side. The other side to the simple traditional, common sense values was a nightmare for the complicated, non-traditional, unique folks that didn't fit in that worldview or were flat out excluded from it. It is a bit like missing the performance of leaded gasoline without acknowledging that it was directly responsible for enormous amounts of lead pollution. You want to act as if you can separate what you miss from the ill impacts they had on people that didn't fit or were excluded by them. Do you think people moved away from many of the things that you were just waxing nostalgic about because they worked too well for too long for too many people? 40 years ago was 1983...Do you think that any of the people or things that  are somewhat less marginal today simply didn't exist back then...or was the system of simple traditional common sense values forcing them implicitly or explicitly to pipe down and hide out lest they face the wrath of common sense? I think the entire sentiment behind your posts is that you wish that your worldview still had enough influence and structural power to force people and ideas that make you feel yucky back into the margins where you could promptly ignore them and not have to explain them to your grandkids....not that you care what I think.

[RabbiKnife]

Sufficient to each day is the evil thereof.

Non-Christian humans tend to be nostalgic because reality without Jesus would lead one to suicide as a rational thought.

do you actually believe this on some level?

I believe it on the basis of absolute truth.

[Oscar_Kipling]

Sufficient to each day is the evil thereof.

Non-Christian humans tend to be nostalgic because reality without Jesus would lead one to suicide as a rational thought.

do you actually believe this on some level?

I believe it on the basis of absolute truth.

Oh nevermind, I thought you were just making it up, I didn't realize that it was based on absolute truth.