Quote:
Originally Posted by Clodfobble
Over 80% of Gen Xers said they believed in God in 1995? I call bullshit.
The thing is, Millenials are currently at The Age where you freely and defiantly admit you don't believe in God. Then you fall in love, and you think you might even wanna get married to this person, but maybe he/she believes, or is less certain than you are at any rate, so okay, everyone makes compromises for love and you still don't believe but you just sort of keep quiet about it because you now realize there are some good people like your sweetheart out there who believe, not just the raving fundamentalists, and you aren't as desperate to offend people and "shake up the status quo" as you were in college. And then you have kids, and you are struck with the terror of having to teach this tiny creature all it will know about morality, and you are filled with guilt over your own immoral decisions in life and don't feel up to the task of being the world's biggest hypocrite, so the two of you kind of drift back to the church together, even though neither of you had gone for a decade except when you were visiting the believing spouse's family. You're trepidatious, but it turns out your spouse is the rule rather than the exception, most of the younger people you come across in these churches you visit are perfectly nice, reasonable people who believe in evolution and don't have strictly predictable politics. And all of a sudden, you're in your 40s and when the pollster calls and asks if you believe in some form of God you find yourself saying, "yes," and you chuckle at what the 20-year-old you would have thought of the person you've become. And then suddenly you're 60 and you find that the world has changed, and what you thought were perfectly progressive beliefs you held are now staunch conservatism, and you find yourself to now be rather sure there's something, some meaning to all this, because you've lived out the idea for so long it's second nature, and your impending mortality is on your mind and you don't want to be terrified about what's coming next, and your 20-something grandson is busy throwing his ragingly "liberal" politics in your face, things you can't even imagine being reasonable today, and rolling his eyes at your spirituality and shaking up that old status quo... and you just sit back and smile and know he'll get his in the end.
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This all makes sense, the way you've described it. Doesn't sound so bad...on the surface.
But, something is bothering me, I can't help but notice. Isn't this a list full of crippling compromises? A tale of avoiding hard work and tough decisions, following the path of least resistance, and practicing intellectual weakness as a way of life?
The typical 20 year-old never learned moderation--instead they extinguished their entire value system--throwing out the baby with the bathwater. And instead of developing a workable system preserving their fundamental beliefs, they just bought into the received wisdom of a quick-fix society. The 40 year-old self was too busy to bother wrestling with difficult questions and decisions. The inertia of an object at rest was too overpowering--the complacency of a leisurely lifestyle was too tempting. Shouldn't the 60 year-old, with the wisdom of old age, be ashamed that they helped perpetuate a senseless institution of followers following followers? But, instead of slowly sliding the barrel of a gun into their mouth, they moronically chuckle to themselves and their total lack of human achievement. This story actually makes me sick to my stomach.
I guess you could say I have strong feelings about this.