[Vision2020] Southern Fantasy: Banning The Bible

[keely emerinemix]

I'd agree with you that John's case had to do with things that make 
current-day society more healthful and enjoyable and thus didn't speak to 
the moral decline of culture, but I'm still surprised -- well, OK, not 
really -- that you insist on referring to Southern culture in the 19th 
century as "respectable."

It might have been from a calloused, white-male perspective, although it's 
axiomatic that the measure of a society's "respectability" can hardly be 
accurate if the measure is taken by those who benefit from wrongs committed 
therein.  I'm certain that if you had lived then, you would have done quite 
well.  But for the Christian, then as now, things are judged by a Biblical 
standard of righteousness, not from the perspective of self -- in fact, one 
may argue that Southern society was bad precisely because it benefitted 
white men far more than anyone else, regardless of hard work, personal 
morality, responsibility or merit.  Racism and patriarchy are  a peculiar 
kind of "grace" -- favor given apart from merit -- and are evil because they 
speak against the very things Christ accomplished.

That said, I would invite you to seriously try to consider how "respectable" 
and moral Southern culture was to black slaves, poor white sharecroppers, 
women, and children.  We know about the vicious treatment of black slaves 
and can presume horrendous difficulty for poor whites. We know that women 
were abused inside the home and out on the streets, and children were 
subject to barbaric and violent treatment from their fathers' hands -- and 
all of it was deemed not only acceptable, but necessary and Biblically 
prescribed as well.

You can argue that today's American culture reeks in a lot of areas, but 
it's painful to hear you wax poetic about some imagined Utopia, 
neo-Jerusalem, or homespun well of wholesome Christian goodness that existed 
only in the minds of those very few who were lucky enough to be born into 
the ruling class.

Decadence is decadence even when you're the guy who comes out on top, 
Michael, and thinking Christianly isn't the same as thinking Confederately . 
. .

keely




From: "Michael" <metzler at moscow.com>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Subject: [Vision202"\0] Southern Fantasy: Banning The Bible
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 09:05:18 -0800

John D.,



Remarkable response.  I said that the old America was more "respectable,"
not more "pleasant."   Apparently, you think scientific advance makes up for
moral decline, which is perfect commentary to where we are now at.



Michael Metzler













Michael <metzler at moscow.com> wrote:

 > Thanks for the note.  Idealizing the past is precisely what I
 > intended not to communicate in my short response.  I think that
 > both the north and the south had a more respectable culture
 > than the one we live in now. This was merely a weak comparison.
 > It was a time a bit more saturated with fidelity, honor,
 > morality, discipline, respect, love, chastity, beauty,
 > architecture, religion, love of God, etc.  The land was not as
 > filled with idolatry, hatred, bitterness, disloyalty, adultery,
 > infidelity, dishonor, laziness, paganism, immorality,
 > relativism, general cultural breakdown, statism, impiety, and
 > just about any cultural non-good the western world spent 1500
 > years enumerating. That's all I was referring to.



Since 1850, life expectancy in the ! US has risen from around 40 years to
around 75 years:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html

Since 1865, vacines have been developed against anthrax, diphtheria,
hepatitis, measles, mumps, pertussis, polio, rabies, rubella, tetanus,
tuberculosis, and yellow fever.
We now have, among others, antibiotics, the germ theory of disease, the
defibrillator, the artificial heart, in vitro fertilisation, an
understanding of human blood types and vitamins, and the human genome has
been mapped.
Since 1865, humanity has invented or discovered the air conditioner, the
automobile, barbed wire, the birth control pill, the cathode ray tube, color
photography, the compact disc, computed tomography, the computer, the
dishwasher, dynamite, the dynamo, the electric motor, e-mail, fiber optics,
the Geiger counter, the Global Positioning System, the gramophone record,
the helicopter, the integrated circuit, the laser, the Internet, the jet
engine, the light-emit! ting diode, the liquid fuel rocket, magnetic
resonance imaging, the magnetic tape recorder, the microprocessor, the
microwave oven, molecular biology, the motor cycle, nuclear energy, the
pipeline, the pneumatic hammer, the pocket calculator, polymers, radar,
television, radio communication, the radio telescope, the remote control,
satellites, the seismograph, the spectrophotometer, stainless steel, the
steam turbine, the telephone, the traffic light, the transistor,
ultrasonography, the vacuum cleaner, the washing machine, and the wind
tunnel.

I think we're better of in 2005 than in 1850.





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