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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Why become a Man (part 3)

In order to understand why one should get married, we must first go back to the original definition stated in part 2 of this series.

Marriage is a divine calling by God to a man and a woman to permanently unite as one to give life and care for children and to grow more into love with children and each other.

The core tenant of this is sacrificial love. Without this marriage doesn't have the maturing affects on men that women hope for. The problem is that sacrificial love has been scrubbed from society. It is "celebrated" in empty platitudes of well wishing and a "niceness" devoid of real content. Marriage for the spouses is about themselves, not each other. Even children are a commodity, rather than the goal of marriage.

The problem is that in order for sacrificial love to occur we need to know "why" we should be sacrificial and loving. Without God there is little objective reason to devote one's life to such a vocation.

But there is hope. We see signs of this knowledge, this truth, coming back into focus. I'm remined of Sarah Palin, mother of five and a devoted Christian (from all accounts). The vile and disgusting attacks on her person (apart from any legitimate criticism about her capacity for Vice President) show a culture that deep down knows that there is something really wrong with our current culture and our views, so much so that we must lash out against those who live out the real meaning of marriage.

But that Palin is a viable cadidate for the future of politics shows that a waking up of our culture is rising. One hopes that such people as her have the courage to lead our culture bakc to God and life.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Why become a Man (part 2)

The original defintion of marriage before the turn of the 20th went something like this roughly:

Marriage is a divine calling by God to a man and a woman to permanently unite as one to give life and care for children and to grow more into love with children and each other.

Now astoundingly enough, modern society has managed to strip away just about everything from this definition. First we got rid of the permanent part (divorce). Then we got rid of the children part (contraception). Then we got rid of the God part (atheism/agnosticism). Now we are on the verge of getting rid of the man/woman union (homosexual "marriage, a contradiction in terms).

Finally when we introduce sex outside of marriage, we get the following:

Marriage is a "contract" between two consenting adults to...live together and share property. The state recognizes them as an entity an treats them as such.

With this new definition there appears to be very little reason to get married. Why take on unnecessary responsibility (if any exists left) and go through the trouble? A Single Young Male can have all the fun without any of the responsibility. Why leave the state of adolescence?

We will examine this in the next post...

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Why become a Man?

A while ago I saw an article (vulgarity warning) posted by a Kay S. Hymowitz about the limbo that single men (if they can be called "men") exist in today's society. All in all I think that her analysis of men at this stage in life (speaking as a Single Young Male, or SYM hereafter) is fairly accurate. SYMs are in a perpetual adolescence. Addicted to Maxim, video games, and reality shows, we/they seem ambivalent to responsibility and to be quite frank, growing up. Surely the ideal of "Man" seems to have disappeared altogether.

However my endorsement of her analysis falls short when she begins to examine the cause of this. And apparently I'm not alone. My question, and that of others (again vulgarity warning) that apparently have written her ask, why should we?

My question is not motivated by spite or sour grapes, but really a question about what is a "Man" and where do they fit into society today? Feminism essentially told gentlemen to take a hike because such behaviour degraded women (like opening a door is supposed to reflect physical weakness of women), so men reverted to more "baser" instincts. Men were told that they are sex crazed idiots by feminists, media, schools, etc. So men decided that if that is the way society expects them to act, why not follow suit?

There is nothing worse than a deadbeat Dad, but up until the minute the child is born the man has no say if the child in the womb lives or dies. Anything that a man can do a woman can do...better. Even in the Christian Churches the Church militant is replaced with softer, less offending "witness." Today men seem to be nothing more than an extra source of income. With the state of marriage as it is (50% ending in divorce), the possibility of responsibility without rights (see the child in the womb sentence), and yielding of "freedom" (to be the SYM he was), men really don't have any incentive today to "tie-the-knot."

So to modern society I ask, why?

Follow up to be posted tomorrow...

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Conversion: The aftermath

While trolling the various web blogs I found that a rather famous athiest blogger has converted (or reverted) to the Faith. I had known very little about him save for anything that had been mentioned at Dawn Eden's blog.

Perhaps the most curious thing (to me at least) is just the rather juvenile responses from the athiests that have turned on him. The vulgarity and condesencion that the convert has met with is nothing less than breathtaking. But perhaps more than that is the tendency to shout from the rooftops "Me rational, you not!" type of responses. It might be true, but having to reiterate it over and over again seems to me a kind of weakness. Perhaps an inability to perceive the mind of the other side. Sadly too often people of all creeds (or lacking one) seem to write off an opinion contrary to our favorite positions as nonsense. It may be true, but to call something nonsense you have to at least be able to demonstrate that you understand what it is you are rejecting.

The New Athiests (Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, et al) demonstrate time and again that they do not understand what it is they are attacking. They are so far removed from what it is they assail over and over again, demonstrating that they simply don't underestand what it is they are railing against, thus making their arguments ineffective.

This I believe stems from two problems that they suffer from. Breathtaking arrogance and ignorance of religious subjects (usually Christianity). The latter comes from the former. The arrogance comes as a personal vice. This can only be remedied by them (God's corrective grace can only be accepted by them). The ignorance comes from a lack of respect for Christianity. They do not respect it enough to learn about it. Thus they dismiss it with a wave of the hand and bombast that they pass off as rational argument.

This is not an attempt to pass judgement on them. I have no idea about their moral failings or such. But until they sit down and actually learn more about what it is they despise so much, their arguments can be met with only "that's not what we teach." You cannot convert someone from something they don't believe in.