I apologize in advance to my readers who may have already read this piece under another title, but I think it is an important enough of an issue to keep harping on, and repackaging until people start to hear the message.  Especially the gun control crowd who continually seeks to want to address the symptoms rather than root causes.

So, here it goes!

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One day I was driving along the highway minding my own business, when suddenly I realized I needed a Salted Carmel Latte.  Prior to the last few weeks, I hadn’t even known what a Salted Carmel Latte was, or where to get one, but the string of billboard ads along my route to work had introduced me to them,  with the simple caption, “Mmmmm.”   And let me tell you, “Mmmmm,” I was not disappointed when I finally tasted one for the first time.

We live in a culture that is bombarded by media images both good and bad.  When it comes to advertising, we have throngs of people who know how to sell the products we all so desperately need even though we didn’t know we needed them until we saw the ad.   Companies spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl advertising for a reason, but what is truly the cost?

Arnold Swartzenagger made the comment several years back stating that violent films were not to blame for our epidemic levels of gun violence and mass homicides.  Many in Congress are absolutely convinced it is the availability of guns that is to blame.  But what is it really that makes a man (mostly young white men) want to walk into a crowded school or church and start slaughtering people with reckless abandon?

I agree with Arnold Swartzenagger on one level, that movies are not the cause of violence.  Ultra-violent video games aren’t it either, nor are guns, bullying, decimated family structures, abortion, overly prescribed medication, anti-depressants, drugs or alcohol.

However, take all of these factors, throw them in a soup, tell the world and teach the children in schools we are all a random accidental mixture of atoms and that there is no God that loves them and perhaps you’ve just created a recipe for disaster. Add on top of the that the blatant disregard for human life through abortion and you have the perfect storm for cultural suicide.

You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t be both a chance accident and expect to have purpose and meaning in your life.    If we are just biology, than life really doesn’t have a purpose, and subconsciously we (human beings), particularly young people, know this.

Now obviously, not everyone repeatedly subjected to these factors is running around killing people, but surely we must have noticed the increased frequency of these horrific events over the past several decades.    It seems those among us who want to end their lives because of the hopelessness and despair they feel are no longer content with just killing themselves, but now seek to take as many with them on the journey as well.

So, back to the latte – While it may take several visual cues from a billboard before the desire for a latte turns into an actual visit to the coffee shop, how many images of broken & bullet riddled bodies does it take on an impressionable mind and a hurting heart before a desire builds to inflict pain on a world that has caused them so much pain manifests itself into a mass murder/suicide situation?

There is a quote that I have often heard that goes like this:

“Watch your thoughts, they become words;
watch your words, they become actions;
watch your actions, they become habits;
watch your habits, they become character;
watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” 

Frank Outlaw, 1977

What is astounding to me is that we can supposedly postulate millions of years into our past and determine the inner workings of an early man culture based upon the discovery of a few small bone fragments, but we can’t seem to make the connection between a Godless culture immersed in violent entertainment and sexual depravity with a growing number of people who are filled with hopelessness, despair and a desire to commit mass murder and suicide.

Since our country’s establishment, guns for hunting and defending our homes have been an integral part of our society.   In addition to that, devastating wars (WWI & WWII), and smaller conflicts have not driven us to an intense desire to murder one another in the type of carnage we have now witnessed over the past thirty years.

However, if you consider the fact that we have been working overtime over the past 30-40 years to unhitch our wagon from God and to expunge all evidence he was ever a part of our heritage, how can you come up with any other explanation?  How long will we purposely remain blind to the evidence?

Romans Chapter 1, versus 28-29 states it very clearly and is the key to unlocking the mystery, “Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.  They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.   They are full of envy, murder, strife deceit and malice.”

Just as we can easily recognize a fever is an early symptom of our body trying to fight off an infection, and coughing up blood may be a later symptom of cancer eating up your stomach. In similar fashion, why is it so hard for us to now recognize our society is coughing up blood?

I’m not saying God is causing this, but rather asking, is God merely honoring our request to stay out of our lives, and in the vacuum, evil is flourishing?

What do you think?