Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evoloving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
A step in the right direction.
If politics is downstream from culture, then culture is downstream from belief and values.
The real roots of the problem lie in an internal human conflict that has not yet been overcome, namely, the conflict between mind and body, between the contradiction of good and evil within. While our ancestors made great advances in this area, foremost via Christian culture and values, but when we hit the 20th century, we smashed into atheistic materialism, and God-centered beliefs were assaulted on all fronts. Atheistic Darwinism, Marxist materialism, etc.
Christian faith began to decay massively in the 20th century at an accelerated rate, and with that decay, culturally, we became unable to confront the challenges that arose within the family, society, and nation. Our connection with God waned, not because God left us, but because we left God. Like the Israelites who turned away from their Savior (the Lord) and eventually abandoned God so much that they failed even to recognize the promised Messiah.
I know of people and forces for good that were shouting to the rooftops more than 40 years ago, in the 70's and 80's, about everything that has come to pass today. But they were ignored, persecuted and disbelieved.
My personal faith is that their efforts built a foundation of spiritual victory that God has been able to claim, and today we see both the great awakening and the Great Awakening. Faith and love for God is being revived. The world is changing. This is an unearned grace (IMO), like the pentecost that took place after Jesus' resurrection, God is moving and acting in the world and reclaiming the world, not just spiritually, as in Christ's time, but now also materially.
So, yeah, we need new culture, new lives, and new ways of seeing things. But they will only come about if and when we turn back to God in unprecedented ways. We've seen what our cultures become when God is taken out of the picture. The challenge we now face is to rise up to a standard higher than those of our predecessors. It is this generation and the next few that must bring the work of 2000 years of Christian history to fruition.
"Thy kingdom come...." how? "Thy will be done on earth (by us)...."
In November of 2021, there were some 360,000 people marching the streets of my home city. How many of them were anons? or Q folks? A good number, but a much bigger number were not.
My point is, GAW and 'the movement' have to role of being the yeast. The more we turn to God's value system, the more the wave of awakening will roll into places we haven't even thought of. From that perspective, your exhortation to engage actively on culture creation is timely and something to be embraced by those that can.
Hot take: I have the feeling that, however good their intentions was, the whole effort from the "forces of good" (going to be referred to as goodies for convince) was completely ruined and discredited by their choice of tactics.
Two points stuck out to me. First is that the goodies attempted to achieve their goals via censorship of music, movies, etc. that they find objectionable. I could go on all day about why censorship is bad in general and why, outside of obvious cases, I take a very dim on censorship in general, regardless of who's doing it.
The key takeaway is that the goodies attempting to use censorship to achieve their goals ultimately ruins and discredits their cause, especially since they never bother making new good-quality works to replace what they are attempting to take away.
Second is the presentation of outrageous opinions as facts without backing evidence that is concrete, making those opinions crumble to dust when scrutinized. I point to two examples.
The first is the Jack Chick tract regarding Dungeons and Dragons. The tract, which asserts that the game is a Satanic invention designed to do various evil things, appears to be made as if Mr. Chick never did any research at all on the subject. This has the result of actually making the game even more popular once the tract fell apart under scrutiny and was ruthlessly mocked.
The other example is the PRMC hearings. During those hearings, Twisted Sister's face-of-the-band Dee Snider utterly humiliated Al Gore and his censorious colleges by being a lot more well-spoken than his appearance might suggest while viciously scrutinizing and dismantling the PRMC's arguments and lies. The result is that the "dirty music" that the PRMC sought to restrict exploded in popularity and that any attempts by the government or advocacy groups to restrict music gets looked at with distain and suspicion.
The moral of this story is that if you are going to make a statement, you better bring solid facts that will make what you say stand up to the harshest scrutiny. Otherwise, be prepared to be dismissed as an idiot.
I do think that if the goodies have more carefully strategized and planned out their attacks instead of relying in impulsive feelings, then they might not be so readily dismissed and mocked.
Thanks for the reply.
The "goodies" you speak of have nothing to do with what I am referring to. Those so-called goodies are a symptom of the problem as much as the other forces seeking to undermine and corrupt morals (i.e. Frankfurt school).
The one's I am talking about were working hard on instigating revival of the Christian spirit in America, not via censorship, but via promotion of a reorientation back towards Godly values. Censorship is not a godly value. It is an instrument of the establishment.
So while your hot take is interesting and has some good points to make, it's got nothing to do with what I am talking about.
During the 70's, someone was very controversial in speaking out about the "three headaches of God", when it came to America. (i.e. what made it difficult for God to bless and preserve America)
One was the moral corruption of youth - how this has proved true - the primary work of the Frankfurt school was instrumental in destroying morality in the USA. Today, the USA is rightly seen as the primary exporter of corrupt morals around the world.
Another was the decline of Christianity and a true christian (religious) spirit in the US. (Gore, his wife and their ilk are caricatures of Christian faith, imo.) Sacrifice and service by example, those are real Christian values, not preaching or censoring.
The third was the infiltration of Marxism and communism into all aspects of American life: from politics, to the media, to academia, institutions, and ideology. Again, history has shown that this was in fact the case.
Who in the 1970's could have predicted a day when the entire US mainstream media establishment became a full-blown propaganda machine for communism, whether in the guise of Socialism or Globalism? Almost no one. But someone did. Very well known. And very persecuted.
If you know your American history, you might figure out who I'm talking about.
I really have no idea what you are talking about, although it appears that you are addressing this moral to me? If so, it's ironic, in as much as you have leapt to a rather spectacular (and wrong) conclusion as to who or what people I was alluding to.
(Gore? PRMC? Fake posturing goodies? Pulleeeease.)
Very well said, fren. I was inspired at church on Easter Sunday to rededicate my life to the Lord. I was delivered from alcoholism going on 10 years ago, but seemingly small compromises along the way - "fake" (non-alcoholic) beer over several years gave way to deciding it was okay to have a glass of wine with my wife at dinner, and then to have a "real" beer at a concert or football game. That devolved into regular drinking, albeit with a 3-drink maximum. That further devolved into having more than my limit, which in several instances meant that I chose to put a great deal on the line by risking a DUI. I was convicted and intent to shut it down, but had lost the ability do do that in my own will. Having the first hangover in almost a decade was the last straw, and the Easter sermon torched the straw pile. I surrendered my life once again to the Lord, repented of my sins and prayed earnestly for Him to forgive me and deliver me once again.
The desire to drink vanished immediately. Of course, I do have to "work the program," but my decision to surrender - and once again recognize that I am powerless in my OWN power to resist temptation - will be the cornerstones of my success in living as the Lord wills me to do. He has allowed me to accomplish a lot and has blessed me mightily, even in my walk in the world. That is quite humbling. I can only imagine (song reference noted) how much better life will be when I get out of the Lord's way!
One day at a time, according to His Love, mercy, salvation, forgiveness, deliverance, providence and protection.
God bless all patriot frens!
Happy for you.
Thank you fren. Sticking with it.