Life, from Beginning to End
From beginning to end in contemporary U/.S. society, the value of human life is being diminished. Many rush with youthful foolishness into stupid sexual decision, and often, there is no good outcome if pregnancy ensues. Abortion , children raising children, etc. Illegitimacy, divorce often robs children of functioning families. A high percentage of families that stay together end up (often unnecessarily) turning their kids over to hirelings to raise. Despite many fine Christians working to make a difference in our public school system, their efforts are often trumped by restrictions, mandates, and humanistic curricula, including the teaching of the bogus theory of evolution as established scientific fact when in fact it is a politically-correct hodgepodge of pseudo-scientific gobbledygook.
Children, then are led to believe that they are animals. They are of no real higher value than any other animal; they are then driven by appetites and instincts, which they are unable to control. We thus end up giving out birth control instead of truth. The highest good then becomes self-gratification through whatever means one desires. Let anyone raise a voice to suggest that there are moral limits on our behavior, and one is branded a narrow-minded bigot, an Elmer gantry moralist relic of a time long and gladly past.
We are still, compared to the rest of the Western world, a churchgoing society, yet should a child be fortunate enough to be taken to a church, he may well find himself not to be so terribly fortunate after all, for in all too many of our churches he will be told that low self-esteem, and not sin, is his problem. He will not be challenged as to his pride, his self-indulgence, or his need of a Savior.
He will in vain look to national leaders to find heroes; he will likely fare no better looking to athletes and certainly no better to figures in the entertainment world. Instead, he will learn more self-indulgence; he will learn that dishonesty can be gotten away with and that looking out for Number 1 is the highest good. When he feels his rights are violated, and he will of course be hyper-sensitive to looking out for those rights he considers his, he will look in vain to the justice system to find justice, for what he will find instead is a system of justice which has long since abandoned the Constitution as the basis for law; he will very possibly find that justice can be bought by those with enough money. And so he will continue his quest for personal expression and self-fulfillment.
He will likely carry this attitude through life, barring an encounter with the truth of Christ, which is growing less and less likely since even churches where the gospel is proclaimed inside the doors have in large part lost the urgent imperative of showing that truth to lost people. Having then pursued a lifetime of pleasure-seeking, he will come to the end of life and exercise his personal autonomy one last time, opting for what he will call death with dignity by dialing the doctor for a lethal prescription and ending it all.