Over the years, I've heard a number of popular songs which have referred to hell. Often, they've made it sound as if hell is a marvelous place to be. For instance:
"You know you got to go through hell, before you get to heaven"
... from "Big Ol' Jet Airliner" by Steve Miller
"If you wanna' get to heaven, you've got to raise a little hell"
... Ozark Mountain Daredevils
And who can forget the songs "Hells Bells" and "Highway to Hell" by AC/DC? ("YEAH! Party on, dudes," said the embarrassingly drunken frat boy.)
In my opinion, there is no better way to demonstrate one's ignorance (or, dare I say it, utter stupidity) than to write songs that make hell sound as if it's a vacation paradise (or as if it is a stepping stone on the way to heaven).
I believe that hell is very real, and it's not a place where any sane person would ever want to be. Jesus died an excruciatingly painful death on the cross precisely so that we could avoid hell, if we would only make the simple choice to follow and obey him.
The fact that we live in a culture which treats hell as if it's a big joke says something really sad about that culture. People who have bought into the lies promoted by such songs can look forward to a very unpleasant wake-up call when they die.
That's one extremely compelling reason why we need to invest in turning our culture around, by helping to finance the creation of Christ-centered works of art and music.
Showing posts with label degeneracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label degeneracy. Show all posts
Monday, April 11, 2011
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Since When Is The Word "Pimp" Respectable?
Theodore Dalrymple is the author of the book "Our Culture, What's Left of It". The book is an analysis and critique of cultural decline in countries such as England and the United States, particularly in relation to the connection between barbarous behavior and socialism. (That makes the book "must reading" for anyone stupid enough to think that Barack Obama, who has ushered in a new era of socialism in the United States, is the new messiah.)
I'm reminded of Dalrymple's book when I contemplate the manner in which the word "pimp" (which has always referred to a male person who exploits prostitutes for profit, and which has often been used, as well, to refer to a despicable person) is now being used as if the word is a positive thing --- as in the television show "Pimp My Ride". Apparently, the "positive" use of the word is a derivation of "hip-hop culture" (which is an oxymoron if ever I heard one).
People who think that being a pimp is a good thing are undoubtedly the same morons who think that it's appropriate to regularly and casually use words which rhyme with the phrase "brother trucker" and which refer to people who commit incest with their maternal parents. But who knows? Maybe where they come from, incest is an accepted part of normal everyday life, and people who exploit and abuse prostitutes are deemed worthy of their respect. That is certainly the conclusion a rational person would draw, based on the way that such people talk.
For people who think that the aforementioned comments are "racist," I would point out that there are numerous respectable African-Americans (e.g., Thomas Sowell, Alan Keyes, Bill Cosby, etc.) who have rejected the thug mentality which seems to dominate large sectors of the black community today (and which has slowly seeped, like pungently raw sewage, into the vocabularies of people from other sectors of society as well). I thank the Lord for that! But I fear that our "nonjudgmental" attitude towards people with no class and no morals is leading to a situation in which people such as Sowell, Keyes and Cosby will soon be viewed as irrelevant anachronisms in mainstream society, or in what passes for society.
I'm reminded of Dalrymple's book when I contemplate the manner in which the word "pimp" (which has always referred to a male person who exploits prostitutes for profit, and which has often been used, as well, to refer to a despicable person) is now being used as if the word is a positive thing --- as in the television show "Pimp My Ride". Apparently, the "positive" use of the word is a derivation of "hip-hop culture" (which is an oxymoron if ever I heard one).
People who think that being a pimp is a good thing are undoubtedly the same morons who think that it's appropriate to regularly and casually use words which rhyme with the phrase "brother trucker" and which refer to people who commit incest with their maternal parents. But who knows? Maybe where they come from, incest is an accepted part of normal everyday life, and people who exploit and abuse prostitutes are deemed worthy of their respect. That is certainly the conclusion a rational person would draw, based on the way that such people talk.
For people who think that the aforementioned comments are "racist," I would point out that there are numerous respectable African-Americans (e.g., Thomas Sowell, Alan Keyes, Bill Cosby, etc.) who have rejected the thug mentality which seems to dominate large sectors of the black community today (and which has slowly seeped, like pungently raw sewage, into the vocabularies of people from other sectors of society as well). I thank the Lord for that! But I fear that our "nonjudgmental" attitude towards people with no class and no morals is leading to a situation in which people such as Sowell, Keyes and Cosby will soon be viewed as irrelevant anachronisms in mainstream society, or in what passes for society.
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