Family News in Focus 12-26-07

Highlights:

If you are in a good marriage, don't take it for granted. That's advice of marriage experts who recently surveyed marriage landscape

When your child takes off for college, it's important for them to find a spiritual home away from home

'In God We Trust' is found on everything from buildings to license plates and 2007 marked 50th anniversary of its appearance on back of one dollar bill

Click here to listen.

From OnePlace.com

Breakpoint: Nietzsche Would Laugh

Morality without God
Is it possible to build a moral society without belief in God? That's what the "New Atheists" would have you believe. The old atheists would laugh in their face.

Click here to listen.

From OnePlace.com

Middle Class Not Sinking into Poverty

The National Center for Policy Analysis highlights a Washington Post article which shows that, in addition to the growing GDP, the middle class isn't sliding into poverty:

True, fewer people today live in households with incomes between $30,000 and $100,000 (a reasonable definition of "middle class") than in 1979.
But the number of people in households that bring in more than $100,000 also rose from 12 percent to 24 percent.

There was no increase in the percentage of people in households making less than $30,000.

So the entire "decline" of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder; for married couples, median incomes have grown in inflation-adjusted dollars by 25 percent since 1979.

It's a simple fact of life that human beings are different. Some will inevitably be better money managers, work harder, make better decisions, take more risks that pay off, and so on down the line. And some of us will simply value a life of less stress and more free time, over the life of 16-hour days and forgotten families that many big-earners live.

Using government to try and erase these differences is not only unbiblical, it's impractical and nonsensical. As communist experiments with doing this have shown us over and over and over, just like the "Animal Farm," equality-schemes will still only establish that "some animals are more equal than others."

America Still Overwhelmingly a Christian Culture

The loud-mouthed secularists among us would have us believe that only a few ignorant, drooling primitives are Christians or identify with Christianity. After all, no intelligent person could identify with the silly, superstitious claims of Christianity, right? The reality is a little different.

From Gallup:

About 82% of Americans in 2007 told Gallup interviewers that they identified with a Christian religion. That includes 51% who said they were Protestant, 5% who were "other Christian," 23% Roman Catholic, and 3% who named another Christian faith, including 2% Mormon.

Because 11% said they had no religious identity at all, and another 2% didn't answer, these results suggest that well more than 9 out of 10 Americans who identify with a religion are Christian in one way or the other.

The poll really breaks down quite well, taking it down to the point of separating those who are "cultural Christians" and those who take their faith seriously.

It's very informative. I'd recommend reading the whole article.

Will Smith Gets It on Evil

From NewsMax, Will Smith is falsely being accused of saying Adolf Hitler was a good person.

Will Smith is angry over celebrity gossip Web site articles that he said misinterpreted a recent remark he made in a Scottish newspaper about Adolf Hitler.

In a story published Saturday in the Daily Record, Smith was quoted saying: “Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’ I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ’good.”’

The quote was preceded by the writer’s observation: “Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good.”

Over the weekend, dozens of celebrity gossip Web sites posted articles about the comment, many saying that Smith believed that Hitler was a “good” person.

I wouldn't give you a nickle for rap music--even the clean stuff--but I've always liked Will Smith as an actor. And from personal interviews I've seen of him, he seems like a nice guy.

Despite this, I think the media generally has a positive impression of him, too, which is why I'm reluctant to put this false accusation down to malice.

At the same time, even knowing liberals like I do, I still find it hard to admit that some in the media could be this stupid as to misinterpret what he said.

It's something I've said a number of times myself. Most if not all evil people don't believe what they're doing is evil. They have a rationale for why what they're doing is good, whether their name is Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Saddam Hussein, or John Doe down the street.

It goes back to the fact that right and wrong aren't subjective and they aren't dependent on our feelings ("Well, I don't feel that's wrong"). Something is wrong based on the fact that it mistreats another human being and/or violates the character of our Creator, regardless of what we think or feel about it.

Sadly, many today can't grasp this truth, as the hard time they're giving Smith proves.

And the fact that he DOES get it just raised my opinion of him yet another notch.