JP Moreland: It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that our entire culture is in trouble.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize that our entire culture is in trouble.  We are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun, and we can no longer afford to act like it's loaded with blanks.  The guidance counselor at a public high school near my home confessed to a parents' group that the teenagers who have attended the school during the last ten years are the most dysfunctional, illiterate group he has witnessed in close to forty years at the same school.  Our society has replaced heroes with celebrities, the quest for a well-informed character with the search for flat abs, substance and depth with image and personality.  In the political process, the makeup man is more important than the speech writer, and we approach the voting booth, no on the basis of a well-developed philosophy of what the state should be, but with a heart full of images, emotions, and slogans all packed into thirty-second sound bites.  The mind-numbing, irrational tripe that fills TV talk shows is digested by millions of bored, lonely Americans hungry for that sort of stuff.  What is going on here?  What has happened to us?"  --JP Moreland [Loving God With All Your Mind]