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This is my earliest attempt at a sort of indirect apologetics writing: critical commentary on the current zeitgeist<\/em> or \u201cspirit of the age\u201d and what was often called the \u201cMe Generation\u201d (from which I got my title). It\u2019s dated 6-5-81. It\u2019s more or less unique in my entire output of writing: a free-form, non-rhyming poem about the modern age and the attitudes of the typical secularist and nominally religious person, or agnostic (which I had been myself for about ten years until my evangelical conversion in 1977). I start in a \u201cnarrative\u201d third person Christian perspective, then move to the first person in that mindset; finally switching back to the \u201cnarrator\u201d and ending with related biblical passages as a \u201ccoda.\u201d<\/p>\n I was fresh from four years of college and almost obtaining my college degree in sociology, with a minor on psychology (just short of a few credits), so I had been well educated as to how modern secularist people think, and was only just emerging from my own rather extreme political and social liberalism into an increasingly\u00a0conservative and traditional political, moral, and religious outlook, at almost 23 years of age. I was still nine years away from conversion to Catholicism and it was almost fifteen years before I went online, and 11 1\/2 years before my first published article.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n What do they seek?<\/p>\n Or believe they are seeking?<\/p>\n Happiness is sought<\/p>\n Truth is neglected<\/p>\n Pleasure-seeking, no cares<\/p>\n Does love not have intrinsic, unquestioned value?<\/p>\n Yet hate flourishes through common consensus<\/p>\n Me generation<\/p>\n Do your own thing<\/p>\n Survival decade (selfishness implied)<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n We can do it<\/p>\n We can make and determine our own destiny<\/p>\n Technology \/ materialism \/ HEDONISM<\/p>\n These comprise the Trinity we seek and live for<\/p>\n Leave us alone<\/p>\n Let us reap our own freely chosen destruction<\/p>\n Life makes no sense anyway<\/p>\n You believe in a loving God?<\/p>\n Look what he hasn\u2019t done!<\/p>\n Maybe Jesus was a nice guy and a good person<\/p>\n But where did it get him?<\/p>\n Dying for us?<\/p>\n That\u2019s too complicated<\/p>\n The story must be a myth<\/p>\n My professor said so!<\/p>\n I (I, I, I, I, I, ME, ME, ME, ME, . . .) won\u2019t believe anything that requires me to change my life at all<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n I run my own ship<\/p>\n No one tells me nothin\u2019<\/p>\n I have beliefs too, though<\/p>\n Education, Enlightenment<\/p>\n If only people were educated everything would be okay<\/p>\n Because man is basically good<\/p>\n Environment and a few bad people mess up the world for everyone<\/p>\n We could have Utopia if it weren\u2019t for ignorance<\/p>\n Truth is what I think is true<\/p>\n Good is what causes me the last pain<\/p>\n I love women (hundreds) rather than an abstract God who exists only in the mind<\/p>\n Man, why don\u2019t you start living?<\/p>\n Can\u2019t you see that I\u2019m fulfilled?<\/p>\n I\u2019ve got my head on straight<\/p>\n No one influenced me at all<\/p>\n I arrived at reality using my mind, which evolved by chance from wandering atoms<\/p>\n Isn\u2019t that beautiful?<\/p>\n I escape through drugs<\/p>\n To find peace of mind, tranquility<\/p>\n And a refuge from this world and its ignorant people<\/p>\n If only everyone could know what I know<\/p>\n Education is the answer<\/p>\n Only that will prevent hate<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n They claim to be seeking truth, yet do not define it<\/p>\n They say man is good, yet pride and self are the essence of their words<\/p>\n They say they are happy, yet escape and avoidance are their basic reality<\/p>\n Self is their only value; survival their only reason for being<\/p>\n They believe they are open-minded, yet they do not read the words of Jesus, nor consider Who He was<\/p>\n Someday<\/p>\n Perhaps<\/p>\n God is able to break through cold dead hearts as hard as granite<\/p>\n But He will not force our love, although He offers His freely<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n This world\u2019s wisdom is stupidity to God. In the last days cynical mockers will come, who know no law but their own desires. Men will become utterly self-centered, greedy for money, abusive, violent, arrogant, irreligious, merciless, brutal and enemies of all that is good. They will look for teacher who will tell them just what they want to hear, deliberately shut their ears to the truth and turn to mythology. (1 Cor 3:19; 2 Pet 3:3; 2 Tim 3:2-3 and 4:3-4: composite translation)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n (originally written on 6-5-81; with a new introduction on 6-27-20)<\/p>\n Photo credit:<\/strong> Yours truly in July 1981: the month after I wrote this piece: doing my Bob Dylan \/ Neil Young routine. I had only just recently taught myself guitar and blues harmonica.<\/span><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is my earliest attempt at a sort of indirect apologetics writing: critical commentary on the current zeitgeist or \u201cspirit of the age\u201d and what was often called the \u201cMe Generation\u201d (from which I got my title). It\u2019s dated 6-5-81. It\u2019s more or less unique in my entire output of writing: a free-form, non-rhyming poem […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":49214,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124,3],"tags":[267,258,329,11363,11372,4973,11360,11357,1566,11369,547,345,11366,4906],"class_list":["post-49213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atheism-agnosticism","category-catholic-apologetics","tag-agnosticism","tag-atheism","tag-christian-apologetics","tag-hedonism","tag-meaninglessness","tag-narcissism","tag-nihilism","tag-postmodern-culture","tag-postmodernism","tag-preoccupation-with-self","tag-relativism","tag-secularism","tag-selfishness","tag-zeitgeist"],"yoast_head":"\n