In my student days studying world history, I recall how the mighty Roman Empire was undone over time in part because they had no idea that their technological achievements had a built-in death knell.  You see,  Romans, especially those higher-born, channeled water into their homes through pipes lined with lead.  As the Empire aged, many mysterious illnesses and calamities plagued the Romans, and some historians argue that lead poisoning hastened the Empire’s collapse.

Imagine the arrogance and self-serving pride that possessed the Roman elite as they gloriously reveled in their technological advancements, never realizing their demise was in progress one sip of water at a time.

I sometimes wonder what seeds of destruction lie within our hyper-individualistic and self-obsessed age that our arrogance is too proud to discern.

The January 4, 2024 edition of Consumer Reports highlights a growing concern that “plasticizers—the most common of which are called phthalates show up inside almost all of us, right along with other chemicals found in plastic, including bisphenols such as BPA. These have been linked to a long list of health concerns, even at very low levels.” (1)

Then, there is the growing debate about the long-term effect of cell phone towers on our bee population. Whether it be the increased use of herbicides and pesticides or the proliferation of microwave technology, our bee population is diminishing. And many are warning of a potentially catastrophic impact on our food supply.

You probably get my drift.  The ripple effects of technology — initially seen as good for society — may have unintended consequences.  

Let us not pride ourselves too much on our technological success.  History teaches us that we have yet to fully understand the physical laws that govern our universe.

Could the same be true in the sphere of morality?  American culture demands  sexual freedom yet ignores what sexual permissiveness has wrought. According to the National Institute of Health, at any given time, it is estimated that 80% of sexually active people are infected with HPV, human papillomavirus, the most common STI in the United States.  80 PERCENT! And this includes  42% of adults ages 18 to 59 years.  Say what?

We may live in the Age of Relativism, where the scale of values change from generation to generation, but Truth will not be mocked.  The human body was not designed to be used for random hook-ups or multiple sex partners.  There are consequences to our actions.  And bad actions have bad consequences, and that includes bad viruses. 

Our progressive friends love to remind us to follow the science until science contradicts their whims. Today, we are faced with a movement that seeks to redefine what a woman is.  Sex and gender are two different things, they say.  One is biological, the other a social construct. Ignore the DNA; feelings rule.   

Megan Murphy, on The Feminist Current website, argues that referring to trans-identified people using the pronoun associated with their self-identified gender rather than then their sex-based pronoun (he/she) has “potentially wide-reaching and dangerous implications — some more immediate and some that would become apparent down the road, probably when it was too late.”

One of the many concerns highlighted in Murphy’s article includes the following:  “Government and health data about men and women will forever be skewed, as well, impacting things like funding for research and facilities, grants, programs, and education. Indeed, it becomes much more difficult to track sex-based discrimination and then address that discrimination if there is no such thing as a female or if records of such discrimination do not include sex.” (2)

There is a growing disconnect between reality and how our society wants to live.  I use the term “growing” because the cultural chaos changes by the day.  As we abandon truth in favor of untested ideas or, worse, embracing ideas that have never contributed to human flourishing, we are witnessing the inevitable consequences of a ship without an anchor — and a compass.

And just as there are physical laws that govern us, so too are there spiritual ones as well.  To violate them is to discover them. To ignore them is to suffer the painful consequences. 

Remove the standard weight of absolute truth, and the scale of values swing wildly from one vice-du-jour to another. 

Could it be that the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history?

(1) https://www.consumerreports.org/health/food-contaminants/the-plastic-chemicals-hiding-in-your-food-a7358224781/?EXTKEY=NH42HTHA3&utm_source=acxiom&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20240218_nsltr_health&utm_nsltr=health&utm_segment=allaccess

(2) https://www.feministcurrent.com/2021/07/28/the-problem-with-preferred-pronouns/