Who Stole Forever?
ophers are plotting the philosophical demise of Western culture. But the functional worldview of Western culture denies a belief in the hereafter. The shift has been subtle but nonetheless seismic in its impact. This life-altering change didn’t begin a few years ago. It has been percolating for generations. The movement away from a biblical view of life coupled with the materialism of our modern scientific culture has affected the way we think about who we are and what is important. The larceny of forever shapes our lives more than we realize. Eternity amnesia grips us all, making it hard, if not impossible, for us to imagine living forever. We find it hard to believe in anything that contradicts the “here and now is all you get” perspective that rules the day. So we have functionally discarded the once widely held belief in an afterlife, a reality we cannot embrace without it influencing the way we live. Without forever in the center of our thinking, our picture of life is like a jigsaw puzzle missing a cen- tral piece. You will simply not have an accurate view of the picture without the piece of the puzzle entitled “forever.” This void has had an enormous impact on how we think about ourselves and the struggles we daily face. When it comes to the university classroom, the public square, and popular media, the concept of eternity is fundamentally absent. You will never hear Katie Couric close her nightly news broadcast by saying, “I know things often look bleak and chaotic, but remember that this is not all there is. We are all heading for eternity, where all that is broken will be finally and forever fixed. This is Katie Couric, CBS News . Good night.” Children watching morning TV have been robbed of forever. Junior high kids studying history will not be taught how to examine history through the lens of forever. University students in a psychology class will not be assigned an essay on the impact of eternity on a human being’s emotions and behav- ior. Most businesspeople investing money don’t have eternity in their minds, let alone in the way they think about their portfolio.
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