Shocked to Not Be as Shocked as I Thought I'd Be Shocked

I came across this interesting post on Brian Flemming's blog a couple of weeks ago, but I hadn't started my blog yet, so my comments were reserved for my dog (who seemed to consider them brilliant).

After reading the Rolling Stone article that Brian points to, and at the risk of inviting people to quote me out of context, I was surprised by how much of their message actually made sense. Granted, my expectations were quite low, having expected the entire proposition to be nonsense.

BattleCry's rhetoric combines divisive, self-righteous militancy with vacuous supernatural claims in a way that is wholly unsurprising. However, their revulsion at many of the staples of pop-culture, such as excessive consumerism and celebrity worship, are not without merit. They also acknowledge real-world social problems such as teenage pregnancy, suicide, and drug-abuse and attempt to address them.

I agree that these are problems, and I'm glad to find some common ground with a group of people who have a much different worldview. I also didn't see any overt attempt to legislate their version of morality, although I'm suspicious that this lurks somewhere beneath the surface, and I'd certainly oppose such a thing.

However, I disagree with their "solution" to these problems, which is, of course, unyielding faith in Jesus Christ, where faith means consistently accepting truth claims on insufficient evidence. I suppose, at the end of the day, I'm simply more optimistic than my theist counterparts. I believe that we can actually address problematic issues within our society without invoking a magical being (and without legislating away personal liberty).