This week I read an article written by our government. It entails the affects of teenage drinking and the causes thereof. They go into the statistics of nearly 5,000 people under the age of 21 dying from alcohol or alcohol related accidents. This looked like a typical article about drinking - the author at least attempting to have a negative stigma towards it throughout the article. They try to document in cold, scientific terms why teens are driven to drink and why it's wrong.
Honestly though, why even write an article like this?
Our TV shows are allowed to promote it, our music is allowed to promote it, our movies encourage it - it's a losing battle. Now, I'm not suggesting here that we ought to allow teenage drinking, though my title may lead one to believe that. What I am saying is that a secular organization, such as the government, really might as well not even write an article like this. Probably, there are many people within that organization that get carried away with drinking often. After all, that's what a fun social life looks like in an adult!
Outside of Jesus, there's really no reason to even bother with the formality of 'forbidding' activities.
Because in reality, many people aged 21 and older are just as immature, if not more, than others years their juniors. Age is just a number, if you ask me. I do agree that people's minds develop over years and begin to process at certain ages. However, I would say we are conditioning our youth to progress slower and slower every year by the way we treat them.
So, what's the point of a blog post like this?
When we have the basis of Jesus and the wisdom he suggests in his word, there's a sound basis to teach youth not to drink because of the negative affects. Outside of Jesus, the world has little meaning, so why not drink? If we're all here on accident and life sucks anyway from Monday-Friday, why not drink? And why wait until a certain age to start numbing the pain?
It's just silly to me, the government trying to make limits like this when there's potentially even the chance that some of those making the laws abused them themselves when they were teens.
And people call Christians hypocrites.
Bibliography
"Underage Drinking." Underage Drinking-Why Do Adolescents Drink, What Are the Risks, and How Can Underage Drinking Be Prevented? N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2014.
Awesome post man! I find it interesting that for a person on the outside looking in at Christianity would find it absolutely ridiculous, but as Christians we can find true meaning in Christ with out the NEED to drink and its normal.
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