By Roy E. Cogdill
In todays society there are any number of things that are tolerated and excused and which some even seek to justify that have always been recognized by decent and honorable people as productive of evil and no good at all. This is evident in the language that is commonly used everywhere.
You can read filthy, vulgar, vile language in the magazines and newspapers. The picture shows, television shows, and even some of the literature that is required reading in our schools is full of it. There seems to be nowhere you can avoid it today. We are living in a “four letter society” and the righteous are raising mighty little protest but seem to take the attitude that there is nothing that can be done about it. Gods name is profaned upon many lips with almost every breath and in every place. You cannot go into a public gathering of any kind, listen to the news, or read the paper without your senses being violated with vulgarity, profanity, and filthy communications. Why?
Have all our laws against such indecent language been repealed? No! Many of them are still on the statute books but they are not being respected or enforced. Does the principle of free speech guarantee the right to say anything, anywhere, any time in the presence of anybody? Does not a man have the right to take his wife and children out into the public places today without their having to be subjected to a lot of profanity and vulgar filth in what they are forced to see and hear? Does not the hearer have some rights as well as the speaker?
Is this change brought about by our being better enlightened and becoming better educated and more cultured? There are those who so contend. This is just not so. Profanity and vulgarity along with all crudeness in speech is the result of a lack of education and refinement. It shows a lack of real culture and wisdom. When one can adequately express himself, he needs no filthy words or vulgarity to do so (Pro. 8:1-8).
1. We have witnessed a breaking down of law and order. We have seen the greatest increase in crime this country has ever known. Respect for authority in general and government in particular is at the lowest ebb. All over the world there seems to be general rebellion against the established order of things.
2. Respect for others and their rights is almost non-existent. Men are selfishly concerned with their own rights regardless of the rights of others. The whole basis of “civil disobedience” is a lack of regard for either God or man.
3. Atheism is a basic factor. The increase of unbelief has been tremendous. It has infiltrated our literature, education, politics, and even religion until it threatens the very existence of this nation. Unless it can be halted and the righteous people of this nation become militant in their opposition to it, Communism will take this country without firing a shot. They will do it through atheism. Atheism is the religion of Communism. Our Supreme Court supports it when they rule that to teach the Bible account of creation is religion and in violation of the constitution, but to teach creation by chance, through the theory of evolution, is not religion. If one is religions the other must be. Yet, they say the Bible account of creation cannot be taught in our schools at all and the theory of evolution can be taught as fact and not violate the constitution. There is not a scientist on earth that can establish or prove evolution to be fact.
Atheism is not wisdom. It has never done anything constructive or worthwhile for mankind. It offers no incentive and gives no hope. It does not even have a plausible explanation for the existence of life. It is pagan and heathen. When people are taught that they are mere animals instead of created in the image and likeness of God, they will live and eat like animals and that is the kind of society we are becoming. The vulgarity and profanity to which we are being subjected is but a symptom of the real disease.
TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 45, p. 5
September 21, 1972