Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

Thanks for bringing in the other side of the coin. Since my natural inclination is to focus on the empty half of the glass and contemplate the "void" in human existence, I MAY be overcompensating a bit in this essay, working overtime to accentuate the more hopeful signs or possibilities of our contemporary situation. There certainly are many competing 'meta-narratives' or mythologies and world-views to choose from, leading to a lack of the sense of 'moral absolutes' that might once have come from one shared, dominant mythology. And, as you point out, whether as a result of the difficulty of knowing which to choose or seizing upon post-modernism as an excuse not to consider anything beyond oneself, there are many people who choose to define "The Good" as simply "good for me and mine" and never look beyond that (which my brother seemed to be citing as the majority opinion).

Going into shame ("I'm bad") and guilt ("I did something that was bad") would take more time than we have now, but thanks for bringing all these things to the table. Maybe we can talk them over further in coming weeks?