"It is one thing to understand the points of the compass, quite another to use them in order to find one's way in a life circumscribed by one's own refusals"
Doing Time, Lynn Freed, Harper's Magazine, July 2005, Vol 311, No 1862, Page 66
As with almost everything, moderation is a good idea. (And for those wondering about the "almost," I suggest that marital fidelity, reliable childcare, and obedience to laws are examples of areas where moderation isn't such a good idea after all.)
There is a clash [within western] civilization. On one side are secular naturalists, who believe that life arose out of the primordial soup, that it has no transcendent meaning, that the task of government is to protect people from having any infringement on their desire to do whatever they choose to do, that truth is merely a preference. On the other side are those who believe in an overriding natural moral law, a created order, the knowability of truth. The so-called culture war involves abortion, gay “marriage,” cloning, and the like; but at a far deeper level it forces us to face the question of who we are, what it means to be human, whether it is possible to continue to enjoy ordered liberty.
Chuck Colson quoted in THOUGHTS : 'A perilous venture'
