Today I heard about a 16 year old girl who chatted online with someone who turned out to be a "child predator". Now her parents closely monitor her internet activities to "keep her safe". The media is constantly warning parents of the dangers of the net and encouraging them to go online with their children. After all, the parents are responsible for everything their children do. The parents are considered the "experienced" ones, protecting the "naive little kids" (who build web pages while their parents barely know how to use a search engine). When can someone be trusted to make their own decisions? When is someone finally held responsible for their own life and choices?

Recently, I saw an add on the back of a bus that read "But she looked 18..." Even morality is regulated by age. If someone who had just turned 18 had sex with someone who was still 17, it would be considered "rape". How much really changes in a person when they turn 18? "Kiddie" porn is considered one of the greatest evils on the net, but what about adult porn? The net is so polluted with it that one can hardly find decent pictures without coming across it. The United States, home of the liars, is the only country whose police officers go online and deliberately pose as people under 18 to catch "online pedophiles". Why is everyone so adamant about protecting "children" (anyone under 18)? Because they believe in the myth of innocence...

Every person on earth is a sinner and each and every one of us knows it, but we may not understand why. We feel guilt, which tells us we did something wrong, which implies something was right. There are an infinite number of varieties of chaos, but only one perfect state. Yet, it's a common belief that there is no divine force at work in the universe, but that we are gods; that we are evolving, defying entropy, and reaching perfection. But they overlook one simple fact: We're dying. They can't stop it any more than they can stop the guilt and the pain by trying to cover it up with more guilt and pain. People say America is full of Christians, but it's full of atheists, some of whom pose as religious or moral people and make themselves the bearer of salvation and their opinions the final authority.

Less than a month ago my way of thinking about innocence was the complete opposite of what it is now. I saw the simple, smooth features of youth. Then I saw the randomization that comes from aging. Our voices change and our bodies fill with a jumble of chaotic, off-balance chemicals that effect every part of us, from body, to emotions, even reason. I always saw that as a curse of sin. Just as a room falls to entropy with no effort, evil thrives where the good do nothing. I believed that children should be sheltered from sex (education or any kind of exposure) in the same way one would shelter them from gore and death. After all, I thought, if it were "perfectly natural" then why childhood and the simplicity of features and mind? Why innocence and why don't we become capable of sex until we fall to entropy? Jesus said in Mark 10:14, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God." I read that and it never clicked, until recently...
"For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)

"Unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (Jesus, John 3:3) We weren't born innocent, we were merely created in the image of God. A "child" being sexually exploited is no greater a sin than if it were an "adult". A sin is a sin and "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23) The truth is that only Jesus was ever innocent, none of us. Why? We're all responsible for our own lives. It's called free will. But we're not perfect like Him. We're not gods. We're mortal, fragile. So, we fall short of the glory of God, who is perfect and immortal. The time spent craving and yearning my childhood past was in vain (vain as in vanity). We can't make ourselves "innocent again" because we never were. We can create a fake face to go with our fake body, but fake youth and fake innocence can't hide real pain and real death. Only Christ can cover us and only He can save us... from ourselves.