Has entertainment become our God?

Hey, I like entertainment. But I've been amazed at how obsessed our culture has become with it.

The average American household spends nearly $3,000 a year on it. Look at the tabloids, the Oscars. Actors become major celebrities, even sometimes authorities. Reality TV show stars become presidential candidates. A Justin Bieber YouTube video was watched over a billion times. Netflix, streaming movies and TV shows on smart phones. People can't seem to get enough.

But are we missing anything in all the frenzy? Have we maybe replaced more important things with entertainment?

I remember reading an article about parents taking their young family to Yellowstone National Park for a vacation. The kids complained. They didn't want to go.

"But we'll get to camp out in the wilderness, see buffaloes and sunsets," the father said.

"Sunsets are boring," his daughter replied.

I grew up near a park. During the summer we played baseball there and wore out a major patch of the lawn for the home plate area and pitcher's mound, and smaller areas for the bases. In the fall we wore out the whole center of the park grass playing football. Everybody played. It didn't matter how good you were. It was the thing to do.

Today, years later, that lawn is in perfect shape. And it's been ages since I've even seen a single person in the park. 

Because today everything is online. It's video games. Movies. Twitter. Whatever. I'm not knocking it. I'm a part of it all. I enjoy technology.  But aren't there more important things than entertainment? Aren't we somehow missing out by being glued to glowing screens?