"Without God, people can do as they please"

Catallaxy Files ^ | April 21, 2014 | Steve Kates

[No One Special]

Go to the site to get over 400 comments mainly from Australian conservatives with professionl interest in economics.

[beethovenfan]

Now the West has turned its back on Christ. We are entering a new dark age.

[Responsibility2nd]

Looks like me learning Chinese needs to move up quite a lot on my Bucket List.

Shoot, they will soon own our debt and us anyway. And if they can figure out the secret to Greatness is through morality, then I for one say ‘Welcome to our Chinese Overlords.’

(sarc tag or no sarc tag. can’t decide)

[Blood of Tyrants]

Exactly. We flourished with the Judeo-Christian moral foundation. The further we go towards communism and atheism, the more we founder.

[hinckley buzzard]

Max Weber explained it long ago in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

[cuban leaf]

(sarc tag or no sarc tag. can’t decide)

---

I was thinking the same thing. :-)

[ForYourChildren]

“..the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.”

Amen.

[PGR88]

"Without God, people can do as they please"

People can always do as they please. God gave us free will. The issue is now that people don't want, nor do they understand, the consequences of doing as they please. Its called "Natural Law."

[omega4412]

Read Stark. The success was not just the result of Protestantism. Medieval Catholic monasteries also played an important part.

[M Kehoe]

Hi.

Shoot, they will soon own our debt and us anyway. And if they can figure out the secret to Greatness is through morality, then I for one say ‘Welcome to our Chinese Overlords.’

I understand where you are coming from, but I'm still going to shoot them (until I run out of ammo), anyway.

5.56mm

[loveliberty2]

Early histories of America, as well as the words of its Founders and early leaders, confirm the observation reposted here by ForYourChildren.

"Ideas have consequences"(Weaver).

The ideas of 1776 came out of a set of ideas consistent with liberty for individuals, not power for political elites.

We tend to forget, or have never considered, that other world views existed then, as now.

Unless today's citizens rediscover the ideas of liberty existing in what Jefferson called "the American mind" of 1776, we risk going back to the "Old World" ideas which preceded the "Miracle of America."

There are those who call themselves "progressives," when, in fact, their ideas are regressive and enslaving, and as old as the history of civilization.

Would suggest to any who wish an authentic history of the ideas underlying American's founding a visit to this web site, at which Richard Frothingham's outstanding 1872 "History of the Rise of the Republic of the United States" can be read on line.

This 600+-page history traces the ideas which gave birth to the American founding. Throughout, Richard Frothingham, the historian, develops the idea that it is "the Christian idea of man" which allowed the philosophy underlying the Declaration of Independence and Constitution to become a reality--an idea which recognizes the individual and the Source of his/her "Creator"-endowed life, liberty and law.

Is there any wonder that the enemies of freedom, the so-called "progressives," do not promote such authentic histories of America? Their philosophy puts something called "the state," or "global interests" as being superior to individuals and requires a political elitist group (themselves and their cookie-cutter ideologues) to decide what role individuals are to play.

In other words, they must turn the Founders' ideas upside-down in order to achieve a common mediocrity for individuals and power for themselves.

[Lake Living]

This has been know for a long time. The liberals hate it as they hate all truth. They want to destroy America just like they want to destroy the Jews because both remind them of a God they claim doesn’t exist - but secretly fear he might - all the while telling us how much smarter they are than you and I.

The King will return someday (soon I think) and when he does, he’s going to kick serious butt!

[Salvation]

[txhurl]

I agree wit BOTH of you, but, still, this is some serious good news. If China goes Christian, it’s over for the left. OVER.

[No One Special]

More specifically, this is an American phenomenon rather than just Western. At the least, we were a moral people.

[Moonman62]

They appear to agree with David Cameron, the British prime minister, who said last week that Christianity could help boost Britain’s “spiritual, physical and moral” state.

I think the British Empire was the single greatest influence on modern civilization. They tamed and civilized many non-Christian areas.

[No One Special]

Reminds me of this:

The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

--Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1821

[Old Yeller]

John 3:19

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

[txhurl]

Very nice!

Then there’s always personal experience. Chinese can come over here and stay in a hotel, shop, buy a house, put their kids in school, see American couples with adopted Chinese kids, feel safe and protected, and with not much effort realize the reason: Christian conservatism.

[lavaroise]

The culture is plundering the talent capital, Marxist style, as if Capital and inheritence were the gods to acquire or destroy, when those without capital but with God living in them is what created it all. Oh well...