Posted on 06/03/2015 8:35:46 AM PDT by rhema
A recent Gallup poll, "Moral Acceptability: Changes Over Time," shows Americans made a startling move to the left over the past 15 years. A blanket blaming of the church is the easy answer, but today, where black and white has faded into varying shades of gray, we are better served going back to where it began because we didn't get where we are today overnight.
America's moral decline began with Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt [FDR]. Their arrogant defiance and blatant hostility toward the U.S. Constitution inspired them to lead an insurrection from the Oval Office, effectively convincing good people that government dependence is a morally acceptable alternative to dependence on God, family, community and self.
Progressive godfather FDR did what progressives do best, hijacking the crisis at hand, the Great Depression, and molding the U.S. government into a pseudo-god. Although both New Deals failed on multiple levels, some of the programs and subsidies permanently persuaded people that an interventionist government is good. That was not enough. Progressives understood the "God-factor" must be removed to accomplish their goal of secularization, wherein religion loses cultural and social significance. In 1947, the Supreme Court, largely packed with FDR appointees, decided the First Amendment instituted a "wall of separation" between church and state in Everson v. Board of Education. In so doing, they were able to separate morality and ethics from government and daily life.
Hence, the immoral mess we see today.
A recent Pew survey found that in 1990, 86 percent of Americans identified as Christians and today, just 70 percent. Interestingly, mainline Protestant denominations such as Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Episcopalian, who have consciously dimmed their own bulbs in recent years to remain relevant to the demands of pop culture, dropped from 50 percent in 1958 to 14 percent in 2015. As mosques are being raised at record levels in towns and cities across America and Europe, churches are increasingly vacated.
Today, more often than not, Jesus' command for Christians to be "light" in a dark world is translated "let's keep it subdued, so no one needs to squint." In fashion photography, soft light works because it helps to conceal the unvarnished reality. In sharp contrast, pure light reveals an honest picture, flaws and all. Interestingly, when Jesus revealed himself to the Christian persecutor, Saul, he appeared in light so harsh and offensively bright, Saul was temporarily blinded. Saul's blindness slowed him down long enough to see the contrast between truth and lies, right and wrong, leading to a conversion so complete, his name was changed from Saul to Paul.
Some would rather spread buttercream icing over cow manure than call this moral decline for what it is. Vanderbilt University Professor of Law and Political Science Edward L. Rubin says America's nosedive into the moral abyss is nothing to fret because we are just shifting to a "new morality" based on a "concept of self-fulfillment." Rubin suggests this fluffed-up version of hedonism is making people uncomfortable because they are feeling rapidly "pulled between two moralities." Paul/Saul wrote about the same struggle in Romans 7, reminding true believers to hold fast to "God's law," not giving in to the new morality he called "sin."
The only way progressivism wins is without the presence of absolute truth. Without it, morality is defined by ever-changing social whims; what's wrong today is right tomorrow. Truth is, it's impossible to define morality without a plumb line or divine standard. Wandering outside already-established boundaries since the beginning of time gets us where we are today. History demonstrates it. Polls prove it. Empty pews show it. Progressives love it.
Our Constitution is based on Absolute Truth (Objective Truth and God’s Laws) Natural Law Theory (Lockean philosophy) is the underlying Supreme Law of the Nation.
Destroy “Just (virtuous) Law” and you will collapse the culture. (Cicero).
We used to have Rule of Law (Higher Law) but Oliver Wendell Holmes, jr and the “progressive” (Marxist) crew replaced our legal system with Rule of Man (the oligarchy/”justices” who embrace vice and theft and unequal law based on base emotions). Promoting vice (socialism/theft) like sodomy and theft and “special” rights will ALWAYS collapse a culture.
Justice is the queen of virtue and to get Justice, it has to exist in the fundamental laws. Our “Justice” system is based on Right Reason (Logic and Reason based on Natural Law and God’s Laws).
The Progressives threw out God (Higher Law) for Marx/man/sodomites.
My wife and I have been watching “Greys Anatomy” on Netflix (so shoot me, we have low taste).
It’s about 60% doctors falling into and out of ‘love’, but what is amazing is the pushing of the homosexual agenda. We had stopped watching TV a decade or so ago and the change is amazing.
It’s no wonder the popular attitudes have changed.
Murder, robbery and assault aren’t the issue here. Certainly they’re indicative of moral failing but they’ve been with us since time immemorial. What’s new is the obsequious ‘gay’ agenda. Same sex marriage, transgenderism, teaching our children in public schools that anything gay is just ok! The breakdown in personal responsibility that encourages everyone to get on the dole...it’s ok to steal from your fellow citizens! They have too much anyway and it ain’t fair!
Constitution? ... Moral decline is a spiritual malaise. Too much bread and circuses brings it on don’tchaknow.
Greedy SOBs in the so-called “entertainment” industry.
Caring less about God than about the bread and the circuses gets the problem going.
“The only way progressivism wins is without the presence of absolute truth. Without it, morality is defined by ever-changing social whims; what’s wrong today is right tomorrow. Truth is, it’s impossible to define morality without a plumb line or divine standard.” There ya Go! Any wonder democrats have systematically corrupted the taboo structure of America?
Obsequious means something like being predisposed to flatter, to kiss up.
Maybe it is a different “ob” you have in mind, like obnoxious or obsessed?
A taboo structure is only a shadow. Virtue structures mean more.
Media is responsible.
TV played a big part in destroying the moral fabric of America. Millions of people watching hours of irredeemably worthless trash on TV every day... not only billions of man-hours down the toilet, it’s billions of man-hours of the finest brainwashing.
BUT... has America’s morals declined.. generally and specifically?..
Any that says NO.... is riding a slippery slope..
Look at the songs(lyrics) penned during the 1930’s/1940’s and the songs NOW...
American black culture is poisonous.. infecting all who it touches..
Railing around more or less at random rogues is less illuminating than to closely follow the battle between God and Satan.
There are a lot of means of this, but in the end they are only means. Either side can shift means as it desires.
The means that matters most is our own hearts. Forget what we vote for in November. What do we vote for daily.
Why would people be willing to do that, however. A least common denominator does not invent itself without some reason.
Yes, just read the writings of some libertarians on FR. Selling drugs to your family is their God-given right. You are a nanny state jackboot licker if you think otherwise. I think the only people who held such views in former times were inmates of mental asylums.
You’re right...what I meant was ubiquitous.
Externals were more polite decades ago, and yet some of the paradigms seem similar.
Romance was surprisingly infrequently tied to marriage and was frequently celebrated in free floating terms. Euphemisms didn’t change that over the last century.
Well OK, the references to marriage have dwindled to almost nothing today. So it was a little better. But the decay was obvious decades ago.
When permitting equates to pushing, a crucial distinction has been chucked out the window.
Vatican II
I prefer not to live under Sharia virtue structures ... sheep and goats, wheat and tares, these can be sorted out.
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