Posted on 03/08/2007 4:01:11 PM PST by wagglebee
Which is yet another reason that true conservatives need to stand against the influx of liberalism into the GOP.
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Which is yet another reason that true conservatives need to stand against the influx of liberalism into the GOP.
Yes and they need to avoid the kinds of activities that erupt into scandals.
A great deal of the problem is also that those holding to moral values are weak minded, intellectually flabby, and hindered by their foolish yeilding to the rules of engagement set by the progressives....all while they still try to hold onto, or at least give lip-service to, traditional beliefs. It can only get worse when you have poor leadership. And the religious leaders of strength are practically non-existent, even though the fear-mongers on the left would tell you otherwise.
Thank you for the ping - I saw a report on Fox this afternoon that is along these lines. A reporter interviewed various people on the street about religion. Questions were asked about who were the apostles, what are the 10 commandments, etc. It was a sad commentary. Perhaps the worst was that many thought it was perfectly fine to just be spiritual and not have knowledge of God's Word - just be good and you'll be okay. Hitler and Stalin thought they were doing the right thing.
C.S. Lewis warned a half century ago that the greatest danger we face is the moral relativism of the secular humanists.
The results of this survey are not surprising, but they may be mistaken in their interpretation of the results.
The US Constitution was not written in heaven, nor was it dictated by God or angels to man. It was mostly written by James Madison, along with about a third of the Federalist Papers. At no time did he declare that he was dictating the word of God.
Importantly, this is not a snub to God. It is the recognition that this Constitution was a document of men, and that while the ideas within were believed to be good, that they were not perfect, that they were not the word of God and beyond change.
In truth, this is not a snub to God. In fact, it honors God by not using his name in vain. The vanity of the Earthly affairs of man. It does NOT say "God determined Louis to be the King of France and therefore no one can challenge that estate", or the equivalent claptrap used to justify kings and emperors for thousands of years.
For how insulting to God for men to continually say that "such and such zoning ordinance must be approved because God, through his holy priests, demand it." It is highly unlikely that God did any such thing, and more likely, the priests themselves were expecting to handsomely profit from that zoning change.
And this is how men, many of whom held deep religious convictions, agreed to make a secular document of the administrative order and authority of the US government, perhaps done with their personal respect to God, but accepting that it was not the word of God, that it was just a tool to help them manage their affairs.
But how does this leave Americans today? Well, though we may not express it this clearly, most Americans think of morality as the purview of heaven and ethics as in the domain of man. Morality is created in heaven, and whatever is moral is not determined by man; it is interpreted and explained by those who understand it, but they have no real final authority. You are either moral, or you are not.
Ethics is a lot easier. It is the written rules created by men for men. If you know the rules, then you know if you break them or not. And you also know what punishment may be entailed by breaking them, for that, too, is created by men. And you can even be judged fairly by your fellow men if you are accused of breaking these rules.
So ethics are essentially secular. Being ethical really doesn't speak to belief in God at all. It just means that you follow the rules of men well. You can be ethical, and yet be moral or immoral at the same time.
This is why it can be deceptive to ask people what their values are. While being ethical is clear, people are all over the board in examining their own morality.
Truly people can say that they are *trying* to be moral, but they cannot say that they *are* moral, because that judgment is not theirs to make--and religious experts vary a great deal on what they think morality is.
People who most of us think of as very moral, might think of themselves as terribly immoral. But people generally know if they are ethical or not.
Paul describes the path of moral decline a society can expect when the authority of God is denied (Romans 1:18-1:32).
I figure the West has progressed along the path just about to verse 26 in the last 50 years or so. Verses 29-32 tell us what to expect next.
Be sure to jump to chapter 3, verse 21 to see the way out.
For whatever reason America has become obsessed with sex. It's inevitable that they would start building excuses for it. Perhaps in that obsession and excuse making a person can build a feeling of being ethical. Doesn't make it so.
As a strong life-long conservative born in Israel I know that it is imperative that we all return to our Jewish faith in order to halt the moral tailspin we currently find ourselves in.
As a strong life-long conservative born in India I know that it is imperative that we all return to our Hindu faith in order to halt the moral tailspin we currently find ourselves in.
As a strong life-long conservative born in Egypt I know that it is imperative that we all return to our Muslim faith in order to halt the moral tailspin we currently find ourselves in.
"moral and culture tailspin..."
I'm glad I'm on the right side, the side that will win (ultimately), and the side of God. I beseech believing FR'eepers, we have a lot of work to do right here at home: Be an example in word and deed.
So far as I know there has been no truly successful movement to which Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Conservative Prostestants, and Orthodox Jews all belong.
So how is it possible to go back to something that never existed?
At least they didn't use the word 'Judeo-Christian'. There aren't a whole lot of churches in my town called 'First Judeo-Christian Church'.
The CMI divided respondents into three groups based on their beliefs about the role of religion in everyday life. 31 percent of the population reflected a strong traditionalist view of religion and morality (classed as Orthodox by the survey), 17 percent tended to be "highly secularized and morally relativistic" (Progressives) and 46 percent held more traditional views on sexual morality but were moral relativists when it came to everyday decision-making (Independents).
They weren't referring to a specific group with the term orthodox, as it was used it would refer to Jews, Catholics, Eastern/Greek Orthodox, and Protestants who subscribe to Biblical teaching on morality.
"moral ambivalence" = spinelessness
Tremendous post.
Nice to see polling used for good instead of evil. ;-)
It wouldn't surprise me one bit to find out that the mainstream media takes polls and find similar results regularly, but they don't like the results, so the just don't report them.
Indeed. Overwhelmingly, polling is used as nothing more than a Democrat Media tool for manipulation.
But there's nothing intrinsically wrong with polling. It's what you do with it.
It's like any other tool: You can use a hammer to build a house or to bash in someone's skull. ;-)
Culture War! Heavens! It is a culture rout and the Christian West ain't winning!
Long live "the 24-39 urban bohemian early adopters"!
It is an old question, a very old question. The central question of the ancient Greek play Antigone deals with a higher law than the law of man. And it is a question on which entire civilizations have risen and fallen.
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