Posted on 06/30/2016 10:49:42 AM PDT by Kaslin
I see regularly the slogan from the American Humanists Association: “Good Without God.” And I think….well, maybe for a while, one can be good (before men). But only because they piggyback on the Judeo-Christian values they may have imbibed. After a while, it all fades away.
The reality of that fading away now hits us daily in the news. There’s not a week that goes by without some new report of violence and mayhem. Some attacks are worse than others.
Just recently, the UK’s Daily Mail referred to “lawless Paris,” in an attack on innocent people, including tourists.
Their sensational headline (6/23/16) highlighted the chaos:
“Mob violence in lawless Paris: Terrifying video shows 'woman tourist' viciously attacked by marauding youths in city deserted by police despite 'state of emergency' and Euros rampage “Young woman viciously beaten 'within sight of Notre Dame' in Paris… “Paris is 'like a warzone,’ a witness told MailOnline who said he was terrified.”
America has had more than its share of violence too, even against total strangers. But our founders recognized man’s basic sinful nature. That is why they carefully separated power.
The framers also believed that when the populace recognizes the revelation that has never ceased to be true---that we will all one day have to give an account for our lives before the Almighty---people will often modify their behavior. Knowing of that Day of Reckoning and preparing for it, helped prevent a lot of unlawful deeds.
Benjamin Franklin represents almost a secularized version of this understanding that we can’t be good without God.
Thomas Paine, the infidel, was the only forthrightly anti-Christian leader of the founding era, as far as I know. Paine is best known for his commendable book Common Sense, which helped ignite the American Revolution. Common Sensespeaks positively of God and His Word.
But later Paine wrote Age of Reason, trying to debunk Christianity. He sent a copy of the manuscript to some of the founding fathers. They all regarded it with disdain and displeasure. Franklin, one of the least religious of the founding fathers, rejected it outright.
He wrote Paine: “I have read your manuscript with some attention...the consequence of printing this piece will be a great deal of odium drawn upon yourself, mischief to you, and no benefit to others. He that spits into the wind, spits in his own face.” In short, this will only hurt you, Paine.
Franklin added, “[T]hink about how great a portion of mankind consists of weak and ignorant men and women, and of inexperienced, inconsiderate youth of both sexes, who have need of the motives of religion to restrain them from vice, to support their virtue, and retain them in the practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great point for its security.” In short, religion helps promote virtue and restrain vice.
And Ben Franklin even noted that Paine himself had probably benefited from his own religious upbringing as a Quaker: “And perhaps you are indebted to her originally, that is, to your religious education, for the habits of virtue upon which you now justly value yourself.”
Here’s a utilitarian approach to Christianity: It’s good for society. Why would you undercut it?
Christians hold that no one is good enough to meet God’s holy standards---except Jesus, who died in the place of sinners to make those who believe in Him righteous before God.
There’s a wonderful video featuring a Harvard Business professor, Clay Christiansen. He says in a 90-second spot that ultimately we must choose between internal versus external restraint.
He explained to a visiting scholar from China how in America religion benefits society by bolstering morality. We can’t hire enough police to restrain evil in our society, but democracy has greatly benefited through the internal restraint religion provides.
As William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, once noted, “If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.”
Echoing this is an 1849 quote from a Speaker of the House of Representatives by Robert Charles Winthrop, a descendent from John Winthrop, the Puritan founder of Boston.
He said, “All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint.”
Then Winthrop summarized his point into an either/or: “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them, or a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.” That is still our choice today.
If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under. Ronald Reagan
We do see evidence every day.
I have a Christian friend I work with that when we discuss this kind of mentality, atheists etc. he has 4 words for ‘em.... “YOU BETTER BE SURE”.
Bookmark
Apart from a transcendent God there is no objective basis for morality, only personal preference or social convention.
to paraphrase Dostoevsky:
Without a belief in God, an afterlife and eternal consequences for temporal actions, then all things are permissible.
In other words, anything goes.
The problem isn’t so much that ordinary people are not “moral” but that they are not holy.
Oh ... and also of course the highly immoral new secular orthodoxy that calls good “evil” and evil “good” ... but I don’t consider such ordinary ... more that they are functionally “insane”.
Kaslin, thank you for posting a title which even considers one can be “Good Without God...” as a possibility in the short run. You see, not all atheists are commies, nor humanists. I won’t try to convince anyone here that I am happy or unhappy. I am moral though. The idea that all atheists are x,y or z is incorrect. It’s like asserting that all Christians are moral when we’ve been disappointed by examples of Elmer Gantrys.
We Americans prided ourselves on taking the individual as we found him. If he was fair, honest, decent, we didn’t ask his faith or lack of faith. (see the Badger Clark poem on my profile.) Today, tolerance and benevolent goodwill is given lip service but not often found, especially on anonymous forums.
I write this in hopes of reaching a few Freepers who will think twice before lashing out at all atheists. I don’t assume because of your religious views that you do or don’t live a moral life. How could I know from behind my computer? But I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt whatever code they live by.
Most people get their notions of right and wrong from the culture.
Which means that first, they have no understanding to what degree their morality is already influenced by God. What we call western civilization is however imperfectly and incompletely (and diminishingly) a judeochristian culture.
If you believe in transcendental truths, God is your ultimate source whether or not you understand that.
But secondly, it means that most people have no way of knowing when the culture is going off the rails. If the bow of the ship is your compass, you have no way of knowing you are going to wrong direction.
Freedom requires the prior ability to govern oneself. And the ability to govern yourself is a moral capacity.
Westerner,
I read your post and I have a few questions if you don’t mind.
1. Is Morality a social construct?
2. Is Morality Objective or Subjective?
3. Do you believe we have Free Will?
4. Do you believe evil exists?
5. Do you consider yourself a Logical thinker/person?
6. Where does Logic come from?
7. Could Morality, the illusion of free will and/or our ability to reach logical conclusions evolved in a different way?
“Christians hold that no one is good enough to meet God’s holy standards-—except Jesus, who died in the place of sinners to make those who believe in Him righteous before God.”
Best line in the whole piece. As far as us fallen humans go, external restraint is the best we can hope for. That is government’s God-defined role. Under a lawless heart like Obama’s, they are failing in it more and more.
I doubt you bothered to read the column.
Sorry, humanists. Only God defines what is truly good.
The only real definition of “morality” is abiding by that which is true.
That is correct
Blacks are the most religious, followed by Hispanics then Whites with Asians being the least religious of all.
What is the crime rate of each group?
Denmark is the least religious country in the world, Liberia is the most. Which would you rather live in?
Then again, there may be more than one answer to these questions, pointing me in a crooked line.
And the less I seek my source for some definitive,
Closer I am to Fine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUgwM1Ky228
Correlation equals causation.
Dihydrogen monoxide is a harmful and deadly chemical, for instance.
Dihydrogen monoxide kills nearly all land animals that breathe it. In gaseous form it causes burns. It corrodes many metals in a few days of exposure. It is used as an industrial coolant; it is found in the tissues of every human being living within a 100 mile radius of every factory that uses it.
Not only that, mothers whose bodies are polluted with dihydrogen monoxide pass that pollution onto their unborn children.
Isn’t that horrible? Can you believe in 2016 we still use dihydrogren monoxide, even knowing how dangerous it is?
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