Could God punish our nation for its declining morality?

[Holly3278]

Are you KIDDING me? Have you ever SEEN any photographs of what pretty much every urban area in Germany looked like in 1945?

As Jim mentioned above, God doesn’t ordinarily need to supernaturally rain down punishment for sins because sins create their own punishment in time. The tragic part is that the dreadful outcome of sin is rather indiscriminate in who it destroys. Your Nazi example disproves your own point, you just have failed to see the connection between cause and effect (much like you fail to see how legal recognition of gay “marriage” negatively affects the real thing).

You make a good point that there have been both improvements and slips in public morality, but there too you’re not looking deep enough to see implications for the future. We made big strides in the past overcoming slavery, racism, sexism, etc precisely because we were building on a strong foundation of recognition of the innate dignity and worth of the human being precisely because of that person’s humanity. There’s still some momentum there, but the foundations have been horribly damaged.

We’ve nearly abandoned the concept of innate human dignity and moved to a utilitarian evaluation of the worth of a human being.

• Can’t hear an unborn child scream? No sweat, kill 'em at will then.
• Suffered crippling brain injury? More merciful to kill via starvation and dehydration than to care for her.
• Unborn child diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome? Kill, it’s merciful, don’t you know?
• Old, sick and depressed? Don’t be a burden to your kids, kick the bucket with Dr. Jack’s merciful machine…
• Got a degenerative medical condition? Hang on, we’re working on creating new human beings in a petri dish so we can kill them and harvest their cells to help you out.
• We’ve “liberated” woman from the home (i.e. she can’t afford to stay home with kids anymore), but simultaneously reduced her to a sexual object to be used and discarded like never before.

The fading momentum we still have for protecting the dignity of the individual is a house built on sand now that the dignity of that individual depends on somebody’s measure of how worthy that person’s life is rather than an innate dignity.

Things looked good for the Nazis for several years after they came to power too. But sin has a way of catching up with a society.

Exactly. We made good strides in the past as regards slavery, racism, sexism, etc as you said but we have also made a lot of slips as you said. The fact is, we are going to suffer the consequences of those slips and I hate to see what consequences there will be. There have already been consequences I think but right now I can’t quite point out exactly what they are.

That said, since some states are legalizing “gay marriage” which is not marriage at all we’ll end up suffering consequences from that. With the federal government now recognize “gay marriages” that various states perform I think there will be consequences for that as well. Legalizing “gay marriage” is gravely sinful and I do believe there will be consequences for doing so. I think it will gravely affect society in some way.

So basically my thought is this: All sin has consequences. When you commit sin, there will be consequences. Since our nation has sinned in those slips like you mention and with “gay marriage” there will definitely be consequences but as for me, I am not exactly sure what those consequences will be. What do you and everyone else think the consequences might be?

 

[manualman]

What do you and everyone else think the consequences might be?

I think it further cements in the popular culture the already common notion that marriage is about two people who feel love for one another and want that feeling of love to last forever and celebrate it publicly.

That’s a pathetically shallow definition of marriage which lacks the innate self-sacrificial nature of real marriage (which manifests in parenthood which results in said parents losing nearly everything of their own for 20-30 years!). It makes marriage into little more than institutionalized romance, which is silly. Romance comes and goes. When people base their view of marriage on the feelings involved, they will divorce when the feelings fade. Marriage becomes little more than extended dating.

This can’t be hung on “gay marriage” as a cause. Public support for ‘gay marriage’ is actually the EFFECT of this attitude already being prevalent. So is a 50% divorce rate. But legal recognition of gay relationships as marriage cements this false view and makes it harder to reverse.

People said that legalizing abortion would have little effect on its frequency too. That people already had the abortions, but now would have them in “safe clinics” instead of back alleys. If you believe that there were a million back alley abortions a year in 1970 and every year earlier, you’re a fool. It’s patently absurd. Legal recognition of an action creates a sanction for it and gives it a public respectability. For marriage, legal recognition of same sex relationships as identical to marriage can only contribute to the degradation of the public’s understanding of what marriage is.

 

[Fairwinds]

Interesting how you so quickly throw out the race card and then run to hide behind it, leaving off your post my point about abortion.

It’s what you don’t confront…what you tactically ignore…that turns into hell.

And what of the children who live with the effects of divorce?

How many aborted…how many children of divorce are there in comparison to those actually lynched?

I realize you think using lynchings will somehow give you PC credits…but you’re wrong.

I’m matching a parade of horrors one for one because that’s what arguments like yours based on cherrypicking deserve.

the hell of the slaughter in Darfur compared with the “hell” of the effects of divorce on children in America (especially in instances where there’s an abusive spouse) shows you aren’t thinking this through.

N.B. suggesting that I mention lynching to gain anyone’s approval is insulting and borderline reportable, my friend. think twice before you do that again. I’m fairly tolerant of insults but I draw the line there.

 

[JimG]

So I guess maybe God won’t punish us for our behavior but I do believe He will allow us to suffer the consequences of our behavior. Would this be a more accurate view?

Yes, that is accurate, in my view. Civilizational decline will carry it’s own consequences. And our civilization has been in decline for awhile. Let me be clear. It is not in decline just because of gay marriage. Gay marriage falls more toward the ending point than the beginning point of the decline. What is happening is a gradual disintegration of family structure.

I say gradual, but from a historical perspective it has been quite rapid. Throughout Christian history, both Catholics and Protestants held the same view on contraception—that it was a grave moral disorder. We held that view in common up until 1930 when the Anglicans first abandoned the principle. Others followed. Paul VI reaffirmed the principle in Humanae Vitae, but the culture had already become so contaminated with a contraceptive mentality that a great many rejected the teaching.

The widespread adoption of contraception not only broke the essential link between marriage and procreation. It enabled the sexual revolution, leading to a host of other ills: sexual license, divorce, cohabitation, fornication, adultery, abortion, and yes, gay marriage. Sexual chaos leads to societal chaos and disintegration of family, which in turn forces government intervention where families have failed or disappeared or never formed. The out of wedlock birth rate is now at over 40% nationwide and over 70% in some minority communities—a rate that is as unsustainable as our national debt.

One might compare the entertainment available in earlier eras with what we have today. Vaudeville shows might have been described as “racy” at times, but nothing like the mandatory sexual innuendo tossed out routinely today in every TV sitcom. If current TV fare had been shown at the dawn of the television age, mothers all over the nation would promptly have thrown out their TV sets.

But entertainment is just a reflection of society. And what it reflects now is a rapidly collapsing family structure.

I’ve only mentioned the family collapse beginning in 1930, and Mary Eberstadt’s book covers the results of the sexual revolution, which contrary to liberal dogma have been uniformly bad.

But Carle Zimmerman’s book, “Family and Civilization,” puts the beginning point of family devolution even before that. He wrote in the 1940’s and covers the whole range of civilizations.

I don’t know if the cultural collapse can be stopped. I doubt it. Cardinal George said that he expected to die in bed, his successor would die in prison, and his successor would die a martyr in the public square.

He may have been optimistic in thinking it would take two successors to reach that point. But his final line was that the successor following the martyred one would pick up the pieces, and along with the Church, begin the rebuilding of civilization.

So yes, it’s not God who will punish us. It’s just that societal collapse brings its own consequences.

 

[Fairwinds]

for everyone who looks fondly back to the golden age of our civilisation that we should roll back the calendar to, what year would that have been?

 

[JimG]

for everyone who looks fondly back to the golden age of our civilisation that we should roll back the calendar to, what year would that have been?

I am not proposing that we roll back the calendar to any particular year. Reversing cultural collapse would be a worthy goal, but I doubt that it will happen until the collapse plays itself out. Anything is possible, though. A culture’s morality does not depend on the calendar.

What is more likely though, is that Christians in Africa will lead the Christian renaissance, perhaps sending missionaries to re-Christianize the West.

 

[Holly3278]

I think it further cements in the popular culture the already common notion that marriage is about two people who feel love for one another and want that feeling of love to last forever and celebrate it publicly.

That’s a pathetically shallow definition of marriage which lacks the innate self-sacrificial nature of real marriage (which manifests in parenthood which results in said parents losing nearly everything of their own for 20-30 years!). It makes marriage into little more than institutionalized romance, which is silly. Romance comes and goes. When people base their view of marriage on the feelings involved, they will divorce when the feelings fade. Marriage becomes little more than extended dating.

This can’t be hung on “gay marriage” as a cause. Public support for ‘gay marriage’ is actually the EFFECT of this attitude already being prevalent. So is a 50% divorce rate. But legal recognition of gay relationships as marriage cements this false view and makes it harder to reverse.

People said that legalizing abortion would have little effect on its frequency too. That people already had the abortions, but now would have them in “safe clinics” instead of back alleys. If you believe that there were a million back alley abortions a year in 1970 and every year earlier, you’re a fool. It’s patently absurd. Legal recognition of an action creates a sanction for it and gives it a public respectability. For marriage, legal recognition of same sex relationships as identical to marriage can only contribute to the degradation of the public’s understanding of what marriage is.

To be honest, I don’t believe that “gay marriage” is the only cause of cultural decline. I think that perhaps the invention and legalization of contraception had a great deal to do with it. Without contraception, the sexual revolution never would have been possible I don’t believe. So to be honest, I think that perhaps contraception was the first cause of the decline of family and attitudes regarding family. I may be wrong on that. I often am wrong on things.

Yes, that is accurate, in my view. Civilizational decline will carry it’s own consequences. And our civilization has been in decline for awhile. Let me be clear. It is not in decline just because of gay marriage. Gay marriage falls more toward the ending point than the beginning point of the decline. What is happening is a gradual disintegration of family structure.

I say gradual, but from a historical perspective it has been quite rapid. Throughout Christian history, both Catholics and Protestants held the same view on contraception—that it was a grave moral disorder. We held that view in common up until 1930 when the Anglicans first abandoned the principle. Others followed. Paul VI reaffirmed the principle in Humanae Vitae, but the culture had already become so contaminated with a contraceptive mentality that a great many rejected the teaching.

The widespread adoption of contraception not only broke the essential link between marriage and procreation. It enabled the sexual revolution, leading to a host of other ills: sexual license, divorce, cohabitation, fornication, adultery, abortion, and yes, gay marriage. Sexual chaos leads to societal chaos and disintegration of family, which in turn forces government intervention where families have failed or disappeared or never formed. The out of wedlock birth rate is now at over 40% nationwide and over 70% in some minority communities—a rate that is as unsustainable as our national debt.

One might compare the entertainment available in earlier eras with what we have today. Vaudeville shows might have been described as “racy” at times, but nothing like the mandatory sexual innuendo tossed out routinely today in every TV sitcom. If current TV fare had been shown at the dawn of the television age, mothers all over the nation would promptly have thrown out their TV sets.

But entertainment is just a reflection of society. And what it reflects now is a rapidly collapsing family structure.

I’ve only mentioned the family collapse beginning in 1930, and Mary Eberstadt’s book covers the results of the sexual revolution, which contrary to liberal dogma have been uniformly bad.

But Carle Zimmerman’s book, “Family and Civilization,” puts the beginning point of family devolution even before that. He wrote in the 1940’s and covers the whole range of civilizations.

I don’t know if the cultural collapse can be stopped. I doubt it. Cardinal George said that he expected to die in bed, his successor would die in prison, and his successor would die a martyr in the public square.

He may have been optimistic in thinking it would take two successors to reach that point. But his final line was that the successor following the martyred one would pick up the pieces, and along with the Church, begin the rebuilding of civilization.

So yes, it’s not God who will punish us. It’s just that societal collapse brings its own consequences.

I agree with you. Would you say that it was contraception that led to the decline of the family and attitudes in regard to the family or would you say that the decline of the family began before that? At this time, I think that perhaps contraception was the original cause of the decline of the family and attitudes regarding the family. I am open to discussion though and if I am wrong I will change my view.

 

[Holly3278]

for everyone who looks fondly back to the golden age of our civilisation that we should roll back the calendar to, what year would that have been?

To be honest, I can’t answer that. I really have no idea what the golden age of our civilization would. I love history but I am not that good at American history and so I wouldn’t really be able to pin point when the golden age of American society was. Every generation and the society that was with it had its drawbacks and that makes it even more difficult to p(name removed by moderator)oint when I would want to go back to.

 

[Holly3278]

I am not proposing that we roll back the calendar to any particular year. Reversing cultural collapse would be a worthy goal, but I doubt that it will happen until the collapse plays itself out. Anything is possible, though. A culture’s morality does not depend on the calendar.

What is more likely though, is that Christians in Africa will lead the Christian renaissance, perhaps sending missionaries to re-Christianize the West.

I am beginning to think that Russia may play a large part in re-Christianizing the West. I don’t know about Africa though as I really don’t know much about Christianity in Africa. Why do you think it would be African missionaries that would re-Christianize the West?

 

[livingwordunity]

Hey everyone. As you all know, our nation’s morality has been drastically declining in the past several years. Acceptance of “gay marriage” is increasing quite steadily and it would seem that possibly the tide is turning in regards to abortion. It seemed before that the pro-life side was winning by and large but then with that thing in Texas, I am wondering whether or not we are still winning. I am worried that the tide might be turning in the pro-abortion side’s favor. There are also a ton of other moral issues on which our nation’s morality seems to be opposed to or going is becoming opposed to true morality as taught by the Catholic Church.

Because of these things, I have to wonder if God is angry with us or saddened with us or both. Do you think He is angry or saddened with us? If so, do you think He will punish our nation?

Yes, God can punish America. But I think most people will blame it on Bush when it happens.

 

[JimG]

I agree with you. Would you say that it was contraception that led to the decline of the family and attitudes in regard to the family or would you say that the decline of the family began before that? At this time, I think that perhaps contraception was the original cause of the decline of the family and attitudes regarding the family. I am open to discussion though and if I am wrong I will change my view.

I think that contraception was the beginning of the most recent decline, as it enabled the sexual revolution, the effects of which are outlined in Eberstadt’s book. Zimmerman, however, wrote even before the sexual revolution, and places the start of the most recent family deconstruction several centuries earlier.

To answer your subsequent post, I can’t say where the renaissance of Christianity might originate, but from what little I’ve read, the state of Catholicism in Africa is a lot less wobbly than it is in the USA or Europe. So it’s possible that restoration could begin there.

 

[Edward_H]

I’m matching a parade of horrors one for one because that’s what arguments like yours based on cherrypicking deserve.

the hell of the slaughter in Darfur compared with the “hell” of the effects of divorce on children in America (especially in instances where there’s an abusive spouse) shows you aren’t thinking this through.

N.B. suggesting that I mention lynching to gain anyone’s approval is insulting and borderline reportable, my friend. think twice before you do that again. I’m fairly tolerant of insults but I draw the line there.

Your writing and responses are riddled with worn out “flash words”

lynchings, “turn back the clock” “parade of horrors”…now you run to Africa. Darfur is but another example of the moral decline. But you seem prone to use the ready made banners.

 

[manualman]

for everyone who looks fondly back to the golden age of our civilisation that we should roll back the calendar to, what year would that have been?

There never was a “golden age” and I’m not sure where you see anyone has suggested one.

The closest I’d say we came would have been around 1920. We’d overcome slavery, though had yet to make significant progress beyond banning slavery on recognizing equal human dignity among skin colors (sadly). We’d recognized the equal dignity of woman and realized her right to vote as equals to men.

In short, we had a fundamental value system that recognized man as the unique creation of God and that bedrock foundation yielded allowed stable and healthy progress towards all the genuine implications of that reality.

But problems were already on the horizon. A tiny revolutionary band was preaching the benefits of contraception, which would be accepted by Anglicanism 10 years later and the rest of Protestantism a mere 10 years beyond that. This ideology changed the nature of sex and allowed the introduction of all sorts of pretenses about sexual behavior and its implications for life and society. Sure sexual immorality existed earlier, but it used to be a lot harder to pretend it had no consequences. The physical world outcomes mirrored those of the spiritual.

It was another 45 years before big progress began to be made on the racial equality front, true. But that progress could not have been made without the underlying basis of human dignity that was already under attack. A new philosophy called Eugenics was on the rise that claimed to be a natural outgrowth of Darwinism. In this view, al men did NOT have equal dignity. Some had better genetics than others and Eugenics advocates advanced the claim that those with inferior genetics should stop polluting the gene pool. Don’t think this was limited to Nazis either. Big American names were actively involved (look it up!).

Eugenics was soundly defeated for a time with the defeat of the Nazis, but this defeat did not return innate human dignity bestowed by the Creator to the foundation of western philosophy. Other competing voices wanted it. Utilitarianism turned out to be the biggest competitor. It differs only a little from Eugenics as it focuses on more short term criteria than long term. But it still assigns lesser value to some humans than others.

The rise of utilitarianism shaped and warped the progress that did still remain after the 1960’s. Women rightly demanded recognition of their equal dignity, but things got warped. Instead of standing up for equal respect on the basis of their human dignity, women joined the mysoginists and denigrated the role of motherhood and based their worth on the same rat race value men had been judging each other on (wrongly). Now feminists had MORE contempt for stay home moms than men ever did. Utilitarianism had arrived.

The next step was, of course, abortion. What good is a fetus? Certainly nothing compared to the expressed dreams and wants of the mother, right?

Golden Age of no problems and universal decency? Not since Adam bit the apple. But the engine that drove civilizational progress stalled around 1920. We’ve coasted forward a bit since then, but without the engine we’re only going to go downhill once the momentum is gone. And it’s pretty played out.

 

[Fairwinds]

Your writing and responses are riddled with worn out “flash words”

lynchings, “turn back the clock” “parade of horrors”…now you run to Africa. Darfur is but another example of the moral decline. But you seem prone to use the ready made banners.

look at the thread topic. moral decline in “our nation”. my point: its bad everywhere, slightly better here.

you think there were good ol’ days? when were they?

this is not a rhetorical question.

 

[Fairwinds]

There never was a “golden age” and I’m not sure where you see anyone has suggested one…

Golden Age of no problems and universal decency? Not since Adam bit the apple. But the engine that drove civilizational progress stalled around 1920. We’ve coasted forward a bit since then, but without the engine we’re only going to go downhill once the momentum is gone. And it’s pretty played out.

it entirely depends on your point of view.

1920 sounds great, but mostly if you (collectively) were a white protestant male.

not so good in general because of gems like the Sedition Act of 1918, the* Espionage Act of 1917*, or if you (collective you) were a philippine or puerto rican who wasn’t a fan of living in a US colony; a Haitian or citizen of the Dominican Republic who didn’t like US military occupation and US installed puppet governments, or a native american, black (including blacks who like to vote) or catholic from the wrong country of origin. still in office: Woodrow Wilson, probably the worst civil rights president ever. still in the future: Brown v Board (separate but equal and Jim Crow were still going strong), as well as the KKK; the *Miranda * case (police could and did beat confessions out of the right kind of suspects).

1920? I’d love it, if I were the right kind of person.

 

[Holly3278]

Yes, God can punish America. But I think most people will blame it on Bush when it happens.

Hmm, that’s an interesting viewpoint Livingwordunity. Everyone else seems to be saying that we’ll suffer the consequences of our declining morality but that we will not be punished for it.

I think that contraception was the beginning of the most recent decline, as it enabled the sexual revolution, the effects of which are outlined in Eberstadt’s book. Zimmerman, however, wrote even before the sexual revolution, and places the start of the most recent family deconstruction several centuries earlier.

To answer your subsequent post, I can’t say where the renaissance of Christianity might originate, but from what little I’ve read, the state of Catholicism in Africa is a lot less wobbly than it is in the USA or Europe. So it’s possible that restoration could begin there.

That is really interesting JimG. I would like to buy Eberstadt’s book or at least borrow it from a library if I can. It sounds very interesting. What is the title of that book? Sorry if you already mentioned the title.

There never was a “golden age” and I’m not sure where you see anyone has suggested one.

The closest I’d say we came would have been around 1920. We’d overcome slavery, though had yet to make significant progress beyond banning slavery on recognizing equal human dignity among skin colors (sadly). We’d recognized the equal dignity of woman and realized her right to vote as equals to men.

In short, we had a fundamental value system that recognized man as the unique creation of God and that bedrock foundation yielded allowed stable and healthy progress towards all the genuine implications of that reality.

But problems were already on the horizon. A tiny revolutionary band was preaching the benefits of contraception, which would be accepted by Anglicanism 10 years later and the rest of Protestantism a mere 10 years beyond that. This ideology changed the nature of sex and allowed the introduction of all sorts of pretenses about sexual behavior and its implications for life and society. Sure sexual immorality existed earlier, but it used to be a lot harder to pretend it had no consequences. The physical world outcomes mirrored those of the spiritual.

It was another 45 years before big progress began to be made on the racial equality front, true. But that progress could not have been made without the underlying basis of human dignity that was already under attack. A new philosophy called Eugenics was on the rise that claimed to be a natural outgrowth of Darwinism. In this view, al men did NOT have equal dignity. Some had better genetics than others and Eugenics advocates advanced the claim that those with inferior genetics should stop polluting the gene pool. Don’t think this was limited to Nazis either. Big American names were actively involved (look it up!).

Eugenics was soundly defeated for a time with the defeat of the Nazis, but this defeat did not return innate human dignity bestowed by the Creator to the foundation of western philosophy. Other competing voices wanted it. Utilitarianism turned out to be the biggest competitor. It differs only a little from Eugenics as it focuses on more short term criteria than long term. But it still assigns lesser value to some humans than others.

The rise of utilitarianism shaped and warped the progress that did still remain after the 1960’s. Women rightly demanded recognition of their equal dignity, but things got warped. Instead of standing up for equal respect on the basis of their human dignity, women joined the mysoginists and denigrated the role of motherhood and based their worth on the same rat race value men had been judging each other on (wrongly). Now feminists had MORE contempt for stay home moms than men ever did. Utilitarianism had arrived.

The next step was, of course, abortion. What good is a fetus? Certainly nothing compared to the expressed dreams and wants of the mother, right?

Golden Age of no problems and universal decency? Not since Adam bit the apple. But the engine that drove civilizational progress stalled around 1920. We’ve coasted forward a bit since then, but without the engine we’re only going to go downhill once the momentum is gone. And it’s pretty played out.

I am going to have to say that I largely agree with your post and don’t really have any disagreements. However, I did want to mention a name: a person by the name of Margaret Sanger. She was a eugenicist and she was also the founder of Planned Parenthood.

 

[Cojuanco]

Hey everyone. As you all know, our nation’s morality has been drastically declining in the past several years. Acceptance of “gay marriage” is increasing quite steadily and it would seem that possibly the tide is turning in regards to abortion. It seemed before that the pro-life side was winning by and large but then with that thing in Texas, I am wondering whether or not we are still winning. I am worried that the tide might be turning in the pro-abortion side’s favor. There are also a ton of other moral issues on which our nation’s morality seems to be opposed to or going is becoming opposed to true morality as taught by the Catholic Church.

Because of these things, I have to wonder if God is angry with us or saddened with us or both. Do you think He is angry or saddened with us? If so, do you think He will punish our nation?

If this isn’t punishment, I do not know what is.

 

[manualman]

1920? I’d love it, if I were the right kind of person.

Nice job refuting an argument nobody made.

The above is specifically why I said that there HAS been no “golden age” where all was great (at least since Adam bit the apple).

What happened circa 1920 was the loss of the engine that drove western civilization towards better and better conformance to the Christian ideal of acknowledging that all men are created by God and possess the dignity of being made in His image. As I clearly noted before, some momentum remained that resulted in some genuine progress after that date. But to pursue the metaphor further, the progress has been like a car proceeding up a hill when suddenly the engine throws a rod, the car veers off the road and coasts for a time up the grassy slope alongside the road. While it is objectively true that the car has gained elevation since the engine died, it’s a rather bad idea to say that nothing bad has happened until the car actually stops and begins to gather speed rolling back down the hill. That’s about where we’re at IMO. We’re in a wrecked car halfway up the hill stalled and beginning to slide backwards. The golden age is at the top of the hill. We never made it there and we’re no longer progressing towards it.

 

[JimG]

That is really interesting JimG. I would like to buy Eberstadt’s book or at least borrow it from a library if I can. It sounds very interesting. What is the title of that book? Sorry if you already mentioned the title.

The book is “Adam and Eve After the Pill,” by Mary Eberstadt. It’s available on Amazon and other bookstores, or maybe in the library.

 

[JimG]

Here is a quote from Peter Kreeft, from an article.

“Night is falling. What Chuck Colson has labeled “a new Dark Ages” is looming. And its Brave New World proved to be only a Cowardly Old Dream. We can see this now, at the end of “the century of genocide” that was christened “the Christian century” at its birth.”
Source: peterkreeft.com/topics-more/how-to-win.htm

Thanks, SMA_12 for providing this link in another thread. The article is a riveting summary of where we find ourselves now, and how to fight back.