Have we lost God in our society?

[Prime]

JPII says in his Evangelium Vitae:
'We have to go to the heart of the tragedy being experienced by modern man" the eclipse of the sense of God and of man, typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism

… when God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible… he is somehow reduced to being ‘a thing’ and no longer grasps the ‘trascendent’ character of his ‘existence as man’. He no longer considers life as a splendid gift of God, something sacred entrusted to his responsibility and thus to his loving care and ‘veneration’.

Is this phenomenon (absence of God and hence, man’s transcendence) in fact being felt or recognized by the ‘viewing public’ or is JPII’s cry an exaggeration?

I ask the same question as I see our world beset by so much social problems, yet with so many Nobel Prize winners getting awards for ‘contribution to solving the ills of the world’, humanity still wallows in material and spiritual poverty. Am I alone in this connective questioning?

Your take on this please?

 

[Starwynd]

Over ninety percent of Americans believe in a higher power so I don’t believe so. I feel it’s a matter of how is God worshiped.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

Considering how a mere 200 years ago we could talk of Christendom, but today we are comforted that the majority believe in “a higher power,” yes, I would agree there is a tremendous infidelity abroad. John Henry Newman was very anxious for the future as he saw all of the tendencies in Victorian England. I often wonder what he would say today. It’s far worse than he would have imagined (my guess,) about what he imagined, or not so bad. I know God raises up Saints for times like these, it is wonderful if we can recognize them.

 

[BSHoop96]

Considering how a mere 200 years ago we could talk of Christendom, but today we are comforted that the majority believe in “a higher power,” yes, I would agree there is a tremendous infidelity abroad. John Henry Newman was very anxious for the future as he saw all of the tendencies in Victorian England. I often wonder what he would say today. It’s far worse than he would have imagined (my guess,) about what he imagined, or not so bad. I know God raises up Saints for times like these, it is wonderful if we can recognize them.

I agree. Finding comfort in the fact(?) that 90% of people believe in a higher power is about as comforting as hearing that 50% of Catholics and a lot of Bishops voted for a pro-choice candidate.

Believing in a higher power is one thing…trying to live your life as if that higher power mattered to you is another. I find what’s going on in the world today scary. Mainly, the moral relativism that we hear so much about. I think the time may be approaching where people will have to stand up and fight for what is right…actually, I believe it’s here and many just don’t know it yet.

 

[juliasmith]

Considering how a mere 200 years ago we could talk of Christendom, but today we are comforted that the majority believe in “a higher power,” yes, I would agree there is a tremendous infidelity abroad. John Henry Newman was very anxious for the future as he saw all of the tendencies in Victorian England. I often wonder what he would say today. It’s far worse than he would have imagined (my guess,) about what he imagined, or not so bad. I know God raises up Saints for times like these, it is wonderful if we can recognize them.

I could not agree more. This ‘higher power’ covers everything, and usually excludes Our Lord and/or The Blessed Trinity. My daily prayer has become 'please come back, Lord. Come back soon. This is getting to be too much."
I think Newman would have suffered a stroke over what we have going on these days.

 

[Prime]

Over ninety percent of Americans believe in a higher power so I don’t believe so. I feel it’s a matter of how is God worshiped.

As I further checked the numbers, majority of the same ninety percent who believe in ‘a higher power’ also believe in killing the unborn, gay marriages and most of the things that don’t approximately consider God’s plan for man. If that’s just ‘a matter of how is God worshipped’ by those who are supposed to believe in a ‘higher power’, then it’s even scarier. JPII’s laments are confirmed then.

 

[Genesis315]

I think Pope John Paul II was right on. When this process of purging God from society was really gaining steam in the 19th century, his predecessor, Bl. Pius IX predicted what unfortunately has become the case:

And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that “the people’s will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right.” But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests?

 

[Michael_David]

Some have! Some have not!

In a country were it is some 80% Christian, and of that some 22% are Catholic… that makes the Catholic voice/vote about 17%; if all the Catholic’s are true to their Faith. Our 1 in 6 people in this country hardly make for democratic sway.

As is known, in some of the other Christian faiths, contraception and divorce, among other things are OK! Some Catholics switch so they can do those type of things without shame. (But, just because others are doing it and it is OK - in there own little circle - does that make it right?)

Where did God go?
He is where He has always been!
It is us that have turned away from Him.

One reason, original sin still is with us; so are the 7 Deadly Sins; but, so can be the 7 corresponding Virtues.

Society as a whole is democratic in nature, religious belief (practices) are not! In the Kingdom of God, the people do not vote, they know, love and serve God. How many churches, and ‘movements’ (man-made religions) have popped up around here? And what do they believe? I’d say people still are taking a bite of that apple from the Garden of Eden. Satan has not went to sleep yet, he must be on some high energy drink lately to sway so many.

 

[Swan]

The OP seems to suggest that we are moving away from a “good” society towards a “bad” society. I’m curious about just when and where these “good old days” occurred. It is only natural to be more aware of goings on in one’s own time, but if you study history it is pretty impossible to find a time when anything was ideal. There have been wars upon wars pretty much forever - the fact that some claimed to be fighting for one god or another does not, in my opinion, make them more palatable or less horrific. We have a past - as a world, not just one country - of slavery, genocide, torture, persecution of “others” be they religious, racial, culture, rape and pillage, complete disregard of the poor and ill, etc… These can be traced back thousands of years. To then suggest that we have somehow gotton worse - that this past was “good”, makes no sense to me at all.

 

[Nino]

The last true peace winner was Theodore Roosevelt for his stopping of the Russo-Jap war which had already claimed some 250,000 lives…since his death its all down hill. When a loving God is removed…ie as He is now lampooned daily by hollyweird and the sit-coms plus the silly history chanell and its various…lost gospels reveal that…nonsense…yes…the Aztec nation worshipped the sun god and used human sacrifice as a tool to appease this great ‘god’ when Cortez conqueored these evil tribesman he found some 100,000 skulls in what is now Mexico city and its main temple.what a tribute to a false god…now america is no minor leaguer…we now have some 55 million sacrifices to the god of 'CHOICE"…and more to come with yet another evil choice by our ruling class.They consider we humans as nothing more than consumers…we are inferior to them and must salivate on cue. America never had God in our society…it took some 600,000 deaths to eliminate slavery back in 1865 yet today we have tons of slave labor products from the leading dictatorship in the world flooding our kitchens and playpens,so I guess the South won the war after all…the ‘in God we trust’ is just a phrase…if we believed in it we would see thousands of folks shutting down the abortion mills with righteous indignation and pitch forks…where,where are the farmers who stood on that bridge at Concord and said…no more,no more!!! …

 

[crowonsnow]

Societies are moving away from theological gods in favor of ceremonial gods. Hence, ceremonial deism.

 

[po18guy]

… when God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible… he is somehow reduced to being ‘a thing’ and no longer grasps the ‘trascendent’ character of his ‘existence as man’. He no longer considers life as a splendid gift of God, something sacred entrusted to his responsibility and thus to his loving care and ‘veneration’.

Is this phenomenon (absence of God and hence, man’s transcendence) in fact being felt or recognized by the ‘viewing public’ or is JPII’s cry an exaggeration?

Consider what abortion, euthanasia and human cloning have done, or will do, to the person. Some of the unborn are an “unwanted commodity” and are disposed of. Those who suffer at the end of life just cannot be enjoying life, so we decide to end their life for them. And cloning? Once accomplished, human flesh will be traded on the stock market. JPII was a prophet.

 

[Chancellare]

The OP seems to suggest that we are moving away from a “good” society towards a “bad” society. I’m curious about just when and where these “good old days” occurred. It is only natural to be more aware of goings on in one’s own time, but if you study history it is pretty impossible to find a time when anything was ideal. There have been wars upon wars pretty much forever - the fact that some claimed to be fighting for one god or another does not, in my opinion, make them more palatable or less horrific. We have a past - as a world, not just one country - of slavery, genocide, torture, persecution of “others” be they religious, racial, culture, rape and pillage, complete disregard of the poor and ill, etc… These can be traced back thousands of years. To then suggest that we have somehow gotton worse - that this past was “good”, makes no sense to me at all.

I think JPII’s observations is just one of the warning signs of a society that disregards God in its quest for progress. The point is not about whether we are getting worse or not - it is a hand-writing on the wall. Like what the pagans fear most: Whom the gods wish to destroy - they first make mad.
In our case, our elimination of God in our society is the first step in the self-destruct.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

The OP seems to suggest that we are moving away from a “good” society towards a “bad” society. I’m curious about just when and where these “good old days” occurred. It is only natural to be more aware of goings on in one’s own time, but if you study history it is pretty impossible to find a time when anything was ideal. There have been wars upon wars pretty much forever - the fact that some claimed to be fighting for one god or another does not, in my opinion, make them more palatable or less horrific. We have a past - as a world, not just one country - of slavery, genocide, torture, persecution of “others” be they religious, racial, culture, rape and pillage, complete disregard of the poor and ill, etc… These can be traced back thousands of years. To then suggest that we have somehow gotton worse - that this past was “good”, makes no sense to me at all.

Your type of thinking is part of the problem. The Roman Empire arguably peaked in the Augustan age of Caesar Augustus. As time wore on, especially from the 2 through the 4 centuries, Roman commentators kept bemoaning the decline and loss of morals and civility that were in evidence. But the contemporary Romans countered with “every generation says that.” Truth is, every generation DID say it because it continued to be true, until Rome finally was overrun by barbarians for good.

So saying everyone always says it was better before does not prove the invalidity of their saying it, but rather the continued proof of its validity.

My generation, which grew up in the 50’s saw a country that was centered in God, with good morals evident in almost all of the media, and although even then there was some immorality in the media, it was not ubiquitous as it is now. Now I weep for the children exposed to the constant immorality in every form of media. TV is most pernicious today. Yes, there are still small islands of morality that can be found by diligent parenting, but that too will be swept away I fear.

 

[Dameedna]

JPII says in his Evangelium Vitae:
'We have to go to the heart of the tragedy being experienced by modern man" the eclipse of the sense of God and of man, typical of a social and cultural climate dominated by secularism

… when God is forgotten the creature itself grows unintelligible… he is somehow reduced to being ‘a thing’ and no longer grasps the ‘trascendent’ character of his ‘existence as man’. He no longer considers life as a splendid gift of God, something sacred entrusted to his responsibility and thus to his loving care and ‘veneration’.

[Edited]

What he’s really saying is…doesn’t anyone agree with what I believe anymore?

No , many don’t.

He makes the assumption, that humanity, upon not agreeing with him, is moving in the wrong direction.

Is this phenomenon (absence of God and hence, man’s transcendence) in fact being felt or recognized by the ‘viewing public’ or is JPII’s cry an exaggeration?

He realizes that people believe less and less in what he has alway’s believed. He sees that as a moving away from God.

Most of us, see it as a “moving away from what this person believed”.

I ask the same question as I see our world beset by so much social problems, yet with so many Nobel Prize winners getting awards for ‘contribution to solving the ills of the world’, humanity still wallows in material and spiritual poverty. Am I alone in this connective questioning?

Your take on this please?

If you really think, life is worse today, than 2000 years ago, then you and I have a very different understanding of history…lol!!!

 

[Prime]

If you really think, life is worse today, than 2000 years ago, then you and I have a very different understanding of history…lol!!!

I see your point. You must have a very deep understanding of what’s happening to our society as such. If JPII was wrong, what is the right assessment vis-a-vis the irrelevance of God in our society as it pursues progress?

 

[Chancellare]

[Edited]

What he’s really saying is…doesn’t anyone agree with what I believe anymore?

No , many don’t.

He makes the assumption, that humanity, upon not agreeing with him, is moving in the wrong direction.

He realizes that people believe less and less in what he has alway’s believed. He sees that as a moving away from God.

Most of us, see it as a “moving away from what this person believed”.

If you really think, life is worse today, than 2000 years ago, then you and I have a very different understanding of history…lol!!!

Your “understanding” of history and the society (and yours is a majority) now confirms the OP’s thesis: we really have lost God!

 

[Dtmccameron]

I think JPII’s observations is just one of the warning signs of a society that disregards God in its quest for progress. The point is not about whether we are getting worse or not - it is a hand-writing on the wall. Like what the pagans fear most: Whom the gods wish to destroy - they first make mad.
In our case, our elimination of God in our society is the first step in the self-destruct.

You reminded me of what Chesterton wrote in Heretics:

"Every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order to shirk the problem of what is good. We are fond of talking about “liberty”; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “progress”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “education”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. The modern man says, “Let us leave all these arbitrary standards and embrace liberty.” This is, logically rendered, “Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.” He says, “Away with your old moral formulae; I am for progress.” This, logically stated, means, “Let us not settle what is good; but let us settle whether we are getting more of it.” He says, “Neither in religion nor morality, my friend, lie the hopes of the race, but in education.” This, clearly expressed, means, “We cannot decide what is good, but let us give it to our children.” "