I stumbled upon this quote yesterday and found it very sobering in light of American history and the way our culture is heading down a godless track toward becoming a society of people determined to create and kow-tow to their own various codes of ethics.
From bondage to spiritual faith.
From spiritual faith to great courage.
From courage to liberty.
From liberty to abundance.
From abundance to selfishness.
From selfishness to complacency.
From complacency to apathy.
From apathy to dependency.
From dependency back again into bondage.
~Alexander Tytler, University of Edinburgh
For extra entertainment, go read the lively discussion over at MInTheGap’s. His post, Morals without Christianity is generating a lot of comments, especially garnering my attention. When someone claimed that “Christianity’s waning influence has had a positive effect on morality” I sat up and said, “Wha-at?”
Here’s what I really said:
“All you have to do is look to the public school system to see how the *mandated* absence of God has affected morality. Not to mention, morality is being redefined every second.
Some people consider it moral to put the elderly out of their misery by lethal injection. These types of “mercy killings” were popular during the Nazi regime, when the value of human life was determined by Hitler and backers of his twisted philosophy. If we don’t keep to a golden standard, let’s use the Biblical one for example, who’s to say what is acceptable and what’s not?
If the murder rate is waning, why have school shootings exploded en masse in the past decade? These aren’t crazed “Christian” kids doing the shooting.
Because we Christians strongly believe in right and wrong, according to the Biblical standard, we’re becoming extremely unpopular. I’m not saying Christians are perfect, just that God’s mandates are.
We’ve all been around children whose parents allow them to set their own standards for behavior. That’s where I think America is heading, and it’s toward a major disaster. That’s the problem…we’re not just human robots, capable of falling into a reliable set of “virtues”. From our early childhood we stumble and fall into trouble time and time again. If left to our own devices we’re pathetically headed down a dead end road of unhappiness and selfish ambitions. Where’s the morality there? Is it good for society? Doubtful.
There has to be a standard. I believe that God created us, and that life is precious and should be protected according to His Biblical mandates. If evolution is correct, and we’re all some highly-evolved species of animal, then that same life devalues pretty quickly according to whoever happens to be calling the shots (Hitler? Stalin?).
By all means, blame Christianity.”
Good grief. When I get going, I really get going. But honestly, this type of reasoning inflames me, when it should just move me to compassion. The sad thing is, no matter how many comment wars we engage in, I probably am not going to make a dent in their convictions. I wonder how big of a difference we actually can make online, when so much depends upon our words and no real-life interaction. That being said, who am I to limit God and His ability to work however He so chooses?
In the meantime, may God have mercy on America.