re: God has been squeezed out of our country with each passing year

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God has been squeezed out of our country with each passing year

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I kindly disagree. It's more than simply a preference it is knowledge. We have learned the consequences of past actions and have adjusted out way of life to guide us down a better path. We have learned that rape and murder has adverse effects on society and growth through past mistakes and historical data in the human lifespan. We now set new moral guidelines to follow based on that learning. We don't need a God to set that standard we just need a collective understanding and agreement on what is best for us as a society based on past failures or successes.

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Not true. In spite of thousands and thousands of years of "knowledge", we still have people raping, killing, and stealing. It's only societal restraints that prevent people from acting as badly as they would. As soon as those constraints change, behavior inevitably changes.

Less than 100 years ago we had a nation with an elected leader who orchestrated genocide against an entire race of people with the consent of his people. We have nations in the Middle East right now who would not think twice about wiping out an entire country of men, women, and children if given the opportunity presented itself and didn't mean their own destruction. Self-preservation is what limits those people, not some historical knowledge of morality. Do you think if some doomsday scenario took place that rendered organized government and law enforcement impotent we wouldn't have anarchy? Don't kid yourself. People are naturally selfish and have been that way since the fall.

What you're talking about is moralistic pragmatism, or what society deems good behavior in order for society to continue on with the least amount of disruption. Pragmatism at a societal level doesn't always conform to pragmatism at an individual level, and therefore even within this moral paradigm, there is not a singular objective basis for "right" and "wrong". What is considered "disruptive" can change from day to day, meaning the moral standard can change from day to day, and it can "regress" (according to what standard?) as quickly as it can "progress" (again, according to what standard?)

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History has shown that is the exception not the rule.

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My point is that even "the rule" is not an objective standard since not all people agree with it. How can you justify forcing someone who is the "exception" to abide by the standard of the "rule" if they don't agree with it? Because society is deemed "better" because of it? So now, society (whoever is in control) is forcing their own moral standard on the "exception". Why is that morally good? And, why couldn't a religious society force its standard on those who disagree with it? I see that a lot on this board, actually. Disqualifying moral standards from individuals such as myself because they originate in a religious worldview instead of a secular one. What is the justification for that if there is no objectively correct standard? Again, it's just preference .

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Again I'm going with past data and my own experience. I already stated that if anything comes along that shows me that my belief system is wrong I'm willing to change, but so far that has not occurred. As we move forward it becomes more evident that regret and sympathy for others is the norm in humans not the opposite. There have been studies done on this where a majority of new soldiers in war will purposely miss the enemy because they do not want to kill.

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I don't disagree with you that it's "normal" for humans to not want to kill others and my belief system says that is because we are created in God's image and He has written His moral law on our hearts so we instinctively know what's "right" and "wrong" from that perspective. Regardless of what the reason for it is, if there is no objective standard of morality given to humans from without ourselves, then even our feelings of regret and sympathy/empathy are meaningless. Feelings are temporary and people can be conditioned to become numb to certain stimuli that caused them to have those feelings previously. That's not a good standard for right and wrong (do what feels right) because a lot of people act according to what they think feels right and cause destruction for themselves and others.