re: The decline of religious faith in America and what that means for our future

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We are going to find out just how well their man made “morals” hold up.

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2070? I’m 61, so I won’t find out!

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First he tells Adam and Eve that if they eat from the tree of knowledge that they will surely die.

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They would have lived forever had they obeyed God, but when they sinned, their bodies instantly started to die and they did die. This isn’t a lie at all, but your inability to decipher scripture correctly.

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That's the fault of the Religion's leadership.

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Part of it, but we can’t escape personal responsibly and choice as well.
It’s like saying I refuse to vote because there is some fraud.

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more troubled and self serving society.

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More like Concentration Camps, not unlike Auchwitiz-Birkenau.

You cringe? Heck, they're already calling for the killing of MAGA folks.

Godless heathens are capable of great evil. As we are beginning to witness now.

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I don’t have to decipher it. Just have to read it and comprehend it, which you seem to not be able to do.

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You are ignoring the greater truth and making the same mistake as Nicodemus. When Jesus told him he must be born again, Nicodemus’ first response was,” how can I go back into my mother’s womb?” That’s because he was only thinking about physical things and not things of the Sprit. Though it’s true what I said about their bodies dying physically because they were cast out of the garden and kept from the tree of life, there was an immediate spiritual death, and that’s why Adam and Eve tried to hide from God.
Dying spiritually was much worse than their future physical death.
So no, God didn’t lie to them, Satan did.

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But, over time, people have demonstrated a need to be governed by others within a mostly acceptable framework.

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So you are saying man simply invented morality?

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And the LORD said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake. (Gen 18:26)

and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (2 Peter 2:7)

I don’t know. Bible seems pretty clear that Lot was righteous both before the deeds I mentioned and after those deeds. Yet, he was a pretty immoral person by today’s standards… offering his daughters to be gang raped and all.

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First, Lot didn't offer his daughters to the crowd because he was heartless and didn't care what happened to them. He did it because he was trying to appease the crowds so that they didn't harm the messengers of God. This is an example of good intentions (wanting to save God's messengers) being overshadowed by bad actions (offering his daughters). It shows that Lot was both righteous and a sinner, or simul justus et peccator (at the same time just as well as sinful). How can this be?

First, according to the scriptures, no one is righteous, not one (Romans 3:10). And yet, righteousness is counted according to faith, as Abraham (a sinner) was considered righteous because he believed God's promises (Romans 4:3). These promises were fulfilled ultimately in Jesus Christ, which is why anyone is considered "righteous" before God, in the Old Testament or the New. The OT people of God looked forward to the promised Messiah by faith, and the NT people of God looked backwards to what Christ (the Messiah) did on the cross.

Lot was justified because he shared the same faith of Abraham, not because he was sinless.

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I’m going to have to sort of disagree with you there. YHWH lies all throughout the Bible. He is a very untruthful god. First he tells Adam and Eve that if they eat from the tree of knowledge that they will surely die. The serpent actually corrects YHWH Elohim’s lie.

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God does not lie and He cannot lie (Num. 23:19).

What God told Adam and Eve was the truth, in two ways. First, from the moment they sinned by eating of the fruit of the tree that they were forbidden to eat from, they died spiritually. That is, they no longer had spiritual communion with God and had to receive God's mercy and grace to have that communion again.

Secondly, their sin made them mortal, where they could (and would) die physically. Had they obeyed God, they would have lived forever, physically, but their sin caused them to start dying physically from the moment they disobeyed.

God did not lie.

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And come on… murder not in God’s (YHWH) character? Seriously? Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, plagues Egypt and kills all their first borns, kills the Egyptian army by drowning them, kills thousands of Israelites after making the golden calf, kills Aaron’s two sons for burning strange fire, sanctions genocide on whole Canaanite nations, commands that if anyone ever sees an Amelekite that they must kill them… etc etc etc etc

ETA: I’ve seen the argument that all those killings were not murder, but rather justified fealty penalty for being wicked.

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If you've seen the argument, then why do you continue to call those things "murder"? What is murder, anyway? Is it not the unlawful killing of a person? If God is the law giver, and He is the judge, and He has the authority to destroy His creations as He pleases, and especially if they are guilty under the law He has given them, then how is it murder for God to take the lives of anyone?

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), and the soul that sins shall die (Ezekiel 18:20). All sin, therefore all deserve death. How is God a murderer for giving anyone what we all deserve?

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Chew on this next one from 1 Samuel 15:3, and see if you can do some mental gymnastics about how God commanded killing of infants is moral and just.

Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destructiona all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

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Again, all are guilty before God, either by our own sins, or by the sins of Adam, our federal head in the flesh. All children are born with a sinful nature and disposition inherited ultimately from Adam, their representative. Because of this, they are not innocent. God is just in taking the lives of any of His creation. He owes us nothing except what He promises to do.

God is not unjust or unrighteous for punishing sinners of any age. He is not a liar, and He is not a murderer. His character is the standard for moral perfection, and we are in no place to judge God.

People talk of the Bible as being simple. No, it is very complex and contains substantial depth but you have to be able to recognize it. IMO, the Bible is beyond the full understanding of youth and most younger adults. It takes adult experience, some wisdom and a real desire to reason the message out to begin to recognize the depth and complexity of the Bible.

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I consider killing innocent babies to be immoral.

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But that’s only if you don’t possess prefect foreknowledge and know exactly what that baby would have become if allowed to live. We aren’t God and lack this ability.

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You don’t believe objective moral truth exists.

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Belief has nothing to do with it.

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Your self righteous cocky self sits in the middle of a safe prosperous country that was created in the confines of objective moral truth.

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This country was founded on secularism.