re: Why can’t we separate Conservative values from religion?

A town had drawn clean water from the same well for generations. Eventually some decided the well was old-fashioned and unnecessary.

“Fine,” said the town. “But we’d still like the water.”

That seems to me to be the question here. Can you discard the source and reasonably assume the product will continue indefinitely?

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I could be wrong, smart enough to realize I know nothing. But why do you think you’re right?

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I've found an abundance of evidence in the Bible to know that it is true.
The Bible makes it clear that you accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior is the only way to heaven.
The only alternative is hell.
Furthermore, you have to be genuine about it, you can't say a few magic words and get a ticket. You better make sure that Jesus knows you

The babe only sees the list of things he can't do, and that is where you begin.

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All moral judgments require some standard to compare an action to in order to determine “right” (“good”) or “wrong” (“evil”). Christianity sees God as an objective moral law-giver who has provided an objective moral law (the 10 commandments). It’s objective in the sense that it originates outside the human mind and applies to all humans equally across time, space, and geography. While the application of it may differ at times, the standard, itself, does not change. In addition, all people are held accountable to that standard by God. Atheism, on the other hand, posits that morality is subjective, originating from the human mind. Since there is no singular source for morality other than the human mind, it necessarily fluctuates from person to person, place to place, and time to time, based on whatever social agreements may exist in the microcosm. Because of this, there is no singular moral standard that applies equally to everyone everywhere and at every time, so if one society chooses to believe it is right to kill off the weak or rape their way to a stronger society, that’s “right” for them, and there is no outside moral judge that we can look to in order to judge otherwise. Human flourishing and empathy are arbitrary measures we typically use to say something is “moral”, but we could just as easily use the opposite as a moral standard. In other words, without an objective moral framework to go by, atheism reduces morality down to shared preferences, like a favorite flavor of ice cream.

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I didn’t mean for this thread to get into a religious debate, but I know a few UGA atheists. GT, Emory, and UGA grads are pretty smart these days. I’ve never met an atheist with bad values, just those hiding behind religion. My point is that we can draw more of those GT, Emory, and UGA grads by not shaming them on not believing in god, but having those god worshipping/fearing Christian values that our society needs. Young Americans are more confused than ever.

You asked an inherently religious question of religious people.

Because atheists don't know what morals are without borrowing from Christianity. You want to try Roman "democracy" out? Because that's what you get when you let people run governments based on their own whims of what they consider "right".

Conservative values are Christian values. Anyone else trying to hijack the movement is going to destroy it. So if you don't like Christianity, feel free to find another movement to support.

Because you cannot separate American conservatism from our history
Traditional American conservatism was built by men who believed in God and felt that only Salvation through Christ offered eternal life
That is what a majority.. a very large majority of them believed

Not all of them And I'm not even going to get into the Thomas Jefferson is a deist because that's irrelevant

we're talking about American conservatism, founded in our institutions the Church for one and it used to be education, when Western Civ was still taught as a foundation

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So maybe pretend I’m religious? Sounds unnecessary and time consuming.

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If you believe in objective morality you’re already religious. You’re just pretending that you’re not.

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I didn’t mean for this thread to get into a religious debate, but I know a few UGA atheists. GT, Emory, and UGA grads are pretty smart these days. I’ve never met an atheist with bad values, just those hiding behind religion. My point is that we can draw more of those GT, Emory, and UGA grads by not shaming them on not believing in god, but having those god worshipping/fearing Christian values that our society needs. Young Americans are more confused than ever.

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I see this more as a philosophical discussion rather than a religious one. I’m simply addressing the logical conclusion of atheism which makes it unlike Christianity. Christians are held to a “Christian” standard because of our beliefs, but atheists attest to a worldview that does not provide objective morality, so in order to have a Christian morality, they have to assume it arbitrarily out of preference.

It’s one reason why I think atheists are necessarily irrational: they adhere to a worldview that necessarily rejects objective moral reasoning all while acting like it really exists. They know instinctively that murder is immoral, but they have no grounding for that instinct. As evolved animals, we could just as easily condone rape, murder, and theft as the strongest of the species seeking to carry on their genetic line, which fits nicely with evolutionary theory in an godless universe. We recoil at rape and murder because we are made in the image of God with His morality imprinted on our souls. At least that’s what I believe.

speaking of a far left freak

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Because atheists don't know what morals are without borrowing from Christianity. You want to try Roman "democracy" out? Because that's what you get when you let people run governments based on their own whims of what they consider "right". Conservative values are Christian values. Anyone else trying to hijack the movement is going to destroy it. So if you don't like Christianity, feel free to find another movement to support.

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Please tell me more about Roman values. Greatest civilization in history that one could argue that Christians borrowed inspiration from.