I recently received an email from a Hamas supporter who had read one of my pieces discussing good and evil. He informed me that he was a scientist, and that the existence of God could not be objectively proven. Therefore, he claimed, notions of absolute morality are absurd.
I don’t think the demand for proof of God is scientifically sound. We can observe many phenomena in nature, that don’t provide absolute proof of a scientific principle; but merely evidence supporting our scientific assumptions. We don’t have proof that the “big bang” actually happened – nobody saw it, nobody heard it, and no instrumentation recorded it. But from observations, we assume it may be how our universe reached its current state.
Similarly, we don’t have proof in the existence of God, but his presence would explain many of the things we observe in our daily lives. However, I’d like to continue without making this a theological debate. Whether God exists or not, civilization is unsustainable without a belief that he does. We need our faith, whether it is supported by reality or not.
When the presence of God is denied, humility disappears and men presume themselves to be the supreme beings of the universe – answerable to no higher power. They become the arbiters of good and evil. “Right” and “wrong” become human constructs, subject to change as society evolves. Morality becomes whatever the majority of any given civilization says it is.
When humans are presumed to be the supreme beings, the Constitution is no longer the protector of our rights, but rather the source of those rights. If the “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights“ of the Preamble is excluded from our understanding or “rights,” the Constitution becomes the grantor of legally sanctioned rights as approved by the mob. Rights to religion, assembly, expression, property, due process, and self-defense may be changed at any time. Without guiding principles which supersede the will of the majority, we are only one election away from a civilizational collapse, in which men spend more time destructively competing than constructively building, and chaos is the order of the day. Does any of that sound familiar? We need belief in a higher order as a defense against our worst instincts, so that we may prosper.
Our founders were men of God and understood the importance of faith-based values (i.e., inalienable rights). They knew that faith provides a foundation for order, happiness, and prosperity. Wealth cannot be created without property rights. Happiness cannot be achieved without freedom. Order cannot be maintained without due process. Our laws are derived from the religious belief that stealing, lying, cheating, coveting, and killing are universally wrong.
But we started walking back the importance of faith to civilization in the 1960s. Madalyn O’Hair illustrates the left’s campaign to separate God from governance. O’Hair was a Marxist atheist who was offended when her son was forced to pray in school. She began a decades long campaign of lawfare to drive God out of government. O’Hair filed lawsuits to prohibit prayer in school, and to remove religious symbols from government property (like nativity scenes from public parks). She even sued NASA because the Apollo 8 astronauts dared to read from the book of Genesis as they circled the Moon on the government “clock.” Her legal maneuvers contributed to the notion that the Constitution requires a separation of church and state.
But the Constitution doesn’t say any such thing. It doesn’t bar religious observance from government operations. It merely prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another.
However, once activist courts endorsed O’Hair’s demand that an impenetrable wall be constructed between faith and government, the notion of absolute good and evil was lost. Morality became “relative.” When O’Hair began her crusade in the 1960s, we never knew what 2024 would look like – a secular United States in which a sitting Congresswoman would “contextualize” the burning of babies alive, and not be immediately driven from office. That is where excluding universal constants of morality from government leads.
The atheists will say that we don’t need God’s word to be civilized. We just need a legally binding agreement about what constitutes civilized behavior. A pact, if you will, defining behavioral expectations, and imposing penalties for transgressions. You know, something like a constitution.
Well, we’ve got our Constitution. And yet when BLM rioters looted shops and murdered the innocent, the transgressions were excused – because government officials decided the actions of the rioters were justified. The immorality of theft, vandalism, and murder were contextualized by men who felt unrestrained by God’s will. Men in government believed they were empowered to make moral judgements supporting their legal decisions – because morality had become relative.
The foundations of civilization only work when a clear majority maintain a belief in a higher order, as a navigational beacon for righteous behavior. Without that guidance, we are just wandering aimlessly searching for answers, which Judeo/Christian teachings have already provided.
After 60+ years of such wandering, inalienable rights are now being “contextualized.”
- Freedom of expression is waived to prevent misinformation – which is any truth that doesn’t fit the narrative.
- Due process is waived to aide the preferred political candidates of men who claim to be “protecting democracy.”
- Property rights are waived to benefit preferred classes of voters – such as college loan holders.
- Bearing false witness is perfectly okay, if the story is “fake but accurate.”
- Coveting is no longer a sin if it benefits spreading the wealth around – because at some point the wealthy have enough.
- Murder is morally acceptable if done in response to past perceived oppression.
A disturbingly high percentage of the Democrat party voters sleep soundly at night after
- Justifying rape – so long as the victims are Jewish;
- Voting for women to have an inalienable right to terminate their young – up to the moment of birth;
- Arguing that “Black Lives Matter” – but “All Lives Matter” is a hateful expression of white privilege;
- Judging that some riots are insurrections, while others are “mostly peaceful” – depending on the political affiliation of the rioters.
- Excusing Islam as a religion of peace – while condemning Judaism and Christianity as religions of hate; and
- Imprisoning those who joke about an election – but claiming that investigating actual vote tampering is an assault on our democracy.
Everything has become subject to “context,” and the context is as defined by men who have lost their moral compass – because God has been excluded from their deliberations.
Our cities are being consumed by crime. Citizens are at each other’s throats over politics. Polarization has made our most pressing problems unsolvable. The United States has lost the moral authority to lead the world to freedom and prosperity. We are on the verge of social collapse because we have traded universal constants of morality for the righteousness of the majority.
It’s been 60+ years since Madalyn O’Hair started her Marxist crusade to build an impenetrable wall between the religious faith and all things public. Are we more civilized for it? Has our separation of church and state staved off a cultural war, or hastened it?
My email correspondent is correct. I don’t have objective proof that God exists. But I have observations that without faith in his existence, civilization crumbles.
Author Bio: John Green is a political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho. He has written for American Thinker, and American Free News Network. He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.
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