Why America's Record Godlessness Is Good News for the Nation. (A rebuttal)
Above Photo from R.E.M's Music Video "Losing My Religion" 1991.
"Why America's Godlessness is Good News for the Nation " was the title of an Op-Ed run in the Los Angeles Times on April 2nd. authored by Phil Zuckerman an Associate Dean of Pitzer College and the author of "Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment."
According to the most recent Gallup Poll released earlier this month, for the first time since Gallup began tracking numbers in 1937, more people in America are not members of a church, synagogue or mosque than are. In 1945, 75% of all Americans were members compared to today's 47%. Zuckerman continued to site all the troubling statistics that document the decline of Christianity in America. These are facts that cannot be disputed.
What I do dispute is the conclusions that he draws anecdotally at best, from history and present day to make his case. He contends our collective fears, that moral decline and societal destruction is directly proportional to increased secularism, is incorrect. Based on our historical observation, that forced secularization, led to the mass atrocities, crimes, and moral outrages committed in the 19th. century by Nazi's and Communist totalitarian regimes. He states that what we have going on now is different. We are in the midst of a natural organic decline towards secularization brought about by better education, more prosperity, and living safer, secure and peaceful lives and will not lead to societal ruination. In other words he is implying that as society becomes more educated and prosperous people begin to realize that religion is truly the opiate of the people that Karl Marx said it was.
"Enlightened" people are more likely to revere the Scientific Method, receive vaccines, and support: sex education, reproductive rights, gay rights, death with dignity, gun safety legislation and drug abuse. He maintains that the more secular democracies, Japan, the U.K., Scandinavia, Australia and Canada, are willingly more progressive and don't have that religious drag preventing a universal acceptance of the aforementioned liberal agendas and they are better off for it. What he implies is that people of faith are ignorant and are unable to go along with this natural occurring societal evolution, that will inevitably lead you to the realization that there is no God and we will be better off as a society embracing the inevitable.
I might remind Mr. Zuckerman, Francis Bacon a Christian, was credited with giving us the Scientific Method! There are thousands of Christian scientists that have contributed greatly to our knowledge of the pure sciences and medicine in the past and continue to do so today. Science and faith are not mutually exclusive, that is Enlightenment philosophy. The Enlightenment brought us the French Revolution, guillotines, Marxism and the totalitarianism of the 19th. century. History is full of examples of the moral decline of empires and their inevitable ruin, read a world history book Mr. Zuckerman.
Yes, people of faith do have problems with assisted suicide, abortion, homosexuality, same sex marriage and legalization of drugs. You see, we believe in a transcendent truth that comes from outside of us. It is bigger than we are. Otherwise, truth is what you say it is- what is true for me may not be true for you and therefore, there is no truth at all. If everything is relative how can you have a moral society? You cannot. God has revealed His truth to us in written word, the Bible. You might put that on your must read bucket list, Mr. Zuckerman.
What you describe as natural organic decline is just as evil as the horrors of the 19th. century and you are blind to it. Our holocaust in the U.S. is the 62 million babies slaughtered in abortuaries since 1973, the sexual revolution has normalized promiscuity, the definition of marriage has been changed and the nuclear family is under attack. You talk about scientific truth yet you deny the basic biological fact of being born either male or female. You say we would be better off as a nation of atheist's, embracing immorality and denying God? Who is ignorant of the facts Mr. Zuckerman?
I'll leave you with a quote from John Adams: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." You see Mr. Zuckerman someone way smarter than you realized that if we lose our religion, we lose our morality, and we will lose our country. How is that good news for America?