Why Godlessness is Good News for America

 As I'm reading through the book of Judges we are reminded how the Jewish people were CHOSEN to show the world the blessings and curses brought by God.  If you listen to God and are obedient they will live in peace and prosperity.  If they reject God and start following the lusts of their hearts God promises to raise up a nation to destroy them and make them slaves.  And of course the Israelites have this happen again and again.  Read the book.  Lots of times it repeats the phase, "In that day Israel had no king.  Every man did as he saw fit."

Today in America every man, woman, transgender, gender-fluid, gender-neutral and gender-queer person is doing whatever they see as fit.  And society is celebrating their perversion.  Soon marriage will be thrown out completely and polyamory will be the norm.  Rampant drug use by a huge segment of society will bring it's own demons to bear on society.  Drunkenness is exploding as well during the COVID lockups of the past year.  Hard core pornography of every nature is available at the touch of your iPhone and our 10 year old boys and girls are feasting on it while opening wide a portal for demonic interference into their lives.  The story might read for us, "In that day America had no fear of God.  Every person did whatever he wanted to do to please themselves."

Op-Ed: Why America's record godlessness is good news for the nation

The secularization of U.S. society — the waning of religious faith, practice and affiliation — is continuing at a dramatic and historically unprecedented pace. While many may consider such a development as cause for concern, such a worry is not warranted. This increasing godlessness in America is actually a good thing, to be welcomed and embraced.

Democratic societies that have experienced the greatest degrees of secularization are among the healthiest, wealthiest and safest in the world, enjoying relatively low rates of violent crime and high degrees of well-being and happiness. Clearly, a rapid loss of religion does not result in societal ruin.

For the first time since Gallup began tracking the numbers in 1937, Americans who are members of a church, synagogue or mosque are not in the majority, according to a Gallup report released this week. Compare today’s 47% to 1945, when more than 75% of Americans belonged to a religious congregation.

This decline in religious affiliation aligns closely with many similar secularizing trends. For example, in the early 1970s, only one in 20 Americans claimed “none” as their religion, but today it is closer to one in three. Over this same time period, weekly church attendance has decreased, and the percentage of Americans who never attend religious services has increased from 9% to 30%.

In 1976, nearly 40% of Americans said they believed that the Bible was the actual word of God, to be taken literally. Today only about a quarter of Americans believe that, with slightly more decreeing the Bible is simply a collection of fables, history and morality tales written by men. And the percentage of Americans who confidently believe in God’s existence, without a doubt, has declined from 63% in 1990 to 53% today.

Fears that this rise of irreligion might result in the deterioration of our nation’s moral fiber — and threaten our liberties and freedoms — are understandable. Such concerns are not without historical merit: The former Soviet Union was a communist country deeply rooted in atheism and was one of the most corrupt, bloody regimes of the 20th century. Other atheistic authoritarian regimes, such as the former Albania and Cambodia, were equally crooked and vicious.

But here’s the thing — they were all godless dictatorships that tried to forcibly destroy religion by persecuting the faithful, actively oppressing religious institutions, and making a demagogic cult out of their thuggish rulers. Such coercive secularization is, indeed, something to dread.

However, there is another, alternative kind of secularization, one that emerges organically, amid free and open societies where human rights, including religious freedom, are upheld and respected. Many societies qualify for this label — including those in Japan, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Australia, Canada and Uruguay, among many others. In these places, religion is not actively repressed, nor do governments promote secularization. And yet, it occurs simply because the people living in these societies lose interest in the whole religious enterprise.

Organic secularization can occur for many reasons. It happens when members of a society become better educated, more prosperous, and live safer, more secure and more peaceful lives; when societies experience increases in social isolation; when people have better healthcare; when more women hold paying jobs; when more people wait longer to get married and have kids. All of these, especially in combination, can decrease religiosity.

Another major factor is the ubiquity of the internet, which provides open windows to alternative worldviews and different cultures that can corrode religious conviction — and allows budding skeptics and nascent freethinkers to find, support and encourage one another.

In the United States, these factors are further compounded by strong backlashes against the religious right, the evangelical-Republican alliance, conservative religion’s anti-gay agenda and the Catholic Church’s sexual-abuse scandals. This has resulted in “the winds of secularization … swirling like never before,” Ryan P. Burge, a political scientist, recently said.

Fears of atheistic authoritarianism aside, some may worry about religious organizations fading away because they do so much good. They do engage in a tremendous amount of charitable work that includes holding food drives and setting up soup kitchens and homeless shelters. However, such welcomed charity is ultimately an altruistic response to symptoms, not a structural cure for root causes.

This is why highly secular democracies do a much better job of ameliorating homelessness and poverty by employing decidedly secular solutions, such as responding with rational social policies and wise economic strategies, and setting up more responsive institutions. Affordable housing and subsidized healthcare do a far better job of alleviating the suffering of the poor and the sick than faith-based charities.

Here;  Op-Ed: Why America's record godlessness is good news for the nation (yahoo.com)

How tragic this all is!  America should celebrate our declining FEAR OF THE LORD because it will really help us all be more wealthy, more tolerant, more accepting of science and more open to free sex without any of those nagging wives demanding monogamy!

One day, hopefully soon, the trumpet is going to blow and the dead in Christ and the alive in Christ will all be called up into the clouds to meet the Lord Jesus and be with Him forever!  Encourage each other with these words!  America will suddenly pass away.  As you read articles like this in mainstream publications and watch what the leaders of our country are doing and saying a follower of Christ should very easily be able to see the writing on the wall.