The Disgruntled American

I’m going to start this post off a bit interesting, and honestly bare with me here. Going around the news cycle today is the rise of the ‘nones’, which are the amount of people who don’t identify with any religion. The General Societal Survey, which is taken to measure general cultural trends in the United States, showed that 23.1 percent of respondents check ‘none’ for the ‘religious affiliation’ category, which skewed higher than 22.5 percent of Evangelicals (which is what the media is so very excited about, good thing to be anything other than a communist all you need is free will and a brain).

The part that I find concerning isn’t the amount of Evangelicals, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists etc. in this country, it’s the fact there is a steadily growing amount without any religious affiliation or even a belief in a higher power, moreover I am also more concerned about the evangelical belligerent atheists which crowd the internet.

Todays post is due to one of these. See, I posted as “The Disgruntled American” in one of my local news organizations to this very topic. I actually posted this very quote which is used in the header.

The following was the reply to my comment.

This is my fear, that soon we will not have a moral compass at all. Without a fear of a higher power humans are very dangerous beings and without that fear our very special form of government cannot function, as it requires personal responsibility which without a higher power, is very difficult for anyone to reign in. The founders knew that as well.

Thomas Hobbes, who, along with John Locke wrote the framework for our constitution in their philosophical writings a century prior, made an astute observation

Moral philosophy is nothing more than the science of what is good and evil in the conversation and society of mankind. Good and Evil are names the signify our appetites and aversions; which in different tempers, customs and doctrines of men are different.

Men are fallible and each person thinks they know what is best and they are right. Look simply at how our politics are today. I have to write behind a pseudonymn using a God given right just to type this out so that my livelihood or my life isn’t put in danger. Without any type of higher power our country is slowly delving into chaos. And seeing the reply above convinces me simply that our founding fathers would have been laughed out of the Continental Congress.

Many of our Founders weren’t Christians per say, but they did believe in a God, much the same that aristotle and plato believed in a truly powerful being. Thomas Jefferson was extremely opposed to the idea of any kind of closeness between church and state, however they all understood that a society that respects and fears a higher power will flourish under a limited government. This wasn’t freedom from religion as many would like, but the power to practice any religion as you saw fit as it was beneficial to society as a whole.

Our Founders couldn’t have crafted the constitution today, all the entitlement demands, immigration squabbles, and foreign affairs notwithstanding, without a moral compass our country can’t work and it will, unfortunately fall apart. If our society does not subject to a higher power, then the government will become that higher power in order to subject society to it. That, therein, lies the real danger.

Live Free // Die Free,

The Disgruntled American