Topic: Social and Cultural Issues
The New Freedom Freedom from God and his law necessitates the carriage of a great deal of baggage most people don’t think about very much.by Lou Poumakis
(libertarian)
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Society has matured and put away old superstitions such as belief in a Supreme Being. We are now free from the fear and threats of a God that our former foolish faith invented and whom we thought had sovereignty and ownership over us. This new freedom has many subtle ramifications that are not readily apparent to most people. As a consequence of this really monumental philosophical sea-change, man's outlook on life has undergone a drastic transformation. Consider the following:
1. The Ten Commandments are dead and buried. There is no God who lays down a law that governs our lives. Without the fixed ethical standard that once constrained our actions, we can now make decisions based on temporal considerations only and we can decide for ourselves what constitutes right and wrong for us in whatever situation we find ourselves.
2. The fear of a judgment that follows this life is gone. When we die, it's all over for us. This life is all there is. Life is now restricted to our physical time on earth. There is no life after death we can look forward to or fear as the case may be.
3. Because life is now bounded where previously it was open-ended and one could look ahead for a possible change in circumstances, a poor person with limited potential for improvement in this life can no longer hope for better in the next.
4. Because there is no possibility of our ever looking back on our lives after we die, life has lost much of its meaning and people have lost much of the motivation for accomplishing something of lasting significance.
5. Without a Supreme Being who controls whatsoever comes to pass, the flow of history becomes contingent and loses its meaning. Wars are won or lost and nations come into or go out of existence entirely by accident. There is no purpose or driving force that propels events in any particular direction or according to any plan.
There is a great deal that could be said about each of these consequences that flow from our new freedom but for now let's just consider the first one listed.
Since there is no longer any judgment after death and God's law has been replaced by a doctrine of self-direction, there is no longer an effective inner constraint that keeps people from violating the law whenever they think they can get away with it without being caught and punished. Since the Bible is no longer present to augment the force of law as an instrument of law enforcement, this must lead to an increase in lawlessness. We should not underplay the significance of this factor; it can exert a substantial degree of influence within a culture, even the kind of culture we live in today. Many of the early proponents of atheism recognized its importance. Voltaire, one of the leaders of the French Enlightenment, a group that championed the removal of God from all of life, was very careful to avoid speaking his mind on this subject while his servants could hear. He understood the power of faith to restrain evil and was concerned that if they were to lose their faith, his servants might take his life and steal all he had.
The lack of this faith-born restraint over men is very evident today in our Congress, Senate and political offices in general. These men are no longer concerned to practice honesty and justice as representatives of the people. They constantly violate their oaths of office and virtually sell their souls to stay in office where they can continue to rake in the largess that comes with the seat. There was probably never a time when this was not true among our office holders but it is certainly much more true today than it was a century or two ago when the fear of violating God's law was very much a part of everyday life.
Edmund Burke very perceptively noted that people get the government they deserve. In an elected representation, we cannot expect honesty and justice from government when honesty and justice are not taught in the homes of the people. It is from our families that our leaders are chosen and just as water cannot rise above its level, so we cannot expect these virtues to spontaneously develop when an individual is elected to office. Moreover, in a society that has no abiding, supreme law that the people believe in and follow, selfishness is logical and sensible and honesty and justice must take second place at best. Also, we find that those individuals most capable and most ruthless in their methods are the ones that rise to the top. This is very evident in totalitarian regimes such as the former Soviet Union but it is also true in supposedly benevolent, democratic countries such as ours.
But the problems associated with the lack of a supreme law that governs men's actions are not just political. Every area of life is affected. Contracts between businessmen were once, and to a great degree still are, based on a handshake. Each participant has sufficient trust in the other to risk perhaps great loss were he to renege on the agreement. What could this trust be based on other than a common faith in a God that gave us his law, oversees men's actions and will judge men according to their deeds? What other source could possibly overcome the innate desire all men are imbued with to better themselves at the expense of others if need be? Robert Winthrop, speaking from a time prior to the institution of our new freedom, displayed an in-depth understanding of human nature when he said:
All societies of men must be governed in some way or other.
The less they may have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government.
The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint.
Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet.
It may do for other countries and other governments to talk about the State supporting religion. Here, under our own free institutions, it is Religion which must support the State.
A lawless people, a people that lack self-government, a people that don't do what's right because its right cannot expect to remain free. Christ said that, if we follow him, we would know the truth and the truth would make us free indeed. He was speaking of real freedom, not the sort of artificial freedom we think we have today. But the price of that freedom is first faith in him and then submission to his rule over our lives. It will not be realized unless we believe he is who he says he is, the Creator of the universe, and then also obey him in all things.
This may not sound like freedom to some of you but in fact; it is the only kind of freedom possible for us. We are far too self-centered to govern ourselves; any attempt to do so always produces less freedom, not more. When we submit to Christ's rule, God's law, we suffer the minimal amount of restriction possible given our nature. The new freedom-from-God so many celebrate today is really, not only the loss of freedom, but also the loss of all possibility of realizing true freedom. Perhaps we should stop celebrating it and instead go back and reconsider what it is we have so foolishly cast aside.
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Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-11-18 14:30:14
This article is the ultimate in fear-mongering. Just because many people have awakened spiritually and realized that God is not an angry, punishing God, Mr. Poumakis concludes that morality has disappeared. This is not true.
I rejected the Pentateuch (and most of the rest of the Bible) as the literal word of God when I was in my teens. Therefore, Mr. Poumakis reckons that I've lost my moral compass, and it's been missing for over 30 years. By his estimate, I no longer have any reservations about murdering others, stealing from others, or harming others in some other way.
Wrong!
The doctrine which this article is pushing is an old one: without the Bible, morality disappears. There are so many levels on which this is wrong that it's impossible to know where to begin. I'll limit my retort to the fact that the vast majority of the world's population has never accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior, yet the overwhelming majority of them somehow manage to live quiet lives without infringing on the rights of others.
This is not to say that their governments don't infringe on the rights of others...but the same is also true of the U.S. government. Nor is U.S. infringement of rights a new pattern. It's been going on since the country's founding, something the religionists like to overlook.
One of these days, the religionist interpretation of morality will come face-to-face with the reality of its own misinterpretations of that reality. That will be a good day.
By the way, rejection of most of the Bible has also been around since the country's founding. Thomas Jefferson himself carefully cut out those portions of the English, French, Latin, and Greek versions of the Bible which specifically told the story of Jesus, pasted the cuttings into a scrapbook, and called his book, "The Life and Times of Jesus." Today, it's known as the Jefferson Bible. The only real difference between now and then is that then he couldn't even let his closest friends know that he had done this deed, for fear that he would be hanged for heresy by his fellow American religionists. Today, his views would not only be tolerated; they'd be embraced by many.
I appreciate your point of view. I also rejected these ideas while in my teens. I didn't begin to see my mistake until I was in my forties. We were both products of today's education system which has biased history and philosophy strongly against the Christian view.
But I don't see why you say I recon you lost your moral compass. I don't think that at all. You, despite your rejection of God, still are guided and governed by moral principles passed down to you from your parents, teachers and others. My point is that those attributes of our culture derive from the Christian background of Western Civilization. Morality has not disappeared but it is in the process of disintegration because the religious base it is dependent on has virtually disappeared.
After where you say "wrong!," our differences are of a historical nature. We read different authors and see history from opposite perspectives.
You are greatly mistaken that the Christian belief in the Ten Commandments, an all-knowing God who judges your life upon your death, and an afterlife of either Heaven or Hell is waning. Churches are still strong in many ways. It was only a short time ago that we saw the political strength of the "Christian right" and the "moral majority".
Religion is more INVISIBLE than you would know. Because of television ministries and the many shut-ins, or elderly, attendance in church is not as necessary as it used to be.
Also, there is a drifting away from the more traditional religions. Universal Unitarians and many non-denominational groups have sprung up to step away from Jesus while still seeking universal truths and beliefs.
There is no comfort in a life without purpose or consequence, and there is no comfort in a life without hope. That's one of the strong attractions of religion in addition to answering questions that would otherwise have no solutions.
I believe you are correct; there is a general seeking after meaning and purpose, especially in this country. But it is still very invisible in society at large and this is what I was addressing.
Unitarianism or any other religion won't suffice. What is needed is God's law permeating the culture and reflected in the law of the land. We are not yet close to moving in that direction. I believe it will come to pass because the Bible says so but the sails of that ship are still below the horizon.
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