Confused about God and Values
Immediately after the 2004 election, as soon as people began reporting that "moral values" contributed to a substantial part of the electorate's choice, a group of people began whining about "Jesusland", and accusing the "radical right wing religious nuts" of getting ready to overturn Roe vs. Wade. The anti-God crowd chanted that the election was decided over "God, guns and gays" by a hoard of "religious bigots" wishing to establish a "Christian Taliban-like government". In retrospect, however, what swayed the majority of voters who listed "moral values" as their number-one reason for voting as they did goes much deeper than what the Democrats in this nation appear to grasp.
The people in this nation who don't wish to believe in God, and who don't wish to accept a moral standard based on religious belief, have been chipping away at the foundation of this nation, and the foundations of religious faith, for ninety years. The degradation started slowly, but has accelerated since the 1960's, when the so-called "sexual revolution" began.
From the blog, The Doctor is In:
Consider the sexual revolution of the 1960's, for example. Launched by the technological advance of readily-available and reliable birth control, nurtured by the anti-authoritarian environment of an unpopular war and a universal military draft, conventional wisdom evolved to the point where sexual activity between any two "consenting adults" was permissible and desirable - as long as "no one gets hurt". The consequences of millions of individuals defining sexual morality in such constricted and self-referential terms is nothing short of staggering: spiraling rates of divorce and sexually transmitted diseases (including AIDS); exponential growth of children raised in single-parent homes or born to unwed mothers; breakdown of families with deteriorating educational systems and outcomes; increased rates of juvenile crime and drug use; epidemic levels of domestic and child abuse. Whatever benefits may have accrued from this moral earthquake in the areas of sexual repression and prudishness are swamped by the adverse consequences - consequences never even imagined by those making these individual moral choices.
Unintended consequences, the cost of unwise choice, both on an individual level and on the overall social level, are piling up day by day. Respect for parents and other older members of society is almost non-existent. Our language is coarsened to where it's almost impossible to hold a conversation with a stranger without some vile epithet being uttered. Common courtesy is either nonexistent, or reviled in our "politically correct" world. Greed and hate trample generosity and compassion into the ground. Sex outside of marriage has become almost the norm. Our schools don't educate, our churches don't provide moral guidance, and society as a whole treats anyone who doesn't believe that everything's going "just great" with utter contempt. We are awash in abortions, unwed mothers, welfare children, and emotional upheaval. Suicide is up, crime is up, and the safety and security of home and family has been shattered.
The "revolution" of the past 30 years has been a disaster, and the majority of those maimed and injured are the most vulnerable of our citizens. Those of us who have had to live with the shambles of destroyed homes, destroyed lives, and damaged children are finally beginning to realize that this is not the way we were intended to live. The cost of continuing to live in a society where good becomes evil, where courtesy becomes a threat, is too high. It's time to reassess how we live, and why we do the things we do.
None of us would deliberately drive an automobile that's dangerous to ourselves and others on the highway. Yet the same person that would demand a safe automobile ignores the dangers of untested ideas, of unrestricted behavior, of unthinking actions. We feel perfectly comfortable living within the rules when using our streets and highways, but try to institute rules for behavior, and everyone is up in arms about the "tyranny". Fifty years of increasingly fewer and fewer rules of behavior, of constant eroding of moral values, has left us a society deeply troubled, filled with danger and fear. There is no foundation to our society, there are no comforting rules not only to guide our behavior, but the behavior of others toward us. We live in an immoral, unregulated, uncontrolled jungle of "anything goes", with few rules, lenient punishment, and "no controlling authority".
It's not a comfortable way to live. It's not the way God, Man's Creator, wants us to live. God has created some very basic but effective rules that, if we follow them, we will be happy and prosperous, under any government but the most oppressive tyranny. The "Red-State" voters know and understand this. They know that the moral values given to us by God, and the moral teachings we learn about from His Word, will keep us safe, and give us strength to face whatever we're subjected to. God's Word was sufficient to allow tens of millions to suffer through tyranny and persecution in Eastern Europe. Millions overcame the tyranny of Hitler's Germany through faith.
Most "Red-State" (actually, red-county) voters understand that their beliefs are under unremitting attack by the "unrestricted" crowd. They can see the fruits of the "victories" those same people have harvested from unrestricted abortion, divorce-on-demand, "free love", lenient punishment for "social crimes", drug and alcohol abuse, and so many more things. They see the festering jungle our inner cities have become without moral structure and internalized moral guidelines. The attack on Christianity, on belief in God, is unremitting. Yet the people behind that attack are miserable, because they have nothing to turn to but anger and hate. Their "love" is a farce - love without commitment is empty. Their "truth" is insubstantial - here today, morphed into something else tomorrow. Their "justice" does nothing to stop unjust behavior, but promotes it and prolongs the agony of the victim. There is no joy in procreation, there is no joy in success, there is no joy in living, because there's no structure to hang anything upon, to give it continuity. There is no place, no relationship, no thoughts, that instill awe, trust, love, security, and permanence.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." God created the universe, and everything within it. He created it to be in constant motion, constantly in a process of changing. Yet He remains steadfast, unmovable, durable, resolute. He is something to trust in, something to be awed by, something to bring joy into our hearts, and our lives. His permanence provides us the shelter we crave, the security we need, and the sense of being worthy that is missing from the secular world. He can give us the strength to face any challenge, to withstand any torment, and in the end, to rescue us even from death.
The people who said "moral values" was the most important factor in their decision don't want to "force" everyone to become a "Jesus-freak". What they want is to live life in a society that recognizes that there have to be moral values and rules of behavior, they have to be recognized and given consideration, and that they shape not only how we live, but how WELL we live. The majority of people want to put the brakes on the runaway destruction of society, to return to what worked in the past, the things that gave us purpose, direction, and strength. They have no intention of forcing God on the rest of society, only that society must stop attacking those that believe in God. They want the rest of society to stop trying to destroy what religious observers believe in, including the very real moral values the majority of people, at least in the "red states", possess.
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