Free societies are based on the individual’s ability to self-govern according to the mutually agreed upon limits that a society deems necessary for the protection of everyone’s legitimate rights and interests.
These civil limits are created from shared mores and morals, often developed as a function of a shared religion or some other central expression of morality and civility. Whether one calls the force “God”, “Gaia”, multiple gods, or some other appellation for a higher power, a “higher power” is always a central arbiter of those shared expressions.
As a mechanism for a civil society, free people have always surrendered varying levels of personal belief and autonomy (depending upon custom and necessity) to a central entity entrusted to equally protect and maintain the rights of all under their mutually agreed jurisdiction.
I have always explained this, in simplistic terms, this way: freedom is the ability to do anything we want, whenever we want. In pursuit of civil society, individuals cede some of that freedom. The difference between total freedom and the amount we cede is called liberty.
For as long as free societies have existed, people have accepted this math – with one important caveat. Most everybody believed in a “higher power” that set the basic limits of what cannot be broached.
Even in societies less free – monarchies for example, this structure was forced upon them through the kings and queens claiming a divine right to rule.
For example, the God of my Christian faith, natural law and even the pagan gods of ancient Greece and Rome never questioned the male/female dynamic. Of course, there have always been effeminate men and masculine women, but never has there been an organized movement to recognize men as women and women as men – because before humans worshiped gods, they worshiped nature. It was the way it was because that is the way it was (and still is). Until a few years ago, a man being a man and a woman being a woman was universally agreed upon by almost every single culture on earth.
Why are we now in a period of discord - even down to this obvious biological level?
I think it is due to a segment of society that has rejected any idea or concept of a “higher power” and that power’s role in regulating personal behavior and allowed them to substitute themselves for the “higher power”.
The rejection of that power has led to the idea that the individual is the ultimate arbiter of behaviors and beliefs and whatever they say goes. You must use their preferred pronouns and participate in their rituals. They have the power to change their genders with the power of their minds. Without looking into your past, they can determine that you are a racist and can determine that you will become an insurrectionist.
See, you must bend to their will because they are the only god in town. They are ultimately controlled solely by their own emotions, not logic, not God, not Gaia. They reject religious laws with the same degree of alacrity as they do natural, scientific, and biological laws.
This segment doesn’t worship the Golden Calf because they ARE the Golden Calf.
They now claim the rights of kings and queens, the divine right to rule, except without the divine part.
I guess you do not have to believe in God, gods, or any higher power, but we must have a common system of morality with rules that cannot be ignored.
Without that, what is there to unify us?
Bless you Michael, well said.
The Bible is clear about false Gods and false Prophets.
“You shall have no other gods before me.” – Exodus 20:31
"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world." – 1 John 4:14
It is clear, as I believe it is to you Michael, that they people are worshipping false Gods and listening to false Prophets.
None of us make it off this Earth alive, but to live with The God may not be reality for some!