Since its inception, the United States was unique in the world in that it identified itself with a set of beliefs, chief among them that everyone is equal before God and the law.
The necessary foundation for that belief is that there exists an objective, absolute standard for right and wrong.
And the only possible source for such a standard must be a Divine Absolute, namely God. And until now, Americans overwhelmingly recognized that fact.
But a recent Pew survey shows for the first time in history that a majority of Americans believe morality can exist without God.
But none of this should surprise us.
If one can ‘choose his or her gender’, for instance, is there anything left that is categorically objective?
Nope. God help us.
Here’s more from PJ Media…
It’s an age-old philosophical question: do morality and belief go hand in hand? For generations, most Americans would be inclined to answer that question in the affirmative. But those generations in the past held more firmly to religious faith than many Americans today. As the number of religiously unaffiliated individuals in this country increases, it stands to reason that the number of those who do not tie decency to faith in God would go up as well.
A new survey from Pew Research has shown that, for the first time, a majority of American surveyed believe that belief in God is not necessary for morality. Among the adults surveyed this year, 56 percent do not see religious faith as a prerequisite for virtue, up from 49 percent in 2011.
Naturally, Pew points out that the increase in the disconnect between morality and religion coincides with the number of “nones” — those with no affiliation to faith — in the United States:
Surveys have long shown that religious “nones” – those who describe themselves religiously as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – are more likely than those who identify with a religion to say that belief in God is not a prerequisite for good values and morality. So the public’s increased rejection of the idea that belief in God is necessary for morality is due, in large part, to the spike in the share of Americans who are religious “nones.”
Indeed, the growth in the share of Americans who say belief in God is unnecessary for morality tracks closely with the growth in the share of the population that is religiously unaffiliated. In the 2011 Pew Research Center survey that included the question about God and morality, religious “nones” constituted 18% of the sample. By 2017, the share of “nones” stood at 25%.
