Secular folks should worry.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

89 of the 104 lawmakers in Utah are Brighamite Morms. That’s 86%. Utah’s population is 60% Morm. Morms also hold 100% of the state’s congressional seats and statewide political offices, such as Governor.

What a stupid thread.

[malkie]

89 of the 104 lawmakers in Utah are Brighamite Morms. That’s 86%. Utah’s population is 60% Morm. Morms also hold 100% of the state’s congressional seats and statewide political offices, such as Governor.

What a stupid thread.

Secular folks should worry - about being dragged into an unconstitutional theocracy.

[honorentheos]

Ethical/moral relativism being the ‘elephant in the room’ that no one wants to talk about. I’d be interested in listening/learning from you folks as to what you might see as the benefits vs. risks of a society in which right since always right and wrong isn’t always wrong. Moral/ethical relativism.

Mormonism espouses moral relativism. It says what is right is not determined by reason or principle, but rather by decree where what is wrong in one situation could be considered right in another. Ostensibly that decree comes from God who is supposed to be the enlightened being whose judgement and morality is above reproach. Yet in practical terms it just means Mormons aren't taught to engage in moral reasoning but instead assume what the church tells them is right is right...even if it's proven wrong in the future. I don't know what you want to discuss here as you are aligned with the more tenuous and relative ethical system of anyone participating in this thread. Cam has been pointing out the threats this system poses where blatantly harmful behavior is thrown into question because the church can't offer solid guidance on numerous issues of actual moral concern to society while having plenty to say about metrics associated purely with religiousity.

Personally, I see progressive secular humanism as a threat to the religious traditions and moral/ethical fiber that have held our nation together up to this point in time.

This isn't historically accurate. There has never been a common religion-based tradition that we held to nationally. The establishment of the Constitution after the failure of the Articles of Confederation explicitly excluded establishment of religion for necessary and good reason as the parochial interests of states had been divisive to establishing a national government capable of governing. In fact, the very idea secularism (the seperation of church from state) is a threat to the pluralistic society that a nation of immigrants from around the world MUST be is poorly considered. The founders were not a monolith of beliefs and ideas. The nation has never been and cannot be considered a Christian nation. That's a myth attempting to shape the future in the image of an imagined past. The closest we have to a national religion originates from the elevation of the Constitution during it's creation and ratification into an object of veneration and esteem. Providence, the national deity, is not defined by any particular system of belief nor even requires one. You cited Franklins autobiography as a source for behaviors you view to be positive. I'd suggest actually reading the book as his view of clergy and organized religion may change your willingness to appeal to his authority. If ever someone asserted self-improvement and responsibility originated from within the individual and not from "above" it would be Ben Franklin.

[honorentheos]

For reference:

I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and though' some of the dogmas of that persuasion, such as the eternal decrees of God, election, reprobation, etc., appeared to me unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being my studying day, I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that He made the world, and governed it by His providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteemed the essentials of every religion; and, being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them all, though' with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mixed with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, served principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another. This respect to all, with an opinion that the worst had some good effects, induced me to avoid all discourse that might tend to lessen the good opinion another might have of his own religion; and as our province increased in people, and new places of worship were continually wanted, and generally erected by voluntary contribution, my mite for such purpose, whatever might be the sect, was never refused.

though' I seldom attended any public worship, I had still an opinion of its propriety, and of its utility when rightly conducted, and I regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Philadelphia. He used to visit me sometimes as a friend, and admonish me to attend his administrations, and I was now and then prevailed on to do so, once for five Sundays successively. Had he been in my opinion a good preacher, perhaps I might have continued, notwithstanding the occasion I had for the Sunday's leisure in my course of study; but his discourses were chiefly either polemic arguments, or explications of the peculiar doctrines of our sect, and were all to me very dry, uninteresting, and unedifying, since not a single moral principle was inculcated or enforced, their aim seeming to be rather to make us Presbyterians than good citizens.

At length he took for his text that verse of the fourth chapter of Philippians, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report, if there be any virtue, or any praise, think on these things." And I imagined, in a sermon on such a text, we could not miss of having some morality. But he confined himself to five points only, as meant by the apostle, viz.: 1. Keeping holy the Sabbath day. 2. Being diligent in reading the Holy Scriptures. 3. Attending duly the public worship. 4. Partaking of the sacrament. 5. Paying a due respect to God's ministers. These might be all good things; but, as they were not the kind of good things that I expected from the text, I despaired of ever meeting with them from any other, was disgusted, and attended his preaching no more. I had some years before composed a little liturgy, or form of prayer, for my own private use (viz., in 1728), entitled "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion." I returned to the use of this, and went no more to the public assemblies. My conduct might be blamable, but I leave it without attempting further to excuse it; my present purpose being to relate facts, and not to make apologies for them.

[Gadianton]

Ethical/moral relativism being the ‘elephant in the room’ that no one wants to talk about. I’d be interested in listening/learning from you folks as to what you might see as the benefits vs. risks of a society in which right since always right and wrong isn’t always wrong. Moral/ethical relativism.

MG, I'd love to talk about it. I've taken college classes in ethics that were not needed for my major just because I found the subject interesting.

Do you recall who said, "what is right in one situation may be wrong in another."

And do you recall the circumstances?

I look forward to having a discussion about moral relativism, a topic I've had an interest in for decades.

[Res Ipsa]

Ethical/moral relativism being the ‘elephant in the room’ that no one wants to talk about. I’d be interested in listening/learning from you folks as to what you might see as the benefits vs. risks of a society in which right since always right and wrong isn’t always wrong. Moral/ethical relativism.

MG, I'd love to talk about it. I've taken college classes in ethics that were not needed for my major just because I found the subject interesting.

Do you recall who said, "what is right in one situation may be wrong in another."

And do you recall the circumstances?

I look forward to having a discussion about moral relativism, a topic I've had an interest in for decades.

Now you’ve done it, Dean Robbers. We’re never gonna get to talk about moral relativism now.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

MG, I'd love to talk about it. I've taken college classes in ethics that were not needed for my major just because I found the subject interesting.

Do you recall who said, "what is right in one situation may be wrong in another."

And do you recall the circumstances?

I look forward to having a discussion about moral relativism, a topic I've had an interest in for decades.

Now you’ve done it, Dean Robbers. We’re never gonna get to talk about moral relativism now.

You actually had a pretty concise thought here that I thought was useful to this conversation:

https://www.discussmormonism.com/viewto ... 8#p2830128

CLS, like most forms of postmodernism, relies heavily on deconstruction but does not generate a prescriptive philosophy.

Perhaps the “prescriptive philosophy” is a really simple one: Secularism.

The ‘what’ is the separation of the state from religious institutions. I suppose the ‘how’ is where it gets complicated.

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

Now you’ve done it, Dean Robbers. We’re never gonna get to talk about moral relativism now.

You actually had a pretty concise thought here that I thought was useful to this conversation:

https://www.discussmormonism.com/viewto ... 8#p2830128

CLS, like most forms of postmodernism, relies heavily on deconstruction but does not generate a prescriptive philosophy.

Perhaps the “prescriptive philosophy” is a really simple one: Secularism.

The ‘what’ is the separation of the state from religious institutions. I suppose the ‘how’ is where it gets complicated.

- Doc

Thanks! That separation is a critical part of my own political philosophy. I think the how can be tricky. Like everything else in a democracy, the ultimate how is persuasion and development of core values.

[honorentheos]

...the ultimate how is persuasion and development of core values.

100% agree. I've noted numerous times in the SP forum that the US is somewhat unique in that our population size (3rd in the world behind China and India), geography (3rd behind Russia and China), and diversity, and short lived national identity, combine to demand we hold core values in common for the experiment that is our union to hold. In that sense I agree with the bigger picture concern that our society is threatened with unraveling. It probably always has been given the nature of it. But I have little concern this is due to a shift in attitudes about religiousity and religious participation. The US has seen our degree of national religiousity shift throughout history and, as noted to MG, that is hardly based on a shared common religious foundation. Too often, going back to Plymouth, religious differences served as wedges among us more than they have unified us as a nation. What has served to define what it means for folks of numerous nations of origin, belief, and status to share something we can call a social identity are beliefs and commitments to rights and democratic social values that created opportunity for many, if imperfectly. Our social cohesion is as weak or as strong as those commitments. The division in MGs posts and OP (lifted from evangelical attempts to enforce a myth) aren't working to better civil society by any definition other than one that assumes civil society = religious community of a specific type.

[honorentheos]

To the above I think Alexis de Tocqueville captured it well:

Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small; Americans use associations to give fêtes, to found seminaries, to build inns, to raise churches, to distribute books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they create hospitals, prisons, schools. Finally, if it is a question of bringing to light a truth or developing a sentiment with the support of a great example, they associate. Everywhere that, at the head of a new undertaking, you see the government in France and a great lord in England, count on it that you will perceive an association in the United States.

In America I encountered sorts of associations of which, I confess, I had no idea, and I often admired the infinite art with which the inhabitants of the United States managed to fix a common goal to the efforts of many men and to get them to advance to it freely.

I have since traveled through England, from which the Americans took some of their laws and many of their usages, and it appeared to me that there they were very far from making as constant and as skilled a use of association.

It often happens that the English execute very great things in isolation, whereas there is scarcely an undertaking so small that Americans do not unite for it. It is evident that the former consider association as a powerful means of action; but the latter seem to see in it the sole means they have of acting.

Thus the most democratic country on earth is found to be, above all, the one where men in our day have most perfected the art of pursuing the object of their common desires in common and have applied this new science to the most objects. Does this result from an accident or could it be that there in fact exists a necessary relation between associations and equality?

Aristocratic societies always include within them, in the midst of a multitude of individuals who can do nothing by themselves, a few very powerful and very wealthy citizens; each of these can execute great undertakings by himself.

In aristocratic societies men have no need to unite to act because they are kept very much together.

Each wealthy and powerful citizen in them forms as it were the head of a permanent and obligatory association that is composed of all those he holds in dependence to him, whom he makes cooperate in the execution of his designs.

In democratic peoples, on the contrary, all citizens are independent and weak; they can do almost nothing by themselves, and none of them can oblige those like themselves to lend them their cooperation. They therefore all fall into impotence if they do not learn to aid each other freely.

If men who live in democratic countries had neither the right nor the taste to unite in political goals, their independence would run great risks, but they could preserve their wealth and their enlightenment for a long time; whereas if they did not acquire the practice of associating with each other in ordinary life, civilization itself would be in peril. A people among whom particular persons lost the power of doing great things in isolation, without acquiring the ability to produce them in common, would soon return to barbarism.

Unhappily, the same social state that renders associations so necessary to democratic peoples renders them more difficult for them than for all others.

When several members of an aristocracy want to associate with each other they easily succeed in doing so. As each of them brings great force to society, the number of members can be very few, and, when the members are few in number, it is very easy for them to know each other, to understand each other, and to establish fixed rules.

The same facility is not found in democratic nations, where it is always necessary that those associating be very numerous in order that the association have some power.

I know that there are many of my contemporaries whom this does not embarrass. They judge that as citizens become weaker and more incapable, it is necessary to render the government more skillful and more active in order that society be able to execute what individuals can no longer do. They believe they have answered everything in saying that. But I think they are mistaken.

A government could take the place of some of the greatest American associations, and within the Union several particular states already have attempted it. But what political power would ever be in a state to suffice for the innumerable multitude of small undertakings that American citizens execute every day with the aid of an association?

GenZ does this through different mechanisms than church. It's not necessarily disappearing, it's changing. Acts of religiousity aren't civil society. They are religious markers and norms that do not stand in for the activism and community found in non-religuous association. Where MG rightly sees decline isn't of concern to me because I don't think religion is the force for good he does. I think what good religion fosters isn't OF religions, but rather used by religion.

ETA: I should caveat the above with a concern that cuts through cross sections of both conservative and progressive politics. That being, studies do seem to be showing more and more people are increasingly tolerant of authoritarian measures to force their ideological opponents to conform as we do seem to see a weakening of our willingness to "associate" to address issues. And I do see that as a threat to civil society.

For example: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44159-023-00161-4