Are secular societies prone to moral decay?

Dubio · Apr 21, 2016

I'm not sure myself. I ask because I read a couple of articles lately written by Christians. They were trying to make the case that secularism believes morality is relative and without the never changing "Word of God", morality is subject to the whims of the people. Eventually, this secular society will morally decay.

Right? Wrong?

Quetzal · Apr 21, 2016

Morality, in itself, is not a rigid construct. It fluctuates from society to society. From a Christian perspective, I can see their point. Their foothold on the moral high horse has been slipping for awhile now.

Demonslayer · Apr 21, 2016

Next time a Christian asks about moral decay in secular society, ask them how the 99% Christian culture in America was so morally bankrupt that they bought, sold, beat and killed human slaves for almost 250 years.

Religion doesn't make a society moral, quite the opposite in a lot of cases.

BSM1 · Apr 21, 2016

Morality, like good and evil, seems to be man-made concepts. For instance, when my Grandmother was a young woman she dare not even show her ankles when she went to the beach. Now...well you get the picture. What changed? Society has said that string bikinis are no longer immoral at the beach. (Thank you, Society!)

Demonslayer · Apr 21, 2016

During that same time when morality was defined by how much of your shameful body you discovered, there was a rampant domestic violence problem that went largely unreported. It was simply seen as controlling your family if you beat on your wife and kids. It wasn't until the 1970s when domestic violence was even considered a crime.

nilsz · Apr 21, 2016

Do you think the following reasoning is reasonable?

In a moral society, people do not sabotage each others' efforts, but instead complement them, creating a synergetic environment. Therefore, a moral society tends to become more prosperous overall than an amoral society.

How come then, that prosperity in societies correlates with secularism?

EDIT: I want to emphasize that a poor society is not necessarily poor because it is amoral. In particular, war, colonialism, and other forms of foreign exploitation can play a role.

Valjean · Apr 21, 2016

This presupposes that religious morality is writ in stone. Obviously, this is not the case.

Father Heathen · Apr 21, 2016

Secular societies tend to have more education, freedom, rights, and equality than overtly religious ones.

So no.

Sunstone · Apr 21, 2016

The thing about listening to at least some Christians and at least some other religious folks talk about secular society is that it's no more genuinely insightful than listening to a Toyota car salesman describe Ford automobiles. By "some Christians" I mostly mean those who see their religion as in competition with secular society. In my experience, their analyseses are near to useless as either accurate descriptions of secular society or as predictions of where secular society is headed.

Misleading. Try this experiment: Treat their "case" as if it were a scientific hypothesis. Demand they support it with empirical evidence just as rigorously as almost any hypothesis in science must be supported before it gains widespread acceptance. Then see what kind of "evidence" you get.

Deathbydefault · Apr 21, 2016

Wrong, but don't believe me.
This isn't an issue where you can exactly trust the honesty of someone else, find out for yourself.
I've yet to find an example of a society that is as described due to a heavy effect of secularism, thus I say they are wrong.

If you find one such example, please do share it with me.

Guy Threepwood · Apr 21, 2016

I think the proof is in the pudding here, before Christianity the most advanced civilizations considered watching people die horribly the height of sophisticated entertainment. Less wealthy cultures ate each other.
They did not perceive this as immoral

I think we take for granted how Christianity transformed what we perceive as 'normal morality' in the world

LuisDantas · Apr 21, 2016

So wrong that it is puzzling.

Riverwolf · Apr 21, 2016

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you believe in objective morality, believe that this objective morality is stated in some book, and that it's never-changing; and then see society around you choosing to deliberately not use this book as the basis for morality, it's inevitable that you'll see this as "moral decay". It's a very narrow, self-centered way of looking at the world.

Thanda · Apr 21, 2016

The reasoning is perhaps along the lines of "if you don't stand for something you will fall for anything".

It would be a mistake, though, to think that a person or a people can't have a set of firm principles or morals without religion. It's just that defending any kind of moral code outside of religion tends to be a bit difficult. That classic case when you were a child and you kept asking why every time your question was answered. Eventually the parent would say "because I said so".

And thus in a religious society it is far easier to maintain any set of moral standards (even one's that appear immoral) since the why is easily answered by "because God said so (or because so and so said God said so)".

The Emperor of Mankind · Apr 21, 2016

The second-to-last sentence is right, if by 'relative' you mean 'not objective'; the last sentence is wrong. Christians incorrectly suppose two things:

morality is inextricably bound up with religion - specifically their religion. It is not;
changing moral views = decaying moral views. That is not the case.

Societies were deciding their own moral codes for thousands of years before Christianity showed up; before any of the one-world theologies showed up.

viole · Apr 21, 2016

It is neither right nor wrong, as long as you do not defne what morality is.

For instance the alleged never changing word of God prescribes the stoning of rebellious children. If this is a piece of morality, then we have two cases

1) not listening to God causes moral decay (we do not stone rebellious children anymore)
2) stoning children is immoral today, and therefore the word of God is changing

Your call.

Ciao

- viole

LuisDantas · Apr 21, 2016

Morality does not really benefit from codes, particularly if they are rigid. It is not even too big of a reach to say that it is diminished by those.

Morality is about responsibility, courage and ability to predict and deal with the consequences of actions. Like so much else, it has a place for learning better as circunstances change, as well as for flexibility and experimentation.

Deathbydefault · Apr 21, 2016

They did these things in Christian theologians, too... Would you like a rather long list?
Of course the people in power didn't perceive it as immoral, nor did the ones brainwashed into it, but the normal folk obviously did.

Examples? I could understand your argument in terms of modern times, but a few hundred years ago and back...

Quintessence · Apr 21, 2016

What on earth is "moral decay?!"

Demonslayer · Apr 21, 2016

I can't even understand the argument in terms of modern times. Christian morality seems to be largely outdated already, with all the anti-gay nonsense, the fight against legal abortion, the fight against contraception including things like the Pope discouraging condoms in AIDS torn Africa. I mean we have Christian pastors saying the US government should put gay people to death based on Biblical morality, and we have Christians standing on street corners with horrible hate-filled signs about homosexual people.

This is the pinnacle of modern morality?

Are secular societies prone to moral decay?

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