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>America was prosperous as the Bible said it would be.

The book of Job was written specifically to denounce the idea that morality means that you'll prosper.

On an individual level. God promises them national prosperity for obedience in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. There’s curses for disobedience, esp turning away from God, that are very specific. Then, we see those patterns happening in the following books for Israel and the other countries. We’ve seen both happen in the U.S.

I'm a little bit concerned about Jesus crashing the fishing industry by dumping product onto the market at prices that are too low for anybody else to compete with. It would be especially bad if it triggers some kind of broader trade war. It would be better if there was some way to quantify the risk involved.

As an American Millennial, all my life I've seen Christians who talk about love and charity on Sunday, and then work the rest of the week to lower taxes on the rich, shame women, and get as many guns into as many American hands as possible. Ultimately, they found their political apotheosis in Donald Trump, who seems to be the physical manifestation of the deadly sins. If he was created in a lab by Atheists to prove that Christians are hypocrites above all else, they could not have done a better job.

I'd suggest that if they want more Americans to live the values preached by Jesus, they should try starting with themselves. I don't know how many people they have turned into Atheists with this behavior, but I can say for sure they did for me, and I suspect they have alienated many others as well.

Somewhat ironical, but I'd be a bit more charitable and simply chalk that up to edge cases; additionally it's no different than typical ideological signaling. I find it less interesting to care about the extent people can bastardize a given idea, also because that's an entirely different, sociological issue.

Tho really any belief system that becomes so institutionalized will inevitably attract flies and become debased over time. However one could cheekily remark that by virtue of its message and who it spoke to, early Christianity was inherently debased, and certaintly ignoble.

There are certainly many people who claim to believe in Christ while committing many sins. There’s also tons of atheists and liberals with similar sins. It would certainly help if people acted in line with their values. Also, if they stop causing others harm individually or politically. I’m with you there.

As I look at the Word, we see Jesus Christ promised that anyone who repents and believes in Him would receive eternal life by how good He was, not our own works. It’s a gift of grace. From there, John 15 shows real believers who are in the vine bear the fruit. We’re all steadily changed over time (sanctification) to be more like Him. So, we’ll all have faults.

Even in God’s Word, we see all kinds of sin in the churches. They have fake leaders, people about money, sexual immorality, ego, and James says they starve the poor. Yet, apostles call them “saints” because Jesus bought their future. Instead of discarding them, the apostles keep exhorting them to improve to become who they need to be. Anyone that confessed and made an effort would make it.

Whereas, we can’t let any excuse… ourselves or others… separate us from Christ. Apostasy leads to a worse fate than non-belief if one never returns. John says Christ will never let anyone snatch His real sheep out of His hand. He’ll forgive anyone that returns. I encourage you to return to your first love and find a Biblical church (eg GiveThemLife.com has help).

The number of wars and genocides that have resulted from arguing over whose god is the right one dwarfs all other ills.

Get that fixed and then maybe I’ll listen.

the disagreement over holy matters is not typically the cause of violence, just a convenient uniform to wear to tell ally from enemy

Yea, I dislike that frequent atheist rejoinder cuz it totally misses the point; religion is concomitant and merely used as a pretense. Which I equally dislike, I wish there were more transparency about one's innate will to dominate rather than masquerading behind fictitious ideological claims.

Someone added it up to find atheists and non-religious wars are the majority:

https://web.archive.org/web/20201109005141/http://www.godand...

In another article, America was rated as the most Christian with the most missionaries. Yet, it’s had hardly any wars motivated by religion. They’re usually about the selfish motivations of non-Christian worldviews.

Whereas, Communists have killed tens of millions of people, cultural Marxism is spreading in universities, and that should worry people. You might want to cite liberal beliefs and atheism as top killers in future comments.

When and where did that really ever work? Evidence please. The bible says nothing about America. I assume that abolishing slavery was where we turned away from biblical principles.

You don’t even really need it. You can go right to the roots.

Let’s compare two sets of things on a basic level.

1. You know God will judge what good or evil you did at the end of your life. You factor that into your decisions.

2. You think we’re an accident, nothing matters, people are just over animals, actually just chemical reactions, universe itself disappears in enough time, nothing matters in the long term unless you say so, and no accountability for any horrible thing you did.

Which is more likely to lead to righteous behavior? Which is more likely to lead to destructive behavior?

Next set are Christ’s basic commandments vs the world’s:

1. Love and obey God first. That means truth, justice, avoiding self-destructive behavior, family, and good work ethic. From there, love others as you would yourself in all your interactions with them.

2. Do whatever you want to whoever you want. It might be limited by whatever is popular at the time which will change. The Devil has most media focusing on individualism over family, squeezing max profit out of everything, and chasing pleasures with reckless abandon.

Which of these logically creates more good? Which leads to more damage?

I think we could stop there. The consequences of just those differences in believes are tremendous. Those in set 2 are currently doing the most damage in all areas of life. They include people who identify as Christian but don’t live like it. Lip service.

Whereas, my first-hand experience with hundreds of people following Christ and Biblical teaching is that it’s working. Their problems often come from sin, not obedience.

I haven't observed any correlation between belief in God and righteous or destructive behavior. Seems like most theists and most atheists try to live the virtues you've described as best they can.

I'm an atheist, and I do my best to live those virtues because it's just the right thing to do, and because it feels better than the alternatives. I don't think I'm exceptional in not needing a final judgement to make me want to be kind, honest, work for justice, live with integrity, etc.

Much respect to my theist brothers and sisters, and please consider that your atheist brothers and sisters are worthy of respect as well.

There is nothing less moral to me than the idea of people only doing good because they fear punishment.

Yea, Spinoza effectively argues that the Commandments were necessitated by practical utility to control the unruly and uneducated masses and have since become even more bastardized by sectarian religions that wield these appeals to control people and actually prevent them to fully getting to know "God", which he finds entirely possible through reason alone.

And humorously, the latter of each of GP's respective points map pretty well to the destructive effects of what Nietzsche most feared of what he sensed was impending nihilism. Tho the difference, among many, is that "belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable".

We do evil for selfish reasons. God’s Word says the Father draws us to Him, faith itself is a gift He enables, and those who repent receive eternal life and close fellowship with God Himself. Then, His presence in our lives in many ways from changing character to answered prayers. Committing to rebellion in this life gains us nothing in the long term in comparison.

A sovereign ruler who is just necessarily has to enforce the law. That sinning against a perfect, loving, and good being would be punished severely shouldn’t shock you. It would happen in human, legal systems and likely your own house.

The beauty is God’s mercy outweighs His wrath. The wages of sin are death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. He took the punishment for us so we can just turn away from sin and back to God. Then, He never lets us go. You do have to put your God first, though.

Sir, this is a Red Lobster comment thread.

The parent that I originally responded to asked a broader question about why we’re seeing declines, esp moral and quality, across many areas of life. They were wondering if this example was one of a general trend happening. I showed it was.

There were also predictions about what would happen if we followed Christ and His model vs other models centered on selfish gain. The other side denied the Biblical truth saying we’d have a better America with godlessness, capitalism, and/or communism. We’ve had time to see where those philosophies would take us. What happened?

God’s Word came true quite literally in many ways while the godless’ predictions were wrong with damaging results. So, the rational choice between multiple worldviews is to think the one that works and has correct predictions is true (or better). And then commit to Christ and repent.

Now, let’s tie that directly into Red Lobster:

1. Christ-like business over worldly greed would have the new owners not sell the real estate the business depended on.

2. Jethro and Paul said to pick leaders of great character and wisdom who aren’t sellouts. They’d have managed it better.

3. Humility in the service sector means constantly listening to customers to adapt to their needs since we put others first. Red Lobster would’ve changed with the times in some way which might have worked out (or not).

4. Proverbs focused on equitable or profitable arrangements. Jesus said to count the cost before you commit to a plan. The Bible often says to seek counsel. These would preclude all you can eat shrimp every day.

In short, Biblical morals would’ve prevented every aspect of this situation. Whereas, godless, unloving capitalism… all those together… naturally leads to things like this. If you will benefit from, but never be held accountable for, destroying the chain… why not make a fortune destroying it?

lol. congrats on working a sermon into a post about red lobster but... this is exceedingly poor argumentation if your goal is to actually convince anybody.

it's spot-on if you just want to feel good about yourself though. you start off with a whopper of a false dichotomy and strawman, and don't improve from there.

Good morals are basic math: create the world you want to live in. Golden rule and all that.

It turns out that Allah and Vishnu are both quite popular. And none of it supported by actual evidence. We can do better. God's plan is never to reveal that God makes any sense, just random whims. The immoral false prophets get rich and influence millions. So, gotta wait until you die to find out? Maybe. But the Abrahamic bible is so full of misinterpreted BS as to be unusable.

Thank you GodGPT

> Over the decades, people turned away from God and those values to chase new ones:

Most people leaving the church today do so because of how hateful and toxic the modern US church has become over the recent decades. If you don't like Christians leaving the church for Marxism, you shouldn't have let Marxism be the only ideology loving thy neighbors while the church was too busy chasing the delusions of white supremacy and Christian Nationalism.