Thanks for the mention, AS. Somewhat surprising, given our differing views on religion in general and Christianity in particular. One of the many things that reinforces my faith in God is how poorly the world works when his precepts are ignored. You disagree with that conclusion, I know, but I don't see any of our societal problems getting better unless and until belief in God is widely restored. When a society sees no consequence (in the here or the hereafter) to evil or sinful behavior, such behavior only increases. The belief system you espouse works well for solving technical problems, but when it comes to human relations much more is needed.
TYG,
You say God created us perfect and we fell from grace in the Garden of Eden, I say an imperfect process of evolutionary biology and a modern world with conditions very different from those experienced through the vast majority of our evolutionary past. Regardless, we're both interested in examining the challenges facing our country, can agree on what some of them are, and their implications for people within our sphere's of influence. Hopefully we can distill this into shareable information and perhaps even wisdom so we can make better decisions.
Although I do not accept the Christian version of the God proposition as true (or any other's) that does not mean there's no wisdom in the Bible, nor that it does not teach anything of useful. It see it as one of several early attempt to address the perpetual challenges we as humans face. In the intervening 2500 years we've learned much, and conditional have changed, so as an early examination of these problems it 's imperfect, and sometimes outdated. As a non-believer who's not locked into a single source for my solitons, I can examine the Biblical understanding of these problem along with their proposed cause and solutions, and decide to what degree they are applicable or not.
You referenced my belief system. My beliefs are far from monolithic and typically diverse from those of post-modern left. One of the area's where you and I agree is on the power of incentives. Where we seem to disagree is the nature of the incentives we should utilize in our efforts to mitigate the problems at hand. Belief in god(s) and hell(s) is on the decline, so I don't see efforts in this area becoming a more effective tool for fixing the challenges discussed in this thread in the future. Instead I believe we should focus on the incentives in the here and now especially those that are demonstrable, measurable, actionable, and have real opportunity to mitigate these problems without creating an equal or greater level of negative unintended consequences. It's for this reason many here point to the bad incentives created by the current family courts system, how it contributes to 80% of divorces being filed by women, and the impacts these divorces have upon the men. If we change this incentive structure, I suspect the marriage and divorce rates will change as well.
