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PaperclipPerfector  20hr ago (text post)   794 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 10, 2025

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Maybe better suited to the culture war thread, but I just had a long phone call with my friend from college, let's call her Caroline. Very atheistic, but fairly middle of the road politically. Went to Catholic School growing up, but was raised in a Jewish family (something to do with the school system in Phoenix. Recently has been getting more and more into Christianity both because she's dating a quite Christian man, and because she feels like we need God (and implicitly the Christian God is the only thing that works). I have a lot sympathy for this position, as I am a Catholic convert myself, although I haven't been to mass recently, as I no longer believe in many aspects of the faith. However this line of thinking, which is also espoused by many RETVRN posters on this forum, seems rather... myopic, both historically and just in general. Not only does 2/3 of the world's current population live without the Christian God, historically we have very successful nearly atheistic civil societies (Rome and Confucian China off the top of my head, although perhaps calling Republican Rome atheistic is a stretch). Perhaps you could argue that Christianity is better suited to the Western temperament, as it is the religion of our forefathers. This is what initially drew me into Catholicism, as Buddhism, despite being more intellectually appealing, couldn't connect with me on a cultural/spiritual level. Yet as @Hoffmeister25 has argued before, so is Germanic and Hellenic paganism, and those were violently destroyed nearly 1500 years ago.

So my question for all the RETVRN posters on this form (and also for those who agree more closely with myself) is thus. What is your best argument for why we need God as a society, and why the Christian God in particular? What were/are the flaws in previous/current societies that had at least surface level success (outside of the Modern West) that could be remedied with Christianity? For those of you who aren't Christian, I'd like to hear more about what your own spiritual/moral system looks like, and what your own vision of the future of society going forward is.

I honestly, earnestly, really believe in God and Jesus Christ and the Sacraments. It's not much deeper than that. To me, your question is almost, "Why should we enter into a relationship with the Creator who has a plan for us all to live in happiness and perfect fulfillment, instead of trying to find a connection with Him through less certain methods or worshiping demons instead?"

I don't know why anyone would convert to Christianity except for the reason that they think it's true. Yes, society will suffer the further we get away from God. Pretty much every successful society had some sort of ritualistic belief in God, a higher order, and some kind of cosmic punishment for wrongs committed. This is a relevant statement:

Pro-religion people (like me) will suggest that decreasing religious commitment is reducing trust. That’s obviously true. At the heart of our society (and especially our legal system) is the expectation that virtually everyone will tell the truth under oath, that they will keep their promises, and that they will do what they “ought” to do even when doing so is to their own personal disadvantage, and even if they are confident no one will ever find out. This norm simply works better if everyone believes that God will send them to Hell for breaking it.

I’m not saying the norm completely fails if you don’t believe in God; there are plenty of moral atheists and doesn’t-matterists who would never compromise their own integrity. There are articulate cases for things like “secular humanism” and “the categorical imperative” and just “don’t be a dick.” Moreover, there are lots of psychological reasons why humans enjoy acting with integrity, even without God looking over their shoulder.

I am only saying that our society was built on the assumption that something like 99% of people will act with integrity 99% of the time it is tested. If just a little less fear-of-God means that number drops to something like 90% of people acting with integrity 90% of the time it is tested, that sets off a cascade, the incentives to do the right thing shift, and our society collapses into Escape From New York.

But committing to a religious belief that you don't actually respect is not going to magically create that integrity either. Much the opposite, if I had to guess.

Accepting a religious belief you don't actually hold may lead to embracing it, though.

To some extent - like if someone starts a prayer life they might receive signal graces and start to have the "proof" they need to believe for real. But if those signal graces don't come, or if they do but they do not lead to a deeper intellectual understanding, then doubt and distrust will quickly set in.

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