As religion continues to decline, should we expect more existential dreads among our youth?

[Flavius Lugo]

Originally Posted by rstevens62

How can you say such thing?!!

We have laws in place in to protect children, the elderly, women, etc today! (versus decades ago, when these people were violated with impunity).

Things are much better today compared to the past in many ways.

Dont you think if 'evil was prevailing'...we would see NO PROTECTION for these people, or the protection stripped away?

Look at how aggressive and tough we are on those who harm children today for a great example!! Virtually NO ONE turns the other way when these things happen today, police are called and they are arrested.

One of those most glaring examples of the stark moral clarity between today and yesterday is slavery. In 1860, there were four million slaves in the United States, out of a population of 31 million. In other words, 13% of the people of this country were property, to be used and abused at their owners' whims. What in 21st American society is the equivalent of the utter atrocity that was slavery? Nothing.

Yet some people clearly see those times gone by as somehow morally superior. Why?

I think most of it devolves into the supposed 'sin' of sex. Sure, slavery might've been bad, but today we allow unmarried men and women to live together, gays are no longer prosecuted, people can easily stream content with naked people into their homes, and women wear decidedly less-modest clothing. There are a lot of people who see those 'sins' as worse than owning/abusing/exploiting someone.

Of course, what all of those things have in common is that they are examples of greater equality and liberty today than in the past. A lot of people don't like that in and of itself, and they lament the demise of the social power structures that kept people 'in their place'.

[GldnRule]

Originally Posted by Flavius Lugo

One of those most glaring examples of the stark moral clarity between today and yesterday is slavery. In 1860, there were four million slaves in the United States, out of a population of 31 million. In other words, 13% of the people of this country were property, to be used and abused at their owners' whims. What in 21st American society is the equivalent of the utter atrocity that was slavery? Nothing.

Yet some people clearly see those times gone by as somehow morally superior. Why?

I think most of it devolves into the supposed 'sin' of sex. Sure, slavery might've been bad, but today we allow unmarried men and women to live together, gays are no longer prosecuted, people can easily stream content with naked people into their homes, and women wear decidedly less-modest clothing. There are a lot of people who see those 'sins' as worse than owning/abusing/exploiting someone.

Of course, what all of those things have in common is that they are examples of greater equality and liberty today than in the past. A lot of people don't like that in and of itself, and they lament the demise of the social power structures that kept people 'in their place'.

I believe that people who have a mind that dwells on slavery...such that they would bring it up to strangers on the internet...are those that are posers, making like they take issue with it...but based on them seemingly always describing the gory details, they actually have some kind of sick affinity to the practice.
Why else would they instigate such a discussion with strangers...on a site about Religion and Spirituality, not sociology or politics?

That last sentence...bolded above^^^...I believe you are working off your own frame-of-reference, and describing yourself.

[mordant]

Originally Posted by Flavius Lugo

What in 21st American society is the equivalent of the utter atrocity that was slavery? Nothing.

Human trafficking. Covert employment of aliens in horrible conditions in quarters not very different from slave quarters of old. A different system of sentencing / policing / justice for poor and minorities vs others. A tendency to relegate the handicapped to 2nd or 3rd or 4th class citizenship regarding societal accommodations and healthcare. The condition of women under a patriarchal subculture. The conditions in which illegal immigrants are kept.

It is not overt slavery along the lines of Gone With the Wind and not directly presided over by foremen with actual bullwhips (usually), but I am not reaching or exaggerating in equating these things with that kind of slavery. Some or at a lower amplitude, some are just as bad.

But surely, you say, nothing like the numbers enslaved in the antebellum South? I think you can mount a credible argument that the numbers are actually greater. Many of what's left of the middle class, and the upper classes, are just as oblivious to this as ordinary Germans were to the concentration camps. Indeed, the aforementioned incarceration regimes for immigrants meet the legal definition of concentration camps, according to international law.

We need to quit advancing the fiction that the USA is a place where there is no exploitation or injustice. We are not innocent. We have made some uneven and imperfect improvements, and that's not nothing. But there are grave injustices all around us.