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    Redefining Morality: A Threat to Our Nation
    Redefining Morality: A Threat to Our Nation
    Redefining Morality: A Threat to Our Nation
    Ebook88 pages1 hour

    Redefining Morality: A Threat to Our Nation

    By George E Pfautsch

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    Our country is facing dangers from the threat of terrorism. That threat is obvious to most people and is being fought vigorously by our government. Another threat, which is subtle but may be just as dangerous, is taking place from within the country. In the past fifty years, the United States has undergone cultural changes, which have led to a new definition of morality. The danger of this shift toward a secular morality is undermining the moral principles our founding fathers intended as a cornerstone to our Constitution and our laws. In recent years, the shift toward this new definition of morality has been accelerating and exacerbating. In this book, an examination is made of the new secular principles being advanced, and the role many prominent groups, including government, are playing in these moral changes. In this book, a review will also be made, of the environment in which secular morality prospers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAuthorHouse
    Release dateAug 30, 2004
    ISBN9781468514674
    Redefining Morality: A Threat to Our Nation
    Author

    George E Pfautsch

    George E Pfautsch spent most of his working life as a financial executive for a major forest products and paper company. His final years with Potlatch Corporation (now Potlatch Deltic Corporation) were spent as the Senior Vice-President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. Following his retirement, he began writing about the national morality he believes was intended for this country by the founding fathers. He is the author of fifteen previous books covering the subjects of faith, freedom, morality, and justice. In addition, he is the co-author of a book written by Melitta Strandberg, which is the story of her family’s quest for freedom, before, during and after World War II. He is also the co-author of a book written by Leroy New, the “Guitar Wizard” of Branson, Missouri. George is married to Dodi, his wife of more than 60 years. He has two children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

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      Book preview

      Redefining Morality - George E Pfautsch

      © 2004 GEORGE E PFAUTSCH.

      All Rights Reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

      First published by AuthorHouse 08/11/04

      ISBN: 1-4184-0440-3 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4685-1467-4 (ebk)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2004095715

      Printed in the United States of America

      Bloomington, Indiana

      Contents

      INTRODUCTION

      CHAPTER 1—THE CULTURAL CHANGES OF THE 1960’S

      CHAPTER 2—THE CHANGING MORAL LANDSCAPE

      CHAPTER 3—THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA

      CHAPTER 4—THE ROLE OF FEMINISTS

      CHAPTER 5—ROE V. WADE

      CHAPTER 6—THE CHANGING ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

      CHAPTER 7—THE ROLE OF RELIGION

      CHAPTER 8—THE ROLE OF THE NUCLEAR FAMILY

      CHAPTER 9—AFFLUENCE, MATERIALISM, AND ME

      CHAPTER 10—FAITH AND SACRIFICE

      CHAPTER 11—WHERE TO FROM HERE

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      INTRODUCTION

      That is immoral. These words are used frequently by many of us to express our opinion of a wrong deed, but every individual tends to define morality from his or her specific point of view. The first definition in Webster’s dictionary defines morality as conforming to the rules of right conduct. If no two people share the exact view of right conduct, it is especially difficult for a country to embrace a single standard of morality that fits everyone. Nevertheless, a nation must have a standard of right conduct to ensure that it defines morality in a manner that provides just laws for all citizens.

      Our founding fathers were careful to create a nation, which recognized that the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were rights endowed by a Creator. It logically follows that the best laws of a nation would be laws that ensure those unalienable rights, while also recognizing that they conform to the wishes of the Creator.

      The founding fathers also understood the potential hazards of religious intolerance in the establishment of laws. The First Amendment of our Constitution provides that Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Our founding fathers, through their personal writings, provided additional evidence to indicate their belief that, while morality should not be tied to a single religious viewpoint, it was necessary to recognize the goodness and justice flowing from the laws of a Creator. For the purpose of this book, we will refer to the morality envisioned by our founding fathers as faith-based morality.

      For most of its existence, this country has been fortunate in having branches of government that generally conformed to faith-based morality when enacting laws and also when administering and adjudicating our Constitution and laws.

      However, beginning in the 1960’s, cultural changes occurred that brought with them a challenge to faith-based morality. The challenges were often more subtle than direct. Groups who believe in a morality other than faith-based utilize narrow interpretations of our Constitution and laws to further their arguments. Generally, these interpretations depend on those parts of the Constitution that protect individual freedom, even if such freedoms are not in furtherance of the general welfare of citizens as contemplated in the Preamble to the Constitution.

      The cultural changes of the 1960’s brought a rebellion against many of the traditional values that had been in existence from the founding of this country. One such example during that time frame is that individuals and groups began pushing for a right that now permits vulgarity in language heard on television and in movies. The 1960’s also brought a more open approach to sex and obscenity. Groups who defend that type of action and communication do so by arguing that such rights are provided in the Constitution and in our laws. They are correct in that narrow view of Constitutional rights. But they choose to ignore that those types of rights do not accomplish a furtherance of the general welfare, and that such rights are not justified from a faith-based morality viewpoint. Rather, they are justified by a different definition of morality, which in this book will be referred to as secular morality.

      While hiding behind the Constitution, we are beginning to depart from an understanding that the underpinnings of our Constitution and our laws are dependent on a belief of faith-based morality. The cultural changes begun in the 1960’s have become more pervasive in our society, inasmuch as they are now frequently endorsed by large groups, including the media and, unfortunately, occasionally government.

      One of the worst examples of what happens when government endorses secular morality can be found in the Roe v. Wade decision of the Supreme Court in 1973. That decision gave the right to women to have an abortion of another human being, albeit an unborn and defenseless human being, but a human being nevertheless. With that endorsement, the Supreme Court has permitted the killing of more than 40 million unborn babies in the past thirty years. That is more deaths of humans than the total deaths that have occurred in all of the major wars this country has fought. Another result of the Roe v. Wade decision was a departure from laws that were founded for the general welfare and assumed to have extended from a faith-based morality.

      A faith-based morality would assume that an unborn child has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness endowed by a Creator. A faith-based morality would also assume that some religions believe that a soul is infused to the body of an unborn child at conception or shortly thereafter and that a Creator endows such a soul. Even if an assumption is made that ensoulment may not occur before birth, faith-based morality would still dictate the protection of that human life. Such protection would ensure that no human life, which may have already been infused with an immortal soul, would be killed.

      It was a tragedy for this country and its citizens to have the Supreme Court endorse a secular morality standard that prioritizes one human being over another human being. Such a standard also ignores the belief of our founding fathers that all humans are created equal. But the Roe v. Wade decision is not the only departure in government from decisions that could only be made from a secularist’s moral viewpoint.

      We now have a state that permits euthanasia, which gives humans instead of a Creator the right to terminate lives, and we have laws that permit the death penalty as a form of capital punishment. These two examples cannot be justified on a standard that has its underpinning in a faith-based morality.

      It would be wrong to imply that this country did not have its share of moral problems prior to the 1960’s. Our government and our people did occasionally fail in their adherence to faith-based morality. Slavery was permitted, injustices to Japanese occurred during WWII, inequality for women existed

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