Standards

 It is a troubling trend in this modern society of ours, this removal of standards. The current thinking and teaching being that we are all individuals and therefore each have our own standard. That same standard should not be applied against the society as a whole. That is the liberal progressive view is it not ? That I can do whatever I wish and should never be judged for those actions ? I am of course speaking about moral actions. We have plenty of rules and regulations to enforce regarding secular actions. What we seek to eliminate is the moral actions. The founding fathers of this nation realized the necessity of separating secular decisions in government from the strictly moral judgements of any one religion. That is what that separation is all about. We are all well aware of the various practices contained within the practice of faith. The Catholic church is in stark contrast to these " new age " churches. It is so only in the manner of practice, not faith however. Remember reading about the Protestant reformation ? Do you remember what that was all about ? Martin Luther and others began that movement. It was a move away from the Churches involvement in politics. And that was back in the sixteenth century ! In its' essence it sought to redefine " standards " for the good Christian to adhere to. Those standards are written in the Bible.
 Today it appears that there are those that wish to eliminate those standards altogether. They wish to eliminate God from the affairs of man. How ridiculous that is. It is only through moral and just behavior that man can co-exist with his fellow man. Those moral laws, standards, require no secular enforcement to be valid. You cannot just strike them from the book. Man will destroy the secular in the enforcement of his religious beliefs. Isn't that what we are seeing today and have seen over the centuries ? There are some religions that even demand such action for their faith to be practiced ! Standards are required. How can we measure if not by a standard ? There is but one standard and that standard is God. The only difficulty lies in the definition of God. The difficulty lies in the word and its' meaning. God, what is God ? God is moral and just behavior. God is that standard. We cannot remove the standard. Our only actions are to either meet that standard or fall short of the mark. The problem lies with the later action. What if we fall short ? What are the consequences ? In this modern concept we attempt to remove any consequence by the removal of the standard. A rather simplistic approach for such " enlightened " folks don't you think ? If the standard is too high or too inconvenient to obtain just remove or lower that standard.
 It all comes down to a simple question. Is this all there is ? Is our existence on this earth all there is ? Do our efforts, hopes and dreams mean nothing more ? Do we just live and die ? It is the question man has struggled to answer since there was man. If you answer yes, that is all there is, that certainly lowers the bar, the standard doesn't exist at all. Without a standard what is it that we are striving for ? Money and power ? That only lasts as long as you live. It is also subjective. Now we are all aware of the standard. We are born with that knowledge. It is the articulation of that knowledge that is the stumbling block to all mankind. We aren't near as smart as some would think. For what we can not explain, in words, we call on faith.