Liberty Comes From God, Not Man
Yes, I've seen this too. I've always believed that liberty is an abstract concept that only thinking men and women can fully grasp. Unfortunately, thinking is not something religious zealots do very well.
It's ok though, religion is dying is almost all the other civilized nations of the world, and my generation seems to be (at least from what I've seen) particularly secular and hostile to religious dogma. Maybe the internet is the cause?
Yes, I agree with you. Liberty is a concept which only thinking men and women can fully grasp, and liberty is only understood rightly if men and women trust in their Creator for its security. True liberty comes from God, and it begins when men become free from their own sinful nature, which is a necessary precondition for self-government. If men cannot overcome sin (by making themselves slaves to sin through living in unrighteousness), then they will never be free. Their acts will be done without any moral restraints, and thus, immorality and chaos will ensue society until it collapses into utter ruin.
Our Founders understood this principle so well. Consider the words of John Qunicy Adams when he stated,
There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark. The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.
(Source: John Quincy Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams to His Son on the Bible and Its Teachings [Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850], pp. 22-23.)
Fisher Ames, the framer of the First Amendment, even had this to say about the foundations of liberty:
Our liberty depends on our education, our laws, and habits...it is founded on morals and religion, whose authority reigns in the heart, and on the influence all these produce on public opinion before that opinion governs rulers.
(Source: Fisher Ames, An Oration on the Sublime Virtues of General George Washington [Boston: Young & Minns, 1800], p. 23.)
If a man rejects true religion, then morality will be decimated. If there is no morality, then liberty cannot exist. The true thinking man or woman understands this, and those who would oppose such a principle are simply mistaken in their understanding of what liberty is and where it comes from.
Many on these forums would have us believe that liberty can exist without God. All one has to do is turn back the pages of history to catch a glimpse of nations which once believed that. What happened in those nations was that man's vain attempt to decide what liberty their people should have (i.e. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) led to the slaughter and suffering of millions of others whom they deemed not worthy of liberty. This was accomplished all under the self-righteous "atheistic" state. By removing God, they removed the only sure foundation for liberty to flourish, and the end result was total destruction of their regimes.
Liberty without God is only libertinism, and that is simply not the way for any rational, moral person to live.
