The opposite view is held by those who believe that each generation does advance, and that the current generation is always more enlightened than the ones that preceded it. There’s a term for that: generational arrogance. People who subscribe to this idea believe their own generation has inherently progressed to a higher moral or intellectual level. They might argue convincingly that slavery existed as recently as the 1800s, and segregation even more recently, so their generation is much more enlightened. The problem with that argument, of course, is that just last year there were 73 million abortions worldwide, which is hardly evidence of greater enlightenment.

We can continue this same line of thought by asking a few simple questions. For those, almost always the young, who think their generation is more advanced than past generations: Is this current generation happier than previous ones? If we are always advancing as a human race, then surely we must be happier. But why, then, is the suicide rate continually rising?

Is this generation more psychologically and emotionally healthy than past generations? If so, why are there more psychiatrists and psychologists than ever before? Is the family, the basic building block of society, stronger now than in our ancestors’ time? We live in an era in which the divorce rate is higher than at any other point in human history.

If the indicator of generational advancement were technology, then yes, every generation would be better than the one before, since technology always advances, but almost nothing else does. Technology advances, but human nature does not.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that happiness, emotional health and family stability are all on the decline, and that our grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generation were, in many ways, better off than we are today. So what gives? The solution is what I would call “stupid simple.” Here’s a sobering statistic we can easily reverse: in 1950, 75 percent of Americans went to church every single weekend. Today, that number is just 20 percent. It’s not difficult to see the correlation.

So here’s the obvious moral of the story: things never get better when we abandon God; they always get worse. That’s true of our culture, and it’s true of ourselves.