Most religious traditions have stories about how decadence and a lack of morality eventually leads to God smiting the offending people.
Noah and the flood. Sodom and Gomorrah. Atlantis.
The truth though is probably closer to the fall of Camelot or perhaps the fall of the Davidic kingship with Solomon becoming pagan.
What brought about that destruction in the stories was the adultery of a Queen.
The reality was that around the 5th century Roman had abandoned the land of ghosts, the Saxons were invading and the Picts were getting their asses handed to them.
The question was why?
How is it that less advanced cultures destroy the ones supposedly with better science, weaponry and skills?
Sumeria (and the boat people), the cradle of western civilization is destroyed and the barbarians become Mesopotamia, Mesopotamia is destroyed and the barbarians become Babylonia.
The story of the Israelites in Canaan is instructive on what happens to people and why, if one looks past the metaphors.
The Israelites, a strong patriarchal tribe invades the promised lands and conquers.
It immediately begins taking on some of the trappings of the society it has conquered. The female Canaanites become “snares” for the men. The very masculine society is starting to become less so.
There is a period of time where they are relatively free, that is to say they elect people that lead them in times of trouble, the judges, and they are not under the boot of a tyrant.
The morals continue to loosen up and eventually things get bad enough that the people cry out for a king (kind of the way the people in the West will welcome a dictator in short order here). David, the true alpha that he is begins hording all the women.
Solomon follows in this footsteps after a civil war (coming here soon too) and although he is wise falls to paganism.
Israel is destroyed, the SWPLs are all killed in their beds, the remaining people either fall completely from God and into poverty, or while in exile realize God knew what was best for them and they turn back to a strict moral structure.
There is a natural progression in these stories, the loosening of morals over a period of time eventual leads to a dictator and then decimation from either within or without. If one thinks about it, it makes little sense that a God-fearing man who is granted wisdom by God would turn in his old age to paganism and debauchery. That is not the normal trajectory for a man’s life.
What makes sense is that as time went on, the more decadent, them more permissive the people became with their abundance.
Reading Sun Tzu, one realizes that it is not the biggest army that wins, nor is it even the best equipped army.
Morale is the most important attribute.
The loosening of morality leads inevitably to the loosening of sexual standards, which leads to women behaving just as the do now in our culture, just as they did in Roman, Persia, Sparta as it was collapsing and I submit just as they were in Israel at the supposed height of their power.
A man fighting for his children and family has an incentive to fight, a man fighting for someone else’s children and family is just a mercenary and if he’s conscripted to fight, he is just a slave. Neither will sacrifice themselves if they can escape death, none will act heroically.
How many divorced dads that are paying child support and never seeing their kids are really going to fight to the bitter end to defend this system?
None.
How many single disenfranchised men are really going to sacrifice for the women and society that spurn them?
None.
How many of those same men would be happy to just let is burn?
God doesn’t have to smite the corrupt and immoral with fire, he placed the power within the nature of women.
