You'd be surprised how many DO NOT KNOW
But also, not everyone sings the national anthem (Jehovahs witnesses actually refuse to!) which is God Defend New Zealand. Some schools don't teach it, and they don't talk about sin. Its just bad behaviour or wrong doing.
The God save the Queen thing was from the British empire days, and the whole Church of England sense of tradition was what the English bought over, but there's other christianity aside from CoE, there's Catholics and Presbyterians too, as well as some home-grown religions.
And other ones that aren't from the Bible, i.e Buddhism, Hinduism, New Age etc.
Just don't assume everyone grew up in a church and had God fearing parents LIKE YOU DID.
So would Paul, who said everyone is without excuse, because they have creation as evidence of God (Rom. 1:20, 3:23).
Here is what I assume in the Apologetics thread:
Imagine that you have suddenly begun to exist as a mentally competent or normally intelligent human being in NZ (like Adam and Eve in Genesis). Certainly, your immediate concern would be meeting your survival needs, but as soon as there was time for reflection, would you not wonder why you were “born”, how you should behave, and what you ought to accomplish with your life?
Since absolute skepticism or agnosticism is unattainable for thinkers or truthseekers, there are only
two qualitatively different ways of answering these questions. One way is by assuming that there is no ultimate “whyness” or purpose beyond survival and avoiding pain, so it does not ultimately matter what one believes or does, because humanity merely evolved from eternal energy/matter, into which it “devolves” at death. You may desire for some reason to survive and to save the world, but if life becomes too painful you may wish you were never born and want to destroy the world, because there is no good reason you ought to be like Messiah rather than like Mania or to be loving rather than maniacal. You may believe and act like evil exists or not, because life is a farce or a continual “King of the Hill” (KOTH) struggle against human adversaries and various other types of adversity, having no ultimate or universal moral imperative (UMI).
The second type of answer is that life is NOT a farce—that existence has meaning, and how one believes and behaves does matter for some non-arbitrary reason. This answer seems more appealing to me and almost logically imperative, although some people appear to prefer the paths of nihilism and KOTH (cf. Matt. 13:14-15).
I call the first type of answer cosmaterialism, because it views reality as consisting only of the material cosmos or universe and as having only four dimensions (space plus time), which are perceived by the five physical senses, implying a perpetual history of KOTH.
I call the second way of believing moralism, because—while accepting the reality of the physical/material—it also affirms a fifth dimension perceived by a sixth intuitive or spiritual sense that gives reality a logical basis for meaning and morality (which means for ending KOTH).
The choice between cosmaterialism and moralism logically is
the first fundamental choice in life (cf. Gen. 3:5). It can be thought of as
a watershed decision that divides all people into two essentially different philosophical categories or world-views like a continental divide, although the analogy breaks down at the points the various oceans connect. (Watershed divide: Moralism or Nihilism?) A person who believes cosmaterialism, moral nihilism and that life’s struggles are meaningless frequently tends to seek escape even via suicide, whether by one act or by a downward spiral of self-destructive behavior. Again, until and unless this option were somehow proven beyond doubt, moralism or viewing life as meaningful seems to be the better belief.
The second watershed decision flows immediately and implicitly from the moralist viewpoint (like major rivers from one side of the Divide)—
choosing what (or who) to believe gives existence meaning and under-girds moral conscience. As one analyzes the variety of moralistic beliefs, there seem to be four main viewpoints: the ground of meaning/morality is human power (humanism, cf. Gen. 11:4), there is a natural moral law or karma in the universe (karmaism, cf. Gal. 6:7), there is natural “meaning” with an instinct or proclivity toward morality (naturalism, cf. Rom. 2:14), or a supernatural Supreme Being exists, who has a moral will for humanity, with which humans may cooperate or not (biblical and especially NT monotheism or simply theism or belief in one God, cf. Gen. 17:1).
Did your parents and you not assume one of the first three but know others believed the fourth?
