Rational Conclusions?
Usually found in “freethinker” clubs, skeptic groups and organizations dedicated to secular humanism, they are the ones responsible for ridding the schools of prayer and getting Christian symbols banished from public places. They are often found in the middle of the public debate over evolution, and one can find their spokesmen on the news whenever large natural disasters strike, playing their strongest card — the existence of evil.
But along with natural disasters, recent years have seen the rise of another evil, that of Islamic terrorism. This religiously-inspired violence has stepped up the occasions for accusing religion of being the source of all man-made evil in the world, and even for best-selling books calling for an end of faith. The champions of the “Enlightenment” base this accusation on the tired premise that modern men have outgrown religion and have no more use for such an irrational pastime. Predictions of religion’s demise in the wake of scientific progress have never been completely realized to the freethinkers' satisfaction. Religion has a tenacity that flies in the face of the rationalists' ideas about what it means to be rational.
Of course, religion has been and will be used for evil purposes, and there are such things as deviant religions and deviant religious behavior, but it should be obvious that religion is not inherently evil or a necessary cause of it. The sad fact is that men will kill each other for just about anything — religion, race, ethnicity, politics, rival sports teams. And judging by the ocean of blood spilt by atheistic regimes in the last century, atheism doesn’t exactly have any moral high ground to stand on. The problem is not religion, but human beings: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts…” (Mk 7:21). Despite the fact that the human race is seriously screwed up, Christianity, all considered, has had a remarkable humanizing affect on us. Where humanity has a heart of stone, Christianity has bestowed hearts of flesh. This new humanity amazed a cold, pagan world with its warmth. Nevertheless, Christianity is portrayed as the paragon of wickedness.
What Strange Beings We Are
This can be seen in the accusation that the Catholic Church is responsible for those who die of HIV because of its position on condoms. This, according to some, makes the Church a murderer, or at least an accomplice of murder. If the absurdity of this isn’t obvious, consider that a person either goes along with the Church or not. If he does, he has no reason to use condoms because he most likely will not be having pre-marital, or extra-marital sex. And if he doesn’t go along with the Church he probably will be using condoms, which is what the worldly powers claim is the solution to AIDS. So at what point exactly does the Church become a murderer? Clearly, the word is better used in reference to the “safe-sex” crowd that advocates playing condom-roulette.
And then there is the strange comparison of traditional Christianity with terrorism, lumping those who oppose same-sex marriage and abortion together with those who fly airplanes into buildings. And so you have an evangelical atheist like Richard Dawkins referring to traditional Christianity in the United States as an “American Taliban.” Never mind that Christianity is about brotherly love, selfless charity, and peace. It is rather odd that there can be such a disparity between what Christianity represents and how it is perceived by some. But this paradox goes all the way back to Jesus, who so vexed His contemporaries that many of them found the murderer Barabbas preferable to His presence.
Today’s atheists find the continued presence of Christianity intolerable. They think that religion is opposed to reason, that it is unnatural. But what a strange animal this natural man is, always taken aback by disaster as if such things were beneath him, as if he were some exiled nobleman in the cosmos, never satisfied by this “natural” world, always seeking something more, haunted by dreams of a “paradise lost.” The more one entertains the materialist’s idea of nature the more strange the human being becomes. Nor do religion’s critics live according to reason. Men do not live rationally, but by the law of sin, which affects the mind as much as behavior. What is atheism itself but the rationalization of this law of sin, the manifestation in the mind of the Fall unresisted?
Secularism is a Parasite
Our “freethinkers” imagine that secularism is a sufficient cultural alternative to religion. But you can’t take the “cult” out of “culture.” All the staples of culture are inspired from its cult. There is no civilization in the world that is a pure product of secularism.
In Western culture, it is Christianity that produced every single thing that the secularists pretend was invented by them — like the idea of human rights, the concept of equality under the law, the affirmation of the goodness of reason. Even the development of science is inseparable from Christianity. Christians saw the world as the orderly product of an intelligent Mind, intelligible to human minds made in that One’s image. This conception of order and intelligibility undergirds science. Secularism is a parasite; it lives off its religious host, offering nothing positive with which to build or sustain a culture. Meanwhile, it is Christianity that gave us the idea of a valid secular realm — a world of meaning, of value in its own right, yet referencing something beyond itself. Secularism that seeks to rid the world of Christian reference collapses the world in on itself, denies that there is any meaning to the world.
This is why “secular humanism” is an oxymoron. True humanism recognizes meaning in human action and validates men as free moral agents. Christianity is the only sure source of an authentic humanism, because Jesus is the New Man, and thus man comes to himself only in Christ. With Christianity there is a new self-awareness born in man. Literature shows this, which is why Augustine’s Confessions are recognized as something new in the history of human writing — the first true autobiography.
The Incarnation has really changed everything. It has changed the world and man’s perception of himself. The perception is changed because man is changed. Human nature has been assumed by God and it is now impossible to throw God out without also throwing man out. The divinization and humanization of man converge into a single process. Do you understand why today’s secularists must throw out the baby with the bathwater? The more our society seeks to eradicate every trace of Christianity from its existence, the more inhumane it becomes. We find “civilized human beings” discussing the harvesting of organs from embryo farms with clinical detachment. Horrors multiply, but they are oh, so rational. They make so much sense without religious scruples to get in their way.
The only rational conclusion is that it is faith that mitigates the evil that comes from the hearts of men. The end of faith is the beginning of hell.
Brian Killian is a freelance writer and a columnist for the Atlantic Catholic. He writes from Nova Scotia and enjoys receiving feedback at numena1@gmail.com.
This article previously appeared in the Atlantic Catholic and is adapted by permission of the author.
