Here’s AmericaThinker.com’s Bruce Walker from a few years back:
“The term ‘religious people’ is meaningless. All people — especially militant anti-theists — are religious. The vital question is what one’s religion believes.”
I couldn’t agree more. This notion that only those who adhere to an organized religion are “religious” is silly. Everyone believes something — they just might not call it a “religion” because what they believe is a lot more disorganized. Those who say “I’m not religious” are often very religious — it’s just that what they believe is a mishmash of garbage masquerading as “enlightenment.”
Writer Daniel Greenfield recently put up an excellent post titled, “The Secular Religion of the Left.” In it, he wrote:
“The left can be summed up as moral materialism. It is a secular religion that claims to add a moral dimension to materialism. Its obsessions are largely economic, from its early class warfare focus to its modern environmentalism. Even its racial politics code class warfare by skin color.
Kill off religion and what do you have left? The answer can be seen in China. You’re left with materialism and family interests. Cast off the shackles of the family for individualistic consumerism and you’re left with nothing except materialism as can be seen in any major Western city.
Modern urban man is much too ‘smart’ for religion. At least his own. He wants to add an ethical dimension to life without having to believe in anything except the sense of fairness that he already has, but which he does not realize is not nearly as valid objectively as it is subjectively in his inner emotional reality.
[…]
The left can’t replace family or religion. Its social solutions are alien and artificial. They fix nothing and damage everything. Their appeal is to those who are arrogant and starved for meaning, who want religion without religion and family without family only to discover that they are not enough.”
It’s good to see this kind of language getting more usage. Following the recent Grammy Awards show Dr. Peter Jones posted a response at truthxchange.com titled, “Your Grammy’s Church.” He nicely summarized the religion of the political left:
“The vacuous marriage sacrament of the ‘Grammys religion’ and its further trivialization as an entertainment stunt, only underlines the spiritually empty gospel that Tinsel Town and its beautiful people were pushing, unopposed, into the homes of people who pay these artists their inflated salaries. There is no competing message, no other opinion allowed from other artists, no apparent way for so many to hear the truth. This is a formula for cultural collapse.”
Another commentator said of Dr. Jones’ post, “He nailed it…the Grammys were essentially the Sunday evening worship service for the sexually perverted religion of paganism (i.e. demonic new age religion).”
If you want to “go deep” on this topic, let me recommend Robert P. George’s article “A Clash of Orthodoxies.” If you’re like me, you might need to take on George’s writing during whatever time of the day is best for your brain to tackle big thoughts. Here is an excerpt to show what I mean:
“Secularism rests upon and represents a distinct and controversial set of metaphysical and moral propositions having to do with the relationship of consciousness to bodiliness and of reason to desire, the possibility of free choice, and the source and nature of human dignity and human rights. Secularist doctrine contains very controversial views about what constitutes a person — views every bit as controversial as the Jewish and Christian views. Secularism is a philosophical doctrine that stands or falls depending on whether its propositions can withstand arguments advanced against them by representatives of other traditions… [S]ecularist orthodoxy cannot withstand the critique to be advanced against it by the tradition of Christian philosophy.”
I think it is good for supporters of Judeo-Christian morality talk in terms of competing religions. Low information voter America needs all the help it can get to understand modern politics. The next time you hear the tired complaint about someone trying to “impose their religion” — remember that what we have is a “clash of orthodoxies.”
Let’s have a shout-out for Granny’s religion.
Also recommended:
The War We Are In by Bill Muehlenberg.
