“When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident… Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole.” (Nietzsche, "Twilight of the Idols").
Further, Nietzsche famously commented that, with the dissolution of the concept of God, there would ultimately be insufficient water to wash away the blood. The first half of the twentieth century makes Nietzsche's pronouncements look almost prophetic.
Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist has authored a monumental 1,500 page treatise titled "The Matter With Things" which is seen by many highly credible academics as perhaps the most significant book written in the last one hundred years. He writes on page 1292 as follows.
"When Solzhenitsyn asked himself what had given rise to the catastrophic brutalities of the twentieth century, his conclusion was that men had forgotten God. In a speech in 1983, he repeated: "If I were called upon to identify the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and more pithy than to repeat once again: men have forgotten God." More than this, a positive "hatred of God", he thought, was the principal driving force behind the philosophy and psychology of Marxism-Leninism: (militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist Policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot." The hatred of God is indeed a fascinating phenomenon, one more and more evident in our time - and not just in political philosophies, but in the vox pop of media scientists. Lucifer - "the bright light" - cannot bear the imputation of anything higher than he." (Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things", page 1292)
So the birth of the post-modern cult, with its pantheistic, tribalistic, and naturalistic underpinnings, along with its pathological hatred of Christianity, might be more than it seems on the surface. Perhaps our desire to be accountable to none other than ourselves will be the seed of our ultimate demise.
And perhaps the principal drivers of the New Zealand left's lurch toward nihilism and anarchy, reflect little more than this ... the denial that a conscience (whether of divine or utilitarian origin) bears witness to the fact that there is a God (however you choose to conceive God), to whom we are accountable, and from whom we depart at an unimaginable cost.
Carl Jung stated emphatically that the things we should most fear reside within the deepest recesses of being. To Jung, the integration (not denial) of our individual and collective shadow (our darker side) was the only way to reconcile conflicts that had the potential to destroy humanity itself. Within each of us, and within every collective group, exists a cauldron of competing forces amenable only to something external, something that calls to a higher good, to a loftier purpose, to virtue.
This is not an attempt to proselytize at all, you can define terms as you choose, but Nietzsche, Solzhenitsyn, Jung, McGilchrist, and an army of eminent others, are far from light-weight.
This is not about Christianity per se, it is about what happens when Christian morality is removed.
Good and evil exist. They compete within every human heart. The left-wing moral counterfeit, with its tribalism, its hatred for the religious, for any binding (and constraining) morality, for freedom of thought and speech, and for truth itself is not merely chaff, it is the incendiary device capable of bringing hell to earth.
And to revisit my opening quote ... “When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident… Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole.” (Nietzsche, "Twilight of the Idols").
The hatred of God (nearly always wrapped in a panoply of
virtue) is indeed a most interesting phenomenon and, itself, not at all what it
seems.
Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.
19 comments:
An interesting article. In New Zealand there has been an agenda to decolonise the country of Christian influence. The Reserve Bank now has a shrine to Tane-Mahuta the God of the Forest. The economic engine room of the country effectively worships a Pagan God. Is there any other country in the world that has a Central Bank operating in such a way.
The writer typically sidesteps embarrassing issues such as the Abrahamic God's apparent ethical/moral U-turn between the Old Testament ("kill all the boys, as well as every woman who has had relations with a man, but spare for yourselves the virgins"..... my favourite Bible verse) and the New Testament, where he attempts to remedy the hash he made of Project Humankind by conducting a blood sacrifice of himself to himself (??? - yep, it's got me beat too!). He seems to ignore the fact that the foundations for Western law and ethics stem from ancient, pagan Greece, and later the Roman Empire,
not some Bronze Age desert tribe wandering around Palestine.
Quite frankly, I'm not sure what 'Christian morality' means, and Christians as a group don't seem to be too sure either, some adhering faithfully to OT concepts and others explicitly renouncing them.
The only religious game in town in the days of Nietzsche and Co was Christianity, and the Church - be it C of E, Russian Orthodox, Roman Catholic, whatever, was unarguably an important factor in the societal power equation. Not so any more. Riling against that system is a waste of energy - almost as much as trying to resuscitate it.
Folks, do not submit lengthy theological lectures/sermons or diatribes centred on bizarre conspiracy theories involving socialists as Satanists, ancient prophecies, etc etc. 'Breaking Views' is not a platform for the loony fringe of religion, be it Christianity or any other.
MODERATOR
John Dewey was an aggressive atheist and the tenets of his Progressive Education were centered on ridding education of not just Christian morality including a work ethic, but also effective traditional teaching methods. Over the decades he has had many critics but foolishly academia slavishly followed and promoted his teachings. He described Christianity as evil and something to be purged from our society through indoctrination in our schools. This was supported by Marxist's idea that 'Religion was the Opium of the People"
We are now reaping the harvest of Marxism and Dewey's ideas in our schools and tertiary institutions with poor academic standards, and mentally disordered children who have been further confused by Godless Marxism wanting to turn them into social and political activists. Freire's Marxist 'Pedagogy of the Oppressed' has become 'Pedagogy of the Depressed'. Even small ignorant children have been made to believe they are to somehow change our bad and broken society ( as defined by Marxism) into some sort of socialist Utopia.
While traditional liberal thinking early in NZ 20th century did not support forcing anyone to be Christian, aggressive atheism as in communism, gives you no choice but to be atheist. At least the earlier, atheists named in this article, of the 20th century behaved as learned gentlemen, unlike the modern atheists of this century who use ridicule and other verbal abuses to batter you down.
When will they learn you can't impose Truth by force?
It is not God being lost. Islam claims the same God as Christianity, just a different prophet. To most Christian haters, Islam is fine. The pagan Gods, all fine. Any personal beliefs are acceptable. Except Christianity, that is the cause of all the ills in the world and needs to be reviled. Practitioners laughed at and denigrated.
The reasons are beyond me, but I don't think it has changed our society for the better.
Moderator: how come Bernadette gets to wank on with his atheistic claptrap?
Because you agree with it?
I notice you address my earlier contributions to this post with labels rather than engagement and substantive rebuttal.
That’s how leftards roll, and is most unbecoming of someone who moderates a conservative/libertarian blog.
Lo and behold—with the tiresome regularity of an unloved season—out comes Barend ranting against the belief system that underpins Western Civilisation.
What’s YOUR source of moral authority and explanation of how humans (and everything else) got here, Barend?
Darwinist Evolution (From the Goo to You, by way of the Zoo) coupled with The Big Bang Theory (Nothing exploded—without a catalyst in sight—creating Everything )?
These are just as much articles of blind faith as the belief in a Created Order and a personal God.
However one arrives at this conclusion, certain moral propositions have to be off limits for human review, otherwise ‘morality’ becomes whatever existing powerful groups that control the State say that it is.
Hence the excesses of the French Revolution, and the 20th Century horrors of Nazism and Communism.
This explains Voltaire’s observation that: “If God didn’t exist, man would need to invent Him.”
No point discussing complex issues with someone who hasn't the foggiest clue about them. If you did, you wouldn't conflate cosmological and biological evolution and abiogenesis. Better look up what the words mean, mate. As for 'articles of blind faith', that's for troglodytes who don't understand the material world. You obviously have no clue about epistemology either (better look that one up too).
Come back when you've built up a knowledge base that could get you passes in introductory science courses and can add around 30 IQ points to your discourse. I suspect I'll be waiting a long time.
Anon 5:48 - who's Bernadette? Never heard of her.
How can one hate something that does not exist?
I was raised as a Christian and know many bible stories which have enormous value when raising a family and endeavouring to instil value laden concepts containing moral ideas.
However I also read my children the Tales of Brer Rabbit by Uncle Remus,( far less judgmental) an entertaining way to teach right from wrong. But the best of them all were from the ancient Greek Aesop and his fables. Simply superior to any thing out of the Bible.
Personal spirituality is exactly that personal. There is no one right way to personal responsibility and an understanding of right and wrong.
Indeed it is arrogant and introverted to believe so.
I became an atheist in my 40's because after many years of inquiry I understood there is no god.
“Bernadette” = “Barend” as amended by autocorrect.
I didn’t ask for a further instalment of argumentum ad hominem from a clearly triggered atheist, Barend.
For the benefit of low watt bulbs that means playing the man not the ball.
You were asked to table:
(1) what you regard as the source of binding moral authority; and
(2) your explanation of how everything—from the microcosm to the macrocosm—got here.
So apply your clearly towering intellect to these important questions and clue us all in.
For (1) see my article 'The non-religious origins of law', Breaking Views 5 Dec 2015.
(2) is beyond the scope of Caleb's article and therefore not relevant here. I could recommend some introductory reading materials in cosmology, geology, biology and abiogenesis, but you should be able to find those yourself. What I do know is that spooks, Palestinian or other, had nothing to do with it. Look up 'God of the gaps' fallacy (this began as a theological paradigm but very quickly became a moniker for a reasoning fallacy.
If moral authority doesn’t derive from divine revelation it derives from what a Libertarin would refer to as “Man’s essential nature as Man.”
Which then begs the question of where this essential nature derives from …
Quite a step to write Nietzsche, Solzhenitsyn, Jung and McGilchrist off as product of their time ... with a sweep of the postmodern hand to disregard some of the greatest minds of all time ... and men like Solzhenitsyn whose reflections were born of the deepest and most profound life experiences. In the athiest mind there is indeed a desperate running from the reality of God, a deep denial of what really troubles, an unwillingness to read scriptures intelligently (only dogmatically).
And to assert that out ethics are predominantly Greek/Roman is profoundly wrong ... Judeo Christianity gave birth to the notion of a sovergein individual with rights inherent. Read Bristish historian Tom Holland on this.
Disappointing from the moderator too. If every effort to think below the surface is conspiracy then we will never really know the underlying cause of anything. In a sense some of the criticisms of this article have become the very strongest defence of many of the points made.
Anon, I have rejected only a couple of submissions, one of which was article-length spread over two commentaries. If there is little or no connection to the article, it stands a good chance of being rejected. I apply the same principle to non-religious topics e.g. a would-be contributor who uses any excuse to send a 3-part treatise on how the WEF, UN and other agencies are plotting with George Soros and Co to take over the world.
MODERATOR
Anonymous 9:08, you pretend to be able to read minds (first para second sentence) but are way off the mark. And you are clearly thinking of only one set of scriptures here (the 66-book Bible? The 73-book Bible? The 80+ book Bible?) - definitely not the Quran or the Mahabharatas. The "reality of God" differs rather a lot between yours and theirs (indeed it differs within each as well - compare e.g. Adventist with Mormon with Catholic with..... This kind of argument just doesn't work in the light of the multiplicity of forms of religious expression.
The "notion of a sovereign individual with rights inherent" was largely a product of the Enlightenment and a furthering of the new concept of the human condition that came in with Protestantism. The 'rights inherent' bit is particularly important here as the nation of universal, substantive human rights was quite foreign until the 18th century. But of course it is always difficult drawing lines when dealing with a gradual developmental process such as the evolution of the human rights concept.
I have to challenge the assertion that the issues in this discussion are primarily epistemological. While sound epistemology is critical, a sound ontology is even more important. The former helps you manage data in fruitful ways, the latter (what one fundamentally believes) decides what data goes on the table. This relates to the second thing I would challenge. Perhaps the conspiracy label is thrown around far too lightly ... as much by the right as the left. To label an idea conspiracy is an automatic get out of jail free card when we don't want to wrestle with issues that sit outside of our own ontological framework. Perhaps it has become the rights equivalent to the left's deplatforming. Further, the idea that individual rights are seeded in the Enlightenment (or even in Graeco Roman culture) is quite simply not true.
Re: human rights (as opposed to rights inherent to being a member of a given race/tribe or nation-state), the Sorites Paradox looms as it invariably does when attempting a line-drawing exercise. However, the assertion that the concept (or a forerunner thereof) of human rights can be traced back to antiquity is one that can be defended. See for instance https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/revisiting-the-origins-of-human-rights/human-rights-in-antiquity-revisiting-anachronism-and-roman-law/548A4F1274E368605BA868832229EE6D
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