Hostility to religion bodes ill for society

Minneapolis Star Tribune ^ | June 6, 2009 | KATHERINE KERSTEN

[rhema]

We're increasingly uncomfortable with religion these days.

As a society, we tolerate pastors, priests, rabbis and other religious folks, so long as they confine their message to a vanilla "God is love" theme and bless babies, brides and caskets.

But when religious leaders speak out on the issues of the day -- especially using morally tinged language -- the elite gatekeepers of public opinion in the media, government and academia warn shrilly that a new Dark Age is upon us.

More and more, we see outright hostility to religion -- particularly to Christianity. Consider the wild popularity of a recent spate of best-sellers by "New Atheist" superstars, including Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and Christopher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."

Far from being dispassionate critics of faith, the New Atheists are zealous crusaders for their own creed: materialism. They are passionately committed to the idea that the universe is a random accident, that transcendent truth is a myth, and that man's life has no inherent purpose or meaning.

Why the growing audience for notions like these?

Religion poses a serious challenge to our cherished idea of personal autonomy. Unlike our forebears, we define freedom as the right to live as we choose -- to "be ourselves" -- unconstrained by social norms or a morally grounded sense of guilt or shame.

Judeo-Christianity throws a wrench in this, teaching that universal standards of right and wrong trump our personal desires.

In addition, it raises troubling questions about the vision of scientific "progress," so central to our modern age. The mere fact that we are capable of, say, genetically altering or cloning human beings doesn't give us moral license to do so, it cautions.

[RoadTest]

Many people in the churches don’t want to hear about “the goodness and the severity of God” either. They want their ears tickled.

[Ben Ficklin]

"on the evolution threads"

You don't see a lot of evolution threads, mainly creation threads.

[dfwgator]

What would things look like if Satan really took control of a city? Over half a century ago, Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse offered his own scenario in his weekly sermon that was also broadcast nationwide on CBS radio:

"All of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say, "Yes, sir" and "No, ma'am," and churches would be full every Sunday...where Christ is not preached."

[Jacquerie]

I wish Natural Law was discussed more often at FR.

It is the philosophy behind our Declaration of Independence and was codified in our Constitution. It is impossible to understand the beauty of our founder’s vision without a basic understanding of Natural Law.

[johniegrad]

Aquinas described the natural law as being nothing more than that part of the Divine Law inscribed on the hearts of all men. One does not even have faith to have been inculcated with the natural law.

[Jacquerie]

Quite right. For instance, it is that tug of conscience or quiet voice that, independent of religious education, questions the morality and right legality of abortion and homosexual “marriage.”