timeimmortal

Humanity is a religious species — in all ages of our existence, we have sought after the supernatural and sought to believe. Atheism, ostensibly a simple state of non-belief that more practically seems to take the form of a belief in a universal not, creates something of a vacuum in the human heart that both the design of the human person and millions of years of human experience desires to fill.

The question, then, is what the void gets filled with.

…atheistic fads tend to wane and latch on to some form of “spirituality.” Sometimes that can mean reversion to the Faith. Sometimes it means the embrace of the occult or some form of paganism. Sometime it means embracing one of the Great Religions, such as Judaism, Islam, or Buddhism. But the only way a society remains “atheist” once the fad is past is by force of arms, as in the Soviet Union. And the moment the state cannot enforce it, the culture inhales whatever “spirituality” it can find. That’s why Russia has not only seen a big return to the Faith, but a huge growth of fascination in all manner of National Enquirer twaddle about UFOs, New Age twaddle, horoscopes, divination, and all the rest. atheism tends to achieve not a shiny rationalist society, but a spiritually ignorant (and deeply hungry) population that will latch on to anything in its desperation to fill the God-shaped hole in the heart.

…

Atheistic societies tend to be extremely bloody ones, it’s true. So a step toward theism is better than nothing, and the waning atheist fad is cause for a small celebration. But do remember that nobody involved in the Crucifixion, the persecution of the apostles, and the ancient pagan persecutions of the Church was an atheist. A culture that turns from being strictly materialistic to being a culture of Materialist Magicians is not a culture that is automatically re-Christianizing. Such a turn may be a first step toward Christ, but it can just as easily be a first step toward Moloch. For a materialist who comes to worship the reality of “spirit” is not necessarily worshipping the Lord our God, and Him only. In the words of Lewis’s Ransom, “There’s nothing specially fine about being a Spirit. The Devil is a Spirit.

Atheism will endure, as it has for many ages now. But it will never dominate a free people, and in due course gives way to the spiritual. Falsehood must necessarily give way to truth in the end, or at least to a less severe falsehood.

One wonders, then, just how much darker the woods will have to get before the light from the other side begins to shine in? These are the interesting times of the Chinese curse, methinks — Christians would do well to keep on their toes and, in a manner akin to Scouts, “be prepared.”

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

~ by Kenneth on May 20, 2008.