The mass shootings, whether in blue cities like Chicago or red States like Texas, are appalling, and both sides of the firearms debate are bandying about their usual ideological slogans: ‘More guns, less crime’; ‘if it saves just one life, isn’t it worth it to ban xyz?’
We happen to think that the evidence favors a populace that is fairly unrestricted in its ownership of guns, but that is to miss the more important point underlying the senseless gun murders: the erosion of Christianity. Since the Enlightenment especially, we have rejected God’s sovereignty over man, and made man himself – his wishes and desires – the measure of all things, with horrible effects. Father Zechariah Lynch writes,
The humanism of the modern world is . . . negative. In fact, it is not an understatement to say that it is a de-humanism, or as Alexander Solzhenitsyn puts it, “despiritualized humanism.” . . .
Since roughly the French Revolution on, humanists have been endlessly claiming that they will establish a semi-paradisiacal (if not outright) state on earth. I mention the French Revolution because it is one of the first radical applications of humanism. A basic study shows it was a bloodbath: totalitarian brutality and oppression that masqueraded as “Republic and freedom.” (A brief study of the slaughter at Vendee, with roughly 300,000 peasants brutally murdered, shows the true face of modern humanism). Even the American Revelation was motivated by the prevalent and growing humanist currents of the 1700’s. True, it was not as radical in nature as the French, but it nonetheless was a governmental experiment based on humanist philosophy (although it was willing to retain a stronger “Christian” influence, as opposed to the French Revolution).
Humanism developed on strictly materialistic terms. Materialism is probably a more accurate term. Humanism has always been more than willing to slaughter hundreds of thousands of people for the sake of material gain and ideology. In reality, it is not interested in the well-being of humanity.
Following John Locke’s liberalism, the several States have tended to treat religion as something that belongs primarily within the individual’s private conscience, that the public, communal aspects of religion are unimportant. Hence the replication of clauses in the State and federal constitutions guaranteeing the freedom of religious exercise by individuals but the ban on government involvement in religious affairs. But the pluralism and relativism this engenders is dangerous; it is not strong enough to resist evil. Fr. Zechariah continues:
Liberal humanism, which professes that all ideas are equal and should be given an equal chance and voice, eventually is run over by radical humanism. The “Liberals” of our day are not classical liberals. They have a very narrow ideology to which they conform. Karl Marx, a radical humanist, aptly observed that, “Communism is naturalized humanism.”
Solzhenitsyn commenting on this statement says, (It) turned out not to be entirely senseless. One does see the same stones in the foundations of a despiritualized humanism and of any type of socialism: endless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility, which under communist regimes reach the stage of antireligious dictatorships; concentration on social structures with a seemingly scientific approach. This is typical of the Enlightenment in the 18th Century and of Marxism. Not by coincidence all of communism’s meaningless pledges and oaths are about Man, with a capital M, and his earthly happiness.
Liberalism was inevitably displaced by radicalism; radicalism had to surrender to socialism; and socialism could never resist communism.
We see that if mankind rejects the Incarnate Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, as God, he will have destructive idols/ideologies in His place. The excellent modern English author Paul Kingsnorth chimes in:
But Man cannot live by immanence alone. Religion meets a human need, and when it is gone, or corrupted, the hole it leaves will have to be filled by something else. What will that be? Del Noce’s answer is: revolution.
Modernity, he suggests, could be defined as a permanent, ongoing revolution. The desire to build Utopia on the bones of the old world has been the consuming fire of Western thought for 300 years. Jacobins, Bolsheviks, communists, socialists, Fascists, Nazis, neoliberals and many more have all attempted to scour the ground clean and start again, and we are not done yet. ‘The revolutionary attitude of creative violence’, writes Del Noce, ‘has replaced the ascetic attitude of seeking liberation from the world.’ If once society’s refuseniks imitated St Anthony, now they copy Che Guevara. All that is solid melts into air: this, in the words of its most consequential revolutionary mind, is the best description of the age of immanence that we have ever had.
‘Creative violence’, sadly, is exactly what we see on display in our social-media-streamed mass murders as revolutionaries act out their broke-brained theories to remake the world.
And one of the main drivers of this violence is taught year in and year out in our public schools: atheistic evolution. Maria Sayevskaya makes some important connections in this regard:
. . .
The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2022/05/garlington-without-christianity-we-are-doomed-to-senseless-violence/.
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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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