or
WHAT THE BLEEP IS GOING ON?
Part I
My last unfinished blog asked whether America was in
decline. I had data on crime, drugs, mental illness, declining morals and other
issues which clearly pointed to an unravelling. And then my laptop was stolen, yanked
from my feet at Starbucks. I chased the man but…(sigh)…I’m fat. I lost the computer
and the piece. And some sweet headphones. Bastard. Surely the incident was just
a coincidence but a year and a half later, it now seems silly to even ask such
a question. Of course everything’s
going to hell.
Why?
A few years ago I became obsessed with the Enlightenment,
Western Civilization and the Reformation. Millennials were rejecting universal
dogma about free speech and embracing socialism. SOCIALISM! As grandma would
say, “Oh, for cryin’ out loud in a bucket.” I thought if we better understand the
cultural blessings we take for granted, maybe we can save them. I was not
alone. Pieces on the Enlightenment have become a cottage industry. Famous
economist John Maynard Keynes once said, “Ideas rule the world. In fact, little
else matters”. Well, for the first time since the industrial revolution, the
West is questioning the very ideas to which we owe our existence.
To counter the horrors of the Wars of Religion (1517-ish to
1648) and the centuries-long tension ignited by the Reformation, some felt the
answer was to reject objective truth itself. To paraphrase John Lennon, if
there’s no belief, there’s nothing to fight over. Hence, we live in a time
where cosmopolitan debunkers scoff at notions of Natural Law and timeless truth as crusty
and primitive (except for that one truth that says there is no truth, of
course). With straight faces, they swear they have no ideologies; They’re just,
you know, pragmatic. Two giants of modern Christian thought held this view in
utter contempt. C.S. Lewis in “The Abolition of Man”, wrote that a hard heart (believing
in nothing) is no defense against a soft mind. He was likely intentionally echoing
G.K. Chesterton who said, "When people stop believing in God, they don't
believe in nothing—they believe in anything." The future seems to have
vindicated them.
We hear from the most obnoxious of atheist evangelists that
purging religion will usher in a golden age of reason. David French’s Post
Christian America: Gullible, Intolerant and Superstitious disputes
this. French recalled how his Harvard classmates sneered at the absurdity of
the New Testament but thought reincarnation was “cool”. French lamented seeing Harvard
students walk in and out of the witchcraft store and he described one friend
talking about her son’s “Indigo Aura”.
Mother Jones noted a rising
belief in astrology.
Not strictly an American phenomenon, Europeans are embracing
their own silliness. In the Wall Street Journal, Naomi
Schaefer Riley writes that “In Austria,
28% of respondents say they believe in fortune tellers; 32% believe in
astrology; and 33% believe in lucky charms…(“They’re after me Lucky Charms!”) More
than half of Icelanders believe in huldufolk, hidden people
like elves and trolls.” She quotes Baylor scholar Rodney Stark who
stated, “More than 20 percent of Swedes believe in reincarnation…half believe
in mental telepathy.”
In National Review, author and professor Clay Routledge remarked that decline in religiosity is connected to more belief in ghosts, UFO’s, and
clairvoyance and that those who reject traditional belief often embrace what he
describes as “supernatural-lite” beliefs, “often wrapped superficially in the
language of science and technology, making them more palatable” to the
irreligious. He noted, however, that those rejecting theism are often still
influenced by it. Finnish
researchers found that both theists and atheists exhibited similar levels
of physiological stress when reading aloud statements daring God to cause harm.
Routledge wrote that while many are finding nontraditional
substitutes for church, “there are reasons to doubt that those are effective
substitutes for religion”. He writes that the substitutes are more individualistic
and focused on personal interests rather than social duties and
interdependence. They are belief systems that lead to loneliness. Routledge called
religion a “uniquely powerful” resource for meaning because it “binds
individuals to a meaning-sustaining social fabric.”
“Let us not neglect meeting
together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another…”
Hebrews
10:25
Suicides have risen an alarming 30% since 2000. One author
noted that the average anxiety of the incoming freshman was equal to that of
the average mental patient in the 1960’s. Parenting expert John Rosemond claims
that mental disorders in youth have increased 50-fold since the 1950’s. In a
piece on Intellectual
Takeout, Marcus Roberts noted how the same Clay Routledge documented
this increase in suicide as due in part to a crisis in meaning. Routledge says there is much empirical
evidence for existential anxiety being tied to substance abuse and other mental
health issues. Roberts writes, “…the changing landscape in the USA is
undermining people’s sense of meaning. The decline of neighborliness, the
shrinking of the family and the diminishing of religion are all posing serious
threats to a meaning of life. Americans today are less likely to know and
interact with their neighbors, they are less likely to believe that people are
generally trustworthy and to feel that they have individuals they can confide
in.”
Millenials are the least religious generation in history. Is
it a surprise they are so lost? British Prime Minister Theresa May called
loneliness a national crisis. She appointed
a minister to tackle a problem believed to affect over 9 million in
her country. I would argue, however, that loneliness is but a symptom. In
“Man’s Search for Meaning”, existential psychologist Viktor Frankl described
how his fellow concentration camp victims displayed great disparities in reacting
to the crisis. Those who rejected nihilism and embraced their God or
connectedness and service to others were able to stave off despair. What
shocked him was that, in the midst of the depths of some of the most profound
human misery—starvation, typhus and imminent execution—some appeared…happy.
They knew that whether in life or in death, in abundance or suffering, life had
meaning. Witnessing this changed his
life.
I am a deeply religious person. I see religious thought and
behavior everywhere because I know what that is. I see non-believers often as
no less religious than churchgoers. People need meaning. They need to be part
of something bigger than themselves. I think this is what drives many social
justice warriors. The big battles against racism were already won but they want
to fight the same evil. So they tackle the horrors of offensive Halloween
costumes and ethnic food in the cafeteria. Maybe they need some of that
old-time religion.
