The Christian and Secular Religion Regarding Truth and Power

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silentwitness

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Many believe that secular political correctness is a humanly constructed religion that wishes to restrict dialogue on the basis of it’s own terms and which banishes critical discussion regarding it’s own tenets in order to gain power over others. There are countless examples and the limiting of discussion seems to follow this process :
  1. Redefine the ethics of right and wrong on the basis of ‘offense taken’ by a select group.
  2. Claim this offense taken is caused by other’s ‘hate speech’.
  3. Claim that this ‘hate speech’ should be a basis for cancelling other people and thus banishing criticism of it’s own ethics in the name of those ‘ethics’.
In short, if a select group decides they are offended by you, you will be silenced through force, one way or the other.

Such an ethical framework by definition has to be authoritarian. There are only two predetermined groups, dependent on the acceptance of the new ethics. One favoured and allowed group and one, shall we say, deplorable group whose character is maligned and whose speech is shut down.

At the moment there appears to be many institutions who accept this new religion as the defacto rules of engagement. Are not these institutions the problem in society in that it leads to authoritarianism, rejection, divisiveness and perhaps worse?

Is not this new secular religion ultimately derived from the horrors of the French Revolution in it’s own rejection of God and it’s wish to make state power, as the new God?

In rejecting God, ideas of objective Truth are foresaken in favour of relative truth that is then manufactured and forced on the populace in the process outlined above 1-3 through state power.

Truth is redefined as power, the antithesis of an incarnated lowly carpenter preaching the Gospel.

“What is Truth?” asked secular Pilate. Power was his truth and it was difficult for Truth itself, in the guise of a beaten and bruised Rabbi to dissuade such a concept. In time though Truth did win out, but Pilate and his secular power always, it appears, is ready to make a comeback.

The success of this secular religion in more modern times has purposefully led to a diminishing of Christian thought and community. At the moment however it appears the people’s attachment to objective truth still holds sway and is the biggest threat to the new religion. It is not certain that this resistance will always win out.

We see in Stalin’s socialism or Hitler’s socialism or Cambodia or a number of other 20th century examples where the switch on objective truth is turned off and truth becomes relative. It becomes flexible and inconsistent and ultimately incoherent and simply a tool of the state to control and destroy the God given human mind to disastrous affect.

Truth as a concept was rejected in favour of naked partisan power.

continued…
 
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continued…

Is it not the role of the Christian to fight against this secular religion? A religion that wishes to denigrate the idea of an incorruptible objective truth, in the being of God and His revelation, in favour of an authoritarian state power with it’s ‘authorised’ institutions and supporters, including media that will not allow challenge and vigorously pursue those who are critical of it’s imposed ethical system?

If so, what is the best way to fight against a power who believes not in discussion, but ultimately in silencing any opposition through force?

Is it wise to even attempt public discussion with those that wish to have the power to silence you; and in institutions and on platforms who have chosen to have this secular religion as the underlying rules of allowed engagement?

Whether it be the secular political class with it’s attempted imprisonment of innocent Cardinals, the attempted overturning of democratic referendums or the attempted removal of elected presidents it appears the belief in truth as being defined by a political elite wielding state power over the people and using the political religion to silence opposition is something that Christ would call us all to oppose as a great evil…

…while we are still permitted to believe in such a thing.
 
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There is no need for alarm. Whiles laws are passed to allow certain situations and behaviors to exist, just consider the obvious arguments against them. Also consider that a number of parents are home schooling their children partly to avoid indoctrination regarding certain ideas. This will continue, along with actions by individuals who understand the truth of the situation. Confrontations do not need to occur, and Christians can and should respond in a polite manner.
 
Is not the near destruction of Christianity across a large part of the Western world in the last one hundred years not cause for alarm? If not may I ask what would cause alarm?

Is not the deconstruction of Christian thought and the attempted secular reconstruction on everything from concepts of sin, truth and even ‘politeness’ a cause for concern?

For example, if the secular political religion wishes to redefine ‘politeness’ in it’s own image through points 1-3 above and ban those who will not submit to this redefined ‘politeness’, shouldn’t we resist that and at least among ourselves, insist on a Christian based politeness that is not subservient to the power of secular reconstruction?

Is not this subservience a large part of why so many have walked away from western Christendom and will continue to do so?
 
A sense of the dignity of the human person has been impressing itself more and more deeply on the consciousness of contemporary man, and the demand is increasingly made that men should act on their own judgment, enjoying and making use of a responsible freedom, not driven by coercion but motivated by a sense of duty. The demand is likewise made that constitutional limits should be set to the powers of government, in order that there may be no encroachment on the rightful freedom of the person and of associations. This demand for freedom in human society chiefly regards the quest for the values proper to the human spirit. It regards, in the first place, the free exercise of religion in society. This Vatican Council takes careful note of these desires in the minds of men. It proposes to declare them to be greatly in accord with truth and justice. To this end, it searches into the sacred tradition and doctrine of the Church-the treasury out of which the Church continually brings forth new things that are in harmony with the things that are old.
Vatican II. Dignitatis Humanae 1
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Most people reading this have not been around for the last 100 years but some have been around for at least half of it, like me. Like chipping away at a massive wall, I watched the slow, gradual poisoning of the West by the secular media and underground media. In the 1960s, everyone from the youngest to oldest could watch TV without offense. Did you know there was a Catholic Legion of Decency that started in the 1930s? Later to be called Legion of Decency because non-Catholics joined in. Films were condemned by the Legion. But the Legion faded away in 1973. Do you know how and when contraception was promoted? The FDA approved the Birth Control Pill in 1960, but it was available only by prescription. Most women did not want it. But a Time magazine cover story about The Pill appeared in 1967 that promised a false freedom. Freedom from what? Babies.

In 1973, the US Supreme Court legalized abortion. But Jane Roe in Roe v. Wade never got an abortion. Her real name was Norma McCorvey and she became actively pro-life.

Everyone needs to know that when Vatican II ended in December 1965, various groups were formed to promote these things to everyone.

We were lied to. Our trust was abused. So-called Adult Bookstores selling porn appeared in our neighborhoods in the 1970s. Who paid for them? Who paid for the printing, the photographers and the staff? And illegal drugs were promoted by people who told us they were good, and “You know you want to live with your girlfriend.” Immoral ‘alternative lifestyles’ were promoted by people who called themselves Hippies.

Yes, we need politeness. I grew up with it. Now, people barely make eye contact. But it took a slow, steady poisoning to be injected into our veins year after year after year to get to this point.
 
I think one of the issues is how you define politeness. In the context outlined above, politeness can be defined as agreeing with the changed set of ethics and impoliteness as challenging it.

So for example agreeing and actively supporting feminism, homosexual marriage, globalism and the legal discarding of religion in public affairs can be seen as adhering to a supposed polite consensus and considering it impolite to challenge such assertions and movements.

Defining politeness in such self serving terms with respect to political correctness becomes a flashpoint and impedance to actual consensus. I think the list of degradations you listed can be put down to a rejection of Christian thought and it’s replacement by an academically constructed ethics based on secular foundations. I think it is important for us to communicate to the upcoming generations where we went wrong and suggest a possibly better approach for them.
 
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Some people do not want to hear what I wrote or look at published history. Agreeing with wrong ideas is not polite, it is just the easiest way to deal with people who accuse you of being against them. I am not against anyone. I have reasons for being against certain ideas, and those reasons are based on things that do not include religion. People want to obscure that as if those reasons are automatically wrong.

It’s important to speak plainly. “academically constructed ethics” provides no useful information. This bit of actual history does:

 
I read a book by Tim Keller recently where he mentioned how in Western democracies today we value the individual and his rights more now than at any time in (at least known) history… And yet we have no way of justifying such rights and values to life, liberty and happiness… In that sense we as a culture are unique and anomalous. In the past people referred to scriptures, ancient wisdom, sages, etc. Our values now are “self-authenticating.” They are to be valued because… they are to be valued… This does seem like a problem but some people say “why bother going beyond opinion?” There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of dialogue then though with cultures who don’t take our values to be self-evident.
 
What is anomalous are events caused by organized groups of individuals starting in 1966 in the US. The National Organization for Women was founded in 1966. If you go to their web site today you will see that they are for wrong ideas, including abortion and contraception. They, and others, were behind the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1970s. I watched them turn men into villains on TV. This created fertile ground for No-Fault Divorce gaining ground in the 1980s. And that was created out of thin air.

This was never about individuals, it was always about groups. About various groups wanting the right to act however they wanted, and that means accusing anyone who disagrees with them as being automatically wrong. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote:

We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires. The church must defend itself against threats such as “radical individualism” and “vague religious mysticism”. [emphasis added]
 
I think the elephant in the room regarding these anti church changes is socialism.

The movement of socialism motivated all of these changes because it incorrectly promoted itself as caring for the poor; a universal movement that could include everyone; and one that is based on scientific consensus. It basically tried to stand in the place of God and accuse his church day and night.

Over the last 100 years I think these claims have proven to be false. However the propaganda spread in Catholic institutions and caused near collapse of the Catholic church in some areas and created mass defections to the Leftist secular movement.

The movement tried to promote the church as the very opposite of what it claimed for itself and thus the obstacle that needed to be removed or amended. The church was portrayed as a rigid adherence to tradition uncaring of the common man; it was portrayed as a close minded elite contributing to the separation of people; and finally it was portrayed as being founded on dubious man made foundations by malicious rulers who use it for nefarious motives against bigoted and unenlightened people.

Catholics being enculturated in this view were taught to think of themselves as modernizing the church where they were the bridge to a wider, more universal, more realistic and kinder movement. Where in fact they were used to attack a fundamentally good movement for what we know was a movement that brought countless evil on the world.

You seem to put feminism as one of the movements designed to destroy existing society and the church and I agree.

How Freudian Psychology Subverted And Destroyed A Catholic Convent

The Story of a Repentant Psychologist

Anti-Catholic Catholic wishes to Abolish the Priesthood

I think a fault of the church in facilitating this destruction was that it was not sufficiently brave enough to fight it’s corner. A lack of rigidity if you will. That lack of rigidity to Christ, the real Christ, seems to still be present in large measure acquiescing to self destruction while calling it holy, compassionate, universal and modern.

I think the movement of socialism has been disintegrating over the last decade and election results show that. The anti Christian secular religion of political correct Leftist globalism still holds sway in some important quarters though and more importantly in the hearts of Catholics still susceptible to the old lie.
 
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I guess the ones who paid for all of that were freemasons.

Freemasons were behind all the anticlerical revolutions and civil wars between the 1700-1900*. It would not surprise me that they infiltrated in the media. although the other 50% of the blame, I think, it’s on the ultra rigid and nearly jansenist post-WWII society, which was counterproductive against the sexual revolution. I think that’s where VII was pointing out.

*later the communist took that place but they burned out quickly.
 
Did you have any information on Freemason activities today or have they changed from what they were in 1900?
 
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What’s new about this? Our Lord told us it would be this way.
We are not commanded to try to control how non-believers think.
We commanded to love our enemies, anyway.
We are to witness and evangelize by how we love others and love God, not live in a self-defensive stance. We are to give each other fraternal correction within the full admission of our own faults.
We were never told that following the Way would not have dangers or that it would make the World like us or that the Evil One would stand idly by while we spread the Gospel. We were told just the opposite.

Perhaps the problem is that somewhere along the line we thought we’d gotten beyond that?
gama232 said:
We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.
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Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” (Jn 18:38)
 
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silentwitness said:
Sorry. Comment not addressed to me.
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In response to your post, I think that we, in imitation of the early Church, must be fearless in living and proclaiming the Gospel in a world that bluntly rejects it. It may be, however, that a fervor against the command to give all to the truth will turn out to be a better atmosphere for the proclamation of what the Gospel really demands of us than an audience in which someone who is lukewarm can simply go along, get along and yet not be converted. In an atmosphere in which there isn’t a lukewarm place to stand, that becomes harder.

I am more concerned about those who proclaim that they are Christians and yet presume to claim the Holy Spirit (?!?!!) has prompted them to changed the unchangeable truths of the faith, both those of faith and those concerning morals. The infection you speak of is to be expected in the World. The ones to worry about are those who are infected with it even while standing in the pews or (Heaven forbid!) while preaching from a pulpit. Let us pray for our Church and especially for our clergy, so that incursions of this infection will not gain a foothold anywhere within the Church, even among our separated brethren. We can be certain the Church herself will not fall into this error, but that protection does not guarantee that no priest or any member of the faithful could be mislead or could not mislead others.

Yet even this has a precedent:
And what I do I will continue to do, in order to end this pretext of those who seek a pretext for being regarded as we are in the mission of which they boast. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, who masquerade as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan masquerades as an angel of light. So it is not strange that his ministers also masquerade as ministers of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. (1 Cor. 11:12-15)
 
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Well, they are a secret fraternity, and as such many of their implications in wars was only discovered after the events. I know however that several high ranking politicians, at least here in Argentina, are freemasons.
 
If anyone is interested I recommend the book Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley. Bill Clinton was very influenced by him.
 
AlbMagno said:
Well, they are a secret fraternity, and as such many of their implications in wars was only discovered after the events. I know however that several high ranking politicians, at least here in Argentina, are freemasons.
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Are they playing a significant role in Argentina and how successful have they been in their goals?
 
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