The Downside Of Modernity In the Face Of Religious Truth

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Modernity

A may not be using this term correctly, but please bare with me.

There is a positive side to modernity. It seems that occult concepts are no-longer as popular as they use to be. Superstition has given way to rational investigation. And new age philosophies are not really taken seriously. This is not to say it isn’t a problem or that the Anti-Christ is not alive and well in human society. But there is clearly a shift from older kinds of what one would term as superstitious activities. I too tend to prefer rational explanation before jumping to religious conclusions.

But there is a darker side to modernity in the face of Christian truth. Along with the rejection of superstition, there has also been a rejection of what we strongly believe or know to be true. There has been a tendency to reject all spirituality. I think the shift in human thinking and the growth of unbelief has left us exposed to demonic assault, more specifically demonic oppression (something i believe i have been exposed to for most of my life). But because of the rejection of these beliefs in society think it is difficult for the Church to respond to these problems, and a person can unknowingly suffer the consequences of these problems for a long time without help.

What do you think?
 
This new moral relativism society is creating a load of investigators. Superstition is a sin; nothing new with that. Reason was invented by neither academics nor enlightenment societies. Reason is a gift from God from the beginning.

In my opinion, we need not worry about rejection of all spirituality on this Catholic website. what we’d be better at addressing is the moral relativist tactics that are creating a load of investigators.
 
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Superstition is in the eye of the beholder. What is a beautiful truth and mystery of faith to one person is superstitious nonsense to another.

Without faith, knowledge and appreciation of the theology thing appear as superstitions from the outside.

When people begin to value rational thinking, the scientific process and testable results they will begin to reject what appears to be superstition across the board.

It would be odd if people not of a particular faith would accept its teachings as different from any other.
 
Both Hitler’s National Socialism and Bolshevik Socialism are two ideologies claiming modernity.

Jihadism is an old ideology revisited in these modern times.

Whether something be new or old we have to judge it against the standard of Christian thought.

I think that the church suffers less from people not believing in Demons etc. than people believing in a secular modern notion that deliberately obstructs the historic reality that the best of western modernity comes from the church.
 
IWantGod said:
Superstition has given way to rational investigation […] But there is clearly a shift from older kinds of what one would term as superstitious activities.
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Meh, I agree with a couple of other respondents here that what a scientific age would always call superstition or new-age might simply be legit spirituality or faith. As great as technological advancements have been, I am not particularly impressed with a mechanistic view of the universe that, ultimately, turns everything (even organic things—like Jews under Hitler) into a type of “technology.”

The mechanistic picture of the cosmos is not only potentially dangerous (as 20th century mass-murderers attested), it’s also bereft of significance. If something isn’t quantifiable (or composed of matter that we can manipulate) then it isn’t interesting or “real”…:roll_eyes: So much then for art, beauty, goodness, the virtues, God, desire, emotion, love, good and evil, immortality, liberty, pleausure, wisdom, happiness…oh my… What’s left is a world bereft of depth and probably of meaning.

Also, it isn’t clear at all that mind isn’t the most fundamental aspect of the universe (and not matter). After all, we interface with the world around us only thru our minds. Who says that our minds are really connected to the world? What’s to say that consciousness itself isn’t the most fundamental reality of the cosmos? Materialism can’t get off the ground without positing “givens” (assumptions) which are themselves not materially verifiable.

I’ve almost reached the point where the “East” impresses me much more.
 
Magnanimity said:
Meh, I agree with a couple of other respondents here that what a scientific age would always call superstition or new-age might simply be legit spirituality or faith. As great as technological advancements have been, I am not particularly impressed with a mechanistic view of the universe that, ultimately, turns everything (even organic things—like Jews under Hitler) into a type of “technology.”
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Well i would argue that the mechanistic idea of the world was a philosophical consequence of science and not strictly a science itself; in much the same way that metaphysical naturalism may have been encouraged by an adherence to methodological naturalism.

I personally welcome rational explanations about how something happened, i simply don’t agree that being rational by default excludes the supernatural or that all rational explanations are physical explanations.

I am simply saying that this absolute exclusion of spirituality in mainstream thought or among popular opinion can result in spiritual consequences that can be quite severe.
 
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Magnanimity said:
What’s left is a world bereft of depth and probably of meaning
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I don’t think human beings can help experiencing meaning in the world and in their actions. I just think meaning, when detached from the ideas you noted, becomes warped and shallow.
 
Magnanimity said:
Also, it isn’t clear at all that mind isn’t the most fundamental aspect of the universe
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It depends on what you mean. I think mind, as a function of the intellect, is a different order of being compared to physical things. And i think fundamental reality isn’t physical at all.

I think that is the most rational idea of the world.
 
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abucs said:
I think that the church suffers less from people not believing in Demons etc. than people believing in a secular modern notion that deliberately obstructs the historic reality that the best of western modernity comes from the church.
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I think it’s that very obstruction that makes humanity vulnerable to principalities and powers. Our war is not with the flesh, even though the problem may come in that form.
 
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I think some of the Enlightenment thinkers might disagree with you. To some of them, they viewed their philosophies as defying Church tradition. The Counter-Reformation didn’t help much either.

I agree with the general sentiment that Christianity has to be seen as a great contributor to the modern world; in the first part by being a bridge, at least in Europe, between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of kingdoms that could sustain themselves (not to mention preserving a great deal that might have been lost). Certainly, some historians credit Protestantism, and in particular, the Non-conformists of England, with the kind of entrepreneurial ethic that lead to the rise of capitalism and the industrial age (though no small amount of credit has to go to the Venetians, who invented modern banking and credit).
 
JimmyTolder said:
Listen to people talk about quantum physics and pretty soon you’ll see that superstition never really went away, it just found a new name.
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Why pick quantum mechanics? Why not Einsteinian Physics? I honestly don’t understand the dismissal of such things. The miracle of our lives is that we are made from the dust of the Universe surrounding us. At the same time we are able to understand, though imperfectly, the Universe and that dust around us. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to understand the miracle of life, even if we can propose the Physics and Chemistry that might have created it. We are more than the sum of elements we are made of; human conscience is beyond science and that leaves room for God.
 
IWantGod said:
Well i would argue that the mechanistic idea of the world was a philosophical consequence of science and not strictly a science itself;
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I think it’s hard to tell which was cart and which was horse. Galileo abandoned Aristotelian final causes, convinced that nature was written in the language of math and reduced to it to “primary qualities.” The Baconian vision toward the world was certainly the manifestation of a desire to disinterestedly dominate it. Dominion over nature with the goal of improving the quality of life for fellow man - “putting nature on the rack.” But what could justify such a stance of domination? A materialist view. If nature is reduced to merely matter, why not dominate it?
IWantGod said:
i simply don’t agree that being rational by default excludes the supernatural
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Quite right. In fact, it goes beyond that. “Why is there something rather than nothing?” is a question needing an answer but no physical explanation could possibly satisfy. It’s not a “material” question but a metaphysical one.
 
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IWantGod said:
I personally welcome rational explanations about how something happened, i simply don’t agree that being rational by default excludes the supernatural or that all rational explanations are physical explanations.
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I totally agree. It’s quite easy for me to appreciate rational explanations how Notre Dame survived the fire, for example, and still believe God, Our Lady, and the patron saints of Paris had a hand in saving it.
 
JimmyTolder said:
…extra dimensions, and multi-verse theories then I thnk we’ve gone well past the point of reasonable empirical enquiry and firmly into the territory of superstition.
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It’s interesting you’d refer to this as beyond reasonable empirical inquiry. The whole point of science is to follow the empirical. Science will be one of the first to tell you that its postulations are open to question. The science around quantum mechanics you express doubt in has suffered issues with having the equipment to test many of the theories it has. That has improved with the construction of the relatively new CERN particle accelerator. Superstition is the irrational belief in something you have no proof for or ever will Just because a branch of science proposes something that sounds impossible does not make it superstition for the mere fact that science will abandon the idea if it finds proof otherwise.
 
I am much less concerned with those that use their powers of reason, because you can talk about objective reality and possibly the Natural Law when evangelizing or just explaining the faith.

What is more concerning and dangerous in my humble opinion is those who believe in subjective arguments such as the concept of gender, where they want to redefine what a woman is while ignoring biology and the objective reality of women’s lived experience. Reducing “woman” to an idea is scary to say the least.

I think we should teach philosophy and rhetoric at school so that young people have a good grasp of the history of ideas. Some so-called “new” theories are old heresies in a new guise.
 
niceatheist said:
I agree with the general sentiment that Christianity has to be seen as a great contributor to the modern world; in the first part by being a bridge, at least in Europe, between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the rise of kingdoms that could sustain themselves (not to mention preserving a great deal that might have been lost). Certainly, some historians credit Protestantism, and in particular, the Non-conformists of England, with the kind of entrepreneurial ethic that lead to the rise of capitalism and the industrial age (though no small amount of credit has to go to the Venetians, who invented modern banking and credit).
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Capitalism, modern science, universities, classical musical notation, modern parliamentary democracy and generalised health systems providing western medicine had their birth in medieval Christendom.

This is the basis of the modern world.

When we look at all these planks of modernity we find the church playing significant roles in their birth, development and implementation.
 
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