The Enlightment

[Image_of_God]

I am doing this thread because something has come to my mind. I know that the decrease of Catholicism in Europe is partly do to the Enlightment, although I do think that the Enlightment provided some good things for us. I don’t know if this is a band topic, but what do you think about Enlighment?

 

[water]

I would stay a million galaxies away from this stuff.
This is how bad it is.

My friend and her friend who still consider themselves Catholic but have not been to the Church ever since they go into this stuff.
And this is what that friend does:

• no longer believe in the Bible
• no longer believe Jesus is God - they said how do we know that God does not reincarnate in another person.
• follows some lady and have her pictures all over the places.
• willing to go 1/2 way around the world for their retreat but don’t care to stop by the Church.
• spends 2 hours meditating something but don’t pray and don’t read Bible
• eats vegetables only, and feels like a sin to eat meat
• when troubles happens to her, she goes to this “master” lady for comfort instead of going to Jesus.

Are these enough said?
I would say you are better off with this - it ain’t enlightment but it is darkening your mind instead.

 

[Genesis315]

Extremely harmful to society. The Enlightenment and Protestantism hand in hand have destroyed Western society, influencing each other heavily. Both heavily focus on individualism (right to private interpretation and rationalism, “rights of man” respectively).

Just look at the fruits. Public moral standards are in the gutter. Governments no longer acknowledge their responsibility to the King of kings, but rather act according to the whims of the people who themselves are tossed about by every wind of doctrine.

The centuries following the Reformation and Enlightenment have been the bloodiest and most attriocious this world has ever seen. The various violent and bloody revolutions in Europe and elsewhere, use of weapons that cause massive collateral damage to innocent civilians, massive wars based on racism/nationalism/state-worship, the abortion genocide, not to mention the rise of regimes that perpetrated other genocides on various groups of people–all of these rose out of the Enlightenment.

But of course, these are only body-killing results–Jesus says fear those who kill the soul. Let’s see how the Enlightenment stacks up there. Well, by banning the true religion from the public sphere among other things, it created a culture of religious indifferentism and practical atheism. Societies function now according to atheistic principles rather than God-given principles. The idea of maximum liberty/license as long as it doesn’t infringe on your neighbor’s liberty/license has led to the porn-ification of the world, make-it-up-as-you-go-along-morality, and an overall base, selfish, and carnally minded population.

Likewise, the idea of authority from the Enlightenment was that it came from the people and therefore no one had to acknowledge authority that wasn’t bestowed by the people or the government they derived. This has led people to take a pick-and-choose approach to following the divinely instituted Church authority and it has also given governments the idea that they can do whatever they want in whatever sphere’s they want–such as the family.

Self-styled enlightened people like to refer to a certain period as the “dark ages,” but the complete irrationality of the society they created is more soul-killing and dark than anything the world has seen since the Light of Christ was spread to the nations.

 

[Franciscan]

The faulty presuppositions of the Enlightenment-that if science cannot prove it then it does not exist led to a denial of the supernatural which has caused whole nations to lose their faith.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Since most people are more concerned for their bodies than their souls, probably the majority of people in Western Society would feel that the Enlightenment has led to “good”. Of course, we cannot know what ‘good’ might have resulted if the Enlightenment and its baggage, good and evil both, had not occurred. Certainly science and the arts existed, and existed to a high degree, prior to ‘the enlightenment’, equally certainly there were lacks then (just as there are many lacks today). Certainly also commerce, trade, etc. existed. Societies were born, grew, and declined, and grew and declined again, just as they do today.

But the lack of faith --that indeed is a heritage of evil. Even in the face of natural and causal disasters, pre ‘enlightenment’ people were sustained by faith and their lives were arguably of more intrinsic worth (yes, I’m even speaking of women, supposedly so downtrodden, as well as serfs etc.) than they are today. Men and women of faith knew that, even if their earthly existence was brutal and painful, if they trusted in God they would come to heavenly bliss. Men and women today, lacking in faith, either blindly snatch at anything they can get today, rejoicing if they get anything and screaming vitriol at ‘society’s injustice’ if they don’t. . .and never even think about anything other than their body. . .or else if they do stop to consider a faith, more often consider that God is more in THEIR debt than they are to Him, or that they are entitled to eternity simply for being the unique and marvelous beings they are. Few if any see a need for a faith that isn’t ‘satisfied’ by the occasional visit to a church or the even more sporadic self-awareness–wow, what a great sunset! Good job, God–which he takes to be proof positive that HE has faith in God and thus will come to the heaven he so richly deserves for ‘noticing’ God now and then. . .

Fewer still think there is any need to do anything other than just ‘be tolerant and think nice thoughts’–which of course also necessitates calling anyone who asks for ‘more’ than that as intolerant, mediaeval, narrow minded, bigoted, judgmental, repressive and puritan, and condemning same to eternal damnation for daring to ‘stand in judgment’.

Can’t help but remember the Biblical passage where Jesus tells us that “if the light in your eye is darkness, then the darkness is doubly dark.” I think too many have exchanged the Light of Christ for an Enlightenment which does, indeed, give us a darkness which is doubly dark.

 

[francesco920]

The Enlightenment, as it is ironically called, has resulted in people turning away from the true Light – Jesus Christ – so I fail to see what was so enlightening about The “Enlightenment”

The thing is that it is atheistic/agnostic in nature so that’s why I think it’s extremely harmful to society. It has led to the development of weird philosophies and ideologies that are very anti-Christian.

Just look at Europe. Look at France, Great Britian, Spain, Germany…these countries all claim to be followers of “The Enlightenment” and look at how they are all dying spiritually, culturally, and demographically.

The true Enlightenment happened 2000 years ago.

 

[JimG]

Those who lost their heads in France during the Reign of Terror would probably agree that it was harmful to society. Revolution involving class warfare and wholesale murder–how enlightened is that?

 

[pablo_rafael]

You ask a question that I can’t give a yes/no answer to. I’m one of those who always sees shades of grey, never black and white.

In my opinion the Enlightenment and humanism in general are negative in the sense that they focus our attention on humanity as the center of all things. Human reason becomes the sole judge of our lives.

I also think that the secularization of society produced by the Enlightenment has good points. When the church is free from its entanglements with government, it can function as a spiritual force rather than a political one. Look back at the troubles that the church faced in the Renaissance; the Medici family powered its way into the church and used it for its own political, military and economic gain. That was not healthy for the church and hindered true Spirituality. (Not to mention that it gave fuel to the Reformation.)

In the United States today I see the Christian right trying to create a political/religious power base. I see this as a real danger when power, money and religion are intertwined.

Tu Amigo, Pablo

 

[Rach620]

My friends and I prefer to call it the “Endarkenment”

Honestly, if we were truly ‘enlightened,’ wouldn’t we be dwelling in true (rather than self-styled) wisdom with God, the true Light?

This dualism separating body and soul, faith and reason, politics and religion…hasn’t seemed to go so well for us! Science has brought us a lot of good things, and I don’t think a return to theocracy would be a good idea…but the very way in which the Enlightenment taught us to talk about faith, science, politics, and really existence itself…has undermined society and morality. The relativistic culture in which we live is really a direct result of Enlightenment thinking…so much evil has entered the world because of it.