Religions > Atheism > Religion Isn't The Sickness. It's The Cure Of Moral Failure Of Modernism
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Sound of Trumpet" |
| Date: |
01 Apr 2007 08:06:59 AM |
| Object: |
Religion Isn't The Sickness. It's The Cure Of Moral Failure Of Modernism |
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1805007/posts
Religion isn't the sickness. It's the cure: ur correspondent on the
moral failure of modernism
timesonline.co.uk ^ | February 26, 2007 | Wlliam Rees-Mogg
Posted on 03/22/2007 8:44:07 AM PDT by Longinus
From The Times
February 26, 2007
Religion isn't the sickness. It's the cure
Our correspondent on the moral failure of modernism
Wlliam Rees-Mogg
From the earliest days Christianity has been opposed to slavery. In
his Letter to the Galatians, St Paul wrote: "As many of you that have
been baptised in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor
Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor
female. We were all one in Jesus Christ." Undoubtedly Christians have
compromised with slavery - as with other social evils - in the course
of history, but the orthodox Christian doctrine is one of liberty and
equality.
The Christian belief was the inspiration in William Wilberforce's long
campaign to end the slave trade. His Bill received the Royal Assent on
March 25, 1807, 200 years ago. That was the most important of all the
great reforms of the 19th century; essentially it was a Christian
reform, inspired by the Protestant conversion of Wilberforce himself.
March 25 was the old New Year's Day; it is also the feast of the
Annunciation of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
We live in an age when modernists regard religion with something
approaching panic. It is like the Devil's attitude to Holy Water.
There was a comic example of Christianophobia in The Sunday Times
yesterday. Michael Portillo, who used himself to be seen in Brompton
Oratory, was hyperventilating at the idea of David Cameron going to
church. "I worry," he wrote, "because men of power who take
instruction from unseen forces are essentially fanatics . . . I would
be more reassured to hear that the Tory leader goes to church because
that is what it takes to get a child into the best of state schools,
not because he is a believer."
Perhaps this neurotic response to Mr Cameron's habit of going to
church reflects Mr Portillo's recognition that religion is again
becoming an important influence on society. Many of the current news
stories show that religion is back in public consciousness; for those
who feel uneasy about religion, that is unwelcome.
Islam is, of course, the alarming religious issue that will not go
away. In the 20th century the world failed to adjust to two major
belief systems, nationalism and Marxism. Now we face a similar global
challenge from Islam, which opposes Judaism in Israel, Hinduism in
India, Buddhism in South East Asia, Christianity in Europe and America
and modernism in the whole advanced world. We certainly cannot say
that all religious influences are benign; al-Qaeda is a religious
cult, but a perverted one.
Religion turned William Wilberforce into a Protestant saint, but
Wahhabism has turned Osama bin Laden into a devil.
The rise of militant Islam in the 21st century is, however, part of a
much broader phenomenon. In the United States there has been the
extraordinary resurgence of fundamentalist Protestantism, sufficiently
strong to win two presidential elections for the Republican Party. In
Britain, an inflow of Catholics from Eastern Europe, particularly
Poland, has revitalised the Roman Catholic Church, which now has the
largest Christian congregation in the country. The worldwide Church of
England has been divided by a battle of moral convictions. All of
these religious movements challenge modernism, that popular mix of
materialism, scientism and political correctness that had seemed to be
carrying all before it.
The modernist attack on religion was based on the victory of science,
and particularly of neo-Darwinism. Yet science was open to the same
challenge as religion; it could explain only half the world. The
scientists, or some of them, sneered at religion for being unable to
explain the developments of nature. Yet science itself was unable to
produce a science-based morality for society. Marxism attempted to
create a scientific social order that ended in monstrous and
bloodthirsty tyranny. Social Darwinism either meant eugenics and the
slaughter of babies who were not thought fit to survive, or it meant
nothing. The Social Darwinism of George Bernard Shaw, or indeed that
of Adolf Hitler, has been rejected by mankind.
The world needs religion to address the moral issues. In the advanced
societies it is these moral issues that now mock us. Europe and North
America are hugely wealthy regions, but they are morally impoverished.
Broken families, drugs, booze, youth gangs, crime, neglect of children
and the old, the sheer boredom of shopaholicism, terrorism, the inner-
city slums, materialism itself, are all the marks of a global society
in decline. Societies can be judged by their care for children. Social
education must start in the family and must have a moral basis.
Children need to be taught to distinguish between right and wrong. A
recent report by Unicef showed Britain as 21st out of 21 advanced
countries in the welfare of children; our national failure is a shame
and a disgrace.
In 19th century England, the revival of Christianity provided the
basis for a century of social reform. The religious revival spread
across all the Christian churches; in the Church of England there was
the Evangelical movement as well as the High Church movement. The
Roman Catholic Church attracted thousands of new converts. The
Methodists and other Nonconformists devoted themselves to the welfare
of the poor and the working class. The Salvation Army took its
trumpets into the pubs and slums and offered a new hope.
The 19th century was an age of social reform based on religious
revival and the Christian faith. The 20th century was an age of
religious decline and of accelerating decline in social cohesion as
well as in faith. "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey/ When
wealth accumulates and men decay."
These are lines from Oliver Goldsmith's moving poem, The Deserted
Village in the 18th century. If they seem to apply to our modern
societies, religion is not the problem; it is the only possible remedy.
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| User: "Roy Jose Lorr" |
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| Title: Re: Religion is Sickness. |
03 Apr 2007 02:06:52 AM |
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Al Klein wrote:
On Sun, 01 Apr 2007 19:32:07 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Dearheart, the Left supports slavery in the here and now.
Bush is a rightist, not a leftist.
Which has nothing to do with the veracity of my statement.
Incidentally, Bush is a monarchist working for a return to
feudalism.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Religion is Sickness. |
03 Apr 2007 07:43:05 AM |
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On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:06:52 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Al Klein wrote:
On Sun, 01 Apr 2007 19:32:07 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Dearheart, the Left supports slavery in the here and now.
Bush is a rightist, not a leftist.
Which has nothing to do with the veracity of my statement.
Nothing at all, save for the fact that it's completely wrong.
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| User: "Roy Jose Lorr" |
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| Title: Re: Religion is Sickness. |
03 Apr 2007 10:23:41 AM |
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Al Klein wrote:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:06:52 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Al Klein wrote:
On Sun, 01 Apr 2007 19:32:07 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Dearheart, the Left supports slavery in the here and now.
Bush is a rightist, not a leftist.
Which has nothing to do with the veracity of my statement.
Nothing at all, save for the fact that it's completely wrong.
Perhaps you'd care to expand on that fallacious notion.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Religion is Sickness. |
03 Apr 2007 05:33:44 PM |
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On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 08:23:41 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Al Klein wrote:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:06:52 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Al Klein wrote:
On Sun, 01 Apr 2007 19:32:07 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Dearheart, the Left supports slavery in the here and now.
Bush is a rightist, not a leftist.
Which has nothing to do with the veracity of my statement.
Nothing at all, save for the fact that it's completely wrong.
Perhaps you'd care to expand on that fallacious notion.
If the right supports slavery in the here and now, and the left
opposes slavery in the here and now, which are both true, your
statement is completely wrong.
Would you like me to explain what each of the words mean, or will you
be attempting to look them up for yourself?
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| User: "Roy Jose Lorr" |
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| Title: Re: Religion is Sickness. |
03 Apr 2007 06:08:13 PM |
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Al Klein wrote:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 08:23:41 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Al Klein wrote:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 00:06:52 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Al Klein wrote:
On Sun, 01 Apr 2007 19:32:07 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Dearheart, the Left supports slavery in the here and now.
Bush is a rightist, not a leftist.
Which has nothing to do with the veracity of my statement.
Nothing at all, save for the fact that it's completely wrong.
Perhaps you'd care to expand on that fallacious notion.
If the right supports slavery in the here and now, and the left
opposes slavery in the here and now, which are both true, your
statement is completely wrong.
Sorry dearheart, support of slavery is in the interest of
the Leftist agenda. The Right gains nothing from the
existence of slavery.
Would you like me to explain what each of the words mean, or will you
be attempting to look them up for yourself?
To which words do you refer?
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Religion is Sickness. |
04 Apr 2007 07:53:44 AM |
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On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:08:13 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Sorry dearheart, support of slavery is in the interest of
the Leftist agenda.
The Left gets nothing out of slavery and has been opposed to it for at
least 400 years. Do yo really think it was the Right that formed the
Abolitionists? Do you really think it's the Right that forced the
civil rights laws of the 60s through? Do you really think it's the
Right that's against the forced continuation of unwanted pregnancies?
The Right gains nothing from the existence of slavery.
Except control and profit, the Right's only motivating forces.
Would you like me to explain what each of the words mean, or will you
be attempting to look them up for yourself?
To which words do you refer?
The ones that comprise natural language. It doesn't seem to be your
native mode of noisemaking.
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| User: "Roy Jose Lorr" |
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| Title: Re: Religion is Sickness. |
04 Apr 2007 11:40:39 AM |
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Al Klein wrote:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 16:08:13 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
Sorry dearheart, support of slavery is in the interest of
the Leftist agenda.
The Left gets nothing out of slavery and has been opposed to it for at
least 400 years.
Do yo really think it was the Right that formed the
Abolitionists?
The first abolitionist organization was founded by a group
of religious believers: Quakers. They were the driving force
behind the movement for its lifetime. Abolition of slavery
was and is based on belief in God's word; it is not a
secular invention as atheist revisionists of history would
have us believe.
Do you really think it's the Right that forced the
civil rights laws of the 60s through?
No politician had to force those laws, they were the
politically expedient reaction to forces on the ground by
both Left and Right.
Do you really think it's the
Right that's against the forced continuation of unwanted pregnancies?
What this should tell you is that the Right has little to
gain politically and far more to lose in the way of future
votes by resisting the murder of unborn babies. Those
babies, coming mainly from mothers on the Left will be on
the Left when it comes time for them to vote. This is an
example of the Right challenging immorality even though by
sparing these murdered babies they would add potentially
overwhelming numbers of voters to the population of the
murderous degenerate Left.
The Right gains nothing from the existence of slavery.
Except control and profit, the Right's only motivating forces.
Dearheart, "control" is the Left's god.
Would you like me to explain what each of the words mean, or will you
be attempting to look them up for yourself?
To which words do you refer?
The ones that comprise natural language. It doesn't seem to be your
native mode of noisemaking.
In other words you have no 'language (natural or otherwise)'
of substance to back up your degenerate nonsense.
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| User: "Al Klein" |
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| Title: Re: Religion is Sickness. |
04 Apr 2007 08:05:58 PM |
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On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:40:39 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
I only hold discussions with the sane.
<plonk>
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| User: "Roy Jose Lorr" |
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| Title: Re: Religion is Sickness. |
04 Apr 2007 10:37:11 PM |
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Al Klein wrote:
On Wed, 04 Apr 2007 09:40:39 -0700, Roy Jose Lorr <Kenthz@comcast.net>
wrote:
I only hold discussions with the sane.
<plonk>
The final refuge of the intellectually dishonest is the <plonk>.
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| User: "wf3h" |
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| Title: Re: Religion Isn't The Sickness. It's The Cure Of Moral Failure Of Modernism |
01 Apr 2007 08:43:45 PM |
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Sound of Trumpet wrote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1805007/posts
From the earliest days Christianity has been opposed to slavery. In
his Letter to the Galatians, St Paul wrote: "As many of you that have
been baptised in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor
Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor
female. We were all one in Jesus Christ."
jesus h. christ...what a distortion. that's like saying there are no
men or women, either.
the fact is, paul loved slavery. in ephesians he stated that slaves
should obey their masters. in philemon, he actually sent an escaped
slave back to his owner.
it took 19 centuries for xtians to discover slavery was wrong. this
type of distortion is racist at its core...whitewashing bloody xtian
history...
Undoubtedly Christians have
compromised with slavery - as with other social evils - in the course
of history, but the orthodox Christian doctrine is one of liberty and
equality.
meaningless assertion...
The Christian belief was the inspiration in William Wilberforce's long
campaign to end the slave trade.
except william wilberforce did not rely on the bible to end slavery
because he knew full well it supported slavery. he argued against
TORTURE and said that slavery was worse than torture, so it must also
be wrong.
His Bill received the Royal Assent on
March 25, 1807, 200 years ago. That was the most important of all the
great reforms of the 19th century
hmmm...the 19th century...and what happened before that?
Islam is, of course, the alarming religious issue that will not go
away
ah...isn't religion wonderful?
.. In the 20th century the world failed to adjust to two major
belief systems, nationalism and Marxism Now we face a similar global
challenge from Islam, which opposes Judaism in Israel, Hinduism in
India, Buddhism in South East Asia, Christianity in Europe and America
and modernism in the whole advanced world. We certainly cannot say
that all religious influences are benign; al-Qaeda is a religious
cult, but a perverted one.
xtianity had its violent phase...centuries of war...expelling jews
from every country in europe at one time or another starting with the
'st. hugh' incident in 1255 and continuing to the genocide against
jews in 1941...
Religion turned William Wilberforce into a Protestant saint, but
Wahhabism has turned Osama bin Laden into a devil.
The modernist attack on religion was based on the victory of science,
and particularly of neo-Darwinism.
meaningless assertion. science is science. no one cares who bases what
ideology on science in general or evolution in particular. if religion
is wrong, then it's wrong.
Yet science was open to the same
challenge as religion; it could explain only half the world.
and science, unlike religion, never claimed otherwise. science never
claimed to be moral, or metaphysical or meaningful. it merely explains
the natural world, period.
The
scientists, or some of them, sneered at religion for being unable to
explain the developments of nature.
actually religious leaders screamed that it was THEY who could explain
the natural world, from geocentrism to creationism...wrong at every
turn.
Yet science itself was unable to
produce a science-based morality for society.
BINGO!!! science never claimed otherwise. it's religious fanatics
trying to destroy science and replace it religion (again) who make the
claim that science should be 'moral'
Marxism attempted to
create a scientific social order that ended in monstrous and
bloodthirsty tyranny. Social Darwinism either meant eugenics
gee..for 19 centuries xtians supported slavery. xtians murdered
2,000,000 africans in the slave trade and enslaved millions more...
it took the bloodiest war to end the curse of slavery in christian
america.
The world needs religion to address the moral issues
that would be nice, if it ever worked. religion had from the 5th
century to the 18th to be in complete control of govts in europe. it
lead to war after war, massacre after massacre...only secular law, not
religion, protects human rights.
.. In the advanced
societies it is these moral issues that now mock us. Europe and North
America are hugely wealthy regions, but they are morally impoverished.
??? OK i give up. when has society NOT been so?
Broken families, drugs, booze, youth gangs, crime, neglect of children
and the old, the sheer boredom of shopaholicism, terrorism,
and when religion ruled europe we had inquisitions, antisemitism,
racism, slavery, feudalism, etc...
the inner-
city slums, materialism itself, are all the marks of a global society
in decline. Societies can be judged by their care for children.
i live in texas...one of the most right wing christian states in the
US...guess which states have the highest divorce rates, abortion
rates, etc?
right wing christian states...
These are lines from Oliver Goldsmith's moving poem, The Deserted
Village in the 18th century. If they seem to apply to our modern
societies, religion is not the problem; it is the only possible remedy.
religion had its chance. for 14 centuries it was the only game in
town. and it led to ignorance, war and savagery...
only secular law protects human rights.
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