by James R. Watkins
August 19, 2019
The great ideological struggle of the modern age is between Faith and Secularism, between those who “hold these truths to be self-evident,” and those who believe the world is what we make it, that we are simply human beings whose rights come from the society in which we live, that scientific materialism is where we derive reality from; that there is no such thing as eternal truth, but rather, relative truth that serves the moment at hand.
At the root of Western society is the idea that individuals have liberties such as the right of self-expression, the free exchange of ideas, to congregate and protest, freedom of movement. freedom to own property. But in secularism, we serve the State, the Party, or the greater good as determined by those who are in power.
At the root of communism is secularism. Communism could never exist in a society of deeply religious people because people who have faith would never submit to the State, only to God.
This is why China doesn’t allow formal religion, it usurps authority away from the State.
Socialism, an offspring of secularism, leads to communism because in essence, the State must govern for the greater good. The individual only matters in proportion to the group.
Sadly, millions of people prefer this social construct because it removes responsibility from the individual and moves it to the collective; the individual no longer needs to apply judgement, he merely agrees with the social order, only needs to agree that it is “best for the greater good of society.” This why the Chinese government can remove any citizen who is deemed “an enemy of the State.” Human rights do not come from God, they come from the State.
If you asked our political leaders (who endorse socialism) what they think of religion, they might be dismissive or they will probably give it light mention. To the secularist, as to the communist, Religion is an opiate, and psychological safe space, a distraction.
Sooner or later, as we have seen, the State requires 100% submission.
But here is the danger.
In the West secularism is eating away at religion. Our educational system is completely secularized, advocacy groups are going to extremes to remove religious symbols and history from State and federal buildings, holidays that were once rooted in religious culture have been secularized: Easter has become ‘spring break,’ Christmas is now ‘winter holiday,’ even Thanksgiving has been thoroughly secularized and commercialized.
Secularistic science tells us that such concepts are myths based on a need for man to explain things, and in doing so science disregards the fact of the reality of existence of God, asserting therefore that we exist as a result of random causation, simple cause and effect; that our existence has no discernable divine hand; that good and evil are just relative values we invented mere labels we use to assign people who are bad or good as just being disabled or suffering from mental illness. People of faith, in this system are labeled intolerant, weak-minded, prejudiced, unscientific, homophobic, racist. Religion is marginalized.
Modern society struggles with religion because we are now several generations deep into a culture that has accepted the notion Science explains everything – and that religion is nothing more than a custom of old belief systems that developed long before science started answering all of our questions about life.
And yet, there it is. People have faith, they believe in God, they pray, they worship. They follow Jesus as their lord and do wonderful things. They pray to allah and submit to his grace, they live the law and have faith in the mercy of God, the most high, the Lord God of Israel.
History tells us that religion is not only good for society because it instills and upholds morals and ethics from one generation to another, but because it more importantly instills family-values which lie at the cornerstone of any solid society. But wait, there is more, and this is key.
The idea that maybe there is – now hold on – such a thing as salvation, a furtherance of existence beyond our mortal shell, an idea so foreign to main street and western culture that it is not even talked about, not in public, not in private, except as some sort of myth unworthy of a truly reasonable mind.
(long pause)
Paper 195, section 6, 7 and 8 talks about the dangers of secularism, it warns us that a society based only on securlistic ideals cannot survive, that without God, our society will eventually disintegrate, that secularism betrays man because he goes from being a slave to the church to being a slave to government and to politically tyranny, which we are now seeing.
In 1935 it warns us that more “terrible destruction to come.” And then we remember that the Urantia Book was written just a few years before World War 2, and of course, the hundred or so million people who died in Russia under Stalin and in China under Mao, secularist regimes that rule under tyranny, the offspring of secularism.
The great ideological struggle is between attaining a society that is based on enduring spiritual principles that give value to the individual human spirit, who we believe is self-evident as being a child of God, or we adhere to humanistic, materialistic principles that give no regard to such ideas such as human rights, only of “universal rights,” or social rights and social justice. When you hear those words you’ll know who is speaking.
I know a lot of people who simply don’t believe in religion, they don’t get it. I understand. But I’m warning them, don’t be fooled into believing that God doesn’t matter in a society just because you feel that way, or that faith doesn’t matter in a society because you don’t have faith.
You don’t want a global society that turns its back on spiritual ideals and truth. That’s China, a total surveillance society where anyone who dissents is put to death or taken off and put away in a labor camp.
Say goodbye to freedom of thought, freedom of expression, of freedom itself. These are spiritual principles because they give account to enduring principles of fairness for the individual.
God and the preservation of the rights of the individual vs. Man and the emphasis on group rights as determined by government. This is the great ideological struggle of our times.
The point of all of this is that I believe this current ideological struggle is being waged now, as we speak. We see it being played out in China between the Hong Kong protestors and the dictatorial Chinese government; in America we see it being played out between the progressive and atheistic Left and the Conservative and sometimes religious right who are vying for political power; in Europe between the globalists and the nationalists who are losing rights “for the greater good,” even in some countries in the Middle East between those who want islamic reform, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, and the oppressive regimes that still march to the medieval trumpet blasts of religious tyranny not unlike we saw in the early Christian Church.
The great ideological struggle is all around us.
It is stated that “crisis comes before destruction as well as growth.”
Which outcome will we choose?
