Some say that America is losing its faith. I contest that. America is changing its faith. I see a surge in faith, especially among the wealthier folks who can afford to live in Marin County, where I spent two days last week kayaking with friends. Consider the statement of faith prominently posted at the entrance of a rustic resort outside the lovely little village of Inverness:
“We Believe: black lives matter; love is love; feminism is for everyone; no human being is illegal; science is real; be kind to all.”
Let’s take a closer look at the creed so boldly displayed at this establishment. It seems to me an ersatz faith, not more nourishing than the ersatz “coffee,” mostly sawdust, given to prisoners in Auschwitz. They were expected to perform 12 hours of backbreaking labor on sawdust. This “creed” provides little more nourishment to us, who must perform the great labor of rightly ordering our lives together. With statements of faith as vapid as the one you see above, we are, simply, malnourished.
“Love is love” means nothing, really. It is what we call a tautology. It cannot sustain the human intellect, nor inspire the human will for longer than the ephemera of a fleeting feeling. Ditto on “be kind to all,” which is contradicted by the articles of faith that precede it: are the feminist and BLM movements characterized by kindness? Quite the opposite: radical feminism and race theory call us to anger and violence. “Love is love” obliquely refers to gender theory, which contradicts itself. We are told that there is no such thing as “male” and “female,” and at the same time we are told that one can be a “male” trapped in a “female” body….
The human person needs right religion, and right religion is always rational. We need to anchor our self-definition in something greater than ourselves, because in fact the human race did not make itself. Without reference to something outside of ourselves, we have no identity. Psychologists have long known that a child deprived of human touch—of a relationship outside of itself—lacks self-understanding. Such children are severely autistic.
We are starving for truth and meaning, and we are given sawdust. Children need authentic friendship and they are given a screen. Children need a father and a mother, and they get state-run foster-care, or a single parent struggling to be both father and mother, or brave grandparents struggling to provide what only a mother and father and siblings can provide. We need love, and we get hook-ups.
Many, perhaps most, are starving to death, quite literally. “Death by despair” (suicide, drug overdose, and other lethal behaviors) have tripled in the last ten years. This malnutrition is a great injustice, when spiritual, emotional, and psychological nourishment is ready at hand. When starving people get desperate enough, they will turn to violence. People who lack a sense of who they are, even whether they are a man or a woman, have nothing to lose by throwing their lives away in senseless acts of violence.
“We Believe: black lives matter; love is love; feminism is for everyone; no human being is illegal; science is real; be kind to all.”
Let’s take a closer look at the creed so boldly displayed at this establishment. It seems to me an ersatz faith, not more nourishing than the ersatz “coffee,” mostly sawdust, given to prisoners in Auschwitz. They were expected to perform 12 hours of backbreaking labor on sawdust. This “creed” provides little more nourishment to us, who must perform the great labor of rightly ordering our lives together. With statements of faith as vapid as the one you see above, we are, simply, malnourished.
“Love is love” means nothing, really. It is what we call a tautology. It cannot sustain the human intellect, nor inspire the human will for longer than the ephemera of a fleeting feeling. Ditto on “be kind to all,” which is contradicted by the articles of faith that precede it: are the feminist and BLM movements characterized by kindness? Quite the opposite: radical feminism and race theory call us to anger and violence. “Love is love” obliquely refers to gender theory, which contradicts itself. We are told that there is no such thing as “male” and “female,” and at the same time we are told that one can be a “male” trapped in a “female” body….
The human person needs right religion, and right religion is always rational. We need to anchor our self-definition in something greater than ourselves, because in fact the human race did not make itself. Without reference to something outside of ourselves, we have no identity. Psychologists have long known that a child deprived of human touch—of a relationship outside of itself—lacks self-understanding. Such children are severely autistic.
We are starving for truth and meaning, and we are given sawdust. Children need authentic friendship and they are given a screen. Children need a father and a mother, and they get state-run foster-care, or a single parent struggling to be both father and mother, or brave grandparents struggling to provide what only a mother and father and siblings can provide. We need love, and we get hook-ups.
Many, perhaps most, are starving to death, quite literally. “Death by despair” (suicide, drug overdose, and other lethal behaviors) have tripled in the last ten years. This malnutrition is a great injustice, when spiritual, emotional, and psychological nourishment is ready at hand. When starving people get desperate enough, they will turn to violence. People who lack a sense of who they are, even whether they are a man or a woman, have nothing to lose by throwing their lives away in senseless acts of violence.
RSS Feed