{"id":12370,"date":"2009-09-26T18:59:45","date_gmt":"2009-09-26T18:59:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/09\/26\/can-belief-in-man-substitute-for-belief-in-god-1\/"},"modified":"2009-09-26T18:59:45","modified_gmt":"2009-09-26T18:59:45","slug":"can-belief-in-man-substitute-for-belief-in-god-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2009\/09\/26\/can-belief-in-man-substitute-for-belief-in-god-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Belief in Man Substitute for Belief in God?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"180px-Kool-AidMan\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

The fact and extent of natural and moral evil make belief in a providential power difficult. But they also make belief in man and human progress difficult. There is the opium of religion, but also that of future-oriented utopian naturalisms such as Marxism. Why is utopian opium less narcotic than the religious variety?<\/font><\/p>\n

And isn\u2019t it more difficult to believe in man than in God? We know man and his wretchedness and that nothing much can be expected of him, but we don\u2019t know God and his powers.  Man is  impotent to ameliorate his condition in any fundamental<\/em> way. We have had centuries to experience this truth, have we not? Advances in science and technology have brought undeniable benefits but also unprecedented dangers. The proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, their possession by rogue states and their terrorist surrogates, bodes ill for the future of humanity. As I write these lines, the prime minister of a middle eastern state calls brazenly and repeatedly for the destruction of another middle eastern state while the state of which he is the prime minister prepares the nuclear weapons to carry out the unspeakably evil deed.  Meanwhile the rest of the world is complacent and appeasing.  We know our ilk and what he is capable of, and the bases of rational optimism seem slim indeed. <\/font><\/p>\n

There is also the scarcely insignificant point that there is no such thing as Man, there are only individual men, men  at war with one another and with themselves.  We are divided, divisive, and duplicitous creatures.  But God is one. You say God does not exist? That may be so. But the present question is not whether God exists or not, but whether belief in Man makes any sense and can substitute for belief in God. I say it doesn't and can\u2019t, that it is a sorry substitute if not outright delusional. We need help that we cannot provide for ourselves, either individually or collectively. The failure to grasp this is of the essence of the delusional Left, which, refusing the tutelage of tradition and experience, and having thrown overboard every moral standard,  is ever ready to spill oceans of blood in pursuit of their utopian fantasies.<\/font><\/p>\n

There may be no source of the help we need. Then the conclusion to draw is that we should get by as best we can until Night falls, rather than making things worse by drinking the Left's utopian Kool-Aid.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fact and extent of natural and moral evil make belief in a providential power difficult. But they also make belief in man and human progress difficult. There is the opium of religion, but also that of future-oriented utopian naturalisms such as Marxism. Why is utopian opium less narcotic than the religious variety? And isn\u2019t it … Continue reading “Can Belief in Man Substitute for Belief in God?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143,163,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-god","category-leftism-and-political-correctness","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12370\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}