Karl Marx

I have become more convinced that the greatest threat to Christianity in the West is not Islam but atheism. More and more younger people are responding to censuses as “No Religion” or “Nones”. They have naively absorbed the secular teaching of the intellectual and media elite that human life is merely material, that there is no spiritual dimension and that we are not accountable to anyone beyond ourselves. This belief – which is another religion – is contradictory and destructive of moral values. It stems from the rationalism of Marx, Freud and Nietzsche. The common features of their teaching is their portrayal of men and women as believing that beyond them is nobody in the Universe, and that they do not owe their uniqueness to any God.

Marx taught that history is determined by matter, that there is no spirit. Yet in looking for justice he ascribed to matter a capacity for producing justice – where does justice come from if we are only matter. Where are our virtues and values? Why does history which is determined produce a happy society? What god watches over it? The experience of Communist states gives the lie to it. How can matter which through evolution produced humanity care whether we be happy and live in a happy society? Matter cannot produce Good. Matter is indifferent to the Good.

“This is the main contradiction at the base of today’s major philosophical controversy, and it cannot be bypassed… The mechanistic notion of the universe which was the basis of science simply did not square with the notion of individual choice which is the basis of moral philosophy.” (Czeslaw Milosz)

While overt atheism in national societies such as China and North Korea is dismissed by the West as undesirable, its ideological premises are very much alive in secondary forms in academic and media circles. Even many Libertarians are infected by the belief that they owe no allegiance to anyone beyond themselves. Their embrace of liberty in social and moral categories has jettisoned accountability to God. They exhibit an unattractive and condescending arrogance in their belief in the superiority of their own convictions. Humility is not a characteristic of atheists. Why should it be when they are so popular being interviewed on television and their articles are so sought after on the newspapers and magazines?

The banishment of God from personal and public life does not create a neutral playing field where everyone is free to decide for themselves their own worldview. Indifference to God welcomes the Devil into the vacuum. In countries where technology and science rule at the expense of Christianity the Prince of Lies is insinuating himself into all discourse. Christians are vilified for their moral convictions. They are not permitted to express their opinions – there is tolerance for every atheistic opinion but not for those of Christian faith. Rampant immorality and pornography is displayed openly without shame. Marriages and families are destroyed. Schools become agents of secular propaganda, brainwashing students and creating the illusion that each individual is autonomous, answerable to nobody, and deserving of favorable treatment and personal benefits. We look to others to fulfill our needs. Selfishness becomes a virtue except among humanitarians who believe in the goodness of humanity and have no answer to the cruelty of evil manifested in current events except an emotional wringing of hands and appeals to rational decency. Fascism, Communism, Islamic extremism, cartels and gangs that make fortunes from the miseries of their victims has liquidated what illusions remain about the innate goodness of humanity. The Devil is alive and well in the world, having a field day as a result of atheism. He is, as Jesus truly described him, the Prince of this World. The only way to combat him and defeat him is to recognize the enemy for who he is and enlist on the side of Jesus who came to destroy the works of the Devil. God is not mocked!