Increasingly Secular Nation Replaces Outdated Religious Ideas With End Times Prophecies, Moral Judgments

"Having been freed from the shackles of religion, we will now make wild predictions about when the world will end and inform you who is moral and who is not," atheist small group leader Beorn Mingles said at a Portland coffee shop Tuesday. "Finally, we have cast off the opiate of the masses and instead will just tell you what to believe and how to behave."

Babylon Bee

How Dare God leave us when we asked him to

Da Tech Guy:

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration and as such it is an excellent time to answer a question I’ve been hearing concerning the Dayton and El Paso shootings, particularly from the non-religious: “Were was God when this was going on?”

The short answer is: ” Where [did] you expect him to be?”

For nearly sixty years our media, political, social, educational and cultural so called “betters” have done all they could to drive God out of the public square, out of the classroom, out of our political discourse, out of our social discourse, out of every single cultural aspect of society. And being a loving God rather than an oppressor - instead of defying that demand, respected the free will of these folk - so allowing folks who didn’t want him there to do the best they could without him.

That best isn’t very good. Particularly when the ancient enemy has been ready to step into the gap left by his departure.

There is, however, good news.

There are plenty of people who weren’t all that anxious for God to go away and he has remained with such people willing to give aid and comfort to those who ask. That’s good, but even better is that just like in the Transfiguration where the glory of Christ was made plain to Peter, James and John, God is willing to transform us and help us transform our society, if we want to do so.

But it’s our choice. God will not compel us. He will allow us to face the world as it is, human nature as it is, if we so choose.

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President Trump and Our Post-Secular Future

One result of the Trump "revolution" is the realization that being an avowed Christian is not a stigma.

At a very basic level, post-secular society is about the return of religion and religious values in the public square...

Moreover, this turn towards nationalist sentiments that we are seeing all over the globe actually entails a resurgence of historic religious identities and moral commitments, largely due to the interrelationship between nationalism and revitalized traditions. In the face of threats to localized or national identity by globalized secular processes, populations tend to reassert symbols of cultural identity such as language, custom, tradition, and religion as mechanisms of resistance.

We can see evidence of a revitalized civic religion here at home. In his recent campaign speech in Maine, Mr. Trump said: “Imagine what our country could accomplish if we started working together as one people, under one God, saluting one American flag.” This became a refrain in his campaign speeches: one people under one God. And while some can’t get past the potential threat to religious freedom such a hypothetical statement represents, we have to understand that this is precisely the kind of revitalization of public religion that accompanies the ascendancy of nationalist sentiments.

Thus it appears that the waning of multiculturalism and the rise of a nationalist populism indicates the dawn of a post-secular age. Despite the sporadic protests to the contrary, a Trump presidency signals to the wider culture that it is now open season on political correctness. And as far as I’m concerned, it couldn’t have come soon enough.

We're reach the point of rebellion against secular bullies who force us to commit acts that betray our religious values.

Secularists vs. Suicide Bombers

Perhaps the answer is found in Thomas Babington Macaulay: “And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his gods?”

Tribe and faith. Those are the causes for which Middle Eastern men will fight. Sunni and Shiite fundamentalists will die for the faith. Persians and Arabs will fight to defend their lands, as will Kurds and Turks.

But who among the tribes of the Middle East will fight and die for the secular American values of democracy, diversity, pluralism, sexual freedom and marriage equality?

Who will fight and die, literally, for abortion on demand, militant atheism, multiculturalism, free Obama phones, gay marriage, the "hook up" culture and pornography on the wide screen? All these "freedoms" will be washed away by true believers who are willing to die for their beliefs and view these things that the secular West values as abominations.

The "Great Satan"

In the WSJ a comment intrigued me.

The West -- the Great Satan -- is an existential threat to the power that the theocrats hold over their struggling nations-- largely 'the street' -- for as long as those hovels have satellite dishes, can see how the West lives, and can see how they live.

I believe this misses the point because it assumes the perspective of the "Secular West." For much of it's long existence the West was not secular but Christian. During this time there was also a clash of cultures, but not a clash or morals. When the West became "secular" with a vengeance (that battle is being waged in the West as a cultural civil war with religion in retreat), Islam began to see the West not just as an opponent, but as the "Great Satan." The cultural manifestations of secularism must be viewed from their perspective as a destroyer of the soul. For a deeply religious people that is worse than a physical threat.