new church life: september/october 2017
delusions: the idea that we can be like God. Technological hubris, like every
other form, can only end in disaster.
(WEO)
‘the insanity of our age’
The insanity of our age is materialism – the belief that only things that can
be apprehended by the senses and understood naturally are real. When this
mindset prevails, then “nothing is believed respecting the things of interior
nature; still less concerning the things that are of eternal life. Hence comes the
insanity of our age.” (Arcana Coelestia 1630) It is noted also that this insanity
«is believed to be wisdom.» (Ibid. 5116.5)
Under the spell of such an outlook, people care only about earthly, bodily
and worldly things, and “believe themselves to be like beasts.” (Ibid. 3646) They
“do not believe they have a spirit within them which is to live after the death
of the body, when yet this spirit is much more substantial and real than the
material body.” (Ibid. 3726.4) Materialism, which many think is grounded in
reality, actually results from ignorance of the deeper spiritual reality of which
natural substance nature is merely the outer covering.
Materialist premises form the “core curriculum” of atheism. Starting
in early childhood, such assumptions are insinuated into people’s minds, in
classrooms and by means of the media. They are taught – implicitly if not
explicitly – that there is no God, no spiritual world, no life after death, no
Divine revelation, no transcendent spiritual order governing human life, and
so on.
And we wonder why so many young people have rejected religion!
(WEO)
typewriter literacy
Imagine a society of people living on a remote island completely cut off from
the modern world. They have no written language and a Stone Age culture.
One day in the 1950s they find a crate containing a typewriter that had washed
ashore, flotsam from a ship that sank perhaps. They are very curious about
this object and inspect it closely. Gradually a small community of typewriter
experts develops and spends years taking the typewriter apart and learning
how it works.
Eventually they can explain how pressing the keys makes the little metal
arms jump up and hit the carriage, and how each time that happens the
carriage moves a little to the left, until it has gone as far as it can and makes
the bell ring; and various other details of how it works. There was even some
typing paper in the crate and they have noticed how it fits into the machine,
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