1. All too often, a trust-baby hits 21 and is blinded to life by the untold riches that flow through his fingers. In an intellectual sense, the wonders of science revealed during the Enlightenment had the same effect on many. Add the violence directed at the clergy as well as the monarchy, and one has the making of secularism.
2. So infatuated with the fall-out from the Enlightenment, the possibility that science might be able explain and/or control life, a desire was generalized, that the same physical and chemical laws could be applied to human beings!
a. The French Revolution, the Jacobin revolution, resulted in Reason replacing the Christian God.
b. Auguste Comte argued that humanity progressed in three stages and that in the final stage mankind would throw off Christianity and replace it with a new religion of humanity, which married religious fervor to science and reason- even to the extent of making saints out of such figures as Shakespeare, Dante and Frederick the Great. Charles Forcey, The Crossroads of Liberalism, p. 15
c. Henri de Saint-Simon, the articulator of socialism, argued for the supremacy of the sciences over religion, and predicted that, like religious, secular propaganda would employ artists and poets. His collaborator, Auguste Comte, also saw the need for a secular religion, a scientific materialism, which contends that the only reality is what can be detected and measured by human senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. His authoritarian thinking shapes todays liberals doctrinaire insistence that science has the explanation for all things.
3. It was but a short leap to a mechanized view of human beings: evolution.
Herbert Spencer was the most influential popularizer of evolution in 19th century America. Actually, it was Spencer who developed a theory of evolution before Darwin and is credited with coining the phrase the survival of the fittest'. He saw the process everywhere, not only in nature but in human society as well. Spencer embraces other materialist thinkers, such as Marx and Nietzsche.
Herbert Spencer: Social Darwinist or Libertarian Prophet?, by Peter Richards
4. This aspect of the Enlightenment is known as naturalism. Naturalism aligns humans with the evolutionary scheme of things, i.e., the individual does not really matter, and has no intrinsic worth beyond the single task that nature assigns every organism: to reproduce so that the species will survive. Therefore, there is no higher purpose beyond sheer biological existence.
5. Consider the result of naturalisms worldview on society:
a. LONDON (Aug. 26) - Caged and barely clothed, eight men and women monkeyed around for the crowds Friday in an exhibit labeled "Humans'' at the London Zoo.
"Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment'' read the sign at the entrance to the exhibit, where the captives could be seen on a rock ledge in a bear enclosure, clad in bathing suits and pinned-on fig leaves. Some played with hula hoops, some waved.
Visitors stopped to point and laugh, and several children could be heard asking, "Why are there people in there?''
London Zoo spokeswoman Polly Wills says that's exactly the question the zoo wants to answer.
"Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate,'' Wills said. Yahoo! Groups
b. NEW YORK (AP) Scarlett Johansson says that while monogamy might go against instinct, she's happy in her relationship with boyfriend and recent Black Dahlia co-star Josh Hartnett . "I do think on some basic level we are animals, and by instinct we kind of breed accordingly," she says. Scarlett Johansson: 'I'm not promiscuous' - USATODAY.com
c. Sienna Miller tells Rolling Stone,' "I don't know, monogamy is a weird thing for me," Miller, who is still seeing Law, tells Rolling Stone in its new issue. "It's an overrated virtue, because, let's face it, we're fing animals." Sienna Miller Says Monogamy Is 'Overrated' - Hook Ups, Kids & Family Life, Jude Law, Sienna Miller : People.com
6. So, which came first, .folks behaving like animals, or creed that instructed them to behave as such? Obviously, Darwinian evolution is not just a scientific theory. It has worldview implications that percolate from classic literature down to Hollywood and into our living rooms.
Nancy Pearcey, Saving Leonardo, p. 145.
2. So infatuated with the fall-out from the Enlightenment, the possibility that science might be able explain and/or control life, a desire was generalized, that the same physical and chemical laws could be applied to human beings!
a. The French Revolution, the Jacobin revolution, resulted in Reason replacing the Christian God.
b. Auguste Comte argued that humanity progressed in three stages and that in the final stage mankind would throw off Christianity and replace it with a new religion of humanity, which married religious fervor to science and reason- even to the extent of making saints out of such figures as Shakespeare, Dante and Frederick the Great. Charles Forcey, The Crossroads of Liberalism, p. 15
c. Henri de Saint-Simon, the articulator of socialism, argued for the supremacy of the sciences over religion, and predicted that, like religious, secular propaganda would employ artists and poets. His collaborator, Auguste Comte, also saw the need for a secular religion, a scientific materialism, which contends that the only reality is what can be detected and measured by human senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. His authoritarian thinking shapes todays liberals doctrinaire insistence that science has the explanation for all things.
3. It was but a short leap to a mechanized view of human beings: evolution.
Herbert Spencer was the most influential popularizer of evolution in 19th century America. Actually, it was Spencer who developed a theory of evolution before Darwin and is credited with coining the phrase the survival of the fittest'. He saw the process everywhere, not only in nature but in human society as well. Spencer embraces other materialist thinkers, such as Marx and Nietzsche.
Herbert Spencer: Social Darwinist or Libertarian Prophet?, by Peter Richards
4. This aspect of the Enlightenment is known as naturalism. Naturalism aligns humans with the evolutionary scheme of things, i.e., the individual does not really matter, and has no intrinsic worth beyond the single task that nature assigns every organism: to reproduce so that the species will survive. Therefore, there is no higher purpose beyond sheer biological existence.
5. Consider the result of naturalisms worldview on society:
a. LONDON (Aug. 26) - Caged and barely clothed, eight men and women monkeyed around for the crowds Friday in an exhibit labeled "Humans'' at the London Zoo.
"Warning: Humans in their Natural Environment'' read the sign at the entrance to the exhibit, where the captives could be seen on a rock ledge in a bear enclosure, clad in bathing suits and pinned-on fig leaves. Some played with hula hoops, some waved.
Visitors stopped to point and laugh, and several children could be heard asking, "Why are there people in there?''
London Zoo spokeswoman Polly Wills says that's exactly the question the zoo wants to answer.
"Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate,'' Wills said. Yahoo! Groups
b. NEW YORK (AP) Scarlett Johansson says that while monogamy might go against instinct, she's happy in her relationship with boyfriend and recent Black Dahlia co-star Josh Hartnett . "I do think on some basic level we are animals, and by instinct we kind of breed accordingly," she says. Scarlett Johansson: 'I'm not promiscuous' - USATODAY.com
c. Sienna Miller tells Rolling Stone,' "I don't know, monogamy is a weird thing for me," Miller, who is still seeing Law, tells Rolling Stone in its new issue. "It's an overrated virtue, because, let's face it, we're fing animals." Sienna Miller Says Monogamy Is 'Overrated' - Hook Ups, Kids & Family Life, Jude Law, Sienna Miller : People.com
6. So, which came first, .folks behaving like animals, or creed that instructed them to behave as such? Obviously, Darwinian evolution is not just a scientific theory. It has worldview implications that percolate from classic literature down to Hollywood and into our living rooms.
Nancy Pearcey, Saving Leonardo, p. 145.
You say that like it's a bad thing?!?
