God’s place in a humanist society (13) [Locul lui Dumnezeu într-o societate umanistă]

The Lord only barely blew some cold air over the UK and the ‘X-mas holidays’ (the Christ-less Christmas of so many civilised secular people) became a mess. Planes were grounded, trains – cancelled, shoppers – prevented from bursting into stores.

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People started whining, and most frustrating was the fact that there was no one to (immediately) blame for the chaos. A bit later, the guilty party was found: it’s the airport operators’ fault, the Government says; it’s the other way around, others claim.

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Across the English Channel (or La Manche), in France and Belgium (where this winter has also driven many people mad), they will need to find a scapegoat very soon as well.

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Too bad fewer and fewer civilised people these days believe that, with or without finding someone to put the blame on, no snowflake lands on the soil without God’s will and foreknowledge. Is He bad when His plans interfere with our holidays plans?

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“Oh, it wasn’t your imaginary God, you fool!,” some could dismiss my words. It’s this scientifically proven (?!) North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Which, irrespective of unleashing some cold winters, ultimately contributes to Global Warming.

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If anyone cares, look for more scientific facts supporting this theory about the NAO! I find it irrelevant to the point I want to make – how secular contemporaries naively imagine that anything could be be scientifically explainable without the concept of God.

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They (apparently!) need rational and authoritative arguments, so that they could religiously adhere to them. Few are those who doubt the prefabricated truths they are told, as most people today need to fulfill a psychological urge to ‘know’.

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Which has nothing to do with actually knowing anything. It’s all about feeling that one is in control of the material world. Lies are easier to swallow than truths for that purpose. Trusting God (apparently!) means giving up one’s control over reality.

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“Who is He to know better than I do?,” asks the vain man of today. People’s hearts are so burdened with sin and deceitful surrogates of happiness, that few could possibly imagine the freedom of putting one’s heart into the Lord’s hand.

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The pursuit of happiness (apparently!) means mastering the necessary technology that would provide that happiness. Knowledge and craftmanshipship are primordial, while ethics become (apparently!) unessential.

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Technology promises to guarantee everyone’s ‘I-do-what-I-want’ but remains as fragile as human beings are; it keeps failing even when faced with powerless snowflakes. It’s so ridiculous to see our freedom restricted by winter.

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Every know and then, the Lord reminds us that heartless technology cannot save us; it often makes the chains of our sins heavier. Too bad that those acknowledging this are even fewer that when St. Nikolai Velimirovich wrote the following:

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“Ethics are likened to a lady, and technology like her handmaiden. That is why ethics have to control technology. Eternal values are the territory of ethics and not technology.

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It is devastating for an entire people to put the purpose of their lives in technology, and all of their labor and sweat they sacrifice to the advancement of technology, dragging behind them ethics, like Achilles dragged the dead Hector tied to a chariot.

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A people like that can succeed to build all of their cities from ivory and gold, but if people like Ahab and Jezebel live in them, dogs will have the last word and not people.”

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I dare not assume to what extent today’s Britons, Romanians or any other supposely civilised people are like Ahab and Jezebel. But I am sure that, even when Elijah comes, many will remain unrepentant just like those tragic characters.

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[For all the episodes of this series, and all the posts on this blog go to/Pentru toate episoadele din această serie şi toate postările de pe acest blog mergi la: Contents/Cuprins]