THE "ISMS" BY WHICH WE LIVE - PART III
And that leads us quite naturally to our second popular “ism”, secularism.
The age of secularism made its dramatic debut in 1965 in Time magazine when, in its October 22 issue, the front cover asked in bold letters, “IS GOD DEAD?” And the ensuing answer was, yes. God is dead because matter or material is all there is. Everything comes from the dust and returns to the dust. God is dead and the mind is the “foam on the beer” of a materialistic body. The spiritual life is a delusion of wish dreams emerging out of needs, desires and lusts driven by materialistic powers.
Of course, the “God is dead” theory had been gaining momentum before Time magazine’s startling cover story. The philosophy of materialism in some ways fueled the Industrial Revolution enabling more of the world’s peoples to enjoy the material things of the world.
Cynicism toward religion emerged. Edward Gibbon. in his monumental Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire wrote: “Toward the end of the Roman Empire, all religions were regarded by the people as equally true, by the philosophers as equally false, and by the politicians a equally useful.” (1776:1:22) Napoleon remarked cynically that “religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”
Marx and Lenin were right in step with the skeptics saying religion was the opium of the people and the deep sigh of the oppressed. Of course they advocated a proletarian or laborer and peasant revolution. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” was the unfulfilled communist slogan.
We might caustically observe that the capitalism of our day might have the slogan, “from each (taxpayer) according to his ability and to each (failed automaker and Wall Street bank executive) according to his inability.” Or as one humorist put it with respect to corrupt capitalism. “I either want less corruption or more chance to participate in it.”
Meanwhile over in philosophy and theology it was suggested God was created in man’s image, and not visa versa. Individuals, groups and nations created the gods they needed. Revolutionary father of modern psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, agreed. In his book, The Future of An Illusion, Freud contended we created a divine father image to supplement the weakness of our earthly father. This religion was illusion, helpful perhaps, but illusion nevertheless.
Philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche, brilliant son of a Lutheran minister, pronounced God’s death. Moreover he had to die, said Nietzsche, so man could overcome his adolescent dependence on a projected father figure. Theologians on both sides of the Atlantic quoted Nietzsche. But we have to say with one observer, “What can you say about a society that says God is dead and Elvis is alive?” (Irv Kupcinet)
Bishop John Robinson of England said in his book, Honest to God, that we needed to give up the notion of a “God out there” and concentrate on life in here, in the earth and in ourselves. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote of man “coming of age”, of becoming an adult in the universe, of doing it on his own without immature dependence on God. Like the old aspirin ad, we should insist, “mother/father, I’d rather do it myself.” I’m on my own in this materialistic universe, no divine props needed thank you.
Then came the popular book, The Secular City, by Harvard Divinity School’s Harvey Cox. In the spirit of the times, Cox said nature was disenchanted (i.e. no signs of the divine were to be seen in nature) religious institutions were irrelevant and many would die by the year 2000. Human beings should become independent, self-sufficient secular men and women and build the secular city of justice and harmony and prosperity. No outside divine help needed, thank you. We’ll do it on our own.
The word secular comes from a Latin word meaning this age, this time, this moment, the now. Is it any wonder we had the “now generation” emerging? I remember a delightful cartoon in the New Yorker magazine. A young woman is standing before a huge desk behind which is seated a cigar smoking corporate tycoon, his sprawling factories visible through the huge window behind him. Standing in her miniskirt and sneakers she says, “Please, sir, I want it all now!”
So a new generation of materialists and consumers decided to make the most of this age, this saeculum, since everything, all life and reality, is a chance collocation of atoms. Therefore, many of us, in our compulsive acquisitiveness and insatiable greed said to whatever materialistic gods might be, “please sirs/madams, we want it all now because now is all there is.”
But a strange thing happened in the race to materialistic success. Peggy Lee same along with her haunting song about coming to the pinnacle of achievement in fame, money and possessions, asking “Is that all there is? If that’s all there is, let’s bring out the booze and have a ball, if that’s all there is.”
And further, a strange thing happened on the way to the New York subway. One day, there was a huge graffiti painting saying. “God is dead, Signed Nietzsche” A few days later beside it was another larger graffiti saying, “Nietzsche is dead. Signed, God.”
` (to be continued)
