The Morality of Law

Law is essentially moral in both nature and origin. It would be hard, and a bit too circuitous, to argue that laws against theft and murder are not essentially moral positions. These positions are enforced legally in societies that, presumably, you or I or anyone would want to live in.

It is an abstract (and highly modern) notion of law which allows one to state that law is not necessarily moral. At its root, law is moral; and if a law isn't grounded in moral principles, then it ought not be law.

Now, people cannot look into the state of the heart. We are not talking about piety or sincerity, we are talking about the basic moral nature of protecting people from theft, murder, slander, etc. The law is an objective moral standard for those, and there are many many who fall into this category, who do not intuit the "golden rule."

Entire civilizations have been and are being built on principles other than the "golden rule," such as those the armies of Genghis Khan operated under, or the Vikings, or the Nazis, or the Soviets. To say that law is not moral in nature, or to imply that people don't need these laws, is to overlook a great deal of, not just the accidents or mistakes of particular groups who have betrayed their own moral law, but of the large and powerful groups of people throughout history who have an alien moral law which purposely burns, rapes, and pillages in complete agreement with their (false) moral law.

As such, no law is or can be amoral in nature, even if from certain perspectives a law in question may seem distant from its basic moral principle.

All legislation is fundamentally moral in nature. Law is unavoidably moral. This is why the question, "which morals?" is so pertinent. The problem today is that people think they can legislate in a morally neutral way, but that itself is a moral position.

In other words, of course we should legislate morals, like morals that forbid murder and rape. We as a people need to know our criteria for the morals we choose to legislate, and where we get these criteria, and not pretend we can legislate in a moral vacuum.

If someone says I am morally wrong to impose my morals on others, and that they are morally right to not impose, then they are arguing morally; and if someone tries to legislate that, they are legislating their morality over and against mine, imposing their moral vision of society onto me.

What gives them the moral right to legislate their morals if their very reason for disagreeing with me is that I am legislating my morals?

The fervor for secularity omits very real and very severe truths, because the idea of the secular borrows much of its ethics from religion. A secular culture does not need to be tolerant, and nothing but religion actually requires tolerance. And even if people regularly fail to live up to their religion's principles, it only proves the necessity for those religious principles because without them there would be no philosophical check against secularity becoming the cruelest and most inhuman experiment ever invented.

And so, as the secular continuously tries to cut itself off from its religious roots, it will cut itself off from its humanity. A separation of Church and State requires a Church to be separated from, otherwise the State becomes its own wicked and distorted version of a Church - minus a moral compass.

What is Freedom?

Many in our culture stand today behind the banner upon which is written: FREEDOM!

What, however, is freedom? What is "freedom" that people advocate for it?

One of the major assumptions today is that freedom, to be free, means that one has unrestrained access to the fulfillment of desire. In other words, it is freedom to do whatever one wants, whenever one wants to, however one wants to do it, and with whomsoever one wants to do it with. In short, freedom is the unrestricted access to express or act upon some feeling or desire.

There is a basic problem with this, however, for desire is actually a form of enslavement. Desires actually arise in the mind in an impersonal manner. One sees "object x," for example, and one finds oneself desiring it almost automatically. One sees "behavior y," and one finds oneself desiring it almost choicelessly. Did the person "choose" to desire these? Not likely. Desire is just a movement of the psyche in response to some sensory stimulus, either present or absent, real or imagined.

Now, since the act or experience of desiring just kind of "happens," when one defines freedom as the ability to act on desire, one is actually defining a form of slavery. How? Because they did not "freely" choose the desire. The desire was pre-loaded, in a manner of speaking, and so the person is seeking not to be free, but to obey! The person wants to OBEY the desire. The freedom most people seek is the freedom to obey irrational impulse, and yet they use a catchword, a slogan word, "freedom," in order to make the slavery to desire sound enlightened.

Paul, in Romans chapter 6, puts it this way: "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?"

In other words, when one seeks to "freely" obey desire, they become desire's slave. Desire, however, has within it the seeds of misery and death. Since desire is by nature fleeting and capricious, it contains within itself its own frustration, which in turn leads to more desire, and so more enslavement, and finally spiritual death.

True freedom, however, is freedom from the tyranny of the passions, freedom from desire.

Paul continues: "For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness."

This might shock some people, if they are paying close attention, for Paul is not advocating for "freedom" here at all, but for slavery, for servitude. In truth, one is either a slave of sin unto death or a slave of righteousness unto holiness and everlasting life. There is no enlightened "freedom" standing in the middle.

The Scriptures teach that true freedom is freedom from sin, not freedom to sin. True freedom is obedience to righteousness, which is unto holiness and life everlasting. Read Romans chapter 6 closely.

To close, as people cry out for "freedom," please understand that their understanding of freedom is false and depraved. It is freedom to be enslaved to sin, and to be free of righteousness, not free in any positive or life-giving sense of the word. Quite the opposite, really.

Atheism is Pantheistic Nature Worship

Atheism is pantheistic nature worship.

One inexorable thing about religion is that human beings cannot escape it. Whether we change the words or deny them outright, religion describes (accurately) the way by which we relate to that which we find most true, compelling, and valuable.

A Christian, for example, finds Christ most true, most compelling, and most valuable.

Supposedly, an atheist finds science most true, most compelling, and most valuable.

Science, however, is not a thing or a content, but a methodology, one by which one filters varying types of empirical observations about nature. It is actually totally nature-focused, and as such gives nature pride of place as that which must be submitted to. In fact, this is what is indicated by saying atheism is nature worship.

Now, because atheism does not recognize an authority higher than nature, nature therefore stands in for its highest truth and authority, that which cannot be overcome, countermanded, or escaped. Practically speaking, whether something is true or not, whatever is one's highest truth or principle is one's god. As such, atheists treat nature as god, and so, since there is nothing beyond nature according to such naturalism, they are in this sense quite pantheistic.

Pantheism is the idea that god is Thing, and is All the Things. It fails to recognize a transcendental reality, but collapses on an extreme focus on material reality, infusing ultimate meaning therein and admitting nothing beyond it. This is precisely the position of atheism.

Atheism is thus just a modern form of an old saw: pantheistic nature worship. Do not let its reductive materialism, scientism, and advanced technology fool you, for these are merely a thin veneer masking one of the most primitive types of mentality.

Moral Arguments claiming "It's Natural" are False and Dangerous

It is not only false and irrational but actually dangerous to assert that because something is "natural" it is therefore also moral.

Simply because something happens in nature, or simply because animals are observed to perform some behavior in their natural setting, that it is somehow therefore morally acceptable for a human to perform the same behavior, is patently absurd and morally depraved thinking.

In short, it is false in at least two ways:

The first is that animals commit cannibalism, slavery, murder, war, even genocide. As such, if someone argues that "natural behavior" is okay because it occurs in nature, then one must also include by implication that cannibalism, slavery, murder, war, and even genocide are also okay, because they occur in nature and are equally "only natural."

The second way one gets oneself in trouble is because humans are also part of nature, and because they are equally a part of nature one implies that everything a human does can therefore be considered natural, and therefore moral. With this reasoning one again justifies rape, cannibalism, abuse, slavery, pedophilia, murder, torture, war, and genocide.

The first example is irrational because one has no criteria by which to deny any evil, and so there is likewise no criteria for determining any good either. One cannot proclaim something good in a system which cannot discern what a good even is, only what is natural - thereby not only letting in all the cruelty of nature, but actually justifying cannibalism, slavery, murder, war, and genocide. The second example suffers the same fate as the first, but is particularly grievous because it ends by making all human behavior self-justifying in its "naturalness."

In sum, one cannot rationally argue that because it is "natural" it is therefore okay, because then it is okay to do anything that animals do, or okay to simply do whatever terrible deed because it is simply a part of human "nature." This is irrational and completely undermines the entire moral force of an argument "from nature," actually disallowing any sense of morality, and dangerously justifying great evil.

Nature is no basis for determining right and wrong, and without right and wrong one cannot argue that ANY behavior is morally defensible.

Secularism is a Religion

Secularism is a belief system which, by the demands of its own definition, systematically removes God from consideration in major areas of human life and community. As such, secularism is an assertion and application of atheism in the public sphere. Since atheism, and therefore secularism, makes claims about the nature and function of humanity and of reality, it is thus answering to basic religious questions, and so itself functions as a type of religion, and thus the fundamentally atheist secularism contradicts itself on its own grounds. This means that, since secularism does in fact function as a pseudo-religious ideology, it must therefore not only be identified as such legally, but must also be kept from asserting a monopoly in the public sphere, and its claim to be a type of neutral ground utterly rejected.

Perhaps a few definitions, five really, from contemporary dictionaries may help in demonstrating this, giving a clearer picture of what is being all too briefly analyzed. (1) Merriam-Webster online states that secularism is “the belief that religion should not play a role in government, education, or other public parts of society,” and that secularism is “indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations.” (2) Citing a Random House dictionary, Dictionary dot com says that secularism is a “secular spirit or tendency, especially a system of political or social philosophy that rejects all forms of religious faith and worship,” and that it is “the view that public education and other matters of civil policy should be conducted without the introduction of a religious element.” (3) The Free Dictionary online, citing The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, quotes that secularism is “religious skepticism or indifference,” and is “the view that religious considerations should be excluded from civil affairs or public education.” (4) Collins English Dictionary is cited on the same site as identifying secularism as a philosophy, a philosophy which is “a doctrine that rejects religion, esp in ethics,” and that it is “the attitude that religion should have no place in civil affairs,” and “the state of being secular.” (5) Finally, on the same site, Ologies and Isms is quoted as saying that secularism is “a view that religion and religious considerations should be ignored or excluded from social and political matters,” that it is “an ethical system asserting that moral judgments should be made without reference to religious doctrine, as reward or punishment in an afterlife.”

In case someone may object to using dictionaries as a source of information regarding the nature of contemporary secularism, one can only respond by saying that, unlike the major religions, there is no source of “orthodoxy” for secularism as practiced today, no source of ideological authority, and, in absence thereof, these definitions will be able to suffice as legitimate approximate descriptions of secularism. In this vein, then, we might also note the remarkable consistency and compatibility among them.

As such, let us look more thoroughly at the above definitions to see what sort of creature we are dealing with. First of all, taking the first source, that secularism is “the belief that religion should not play a role in government, education, or other public parts of society,” we might notice, perhaps with a sense of irony, that it begins by describing itself as a “belief.” In other words, it is not a science, nor is it a fact. It is a belief, and it functions methodologically by seeking to remove religion from “playing a role in government, education, or other public parts of society.” In other words, it is the systematic application of one belief over other beliefs.

Secularism is therefore not equivalent to “science” or “scientific thought,” it is also not equivalent to a “neutral ground” for the interaction of ideas. According to the given definition, it is a belief system whose basic assertion is that “religion should not play a role in government, education, or other public parts of society.” In short, it is ideological totalitarianism. It is the belief that no other belief systems, at least ones which include spiritual “considerations,” have any place in public or legal discourse. It is thus de facto atheist, which is also to say materialist and predisposed to materialism.

The second part of the first definition says that secularism is “indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations.” So it is either indifferent, rejecting, or excluding of religion, even religious considerations. It is therefore a “belief” that dogmatically treats religion suspiciously and its considerations with hostility, ideologically rejecting and excluding them, leaving no room for any other ideology which includes a religious dimension. Again, though, it should be stressed that secularism is a philosophical position, one which rejects religious philosophy out of hand, but in and of itself pretends to be not religious.

The second definition states that secularism is “especially a system of political or social philosophy that rejects all forms of religious faith and worship.” So it is an entire philosophy, a way of governing people in such a way as to reject “all forms” of religion. It is by nature biased such that it is non-different on this level from atheism. As such it is the triumph, at a political level, of atheism against religion. It forcibly favors anti-religious views of man and society, and replaces religion with itself, and so stands in the vacant place as the last remaining way of life, the religion that wins by claiming to be non-religious.

The third definition states that secularism is “religious skepticism or indifference.” This is not just a whimsical doubt, of course, but an institutional doubt, a fundamental and systematic mistrust of religion, and therefore of religious people, requiring a hermeneutic of suspicion which helps to fuel hostility. Since secularism is not fundamentally scientific, but is a philosophy, it is the totalitarian philosophy which rejects all other religious institutions and their people’s considerations. It is a philosophical position, and as such it is making the claim that religion is systematically not desirable. It is also a metaphysical claim that religion can be dispensed with without detriment, and as such the adherents of secularism function as "believers" in anti-religion.

The fourth definition states that secularism is “a doctrine that rejects religion, esp in ethics.” Thus we see another notable dimension to secular thought, aside from the use of the word “doctrine,” the rejection of morals derived from religion. In other words, secularism says as a matter of philosophical "doctrine" that religion has nothing of fundamental value to say on the subject of ethics. In its anti-religious fervor it can even perhaps go out of its way to seek to reject that which religion holds to be morally true. The definition continues to state secularism is “the attitude that religion should have no place in civil affairs.” It is an attitude, an approach, a way of viewing religion as needing to be privatized, alienated from the public sphere, and whether the religion is true or not is not allowed to be considered, only that it is silenced.

Finally, the last definition states that, in addition to the repeated assertions that religion should be excluded from the public sphere, secularism is “an ethical system asserting that moral judgments should be made without reference to religious doctrine, as reward or punishment in an afterlife.” In other words, for secularists morality is merely the mutable assertions of humans - which, however hard some may try, will ultimately remove all possibility of inalienable human rights. Furthermore, no consideration which accounts for that which is beyond this life is allowable. So, after excluding religion, this philosophical ideology also excludes any possibility of the afterlife as being seriously considered as relevant to making moral judgments. More basic, of course, and worth taking especial note, is the fact that secularism is being identified as an “ethical system” at all.

To collect some of the above data, we have seen that secularism has been described as (1) a belief, (2) having a doctrine, (3) an attitude, (4) an ethical system, all of which of course function together systematically to reject any and all religious considerations as a matter of principle. Can secularism therefore deserve to be called neutral in regards to religion? In a word: No. It is a philosophical antipathy towards all things religious, and therefore is inherently predisposed to be prejudiced against all religious ideas and people. Secularism, then, really functions to destroy religious freedom rather than protect it.

Also, in denying the metaphysical ground of ethics, it will also ultimately undo all ethics. Since secularism’s ethics are simply the assertion of people’s opinions and impressions, it will never be able to conjure a stable ethic. Freedom will become barbarism. Rights will become petty obstinance and petulant whining, the mere assertion of confusion. Love will become a blind eye. Justice will become systematic, efficient, and godless oppression and tyranny. The separation of Church and State will become the marginalizing of the Church by the State.

In attempting to further identify the properties of this ideology, we can also note that secularism functions to maintain a doctrine, just as religion does, an attitude, just as religion does, an ethical system, just as religion does, and holds an integrated network of beliefs, just as religion does. In other words, secularism functions as a complete “replacement religion” for religion. In other words, it is the religion of non-religion, and so it cannot be authentically called a non-religion, but a religion which is blind to its own religious nature.

Secularism thus functions as the false belief that man does not need religious belief, and self-contradictorily that he not only can but does get along in the important matters without it. It also says that man, if he be governed well, needs to be governed by godless principles. Through its ethics it further holds that considerations of the afterlife are irrelevant, and so anything considered of significance regarding the afterlife is rendered null. Denying all metaphysical depth, it therefore builds its entire ethical structure on worldliness and materialism, which center on comfort and pleasure, breed individualism and superficiality, and thrive on impressionistic and shallow thinking.

And so, rather than no particular religion being favored by secularism, the religion of non-religion is preferred by secularism, and is what secularism is. And as more and more of life gets incorporated into the public sphere, more and more will religion be privatized, marginalized, and ideologically alienated by this new religion, with its doctrines, beliefs, attitudes, and ethics, all bent at annihilating all competing religions and replacing them with itself.

The charge of atheism therefore sticks, which means that anyone who follows the logic of secularism will eventually be led towards the full scentless flower of atheism. Secularism is the arm of atheism, the self-contradictory application of its metaphysical denial of metaphysics. Atheism is a religious position, and as such it must be identified as such. Atheism is not equivalent to science, but is a faith claim that there is nothing of significant truth in theism - whether it be Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and, despite some claims of atheists otherwise, even Buddhism. Via its intrinsic atheism, secularism is and cannot be neutral towards religion, but is dead set against it, and so the religious nature and function of secularism needs to be widely published, and legally asserted, so that it can monopolize our public sphere no longer.