A CRACK IN CHINA'S ATHEIST EDIFICE?
The best thing the Chinese government is doing is not cracking down on Christianity. Cracking down would tie Christianity to the struggle for freedom from state repression and thereby ennoble it, make it modern and "enlightened," and encourage its growth. Letting Christianity run its course should lead to its eventual fall from its tendency toward decadence and corruption and its vulnerability to a science-driven decrease in "gaps" for God to fill. Then it would be replaced by atheism as is happening in Europe. Or, it will morph into evangelical science and reason denialism and somehow be usurped by conservative politicians as we have seen happen in the US, for now but hopefully not forever. Enlightenment science, reason, and humanitarianism may be slow to spread and take root but they are proving to be highly potent in the long term. Let's hope the long term is long enough.
HOW AMERICA FAILED
This interview, especially the book How America Failed it
focuses on, presents a serious challenge to freethinking humanism as received
from the Enlightenment. Science, reason, and humanitarianism may, repeat may,
be succeeding globally in the long term but they are clearly failing in the US.
What, if anything, can be done when the best ideas and methods Western
civilization has produced for governance and social life are willingly and
knowingly rejected by the majority in the most powerful, wealthiest, and most
highly "educated" country in history? I tend to agree with the book's
author, Morris Berman. Nothing. We're screwed. The blind thundering herd of
selfish greedy individuals is taking us all over the cliff and into the abyss.
Not so, you say? Please explain.
