Philosopher Daniel Fernand adumbrates the long war against God waged by materialist philosophers from Thales to Nietzsche and argues that the death of God will lead inexorably to the death of liberty.
He concludes his pr�cis with this:
In George Orwell's 1984, Comrade O'Brien describes The Party as "the priests of power," with power itself as their god. Power is simultaneously the method and goal of this new secular religion. As O'Brien tells Winston Smith, "Power is not a means; it is an end. ... If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever".
I've been seeing that picture quite a bit, lately. It is the quintessence of the present-day power-mad, anti-intellectual radical left. In "killing" God, the left was merely taking out the competition, Tony Soprano-style -- and now they've upped the ante.
That metal-on-metal sound you hear every time you are careless enough to waste precious, irredeemable seconds watching CNN, MSNBC, or Robert Gibbs' smarmy mug is the left sharpening its knives for Liberty herself.
Indeed, once God is banished from human ethics there's nothing left but the exercise of power. In the might-makes-right world without God whoever possesses power is free to do whatever he wishes. The secularists don't intend it, perhaps, but the world they would create is the world described by Thomas Hobbes as a war of every man against every man. A world in which life will be inescapably nasty, brutish and short.
That's the trajectory the secular impulse propels us along and the omega point toward which our post-modern world is headed. We should not go gently, or quietly, into that dark night.
RLC