When a Culture Stops Finding Joy in God,

Last updated on: December 30, 2014 at 12:03 pm by Mark Shea

When a Culture Stops Finding Joy in God, 2014-12-30T12:03:45-07:00 Mark Shea

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

it begins to seek thrills in transgression. The other day we talked about blasphemy and the bourgeois values that most New Atheists affirm in their timid “transgressions” against the Christian tradition. We noted that the New Atheists still sanely hold lots of things sacred. That’s why they don’t advocate race war, or slavery, or wife beating, or child abuse, or the rape of rain forests. Those things would be violations of real sanctities for them. True, they are lesser sanctities, in the theistic picture of things. But real sanctities they remain, including for Christians.

But a culture that enshrines “nothing is sacred” at its core (as fools like Christopher Hitchens did, even as he unconsciously observed all sorts of the sanctities just mentioned) and which gets its substitutes for happiness, not from the joy that comes from God, but from the electric thrill of shocking bourgeois piety? Such a culture sooner or later starts searching for fresh ways to offend, to stab the numbed nerve back to life. And so the New Atheists will inevitably find *their* pieties blasphemed by a fresh generation of soul-numbed wretches in search of new boundaries to push. Case in point: Disney child star Brenda Song.

Tres transgressive, no? Let’s go all Nazi chic! It will drive the folks crazy! Mass murder is, like, sooooo cule!

Special bonus: The article this appeared in, before an editor fixed it, called the swastika “the symbol used by Nazi soldiers in World War II to identify Jewish people.” The doom of a culture of transgression is historical illiteracy, since all that old stuff is stupid crap we’re making fun of, not trying to learn from.

To their credit, they did call it “wildly inappropriate” though, so there are some vestiges of the old sanctities still operating in that newsroom. Brenda’s generation will see to gassing those sanctities. And some future generation will see to gassing the people who reverence them. Nothing is sacred, remember.

People seriously believe that a post-Christian culture is going to be a paradise of freedom and not a bizarre melange of moral chaos and police surveillance state.

Uncategorized

Transgression is for Boring People

Previous Post

October 3, 2012

The Invaluable William Briggs, Statistician to the Stars...

Next Post

October 3, 2012 Trying to figure out the calculus here

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 September 2006 June 2006 July 2005 April 2005 May 2002 April 2002 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz