This is another guest post from reader Heinrich. I love having guest post from readers and am proud to feature another one by Heinrich. Through I may not agree 100% with everything I still enjoy hearing other perspectives and learning in the process. In this article Heinrich talks about the “religiousness” of Western society and the effects that it has. If you have any questions or would like to reach him you can email him at hvonfrankfurt (at) gmail (dot) com. Enjoy.
I grew up in Northern France between two conflicting influences. On the one side, my parents, hardcore Atheists that did all they could to convince me that only idiots believed in any “god” or whatever other esoterical superstition. On the other side, my hardcore Catholic great-grandmothers and my Catholic school until I went to college. So as a child I was first a Catholic, went to the mass and did my prayers, to then later buy into my parents’ opinion and become a hardcore Atheist.
My faith is not the subject here but years later I found my own way, and I am certainly no more an Atheist. Because Atheism leads to Nihilism. If nothing is above you then nothing has a sense at all. All this to say that I think I had at least a taste of both extremes. And what seems even more confusing to me now is that the so called “Atheist” Western society is in fact very religious.
Let me explain. As a child, I was taught that our State (the “great” Republic that replaced the oh so horrible and so bad monarchy) had since its divorce with the Church in 1905 no links to religion anymore and that it was only appealing to “reason” now.
Just that experience proves this is an utter lie. What do Christians have? They have a credo, they repeat that they “believe in God” or whatever exact sentence it is. And what is our Western society all about? About credos. Not about reality, but about credos. As if repeating something enough times would make it become true even if it is insane. “Men and women are the same”. “Everyone is born with equal rights”. “Democracy is the best regime”. “We live in the Free World”. And how many more?
And yes, those are not statements based in reality, these are just beliefs. Some of which are clearly marxist by the way (equality…). That is why, I say that in my opinion Western society has never been as much religious since the Middle Ages. Because now, litterally everything from job recruiting to State laws to Science itself is dictated by the beliefs Westerners have been taught, and almost nothing founds itself in mere empirism anymore.
To the point that, out of thousands of examples, many “scientists” will now tell you that there are no important brain differences between men and women. While they know they lie, but they either fear retaliation for going against the Dogma, or they themselves believe in the Dogma and so take out any contradictory evidence. As if people had lost their eyes and their ears and just blindly decided to follow gurus who give them well-sounding but false and distorted mantras. But they have. Enough cheap burgers and TV can destroy the will of entire nations.
Let me emphasize on this one thing : we are all believers. We are all driven by a certain view we have of what the “end goal” and “superior force” are. For people recognised as religious this is obvious : the Will of God / Allah etc. But for others this is “the lights of
Reason”, “Science”; or even “destruction”, which is the end goal of the Nihilists, who actually believe in something, since what they believe in is that they need to destroy life itself. Nothingness has become their own “something”. Nihilists are calling themselves “deconstructivists” and rule current Western societies. The man who dresses as a female, the girl who parties hard, takes drugs and alcohol that ruin her body and get multiple abortions, the people who push for the legalization of pedophilia, the ones who want to ban all cars because of “pollution”, the vegans, all those among many other Western trends are Nihilists to a great extent. They cannot sustain reality and so they fall into neurosis and want to take everyone else aboard in their insanity.
Many others believe in “Science”as the new superior force. As a Catholic from the XVIII Century said (I sadly don’t remember his name) sometimes Science is in fact just an expression of “the cold lights of reason”. Meaning that maybe putting Science in the place of the Order (or God if you want) is nothing but counter-productive, it leads to nothing else than bitterness and nothingness. Maybe there is one step which “progress” must not override otherwise it becomes too much and destroys itself. Nowadays credos rule society, just as in the times of the Spanish Inquisition or the witch trials of Salem. Just that the credos have changed. And now imagine that you place not Science in place of God, but Nothingness.
Do not be fooled by beliefs, whatever how many times you repeat to yourself “I can pass through a brick wall”, or how many gurus say it to you, the end result will always be that you will end up bloodied on the floor without the wall having moved an inch.
Though also always remember that nothing, not even reality, will keep a fanatic from doing whatever it takes to “apply” his “for the better good of everyone” beliefs. I know I will make no friends here, but here is a part of History many have never been taught about. Christians gladly destroyed the Roman traditions, they burnt temples, put down statues, made fires with centuries year old texts, massacred entire towns for the “better good of humankind”, to “save them from the Devil”. They won because “Pagans” were “tolerant” and apathetic, just like modern Westerners. As someone said, tolerance and apathy are the last “virtues” of a dying society.
Why do I speak about this you may ask? Well I could have talked about the Muslim exactions in Arabia and Persia and many other more renowned topics than early Christianity. In the end it’s not a matter of Christianity, Islam, Nihilism or whatever, it’s a matter of an extreme ideology becoming a religion and destroying the society it was born into. The point is just to outline what very religious people are capable of doing for their “truth”. Likewise modern Western Nihilists won’t have any mercy for those who stand in their way. Someone once said to me that there are two kind of people in this World : those driven by a word of life and those driven by a word of death. Modern Westerners have chosen Death, and what they want is to take as many aboard as they set their ship on its final course towards the abyss.
I know I sound very pessimistic here and maybe I am. But the beliefs of the Nihilists cannot resist proof and reality. Ultimately, they will get what they want, get destroyed and then things will start again. In the meantime, “Diversity”, “Equality” and “Globalism” have become among others the new idols of the Western World. The weakening of the Church only created a vacuum that is now being filled by Nihilism. Though don’t fall for the lie that Christianity will save the West. It is only an other idol. It has considered two of the most innate human instincts (violence and sexuality) as something to be suppressed and therefore robs you of your vital energy.
Superior forces do not need humans to write books for them. They do not need politicians to make people behave according to their will. Nature just is. It doesn’t matter whether you notice it or not, it just exists and rules over you. As a matter of fact, Christians prospered in urban, densely populated (and with a big part of slaves) areas within the Roman Empire. Just like Muhammad was born in a city known for being a trade hub, and not in some remote desertic village.
Whereas for example the Saxons of rural Germania weren’t converted until Charlemagne and the 800s, same for the Persians that fled the Muslims in the East of modern day Iran. Why? Because like with modern Western beliefs, Christian and Islamic beliefs couldn’t stand Natural reality, they had to rely on an artificial, urban environment as well as on forced conversion to grow. I do not say that everything in Christianity (or Islam, or any other religion) is bad. Many things are great, and it is in any way better than Nihilism. But you do not need a Bible, a Quran or whatever to learn them. Spirituality is a deep human need, but it will never be fulfilled by idols created by people who are either neurotic or want to control others by the religious mean. Also, I find very interesting that Freud (whatever you may think about him) pointed out that from his observation people with repressed sexual desires (which all religions try to put down, and especially our Western Nihilism which basically criminalises heterosexual intercourse) tend to be obedient people without personality who follow (even if reluctantly) blindly the will of “superior” individuals.
To finish this essay that goes into a lot of directions, I will end by saying an other thing that for me proves our society is very religious ie very unnatural. Never in human history have Westerners experienced as much mental illnesses and sexual neurosis. When Freud started to write about those matters, he lived in a very puritan society where official religion still played a major part. And now that “religion” has officially disappeared from government policies, and that sexual mores have never been so “free”, we have even more people with neurosis (mental problems due to suppression of natural instincts). Interesting isn’t it?
