I think of poor Christopher Hitchens, who died a confirmed atheist at the age of 62. His suffering could have been redemptive, as all our suffering can be. I think of my own three brothers who are practical atheists, and one a confirmed atheist, one a confirmed agnostic, and the other just living like an unbeliever.
The Pope Emeritus writes this in the book I am looking at today and tomorrow:
"That purely idealistic atheist is beyond Paul's ken." What the Pope Emeritus means is that it is part of our nature as humans to believe, as humans we all have a tendency towards religion and morality. This tendency is part of natural law, denied by many. The Pope Emeritus writes, "There has always been a knowledge about God" and, therefore, those in our modern times who act as if there is no God, choosing what the Pope Emeritus calls the god of history, the god of progress and what I can the Star Trek ideal of progressiveness, is one of the false "isms" of these times.
The Pope Emeritus notes that the evolutionary ideal of progress is a denial both of heaven and of God's plan for salvation.
Here is the joke of the agnostic false position in that such a person is also usually a cynic, complaining about the evil of mankind, at the same time believing in an evolutionary progressivism.
This is the schizophrenia of the modern ego, refusing humility, refusing to admit that each human is a creature, not a god.
Years ago, I taught a history of western ideas, which included a history of all the heresies. The kids called it the "isms" course. The final exam involved watching The Wrath of Khan and identifying all the heresies. My students found 20 heresies in the first 30 minutes of the movie.
This lie of the immaturity of the ideals of such a popular genre as science fiction is what the Pope Emeritus describes in beautiful philosophical terms in the first chapter of this book.
More later....thanks again to E. G. for the great book..
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