This has been added as a final section in the Secular Humanism and its Meta-Story chapter of my revised book Life’s Ultimate Questions: Exploring the Stories that Shape our Everyday. This section simply answers the “So what? Why does believing this atheistic Meta Story matter? How has this story impacted our cultural story (the culture that shapes all of us subconsciously - and hence determines our destinies as a people? ”
Reshaping the World According to Humanism’s Meta-story
Bolded words with asterisks are defined, described further at the end of the essay.
This last cosmic Meta-story (secular humanism) is the religion of today’s culture. All of today’s answers to life’s ultimate questions have their roots in that foundational cosmic story. This religion has now successfully removed the previous meta-story (Judeo-Christian) from our culture’s marketplace of ideas. If this had happened overnight, we would have taken note and resisted but it has happened over the last several hundred years. It was birthed during the Enlightenment Era, late 19th century. It was carefully nursed to maturity in the halls of Western Academia. It has now sent wave after wave of culture transforming influences through every layer of society. Even the Christian church has absorbed much of this influence without much awareness or resistance. The results have been nothing short of catastrophic, if we but had eyes to see, and wisdom to connect the dots along history’s unfolding timeline. (The last fifty years of relative peace and prosperity in our corner of the world may simply prove to be the calm before the final storm.)
In the earlier era, God defined reality and truth. God and the spiritual dimension were at the centre of all of life. The perfect symbol for this was the church building itself. The Medieval churches and cathedrals invariably were built at the highest point and in the centre of every village. Our human task was to bring our lives and institutions into alignment with divine realities. Today our cultures embrace the exact opposite. Today God has been removed from cultural awareness. If the concept of God is entertained, then he is defined and described by humanity itself. Man becomes the creator of god. We visualize reality simply as a wholly materialistic mono dimensional world. Some of the ‘medieval’ supernatural notions (God, angels, human spirit, devil and demons) are being kept alive only within the private, personal sphere of culturally marginalized people. Today man through his reason and increasingly through his feelings defines reality and truth. The ultimate example of this dramatic cultural phenomenon is easily seen in the cultural normalization of changing one’s birth gender to fit one’s emotional sense of self.
The one surprising element in this 180-degree cultural shift (from God at the centre to Man at the centre) is that the theme of the two Meta-stories has stayed the same. The Judeo-Christian story was all about PROGRESS. The goal was a new heaven and a new earth, perfect in all its dimensions. This perfect world was to be created by God. Humanity’s focus was to be on removing individual and collective sin. Sin was the barrier preventing the coming of the good new world. Progress in Christian character and community, as we wait for God’s New World, was the goal.
In the modern story, PROGRESS continues to be the goal. But this progress is now Man defined and initiated. All who are in alignment with the contemporary understanding of the better world and how to get there are called PROGRESSIVES. This radically new foundational understanding of progress is well summarized in this quote from the
Humanist Manifest 1973 Article 15.
So there stand the theses (Articles 1-14) of religious humanism. Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.
The ideological wars of the 20th century and the right vs left culture wars overwhelming our present day, all have their roots in this new religion (evolutionary atheism, secular scientific humanism). This underlying Meta-story has given birth to and shaped the various ideologies that have defined the last hundred years of human history. Our western cultures all worship at the altar of the Human-Initiated Progress Myth.
The term “ideology” was first coined at the beginning of the Enlightenment Era, late 19th century. The term and concept of religion was to be discarded. It now belonged in the waste bin of history. All religions were now understood simply as primitive man’s attempt at understanding and controlling reality. Science was now giving us the corrected view of reality. Political ideologies of one kind or another became the new religion. Since man was now to be in control, it was man-collectively, the state, that was to take the reigns of cosmic authority and apply them to the task of making the world a better place. Political belief systems were the key to progress. Progress, the theme of this cosmic Meta-story, became the driving passion behind all human endeavour, whether it be technology, culture, or politics. The various political ideologies that have come and gone, and continue to come, have become the new religions. Not a religion with no god, but a religion where Man, or better the State has become god. Our leaders have developed the god-syndrome, “We are the law, we wield the key to the better future, TRUST US, just do as we say”. The dream is a radical Great Reset on planet earth itself. Nothing, no one can stand in the way of “progress” as defined by the dominant ideologues (the political elite) of the day. All resistance, whether person or institution, must be eliminated no matter what the cost. Nothing is allowed to stand in the way of progress. The prize is simply too valuable and too near to risk.
Instead of a New Heaven and a New Earth, to be created by God, it is now the New World Order created by the state (global). Instead of sin standing in the way of God’s redemptive work, it is now resistant pockets of humanity, and fossilized institutions that stand in the way of state sponsored progress. The struggles of the various 20th century ideologies to become global defined that century. Success was limited because cultural resistance was still too strong. But today’s ideology seems to have overcome that resistance. It has become global because of the seemingly unlimited resources and ingenuity of the global elite, the ”global state – the global cabal*”.
Communism* was the first of these Ideologies with global aspirations. Equality for all, the elimination of all economic class divisions was the key to the perceived “Better World”. All resistance was erased methodically. Upwards of 80 million people were eliminated in Communism’s push in Russia. Tens of millions more in communism’s push in China. How many more in so many areas of the world as 20th century communism struggled to become global?
Nazism* was another ideology that sought to become global. Now the ideological key was to become active participating agents in the evolutionary process towards progress, the Better World. The Aryan race (white, blond, blue eyed North European) was defined as the most evolutionary advanced human race. They must be helped to dominate! The elimination of all junk DNA (Jews, gypsies, the mentally weak, any who resisted) was the key to unlock final evolutionary progress. The Nazi death camps are testimony to this demonic ideology, again spawned out of the evolutionary atheistic cosmic Meta-story, the religion underpinning it all. Six million in the death camps, 60 million more in the global war to dominate (World War 2), with the hope that progress would finally come!
Wokism*, the contemporary label given to today’s ideological set of understandings, is really a rebirth and reworking of the original ideology, communism. All the divisions within society, not just economic but now also race, religion, gender as well as nation states, must be eliminated so that progress can be attained. All resistance must be squashed by whatever means possible. Many tools are being put to great effect today: news and social media censorship, cancel culture*, open borders, targeted riots, rewriting of history, indoctrination rather than education of the next generation, election fraud, climate change fears, pandemic fears, vaccine mandates that divide and conquer, all under the guise of virtue signaling* (ie we are doing this for your own good!). All these strategies are within the toolbox of the state’s soft power* (psychological manipulation rather than force). The end well justifies the means! “Progress” will at last be ours! The Global “New World Order” is now finally, it seems to so many, within reach!
Capitalism*, it seems to many in the growing Resistance, is the answer to the “idiocy of wokism”. But capitalism, where unbridled individual greed returns as the ideological key to progress is just another detour. Capitalism’s creed, the reshaping, better exploitation, of all that is in nature (even other humans), all according to our individual greed, is but another pathway that has left God and His purposes completely out of the picture. Capitalism, as practised today, is but another of man’s ideologies to create a better world on his own terms. Capitalism, as practiced today, has already led to so much disillusionment along mankind’s long and sorry history. (Unless you are one of the mega-millionaires and billionaires who was able to capitalize on opportunity).
How many more ideologies will need to be vanquished before humanity realizes that this Meta-story, atheistic evolutionary materialism, is indeed a wrong pathway, a wrong foundational religion, for the human family? All this evolutionary atheistic Meta-story’s offspring, its ideologies, have made, and continue to make, the last one hundred years into the darkest chapter of the human story. It is time to connect the dots. It is time to replace the very foundational cosmic Meta-story upon which our western cultures have been rebuilt. Only then can societal healing begin.
There is one religion more dangerous than any other. It has been responsible for more murder and suffering than all others combined. Its followers blindly accept its rhetoric without question, while allowing themselves to be enslaved by its policies. This religion’s worshipers are so inured that they have accepted its rules as laws and will obey them even to their own detriment. This religion is called statism (ie. State – ism). Leo Tolstoy
Transhumanism* - What is on the horizon for the Human-Initiated Progress Myth? Transhumanism seems to be the next ideology that is intent on moving the human story forward. The limitations of our contemporary human lives must be overcome. Advances in life span, disease control, elimination of negative human characteristics, improved crowd control, plus many more on the horizon. (Terms and concepts to research to help develop an awareness of this next wave: artificial intelligence - AI, robotics, embedded chips, genetic engineering, the Great Reset, the 4th Industrial Revolution – the mingling of science and technology with life itself: the merging of man and machine, social credit systems, etc.)
***
The deadly cultural transformations described above have come (are coming) from the top down, from academia and government (and increasingly from mega-trans-national corporations) down to the masses. (The merging of government and corporation is a key component of fascism*) Any transformation to counter this human destiny and liberty destroying phenomenon will have to be from the bottom up. It will need to start with individuals, their families, their clans, and their communities. May God help us.
Definitions and Descriptions:
We need to do our own research – copy and paste the following links into search engine address bar. Some of this may sound very, very strange but so did the rumours that were circulating regarding what was happening behind the concentration camp walls of Nazi Germany (the poisoning and burning of millions of Jews and Resisters). If the population in Germany had acted sooner, possibly World War 2 might have been shortened by several years resulting in the saving of millions upon millions of lives.
Reshaping the World According to Humanism’s Meta-story
Bolded words with asterisks are defined, described further at the end of the essay.
This last cosmic Meta-story (secular humanism) is the religion of today’s culture. All of today’s answers to life’s ultimate questions have their roots in that foundational cosmic story. This religion has now successfully removed the previous meta-story (Judeo-Christian) from our culture’s marketplace of ideas. If this had happened overnight, we would have taken note and resisted but it has happened over the last several hundred years. It was birthed during the Enlightenment Era, late 19th century. It was carefully nursed to maturity in the halls of Western Academia. It has now sent wave after wave of culture transforming influences through every layer of society. Even the Christian church has absorbed much of this influence without much awareness or resistance. The results have been nothing short of catastrophic, if we but had eyes to see, and wisdom to connect the dots along history’s unfolding timeline. (The last fifty years of relative peace and prosperity in our corner of the world may simply prove to be the calm before the final storm.)
In the earlier era, God defined reality and truth. God and the spiritual dimension were at the centre of all of life. The perfect symbol for this was the church building itself. The Medieval churches and cathedrals invariably were built at the highest point and in the centre of every village. Our human task was to bring our lives and institutions into alignment with divine realities. Today our cultures embrace the exact opposite. Today God has been removed from cultural awareness. If the concept of God is entertained, then he is defined and described by humanity itself. Man becomes the creator of god. We visualize reality simply as a wholly materialistic mono dimensional world. Some of the ‘medieval’ supernatural notions (God, angels, human spirit, devil and demons) are being kept alive only within the private, personal sphere of culturally marginalized people. Today man through his reason and increasingly through his feelings defines reality and truth. The ultimate example of this dramatic cultural phenomenon is easily seen in the cultural normalization of changing one’s birth gender to fit one’s emotional sense of self.
The one surprising element in this 180-degree cultural shift (from God at the centre to Man at the centre) is that the theme of the two Meta-stories has stayed the same. The Judeo-Christian story was all about PROGRESS. The goal was a new heaven and a new earth, perfect in all its dimensions. This perfect world was to be created by God. Humanity’s focus was to be on removing individual and collective sin. Sin was the barrier preventing the coming of the good new world. Progress in Christian character and community, as we wait for God’s New World, was the goal.
In the modern story, PROGRESS continues to be the goal. But this progress is now Man defined and initiated. All who are in alignment with the contemporary understanding of the better world and how to get there are called PROGRESSIVES. This radically new foundational understanding of progress is well summarized in this quote from the
Humanist Manifest 1973 Article 15.
So there stand the theses (Articles 1-14) of religious humanism. Though we consider the religious forms and ideas of our fathers no longer adequate, the quest for the good life is still the central task for mankind. Man is at last becoming aware that he alone is responsible for the realization of the world of his dreams, that he has within himself the power for its achievement. He must set intelligence and will to the task.
The ideological wars of the 20th century and the right vs left culture wars overwhelming our present day, all have their roots in this new religion (evolutionary atheism, secular scientific humanism). This underlying Meta-story has given birth to and shaped the various ideologies that have defined the last hundred years of human history. Our western cultures all worship at the altar of the Human-Initiated Progress Myth.
The term “ideology” was first coined at the beginning of the Enlightenment Era, late 19th century. The term and concept of religion was to be discarded. It now belonged in the waste bin of history. All religions were now understood simply as primitive man’s attempt at understanding and controlling reality. Science was now giving us the corrected view of reality. Political ideologies of one kind or another became the new religion. Since man was now to be in control, it was man-collectively, the state, that was to take the reigns of cosmic authority and apply them to the task of making the world a better place. Political belief systems were the key to progress. Progress, the theme of this cosmic Meta-story, became the driving passion behind all human endeavour, whether it be technology, culture, or politics. The various political ideologies that have come and gone, and continue to come, have become the new religions. Not a religion with no god, but a religion where Man, or better the State has become god. Our leaders have developed the god-syndrome, “We are the law, we wield the key to the better future, TRUST US, just do as we say”. The dream is a radical Great Reset on planet earth itself. Nothing, no one can stand in the way of “progress” as defined by the dominant ideologues (the political elite) of the day. All resistance, whether person or institution, must be eliminated no matter what the cost. Nothing is allowed to stand in the way of progress. The prize is simply too valuable and too near to risk.
Instead of a New Heaven and a New Earth, to be created by God, it is now the New World Order created by the state (global). Instead of sin standing in the way of God’s redemptive work, it is now resistant pockets of humanity, and fossilized institutions that stand in the way of state sponsored progress. The struggles of the various 20th century ideologies to become global defined that century. Success was limited because cultural resistance was still too strong. But today’s ideology seems to have overcome that resistance. It has become global because of the seemingly unlimited resources and ingenuity of the global elite, the ”global state – the global cabal*”.
Communism* was the first of these Ideologies with global aspirations. Equality for all, the elimination of all economic class divisions was the key to the perceived “Better World”. All resistance was erased methodically. Upwards of 80 million people were eliminated in Communism’s push in Russia. Tens of millions more in communism’s push in China. How many more in so many areas of the world as 20th century communism struggled to become global?
Nazism* was another ideology that sought to become global. Now the ideological key was to become active participating agents in the evolutionary process towards progress, the Better World. The Aryan race (white, blond, blue eyed North European) was defined as the most evolutionary advanced human race. They must be helped to dominate! The elimination of all junk DNA (Jews, gypsies, the mentally weak, any who resisted) was the key to unlock final evolutionary progress. The Nazi death camps are testimony to this demonic ideology, again spawned out of the evolutionary atheistic cosmic Meta-story, the religion underpinning it all. Six million in the death camps, 60 million more in the global war to dominate (World War 2), with the hope that progress would finally come!
Wokism*, the contemporary label given to today’s ideological set of understandings, is really a rebirth and reworking of the original ideology, communism. All the divisions within society, not just economic but now also race, religion, gender as well as nation states, must be eliminated so that progress can be attained. All resistance must be squashed by whatever means possible. Many tools are being put to great effect today: news and social media censorship, cancel culture*, open borders, targeted riots, rewriting of history, indoctrination rather than education of the next generation, election fraud, climate change fears, pandemic fears, vaccine mandates that divide and conquer, all under the guise of virtue signaling* (ie we are doing this for your own good!). All these strategies are within the toolbox of the state’s soft power* (psychological manipulation rather than force). The end well justifies the means! “Progress” will at last be ours! The Global “New World Order” is now finally, it seems to so many, within reach!
Capitalism*, it seems to many in the growing Resistance, is the answer to the “idiocy of wokism”. But capitalism, where unbridled individual greed returns as the ideological key to progress is just another detour. Capitalism’s creed, the reshaping, better exploitation, of all that is in nature (even other humans), all according to our individual greed, is but another pathway that has left God and His purposes completely out of the picture. Capitalism, as practised today, is but another of man’s ideologies to create a better world on his own terms. Capitalism, as practiced today, has already led to so much disillusionment along mankind’s long and sorry history. (Unless you are one of the mega-millionaires and billionaires who was able to capitalize on opportunity).
How many more ideologies will need to be vanquished before humanity realizes that this Meta-story, atheistic evolutionary materialism, is indeed a wrong pathway, a wrong foundational religion, for the human family? All this evolutionary atheistic Meta-story’s offspring, its ideologies, have made, and continue to make, the last one hundred years into the darkest chapter of the human story. It is time to connect the dots. It is time to replace the very foundational cosmic Meta-story upon which our western cultures have been rebuilt. Only then can societal healing begin.
There is one religion more dangerous than any other. It has been responsible for more murder and suffering than all others combined. Its followers blindly accept its rhetoric without question, while allowing themselves to be enslaved by its policies. This religion’s worshipers are so inured that they have accepted its rules as laws and will obey them even to their own detriment. This religion is called statism (ie. State – ism). Leo Tolstoy
Transhumanism* - What is on the horizon for the Human-Initiated Progress Myth? Transhumanism seems to be the next ideology that is intent on moving the human story forward. The limitations of our contemporary human lives must be overcome. Advances in life span, disease control, elimination of negative human characteristics, improved crowd control, plus many more on the horizon. (Terms and concepts to research to help develop an awareness of this next wave: artificial intelligence - AI, robotics, embedded chips, genetic engineering, the Great Reset, the 4th Industrial Revolution – the mingling of science and technology with life itself: the merging of man and machine, social credit systems, etc.)
***
The deadly cultural transformations described above have come (are coming) from the top down, from academia and government (and increasingly from mega-trans-national corporations) down to the masses. (The merging of government and corporation is a key component of fascism*) Any transformation to counter this human destiny and liberty destroying phenomenon will have to be from the bottom up. It will need to start with individuals, their families, their clans, and their communities. May God help us.
Definitions and Descriptions:
- Cabal – a secret society of global elites that are believed to be orchestrating today’s dramatic social changes that they see as necessary to usher in the New World Order. The faces that we see in the controlled mainstream media day after day are simply the “useful idiots” on the elite’s pathway towards that Better World.
- Communism - equality of outcome rather then simply equality of opportunity, enforced by government fiat.
- Nazism – The governing ideology that inspired Hitler (1933-1945) to expand the German empire during World War 2. With each advance, the first order of business was the rounding up of questionable populations; the destination; the concentration camps for the Final Solution.
- Woke individual – A person who is awake to all the perceived inequalities of our day (eg. racial, social, gender, economic, justice issues) and is awake enough to put the shoulder to the wheel to help make the changes that will bring Progress. All the other people, by definition, are still asleep. If these can not be woken, they must be marginalized if not eliminated. This term probably has some roots in Buddhism where the ultimate goal of the individual is to be enlightened, to have one’s mind opened, ie. becoming awake to truth.
- Cancel culture – the practice of forcefully shutting down all non-woke influences within culture ie Conservative news, Conservative influences and organizations.
- Virtue signaling – oozing the sense that one is morally superior to all others, that the actions that are being taken are being done for the good of others, even for those who are still asleep, not yet in agreement with progress as defined by the woke left.
- Soft power – (in contrast to hard power - bullets), persuasive rather than coercive, eg. maintaining the necessary cultural narrative through manipulative journalism, repetition till the masses believe the lies, cultivating values and perspectives through selective censorship, language manipulation (changing definitions to fit the narrative). Soft power has traditionally been a key part of the skill set of foreign relations. Now it is being successfully used on the nation’s unsuspecting population.
- Capitalism with a Conscience (not as practiced today) - equality of opportunity, equality under the law, generous to the poor, protective of the environment, enforced by the constitution.
- Transhumanism is a futuristic movement that is mingling the life sciences with bio-nanotechnologies. The goal is to advance human evolution beyond the limitations of today’s human biology. (Currently at the design and initial implementation stage. Many cutting-edge culture watchers suspect that current globalizing pandemic policies are an initial trial run, possibly even an initial implementation of secretive futuristic technologies.
- Fascism is a centralized totalitarian form of government with strong economic and social regulations and forced suppression of all opposition. Today’s leftist Antifa (anti-fascist) protest movements oppose all forms of right-wing political thinking. The irony here is that Antifa fears totalitarianism on the Right but unknowingly embraces it on the Left.
We need to do our own research – copy and paste the following links into search engine address bar. Some of this may sound very, very strange but so did the rumours that were circulating regarding what was happening behind the concentration camp walls of Nazi Germany (the poisoning and burning of millions of Jews and Resisters). If the population in Germany had acted sooner, possibly World War 2 might have been shortened by several years resulting in the saving of millions upon millions of lives.
- https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/transhumanism-expert-exposes-liberal-billionaire-eletists-great-reset-agenda/
- Why "Transhumanism" is the Issue of Our Age - by Joe Allen (substack.com)
