Governor Cuomo preaches the gospel of secular agnosticism

Secular agnosticism has become the civil religion of the 21st Century.  It is embraced by the powers that be.   It is certainly the official religion of our schools, our popular culture, our higher education, our news media and not a few courts and corporate entities.  Atheism is popular, too.  But for most, it's that vague atheistic model of reality infused with an abstract agnosticism that sometimes spills into a sort of deistic clock-maker god on the best of days.  Usually Sundays.

In the dying West, the origin of this modern secular faith, even Christians are susceptible, and we've seen plenty of that church of STEM and the gospel of medicine since Covid-19 exploded onto our television screens.  Sure, there is theology and doctrine behind missing church and sacraments and finding God where we are.  But most of the reasons giving are reactionary, excuse making for the fact that we're scared, this life is what matters, and we'll give up anything to keep it as long as possible.

Death is better than bondage, or so they kept saying in the 1956 classic The Ten Commandments.  Today, we'll happily embrace bondage to stay alive though any means possible.

So it shouldn't be surprising to hear a national stage politician say that we need to ditch this laughable notion that Covid-19 is being beaten by anything but the power of the people guided by STEM and medicine.  The scientists spoke, the people acted, and we beat it.  Not God.  Not Faith.  That's laughable.  It's only people and science and medicine.  Its' our Babel that did it right.

“The number is down because we brought the number down,” he told the press. “God did not do that. Faith did not do that. Destiny did not do that. A lot of pain and suffering did that…That’s how it works. It’s math. And if you don’t continue to do that, you’re going to see that number go back up. And that will be a tragedy if that number goes back up.”

I give him credit.  He admits where no doubt a great many people who fill churches in a given Sunday happen to be.

Again, and again.  None of this is to say we should do nothing during this pandemic.  We could find ways to maintain a faith centered focus within the Christian family without presenting religion as a non-essential.  We certainly should do what we can to protect the vulnerable and least of these.   And we don't need to play God as a tool in order to score points against Caesar even when Caesar gets out of line. In some ways, that's no less secular than Gov. Cuomo's remarks.

But at the end of the day, we are in an age that has been brutally evangelized by secular agnosticism. This has been going on for generations.  Every week there are no doubt many who fill pews across the West struggling to really believe in Moses or Abraham or David or even Jesus.  Miracles and angels just seem far fetched.  There is probably some afterlife or some divine energy field, but it's nothing to do with one religion or another. 

How dare you speak of evil, it said, or mention the name of Jesus, try to convert others and say people are sinners and wrong.  And suddenly, we were told because you are evil, you will renounce Jesus, you will change and convert to our morals and values, and you will condemn the growing number of people who are evil, stupid, and unforgivable.

The ironic thing in all of this is that never since the scientific and industrial revolutions has the time been more ripe to point out the flaws and fallibility in pure, unfiltered, unrestrained reliance on science and technology.  Never have we had more evidence of the myriad mistakes and failings of the experts, scholars and scientists of the world.  When depression, suicide, hopelessness, emptiness and hollowness are at all time highs, as we watch the civilization that brought equality, dignity of human life and freedom to the world collapse, this was when the Faith could have struck.

Instead, we have been converted by secular agnosticism.  The skeptics discovered the magician's trick and convinced the world that there was never a magician.  They used methods both quick and cunning to sell a lie, and monopolized STEM so that we increasingly believed you could only have one or the other.

Now we're seeing the results.  Covid-19 is all about the science, the math, the medicine.  It's about doctors and nurses who alone matter.  It's about those who take care of the here and now because that's really all there is.  And when all is done and the dust settles, we can do God stuff as a great way to kill a Sunday morning - when we're not too tired.  Because the only reason the world is better is because of science and invention, and economics and politics.  Take your God to the church where he belongs.  And Christians said yep.

I can't emphasize how critical this development is in the 2000 year history of the Faith.  Never before have so many been openly apostatizing and abandoning the teachings of the Gospel.  And now we must ask ourselves how many who aren't doing this nonetheless actually believe any of it.  Soon the dividing line will not be between Catholic or Orthodox or Protestant.  It won't be between Jew or Christian or Muslim.  It won't even be between liberal and conservative. It will be between secular believers and the believers holding to the traditional model of the traditional Faiths.