In the beginning man was connected to his world by his posture of subservience to the world around him. This world dictated he fend for himself, to explore, seeking the sustenance gave him strength to seek it more efficiently and successfully. He arose from his stooped, inferior posture to one of burgeoning dominance over what he developed as HIS world. He bonded with others like him creating society. Society developed culture. Culture developed acceptable practices (and unacceptable acts to be avoided) for individuals living in groups.

When cultured man experienced forces he couldn’t control and had a direct effect on him, his society and his world, he sought to placate those forces with sacrifice. He submitted to a power greater and more powerful than he. His attempts at placating this greater power were a matter of trial and error. What appeared to get the power to stop it from raining was copied and repeated until a mythos developed where the actions of the ritual were accepted as creating the effects desired. Ritual became repetition codified into dogmatic rite practiced when the need arose.

Think of the displacement of free will exhibited when a culture is stressed or tested. They naturally follow somebody exhibiting repetitive successes by following rituals. Success builds faith in the practitioner after success is realized. Failure is explained away as a lack of proper execution of rituals. But faith is always directed toward success. Success becomes its own reward.

Pharaoh led the Egyptians as a God unto himself. The Jews saw their deity as greater than they and thus lived in awe of the unseen presence. The higher power was displaced from the ego of man and was held to be superior to simple human understanding. Societies suffered population schisms. More cultures spread across the world. Some held together as faith solidified into churches and churches directed states.

Eventually the Pantheon of Gods was displaced with an almost universal acceptance of ONE god over all. This has been displaced by man’s acceptance of the idea that because of his self-proclaimed divinity, self-worth and the solidification of his ego he has NO higher power.

Man believes HE is IT.

Man now thinks he’s ascended to godhood in himself. For those who accept Christ as their personal savior this means God sent his child, IN THE FORM OF MAN to transmit God’s teachings on a level of equivalency with man so man might better understand what God said. The same goes for Mohammed. GOD becomes god.

Man has embraced the idea he holds the knowledge necessary to direct the course men will follow. It’s based on the theoretical ethics of men directing men to adopt the laws of man over the ethical teachings of societies going back to the farthest edges of primordial time. Man wants everybody to accept that track record as superior to his experience with superior forces’ strength throughout the ages.

Man wants godhood. It’s visible in the adolescent intractability of secularists’ egocentrically espousing their theory over experience.

Secularists suggest an oval carries the same cyclical intensity as the circle of life. They reject the circle of life’s meant to be accepted as a given as opposed to a debatable hypothesis.

That’s why secularism based on theory, as opposed to real faith driven governance at the highest levels of government, has always failed.

Barry; there is a higher power and it isn’t you or the state. You have NO repetitive successes for us to base our faith on.

Thanks for listening.