One of the most important books of the 20th century—it remains a best-seller 59 years after it was first published—is “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl.
Marx saw man’s primary drive as economic, and Freud saw it as sex. But Frankl believed—correctly, in my opinion—that the greatest drive of man is meaning.
One can be poor and chaste and still be happy. But one cannot be bereft of meaning and be happy—no matter how rich or how sexually fulfilled one may be.
The greatest provider of meaning for the vast majority of human beings has been religion. In the West, Christianity (and on a smaller scale, Judaism) provided nearly all people with the Bible, a divine or divinely inspired text to guide their lives; a religious community; answers to life’s fundamental questions; and, above all, meaning: A good God governs the universe; death does not end everything; and human beings were purposefully created.
In addition, Christianity gave Christians a project: Spread the Good News, and bring the world to Christ. And Judaism gave Jews a project: Live by God’s laws of ethics and holiness and be “a light unto the nations.”
All this has disappeared for most Westerners. The Bible is regarded as myth, silly at best, malicious at worst—there is no God, certainly not the morality-giving and judging God of the Bible; there is no afterlife; human beings are a purposeless coincidence with no more intrinsic purpose than anything else in the universe. In short: This is all there is.
So, if the need for meaning is the greatest of all human needs and that which supplied meaning no longer does, what are millions of Westerners supposed to do?
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1 comment:
After reading this... is Prager also saying that the "right" is a Jewish/Christian Theocracy?
I don't think so. I think his argument fails in many ways, Prager tries to conflate things that don't really belong together.
He seems to miss the fact that America has ALWAYS been secular. This is the reason that religious freedom has flourished.
He claims that for most Westerners, the bible is regarded as a myth, and that there is no morality giving God, etc, etc. How can this be? 70% of the country is Christian! This is just false. He needs this to build his strawman though, so he un-thoughtfully includes it. He needs it for his persecution complex.
Marriage and children ARE PATENTLY not religious in nature. Children are a biological function, our genes want to reproduce themselves, and marriage developed as a way to protect and secure property. Religion may have glommed onto to it.... but again, Prager is just dead wrong.
He goes on to trash the first "secular" nations (forgetting that AMERICA is one), and curiously includes Nazi Germany, which was not non-religious, it was mostly Catholic, and the nazis had Christian religious messages engraved on their belts. They may have been incorrect in their thinking and interpretation of the bible and Christianity... but you don't get to argue for the moral high ground when your facts are wrong and blatantly refute your argument.
I do find concern about the new left wing ideas, but half the nation is liberal, and half of Christians are liberal or left wing... I think his broad brush strokes do everyone a disservice, and muddy the waters in finding real answers and solutions.
What is the point of this entire article? If it's not summed up by "old man yells at cloud", I'm not sure what it is? May be demonize secularism? America is secular. Always has been.
I'm not sure he knows.
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