Religion For Atheists: The Birth of Technocratic Theocracy, or the Rebirth of Positivism?
The Paris Olympics have just ended, with the closing ceremony dubiously accused by some online of being a secret vehicle for Satanism. I think they’re getting confused with the opening ceremony, which seemed to go out of its way to mock Christianity by virtue of being unnecessarily presided over by a big blasphemous blue Smurf surrounded by a hideous harem of transgender disciples lampooning the Last Supper upon the banks of the Seine.
The Smurf Supper may have been widely ridiculed, but it did have at least one constructive outcome – it caused the founder of this very website, Toby Young, to have what he called “a revelation” whilst watching it. A religious revelation? Sort of, but not in a personal, Damascene, sense. Instead, it allowed Toby to gain a sudden insight into the new religion of our governing classes: a creed which, in a recent article in the Spectator, he has aptly dubbed “technocratic theocracy”.
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I remember one Christmas, when I was a real medic and therefore able to comment on the doctors.net website, an atheist GP regretting the fact that he did not have carols he could sing enthusiastically. Of course, I got push-back when I suggested that this might be inevitable given his lack of anyone to sing them to.
But what a difference there is between our congregation of 150 adults and children singing out their experience of God from their hearts last Sunday, and some stage-managed pseudo-religion telling the audience what they ought to celebrate. There are those enthusing about the production values of the Paris show, but that’s scarcely the same.
I suppose one might imagine the state managing karaoke sessions with some success, but Prometheus, the spirit of our age, was never able to satisfy the soul (and what resulted from his efforts was Pandora’s jar).
The production values reveal hubris and over-reach.
The wokey wokey organisers thought they were on safe ground because in their world they are surrounded by wokey wokey people.
They clearly thought it was funny. The Smurf Supper a parody.
Hence it never occurred to them a lot of others across the world are not wokey wokey.
Those are the production values.
Tobes is wrong when he equates the woke with Christians. Christianity involves no coercion ppl are free to follow Christ or not, no one is forced there is just a promise of eternal life (real or imagined). Islam on the other hand is a convert or kill religion created by a war lord that bears far more similarity to the woke in terms of the othering of all non believers. So Islam and the woke are tribal whereas Christianity simply is not, a key difference. So Tobes was on to something but he’s not quite nailed it.
Yes—–Where is this “social justice” in the bible?
I agree completely. Christianity initially spread by persuasion, Islam spread initially by conquest.
Churchill’s description of Mohammedanism in his book The River War, although it could put you in prison today, was superb.
“Diversity is our strength”. No, what people who say that mean is that they want more black people and less white people and you can only have strength if you have more black people and less white people. But isn’t it funny how Japan is not full of black people, so does this mean they have no strength? Should the Congo be full of white people to make it strong?
In the aftermath of the riots, it didn’t take long for the new clerisy to raise the spectre of the football supporter as the embodiment of the barbarian within the gates.
But if any of these high priests of the new religion had actually watched or attended a high-level football match in England in recent years, they would have been witness to the regular spectacle of everyone on the playing field bowing down to the new religion by “taking the knee”.
Even more bizarrely, and quite contrary to their assumptions about those attendees of this spectacle, they would have seen this laughably absurd imported gesture roundly applauded from the stands.
So rather than football supporters being the Nazis of their imaginations, what they’re actually demonstrating is that they see football supporters in the same way as the real Nazis saw the Jews during the Third Reich, as a disease within the body politic, and a group to be demonised and ostracised, based solely on deep seated prejudice rather than any observable reality.
So who are the real Nazis now?
Stupid Comtes.
Sports stars and pop stars are allowing their popularity to be exploited for political purposes. When football players all take the knee they are letting the social justice people use them. There was a player from Crystal Palace called Wilfred Zaha who saw through this indignity and refused to participate, and because he was black nothing could be said. Had he been white he would likely never have played football gain—-Well done to that man.
IIRC the players at Toby’s club, QPR, got together and said they weren’t going to take the knee and articulated the reasons.
I don’t know what happened after that. Maybe they got a tap on the shoulder.
A few years ago, when this was a hot topic, Osi Omenyura the American footballer, 2-time Super Bowl winner with Nigerian parentage explained very eloquently on the BBC NFL highlights programme why he would not take the knee. It may be on YouTube. It was a powerful argument.
Man was created to worship.
God also gave us free will, the ability to decide, the ability to accept or reject Him.
Humanists worship man. They have their own funerals, songs, ‘celebrants’, prophets and apostles. They claim to love, but hate Christians, yet tolerate Muslims.
Ask yourself why.
I forgot, we’ve got the paralympics to come haven’t we? Shall we count the ways in which this is going to be an unethical shitfest for female competitors? Andrew Parsons, president of the IPC, seems very content to screw over the female competitors and enables this fraud to continue. ”Valentina Petrillo will become the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the Paraylmpics this month after being selected by Italy for the major event. The 50-year-old began living as a woman in 2018 and began hormone therapy a few months later to begin the transition. She came close to making the Italian Paralympics team in 2021 for the Tokyo Games, but wasn’t selected for their roster. That was used as fuel by Petrillo to target the Paris Paralympics and she won two bronze medals at the 2023 World Para Athletics Championships. It saw Petrillo become the first transgender athlete to win a track and field medal on a global stage. Her achievement drew widespread criticism with Canada’s former Olympic head coach, Peter Eriksen, branding it ‘shocking’. Britain’s third-fastest female marathon runner Mara Yamauchi also questioned ‘How many 49-year-olds would win medals at world level?’ Petrillo competes in the women’s T12… Read more »
There were very few truly pious English kings. Henry VII, while observant in religious matters, was not personally interested in religion in its theological, devotional, or spiritual depths. His actions as ruler were earthbound and religion was a useful element in the established social scale. Starmer’s statement that he sees in ‘faith’ – not religion, mark you – is not unlike Henry’s practical attitude to governance. Starmer is one of the educated elites, despite the circumstances of his upbringing. Of the men who rose to high position to influence policy between 1490 and 1590 three out of four were lawyers. It was what the educated classes thought worth studying that provided the engine of change during the late medieval period. It is what such articulate classes have chosen to study as worthwhile today that indicates why these educated ruling classes have adopted these reformulations of religious faith. Reformulations complete with catechisms such as a man can become a woman. Faith greater than that which moves mountains. In the ancient world, religion had little directly to do with government rule. Inside the religion of the State, and tolerated by it, were many modes of worship. A person could have two religions, that… Read more »
While I enjoy the author’s frequent articles, I find them unnecessarily lengthy.
My simple view is that Christians and Christianity is being ridiculed at every opportunity and us believers are not standing up to the ‘drip drip’ denigration or the morals and values that Christians hold dear. This ‘cowardice’ will permit the secular forces to dominate and we will become less caring to our neighbour. It is very likely that I will be gone but it does not bode well for my daughter and grand children if the Christians do not stand up and be counted.
The Paris pageant glorified the present promotion of infertility, which is the inevitable outcome of our gradual loss of meaning. The 1960s were the obvious start, with the joyous rebellion against social and sexual norms, a bit like shorting the poles of a battery to make a spark. But there are only so many contrasts you can short out before you get to promote infertility and finally insanity. One step to go, it seems.
Wonderful pie e. Amusing and insightful.