For many centuries Christianity had great influence and power in Europe. It had great impact on western civilization. It effected almost every aspect of society: law, morality, world conception, purpose, etc. Everywhere you turn in western society you see the effects of Chrisianity.
But, subsequently, many things happened that caused a deteriation in the belief in Christianity: social changes, political changes, different points of view, etc. As time went on more and more people ceased to believe in Christianity. It became supplanted and superceded by other belief systems (or no belief system). This makes it so that we are now in what I calle the post-Christian era.
Since Christianity has been here for so long many of the customs, attitudes, and ways of Christianity still make up everyday life, determine our character, and affect our view of life. All these continue and still play a part in life . . . but the belief is gone. This creates a condition where many Christian attitudes and ways are upheld but without any belief. In effect, the ‘machinery’ of Christianity is there, but the ‘passion’, belief, and authority is lacking. I call this Blind Christianity. This is one of the characteritics of the post-Christian era.
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PERSON AND ITS EFFECTS
Many Christian beliefs requires things like a suffering or penence (a self-denial). For centuries, Christianity has demanded some form of self-denial as part of its belief system. As a result, a great deal of Christian ways are based in some form of self-denial. By itself, self-denial can degrade and, in a way, destroy a person. This is especially so because the self-denial of Christian belief is usually quite demanding and can require a lot from a person. But, in Christian belief, self-denial is only part of a process . . . a process that is completed in belief. Basically, a person is ‘broke down’ in self-denial and then ‘raised back up’ with belief. In other words, to make all this self-denial valid requires belief to make it legitimate. This makes belief is essential in the practice of Christian belief and self-denial. Without belief Christian self-denial turns into a form of self degradation and self destruction. As a result, the maintaining of Christian customs and attitudes without belief (which is Blind Christianity) tends to create a number of problems such as:
- Low self-esteem.
- A poor outlook of oneself.
- Feeling that one is a bad person.
- A self-destructiveness.
- A self-defeatism.
- A tendency to pout and sulk about things.
- Blind fear and even paranoia.
- A poor outlook of the world.
- A negative viewpoint of things.
- Seeing things as worse than they are.
Much of these things are based in the Christian idea of sin and the ‘evil nature’ of humanity. Without belief the idea of sin and the ‘evil nature’ of humanity become “pure realities” as if alone and by themselves. They cease to be part of a greater story . . . they are “just there”. As a result, they become a dominant force in how one perceives themselves and the world. Because of this, Blind Christianity has the quality of cutting ones self, and the world, down in one way or another. Everything becomes ‘bad’ in some way. This tendency to cut ones self, and the world, down tend to create a general downcast attitude. As a result, Blind Christianity often tends to degrade a person and brings a person low.
I often feel that many modern psychological problems are somehow associated with Blind Christianity in one way or another nowadays. It creates problems in the perception of these areas:
- Personal. The cutting of oneself down can have great effect on how one perceives oneself.
- The world. The cutting down of the world makes the world appear sinister and threatening and, often, a horrible place.
The net result is often a very low viewpoint of life in general. This often creates a tendency to see bad in ones self all the time, and the world. As a result, it creates things like:
- A sense of hopelessness.
- A feeling of being trapped.
- A fear.
- A sense of helplessness.
- A feeling of being threatened.
- A sense of paranoia.
These can lead to almost depressive-like attitudes. It can make the world appear very dark and threatening. People who take Blind Christian attitudes, it seems, often tend to age quickly and become very grouchy, irritable, and such, it seems to me. I’ve often thought a lot of alcoholism in western society is associated with the effects of Blind Christianity.
THE WORSHIP OF SUFFERING
Often, the blind suffering and self-effacement of Blind Christianity is practically worshipped. Its not uncommon for many people to see suffering and pain as some sort of ‘growing’ or ‘coming of age’. As a result, they will often purposely suffer and degrade themselves thinking its going to help them. This is no surprise as Christianity taught us to worship suffering. This does not necessarily mean that its done willingly, knowingly, and eagerly though. More often than not, we are unaware of our own worship of suffering. This makes it so that many people living with Blind Christianity tend to fall easily into suffering, often very easily, without being aware of it. This is because the Christian worship of suffering has created what can be described as an attitude of a ‘willingness and openness to suffering’, whether its conscious or not, willing or not. Suffering is easily accepted into peoples lives as if it were an old friend. Because of this, some people will see suffering in everything and see life in a grim gloomy way.
A MALE REACTION: SELF-DEFEATISM
Blind Christianity seems to of created a tendency for males to be self-defeating. I originally made reference to this in an article called “Thoughts on the self-defeating quality in the post-WWII American male – the coming of the ‘nothing male’“. In self-defeatism, the male basically undermines himself with his own beliefs and as if turns him into a ‘nothing’, defeating himself and who he is. In effect, he destroys himself. Many American males do this to this day. They will take views that will guarantee this situation and even promote these views.
A FEMALE REACTION: SELF-EFFACMENT
The effects of Blind Christianity make many females develop an attitude of what I call self-effacement. This is really a variation of male self-defeatism but reflected in the female character. It has more the quality of a self-defeatism in the eyes of another. Whereas the male becomes self-defeatist the female, due to her different character, is more inclined to see herself as defeated. A common result of this is that it makes many females feel that they are a ‘victim-of-the-world’, seeing abuse and victimizing in everything. This causes many females to see themselves, and the femalehood, in a very bad light. Many will paint themselves out as the ‘abused’ and ‘oppressed’, almost to the point of religious proportions. This tends to create feelings of low self-esteem and self-degradation. Another effect of this is to make girls ‘flee their feminity’ and seek to be men, as if that will solve their female defeatist attitudes. In general, the self-effacement of the female makes females “deface” the femalehood in one way or another, usually by:
- Portraying the femalehood as bad.
- Trying to be a man.
In both cases, they destroy the femalehood and its image: self-effacement. As a defence against this many will blame the male or society for what they, in actuality, did to themselves. Because of this, it can make females very accusatory and blaming of people. One can see that, with the female, the self-effacement seems to get into more involved feelings and reactions than what we see with the male, who usually defeat themselves and thats it.
The negative attitudes of Blind Christianity have even brought in a rebellious attitude, rebelling against its bad effects. In other words, many people will begin to fight the negative and bad effects of Blind Christianity. Oddly, rebellion against Blind Christianity has this tendency to become an avenue for Blind Christian tendencies. In other words, they actually end up making it worse and reflecting its values. This shows, in my opinion, how ingrained many of these Christian viewpoints are.
So far, from what I have seen, no one has been able to absolutely remove themselves from Blind Christian attitudes, even when they rebel against it. As a result, people are rebelling against something they cannot separate themselves from and which continues to influence them. This creates a peculiar dilemma. It makes Blind Christianity something hard to fight and also hard to define.
THE PROJECTION OF CHRISTIAN MISERY
One effect of Blind Christianity is to project Christian misery upon other people and the world. In other words, it consists of an ease in seeing misery everywhere and in everything. In fact, what has happened is that Christiainity, with its emphasis on misery, has created a whole myth about misery in the world in general. These include:
- The attitude of seeing misery in everything would become critical in the creation of the modern world which sought to ‘end misery’. As a result of this, Blind Christianity had great influence on basic attitudes of the modern world and how it behaved in the world.
- Blind Christianity caused a whole myth about misery in the world by looking at the world as miserable and needing to be ‘saved’. This caused a whole campaign to try to ‘save the world’ which continues to this day.
- There developed myths of how the past was miserable (I wrote an article called “Thoughts on the myth that the past is miserable” that you might find interesting).
They also saw other non-Christians in the world as miserable and wretched. Naturally, they all have to be ‘saved’.
In short, they have completely distorted and warped the very idea of ‘misery’, often assuming misery where there is none. A good example is how they immediately “assume” people are miserable because they live in mud huts or don’t have hot and cold running water. Perhaps we could describe this tendency as ‘blind misery’ as its a blind interpretation of misery. I’ve talked to quite a few Americans about this and I don’t think any of them had a clear view of what misery is even though they, themselves, may suffer from misery . . . they had distorted it so much. Generally, the distortion is not the actual idea of misery itself but more the attitudes that they attach to it, such as:
- What causes misery.
- What solves misery.
With an American the answer usually seems to involve democracy or consumer products and is usually associated with nationalistic pride in some way. As a result, the idea of misery becomes associated with all these other things which really have nothing to do with misery at all. In this way, it distorts the idea of misery.
BLIND CHRISTIANITY AND THE GOVERNMENT IN POST-CHRISTIAN TIMES
Blind Christianity, in the post-Christian era, has a lot to do with the development of democracy and many modern government policies. Many of these views are Christian-based and reflect Christian beliefs, though it may not seem like it at first. In fact, the forcing of democracy on the world is really nothing but a continuation of converting the world to Christianity. As such, in actuality, when a country adopts democracy they are actually adopting a modified Christian belief, applied to politics. Because of this, the democratizing of the world is really a form of Christianizing of the world.
Some of the similarities with Christianity include:
The emphasis on the people (the people are the “body of Christ”).
- The idea of overthrowing tyranny (Christianity was founded in the opposing of Roman rule).
The idea that democracy ‘saves’ people from tyrants, oppression, etc. (a variation of Christ as Savour).
- The forcing of these points of view upon the world (conversion).
But, by the time they began to apply Christian belief to politics it had turned into Blind Christianity. As a result, Christianity-applied-to-politics is actually Blind Christianity, along with its destructive elements. Because of this, the destructive nature of democracy is a reflection of these destructive elements. If we look at what actually happens under ‘democratice rule’ we see that it has a history of undermining. Almost everywhere democracy goes we see things like:
- The fall of belief and religion in general.
- The fall of culture.
- The fall of social hierarchy.
- The fall of tradition.
- The fall of peoples roles.
- The fall of authority.
- The fall of morals, morality, etc.
In short, we see that democracy has a history of destroying and undermining human society. A lot of this is a result of the destructive qualities of Blind Christianity. More than once have I described democracy as a self-destructive system.
THE NEW SELF-DESTRUCTIVE SOCIETY
Overall, I’m under the impression that Blind Christianity has caused a general deteriation and self-destructive quality in western society. In fact, it seems to be bringing it down. Through its mentality it seems to of caused a society that is destroying itself, as if eating itself up from the inside. It has caused the creation of many attitudes and viewpoints that, at first, seem good and beneficial but are actually undermining and destructive. Many of these attitudes and viewpoints are ‘honored’, a remnant of the worship of Christian values. In fact, one can often assume that most ‘honored’ attitude or viewpoint – basically, the “ideals” – is a reflection of Blind Christianity and, accordingly, a reflection of its destructive nature. In other words, the development of Blind Christianity has created a condition where the “ideals” are, themselves, destructive in nature. This is the opposite of what you would normally think, as you’d think “ideals” are a reflection of good values. But, as I have watched it here in the U.S., I can see that the “ideals” often hide sinister elements and qualities. In fact, more than once have I said that America is destroying itself with its own “ideals”. To me, this is becoming more and more apparent as I grow older. As I’ve watched it over the years I can see how many of these “ideals” are actually eating things up silently and anonymously, hardly being noticed by anyone. Its like some great disease that slowly erodes and deteriates over the years . . . a sign of the hidden self destructive qualities of Blind Christianity.