V.
Now everything is put in its place for us. If Satan indeed became active in the 11th century, we must admit that he was very successful. The secret seemingly must lie in the fact that he did not try to invent the bicycle, but used an old proven method. He began to whisper to humans, as he once had to Adam and Eve: "Be like gods." And mankind again took the bait. Somewhere in the depths of their soul, not even admitting this to themselves, they wanted to become like gods. And in that moment all was decided – the rest, as chess players say, was a matter of technique. And the technique of corruption Satan knows to perfection. He played the rest out as if using a musical score. Nominalism cast aside doubt on the opinion that invisible phenomena can be significantly more real than the visible. Thus, the reality of God, Whom, as we know, "no one hath ever seen," became dubious. Then they began to advertise His replacement. And finally, they completely displaced the central figure of the universe and backhandedly legalized what they had done. As we see, there is nothing original in this, just the usual operation of the seizure of power by a usurper.
Let us sum up. In our attempt to understand the essence of that which occurred in the spiritual life of Europe during the last millennium, we put forth a series of various hypotheses. According to the first hypothesis, during this period there was a process of transition from pre-scientific forms of comprehending the world to scientific. This did not satisfy us for the reason that the very term "scientific knowledge" turned out to be unclear and self-contradicting. This is because, along with honest and objective research, it includes elements of bias and even straight falsification. According to the second hypothesis, this process was defined as a gradual demise of religion, that is, it was the "great apostasy" of Europeans from faith. This hypothesis, although it was more factual, also needed to be discarded since, hidden behind the visible rejection of religion in atheism, some untold but very powerful assertion was uncovered. Now we have come to the third hypothesis: this was a process of the gradual formation of a new religion: the religion of "man-worship" – which entered into battle with past religions and has now become the main world religion.
This hypothesis has the potential to explain much. Only with its help is it possible to understand all three stages of the process as one whole. In the other points of view the Renaissance drops out as something alien. This third hypothesis sheds light not only on history, but on the contemporary world, and allows one to understand the typical traits of our culture. In it, beyond a doubt, are the elements of a cult – the cult of man. Having noticed this once, one begins to see it everywhere.
Having noticed this once, one begins to see it everywhere.
The pathos of artistic literature is brought down to our exclamation of "man – that sounds glorious!" wherewith the word Man is capitalized, just as the word God used to be. In journalism one of the main themes is "human rights." If the question of responsibilities is touched upon, they are understood only as the responsibilities of one group of people toward another. Let us say that alarm over the possible extinction of a certain animal is based solely on the fact that "our progeny will not see such beauty." As we have stressed before, the creative potential of man is considered boundless. This thought has penetrated minds so deeply that, when speaking of the growth of records in sports, the absurd conclusion is voiced that "the physical potential of man has no limits." In general, as one song says, "we have no obstacles, not on the sea, nor on land." Of course such a culture smacks of cultism.
A very important attribute of our third hypothesis is that in its light the phenomenon of science becomes thoroughly understandable, whereas it seems mysterious from other points of view. Science as a world view becomes nothing less than dogmatic theology, without which no genuine religion can exist. Science as a world view provided a logical foundation for the concept of "man-worship" the essence of which remains the same today as when it was first formed in the last century: "Everything appeared and developed on its own." This idea is sanctioned by our civilization and is the linchpin of its creed, which is not open to revision. Here indeed we come face to face with dogmatics.
The great favors which science as a world view showers upon the new cult are generously paid for through monetary subsidies and the overall politics of protectionism. In comparison with other fields of activity, science, it can be said, is bathing in money. As for taking advantage of its privileges, it allows itself much that would be inexcusable for anyone else. Let us take, for example, the notorious concept that man descended from an ape. It is now unequivocally proven that Neanderthal man was not our ancestor. For the evolutionists any other possible link becomes treasured, without which they feel somewhat insecure. The Piltdown man was considered such a link. But then it was discovered that his skull was a counterfeit. Yet, although this fact is written in all the textbooks of anthropology, the Soviet encyclopedic dictionary published in 1980 refers to him as "anthropus," as if nothing has happened, and says nothing of the falsification, thus legalizing the known fraud. Now imagine that some Christian theologian sued a publishing house for publishing in massive quantity information which was untrue or, at least, unsubstantiated. Would anyone take this attempt seriously? Of course not. Although such attempts were made, they came to nothing. In the state of Louisiana some honest people, disturbed that their children's souls would be poisoned with the lies of Darwinism, sued the compilers of their children's textbooks. So far as I know, nothing came of this. For science, everything is permissible, and no one will allow public criticism of it. If you try, for example, to print your opinion in some journal about the honesty of Doctor Leakey, who, having excavated a million-year-old bone of some monkey in Africa, began to gesture with it and scream, "People, here is your ancestor!" you will soon discover what freedom of the press we have. Yet this adventurist is offered the best pages in all the publications and reporters consider it an honor to photograph him.
Here it is that we find the key to understanding the tight symbiosis between science as a world view and investigative science, in consequence of which they are lumped together into one pile. Investigative science is almost that which is officially understood to be science, i.e., it contains both objectivity and credibility. But why "almost"? Because it also contains that which is mentioned in the dictionaries: it takes upon itself the silent obligation to proceed from the atheistic viewpoint. And if non-atheistic results are obtained, these are pushed into the very back of a desk drawer and no attempt is made to publish them. What is it that forces science to exercise such self-restraint? Two simple things: the fear of the whip and the desire of the cake. He who does not abide by these conditions will lose financial support and may be thrown out of the caste. The well-known physicist Artzimovich often use to say that science is a method of satisfying the curiosity of a scientist at the expense of the government, but he should have added that the government opens this account only to that researcher whose sympathies lie with the scientific outlook. Here is the interest of investigative science which pushes it into this union. As for the scientific world view, its interest is even more obvious. Being absolutely fruitless, it shares the fame of the very useful activity of investigative science. With every success of the latter it exclaims, "And we ploughed, too!" Sometimes scientific ideology so shamelessly attaches itself to scientific concreteness which is foreign to it that one is truly amazed. For example, the book of the aforementioned Raff and Kaufman lists many remarkable facts of microbiology which leaves Darwinism without a stone upon a stone, yet this material is presented in such a way as to show that it lifts Darwinism to a higher level of persuasiveness. All in all, both sides win from the alliance. Together they uphold the greatest myth of contemporary life, that "science" is an undivided entity, and that it has proven the absence of God.
What has already been said gives us enough information to accept our third hypothesis as the conclusive one. But let us look at yet another of its attributes: the congruence of its methodology and content. In its content it presents the 11th-century pan-European spiritual process as the fall into the temptation of man-worship. This means that we must favor sources of an earlier time, since a corrupted consciousness is not reliable. The most important of these sources is Holy Scripture. It is precisely here that we find the definition of the essence of temptation, which coincides fully with our understanding. The subsequent events of the millennium unfolded according to the biblical scenario. For example, in the book of Genesis we read that, having conceived the design again to "become as gods," the people decided to build a tower to the heavens. Is this not the prototype of the Russian revolutionaries who said in the 1920s, "We will climb up to the heavens and chase away all the gods"? In other words, the methodology, which is determined by the content, brings us to the texts which independently confirm this content. Yet in the scientific world outlook such congruence is absent. Reductionism, as we know, serves as a methodology here. The content is the thesis "Man – that sounds glorious." But reductionism brings us to the assertion that man descended from an ape. Therefore, if scientists were to be fully consistent, they would write on their banner, "Man – that sounds glorious, because man descended from an ape." Perhaps because of the dissonance of this phrase, man, being the object of an actual religious cult, is not formally declared to be a god: it is rather difficult for reason to take in a god who descended from an ape...
