Ending Up As Greece

Everyone has a mental concept of what's "really real," even if one thinks the Tooth Fairy is real. A worldview, or as Immanuel Kant called it, a Weltanschauung, is a person's "take" on the deepest questions of life that serve as "compass bearings" for our big decisions, core values, and significant meaning in work. 

I'm convinced that the five biggest factors that make up the "compass bearings" of any worldview are: 

• the GOD factor [who or what is the ultimate power and authority?]
• the CREATION factor [what's really real ? how did it get here?]
• the HUMANITY factor [who are we? what gives us true significance?]
• the MORAL ORDER factor [what are the rules ? who decides?]
• the PURPOSE factor [what is the reason for all that exists?]

Beliefs in these five areas will shape a person's concept of what is ultimately "real." Whether or not that Weltanschauung is accurate (or, really true), is another question.

Now let me say something that is politically incorrect and deeply offensive to many in our post-Christian culture: some views of God, Creation, Humanity, Moral Order and Purpose are false.

Our current culture tells us one worldview is just as valid as another, and those who don't agree with this premise are now branded "intolerant." It's against the fundamental code of multi-culturalism. But if we buy into the idea that anything goes, we'll be ending up as Greece, when they came to similar conclusions 2,500 years ago.  

Consider this description of Greece in her latter stages of decline, given by Will Durant in his book, The Life of Greece, under a subsection titled "The Morals of Decay" (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939, pp. 565-568):

• Cults from the East have been accepted.
• Astrology is practiced.
• Patriotism has declined.
• Men practice manners which have previously been considered effeminate.
• The upper class is consumed with the pursuit of pleasure.
• Education stresses knowledge more than character, and produces masses of half-educated people. 
• Public athletic games have turned into professional contests.
• Homosexuality is popular. 
• The dramas of the day are full of seduction and adultery.
• A women’s liberation movement has brought women into active roles in a previously male-oriented culture.
• Motherhood is devalued, and the bearing of children is viewed as an inconvenience.
• Abortion is commonly practiced, as well as infanticide.

Sound familiar? Could there be a reason for this resemblance to our current condition?