Free Republic

Oedipus’ problem is our problem. Oedipus did not know who he was. Neither do we. The essence of any culture is contained in its religion. But what happens when a country turns its back on God. What happens when they kill their Father? Generally, those who stop worshipping at the altar of God, start worshipping at the altar of State. It is no accident that the totalitarian regimes of the past century were the most atheistic. As we aggressively remove God from the public square, the State looms aggressively ever larger. And in forsaking Heaven we marry Mother Earth and...

When asked what he thought about Western Civilization, Mohandas Ghandi replied, “It’s a good idea.” He certainly wasn’t the first to take Western Civilization(WC) to the woodshed as there is a long pedigree of anti-Western intellectuals and ideas. Ironically most of it comes from the West. Many of these self-appointed anti-Western critics are doing their best to euthanise WC with an intellectual version of “Stop us before we kill again!” Although Voltaire loved to denigrate Christianity, it was Nietzche who knew that being anti-Western wasn’t enough, one had to be pro-Eastern. Just as leftists realized that being anti-American wouldn’t bear...

The motive to reform Islam from within is weaker than the motive of those like Martin Luther, as Islamists can point to the decline of Christian belief and assume the same would happen to Islam. It had not occurred to Protestant theologians who had been trying to “liberalize” and “modernize” Christianity … that they were thus undermining the very religion they were seeking to buttress “scientifically” … When the “protective covering” [of faith] is removed, no one should any longer be surprised to see [Christianity] quickly dry up. — Curtis Cate, from Friedrich Nietzsche. When the 21-year-old Friedrich Nietzsche, who...

“ Until now,” wrote Joseph Comte de Maistre ( 1753- 1821), who for 15 years was a Freemason, “ nations were killed by conquest, that is by invasion: But here an important question arises; can a nation not die on its own soil, with­out resettlement or invasion, by al­lowing the flies of decomposition to corrupt to the very core those original and constituent principles which make it what it is...”

Wednesday October 13, 2010 World’s First Global Atheistic Civilization Headed for Disaster: Former Czech President By Hilary WhiteROME, October 13, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The world’s first global and deliberately atheistic civilization is heading for disaster, the first president of the modern Czech Republic told an audience this week. Vaclav Havel, one of the most respected political and literary figures in recent European history, said that the West “has lost its connection with the infinite and with eternity,” with the result that “endless consumer collectivism is giving birth to a new type of loneliness.”The West’s disconnection from eternity, he said,...

But Sarrazin, 65, made it clear that he will not go away and plans to use his new-found fame to press forward with the issues tackled in his best-selling book: that Muslims are undermining German society and threatening to change its character and culture with their higher birth rate. Whether Germans like his views or not, there is no denying that Sarrazin has struck a chord. ..snip.. So why did he quit now and what will he do next? Sarrazin has already achieved his key aim: breaking a taboo and getting Germans to talk about immigration and integration. Getting dragged...

"World opinion" labors mightily to make Israel look like South Africa looked in its apartheid era—a nation beyond the moral pale. And it projects onto Israel the same sin that made apartheid South Africa so untouchable: white supremacy. Somehow "world opinion" has moved away from the old 20th century view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a complicated territorial dispute between two long-suffering peoples. Today the world puts its thumb on the scale for the Palestinians by demonizing the stronger and whiter Israel as essentially a colonial power committed to the "occupation" of a beleaguered Third World people. This is now—figuratively...

A Prophecy Fulfilled Fr. Stanislas de Lestapis, a French Jesuit, died in 1999 at the age of 94. He had been a member of the Papal Commission on Birth Control and was one of the signatories of its so-called Minority Report. He had published a book on Birth Control, of which the third edition appeared in 1962, long before Humanae Vitae (1968). In Chapter 7, on The Contraceptive Civilization, he made the following bold prophecies: 'We do not hesitate to say that the acceptance of contraception will produce profound changes in our civilization. These changes are already taking place in...

The far-right extremists have gone into conniptions. The bullying, threats, and acts of violence following the passage of health care reform have been shocking, but they’re only the most recent manifestations of an increasing sense of desperation... ...Hence their anger and frustration, which is playing out in ways large and small. There is the current spattering of threats and violence, but there also is the run on guns and the explosive growth of nefarious antigovernment and anti-immigrant groups. In fact, according to a report entitled “Rage on the Right: The Year in Hate and Extremism” recently released by the Southern...

Need Help on Roman History Reading List....

This is Whittle's own repost of one of his best essays. Long, but worth every second (IMHO of course) A note from Bill Whittle: I'm slowly trying to move the best of the old archives over here to the new. Mostly that consists of the SILENT AMERICA essays, but there were a number of pieces that I really liked, and this is one of them -- courtesy of a request by an old friend who was looking for it.In a month or two I'm going to be putting out two compilations of previously unpublished materials: SEEING THE UNSEEN: ADVENTURES IN...

Columbia was, he declared, “a citadel of the mind swaying in the vertigo of a civilization changing (without admitting it) the basis of its faith from a two thousand-year-old Christian culture to the new secular and scientific culture.” Whereas the Christian culture “placed God at the center of man’s hope,” the new secular faith, which was “exclusively rational and scientific,” replaced God with Man. This was not indoctrination into communism, at least not explicitly. “No member of the Columbia faculty ever consciously guided me toward Communism,” he stated. “Columbia did not teach me Communism. It taught me despair.” That despair...

A sea change has occurred in the education of American women: young girls often academically out-perform boys, are more likely to succeed in college and have flooded once all-male professional schools, notably law and business. For example, U.S. Census Bureau figures show that while the male and female population is about equal, males comprise some 58 percent of all high school drop-outs. Similarly, the number of females entering college between 1967 and 2000 increased by 20 percent, while the proportion of men declined by 4 percent. The American Council on Education’s statistics revealed that in 2005 women earned 57 percent...

With Western Civilization under such vicious attack by secular humanism, it is extremely important to understand how Western Civilization came into being. And more importantly -- what civilization is being left to our children.

Losing a beachhead Back to School: Rob Koons, a University of Texas at Austin philosophy professor and a Christian, poured six years into development of a UT Program in Western Civilization and American Institutions. Then administrators yanked it away from him | Marvin Olasky AUSTIN, Texas —"And Jesus said to His disciples . . . 'it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.' When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, 'Who then can be saved?'" (Matthew 19:23-25). "Work your fingers...

Review: How the Byzantines Saved Europe Posted by JOHN COURETAS on MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 2009 The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Edited by Elizabeth Jeffreys, John Haldon, Robin Cormack. Oxford University Press (2008)Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire by Judith Herrin. Princeton University Press (2008) Ask the average college student to identify the 1,100 year old empire that was, at various points in its history, the political, commercial, artistic and ecclesiastical center of Europe and, indeed, was responsible for the very survival and flourishing of what we know today as Europe and you’re not likely to get the...

While the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding was good cinema, it was also a big fat Hollywood fiction.  With Greece's fertility rate of 1.36 children per woman  -- well below the replacement level of 2.1 -- "big" is not a modifier demographers would associate with today's Greek families.  In fact, a more accurate film might be called My Big Fat Muslim Wedding.  Worse still, Greece is no anomaly.  Long ago the cradle of Western civilization and more recently one of its backwaters, it's now part of a phalanx of Western demographic failures.  In fact, while it may seem counterintuitive...

A student group that bills itself as "America's right wing youth movement" focused on countering radical multiculturism, socialism and mass immigration is causing a stir on a growing number of college campuses across the country. The ultra-conservative political group Youth for Western Civilization is currently organized on at least seven university campuses. According to its Web site, the group hopes to inspire Western youth on the "basis of pride in their American and Western heritage," counter and ultimately defeat "leftism on campus" and create a social movement in which a right-wing subculture is an alternative to what it calls a...

ritain is leading the way (and has been for quite some time as I point out here and here) for the rest of Europe in committing cultural suicide. This is but just the latest example of Britain’s rabid determination to break one of the most distinguishable and binding links to their former greatness and hegemony in the Western World. Of course, they are not alone. Several other countries in Europe seem just as eager to pass out the razor blades. I wonder what C.S. Lewis would think of his country today? Probably something along the lines of this, “A man...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Critics say the freedom to criticize Islam in Europe has been put in jeopardy after Dutch politician Geert Wilders was banned last week from entering Britain because of his attacks on Islam. But while the controversial politician may have failed to enter the United Kingdom, the Dutch public has rallied around Wilders, and support for his party has exploded.