the inexpensive and widespread control of vast amounts of information; this has made it possible for an entire subculture to trick itself into believing it can manufacture its own reality
Spot on and great stuff.
It's worth mentioning that morality and scientific reasoning are both the fruit of religion. First, science depends on the realistic understanding of the inspired-but-fallible human nature of the scientist himself. That comes to us in a unified chorus from the Greeks, the Jews, and Christianity. For starters, because even brilliant men can be mistaken or corrupt, observations must be observable by another observer!
The scientific method also embodies the Judeo-Christian view that the universe is an orderly place created by a benevolent God with laws that man can discover through disciplined observation. It was developed through the teaching of St. Albert the Great in the 13th century at the University of Paris. His students included St. Thomas Aquinas.
Christianity discovered the scientific method itself because of an accurate assessment of the nature of the observer (man) and the thing observed (the universe). Notice that the subculture tricked into "believing it can manufacture its own reality" is an explicitly anti-Christian one. Without an accurate philosophy, you can't get to the scientific truth.
Did not the Apparition of Mary at Fatima warn the children about as follows:
"If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church."
I've always found fascination in those words, particularly the remarkable use of the word "errors." The revolution that led to the communist takeover of Russia started in March of 1917; the Apparation of the Virgin at Fatima started in May of that same year, and the words quoted above were passed to the children in July of 1917, at virtually the exact midpoint between the March revolution and the November revolution of that year; this two-phased revolution destroyed the Russian royal family and brought the nation under the communism of V.I. Lenin.
Manufacturing one’s own reality...
That’s what Gods do, right?
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and YE SHALL BE AS GODS, knowing good and evil.