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These rational men imagine it.

I disagree with you that they were rational. I think you also do not believe they were rational, because you said, "And your 'good, decent, rational individuals' are only as good or decent as their devotion to the Divinely-ordained Natural Law as perceived by Reason." Why do you say they are rational? What is contrary to truth is irrational.

Only Jesus Christ can and will save the world.

If you know this, why do you get in such a big sweat over what ignorant men say? You know they aren't going to change anything.

Hank

I believe they are "rational" (note the quotes) because they base their philosophy on reason -- but a "reason" based upon the false Enlightenment assumption that the material world is the only reality. Since their reason is based upon a false premise, the conclusions arrived at are also false.

In other words: such people are rational from the perspective of materialist, humanist post-Enlightenment Western thought -- but, by ignoring the Natural Law and the existence of God ("Right Reason"), they and the post-Enlightement philosophy they represent are the antithesis of reason as it was known in Western civilization up until the end of the Middle Ages.

What I'm trying to say here is that there can be neither goodness, decency, nor rationality in a world without a supernatural Absolute by which to measure such qualities. If Goodness, Decency, and Reason are not real things (ikonos) in and of themselves, but are mere labels defined by popular vote, an oligarchy of trendsetters, or by how a given person's stomach feels on a given day, then the terms "goodness", "decency" and "rationality" are meaningless; Good = Stuff I Like, Decent = Stuff I Like To Look At, Rational = Sounds Good To Me Right Now But Maybe I'll Change My Mind Later. Without a supernatural Standard in Whom "we live and move and have our being", without a transcendental Truth to be perceived by Reason, then reality dissolves into a cloud of sensory data and opinions about same -- and thus into the void of the existentialist, where Universe, Body and Mind are nothing but disposable pawns in a cosmic word-game that no one can ever win.

"What is Truth"? asked Pontius Pilate sarcastically, never dreaming he was literally staring Truth right in the face. Thus always to those who fool themselves into thinking that truth can be derived through intellect alone.