Blinded By Faith: Making Biblical Sense of the Faith that is Transforming Society and Obscuring the Truth

By Keith Marcinkus

SEE HOW FAITH SHAPES US ALL -

For centuries, ideas based upon the Christian faith shaped how most people in Western Civilization understood the world. Clearly, this is no longer the case. For many, those Biblical convictions have been replaced by various concepts and theories like evolution, uniformitarianism, moral relativism, religious relativism, etc. We all know these ideas have powerfully influenced society. But most do not realize that, like the Christian convictions they have supplanted, they too are built upon a foundation of faith. Revealing the battle over hearts and minds, Blinded by Faith:

• Uncovers Naturalism: the faith-based foundation of many modern ideas
• Shows you how Christianity and Naturalism lead to very different views of the same world.
• Enables you to examine the Naturalistic faith, its development, and the ideas it has inspired, within the context of a Biblical view of history.
• Demonstrates how this modern faith is fundamentally changing American society
• Provides you with insight on how Naturalistic ideas are setting the stage for specific prophecy to be fulfilled.
• Equips you to stand confidently and boldly on God's word, putting your doubts to rest concerning the relevancy of the Bible in a world confused and darkened by faith-based ideas contrary to it.

Blinded by Faith will open your eyes to the pivotal role faith plays in all our worldviews, and how the colliding of the two most prominent belief systems in our society have created irreconcilable divides. Whether the cultural wars revolve around science, historical narratives, human rights, abortion, school curriculums, sexuality, marriage, public policy, or even reality itself; it is essential to understand that at the heart of these conflicts frequently lie two clashing faiths: Naturalism and Christianity.

In the end, only one is worthy of your trust. Only one will give you discernment to comprehend the events and weather the storms that surely lie ahead of us. The other will blind you from the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HigherLife Publishing
• Release date: Aug 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781954533158

Book preview

Chapter 1

Faith and Worldviews

I remember walking into those old church buildings. It would be bright outside and then I’d cross the threshold, entering through the main entrance past the heavy wooden double doors, into the dimly lit main hall. They all had that same smell, the distinct scent of musty old oak furniture. Every Sunday was the same; early in the morning my family would walk down the center aisle, past the carved end caps of the pews that acted as bookends to the most uncomfortable benches known to man. Cushion-less and solid wood, they were the kind of seats that, the moment you sat down, all you could think about was the next time you would get up. Thankfully, the constant standing, kneeling, and sitting during the services seemed to be set up with the discomfort of the wood seats in mind, providing frequent periods of relief. But that wasn’t the only uncomfortable thing I had to endure. If it wasn’t the pews, it was the dry messages preached by some robed man whose drone-like delivery drove me to seek relief in extended trips to the parish bathrooms. As I got older, these restroom trips extended even further, into time spent sitting in the winding stairwells or occasionally outside on the front stoop where I would bide my time for as long as I would dare.

Even though we moved around a fair amount and attended numerous churches during my childhood, they all shared that same traditional feel, no matter the city or town. Every Sunday morning, especially when I was very young, I would be found within the walls of a steepled building. Even though I was there in body, my mind and heart could not have been further away. For as long as I could remember, the only thing that excited me about church services was the anticipation of it coming to an end. This excitement always grew as the end of the hour drew nearer, knowing I would soon join my family in a 2-minute car ride to the local donut shop around the corner. Sometimes I would join my dad in the quaint shop, with the eager expectation of donuts soon crossing my lips. The bright lights, the warm sweet smells that hit you right when you walked through the doors, and the friendly smiles and small talk were welcome every Sunday. The golden-brown honey glazed donuts, still warm and sticky to the touch, were my favorite. Of course, the Boston Cremes were also a treat to look forward to, if only I could get one before my dad ate them. That alone made the whole Sunday routine bearable.

With every passing year, our family went to church less regularly, attending mostly during Christmas and Easter. For me, the religious meaning of these holidays was never the focus of our celebration. Nevertheless, we all had great fun together, enjoying the yearly traditions. I fondly remember every December, our home would become filled with the smells of the Christmas season: the fresh aroma of baked cookies and sweet bread, and the fragrant smell of a freshly cut Douglas-fir. As the centerpiece to our living room, this tree was decorated from top to bottom, sparkling with tinsel and lights, and sprinkled with peppermint candy canes which I routinely plucked from its branches. Filling the rest of our home was an assortment of handmade decorations my siblings and I yearly brought home from school, adding to our ever-growing ornament collection.

For a number of years, the Christmas season was an anticipated buildup for a visit from Santa Claus, a large omniscient man who somehow fit down our chimney to deliver gifts as everyone slept. As the story goes, this magical man judged the behavior of children and compensated them with gifts or coal, depending upon whether they were good or bad. To my delight, I discovered that Santa was much more tolerant than adults made him out to be, bringing plenty of gifts even if the scales of goodness were not always tipped in our favor. As for Easter, we looked forward to a peculiar giant bunny rabbit who snuck into our house when we were asleep, in order to deliver a basket full of eggs and goodies to our bedsides. After deductively pulling down the veneer of these holiday mascots at a very young age, the religious aspects behind these days still remained absent for me. Perhaps less time spent in the stairwell or daydreaming about donuts would have changed that; I’ll never know. Regardless, my interest remained steadily focused on the festive traditions: the shiny decorations, sweet and tasty treats, and the anticipation of gifts.

As I grew older, I began to form my own opinion about religion, and by the time I was 15 years old I had formed quite a negative one. I avoided going to church services at all costs, routinely giving my parents a hard time. It was not long before church was optional and I had opted out. Although the donuts were missed, it seemed well worth the struggle to gain a few more weekend hours to spend as I pleased.

Ironically, my view of religion was shaped more outside of a church building than inside one. While at school, watching television, or skimming popular magazines, I found myself steeped in a worldview that seemed to bypass the need for the kind of faith religion pushed. I learned to see Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and the countless other religions as being fundamentally the same; they were all manmade faiths, unprovable claims at truth. This kind of faith was not for me. I wanted something more concrete, something more scientific and evidence based. My opinion on the subject was settled. I wanted nothing to do with organized religion. I had a been there, done that attitude towards it. That is not to say I was close-minded to the possibility of spirituality, or even a god-type entity. I was open to learning about and perhaps even exploring a variety of ideas and beliefs. But for now, the evidence did not seem to warrant actually trusting in such ideas. Of course, if other people wanted to believe, then surely, they could embrace whatever they wanted to. But for me, I decided that if I ever wanted to place my faith in some sort of god concept, then I might as well believe in one that I made up myself rather than following someone else’s ideas.

As I saw it, growing up in the United States during this modern era was unlike many cultures in times past. Faith was not something forced upon the people. We were a people free to form our own opinions and think for ourselves, having no compulsion to blindly follow any faith. We could make our own paths, and as I grew older, I thought I was doing just that.

-Matters of Faith-

Growing up, I was not devoid of beliefs. Like many of us, I too had not ignored the great questions of life. I still was curious to know how the world began. How did the apparent order in this universe come to be? How did the laws of nature originate? Where did life come from? What was the origin of mankind’s ability to reason? Where did morality come from? I had so many questions, but so few sure answers.

Late nights with high school friends would often lead to lengthy discussions about the usual things: classmates, teachers, girls, and an analysis of the latest movie. We would also try to explore deeper issues like politics, human nature, and the pros and cons of various societal and government systems. As we rummaged through the kitchen cabinets for snacks, relaxed on the couches in our homes, and passively watched a movie or listened to music, we’d prod each other’s thoughts, going as deep as our teenage minds could go. It was not uncommon that these midnight hours would find us caught up in the age-old debate between atheists* and theists. Although having rejected my family’s theistic religious traditions as faith-based superstition, I still tried to fairly weigh the pros and cons of each side. Without a doubt, our reasoning was critical towards many traditional theistic beliefs, often leaning in favor of atheistic ideas.

* Atheism has a very narrow and specific definition. On the other hand, atheists can hold a wide spectrum of convictions. I am certainly not representing all of these convictions in this book. In referencing atheist, I am referring to a person who denies a personal god or deity is responsible for creating and sustaining all things, and instead, believes that the origin and maintaining of all things can be attributed to impersonal forces of nature and material interactions.

For starters, many atheists often claimed we need to look to material forces of nature and the observable constants all around us to find answers. This seemed like a step in the right direction. Unlike the gods evoked in so many religious beliefs, at least I could see these things at work all around us. I already had embraced many scientifically supported theories describing how these forces had shaped the universe over vast periods of time. I had already learned how these forces worked all around us, sustaining life and creating the consistent environment we all enjoy. I could see how these constants allowed for humanity and society to live and continue down our path of social evolution. But could the shaping and creating of everything be scientifically attributed to the work of natural forces and material interactions? As I searched for solid answers and contemplated such inquiries, I tried to consider all the various paths. But when I really pressed into the great questions of life, I continuously found roadblocks preventing me from fully embracing any definitive answers.

As I grew to see it, the atheist who looked to impersonal natural forces could not definitively answer many basic questions any better than a Christian, Muslim, or Hindu. They all had difficulty answering some of the most fundamental questions. Questions like- How did life begin? Where did the information and order found in the universe and life come from? Where did consciousness come from? How did the laws of nature arise?

Take for example, how did life begin? Ask this to any number of people who believe in a god and you will get a multitude of answers, all of which require faith. Similarly, the same held true for this atheist. Yes, both the theist and the atheist practiced faith. The only difference between the two was the object of their faith. The typical theist would stare up at the sky with awe, blindly looking for a creator god they could not see, all the while saying in their hearts, that god brought me forth. Meanwhile many atheists—with similar awe—looked down towards some primordial lifeless goo they imagined existed millions of years ago, all the while saying in their hearts, a puddle like that brought me forth. They both looked at the same world and believed what they wanted to believe, assuming their ideas of life’s origin to be true. But in the end, no one had ever seen a god create life, nor had anyone witnessed life just spontaneously form from lifeless goo. Yet, we are here. We know something happened, right? Maybe. Maybe not. I still didn’t know. The evidence seemed inconclusive. Whether a personal god figure or impersonal forces of nature, explaining the origin of certain things were still out of reach, perhaps even unknowable.

It was easy to find people who voiced answers to many fundamental questions. However, all their answers rested upon that one common denominator that I tended to avoid: faith. Consequently, I often found myself taking a comfortable agnostic position. People could believe whatever they wanted, but faith was not for me. I wanted a view of the world that was stable and sure, a view based on the observable and rational, not mere guesses. I wanted a worldview built only with verifiable facts.

At 18 years of age I attended a University. Founded in 1870, just years after the civil war, this school had a long rich history and beautiful campus. Everywhere I looked I saw meticulous lawns, rolling hills, and giant overarching trees which had probably been there since the University was established. Rising up from the perfectly maintained grounds were old, ivy-covered stone and masonry buildings, all connected by winding cobblestone and paved paths. The place seemed to emanate scholarliness. There was a spirit of learning in the air. No matter the time of day, one would see students and faculty with books and computers in hand, busily racing about from building to building. If I still had questions about life and the world, this seemed to be a place to search for answers. I considered this an institution that was stable and trustworthy. It was established on scholarship that had stood the test of time. Although the campus was steeped in old-world architecture reminiscent of many traditional churches, these well-situated buildings were far from the institutions of faith I frequented as a child. They felt stable, more relevant to the real world, not reaching for the heavens with high rising steeples, but grounded and sure. In my mind, these were the true institutions of knowledge and wisdom, places where one could learn about scientific facts and perhaps find surer answers to the great questions of life.

The adjustment to becoming a full-time college student was seamless, as my parents had raised me to be relatively independent and responsible. My college years were filled with some of the typical experiences found at Universities in the United States. I worked hard and was up to the challenge of a rigorous academic life, studying long hours when necessary, sometimes burning the candle at both ends. In between my studies I had a job in order to earn some extra money. Thankfully, finding employment that fit my hectic schedule was easy, with many positions right there on campus. I made acquaintances and friendships with people of various backgrounds, ethnicities, and cultures, and greatly enjoying the camaraderie that seemed to come naturally with my fellow students. I also made time for weekend parties, which were always overflowing with students, beer, and smoke. As freshmen, most of us spent our time mingling at house parties, listening to music that was way too loud, all the while carefully defending our red solo Dixie Cups filled with our favorite budget alcoholic beverage. As the years passed, the parties often became a little quieter and more intimate, but the choice of entertainment remained largely the same. I was living what many would consider the typical college life.

But one experience I had during my college years was unique—at least I thought it was at the time. It was the second semester of my third year in school, and, unbeknownst to me, the course of my life was about to completely change. I had become completely smitten with a girl who was into spiritual things, but not in the traditional religious sense that I was familiar with. She was involved in things commonly defined as occult, and embraced ideas influenced by eastern philosophy. Being open minded as I was, these beliefs seemed interesting and harmless to me at the time. But for the moment, I had not given any real credence to them, believing they were superstitious faith-based stuff, similar to the religious ideas and practices I was exposed to in my youth. However, when our relationship ended, I soon began a season in my life that turned my world upside-down and completely challenged my view of faith.

It was a period of self-discovery as I found myself experimenting with different metaphysical disciplines such as meditation, telekinesis, unusually rapid healing, and mind over matter tricks; things I never would have seriously entertained before. For months, I went through a state where all of my senses were intensely heightened or magnified, feeling as though my mind and body were operating on a far higher plane (at least that was how I would have described it at the time). Initially, I had a childlike excitement over the newly discovered possibilities of what the mind and body were capable of. I pursued this season wholeheartedly, even at the expense of my academic responsibilities.

Wanting to understand my new experiences and knowing of no other possible causes, I initially attributed what I was going through to my recent relationship and my exposure to someone into the occult. Naturally, my interest was sparked, and I looked further into ideas related to the occult and eastern philosophies. I also turned inward and found myself probing various ideas and filling pages with raw philosophical musings about love, energy, the importance of living for the here and now, the interconnectedness of all things, and the unlocking of human potential. I was a 21-year-old trying to find my way and attempting to make sense of life.

As I explored these things, most of my friends were still on the conventional college path. Having esoteric discussions about life and philosophical ponderings was something we all had occasionally enjoyed together; in fact, many of the philosophical and psychological lectures we had attended throughout the years motivated such talks. Like in high school, such discussions would work their way into our conversations at the tail end of long weekend nights, when the quietness of the evening seemed to set the stage for them. However, what I was doing was far from a late-night existential debate. From their perspective, what I was engaged in was self-destructive. I understood my friends’ concerns, and I could not really blame them. If I were in their shoes, I would have had a similar view. I was and still am grateful for their friendship and concerns, but I had made my choice and wanted to live for the moment. So, I thoroughly devoted myself to exploring and understanding my new experiences, neglecting my other responsibilities along the way.

However, as the months passed and my senses abated back to normal, I was left to calmly consider my last semester and all I had been through. Without a doubt, reflecting on those previous months was humbling. Reevaluating the ideas I had immersed myself in, I found that they had lost their luster. They lacked any firm foundation. Collecting my thoughts, I took inventory of my beliefs about life and the world. I once again found myself pondering some of the same old existential and ontological questions: What is humanity’s relationship with the natural world? What is the present state and potential for humanity? What are the common threads tying together occult ideas, eastern religions, and western religions? Where is humanity on our evolving path? What is the purpose of life?

-Seeing Naturalism’s foundation for the first time-

As I revisited answers to various questions, I began to see why I interpreted the world and my experiences the way that I did. For the first time, I saw the constructs of my worldview, recognizing the foundation that it rested upon. I could not escape what was suddenly becoming all too clear. My answers to life’s questions, my view of humanity and the world, my view of history, religion, morality, life’s purposes, and my vision for the future, were all established upon the one thing I had tried desperately to avoid - faith. This faith was so blind and so strong that I had never even realized I was practicing it. It became all too clear, my aversion to faith proved to be impossible to maintain as the reality of faith and its inevitable influence on everyone’s worldview became impossible to avoid.

-The Facts of Faith-

Faith… that one little word has been involved in shaping cultures and societies more than any other. Throughout history, people have placed their faith in many things (assumptions, ideas, philosophies) to formulate an understanding of virtually every important subject. However, nothing has been more common to the shaping of worldviews and had more influence on societies, than people placing their faith in one thing in particular: an image of the power(s) responsible for creating and sustaining everything.

People throughout the ages have sought to understand and explain how this world and everything in it came to be. They sought to identify the power responsible for making the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars. What made the clouds, the rain, and the wind first move upon the earth? What created and formed the plants, animals, and humankind? What did this power look like, and how could it be described?

In similar fashion, people of ages past saw the world around them, experienced reality, and sought to understand and explain how and why the universe worked the way it did. They saw the sun, moon and stars in motion above, giving light for day and night, keeping time in a predicable yearly cycle. They saw the ocean tides rising and falling, bringing fish in and out of inlets and bays. They saw the rain clouds move in the sky, casting shade and pouring water on the grasses, trees, and crops. They saw so many things in motion, all working together and supporting life’s very existence.

Ancient humanity witnessed all these things and much more. This witness led them to acknowledge the power(s) responsible for having created everything, as well as those operating in the world around them, upon which their lives were completely dependent. Acknowledging a power greater than themselves was at work, the need to identify and describe these forces was unavoidable. But what image would they place upon them?

Examples of such images abound in the records of history, showing great variation from culture to culture. If you were born in Rome 2000 years ago, you may have identified the powers responsible for the sun and rain as Sol and Jupiter. If you were born in Egypt 3500 years ago, you may have called these same powers Ra-Horakhty and Tefnut. Of course, it did not stop with the sunlight and the rain. These two societies came up with a plethora of images to identify, define, describe, and explain the origin of the powers and movements they observed working in the world all around them. Likewise, ancient societies from China, Japan, the Americas, and India—as well as most people groups throughout history—created and embraced their own images. Some portrayed images having a human likeness. Others drew images in the likeness of beasts and creeping things. Still others depicted these same powers as impersonal or conceptual powers and entities.

People throughout history have embraced thousands of images, each used to portray the power(s) responsible for what we see all around us. In one respect, they all accomplished the same thing—giving people words to identify and describe the same forces. However, the cultural differences caused by the unique images a society embraced amounted to far more than just semantics. They had untold influence on individual lives, societies, and cultures. The images embraced by a society not only shaped their traditions and rituals, but they were foundational in shaping their understanding of world history, the human condition, morality, and their overall worldview. Vast differences in the image(s) embraced by cultures often led to vast differences in the cultures themselves.

There have been literally thousands of such faith-based worldviews established throughout history. But far from being isolated to times past, today’s most societal–shaping worldviews are still built upon faith in images of the power(s) responsible for creating and sustaining all things. This book will focus on understanding and comparing two such faiths embraced in this modern world, as well as the two worldviews built upon them. These two faith-based worldviews have been by far the most influential in shaping western civilization and the world for the last 500 years: Christianity and Naturalism.

Most people today are somewhat familiar with Christianity, and how Christians view this power. It is evident that this worldview has affected society, western civilization, and the world over. However, the other faith responsible for shaping many societies today has been so well engrafted into the minds of its followers that it is often mistakenly considered to be fact by those embracing it, instead of being viewed objectively as the faith that it truly is. The name of this faith is Materialistic Naturalism, or just Naturalism for short.

Naturalism - the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces operate in the universe. Adherents of naturalism assert that natural laws are the rules that govern the structure and behavior of the natural universe, that the changing universe at every stage is a product of these laws. Supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted.

Materialism - a theory that physical matter is the only or fundamental reality and that all being and processes and phenomena can be explained as manifestations or results of matter.

- Definitions drawn from Oxford Languages, Wikipedia, and the Merriam Webster dictionary

The most influential worldview in modern times, Naturalism commonly describes the power responsible for ultimately creating and sustaining the world and all of life as impersonal natural forces. This modern image began to be promoted in western civilization only a few centuries ago (although comparable images have been developed and embraced throughout ancient history).