Clairity's Place on "Religious Sense Lecture 2, Part 2"

Clairity delivers an excellent summation!

The heart of the matter:

I have the need to know the truth. I have a profound need for justice. As Msgr. Albacete said, there are certain things that should not be. All this suffering calls for something that answers. I need happiness--which must be a perfect fulfillment, forever. I want friendship that will last forever. I want to live. Monsignor asks: What is going on?

Reality is a sign that points to something else beyond me, the sign of the mystery. There are forces which would dull or crush these questions in us. Today we have problems with signs: we don't read them as well. Some think these desires are unreasonable and will just depress you. Better to reduce them, or lower your expectations. It seems absurd to say that you actually want to live forever, as if such a desire is unreasonable. But If we do this, we do violence to ourselves. This total need is vital to myself, to who I am as a totality.

To suppress this sign requires a sustained effort of denial and self-violence. Our culture is ready to quash these needs and distract us. Still the need doesn't go away. Or, we choose an idolatry to take the place of this X, or this call to happiness.

Ideology is the new form of idolatry. It suppresses the question of being by presuming to explain everything by means of a system. Such a scenario allows nothing from outside and no further questions. It imposes itself over all thought and search; it smothers dissent. The religious sense guarantees freedom because nothing is greater than X, and in particular, no human construct.

If we allow succumb to the sweet seductions of idolatry, in any of it's forms, we pursue an illusion we'll celebrate as truth. We'll construct our own Golden Calf upon the ruins of our shattered hopes. We'll dance around it until we convince ourselves we're happy.

It won't last. It's can't; we're not happy. Sooner or later, we realize. Then we face a choice. Do we follow the road unwalked? The one that leads across desolation and humiliation to the cross? Or do we follow the well-trod path that leads to yet more mirages?

It's denial or truth. It's illusion or reality. It's truth or deception. It's him or Nothing.

It's in our hands. Terrifying as that is.

"Whether are we bound?"