Quote of the Day

An Eric Voegelin quote within a Jonah Goldberg quote, from Goldberg's weekly e-letter:

When you remove the power and symbolism of religion in our daily lives, religious impulses start creeping in from other directions and sources (which might explain why Jill Abramson recently explained that the New York Times substituted for religion in her house growing up). As Eric Voegelin puts it: "When God is invisible behind the world, the contents of the world will become new gods; when the symbols of transcendent religiosity are banned, new symbols develop from the inner-worldly language of science to take their place. Like the Christian ecclesia, the inner-worldly community has its apocalypse too."

The quote actually continues, "yet, the new apocalyptics insist that the symbols they create are scientific judgments." Thank goodness there's none of that these days!