Philip

“Thus, in the rise of Protestantism in the sixteenth century, we cannot help but see the sharp challenge that was given to the medieval Catholic concept of religion as being essentially an affair of hierarchical organization, sacrament, and liturgy. For an increasing number of human beings, after the sixteenth century, the corporate Church ceases to be the sole avenue of approach to God. In the devotions of Protestants, ritual, symbolism, hierarchy, in short all the appurtenances of the church visible, wane or disappear in religious life. Out of this atomization of religious corporatism emerges the new man of God, intent upon salvation through unassisted faith and unmediated personal effort.”
― Robert A. Nisbet, The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom

“Recognizing the problem, some secularists are searching for ways to salvage an objective status for morality. The favored strategy is to invoke evolutionary psychology. Hardly a week goes by without an article appearing in the popular press claiming that natural selection has explained the origin of this or that moral trait. Typically the argument goes something like this: You Christians claim that it is impossible to have morality without God. Well, we’ve solved that problem. Evolutionary forces can produce empathy, cooperation, mutual aid, and all the other forms of social bonding. These behaviors are selected for because they help secure genetic fitness and promote survival. Voilá, evolution becomes the basis for moral realism. And evolutionary biologists become the new priests. As a New York Times article says, if “morality grew out of behavioral rules shaped by evolution,” then “it is for biologists, not philosophers or theologians, to say what these rules are.”40 But”
― Nancy R. Pearcey, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning

“But I’m afraid I’m bad at comforting; I can listen all right, but I can hardly ever find anything to say.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“II-238. Suppose he should relent / And publish Grace to all, on promise made / Of new Subjection; with what eyes could we / Stand in his presence humble, and receive / Strict Laws impos'd, to celebrate his Throne / With warbl'd Hymns, and to his Godhead sing / Forc't Halleluiah's; while he Lordly sits / Our envied Sovran, and his Altar breathes / Ambrosial Odours and Ambrosial Flowers, / Our servile offerings. This must be our task / In Heav'n, this our delight; II-238. Let's say he forgives us all if we promise to worship him. Are you ready to follow his laws, sing his praises, bring him flowers? II-248. how wearisom / Eternity so spent in worship paid / To whom we hate. II-248. It would make us sick to spend eternity worshiping the one we hate. II-249. Let us not then pursue / By force impossible, by leave obtain'd / Unacceptable, though in Heav'n, our state / Of splendid vassalage, II-249. Let's forget about fighting a war we can't win, or returning to Heaven in miserable slavery. II-252. but rather seek / Our own good from our selves, and from our own / Live to our selves, though in this vast recess, II-252. Let's make the best of what we have here where we don't owe anybody anything.”
― Joseph Lanzara, John Milton's Paradise Lost In Plain English