Getting right to the topics at hand we go right into our usual segments.

Meet the Hosts.

Life in Church House Studios has been pretty routine, except our new addition, a year old kitten, has proven himself to be an alarm cat. Nathan revisits the audio drama projects he’s been doing. Script writing, and posting a few new shows on his other podcast feeds.

For Superman fans, be sure to check out a guest appearance on the Old Time Superman show for their 1000th episode. He’ll be joining the host, Adam Graham, and others to talk about the 1940’s radio show. We spend a little time with our own ideas about the iconic super hero before we move things along.

Main Topic.

Are you ready for zombies? So were we. The trouble is that other than our title, we spend very little time discussing them. The misleading title was what lured Keith into reading a book. It turns out to have little to do about the walking dead, but it addresses why people today love apocalyptic things. It also uses popular movies and TV shows with apocalyptic things to illustrate how our society of the Secular Age got to where we are today.

Four key steps describe, or they try to, how culture shifted away from God based morality, to human based morality. First some background, and comparison.

Religion vs Secular Humanism

Before the Modern Secular Age.

Humanity is porous. Individuals find their identity by participating in their group. Individuals are influenced by relating to, and with others. All this give and take, and mutual influence requires a framework of morality outside the self. Religion or government. To be inside this framework, the claim is the individual is limited in self expression. To be outside the framework of this morality is to be cast off as either a beast, or a barbarian. God is seen as creator, the giver of an initial grace that’s instilled in us at birth, and an ongoing grace that keeps us in the system, and offers explanation to the mysteries of the universe.

After the Modern Secular Age

Humanity is buffered. The individual has an imaginary, buffer, or a coating, or a protective bubble where they are immune to the influences of others. The individual doesn’t need outside influence, since science now offers rational, natural explanations to the mysteries of our universe. Individuals can flourish on their own, without the need to fit into a confining structured like religion. Sure, it’s still there, but is now compartmentalized, and it’s not the main framework of morality. As far as morality, there is no greater good outside the buffered individual.

With just this background, there are so many things wrong with this new, buffered, identity. It assumes that the structure of religion is man made, and that human interaction and relationships are entirely detrimental. . The claim is that’s better to use science, an outside factor, to allow the buffered person to make their own moral choices. It’s all about the uninfluenced choices.

Science may do a fine job in explaining our observable world, but the one thing it can never do is make a moral judgement. If moral choices are left to the Individual, there’s no way to determine moral choices with science alone. With all choices having equal weight in importance, then none of them can be determined to be more moral than another. People need interaction with an outside standard to let them know if they’re achieving anything. Therefore the buffered existence is an illusion that can only hope to work, when adequate outside standards, or morality, is imposed. This view point fails by making too many false assumptions, and claims to truth that have no foundation or evidence. It relies on outside influences for information, and any real moral standard is meaningful only with an outside standard.