This past week marked the summer and winter solstices for the northern and southern hemispheres respectively, and many pagans were out to mark the occasions. We've noted on a number of other occasions that there seems to be a growing acceptance of pagan allusion and ideology. Certainly these events cannot be considered particularly widespread at this point, but in an age that congratulates itself for its rationality and sophistication, the groundworks of irrationality are beginning to shine through.

This shouldn't be surprising, however. As we've said a number of times, Christianity has long provided the very foundations upon which our world rests, and as such, we can never jettison that foundation without serious consequences. In a society that has largely rejected the notion of a sovereign God who is distinct from - but active in - the world, the rise of pantheism (which has deep ties to most pagan ideologies) is not only possible, it's virtually inevitable. If all things arise from matter and energy rather than from a distinct intelligence, then earth-worship has an internal (if bizarre) logic.

This "logic," though, is itself undermined by the very worldview that it claims to function within. If all things are made only of matter and energy, then it is unclear why our minds - born of the world - should be able to rise above the world and put its parts together in a meaningful way. It was this realization that led G.K. Chesterton to note that, "[t]here is a thought that stops thought.  That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.  That is the ultimate evil against which all [theistic] religious authority was aimed." Unfortunately, it looks like our society is beginning to think that thought.