What are the principle emotional boundaries, within which we can exist as our deepest selves, in peace? Marriage, and religion. In marriage, you find the most intimate connection most people will have in their lifetimes, which includes both emotional connection, and physical. It produces literal life, or has historically in most societies.
In marriage, too, you generate the mother, the primal reality for all infants. If that marriage is harmonious, that mother is harmonious, and the world into which that child enters is harmonious. If not, then stress is present, and that child will be poisoned with unnecessary doubt and disorientation, traits which it will pass on.
In religion, you find the perfection of meaning, at least in principle. There is no reason to doubt that countless people the world over have found in the faith and practices of their forefathers deep internal solace, both in their work, and in long nights during periods of difficulty.
These are the places you rest. These are the things that, if they are given, and not unstable, provide the most comfort and strength for individuals and societies.
Logically, then, these are the first targets of Satanic doctrines like Communism, which seek first to destroy, then perhaps accidentally, at some unspecified and unplanned future date, to create.
Atheism, per se, is not intrinsically pernicious; but when it is proselytized in a world already struggling with meaning, it is. It is necessarily a disconnection from a world that contains intrinsic moral laws and meaning, and necessarily a demand that every person create their own meaning system from scratch, and on the fly. Since most people are mediocre, this means in practice that most such systems will be myopic and poorly constructed. They will not do the job well.
In practice, this fact underlies the continuing success of both Communistic Fascism and its intended antidote, Randian–and I will coin a term here –“Hero-ism”. By this, I connote this notion of the Grand Individual, who strides the world in his or her own way, answering to no higher calling than his or her own muse. In practice, some of the people embracing this doctrine have been among the most selfish human beings I have ever met. Selfishness works economically, which is Rand’s level of analysis, and she shares this with Marx, but it does not work socially, culturally, or in my view sustainably. One needs principles that bring people together in reliable ways.
Few thoughts on a Wednesday–Woden’s Day–morning.