An Irony of Atheism in a Secular, Consumerist Age.

The secular consumerist age that dominates much of the western world is an age of self-seeking, self-gratification, atheistic humanism and commercialism. Such ends of men in the secular culture are made with an assumed atheism. For if atheism is true, then there is no God to be accountable for and no God who can make men happy. Yet if God does exist, then God is the origin of all things, and thereby the cause of all gifts, such as life and men's talents. God is also then the judge and reward of all men. What then is the irony of the secular age? The irony is two-fold.

1) Men seek for self-fulfilment by firstly denying the existence of God, who is the good, but then seeking the good in creatures which cannot provide the good. The atheism assumed in secularism is affirmed but implicitly denied in all of man's seeking of the good. In other words, men firstly assume that which can make them happy does not exist, then assume pursuing that which does not make them happy will make them happy. The human pursuit of the good in creatures is an implicit affirmation of the existence of God as the good, whilst the same God is also denied in secularism.

2) Men cannot prove the non-existence of God and cannot prove the worldview of secularism. For secularism assumes materialism, agnosticism, or atheism, which are all false. Secularism also denies that God has made any revelation to mankind, whereby God has informed man of the way in which he can become fulfilled. Yet both the non-exstence of God, and secularism are assumed to be true within the secular world. Therefore theism, which assumed to be false is, in fact, true and secularism, which is assumed to be true, is in fact false within the secular culture. The secular man then seeks for happiness in every act that is always directed away from his ultimate happiness. In a certain manner the secular age is of a man who claims to be rational, whilst every act he does is at least in some manner irrational. For the secular man seeks for happiness in everything other than that good which alone can make him fulfilled. The secular man is then subject to an ironic self deception.