We are schooled to believe that the Enlightenment period during the 16^th - 18^th centuries, was the apogee of reason and rationality, vanquishing the innumerable crimes and superstitions of a 'medieval Christian' Europe. The accepted 'wisdom' portrays the Enlightenment era as one of unshackling man from superstitions and religious oppression, and opening up vistas of new horizons by elevating science and reason, over 'faith' and cant. Further, without the Enlightenment we are told, the entire Western world would have never developed, and civilization would have been stuck in the rut of ignorance and poverty. Without the 'great thinkers' which populated these most important of centuries, the edifice of modern thought would never have been created and the human would be little more than a noble savage living a nasty, short and brutish life.

But is any of this well worn tale of veracity and heroic seeking of objective truth, actually true?

What if the opposite is really apposite? Perhaps the Enlightenment which was so-named by the leading men of letters during this period, was actually a movement of irrationality which led directly to the cults which populate our world today – socialism, Marxism, Eco-Terrorism, pagan worship, and Multi-culturalism. Are any of these cults today which are so predominate in our cultural-media-political and educational institutions, rational? Or, are they manifestations of what went terribly wrong during the Enlightenment period?

No one denies that science and reason are important attributes of the Western heritage. But there is a lot wrong with the idea that the Medieval period was backwards or 'dumb' and the the Enlightenment 'saved us'. The 1000 years between 500 AD and 1500 AD was one of change, enterprise, political-economic revolutions, and enormous technological advancement. All of this was premised on Judeo-Christian ideals, including free-will, rationality, the Golden Rule, and pride in one's culture. Without JC theology, the modern world never would have developed.

Even within the Church, the 'Protesting Revolution' ostensibly started by Luther in 1517, had 300 years of previous history, in which various actors and states revolted against the more base of Church excesses. The Enlightenment simply carried some of these reformist ideals further. Rationality, science, the use of reason, and the humanism apparent in both the Torah and New Testament were long established facts by 1600 AD. In that sense the Enlightenment brought nothing new to bear on society.

The most important aspect of the Enlightenment might be its central thesis that religiosity was against reason and science, and that any 'faith' which put man at the center of creation or worldly affairs was inherently irrational. This is the crux of the 'geniuses' of the Enlightenment period. Man was to be ennobled by reason, but dethroned from his importance in the cosmos. Reason in other words, mandated that man be relegated to just another 'thing' in the universe. It is hard to make the argument that such a concept which is really the whole point of the Enlightenment epoch is rational, humanist or intelligent.

From the Enlightenment ideal that man's reason should annihilate religion and the idea that man is somehow a 'special creature' it is not a far journey to the ideologies of Marxism, Socialism, and their bastard offspring Fascism, and Eco-Terrorism. The 'Enlightenment' has thus bequeathed to us, cults which are certainly irrational, unreasonable, and unedifying. It is rather ironic. Consider the following 'truisms' which flowed out of the supposed period of rationality: 

-Scientific positivism in which all things can be explained through science and by scientists alone. [Diderot, Comte]

-Dialectical materialism which comes out of positivism is a better explanation of history than anything else including metaphysical explanations for what science cannot comprehend or prove. [Hegel, Marx, Lenin, Hitler]

-Man is not unique and was created by chance combination of molecules and as such cannot be considered a central figure in the universe, but is just another carbon based organism. This gives rise to the belief that animals are our equal, and that Mother Earth is our true Goddess and the only deity to worship and covet.

-Civilisation is slavery [Rousseau]; which means that all formal structures including finance, politics, institutions, and even formal education [Dewey] is immoral.

-Religion is irrational and secularism is Enlightened and progressive [Bacon, Marx].

-Religion is also inane, debauched and immoral. [Voltaire, Gibbon]

-Darwinism can explain everything [Darwin, Spencer, most Scientists], even when it can't.

Thus the Enlightenment unleashed some decidedly negative patterns of irrationality within Western society. Once man was defrocked of his importance, and once people were 'liberated' from the moral codes of JC culture any theology which rejected religion and cited science was deemed 'progressive'. Two general strands of belief arose. Appeals to utilitarianism, or the belief that whatever the individual wanted to do was fine, as long as he derived enjoyment from the activity, is a main thread in anti-modern socialist/romantic theology. A second thread of ideology hearkens back to pagan, neo-lithic cultures in which man was at one with the earth, and that this emotional attachment is best expressed through a communal society. Communes managed by an elite are thus more virile and moral than societies based around the individual who perverts utopia through desire, consumerism, selfish actions and irrational beliefs. This is the main theme of communal constructs such as Marxist-Fascism or Islam. The individual is evil. The collective – as long as it follows what the cult wants – superior.

Even a brief survey of the Enlightenment will reveal that much of its chatter was decidedly unenlightened. Consider that post 1600 some 10-15.000 witches were burnt, one-third of whom were men [mostly in the southern Rhine area it should be stressed] many of these supposedly during the height of rational reform. This era also saw the most violent use of the Catholic Inquisition which killed at most 3.000 people over 250 years [a monthly total it can be said for Islam]. It also resuscitated slavery, which had been suppressed and eradicated by 800 AD in 'dark age' Europe, entrapping 10 million Blacks, 9 million of whom ended up the Caribbean, Brazil and Ecuador. This 'rational' epoch also led to such irrational barbarities as the French Revolution which bequeathed to the world the madness of Napoleon. It also generated a return to the despotic rule of Divine Right supported by many 'thinkers' during the Enlightenment as rational despotism, even though in many cases, force, power and the arbitrary use of law was prevalent. All of this was antithetical to the very demands made by rationalists.

Once you take all faith out of society and create a secularist entity, any ideology which promotes itself properly, appealing to 'reason', 'dialectical materialism', 'harmony', or 'mother earth', even if it is overtly a cult of intolerance, naked power and force, will fill the gap. So today we have the irrationality of Islam is Peace, Eco Fascism, Darwinian dialecticism, the Multi cult, and Statism/Great man worship – all stemming from the 'Enlightenment'.

The Enlightenment did have its positive attributes, but perhaps the negatives outweigh these benefits.