Is Secular Thought Progressive or Self-Destructive?

Medieval Europe used to be as conservative and insular as modern Saudi Arabia. The Christian kingdoms were theocratic in that non-Christians were demonized, and critics of the Church were hounded as heretics. An advantage of any such closed society is that the regime could apply Aristotelian virtue theory, instilling and enforcing values to unify the population with a cohesive culture. The downside, though, is that a solipsistic, complacent culture can lose touch with reality. <h1>Modern skepticism</h1> In Europe the modern period began with doubts raised by subversive skeptics who would later be known as classic liberals. Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and John Stuart Mill took their cues not from Christian dogmas but from the pre-Christian, Greco-Roman philosophical traditions which were more naturalistic and rationalistic than anything the Bible could support. Machiavelli, for instance, put forward a cynical view of politics. Rather than naively obeying the dictates of virtue and honour, as might someone who’s been inculcated from a young age by a totalitarian Church, a wise prince, Machiavelli said, would weigh his options instrumentally, according to whether they advance his self-interest. Hobbes extended Machiavellianism to the entire population, reasoning that a society of cynical, self-interested agents would disintegrate unless terrified into submission by an absolute monarch. <a href="https://medium.com/grim-tidings/is-secular-reasoning-progressive-or-self-destructive-359f38870395">Click Here</a>