Many people regard religion as something foreign or even hostile to human nature. As a result, religion becomes a matter of social conformity, duty, and guilt: it is life-denying. There seems little in it that leads to the joyous fulfillment of natural aspirations. Any sort of religious activity can easily be seen as in some way external to the spontaneous yearnings of the human heart. Perhaps as a result of this, there has been a loss in the theological sense of sin. Since religion involved self-denial, wrongdoing became identified with pleasure. The avoidance of gratification began to seem pointless once the external forms that constitute “religion” were dropped. Becoming rich and powerful with no limits placed on the gratification of appetites appears to many as an ideal worth pursuing. Pleasure has become the norm of goodness: “If it feels good, do it.” As a result, any restraint on pleasure on the basis of non-immediate principles seems like foolishness. The false guilt of the past has led many to deny guilt altogether—even when eminent cause for it exists. The result is a life built on radical untruth.
Michael Casey
A Guide to Living in the Truth, p. 26
This short entry becomes more profound the more you read it. Especially interesting is this passage: “The avoidance of gratification began to seem pointless once the external forms that constitute “religion” were dropped”. The social constructs and restrictions that we boomers clamored to destroy in the name of freedom have failed to provide the liberation we sought, and have often become the means of greatest misery.