“The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything,” wrote Belgian author Emile Cammaerts in The Laughing Prophet: The Seven Virtues & G.K. Chesterton. The line, in one form or another, is often attributed to Chesterton himself, but regardless of its provenance, it is especially apt in these times when so many of our fellow citizens have abandoned the Judeo-Christian tradition that for centuries underlay Western society. In its stead we witness the rise of a neo-paganism, the tenets of which are untethered from any reality as it was recognized only a few years ago.

Like any religion, this neo-paganism has its sacred texts, among which are the New York Times and its imitators, conveying to the faithful the latest version of accepted dogma. And as in many religions, adherents have divided themselves into sects, placing varying degrees of emphasis on any single tenet of dogma while taking care to stay faithful to all of them, lest they be branded as heretics and cast into the howling darkness.

“Climate change” is of course a key tenet of this new religion, as is the phantasmagorical notion that a man, through surgery, medication, or even by simply declaring it so, can become a woman or vice versa.

[Both of these are secular religions, as Jack writes, and heretics get the usual punishments — shunning, silencing, and so on. Cammaerts’ observation is particularly apt, although I did think it was Chesterton who said it first. — Ed]