Illuminating discussions w/ the Professor.

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Does secularity breed contempt for eternity? 

I don't know about eternity, but as far as the local timeline is concerned, I think so. That is, until someone can reconcile Hume's Is-Ought problem.
In short you cannot scientifically/materially determine morality or value, particularly the value of human life. Or rather, you can, but it's going to lead you in some fairly catastrophic directions.
We can take the current occurrences of cancel culture as a case study (I'll stop). I listened to a Douglas Murray interview not too long ago (I suppose I have an affinity for gay, British people and things).
He said something that I found striking about cancel culture: the fundamental problem w/ it is that it does not permit any mechanism for forgiveness. You pay for your past sins, continuously into the future.

As we know, forgiveness is a Christian virtue. As we also know, Christianity has been in decline over the past few centuries. All sorts of ideologies and philosophies have supplanted its teachings.
One of such philosophies is existentialism. I could've mentioned anything else: scientism, fascism...etc. but I bring up existentialism because not only is it near and dear to me, but it's tough to reconcile.
A central tenet in existentialist doctrine is something like this: you are your actions. Maybe this is a testament to the extent by which existentialism has replaced Christianity, but I find this to be intuitive.
And of course, I try to live by the idea. Ultimately, a large part of who I am is the way I behave in the world, what I do everyday, the consequences of all my actions.

This is in direct contradiction to the Christian virtue of forgiveness; for, in order to forgive, you must be able to separate the sin from the sinner.
Admittedly, I struggle to reconcile these two concepts everyday. Perhaps this is how it simply is. But anyway, it appears to me that people that engage in cancel culture are overly committed to the idea.
They do not make the careful distinction of sin from sinner; they simply haven’t been taught how. I also think that they have become far too indulgent in the pleasures of hating.
Because let’s be honest here: hating feels so good. Unfortunately social media has enabled us to forgo temperance and engage in an almost orgiastic form of hating.

It really is...sobering, if one thinks about it. Christians are taught to love their neighbor as they do themselves.
That love does not mean feel fondly of them, or to be nice to them. It means merely to wish them well, that the good in them manifests itself.
Just as you may not feel so hot about yourself, considering the many ways that you fall short of your ideals. How stupid, lazy, or ill-tempered you may be...and yet you still manage to live and try.
Why? I don’t know. Maybe that’s what is also meant when it is said that man was created in God’s image.

God’s infinite love for his creation is imperfectly replicated in us, limited in which we readily allow it for ourselves but not so readily for others.
A popular sentiment among edgelords is the desire to be God-like: omniscient and omnipotent. Scarcely is there mention of this capacity for infinite love, and by extension, forgiveness.
They fail to realize that Christianity is the blueprint for such an aim. Hence the phrase “To be closer to God”. It goes well beyond the sentimental sense of the phrase.
It means to be closer to perfection, and, as a consequence, live a good life. A life in accordance w/ nature.

Anyway, I’ll end it there. I’m getting too diffuse at this point.

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