The Enlightenment is one of the greatest cultural, social, and philosophical achievements of modern times [1]. However, it has not achieved its goal of freeing humanity from its immaturity and bondage to dogmatic beliefs, political power ambitions, and moral constraints. Instead, it has died a quiet death. Editorial writers and columnists have neither noticed nor commented on its demise. A new religion has taken hold, one that is more intolerant, dogmatic, and at least as violent as the old one from which the Enlightenment sought to liberate us. This new religion is the belief in science, scientism, with its transhumanist creed that man is God and can therefore execute everything that he can technically accomplish and socially enforce [2-8].
Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was a gradual process. It is often associated with great names such as Leibniz, Kant, Voltaire, D’Alembert, Holbach, and Diderot in the philosophical realm, as well as with “enlightened” monarchs like Joseph II and Frederick the Great and the founding fathers of the United States of America. However, at its core, it was an ongoing process. It was made possible by the insights of science, which provided humans with a deeper understanding of the world, thus offering new means of control. Simultaneously, it rendered certain aspects of religion, particularly those verging on superstition, more questionable—for example, the notion that an earthquake or plague was divine punishment. Nonetheless, it must not be forgotten: Without religion, there would never have been an Enlightenment. The Enlightenment essentially began in the Middle Ages with those thinkers and philosophers—clergy, all of them—who used their intellects to explore the fundamental questions of existence [11].
