2. False Views

World Scripture

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5.20

Beings who are ashamed of what is not shameful, and are not ashamed of what is shameful, embrace wrong views and go to a woeful state. Beings who see fear in what is not to be feared, and see no fear in the fearsome, embrace false views and go to a woeful state. Beings who imagine faults in the faultless and perceive no wrong in what is wrong, embrace false views and go to a woeful state.
Dhammapada 316-18 (Buddhism)

When the Tao was lost, there was virtue;²⁴ When virtue was lost, there was benevolence; When benevolence was lost, there was rectitude; When rectitude was lost, there were rules of propriety. Propriety is a wearing thin of loyalty and good faith, And the beginning of disorder.
Tao Te Ching 38 (Taoism)

Whenever people are deceived and their notions are at variance with reality, it is clear that the error slips in through resemblances [to reality].
Plato, Phaedrus (Hellenism)

Teachings of Sun Myung Moon

Philosophers, saints and sages set out to pave the way of goodness for the people of their times. Yet so many of their accomplishments have become added spiritual burdens for the people of today. Consider this objectively. Has any philosopher ever arrived at the knowledge that could solve humanity’s deepest anguish? Has any sage ever clearly illuminated the path by resolving all the fundamental questions of human life and the universe? Have not their teachings and philosophies raised more unsettled questions, thus giving rise to skepticism?
(Exposition of the Divine Principle, Introduction)

Despite the fact that human beings are meant to live attending God as their Parent and to follow His guidance day by day, many people are ignorant of God’s existence. Taking one more step, they proclaim, “God is dead.” More and more, God is being removed from human society. Who made such a world, God or human beings?
(135:268, December 15, 1985)

Serious problems are rampant in society, including the confusion of value systems, moral corruption, drug addiction, terrorism, racial discrimination, unequal distribution of wealth, atheistic communism, violations of human rights, war and genocide. These evils, which threaten humanity’s destruction, are the inevitable consequences of atheistic materialism, secular humanism and hedonism, which have at their core the rejection of God. All these are the effects of the declining faith and spiritual exhaustion of this generation.
(135:221, November 16, 1985)

I am not one to condemn humanism altogether, but the problem with the humanism we see today is that it is based on a thoroughly atheistic outlook. Once we deny the existence of God and the significance of the Creator’s creative acts, human beings are reduced to just a handful of dust. It is a perspective that considers human beings no better than mere machines. This was precisely the fallacy in Marxist-Leninism. If we say there is no God, and that human beings are no better than machines or animals, then there is no basis for morality. Without a belief in the spirit and eternal life, people cease to feel responsible for each other and commit atrocities against other human beings.
(234:232, August 22, 1992)