Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Well, in the days and weeks since two massive hurricanes hit the United States in just two weeks' time,

extremes from both ends of an ideological spectrum have proclaimed the events as unnatural disasters. There were many political and media

and activist voices reporting these storms as unprecedented and as undeniable evidence of human-caused

climate change. However, these storms were not unprecedented. As Governor Ron DeSantis noted,

many hurricanes over the last two centuries have slammed into Florida with equal or even greater force. In fact, a majority of the Southeast worst hurricanes happened between the late 1800s and early 1900s. Now, not to be outdone, Marjorie Taylor Green joined a few others to blame Helene and Milton on nefarious

forces within the deep state. This claim that these storms were manufactured and aimed at

Republican voters in Appalachia and Florida, well, it's not worthy of a direct response.

Still, the claim reveals something that conspiracies, even from those on opposite ends of the political spectrum, have at least one thing in common.

You see, most conspiracy theories are often based on an exaggerated idea of humanity's power.

In this case, it's the power to control and direct nature.

The illusion of control, well, that's a feature of modernism.

It's a reason that so many conspiracy theories proliferate today. In his remarkable book that's now

decades old, the way of the modern world, theologian Craig Gay of Regent College in Vancouver

described how secularization sees humanity as being more in control than we really are.

After all, if the world is a creation and a good one at that, it's likely that the creator did not

make it, nor has he left it, teetering on the verge of disaster. However, in the 20th century,

that's precisely what influential secular thinkers

like Stephen J. Gould and Richard Dawkins concluded, that this world is on the verge of disaster.

After all, from a naturalistic neo-Darwinian point of view, the odds that humans would ever

come into existence in the first place are ridiculously slim.

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