The problem with false philosophies (false ideas) is that they are . . . false.  As a result they cannot be ultimately successful in their goals.  The reason they are false or erroneous is that they do not deal with reality.  Whatever philosophies or sets of ideas refuse to acknowledge objective reality are doomed from the outset.

One of the chief reasons the world is in such chaos, when no problems seem to be able to be solved, is that it is awash in false ideas and has been for a long time:  Nazism, fascism, secularism, communism, extreme environmentalism, hedonism, religious indifferentism (all religions are equal), atheism and more.  False philosophies originally have some appeal because the false element attracts certain followers, but eventually, and inevitably, their basic errors will be revealed.  For example, extreme environmentalism teaches that planet earth is totally under human control and is, thus, a denial of Divine Providence.  Humans who cannot even accurately predict weather assume that it is up to them to regulate the earth’s temperatures.  Again, a lack of reality.

How do we know or at least suspect that some ideas are false?

What does the philosophy say about God?  God is the ultimate reality in the universe and in human lives. When a philosophy derides, ignores, rejects, passes over or does not deem God very important in life, it is a false philosophy because it ignores reality.  (Remember, reality is what it is even if you have a different idea about it.) Secularism is a dominant philosophy is the U.S. And Europe. This set of beliefs teaches that religion is, at best, a purely personal activity such as a hobby and , therefore, is irrelevant to public life.  (God did not  design man to be a secularist.)  The government at all levels, education and the media are hotbeds of secular philosophy and aren’t they shining examples of dealing with reality?  The philosopher Voltaire said that man will be ruled by God or he will be ruled by tyrants. The government is tyrannical in its incompetence, the schools are tyrannical in their decades-long drive to de-educate for reality, and the media is tyrannical in its manipulation of facts  to produce ideological “news.”  Without a realistic attitude toward  God, false philosophies begin as bad judgments about what is truth and ultimately fail as did Communism.

What does the philosophy say about morality.  Man has a moral aspect that animals do not have.  The most vicious animal never sins because he has no moral sense.  Man is aware of the idea of moral right and wrong.  Real morality is based on the Natural Law (“Do good; avoid evil,” a law implanted in the human mind, that comes from God) and valid human thinking.  Moral rules can be distorted, ejected, ignored or distorted.  Judge Robert Bork was denied a seat of the Supreme Court because he said the Natural Law was part of reality, and anything based on God is not popular in the U.S. nowadays.

If a philosophy advocates or justifies what used to be called sin, it should be deemed a false philosophy.  The current agitation about same-sex “marriage” is a case in point.  Thousands of years of human experience are to be rejected in favor of unrealistic and unnatural alliances.  It’s not a matter of freedom and equality; it’s about reality. Have humans been wrong about marriage until the last few decades?  A set of ideas that allows abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research must be judged to be a false philosophy, and those who support them must adjudged to be in error.  More than 55,000,000 unborn babies have been killed in the U.S. because 7 members of the Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution unrealistically.

What does the philosophy say about man?  Sacred Scripture (which has been proven many times to be authentic) tells us that humans are the most important beings on earth because we have an eternal destiny.  No other creature does.  Moreover, man has the potential to be an adopted child of God and to live for all eternity with God . . . or without Him.

A philosophy that does not incorporate the dignity of man into its belief system will not be able to deal with man realistically or effectively.  If man is not a child of God, he becomes automatically a child of the state which cares nothing about the human soul.

This can ultimately lead to totalitarianism in varying degrees.  There are those who warn that Americans are losing their freedom because of coercive government rules and regulations.  I took care of my health insurance for years without Obamacare.  Why do he and his cronies assume they can do a better job?  (They can’t.)

Some secularists see man as no more significant than a fly (speciesism).  If we are no more significant than an amoeba, it becomes logical to “live it up” before you die.

The problem with that world view is that those who believe it are just wrong.  Man has been a religious being from the beginning even if he believed in false gods.

One could add other criteria for determining false philosophies, but any false set of ideas will include at least one (and probably all) of the above.  False philosophies have no hope of delivering what they offer because they start out in unreality.  But many people are swept up in these false ideas and a false idea is still false regardless of how many fans it has.  There will come a last moment for all of us.  If you have followed the blindness of false philosophies, your last moment will be unpleasant . . . if you are even aware of your status.

Let us remember the lament of the lost sinner: “The past has deceived me, the present torments me, and the future terrifies me.”