America’s New Religions
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
There is more to this article by Andrew Sullivan than what I have posted here, and it goes off into more of a political analysis, so I left it alone at that point. You can see the rest of the article at the link.
Everyone has a religion. It is, in fact, impossible not to have a religion if you are a human being. It’s in our genes and has expressed itself in every culture, in every age, including our own secularized husk of a society.
By religion, I mean something quite specific: a practice not a theory; a way of life that gives meaning, a meaning that cannot really be defended without recourse to some transcendent value, undying “Truth” or God (or gods).
Which is to say, even today’s atheists are expressing an attenuated form of religion. Their denial of any God is as absolute as others’ faith in God, and entails just as much a set of values to live by — including, for some, daily rituals like meditation, a form of prayer. (There’s a reason, I suspect, that many brilliant atheists, like my friends Bob Wright and Sam Harris are so influenced by Buddhism and practice Vipassana meditation and mindfulness. Buddhism’s genius is that it is a religion without God.)
In his highly entertaining book, The Seven Types of Atheism , released in October in the U.S., philosopher John Gray puts it this way: “Religion is an attempt to find meaning in events, not a theory that tries to explain the universe.” It exists because we humans are the only species, so far as we can know, who have evolved to know explicitly that, one day in the future, we will die. And this existential fact requires some way of reconciling us to it while we are alive.
This is why science cannot replace it. Science does not tell you how to live, or what life is about; it can provide hypotheses and tentative explanations, but no ultimate meaning. Art can provide an escape from the deadliness of our daily doing, but, again, appreciating great art or music is ultimately an act of wonder and contemplation, and has almost nothing to say about morality and life.
Ditto history. My late friend, Christopher Hitchens, with a certain glee, gave me a copy of his book, God Is Not Great , a fabulous grab bag of religious insanity and evil over time, which I enjoyed immensely and agreed with almost entirely. But the fact that religion has been so often abused for nefarious purposes — from burning people at the stake to enabling child rape to crashing airplanes into towers — does not resolve the question of whether the meaning of that religion is true. It is perfectly possible to see and record the absurdities and abuses of man-made institutions and rituals, especially religious ones, while embracing a way of life that these evil or deluded people preached but didn’t practice. Fanaticism is not synonymous with faith; it is merely faith at its worst. That’s what I told Hitch: great book, made no difference to my understanding of my own faith or anyone else’s. Sorry, old bean, but try again.
Seduced by scientism, distracted by materialism, insulated, like no humans before us, from the vicissitudes of sickness and the ubiquity of early death, the post-Christian West believes instead in something we have called progress — a gradual ascent of mankind toward reason, peace, and prosperity — as a substitute in many ways for our previous monotheism. We have constructed a capitalist system that turns individual selfishness into a collective asset and showers us with earthly goods; we have leveraged science for our own health and comfort. Our ability to extend this material bonanza to more and more people is how we define progress; and progress is what we call meaning. In this respect, Steven Pinker is one of the most religious writers I’ve ever admired. His faith in reason is as complete as any fundamentalist’s belief in God.
But none of this material progress beckons humans to a way of life beyond mere satisfaction of our wants and needs. And this matters. We are a meaning-seeking species. Gray recounts the experiences of two extraordinarily brilliant nonbelievers, John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, who grappled with this deep problem. Here’s Mill describing the nature of what he called “ A Crisis in My Mental History ”:
“I had what might truly be called an object in life: to be a reformer of the world. … This did very well for several years, during which the general improvement going on in the world and the idea of myself as engaged with others in struggling to promote it, seemed enough to fill up an interesting and animated existence. But the time came when I awakened from this as from a dream … In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: ‘Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions that you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant; would this be a great joy and happiness to you?’ And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered: ‘No!’”
At that point, this architect of our liberal order, this most penetrating of minds, came to the conclusion: “I seemed to have nothing left to live for.” It took a while for him to recover.
Russell, for his part, abandoned Christianity at the age of 18, for the usual modern reasons, but the question of ultimate meaning still nagged at him. One day, while visiting the sick wife of a colleague, he described what happened: “Suddenly the ground seemed to give away beneath me, and I found myself in quite another region. Within five minutes I went through some such reflections as the following: the loneliness of the human soul is unendurable; nothing can penetrate it except the highest intensity of the sort of love that religious teachers have preached; whatever does not spring from this motive is harmful, or at best useless.”
I suspect that most thinking beings end up with this notion of intense love as a form of salvation and solace as a kind of instinct . Those whose minds have been opened by psychedelics affirm this truth even further. I saw a bumper sticker the other day. It said “Loving kindness is my religion.” But the salient question is: why?
Our modern world tries extremely hard to protect us from the sort of existential moments experienced by Mill and Russell. Netflix, air-conditioning, sex apps, Alexa, kale, Pilates, Spotify, Twitter … they’re all designed to create a world in which we rarely get a second to confront ultimate meaning — until a tragedy occurs, a death happens, or a diagnosis strikes. Unlike any humans before us, we take those who are much closer to death than we are and sequester them in nursing homes, where they cannot remind us of our own fate in our daily lives. And if you pressed, say, the liberal elites to explain what they really believe in — and you have to look at what they do most fervently — you discover, in John Gray’s mordant view of Mill , that they do, in fact, have “an orthodoxy — the belief in improvement that is the unthinking faith of people who think they have no religion.”
But the banality of the god of progress, the idea that the best life is writing explainers for Vox in order to make the world a better place, never quite slakes the thirst for something deeper. Liberalism is a set of procedures, with an empty center, not a manifestation of truth, let alone a reconciliation to mortality. But, critically, it has long been complemented and supported in America by a religion distinctly separate from politics, a tamed Christianity that rests, in Jesus’ formulation, on a distinction between God and Caesar. And this separation is vital for liberalism, because if your ultimate meaning is derived from religion, you have less need of deriving it from politics or ideology or trusting entirely in a single, secular leader. It’s only when your meaning has been secured that you can allow politics to be merely procedural.
Excellent point.
Christianity could be a great boon to humanity if it would be practiced as Jesus taught. But I don't think we see that anywhere near enough. We have allowed politics in America to contaminate the meaning and usefulness of the Christian religion.
It is okay. A 'branch' of Evangelicalism has corrupted itself—but, the beauty of religion, especially the Christian faith, is it's core faith and belief system is not in a single living individual. Our is an ideology and a higher incorruptible purpose.
So denominations will rise up and fall down. It is all par for the course in lands such as the western world.
I find this interesting in the article,
Seduced by scientism, distracted by materialism, insulated, like no humans before us, from the vicissitudes of sickness and the ubiquity of early death, the post-Christian West believes instead in something we have called progress — a gradual ascent of mankind toward reason, peace, and prosperity — as a substitute in many ways for our previous monotheism. We have constructed a capitalist system that turns individual selfishness into a collective asset and showers us with earthly goods; we have leveraged science for our own health and comfort. Our ability to extend this material bonanza to more and more people is how we define progress; and progress is what we call meaning. In this respect, Steven Pinker is one of the most religious writers I’ve ever admired. His faith in reason is as complete as any fundamentalist’s belief in God.
I don't know if I should applaud, scream, or moan over it.
I've been saying this for years.
Louis CK makes a good point in this intro at a standup show. Those of us humans who are alive, are just dead people who didn’t die yet. Our lives are just blips in time, in comparison to time itself. The thought that life in the hereafter is eternal because some religion says so is the ultimate in absurdity. Acting like this is a foregone conclusion is like a third grader speaking about what the proper medical diagnosis is for a person suffering from an unknown disease. The kid knows absolutely nothing of what he speaks, and there is an ocean of experience he would have to swim through to speak on such an issue with authority. Except that we humans will never be able to determine anything whatsoever about what happens when we reach room temperature. Atheists know this.
Okay, that is not deep. And, I did not need a tab of acid to figure that out! Hal A. Lujah, you are correct in your observation-the mention is in the opening and short. Louis, is an atheist 'fan-boy.' One would have to listen to knew, C.K. Louis. See what I did there? That's deep.
On a positive note: Nice smile, Mr. C. K!
I would say that this is projection, and some incorrect assumptions by the author as to how many atheists think and go about their lives.
Agreed, the author is yet another who cannot seem to see the profound difference between believing there are no gods and not being convinced a god exists.
It is interesting to see atheists get a little defensive when an article calls some of their precepts into question. I never heard of the book Sullivan mentions , The Seven Types of Atheism , but I am looking forward to checking it out at some point.
Pointing out misconceptions is defensive?
Ok.
Three atheist comments were made prior to yours. I just re-read them; where is the 'defensive' language and to which 'precepts' are you referring?
I do not see any precepts in agnostic atheism - not being convinced there is a god is not really a precept, is it?
Intro. [Recording date: September 17, 2018.]
Russ Roberts: My guest is philosopher and author John Gray . His latest book, which is the subject of today's episode, is The Seven Types of Atheism .... Now, your book, The Seven Types of Atheism is a fantastic, short, jarring, provocative book. It's jarring to someone who is religious; and I think it's jarring to someone who is an atheist. At the heart of the book there are two central ideas which we'll be talking about today, along with anything else that comes up along the way: the religious nature of most types of atheism, and the illusory nature of progress. And, I found that second theme deeply disturbing. I came to realize from reading your book that I had imbibed much of the--that I was a child of the Enlightenment, and I had adopted many of the progressive--the view that the world is making progress. And, it might be. So, I want to give you a chance to defend it, and I'll challenge you at some point. But you do make a very strong case that it might not be. But I want to start with atheism. You are very critical of the New Atheists--Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and others. You say that they bore you and that their view of morality doesn't hold up. So, what's wrong with the so-called New Atheism?
John Gray: The first thing that's wrong with the so-called New Atheism is that there's nothing in it which is new. Most of the criticisms of religion that they advance, nearly all of them, in fact, were made in similar but better forms in the 19th century. None of the New Atheists knows anything about the history of ideas; even of the history of atheism they are pretty ignorant beyond the last 20 years or so. And so, they make a number of criticisms which fit into the Victorian or mid-19th or 20th century dispute about a conflict between religion and science--in other words, they take for granted that religion is a body of propositions or even theories, and that the theories aim to explain the world; and now that we've got science, we don't need religion. It's been superseded or rendered obsolete. But, that's a primitive view of religion, which actually not many people who study religion deeply and professionally, hardly any of them would take that view. If you asked an anthropologist or a sociologist or even a cultural historian about religion, not one of them nowadays, or very few of them, would think of religion as bodies of theories or beliefs or propositions which try to explain the world. Religions are in most parts of the world, throughout most parts of human history, of being composed of practices more than of beliefs. Most of them haven't had creeds, written down as propositions. Ancient paganism in Greece and Rome, for example, had no creeds, which had an advantage, among many, which was that there weren't any heretics. You can't be a heretic if there isn't something to be a heretic against. What we now call Hinduism, very, very bold body of beliefs, of practices associated with very sophisticated philosophies, has never been summed up in a single body of beliefs. The same goes for Taoism, or Taoism and Confucianism and Shinto. And for most of its history--you would know more about this, perhaps, than I--Judaism hasn't been embodied in any single list of propositions or creeds. So, most religions haven't been like--don't conform to this New Atheist understanding of what religion is.
And there's a reason for that, which is: New Atheism is a kind of inversion of monotheism, particularly Christian monotheism. It just turns upside down that body of thought, by rejecting the key beliefs in it. And New Atheists think that if they reject these beliefs, then they've rejected the whole framework of thought of monotheism. But, my view is that just turning the beliefs upside down, inverting them or rejecting them, leaves most of the rest of the framework of thought intact. And so, that's one reason why--although I did only discuss the New Atheists quite briefly, in fact I seriously considered not discussing them at all because I do find them boring and feeble in their arguments. But I did in the end, did discuss them in the end, because most readers, if we say the word 'atheism,' wouldn't nowadays be most familiar with figures like Dawkins and Sam Harris and the others that you mentioned. I did discuss them quite briefly, but only really to point out that they are recapitulating, repeating an argument that went on for several decades, a couple of generations in the 19th century, and coming up with the same narrow and to my mind rather parochial view of religion. Which is that religion is an early and obsolete kind of theory that we don't need any more. And that really doesn't correspond to what religions have been throughout human history and prehistory and most of the world. It simply corresponds to an upside down picture of Christian monotheism.
Russ Roberts: What's upside down about it? Why do you say 'upside down'?
John Gray: Well, I mean, what atheists do is they, treating religion even in general as a kind of system of beliefs, they say, 'well, what do religious people believe?' And they say, 'They believe that there's a Supreme Being that created the world--God--and created life and humanity, and lays down various sort of edicts for how human beings should live.' Now, the way I think of atheism, and I say this right at the start of the book, is that for me an atheist is just anyone who doesn't need the idea of a creator-god of that kind. You are an atheist if you don't need a superior negative[?] proposition: In other words atheism doesn't have to be organized; as a movement atheism doesn't have to be associated with any particular view of the world. It has several views of the world, many in its long history, even in modern times. An atheist is just someone who doesn't need that idea of a creator-god. But one important thing I point out is if you think of atheism in that way, that rather simple negative way, then many of the religions of the world have been atheist religions. For example, there's no creator-god in Buddhism. There isn't an immortal soul in Buddhism. But Buddhism is a very big and old religion. Polytheism doesn't contain a single supreme god. Most polytheist of the kind that flourished in Roman, for example ancient Rome before it was taken over by Christianity, featured many gods. And many of them didn't have any account of the world being created by a god, and certainly not by a single creator, one single god. So the idea of--you take atheism in that way, then there are many atheist religions. And that leads me to one of the major arguments in the book, which is that the boundaries between atheism and religion are much more blurred once you have a better and more complex and more pluralistic understanding of what religion is .
Russ Roberts: But we should make it clear that you are an atheist.
John Gray: I am. In that sense, certainly.
Russ Roberts: So the book's a little bit--there's an irony in the book, which is: It's a savaging in many ways of the illusions that you believe many atheists labor under.
John Russell, an excerpt for you to consider from an 1:30 minutes plus interview with Mr. John Gray. The source site is very well 'articulated' with an audio bar and transcript on the page (which I pulled from above)! I am sorry about the protracted link, but it is par for the course.
Thanks. I will check it out.
Laughing my ass off is getting defensive?
What's supposed to be funny about the article? It makes a lot of sense to me.
I'm ok with you thinking that. Will you be ok with me finding it funny?
a very interesting statement. Yes, religion has been abused quite a lot - so that means it's meaning is still true ? would that include slavery and murder in the bible ? ...... you would think that the "word of God" wouldn't be subjected to being misinterpreted or abused - it would be concrete and absolute (considering it's the "word" from an all powerful entity)... yet... it's not. Looks like a way to justify still believing in your religion - which you shouldn't have to do if you were already secure in your belief
"It is, in fact, impossible not to have a religion if you are a human being."
Well that just flat out Fucks up everything...…. right off the bat.....
Wouldn't you say ?
Atheists must be pissed !
One of the cheapest tricks is to exploit the multiple usages (meanings) of English words. Oxford on the meaning of 'religion' :
All human beings likely have 'a pursuit or interest followed with great devotion'. NewsTalkers, for some, would qualify as a 'religion'.
It's ALL about the "Science" !
I get it.....Honest !
Of course.....Scientific "Models" can be humanly manipulated to "Fit" the narrative stuff too.....But what the heck huh !
I made no mention of science. What are you talking about?
He doesn't have a clue.
It's like I know you when you pop up on "Religion" Stuff !
Reputations always follow one.
QUICK...………...
What does "Clue" mean !
Do you have a point to make that is in some way relevant to this topic?
Does that help ?
Ask the Hardly Boys...
Hahahahahahaha !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Luv It !
We read the words and see the pics..but do we really know it exist? lol
2000 thousand years from now there will be Newstalker scholars trying to decifipher its meaning.
I've seen quite a few articles on "religion in America today", over the last few months. (I'll seed one on Food for Thought in a little while.) I wonder if the US is coming to the cusp of a religious crisis.
The "standard religions" (Protestant and Roman Catholic alike) have been declining in attendance for many years. And now, we see the Evangelical churches totally abandoning Christ's message of love, in order to follow Trump's message of hate.
Are there any "dynamic" institutions that adhere to the parable of the Good Samaritan? That parable, by itself, encapsulates Christ's message:
- help those who cannot help themselves,
- even the most despised (the despised Samaritans) may be Christ's people.
Who is preaching a message of love, today in America?
Don't leave out the preachers of prosperity gospel. Sow the seed (send me money) and reap the heavenly rewards.
The Vertical Church...
The Church is still actively involved in doing good works, Bob! It is just (sigh) our noisy brethren are getting all the attention as they strive to push for dominance in the world. There is a failure to understand our earthly mission is at the same time spiritual, peaceful, and allows diversity in existence with others, in my opinion.
There are all sorts of churches ranging from positive (net good for their followers) to negative (despicable parasites). Same goes for religions.
It's weird... I read, a while back, an article pointing out the contradiction that's found in many modern Evangelical churches. Organizing missions to less happy lands is an essential aspect of Evangelicalism, after all. It's the origin of their name.
So these churches support missions to Africa, while cheering for a President who calls those countries "shitholes".
Very good point! I do not understand anybody who supports a compulsive liar -no matter what side of the political spectrum they stand on- either. I am so distrusting and dissatisfied with the average Trump supporter. Today, I watched as Senator Bernie Sanders showed a picture board of a starving child in Yemen due to the Saudi-Arabial/Yemen war:
House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Roman Catholic, looked pass this tragedy of what may be 85,000 dead children in Yemen due to weapons the U.S. sells to Saudi Arabia. (The politics of the war are an issue for some other article.) This was a 'faithful' man's opportunity to join the Senate to help children—Ryan took a pass. What a "contradiction" of Christian works-ministry. Additionally, where were the evangelical lobby in support of what the Lord loves? It's weird, Bob!
The cognitive dissonance must be terrible.
Christ gave us ONE commandment: "Love God and your neighbor". And now we have all these self-styled Christians who are proud to hate.
How can they sustain both things?
Because, . . .because these folks imagine they do God a favor. Even though God has explained to mankind - if God was hungry God would not tell mankind (about it). How could man know? Moreover, what could humanity do about it?
Some Christians have whipped themselves into a movement intent on bringing God 'down' to Earth through a head-long rush to prophetic end-time completion. No doubt these powerful men and women are deluded into thinking that God can be hurried along like some, well, human. Is it not rich? God, the Entity, being treated to human impatience. . . .
Oh, the disrespect woven into this so-called, "doctrine" coming out of these people!
Intellectual incoherence doesn't seem to bother a large portion of self-styled Christians.
How do you know they are delusional?