Secular Life in Post-Christian America
Less than five years after Christian America's greatest political achievement -- the reelection of George W. Bush in 2004 -- Newsweek magazine announces "The Decline and Fall of Christian America" on its April 13 cover. The issue's lead article is "The End of Christian America" by Jon Meacham.
These stories, and there have been many, begin with the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey that was released in March. That survey showed a rapid increase in secularization in America, doubling since 1990 and a drop in all kinds of religious affiliation. That report brought into sharp focus changes that, in retrospect, were obvious.
But, actually, the story is both less and more momentous than the headline. It is less momentous because even with the doubling of secularists since 1990, only 15% of respondents in ARIS identified as secular. That means that America is still a very religious country and even a very Christian one. Nor will that change any time soon. (Meacham acknowledges this in the article.)
The story is more momentous, however, because growing secularization at some point reaches a cultural tipping point. At that point, and for the first time, large numbers of people begin to reach adulthood without religious training.
Of course there have always been atheists, in America and everywhere. But until recently, almost all atheists have been grounded in traditional religious teaching. They have been in the position of the Atheist relative in Woody Allen's film, Crimes and Misdemeanors, arguing against God at the family Seder. This is true as well of the leading atheist writers of today. They have all been shaped by religion.
In the near future, this will cease to be true. Today, we are still a Judeo-Christian culture with a sizeable secular representation. Tomorrow, we will become a secular culture with a sizeable Judeo-Christian representation.
This is not likely to mean that other religious traditions will step into the cultural vacuum. Interest in Buddhism, for example, has been spurred by religiously trained Christians and Jews who are looking for something else. That Buddhist growth may lessen in a secular culture.
As I have argued on this blog and in my book Hallowed Secularism, the easy assumption that secular culture will be healthy without religion may prove to be false. Secularists have an unwarranted confidence in themselves and in a new cultural formation. In contrast, I think raising children without religion is quite difficult.
Let me take a specific example. Daniel Dennett came to the New School in New York City in March and told an audience that they should all repeat to defenders of religion that "people can be good without religion." Dennett presumably exults in the decline of Christianity.
But religion by and large does not claim that it makes people good. Instead, religion, and especially Christianity, begins with the proclamation that people are not good. We lie, we cheat, we steal, we cheat on our spouses and we allow a billion people in the world to live on a dollar a day.
Which is more realistic about human nature, Dennett or the classic Christian view? And what, and for that matter how, will you teach your children the truth about such matters?
Undoubtedly, the decline of religion is inevitable in a scientific culture. Something, however, must replace religion's wisdom and insight. I assume that whatever that something turns out to be, it will have to borrow from the best of what religion has to offer if it wants to be successful in promoting human flourishing.
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Bruce-- I have problems with your analysis. We raised our daughters in Methodism but one daughter ended up a devout Catholic, the other a Buddhist. My wife converted to Catholicism and I became theophobic--I get violently ill if I go into any church. There is a sacredness in nature--a numinous force and field--that has nothing to do with church, "god" or religion. In fact the last place I would look for "god" if god existed is in a church. I find the sacredness in nature via direct experience in nature and through science, art and poetry. As long as people think of god as a male trinity--two men and a ghost--to the exclusion of women and the rest of nature; we will not have a chance of developing a right relationship with nature. There are plenty of what you would call secular sources to develop a relationship with the numinous in nature and community with each other. An interesting book on this subject is by Chet Raymo When God is Gone Everything is Holy. The philosophy of Spinoza is also relevant.
Christianity, along with other dictatorial-like narratives, starts by claiming human beings are inherently sinful and then, coincidentally, is capable of "saving" such unfortunate souls.
It fails to reflect the overwhelm of nature, which transcends manmade myth; it fails to instill moral virtue because it diminishes the importance of self; and it threatens free thinking and progress because it wishes to control culture and society by way of unchallengeable authority, which of course is utterly feigned authority.
The flaw I see in your argument (which was thoughtful and quite enjoyable to read) is in this statement: "Something, however, must replace religion's wisdom and insight."
Religion doesn't have wisdom or insight. People do. People spent millennia having wise thoughts and insights and then adding a clause along the lines of "...in the name of god" after them, making them appear to be religious in nature. Nothing needs to replace those wisdom and insight. We just have to write them down in about five fewer words.
You are being a tad condescending here, don't you think Mr. Ledewitz? Any statistics to back up your claim that children raised religiously are better, healthier, more moral, or whatever, than children of atheists?
Immanuel Kant showed two hundred years ago that morality need not come from a specific religious faith. Why are we still debating this issue?
Parents tell children that people are good, that's how the young ones come to trust the world and develop self confidence. Psychologists call that "primal trust." How many parents tell their children stories about war and bloodshed? And who says that a grim view of human nature is more "realistic" anyway?
I was raised without religion. I don't look at myself as being morally deficient.
http://www.pufferfishblog.com/
The very nature of astonishing scientific development was made possible by the freedom scientists achieved from religious dogma. Scientists were able to develop their own code of conduct based on the Scientific method of inquiry. Cultures where this method was adopted thrive. Cultures that didn't lag hopelessly behind. Examples of first, Japan, China, Israel. Examples of the second, most of Africa and the Muslim world.
I don't know if this is a sad or happy moment. In a way, the decline of Christianity allows for an increased acceptability of people who believe other things, including other faiths--which is cool to me.
But if the trends show that people are becoming more secular, then God is just losing popularity, regardless of religion... That just scares me!
Why are you scared? Do you think that people cannot be good or moral without a god?
I am scared because I believe that the more removed people are from having a conventional relationship with God, the closer we are to experiencing God's wrath... And, I totally understand that this does not make sense if you do not believe what I believe.
Don't be afraid. In America the foundation of religion has been cracked for some decades. It just needed a push. The irreversable political allignment that is happening right now may be just a temporary blow to the party of the rich, but it liquified the ground that religion was built upon. People still see these structures as they have been, but they are gone. You see here in these threads the start of the process. Religion has no leaders to take them through the collapse because they are all joined to what can now be seen as the illusion. When Christianity finally ends its fall and reaches a new point of stability, it will be with new leaders and a new set of ideas. This is not something to fear. This is a time to rejoice.
"Undoubtedly, the decline of religion is inevitable in a scientific culture."
Yes, this writer has undoubtedly been "shaped by religion" -- Christianity, to be specific. The centuries-old war between Christianity and science is undoubted indeed. But religion is not Christianity. There are other religions, such as Islam, that have (at least historically) thrived in PARTNERSHIP with science. The first experimental scientists were devout Muslims.
Unfortunately, though, we still have with us this unfortunate and totally illogical perception that science and religion are oil-and-water antagonists. This perception is tied to the history of Christianity in Europe--it has no logical basis and, if we expand our view beyond Christianity, it has no historical basis either.
Religion is about group pressure to conform. Science is partly about group pressure to conform, but it is also about individual desire to show the rest of the world they are wrong about something. Perhaps we would be better off if religion became more like science, and science became more scientific.
You are making an assumption that religion is against innovative ideas on making the world a better place.
The idea of "ijtihad" in (Shiite?) Islam is about combining modernity with age-old traditions. I am a Shiite-Muslim, so this is what I know. I am sure that other faiths have had to deal with similar struggles in order to perpetuate.
Miriam,
Thank you for the Shiite perspective. This is a place where we can discuss differences. I was raised a Christian and so that is what I comment on. Christians are pretty much against innovative ideas on making the world a better place. They follow the group, and the group is involved in perpetuating the group. They would like to think they are for innovative ideas, but in the end they just follow, and innovative ideas from outside do nothing to help them with evangelism. In my lifetime, I have watched them become attached to ideas that feed their vanity by attacking others on moral issues while ignoring things that really would make the world or environment a better place. People of my generation would have been shocked to see how accepting Christianity has become of wars and associated horrors that they think might be involved in rapture or the end of humanity. The religions can't just concentrate on what they believe and continue to ignore what they have done. They will try, but we can't allow it for the good of the next generation.
Abd-ul-Latif, I really like what you have to say, and the eloquent way in which your thoughts were stated.
You want to teach kids that people do bad things without religion? Make them watch the news one night.
This is the most nonsensical argument I've read all week. Children need to be taught Christianity because they'll learn that people are evil? And they can't learn this without Christianity based on miscontruing one statement made by an athiest? You've got to be kidding.
Dennett probably meant that ethics, just like anything else, can be taught through rational means. I'd further that by saying that ethics can ONLY be taught by rational means. Which do you think would be more effective: convincing someone that stealing actually harms people and the whole of society, or telling someone that if they steal they will be punished by an unimaginable, unseen and unknown figure that never evidently impacts their lives?
Telling someone that God punishes "sinners" doesn't teach them that "sins" are wrong, only that they'll be punished if they commit them. But if you show a child the consequence of theft, along with the classic "Golden Rule" speech, you'll likely be far more effective.
Great response. It was the lack of logic that led to my distancing myself from religion as a teen and early adult. We had "free will", but everything that happens goes according to "god's will"...well, which is it? If God sees us traveling down the wrong path, doing something that will harm us, and he does nothing to stop it, I always failed to see how that made God so great. If God loved us all and only wants to see the best for us in this life and the supposed afterlife, then why does Hell even exist? I wouldn't wish hell on my worst enemy...and if God is supreme, I'd figure that his capacity for love and compassion would be far greater than my own, and that he'd NEVER doom someone to that fate--especially for something as trivial as "non-belief" (which is even worse when you consider the notion that he KNOWS who will and will not believe).
"Secularists have an unwarranted confidence in themselves"
dur hullooooo!
Change the word 'secularists' for 'christians' and you are spot on. Many religious people speak of their chosen god as fact due to their over confidence, dismiss others who do not agree with them and do not like to debate their religion - there is little tolerance for other people's beliefs, including atheism, and an arrogance that only seems to come from the faithful. How secularists have an unwarranted confidence, I don't know!
The point is that you can have a good moral code and a spiritual nature without being bogged down in fairy tale bibles and the guilt of being a sinner.
Be good without god!
"An arrogance that only seems to come from the faithful." On the contrary, people of faith have enough humility to recognize that human beings do not, and cannot, know everything about the functioning of the universe, and to realize that there is a power far greater than ourselves. Humility is the opposite of arrogance. Want arrogance? Try talking to the typical atheistic scientist--you'll find limitless arrogance and an extremely high opinion of our species and its capacities.
But you believe the Bible has all the answers, right?
Further, true humility in this sense would be to accept the fact that NEITHER side can be proven to be true or untrue. If religious people truly were humble, they'd admit that while they are firm in their BELIEF, simply believing something is true doesn't actually make it true, and that they could be wrong. Same goes with atheists.
How arrogant that you think you are incapable of learning about the universe. Science has no problem with saying, "I don't know," but it doesn't leave it at that. When you get to "I don't know," that becomes the basis for new investigations into the world around you, new experiments, new chances to learn something nobody else ever knew before and then share it with the world.
What you are describing isn't humility. It's defeat, throwing your hands up in frustration and thinking that just because you aren't clever enough to figure it out, then that means nobody else is, either. Don't confuse your lack of skill, curiosity, and tenacity with a universal inability to seek out answers to difficult questions.
Such arrogance.
Spoken like a man who hasn't talked to many atheistic scientists. I'll agree that scientists can sometimes come off as pompous, but few, if any, have anything resembling the certainty of their religious counterparts. In fact the whole scientific method is based on constantly re-evaluating and retesting our theories, so I find your accusation of arrogance unfounded. It is not arrogance that many scientists exhibit when religious proponents try to argue their pseudo-scientific points, but rather their contempt for their obfuscation. Your tacit accusation that scientists do not realize that there is a power far greater than themselves is also disingenuous, to say the least. Power is a scientific term, and it can be proved both theoretically and empirically that there are in fact many things more powerful than humans. And if you think that is some kind of cop out because that's not the power you were talking about, i suggest you find some better terminology.
Peace
Humility Abd? You''re on record supporting mu r der of an Iranian blogger who dared to question beliefs you hold. You have no right to moralize here.
The author seems to think that "secular" means "atheist".
" . . . the easy assumption that secular culture will be healthy without religion may prove to be false. Secularists have an unwarranted confidence in themselves and in a new cultural formation. In contrast, I think raising children without religion is quite difficult."
You make your own easy assumptions, buster. I grew up religious but have plenty of questions about the enculturation and socialization of children in a post-religious America.
You live in Pittsburgh--recently a center of some of the most reactionary forces in the country, from the funding of Whitewater to the hateful Episcopal renegade movement to some of the most robotic followers of Catholicism around. Have you been lecturing any of the reactionary forces about their own extremism and its contribution to the exodus away from their intolerant brand of religion?
The country isn't heading toward secularism because millions are getting doctorates in biochemistry and seeing the light of science. The country is slouching towards secularism because, in the words of the poet, "the worst are full of passionate intensity."
Once mankind realizes that there is no god, then it will eventually occur to us that all we really have in this universe is each other. Maybe then we'll appreciate each other more. Hopefully, not too late!
Shall we call a spade a spade? Religion's wisdom & insight is better termed superstiition. Humanists & other non-theists use common sense, not religion's spurious insight & wisdom, as their guide.
Duck knees has a religious affiliation. It doesn't hurt an employee of a college with a religious affiliation to boost religion. But spurious insights & the revealed wisdom of some, if not all, religions are a phantism.
Save it for the retreats, professor. Say 10 Hail Marys too. If Duck Knees competes in college sports, you can use the insight & wisdom thing for pep rallies & Fellowship of Christian Athletes events.
A big time, movable, religious feast must be coming up when HP posts blogs like this.
All major religions are fundamentally flawed in that they do not logical.
Their theories on good, evil, morality, the beginning and end of existence are unprovable, short of verifiable miracles or death.
Religions have historically provided relatively simple answers to the big questions (like "Good and Evil", "where did we come from?" and "what happens when we die?"), and guidance to live moral and productive lives. It provided much of the glue to hold societies together.
Of course the price of this was faith, which means a surrender of logic, objectivity and the requirement of proof.
Golden Rules are common to many religions: "do not lie", "do not kill", "do not steal", "help the weak", etc. They are good philosophical principles to build a peaceful and productive society.
It is also ironic they have been all too frequently ignored, even by the religions espousing them.
Only in the last 200 years has science advanced to answering some of the big questions.
We are now beginning to understand the basis of life and the 'big bang' itself.
Science at this stage does not answer WHY, just HOW.
We will never get the answers to ALL the questions, but the closer we get, the closer we will get to knowing God.
Global morality and ethics are essential to humanities survival as we can now manipulate our economies, our genome and even our planet.
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