“Christian publishers and retailers realize that today’s busy consumers are looking for . . . spiritual food that can be consumed in a convenient way,” said Bill Anderson, the [Christian Booksellers Association] president.
(“A closer, faster walk with thee.”)
Today’s religion advocates sometimes evince an almost child-like ahistoricism, it seems to me. “Religion,” they say, is an essential component of a civilized society. Which religion, whose religion, and what era’s religion would that be? The differences that separate an American believer and non-believer today are barely perceptible compared to the gulf that yawns between today’s cheerful Religion-lite, which has been defanged, homogenized, and told to mind its manners, and the monopolistic, crusading Christianity of centuries past. How many of our conservative religious promoters would trade life in secular America for existence when Christianity was at the zenith of its power and made no apologies about trying to control as much of the temporal realm as possible?
Let’s not dwell on those outmoded religious activities that one is not supposed to remind religious advocates about, such as the burning of heretics and books; pitchforking the wrong type of Christian; and opposition to liberal political reform. I do wonder, however, whether Michael Gerson, say, would be happy living under an admirably devout Catholic principality, or George Weigel under a Lutheran one, during the Thirty Years’ War.
But even less politically incorrect religious practices from the past seem equally remote. Who’s still for hair shirts and flagellation? Does the dispute over when baptismal regeneration takes place seem compelling enough that one can imagine Britain’s Privy Council addressing it, as it did in 1850? How about spending virtually all day in church on Sunday, being instructed about the fires of hell? I’ve never heard a theocon argue for reinstatement of Sunday blue laws, which would torpedo our retail sector, or even voluntary compliance with the Sabbath; could it be that the good of the economy trumps the clear commandments of God?
The religious superstructure of centuries past has been dismantled. Rising in its place is a remake of religion “in the image of mass-consumer capitalism,” according to a sociologist of American religion at the University of Notre Dame. That remake offers up easily digestible bits like the “5 Minute Theologian” and “7 Minutes With God.” Only a quarter of Americans attend church weekly. Yet moral chaos has not broken out; society has grown more prosperous as secularism expands. Empathy with others, an awareness of the necessity of the Golden Rule, survive the radical transformation of religious belief, it turns out. Perhaps because a moral sense is the foundation, not the result, of religious ethics.
I’ve never heard a theocon argue for reinstatement of Sunday blue laws, which would torpedo our retail sector
A quick trip to Bergen County on a Sunday will show the sector thus effectively torpedoed.
Though without a way to prove it, I’m of the opinion summed in your final sentence: moral requirements of social life begat religion to reinforce (and, sometimes, enforce); the supernatural is more or less the principal technology of religion.
Perhaps because a moral sense is the foundation, not the result, of religious ethics.
Thomas Aquinas thought so too! Though he would have dispensed with the ‘perhaps’.
The point of religious practice is not to create the moral sense, but to perfect it, as far as possible.
I think religion was invented to enforce the moral sense–and the practice of morals–rather than perfect it, though this may be more of a semantic than a substantive distinction.
Many people, including me, behave morally because it’s the right thing to do, from a a pragmatic standpoint as well as any other. Some people need a bit of reinforcement to behave–such as the threat of going to hell if they don’t.
Of course even religious reinforcement doesn’t work for certain people, whch is why we have laws, and a temporal punishment to follow for those who break them.
Religious practices are simply distilled wisdom from ages and ages of social interactions between humans living in society. There is nothing god-like in any of this, this is not revealed wisdom at all–it is the result of eons of practice. From long before any of our current crops of religions began. Religion is most certainly not the basis of morality–morality is the basis of religion (except, of course, when religion gets warped by its human factor–used for power and status, etc.). And this morality is not based on anything revealed by a god or a higher intelligence, but simply based on eons of experience
Perhaps because a moral sense is the foundation, not the result, of religious ethics.
Yes. Religion as we understand in the modern world, a baroque system of institutions, creeds, scriptures and rituals, takes into itself a great deal which existed for those said religions. Human moral sense is one of those, just as philosophy and and institutional structures are others. None of these depend on religion, though the addition of a supernatural creedal glue tying them together may affect subtle changes on the moral sense.
I agree with PM. Religions are like great glaciers, scouring the mountainsides as they travel. They pick up a lot of useless stuff on the way, some of it even harmful. But, yes, they do scrape up some wisdom, too. The problem is, they come to think their religion–or at least the god or gods they believe in–is the source of that wisdom. Now they can’t even imagine wisdom independent of the religion.
mikespeir: The problem is, they come to think their religion–or at least the god or gods they believe in–is the source of that wisdom.
As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, it may well be that religion has to masquerade as the source of morality in order to function in its real role as reinforcer of morality. After all a moral code carries a lot more oomph when it is perceived to have the endorsement of the Creator Of The Universe And Everything And Everyone In It.
Well, Joshua, it’s hard to dispute that religion has historically been the major enforcer of morality. And I’ll admit that its demise will leave a vacuum that will be hard to fill. I’ve long been disabused of any confidence that people will police themselves sufficiently. Are we going to be left with a choice between delusion and chaos? I’m not sure what the answer will be, but we have to find something.
Not really. The future is quite predictable, doesn’t look pretty, and there is not a thing we can do about it – that we would permit ourselves to do about it. It is all about demographics. Islam will win in the end – and in the not too distant future – simply because they are breeding and we are not. Europe is already history, and the only building boom left in America is the mosques sprouting like weeds all across the fruited plain.
Our posterity will be on their prayer rugs five times a day in the coming Dark Ages II. Planning for a glorious secular future is an interesting intellectual exercise; but it is pointless to take it seriously. We could lock every atheist couple in their bedrooms and only allow them out for child birthing, and we could never catch up with those who are programing their broods to hate us, and gladly die for the cause of eliminating infidels from the planet.
It is too late already. The only way to save our civilization would be to eradicate theirs; but we are much too “civilized” for that, aren’t we? It isn’t even PC to name our adversary, much less defend ourselves from their plainly stated goal of a worldwide Caliphate. Fortunately, I lived in the best of times in America, and I won’t have to be here to watch it disintegrate for much longer. ◄Dave►
Hope you’re wrong, Dave, but you’re not the only one who has expressed that fear.
Dave is yearning for the “good old times”.
Fight fire with fire, inoculate Islam with leftism!
May be it will have the same results that we see on our own civilisation.
Though I have no idea how to do that or if it will be fast enough to avoid disaster.
Dave: maybe not quite so glum as all that. Apparently, Christianity (evangelical, etc.) is winning out in Africa over Islam, and there is certainly significant population growth in Latin America. And, as you point out, none of us will be around to see the answer to your question. Nor will our children, in all likelihood.
But the real issue is how religions (and the rest of culture) change in response to urbanization, industrialization, technology, growth, social change, etc. Do we have any reason to think that Islam will be any different from Christianity in this regard? I have no claim to expertise, but I do know that Islam in Egypt is not the same thing as Islam in Saudi Arabia, and is not the same thing as Islam in Indonesia.
We would be fools to assume that it is monolithic, unchanging, or unstoppable.
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As for the causal priority of religion vs. ethics, the historical and archeological record is far from clear. One could certainly make a strong case that religion did not arise as a mean of enforcement (that seems to take the Christian theology of the afterlife as paradigmatic for “religion”), and that religion and ethics were not separable for early societies.
But for me there’s a Darwinian question here– who cares which came first? If ethics does not need the supernatural, then it is immaterial whether it was original or derivative. The only question is how best to go forward without the supernatural. This seems to me to hamper a number of atheist/agnostic efforts to tackle “religion”– they buy into the metaphysical premise that origin determines significance. We understand that the fact humans descend from “lower” primates does nothing to denigrate the high marks of human civilization– why then should we think ethics’ origins makes any difference for how it should be carried on?
@PM
I had missed this reply, PM. Yes, I do believe we have good and sufficient reason to think so. Christian fundamentalist would love to have a theocracy based on their notion of their god’s requirements; but they are pacifists and thus feckless. Islamic fundamentalists are not. Invest 3½ minutes in watching this video and ask yourself the question again.
I did not assert that they were monolithic, unchanging, or unstoppable. Only that our society is too foolish to do what it would take to stop them. The ~90% of Islamic society who are not jihadis, are simply afraid to try to stop them. If speaking out against Christian fundamentalists elicited a death sentence from the evangelical pulpits in America, we would be too. ◄Dave►
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Dave (#10) seems not to take into account this admonition, attributed to various soothsayers from Nostradamus to Mark Twain: it is hard to predict, especially about the future.
@Phiwilli
It is a matter of perspective. Were I flying over the Hoover Dam and saw it fail, I could make a fairly accurate prediction that all hell was about to break loose among the tourists in the casinos down river in Laughlin. Focused on their gaming, they might have dismissed anyone warning about the cracks, if they even heard about them. It sure wasn’t in the casino’s best interest to frighten them with the remote possibility, which the engineers were saying could be cataclysmic. Besides, Hoover Dam is too big to fail. ◄Dave►
While Dave was focused on the threat of Islamic terrorism, he let the financial terrorists run wild in America. Really, which is the greater existential threat?
@Paul
I did no such thing. I am a big picture guy, who doesn’t focus on any one issue to the point of myopia. I have been lamenting fiat currency and fractional reserve banking for about 35 years, and didn’t stop doing so on 9/11. I moved all of my excess capital into gold over two years ago, and have been advising anyone who would listen to do the same ever since. Few did. FWIW, had I not done it then, I wouldn’t hesitate to so today with whatever I had left. We are in the beginning stages of hyperinflation, and it is only going to get worse. Count on it. ◄Dave►
I’ll admit that its demise will leave a vacuum that will be hard to fill.
Here we go again with the confident assertions that religion is on its way out. Haven’t we learned our lesson that every time secularists pronounce religion dead, it rebounds? Religion, especially outside of the West, is on the rise. Rumors of its “demise” are greatly exaggerated. It ain’t going away any time soon.
“Only a quarter of Americans attend church weekly. Yet moral chaos has not broken out”
I would just add that accepting this as the measure both misses any orthodox religious critique while at the same time painting that critique as simplistic & apocalyptic.
It has been chaos already – any decent Christian who slept through the last 40 years would wake up to see 1/3 of all children born out of wedlock, 1.3 million abortions a year, 50% divorce rates- pornography coming out our ears, venereal diseases, girls gone wild….the whole damn litany.
I mean what do people expect actual Fire & Brimstone!
The period of time being discussed did accompany an abrupt and dramatic shift is social attitudes and the preservation of both personal and public morality.
One gets the impression that Miss McDonald requires people running around with Molotov cocktails in order vindicate the critique that religion maintains “order”.
In this case we have plenty of bread and circuses, so were apt to ignore the suffering around us. – but the very real human toll is open and obvious, single parent households especially among a pathology riddled underclass, barren woman, broken families, and prisons overflowing.
You cannot put up a false critique ignoring the ends religion hopes to attain when those very ends are what are in such chaos. Primarily they are the strong families and healthy communities required to insure human thriving and the social justice that accompanies it.
One always gets the impression in these discussions that either a complete breakdown in the economic order is required to get peoples attention. Either that or someone would have to break into your home and disconnect their cable to get their attention.
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