I’m in my mid 20s, and an atheist. I remember back in 2014, when I was an edgy little shit, I thought once people lost religion, as per the trend, people would be nicer to each other and science would rule the day. Probably a naive thought.
Yet, it feels like nothing is sacred anymore. Everywhere you look it’s just people trying to get their slice of the pie, ethics be damned. Everything feels like it’s going badly. I’ve just graduated and the job market is full of time wasting rituals. It just feels like people have lost touch with decency and community. No one has any pride in what they do.
Correlation != causation of course, and so the decline in religion may not be the cause. Still I wonder if for a certain segment of the population, those that seem to thrive and filter to the top of our wonderful society, the fear of damnation was check on their base impulses.
Or if perhaps this is a part of the process, perhaps the reasonable people have all left the churches leaving an ever growing concentration of barbarous individuals holding the reins of that decrepit institution.
Or it’s just the lack of community that religion once forced upon us, to see and be civil, if not caring for those in our immediate geographic community that hold differing opinions from us. A moderating influence if you will.
You alraedy say it yourself in as many words, but we need more community. Where I am from, our country was ‘columnized’ up until the 1970s. You had a catholic ‘column’, a protestant ‘column’ and a socialist ‘column’, each with their own clubs. So you had a catholic football club, a protestant football club and a more public football club simultaneously. The same went for schools, pubs, etc.
For all the good and bad that gave us, people were shoehorned into their own communities (note my explicit use of ‘shoehorned’).
About 50 years ago, our society got ‘decolumnized’ and people got more individualistic. Add to it the rampant neoliberalism of the latest decades and well here we are: people do not know how to find each other anymore. I notice that many yourger people have similar questions like yours.
Do we need religion as in something to believe in or to have faith in? Possibly? However, I do not know what to believe in to be honest. Progress? Not going to live to see that anymore. It will get very ugly very soon. Maybe my kids will see things get better / more enligtened/ etc, but only after getting screwed over for a few decades I fear.
I do think that religion is not the answer. Men running around in dresses trying to force the ideas of mistranslated books written by goat herders several thousands of years ago are not to be taken seriously.
You’re right that people are more selfish lately. That’s deliberate - the elites are backing us all into a corner using stress and rage so that we’ll fight each other instead of fighting them.
Who are the elites? It’s a term thrown around, yet do we mean the billionaires? Are they working together? What is their goal in the long term? Without answering these questions, I find it hard to differentiate between meaningful political discussion and conspiracy theory. The trump people blame the “elites” as well, which we can presume are in some way different from the ones you’re talking about.
The elites are the ones who don’t feel anxious when the economy gets worse
They actually feel better, economic crashes are a great time to acquire assets at a discount.
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Are you saying that people have always been like this or?
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People need a purpose in life. The church gave people purpose. The bold, the brave, and the great thinkers outgrew the purpose imposed upon them by religion and forged their own path. The masses sought to follow them in the name of freedom and liberty of the mind.
Unfortunately the masses are dumb bumbling buffoons incapable of original though looking for a shepherd to guide them right into the wolf’s moor.
We used to have a couple paths of religious doctrines (where each groups members share a collective ideal) all fighting eachother. We now have a million paths of “pseudo-religious” doctrines all fighting each other. For instance the american left and right resemble a religion more than they resemble a group of political ideals.
Just remember the average person is an idiot and half of all people are dumber than that.
religion = smarmy cruel assholes
Flaws in human nature will always be a problem and you will find them no matter what religion and/or political systems any society adopts. It’s as simple as that.
I’m a Preacher’s kid, now an atheist. But I have been wondering the same thing. It’s interesting I am not alone in that. In the last week I have seen the subject come up twice, once in this post and once at The Free Press.
Religion doesn’t make it different. People will still be trying to get their slice of the pie, but with religion it’ll be dressed up as divine, and righteous, and you’ll feel all warm and fuzzy about it. Ethics are what the priests in power say they are, and if your life is shit you can live happy knowing it’s all just a grand trial with a warm and benevolent reward at the end. Sounds to me like the middle ages.
I’d rather not live with dilusions.
I’d say it’s about time for the Age of Enlightenment to begin. For us to do liberty, progress, tolerance, use science and technology to our advantage. Invest in education. Maybe overturn the monarchs and billionaires.
Maybe a different form of religion. Not based on a guy with a long white beard but a force that created and keeps order in the universe.
Did you notice all the harm Trump has caused in his first 24h because evangelical christo-fascists love and vote for him?
No. Religion is toxic.
My interest you in the gospel of solar punk? Praise the sun!
Religion is a tool. We just need to fix the message.
Unless you’re George Carlin worshipping Joe Pesci, religion sucks for society.
religion is a bandaid for vicious wounds
It should never be “Do we need religion?”, it should be “Do I need religion?”. Some people might need it, but it doesn’t need to be pressed upon others.
Also religion or no religion, assholes will be assholes. Even if all religion disappeared from the world like it was never there, number of assholes in the world won’t change.
Assholes don’t need an excuse to be one.
That’s also very true, unfortunately.
Is faith your last resort?
Depends on the type of religion. One that preaches peace and tolerance and service and is against greed could be beneficial.
But the type of Christian fascists that elected Trump are not beneficial to society. They’re the ones that either want you kiss dear leader’s ass or die.
