The Direction of Religion in Modern Times

This post will be mostly about "western" religion, the Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity because I know something about it.  The reasons for this consist of the subject of worldwide religion being too vast for even I to adequately simplify it, western religion being more familiar to everyone who reads this, and the fact that the future of western religion is in many ways the past and present of eastern religions.

By the end of the seventh century anno domini pretty much all of the area west of Persia was under the domination of Abrahamic, monotheistic religion.  These religions all had dogma and doctrine, specific beliefs and rules from God, that were written down.  If you didn't believe these things you were a tiny minority, a heretic, and usually subject to punishment (often death).  Religious belief came from on high.  There was some diversity in these religions, and within them, although far more diversity within Islam than Christianity (which was essentially divided between two very similar sects, the split originally coming from who should be the biggest boss) but none in the concept of rules and beliefs.

In the 16th century Martin Luther famously nailed his objections to some Catholic doctrine (specifically indulgences) and Protestantism was born.  The basic concept of Protestantism is that salvation comes through faith alone, and doctrine and dogma come from the Bible alone.  This was a challenge to religion coming from above, and advanced the idea of individualized religion (within the framework of the Bible).  In Protestantism your salvation is based on your direct relationship with God and needs no intermediary.  One century later the Enlightenment began, and I am sure that someone has written something clever about the connection.

In Islam such a level of individualism has never been formally realized (although the Ahmadiyya sect believes that God stills communicates to individuals) but there is actually quite some variation in beliefs, for example, within Sub-Saharan Africa there is a 39% difference in the number of Muslims who believe the Qu'ran should be read literally, between Cameroon and The Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The individuality of Islam (belief that there are multiple ways to interpret the Qu'ran, and it is not literal) is significantly higher on average in Europe and the USA.

The differences in Judaism are legendary, ranging from simply a cultural identity to fully fundamentalist.  From the outside it seems that, at least for centuries, Judaism has been about arguing with regard to beliefs as anything else.

The point of all of that is that there has been a general movement towards an individualization of belief, and it seems pretty clear to me that there is at least some connection between this and the movement towards political democratization.  This movement is increasing.

The extreme version of this individualization is the idea of "spiritual but not religious."  Generally such people claim that there is some sort of higher power or lifeforce, but differ widely in what this means.  In my experience a good number of such people find it impossible to actually define what this higher power is.  While polls differ, it seems that in the USA somewhere near 15%, and in the European Union about one quarter, describe themselves this way.

I think all signs point towards the belief of being "spiritual but not religious" to be a growing phenomenon, probably the fastest growing religious category (although Atheists are giving them a run for their money).  What this means is that people are leaving religions in which beliefs come from the top down, and deciding for themselves what they believe at a greater and greater rate.

Now, this is the bit where I will probably start offending people.  What does spiritual but not religious really mean?  It means that each person is making up what they believe, very much like people make up their own political beliefs.  Through evidence, personal experience, and what they would like to be true a position is taken.  The genius thing about this group is that the belief can be so vague that individuals themselves don't have to explain what they mean, even to themselves, and so find themselves almost immune to other criticism.

"What do you believe?"
"I believe there is something out there, some force or being"
"Well, what is that something, and what does it do?"
"I don't know, nobody can really know for sure, it is indescribable."

This is the purest expression of faith I have ever heard.  Not only is there a belief without evidence, but even the belief cannot be known.  Imagine such an approach with any other sort of subject, or knowledge.  Imagine such an approach to ethics, "I believe there is a right way for people to act, but it is impossible for anyone to say what that is."  It is essentially a "get out of jail free" card, the proponent is completely free from any challenge whatsoever that conventional religion must undergo.  You can't point to transubstantiation and ask whether people really think the cookie is the body of God.  It frees one to believe whatever one wants to without challenge.  It's a genius move, religious belief without needing any justification.

The "indescribable" approach is the best, and yet the silliest, one.  It kills at conception any ability to discuss such a concept, because the belief is that the concept can't be discussed.  A belief in something that you can't describe.  A belief in something without any qualities at all with which we are familiar.  How can you believe in something that has no qualities?  Surely a thing with no qualities is not even a thing?  

Still, spiritual but not religious must surely mean something?  It isn't entirely vacuous, surely?  well, we have a belief in a lifeforce, or higher power.  At a minimum a higher power has power, and more than us.  Basically it a magical belief, for if not then it must follow the rules of physics and then is merely material, or has no power at all, and something that doesn't do anything IS an entirely vacuous concept.  Spiritual but not religious people believe in a form of magic, but without having to define that magic, or provide any evidence for it.  If you are "spiritual but not religious" you believe in magic.

Why would people believe in a magic something for which there is no evidence, and furthermore is often thought it impossible to provide evidence about it?  I think such a belief comes from a cultural starting point (conventional religious belief) subjected to a modern intellect (the challenging of ideas.)  Raised Catholic to believe in a cookie becoming the body of God, and then taught to think critically, a person is quite likely to find this concept nonsense.  Finding one nonsense concept in a religion and you become able to find many more.  Still, the childhood belief in God can still be there.  The objection is to the religion, not God.

Still, if you believe that the trappings and dogma of religion are false, why would you not think that the central concept is false also?  Well, many do.  However, many don't.  I think the reason that they don't is that a higher power provides comfort, particularly to those who had believed growing up and therefore would "miss" the things that God provided.  What are the things that the idea of God provided?  Well, a higher power must have some sort of will, some desire, some plan.  This gives meaning to our existence, it means we aren't the result of a series of accidents.  God is also pretty universally thought to be loving (at least to those who behave) and to be surrounded by a loving, magical force is very comforting.  it must be very much like the comfort young children get from their apparently omnipotent parents.

I think "spiritual but not religious" is the direction that religion is heading, and I believe that this is so worldwide.  It provides the comfort of religion without the rules, and the necessity of subjecting that comfort to critical thinking.  It's a win-win for those who put themselves in this category.  I actually think that a very large proportion of those who put themselves in this category only do so when asked about their beliefs, in truth most in this category simply don't HAVE belief.

For those with adequate intellect I think either having no belief, simply not thinking about something without any relevance to our lives, or having defined beliefs are the only positions that are not intellectually cowardly.  By intellectually cowardly I mean preventing one's beliefs from challenge, believing something but not wanting that belief to be subject to intellectual thought.  If you believe in something you must be able to describe in what you believe, or you don't actually believe in it.  If you can describe something then such a thing is subject to argument, evidence, dispute.

For those who have this position i think it quite likely that they believe that either my Atheistic, materialistic position is cowardly (that I outright dismiss the possibility of anything higher, transcendent, or unexplainable (the last being a common accusation but false)) or a follower of traditional religion is cowardly (unwilling to think for themselves.)

Still, I'll leave you with this thought.  Do you actually know what you believe and why?  If not, aren't you just making stuff up to make you feel better?