Going secular?
I've had some interesting conversations the last few weeks sparked by my post about religious remembrance services in Binghamton.
I suggested that maybe it's time for more secular-minded people, like myself, to develop parallel rituals -- ones that celebrate community, offer comfort in times of grief -- outside the context of religious faith.
One of my clergy friends emailed me a link to this article in the New York Times, about atheists who are speaking more publicly about their views.
“It’s not about carrying banners or protesting,” said Herb Silverman, a math professor at the College of Charleston who founded the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, which has about 150 members on the coast of the Carolinas. “The most important thing is coming out of the closet.”Two recent studies suggest that the number of non-religious Americans is growing fast. The massive ARIS study found that in 1990 86% of us described ourselves as Christian. The percentage is now 76%.
(In demographic terms, a 1% loss per year represents a revolutionary change...)
"The challenge to Christianity in the U.S. does not come from other religions," the authors conclude, "but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion."
A Pew study released earlier this month found a huge amount of churn within religious communities, but concluded, "The category of people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion has grown more rapidly than any other religious group in recent decades."
The question posed by my religious friends is this: Where does morality come from if more of us (especially more young people) don't get their values from church? Or synagogue? Or mosque?
A lot of Christians, in particular, are sincerely worried about a creeping moral decay in American society.
My answer, briefly, is two-fold: First, I see little evidence that church-goers are more or less moral than non-church-goers. In ethical terms, my secular friends and my "believer" friends are indistinguishable.
Second, I think our society has produced a new menu of moral and ethical resources. From poets to ethicists to philosophers, the secular options are beautifully rich.
I found this passage the other day in Joseph Campbell's "Creative Mythology."
[I]n the fields of literature, secular philosophy, and the arts, a totally new type of non-theological revelation, of great scope, great depth, and infinite variety, has become the actual spiritual guide and structuring force of the civilization.So what do you think? Are we becoming more secular? Does a more secular future mean a less moral future? Is America still a Christian (or Judeo-Christian) nation? How will American culture accomadate a new, more outspoken "non-faith" community?
posted by Brian Mann @ 4/29/2009 08:40:00 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Where we are becoming more secular is a matter for statisticians to decide. As for morality it has been demonstrated that belonging to an organized religion does not necessarily make one more moral. Back in 2005 Christianity Today ran an article entitled "The Evangelical Scandal" htinyurl.com/ac4vc7 which discussed surveys showing that evangelicals were not significantly different than the general population except in one regard, they were more prejudiced.
In my experience, the morality of religious people is best demonstrated by how they reject aspects of their faith. Many people claim the bible to be literally true and a source of great morality. This suggests that they either haven't read it or haven't understood it. The bible is full of endorsements for hideous practices such as rape, murder, witch-burning, infanticide, genocide, genital mutilation, homophobia, racism, slavery, out-group hostility and more. Any sort of moral person will regard these as repugnant.
It's a good bet that wherever moral progress is made, religion is being used to oppose it. Before slavery was abolished, the practice was being defended in Congress using biblical quotes.
The only way to make any moral sense of the bible is to view it through a metaphorical pair of modern secular glasses. Better still is to keep the glasses and throw out the book.
Kieran -
I don't share your apparent hostility to faith or organized religion.
But I do agree strongly with one thread of your comment.
I think secularism has liberated people of faith in many ways, giving them new tools and new methods to think about spirituality.
One dramatic and apparently positive new trend in America's religious life is that people shop around a lot for the right church to suit their needs.
They also pick and choose the parts of a faith that match their ethical code. (Thus the term "cafeteria Catholic.")
That kind of freedom was unheard (and even dangerous)when religions held more political power and more cultural sway.
--Brian
I ceratinly agree with your observation that "religious" people are no more or less moral than "non-religious" people. But, would you agree that, as a whole, people are less moral now than they were 50 years ago? Or, is it a factor that we feel EVERYTHING must be publicized, therefore we "know" more now?
From what we know about American culture, we are clearly a more moral society now than 50 years ago.
Fifty years ago, our society was segregated.
People of color -- and women -- were denied equal opportunity and equal protection under the law.
Industry and average citizens were polluting the environment so egregiously that rivers were bursting into flame and forests were dying.
Poverty was still rampant and Dickensian, especially among the elderly.
I could go on.
Are there still problems and enormous questions (including ethical questions) facing our society.
Sure. But the moral progress made over the last half-century has been revolutionary.
-Brian
as if on cue, andrew sullivan points to a newly released pew poll showing that support for torture of terror suspects is higher amongst regular churchgoers:
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week -- 54 percent -- said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is "often" or "sometimes" justified. Only 42 percent of people who "seldom or never" go to services agreed, according to the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified -- more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.
i certainly don't mention this to beat up on religious people -- i think religion is unquestionably a force for good in many important ways -- but i find it a bit shocking to see religiosity tracking with something that i find so completely immoral.
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