And Americans who do leave still find a way, like Baldwin, to love it. But is love enough? Conflicting narratives are more likely to coexist uneasily than to resolve themselves; the threat of disintegration will always lurk nearby. On January 6, the threat became all too real when insurrectionary violence came to the Capitol.
Can religiosity be effectively channeled into political belief without the structures of actual religion to temper and postpone judgment?
There is little sign, so far, that it can. If matters of good and evil are not to be resolved by an omniscient God in the future, then Americans will judge and render punishment now. We are a nation of believers. If only Americans could begin believing in politics less fervently, realizing instead that life is elsewhere. But this would come at a cost—because to believe in politics also means believing we can, and probably should, be better.
Fantasy, like belief, is something that humans desire and need. A distinctive American innovation is to insist on believing even as our fantasies and dreams drift further out of reach. This may mean that the United States will remain unique, torn between this world and the alternative worlds that secular and religious Americans alike seem to long for.
If America is a creed, then as long as enough citizens say they believe, the civic faith can survive. Still, the American creed remains worth believing in, and that may be enough.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Sean Illing I see you as someone who enjoys exposing the hypocrisies of people who enjoy exposing the hypocrisies of others. John Gray Indeed. Sean Illing My complaint with the New Atheists has always been their insistence on treating God as a purely epistemological question. John Gray The human mind is like every other animal mind. Culture Britney Spears is finally free.
Culture Yellowjackets brilliantly mixes teen angst, cannibalism, and midlife crises — with major Lost vibes. Sign up for the newsletter Sign up for The Weeds Get our essential policy newsletter delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email. Email required. Imagine, if you will, a humanist church that met at night under the open sky, discussing the true nature of the planets and stars, and the incomprehensible vastness and majesty of the cosmos of which we are but a very small part.
Imagine a humanist church that spent its Sundays not shut up in a musty building, but on nature walks and hikes, teaching its members to appreciate the beauty of the living world, to identify all the species they see and understand the magnificently complex web of their interactions. Imagine a church that chose sermon topics not from one ancient book, but from the writings of great philosophers and scientists throughout history, or one that did not even have a sermon as such but rather a discussion, with every member an equal, of the virtues of a particular book or essay.
This would not be a religious service. There would be no prayers, no sacred texts, and no rituals invested with beliefs in magic. However, there could well be rituals, in a secular sense and without extraneous supernaturalism, to commemorate and celebrate milestones in the lives of community members, such as a wedding or a coming of age.
There could also be humanist holidays, premised not on deeds allegedly performed by past religious figures, but on dates of seasonal significance such as the solstices and equinoxes — again, as part of teaching the community to feel connected to the natural world and to understand the basis of that connection — or on important historical events.
If there were tithes, they would go not to prop up a wealthy and unaccountable church hierarchy, but to be reinvested to aid worthy causes in the community and beyond.
These gatherings could have their own dedicated meeting hall, or — an idea that appeals to me — they could simply rotate through the homes of community members, eschewing formalism as much as possible in favor of the simple pleasures of warmth, light, fellowship, good company and good conversation.
Instead of a hierarchy of obedience where one person always stands in the relationship of authority to every other congregant, this role could be filled on a weekly basis by different members of the community. We can always learn from each other. Through these deep and meaningful interactions with our fellow human beings, our friends and loved ones, we can meet the human desires for spirituality and involvement and fill our lives with happiness and meaning.
So, can any society function without the tasks that religions now perform? And, if it can't, what is to stop the new rituals and the new stories about our purpose in life and our duties to others from turning into rituals themselves? HE Baber: The persistence of religious belief is readily explicable — even if we recognise that science in principle offers a complete explanation of natural phenomena. Lesley Chamberlain: As Russian history shows, social cohesion and individual morality are better derived from an acceptance of reason than from any other source.
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