On the inevitability of religion (II)
In our increasingly secular societies, an emerging faith is clearly gaining ground and a growing number of observers identify the phenomenon for what it truly is: a new sect
This essay is the sequel of the first piece I wrote back in January 2022. For new subscribers, I suggest you start there before jumping in this latest one (see link below)
My intention here is to pursue - with the necessary humility that it entails - my exploration and reflection on this fascinating social phenomenon. To challenge myself further - as well as you readers - on questions of faith, rationality, human nature and ultimately the impact it has on the values permeating civil society, public discourse and our governing institutions.
As years go by, it becomes more and more unmistakable that the apparent secular nature of modern Western societies is only true on a superficial level. Underneath official political messaging and contemporary cultural narratives, we find the same psychological and social cues that are characteristic of religious behavior, only with more zeal and reality crushing tendencies.
Since I last wrote about the inevitable religiosity of human nature in these pages, I witnessed an acceleration in the concrete manifestations in society of what many now call the emerging faith or more appropriately, the new sect.
Reality is being deconstructed
Censorship is on the rise
Dissenting views are openly punished
Empirical facts are disregarded
Debates are discouraged
Anti-liberty legislation is being promoted
New rituals are being introduced
Language and the meaning of words is transformed to fit the new reality being created
We can continue in pretending that this rapid transformation of society is normal or that it is just inexorable progress marching on and accelerating in the name of social justice.
Or, we could switch the glasses we are looking through and try to interpret the phenomenon from another angle; an historical and religious one for example.
An interesting piece - that I strongly suggest by the way - published a little over two years ago on
summed up perfectly for me the zeitgeist we seem to be living in recently.In the last decade we’ve seen the emergence in the West of a strident new ideology of “Social Justice” which, despite its self-conceived secularism, many observers have now convincingly argued bears all the hallmarks of a new religious cult, complete with a new metaphysics of truth and reality, a concept of original sin, a new hierarchy of moral virtues, a self-constructed canonical liturgy and a strict orthodoxy, a de-facto priesthood, sacred spaces, self-abasing rituals, a community of believers, linguistic shibboleths, blasphemy laws, and excommunication – among other giveaways.
, Are we in a 500 Year Religious Revolution ?
With the rapid decline in church membership over the last decades, even in the more traditionally religious United States, this void paved the way for the introduction of a new belief system. In countries like Canada or France, the decline started even earlier and the percentage of church attendance today is even lower, thus making the conditions more favorable for the introduction of a new cult-like belief system.
And with the emergence of this new faith comes the introduction of a new worldview. One where there seems to be no limits to self-identification, no inherent distinctions between individuals and where each person can be their own little gods, so to speak.
Free to follow their whims and create their own little worlds.
This new worldview is all encompassing and influences everything. From the relationship to our surrounding environment to our vision of an ideal family. From the way we view sexuality to our perspective on our shared history.
In short, a new story is being written, championed and shared.
Last time, I ended my essay by stating that I would prefer our societies continue with time tested, albeit imperfect but perfectible, value systems rather than running head first into new secular ideologies that seem to disregard human nature all together.
While I understand many Christian institutions around Canada, the United States and Europe have faced their fair share of controversies over the years, such as horrible stories of sexual abuse, fraud or disproportionate political influence, the fact remains the cornerstones of the value system we have erected in the West over centuries is based on the Judeo-Christian moral framework.
I also believe we should distinguish the inherent pitfalls and moral corruption in which human institutions tend to end up from the intrinsic values that motivated these same institutions to be created in the first place. The positive good behind good values and morals should survive our human failures.
And in the end, this framework was grounded on reality.
You could challenge creation narratives or the historical accuracy of specific stories in the bible all you want. But at least, men and women were biologically based in this framework, not conceived of as a fluid self-identity.
Where humanity had an intrinsic value and was not considered like a cancer ravaging the surface of the earth.
Where the wisdom extracted from all the stories had positively sustained communities and nations for centuries without the self-destruction regularly associated with modern secular ideologies, as witnessed in Maoist China or Hitler Germany.
On the decline of the Christian framework,
, summarized it nicely in the following quote:“ Whether I liked it or not, I was taught as a child the outline of the Christian story—the story that had shaped my nation for more than a thousand years. I didn’t realize that my nation was surviving on spiritual credit, and that it was coming close to running out.”
,
Call it what you want, it is hard to argue against Kingsnorth’s gut feeling that this spiritual credit is running on fumes. My generation, Gen-X, might be the last one (at least in my part of the world) that experienced a life in both worlds. One where Christianity was still the pace maker for important moments in society (birth, baptism, holidays, marriage, funerals,…) to a society dictated by the introduction of new secular (sic) rituals.
As I mentioned before, I do not consider myself a religious man but if there’s one thing I realized in recent years is this. There is no such thing as pure, objective or absolute rationality in human decision-making. Everything around us revolves around storytelling. While our scientific endeavors have permitted us to vastly increase our understanding of the physical world, science is not driving the way humans orient themselves in the world. Our conception of the world, our worldview, is the main driving force that pushes us towards specific collective actions.
And the current spirit of the age is nothing less than nihilistic in nature. What else could it be if the basic premise of the narrative stipulates that humans are by nature a nuisance to the earth and everything we do is only measured by the amount of pollution we emit or if biological reality is increasingly superseded by social constructivism in our lives.
In a recent talk that I highly recommend, James Lindsay (author and founder of New Discourses) argues that this new sect is in fact only the latest iteration of an old faith based on gnosticism.
“Marxism is not a philosophy. Neither are its derivatives, like “Wokeness” (Woke Marxism). These are a strain within a broader category of cult religious movements that pose as economics, sociology, and politics.”
For Lindsay, when faith and rationality coexisted in society, it permitted a form of check and balance between the two. They kept themselves sane.
If faith started to lean too far in fantasmagoric stories, the rational collective mind could bring the pendulum back. On the same token, if the rational realm started to act “god like”, in the sense that it pretended it could control everything through scientific means, faith would bring the pendulum back.
As for the new sect of the age, it is neither faith based or pure rationality, it is only a simulacre for Lindsay. Reality itself must be negated to introduce a completely fabricated new reality he argues.
For more, see video below.
There is obviously a lot to process here and I am well aware this subject might not be of interest to some of my readers. But for an amateur historian and curious person by nature like myself, such reflections and interpretations of the current cultural zeitgeist by Lindsay, Kingsnorth, N.S. Lyons, Desmet and others are too fascinating not to write anything about.
I leave you with this final quote by psychology professor, M. Desmet.
Until next time, keep reading, keep thinking, keep sharing your thoughts.
“Most discourse over time, when it becomes the dominant narrative, transforms into an ideology, a set of dogmas and gets perverted. It becomes an instrument of manipulation of the people.”
, professor of psychology
While church attendance and religion is in decline in many parts of the US, there are some states that are showing an inverse tendency, namely Florida. Church attendance is growing at a steady pace "In 2010, about 40 percent of residents of Miami-Dade County were connected to a religious group. In 2020, that was 52 percent". (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/05/14/democrats-religion-census-secular-00095858).
A big difference between this ideology and others is how it brings no joy to others. It's probably one of the most joyless, humorless ideologies around. It makes Mormonism look like Epicureanism by comparison.