Contrary to what is often assumed, the set of beliefs that constitute a religion does not necessary include the belief in a supernatural entity - for example, a god. Cut down to its essential elements, a religion is simply a narrative that gives seeks to give meaning to our lives. The kind of questions that this narrative seeks to address are these:
Why are we here - what is our purpose?
Where did we come from, and where are we going?
What is the basis of a moral life?
Religions don’t try to answer these questions directly: they are addressed with stories, rituals and practices, including prescriptions for ethical behavior, that serve to knit the answers together into a comprehensible whole.
Let’s look at this more closely. I used the word “stories” here deliberately. In a religious context, the word “myth” invites us to make a judgement: is the myth true, or false? The proponents of a particular religion think of their myths as true, and call them beliefs: “myths” are the beliefs of other religions, which are assumed to be false. When discussing religion in general, it is better to stick to “stories”, to avoid pre-judging the issue. I will have plenty to say about myths in later posts.
I said that a religion needs to be comprehensible, and this has very practical consequences. One of the primary objectives of any religion is to bind its adherents into a community with a shared sense of purpose. Nearly all communities are composed of individuals with a wide range of abilities, but let’s look at just one - the power of abstraction.
It may come as a surprise to many intelligent people that the ability to think in abstractions is not universal. Consider the following algebraic equation:
2x + 3y = 10
A significant fraction of the population is unable to understand this equation. This fraction understands “two apples” and “three bananas”. It may understand “5 fruits”, but beyond that - not much. If you don’t believe me, you haven’t tried teaching algebra to mixed-ability teenagers.
There are actually 2 levels of abstraction here. Two of something plus 3 of something else equals ten. Ten of what? The something and the something else are on the first level of abstraction: the what is on the second level of abstraction.
You probably know many people who say “I’m hopeless at math”. What they are really saying is that they think in concrete terms, and can’t find much utility in abstractions. They are proudly declaring their membership of the concrete thinker community. Of course, if they had any idea of how embarrassing this declaration would be to a member of the abstract thinker community, their pride would vanish in an instant.
You also now know why “god” can be portrayed, to the evident satisfaction of many, as a man with a long white beard, dressed in a white robe and sitting atop a white cloud. For these people, an equation of abstractions - for example, “god is love” - doesn’t convey much additional meaning.
More generally, we can see just why religions are associated with such a wide range of ideas and cultural practices. Their transcendental and spiritual elements, which are both irrational and inherently abstract in nature, must be capable of being expressed in concrete terms. Conversely, their practices and rituals, which are inherently concrete in nature, are generally expected to conform to a worldview that is expressed in abstractions.
For one religion to replace another, I think that all of these elements - spiritual, ethical and ritualistic - need to be capable of replacement. That is the reason that we need to be very careful about the notion of a “secular” religion, which is generally identified with political ideologies of various kinds. Fascism and communism, for example, may have weakened Christianity for a while, but nowhere can they be considered to have replaced it. To be considered a religion, a belief system must reach a very high threshold: it is not sufficient to suppress the transcendental elements of the old religion, or to simply ignore them. On the contrary: the irrational and transcendental elements of a religion are a token of their power over the human imagination.
It is nevertheless undeniable that Christianity has been weakened in western industrial civilization, and that the process of replacement is well underway. How and why that weakening has occurred, and the identity of the religion that is replacing it, will be the subject of future posts.
My religion came to me just a few summers ago...finding fruit laden trees that no one was tending, and learning to make wine. The peace I find gathering and making is unlike any for me, and feels very old (cellular) and very good. The trees and the plants reciprocate, they our elder siblings. I call it 'free booze on trees'.