Spirituality in the Twenty Second Century

Terrance E. Swanson

"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." 19th Century British mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford.

Why did the dark fog of religious confusion descend on society? Why did people buy into the fraud of unsupported claims of heaven and dubious threats of hell?

My reasonably educated guess is that there was an interesting historical distribution of population during this period that included a vast uneducated but intelligent middle class, a substantial upheaval of economic and social systems created by the industrial revolution, a confusing but attention absorbing bunch of economic theories and a refusal by the western educated classes to see the rest of the world as anything but an quaint oyster chucking out pearls of wealth. Conventional wisdom existed in a cocoon of economic, social and scientific paradigms that was soon to be ripped to shreds by the catastrophes of the middle third of the twentieth century.

And so it was that while Europe, Japan and China evolved toward rational secular societies, the rest of the world went crazy religious including, oddly enough, the United States. Why did the US take a right turn into religiosity? My view is that it did so primarily as a result of its role as world moral leader, world policeman and world military power. The primary intellectual power available to the country was focused on these outside issues plus the technical internet revolution leaving the b-list intelligentsia to worry about moral and other internal issues. These second tier intellects focused on making money and doing religion. When the bright folks suddenly started to worry about the national social agenda, they found that the political agenda had been taken over by the religious right backed by corporate entities looking for favorable treatment.

In the first part of the twenty first century, the great United States was attacked by a bunch of well-heeled religious radicals from Saudi Arabia in a way that the US religion-based government simply did not understand. Armed with nothing but box-cutters and a willingness to die for their cause, they provoked a national outrage that, in retrospect, seems almost impossible to understand. Only by recognizing that the United State leadership was controlled, not by rational people but religious nuts does it become understandable. It has become clear that the political debacle that is the United States in the first years of the millenium is not the result of one man or one administration but results in the political movement brilliantly coordinated by the political party that used to be the party of economic rationalism and fiscal responsibility but now is reconstituted into a party based on religious principles.

By conning their old base into thinking they are still the old fiscally responsible folks of before while running a brilliant below-the-radar campaign in churches, the new Religious Republicans captured all three branches of United States Government. It must be said that these events are not the result of some criminal conspiracy or self-serving greedy attack on the social welfare. They are, simply, the result of historical trends and a general rise in religious faith among a large part of the United States population arising from an uncertain economic future.

The RR (Religious Republican) party ran rough-shod over anyone who would oppose them or question their version of truth. The viciousness of the RR party surprised and intimidated everyone. In 2006 the political response started and it is difficult to see how it will end. It seems reasonable to see, in the discrediting of the US religious right and the rising popularity of rational anti-religious literature that there may be a new flowering of free-thought in America and the world. Maybe.

There is always a lag between the paradigms of advanced thinkers of the human race and the general population. These advanced ideas trickle out of the ivory towers and some of them make sense to people and awareness of them increases. Periodically some historical tipping point is reached and, like the ratchet in a watch, the great social wheel is allowed to advance. What was once an advanced concept is now common knowledge.

Clearly there is no "inevitable progression" in history and the periods of the flowering of human thought seems to alternate with frustratingly long periods of repressive spirituality and religiosity. World-wide religiosity seems to be abating...mostly because of world wide revulsion to United States religious militancy and general revulsion to Islamic Jihadism.

It used to be an article of faith of liberals (if you will pardon the expression) that an increasingly educated population would be, naturally, increasingly secular. It is difficult to reconcile this view with the fact that Islamic Jihad violence is by-and-large committed by young educated and professional people. Furthermore, these same people hold extreme beliefs about Sharia law and other religious viewpoints that seem inconsistent with a liberal education. We are now in the area of "statistical" assertions about religious populations... but there are disturbing statistical facts about the US population also.

For example, a majority of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein order the 9-11 attacks on the United States. Forty four percent of US adults believe that God created human beings pretty much as they are now in the last 10,000 years. Another thirty-nine percent believe that God guided the development of human beings over many millions of years. Thus eighty three percent of the US population does not believe in naturalistic evolution. Only Seventeen percent of the US population believes in the general theory of evolution (as opposed to overwhelming majorities in Europe and Asia). A British poll of European Catholic Priests, Anglican Bishops and Protestant Ministers revealed that ninety seven percent did NOT believe that the world was created in six days and eighty percent did NOT believe that Adam and Eve ever existed.

So! Is the world doomed to continue to believe these ideas for which there is absolutely no credible evidence?

There are several views on this subject worthy of some discussion.

Argument against the first viewpoint: There are a great many people who see no reason to believe in a Deity and do not. It is not built into their brains and there is no reason to suppose in is built into anyone else's brain. Slavery existed for thousands of years and is not opposed in any religious text yet it is, for all practical purposes, banned world-wide now. There is no "built-in" belief in slavery either.

2. The second view says that humans need a religious anchor and, from a cultural point of view, religion provides an ethical and community based rational for living. Efforts to change this will come to nothing.

Argument: There is no effort to change this. People need community. The issue is do people need a religious community when there are other communities to fulfill the need. In general, it appears the case that when there are many communities of different types available to people, religious communities tend to loose out. This is happening in Europe and Asia and may well happen in the United States. Religion is not needed for ethical and moral purposes and religious faith-based communities will not compete well with other communities. By the end of the twenty-first century, faith-based communities will still exist but there may not be very many of them and they may not be economically viable.

3. The third view is one that sees religion as a link to the past and one's historical roots. Belief in a God is a social basic without which society will crumble. Therefore, religion will always be an important part of modern life.

Argument: There simply seems to be no basis in fact for this view. That religion provides local community is beyond question. Will religion be competitive with other forms of community? That will be an interesting question. If not, then faith-based organizations will be of small influence by the end of the twenty-first century.

4. The forth view is that religion is simply not an important part of the future social dialogue.

Argument: As education becomes more general and religion comes under increasing scrutiny and questioning, the issue of God and "the holy" becomes issues of philosophy, psychology, politics and art. The idea of "soul" and "spirituality" will have lost their intellectual power. The idea of personal immortality will lose its attractiveness.

Conclusion:

By the year 2100, there will be general recognition that there is no credible support for believing in God, magic or the existence of the soul. Expressing such archaic beliefs will subject the individual to skeptical attention that may not be an advantage in business or life.

There is no reason to believe that the tide of scientific knowledge and rationality and the new willingness to subject religious topics to scrutiny and the fact that religious subjects cannot hide in the new age of enlightment and the internet will not impact the public acceptance of religion.

On the other hand, the internet has been a two-edged sword enabling diverse people to find each other and make common cause. Religious causes have often thrived under ground and may do so again. It is doubtful, however, that 90 years of rational examination will be kind to faith-based religion.