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binarynate

I think one reason why religions have historically been so popular is that they fill a wide array of different needs:

• Community (friends, support group)

• Guidelines for morality / how to live life

• Shared stories / beliefs about the origin of their people

• Optimism and comfort from a belief in afterlife

• Charitable causes

In a way, I think religion has become "unbundled" over time, and these individual needs are increasingly being met my different alternatives (for example, meetups for meeting people, charities for helping others). But, of course, Americans are also just increasingly skeptical of religious beliefs.

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As one of these unaffiliated I actually think it is kind of sad in some ways that religion is so tied to shared origin stories (of earth, mankind etc) because I want many of the other things religion offers in my life: community, philosophizing about the big questions, shared guidelines on how to live a good life etc etc. It just so happens I don't believe in much of a god so it is hard to participate.

We figured out that many of the origin stories were incorrect so we tossed the whole thing without replacing the actually crucial components.

I spent a few weeks living with religious relatives. While it wasn't really my thing, I was impressed by how it brings the community together (they met twice a week) and by the heavy emphasis on morality (even if I disagreed on the particulars). I feel like we've really lost something. I suppose the regular meetings thing exists today with most clubs, but clubs are way more niche -- it used to be that the whole village got together every week. Though I suppose the same was true (weekly meetings in a town hall) of Viking society before Christianization.

>>it used to be that the whole village got together every week

It'a a good thing until you end-up being excluded from that big community which means excluded any kind of social life or even worse(i.e killed with stones). I say: good riddance of that kind of community! More niche communities are better because you have more choices and less powerful community leaders.

You can be ostracized from those other communities just as easily.

Sure, but the point is that they’re niche, so if you get ostracized from one, you can seek other communities. It doesn’t work that way if there’s just one community in your village.

This could be of interest for those in Silicon Valley:

http://www.humanists.org/blog/

Clubs have largely disappeared, too.

We live in an atomized society, largely devoid of any kind of community.

That hasn't been my experience. Rather clubs have formed more loosely around common, nonreligious interests. Now in the COVID era even more are online.

If you haven't had the chance to check it out, Unitarian Universalism [1] is pretty much what you describe -- community and support for figuring out life's big stuff, without being tied to a creed. It is perfectly acceptable to be an atheist UU member. If you are in the northeast US there are many congregations around here.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism

I don’t trust unitologists, they’re always up to something

Like what? I've never met one.

This was a joke, Unitology is a religious movement in the Dead Space series of games.

Thanks for the rec, don't know too much about them, something to look into

Unfortunately, the high-demand religions with explicit origin stories are the ones that maintain their membership numbers, whereas the more open religions are seeing their communities disintegrate more quickly.

I would suggest that it may be more related to the declining birthrate. Having just had a second child, I can say that kids have made me more active in my local religious institution, and I have observed the same among other friends with kids. I suspect that many people wander back to their childhood religion once they have kids, especially if their major cultural events are at least nominally religious (e.g. Christmas).

There's something to holding a child.

I look at Israel as an example. The ultra orthodox have exploded as a percentage of the population and together with conservative Jewry have completely dominated secular Israel- it's clear that demographic trends (if they continue as they have for 70 years) mean that fundamentalist religious perspectives will dominate Israeli culture and life for the foreseeable future. Similarly the Amish and Mormons are quietly taking over vast territories. I think it can be said that only moderate forms of religion are at risk of extinction.

Or that the religion stopped providing that community for a lot of people and they found it elsewhere.

They may have found the illusion of it on social media :) hence the loneliness crisis.

For a lot of people that are marginalized by the communities they were born into, I’d say the illusion is still better. Assuming they haven’t actually found communities that accepts them that is.

Nothing replaced it. Community is largely nonexistent for many people today.

>religion

Why say 'religion' when they mean 'Christianity'? I don't think Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, or Shintoism are suffering these problems-- in fact most people aren't even familiar with the daily practice of them. It's Christianity that you're actually taking offense to

What are you smoking? Islam, Hinduism and pretty much all religions face similar problems. Which religion in the world doesn’t exclude people for being different? Last I checked even Scientologists chastise people for not being true believers. It’s not Christianity I’m taking offense to.

That's more of a description of why Christianity is popular. Not every religion was big on charity, had a happy afterlife, or even particularly ethical gods.

I suspect a lot of the appeal is that people want some explanation for things, and the idea that anyone is running the show is comforting.

Peer Pressure / persecution/ discrimination I would say is up there is why people identified with some religion ?

For modern example Scientology in Hollywood you maybe discriminated against or atheism during McCarthy post war period you would be persecuted or killed if you were jew in Nazi Germany.

While by no means completely eliminated, we have kind of gone from genocide -> persecution -> discrimination, so more people are comfortable identifying what they really feel.

The discrimination is still strong, today it is almost unimaginable to elect an explicitly atheist president. Being gay/woman/non-white a candidate would face probably lesser discrimination for presidency than not identifying Christian even if they don't practice in meaningful way like say Trump, also being more devout seem to give no advantage either, but not identifying as Christian seems big challenge for office.

This is on point! I’ve written about this a bunch here: humanmissives.com

And hosted a conference on it here: summit.opendiv.org

Just thought I’d share — may give you some additional academic perspective!

I'll take the opportunity to self-promote my book[0], which is subtitled, "Plundering religion to benefit the Nones", and addresses precisely these points!

I'd only add to your list,

* Shared rituals to structure and celebrate life's mileposts

* An array of moral role models

[0] https://leanpub.com/tothrivebeyondbelief

Are those needs being met, though? Or is there just now a deficit in those areas?

There's definitely a deficit. It's pretty hard to have shared beliefs unless they are the table stakes. It would be great to have an organization that provided community, charity etc but it's hard these days to get people to agree on anything. I've thought about starting a new church and calling it something like the Church of Jesus Christ, Storybook Character. Keep the life lessons, dump the strained interpretation as non-fiction. Not sure how it would work out in practice.

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