edit: Wow, I see I really went on in this thread tonight. Looks like a god damn manifesto. lol. If it's tl;dnr, that's ok. I think we agree on more than we disagree by far. Thanks for the excellent discussion.
We're already adopting those kinds of practices in the secular world. Google the word 'mindfulness' along with things like 'education,' 'healthcare,' 'law enforcement,' etc. You'll find from the results that those practices are becoming institutionalized in various areas of secular life, useful and sometimes even life-changing techniques ranging from simple breathing meditations to deep self inquiry.
That's just program level stuff. Individuals and families all over the world incorporate these practices into their lives. True, a great many of them are wishy-woos, but at least the bliss bunnies rarely adopt the kinds of core values and assumptions that inspire hatred, aggression, or fear. Also, as has been stated in this thread, whatever engages the
felt personal experience is what sticks. Then they tell two friends, and they tell two friends...
This is why so many religious people in absolutist, no-other-god-before-me sects DO also rely on secular solutions and guidance as well as other, even forbidden, strains of spiritual nonsense. Catholics love astrology, which is supposed to be wicked. It's also forbidden by most Protestant denoms and sects, but they prefer love pop-psychology and trendy personality tests and things to help them understand themselves and their relationships*, and don't forget that fundamentalists clash with science but few of them are willing to live without its benefits.
The reason is simple: what helps the problems they actually suffer first-hand is what they will reach for regardless of what they say they believe. They might do it in secret, but if something forbidden actually helps ease pain, that person is going to try to get it. Severe zealotry might give someone the impetus to choke off all desire for anything but the religious magic, even to denying their own basic needs, but most of us humans will go with what actually eases actual pain that we actually experience with these actual brains and bodies. Religions are totally anti-[insert whatever here] until [insert whatever here] does for the individual in reality what the magical beliefs don't.
It's only a matter of time before what is useful and relevant to easing human suffering on an individual basis will arise as cultural norms in practice and concept around the world. That's also why I believe in universal healthcare, universal education, and universal basic income. When a human's basic needs are met, and at least the near future looks secure enough in continuing to have those needs met, that person is now much more capable and sane, much more likely and able to contribute positively to society.
We're all connected now in ways never before possible. These practices could be one of the best tools for hunter-gatherer brains to adapt to a tribe of billions, and because of technology, can spread pretty fast. I have no idea if that's what will happen or what the chances actually are. I just know it's possible. Gotta #lookforthehelpers!
*The last church I attended used a
personality test scheme based on four animals. Those in the church involved in that (including the pastor) would talk the same way about the four types as astrologists talk about zodiac signs. "An otter? Marrying a lion? Now that must be a challenging marriage!"
The church my brother in law used to pastor a while back used
The Four Temperaments to analyse themselves when the belief system didn't turn out to be the solution to all of life's complex problems in the modern world as advertized.
I agree completely. Secular religion is on the rise. By that I mean picking apart religions and taking practices. Whether we call that religioning or not is a matter if definition
Without an organized institution to follow or be a member of or take as a group identity, it's just not religion. It's culture. We're already members of the human group, and I believe we're talking about how religion and spirituality could or should look in humanity's future. Sure, yes, we can and will explore our traditions even more deeply than our religious contemporaries do, and more academically, and more freely in terms of how we digest and find meaning in them relevant to a modern human seeking spiritual food or self awareness in this alien information environment our brains are trying to navigate.
Some elements of religion that do not serve us:
- A specific ideological identity. It's not needed for social glue; any label can serve that purpose for a tribe of seven billion if it represents a universal recognition of humanness as first identity.
- Institutional structure. What is the institution for other than enforcement, maintenance/editing and delivery of pre-digested beliefs for the laymen, recruitment to the ideological identity, all of which are not necessary for a secular "religion" suitable for all humans. You can trust us to figure things out pretty well for ourselves when given the freedom to do so, the encouragement, and the knowledge that we have so far, and guidance as to the cognitive pitfalls and ideological fallacies that have thus far rendered us suffering idiots in many ways. Add to that a refreshing lack of religious (and some secular) myths stunting our progress.
- Doctrines of the supernatural. Unnecessary to human well being. How about respect for each individual's autonomous right to interpret the divine as they see fit without interference from ideologues? Or even parent?
- Doctrines that promote ignorance, division, and inhumane attitudes, those that stunt awareness and understanding of the world, those that are based in outdated, irrelevant, and blatantly false beliefs, and those based in mythology taken literally.
That's just off the top of my head. Without all that, your mere semantic problem becomes a matter of forcing an inaccurate label on something that doesn't need one to begin with. It doesn't need to be distinguished from everyday culture, and in fact, ought not be. The word "religion," regardless of how many of them you can identify as usefully sane, because of all the history and suffering that you can't subtract from the definition, does more to compartmentalize our spiritual and philosophical endeavors
out of our everyday human experience, when the very source of all our religious and philosophical works and artifacts is precisely those everyday experiences of everyday people.
The depth and breadth of human existence is what informs and creates religion, not the other way around. It doesn't make sense to me to continue forwarding the tradition of seeking an external source (whether secular ideology or magic spooks) of something that clearly comes from us, and as such, deserves a revamping of how intelligent, highly complex social animals with centuries of philosophy and science go about exploring our own human spirit, right here where it lives. It means putting the horse back in front of the cart after a few thousand years of going along with questionable logic and naivete regarding human existence and why we're here. It means society must be secular in the purest sense, and for some of the same reasons that we now argue for secularity in a world of distinct, competing religious factions, and that is the individual citizen's autonomous right to believe and practice as they please without interference. Except in a world society with universal, humanist cultural values, that would just mean that every individual is a protected religion.
It seems my ideal future for humanity is hopeful for a population that is not so mired and habituated in the falsehoods and inhumane "answers" to the confusions and mysteries of human nature offered by the world's biggest and oldest religious traditions. In the same way that some wrong headed beliefs currently live and breathe in the substrates of our societies, a future society could just as easily be mired and habituated in more realistic and humane beliefs.
For example, the understanding that "authority" is a useful construct for orderly and safe societies, but no one actually holds any kind of authority over another except in contextual, limited, impermanent ways (such as parents as authority of children, etc.). In reality, there is only might applied by the will of some over others; there's no real thing in the concept of authority. It's based I see no need to purposely continue the currently popular belief that something or someone other than oneself inherently or absolutely possesses power of authority over anyone else. It would be nice to see a humanity made up of individuals who grok this truth as automatically as we now accept all manner of breaches to our autonomy by authority as normal.
I could make a long list of popular but backward beliefs and assumptions that have become second nature around the world, but the point is that completely different beliefs can become second nature, too. It may be a probabilistic long shot that we will ever do it rationally and wisely, but we are certainly capable of conditioning ourselves in any way we want. We do that now, only stupidly and with few people really looking at the big picture outside of personal concerns while the majority continue on with individual narratives telling them they're not being conditioned. I agree that radical change would require new ideas being spread fast like religion, but if by the same means as religion without careful thought about why religion does that so well, you could well end up with some new, bastard secular religion like communism.
