In fact we are discovering that the decline of organised religion does not imply the eradication of human irrationality, human tribalism or the human longing for moral certainty. Astrology is — astonishingly — a booming industry. Antivaxers prosper on GB News. Among educated people there is a burgeoning faith in the existence of a quasi-spiritual “personal truth” that trumps objective reality. A fascination with apocalypse afflicts the “doomer” fringes of the climate movement and AI pessimists such as Eliezer Yudkowsky warn that the end of days is near (“everyone will die, including children”). Conspiracies such as QAnon have morphed into quasi-religions promoting visions of a child-sacrificing, blood-drinking elite that would not look out of place in a medieval Doom painting.
Fifteen years ago “new atheists” such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens launched gleeful attacks on religion. It turns out that what they really despised was human nature. Few are capable of living without faith of any kind. “Humankind cannot bear very much reality,” as TS Eliot wrote. The political theorist Samuel Goldman has proposed “the law of the conservation of religion”. All societies have a relatively constant level of religious feeling. What changes is how it is expressed.
It is no accident that the decline of religion has coincided with the outbreak of an age of secular moralising. It seems we cannot get by without the reassurance of absolute moral laws.
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Fascinating (and admirably candid) material from @j_amesmarriott in today’s @thetimes
‘It is no accident that the decline of religion has coincided with the outbreak of an age of secular moralising. It seems we cannot get by without the reassurance of absolute moral laws.’ pic.twitter.com/2mrBpL2TkR
— Andrew Roycroft (@AndrewTRoycroft) July 13, 2023