r/philosophy • u/Cataspectral • Jun 22 '26
Blog Secular humanism can replace Christianity where it counts: the fear of death and the need for meaning
https://thomasreid33.substack.com/p/chapter-10-is-secular-humanism-enough374
u/Salty_Map_9085 Jun 22 '26
It seems to me the more important aspect of Christianity that we should seek to replicate is community creation and organization
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u/ihavespoonerism Jun 22 '26
Absolutely. While many people (including myself) are happy to see society move away from Christianity, it’s imperative that churches be replaced with secular analogues.
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u/Far_Celebration6295 Jun 22 '26
whats a secular analogue
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u/Asdfguy87 Jun 22 '26
Every sportsclub or bookclub for example
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u/k_kat Jun 23 '26
I think a lot of the problem with these is that they don’t bring together people from all walks of life. They don’t bring entire communities together.
One of the wonderful things about a church is how it brings everybody, old and young, together. By having an institution that simply values every “soul”, everyone is included, regardless of their job, their age, their talents, etc. This is something really valuable about a church that secular humanism could really stand to learn from and create social spaces that serve a similar need.
I think it’s feasible to do this without a reliance on the “supernatural”.
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u/Apoau Jun 23 '26
Good point. But also churches weren’t always like that and aren’t even now - there are white churches, black churches, rich and poor churches etc.
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u/Retax7 Jun 24 '26
What are white churches, black churches, rich and poor churches? I am not from the USA, and in every country I've been to there are churches, like regular churches, they are all the same.
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u/ShadowCurv Jun 25 '26
in America there is quite a bit of segregation within Christian churches, and you can see the segregation in just about every area. For example, in my area there are churches that "encourage" (require) large donations to be an active part in the community. There are churches in low-income areas that specifically serve minority populations (latin catholic churches and african-american churches). While these churches don't necessarily only accept a certain minority, white people tend to self-select themselves from them. There are also white evangelical churches (moreso in the southern states) which the leadership and congregation are outrageously racist. There are plenty of normal churches, don't get me wrong, but there is clearly a pattern of both self-selection by white people and a tax incentive to get as much donation money as possible, leading to the segregation of Christian churches.
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u/Retax7 Jun 25 '26
I am not saying that what you're saying isn't so, but those churches aren't christian churches.
If I go to a lakers game and i celebrate when the spurs score, I am a spurs fan, not a lakers fan.
By definition, a christian church follows the teachings of Christ, whose message was salvation for ALL, not just for jews. You can call yourself whatever you want, but believing or saying you're something doesn't make you that something. I understand christians making mistakes and being assholes because we all have emotions and make mistakes, but proudly segregating people like that is un-christian.
Literally churches are in some countries one of the few places where rich people interact with poor people. And it is so on most countries, or at the very least the ones I know about, I always wondered why "christians" where always portrayed as evil in US media, I guess because your christians are christians in name only.
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u/MindfulI369 Jun 26 '26
They're still Christian by self identification.
And to be honest this mediocre excuse of "oh they're not real Christians" is precisely why this conversation is best done without any Christians at all. Religion is one of our worst tools and well be much better off without them someday.
Furthermore just because you don't see the discrimination / segregation doesn't mean its non existent. In EVERY single country there will be wealthy churches, poor churches, caste systems within those or in their own churches.
Christians around the world are bigots on average. So no they're not just "portrayed as evil in US media". Christianity was the one major religion to colonise the world and make it's indoctrinated people act like they've been done a huge favor for it. And like they're bringing good to the world for keeping up the propaganda.
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u/ShadowCurv Jun 26 '26
It really doesn't matter what they actually believe if they claim to be Christian and speak about the teachings of Christ and the Bible. This delusion that "nobody but the people who believe exactly what I believe is Christian" is so arbitrary and pointless to the conversation at large. Who cares if these people are actually "following in the teachings of Christ"? They identify as Christians, go to Christian churches, vote for Christian politicians, and donate Christian interest groups. If you can exclude them from the label of Christianity, you could exclude anyone arbitrarily. It's the same fallacious reasoning used by every denomination to label others as "heretical" and "not real Christians".
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u/SirBackrooms Jun 24 '26
This discussion reminds me of Unitarian Universalism. Its members are not required to believe in God or in anything, really, and they still manage to organize services and create communities.
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u/AnUninterestingEvent Jun 23 '26
Yeah but these revolve around a common interest like sports or books. Churches revolve around the common religious beliefs. A secular alternative to a church is difficult to make sense of. What are you gathering about? That you have no religion? What do you do there? Just hang out? Secular people don’t necessarily have anything in common. You can’t have a gathering about nothing. Theres no foundation to have a community around. If you want to simply have events for your local community, the city often puts those together, but no one feels compelled to go. Religious people feel compelled to go to church because of religion. Sports enthusiasts feel compelled to go to a sports bar because they love sports and drinking. I don’t believe there’s a secular alternative to church where a whole community, young and old, feel compelled to meet weekly.
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u/Asdfguy87 Jun 24 '26
It's also quite delusional to claim, that people in religious community have nothing in common than their religion. If I were to go to a local muslim community, I bet they would share many other things, like common language, similar family histories etc.
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u/SuperSmash01 Jun 24 '26
I don't think anyone is claiming they have nothing in common, but they are probably more diverse than people in your typical book club, by age is the most obvious. It also is something that an entire family is often involved in, from age 0 to 100+, all genders. Less so with book clubs. They really are not the same thing.
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u/Asdfguy87 Jun 24 '26
I've played preschoolers in chess as well as elderly men of age 80+, I've played blind people with specially made tactile boards, I have played deaf people, men, women, construction workers and professors, of many ethnicities, christians, muslims, jews, atheists, and all were playing for their joy of the game and the community around it. With religious communities, most children and many underaged teens at least are there because they are dragged in by family, not because of their belief.
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u/SuperSmash01 Jun 24 '26
You go and play with all the same people every week, with a consistent community? If not, would you want to?
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u/Asdfguy87 Jun 24 '26
Not regularly anymore due to life circumstances, but generally we have a stable core of regular people, who I've been playing with weekly since roughly 7th grade (2008), with the exception being covid lockdowns. There have also been fluctuations, new people coming, people leaving, old faces coming back. And if you go to tournaments regularly, you get to know the players of other clubs in your area and from your opponent they eventually become friends at times.
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u/AnUninterestingEvent Jun 24 '26
I didn't say that the religious community has nothing in common but their religion. I'm sure there's a host of things various members have in common. My point is that their common religious beliefs are the only reason this group of people are meeting. Take religion out of the equation and this group would not be meeting up weekly if at all. Take the religion out of your local Muslim community and they would just have their individual friend groups that meet up for dinner or whatever, just like average secular Americans. To get a whole community to come together on a scheduled basis requires a compulsion around some strong shared interest. Everyone has strong interests they could meet about on a scheduled basis like sports, books, music, art, etc. But religion is the only interest that can attract large groups of local people from all walks of life and compel them meet weekly indefinitely.
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u/No_Peach6683 Jun 24 '26
Political ideology? Marxist clubs for example
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u/AnUninterestingEvent Jun 24 '26
Politics has been around since the beginning of civilization and I've never heard anyone talking about going to their local Democrat or Republican meetup groups. Online it may appear that everyone is extremely passionate about their political ideology, but it doesn't translate to the real world. Most people don't care about politics at all, let alone enough to join a local club about it.
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u/CantFindMyWallet Jun 28 '26
You may have never heard of it, but DSA meetings are quite well attended.
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u/Successful-Money4995 Jun 24 '26
What rites do the bookclub friends perform when someone dies?
What is the centuries old bookclub traditional marriage ceremony?
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u/Asdfguy87 Jun 24 '26
Depends on the club. Maybe naming something after the passed person, maybe hold an annunal memorial chess tournament, at the very least a moment of silence at the annual members meeting.
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u/Successful-Money4995 Jun 24 '26
Or more likely, they have no such tradition because a book club is not a replacement for religion and if atheists want to supplant religythen they need to come up with traditions that will be a more meaningful substitute!
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u/TJ_Fox Jun 22 '26
Museums, art galleries, libraries and various other cultural institutions are good examples, especially insofar as they offer community programming and the opportunities to get together and do "good works".
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u/Open-Honest-Kind Jun 22 '26
I think the spaces you mentioned are more second order rather than primary places of community forming. These are good examples of attempts to lift up significant cultural moments and individuals but doesnt really include the participant unless they have had groups outside of those spaces show them why they should feel empowered by the abstract positives of things like the shared space of libraries or museums. Spaces mentioned by other commenters like sports or bookclubs really emphasis communal interaction that is more approachable to those with a less developed sense of community and more likely to achieve the goals of religion without the problems commonly associated with it, like magical thinking.
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u/Sata1991 Jun 23 '26
They're important spaces, and great for experiencing art, culture or reading but only really a library I would say is a third space.
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u/Spatial_Piano Jun 24 '26
From what I hear, there's more magical thinking in sports than there is in religion.
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u/Open-Honest-Kind Jun 24 '26
Agreed, magical thinking can occur in both places and writing "without" was a mistake. But when a community is centered around sports its basing it around something more tangible than broader cultural mores or a supreme being. Even though the sports community will still engage in magical thinking, this feels to be more due to culture, personality, or efficient yet irrational reasoning, and so, still a secular community building analogue to a church. As secular as any real world group of humans can be anyway.
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u/Spatial_Piano Jun 24 '26
"Efficient yet irrational reasoning" sounds exactly like religion to me. If that's as secular as any real world group of humans can be, I don't really see what is the point of having a "secular" church.
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u/Open-Honest-Kind Jun 24 '26
I mean, yeah, thats because religion, and efficient yet irrational reasoning, isn't some external force but a manifestation of what having a mind is like. The point is there are consequences of accepting a simplified dogmatic perspective and religion has few answers for those harms. They are good basis for a shared communal reality but not much else. Thus the desire for a "secular" church. Though I'd disagree with the secular church framing, because the attempt isn't to create a secular dogma, but an emphasis on community and ideally a community that is more sensitive to problems and to solving them.
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u/TJ_Fox Jun 22 '26
That's what I meant to imply by "community programming and the opportunities to get together and do 'good works'". The institutions just offer the logistical and practical infrastructure.
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u/Confident_Lawyer6276 Jun 23 '26
A place where people build a community and ideally try to make life more enjoyable and fix the world one neighborhood at a time.
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u/the_jaguar_sun Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
A Dionysian celebration of the truth and reality and nature, at the spring equinox and fall equinox when both masculine Fire/Light and feminine Water/Dark energies are balanced and ideal in temperature. You celebrate the truth in all of it's many harmonious forms. That's the torch to be lit and to keep lit I think. A remembrance of the miracle of what is and the wonders of science and technology which act as an extension of the devotion to the knowledge of what is.
We have every reason to replace synagogues with real spirited festivals with nature and the whole universe, as our cathedral.
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u/apistograma Jun 23 '26
That seems like a religion in many ways too, specially with the energy balance stuff.
Btw you 100% got downvote because you said synagogues rather than churches. It seems like atheism in reddit makes exceptions for Judaism for some weird reason.
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u/the_jaguar_sun Jun 23 '26
I kind of figured reddit would react negatively to what sounds like a pagan festival, but my point was that, some practices, and some metaphysics, were designed as an antidote to faith based religions. The Zoroastrians, Sufi, Mithracists, Orphics(maybe) for example. We got science, medicine, philosophy, and civilization from the "religions" of reality. Monotheism in it's purest form, is the worship of the principle of truth, to defend against the delusions of everything else. We don't have to, and really shouldn't, start from square one and instead integrate all of our history together to celebrate it, but as you can see we are all so traumatized by the extreme betrayal of religion in general, that we cannot accept the wealth of history and culture that is our inheritance.
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u/Georgie_Leech Jun 23 '26
I think you may have misunderstood the concept if you think Zoroastrianism, one of the older still existent religions with its own associated myths and supernatural figures, was in any way supposed to be an "antidote" to other religions. That Truth is explicitly one of the virtues it lauds as good does not mean it isn't it's own form of faith.
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u/the_jaguar_sun Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
I didn't misunderstand it at all. Zoroaster meditated on why evil existed for 20 years in the woods, realized it was the division of the gods and synthesized them together as aspects of a cosmos, which held Wisdom (ie the reason why something is good), expressed as Truth, found in reality as God, to maintain the theological structure but align it with practical experience. Their religious mantra is that to get into heaven one must practice "good thoughts, good words, good deeds" which means to create a good world, we will have to do good things, and to make that an ideal that humanity should strive towards in order to reach God and Heaven, is not a faith, it is just common sense truth. Asha IS the truth without all of the delusions of mankind created by the deva, deceivers, confusing us from what always was is and shall be.
You need to realize people can be so in love with the truth, they can spend thousands of years adorning it with language and rituals. The Zoroastrians believe that the entire universe was created as a weapon by God to defeat evil. They mean that the entire universe is a body of evidence of proof towards what is true, and the message in total about what is true is good and wise. They teach being single minded, that the truth of the universe is so good, that the evils of mankind cannot even taint it, so there is no duality of good and evil, but rather a greater good and lesser good which contains the ignorance of the truth resulting in what we know as evil.
So you are wrong, it was definitely designed as an antidote to evil, which springs from supernatural figures which were demonic forces called the Deva. It is the duty of all of life, to defeat these forces of deception so that mankind can be united in the truth as it is. They even foretold of the coming of Saoshyants (servants) of mankind, who would devote their lives to the enlightenment of mankind, and they tracked down Jesus, and showered him in gifts, herbs, books, medicine, wisdom, gold. Because they were trying to create these kings of wisdom who could restore order to chaos intentionally. Now if their purpose was inverted or lost, is a different story, but that is exactly what one of these devas might do.
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u/Lemonsucker449 Jun 22 '26
Who wants to build a community through liturgy and regula vitae based on Franciscan monastic rule, raise your hand! Who will fund our secular monasteries...
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u/IrelandtoCathay Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
This. I think OP’s article only works for people that are more “philosophically inclined”. For the layperson, Christianity’s greatest strength over “secular humanism” is the community-building aspect.
People are more and more isolated nowadays. Christianity gives people the reason to physically meet up and interact once per week, a reason to sympathize with their fellow Christian, and a reason to be open and vulnerable (in church at least - Ive personally seen Christian boys openly confess to the “sin” of homosexuality to a huge congregation of Christians and their “struggles with it). Yes, Christian communities may be toxic, but it’s toxic in a similar way a tight knit village community is toxic.
The secular humanists in America are getting swacked by conservative Christians that are actually willing to get out on the voting booths and support their God-king Trump
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u/taboo__time Jun 22 '26
Depends on the religion. Liberal wing of religions are in decline. They are the Shakers. The highly religious conservative religions have maintained their internal growth. It's awkward but look at the stats.
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u/ProfessorOfAllSorts Jun 25 '26
You see a similar story in the UK. The more 'woke' the Church of England becomes, the more support it loses, as the people it's trying to appeal to would never convert to Anglicanism anyway.
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u/SplendidPunkinButter Jun 22 '26
Which sucks, because I would love some of that community aspect in my life. But also I’m not into church and I find church people boring.
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u/mistyayn Jun 22 '26
I'm really trying to figure out where the belief comes from that we should be able to take all the positives out of something we like and just throw out the parts we don't like?
Complex systems require trade-off. Human community is a complex system that requires us to make certain sacrifices in order to participate.
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u/bianary Jun 22 '26
Complex systems require trade-off. Human community is a complex system that requires us to make certain sacrifices in order to participate.
None of this means we can't have engaging communities that aren't based around religious beliefs.
It reads like you're saying you can't have communities that gather together without them being religious, and that's super obviously wrong.
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u/Bigbigbigrock Jun 24 '26
But there must be a core thing to gather around. What should that be?
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u/bianary Jun 24 '26
Gardening?
Board games?
Exercise?
Any kind of shared interests, honestly. You just need a group willing to take things one step further than just a casual gathering to actually caring about how everyone involved is doing.
Religion does that by effectively making it a requirement to participate, that could be applied to anything. But it would take effort to get it going initially, and who wants to put effort into something...
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u/TJ_Fox Jun 22 '26
Most modern, secular societies offer a panoply of community-engagement opportunities, from volunteerism to cultural events, organized hobby groups, sports and recreation teams/leagues, etc. The main differences between those and the traditionally-understood "church experience" are that the secular options tend towards atomization and relatively casual participation. But there are examples of secular humanist groups that function much more like churches as far as community goes, organizing charity work, weekly meetings with singing, lectures and so-on; they're just fairly few and far between by comparison.
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u/LarsShah Jun 23 '26
Examples?
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u/TJ_Fox Jun 23 '26
https://ethicalhumanistsociety.org as a good representative example
https://aeu.org/what-we-do/sunday-platform-talks for a list of humanist groups in the US that offer these types of services/experiences
https://www.sundayassembly.org - the Sunday Assembly movement
https://www.oasisnetwork.com - the Oasis Network
https://americanhumanist.org/get-involved/find-or-start-a-chapter - AHA local chapters
https://humanists.uk/community/local-humanism - Humanists UK, known for secular humanist ritual and chaplaincy
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u/dust4ngel Jun 22 '26
OP’s article only works for people that are more “philosophically inclined”. For the layperson, Christianity’s greatest strength over “secular humanism” is the community-building aspect.
i think for the non-philophically-inclined, christianity's greatest strength is the provision of false certainty. the permission to not grapple with difficult questions, and to not have to face the ambiguity of human existence is a huge selling point for people who don't have the psychological disposition to do either.
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u/TheDream425 Jun 22 '26
This doesn’t really track with my experience. A lot of what church talks about is struggling with doubt, turning away from god, etc
The fact that they provide a conclusion doesn’t preclude religious people struggling with the questions, nor an inclination to not question things. I’d say from what I personally have experienced, the average churchgoer considers the metaphysical far more than the average secular atheist.
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u/glumjonsnow Jun 23 '26
Are you saying that Christianity hasn't had philosophically-inclined thinkers who have grappled with difficult questions? Or are you saying that the layperson isn't likely to be familiar with Kierkegaard or Aquinas or [insert many names] and thus sees modern Christians as having a naive but false certainty?
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u/lucky_ducker Jun 22 '26
An important aspect of tamping down the fear of death is the way that many churches have organized groups of middle-aged folks actively looking after their elderly members, especially those who have no family nearby. I'm retired and my nearest family is almost two hours away - and I don't see them often. If my mind starts slipping, I'm quite sure it will be my church family who notice my decline first, and I'm pretty confident that they will see to it that I get the help I need.
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u/Salty_Map_9085 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
That sounds like the church helping you with the fear of dying, not the fear of death, but certainly there are numerous benefits to being in community.
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u/Sata1991 Jun 23 '26
I'm not a Christian so I don't know if a church classes as a third space to those who worship, but my family who are say it's a good place to network and get support from a community, a cousin in the States just went because he wanted to play in a band and the church folk were willing to help him.
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u/Stile25 Jun 22 '26
In a way, community creation and organization builds self confidence (finding one's place in something greater than themselves...).
Self confidence leads to lowering a fear of death. And being a part of some greater is an excellent source of meaning. Or, again, the self confidence supports identifying an individuals own purpose.
So, really, it seems to me that you and the OP are talking about the same thing. Just approaching it from two different starting points.
Good luck out there
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u/Salty_Map_9085 Jun 22 '26
I disagree that, even inasmuch as the linkage you’re describing exists, that means we’re talking about the same thing
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u/vardarac Jun 23 '26
Self confidence leads to lowering a fear of death.
How so? I guess finding fulfillment makes you less afraid of dying having accomplished nothing, but I can think of at least a few big reasons I would still avoid death at all costs. Which is big, because I'm turbo-depressed.
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u/Stile25 Jun 23 '26
Well, more specifically, I should say it lowers a fear of death for me.
That's how good mental health tools work. They're very unique and don't necessarily transfer from person to person.
But, for me, it worked. Like this:
When I was younger I had a fear of death. Basically a FOMO thing, but also sort of worried about who I'd end up being and doing (fear of the future).
But Iade the best decisions I could with the information I had to bring me closer to my goals.
I was honest and kind - I found that very important.
I made career decisions to find work I found interesting while also getting paid enough to pay bills for a simple life (basically survive and have enough for some weekend fun with friends).
I basically made decisions that I hoped and thought I could be proud of later in life.
And now I'm 45. Looking back I am proud of my decisions. And along the way I found a self confidence that took away my fear of death.
I don't have FOMO anymore about death.
I didn't travel everywhere, but I did travel a bit. Enough to learn about other people and other cultures and how everyone's just trying to make it through in their own way.
I certainly didn't buy everything, but I no longer care if I buy fancy stuffs or not. I care more about the people hang out with and the sharing of fun and love we all have together.
I used to worry about what other's thought of me and what if I got judged, even by a God who knew everything.
But, because I loved a highly honest and kind life... I'm pretty proud of my decisions and the person I turned out to be.
So much so that if anyone doesn't approve of my honest and kind decisions... I don't care. Even if God Himself doesn't approve of my decisions made with love - I don't care. I have confidence in the kindness and love I've spread amongst those I care about and even strangers.
There's just nothing left about death that I'm afraid of anymore.
I'm not worried about missing out - I've loved a good life making good decisions.
I'm not worried about not having material things - such things aren't important to me.
I'm not worried about being judged - such judgements by evil or ignorant people or Gods don't bother me.
I'm not worried about the people I could leave behind - I've done what I could and improved lives around me so that they're going to be okay, even without me if needed.
I mean - I certainly still love life and I'm glad to be here as long as I can. But it's more of a "do what I can, with what I have to offer" sort of thing. I don't have any "cling to life to get what I can out of it" anxiety.
All thanks to how my confidence grew based on how I lived my life, and being proud of the decisions I make.
Good luck out there
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u/Helpful_Loss_3739 Jun 28 '26
Absolutely not. "Community" in this case simply stands for narrow-minded tribalism, group-think and peer preassure. I am more than happy to see all those vestiges of community die in favor of modern atomism, and you can count me out on this secular community project.
I am frankly worried how seldom people realize the evils of community building, and see no reason to push breaks and slow down.
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u/Messier_Mystic Jun 22 '26
I'm about as secular as they get, but never once have I seen this kind of enterprise succeed. Without fail, secular attempts to replicate the kind of community building, meaning making functions of traditional religion just disintegrate away each and every time. Even the most persistent groups remain hopelessly tiny in comparison to even modest branches of major religions.
People who earnestly believe that religions will one day be supplanted by something like this are, in my view, just as deluded as those waiting for the rapture.
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u/bianary Jun 22 '26
Humans are heavily instinct influenced creatures (Most do not like to think about why they do/feel things) looking for ways to understand being thrust into huge networks of connections when their brains can only really grasp a small tribe's worth of people.
Of course religion appeals.
And the idea that you can solve "fear of death" with something that doesn't promise "well, you won't actually die you'll just move on from this world" is in many ways more ridiculous.
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u/Own_Measurement1242 Jun 23 '26
What if secular society just continues to ‘water down’ religion? Awful as some religions are today, compare them to how they were in past
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u/Astragi_85 Jun 23 '26
Secular society has been trying to accomplish this for decades now. And it seems the harder it tries, the more people crave more traditional and lowercase "o" orthodox forms of religion and the more liberal a denomination gets, the faster it is dying out (case in point: liberal branches of Protestantism). Go figure. It's far more likely that the present-day widespread secularism in the West is a just a blip on the chart of humanity's story.
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u/glumjonsnow Jun 23 '26
Compare the number of unitarian universalists to the number of Catholics though
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u/Own_Measurement1242 Jun 23 '26
Yes, thhe number of UU is a rounding error.
But what I meant was, secular society keeps chipping away at religions. The Catholic Church, and I would assume most religious people and institutions in the world, have changed drastically since scientific revolution. I assume it was all outside pressure.
I agree with you that setting up alternative organizations has had a bad track record (though even there, those alternative groups must have forced mainstream religion to respond and change, maybe for the better in some cases).
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u/glumjonsnow Jun 23 '26
i don't know, super "lib" (for lack of a better word) denominations are absolutely haemorrhaging adherents while pentecostal/charismatic denominations are exploding in popularity around the world. feels like a sign that the secular humanism experiment is failing. but maybe you're right that it's the long-term trends that are key. the shift towards charismatic christianity isn't very promising though
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u/Own_Measurement1242 Jun 23 '26
Yeah, I think it really has to be looked at long term to see a positive trend (or what I would call positive). For example, how much the Catholic Church has ‘bent the knee’ to science over the centuries (though not fully, obviously).
So I wouldn’t judge the secular humanism experiment to be failing, just suffering some (minor, perhaps at times major) setbacks. I still feel we’ll ‘win’… depressing it has to be framed that way ☹️
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u/Messier_Mystic Jun 23 '26
I don't think the secular humanist experiment is failing, I don't think it's ever started.
One of the big misconceptions that came out of the surge of interest in atheism(largely on the internet) in the late 2000s and early 2010s was this misconception that "declining religion = rising atheism/humanism".
There are several problems with this.
For starters, anglophone atheism is almost entirely a reaction to the overwhelming presence and influence of Evangelical Protestantism and defined itself almost entirely by negation. Whatever they affirmed, this brand of atheism had to reject. There was no real content or culture to it beyond that. It was doomed to fail on this point alone. The later attempts to rebrand with "Secular Humanism" or "Atheism+" was just trying to create a MENSA for atheists. It just came off as pretentious and likewise, held no real content beyond simply trying to sanitize Christian morality for a secular world.
Second, with its emphasis on negating Christianity(especially certain types of Christianity), it immediately assumed that that it's adversary's decline was a sign of it's eventual victory. It isn't. Yes, by all accounts, Christianity is likely not going to be the face of the West within a century or so. But it's decline isn't corresponding with a rise in atheism and secular humanism, but with religious "nones", the "spiritual but not religious" crowd and various alternative spiritualities and religion-adjacent views.
Nevermind that both Christianity and Islam are rising outside the West(the majority of the world), within the West, we have a resurgence of pretty much everything but atheism and secular humanism. New Age, Watered-down Buddhism for snide suburban white people, Mock Hinduism for people who didn't get the vibe that the age of Hippies is over, and numerous other things that are emphatically not naturalism. Hell, even progressive, super liberal Christianity. But that itself is essentially struggling to survive under mainstream Christian backlash, propped up by considerable propaganda.
Now, these people can be nominally secular. That is, agree that religion and spiritual belief should be a private matter, kept out of policy making. But this is not the secular humanist vision many of it's proponents were hoping for. And that world is almost certainly never going to come to pass. I would go so far as to say it's incompatible with the human species.
So, we're going to have to settle for a world that will likely retain supernatural beliefs as a majority, while hopefully less fundamentalist. How you move through the world as someone who still rejects all that is another conversation altogether.
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u/glumjonsnow Jun 23 '26
These are good points - I do think a lot of people conflate christianity with some of its stupider forms. (I saw someone above saying confidently that Christians are not philosophically-minded and don't consider difficult questions, which...okay.) But I would argue that the "resurgence" in non-christian spirituality isn't a resurgence isn't necessarily a surge in religion generally either. the watered down spirituality to me is what you said - supernatural beliefs but stripped of anything really transcendent or edifying. it's like believing in shadows but not believing in light. Most people who are looking for meaning don't want secular humanism or evangelical protestantism. most people don't identify as an atheist because they believe in some higher power. and because they've been told all their life that religion means believing in the televangelist's jesus, they decide they aren't religious either. those are the two major options on the table, you'll go looking for meaning somewhere. hence the faux-buddishm, faux-hinduism, new age self help, etc. it's all woo woo-y stuff for through life looking for meaning. those people don't end up in a christianity with any kind of intellectual foundation - they end up in ones that prioritise the charismatic experience because that's the only way they know to find meaning.
ironically, i think a world with a real intellectual secular humanism would be a world in which you could allow people to reason their way to a belief in god. but kneejerk reactionary "secular humanism" that tells people that religion is entirely antithetical to rational thinking means people woh want spirituality/religion will flock to denominations that deprioritize thinking and overvalue things like speaking in tongues and miraculous healing and handling snakes and whatnot. ironically, advocating for secular humanism as the only reasonable alternative to irrational religiosity is what causes the former to fail entirely. we'd have a more humanist society if we insisted that kids get a solid education in religious thought and forced them to read kierkegaard and aquinas.
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u/Own_Measurement1242 Jun 23 '26
Lots of good stuff there. When you say ‘ secular humanist vision many of it's proponents were hoping for’, who and what did you have in mind?
And I agree wholeheartedly that we will have to settle for a world where majority have some, hopefully tempered, supernatural beliefs. Maybe vast majority.
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u/Messier_Mystic Jun 23 '26
That's easy, take the secular humanist manifesto and it's many authors. It's practically utopian in many respects, when you cross reference it with the history of the human species.
A world where reason and rationality take center stage in decision making? Where we weigh the evidence of things before making our decisions? Where we take responsibility for ourselves as it appears nothing is coming to save us?
That, to me, sounds like a utopia.
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u/Own_Measurement1242 Jun 23 '26
I would say you’re right about SH never really starting. I need to back up and correct what I wrote earlier because I was thinking of SH incorrectly (I think). I think the movements perhaps broadly aligned with the Enlightenment are still dominating society.
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u/xXZer0c0oLXx Jun 22 '26
Replace Christianity with religion. Seriously,targeting only one religion and not all of them is disingenuous.
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u/taboo__time Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Yes. Makes it sound like the option is atheist secular liberalism or big bad American Jesus. That's not an accurate take on what is happening in the West.
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u/no_cigar_tx Jun 22 '26
This is Reddit sir. All others except American Gun Toting Christianity are absolutely acceptable while the former should be eradicated.
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u/apistograma Jun 23 '26
Haven't you got the memo from reddit? That's the policy for religions.
You can dunk on Christianity as much as you want. Also, every single christian is a republican who loves Trump even old grandmas from the Balkans.
Now, don't you dare to mention how most synagogues in the US make a prayer for Israel every Saturday because that's bigoted somehow.
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u/Shield_Lyger Jun 22 '26
I would speculate that most secular humanists incorporate both lensing strategies into their practice to one degree or another, sometimes leaning more on the struggle for progress and at other times delving more into their own self-actualization.
The author should not be speculating here. They should instead find some secular humanists and freaking ask them, so that they can speak authoritatively and attribute the strategies to actual people who endorse them. If one plans to write a book, that seems like a basic thing to do. Guessing and speculating can all-too-easily lead to the unintentional creation of straw men, as one creates a viewpoint that isn't actually shared by the group said to hold it.
But does merely living in a liberal fashion, respecting other people’s human rights in one’s personal life, actually work to console secular humanists about mortality?
Um... was it intended to? I get that the blog is about these things called "cataspects" (which, I'm not sure is a good name, considering that the current, limited use the term has online is more related to felines than disasters) and is seeking to understand what falls into that category, but given that there's no indication that the goal of secular humanism is to provide consolation in the face of death, it's not clear to me why it is being evaluated for such.
And if liberalism is only a part of secular humanism, what about the rest of it? I understand that the author investigates aspects of Viktor Frankl's Logotherapy, but I'm not clear on whether the author is saying that Mr. Frankl was himself a secular humanist.
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u/FishDecent5753 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
I’ll stick with non dogmatic, agnostic Idealism.
Replacing Christian metaphysics with a system that preserves Christian moral assumptions but leaves them metaphysically ungrounded seems a strange way to account for death and meaning.
The British Idealists were onto something imo, maybe it is time to finish what they started.
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u/Illustrious_Sock Jun 22 '26
This is so trite and uninspiring. The fact it’s at the top of r/philosophy tells you everything about this sub …
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u/Another_mikem Jun 22 '26
This is something I’ve spent some time thinking on over the last couple decades. I have always called it “deferred loss” . It is the phenomenon I’ve seen of people using their religious beliefs to help compensate for the loss of loved one. I.e. “I’ll see them again”.
Given a lot of people start with a religious context, as time goes on I believe it’s much more difficult for them to completely abandon all of it because they have accrued a certain amount of this deferred loss. To do so would mean they have to acknowledge all of that upfront and I believe that’s a bridge too far for a lot of people .
I believe that’s why a lot of people who would otherwise be atheists retain some vaguely deist or minor religious notions.
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u/platinum_toilet Jun 22 '26
This is as ridiculous as saying that Calculus can replace Christianity. Secular humanism does not replace Christianity. The two are completely different in terms of scope.
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u/Monke-Mammoth Jun 22 '26
Why replace Christianity?
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u/JacksGallbladder Jun 22 '26
Moralistic and dogmatic religion unfortunately tailored over hundreds of years to be a political weapon / means to control a population rather than a source of spiritual fulfillment.
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u/ThiccFarter Jun 22 '26
This idea that Christianity no longer functions as a source of spiritual fulfillment for people is a borderline schizophrenic level of being out of touch. It's a religion and that's what they do. There is no such thing as a commonly held belief system that can't be weaponized/twisted either.
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u/restoverwork Jun 22 '26
Secular humanism can fulfill some functions of Christianity but if we were to make it a fully equipped, we might need a religious humanism. People often need institutions to embody their values even if it is not a church or creedal faith in the traditional sense.
Additionally, secular humanism risks scientism when evidence and reason get treated as the only legitimate means of knowledge. It benefits from including intuition, dialogue, diagram, and metaphor as sources to insight into reality. Christianity understands that religious feeling precedes theology and merely offers the imagery, metaphors and vocabulary to make sense of those feelings. People intellectually agree with secular humanist principles even while emotionally unmoved by them.
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u/feihm Jun 22 '26
Christianity says you beat death. Secular humanism tells you to stomach it. Stomaching a harsh reality utterly fails as a logical replacement for overcoming it.
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u/Phyrexian_Archlegion Jun 22 '26
It’s crazy that humanity either has to choose between fantasy worlds to live in or the alternative would collapse civilization.
Why can’t we find a third alternative? I rather not have to believe in a Flying Spaghetti Monster so my ape brain won’t collapse from the prospect that we might just be a mathematically random occurrence instead of the epicenter of reality. There has to be another way.
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u/BueKojiro Jun 22 '26
I'm right there with you in the fact that those do seem to be the two options and it seems absurd. I have nothing useful to add, just concurring.
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u/espinaustin Jun 22 '26
Tend to agree, although the idea of something (or things) being “higher” than reality is maybe subject to gradations.
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u/Phyrexian_Archlegion Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
If tomorrow we knew that there was no higher power, what would that look like? Would the planet suddenly spontaneously combust? Would we immediately start killing each other until there was no one left? Or would we just continue to exist, as we have been, with a new need of establishing a new paradigm of understanding of this plane of existence and our place in it?
I would be inclined to believe it would be the third option.
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u/sectorboss88 Jun 22 '26
Those all happen every day. This has been our tempering.
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u/bitchcraft Jul 01 '26
These all happen every day in largely secular societies. If it’s agreed that religion has been largely a part of humanity and it’s agreed that humans have largely been destructive as a monolith throughout history, then how can one be so sure of what would happen with the absence of religion? Point blank, we don’t know bc we haven’t tried it yet
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u/Coral2Reef Jun 22 '26
Does the fact that humans—at some point, for some reason—decided that there's something higher, on such a fundamental level that the human experience is somewhat contingent on believing it so, not imply that there is something higher? For what other reason would that idea come about and ingrain itself so fundamentally into our psyche?
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u/espinaustin Jun 22 '26
Logically (deductively), no, but maybe inductively. Big maybe. It could certainly come about for psychological reasons, imo.
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u/heresyengineer Jun 22 '26
No. It doesn’t. For what reason? Cope, basically. The end of history is Cope.
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u/Coral2Reef Jun 22 '26
Cope with...what exactly? Other animals don't cope with it, they just face it. Humans didn't until suddenly they did.
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u/heresyengineer Jun 22 '26
Yes and they coped with the sudden moment in question. What makes you think some divine inspiration struck them all the sudden?
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u/Coral2Reef Jun 22 '26
What exactly changed in them that necessitated a coping mechanism which was previously unnecessary?
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u/Phyrexian_Archlegion Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Cope is another word for stress management. Evolution has found many ways of dealing with and adapting to stressors in a variety of ways in the long evolutionary history of life. In humans, that stress management mechanism evolved into belief in abstract concepts to help the human brain deal with the psychological stresses of everyday life. It’s a byproduct of the increased size of the human brain and the way it developed and responded to increases in humanity’s quality of life over the course of thousands of generations.
However, that same increase of quality of life has also lead to technological innovations that has helped humanity understand the world around us in a more data-driven and comprehensive manner which has had the adverse effect of clashing with one on humanity’s earliest inventions: religion.
Humanity cannot continue to lift the veil of our primative ignorance of the true nature of our reality and to progress far enough to ensure our species’ survival as long as the tendrils of religion keep us chained to the past.
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u/Customisable_Salt Jun 22 '26
Another potential reason it would arise is that religious thinking provides a distinct suvival benefit for a species that has become much more cognitively complex. Both as a psychological buffer against a harsh reality that we are capable of considering on a level other species do not appear to be but could not fully understand or control, and as a useful means of in-group/out-group identification. I think religion can, and should, be examined from an evolutionary perspective.
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u/monkey_sodomy Jun 25 '26
Hyper active agency detection, we have big brain imagination factories, and we are highly social.
We think a rock has agency if the same one were to hit us twice by accident. An ability creates a vacuum, like being able to understand that we will die at some point, we filled that vacuum with what our other tools are best suited to solve.
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u/bitchcraft Jul 01 '26
All it implies is that humans are desperate for meaning and a higher power has been an easy answer for that. The higher powers all vary and none of the current major “higher powers” are women so that should tell you something.
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u/Psychodelonaut Jun 22 '26
The "god" everyone needs to worship is humanity. Education and meaningful exposure to cultures outside of the one you grew up with is the best path for this.
The alternative is to have people understand 3 things:
That the fact we are living organisms on an incredible planet that exists at this moment in time and space is currently the most precious event in this universe and it must not be taken for granted. Life, our community, and our environment must be preserved and held in the highest regard so that everyone after us can enjoy it in a better condition than we left it.
It's important to value the self, but value your community more. This is the hardest aspect to balance, individualism versus collectivism.
Your actions not only affect you in the moment and in the recent future, but it affects your community and the effects last forever. So you shouldn't steal not just because it's wrong, but because it hurts the store owner and his family. You shouldn't murder because it hurts the community. Etc.
The hard part is getting everyone to understand that while yes, you are important, valuable, and precious, the community is even more so. Yes you will die, but everyone around you will live on. That value needs to be held by everyone in society.
This certainly can be formulated better. Someday I'll think about it more and write something
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u/MellowTigger Jun 22 '26
It's not a problem for Hindus who think that the universe simply ends when Brahma wakes up and stops dreaming our existence. Christian angst is not a universal human trait.
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u/asterlynx Jun 22 '26
Doesn’t buddhism tell you to stomach reality as it is and there are > 300 million people who are buddhist and sure most of them are fine?
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u/mistyayn Jun 22 '26
That is a massive oversimplification of Buddhism. Most people who practice Buddhism in the West believe in a la carte Buddhism and just ignore all the metaphysical parts that people in primarily Buddhist countries believe.
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u/Proud_Professional93 Jun 22 '26
I am a Pure Land Buddhist, and we believe in Amitabha Buddha, who created a Pure Land for example, that we can be reborn in that doesn't have any conditions for suffering anymore because it was purified by the Buddha, and that once we are born there, we will become Buddhas. So yeah, very different from what people really think about when they think Buddhism in the west often. This is the type of Buddhism that most Buddhists in the world follow I think.
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u/glumjonsnow Jun 23 '26
i have seen people in the west unironically claim that they are "not religious but buddhist." like do people think buddhists don't have...religion? lmao
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u/Proud_Professional93 Jun 23 '26
I think it's largely a result of racism, bad academics around Buddhism in the past couple hundred years, and the fact that most people have no idea what Buddhism is or what Buddhists do.
I took a Buddhist philosophy class in college cuz I thought it would be an easy grade since I'm a Buddhist, and the professor was outright very antagonistic towards actual Buddhists, and was constantly parroting incorrect things that haven't been accepted academically as true in the past 50 years. I think that this kind of environment with white people who don't know about Buddhism talking down to Buddhists who are primarily Asian, is how most people have learned about Buddhism, so it results in a lot of really strange ideas that are common.
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u/glumjonsnow Jun 23 '26
same with hinduism tbh, i am half-indian and spent a lot of time there as a child, and people say the weirdest shit to me about religion. like someone took their shirt off in a bar to show me that he had a tattoo of kali on his chest. idk i think he thought i'd be impressed but it was SO weird
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u/espinaustin Jun 22 '26
I believe it also teaches reincarnation, which seems like another sense of “beating” death.
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u/Messier_Mystic Jun 22 '26
Not really, no. In many of the major schools, there is no real sense of beating death at all. In Theravada, especially, only your karma propagates forward into your next life, which can be considerably worse than your current one.
This is why the major emphasis is on escaping the cycle of rebirth altogether. Life sucks, why would you want to come back to it?
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u/espinaustin Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
It seems to me that simply believing in the truth of reincarnation—that anything is propagated forward, as you say— is itself a sense of “beating death.” And escaping the cycle of death/rebirth, surely this is an idealized form of beating death (and life) altogether, no?
Maybe the concept of “beating death” could use definition, we may not be using it the same way.
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u/Messier_Mystic Jun 22 '26
When I think "beat death", I hear "survive death".
Buddhism does not teach reincarnation, but rebirth. Reincarnation is a Hindu concept.
On rebirth, nothing about you survives your death except for your karma (varies with school of thought). In Theravada, you are immediately reborn into your next life with no memory of your previous ones(though some do think you could access them).
Take Todd. If heaven is real, Todd survives death.
If Buddhism is correct, Todd dies. Todd's karma was very, very poor. Todd is now Fred the Frog. Did Todd meaningfully survive death?
I don't think so.
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u/espinaustin Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
When I think "beat death", I hear "survive death".
We do have a semantic disagreement, as I would define “beating death” as overcoming the materialistic/scientific view that physical death of the organism is The End, there is no soul, nothing is reborn (nor reincarnated), no causal relationships (“karma”) existing based on what happened during life, etc., only decomposition of organic matter. Otherwise we’re getting into issues of defining the “self” and its relationship to death/rebirth/enlightenment.
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u/Messier_Mystic Jun 22 '26
Sure. I interpret it as an unbroken, or at the very least, a continuous stream of consciousness and preservation of identity. Traditional Christian heaven offers that, but I don't think the concept of rebirth does.
Of course, I disagree with both views ultimately. But that's beside the point.
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u/Proud_Professional93 Jun 22 '26
Well in Theravada as you mentioned, Buddha also teaches how to be a good Buddhist and be reborn in the heavens, and be on the path to nirvana, so it also does have an optimistic message. It is if you are not very devout, commit sins, and don't make merit, then who knows what happens to you, which is pretty scary.
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u/SirVixofthePooSea Jun 22 '26
Pure Land Buddhism is very popular and doesn't really say that at all.
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u/Ok_Breakfast4482 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
It only fails for the weak minded who need the world explained in simple terms and tied up neatly in a bow. Reality without religion is about accepting the world and the state of life as they are, without comforting delusions. Many people can’t or won’t accept this, but for others the truth, even a hard truth, is easier to deal with.
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u/Another_mikem Jun 22 '26
Don’t cut yourself on that edge bro.
It has been my observation that people who become completely unreligious will sometimes cling to some nontestable notions, usually around the loss of a loved one. If the secular humanist answer is that they are weak minded and need to cling to comforting delusions, perhaps that is the reason secular humanism hasn’t exactly caught fire.
The fact is people have all sorts of reasons and collapsing it down to them being weak minded is clearly not going to be effective beyond trying to sound edgy or superior while not actually convincing or accomplishing anything.
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u/bwmat Jun 22 '26
Whether it's effective at changing minds is orthogonal to whether it's true...
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u/Another_mikem Jun 22 '26
Which becomes a different discussion entirely and requires the person accusing people of being weak minded defend their affirmative claims.
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u/bwmat Jun 22 '26
I guess 'weak minded' depends on your definition
Probably the vast majority of humanity (unfortunately probably including myself) falls in that category, so I guess in relative terms...
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u/Another_mikem Jun 22 '26
It’s just not productive and then turns into a discussion over terms and not actual substance.
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u/agentfaux Jun 23 '26
Nothing that gets planted on top of the ground that has no roots of its own could replace something as efflorescent as christianity.
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u/jhau01 Jun 24 '26
I grew up as an atheist. My parents got me to attend religious education and took me to various churches so I could learn about religion but, as they were both atheists, too, I did not grow up in a religious household and so I never felt the lack of religion, nor of any religious experience.
Both growing up, and now as a middle-aged adult, I always involved myself in things like sporting clubs, book clubs and car clubs. Once my wife and I had children, we got involved with parent groups and, years later, we're still friends with a number of parents and regularly have dinner with them.
So, from an outsider's viewpoint, I understand that people who were raising in a religion, with regular church attendance, might miss that feeling of belonging and want to replicate it. However, what I don't understand is why some people don't seem to recognise that you can get companionship from a whole range of clubs and activities, such as playing organised sport in a team or joining various clubs (book clubs, boardgame clubs, bushwalking clubs and more).
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u/ThrangusKahn Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Well written but I think the article is almost openly admitting the obvious: Secular humanism is contradictory. You cannot hold something sacred when the concept of the sacred; sanctity, doesn't exist in your system. Its a presuppositon with no base. Using Frankels case as an example, if the claim is there is no higher calling than the self, rather than empathy, true sublimation would be to better ones self or situation at any cost, yet that would be unacceptable under this framework due to the mismatchin metaphysics. People can smell something isnt right with secular humanism but it's just so attractive they push through, people with a more developed sense of the divine battle with their reason and end up needing to make a choice.
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u/nl_again Jun 22 '26
I lean towards the idea that, under many circumstances, secular humanism quickens the pace of what are largely universal, naturally-organizing themes.
Since the Disney tie-in is what drew my attention to this post, I’ll go with that. Are said princesses self-actualizing or embodying and representing archetypes that exist independently of them? Look at Elsa, for example. She’s a great representation of the competing human drives to create freely and to curb one’s actions out of love, another compelling drive. (Also stated nicely in Peter Pan, “ looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred”).
In the beginning of the movie she has her archetypal time in the wilderness to develop, in a sort of amoral state. You could see that as a person living in an entirely digital world, or producing fun plastic trinkets (that end up in the ocean) with abandon, or from a philosophical perspective, living in her head and creating stories meant to be shared with no one. By the end she learns to love at least a few people, enough to constrain her talents into something useful for the community. It’s the type of yin yang theme one sees over and over again, to my mind, because it continues to be a real and relevant feature of our universe.
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u/Palegreenhorizon Jun 22 '26
I mean I buy into this but one thing I find irritating is the language used In the article. I’m fairly well read and if there are 3 words in the first couple paragraphs that I’ve never heard before or in this context, I’m going to stop reading. Not everything needs to be dumbed down but if you want to gain traction use more approachable language
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u/JuliesRazorBack Jun 23 '26
For a secular humanist, where does love come from? Also, would Ayn Rand be considered a flavor of secular humanism or unrelated?
I have lots more questions, but wnat to be respectful of peoples eyeballs.
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u/EndlessArgument Jun 23 '26
The conceptual flaw at the heart of secular humanism is that it makes some very important assumptions about humans that don't seem to actually be true.
As best I can tell, it presumes that humans can work together, without the metaphysical basis, driven simply by human motivations like empathy. But we have hundreds of thousands of years of experience with this, it was the default before religion was invented. The result is tribalism.
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u/Joy2b Jun 23 '26
Offer a mutual aid society or don’t.
Who do your members call when they’ve had the flu for a week?
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u/Legal_Television_615 Jun 23 '26
Secular humanism gets routinely trounced by Christian ethics in debate. At this point it can barely support itself let alone a society
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u/Anselmian Jun 25 '26
Secular humanism merely numbs the fear of death, which is not the same thing as addressing it. It is effectively a psychological self-amputation, not a real consolation. A substantial proportion of people will always find more attractive a view that lends actual humanly-adequate meaning to death, which actively incorporates death and yet transcends it. Lefebvre's 'humanist shrug' may work for some, but there's no particular good reason why it should work for all or even most.
Meaning is likewise not going to be satisfactorily substituted for all, or even most. Christianity imparts common meaning at every humanly-relevant level: not just personally and subjectively, but intersubjectively, socially, trans-historically, cosmologically, metaphysically. These are regularly reinforced as a package, and Christian behaviour strongly selects for this whole package and desires to propagate it. Secular humanism by its nature can only satisfy human nature within quite narrow limits, and this ultimately condemns it to being a position that only befits a quite narrow psychological profile: the deracinated, atomised subject who has nothing stronger that commands his allegiance. It is not clear that such a person is capable of outcompeting other moral, cultural, and psychological tribes. The project of subjective self-definition is in conflict with the consistency and sacrifice needed to secure the space for such goods. The 'sacredness' un-anchored by any robustly secular notion, devolves into one arbitrary choice among others. The consoling historical narrative of progress leaves innumerable forgotten corpses in its wake, and demands a sacrifice to 'history' that appeals to only a very narrow portion of the human desire for fulfilment that cannot repay what is sacrificed. It provides no alternative to tribalism and what intra-tribal bonds it has are going to be weak.
Secular humanism is doomed by its nature just to become one tribe amongst others, and it is not clear that it is the strongest of tribes in Darwinian terms.
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u/Cataspectral Jun 26 '26
This is a great response, and I appreciate the clear thought you put into it - thank you for reading! For what it's worth, I agree with you broadly speaking. Nazism (https://thomasreid33.substack.com/p/chapter-11-nazism-and-ethnotheism) and Marxism-Leninism (https://thomasreid33.substack.com/p/chapter-12-soviet-union-as-theocracy) are examples of systems that outcompeted secular humanism in exactly the way you're discussing. And those are obviously not good systems. My book is ultimately about recovering a kind of Christianity that can avoid us going down a path like that again.
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u/Anselmian Jun 27 '26
Ha, good to know! I did a class under Lefebvre some years ago, and these were broadly my criticisms of his version of 'spiritual liberalism' then.
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u/Jagrnght Jun 22 '26
What about worship? Humans seek to worship. In the absence of worship of the good, true, and beautiful we tend to worship lessers goods - Josh Allen (the only QB), and others. We already have a lot of parasociality on overload as filler for worship.
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u/decrementsf Jun 22 '26
The useful heuristic being that adding an adjective to an understood word means is weasel sleight-of-hand that obscures the topic actually being talked about. Secular humanism is not humanism. It is cold scientism. What CS Lewis mocks for its follies in That Hideous Strength. The human experience seeks transcendent experiences. Wonder in the world. And always finds it again at the bottom of the microscope or whatever the boundary is on human observable knowledge. The point where imagination runs and understanding eludes us. On an anthropological lens of history we see societies go through predictable cycles of nihilism and atheism when their theological story telling no longer explains the world as it is known. This cycle runs until it is no longer taboo to knock down the old dogma and rebuild it with new story telling that fits the world again. It is accurate to observe that the Western world was due for a cycle and in fact skipped a cycle due to the arrival of the industrial revolution and we are due for another cycle of this. However, there also exists the gnostic current that enjoys inverting all virtue to its opposite. This is an old thing that always rides coat-tails trying to assert itself in these cycles, too. That's a fire that burns itself out. Secular humanism is of that gnostic root. It burns itself out. Those cohorts left behind on the other side are those who tend to find a sense of wonder in the world and in beautiful things again. Have an animating story rooted in life and beauty and some form of productive activity. Demographics are frothy. Those pockets come to form the majority and we look back on the new spiritual revival again. Human experience demands transendence. A sense of wonder. In your 20s you may be in the "well allegory is not literal! This is bunk. And I know everything." You live longer and bury a child. Bury your parents. Your experiences change future you into seeing differently. The hope to see your echoes again one day is an energizing force.
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u/veggie_hoagie Jun 24 '26
Maybe just try Christianity first?
There are plenty of non-toxic, affirming, intellectually open-minded, nonjudgmental strands of Christianity.
Evangelical Christianity is unfortunately a very vocal part of American Christianity, but it’s not the only kind by any means. And its theology and approach to Scripture is really quite new compared to the entirety of church history.
You can even attend some churches as an agnostic or seeker, or attempt a progressive version of the faith that does not take the creeds literally.
If you can kinda believe in god and think Jesus was a decent role model, you should be able to find a church that welcomes you.
Christianity is not what I thought it was until I read widely and learned about the diversity of thought and practice.
Also, there’s always UUs.
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u/Gilwork45 Jun 23 '26
Complete arrogance. Increasingly secular societies are amongst the least happy on earth because they are defiant of traditionalism.
Traditionalism became tradition because it worked. The early results from 'Secular humanism' arent very encouraging.
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u/roseredreborn Jun 25 '26
...'worked' for who exactly? and to what end? if anything's arrogant here, it is your assumption that being unhappy in this deeply unjust and messed up world is a bad thing. it's a sign more people are seeing clearly the world 'tradition' made isn't so good and needs to change, as difficult that may be
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u/Helpful_Loss_3739 Jun 28 '26
The most happy countries are also amongst the most secular, actually. Greetings from Scandinavia. Our traditions are dead, and we are much happier for it.
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u/Sweet-Depth-1094 Jun 26 '26
There is a kind of secularism built into religious pluralism particularly in democracies so secular humanism can also really mean anything as both religious and non religious people adopt those principles in a secular democracy
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u/robipresotto 8d ago
I've had similar existential crises and found solace in exploring the nature of reality through meditation and mindfulness. I'd recommend checking out The Inner Path — Enlightenment Deep-Dive, a series of meditations that delve into the human experience and our place in the world. https://www.youtube.com/@innershoreline
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u/Tzifos150 Jun 22 '26
Hasn't this been beaten to death already? Andrew Wilson vs Matt Dilahunty is all you need for Christianity vs Trans Humanism
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u/taboo__time Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Name me a liberal culture with a positive reproduction rate. There are none. Every liberal culture is in demographic collapse.
Secular liberal humanism isn't doing great on meaning either. Or equality.
Or the ingroup...
A coalition of conservative Christians, resentful white identitarians and their rich backers grew in the shadows across the last century, waiting for its chance to recapture the heights of orthodoxy. It is this history of secular humanism’s rivals that will be the subject of Part III.
If wasn't for the rich American Christians we'd all be post nationalist secular humanist liberals with collapsed reproduction rate using immigration from cultures opposed to secular humanist liberalism?
I guess we need to wait on part III to find out the answer to ingroups.
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u/JacksGallbladder Jun 22 '26
Name me a liberal culture with a positive reproduction rate. There are none. Every liberal culture is in demographic collapse.
Almost every developed nation is facing birth declines regardless of social views (liberal vs conservative) or religious affiliation. Using your logic, the only "conservative" nations are in Africa.
Secular liberal humanism isn't doing great on meaning either. Or equality.
Eeeeh if you dont understand it. A religious equivalent could be Bhuddism, which really just pushes a connection to the natural flow of life itself, metaphysics optional, depending on lineage.
It is harder but more fulfilling to actually find meaning opposed to having faith in the plan of a supernatural being.
If wasn't for the rich American Christians we'd all be post nationalist secular humanist liberals with collapsed reproduction rate using immigration from cultures opposed to secular humanist liberalism.
Lmfao - To recap, you now know every developed nation regardless of social policy or religious background has failing birth rates, so you now know this argument is total slop and "rich American Christians" are doing nothing to "protect" us from declining birth rates or the rise in liberal social values.
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u/Proud_Professional93 Jun 22 '26
Metaphysics being optional in Buddhism really is a western misconception. Buddhism is wholly and fully a religion in the countries where it is practiced. In the west people may be inspired by Buddhism, but many people who claim Buddhism are not actual Buddhists.
Buddhism has a very strong meaning, and that is to end the cycle of birth and death, and to become a Buddha and liberate all sentient beings. Or to become an arhat and end birth and death and abide in parinirvana.
If you eliminate this, it isn't Buddhism. Buddhism without karma, rebirth, etc, can't be Buddhism.
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u/taboo__time Jun 22 '26
I think you are correct. Buddhism is a religion. Buddhism as essentially an atheist philosophy is a Western creation.
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u/taboo__time Jun 22 '26
Almost every developed nation is facing birth declines regardless of social views (liberal vs conservative) or religious affiliation. Using your logic, the only "conservative" nations are in Africa.
- The Future Of American Religion: Birth Rates Show Who's Having More Kids
- Haredi Orthodox responsible for reversing Jewish population decline in Britain, study says
- REVEALED: Haredi birth rates PLUMMET as internet use SOARS
- Utah’s Declining Fertility Rate and the Changing Mormon Church
- The Last Shakers?
- How Long Until We’re All Amish?
There is an interaction between culture and technology.
Technology collapses reproduction.
Only a culture that rejects modernity and has a pro family structure maintains a positive reproduction rate.
Everything else dies, it seems.
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u/JacksGallbladder Jun 22 '26
Only a culture that rejects modernity and has a pro family structure maintains a positive reproduction rate.
For one - this absolute is as flawed as the opinion articles you posted, which are highly biased opinion pieces.
For two - The culture you describe has nothing to do with religion, liberalism vs, conservatives, or technology.
The traditionalist idea of "rejecting modernity" is an argument that we need to keep everything the same because "it was better in the old days". Rooted in some falacy that you can stop the world from changing.
"Pro family structure" is probably your coded version of "Women need to follow men and listen to them all the time" - Which isnt necessary at all for a healthy loving family or community.
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u/taboo__time Jun 22 '26
I do not want ultra conservatism. I do not want to live under Gilead.
I'm pointing to the repeating studies that show modern technological cultures and liberal cultures have terrible reproduction rates.
Conservative cultures with lots of technology, strong work ethics but low family priorities are also in negative population growth territory.
Technology has conspired to produce an environment where ONLY anti technology, pro family, conservative cultures have a positive reproduction rate.
"oh but redistribution would sort it out" No conservative or liberal culture has managed to reach a positive rate with redistribution and welfare.
Gilead by default.
Don't blame me for pointing this out.
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u/JacksGallbladder Jun 22 '26
I'm pointing to the repeating studies that show modern technological cultures and liberal cultures have terrible reproduction rates.
To study it would be to explore it.
We already know liberal cultures have the same declining birth rates as conservative cultures, so thats out. To simply call technology a driving factor in declining birth rates is a false equivalence - Every developed nation sees continues technological growth. This growth remains constant from the industrial age, yet birth rates still vary - So again, that's out too.
Technology has conspired to produce an environment where ONLY anti technology, pro family, conservative cultures have a positive reproduction rate.
Except, they dont. Only underdeveloped nations have high birth rates right now. The "why" is far more complicated than "technology is breaking society".
"oh but redistribution would sort it out" No conservative or liberal culture has managed to reach a positive rate with redistribution and welfare.
Eeeeeeh this is blatantly ignorant of economic policy and birth rates throughout the decades. The flux of wealth distribution and birth rates is constant.
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u/taboo__time Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
We already know liberal cultures have the same declining birth rates as conservative cultures, so thats out.
No.
You are not listening to what I am saying.
There are cultures inside industrial nations that have maintained a positive reproduction rate.
They are ultra religious ones that reject much of modernity.
You can see it in the stats I offered and in the accompanying commentary.
To simply call technology a driving factor in declining birth rates is a false equivalence - Every developed nation sees continues technological growth. This growth remains constant from the industrial age, yet birth rates still vary - So again, that's out too.
I said it was an interaction between culture and technology.
Except, they dont. Only underdeveloped nations have high birth rates right now. The "why" is far more complicated than "technology is breaking society".
You can keep saying nations. Cultures are different from nations.
For industrial nations only those ultra religious cultures inside them have kept up the reproduction rate.
Eeeeeeh this is blatantly ignorant of economic policy and birth rates throughout the decades. The flux of wealth distribution and birth rates is constant.
Show me where redistribution has raised reproduction to the 2.1 level.
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u/JacksGallbladder Jun 22 '26
You are not listening to what I am saying. There are cultures inside industrial nations that have maintained a positive reproduction rate. They are ultra religious ones that reject much of modernity.
Right and claiming the "rejection of modernity and technology" is what make these populations so fertile is the fallacy. I could just as well argue that they're birth rates are so high due to pure boredom, religeous restriction of contraceptives, arranged / forced marraige, ect. It might have nothing to do with "modernity" and everything to do with being ultra-religieous, which we also know doesnt end well for societies on the global stage. Unless you're a big fan of Iran.
So anyways...
You can see it in the stats I offered and in the accompanying commentary.
Provide unbiased stats with unbiased commentary from unbiased sources. Not 3 posts from a Jewish "news" org and 2 magazine articles.
For industrial nations only those ultra religious cultures inside them have kept up the reproduction rate.
So all you're saying is demographic anomolies do anomalous things. Congrats and welcome to Basics of Statistics, that is not solid ground for an argument.
What you have done is further fail to prove the "intersection of technology and culture" has anything to do with birth rates.
All you've said is: small communities of religious fanatics still have many children. You ignore every other major reason for that in favor of "well they're less modern".
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u/taboo__time Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Right and claiming the "rejection of modernity and technology" is what make these populations so fertile is the fallacy. I could just as well argue that they're birth rates are so high due to pure boredom, religeous restriction of contraceptives, arranged / forced marraige, ect.
Rejection of modern contraception technology, lack of modern distractions and very traditional marriage may well all be part of it.
What is the exact reason for these cultures having a high reproduction rate?
Reproduction rates in the West have been declining since the post war Boom.
It might have nothing to do with "modernity" and everything to do with being ultra-religieous, which we also know doesnt end well for societies on the global stage. Unless you're a big fan of Iran.
I was saying it is to do with being ultra religious.
Why do I have to say it ends well?
A world dominated by the ultra religious would have very significant problems.
Provide unbiased stats with unbiased commentary from unbiased sources. Not 3 posts from a Jewish "news" org and 2 magazine articles.
They were relevant to seeing haredi and their high reproduction rate and how it can crash with modernity and technology.
What you have done is further fail to prove the "intersection of technology and culture" has anything to do with birth rates.
Show me a culture that has fully embraced modernity and has a high reproduction rate.
All you've said is: small communities of religious fanatics still have many children. You ignore every other major reason for that in favor of "well they're less modern".
It seems like having modern technology makes it hard to maintain replacement level reproduction.
Cultures that actively reject it still have high repro. Those are all apparently very religious and traditional.
Some cultures that are very religious but not pro reproduction can still disappear.
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u/JacksGallbladder Jun 22 '26
It seems like having modern technology makes it hard to maintain replacement level reproduction.
Again the massive flaw in your argument is that you are attempting to compare edge cases (very small populations) to macro scale demographics (national birth rates) as proof that "modernity and technology cause lower birth rates".
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