The Rise of the “Nones”
The Next Step in the Evolution of Religion
The Religiously Unaffiliated, the “Nones”, are one of the fastest growing groups in the United States, experiencing a rapid-growth of 6% from 2007–2014 (a jump from 16% to 22% share of the population). Furthermore, since 1990, the fraction of Americans with No Religious Affiliation nearly tripled, from about 8% to 22% percent. And the numbers are even more pronounced among young Americans, as a whopping 35% of Millennials identify as Religiously Unaffiliated.
This trend in America is following a similar trend that has been occurring in Europe, where 24% of the population is Religiously Unaffiliated; supporting what is known as the Theory of Secularization, which states “as societies become more modern or advanced, they become less religious.” And it is something we can observe first starting to take place in humanity’s history at the dawn of the Scientific Revolution of the 16th century, where Religious Authority first began to lose its social and cultural significance; a phenomenon that has continued to gain momentum along with Social Mobility (individual freedom), in the Industrial revolution, the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, and of course, the Technological revolution.
Yet, despite all of this, the same surveys and polls tell us 9 in 10 Americans (90%) still celebrate the holiday of Christmas (a Religious Holiday) in some form or another, a figure that hasn’t seen any kind of substantial decline in recent years, which also shines some light on the recent ‘Secularization’ of the Holiday.
And so, while these polling and survey trends denote a growing disconnect between the population and major Organized Religions, only 7% of the ‘Nones’ (religiously unaffiliated) identify themselves as Atheist/Agnostic- lending credence and definition to the growing, yet vague, “Spiritual but not Religious” movement.
Theological Evolution
Religion/spirituality prominently asserts itself as a focal point in the historical-zeitgeist of all human culture; as it can be found existent in all of the earliest known human civilizations — literally, no ancient societies or civilizations have ever been documented, discovered or uncovered absent of some form of Religion. This fact alone, says something significant about its power and influence in the lives of human-beings and the evolution of our cultures.
The ancient Romans employed an interesting strategy whenever they conquered another empire: they absorbed those people’s cultures and beliefs into their own, rather than simply reject them. When Rome completed one of their very first conquests of another empire in Corinth, Greece (146 BC) they did exactly this, they absorbed the Greek Pantheon and encouraged connections between their own; this was part of an intentional and tactical-assimilation of their new Greek subjects, with aims of turning them into willing citizens of Rome, rather than a conquered-people still struggling or fighting to maintain their cultural (and spiritual) identity. This assimilation was executed so effectively that we learn today that the various Greco-Roman Gods are literally interchangeable equivalents, as in: Zeus is Jupiter, Poseidon is Neptune, Venus is Aphrodite, Mars is Ares, etc… and if you think about it, while one could say that the Romans certainly conquered the Greeks ‘militarily’, it could be argued that the Greeks’ cultural influence on the Roman Empire was so significant, that they were the victors or conquerors ‘culturally’.
With this in mind, when if, instead of looking at the subject of Theology from a standpoint of broken-up, separate and competing-religious ideas and/or philosophies existing throughout history, we look at it altogether, as Humanity’s Spiritual journey, which has been evolving and changing ever since it began.
Perhaps the most critical or significant step in the evolution of humanity’s religious journey occurred in the early 4th-century, when the Roman Empire, during the reign of Emperor Constantine, changed its official religion to Christianity. This marked a significant paradigm-shift in the human-psyche and its view of Religion — the shift from Polytheism (the belief in and worship of multiple gods) to Monotheism (the belief in and worship of one, true god), and created a whole new need for a cultural-assimilation.
The multitude of various provinces and peoples that made up the ever diverse and expansive Roman Empire— all these different Pagan religions and rituals that were mostly accepted and assimilated into the earlier Polytheistic Roman culture now had to be transformed and dealt with; but this time, their existing faiths could not simply be absorbed — their whole way of thinking in regards to Religion (and gods) had to be remolded. Historical scholars believe this was why the Holy Trinity Doctrine (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) was officially adopted by the Church during the 4th-century, as similar to the Roman’s strategic-assimilation of the Greek’s (400-years earlier), it made Christianity more appealing to people who were so accustomed to the worship of multiple gods.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day”, and neither did this theological-shift happen overnight; it was a long blood-soaked and war-torn time coming, as history shows, Rome was less than compassionate — dogmatic, over-zealous and even violent in their approach to driving a conversion from Polytheism to Monotheism among their people —but ultimately it was seen as an opportunity for a greater-unification of its people under one common Theological banner, which would help facilitate peace and civility in the empire, and therefore it was intended for the greater good. The End justified the Means.
The Spiritual Distinction
Humanity’s shift away from Polytheism toward Monotheism had nothing to do with Christianity being particularly special, it was simply in the right place at the right time: historically-novel and popular, when the Western world was ready.
Life in Antiquity was bleak and difficult; disease, poverty and hunger were rampant — cruelty, violence and chaos drove an obscenely high-mortality-rate — the threat of invading barbarians trampling your crops, murdering your family, and selling you into slavery was a very real part of everyday life. And thus, the tenet of Eternal Salvation as introduced by Christianity, the idea that the more you suffered here on Earth, the better your time would be in the Afterlife, was increasingly appealing; it was a potent shield against the harsh realities people faced on a daily-basis during these times. Pagan religions of the past had contained unorganized and fractured ideas of a Spirit-world or Afterlife (which certainly influenced Christianity), but most of them were reserved for special individuals or deeds, such as great heroes and warriors. Never before Christianity, was the idea of a Human Spirit or Soul and the promise of an Afterlife so wholly and clearly presented, and available to everyone, from all classes, and all walks of life.
This is an important piece in Humanity’s Spiritual journey (or evolution), not only because it was central to the Monotheistic view and Christianity’s historical-triumph over Polytheistic-Paganism, but because it is an idea that continued to develop and transform — becoming crucial to the distinction between “Spirituality” and “Religion”, and understanding the “Nones” (the Spiritual but not Religious) of today.
The idea of a Spirit or a Soul was continually explored and developed outside the confines of Organized Religion, in a philosophical, and even scientific context, for thousands of years thereafter; from the early theories of “Vitalism”, which dictates ‘living organisms as fundamentally different than non-living things,’ to the famous philosopher and scientist, Rene Descartes, who would postulate that the human body contains a “vital-spirit”, an active agency or force, that serves to animate living things; to the realm of early psychology, with Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious and the “Anima”.
Despite zero scientific-evidence to support any of this(or the existence of a soul or human-spirit)- this ideology persists as the hallmark tenet of Faith among the “Spiritual but not Religious”; and it shows that one piece of Religion that the “Nones” just can’t let go of is that something about Human-beings makes them inherently-special (divine, even), and that there is more to their story than what science and nature can reveal. As their Faith, is less rigorous, as it revolves around a vague Spirit or Spiritual-force rather than a well-defined God in the traditional sense.
Speaking volumes to the natural psychological-origin of Religious or Spiritual belief in general, and why the “Spiritual but not Affiliated” types just can’t abandon religion altogether.
Existential Insecurity
Existential Insecurity is something that Albert Einstein once eluded to, when he wrote: “the word God is nothing more than a reflection of human weakness”, in his famous “God Letter”, which he sent to a fellow contemporary on the subject of Theology. His words are not so much a scathing-rebuke of Religion and Spirituality, but rather an honest-telling of the internal-motivations behind them. For, religious thought (and spirituality) was first conceived with the earliest humans witnessing the natural occurring phenomenon of the world around them and trying to explain it, trying to make sense of their very Existence. This is made evident in the fact that the earliest Pagan religious beliefs and customs were geared toward influencing Nature, such as making sacrifices and praying to Gods to bring them sufficient rains, warmth and sunlight in order to secure healthy crops.
Religion in its most fundamental state, serves as an attempt to placate the natural or instinctual wonder, curiosity and anxiety that exists within us, as a result of the Uncertainty associated with being thrust upon a “finite” life within a seemingly “infinite” and mysterious world, and the inability to cope with the ‘finality’ of Death.
It attempts to addresses and answer all the ‘Big, burning questions’ (as they are known): Why are we here? What is our Purpose? How did we get here? How did it begin? What caused this? What happens when we die? etc… the natural questions that have haunted the back of every single human-mind, admittedly or not, since the dawn of mankind.
Or are they not questions, but fears? Fears of a random, chaotic and meaningless existence, and an always looming end to our lives? Perhaps this is the very essence of the term “God-fearing”. Whatever they are, they are the prevalent mysteries and thoughts that have plagued humanity, causing an inclination toward prescribing the Supernatural to the unknowable, for the sake of ‘coping’ and comfort, in an effort of self-deception, to create the illusion of Certainty and safety.
And this natural, ingrained, or even instinctual “fear of uncertainty” or “desire for certainty, meaning and purpose”, which fuels religious and spiritual belief, is something that no human-being is exempt from, it is something that not even the staunchest of non-believers can escape. In that we are all connected. As it stems from a deep-rooted unconscious value we place on “being alive” (an inherent regard for human-life) that is part of the Human Condition, and just might be a useful survival mechanism of our species.
The Metaethical Question
One of the biggest fears surrounding the Secularization of society is a loss of moral values, the collapse of law and order, and increase in chaos and violence, an erosion of civilization — this talking-point parroted by alarmist pundits today is almost as old as original sin; it is rooted in what is known as the Natural Law Theory in response to the “Grounding Problem” in Metaethics, which is a focus of ethics not on what is and isn’t moral, but on what is “Morality” itself; and it supposes that if Moral Facts do exist, then where do they come from? …Well, God, of course. But this is not only another example of simply prescribing God to an unknown, it just doesn’t hold up Scientifically.
It isn’t hard to make an argument for Secular Humanism. As Organized Religion has not only been a major-catalyst of violence and war throughout history, but statistics on the modern world clearly show that the most chaotic and violent places in the world today are those who have the highest rate of religious conviction, such as the Middle East — and even more convincing is that secular societies are the least chaotic and violent, as the Institute for Economics & Peace Report shows that among the top 10 most peaceful nations on the planet, 8 of them are also among the least religious nations on earth (Scandinavia).
The vast growing number of ‘Nones’, religiously unaffiliated, in Western society, coupled with the fact that the overwhelming majority of them still celebrate a ‘religious’ or ‘spiritual’ holiday, in some form or another — is proof of the still healthy and undeniable inner-yearning for meaning and purpose, value of human-life, and sense of community existing within most human beings today… and the grand Uncertainty, the essence that which Religion and Faith derive from, that unites us all in the simple fact that we are all subject to the ‘need to cope’ with the wonderful and frightening mystery of our own temporary existence, is not only alive and well, but rapidly evolving and changing, and that will always be progress…
Perhaps, a little less definitive-conviction in Humanity’s Spiritual journey is a good thing, the historical-data would certainly suggest so— perhaps, similarly to the significant historical-shift from Polytheism to Monotheism, the increasing number of ‘spiritual but not religious’ are pushing humanity ever closer to that ‘next great leap’ in its religious evolution. Perhaps, we shouldn’t look at the Rise of the Nones so much as “losing faith in God”, but rather, “gaining faith in Humanity”.
