The NYT’s associate editor Lauren Jackson is doing a year-long series on “belief” for the paper. In her latest piece (click below to read, or find it archived here), she pulls out all the stops, averring the several points that we’ve seen appearing over and over again in the MSM. To wit:
1.) America needs religion to hang together as a society. Religious people by almost any measure are happier, less lonely, more educated, and more well off than nonbelievers. That, she implies, is a reason to believe, even though she herself is a nonbeliever. (I guess she has “belief in belief”.)
2.) But religion is waning in America (this is based on a Pew survey that shows that the “Christian share of the U.S. population stabilizes.” But look at the data below she adduces! It’s pretty pathetic, showing a decline over two years as the percentage of “Americans who identify as Christian”, a figure that has been fairly constant since 2019 at about 63%. This is after nearly 20 years of a steady decline. The percentage of “nones” (people not affiliated with a particular denomination) has also dropped by 2-3% in one year (2022-2023) and all this has heartened believers (or “believers in belief”) to cheer for the perceived resurgence of religion in America.
3.) Jackson, an ex-Mormon and now nonbeliever, nevertheless applauds this trend as well, for, after she left the Latter-day Saints, she never found the happiness and connection she achieved as a Mormon. Her laments about this loss verge on a Big Whine, for one wants to keep asking her “Well, why don’t you go back to religion?” Jackson’s answer is unsatisfactory.
4.) And we get the usual palaver that most of us harbor a God-shaped “hole in our hearts”: a desperate need for religion that can’t be filled by any other activity or form of sociality.
I’ve argued against many of these claims before, and this post is a précis of Jackson’s long argument. But below I’ll show you how Richard Dawkins has answered her—far better than I. What is worth pondering is why the media is making such a big brouhaha about religion’s resurgence now (see articles by Dreher, Douthat, and Hirsi Ali), and why they insist that only belief in God can quell our angst. I attribute this largely to two things: the pandemic and Trump, both of which have made people unhappy and insecure. And when that happens people turn to faith.
But I digress: here’s the article. I’ll give some indented quotes:
Here’s her reason for giving up Mormonism. It seems to have little to do with the religions’s ludicrous truth claims, but with her desire to conform to her peers. But she couldn’t, as Barry Manilow sang, “get the feeling again,” no matter what she did:
I never really wanted to leave my faith. I wasn’t interested in exile — familial, cultural or spiritual. But my curiosity pulled me away from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and toward a secular university. There, I tried to be both religious and cool, believing but discerning. I didn’t see any incompatibility between those things. But America’s intense ideological polarity made me feel as if I had to pick.
My story maps onto America’s relationship to religion over the last 30 years. I was born in the mid-1990s, the moment that researchers say the country began a mass exodus from Christianity. Around 40 million Americans have left churches over the last few decades, and about 30 percent of the population now identifies as having no religion. People worked to build rich, fulfilling lives outside of faith.
That’s what I did, too. I spent my 20s worshiping at the altar of work and, in my free time, testing secular ideas for how to live well. I built a community. I volunteered. I cared for my nieces and nephews. I pursued wellness. I paid for workout classes on Sunday mornings, practiced mindfulness, went to therapy, visited saunas and subscribed to meditation apps. I tried book clubs and running clubs. I cobbled together moral instruction from books on philosophy and whatever happened to move me on Instagram. Nothing has felt quite like that chapel in Arkansas.
And her proclamation that religion is back!:
America’s secularization was an immense social transformation. Has it left us better off? People are unhappier than they’ve ever been and the country is in an epidemic of loneliness. It’s not just secularism that’s to blame, but those without religious affiliation in particular rank lower on key metrics of well-being. They feel less connected to others, less spiritually at peace and they experience less awe and gratitude regularly.
Now, the country seems to be revisiting the role of religion. Secularization is on pause in America, a study from Pew found this year. This is a major, generational shift. [JAC: Generational?] People are no longer leaving Christianity; other major religions are growing. Almost all Americans — 92 percent of adults, both inside and outside of religion — say they hold some form of spiritual belief, in a god, human souls or spirits, an afterlife or something “beyond the natural world.” The future, of course, is still uncertain: The number of nonreligious Americans will probably continue to rise as today’s young people enter adulthood and have their own children. But for now, secularism has not yet triumphed over religion. Instead, its limits in America may be exposed.
Well, if she admits that religion will probably continue to wane, then what is she celebrating? The “limits”—-the pathetic “limits” you see in the graph above?
She goes on at length about studies showing the palpable advantage of religion in promoting happiness and well-being, and I’m not familiar with much of that work. Even so, if we don’t believe in God for various reasons (mine is “no evidence”) are we supposed to force ourselves to believe because if we pretend to, we might actually lapse back into belief? And there are all those friendly people you can meet in church.
Yes, Ms. Jackson longs and pines for her God, but she just can’t get that feeling again. Here’s the biggest whine, which makes me want to shake her and say, “Go back to church, for crying out loud!”: Bolding is mine:
But many of these “nones” have had a dawning recognition that they had thrown “the baby out with the baptismal water,” as my colleague Michelle Cottle said.
“I would love to find a way to have what I had then without compromising who I feel I am now,” Ms. Mahoney told me.
Like Ms. Mahoney and many other “nones,” I too feel stuck. I miss what I had. In leaving the church, I lost access to a community that cut across age and class. I lost opportunities to support that community in ways that are inconvenient and extraordinary — when the baby arrives, the moving truck comes or grief overwhelms. I lost answers about planets, galaxies, eternity. I still find it odd to move through the world, going to the gym and sending Slack messages, with these questions threatening to overtake me. Shouldn’t I be dumbstruck, constantly? Shouldn’t we all?
. . . In a country where most people are pessimistic about the future and don’t trust the government, where hope is hard to come by, people are longing to believe in something. Religion can offer beliefs, belonging and behaviors all in one place; it can enchant life; most importantly, it tells people that their lives have a purpose.
Well, as I’ve discussed sporadically, and readers mostly agree, our lives do NOT have a purpose imposed by the outside, including by belief in God. The idea of your “life’s purpose” is confected: it is a made-up construct incorporating the things you’ve done that you find satisfying, meaningful, or enjoyable. And this brings up the question of evidence for God, something that’s pretty much neglected by Jackson.
Bolding is mine below. I don’t see why she can’t go back—perhaps not to Mormonism, but there are plenty of more humanistic faiths, including deism and pantheism. There’s even Unitarian Universalism, a non-goddy faith that’s currently riven by social-justice issues. But what about Quakerism?
And if her beliefs have changed, perhaps, just perhaps, she sees that it’s really impossible for her to regain faith because she realized that there’s simply no evidence for a god. So we have the equivalent of a child who can’t take her teddy bear to school and yet desperately longs for it because it gives her such comfort. Again, bolding is mine.
But I don’t feel I can go back. My life has changed: I enjoy the small vices (tea, wine, buying flowers on the sabbath) that were once off limits to me. Most importantly, though, my beliefs have changed. I’ve been steeped in secularism for a decade, and I can no longer access the propulsive, uncritical belief I once felt. I also see too clearly the constraints and even dangers of religion. I have written about Latter-day Saints who were excommunicated for criticizing sexual abuse, about the struggles faced by gay people who want to stay in the church.
I recognize, though, that my spiritual longing persists — and it hasn’t been sated by secularism. I want a god. I live an ocean away from that small Arkansas chapel, but I still remember the bliss of finding the sublime in the mundane. I still want it all to be true: miracles, souls, some sort of cosmic alchemy that makes sense of the chaos.
For years, I haven’t been able to say that publicly. But it feels like something is changing. That maybe the culture is shifting. That maybe we’re starting to recognize that it’s possible to be both believing and discerning after all.
Part of my response is in 1 Corintians 13:11, and I’ll substitute “woman” for “man”:
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a woman, I put away childish things.
Time to ditch the teddy bear.
This is where Richard Dawkins enters. Ms. Jackson, wracked with doubt, had read Richard’s books, which had some influence on her. So she called him up and asked him about the need for faith:
A few weeks ago, I called Mr. Dawkins, the famous atheist whose book had so shaken me all those years ago. I wanted to know what he made of the fact that America’s secularization had stagnated.
He remained hopeful that secularism can replace religion. “It seems to me, should be reasonably easy to sort out,” he said. For ethics, he encouraged people to take civics classes and host a weekly discussion club. For community? “Play golf.”
He said he understood that churches in particular could provide moral instruction (and he said he valued the ethical teachings of Jesus as a man). But he insisted people should be able to fulfill their spiritual desires outside of faith: “It should be quite easy to show documentary films: David Attenborough films, Carl Sagan films, Neil deGrasse Tyson. There are lots of substitutes to spirituality that those can provide.”
But many of the people I have spoken to say those kinds of alternatives aren’t enough.
Well, there was nothing else for me to do than forward the article to Richard, since he was quoted. It turns out he hadn’t seen it. But, in about a day, he knocked out a short but trenchant response to Jackson’s agonized lucubrations. His piece is a masterpiece of defending humanism. I am not going to quote it except for the very last bit, for you can read it on his Substack by clicking on the link below (it’s also archived here).
The ending:
Who needs New Age spirituality (“sound baths”, “energy healing”, “astrology”),who needs to thumb-suck under a mental comfort blanket, who needs gods, when reality is there for the taking?
I’d say, “Touché.”
Dawkin’s full response is both inspired and inspiring!
It irks me that this woman — sorry, person — takes her own problem to be universal, a quite common fault. The fact that she needs religion does not mean everybody does. They/we do not.
Oh, but we do need the gods! Only problem is, they aren’t there. And those who realize that usually learn to live with it, and some do middlin well.
IMHO, part of the recent resurgence has been triggered by so many “New Atheists” wholeheartedly embracing the cult that is trans ideology.
The refrain is – “See ? When you give up on True Religion, you just create false ones”
“The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one”.
– Oscar Wilde
The early environment of our childhood has a large effect on what seems normal or inescapable. Jackson was raised in a devout Mormon household and – surprise – feels that only God and church can provide what she needs. I was raised without religion; I don’t feel that way.
I know quite a few religious people and I wouldn’t characterize them as happier or more content in any meaningful way. They’ll prattle on about “trusting god” but otherwise be full of angst and dissatisfaction with various aspects of their lives.
My atheist friends and I are continually in awe of nature and life as it unfolds. Science is the lens that let’s us understand things we can’t directly perceive. There is so much to learn I feel sad for those who abandon curiosity in favor of false certainty.
Trust Dawkins to get directly to the point.
My standard response to religionists who accuse us non-believers of being dour and downcast is that’s only when they’re around. They tend to be dull company.
She argues that only religious communities can be joyful and fulfilling, as if belief in a deity is an indispensable ingredient. I see no evidence of that. The only thing that churches do well is to facilitate social connections and gatherings, but that is not an exclusive gift of theirs. I have had that camaraderie with work colleagues, and I see it among combat veterans.
What she misses is community, which is something that can be found in any group of people sharing the same experiences and living similar lives. What we are witnessing today is not just the dissolution of religious communities but of all communities as people, particularly in advanced countries, become more isolated, partly a consequence of technology and social media. Religion will not fix that.
This “belief in belief” and the justification of religion by its making people “happy” rather than being true will be a continuing argument for religion, precisely BECAUSE it no longer has a claim to truth. So “evolutionarily speaking” the only reason it still persists is by coming up with stuff like this.
I am reminded of the H.G. Wells story “In the Country of the Blind” as well as the response that we all were happier back when Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were real, but those days are gone-with-the-wind.
A Mormon church sounds like an extreme example. If she still believes that stuff then it should be easy to go back. If she doesn’t, but she misses the community, it sounds like material for a Philip K Dick SciFi story. In truth, in missing the church she misses something which was never actually “real”. Dawkins was kind in his reply.
In regard to ditching the teddy-bear: my developmentally disabled son has been
recovering slowly from serious illness and surgery at a skilled nursing facility, and
I keep him well supplied with plush animal friends. His favorite is Flying Squirrel.
Dawkins nailed it. Living for most of us is an incredible experience, full of wonder and a host of other feelings. Yes, sometimes sadness and pain. I think she is probably a depressed person She is whining. She is unhappy. But I don’t think it really has anything to do with religion at all. Perception can be everything for some people. The glass is always half empty. She should visit St. Jude Hospital in Memphis and give thanks she doesn’t have a child being treated there. She sounds ungrateful to me.
Self-discrediting article. “Why we need God” by an atheist and atrocious conclusions from a graph of declining belief in God. Doesn’t the NYT have editors? Why would this article be publication worthy? What believer would give credence to an atheist who wishes she could still believe in God but can’t and conversely, what non-believer would give credence to an atheist who has good reasons for her disbelief in God but longs for credible refutations of her own logic to return to the lotus garden again?
Emotions > Logic, Feelings > Facts
I’m sure Richard D. has better things to do with his time than hand hold and counsel neurotic, high anxiety American women about their existential angst.
The cheek.
D.A.
NYC
Many mainstream Protestant denominations in the U.S. currently have what may prove a fatal illness: aging congregations and few new recruits. In my town those that remain open within the older parts of the city–mega-Protestants decamping to the former corn and soybean fields to build McMansions in which to worship their god, which is Mammon–have barely managed to do so by becoming social service institutions (Boys & Girls Club, food banks and so forth). This is all to the good–unless these Christian organizations are evangelizing, as some are (while others are not). In addition, the churches get a trickle of cash from the two duplicate bridge clubs I play in. Nothing very ‘Christian’ is going on. . . . Everybody’s ‘welcome,’ but the doors are locked six days of the week.
In what I sense is an importantly related matter, as soon as he heard that Pope Francis had died, Trump ordered White House flags to half-mast. I’ve noticed around here many businesses have followed his ‘leadership.’ He may have been a decent human being, most probably never diddled an altar boy, and used his authority as pope with benevolence, more or less. But the Catholic church is no friend of democracy. To the contrary its schooling, its catechism, and its socio-political behavior in the U.S. have helped erode the constitutional wall between religion and democracy. To be a small-‘d’ democrat, a young citizen needs a thorough-going public education throughout her, his, their long childhood.
By the by, what IS the shape of a ‘God-shaped hole’?
For fun I substituted “bowling” for “faith” and found it works quite well (sources are dumb and posted only to show how easy it is to make these dumb arguments sound authoritative, like that NYT article).
America needs bowling to hang together as a society. Bowlers are happier, less lonely, and more educated than nonbelievers. (I guess I have “belief in bowling”.)
[source:https://www.whitehutchinson.com/leisure/articles/whats-happening-to-bowling.shtml%5D
Bowling is waning in America and has been waning for a long time.
[source:https://www.jmarentertainment.com/why-bowling-started-to-decline-in-popularity%5D
But bowling is becoming cool again, and this has heartened bowlers (or “believers in bowling”) to cheer for the perceived resurgence of bowling in America.
[source:https://www.wokewaves.com/posts/the-bowling-revival-how-this-retro-sport-became-a-gen-z-sensation%5D
A nice little essay by Dawkins, but really, the title says it all.
I’d argue that a desire for ‘spirituality’ is partly genetic… arising from a predisposition to seek community with those immediately around you. Being part of a social group or troop has, perhaps on balance, some fitness value.
As a genetic disposition not all people will find the same depth of desire for spirituality. But those who find the lack of spirituality troubling can find convenient spirituality packages ‘off the shelf’ in a religion.
Religion is a convenience, not a fundamental answer. YMMV.
I wonder if we are seeing a very old phenomenon at work: the world is scary and seems to be falling apart, therefore reach for a god to tell us all is OK. The one thing the MSM and the alternative media seem to agree upon these days is that we need more religion, and it doesn’t matter which (which maybe an admission that none of them is actually the true religion). But it seems to me it is the age-old modus operandi of childhood:
And always keep a-hold of nurse
For fear of finding something worse.
Just as my ancestors shivered on the hill-forts of the Marlborough Downs and called on the Wild Hunt to aid them, we are still looking for help in all the wrong places.
One way to put the demand for meaning is to ask “Is nature enough?” Answer for naturalists (as opposed to supernaturalists): “Well, it’s all we’ve got.” Adding God to nature can’t endow reality with a purpose since you can always raise the question of what point his existence has. Necessarily, the totality of existence can’t itself have a reason for being since the question can always be raised: what’s the point of that purpose? Seeing that as a logical matter reality as a whole can’t have a purpose puts us in a very interesting, one might say astonishing, existential situation. Local human meanings are always situated in a wider context of sheer existence.
Thank you for posting this update of Richard Dawkins’ continued defense of science and reality-based thinking. I have been heartened by his refusal to give ground to the gender cult. As Sarah Haider noted, there were so many in the “organized atheist” “community” who surrendered any claim to critical thinking or skepticism. But not Professor Dawkins. A not Professor Coyne!