The viciousness of church politics can rival pretty much any other politics you can name; the difference is that the viciousness within churches is often cloaked in lofty spiritual language and euphemisms.

One of the more incisive comments about the gap we often see between faith and works sticks with me today: that for too many people of the Christian faith, Jesus is a “hood ornament.”

I have heard from pastors in different parts of America who describe a “generational catastrophe” that is unfolding because of how disillusioned young people, including many young Christians, are by what they have seen.

Partisan, cultural, and regional identities tend to shape religious identities.

I was recently reminded of a story about Evelyn Waugh, who had behaved particularly rudely to a young French intellectual at a dinner party. Waugh was asked by the host, Nancy Mitford, how he could act so meanly and yet consider himself a believing and practicing Catholic. “You have no idea,” Waugh is said to have responded, “how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic.”

One pastor, who requested anonymity in order to speak openly, put it to me this way:Having grown up in the South, [I think] Southern Baptist culture is probably uniquely this way, but working in a church that isn’t in the South, this stuff still rears its head. Not as much the same presenting issues, but you still fundamentally get people who are in love with power and will take any means necessary to beat you down so they have power and you are subservient to them, not the Gospel.

Google’s headquarters, in Mountain View, California—the Googleplex—is the Internet’s high church, and the religion practiced inside its walls is Taylorism.

Regarding theinfluence of iconoclasm, the inaugural moment can be set circa 1536–1541, during Henry VIII’sdissolution of the monasteries.

Προσδίδοντας οξύ τόνο στην πάλη αυτή, μπορούμε να ερεθίζουμε τις μάζες. Μια τέτοια πάλη επιτείνει τη διαίρεση των μαζών με βάση τη θρησκεία, ενώ η δύναμή μας βρίσκεται στην ένωση».

θα δαιμονοποιεί τα φυσικά και κοινωνικά φαινόμενα, θα «θεοποιεί» τις συμφορές της ανεργίας, της φτώχειας, της αρρώστιας κλπ., και θα χρησιμοποιεί την άγνοια του ανθρώπου για να γεννήσει στη συνείδησή του το Θεό.

He adds that the ethnographic record shows that with rare exceptions, rock art is indeed associated with ritual and beliefs. “The concept of ‘art for art’s sake’ is a relatively recent western attitude,” he says – and if anything, the propensity for drawing in the dark seems to support that assumption.

Whitley says: “The conceptual and practical division between the supernatural/sacred/religious world  and the mundane realm is a largely modern and western conceit that has become especially prominent since the Protestant Reformation. Many traditional peoples saw/see no separation between daily versus religious life; many don’t even recognize that they have a ‘religion’ per se. I then concur with the notion that many prehistoric peoples felt a strong connection to the supernatural and the cosmos.”

Σε αυτή τη συγκεκριμένη κρίσιμη φάση, μια χαλαρή ένωση συγγραφέων, χάκερ, καλλιτεχνών και επιχειρηματιών από τη Δυτική Ακτή των ΗΠΑ πέτυχαν να διαμορφώσουν μια ετερογενή ορθοδοξία για την εποχή της πληροφόρησης - την ιδεολογία (;) της Καλιφόρνιας. Αυτή η νέα πίστη (;) αποτελεί μια σύντηξη των κουλτουριάρικων μποέμ του Σαν Φρανσίσκο και των βιομηχανιών υψηλής τεχνολογίας της Σίλικον Βάλεϊ, συνδυάζοντας δηλαδή τα πνεύματα των χίπις και των γιάπις, και σχηματίζοντας μια υπερβολικά αισιόδοξη εικόνα του μέλλοντος.

τερατώδη συμμαχία μεταξύ των δεξιών Αμερικάνων Προτεσταντών και της Καθολικής Εκκλησίας να εναντιωθούν σε οποιαδήποτε βοήθεια ελέγχου των γεννήσεων στις χώρες του Τρίτου Κόσμου,

.: Πρώτα απ’ όλα, δε νομίζω ότι, παρά τα όσα λέει ο κόσμος, ότι θα υπάρξει μια επιστροφή του θρησκευτικού στις Δυτικές χώρες.

In this we sometimes see the use of American historical references that have been weirdly transposed,

This is known as multilevel selection, which “recognises that fitness benefits can sometimes accrue to individuals through group-level effects, rather than always being the direct product of the individual’s own actions”, as Dunbar defines it.

As Bellah points out, religion is as a way of being. We might also view it as a way of feeling, as a way of feeling together.

Any human phenomenon that exists is a human phenomenon that became what it is.

"We really want to see what everyone wants to say.… When you have a lot of people passionate about hockey, and not about religion, it's interesting to see people's reactions to the question," she said. "If they can make connections between religion and sport,

He longed to ascend through the roof and fly away to another country where he would never hear again of his trouble, and yet a force pushed him downstairs step by step.

Maria would enter a convent

among them, there is a small one where men never die,

In Hibernia [Ireland] there are many wonderful islands whose existence can be credible; among them, there is a small one where men never die,

who collected used stamps for some pious purpose.

yellowing photograph hung on the wall above

the houses had grown sombre

old useless

blind

set the boys free

There is also no mention or even hint of a deity who speaks directly to the people. It just seems taken for granted that these are the terms.

In 1965, he published the highly influential work Theories of Primitive Religion, arguing against the existing theories of what at the time were called "primitive" religious practices. Arguing along the lines of his theoretical work of the 1950s, he claimed that anthropologists rarely succeeded in entering the minds of the people they studied, and so ascribed to them motivations which more closely matched themselves and their own culture, not the one they were studying. He also argued that believers and non-believers approached the study of religion in vastly different ways, with non-believers being quicker to come up with biological, sociological, or psychological theories to explain religion as an illusion, and believers being more likely to come up with theories explaining religion as a method of conceptualizing and relating to reality.

the hand of God

Mr. Jennings, do you happen to be acquainted with Robinson Crusoe?

Speaking as a servant, I am deeply indebted to you. Speaking as a man, I consider you to be a person whose head is full of maggots, and I take up my testimony against your experiment as a delusion and a snare

‘I stood like one Thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an Apparition.’ If that isn’t as much as to say: ‘Expect the sudden appearance of Mr. Franklin Blake’–there’s no meaning in the English language!” said Betteredge, closing the book with a bang, and getting one of his hands free at last to take the hand which I offered him.

She affectionately reminds Mr. Franklin Blake that she is a Christian, and that it is, therefore, quite impossible for him to offend her

Two of Elemental’s biggest early clients were the Mormon church, which used the technology to beam sermons to congregations around the world, and the adult film industry, which did not.

Critics, including Sarah Posner and Joe Conason, maintain that prosperity teachers cultivate authoritarian organizations. They argue that leaders attempt to control the lives of adherents by claiming divinely-bestowed authority.[63] Jenkins contends that prosperity theology is used as a tool to justify the high salaries of pastors.

I n 1808, New York physician John Augustine Smith, a disciple of Charles White, r ebuked Samuel Stanhope Smith as a minister dabbling in sci-ence. “ I hold it my duty to lay before you all t he facts which are rele-vant,” J ohn Augustine Smith announced in his circulated lecture. The principal f act was t hat t he “ anatomical s tructure” of t he European was “superior” t o that of t he other races. As different species, Blacks and Whites had been “placed at t he opposite extremes of t he scale.” The polygenesis l ecture l aunched Smith’s academic career: he became edi-tor of t he Medical and Physiological Journal, t enth president of t he Col-lege of William & Mary, and president of t he New York College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The American Bible Society, t he American Sunday School Union, and the American Tract Society were all established in this period, and they each used the printing press to besiege the nation with Bibles, t racts, pictures, and picture cards t hat would help to create a strong, unified, J esus-centered national i dentity. A good tract “should be entertaining,” announced the American Tract Society in 1824. “ There must be something to allure the listless to read.”

The result is that the readers of major news outlets are presented with an unrealistically benign picture of a darkly authoritarian, cult-like branch of Protestantism. That’s one reason I’m writing this essay.

If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? 2 Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! 4 Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? 6 But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers!

De facto, reputation and appearances become more important than people’s wellbeing, because authoritarian Christians are desperately afraid of the sense that any of their rigid, divinely prescribed rules do not actually work. Spoiler alert: they do not actually work.

If you want to understand the Christian extremism that represents the single greatest threat to democracy and human rights in America today, it’s important to understand how authoritarian Christians read the Bible.

If Henrich’s history of Christianity and the West feels rushed and at times derivative—he acknowledges his debt to Max Weber—that’s because he’s in a hurry to explain Western psychology.

By the time Protestantism came along, people had already internalized an individualist worldview. Henrich calls Protestantism “the WEIRDest religion,” and says it gave a “booster shot” to the process set in motion by the Catholic Church. Integral to the Reformation was the idea that faith entailed personal struggle rather than adherence to dogma. Vernacular translations of the Bible allowed people to interpret scripture more idiosyncratically. The mandate to read the Bible democratized literacy and education. After that came the inquiry into God-given natural (individual) rights and constitutional democracies. The effort to uncover the laws of political organization spurred interest in the laws of nature—in other words, science. The scientific method codified epistemic norms that broke the world down into categories and valorized abstract principles. All of these psychosocial changes fueled unprecedented innovation, the Industrial Revolution, and economic growth.

"Protestant" life of wealth and risk over the "Catholic" path of poverty and security.[8]

“Oh, what heathen advice!” I thought to myself. “In this Christian country, what heathen advice!”

Sorrow and sympathy! Oh, what Pagan emotions to expect from a Christian Englishwoman anchored firmly on her faith

But, oh, don’t let us judge! My Christian friends, don’t let us judge!

When I had dropped another tract through the area railings, I felt relieved, in some small degree, of a heavy responsibility towards others

The deity breathed the breath of his divinity on the Diamond in the forehead of the god

Christian

Throughout the twentieth century, proponents of this particularly American blend of theology envisaged God as a kind of banker, dispensing money to the deserving, with Jesus as a model business executive. Both of these characterizations were, at times, literal: In 1936, New Thought mystic and founder of the Unity Church Charles Fillmore rewrote Psalm 23 to read, “The Lord is my banker/my credit is good”; in 1925, advertising executive Bruce Bowler wrote The Man Nobody Knows to argue that Jesus was the first great capitalist. The literal money quote reads, “Some day ... someone will write a book about Jesus. Every businessman will read it and send it to his partners and his salesmen. For it will tell the story of the founder of modern business.”

These three strands collided throughout the twentieth century, as the prosperity gospel came into being. It started — like the “work ethic” Max Weber described — as a way to justify why, during the Gilded Age, some people were rich and others poor. (One early prosperity gospel proponent, Baptist preacher Russell H. Conwell, told his mostly-destitute congregation in 1915: “I say you ought to be rich; you have no right to be poor.”) Instead of blaming structural inequality, Conwell and those like him blamed the perceived failures of the individual.

A final strand of the development of the prosperity gospel was the development of charismatic Pentecostal churches in America. An umbrella term for a decentralized group of churches — comprising over 700 denominations — Pentecostal churches are characterized by an emphasis on what is known as “spiritual gifts” (or charisms, from which the term “charismatic” is drawn). A worshipful Christian might experience, for example, the gift of healing, or might suddenly start speaking “in tongues.” This tradition of worship meant that, for a believer, the idea that God would manifest Himself to the faithful in concrete, miraculous ways in the here and now was more prevalent than it would be in, say, a mainline Episcopalian church. In addition, the decentralized nature of these churches also meant that individual leaders, many of whom practiced faith healing or similar practices, had a particularly strong effect on their congregations and could build up individual personal followings.

Thus, New Thought thinker Ralph Waldo Trine (not to be confused with Ralph Waldo Emerson) could exhort his readers to “See yourself in a prosperous condition. Affirm that you will before long be in a prosperous condition.”

As Laura Turner notes in an excellent piece for BuzzFeed, no theological tradition is as rife for accusations of hypocrisy as the “prosperity gospel,” a distinctively American theological tradition. While it’s popular among many evangelical Protestants, it’s been condemned by many others. But to many of its critics, especially since the election of Donald Trump, this tradition has come to represent the worst of the conflation of American-style capitalism, religion, and Republican party politics.

Protestant organizations started mass-producing, mass-marketing, and mass-distributing i mages of J esus, who was always depicted as White. Protestants saw all t he aspirations of t he new American identity in the White Jesus—a racist idea that proved to be i n their cultural s elf-interest. As pictures of t his White J esus s tarted to appear, Blacks and Whites s tarted to make con-nections, c onsciously and unconsciously, between the White God the Father, his White son Jesus, and the power and perfection of White people.

Second Great Awakening

Technology has become a secular religion: quite possibly the largest, most influential religion human beings have ever created.

He that, in obedience to this command of God, subdued,tilled, and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something thatwas his property, which another had no title to, nor could without injurytake from him

St. Petersburgh

I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is for ever visible; its broad disk just skirting the horizon, and diffusing a perpetual splendour.

he father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin. He was a Turkish merchant

Mahometan

claim the gratitude of his child so completely

Christian Arab,

a Paradise of my own creation

A new species would bless me as its creator and source

Paradise Lost.

eternal light

Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus

Dante

the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands of the infidels

j’acceptais mon « incarnation » mais je ne voulais pas renoncer à l’universel

Mais le fait est que je gardais une idée quasi religieuse de ce que j’appelais « ma destinée ».

en fait j’en restais barbouillée ; les tabous sexuels survivaient

En vérité, le mal dont je souffrais, [Page 299]c’était d’avoir été chassée du paradis de l’enfance

Quel silence ! La terre roulait dans un espace que nul regard ne transperçait, et perdue sur sa surface immense, au milieu de l’éther aveugle, j’étais seule.

Le scepticisme paternel m’avait ouvert la voie ; je ne m’engageais pas en solitaire dans une aventure hasardeuse.

au contraire, je m’aperçus qu’il n’intervenait plus dans ma vie et j’en conclus qu’il avait cessé d’exister pour moi.Je devais fatalement en arriver à cette liquidation. J’étais trop extrémiste pour vivre sous l’œil de Dieu en disant au siècle à la fois oui et non. D’autre part, j’aurais répugné à sauter avec mauvaise foi du profane au sacré et à affirmer Dieu tout en vivant sans lui. Je ne concevais pas d’accommodements avec le ciel. Si peu qu’on lui refusât, c’était trop si Dieu existait ; si peu qu’on lui accordât, c’était trop s’il n’existait pas.

Mon père ne croyait pas ; les plus grands écrivains, les meilleurs penseurs partageaient son scepticisme ; dans l’ensemble, c’était surtout les femmes qui allaient à l’église ; je commençais à trouver paradoxal et troublant que la vérité fût leur privilège alors que les hommes, sans discussion possible, leur étaient supérieurs.

Quel réconfort de le savoir là ! On m’avait dit qu’il chérissait chacune de ses créatures comme si elle avait été unique ; pas un instant son regard ne m’abandonnait, et tous les autres étaient exclus de notre tête-à-tête ; je les effaçais, il n’y avait au monde que Lui et moi, et je me sentais nécessaire à sa gloire : mon existence avait un prix infini. Il n’en laissait rien échapper : plus définitivement que sur les registres de ces demoiselles, mes actes, mes pensées, mes mérites s’inscrivaient en lui pour l’éternité ; mes défaillances aussi, évidemment, mais si bien lavées par mon repentir et par sa bonté qu’elles brillaient autant que mes vertus.

Le soir, à la maison, ma mère respectait mon silencieux recueillement. Je notais sur [Page 99]un carnet les effusions de mon âme et des résolutions de sainteté. Je souhaitais ardemment me rapprocher de Dieu,

la théorie du « coup de foudre sacramentel » : à la minute où les fiancés échangent devant le prêtre le oui qui les unit, la grâce descend sur eux, et ils s’aiment

dogmatisme

Je m’abîmai dans la lecture comme autrefois dans la prière. La littérature prit dans mon existence la place qu’y avait occupée la religion : elle l’envahit tout entière, et la transfigura. Les livres que j’aimais devinrent une Bible où je puisais des conseils et des secours ; j’en copiai de longs extraits ; j’appris par cœur de nouveaux cantiques et de nouvelles litanies, des psaumes, des proverbes, des prophéties et je sanctifiai toutes les circonstances de ma vie en me récitant ces textes sacrés. Mes émotions, mes larmes, mes espoirs n’en étaient pas moins sincères ; les mots et les cadences, les vers, les versets ne me servaient pas à feindre : mais ils sauvaient du silence toutes ces intimes aventures dont je ne pouvais parler à personne ; entre moi et les âmes sœurs qui existaient quelque part, hors d’atteinte, ils créaient une sorte de communion ; au lieu de vivre ma petite histoire particulière, je participais à une grande épopée spirituelle. Pendant des mois je me nourris de littérature : mais c’était alors la seule réalité à laquelle il me fût possible d’accéder.

Cependant la religion, l’histoire, les mythologies me suggéraient un autre rôle.

when approaching indigenous artifacts from the lense of “how was this actually practical, how did it help them survive?” you can come up with a lot more compelling (and interesting) answers than assuming it’s all kooky religious nonsense!

The call for people to soberly “acknowledge” their White Privilege as a self-standing, totemic act is based on the same justification as acknowledging one’s fundamental sinfulness is as a Christian.

changetheirmodeoflifewouldbevirtuallytochangetheirreligion.T

uringthenightIhadsucharavishingviewofthegloryofGodinChristthatIcouldnotsleep.Icouldonlylookupthroughtheholeatthetopofmybutandsin

Je retrouverais le secret des grandes communications et des grandes combustions. Je dirais orage. Je dirais fleuve. Je dirais tornade. Je dirais feuille. Je dirais arbre. Je serais mouillé de toutes les pluies, humecté de toutes les rosées. Je roulerais comme du sang frénétique sur le courant lent de l’oeil des mots en chevaux fous en enfants frais en caillots en couvre-feu en vestiges de temple en pierres précieuses assez loin pour décourageur les mineurs. Qui ne me comprendrait pas ne comprendrait pas davantage le rugissement du tigre.

Theirerrorsaremoreformidabletothemissionarythantheheathenismit

esicknccnwhichprevailedamongtheIndian038lastsummerwasinconaequcnoeofourcomingintothecountryandthothehissionaricewouldbringsick—noesupontheIndianaaloe"

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heywouldretaintheircustoms&habitsIftheGreatSpirithaddeaignadtheyshouldbeinstructedtheywouldhavehadhiawordcommunicatedtothanbefore.."TheGreatSpiritdesignedtheyahouldhaveadifforentreligion&quotnmofromnhoWhites

eathensuperstitions,towhichtheyarestronglyattached,andwhihhisagreathindrancetotheirreceivingthegosp

eetingthechild-renandotherswhoweredisposedtoco

eligiousexerciseontheSabbathfortheIndians

ReedseveralInd.Hymns,thiehIsungtothem.Aftersingingonetheseconddrthirdtimeoneortwoyoungmenjoined&tomysurprise,sungitquitewell.Theyaredelighted&surprisedtohearhymnssungintheirownlanguag

hebeat’01"theIndra;dnmi;if:t'‘.h.‘.~.-''“S:‘.ig.‘at":‘J2‘3.H,i1‘3”‘3‘”“1017915'15850.her?-.-“FM?oiéiéha115111.61ofj”t1i§:¥a&;259§£liv.:nghe‘1éWatt

hisbandisfarremovedfromallpresentcatholicinflu

nquirywasputtotheprincipalmen,theChiefbeingabsentEAgouldyouliketohaveahiseionarycome&livewithyou,instructyourchildren&tellyouaboutGod”?

3Ihadnot[enjinterpreu'.bar,(ImaunabletocommunicatemuchmorethantoredsuchortioneofScrip.ghymns3.3werefamiliarton

hesoldiershavebeenemployeethegreaterpartofthedayincomingupwiththeirbaggage&canoestoourencampmen

tone.momentourmenweresingingsomeInd.hymn-thenextaeongordancingtune-thenextmomentanInd.vauldbegintothumphiedrun&oing,thathemightmakehispartofthenoise,&rendertheSceneofconfusionmoreperf

AnoldInd.incompanywithus,passingalargestonerisinoutofthemiddleoftheriverlefthisofferingoftobaccotothe(Henito)spirit.

twothirdsofthesettlementisunder'Epis.influ.ence.Healsogivesitashiso>inion,thattheprinciplemenoftheH.BayDepartment,wouldfavour&aidinMissionaryoperation

35fluanceofE:A.thevialhasbeen1n4daside&cardsareintroduced9init”Lno.Sub.Juno3%.Tri;€77.thqunxun.LzuplaceintkagrLtdxhvtoIuoidk3.5"&dancing.ln:rcisnomaxi.ngJxlncaofSab.améqétnaée’cathoioFrenchman,bnanamongthelads.themselves.

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PlacedbytheGovernmentasanAgenttothispeople,theiradvancementinthescaleofmoral&accountablebeings,istome,anobjectofhighimportance.AndIknownotwhatcouldhavesodirectaninnuenceinraisingthemtothedignityoflife,astheintroductionofChristianity[sic].Iamquitesatisnedthattheirpolitical,mustresultfromtheirmoralmelioration.Andthatallourattemptsinthewayofagriculture,schooling&themechanicarts,areliabletomiscarry&producenopermanentgood,unlesstheIndianmindcanbepurinedbygospeltruth,andcleansedfromthebesettingsinofabeliefinmagic,&fromidolatry&spirit-worship

benentstheywouldderivefromhavingschoolsandinreceivingthegospel,andtoldthemtheadvantagesoftheircultivatingtheirland.TheysaidthatwhatIhadtoldthemwasalltrue,andverygood.

Akhenaton placed much emphasis on the worship of the Egyptian sun which can be seen from many artistic depictions of a connection between the Pharoh and his family.[28] Some debate has focused on the extent to which Akhenaten forced his religious reforms on his people.[29] Certainly, as time drew on, he revised the names of the Aten, and other religious language, to increasingly exclude references to other gods; at some point, also, he embarked on the wide-scale erasure of traditional gods' names, especially those of Amun.

Then another email. “Thank you very much, just one more question, for technical reasons, would it suffice if we credit D. A. Kaplan or Kaplan ink?” I wrote back and said no, photo credit should be Deborah Abrams Kaplan. And then I asked what the technical reason was for the requested change. I wondered to myself if my name was too long. And then I wondered if it was because I am a woman. But I dismissed that thought as ridiculous, because they’re not using a photo of a woman, but rather a photo of matzah. For those who aren’t familiar with aspects of orthodox Jewish practice, some require keeping a strict separation between men and women, so as not to tempt the men.

Sometimes, they also hope to bestow good luck on deceased family members.

A commitment to conditionality lives at the intersection of economics and theology. It’s where lectures about the law of the marketplace meet sermons about what we must do to earn our way into heaven. Here, almost every human interaction, even among family members, is regarded as a kind of transaction.” “(Kids) shouldn’t be spared struggle and sacrifice”: underlying idea that others (blacks, women…) are getting “something for nothing”; “the undeserving” must go conspicuously unrewarded. “Without competition we would all be paid the same and people would get lazy.” – explicit link to inequality

to serve God whatever their circumstances and lo support themselves through teaching if that hecame necessary.

too individualistic, devoid of the community feeling that should bind Chris� thms together.

Especially helpful to Astell were the arguments of Descartes that extensive classical learning, from which women had been largely excluded. was not necessary to a vibrant intellectual life: All people were innately capable of reason. the key men· tal activity

Madonella.

ve hermeneu-tic

isanyone who asks a lot of questions, refuses to accept simplistic dead-endanswers, is willing to bend rules to attain knowledge, and has a real senseof adventur

This is the meaning of the “Day of Resurrection,” spoken of in all the scriptures, and announced unto all people. Reflect, can a more precious, a mightier, and more glorious day than this be conceived, so that man should willingly forego its grace, and deprive himself of its bounties, which like unto vernal showers are raining from the heaven of mercy upon all mankind?

The Victorian periodical The Westminster Review wrote that the introduction of gas lamps would do more to eliminate immorality and criminality on the streets than any number of church sermons.

worm, who in the midst of his splendour is crumb-ing into dust

Huxley suggests that one source for a definition of what it means to be a human being is religion. In Brave New World, religion has been abolished and Christianity is a distant memory

Many times in a morning, the generality of them would eat up all they had, and yet have some further supply against they wanted.

Isaiah 55.8: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” And also that [in] Psalm 37.5: “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.”

Mine eyes have seen

Down I sat, with my heart as full as it could hold, and yet so hungry that I could not sit neither; but going out to see what I could find, and walking among the trees, I found six acorns, and two chestnuts, which were some refreshment to me.

An obvious metaphysical question to raise here is the compatibility or otherwise of religion and transhumanism. In my 1990 essay that first set forth modern transhumanism as a distinct philosophy under that name, I explained how transhumanism (like humanism) can act as a philosophy of life that fulfills some of the same functions as a religion without any appeal to a higher power, a supernatural entity, to faith, and without the other core features of religions (More 1990). The central place accorded to rationalism suggests a tension between transhumanism and religion. But are they actually incompatible? Since rationalism is an approach to acquiring knowledge and says nothing about the content of knowledge, it is possible in principle for a transhumanist to hold some religious beliefs. And some do. The content of some religious beliefs is easier to reconcile with transhumanism than the content of others. Christian transhumanists, while not completely unknown, are very rare (and I know of none who are fundamentalists, and such a combination would surely indicate deep confusion). There are more Mormon transhumanists (although some of these are cultural rather than religious Mormons), perhaps because that religion allows for humans to ascend to a higher, more godlike level, rather than sharply dividing God from man. Several transhumanists describe themselves as Buddhists (presumably of the secular, philosophical type), and there seem to be few obstacles to combining transhumanism with liberal Judaism. However, the vast majority of transhumanists do not identify with any religion. A pilot study published in 2005 found that religious attitudes were negatively correlated with acceptance of transhumanist ideas. Those with strong religious views tended to regard transhumanism as competing with their beliefs (Bainbridge 2005).

From here comes the emphasis on progress (its possibility and desirability, not its inevitability), on taking personal charge of creating better futures rather than hoping or praying for them to be brought about by supernatural forces, on reason, technology, scientific method, and human creativity rather than faith.

IF WE ADMIT for the moment that the fascist and communist challenges to liberalism are dead, are there any other ideological competitors left? Or put another way, are there contradictions in liberal society beyond that of class that are not resolvable? Two possibilities suggest themselves, those of religion and nationalism.

“Whenever God tells us to do something, it is to our benefit.”

In the New Testament, familial metaphors are frequently used to describe Christians and what came to be construed as the universal Church. Christians are “brothers” and “sisters” to one another. Weirdly, collectively they are also the body and the bride of Christ. Wives are commanded to submit to their husbands “as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior” (Ephesians 5:22-23). This teaching of male headship is, of course, a source of much abuse of women in conservative Christian circles, and evangelical pastors have been known to abuse, to sweep abuse under the rug, and to counsel women that they must remain in abusive marriages since, after all, Jesus himself forbade divorce, and God can use suffering for good.

I think it’s important for liberal Americans who do not come from a patriarchal religious background to hear our stories and to sit with that shock. Why? Because I remain convinced that if American civil society and the American press fail to come to grips with just how radically theocratic the Christian Right is, any kind of post-Trump soft landing scenario in which American democracy recovers a healthy degree of functionality is highly unlikely.

Pascuas

Melchor