As JM Greer wrote (one more time) in the latest post on his blog :
"Every civilization starts out under the sway of a traditional religion—in our case, Christianity—adapted to the modes of thought that arise in dark age conditions, and uses mythic narratives as a template for thinking. Every civilization eventually moves away from those modes and sets aside the traditional religion in favor of some form of rationalism. Our historians talk about the age of faith giving way to the age of reason around 1650 AD [...]"
So I guess reverting the cycle is quite impossible. As humans are somehow spiritual beings and dark ages are now looming on us, something new must appear. But only when the situation is tragic enough for it to take hold.
After all, Christianity was just one new religion among many. And however revolutionary it may have been in comparison with earlier Mediterranean beliefs, it didn't take hold until several centuries after it was founded.
And still it's a feature of humanity. And always has been. Humans need to get explanations for the univers that surround them, need to think they have at least some control over it and need to feel that they belong to a group. This won't change over time.
When people set aside the traditional and theist religion of their culture thinking they get rid of an encumbrance, most often than not, they just switch to one of its rationalized and civil forms that give them better answers. At least for the time being.
And indeed, many people switched from Christianity to Progress (or one of its avatars) over the last two centuries. And, on and off, it fulfilled quite a few promises. But what do you think people will think of Progress in one or two century if life on Earth end up crippled by green-house gaz, forever chemicals and nuclear wastes while the stars will still be as far as they've always been ? They might very well curse it the way people cursed the Roman gods as the Empire crumbled. And look somewhere else for hope.
It has always seemed to me that, from an evolutionary perspective, hominines, which includes populations and perhaps species pre-dating modern Homo sapiens, exhibit one overriding difference from all other animals. This aspect of "other ess" is a foreknowledge of death. A myriad of rituals and superstitions have been practiced for a few hundred thousand years at least to mitigate this terrible burden, and the past 2500 years of monotheism are not new, only elaborations and institutions possible as what we regard as modern religions went kicking and screaming along with the coalescence of human societies around agriculture and settlement, populations growth, the diversification of skills and technologies, and eventually science. Superstition was probably quickly grasped by the clever and ambitious tens of thousands of years ago as a route to power or the anointing of power as other human needs and desires came to be subsumed under this rubric. Each tribe claims a special place in their god's plan and, sadly, a justification for violence against neighbors. The definition of neighbor differs among religions but has been surprisingly malleable in the history of Judeo-Christians. Pope Francis as I understood it had a more global view which, as Ugo has suggested, seems to be in a downward spiral again as wealthy nations come under new stresses and strains. But it still seems to me that all the many elaborations of religious faith that we see today began more modestly well before our written history as a cultural reaction in small hunter-gatherer groups to a uniquely human foreknowledge of our own death.
"hominines, which includes populations and perhaps species pre-dating modern Homo sapiens, exhibit one overriding difference from all other animals. This aspect of "other ess" is a foreknowledge of death."
I think you're indulging in speciesism.
What are prey escaping from when they turn tail and run at the sight of a predator? Why do elephants have what appears to be death ceremonies and obvious pain upon death of a loved one?
Yea, we can't deny we're different. But only by degree, not in the absolute.
Although poor old Rinaldeschi acted as an individual, the destruction of religious images often occurs at a time of rebellion as a collective act. In England, the protestant reformers destroyed many of these images as a way of expressing their resentment against the Roman Catholics. (I believe that the Russian church went through a similar set of events.)
What will the new sacred look like? My guess is that it could involve Gaia (another favorite topic of yours). Spiritual values will be incorporated into what we now choose to call ‘nature’. If so, then we can expect to see a revival of Celtic Christianity (something that seems to be happening on a small scale already.)
The new sacred will need to incorporate the challenges of a world that is physically declining.
I think that you are being unfair to Pope Francis. His 'Laudato Sí has a Gaian flavor. However, its impetus was lost, maybe because his health was declining and he did not have the energy to follow up. (If so, the Roman church should consider term limits.)
Yeah, I 've started looking into "Celtic Christianity" and even Druidism (? If that's even a word) myself recently .
The huge thing I see too much of with the more traditional religions is the money and (wealth in general) they accumulate. I really don't think air conditioned, cathedral like churches with giant parking lots are the right place for any God or Goddess to make an appearance.
Unless than given the legacy of the Christian faith, it cannot be more than a flavor anyway. It's too much a religion from a time when scarcity of ressources was not the issue it is now...
With the huge numbers of people who claim to be "spiritual", but not "religious" ( at least here in the United States ), there's apparently plenty of appeal to religions in general, but not for any of the institutions associated with any specific religion.
This seems to cause some "churches" to basically become theaters, but with a much less dramatic show than many other entertainment options, so people "drop in" to various churches with no commitment involved or even expected.
Or as Eric Voegelin wrote in a letter to me 1983: ” The spiritual insights that are in the being will be unpleasant for fundamentalist, orthodox Christianities, because the spirit is moving beyond orthodoxies toward mystical faith. That will take a long time, to be counted in centuries.”
Thought provoking, Prof. Bardi, at this time of collapse of the latest empire. I hope, however, that we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. You associate science and democracy with the "old" religion, but if we think back to the last dark age many fascets of both fortunately survived: early Venice styled itself as a Republic in its waterlogged islands and was a point of light in a dark age. The great cathedrals were built with the knowledge that Vitruvius left behind. The science, including vaccines that you seem to suspect, have saved millions of lives. The revolution which helped give rise to the current empire was won partly because Washington innoculated his army while the British were largely incapacitated due to smallpox. I hope humanity summons an unusual amount of wisdom and recognizes that these two systems are its greatest achievements and not parts of a cast off religion.
The last thing that human beings need is an additional bout of magical thinking. In fact, it would be good for people to take some rational responsibility toward the rest of the living world, which in whole or in part, is much more vital to the continuation of life on earth. No resurrection of religion is required for that.
Well, a resurrection of "faith and hope" will certainly be needed to even attempt to tackle the problems . Whether that will be called "a religion" is way above my level.
"it did rein in the absolute power of the Roman Emperors who, in the end, had to admit that they had to obey the law just like everyone else"
Will someone please let the current US administration know?
Heather Cox Richardson reports: "Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro of ProPublica reported that the administration is looking to replace the federal government’s $700 billion internal expense card program, known as SmartPay, with a contract awarded to the private company Ramp. Ramp is backed by investment firms tied to Trump and Musk."
Perhaps it's the billionaires behind techo humanism that make it so repellant. Perhaps it's the idea itself. They believe just because it's impossible , as one of the saints was to have said.
Christianity, among other religions, promises eternal life in the great by-and-by, an idea that remains plenty potent if the efforts of our current crop of billionaires are any indication.
Billionaires in their bunkers aside, almost everyone makes some attempt at immortality: herbal supplements, vaccines, exercise, blogs, having as many children as possible, endowing scholarships and university buildings, commissioning portraits and statues, writing a book or a bunch of them. Everybody's got a plan to make it two or three hundred years into the future, and judging by how doomed-to-failure and unnecessarily elaborate most such plans are, Occam's Razor might well settle on a priest chanting the right words beside your deathbed as the one that might work.
As the resources/habitat bottleneck gets closer, we will see more art-of-the-sacred, as death becomes less and less an abstraction in our consciousness. Certainly hanging a man for desecration makes a whole host of abstractions literal. Artists like that sort of thing.
One of the happier implications of quantum physics as it might apply to consciousness: if sentient awareness is a function of quantum uncertainty, it could be hard to destroy by mere chemical means.
Frances, by a kind of moral jujitsu, became a strong force for human decency in this indecent world. He will live forever in a lot of human hearts for that reason.
If we look at the divergence in Christianity between Roman Catholic religion, where the priestly class intermediates between God and Man, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, where the priestly class merely facilitates the direct communion between God and Man, we see the difference in the "being about" the Sacred.
With the intermediation, the Sacred can be used as an inducement to committing horrific acts. Without the intermediation, such agency of religious hierarchy falls flat, even if the people are not much directly-engaging The Divine.
Religions that practice human sacrifice, such as firstborn children, are clearly the worst, while religions that only facilitate personal engagement with Truth, Compassion, Gnosis, The Divine; are the least able to turn people to unprovoked aggression.
Ah... Der Untergang des Abendlandes? Google's instant A1: "In Oswald Spengler's view, "Second Religiosity" is a revival of earlier religious forms that occurs during the decline of a civilization's age of reason. This revival, distinct from the original, organic religious traditions of a civilization's early stages, is characterized by a more formal, intellectual, and often tolerant approach, driven by the concerns of the waning civilization's intellectual elite. It's essentially a refuge from the perceived chaos and decline of the late stage of a culture. "
Then what... 'What strange beast'?
Nevertheless, there are other traditions across our northern landmass which hold a philosophy of which learning and natural science might be retained as part?
I really enjoy your broad perspective and informed reflections, Ugo.
Thank you!
As JM Greer wrote (one more time) in the latest post on his blog :
"Every civilization starts out under the sway of a traditional religion—in our case, Christianity—adapted to the modes of thought that arise in dark age conditions, and uses mythic narratives as a template for thinking. Every civilization eventually moves away from those modes and sets aside the traditional religion in favor of some form of rationalism. Our historians talk about the age of faith giving way to the age of reason around 1650 AD [...]"
https://www.ecosophia.net/lords-of-the-fall/
So I guess reverting the cycle is quite impossible. As humans are somehow spiritual beings and dark ages are now looming on us, something new must appear. But only when the situation is tragic enough for it to take hold.
After all, Christianity was just one new religion among many. And however revolutionary it may have been in comparison with earlier Mediterranean beliefs, it didn't take hold until several centuries after it was founded.
There is religion, which cannot teach my color-blind brother to distinguish red and green, and there is the seeing of red and green.
The religion is an encumbrance to those who can see.
And still it's a feature of humanity. And always has been. Humans need to get explanations for the univers that surround them, need to think they have at least some control over it and need to feel that they belong to a group. This won't change over time.
When people set aside the traditional and theist religion of their culture thinking they get rid of an encumbrance, most often than not, they just switch to one of its rationalized and civil forms that give them better answers. At least for the time being.
And indeed, many people switched from Christianity to Progress (or one of its avatars) over the last two centuries. And, on and off, it fulfilled quite a few promises. But what do you think people will think of Progress in one or two century if life on Earth end up crippled by green-house gaz, forever chemicals and nuclear wastes while the stars will still be as far as they've always been ? They might very well curse it the way people cursed the Roman gods as the Empire crumbled. And look somewhere else for hope.
"In the last days will come many false teachers, leading astray those who know not God."
"Know", and you will be somewhat protected. "Know" and follow advice, and you may be of service to life on our fair planet, no?
I guess so. And yes, there will be many teachers. For sure. But it's pretty much a Darwinian process. Those who give the best answers will prevail.
"Teach Your Children Well..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkaKwXddT_I
It has always seemed to me that, from an evolutionary perspective, hominines, which includes populations and perhaps species pre-dating modern Homo sapiens, exhibit one overriding difference from all other animals. This aspect of "other ess" is a foreknowledge of death. A myriad of rituals and superstitions have been practiced for a few hundred thousand years at least to mitigate this terrible burden, and the past 2500 years of monotheism are not new, only elaborations and institutions possible as what we regard as modern religions went kicking and screaming along with the coalescence of human societies around agriculture and settlement, populations growth, the diversification of skills and technologies, and eventually science. Superstition was probably quickly grasped by the clever and ambitious tens of thousands of years ago as a route to power or the anointing of power as other human needs and desires came to be subsumed under this rubric. Each tribe claims a special place in their god's plan and, sadly, a justification for violence against neighbors. The definition of neighbor differs among religions but has been surprisingly malleable in the history of Judeo-Christians. Pope Francis as I understood it had a more global view which, as Ugo has suggested, seems to be in a downward spiral again as wealthy nations come under new stresses and strains. But it still seems to me that all the many elaborations of religious faith that we see today began more modestly well before our written history as a cultural reaction in small hunter-gatherer groups to a uniquely human foreknowledge of our own death.
"hominines, which includes populations and perhaps species pre-dating modern Homo sapiens, exhibit one overriding difference from all other animals. This aspect of "other ess" is a foreknowledge of death."
I think you're indulging in speciesism.
What are prey escaping from when they turn tail and run at the sight of a predator? Why do elephants have what appears to be death ceremonies and obvious pain upon death of a loved one?
Yea, we can't deny we're different. But only by degree, not in the absolute.
That’s a thought-provoking post.
Although poor old Rinaldeschi acted as an individual, the destruction of religious images often occurs at a time of rebellion as a collective act. In England, the protestant reformers destroyed many of these images as a way of expressing their resentment against the Roman Catholics. (I believe that the Russian church went through a similar set of events.)
What will the new sacred look like? My guess is that it could involve Gaia (another favorite topic of yours). Spiritual values will be incorporated into what we now choose to call ‘nature’. If so, then we can expect to see a revival of Celtic Christianity (something that seems to be happening on a small scale already.)
The new sacred will need to incorporate the challenges of a world that is physically declining.
I think that you are being unfair to Pope Francis. His 'Laudato Sí has a Gaian flavor. However, its impetus was lost, maybe because his health was declining and he did not have the energy to follow up. (If so, the Roman church should consider term limits.)
Yeah, I 've started looking into "Celtic Christianity" and even Druidism (? If that's even a word) myself recently .
The huge thing I see too much of with the more traditional religions is the money and (wealth in general) they accumulate. I really don't think air conditioned, cathedral like churches with giant parking lots are the right place for any God or Goddess to make an appearance.
Unless than given the legacy of the Christian faith, it cannot be more than a flavor anyway. It's too much a religion from a time when scarcity of ressources was not the issue it is now...
With the huge numbers of people who claim to be "spiritual", but not "religious" ( at least here in the United States ), there's apparently plenty of appeal to religions in general, but not for any of the institutions associated with any specific religion.
This seems to cause some "churches" to basically become theaters, but with a much less dramatic show than many other entertainment options, so people "drop in" to various churches with no commitment involved or even expected.
Or as Eric Voegelin wrote in a letter to me 1983: ” The spiritual insights that are in the being will be unpleasant for fundamentalist, orthodox Christianities, because the spirit is moving beyond orthodoxies toward mystical faith. That will take a long time, to be counted in centuries.”
Thought provoking, Prof. Bardi, at this time of collapse of the latest empire. I hope, however, that we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. You associate science and democracy with the "old" religion, but if we think back to the last dark age many fascets of both fortunately survived: early Venice styled itself as a Republic in its waterlogged islands and was a point of light in a dark age. The great cathedrals were built with the knowledge that Vitruvius left behind. The science, including vaccines that you seem to suspect, have saved millions of lives. The revolution which helped give rise to the current empire was won partly because Washington innoculated his army while the British were largely incapacitated due to smallpox. I hope humanity summons an unusual amount of wisdom and recognizes that these two systems are its greatest achievements and not parts of a cast off religion.
The last thing that human beings need is an additional bout of magical thinking. In fact, it would be good for people to take some rational responsibility toward the rest of the living world, which in whole or in part, is much more vital to the continuation of life on earth. No resurrection of religion is required for that.
Well, a resurrection of "faith and hope" will certainly be needed to even attempt to tackle the problems . Whether that will be called "a religion" is way above my level.
"it did rein in the absolute power of the Roman Emperors who, in the end, had to admit that they had to obey the law just like everyone else"
Will someone please let the current US administration know?
Heather Cox Richardson reports: "Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro of ProPublica reported that the administration is looking to replace the federal government’s $700 billion internal expense card program, known as SmartPay, with a contract awarded to the private company Ramp. Ramp is backed by investment firms tied to Trump and Musk."
But, it could never happen here.
Transhumanism fits the bill. It repels me deep in my soul. Tech is the modern church.
Perhaps it's the billionaires behind techo humanism that make it so repellant. Perhaps it's the idea itself. They believe just because it's impossible , as one of the saints was to have said.
Christianity, among other religions, promises eternal life in the great by-and-by, an idea that remains plenty potent if the efforts of our current crop of billionaires are any indication.
Billionaires in their bunkers aside, almost everyone makes some attempt at immortality: herbal supplements, vaccines, exercise, blogs, having as many children as possible, endowing scholarships and university buildings, commissioning portraits and statues, writing a book or a bunch of them. Everybody's got a plan to make it two or three hundred years into the future, and judging by how doomed-to-failure and unnecessarily elaborate most such plans are, Occam's Razor might well settle on a priest chanting the right words beside your deathbed as the one that might work.
As the resources/habitat bottleneck gets closer, we will see more art-of-the-sacred, as death becomes less and less an abstraction in our consciousness. Certainly hanging a man for desecration makes a whole host of abstractions literal. Artists like that sort of thing.
One of the happier implications of quantum physics as it might apply to consciousness: if sentient awareness is a function of quantum uncertainty, it could be hard to destroy by mere chemical means.
Frances, by a kind of moral jujitsu, became a strong force for human decency in this indecent world. He will live forever in a lot of human hearts for that reason.
"Religion is about the Sacred."
If we look at the divergence in Christianity between Roman Catholic religion, where the priestly class intermediates between God and Man, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, where the priestly class merely facilitates the direct communion between God and Man, we see the difference in the "being about" the Sacred.
With the intermediation, the Sacred can be used as an inducement to committing horrific acts. Without the intermediation, such agency of religious hierarchy falls flat, even if the people are not much directly-engaging The Divine.
Religions that practice human sacrifice, such as firstborn children, are clearly the worst, while religions that only facilitate personal engagement with Truth, Compassion, Gnosis, The Divine; are the least able to turn people to unprovoked aggression.
Spirituality is the communion with The Sacred.
Just like Jung said man needs religiosity...
https://open.substack.com/pub/4thgenerationcivilization/p/can-and-should-we-expect-a-spiritual
Ah... Der Untergang des Abendlandes? Google's instant A1: "In Oswald Spengler's view, "Second Religiosity" is a revival of earlier religious forms that occurs during the decline of a civilization's age of reason. This revival, distinct from the original, organic religious traditions of a civilization's early stages, is characterized by a more formal, intellectual, and often tolerant approach, driven by the concerns of the waning civilization's intellectual elite. It's essentially a refuge from the perceived chaos and decline of the late stage of a culture. "
Then what... 'What strange beast'?
Nevertheless, there are other traditions across our northern landmass which hold a philosophy of which learning and natural science might be retained as part?