“Where is the grave-yard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds?" - H.L. Mencken, Memorial Service
Battered by declining attendance and great, expensive age, churches throughout Europe are going on the auction block, reports the current European edition of Newsweek. Some are even being transformed into Mosques.
Well, ho-hum. Though such as Albert Mohler carry-on as though there's something remarkable afoot, there is not. Ten thousand religions have arisen and failed as the falsity of their teachings became self-evident over the course of time, their places of worship to become abandoned curiosities. So too, inevitably, the present generation of Eternal Truths.
Read Gore Vidal's Julian for a look at a world between faiths. Humanity has been before where it is today.
The really interesting question is: What will the next generation of Eternal Truths look like? Presumably, it will rely less upon mystical revelation than the current crop because that is what is undoing them. Nobody except the most perfervid fundamentalists believe any more than an old man with a long beard thrust his head out the underside of a cloud and bellowed things like "Stone the adulterers, and the fairies."
Will adultery and homosexuality be officially proscribed by the next Eternal Truth? My guess is probably so. After all, the female half of the human race fiercely despises adultery, and practically all of the male half of the human race recoils from homosexuality. The question that interests me is: Absent divine revelation, what explanation will be made for those official proscriptions?
Some argument from Utilitarianism? An assertion that adultery and homosexuality conduce toward public injury rather than "the greatest good for the greatest number?"
The Chinese had laws against murder and theft 1,000 years before the revelation to the Jews at Sinai — which makes you wonder why they thought it was such a Big Deal Revelation, but might explain why they were so unpopular and had to live by themselves in the desert. Will the next Eternal Truth proscribe murder and theft? Probably so but, once again, how will it be explained?
Will there be a philosopher figurehead, a Confucius or Buddha-like character who promotes a system of, ultimately, self-serving ethics ("I and my family benefit if we all agree not to kill each other.") rather than cosmic reward and punishment? Probably.
There's only one certainty: There will be self-appointed nuisances who bother the independent-minded and milk the doltish.
Article comments
1 - Nancy
Organized religions go downhill when they've abused their followers so badly that upcoming generations generally perceive them to be just another con game - as in this case. Strong words, but fair, Bob. As MY favorite revelator said, "There's a sucker born every minute."
2 - Jonathan Scanlan
I think the current decline in religion comes from modernity and the access to information through education and media.
But more than that, religion no longer serves the purpose of community building, because there now exists the freedom to find friends with common interests.
I suspect that the next eternal truth will lead us somewhere akin to Brave New World.
3 - D'oh
The article asks: "What will the next generation of Eternal Truths look like?"
Possibly about within, enlightenment of self rather than salvation and scapegoating in the name of the unknowable.
As for the "saints" of such...
Buddha
a gnostic Christ
Gandhi
Martin Luther King Jr.
just some guesses, thanks for the nice read.
4 - Baronius
Like you said, we’ve seen all this before. Christianity wasn’t supposed to survive against the Roman Empire. Then it wasn’t supposed to survive past the Roman Empire. The oddsmakers had us losing to Islam, European monarchy, Jansenism, the Avignon papacy, the Enlightenment, Napoleon, and communism. I think we can survive some Anglican infecundity.
5 - D'oh
I think Baronius has a solid point.
In all probability Christianity will indeed survive for quite the while in various flavors. It still fills the needs of some people, and indoctrinates children very early on...for these reasons alone, while the membership will continue to decline, I think there will be a rock bottom below which their particular flavors of theology won't sink.
The question posed was more about what might be next, in this post second millenium world.