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Is Religion Coming Back?
religions that lose touch with the technological realities of the day lose their ability even to understand the questions being asked.
Yuval Noah Harari • Homo Deus
When belief went into decline in north-western Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century, many commentators wondered where humanity would – in an increasingly secular future – find the guidance that religions had once provided. Where would ethical counsel come from? How would self-understanding be achieved? What would determine our sense of pu
... See moreAlain De Botton • The School of Life: An Emotional Education
Tara Isabella Burton, who studied the “religiously unaffiliated” in her 2020 book, “Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World,” has written that many people who have lost trust in institutions will put their faith in Instagram influencers specializing in self-care. A center devoted to self-improvement and community — expertly marketed and bu... See more
New York Times • SoulCycle Without the Bike: Here Comes Peoplehood
A religion of emotive intuition, of aestheticized and commodified experience, of self-creation and self-improvement and, yes, selfies. A religion for a new generation of Americans raised to think of themselves both as capitalist consumers and as content creators. A religion decoupled from institutions, from creeds, from metaphysical truth-claims ab
... See moreTara Isabella Burton • Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World
In the West, the sources of religion, family, clan, and even country could no longer tell you who you are. You decide. But once you decide, to truly have chosen, you can’t just sit on your hands, resting quietly in the glow of your chosen identity. That’s not how this “freedom” works. This “freedom” calls for constant motion. And this need for cons
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