Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Thou Shalt Worship None of the Above
'Spirituality' is evolving towards DIY 'beliefs' by
(people) who believe in God, do not go to church, but trust (their) internal voices to direct (them) on a spiritual path.
If my internal voices tell me I myself am god, is it OK?
Thou Shalt Worship None of the Above
By PETER MANSEAU - MAY 16, 2015 - NYT
(..) The rise of the religiously unaffiliated, by Pew’s accounting, has been so swift (up more than six percentage points of the total population in seven years), and the simultaneous decline among members of Catholic and Protestant churches so severe (down about the same when combined), that coverage of the survey has largely presented the religious lives of Americans as numbers on a score card. As USA Today put it, “Christians drop, ‘nones’ soar.”
Religion, however, is not a zero sum game. (..) The Pew study itself acknowledges this, and it does so mainly as it applies to non-affiliation. “Nones,” who according to the study now account for nearly 23 percent of all Americans, are made up of people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular.” Within these denominations of the unaffiliated, there are in fact deep theological divisions. Though the survey’s “nones” include those who have little use for belief or the acts associated with it, others in the category “believe in God, pray at least occasionally and think of themselves as spiritual people.”
(..)
This history suggests that, despite the headlines to the contrary, we are not necessarily seeing a period of religious decline. Rather, this may be just the latest in a series of moments when more Americans are intent on custom-tailoring their religious identities. The Pew numbers support this: At least a third of Americans today do not maintain the affiliation with which they were raised.
(..)
More recently, Americans’ desire in the 1970s and ’80s to devise spiritual identities apart from traditional categories was labeled “Sheilaism” by the sociologist Robert Bellah, for a woman called Sheila who believed in God, did not go to church, but trusted her own internal voice to direct her on a spiritual path.
Many of today’s “nones” are yesterday’s “Sheilas,” and some of them may be spiritual descendants of those New Lights whose innovative ways of being (and not being) religious established trends in American belief nearly three centuries ago. (..)
(..) the next Great Awakening (..) might be led by those with too many spiritual influences to choose just one.
Peter Manseau is the author, most recently, of “One Nation, Under Gods: A New American History.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/opinion/sunday/thou-shalt-worship-none-of-the-above.html
By PETER MANSEAU - MAY 16, 2015 - NYT
(..) The rise of the religiously unaffiliated, by Pew’s accounting, has been so swift (up more than six percentage points of the total population in seven years), and the simultaneous decline among members of Catholic and Protestant churches so severe (down about the same when combined), that coverage of the survey has largely presented the religious lives of Americans as numbers on a score card. As USA Today put it, “Christians drop, ‘nones’ soar.”
Religion, however, is not a zero sum game. (..) The Pew study itself acknowledges this, and it does so mainly as it applies to non-affiliation. “Nones,” who according to the study now account for nearly 23 percent of all Americans, are made up of people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular.” Within these denominations of the unaffiliated, there are in fact deep theological divisions. Though the survey’s “nones” include those who have little use for belief or the acts associated with it, others in the category “believe in God, pray at least occasionally and think of themselves as spiritual people.”
(..)
This history suggests that, despite the headlines to the contrary, we are not necessarily seeing a period of religious decline. Rather, this may be just the latest in a series of moments when more Americans are intent on custom-tailoring their religious identities. The Pew numbers support this: At least a third of Americans today do not maintain the affiliation with which they were raised.
(..)
More recently, Americans’ desire in the 1970s and ’80s to devise spiritual identities apart from traditional categories was labeled “Sheilaism” by the sociologist Robert Bellah, for a woman called Sheila who believed in God, did not go to church, but trusted her own internal voice to direct her on a spiritual path.
Many of today’s “nones” are yesterday’s “Sheilas,” and some of them may be spiritual descendants of those New Lights whose innovative ways of being (and not being) religious established trends in American belief nearly three centuries ago. (..)
(..) the next Great Awakening (..) might be led by those with too many spiritual influences to choose just one.
Peter Manseau is the author, most recently, of “One Nation, Under Gods: A New American History.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/opinion/sunday/thou-shalt-worship-none-of-the-above.html
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
