They've been vitally important in promoting good things such as social values, and instrumental in promoting some of history's greatest atrocities. Christians had their Crusades and Inquisitions. Islam has had its terrorism. So, in the end, "it depends. How many successful people do we know who are also unorganized in their personal or professional lives? How do we feel about living in a city without any organized law enforcement system or even a traffic system?
Human beings are naturally organized. So why when it comes to religion we want to be unorganized? Religion is a way to worship and communicate with God and it should be done in a manner which He determines appropriate. It should not be left to the creation to decide how and when God should be worshiped. After all, we do not follow our instinct when maintaining our newly acquired vehicle.
Instead we follow manufacturer recommendation because we acknowledge their experience with their product. Meanwhile, in my opinion, people are turning away from "organized religion" because they judge religion according to the behavior of some of its followers and not its core message. In most cases, organized religion is good. It teaches ethical living and an acknowledgment of our true source, without which human beings can be sorely lacking when living in community.
Much of our civil law is based in principles stemming from organized religion: for example, that human beings and all creation have inherent dignity and are to be valued and protected; that we must be true to our word; that we must treat each other as we want to be treated. It is also certainly true that organized religion can prove to be unhealthy, oppressive, destructive and even violent.
Calling it "religion" does not take away the potential for human beings to act contrary to the good. That does not make the religion bad, but is a bad use of a good thing.
Great good is accomplished through organized religion and its potential is even greater. Buddhism emphasizes enlightenment purpose , teachings the way and community mutual support. Formal organization is "good" if it serves these "three refuges," "bad" if it doesn't.
Gautama Buddha was self-enlightened, but followed customary ascetic models organized effort in his quest to end suffering. After Gautama agreed to teach The Eightfold Path, disciples and benefactors organized communities, ways, and means for monks, nuns, and lay followers to join and learn. New Atheists, such as Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, became intellectual celebrities; the best seller American Theocracy argued that evangelicals in the Republican coalition were staging a quiet coup that would plunge the country into disarray and financial ruin.
Throughout the Bush presidency, liberal voters—especially white liberal voters— detached from organized religion in ever-higher numbers. Religion has lost its halo effect in the past three decades, not because science drove God from the public square, but rather because politics did. Other social forces, which have little to do with geopolitics or partisanship, have played a key role in the rise of the nones.
The Church is just one of many social institutions—including banks, Congress, and the police—that have lost public trust in an age of elite failure. But scandals in the Catholic Church have accelerated its particularly rapid loss of moral stature. Nor does Smith rule out the familiar antagonists of capitalism and the internet in explaining the popularity of non-affiliation.
Most important has been the dramatic changes in the American family. The past half century has dealt a series of body blows to American marriage. Read: The not-so-great reason divorce rates are declining. But just as stable families make stable congregations, family instability can destabilize the Church.
Divorced individuals, single parents, and children of divorce or single-parent households are all more likely to detach over time from their congregations. More Americans, especially college graduates in big metro areas, are putting off marriage and childbearing until their 30s, and are using their 20s to establish a career, date around, and enjoy being young and single in a city. By the time they settle down, they have established a routine—work, brunch, gym, date, drink, football—that leaves little room for weekly Mass.
The rise of the nones shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, the religious identity that seems to be doing the best job at both retaining old members and attracting new ones is the newfangled American religion of Nothing Much at All. But the liberal politics of young people brings us to the first big reason to care about rising non-affiliation.
Any believer looking to excuse his own temper, sense of superiority, warmongering, bigotry, or planetary destruction can find validation in writings that claim to be authored by God. They are anchored to the Iron Age. This pits them against change in a never-ending battle that consumes public energy and slows creative problem solving. Religion makes a virtue out of faith.
So sing children in Sunday schools across America. The Lord works in mysterious ways, pastors tell believers who have been shaken by horrors like brain cancer or a tsunami. Faith is a virtue. As science eats away at territory once held by religion, traditional religious beliefs require greater and greater mental defenses against threatening information. To stay strong, religion trains believers to practice self-deception, shut out contradictory evidence, and trust authorities rather than their own capacity to think.
This approach seeps into other parts of life. Government, in particular, becomes a fight between competing ideologies rather than a quest to figure out practical, evidence-based solutions that promote wellbeing.
Religion diverts generous impulses and good intentions. Feeling sad about Haiti? Give to our mega-church. Crass financial appeals during times of crisis thankfully are not the norm, but religion does routinely redirect generosity in order to perpetuate religion itself. For instance, 84 percent of people raised by Protestant parents are still Protestant as adults.
Similarly, people raised without religion are less apt to look for it as they grow older — that same Pew study found that 63 percent of people who grew up with two religiously unaffiliated parents were still nonreligious as adults. But one finding in the survey signals that even millennials who grew up religious may be increasingly unlikely to return to religion. In the s, most nonreligious Americans had a religious spouse and often, that partner would draw them back into regular religious practice.
Today, 74 percent of unaffiliated millennials have a nonreligious partner or spouse, while only 26 percent have a partner who is religious. Luke Olliff, a year-old man living in Atlanta, says that he and his wife gradually shed their religious affiliations together. A majority 57 percent of millennials agree that religious people are generally less tolerant of others, compared to only 37 percent of Baby Boomers.
Young adults like Olliff are also less likely to be drawn back to religion by another important life event — having children.
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