Every year or so a survey’s results become headline news, asking for an update to the debate, is religiousness in decline? Commentary and opinion then point to differences across the UK, northern and southern Europe and even the rest of world. Whilst surveys such as the recent British Social Attitudes Survey would perhaps suggest yes that in some states but not others (with the UK declining and other nations even in Europe not showing such obvious decline), this does not tell the whole story. Surveys such as this give results of cultural conservatism as much as actual spiritual, and most importantly, theistic adherence. Indeed, if the data is looked at in more detail a more nuanced picture of decline across the board appears more apparent.
Dave Male, the Church of England's director of evangelism and discipleship, said: "For many people ticking a box marked 'Church of England' or 'Anglican' is now an active choice and no longer an automatic response.”. This is indeed a statement which has wider truth. Whereas it is still automatic and indeed in some countries completely unthinkable that the answer would be different to what we are told. In Italy or Spain, for example, Catholicism will still top all polls and show little decline in affiliation, even if the trends on “active” are downward along generational lines. It is, however, the underlying beliefs which point to longer term trends and the quandary for modern societies and religiousness.
It is ceremony and communality on a cultural level which are the things which are still well practised and thought of in a religious sense, from baptism, confirmation or right through to group prayers. They are a cultural binding agent which give a strong sense of belonging and community. Indeed, religion can be shown to have succeeded, it is after all an autonomous universal creation across all historic cultures (even if cross pollination and referencing is firmly embedded in its progress), because it was evolutionary advantageous to societies that utilised them. Genuine belief usually had very little to do with successful religions within societies. In fact, societies that did have greater genuine belief universally failed completely, suffered stagnation and eventual take over or had to adapt by loosening religious rules. Stringent adherence to inflexible moral, educational and vocational systems inevitably stifled those societies in the face of others which did not. This was not a pattern restricted to just one religion or one region and indeed occurred internally in what we would now consider individual nations.
However, group ritual, whether religious or temporal, was almost always successful and is the enduring legacy of older religious beliefs long since gone or currently dying. Christmas was a solstice ritual, Easter a fertility ritual. The ritual that was popular was taken and co-opted with a new religious gloss. So, what does this say about our current state? Strict religiousness is a dead concept on a societal or global level (and one could argue that it always has been). ISIS is actually a good extreme example of such. ISIS argued for strict adherence to an Islamic interpretation, and it showed itself as such in areas where it gained control as unsustainable and destined to inevitable collapse. Indeed, ISIS disciples themselves expressed dissatisfaction with their newly created societies due to the levels of food, recreation, technology and interests they afforded. Turns out a 12th century religious society really doesn’t have as much appeal as today’s modern societies. Who knew! In western societies, strict dogmatism has little ability to flourish as its appeal and applicability to people with access to education and knowledge on command is a jarring juxtaposition. Even amongst those states which claim a religious foundation, such as Saudi Arabia or the UAE, in reality are opening up or have relaxed rules to allow them to appeal and compete in a globalised world. This is before even discussing the actual religious adherence level which exists behind closed doors in these states. States such as Iran, which refuse to have any flexibility reap the repercussions of such, as much as any political isolation has done.
Yet spirituality is not dead and on a global level, and in the most developed countries, not even in decline. It just takes different forms. Many may scoff at UFO believers, or Scientologists (which technically are the same thing I guess) but these point to a continuing human desire for commonality and understanding what is outside their own rational knowledge. The same yearning is seen in the growing interest and number of groups in “alternative” medicine or “spiritualist” and “eastern” disciplines. The great challenge and current failure of the rational counter to religions, as theistic entities, has been the acceptance of the scientific method and celebration of its accumulated knowledge. That we do not know everything but that we have a methodology for constant discovery and change is somehow seen as a weakness and an issue. It is in fact the foundation of human civilisation’s success. But for the majority of people the need for something to be a part of and give them a sense of validation, whatever it may be, seems to have more allure than a sense of wonderment at not knowing.
And yet the quandary remains. Group ritual and cultural communality have been and continue to be powerful and important societal bonding agents, even if universality of belief systems have again shown themselves to be utter failures in replicating such on wider scales in the face of more important cultural mechanisms. Can societies move away from religious ritual without replacing it with anything without weakening societal cohesion? The answer is of course yes. But it is yes because the religious element of the ‘religious ritual’ is the least important part of that equation. Nationalism or the cult of personality show how ritual, religious or otherwise, can be used for the same purpose. People as a species are communicators, this being the primary trait of evolutionary success, and its ability to translate across large numbers through shared activity the foundation of civilisation. The UK may be an outlier in “confirmed” atheism with many other countries reporting that this is not true for them, but globally religions, in their historic and current forms, have had their day. None can live comfortably in the face of knowledge, rights and individualistic wants that the world now provides. It is what replaces the dogma of these religions that should occupy our thoughts.