Do people need a new religion? - Does humanity need a new religious force to find purpose in life?

[Someone Awful]

A week or two ago, I had a discussion with a friend over religion. Said friend hates wokeism even more than I do and believes that Christianity - the main religion of Western nations that's on a decline - is a dead and spent spiritual force. The friend also believes nature abhor a vacuum and that wokeism serves as a replacement for Christianity; also that wokeism came from Christianity. To solve the rising influence of wokeism on the world, the friend believes that there needs to be a new religion as a rival spiritual force. One possible option is fundamental Islam, but the friend understandably loathes it just as much as wokeism. The other is to create a whole new religion with its own myths, legends, and traditions that gives people purpose in life that can rival the power and influence of wokeism. Furthermore, the religion would also have to come from both the left and the right, not just one side of the political isle.

I decided to give this some thoughts. Here are my current thoughts.

I don't think a new religion is a viable way of countering wokeism. Corporations and governments in most Western nations shill if not outright support far-left ideology. They already have a growing religion in wokeism that does exactly what they want. That is, turn people into permanent consumers with no higher purpose than to worship the establishment regardless of the horrific stunts big corps, big tech, and governments pull on the people every day. If a new religion that attempted to counter wokeism were to form, it would be crushed like an ant or neutralized to the point where it would just be wokeism but with a different name. Even if it did somehow supersede wokeism, it would be far-right authoritarianism. Not much better than what we have now. For the record, I also think that Islam is incapable of defeating wokeism. Immigrants can go from strict Muslims to wokeists in a generation.

Any revival of traditionalism that traditionalists seek will have to come from an irreligious source. A value system is that based on supporting a strong family structure with a mother, father, and sons and daughters that pass on their values to their children. It will need to come from a desire to make humans greater than they already are. For example, answering the question of how we are going to move out to another planet to live in when Earth becomes uninhabitable. Humans need to shake their desire to conform to a religion as a coping mechanism if we are going to evolve. How are we going to do that? I don't know, but that is a question that traditionalists need to ask themselves if they want their value system to survive. A spiritual force that rivals wokeism with high expectations for humans and true stories as powerful as myths in religions needs to happen, that I agree, but spiritual doesn't necessarily mean religious.

What do you think? Do you think that a new religion is a necessity to counter wokeism, that something like Chrisitanity or Islam can counter wokeism in current year, or should people learn to pass on traditionalist values without religion? This is the first time I heard someone propose a new religion to counter wokeism so I'd like to here what others think.

 

[Joe Swanson]

"Wokism" certainly is a religious replacement for the left, however Christianity is by no means in decline, as it is (or at least was not too long ago) the fastest growing religion by converts and Christian communities such as mormons and the Amish are among the fastest growing in the United States due to the fact they pop out multiple kids, meanwhile the largest perponents of "wokeism" ie. liberal whites aren't having kids so there's a good chance it'll die out in a few generations

 

[usernames can change now!]

Let's all worship Mercury, get rich, have fast internet connections, and safe journeys

 

[Thomas Highway]

What the fuck is wrong with you?

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Wokeism is a Christian heresy. I don't see this talked about nearly enough. It's a direct perversion of the Sermon on the Mount (blessed are the meek, etc).

I don't think it's actually possible to "construct" a religion in any way that makes sense. That's why things like Universal Uniterianism are colossal failures despite trying to reclaim what it sees as the best aspects of religion.

I think what western society needs to get over is the progressive conceit that the world can save itself. Once you throw that in the trash where it belongs, all sorts of possibilities open up... but they all look like classical religion.

 

[Clockwork_PurBle]

A lot of people have currently replaced God, Yahweh, Allah, etc. with Saint Fauci of the Science.

 

[Ibn al-Haytham]

Islam will win.

 

[CryoRevival #SJ-112]

You will probably enjoy Euphoric Atheists thread, it addresses the religious hole filled by modern day religion substitutes at a few points, including responding to my questions and theories along those same lines.

Spoiler: Spergy Theory on Religious Evolution and Substitutes for Religion

My theory is basically that humans have evolved to look for deeper meaning and underlying logic/supporting evidence in everything, at least partially due to religiosity, in spite of the rick and morty tier arguments that if you give someone a radio they'll probably worship it.
So due to this desire to know more, we have pushed forward sciences and understanding of our world, but have payed less attention to understanding ourselves and our place in it.

So for the last 2000 years, western culture has been putting fuckloads of mental computing power into Christianity.
To draw a modern equivalent, it's a bit like the Bitcoin blockchain, the sheer volume of computing power contributed is, at this point in time, irreplaceable, so is it any wonder that no matter what work of fiction or art you engage with, it always feels empty and shallow?

Christianity, its morality, ethical systems, etc, is the culmination and continuation of hundreds of thousands of the smartest rhetoricians and logicians of Afro-eurasia for the last 2000 years (more if you count jews) turning these questions over in their minds, delving ever deeper.

Modern religion substitutes cannot compare, humanism and the western secular ethical systems are built [in denial] upon the christian ethical system, and are merely a painful reminder of this, and even the most complex and interconnected works, the most detailed and well studied literature, pale in comparison to the sheer level of analysis, discussion, and symbolism which has been extracted from the biblical text and the catholic canon.

Even if you were raised as an atheist, the western values surround you as much as the air you breathe, and you cannot escape the deeply deeply embedded drive to push to understand ever deeper.

 

[Cyclonus]

You know those sinister satanic cults where everyone has depraved orgies? Why couldn't one of them have become the dominant world religion?

 

[AnimeGirlConnoisseur]

Islam will win.

This. All of this is ultimately a numbers game. Islam is the only religion that has the potential to resist western culture and outbreed the west. China and Russia do try to present alternatives to western culture, but they don't have the birthrates to back it up. The only issue that needs to be resolved when it comes to Islam's dominance is whether or not Islam can stop westernization coming in from two fronts: the new wealth that's coming to Muslim countries and Muslims living abroad in the west.

For the first one, the problem stems from the fact that countries that modernize, become richer and more prosperous, adopt many elements of western progressive culture. We can see this in South Korea and Japan. These countries have become more progressive over the course of the twentieth century as they've modernized. We haven't seen this to the same extent in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. They do make some concessions (Dubai is very western to placate the non-Muslims and Saudi Arabia is becoming a little more egalitarian with things like letting women drive), but for the most part they haven't become too progressive. Islam slows the spread of progressivism at the very least.

As for the second problem, there are some Muslims that come to the west and basically act more like westerners than Muslims in Islamic countries. I don't want to present myself as an expert, but I think this is more common in America than in Europe. American culture is not only more conservative, but it heavily based on naturalizing Immigrants. Once upon a time, the Irish and Italians were considered foreigners who did not share our culture. Now (after a long and messy process that involved them culturally submitting to white Americans) they are just normal white people. Being Italian or Irish in America doesn't mean anything the same way being Irish in Britain does or being Kurdish in Turkey does. In America being Italian just means that you're catholic and nobody can pronounce your last name and being Irish just you're catholic and you might have a relative in Boston. Europe doesn't have a history of naturalizing immigrants and it's more progressive than America. They only started accepting immigrants when their birth rates dropped and their leaders needed more people to fill the gaps in the labor pool. Furthermore, Muslims represent a far larger chunk of immigrants coming to Europe than immigrants coming to America, because they can get there by land, allowing low-skilled Muslims who can immigrant legally to come to Europe. Muslims who immigrate to America have to through formal channels and are often more highly educated as a result of this. This fact also makes them more likely to become westernized. TL;DR Muslims in America will probably become westernized, but not in Europe.

 

[Ibn al-Haytham]

>Christianity is by no means in decline

There is no further decline that is possible for Christianity. It is a dead religion.

>Mormons and the Amish are among the fastest growing in the United States

Mormonism is not ever going to catch on because it is what it is. Islam will have surpassed it before it reaches 15%. You might say 15% is catching on, but, it will never achieve its aims, barring nuclear fallout.

>liberal whites aren't having kids so there's a good chance it'll die out in a few generations

Liberalism (in the contemporary sense) only perpetuates because it is instilled by the state as the foundational ideology for children growing up. It doesn't matter that it is becoming more and more toxic, less and less beneficial to its believers; there will always be more children of stupid parents to brainwash, by teachers who are hand-picked top-of-the-line dutiful worshippers of the State. Christianity will never be able to stop this, because it is a dead religion (at least in America) which is unable to manifest strong community bonds (and when it does, the community is intolerable for anyone with an above-average reading ability, hence the centuries-long brain-drain from the Church). Once Muslims learn how to market their religion to the whole generation of ex-Christian, ex-Liberal, 1999-2020 kids, it will be over for America as a Christian nation. DON'T WEEP! IT WAS A GOOD ONE! BUT, THE ONLY CONSTANT IS CHANGE!

 

[mindlessobserver]

I believe in fire. Islam can't win because it denies human freedom in exchange for slavery to an all controlling God whose will is absolute but unknown.

Christianity cannot win because it believes in freedom in exchange for an all loving God who will never restrict our worst impulses.

Wokeism itself makes absolutely no sense and is a living breathing cosmological error.

There can really only be one outcome of these divides in the West. The Butlerian Jihad. A new religion, spawned from the ideas of the old, and fed with the depredations of over zealous elites, corporations and scientists who in their arrogance believed their science and technology could chain the soul of man.

 

[Cabelaz]

No. Jesus of Nazareth on a cross no.
Trying to invent a new religion because you don't like wokism is like becoming a satanist in the 80's.
Christianity appears to work just fine.

 

[Zarael]

There is no further decline that is possible for Christianity. It is a dead religion.

There is a big resurgence of Christian Platonism at the moment which i believe is the only real challenger to the modern scientific worldview. Secularism contains the seeds of it's own demise within itself, it can't sustain itself for any length of time. The secular modern worldview has been in control of the west for around 70 years and things are already decaying so rapidly that it's a legitimate question whether most western nations can manage to hold themselves together for another 20 years. People will begin rediscovering the western intellectual heritage that goes through Plato, Aristotle up to Plotinus and Augustine, through Aquinas then onto Ficino.

As for whether we need a "new" religion you're trying to fight modernity with a distinctly modern view of the world. You can't just create a new religion for utilitarian purposes, religion strikes at the heart of the human condition and arises from human experience and the need to touch the transcendent. Any religion you try to create from scratch is going to be devoid of the connection to the past which is a prerequisite for properly grounding human experience and contextualizing it through cult.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

People need an old religion, not a new one. The problem with "modern religions" they either try to be "scientific" and thus comes out as pointless and soulless (often literally), or just try to make their politics into a religion and then it doesn't have neither the structure of the consistency of a regular religion.
The effects of a lack of religion are just replacing it with something else, usually consumerism which explains the soy face ghouls roaming online.

Also I personally extremely hate that the people who espouse a nihilistic religeous-less worldview either ignore or evade the simple question of, if there is no special meaning to life and humanity then what's the point of not being as terrible person as you could conceivably get away from.

 

[Ronnie McNutt]

Islam is unironically based, only downsides that you can't eat pork (if you care about it) and if you decide to spend an average 40 minutes praying everyday. Other than that I would recommend converting to it if you're fine with that and don't have anything else. It is a pretty interesting religion.

Orthodox christianity could be a choice too or mormonism, both are based in their own regard.

 

[Marshal Mannerheim]

So what you are saying, OP, is that the West needs to be more like this:

and less like this:

in how it views religion if it's going to survive?

Yeah, no.

 

[Realistic Elephant]

A lot of people have currently replaced God, Yahweh, Allah, etc. with Saint Fauci of the Science.

It really is amazing how superstitious the response has become to what is a mild, completely forgettable pandemic. The most euphoric atheists are also the most in favor of this nonsense.

Mask up, that magic talisman will scare off the COVID demon and protect you from witchcraft!

 

[Someone Awful]

A lot to say, but I've been busy. I promise I will get back to as many posts here as possible soon. For now, I need to address this.

So what you are saying, OP, is that the West needs to be more like this:
View attachment 2439670
and less like this:
View attachment 2439672
in how it views religion if it's going to survive?

Yeah, no.

Except that you're missing the point. Not once did I or my friend say anything about making the alt-right into a religion. In fact, I even disagreed with a us needing a new religion to counter wokeism and got my friend to agree that a spiritual force doesn't necessarily have to be a religion. What society needs is a spiritual force rooted in traditionalism that can face off against wokeism. The spiritual force would have to be based on a strong family structure - preferably the nuclear family -, rugged individualism, and promoting local culture over globohomo. There would then need to be institutions built to support these structures.

A new spiritual force would still allow you to practice traditional religions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, etc and even have the choice to opt out of religion all together. But a new traditionalist spiritual force would be united against fighting wokeism.

 

[Linkin Park]

What society needs is a spiritual force rooted in traditionalism that can face off against wokeism.

Not really. Wokeism, which is extreme in itself, will just be replaced by the extremities of the opposition, which is just as retarded. It's why humanity never really progresses, and continues to do the same old shit. You think one side is better until they arrive, then you realize nothing has changed.