I have recently re-read both Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari and God: A Human History by Reza Aslan. Each provides a fantastic overview of how religion and spirituality were an important part of human existence from the very beginning. Some of the earliest known human artwork includes abstract images that suggest religious or spiritual themes. To oversimplify, humans have always believed that there were external forces that impact our day-to-day existence, and when those forces are given names and structure, they often evolve into religions.
The nature of the concept of “god” has evolved as society has evolved. Early civilizations were often polytheistic while modern societies tend to be monotheistic (although Aslan feels that trinitarian Christianity is still polytheistic in a way). There is evolution even within specific religions. The Jesus worshipped by a parishioner of a church in eastern Europe in the 1600s is much different than the Jesus a member of a 21st century evangelical congregation in the United States describes. America’s experiment with religious freedom has resulted in some 200 protestant denominations in the U.S. alone.
Mass hysteria is another, but not unrelated topic. It is also a common human phenomenon. Wikipedia has a list of mass hysteria events throughout history and defines mass hysteria as a phenomenon that transmits collective illusions of threats, whether real or imaginary, through a population and society as a result of rumors and fear. If you read through that list, you’ll see some that are related to religious or spiritual thought and others that are more psychological in nature.
Some well-known examples that link humans’ tendency to see threats from external/spiritual sources are the witch trials in Europe and later North America in which tens of thousands of individuals were put to death because of their assumed association with evil forces. Others include a wild rumor that spread through England and parts of Wales in 1688 that Irish soldiers were burning and massacring English towns. These false reports prompted a mass panic in at least 19 counties, with thousands of people arming themselves and preparing to resist non-existent groups of marauding Irishmen.
Certainly we as humans have outgrown this kind of religion-based hysteria, right? Perhaps not. In the past decade or so, progressive groups in the U.S. have spiritualized the concepts of “Systemic Racism” and “Climate Change” in a way that has spread in much the same way as the fear of witches spread throughout Europe in the middle ages. Both in the ardent support of the believers and in their disdain for those who dare question the orthodoxy.
Early religions tended to evolve from anecdotal observations. In a similar way these new constructs are based, in part, on some scientific or historic facts. The earth is going through a warming period that is most likely being influenced by global industrialization. Europeans did colonize the Americas and other parts of the world in the 17th-19th centuries, and did treat the native populations they encountered poorly. The historical record of neither is in doubt.
What is in doubt is how people that benefit from leveraging these truths, and modern education institutions in particular, have developed them into constructs that resemble religions. Their “solutions” are, in some case, as wildly hysterical as the response to the fear of witches or marauding Irishmen. For example, California’s ban on gasoline powered cars beginning in 2035 is cheered by the faithful, but even rational thinkers like Peter Zeihan aren’t convinced that electric vehicles are the answer, as the natural resources required to build them currently aren’t available in sufficient quantities to equip a population the size of California’s with 100% carbon neutral vehicles.
Does this mean that we should abandon the pursuit of more and more environmentally friendly energy sources in general and vehicles, specifically? Absolutely not! But the most ardent global warming crusaders are convinced that they must attack carbon emissions from the supply side – if we outlaw gas vehicles, gas stoves, etc., people will be forced to switch to electric. In the southern U.S. there were (and still are in some locales) laws that outlawed alcohol sales in the hopes this would prevent people from drinking. Attacking the supply side of “sinful” behavior has been a trait of religious people throughout history.
Unfortunately for the greens who support these approaches, those alternatives aren’t yet available in sufficient volume to prevent a collapse of local and national economies when these policies are forced prematurely. And the electrical infrastructure is not prepared for consumers to flip that switch, either. In their zeal to promote green, they choose to demonize entire industries. But that’s what religious zealots do!
The believers of systemic racism are arguably even more dangerous. Their tactics pit people versus people based on unseen, unprovable external forces. Their presuppositions, much like those of the major world religions, must be accepted in order to be believed. Yet those who question those presuppositions are labeled as “other.” Humans naturally divide ourselves into “us” and “them.” For the ardent believers of Critical Race Theory, anyone who dares challenge the core ideology is labeled a heretic. Of course the term, heretic, is antiquated. So they use labels like “white supremacist” or “racist” for people who push back.
But an interesting twist on the religion of systemic racism is that opponents are also guilty of an hysteria of their own. Republican politicians and right leaning commentators have seized on the topic, occasionally misrepresenting the core tenets of the movement and demonizing the faithful with equal zeal. It’s more like Protestants vs Catholics in Northern Ireland or Sunni-Shia conflicts in the Middle East. Both groups’ opposition to the other is more emotional than logical.
What is not needed is a ratcheting of emotional rhetoric around these topics nor the demonization of people who disagree with one’s particular perspective. What is needed is a real conversation about these topics.
The descriptor “born again” gained popularity among evangelicals in the U.S. in the 1960’s. Ronald Reagan was arguably the first presidential candidate to effectively identify and capture the evangelical vote as part of his coalition in 1980. In response to this influential group coalescing into the Republican party, the term “born-again Christian” was adopted as a term of derision from leftists. Similarly, the term “woke” became a way to identify people who were sensitive to and understood racial prejudice and discrimination in the 2010’s. And also similarly, opponents on the right who see this movement as a threat have begun using it as a term of derision in the 2020’s.
Religions die when the practicing group is either swallowed up by an invading force (think the Islamic expansion in the middle ages), a new religion or variant is dictated by the current leaders (think Theodocius in 380 A.D. or Henry VIII in 1534), or its members voluntarily convert. The solution to dealing with the most aggressive and destructive forms of Wokeism or Environmentalism is not to convert them by the sword or by executive fiat, but to lay out logical responses to the presuppositions that lead them to more rational alternative solutions to those foundational beliefs that are real and not engineered.