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>I don't particularly feel the need for gods, ancient traditions or worship You do. It's just that in modern society we've substituted these for more easily di

>I don't particularly feel the need for gods, ancient traditions or worship You do. It's just that in modern society we've substituted these for more easily digestible, commodified, manufactured replicas. Hollywood celebrities have replaced the pantheon of Greek gods. Consumerism is the new piety. Techno Utopianism and liberalism (in the classical sense) has supplanted the ancient traditions of old. The Zuckerbergs and Musks of the world are our priestly class. We still need these things, but instead of searching for them, communing with others, and engaging with our inherited body of three thousand years of western cultural heritage to find meaning, we purchase it with the press of a button on an app.

UncleOxidant 5y ago
Don't forget politics. As traditional religion has retreated Politics has taken on a greater role - politics as tribal identity. Good article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/america-politics-religion/618072/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/america... "The notion that all deeply felt conviction is sublimated religion is not new. Abraham Kuyper, a theologian who served as the prime minister of the Netherlands at the dawn of the 20th century, when the nation was in the early throes of secularization, argued that all strongly held ideologies were effectively faith-based, and that no human being could survive long without some ultimate loyalty. If that loyalty didn’t derive from traditional religion, it would find expression through secular commitments, such as nationalism, socialism, or liberalism. The political theorist Samuel Goldman calls this “the law of the conservation of religion”: In any given society, there is a relatively constant and finite supply of religious conviction. What varies is how and where it is expressed."
Nursie 5y ago
I don’t worship celebs either, nor Musks nor Zucks. So I say again, you may need these things, I don’t.

UncleOxidant 5y ago

Don't forget politics. As traditional religion has retreated Politics has taken on a greater role - politics as tribal identity. Good article here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/america-politics-religion/618072/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/04/america... "The notion that all deeply felt conviction is sublimated religion is not new. Abraham Kuyper, a theologian who served as the prime minister of the Netherlands at the dawn of the 20th century, when the nation was in the early throes of secularization, argued that all strongly held ideologies were effectively faith-based, and that no human being could survive long without some ultimate loyalty. If that loyalty didn’t derive from traditional religion, it would find expression through secular commitments, such as nationalism, socialism, or liberalism. The political theorist Samuel Goldman calls this “the law of the conservation of religion”: In any given society, there is a relatively constant and finite supply of religious conviction. What varies is how and where it is expressed."

Nursie 5y ago

I don’t worship celebs either, nor Musks nor Zucks. So I say again, you may need these things, I don’t.