Where is Religion? Part I

I recently had a conversation with someone, and the topic turned to religion. The person I was talking to was wondering why religion has taken such a back seat in today's society, and why it has lost importance and become nearly archaic. It brought up a lot of thoughts over the past couple days, and so I've decided to explore this topic with you, my readers. (Ok, I only have one reader, but I'm campaigning for plural readers.) I've thought about this over and over, and have come up with three reasons for this happening. Being that I would like to talk about each reason with enough depth to be of value, and because it's my damn blog, I'm going to split it up into a 3 part series, one per night starting tonight. Well, let's get started.

1. When was the last time you were in awe? For those of you who have read my entries over the years, you know I love to define terms so I know exactly what I'm talking about. Let's define awe:

a mixed feeling of reverence, fear, and wonder.

Now try and answer it. When was the last time you were honestly in awe? It's a tough answer for anyone. I myself am not completely sure, and I pride myself on being someone who thoroughly enjoys little things in life that are meant to be noticed and appreciated. But awed? I'm not sure.

There is a startling lack of awe in this country. (I speak in terms of America because of my lack of cultural and sociological knowledge of other countries. Canada doesn't count though, they're like JV America) Rarely in everyday life are we awestruck by nature, or something that happens, or anything really. Not a heck of a lot even surprises us anymore! Think about this, you get in your car, turn it on, play a cd and get GPS directions to anywhere in the country right on your screen in the dashboard. (I don't have GPS, but I'm just saying) Raise your hand if this impresses you. Exactly, no hands, not even mine. But think about it for a second. Do you know how complex that whole process is? That satellites up in freaking space are beaming down information that is precise within a couple feet!? It's amazing! But to us here in lavish America, it's daily life. I won't bore you with examples of more things that should amaze us but don't. Instead, I'll bore you with the reason behind it.

Science.

Ahh yes, science. Before I even start, I will try and fend off the knee-jerkers before I get a bunch of comments like "Why are you against science!?" or some other idiotic rant. I'm not against science by any means. Science has created a level of comfort and progress unheard of in the history of mankind. Besides that, there's a lot of science that's just damn cool to know about. Big fan of science over here, big fan. What people use science for however, is a different story. Science to me just shows how amazing this world is and points to a creator. But in this time of ever increasing knowledge (which creates an ever increasing feeling of independence and pseudo-sophistication), science is often used to disprove religion, rather than establish even more credibility for it.

Science has given us reasons for everything, seen and unseen. There's even a lot of science so advanced, that normal adults will never understand. It has percolated into everyday thought that everything must have a reason; everything has a rational explanation. This is what I refer to as the over intellectualizing of America. That's why no one is in awe anymore. We have come so far in this country, and it is wonderful because of the luxuries it provides and the quality of life it has improved, but it has filled us with a sense of pride, super confidence, and a corner on the market of sophistication. This also ties in with how we look at previous generations. Let me explain.

Religion to the previous generations was a vital part of life. I'm not saying it isn't now to a lot of people, but you can't disagree with it's decline in importance in today's society. To the generation that came to America in the first place, they came for religious reasons, desiring a land where they could practice their religion without persecution. (Regardless what history books NOW say) Our founding fathers were no doubt religious. The documents that we adhere to to this day (i.e. Constitution, Declaration of Independence) allude to God on several occasions, and in their personal writings, they founding fathers speak of God many times over. Moving up a hundred and some odd years, the previous generations in the 1900's still stuck to religion as a base for so many other things, and were not ashamed of it. Pop culture in the 50's and early 60's even had God in it, and no one got all hussy about it. Religion was important to the generations of our past. However, the scientific explosion of the past 40 years has given the more recent generations this feeling of being so much more sophisticated than our parents and grandparents. But how does this relate to religion? I'll explain again.

Progress is the driving force behind science. Oddly enough, it is also one of its products. There are two types of progressive thinking in my opinion. First, a progressive thinking that desires to build upon something already in place to make it better, but not eschew the original. Second, a progressive thinking that desires to eradicate the original and replace something that you think is better. Here's where religion comes in. Religion, by many, is seen as the credo of the generations before us, and because of our intellectual pride, it is unfortunately seen as antiquated. This is where progressive thinking #2 comes in. Instead of seeing religion and building upon it by adding science, we have come to try and replace it with science.

Science has become our intellectual tower of Babel.

Read that one again and think about it. If you know anything about the tower of Babel, great. If you don't, I'll give a quick lesson. After the flood, you know, the one with Noah, his descendants moved to this new place, and decided to build a tower so high, that it would reach to heaven. God, seeing this prideful display, confounded their speech so that further work on the tower would be impossible because no one could understand each other. Actually, it sounds rather amusing, but that's your history lesson.

Part 1 in a nutshell? Science has created a vacuum in the unexplainable, and in many minds, replaced religion, seeing no need for a God when everything else can be explained or intellectualized. If it can't be explained now? Well, look at our progress! It will be soon. Proof is what is required now, not belief. And brick by scientific brick, our tower rises.

Part 2 tomorrow night!