I know this is a hot topic, but I’m going to address this as objectively as possible (meaning that I’ll, as I often do, write a post that pleases no one). We all have our personal beliefs about the world, people, the universe, and what happens before and after we die. There are many mysteries about reality that we will likely never be able to scientifically prove since, by definition, we are limited to our ability to test physical things. The existence of non-physical entities or influencing factors is just going to have to remain in the realm of the people who have faith vs. the people who don’t for the foreseeable future.
But what about religion? Do humans need religion? It’s actually a different question than whether people believe in anything non-physical, since there are plenty of non-religious-but-spiritual people in modern times. However, we have seen the rise of secular religions recently, thus adding a new wrinkle to a question that seemed to have a definitive answer of, “No,” during the great trend toward atheism over the last few decades.
First, we need to define religion in terms of what function it performs (this is not an official, formal definition—we’re talking about elements that serve a purpose or meet a need for humans). Religions provide the following to people who follow:
When we talk about religion, then, we’re not talking about whether you need to believe in God, follow a specific denomination or doctrine, or pick the “correct” belief system that ends up being true (assuming you find out whether you’re right or wrong when you die). No, we’re talking about what role religion plays in a meaningful and successful life. Because it’s clear that you can go through your whole life without subscribing to a formal religion, but can you go through your life without the above list of needs met? Of course not.
So, how are those needs met without religion? The reality shows that those needs in modern times are difficult to meet. Ironically, the better our lives get, the less happy we get. We live in a more independent, isolated, glued-to-our-screens style than ever before, leading to greater loneliness, depression, anxiety, and other issues. No one worships his or her microwave or washing machine despite these inventions saving them hours and hours of his or her life. We live lives of greater and greater convenience than ever before, and yet we ironically spend more of our free time miserable. Whether that’s because we spend more of our free time watching conflict on TV and social media instead of focused on making our lives better or because we have lost things like duty or community ties, I can’t say for sure. But what I can say is that the saying, “Nature abhors a vacuum,” has never been as relevant as it is to the role that religion played in people’s lives.
That saying, by the way, simply refers to the fact that you can’t eliminate a habit or a belief; you can only replace it with something else. As such, if you eliminate religion from your life and lose belief, support, love/belonging, ethics, meaning, answers, life guidance, and growth-enablement from it, you will seek those things elsewhere. Unfortunately, just like religion can be wielded for good (support) or evil (war), so can other philosophies.
Something has filled that gap that religions played for most people decades ago. Replacements for religion in people’s lives include:
More important is what they replaced in religion, how, and why. Here are the elements listed earlier of religion that the above list replaced:
Notice the repetition in the above. Many academics have argued over the years that science replaced religion, focusing on the fact that science explains the physical world better than religion did. Those explanations miss the fact that religion was doing far more than just the “Answers/Explanations/Understanding” part that they were focused on. People need to have a worldview, which includes more than just an understanding of the world but also a belief system, ethical framework, support system, sense of meaning, and life guidance. Notice what fills most of those beliefs when religion is removed: causes, politics, and cult-of-personality leaders. Self-centered worldviews, us-vs.-them beliefs, and dog-eat-dog mentality fill the void of religions focused on the community, cooperation, and caring about others. And if you think some of the items above like “socialism” or “causes” are positive intentions by people, just look at those same people’s posts when a CEO is gunned down in the street or someone they don’t like is harmed (i.e., many supposedly pious individuals are gleefully celebrating murder).
The most interesting one is “science”. Why? Because from 2020-2021, “Trust the science” became a rallying cry. Now, any educated person who understands science knows how stupid that statement is. Science—by definition—doesn’t rely on trust. You have a hypothesis, you test it, and only when you fail to disprove it does it become a general idea that you accept as plausible. Trust is not an element in that system. And, no, they’re not saying, “Trust the scientific method” (which is pretty well-proven and worthy of trust)—they’re saying to trust what authorities tell you that they believe are basing their recommendations on scientific evidence (note: sometimes, they are not). So, without religion, you have masses of people following congregations of their own race, political affiliation, shared interests in entertainment, and causes with a dash of education and science thrown in. But, just like how religious texts mix together their explanations of reality with their own ethics and values that they try to impart onto you, modern authorities in the academic and scientific realms are doing the same thing as they base things like the definition of a human life based on their political beliefs on abortion. It is just so near-impossible not to do that, which is why religions and now secular philosophies can’t just help you understand the world without injecting their own beliefs as to how you should live into their explanations.
So, do we need religion? In a literal sense, no, you don’t have to have a religion and can believe whatever you want. But do you need what religion has provided for centuries? Absolutely, yes. Yes, you need what religion provides for people because you have to get your beliefs, ethics, support, sense of belonging, answers, meaning, and life guidance from somewhere. As we have seen in recent years, as theistic religion has faded, people have found new atheistic religions to get what they need. Unfortunately, those religions do not have the basis of “loving thy neighbor” like the Judeo-Christian ones do, so there are swaths of people who would love seeing their neighbors harmed, robbed, or killed. And that’s not good.
Even the most staunch atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris (part of the “Four Horseman”), have acknowledged that religion served a purpose and have admitted to needing to replace it with positive alternatives (e.g., Dawkins with secular/humanistic ethics, Sam Harris with mindfulness meditation). They didn’t realize that some of these belief systems were holding humans back from their primal, animalistic nature of in-group/out-group behavior and self-serving ethics.
There’s a lot more that could be discussed here, but that’s enough for one blog post. It is a yes-and-no answer to the question, unfortunately. Do you need religion? Not literally, no. Do you need what religion provided—and was it the best system to date at providing it en masse? Absolutely, yes. Whether you choose to have your needs met by religion or something else is up to you. But, whatever you do, don’t look down on people who believe in a religion that you don’t without knowing whether you, too, believe in a religion and follow a doctrine that might be more accepting of harm toward others that benefits you than theists do. Because if you enjoy watching people who disagree with you suffer, are you really better than someone who believes in non-physical things that you think are fairy tales? Because their beliefs aren’t hurting anyone, whereas yours are encouraging others to kill people you don’t like. And that might be much, much worse than believing in “the flying spaghetti monster” or heaven and hell. Meet your needs in positive ways, and resist ideologies that emphasize hatred and violence (even the ones that say they are justified). Because, whether you like it or not, if you follow a strict belief system that punishes people who speak against it and harm people who disagree with it, you might just be more religious than you realize.