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If you buy that liberalism, humanism and even atheism etc. are all profoundly Christian ideas (Tom Holland's thesis in 'Dominion') then a religion which lays the groundwork for its own collapse is probably not close to an optimal religion. Secularisation, universality, equal value and such are all core concepts of Christianity, and so one may say it was inevitable that such a belief system would eventually be superseded by the current form of itself. Some may argue that these are reformation/Protestant trends, but look at the Pope!
One can imagine an Ontological argument (if a religion is optimal, it exists...) here. Would an optimal religion leave room open (nay, encourage!) doubt and lead to its own demise, or would it be in fact that which had the strongest grip on its population and cultural success over time?
This would be a far stronger argument if a different religion would take its place, rather than atheism.
My theory for the demise of religion in the west is that we've succeeded too well at reigning in chaos and spreading knowledge for religion to be seen as valuable by most people. For a substantial part, that is because we have become so good at producing a good society to live in. If this is the goal of Christianity, then it made itself obsolete.
Muslim population of England and Wales 2001: 1.6m 2011: 2.7m 2021: 3.9m
Christian population of England and Wales 2001: 47.3m 2011: 33.2m 2021: 27.5m
Somewhat tongue in cheek, so 2 caveats:
I imagine that the replacement of Christianity with a weak 'Western Humanist' religion is not a long term equilibrium. Something else will fill the gap- what that is remains to be seen.
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And such a person would be flat out wrong, because atheism exists as a long standing and accepted sect of Hinduism.
The Nastiks were around for ages, and denied the existence of deities while still having supernatural beliefs.
At any rate, we're all born atheists, even if in a vacuum prior to technological enlightenment, most people would likely end up developing superstitions.
I didn't make any effort to defend the premise, but the idea is that that the family of humanist or humanist-derivative ideas in the modern Western sense are a direct result of the Biblical inversion of the weak-strong moral paradigm (Jesus died for our sins despite God, he died for all equally, Jew or Gentile etc). It isn't to say that there can be no atheism (the narrow belief in no God) unless it is Christian, but that the liberal humanist tradition which led to new atheism IS in this Christian pedigree.
I'd be surprised if a religion which has a genealogy that traces a path from Paul the Apostle through to the rights of man, and socialism, and human rights, and freedom of speech and the whole milieu we find ourselves sitting in today could possibly be seen as optimal (as a religion). I suppose if one thinks that a religion that popularises certain mostly beneficial (from the outside view) memes, and then self destructs is optimal then fair enough. I was just expressing doubt that a religion with no defence system could be considered optimal from the internal POV.
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I think Christianity is optimal in the sense that the faithful become an optimal community (in the best variation of the religion). The community isn’t optimal because it is obedient or dogmatic, but because it’s prosocial and virtuous. This would allow it to maximize both positive emotion states and civilizational development. It’s true that modernity has posed unique problems to religions, but that’s not something that the authors of religions could really foresee.
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This is a pretty narrow take. Christianity has “laid the groundwork” for its own demise at least five times, as Chesterton points out in The Everlasting Man. The idea that Christianity is over was popular way back in antiquity with the Manichaeans, and as recently as the late 19th century with the beginning of modern science. Yet it still survives somehow.
Predicting the doom of a religion and having it actually die, despite being one of the most dominant religions on the planet, are two very different things.
There were many forms of ‘Christianity’ in antiquity which were often diametrically opposed to each other in the most fundamental respects (as in monism vs. dualism, not later pilpul over the natures of Christ). Out of this multitude only one sect survived, whose claim to being the original is in no way supported by evidence, and it was by no means necessarily what ancient critics had in mind. Islam and liberalism are both closer to orthodox Christianity than Marcionism or Valentianism was, so that even if the professing Christian faith somehow vanished, you could use them to ‘prove’ its supposed tenacity.
The fact is that most modern churches would likely be judged heretical by people from just a few centuries ago, and vice versa to some extent. So it’s a ship of Theseus kind of thing.
Most modern churches would judge most modern churches heretical. They just disagree about which ones.
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