“’I reckon…you is just made up your mind to serve Satan all your days.” “I done made up my mind,” she answered, “to live all while I can…” – James Baldwin, ‘Go Tell It On The Mountain’
Nazis unwelcome: here’s my post about moving this blog off of Substack soon. I might put this stinger on every post until then to try to irritate Nazi Sympathizer Hamish McKenzie. I might forget/get bored and stop. Not today though!
New The Line Break podcast this week! I talk briefly about reading my Bible in this one. Apple | Spotify | SoundCloud
The people of the world are getting less religious. However you or I might feel about it one way or the other is a different column. It’s happening, though, and it always brings up the question: what replaces religion?
Switch on any streaming service and I bet there’s a new cult documentary. The Daily Zeitgeist has argued persuasively that stan culture is a new kind of religion. Behind The Bastards warns about RAM, the fascist active clubs. Kanye tried to start a church, which is around the time I decided I didn’t need to pay attention to Kayne anymore.
But there are more positive examples, too—anything you do weekly that gives your soul a little rinse can be like church. Pickup basketball, Mario Kart-over-Zoom with your out-state-friends. The question remains. What replaces religion?
Right off the bat, I’m going to tell you I’m not one of those “spiritual but not religious” people, or any number of thought-killing clichés. I’m not a practicing Christian, though I was raised in the church (here’s a 66-chapter novel I co-wrote that proves it). I wasn’t raised in a Southern Baptist Church, that group of money-worshipping Pharisees with a sex abuse scandal count to rival the Catholic Church, those monarchy-loving imperialists. I am also firmly not a New Atheist, here described by Erik Baker in Defector in all their smug, secretly-just-neocons-and-race-scientists glory (shoutout the Defector week guest-edited by on irrational attachments, it was a Good Week of Blogs).
So what, then? I get the human need for religion. Explaining the unexplainable, building community and commonality, moral instruction (I am a Socialist because I was raised Christian). But if people are leaving organized religion in droves, what happens?
Without positing myself as an authority on anything, here are some things I think we should take with religious seriousness. These are just thoughts, I’m definitely not trying to start a new religion, we’re definitely not turning Lazy & Entitled into a cult, ignore all this property in the woods we just bought.
Prayer Is Important, But Not Magical
It occurred to me recently what a community-builder prayer lists are. Growing up, the white board we had outside the sanctuary where any congregant could add prayer requests sort of seemed like a way of fast-tracking the church gossiping about your problems. I could think of nothing worse than the whole congregation knowing my girlfriend and I had just broken up or I was nervous about a Chemistry test. But there’s more room in your ribcage when you’re not holding your problems in, and doing something to help your neighbor sure keeps your mind’s gaze away from your own navel.
Here’s another thing about prayer, or manifesting, or “the secret,” or whatever—no, you can’t literally A—>B “speak things into existence.” BUT! I am a firm believer in the idea that talking about something, keeping it at the forefront of your mind—that’s a great way to keep yourself motivated and focused. You still, say, actually have to finish your novel, but if “manifesting” helps you keep your mind right, do it. Hey, speaking of—
Empiricism and Magic Can Co-Exist
Observable things, like evolution and climate change and behavioral psychology and pumpkin pie recipes and 1-5-6-4 chord progressions in pop songs and the failure of trickle-down economics and the body’s need for water and math? These things are not in question, right? No one’s questioning 1-5-6-4!
But explain why watermelon tastes better outside. Explain those gut feelings that turn out to be right. Explain the thousands of children who talk about past lives (shoutout to my pretty-empiricist-doctor parents for that one). Explain why Prince is so cool. Explain jazz (don’t, actually). Explain Michael Jordan’s inevitably in 90s. Explain Nikola Jokic’s passing. Explain poetry’s persistence. Explain the moon.
Art Is Sanctified
So is science, so is the study of history, so is learning in general. Under capitalism, though, it seems like art is constantly under attack. “How many of these fifth graders are gonna play clarinet professionally? None? Cut the band program’s funding!” “Why do we need to read The Great Gatsby? When am I going to use this information?” Stop it. Your brain craves beauty, craves novelty. Your brain craves entertainment, craves stimulation. Art, much like psilocybin, can take us to incredible, otherwise inaccessible places. Both the creation and experiencing of art. This stuff is not frivolous, and people who think that it is live very small lives in very small worlds.
Planet Earth is Sanctified
AI should’ve stopped being developed the second we heard about how much water the data centers waste. Walkable cities should be built and suburban sprawl legislated away on moral grounds. Not farming the land in a way that harms the land simply because it’s more profitable to exploit should be a self-defeating proposal. War should be ended not only to save human lives, but because of the climate cost of weapons use. Smartphones and anything else requiring a lithium battery that has to be extracted from the earth by child miners shouldn’t exist.
More positively, is water not sacred, both because we need it to live and it’s rad to look at? Isn’t an ecosystem something to be marveled at with the same awe as a Van Gogh painting or a Dvorak symphony? Pick a bodily function, any bodily function. Isn’t that amazing?
More cosmically terrifying, what are you honestly more afraid of: the power of the sun, or God getting mad at your for having premarital sex? What’s more terrifying, a 6.5 earthquake, or the preacher hearing you cuss? Which would you rather face, a stern nun or tsunami?
The fear of nature is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of nature is understanding.
All Humans Are Equal
No castes, no racial hierarchy, no LGBTQIA+ exclusion, no means testing, no exceptions from fair treatment.
Kind of a layup, but then again, every religion seems kinda bad at it.
Grace, Not Retribution
Another one stolen from Christianity. Mostly I just want to see police and prisons abolished and war ended. I think that’s possible while also still having meaningful accountability for harm. And we oughta know at this point what cycles of violence are.
Death Is Inevitable and Good, The Earth Needs Rebirth
You know what rocks? Flowers. It rips that nature decided we needed these colorful little patterns to gaze at in times of warmth, or if that’s too egocentric, it rules that nature dresses the way it does. Nature, I love the way you dress, you’re the opposite of Drake.
Flowers—or zooming out to just plants in general—wither and die. What’s amazing, though, is how they keep coming back. Or trees, how when their leaves fall in autumn, the leaves become compost to feed the tree. Everyone has their time on Earth, and eventually, it’s time to go. It’s okay, though. It’s okay to go. It’s natural. This isn’t saying life is meaningless, or hurry death, or nothing matters. Far from it, it means everything matters like a whole lot. It means you’re responsible for your time here, that you have a good time and help other people when you can and leave the place better than you found it. When I say “dead leaves become compost to feed the tree,” I don’t mean “cannibalize ourselves.” Shine bright while you’re here and set the next generation up for shining brighter.
You Can’t Know What Happens After Death, So Focus On Life
Assume you only have one life. Assume you can’t know the afterlife or your place in it. Then go out and live your values. Don’t forget to hang out around some water.
Preferably, hang around the water at this new compound Lazy & Entitled just bought. It’s cool, we’re all wearing matching clothes on accident.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris