I am a big fan of
organised religion. When it is well-organised. The thought of
millions of devoted, caring people, working towards a happy, fair and
just world is a happy vision. Naive perhaps, but I can dream.
More and more people
describe themselves as atheists these days, and in line with this,
church attendances are falling every year. The sneering part of my
brain tells me that this is a great thing, that we should throw off
the shackles of dogmatic traditionalism and smash the corrupt
institutions that perpetuate this slavery through mythology.
In the back of my mind,
just behind the section devoted to my unconditional love of kittens,
there is a nagging doubt. Not about the existence of God, or whether He wants us to eat fish on a Friday, as these absolute truths are
unknowable for me. My doubt is about the triumph of individualism,
the relentless march to empowerment of the self over growing together
as a species.
The removal of identity
entirely is recognised as dangerous, as the atrocities of Nazi
Germany and Stalin's Russia have shown. Reducing individuals to
numbers in a ledger makes them easier to forget or erase. However, in
the examples above, the reduction of identity in the general
population was in parallel with the rise to supreme power of one
individual, with their followers clamouring and fighting to gain a
share of this power.
“Community” is one
of the most over-used words in the modern vocabulary. The abuse of
the word has led to negative phrases like “care in the community”
or “community activist”. The word now seems to indicate something
external, separate from the individual and their needs and desires.
None of the greatest
experiences of my life occurred while I was by myself. Whether it be
laughing with friends, seeing a new baby for the first time, or
packing down on the rugby pitch, I feel better when I'm with other
people.
A community often needs a focal point, and in the past it always used to be the church, because everyone went there. In our multi-ethnic, mixed-race, poly-lingual society, that doesn't seem possible. We need a new centre for our community.
When thrown together,
people tend to work together. In school you had to try and get on
with everybody, because you saw them all day, every day. I'm sure an
extraordinary number of lasting friendships started out this way,
certainly many of mine did. If as adults we can find this common
ground, maybe the world would be a little friendlier.
If we can't all agree on who is God then the new focal point has to be the same set of reasons that allow atheists and agnostics to realise the ridiculousness of religious axioms and still want to make the world a better place. In other words, everyone needs to become more like us. Now that's a cause I can get behind.
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