The great fear of the religious is not the moral collapse of the culture, but the prospect that religion is not necessary to save it.
From the Tracinski Letter: “Many Christians have become invested in a dark narrative. As a friend of mine puts it: ‘They seem to have some kind of psychological craving for apocalyptic fear. I wonder if walking it back is even possible.'”
“Wehner regards this all as a bit of a mystery, but I think it’s easy to explain what the real crisis is for committed Christians. All of this moral progress has been happening while religious belief has been declining, as has church attendance. The “religiously unaffiliated”–atheists, agnostics, and those who have no particular religious beliefs–are now 26% of the population, while Catholics are only 20% and steadily falling. We’re engaged in a vast culture-wide experiment to see if it is possible to have a moral society without strong religious belief, and so far the answer is “yes.”
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