Rescuing Religion from Atheism

“It seems, then, that religious practice is beneficial but unpalatable to many highly analytical people because they deem religious doctrines unpersuasive. The question therefore arises how one can make it palatable to them.”

Religion is socially beneficial in a number of ways. However, its empirical claims are often off-putting to the analytically-minded. In what follows, I propose a way to reconcile theistic religion with atheism.

First, a little background. According to the Pew Research Center, Christians will likely constitute less than half of the American population by 2070. Indeed, there is a plausible scenario wherein this happens by 2045, just over two decades from now. This downward trend in religiosity is troubling for a number of reasons. As Samuel P. Huntington shows in his 2004 book Who Are We?, Christianity, especially Protestantism, has historically been a central aspect of American identity. Even the American Revolution was partly motivated by it. “Their anti-Catholicism,” notes Huntington, “also helped to turn the colonists against the mother country” when the United Kingdom at the time decided on “toleration for the Catholic Church in Quebec.”

Although Catholicism and Judaism later gained numerical strength, even their respective adherents adopted many Protestant traits on American soil. In Huntington’s account, recent decades have seen an unprecedented erosion of the traditional markers of American identity. Huntington is concerned that major elements of the United States’ unifying culture are being lost, including Christianity. Judging by the rising polarization since the book was released, such concerns are justified.

The common caveat that many who leave traditional religion remain “spiritual” provides little consolation. Just 2% of “spiritual but not religious” Americans “attend religious services at least once a week.” That may be cause for worry, as the social-scientific literature appears to suggest that collective worship does more to boost charitable giving than does private prayer.

Overall, traditional religion confers a wealth of social benefits. Some studies even show that religiosity, and especially Mormonism, flips the usually negative correlation between intelligence and fertility in the United States. That it is desirable for intelligence to be positively correlated with fertility seems self-evident.