National Religion

 

By broaching the "r" word I may land myself in hot water from all sides, so I will tread carefully and ask for some grace. Let me start by defining religion fairly broadly, as a perspective that informs one's sense of important things like morality and life and death, which involves some level of faith, both in terms of belief in something or Someone, but also in terms of believing in something that you can't concretely prove to be true. With that as our working description of religion, it is clear some of us are religious and others would describe themselves as areligious, the former subscribing to some faith perspective and the latter rejecting anything that has to be left to faith and the unknown. 

And, in my circles and in the present day, there are many around me who would not describe themselves as religious in any way, and in some cases are deeply areligious in terms of actively rejecting any sort of faith tradition and choosing to believe only in hard science and testable conclusions. Such folks, naturally, tend to consider themselves to be well educated, committed to that which can be substantiated rather than that which would be deemed frivolous or unserious. 

But, looping back to my definition, which was intentionally written to be broad and yet I hope you would consider it to be fair, in this country there appear to be many religions, which people take seriously, at least seriously enough to make life decisions on, base their entire existence on, and even be willing to fight and sacrifice for. Just to a name a few, none of these are officially religions but wouldn't you say they adhere to my definition:

• Astrology
• Equality
• Football
• Freedom
• Guns
• Political affiliation

The point is neither to denigrate nor uplift these pastimes. It is simply to say that they are a form of religion, in that they involve a set of beliefs and stories that hold people together and guide how they move about the world. 

And, perhaps the real point I want to make in this post is, just like people get highly and rightly offended if we diminish their religion, so they react when you treat these things in the same way. None of these things are inherently bad, and in fact many would argue that many are inherently good. But I would argue that none are completely unassailable, and yet how tricky it is to push back on the edges of some of these things when warranted, precisely because others hold these things as truly sacrosanct.

It is good to have beliefs, and to believe in them strongly. I do hope that, as with religion, we are honest about places where those beliefs deserve to be challenged, and that we are open-minded enough to absorb and even welcome that pushback.