The transformed role of religion

Let’s put metaphysical and eschatological considerations aside for a moment, and ask a simple question: Exactly what is religion—exactly today? Exactly what function does it play in today’s world, and whose interests does it serve? To avoid unnecessary complexity, I’ll limit myself to Christianity, though, in my opinion, these ideas, with some modifications, probably apply to other religions as well.

I don’t think it is difficult to see that (a) religion today does not play the role that it played in the Middle Ages; and (b) religion today does not play the role that it played in the nineteenth century.

It is impossible to imagine the medieval period while leaving out religion. Religion was an integral element of the medieval order of things that made the continued existence of the then-existing socio-political system possible.

Religion had a much-reduced function in the nineteenth-century European society, primarily because of the social and intellectual advancements of the Enlightenment period. Society no longer depended on it for its sheer existence. Rather, it gained a supporting role, if you will. It became the comforter of the exploited masses of the Industrial Revolution, or, as Marx put it in a passage that is rarely quoted in full, and is, therefore, frequently misunderstood:

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

That was religion’s function then. Today, in the Western industrial or “post-industrial” countries, religion is no longer an opiate. The poor suffering classes that needed "opiates" have largely disappeared in the rich countries. Religion is now something different. Our pain and suffering today, when they exist, are primarily of the mind. And it is our minds that search desperately for release from their new burdens. We seek release from the knowledge that, despite two centuries of rapid progress, humanity has only succeeded in turning itself into a new assortment of barbarians. Humanity has miserably failed to solve the social problem. Neighbour hates neighbour, and the human species is destroying its own environmental conditions of existence. The nineteenth-century’s physical torments have been replaced by the twenty-first-century’s mental torments. And the new torments are at least as unbearable as the old ones.

What does a person do when faced with unbearable circumstances? The person tries to regress, psychologically, to an earlier, more primitive, more idyllic, state of consciousness. In other words, the person’s mentality regresses to that of a child. Under such conditions, we reach for false values, because society has failed to provide us with real ones.

As illustrations, I will refer to two recent events with religious overtones.

In the Terri Schiavo case, a kind of mass psychosis seemed to overtake a segment of American society. Thousands of people kept insisting on treating a dead body as though it were a living human being. They were play acting, in almost exactly the same way that children do. And their play acting, while it lasted, was as real to them as children's is to them.

During the weeks before and after the Pope’s death, the whole world seemed to be in the grip of mass psychosis. Oblivious of his actual legacy of reactionary values that have brought misery and death to millions, people chose to concentrate, like children, on "his message of peace." They chose to see him as a father figure, blameless and strong.

Today, religion is the lollipop of the people.