October 2024
It is not surprising that mainstream media is secular, but in many cases it is secular in the absolute meaning of the word; physicalism is the tenet. Whenever spirituality, religion or God are mentioned, it is to describe the cultural, social and political impact of these aspects of reality, never to discuss them seriously. It is always done in a worldly manner.
The underlying reasoning seems to be that such ideas are silly, but since hundreds of millions of people apparently don’t find them silly, despite three centuries of enlightenment, it is perhaps rational to address them once in a while.
Few publications constitute a better case in point than The Economist, a physicalist beacon in Western media. The respected news magazine recently had a special weekend edition on Christianity. The main piece, based on a new book by Diarmaid MacCulloch, describes how odd Christian beliefs about sex shape the world. Other headlines include “What to read to understand God and sex”, “How Christianity shapes politics in America”, and “God™: an ageing product outperforms expectations”.
The articles healthily highlight pompous self-righteousness and archaic cultural hang-ups in Christianity, sometimes with wit. There are many called-for observations, such as these:
- “Any religion is as much almost random accretion as actual doctrine. Christianity’s sexual obsessions are no different. Much of what people ‘know’ about Christianity is, to put it mildly, hard to find in the Bible.”
- “Christians may have banged on about sex, celibacy and homosexuality for centuries, but, in truth, Jesus had precious little to say about any of them.”
No room for spirituality
But the presentation is devoid of meaningful references to what religion is really about. There is no attempt to understand ‘God’ as anything other than a concrete sociocultural entity, equivalent to Jesus, Mary and the other Christian figures. This is a typical passage:
“The Mary-Joseph-God ménage à trois was unusual enough for Mary—and was not much fun for Joseph either. While all that was going on between his betrothed and God, St Joseph had to sit on the sidelines.”
One of the articles is an overview of what books to read to understand the church’s obsession with sexuality. It begins:
“Imagine it. You are an omnipotent, omniscient deity. You have created not only the world and everything in it but also the sky, the stars, the heavens and, for that matter, Tuesdays. So what do you spend your time worrying about? Well, to judge by many of today’s most heated ecclesiastical arguments, what men do with other men in their bedrooms. And (though much less often) what women do.“
Religion as a product
In another article, The Economist quips that ‘God’ gets mixed reviews on Amazon, a claim that actually refers to readings of the Bible. ‘God’, the paper then contends, “may have made heaven and hell, but he also makes an awful lot of money”. Later we learn that religions “offer a product (such as salvation), have networks of providers (priests, imams and so on) and benefit from good distribution networks”, and that “the Catholic church, like McDonald’s, offers a striking uniformity of service”.
Toward the end of the same article, the magazine feels a need to explain all the religious analysis:
“Who cares? It is 2024, not 1524. God, as Friedrich Nietzsche stated, is dead. But such a sweeping judgment is misplaced and wrong. The West may be less Christian—but the rest of the world is not.”
In none of the articles in the special edition are there any allusions to a nonphysical human reality, nor to the possibility of transcendence. Readers of this text probably find it odd that we even point this out. A barrenly secular treatment of religion and spirituality is the norm in mainstream media. But must it be?
Latest consciousness research overlooked
Interestingly, The Economist depicts the latest advances in research on consciousness in much the same soulless way, but without the hints about silliness (it is, after all, science).
The editors hold a materialistic view, evidenced by the belief that consciousness is produced by the brain (contrary to the latest research), as in these quotes:
- “Understanding how these harmonies [of brain cells] conjure thoughts, memories and emotions is perhaps the greatest scientific question of all—the brain seeking to understand itself.”
- “Scientists are elucidating the inner workings of neurons. The neuron is not the only brain cell that thinks, they are discovering.”
The Economist has homework to do. The fact is that more neuroscientists are acknowledging consciousness as something independent of the brain. Various forms of theories are emerging, in which consciousness is seen as primary.
How about unconditionally exploring both the essence of religion and the essence of what consciousness science is telling us and see if there are any compelling connections?
Anders Bolling
