Why God is cool again
Religion answers many questions:
- How did we end up here? (i.e., is there a god?)
- What happens after I die?
- How should I spend my weekends?
- What should my goal in life be?
- What is the meaning of life?
- What makes a person good?
Atheism answers just one question: Is there a god?
Based on our disbelief in a deity or with the help of science, atheists can easily find answers to some other questions, like:
- What happens after I die? (Probably nothing)
- How did we end up here? (The big bang and some evolution)
But many others go unanswered.
When you replace something very big with something very small, you leave a vacuum of empty space to be filled. When you don’t fill a vacuum, it sucks whatever it can find into itself. I think we in the West are learning that the hard way.
Secularism is good but leaves people with a lot of unanswered questions. We need to find good collective answers to these questions; otherwise, we won’t like the answers that fill the void.
The easy answer is to simply revert to old religions. Politics is another easy choice. Stoicism works for some. Utilitarianism, while more empirical, is an incredibly inaccessible and unattractive attempt to find answers.