I’m in my mid 20s, and an atheist. I remember back in 2014, when I was an edgy little shit, I thought once people lost religion, as per the trend, people would be nicer to each other and science would rule the day. Probably a naive thought.
Yet, it feels like nothing is sacred anymore. Everywhere you look it’s just people trying to get their slice of the pie, ethics be damned. Everything feels like it’s going badly. I’ve just graduated and the job market is full of time wasting rituals. It just feels like people have lost touch with decency and community. No one has any pride in what they do.
Correlation != causation of course, and so the decline in religion may not be the cause. Still I wonder if for a certain segment of the population, those that seem to thrive and filter to the top of our wonderful society, the fear of damnation was check on their base impulses.
Or if perhaps this is a part of the process, perhaps the reasonable people have all left the churches leaving an ever growing concentration of barbarous individuals holding the reins of that decrepit institution.
Or it’s just the lack of community that religion once forced upon us, to see and be civil, if not caring for those in our immediate geographic community that hold differing opinions from us. A moderating influence if you will.
People have always been out for themselves, it’s not the fault of religion and religion is not the solution. Religion can give an outlet to those looking for structure and community in their lives, this can both be used for good and exploited in equal measure. The reason it feels more common that people are out for themselves is 3-fold: the internet has caused a weird bubble culture where you feel the need to make a name for yourself within the social media you are consuming especially with a growing population where it’s harder than ever to feel like you even matter, a growing divide in economic class where the people at the bottom feel the need to pull themselves up any means necessary, and an increased amount of rich people being given a platform to preach their success/luck to anyone they want as an additional status symbol whether or not it’s moral or even true