An Exit Strategy

When you leave faith, where do you go?

A columnist was pondering this, and set me to wondering.  His spin was that as Americans have tended to leave religion, they've gone to other first-priority substitutes.

Leaving?  Well, the pollsters have a definition, in place for lots of years, that "regular church attendance", in their question/response protocols, means once every six weeks.  Not exactly a measurement of putting church at the top of the list!

So, presuming that America is becoming LESS religious, where do people go?  Some drift off into paranoia, the mild sort that picks new causes and projects based on "what frightens me".  Some drift into materialism, some into nationalism (one of the oldest religions).

But, every time someone drifts "out of faith", human nature seems to require us to find a substitute.  We're hard-wired to be religious, anyway.

So, in our time, like in all times, someone may leave "church" for whatever reason, but just end up replacing faith with a new "object of their devotion".

Consider:  if a person builds a blend of paranoia, materialism, and nationalism, two things become apparent.

First, this is a "hot" blend, always passionate!  Second, haven't we seen this before?

Seems to me that we might exit the church, but it is very hard for human nature to ever become NON-religious.  And that leads to an open question ......................................................